Miskatonic University: Netherworld Annex

Dreaming of a Mythos Xmahannukwanzyule

2011-12-20T07:05:00.000-07:00

Preparing for Halloween

2011-10-16T02:29:00.000-06:00

The Cats of Ulthar are getting the decorations ready for Halloween.

Did you know that black cats are in danger during October because of ignorance and stupidity on the part of some people?

The Cats of Ulthar don't like that.

Neither do I.

When the Stars are Right, they will NOT be eaten first.

The Cats of Ulthar

2011-10-15T08:49:00.000-06:00

Worth 666,666,666 Words

2011-01-21T16:24:00.000-07:00

Meativity Scene

2010-12-06T01:04:00.000-07:00

I don't know that it's Mythos related, but it really is unspeakable--blasphemous even! I will probably be smote any minute now for the fact that I keep smirking at it.

Big Sale at Hal's Club!

2010-11-30T23:10:00.000-07:00

On Sale in Hal's Club Toy Department

2010-09-17T12:26:00.000-06:00

Super Creepy Sumerian Mythos Dolls

Credits: Robert Brockaway

Cthulhu Brings What You Deserve

2009-12-25T08:39:00.000-07:00

Warning Sign

2009-10-22T16:00:00.002-06:00

The warning sign at the door of the Miskatonic University Netherworld Annex

Professor Cthulhu does not have tolerance for stupidity. He had this warning sign placed at the entrance to Miskatonic University Netherworld Annex. Professor Cthulhu wishes to make it clear that all morons will be eaten. Ia, Ia! All hail Professor Cthulhu!
--Peter Piper

Ode to Cthulhu

2009-10-22T03:08:00.002-06:00

The Spammy Pipers perform an ode to Cthulhu at Miskatonic University for Homecoming.

Rabbit Rabbit

2009-09-01T00:00:00.000-06:00

If Lovecraft Had Ghost-Written Twilight

2009-08-15T02:35:00.003-06:00

Have you ever thought to yourself how much cooler Twilight would be if only Lovecraft had ghost-written it? Well, apparently, Lovecraft thought the same thing. So he's back from the grave, working on making Twilight less full of purple prose and more full of hideous things from beyond the stars. Check out his progress so far.

The Stars are Right

2009-07-22T20:35:00.002-06:00

Stolen Here

Rabbit Revenge

2009-06-10T03:35:00.003-06:00

TO SEE MORE OF KAI SPANNUTH'S VERY COOL ARTWORK, CLICK THIS LINK

I ran over a rabbit yesterday morning and feel rather bad about it. I was driving at about 50 MPH along Highway 7 on my way home from work when this rabbit decided to make his way out into the road. I swerved to avoid him--actually went all the way over to the wrong side of the road, as there was nothing coming towards me--but he managed to keep coming and I clipped him with my back wheel. I couldn't bring myself to look back. I'm quite sure that with a one ton car vs. a 5-ish pound rabbit, the little dude is history.
I feel bad enough as it is, but to make matters worse, I now find myself worrying that this Mythos-looking rabbit shown in the above photograph may be stalking me to avenge its unfortunate hit-and-run victim kin. I'm sorry, Mutant Mythos Rabbit--truly, I am! Please don't drag me down to your burrow and sacrifice me to Nyogtha or whatever eldritch horror your kind worships!

The Outsider

2009-05-20T04:07:00.003-06:00

Here is a rendition of The Outsider with pictures and music for your enjoyment.

Buried Treasure

2009-03-25T15:27:00.001-06:00

Unfortunately I haven't had time or working brain cells to work on this site of late, but here is a link to a story that will make you laugh, cry, and shout IA at the top of your lungs.

Deep One Hybrids who have not yet started to change

2009-01-18T04:31:00.000-07:00

My New Social Network

2008-12-05T02:16:00.001-07:00

Are you the open-minded sort? Have you ever been described as left of center? Are you possibly creative, potentially psychic, or maybe just psycho? Then come join my new fellowship! I created it especially for freaks like you and me.

Visit New Strange World

The Only Real Choice!

