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Post by Yahn'ikthorn on Mar 13, 2008 9:26:06 GMT -6
I just read The Shadow Out of Time yesterday and started wondering about all the strange, alien races Lovecraft speaks of... I'll try to make some kind of summary here about the most important ones. Taken from cthulhufiles.comTHE GREAT RACE OF YITHA race said to be the greatest of all, because they learned to project their minds into the past or future, and thus learned all the things that were ever known or ever would be known on earth. Knowledge of the past is more difficult for them to glean than knowledge of the future, and is accomplished by a kind of mind-casting outside of the recognised senses. Knowledge of the future is achieved by the use of mechanical aids to project an individual mind to a desired era in the future, where it takes possession of the most advanced individual that can be found, of any intelligent race. Only the superior minds among the Great Race are capable of thus being projected into the future. The mind of the displaced individual would find itself transported to the past, to the body of the Great Race member who had displaced it. While it dwelled in the past, this captive mind would be closely questioned by the Great Race to obtain as much of its knowledge as possible. After finishing its explorations in the future, a projected mind of the Great Race constructs a machine to reverse the process of projection. The projected mind thus returns to its own body in the past, while the captive mind is returned to its original body in the future. The captive mind is hypnotically purged of all memories of the Great Race before being returned to its own time. However, some former captives have partially recovered their memories, including Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee. The Necronomicon suggests there is a cult of humans who sometimes aid the voyaging minds of the Great Race. Besides projecting their minds into the future, the Great Race exchange minds with beings on other planets and explore their past and future as well. Aside from exploration, the Great Race also use the mind projection technology to permanently escape en masse from planets or eras where circumstances are no longer safe for their survival. The Great Race came to earth from a transgalactic, dying elder planet known as Yith; on arriving here, they permanently displaced the minds of a terrestrial species of cone-creatures. This was about 600 million years ago. At that time, the Great Race defeated a competing race of Elder Things and drove them underground. The Great Race retained a haunting fear of the Elder Things, which were a taboo subject, rarely written or spoken of. In their cone-creature form, the Great Race had cone-shaped bodies, ten feet in height and ten feet wide at the base. The skin was ridgy, scaly, and semi-elastic, with shimmering iridescent color. From the apex of the cones extended four flexible, foot-thick, cylindrical appendages, which could be contracted almost to nothing or extended up to ten feet in length. One of these limbs terminated in a globular yellowish head with three eyes spaced widely along its central circumference. From the top of the head sprouted four slender gray stalks with flower-like tips. Beneath the head dangled eight greenish tentacles. Of the other major limbs, two terminated in large claws, which were used for carrying objects and also for speaking through clicking and scraping sounds. The third bore a cluster of four red, trumpet-like appendages used for eating. The base of the cone was fringed with a rubbery gray substance that moved the cone across the ground by expanding and contracting. They had no clothing, but wore satchels or knapsacks suspended from the top of the trunk. Their blood was a thick greenish ichor. The Great Race in this form had many senses, most of which were not well utilisable by alien captive minds. Of the senses familiar to humans, they had only sight and hearing; the latter sense being provided by the flower-like appendages on the grey stalks atop the head. They had no sense of touch or physical pain. They were almost immune to fatigue and had no need of sleep. They reproduced by seeds or spores that clustered on their bases and then were grown in shallow tanks of water . The common lifespan was four or five thousand years. They incinerated their dead with dignified ceremonies. The Great Race formed a single nation with four divisions. The government was a type of fascistic socialism, with a small governing board that was elected by the votes of all who could pass required educational and psychological tests. In addition to civil wars, the Great Race fought against reptilian or octopodic invaders (presumably the Cthulhu spawn) and against the crinoid Old Ones. Industry was highly mechanized and left the citizens with abundant leisure time, devoted to scientific and artistic pursuits. Transportation included boats, airships, submarines and boat-shaped cars. Food was vegetable or synthetic, and ingested through the red trumpet appendages in a semi-fluid state. The libraries of the Great Race store the whole of earth's history, past and future. In the city where Peaslee was held, the central archives were in a colossal subterranean structure near the city's center. The records were written or printed on a very long lasting cellulose fabric. The Great Race wrote using a stylus gripped in their head tentacles. Peaslee eventually found the ruins of the central archive in modern Australia. Parts of the text of the Pnakotic Manuscripts have existed since the time of the Great Race. Also around 150 million years ago, the Great Race came into possession of a cube sent by the Spawn of Yekub, from another universe. The cube served a purpose similar to the Great Race's own technology of mind transference, but rather than swapping personalities across space and time, the cube swapped personalities between universes. The Great Race quickly understood that the cube was transporting invading minds among them, and they exterminated all the possessed members of their own species. Thereafter they kept the cube hidden and under guard in a shrine in a polar city, but the cube was lost amidst the chaos of war by 50 million years ago.
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Post by Yahn'ikthorn on Mar 13, 2008 9:40:09 GMT -6
STAR-SHAPED OLD ONESAn ancient race of extraterrestrial origin, whose population on earth centered in Antarctica. Most of our information about this race was collected by Lake, Dyer, and Danforth, of the Miskatonic Antarctic Expedition of 1930-31. In rock of Cambrian or pre-Cambrian date, Lake found a triangular, striated footprint of the Old Ones, about a foot in greatest diameter. Later he found a similar footprint, but slightly smaller and more primitive or decadent, in strata from Comanchian times. PhysiologyThe rather outre physique of the Old Ones has been minutely described for us by Lake, and can be summarized as follows: The are roughly barrel-shaped, about six feet tall. They are dark grey, flexible, and infinitely tough. At the top of the body, there is a yellowish, five pointed head with an eye at the end of each point. Red tubes extend from the inner angles of the head and terminate in mouths. At the bottom of the body, there is a starfish-like arrangement of five flexible legs, each ending in a triangular paddle. Between each leg there extends a reddish tube used for excretion. On the body there are five bulging lengthwise ridges. In furrows between the ridges are wings that can fold up or spread out like fans, to an almost seven-foot wing spread. From each ridge, at the equator, grows a light grey flexible arm that divides and subdivides into a total of 25 tentacles. During dissection, Lake found the blood to be a thick, dark-green fluid. He noted many evidences of both animal and vegetable characteristics. He concluded that the beings were amphibian, capable of breathing but also adapted to long airless periods. Like vegetables, they are able to obtain nourishment from inorganic sources, but greatly prefer organic and especially animal food. The physiology of the Old Ones gradually degenerated after settling on earth; they became