The House of Nodens

The House of Nodens is a horror novel by the late American author Sam Gafford which is loosely related to the greater Cthulhu Mythos. It was first published in July 2017 by Dark Regions Press; paperback, hardcover and digital editions were all released.
The story alternates, through flashbacks, between two separate but linked tales which take place in Connecticut, New England.
==Synopsis==
In 1975, a group of outcasts in their early teens calling themselves the Cemetery League discover a strange clearing in the woods which contains the carvings of an ancient entity. Deciding to build their clubhouse there, the evil which hibernates within the land begins to awaken and insinuate itself into the minds of some of the boys. As their leader becomes increasingly unhinged, the boys begin to pay service to the being known as Nodens, and their escalating activities culminate in the sacrifice of a local girl.
Forty years later, a small police task force attempt to apprehend the serial killer known as the Deer Hunter. Their investigations lead them to the few surviving members of the Cemetery League, and they eventually uncover the existence of a worldwide conspiracy to bring about the return of Nodens, although the group is wiped out as a result. The last remaining member of the Cemetery League is sacrificed as a host to allow the return of Nodens, and the being makes its way into the world to begin its work.
==Behind the Mythos==
Despite being named Nodens, and being a god of health and the hunt, the entity depicted in The House of Nodens bears little resemblance to the popular portrayal of Nodens in the greater Cthulhu Mythos, being seemingly a creature whose home is Earth. At one point, it grants a vision to one of the characters of the world which is to come, in which "[c]reatures the size of mountains would roam the earth, calling others to their service"; at the story's finale, after its rebirth, Nodens muses to itself how "[p]laces had to be visited, gateways prepared, wards broken, and paths opened." These sentences would suggest that this iteration of Nodens is more akin to the herald of other cosmic entities, rather than one itself.
==Mythos Connections==
*During one of the rituals performed by the boys in 1975, one of them gives himself the title of Guide of the Great Abyss. This would appear to be a nod to an epithet given to Nodens by H. P. Lovecraft in his short story "The Strange High House in the Mist," the Lord of the Great Abyss.
*Later, the leader of the Cemetery League reveals to the others that "making the Voorish sign or making the marks of the dholes upon our bodies" has ceased to be effective in facilitating their communion with Nodens.
*In the final ritual to summon Nodens, the chant "Dhonas’s dholas ort, agus leat-sa!" would appear to be a nod to a line uttered by Delapore, the narrator of Lovecraft's short story "The Rats in the Walls."
==Trivia==
*When the boys are conducting their first sacrifice, they each destroy something which has personal meaning. One of them burns a copy of an old H. P. Lovecraft paperback, indicating that Lovecraft was real in this universe.
Category:Sam Gafford works
Category:Expanded Mythos Works
Category:Novels
Category:Ebooks