2008-09-30T08:03:00.002-06:00

Get the Unspeakable Toolbar

2008-08-20T10:13:00.003-06:00

Respected Cultists:

Go to the sidebar and find the unwholesome banner allowing you to download the most unspeakably useful toolbar. You get a horrific Google search box, weather to help you decide if tonight is right for your sacrifice, an email notifier for if you use G-Mail, radio, site links, and most fearsome of all, a feed to Lost Beneath the Surface, the official blog for the unholy tome by the mad medium Lily Strange.
Support the Mad Medium's hideous yet strangely charitable mission by spreading the word to your friends, the members of your favorite Mythos cult, and perhaps the Great Old Ones themselves, and perhaps Cthulhu will see fit to spare you.
Regards,
the Mad Medium and the Spooky Spectre

The Xothic Legend Cycle and Lin Carter

2008-05-31T14:01:00.011-06:00

Ythogtha

Ghatanothoa

Lin Carter

A Mi-Go (Found at Nightserpent.com)

It's hard to find a picture of Zoth-Ommog. The above is the cover of a CD by a band called Front Line Assembly. Perhaps the humanoid creature is Zoth-Ommog in a shape-shifted form. It is speculated that the insectoid is a member of the great Race of Yith in Coleopterus form.
Zoth-Ommog is described thusly in Ye Wikipedia:
Zoth-Ommog is the third son of Cthulhu. He has a cone-shaped body, a razor-fanged reptilian head like that of a tyrannosaurus rex, four broad, flat, starfish-like arms with suckers, and a head of tentacles. How he swims or walks on the ocean floor is unknown, but it is possible that he has a slug-like foot similar to that of the Great Race of Yith.

Welcome Class! Today's subject is the Xothic Legend Cycle. These tales of the Demon Trinity (Ghatanothoa, Ythogtha, and Zoth-Ommog) were revealed by the late Lin Carter. His dangerous knowledge, we speculate, is the REAL reason why he's the "late" Lin Carter, and not throat cancer as was cited on his death certificate. In fact, we speculate that Mr. Carter's brain is safely ensconced on Yuggoth, where he regales the Mi-Go with his knowledge to this day.
Anticipating Mr. Carter's return and wanting his help to get "in" with the Unspeakable Ones, we have decided that it would be wise to placate Mr. Carter by honoring his work with a mention in our forthcoming sequel to Lost Beneath the Surface. Therefore, Ghantanotoa, Ythogtha and Zoth-Ommog have prominent cameo roles in the forthcoming book. As well, we will prominently feature this poem by Carter at the head of one of the major sections of the book.
Ia!

Beyond
I have seen Yith and Yuggoth on the Rim,
And black Carcosa in the Hyades;
And in the slimy depths of certain seas,
I have beheld the tomb where lieth Him
Who Was and Who Shall Be; and I have flown
Astride the shantak or the byakhee
Where Kadath in the Cold Waste terribly
Bears up her onyx-castled crest unknown.
I have conversed with seer and archmage
In glacier-buried drear Commoriom,
And traced the maggot-eaten parchment page
Of tomes that Tsathoggua carried from
Dim vast Cykranosh. I am no more sane,
For too much horror burns away the brain.
--Lin Carter
June 9, 1930-February 7, 1988

Horrible Mentions:
If you can read Swedish, this is the Mythos site for you, Ja?
Ythogtha.org
Stray Reality

Shub-Niggurath: One Bad Mama

2008-04-17T23:38:00.010-06:00

Shub-Niggurath Makes An Offer You Can't Refuse

Shub-Niggurath, the "Black Goat of the Woods With 1000 Young"

A Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath
(Click to read its stats)

Shub-Niggurath and Devotees

This really plays on the "Goat" idea

Text from Wikipedia:

Shub-Niggurath, often associated with the phrase "The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young", is a fictional deity in the Cthulhu Mythos of H. P. Lovecraft. The creature is sometimes referred to as "The Black Ram of The Forest With A Thousand Ewe", lending a male gender to the Great Old One that is often thought of as female.

Shub-Niggurath is first mentioned in Lovecraft's revision story "The Last Test" (1928); she is never actually described in Lovecraft's fiction, but is frequently mentioned or called upon in incantations. Most of her development as a literary figure was carried out by other Mythos authors, including August Derleth, Robert Bloch and Ramsey Campbell.

Development
Shub-Niggurath's appearances in Lovecraft's main body of fiction do not provide much detail about his conception of the entity. Her first mention under Lovecraft's byline was in "The Dunwich Horror" (1928), where a quote from the Necronomicon discussing the Old Ones breaks into an exclamation of "Iä! Shub-Niggurath!"[1] The story provides no further information about this peculiar expression.

