When Randolph Carter visits Atal in The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath (1926), he is the patriarch of the Temple of the Elder Ones and is now well over 300 years old, "but still very keen of mind and memory".

According to the story, he often delved into the unknown, reading such works as the Pnakotic Manuscripts and the Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan.

In "The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath", Nyarlathotep himself speaks to Randolph Carter in a brief and sardonic fashion of the ill-fated expeditions of other impertinent god-seekers, and therein relates that when Barzai's hubris brought him to the baleful attention of the Other Gods, they "did what was expected".

According to the story, Sansu is "written of with fright" in the Pnakotic Manuscripts, having once scaled the mountain of Hatheg-Kla "in the youth of the world" and found "naught but wordless ice and rock".

[4] The Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan (misprinted as "...of Earth" in the story's original publication) appear for the first time in "The Other Gods".