The dawn of modernity did little to barricade human minds from the onslaught of the evil spiritual entities that had waged war against them since the advent of civilization. Indigenous cultures decimated by European colonialism bequeathed to their conquerors the lineaments of belief systems haunted by demons unknown and unnamed in the religions of the west. Desolate landscapes remained their primary ecosystem; the virulence of these diabolical entities increased the farther one encountered them from the outposts of human habitation. In the twentieth century, authors of weird fiction tapped into a rich inheritance of infernal imagery bequeathed by western traditions to craft for their readers hybrid horrors at once familiar and yet utterly alien.