The next Lovecraft story to mention Shub-Niggurath is scarcely more informative. In "The Whisperer in Darkness" (1930), a recording of a ceremony involving human and nonhuman worshippers includes the following exchange:

Ever Their praises, and abundance to the Black Goat of the Woods. Iä! Shub-Niggurath! The Goat with a Thousand Young!
Iä! Shub-Niggurath! The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young![2]
Similarly unexplained exclamations occur in "The Dreams in the Witch House" (1932) [3] and "The Thing on the Doorstep" (1933).[4]

Revision tales
Lovecraft only provided specific information about Shub-Niggurath in his "revision tales," stories published under the names of clients for whom he ghost-wrote. As Price points out, "For these clients he constructed a parallel myth-cycle to his own, a separate group of Elder Gods," including Yig, Ghatanothoa, Rhan-Tegoth, "the evil twins Nug and Yeb"--and Shub-Niggurath.

While some of these revision stories just repeat the familiar exclamations,[5] others provide new elements of lore. In "The Last Test" (1927), the first mention of Shub-Niggurath seems to connect her to Nug and Yeb: "I talked in Yemen with an old man who had come back from the Crimson Desert--he had seen Irem, the City of Pillars, and had worshipped at the underground shrines of Nug and Yeb--Iä! Shub-Niggurath!"[6]

The revision story "The Mound", which describes the discovery of an underground realm called K'n-yan by a Spanish conquistador, reports that a temple of Tsathoggua there "had been turned into a shrine of Shub-Niggurath, the All-Mother and wife of the Not-to-Be-Named-One. This deity was a kind of sophisticated Astarte, and her worship struck the pious Catholic as supremely obnoxious."[7]

The reference to "Astarte", the consort of Baal in Semitic mythology, ties Shub-Niggurath to the related fertility goddess Cybele, the Magna Mater mentioned in Lovecraft's "The Rats in the Walls", and implies that the "great mother worshipped by the hereditary cult of Exham Priory" in that story "had to be none other than Shub-Niggurath."[8]

The Not-to-Be-Named-One, not being named, is difficult to identify; a similar phrase, translated into Latin as the Magnum Innominandum, appears in a list in "The Whisperer in Darkness"[9] and was included in a scrap of incantation that Lovecraft wrote for Robert Bloch's "The Shambler from the Stars".[10] August Derleth identifies this mysterious entity with Hastur [11] (though Hastur appears in the same "Whisperer in Darkness" list with the Magnum Innominandum), while Robert M. Price equates him with Yog-Sothoth--though he also suggests that Shub-Niggurath's mate is implicitly the snake god Yig.[12]

Finally, in "Out of the Aeons", a revision tale set in part on the lost continent of Mu, Lovecraft describes the character T'yog as the "High Priest of Shub-Niggurath and guardian of the copper temple of the Goat with a Thousand Young". In the story, T'yog surprisingly maintains that "the gods friendly to man could be arrayed against the hostile gods, and...that Shub-Niggurath, Nug, and Yeb, as well as Yig the Serpent-god, were ready to take sides with man" against the more malevolent Ghanatothoa. Shub-Niggurath is called "the Mother Goddess", and reference is made to "her sons", presumably Nug and Yeb.[13]

Other References
Other evidence of Lovecraft's conception of Shub-Niggurath can be found in his letters. For example, in a letter to Willis Conover, Lovecraft described her as an "evil cloud-like entity".[14]

The Black Goat
Although Shub-Niggurath is often associated with the epithet "The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young", it is possible that this Black Goat is a separate entity. Rodolfo Ferraresi, in his essay "The Question of Shub-Niggurath", says that Lovecraft himself separated the two in his writings, such as in "Out of the Aeons" (1935) in which a distinction is made between Shub-Niggurath and the Black Goat — the goat is the figurehead through which Shub-Niggurath is worshipped. In apparent contrast to Shub-Niggurath, the Black Goat is sometimes depicted as a male, most notably in the rite performed in "The Whisperer in Darkness" (1931) in which the Black Goat is called the "Lord of the Woods".

