Thursday, March 13, 2025

Lexicon of Klarkash-Ton, Hierophant of Atlantis: Lupanar

 This time, we follow the good High Priest to the far future, to the final continent of Earth, Zothique, for a a tale of ennui and love: Morthylla.

Without impulses, other than that of an urgent desire for solitude, he turned his steps toward the suburbs, avoiding the neighborhood of taverns and lupanars, where the populace thronged. 

A lupanar is a brothel, so called because the ancient Romans supposedly likened the sounds of whores to the howling of wolves. Of course, if your brothel happens to be a hideout for werewolves, calling it a lupanar is more than appropriate. 



Thursday, March 06, 2025

Lexicon of Klarkash-Ton, Hierophant of Atlantis: Calenture


Clark Ashton Smith makes me very thanksful for electronic readers; I've never read anything by him that didn't include at least one word I'd never encountered before.  He is, of course, the author that inspired X2: Castle Amber, a fun-house dungeon much beloved by many grognards.

As a glossary of words gamers might find useful, I begin with his short story "A Vintage From Atlantis":

I turned giddy; and a sort of dark confusion possessed my senses by degrees; and I seemed to hear and see and feel as in the, mounting fever of calenture.

 According to Miriam-Webster, calenture is "a fever formerly supposed to affect sailors in the tropics."

While you could use this as part of the name of a spell or a plague ravaging the Isle of Dread, I think it might also make an excellent name for a succubus or night hag.