History Creator / ClarkAshtonSmith

Sexuality plays a strong role in many of Smith's works and female characters are a lot stronger and more prominent than in Lovecraft (most likely due to Smith having a much more... ''active'' love life than Lovecraft). Unlike Howard, sorcerers in Smith [[LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards tend to have the upper hand against swordsmen]] and Smith has many sorcerer protagonists, both good and evil. And finally, Smith was not as much a racist or a xenophobe as Lovecraft, which can be seen best in stories like ''The Great God Awto'' and ''A Star-Change'', although reading his Zothique stories shows he was still very much a man of his time. Smith was very fond of PurpleProse and one often needs to have a thesaurus handy to fully appreciate the meaning of some of his descriptions.

* DeadlyDecadentCourt: All of them. Zothique especially is full of crumbling cities ruled by mad or aging nobles that when not backstabbing each other, performing some flavor of curse or plague, they're having orgies and drugging themselves into oblivion to forget the depression of the world's demise.

* Zothique, a DesertPunk supercontinent and borderline DeathWorld that exists in the Earth's distant and grim future. These stories are part of the DyingEarth genre, a fairly popular one at the time. Despite being set AfterTheEnd, the Zothique stories are strictly SwordAndSorcery rather than science fiction, with [[TheMagicComesBack magic having returned]] in [[CrapsackWorld the worst possible way]]. Most of the world is a barren wasteland dotted with [[GhostCity empty cities]], and the last remaining human cities are haunted by {{necromancer}}s, [[OurGhoulsAreCreepier ghouls]], ancient {{curse}}s, and frightful JerkassGods, although [[DarkIsNotEvil dark is not always evil]].

* Zothique, a DesertPunk supercontinent and borderline DeathWorld that exists in the Earth's distant, and grim future - part of what was at the time called the "Dying Earth" genre. Despite being set AfterTheEnd, the Zothique stories are strictly SwordAndSorcery rather than science fiction, with [[TheMagicComesBack magic having returned]] in [[CrapsackWorld the worst possible way]]. Most of the world is a barren wasteland dotted with [[GhostCity empty cities]], and the last remaining human cities are haunted by {{necromancer}}s, [[OurGhoulsAreCreepier ghouls]], ancient {{curse}}s, and frightful JerkassGods, although [[DarkIsNotEvil dark is not always evil]].

* BigScrewedUpFamily: One of Smith's more notable contributions to the Cthulhu Mythos is the idea that the various EldritchAbomination are all related to each other in some way or another like a classical pantheon, rather than a bunch of random, unrelated extradimensional aliens. For instance, Hastur is supposedly Cthulhu's half-brother. And he's married to Shub Niggurath and therefore, presumably the father of at least some of her enigmatic Thousand Young.

%%* BurnTheWitch: In ''The Necromantic Tale''.

* PortalDoor: In ''The Door to Saturn'', from his tower in far northern Mhu Thulan, the sorcerer Eibon escapes through a panel that takes him to the planet Cykranosh.

* RunningGag: In ''The Seven Geases'', when Ralibar Vooz interrupts the magical ceremony of the wizard Ezdagor, the enraged magician casts a geas on him to send him deep under Mount Voormithadreth to the lair of Tsathoggua. Tsathoggua has no use for the hunter, so he sends him to spider-god Atlach-Nacha. Who sends him to the inhuman sorcerer Haon-Dor. Who sends him to… Ralibar Vooz’s wanderings deeper and deeper into the subterranean realms beneath the Eiglophians and his encounters with foul gods and lost races resemble not so much a story as a amusement park dark ride.

* SinisterMinister: The titular villain in ''The Holiness of Azédarac'' is a Christian bishop who secretly serves some sort of {{Eldritch Abomination}}s.

* Hyperborea, a JungleOpera LostWorld that existed in TheTimeOfMyths before being covered by Arctic ice. The stories trace the [[JustBeforeTheEnd decline]] of Hyperborean civilization, and the abandoning of its capital city, [[CityOfAdventure Commorriom]], for the more southerly Uzuldaroum, leaving the old capital a frozen GhostCity. In addition to its semi-[[{{magocracy}} magocratic]] human civilization, Hyperborea is also home to a race of three-toed, cave-dwelling [[BeastMan beast men]] called voormis. The setting has a number of JerkassGods, most prominently Tsathoggua, the Sleeper of N'Kai, who rules the voormis as their patron.

* AnachronismStew: Smith mentions that the Hyperborea stories occur "in the last centuries before the onset of the Great Ice Age", possibly meaning the last long interglacial period, the Eemian Interglacial (130,000-70,000 BP). The mention of mammals common to this epoch, such as sabre-tooth cats, aurochsen and mammoths, further places the period as the recent Pleistocene, before the start of human civilisation. However, in ''Ubbo-Sathla'', Smith gives a different period in history for Hyperborea: the Miocene, approximately twenty-three million years past, which concluded in a glacial advance. A ''Tyrannosaurus'' and an ''Archaeopteryx'' appear in ''The Seven Geases'' alongside mentions of sabre-tooth cats and mammoths.

* TortureTechnician: There is a whole island of them in ''The Isle of the Torturers''.

LivingShadow: The EldritchAbomination summoned in ''The Double Shadow'' takes the form of a second shadow that follows the caster about, starting a little way away from their normal shadow and getting gradually closer. It's not good news for the caster when the two eventually touch.

%%* LivingShadow: Prominently in ''The Double Shadow'' and in a minor role in ''The Abominations of Yondo''.