smaller, coarser and simpler, with many atrophied and vestigial organs. Dyer concluded that the Old Ones are strictly material and originated within our own space-time continuum, in contrast to the Cthulhu spawn and Outer Ones, whose first sources can only be guessed at. Dogs show an intinctive hostility to the Old Ones, their acrid scent, and their soapstone stars. Life Cycle The Old Ones reproduce like certain primitive vegetables, by way of spore-cases at the tips of the wings. Very few of the Old Ones die except by violence, and they bury their dead vertically in five-pointed mounds with indented dots. Lake and his party discovered to their cost that Old Ones can be revived after millions of years of frozen dormancy: "awakening in the cold of an unknown epoch", perhaps as a result of exposure to (slightly) increased heat; in the heated tents, Lake noted a thawing of the specimens that restored their "blood" to its fluid state. Later it was observed that "the ceaseless antarctic sun had begun to limber up their tissues a trifle". Language Lake speculated that they could vocalize a wide range of musical piping notes, but no articulate syllables. Later, Dyer and Danforth heard a shoggoth utter the phrase Tekeli-li, in piping tones covering a wide range; they concluded that the shoggoth was imitating the speach of the Old Ones. The Old Ones' written language consisted of groups of dots; these were observed on their bas-reliefs, on their five pointed soapstones, on their improvised snow graves for their fallen companions, near the cave mouths on the mountains, on the buildings of the antarctic city, and on scraps of paper written on by the recently deceased Old Ones. The shoggoths left similar marks in slime on walls near the dead Old Ones. Five Pointed StonesThey used small five-pointed stones for currency and possibly for other unknown reasons; five-pointed soapstones were found near the specimens discovered by Lake. Space TravelThe Old Ones traveled through the interstellar ether on their vast membraneous wings, and arrived when earth was still devoid of life. For their their prehistoric flights through cosmic space, they absorbed certain chemicals and became almost independent of eating, breathing, or heat conditions. During the Jurassic, the Old Ones discovered that they were no longer able to leave the atmospher. Creators of Earth Life The bodies of the Old Ones reminded Lake of references in the Necronomicon to Elder Things supposed to have created all earth-life as a jest or mistake. Lake also recalled the primal myths about Great Old Ones who filtered down from the stars and concocted earth life as a joke or mistake. The Old Ones were the makers and enslavers of earth life, and the originals of the fiendish elder myths which things like the Pnakotic Manuscripts and the Necronomicon affrightedly hint about.The Old Ones created earth-life for food and other purposes. They created viscous, living masses called shoggoths to be their servants. They allowed various cell-groups to develop into other forms of animal and vegetable life, exterminating any that became troublesome. They used a primitive simian ancestor of humanity for food and amusement. Eventually the Old Ones lost the art of creating new life from inorganic matter, but remained able to mold species already in existence. HistoryThe history of the Old Ones was inferred by Prof. William Dyer and Danforth, on the evidence of bas-reliefs they observed in the antarctic city of the Old Ones. Since Dyer and Danforth had no knowledge of the Old Ones' language, their conclusions should be considered incomplete and tentative at best. The Old Ones arrived in the Archaean period. At that time, the entire globe was covered with water. Their earliest settlements were in the Antarctic Ocean, but spread further north over time. After a land mass developed near the south pole, they began creating cities on land as well. Few or none of their first cities remained beyond the Archaean stage. Sometime after the early Achaean and before the Carboniferous period, continents separated from the antarctic land mass and drifted north. Upheavals created new land in the South Pacific. A land-dwelling race of octopi arrived, presumably the spawn of Cthulhu. The Cthulhu spawn and the Old Ones battled over territory, and only the new lands were given to the Cthulhu spawn. Later, the lands of the Pacific sank again, taking with it the city of R'lyeh and the Cthulhu spawn, so that the Old Ones were again supreme on the planet. Gradually the Old Ones shifted to living mostly on land. By the Carboniferous period, the whole globe, both land and underwater, was scattered with the Old One's vast stone cities. But the antarctic remained the center of their civilisation. In the middle of the Permian age, the Old Ones waged and eventually won a war of subjugation against their rebellious shoggoth slaves. During the Jurassic, earth was invaded by the Mi-Go or Outer Ones. The Outer Ones drove the Old Ones out of the northern lands. Still, the Old Ones gradually receded to the south, and by Pliocene times had no land cities except on the antarctic continent and the tip of South America, and even their ocean cities extended no further than the fiftieth parallel of South Latitude. Dyer suspected that the Old One's history might be mythologized or censored for reasons of pride, and noted that their annals failed to mention many advanced races of beings who figure in legend. Antarctic City and Environs The mountains surrounding the antarctic city of the Old Ones are dotted with stone cubes and ramparts and cavemouths. The cavemouths are often approximately square or semicircular. The city itself, first revealed through a mirage reflected by the atmosphere over the mountains, features stone buildings with a variety of geometrical shapes such as cones, cylinders, pyramids, and spires in clusters of five. The city extends alongside the mountains for about three hundred miles, but only about thirty miles in width. At least one of the ramparts is star-shaped, and many other features are five-pointed. The city is near a far older city reputed to have been the original settlement of the Old Ones, when the area was still on a primal sea-bottom. The Mountains of MadnessThe Old Ones of the antarctic city shunned and feared a range of violet mountains, some 300 miles to the west, and over forty thousand feet in height. During the decadent period, some of the Old Ones made strange prayers to those mountains. Dyer suspected that Kadath in the Cold Waste might lie beyond those peaks. The Old Ones recoiled in terror from certain objects that washed down in a river from these mountains. In a mirage, Danforth thought he saw a reflection of what lay beyond those mountains, and never fully recovered his sanity. Although he would never clearly discuss what he saw, his arcane hints included a mention of Yog-Sothoth. Final RetreatWith the advent of glacial periods between 1 million and 500,000 years ago, the Old Ones withdrew gradually to undersea cities off the antarctic coast and to an abyss of underground water near their antarctic city, kept warm by the Earth's internal heat. There the Old Ones built a new city, partly out of reused elements from the old one. On exploring a tunnel leading downward from the antarctic city toward this abyss, Dyer and Danforth encountered a shoggoth and concluded that that entire race of the Old Ones had probably been destroyed by their shoggoth slaves. NyarlathotepRobert Blake said that the Shining Trapezohedron was fashioned on Yuggoth, and the Old Ones later brought it to earth. The Old Ones treasured it and placed it in its curious box. This fact suggests a link between the Old Ones and Nyarlathotep, since the Shining Trapezohedron is a device for summoning an avatar of that being. Captives of the Great RaceThe psychically-transplanted captives of the Great Race included some from the winged, star-headed, half-vegetable race of paleogean Antarctica. The Great Race sometimes waged war against the winged, star-headed Old Ones who centered in the antarctic. S'gg'ha, a captive mind from the star-headed vegetable carnivores of Antarctica, chiselled pictures on the walls in the city of the Great Race in Western Australia.
