Many of the students of the arcane that inhabit Mythos tales could be called “sorcerers”. Men like John Carnaby in Clark Ashton Smith’s “The Return of the Sorcerer” (Strange Tales, September 1931) or Joseph Curwen in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (Weird Tales, May-July 1941) by Lovecraft himself, even mutated Wilbur Whateley, could carry that name. All these guys seek power and end up, well, read on…
Here’s a quick run-down of what has to happen to you if you want to become a sorcerer in a Mythos tale, based on the works of Lovecraft and, particularly, his follower, August Derleth, who seemed to pump out these kinds of stories throughout the 1950s, usually crediting old HPL as much as himself:
- You have to be born into a family with a dark secret (like the poor slob who will end up working in the family business, so too will the sorcerer be born into trouble. He may not know of this connection; he may discover it in a terrifying search or have it sprung on him as his fate unravels, but he is one by virtue of the dissimilar eyes or the fishy cast of his face or some other genetic trait).
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