** Nearly all of whom are also {{Sorcerous Overlord}}s too. Maal Dweb especially.

* CosmicHorrorStory: Mostly parodied. The eldritch horrors tend to be much more willing to interact with humans, and either have a pety cruel streak to their torment, or are rather laid back and affable.

* ApatheticCitizens: In ''The Dark Eidolon'', before [[spoiler: Narthos is nearly trampled to death underneath hooves, people as pass by and do nothing as the beggar boy is hated by the city]], this sets in the entire revenge plot.

Sexuality plays a strong role in many of Smith's works and female characters are a lot stronger and more prominent than in Lovecraft (most likely to Smith having a much more... ''active'' love life than Lovecraft). Unlike Howard, sorcerers in Smith [[LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards tend to have the upper hand against swordsmen]] and Smith has many sorcerer protagonists, both good and evil. And finally, Smith was not as much a racist or a xenophobe as Lovecraft, which can be seen best in stories like ''The Great God Awto'' and ''A Star-Change'', although reading his Zothique stories show he was still very much a man of his time. Smith was very fond of PurpleProse and one often needs to have a thesaurus handy to fully appreciate the meaning of some of his descriptions.

Clark Ashton Smith (January 13, 1893 – August 14, 1961) was an American writer of {{horror}}, {{fantasy}} and ScienceFiction. He is most notable for being one of the founders of the Franchise/CthulhuMythos along with Creator/HPLovecraft, Creator/RobertEHoward and others. Smith's early works were influenced by Creator/TheBrothersGrimm, Creator/EdgarAllanPoe, and William Beckford's Literature/Vathek, while his early poetry caught the attention of George Sterling, who helped him publish ''The Star-Treader and Other Poems'', his first collection of poetry, and also introduced him to the poetry of Charles Baudelaire, who became another important influence on Smith. Smith's 1920 poem ''The Hashish Eater, or The Apocalypse of Evil'' prompted H. P. Lovecraft to send him a fan letter, which was the beginning of a lifelong friendship and correspondence between the two.

Clark Ashton Smith (January 13, 1893 – August 14, 1961) was an American writer of {{horror}}, {{fantasy}} and ScienceFiction. He is most notable for being one of the founders of the Franchise/CthulhuMythos along with Creator/HPLovecraft, Creator/RobertEHoward and others.

%%* CosmicHorrorStory: Mostly parodied. The eldritch horrors tend to be much more willing to interact with humans, and either have a pety cruel streak to their torment, or are rather laid back and affable.
%%* CruelAndUnusualDeath: One Zothique story has the villain devoured by the very same plants he used to dispose of his enemies as a garden.

%%* EldritchAbomination

%%* {{Necromancer}}

[[quoteright:236:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/clarkashtonsmith_236x281.jpg]]

Also unlike Lovecraft, sexuality plays a strong role in many of Smith's works and female characters are a lot stronger and more prominent than in Lovecraft (most likely to Smith having a much more... ''active'' love life than Lovecraft). Unlike Howard, sorcerers in Smith [[LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards tend to have the upper hand against swordsmen]] and Smith has many sorcerer protagonists, both good and evil. And finally, Smith was not as much a racist or a xenophobe as Lovecraft, which can be seen best in stories like ''The Great God Awto'' and ''A Star-Change'', although reading his Zothique stories show he was still very much a man of his time. Smith was very fond of PurpleProse and one often needs to have a thesaurus handy to fully appreciate the meaning of some of his descriptions.

Like Lovecraft's, Clark's stories were often inspired by the nightmares he suffered in his youth. However, Smith's stories tend to focus less on the CosmicHorrorStory and more on the pure exoticism of the setting. Some Mythos entities recur between them, such as the god Tsathoggua, but these entities tend to be less malevolent in Smith's portrayal than in Lovecraft's. While Smith is best known for his prose stories, he personally considered them secondary to his poetry (sometimes going as far as calling them "quasi-hackwork", and the vast majority were written to help him raise funds for his ailing parents in the period from 1929 to 1934. After their deaths, as well as that of his friends Lovecraft and Howard, Smith's prose output dwindled dramatically, and he returned to poetry and began sculpting (usually small soft rock sculptures of strange beings).

Compared to Lovecraft's, Smith's stories tend to focus less on the CosmicHorrorStory and more on the pure exoticism of the setting. Some Mythos entities recur between them, such as the god Tsathoggua, but these entities tend to be less malevolent in Smith's portrayal than in Lovecraft's.

Also unlike Lovecraft, sexuality plays a strong role in many of Smith's works and female characters are a lot stronger and more prominent than in Lovecraft (most likely to Smith having a much more... ''active'' love life than Lovecraft). Unlike Howard, sorcerers in Smith [[LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards tend to have the upper hand against swordsmen]] and Smith has many sorcerer protagonists, both good and evil. And finally, Smith was not as much a racist or a xenophobe as Lovecraft, which can be seen best in stories like ''The Great God Awto'' and ''A Star-Change'', although reading his Zothique stories show he was still very much a man of his time.

Smith was fond of playing with tropes and his stories occasionally feature BlackComedy. The classic ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' module ''Castle Amber'' draws inspiration from his stories set in his fictional Averoigne setting.

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* ApatheticCitizens: In ''The Dark Eidolon'', before [[spoilers: Narthos is nearly trampled to death underneath hooves, people as pass by and do nothing as the beggar boy is hated by the city]], this sets in the entire revenge plot.