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Post by Yahn'ikthorn on Mar 13, 2008 9:50:34 GMT -6
THE MI-GO or FUNGI FROM YUGGOTH or OUTER ONESA race of fungoid, crablike alien beings with outposts on earth. AnatomyThe bodies of the Outer Ones resemble a five-foot long, pink crab with many pairs of legs and two bat-like wings in the middle of the back. The head is a convoluted ellipsoid, resembling a pyramided set of rings or knots of thick ropy stuff, all covered with multitudes of very short antennae. Sometimes they walk on all their legs, sometimes on the hindmost pair only, using the others to carry objects. The footprints or clawprints of the Outer Ones are hideously crab-like. The prints are about the size of a human foot, with a central pad from which pairs of saw-toothed nippers projected in opposite directions, thus making it difficult to infer the direction of travel. The Outer Ones are more vegetable than animal, and have a somewhat fungoid structure. Their blood or juice is a foul-smelling, green sticky stuff, perhaps because of the presence of a chlorophyll-like substance. The Outer Ones have subtle senses that do not require light, for they originated in the outer void where there is no light. Light even hurts and hampers and confuses them. They seem to generally avoid moonlight; though on one occasion, one was seen flying past the full moon. The Outer Ones usually communicate telepathically. However, they have rudimentary vocal organs that can be surgically modified to allow them to emulate speech. Their voices have a severe buzzing quality. The Outer Ones are able to live in interstellar space and fly through it with their wings, which have a way of resisting the ether. The Outer Ones' wings are too poor at steering to be of much use traveling on earth. Nevertheless, one specimen was seen flying from a hilltop, and Akeley feared that the Outer Ones were learning to steer better with their space wings. The Outer Ones can be seen by humans, but are invisible to ordinary cameras, due to being composed of matter alien to our part of space. However, a chemist with the right knowledge could create a photograpic emulsion that would capture their images. After the Outer Ones die, their bodies evaporate in a few hours. OriginThe Outer Ones originated in a black cosmos outside time and space, far outside the Einsteinian space-time continuum or greatest known cosmos. Most of the Outer Ones still inhabit strangely organized abysses of infinite vastness, outside the space-time globule that we consider to be the cosmos. The Pennacook myths taught that the Outer Ones came from the Great Bear in the sky. YuggothSome of the Outer Ones populated the dark planet Yuggoth (Pluto), at the rim of our solar system, amidst the giant ruins left by some elder race. Albert Wilmarth spoke to Georg Reuter Fischer of the Outer Ones as "Plutonians". Earth and the Old OnesAccording to Von Junzt, the Outer Ones colonized earth before terrestrial life. However, according to Prof. Dyer, the Outer Ones seem to have arrived later, during the Jurassic age. The Outer Ones invaded earth from Pluto and drove the crinoid Old Ones out of the northern lands. The Mi-Go were composed of more exotic matter than the Old Ones, and were able to undergo transformations and reintegrations impossible for the latter. Dyer wondered whether the Mi-Go were still a threat during the declining years of the Old Ones. Mu and Yaddith-GhoAccording to Von Junzt, the Outer Ones left monstrous ruins in a region that later became the human kingdom of K'naa, on Mu. The Outer Ones perished from that region aeons before humans arrived, but left behind a fortress atop Yaddith-Gho, wherein dwelt their demon-god Ghatanothoa, who later became a bane to the human population. Continuing OutpostsThe Outer Ones maintain a secret colony on this planet, with outposts including ones in Vermont and on certain remote peaks in the Old World. Albert Wilmarth compared the sightings of Outer Ones to the legends of Mi-Go or Abominable Snow-Men of the Himalayas. The formerly human brain called B-67 told Wilmarth that he originally met the Outer Ones in the Himalayas. There are multiple varieties of the Outer Ones, and only the variety represented in Vermont is able to bodily fly through space without mechanical aid or special surgery. Those Outer Ones inhabiting certain remote peaks in the Old World were brought in other ways. MetallurgistsAccording to Pennacook legends, the Outer Ones have mines on earth where they take a mineral they cannot get from any other world. According to Von Junzt, the Outer Ones also brought a special metal from Yuggoth; this lagh metal cannot be found in any mine on earth. HumanityFor the most part, the Outer Ones are content to let mankind alone, as long as we stay away from certain mountains and valleys where they are active. However, the Outer Ones have occasionally been known to accost lone travelers with surprising offers. They have alliances with certain members of the human race. Akeley got information from a human who spied for the Outer Ones and later killed himself; Akeley believed that there were other spies, including Walter Brown (q.v.). Pseudo-Akeley said that the Outer Ones have an increasing desire to make themselves known to humanity and establish peaceful coexistence, now that mankind's increasing knowledge is making it more and more difficult for the Outer Ones' outposts to exist secretly on this planet. The Outer Ones apparently inspired humanity to discover Yuggoth (the planet Pluto). According to pseudo-Akeley, there is a secret cult of men who oppose the Outer Ones. Pseudo-Akeley linked them to Hastur and the Yellow Sign, and claimed that the cult works on behalf of monstrous powers from other dimensions. Bringers of Strange GodsArmitage came to believe that the foulest legends of secret myth were first brought to earth by the Outer Ones. Randolph Carter believed that Winged Ones had came to Earth to teach the Elder Lore to man. As noted previously, the Outer Ones brought the demon-god Ghatonothoa to earth. The Outer Ones reverence Cthulhu, Tsathogguah, Shub-Niggurath, the Lord of the Woods, Azathoth, and Nyarlathotep. They worship Yog-Sothoth as the Beyond-One. Earth CreaturesDogs and other earthly beasts have always hated the Outer Ones. The region around Akeley's house was devoid of animal life. Akeley's dogs apparently kept the Outer Ones at bay. ResemblancesProfessor Dyer, when he saw the Antarctic city of the crinoid Old Ones, was reminded of various primal legends, including the Mi-Go or Abominable Snowmen of the Himalayas. The specimens of the crinoid Old Ones reminded Lake of stories of other elder entities, including the Albert Wilmarth's stories of the Outer Ones.
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Post by Yahn'ikthorn on Mar 13, 2008 10:08:14 GMT -6
And here come our favorites... THE SPAWN OF CTHULHUA land race of beings shaped like octopi, who filtered down to earth from remote gulfs of interstellar space. They were composed of matter widely different from what we know, and were able to undergo transformations and reintegrations. They fought a monstrous war against the crinoid Old Ones who were already present on earth. Eventually peace was made; the Cthulhu spawn retained the lands recently risen from the South Pacific, while the remains of their Antarctic cities were obliterated by the Old Ones. This Pacific landmass included the city of R'lyeh, and it was the Cthulhu spawn who brought the R'lyehian language to earth. Later, the lands of the Pacific suddenly sank, and obliterated all the Cthulhu spawn. The Cthulhu spawn should not be confused with the Deep Ones, another race with links to Cthulhu; for the Deep Ones have fishlike and froglike attributes rather than being octopoid, and live underwater, unlike the Cthulhu spawn who were land dwellers. On the other hand, the Cthulhu spawn might be the same as the Great Old Ones, whose appearance is not known, and who lie in R'lyeh, protected and yet also trapped by Cthulhu's protective spells. * * * They are of course related to the following: DREAD CTHULHU and the GREAT OLD ONESAn alien being, said to be the priest of the Great Old Ones. Cthulhu preserved the Great Old Ones with spells, so they can survive until the stars are "right" again. Cthulhu is of vaguely anthropoid outline, with a scaly, rubbery-looking, green, sticky, bloated body. The head is octopus-like, the face covered with tentacles or feelers. There are prodigious claws on the hind and fore feet. Two long, thin, rudimentary wings rise behind. In a dream, Cthulhu appeared to be "miles high" and was later compared to a "mountain" in size. It is not clear whether Cthulhu resembles the other Great Old Ones, for "none might say whether the others were precisely like him". Deathless Chinamen and Naked SavagesThe Great Old Ones have the ability to communicate telepathically with humans, and in ancient times inspired a cult of human worshippers by revealing the location of various small carved idols that had been brought from the stars. But this communication ended when R'lyeh sank beneath the ocean, for thought cannot pass through the deep waters. The cult exists hidden in distant wastes and dark places all over the world. The cult has been observed among a singular tribe of Esquimaux on the West Greenland coast as well as among a mob of mix-blooded West