SOURCES:
"The Children of the Night" Weird Tales, April-May 1931
"The Black Stone" Weird Tales, November 1931
"The People of the Dark" Strange Tales, June 1932
"The Worms of the Earth" Weird Tales, November 1932
"The Valley of the Lost" Magazine of Horror, Summer 1966
"Dagon Manor" Different Worlds, May-June 1986

DESCRIPTION: “Erect, it could not have been five feet in height.  Its body was scrawny and deformed, its head disproportionately large.  Lank snaky hair fell over a square inhuman face with flabby writhing lips that bared yellow fangs, flat spreading nostrils and great yellow slant eyes ... But the most repellent feature was its skin: scaly, yellow and mottled, like the hide of a serpent.” (“The People of the Dark” by Robert E. Howard)

NOTES: The Children of the Night are the human hybrids of Serpent Men. They do not have any of the Serpent men abilities such as assuming human form. The Children breed in subterranean tunnels. Some can pass as human.

HISTORY: Robert E. Howard was a racist. As a writer he worried a lot about race, following the histories of the Aesir, the Picts and the Children of the Night through several series including King Kull, Bran Mak Morn and the Steve Allison tales. His choice of "Children of the Night" was probably inspired by Bela Lugosi in the theatrical Dracula. Despite this they are not vampires.

Influences on the Children of the Night stories are obvious in "The Little People" which names Arthur Machen, and  "The Worms of the Earth" where the tunnels are remoniscent of H. G. Wells' The Time Machine and the Morlock city. Jack London's The Star Rover inspired the James Allison stories where the Texan is reincarnated in his previous lives. Lots of that kind of thing in these stories as well.

Karl Edward Wagner used the Children in his Bran Mak Morn pastiche, The Legion From the Shadows, where he tied in the Crawlers from the Conan tale, "Red Nails" as well.

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