Shining Trapezohedron

A stone that serves as a portal or gateway for the Haunter of the Dark, an avatar of Nyarlathotep [HPL Haunter (online text)].

It is a four-inch diameter, nearly black stone polyhedron with many irregular flat surfaces and red striations [HPL Haunter]. From the description, it is not a trapezohedron in the strict sense that the term is used in geometry [Trapezohedron, Wikipedia]. The shape must be closer to the term as used in crystallography, meaning a crystalline form whose sides are irregular quadrilaterals [Trapezohedron, Brittanica.com].

The stone resides in an asymmetrical box of yellowish metal with bas-reliefs of alien monsters. The lid can be left open to keep the Haunter at bay, or closed to allow it to arrive in the darkness. After someone looks into the stone, a psychic bond is established between the viewer and the Haunter of the Dark, and the stone begins to glow. The viewer experiences visions, as the stone acts as a window on all time and space. [HPL Haunter]

The Shining Trapezohedron was "fashioned" on Yuggoth. However, it is not clear who fashioned it. The denizens of Yuggoth have included the Outer Ones, Rhan-Tegoth, Cxaxukluth and his family (including Tsathoggua), servants of Nyaghoggua, and possibly Nyarlathotep himself. At any rate, the Old Ones (1) of Antarctica brought the Trapezohedron to earth and placed it in its curious box. This might imply that the Old Ones had lived on Yuggoth at some point and fashioned it there, but it is also possible that they stole it from the Outer Ones, who are known to be devotees of Nyarlathotep. [HPL Haunter]

After the Old Ones died out, the Trapezohedron was held successively by the serpent-men of Valusia, the Lemurians, the Atlanteans, and the ancient Egyptians. The pharaoh Nephren-Ka built a temple for it with a blackened crypt. [HPL Haunter] It was probably at that time that Nyarlathotep used the Shining Trapezohedron to first assume human form [RB Strange]. After Nephren-Ka fell, the priests and the new Pharoah destroyed the temple, and the Trapezohedron was buried in the ruins. [HPL Haunter]

Archaeologist and occultist Prof. Enoch Bowen brought the Shining Trapezohedron from Egypt to Providence, RI, in May 1844. He placed it in the former Free-Will Church in July and made it the basis of the Starry Wisdom sect [HPL Haunter]. A member of the Starry Wisdom sect named either Asenath Bowen or Asenath Brown mentioned the Shining Trapezohedron in a letter to Septimus Bishop [AWD Middle]. It remained in the church steeple after the sect was stamped out in 1877. It was viewed by journalist Edwin M. Lillibridge in 1893, but he died without moving it. In April 1935 it was viewed by Robert Blake, who closed the lid of the box and left it in place. [HPL Haunter]

The day after the coroner's verdict on Blake's death, Dr. Ambrose Dexter broke into the Free Will Church and removed the stone and box from the upper room of the steeple. Dexter dropped the box, with open lid, into Narragansett bay. Shortly thereafter, Dexter became possessed by the Haunter of the Dark. [RB Steeple (online text)]

In 1937, Albert Wilmarth remarked that the Shining Trapezohedron is lost in Narragansett Bay. Georg Reuter Fischer referred to "the wind-stirred, infinite gulf of darkness which Robert Blake saw in the Shining Trapezohedron." [FL Terror2]

Sometime around the 1970s, while posing as "Reverend Nye," Nyarlathotep showed the Shining Trapezohedron to hypnotize the congregation at the Starry Wisdom Temple. In the near future, he will use it again to transform Mark Dixon into Cthulhu. [RB Strange]

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