R'lyeh is in the middle of one of the biggest patches of empty ocean on Earth.

R'lyeh^[1] is a fictional city that first appeared in the writings of H. P. Lovecraft. R'lyeh is also referred to in Lovecraft's "The Mound" as Relex. R'lyeh is a sunken city located deep under the Pacific Ocean and is where the godlike being Cthulhu is buried. R'lyeh's architecture is characterized by its non-Euclidean geometry ^[2]. Because of the portrayal of the picture of the gorgon in "Medusa's Coil" some suppose that R'yleh has an attribute that allows those inside to breathe underwater. Others discredit this, saying that it was merely the gorgon herself that could achieve this, or otherwise that it was merely a painting and not a reflection of actual events. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (792x612, 22 KB) Summary Phnglui mglwnafh Cthulhu Rlyeh wgahnagl fhtagn! Licensing File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (792x612, 22 KB) Summary Phnglui mglwnafh Cthulhu Rlyeh wgahnagl fhtagn! Licensing File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... This list is of fictional cities: villages, towns, and cities that do not exist in the world we know. ... Howard Phillips Lovecraft (August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937) was an American author of fantasy, horror and science fiction, noted for combining these three genres within single narratives. ... Cthulhu (other spellings: Kutulu, Kthulhut, Thu Thu, Tulu[1], and many others) is a fictional character in the Cthulhu Mythos created by horror author H.P. Lovecraft. ... Behavior of lines with a common perpendicular in each of the three types of geometry The term non-Euclidean geometry (also spelled: non-euclidian geometry) describes hyperbolic, elliptic and absolute geometry, which are contrasted with Euclidean geometry. ...

Description

[T]he nightmare corpse-city of R'lyeh ... was built in measureless aeons behind history by the vast, loathsome shapes that seeped down from the dark stars. There lay great Cthulhu and his hordes, hidden in green slimy vaults . . .
—H. P. Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu" Cover for a reprint of The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories. ...

When R'lyeh rises in Lovecraft's short story "The Call of Cthulhu" (1928), the only portion of the city that emerges is a single "hideous monolith-crowned citadel" in which Cthulhu is entombed. The human onlookers are awed by the sheer immensity of the city and by the frightening suggestiveness of the gargantuan statues and bas-reliefs. This article is in need of attention. ... See also: 1927 in literature, other events of 1928, 1929 in literature, list of years in literature. ... A monolith is a geological or technological feature such as a mountain, consisting of a single massive stone or rock. ... This article is about a type of fortification. ... Bas relief is a method of sculpting which entails carving or etching away the surface of a flat piece of stone or metal. ...

The city is a panorama of "vast angles and stone surfaces ... too great to belong to anything right and proper for this earth, and impious with horrible images and disturbing hieroglyphs." The geometry of R’lyeh is "abnormal, non-Euclidean, and loathsomely redolent of spheres and dimensions apart from ours." It has been suggested that Hieroglyph (French Wiki article) be merged into this article or section. ... The term non-Euclidean geometry (also spelled: non-Euclidian geometry) describes both hyperbolic and elliptic geometry, which are contrasted with Euclidean geometry. ...

In Lovecraft's fiction, R'lyeh is sometimes referred to in the ritualistic phrase "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn", which roughly translates to "In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming"^[3].

Location

Lovecraft said that R'lyeh is located at Latitude 47° 9' S, Longitude 126° 43' W in the southern Pacific Ocean^[4]. August Derleth, however, placed R'lyeh at S. Latitude 49° 51' S, Longitude 128° 34' W in his own writings^[5]. Both locations are close to the Pacific pole of inaccessibility, the point in the ocean farthest from any land. Derleth's coordinates place the city approximately 5100 nautical miles (5900 statute miles or 9500 kilometers), or about ten days journey for a fast ship, from Pohnpei (Ponape), an actual island of the area. Ponape also plays a part in the Cthulhu Mythos as the place where the "Ponape Scripture", a text describing Cthulhu, was found. Latitude, usually denoted symbolically by the Greek letter φ, gives the location of a place on Earth north or south of the Equator. ... Longitude, sometimes denoted by the Greek letter λ, describes the location of a place on Earth east or west of a north-south line called the Prime Meridian. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... The pole of inaccessibility marks a location that is the most challenging to reach owing to its remoteness from geographical features which could provide access. ... A nautical mile is a unit of length. ... A mile is the name of a unit of length, usually used to measure distance, in a number of different systems, including English units, Imperial units, and United States customary units. ... km redirects here. ... Map of Pohnpei State Map of Pohnpei Island District center of Pohnpei Diagram of Pohnpei Pohnpei (also spelled Ponape and earlier Bonabee) is the name of one of the states in the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), and one of the Senyavin Islands. ... Cthulhu Mythos is the term coined by the writer August Derleth to describe the shared elements, characters, settings, and themes in the works of H. P. Lovecraft and associated writers. ... Many fictional works of arcane literature appear in the Cthulhu Mythos. ...