Indians, mulattos and negros in a swamp south of New Orleans. There are undying leaders of the cult in the mountains of China. When the stars come right again, the secret priests of the cult will take Cthulhu from His tomb to revive His subjects and resume His rule of Earth.The most detailed account of the cult worship comes from Inspector Legrasse, who raided a ritual in a Louisiana swamp on November 1, 1907. Naked worshippers danced counterclockwise in a circle around a bonfire with a pillar surmounted by a small carving of Cthulhu. The cultists erected ten scaffolds where they hung victims head down; the victims were slain by Black Winged Ones from a haunted wood. The ritual may also have been witnessed by a monstrous white bulk with shining eyes in the distance. A Brief ResurgenceIn the spring of 1925, there was a brief period of increased psychic influence on the part of Cthulhu or the Great Old Ones generally: On the night of February 28 to March 1, 1925, an earthquake occurred in New England and the artist Henry Anthony Wilcox dreamed of Cthulhu. Starting on February 28, artists and poets began having bizarre and frightening dreams. Also on March 1, the schooner Emma was thrown off her course by a great "earthquake-born" storm in the South Pacific. It appears that this is the earthquake that threw a portion of the sunken city of R'lyeh to the surface. On March 23, the crew of the Emma landed on on previously unknown island, a portion of newly-risen R'lyeh. There, the hapless sailor Donovan seems to have been responsible for opening a great door that allowed Cthulhu to emerge. After killing some of the sailors, Cthulhu swam after their ship until they reversed direction and used the ship to ram Him. This did not kill Cthulhu, however, for He started to recombine afterward. Presumably as a result of Cthulhu's emergence from His lair, the psychic influence intensified on the night of March 22-23, when Wilcox lapsed into a delirium. During the night of March 22-23, New York police were mobbed by hysterical Levantines. During the period from March 23-April 2, even average people in society and business reported uneasy but formless nocturnal impressions. The psychic influence abated on April 2 when another storm occurred in the South Pacific and the dreamer Wilcox in New England recovered from his delirium. Poets, artists, and ordinary people stopped being troubled by the bizarre nocturnal visions. These events presumably mark the sinking of R'lyeh back to the ocean depths, and Cthulhu's return to entrapment. Among the events in this period, it is not at all clear why R'lyeh rose or sank again; whether through random geologic processes, or because the stars were nearly "right," or as a result of ritual activities on the part of the cultists. Also, given that R'lyeh sank again, it is not explained why Cthulhu went down with it, since he had already escaped from His lair and shown His ability to swim. Alien CultsAbdul Alhazred was a worshipper of both Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth. Alhazred wrote that Cthulhu is a cousin of those "Old Ones" associated with Yog-Sothoth, but can spy them only dimly. The Necronomicon hints of the Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth myth cycles, which antedate the coming of man to the earth Prehuman. Cthulhu seeped down from the stars when the earth was still half-formed. There seems to be a strong alliance between Cthulhu and the Deep Ones. Thus, while discussing the beliefs of the Esoteric Order of Dagon at Innsmouth, Zadok Allen quoted the invocation to Cthulhu: Ph'nglui mglw'nafh , etc. The Innsmouth narrator dreamed that the Deep Ones will someday rise again to give the tribute Cthulhu craves. As he contemplated his change into a Deep One, the Innsmouth narrator wrote praises to Cthulhu and R'lyeh. The Outer Ones were also linked to Cthulhu. Folklore researcher Henry Akeley wrote of Cthulhu in a letter to Wilmarth. Cthulhu was among the entities praised during a May-Eve ritual in a Vermont cave, performed by an Outer One and a human. The being impersonating Henry Akeley said that the Outer Ones arrived on Earth long before the fabulous epoch of Cthulhu was over, and remember R'lyeh when it was above the waters. This being also told Wilmarth from whence Cthulhu first came. The Children of TuluThe Old Ones of K'n-yan worshipped an octopoid being named Tulu; the Mound narrator identified this being with folklore of monstrous and unmentioned Cthulhu, who seeped down from the stars while the earth was still half-formed. Heaton referred to the Old Ones as the children of Tulu. Capt. George Lawton babbled of Great Tulu after visiting K'n-yan. Grey Eagle's protective talisman included a design of a kind of octopoid monster. Charging Buffalo said that the Old Ones worshipped Yig and Tulu. Inside the passageway leading to K'n-yan, Zamacona observed carvings of Yig and Tulu. Zamacona stumbled on a temple with a statue of an octopus-headed abnormality; the temples of Cthulhu were the most richly constructed objects in all K'n-yan. These temples were surrounded by embowering groves. Zamacona watched the subtle orgiastic rites at such temples with fascinated repulsion. The Old Ones of K'n-yan traditionally believed that Tulu first brought them to this planet, along with the Tulu metal. By Zamacona's time, the Old Ones were not sure of the historical truth of these legends, but still referenced Tulu for aesthetic reasons. Great Tulu was regarded as a spirit of universal harmony. The Old Ones believed that the wrath of space-devils had lead to the submergence of the gods, including Tulu. Zamacona's dreams of the abyss of N'kai shocked the leaders of Yig and Tulu worship. Zamacona observed statues to Yig and Tulu in a tunnel leading up to the outer world; later, the Mound narrator also viewed them. Other ConnectionsRogers Museum included a statue of many-tentacled Cthulhu. Stephen Jones fancied that the long facial tentacles of the Cthulhu statue seemed to sway. Marceline Bedard played a part in a frightful secret from the days of Cthulhu and the Elder Ones. The specimens of the crinoid Old Ones of Antarctica reminded Lake of folkloric things spoken of by Wilmarth, such as Cthulhu cult appendages. The city of the Old Ones reminded Dyer of primal myths such as the Cthulhu cult.
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Post by Yahn'ikthorn on Mar 13, 2008 10:10:16 GMT -6
And the children of Dagon and Hydra... THE DEEP ONESAn amphibious race that lives generally hidden beneath the earth's oceans. In appearance, they are said to be both frog-like and fish-like. Their form is vaguely anthropoid, but with long webbed paws and gills in their necks. Their skin is shiny and slippery, but with scaly ridges on their backs. The are largely greyish-green in color, but with white bellies. When on land, they hop irregularly, sometimes on two legs and sometimes on four. The Deep Ones have cities on the sea-bottom. Some of their stone ruins can be found on two islands east of Otaheiti (Tahiti). On the larger island, the ruins resemble those on Ponape, but also include carved faces like the big statues on Easter Island. The smaller, volcanic island has ruins with different carvings: much-worn images of awful monters. When the latter island arose suddenly to the surface, the local human population visited it and found some of the Deep Ones still alive within the stone buildings. This meeting seems to have been at least 200 years ago. The meeting lead to mutual trade between the humans and the Deep Ones, with the Deep Ones providing gold ornaments and abundant fish in return for the sacrifices of young humans on May-Eve and Halloween. Later, the Deep Ones began holding joint ceremonies with the humans, and then began interbreeding with them. This inbreeding is possible because humans are related to the Deep Ones, since all life originally came from the sea. The offspring of such matches look human at first, but progressively become more and more like the Deep Ones, and finally leave the land to join the Deep Ones underwater. Such beings never die from old age or disease, but can be killed by violence. Sometime after the war of 1812, Capt. Obed Marsh of Innsmouth, Mass. learned of the Deep Ones from the islanders and began trading with them in the South Seas. Then around 1838, those islanders were slaughtered between Marsh's voyages, perhaps by neighboring islanders, and the stone carvings of the Deep Ones were largely destroyed. After that, Marsh persuaded the people of Innsmouth to begin commerce directly with the Deep Ones off Devil Reef, near Innsmouth. See: Innsmouth. The Deep Ones, and their human allies, apparently venerate the beings Father Dagon and Mother Hydra, and Cthulhu. However, the Deep Ones seemingly cannot be the same as the Cthulhu spawn, since the latter appeared octopoid rather than frog/fishlike, and were a land-dwelling species. The Deep Ones are vulnerable to certain signs that were once used by the lost "Old Ones". See: magic signs. The narrator of Dagon may have witnessed a Deep One on a newly-risen island. However, this being was of giant size, and apparently akin to other similar beings shown in carvings to be the size of whales. Such beings may represent a larger genus of the Deep Ones. Alternatively, the being in Dagon may be Father Dagon himself, who might be larger than his Deep Ones followers.