The Black Goat may be the personification of Pan, since Lovecraft was influenced by Arthur Machen's The Great God Pan (1890), a story that inspired Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror" (1929). In this incarnation, the Black Goat may represent Satan in the form of the satyr, a half-man, half-goat. In folklore, the satyr symbolized a man with excessive sexual appetites. The Black Goat may otherwise be a male, earthly form of Shub-Niggurath — an incarnation she assumes to copulate with her worshipers. [15]

Robert M. Price's interpretation
Robert M. Price points to a passage from "Idle Days on the Yann", by Lord Dunsany, one of Lovecraft's favorite writers, as the source for the name Shub-Niggurath:

And I too felt that I would pray. Yet I liked not to pray to a jealous God there where the frail affectionate gods whom the heathen love were being humbly invoked; so I bethought me, instead, of Sheol Nugganoth, whom the men of the jungle have long since deserted, who is now unworshipped and alone; and to him I prayed.[16]
Notes Price: "The name already carried a whiff of sulfur: Sheol was the name for the Netherworld mentioned in the Bible and the Gilgamesh Epic."[17]

As for Shub-Niggurath's association with the symbol of the goat, Price writes,

we may believe that here Lovecraft was inspired by the traditional Christian depiction of the Baphomet Goat, an image of Satan harking back to the pre-Christian woodland deity Pan, he of the goatish horns and shanks. The Satanic goat is a device of much spectral fiction, as when in Dennis Wheatley's The Devil Rides Out the Archfiend's epiphany takes goat-headed form.[18]

Stories where Shub-Niggurath is mentioned
"The Dreams in the Witch House" by H.P. Lovecraft
"The Man of Stone" by H.P. Lovecraft and Hazel Heald
"The Mound" by H.P. Lovecraft and Zealia Bishop
"The Whisperer in Darkness" by H.P. Lovecraft

Other writers

Robert Bloch
Something black in the road, something that wasn't a tree. Something big and black and ropy, just squatting there, waiting, with ropy arms squirming and reaching. . . It came crawling up the hillside. . . and it was the black thing of my dreams – that black, ropy, slime jelly tree-thing out of the woods. It crawled up and it flowed up on its hoofs and mouths and snaky arms.
—Robert Bloch, "Notebook Found in a Deserted House"

The Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath are horrifying, pitch-black monstrosities, seemingly made of ropy tentacles. They stand as tall as a tree (perhaps between twelve and twenty feet tall) on a pair of stumpy, hooved legs. A mass of tentacles protrudes from their trunks where a head would normally be, and puckered maws, dripping green goo, cover their flanks. The monsters roughly resemble trees in silhouette — the trunks being the short legs and the tops of the trees represented by the ropy, branching bodies. The whole mass of these things smells like an open grave. They usually dwell in woodlands wherever Shub-Niggurath's cult is active.

The Dark Young are usually called upon to preside over cult ceremonies. One means for summoning them is found in the Book of Eibon and requires a blood offering. The ritual may only be performed in the deep of the woodlands at the darkest of the moon, and the victim must be sacrificed over a stone altar.

Dark young act as proxies for Shub-Niggurath in the accepting of sacrifices and the worship of cultists, in the devouring of non-cultists, and in the spreading of their mother's faith across the world.

Ramsey Campbell
In Ramsey Campbell's story "The Moon Lens", the English town of Goatswood is inhabited by once-human worshippers of Shub-Niggurath. When the deity deems a worshiper to be most worthy, a special ceremony is held in which the Black Goat of the Woods swallows the initiate and then regurgitates the cultist as a transformed satyr-like being. A changed worshiper is also endowed with immortal life. [19]

Stephen King
In the short story "Crouch End", contained in "Nightmares and Dreamscapes", the plot consists of a woman who loses her husband to and then is chased by minions of something and then it. It is known as the "The goat with a Thousand Young," an obvious reference to Shub-Niggurath.

In popular culture

Literature
Shub-Niggurath sometimes appears or is alluded to in fiction that falls outside the Cthulhu Mythos genre of horror. Some of the Doctor Who spin-off novels, for example, have identified the Nestene Consciousness (the being which animates the Autons) as one of the offspring of Shub-Niggurath. The connection was first drawn in Millennial Rites by Craig Hinton, and has been followed up in other appearances of the Consciousness in the novels.

In Terry Pratchett's Moving Pictures, the being "Tshup Aklathep, Infernal Star Toad With a Million Young", kills its victims by showing them pictures of its children until their brains implode.

In Stephen King's short story Crouch End, the main character's husband is supposedly taken by "The Goat With a Thousand Young".

In Neil Gaiman's "Shoggoth's Old Peculiar" (1998), "Shub Niggurath" is the name of a seaside bed and breakfast.

