Sarkomand

Sarkomand is a fictional city in H.P. Lovecraft's Dream Cycle stories, first mentioned in The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath.

A ruined city on the northern shore of the Cerenerian Sea in the Dreamlands, it is described as being inhabited by the Men of Leng and was supposedly the capital of this race's realm in the distant past before they were conquered by the moon-beasts. The most prominent feature of Sarkomand is the Winged Lions guarding the trapdoor beneath which a spiral staircase descends into the Dark Abyss of the Dreamlands' underworld.

The city's name may have been inspired by Samarkand.

Stories and references

• H.P. Lovecraft, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath (1926)

• Lin Carter, "The Strange Doom of Enos Harker" (Fragment) in Crypt of Cthulhu, No. 69, Yuletide 1989