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Post by Yahn'ikthorn on Mar 13, 2008 10:19:45 GMT -6
And the mysterious, feared POLYPOUS ELDER THINGSA race of alien entities from immeasurably distant universes who dominated the earth and three other solar planets about 600 million years ago. They were only partly material, but could wield material tools. They are described as "half-polypous." This may denote a partial resemblance to terrestrial life forms such as sea anemones, which have a cylindrical body plan with a mouth at one end, usually surrounded by tentacles. However, they were capable of changing their body shape at will, and also of temporarily becoming invisible. Their type of consciousness and sense perceptions differed widely from those of terrestrial organisms. The Elder Things had no eyesight, but their senses could penetrate all material barriers. The Elder Things could control the wind and even harness it for military purposes. They could also fly through the air (despite a lack of any wings). Their footprints occurred in groups of three; each was about a foot square, and consisted of five circular marks, one in advance of the other four. They were associated with singular whistling noises. After settling on earth, the Elder Things dwelt in great cities of windowless basalt towers and in adjoining underground caverns. The Elder Things preyed horribly on the earth beings they found, including the cone-creatures. However, when the Great Race took over the minds of the cone-creatures, they waged war against the Elder Things. The Great Race could not exchange minds with the Elder Things, since their type of conciousness was too alien. However, the Elder Things could be destroyed by certain types of electrical energy; and the Great Race battled them using camera-like weapons which produced tremendous electrical effects. The Elder Things were defeated and driven underground. The Great Race placed gigantic sealed trapdoors over the entrances. Something less than 50 million years ago, the Elder Things temporarily errupted from their underground lairs to take vengeance against the Great Race. Ironically, however, the minds of the Great Race had already escaped to the future, to the bodies of the post-human beetle race. So the revenge of the Elder Things was really exacted against hapless captive minds of the beetle race who were stuck in the cone-creature bodies at that point. Thereafter, the Elder Things again withdrew underground and gradually died out. The Elder Things are hinted of in the beliefs of Australian aborigines, who preserve legends of underground huts from which a frightful wind sometimes blows. * * * I hope this is helpful, as copy/pasteing and editing all this certainly cleared things out for me a little bit. I think cthulhufiles.com has taken most of these descriptions straight out of HPL stories so they should be pretty genuine & unadulterated Mythos. Enjoy!
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Post by I AM the Way on Mar 13, 2008 10:22:18 GMT -6
nice work, Takuan!
VS
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Post by Yahn'ikthorn on Mar 13, 2008 12:05:19 GMT -6
Two more since these are mentioned pretty often too... NIGHT-GAUNTSOf the dream-world. Thin, black, winged beings that dwell in caves near the peak of Mt. Ngranek. The night-gaunts sometimes kidnap the lava-gatherers on Mt. Ngranek's lower slopes, and those that were taken are never seen again. The people of Oriab are unsure that night-gaunts are altogether fabulous. The night-gaunts are most prone to haunt the dreams of those who think too often of them. The night-gaunts have cold, damp, slippery, rubbery black skin. They have only a blank surface where a face should be. Lacking eyes, they see with the whole surface of their bodies. On their heads are two horns that curve inward toward each other. They have prehensile claws and two-pronged tails. Their membraneous bat-wings make no sound, neither do they ever speak or laugh. While carrying their kidnapped victims through the air, the night-gaunts tickle them with subtlety and deliberation. The duty of the night-gaunts is to capture any who venture too near the peak of Ngranek, and bear the interloper through the caves near the summit, to a dark inner realm. There they pass the fabled Peaks of Throk, and finally deposit their victim in the Vale of Pnath. The night-gaunts also dwell in caves near the top of the peaks that divide Inganok from the plateau of Leng, where they cause great fear among the shantak-birds. Even the Great Ones fear the night-gaunts, for the latter own not Nyarlathotep but only hoary Nodens as their lord. Nevertheless, the Other Gods are able to control the night-gaunts when they must. The night-gaunts are bound by solemn treaties with the ghouls. The night-gaunts and ghouls communicate by means of ugly gestures. The night-gaunts do not care to fly over water, but are able to overcome their fear when necessary. Randolph Carter wondered if the night-gaunts were responsible for killing his zebra, whose blood was drained from a wound in its throat during the night. The beings responsible also stole Carter's shiny knick-knacks and left great webbed footprints. Randolph Carter was kidnapped by the night-gaunts and left in the Vale of Pnath. Later, the ghoul Richard Upton Pickman taught Carter a password that would be recognized by the night-gaunts. The night-gaunts helped Carter to rescue three ghouls from the moon-beasts, then participated in an attack on the moon-beasts. They accompanied Carter to Kadath to confront the Great Ones, but vanished from Kadath due to the intervention of the Other Gods. Rogers' Museum had a figure of a lean, rubbery night-gaunt. * * * GHOULSA race of beings that burrows through human graveyards and eats the bodies of the dead. Ghouls are roughly bipedal, but with a forward slumping, and vaguely canine cast. The skin has an unpleasant rubberiness, and is caked with mould. Their doglike faces have glaring red, bloodshot eyes; pointed ears, flat nose, and drooling lips. Their claws are bony and scaly; their feet are half-hooved. Aside from haunting graveyards and eating corpses, they sometimes also attack people in their homes, while they are asleep. The ghouls leave their spawn in cradles in exchange for the human babies they steal. The ghouls teach the human children to feed off corpse-flesh like they do. The children of ghouls can pass for human among their human families, but have an unholy attitude. Boston and PickmanThe Boston artist Richard Upton Pickman created numerous paintings of ghouls. From details of Pickman's paintings, Thurber inferred that the ghouls are linked to human beings by evolution; the ghouls are actually developed from human mortals. Pickman himself was gradually devolving, losing human attributes and gaining ghoulish ones. Either he was born with ghoulish ancestry, or found some way to unlock the forbidden gate. Based on Pickman's paintings, the ghouls infested at least a portion of Puritan New England in colonial times; Pickman hinted at their presence in Salem during the witch-hunts. Pickman also recorded the ghouls in the Boston of the 1920's. Pickman spoke of a network of underground tunnels surviving under the North End from colonial times, all apparently infested by ghouls. The painting "Subway Accident" showed ghouls attacking people at the Boylston Street subway station, while another showed ghouls dancing at the Copp's Hill burial ground. Other paintings implied that the ghouls infest Beacon Hill and have savored the corpses of famous Amercans at Mount Auburn cemetary. Passeways to Dream Ghouls are also able to visit the dream-world, even while still awake. It seems that the ghouls frequent various abysses beneath the earth's surface. These abysses are connected by burrows to at least two regions beneath