Masonic and Templar references in ASOIAF

[Mithras]

Oldtown was built in stone, and all its streets were cobbled, down to the meanest alley. The city was never more beautiful than at break of day. West of the Honeywine, the Guildhalls lined the bank like a row of palaces. Upriver, the domes and towers of the Citadel rose on both sides of the river, connected by stone bridges crowded with halls and houses. Downstream, below the black marble walls and arched windows of the Starry Sept, the manses of the pious clustered like children gathered round the feet of an old dowager.

The pious are likened to widow’s sons. They are the residents of the Starry Sept which was the center of the Faith for a long time. George made several homages to Lovecraft with the Church of Starry Wisdom. Arya hears the acolytes of the Church of Starry Wisdom doing their prayers in Braavos and they are located close to the Red Temple. In Oldtown, the bells of the septs (including the Starry Sept) announcing the dawn are joined by the singing from the Red Temple.

(Many scholars count the Bloodstone Emperor as the first High Priest of the sinister Church of Starry Wisdom, which persists to this day in many port cities throughout the known world).

However, maester Yandel says that the Church of Starry wisdom has a sinister reputation.

Here is some info about the Church of Starry Wisdom and Nyarlathotep from Lovecraft universe in spoiler tags:

The Church of Starry Wisdom, or Starry Wisdom Cult, is a cult that worships Nyarlathotep in his aspect as the Haunter of the Dark. The cult was founded in Providence, Rhode Island circa 1844 by Professor Enoch Bowen, a renowned archeologist and occultist. The cult used a sacred relic known as the Shining Trapezohedron to summon the Haunter of the Dark, who demanded outrageous sacrifices in return for limitless knowledge of the universe.

Although the cult was publicly denounced by the other local churches, it nonetheless grew to have a membership of around 200 members. Mysterious disappearances in the area brought the cult under public scrutiny. After run-ins with both local citizens and the municipal government, the church closed and 181 people left Providence for unknown reasons. However, there is veiled evidence that they were dealt a more summary kind of justice than banishment.

The church held an extensive library of occult literature. The majority of these books was removed by one Doctor Dexter after the church was raided following the mysterious death of Robert Blake.

Though the Providence sect was officially disbanded in 1877, the Church of Starry Wisdom has appeared in other places including Yorkshire, England (1880 to 1890), Chicago, Illinois (where it was known as the Celestial Providence sect, but was later disbanded by the Great Chicago Fire of 1871), Arkham, Massachusetts, (during the 1920s), and more recently in San Francisco (though the group was reputedly destroyed by arson). A few contemporary sects may still exist in Canada. As recently as the 1970s the cult was present on Bioko (Fernando Poo) in Equatorial Guinea.

Nyarlathotep, known to many by his epithet "The Crawling Chaos," is an Outer God in the Cthulhu Mythos. He is the creation of H. P. Lovecraft and first appeared in his prose poem "Nyarlathotep" (1920). Nyarlathotep appears in numerous subsequent stories by Lovecraft, and is also featured in the works of other authors, as well as in role-playing games based on the Cthulhu Mythos.

Nyarlathotep differs from other Outer Gods in a number of ways. Most of them are exiled to the stars, like Yog-Sothoth and Hastur, or are sleeping and dreaming like Cthulhu; Nyarlathotep, however, is active and frequently walks the Earth in the guise of a human being, usually a tall, slim, joyous man. He has "a thousand" other forms, most reputed to be quite horrific and sanity-blasting.

Most of the Outer Gods have their own cults serving them; Nyarlathotep seems to serve these cults and take care of their affairs in their absence. Most Outer Gods use strange alien languages, while Nyarlathotep uses human languages and can be mistaken for a human being. Finally, most of them are all powerful yet evidently without clear purpose, yet Nyarlathotep seems to be deliberately deceptive and manipulative, and even uses propaganda to achieve his goals. In this regard, he is probably the most human-like among them.

Nyarlathotep enacts the will of the Outer Gods, and is their messenger, heart and soul; he is also the servant of Azathoth, whose fitful, spastic wishes he immediately fulfills. Unlike the other Outer Gods, causing madness is more important and enjoyable than death and destruction to Nyarlathotep. It is suggested by some that he will destroy the human race and possibly the earth as well.

Nyarlathotep's first appearance is in the eponymous short story by Lovecraft (1920), in which he is described as a "tall, swarthy man" who resembles an Egyptian Pharaoh. In this story he wanders the earth, seemingly gathering legions of followers through his demonstrations of strange and seemingly magical instruments, the narrator of the story among them. These followers lose awareness of the world around them, and through the narrator's increasingly unreliable accounts the reader gets a sense of the world's utter collapse. The story ends with the narrator as part of an army of servants for Nyarlathotep.

Nyarlathotep (usually referred to in conjunction with the subnomen, "The Crawling Chaos") subsequently appears as a major character in The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath (1926/27), in which he again manifests in the form of an Egyptian Pharaoh when he confronts protagonist Randolph Carter. He is here depicted as an avatar of the Other Gods, executing their will on Earth and in Dreamland.

The twenty-first sonnet of Lovecraft's poem-cycle Fungi from Yuggoth (1929/30) – not to be confused with the entities identified as the fungi from Yuggoth, or Mi-Go in "The Whisperer in Darkness" – is dedicated to Nyarlathotep, and is substantially a poetic retelling of the short story "Nyarlathotep."

In "The Dreams in the Witch House" (1933), Nyarlathotep appears to Walter Gilman and witch Keziah Mason (who has made a pact with the entity) in the form of "the 'Black Man' of the witch-cult," a black-skinned avatar of the Devil associated with New England witchcraft lore.

Finally, in "The Haunter of the Dark" (1936), the being of pure darkness dwelling in the steeple of the Starry Wisdom sect's church is identified as another form, or manifestation of, Nyarlathotep.

Though Nyarlathotep appears as a character in only four stories and one sonnet (still more than any other Great Old Ones or Outer Gods), his name is mentioned frequently in numerous others. For example, in "The Whisperer in Darkness" Nyarlathotep's name is spoken frequently by the fungi from Yuggoth in a reverential or ritual sense, indicating that they worship or honor the entity.

Despite similarities in theme and name, Nyarlathotep does not feature at all in Lovecraft's story "The Crawling Chaos," (1920/21) an apocalyptic narrative written in collaboration with Elizabeth Berkeley.