Charles Stross's novella 'A Colder War' implicitly locates R'lyeh in the Baltic Sea: it describes Cthulhu as being "scraped from a nest in the drowned wreckage of a city on the Baltic floor" [1]. This is presumably because a Baltic location was more convenient for Stross's plot. Charles Stross at Worldcon 2005 in Glasgow Charles David George Stross (born Leeds, October 18, 1964) is a writer based in Edinburgh, Scotland. ... A Colder War is an alternate history novelette by Charles Stross. ... Map of the Baltic Sea. ... Cthulhu (other spellings: Kutulu, Kthulhut, Thu Thu, Tulu[1], and many others) is a fictional character in the Cthulhu Mythos created by horror author H.P. Lovecraft. ...

Interestingly, in 1997 US Navy operators recorded an ultra low frequency "bloop" near the same coordinates described by Lovecraft.^{[citation needed]} The Bloop is the name given to an ultra-low frequency underwater sound detected by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration several times during the summer of 1997. ...

Other appearances

• The 1994 Doctor Who New Adventures novel All-Consuming Fire by Andy Lane features many elements inspired by the Cthulhu Mythos. Much of the action takes place on the planet "Ry'leh", which is clearly an homage, reference, or corruption of R'lyeh.

• Twice in Worms of the Earth, a Bran Mak Morn tale by Robert E. Howard mention is made of the "black gods of R'lyeh". Lovecraft was a friend and correspondant of Howard and their works are littered with references to each other's creations.

• In Brian Lumley's Titus Crow novels, three psychics working for the Wilmarth Foundation attempt to locate R'lyeh psionically and are driven mad when they make contact with Cthulhu.

• R'lyeh appears as a playable nation in the turn-based strategy game Dominions II.

• In Shadow Hearts: Covenant, one of the forbidden documents is called the R'lyeh Text and explains how to summon an alien being akin to a god. However, this is a continuity error, since in Shadow Hearts this document was called the Codex of Lurie.

• The Cradle of Filth song "English Fire" from their Nymphetamine album refers to R'lyeh as one of four prophetic cities of olden times.

• Metallica's "The Call Of Ktulu" from the album Ride The Lightning is a tribute to Lovecraft's story. See [2]

• Strange Tales (2) #19 features Doctor Strange battling a creature said to have come forth from the pits of R'lyeh.

• The Vision Bleak song "Kutulu!" * Carpathia - A Dramatic Poem is also a tribute to Lovecraft's story. See [3]

• One of Randall Flagg's pseudonyms, in Stephen King's universe.

• Cthulu and Hastur appear occasionally in J.D. Frazer's User Friendly web comic.

• In Roger Zelazny's short story, "24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai", the main character has a dream in which she encounters a temple inhabited by priests of "Old Gods", whose intent is to raise the city of R'lyeh from the depths. She also finds a cat, which she names R'lyeh.

The description of the sunken alien city T'leth in the game X-COM: Terror from the Deep.

• In Charles Stross's novella 'A Colder War', R'lyeh, is found by Nazi scientists during World War II; after the war, Soviet scientists recover the not-dead-but-dreaming Cthulhu to use as the ultimate weapon of mass destruction, under the name Project Koschei, as a deterrent against the west - a rather extreme form of mutually assured destruction.

• Progressive metal band Adagio has a song called "R'Lyeh the Dead" on their 2006 album Dominate.

• The computer game X-COM: Terror from the Deep features, as its climactic final mission, an assault on the alien city of T'leth. The description of the city, shown in the screenshot to the right, has several commonalities with R'lyeh, including a powerful alien who resides in the city, neither alive nor dead, but "sleeping".