the dreamlands: the Great Abyss and the kingdom of the Gugs. In the Great Abyss, the ghouls live on a dim-litten plain, which is flat except for great boulders and burrows. This plain is in fact the flat summit of the crag of ghouls, which rises near the peaks of Throk. The ghouls on this plain throw offal over the edge, whence it falls into the vale of Pnath miles below. From somewhere within the Great Abyss, it is possible to access the upper dreamlands by climbing the black nitrous stairways that lead up to the deserted city of Sarkomand in Leng, in upper dreamland. Alternatively, ghouls can follow burrows from earth's abysses to the kingdom of the Gugs. Risking attack from both gugs and ghasts, ghouls can travel through the gug kingdom to the tower of Koth. Ascending the steps within, they can reach the stone trapdoor that leads up into the enchanted wood, in upper dreamland. Ghouls do not like to use the route that mortal dreamers follow between the waking world and the dream-world, for the ghouls do not like to pass the priests Nasht and Kaman-Thah in the cavern of flame. Though ghouls are capable of reaching upper dreamland, they generally do no business there, leaving the web-footed wamps to frequent the graveyards of dreamland. Hence, ghouls are not knowledgeable of the geography of upper dreamland. Masters and AlliesThe ghouls have no masters, and do not owe allegiance to the Other Gods or Nyarlathotep. However, the Other Gods can control the ghouls when they must. The ghouls are bound by solemn treaties with the night-gaunts. The ghouls and night-gaunts communicate by means of ugly gestures. On the Dream-Quest with Randolph Carter The ghoul Richard Upton Pickman loaned Randolph Carter three ghouls to guide him through the gug kingdom and up the tower of Koth. Later, these three ghouls were taken prisoner in Dylath-Leen by the almost-human merchants, and taken to the jagged rock of the moon-things in the northern sea, and thence to Sarkomand where they were tortured. After Carter discovered their plight, he alerted the other ghouls who, together with their allies the night-gaunts, ventured up to Sarkomand in force to rescue their fellows. Subsequently, the ghouls, the night-gaunts and Carter, led an assault on the moon-things at their rock in the northern sea. The ghouls secured victory, but over a fourth of their party was killed in the day's battle. Carter discouraged "the old ghoulish custom of killing and eating one's own wounded". Then the army of ghouls and night-gaunts agreed to accompany Carter to Kadath where he planned to confront the Great Ones. Towards the end of their flight, the army was sucked forward by a might wind. After arriving at Kadath, the ghouls and night-gaunts disappeared; apparently either banished or destroyed by the might of Nyarlathotep and the Other Gods. Related ReferencesWhen the Outsider narrator saw himself in a mirror, he described himself as ghoulish. Later, he rode with the mocking and friendly ghouls on the night-wind. Nevertheless, he seems not to have been related to Pickman's type of ghouls, for the minimal description stresses that he is putrid, dripping, and eaten-away to reveal the bones. The Outsider seems to resemble a disinterred corpse rather than the doglike ghouls of Pickman's ilk.
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Post by Yahn'ikthorn on Mar 13, 2008 12:13:13 GMT -6
And even more... GUGSOf the dream-world. The gugs are hairy and gigantic beings, twenty feet in height. A buried gug will feed a community of ghouls for almost a year. Its arm is covered with black fur and bifurcates into two short forearms, with a paw each. Each paw is two and a half feet across, with formidable talons. The head is as large as a barrel, with two pink eyes that jut two inches from each side, shaded by bony protuberances overgrown with coarse hairs. The mouth runs vertically from the top to the bottom of the head, and has great yellow fangs. The gugs have no voice, but talk by means of facial expression. However, their hearing is very sharp, and they have grown accustomed to seeing without light when necessary. The terrible kingdom of the gugs intervenes between the gulf of the ghouls and the enchanted wood. A great wall separates the ghouls from the gugs' kingdom. The gugs' city extends through their whole kingdom. The city has round towers of immense height, with thirty foot doorways. The gugs once lived in the enchanted wood, where they reared stone circles and made sacrifies to the Other Gods and the crawling chaos Nyarlathotep. Then an abomination of theirs reached the ears of the Great Ones, who banished them to caverns below. Only a stone trapdoor with a great iron ring connects their realm with the enchanted wood, and the gugs are afraid to open it because of a curse. A central tower with the sign of Koth has stairs leading from their caverns up to the stone trap-door. The steps are nearly a yard high. Near the Tower of Koth is a cemetary and also the mouth of the vaults of Zin. Formerly, the gugs ate mortal dreamers for their food, and they have legends of the toothsomeness of such dreamers. But since their exile to the caverns, their diet is restricted to the ghasts. The gugs venture into the vaults of Zin to hunt ghasts in the dark. However, during the gugs' hour of rest, the ghasts sneak out of the vaults of Zin to attack the sleeping gugs. The gugs are somewhat afraid of ghouls, but would still attack the latter if circumstances were sufficiently advantageous. The night-gaunts planned to feed the conquered moon-beasts to gugs and other creatures of the Great Abyss. * * * GHASTSOf the dream-world. Primitive creatures who live in the pitch-dark Vaults of Zin, which connects to the underground realm of the gugs. The ghasts are the main food of the gugs, who enter the Vaults of Zin to hunt them. In turn, the ghasts creep forth during the sleeping-hour of the gugs to attack them while they are defenseless. The ghasts cannot discriminate among victims, and so they attack ghouls as readily as gugs, and even eat each other. Light is fatal to the ghasts, though they can tolerate the twilight of the gugs' kingdom for hours. Their sense of smell is very sharp. Ghasts are the size of a small horse. Their aspect is scabrous and unwholesome, filthy and disproportioned. Their faces are curiously human despite the absence of a nose, a forehead, and other important particulars. They have yellowish-red eyes. They have long hind legs and hard pointed hooves. They move by grubbing about or making kangaroo leaps. They speak in coughing gutterals. The ghasts often hop up the steps in the Tower of Koth while the gugs sleep. The gugs often chase escaped ghasts up to the very top of the tower. The night-gaunts planned to feed the conquered moon-beasts to ghasts and other creatures of the Great Abyss.
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Madguten
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Post by Madguten on Mar 13, 2008 17:39:37 GMT -6
Excellent, excellent, excellent! ;D
I am not done reading yet, but i just had to compliment this great topic.
Why didnt i think of this. ;D
Great job bringing this to us.
IA! IA!
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Post by Shaz'rahjeem on Mar 13, 2008 19:12:08 GMT -6
This is a sweet thread.
This thread should be ut into a small book. I deffinatly think we should right a book, about all the types of aliens from mythos, and different planets, astral planes, mythos and astrology etc. As cult group we could work on it. contibuting to its completion.
just a thought
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Post by Yahn'ikthorn on Mar 14, 2008 2:49:58 GMT -6
There already exist (how many I don't know) Lovecraft bestiary books, I haven't read them though...
If nobody else does it first, I'll try to cover the various gods next...
