Evil,
dog-like
creatures that live in the distant
past and have the ability to travel through
time. Sometimes called the
Tind'losi Hounds, they live in a
giant city called
Tindalos, which is full is
strange,
corkscrew towers. They were created in the
fiction of
Frank Belknap Long and are considered part of the
Cthulhu Mythos.
The
Hounds are
sensitive to the presence of "
psychic time-travelers," or those who only send their
minds back in time, and when they sense a visitor from another time -- especially if a
visitor and a
Hound see each other -- the
monster will immediately begin to
hunt them.
Time travel is a
complicated thing, and it actually takes several
weeks, if not
months, for a Hound to
journey from its home in the
past to its victim's home in the
future. And the potential
victim knows that the Hound is coming, and has lots of time to
worry and try to make
preparations.
In one more bit of
weirdness, the Hounds perceive and
experience time
differently than we do. It is said that the Hounds live in the
angles of time, whereas
humans live in the
curves of time. Perhaps for this reason, a Hound of Tindalos must
materialize itself through an
angle, like a
corner of a room or a doorway. If you're being
pursued by a Hound of Tindalos, you can build yourself a perfectly
round house and be safe from them -- unless the Hound chooses to
materialize through the
angle in the
pocket of your
jeans or a
milk carton or a
tooth filling...
"The Hounds of Tindalos" by Frank Belknap Long
Encyclopedia Cthulhiana by Daniel Harms, pp. 96-97