Doctor Who is a long-running British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC about a mysterious time-travelling adventurer known as The Doctor, who explores time and space with his companions, fighting evil. ... The Virgin New Adventures (often referred to simply as NAs within fandom) were a series of novels from Virgin Publishing based on the British science-fiction television series Doctor Who, which had been cancelled in 1989, continuing the story of the series from where the television programme had left off. ... All-Consuming Fire is an original novel written by Andy Lane and based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. ... Andy Lane is a British writer. ... Worms of the Earth is a short story by American fantasy fiction writer Robert Ervin Howard. ... Bran Mak Morn is a hero of several pulp fiction short stories by Robert E. Howard. ... Robert E. Howard Robert Ervin Howard (January 22, 1906 – June 11, 1936) was a writer of fantasy and historical adventure pulp stories published mainly in Weird Tales magazine in the 1930s. ... Brian Lumley (born December 12, 1937) is a writer of horror fiction. ... Titus Crow is the main character in the eponymous series of horror fiction books by Brian Lumley. ... Parapsychology is the study of mental awareness or influence of external objects without interaction from known physical means. ... Parapsychology is the study of the evidence involving phenomena where a person seems to affect or gain information about something through a means not currently explainable within the framework of mainstream, conventional science. ... It has been suggested that Turn-based tactics be merged into this article or section. ... Type of game Dominions II is a turn-based, computer strategy game. ... Cradle of Filth is a heavy metal band formed in Suffolk, England in 1991. ... Nymphetamine is the sixth studio album by Cradle of Filth, released on September 28, 2004. ... Metallica is a Heavy metal band formed in October 1981. ... For the album by Marshmallow Coast, see Ride the Lightning. ... Strange Tales was the name of several comic book anthology series that have been published by Marvel Comics. ... Doctor Strange is a fictional comic-book sorcerer and superhero in the Marvel Comics universe. ... The Vision Bleak is a Horror Metal band from Germany, consisting of former Empyrium member Ulf Theodor Schwadorf and former Nox Mortis member Allen B Konstanz. ... Randall Flagg. ... Categories: Canadian people stubs | Cartoonists | Web comics | Computer humor ... For the concept in software engineering, see user-friendliness. ... Roger Joseph Zelazny (May 13, 1937 – June 14, 1995) was an American writer of fantasy and science fiction short stories and novels. ... Image File history File links Tftd. ... Image File history File links Tftd. ... X-COM: Terror from the Deep is a computer game, the sequel to X-COM: UFO Defense (or UFO: Enemy Unknown in Europe). ... Charles Stross at Worldcon 2005 in Glasgow Charles David George Stross (born Leeds, October 18, 1964) is a writer based in Edinburgh, Scotland. ... A Colder War is an alternate history novelette by Charles Stross. ... National Socialism redirects here. ... This article is becoming very long. ... Soviet redirects here. ... Cthulhu (other spellings: Kutulu, Kthulhut, Thu Thu, Tulu[1], and many others) is a fictional character in the Cthulhu Mythos created by horror author H.P. Lovecraft. ... Weapons of Mass Destruction is also the name of rapper Xzibits 2004 album. ... Deterrence is the method manipulating a persons action by negative motivational influences. ... Mutually assured destruction (MAD) is the doctrine of military strategy in which a full scale use of nuclear weapons by one of two opposing sides would result in the destruction of both the attacker and the defender. ... In musical notation, Adagio is a tempo marking indicating that the music is to be played slowly. ... The Dominate was the despotic last of the two phases of government in the ancient Roman Empire between its establishment in 27 BC and the formal date of the collapse of the Western Empire in AD 476. ... X-COM: Terror from the Deep is a computer game, the sequel to X-COM: UFO Defense (or UFO: Enemy Unknown in Europe). ...

References

• Derleth, August [1952] (2000). “The Black Island”, Quest for Cthulhu. New York, NY: Carroll & Graf. ISBN 0-7867-0752-6.

• Harms, Daniel (1998). “R'lyeh”, The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana, 2nd ed., Oakland, CA: Chaosium, p. 255. ISBN 1-56882-119-0.

• Lovecraft, Howard P. [1928] (1984). “The Call of Cthulhu”, S. T. Joshi (ed.) The Dunwich Horror and Others, 9th corrected printing, Sauk City, WI: Arkham House. ISBN 0-870-54037-8. Definitive version.

• Pearsall, Anthony B. (2005). The Lovecraft Lexicon, 1st ed., Tempe, AZ: New Falcon. ISBN 1-5618-4129-3.

• Schweitzer, Darrell (ed.) (2001). Discovering H. P. Lovecraft. Holicong, PA: Wildside Press. ISBN 1-58715-470-6 (trade paper); ISBN 1-58715-471-4 (hardcover).

Notes

1. ^ On the CD A Shoggoth on the Roof, R'lyeh is pronounced Roo-lee-ah or Rill-AYE-eh.
2. ^ Lovecraft's "pseudo-geometry" supposes that certain shapes can extend into other dimensions; thus, appearing "non-Euclidean" from a human perspective. According to Robert Weinberg, this is impossible. Since the three-dimensional world is a closed system, no structure could be built so as to overlap into another dimension. (Robert Weinberg, "H. P. Lovecraft and Pseudomathematics", Discovering H. P. Lovecraft, pp. 88–91.)
3. ^ Pearsall, "R'lyeh", The Lovecraft Lexicon, p. 345.
4. ^ Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu", The Dunwich Horror and Others, p. 150.
5. ^ Derleth, "The Black Island", Quest for Cthulhu, p. 426.