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Post by Yahn'ikthorn on Mar 14, 2008 8:47:22 GMT -6
THE HOUNDS OF TINDALOSBeings from before life began, who exist in angular time and normally cannot enter curved time, where we reside. Halpin Chalmers saw them in a vision while under the influence of the Liao drug. Their existence is the result of an un unspeakable deed that was done in the beginning. They are symbolized in the myth of the Fall: the tree, the snake, and the apple; as well as in an obscene form that is occasionally found engraved on ancient tablets. All the evil in the universe is concentrated in them. Yet they are not evil in our sense, for where they dwell there is no thought or moral, no right or wrong. There is only the pure and the foul. They are that which fell away from cleanliness at the beginning of time. They hunger for that part of humans that is pure, that is descended from a curve that emerged from the primal deed without stain. They have no bodies, or possibly they have lean, hungry bodies. They are lean, hungry and athirst. They scented Chalmers in time. Chalmers heard their breathing. When he saw them coming towards him, Chalmers began writhing about on the floor of his apartment and barking like a dog. Chalmers called these beings the Hounds of Tindalos, but didn't explain the origin of the name. A pungeant, nauseating odor becomes noticeable when they are nearby. They move slowly through outrageous angles. Chalmers said that the Hounds can reach us only through angles, and he tried to remove the angles from his room by using plaster to smooth the corners. Unfortunately an earthquake dislodged the plaster, leaving the angles exposed, and the Hounds were able to enter after all. The Hounds left a bluish slime on Chalmer's body. The scientist James Morton examined the slime and concluded that it was from an unknown form of life that lacks all enzymes, and thus potentially is immortal. Thomas Granville saw the Hounds of Tindalos in a painting that came to life at the home of a researcher into consciousness-expanding drugs. To Granville they appeared vaguely wolf-like, with blazing eyes and clashing jaws; but their forms changed rapidly as they moved, as if reshaped from moment to moment by all the evil in the universe. Pseudo-Akeley told Albert Wilmarth the essence, though not the source, of the Hounds of Tindalos. A little man said the Book reveals the ultimate source of the Hounds of Tindalos, "who live in a chaotic, nebular universe at the very rim of space, and who are in league with those Outer Ones". Winfield Phillips read about the Hounds of Tindalos in manuscripts that Seneca Lapham had borrowed or photocopied from Miskatonic Library.
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Post by luxcthonis on Mar 14, 2008 8:48:45 GMT -6
Don't forget the DHOLES!!!
hehehe
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Post by Yahn'ikthorn on Mar 14, 2008 8:53:10 GMT -6
SHOGGOTHSIntelligent, protoplasmic masses that were created by the crinoid Old Ones to serve as their slaves. These beings could mould their tissues into all sorts of temporary organs under hypnotic influence, to perform a variety of heavy work. Their expansions could be made to lift prodigious weights, including the stones that formed the vast cities of the Old Ones. The shoggoths were the primary beast of burden for the Old Ones in their underwater cities, though other creatures were used on land. The Things that Should Not BeThe shoggoths are composed of a viscous black, iridescent jelly, like an agglutination of bubbles. They average about fifteen feet in diameter when a sphere. However, their shape and volume constantly shift, as they form temporary organs, including those of sight, hearing, and speech. Shoggoths reproduce by fission. The shoggoth that Dyer and Danforth saw was faintly self-luminous, with myriads of glowing green eyes forming and unforming as it moved. Shoggoths have an apalling odour that is different from, and worse than, the smell of the Old Ones. Rebel ScumWhile working as slaves of the Old Ones , the shoggoths gradually developed a semi-stable brain and an occasionally stubborn volition. The shoggoths became particularly intractable around the middle of the Permian age. Then the Old Ones fought a war of resubjugation, and were able to subdue the shoggoths through the use of weapons of molecular disturbance. Though the shoggoths showed an ability to live out of the water during the rebellion, the Old Ones returned them to living only underwater, since they were considered more difficult to manage on land. During the rebellion, when the shoggoths killed Old Ones, they would tear off the heads and leave the dead bodies coated with glistening, reflectively iridescent black slime. In their final, decadent phase, the Old Ones used shoggoths to build their new city in the underground sea beneath Antarctica. By this stage, the shoggoths grew to enormous size and singular intelligence, and could take and execute orders with marvelous quickness. They conversed with the Old Ones by mimicking their voices: a sort of musical piping over a wide range. They came to work more from spoken commands than hypnotic suggestions as in earlier times. Dyer and Danforth encountered a shoggoth that made the sound "Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li! " in musical piping tones. The two scientists inferred that this sound was the imitated voice of the shoggoths' bygone masters, the Old Ones. Danforth hinted that Poe had secret sources when he wrote of the call "Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li! " in his novel Arthur Gordon Pym. Eventually the shoggoths could even mimic the Old Ones' writing with dots of slime. The Shoggoths TriumphAfter the Antarctic became colder, the Old Ones adapted some of the shoggoths to land life, to perform needed work in their Antarctic land city. It is likely that the shoggoths finally killed all the Old Ones in the subterranean water city. At any rate, shoggoths now frequent the passages leading from the Antarctic land city down to the underwater city. The shoggoths have replaced some of the Old One's bas-reliefs with carvings of their own, which are decorative and conventional in nature, composed of a series of crude spirals and angles. Those Old Ones who were accidentally wakened by the Miskatonic University Antarctic Expedition, were later slain by shoggoths when the Old Ones attempted to make their way to the city in the underground sea. Shoggoths AbroadAbdul Alhazred was apparently ignorant of the history of the shoggoths on this planet, Though Alhazred wrote of shoggoths in the Necronomicon , he did not hint that they ever existed on earth, except in the dreams of those who had chewed a certain alkaloidal herb. The shoggoths have survived to modern times in other locations, aside from Antarctica. Thus, Zadok Allen hinted that the Deep Ones had brought, or were planning to bring, shoggoths to Innsmouth. If already present, the shoggoths are apparently in the houses north of the river between Water and Main Streets. The Innsmouth narrator saw a shoggoth in his dreams of the Deep Ones, and woke up in a frenzy of screaming. Based on these references, the shoggoths appear to be allied with the Deep Ones. Edward Pickman Derby visited the pit of the shoggoths, while he was possessed by Asenath Waite, only to awake there in terror when his own consciousness returned to his body. The pit is located down the six thousand steps, somewhere near Chesuncook, Maine. Later, Derby raved about the pit of the shoggoths when he felt Waite struggling to take over his brain again. Note that Waite was originally from Innsmouth. Beneath the dreamlands, shoggoths frequent a foul lake in nether pits that are visited by the night-gaunts. This is somewhere near the peaks of Throk in the Great Abyss. The shoggoths at that lake are said to be puffed and in doubtful sleep. When the Old Ones of K'n-yan explored the black abyss of N'kai, they found amorphous lumps of viscous black slime that took temporary shapes for various purposes. Though these beings were not referred to by name, their description certainly resembles shoggoths. These particular beings oozed along stone channels and worshipped onyx and basalt images of Tsathoggua.
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Post by Yahn'ikthorn on Mar 14, 2008 14:36:24 GMT -6
But of course not, here they come: DHOLES or BHOLESCreatures of earth's dream-world, and also of an ancient planet called Yaddith. In the dream-world, the bholes crawl and creep nastily in in terrible valleys guarded by the fabled Peaks of Thok. Randolph Carter encountered one of them there in the Vale of Pnath. Their size is enormous, at least fifteen or twenty feet in height, and of unknown length. In the dream-world, no one has ever seen one, or even guessed what it might look like. Bholes are known only from the rustling they make amongst mountains of bones and the slimy touch they have when they wriggle past one. They cannot be seen because they creep only in the dark. The night-gaunts planned to feed the conquered moon-beasts to bholes and other creatures of the Great Abyss. In the distant past, on the planet Yaddith, the duties of the wizard Zkauba included weaving spells to keep the frightful bholes in their burrows. There were hideous struggles with the bleached, viscous bholes in the primal tunnels that honeycombed the planet. Zkauba observed a bhole that reared up several hundred feet. Eventually, Yaddith became a dead world dominated by triumpant bholes. Note: The term bholes is rendered as dholes in uncorrected editions of Lovecraft's stories.
