The “Old Man”

A kulullû whose first documented human host worked influenced Dr. Ernest Lawrence in the 1920s, and who manipulated people and events into place – including the birth of Andrew Krane and Genevieve Abeille – to cause the temblor event at the St. Francis Hotel. Carl Fletcher described the kulullû’s host as a man in his 70s, “kind, friendly, avuncular” and clad always in an “old-timey” lab assistant’s outfit (and sometimes in a lab coat). For this reason, Marshall gave him the nickname “the Old Man.”

The Old Man’s host did not survive the siege of LeConte Hall. The kulullû did, unsurprisingly, though it was badly injured. He was next seen by Roger in the company of the Comte de Saint German atop the roof of the Hilton at the San Jose International Airport. At that time, he was wearing a SANGUSH glyph to give himself the appearance of a five year-old boy with multiple facial deformities, including severe burn marks, wearing an old-fashioned suit. In his “natural” form, he had a “fleshy, bulbous head” and eyes that radiated “plenty and joy and peace.”

URIEL encountered the Old Man again in the golden council chamber beneath Mount Shasta in the company of the Comte. There, the Comte proposed that Jocasta, Charley, and Roger take the Old Man into the “Control Room” where he would be ontologically undone — eliminated from the time-stream, with all his past deeds retro-uncreated. As this would have caused the “death” of both Andy and Viv, and who knows what else, the trio declined. They did wind up finally killing the thing before it could escape into the Control Room, though.