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Post by Yahn'ikthorn on Mar 14, 2008 15:50:27 GMT -6
ZOOGSA race of beings in the world of dream. They are furtive and secretive beings who dwell in burrows or tree-trunks. They are small and curious, and usually unseen. One sees their weird eyes long before one can discern their slippery brown outlines. The zoogs' speech consists of fluttering sounds. Although they eat mostly fungi, they are not above occasionally eating animals or visiting dreamers. The zoogs make a wine from the fermented sap of a moon-tree (a treen grown from a seed dropt down by someone on the moon). The zoogs dwell in the enchanted wood, just past the Gate of Deeper Slumber in the world of dream. They cannot travel far outside the world of dream, but range freely over the nearer parts of the dream-world. One of their villages is near an old circle of mossy stone, where elder beings danced and sacrificed. The zoogs fear and shun a stone slab with a huge iron ring, which leads down to the realm where the Gugs were banished. The zoog Council of Sages recognized Randolph Carter as an old ally. Some zoogs who followed Carter to Ulthar were slain by the local cats, after at least one of the zoogs tried to eat a kitten. Later Carter overheard the zoogs planning a war of revenge against the cats. After Carter warned the cats, they launched a preemptive strike and secured the surrender of the zoogs, along with tribute and hostages. Thereafter the cats provided Carter an escort to protect him from the resentful zoogs.
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Post by Yahn'ikthorn on Mar 14, 2008 15:55:43 GMT -6
SHANTAK-BIRDSOf the dream-world. The shantak-birds are winged beings that guard Kadath. Beings of Rumor and Legend The onyx-miners of Inganok it was believe that the shantak-birds are no wholesome things, and that it is fortunate that no man has ever truly seen one. Shantak-birds are rumored to frequent a great unused onyx quarry, north of Inganok and close to the cold waste. Flapping sounds at another such quarry reminded Randolph Carter uncomfortably of the rumored shantak-birds. A slant-eyed merchant brought eggs of the rumored shantak-birds to Inganok to trade. The father of all the shanktak birds is rumored to dwell in the great central dome of the palace of the Veiled King at Inganok, where it is fed in the dark. The Awful TruthThe shantak-birds are larger than elephants and have heads like a horse's. To their wings cling the rime (ice) and nitre of nether pits. The shantak-birds have slippery scales instead of feathers. The shantak-birds both understand speech, and can speak themselves. Thus, one shantak-bird understood the guttural speech of the slant-eyed merchant, and replied to him in tittering tones like the scratching of ground glass. Sometimes the shantak-birds wheeze and titter with impatience, or leer and titter at their victims. The shantak-birds build nests on the ledges half-way up the peaks dividing Leng from Inganok. The shantaks fear the night-gaunts that frequent certain caves near the topmost pinnacles. Foes of Randolph CarterIn the cold waste, near the carven mountains, Randolph Carter saw the shantak-birds. After being taken prisoner, Carter rode one the shantak-birds through the air. They took him to the monastery of the high-priest not to be described. Later, Carter feared passing over Leng and past the monastery again, partly because of the risk of encountering the shantak-birds once more. Carter asked for night-gaunts to bear him past the realm of the shantaks. Nyarlathotep offerred Carter a shantak-bird to bear him to his fabulous sunset city. On arriving there, Carter was to prod the shantak-bird until it cried out, for its sound would make the Great Ones homesick. The shantak-bird was supposed to remind the Great Ones of Kadath and tell them that its halls are lonely. Then the shantak-bird was to utter its homing cry and fly back to Kadath, inspiring the Great Ones to follow behind. But the shantak-bird actually set course for Azathoth and infinity's center.
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Post by Yahn'ikthorn on Mar 14, 2008 16:38:03 GMT -6
This one doesn't need pictures I think... go look in the mirror...
THE HUMAN RACE
Different and rather inconsistent traditions touch on the origin of the human race.
According to the analysis by Dyer and Danforth of murals found in the Antarctic, the crinoid Old Ones of Antarctica created earth-life for food and other purposes. They allowed various cell-groups to develop into other forms of animal and vegetable life, exterminating any that became troublesome. They used a primitive simian ancestor of humanity for food and amusement. The inference seems to be that the simian forebear of humanity was created by the crinoid Old Ones.
The Old Ones of K'n-yan appeared to be human, and might share a common origin with humanity. According to the legends of the Old Ones, Tulu (Cthulhu) brought them to earth from a distant part of space where conditions were much like earth. The Old Ones were the original stock who peopled the earth as soon as its crust was fit to walk on. However, after a massive sinking of continents beneath the ocean, a million or two years ago, the Old Ones withdrew underground and thereafter evolved separately from humanity. This account differs greatly from the Dyer/Danforth theory, but is not necessarily more reliable, since the Old Ones harbored doubts about the accuracy of their own ancient traditions.
Zadok Allen said that humans are related to the Deep Ones: "Seems that human folks has got a kind o' relation to such water-beasts—that everything alive came aout o' the water onct, an' only needs a little change to go back again". Interpreted broadly, this could be merely a restatement of the modern scientific view that the earliest life forms evolved underwater. On the other hand, the implication might be that human beings are descended directly, and relatively recently, from the Deep Ones, and perhaps diverged as a result of adapting to land life. At any rate, it is extraordinarily odd that humans and Deep Ones can mate together and bear offspring, as this is not possible between humans and related species such as apes, for example.
From his research into primal myths, Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee concluded that other intelligent races had inhabited earth before the first amphibian forbear of man crawled out of the sea 300 million years ago.
During his sojourn as a captive mind among the Great Race, Peaslee heard hints of the fate of mankind that were too disturbing to put into writing.
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Post by luxcthonis on Mar 15, 2008 8:59:01 GMT -6
But of course not, here they come: DHOLES or BHOLESCreatures of earth's dream-world, and also of an ancient planet called Yaddith. In the dream-world, the bholes crawl and creep nastily in in terrible valleys guarded by the fabled Peaks of Thok. Randolph Carter encountered one of them there in the Vale of Pnath. Their size is enormous, at least fifteen or twenty feet in height, and of unknown length. In the dream-world, no one has ever seen one, or even guessed what it might look like. Bholes are known only from the rustling they make amongst mountains of bones and the slimy touch they have when they wriggle past one. They cannot be seen because they creep only in the dark. The night-gaunts planned to feed the conquered moon-beasts to bholes and other creatures of the Great Abyss. In the distant past, on the planet Yaddith, the duties of the wizard Zkauba included weaving spells to keep the frightful bholes in their burrows. There were hideous struggles with the bleached, viscous bholes in the primal tunnels that honeycombed the planet. Zkauba observed a bhole that reared up several hundred feet. Eventually, Yaddith became a dead world dominated by triumpant bholes. Note: The term bholes is rendered as dholes in uncorrected editions of Lovecraft's stories. Great! Ever since I became obsessed with the Silver Key stories I had a small infatuation with the dholes, or bholes (I never knew about the spelling error before, you brought it to my attention). They also seem to be similar (perhaps?) to the serpents mentioned in Part 1 of the Testimony of the Mad Arab (in the Simon Necronomicon, the serpents come out of the ground when that big rock starts levitating...) [its been a while since I've read the Necronomicon at all, so bear with me if my shcolarship seems under par;)] H
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Post by Yahn'ikthorn on Mar 15, 2008 9:17:24 GMT -6
I didn't know about that spelling error either before but I guess it's based on something, it's from the cthulhufiles website as is everything else in this thread.
Gotta start reading nyarlathotep2008's version of the Necronomicon since I finally was able to download it from skydrive...
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