The second adventure of the audio drama series The Scarifyers, "The Devil of Denge Marsh", features a reclusive English village that worships and attempts to summon Shub-Niggurath.

In Christopher Brookmyre's "A Big Boy did it and Ran Away", Shaloub "Shub" N'gurath is a sinister commissioner of hitmen and professional terrorists.

Games
The final adversary of the first-person shooter computer game Quake is called Shub-Niggurath.
It also makes an appearance as the main villain in the online Sarbakan flash game Arcane Season Two: The Stone Circle [20]
Is one of the hand drawn final bosses of the board game Arkham Horror
There are some similarities between Shub-Niggurath and the character, Shuma-Gorath, from the Marvel universe. The presence of multiple tentacles is the most prominent similarity between the two.
The mansion in which the computer game Alone In the Dark takes place is named "Derceto", which one of the characters asserts is another name for Shub-Niggurath.

Comics
In Bruno the Bandit, one of the denizens of the demon world is "Shub-Megawrath", a goat-like blob creature with a thousand children.
In Penny Arcade, Gabe and Tycho run into a humanoid version of Cthulhu in a park, wearing a fishing hat and doing a crossword. He asks for a "thirteen-letter word for 'black goat with a thousand young,'" a clear reference to Shub-Niggurath.

Music
Shub-Niggurath is the name of a French Zeuhl group as well as a Mexican death metal band.

Some versions of Altars of Madness by Floridian death metal band Morbid Angel have an illustration of three demons ravaging a female human with the caption "SHUB NIGGURATH, THE GOAT WITH A THOUSAND YOUNG" under the disc tray. The entity is also mentioned in the band's song "Angel of Disease".

The Belgian dance metal band Unk! has a song called "Shub-Niggurath".

The band GWAR refers to Shub-Niggurath in "Lost God", a song on their 2004 album War Party.

The band Behemoth has a song, originally titled "Outro", which is later revealed[citation needed] to be titled "Goat of a Thousand Young".

The band Bebe Rebozo has a song called "Shub-Niggurath"

The Iowa-based band Blood Runs Black have a song titled "Sphere of Venus", in which the lyrics seem like a direct incantation of Shub-Niggurath.

Film
In the film "Atomik Circus - Le retour de James Bataille" (2004), the alien creatures are called Shub-Niggurat.

Check this out

This is the most fun you can have with mythos monsters

References
Bloch, Robert [1951] (1998). "Notebook Found in a Deserted House", Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, 1st ed., New York, NY: Random House. ISBN 0-345-42204-X.
Campbell, Ramsey [1964] (1987). "The Moon-Lens", Cold Print, 1st ed., New York, NY: Tom Doherty Associates. ISBN 0-8125-1660-5.
Harms, Daniel (1998). "Byatis", The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana, 2nd ed., Oakland, CA: Chaosium, pp. 42–3. ISBN 1-56882-119-0. [Suggests Byatis is the son of Yig]
—"Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath", pp. 75, ibid.
—"gof'nn hupadgh Shub-Niggurath", pp. 124, ibid.
—"Shub-Niggurath", pp. 275–7, ibid.
Ferraresi, Rodolfo A. (Hallowmas 1985). "The Question of Shub-Niggurath". Crypt of Cthulhu #35: A Pulp Thriller and Theological Journal Vol. 5 (No. 1). Robert M. Price (ed.), Mount Olive, NC: Cryptic Publications.
Lovecraft, Howard P. [1933] (1985). "The Dreams in the Witch House", in S. T. Joshi (ed.): At the Mountains of Madness, and Other Novels, 7th corrected printing, Sauk City, WI: Arkham House. ISBN 0-87054-038-6. Definitive version.
Lovecraft, Howard P. [1931] (1984). "The Whisperer in Darkness", in S. T. Joshi (ed.): The Dunwich Horror and Others, 9th corrected printing, Sauk City, WI: Arkham House. ISBN 0-87054-037-8. Definitive version.
Lovecraft, Howard P.; Zealia Bishop [1940] (1989). "The Mound", in S.T. Joshi (ed.): The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions. Sauk City, WI: Arkham House. ISBN 0-87054-040-8.
—and Adolphe de Castro (1928). "The Last Test", ibid.
—and Hazel Heald (1932). "The Man of Stone", ibid.
Pratchett, Terry [1990] (2002). Moving Pictures. New York, NY: HarperTorch. ISBN 0-06-102063-X.

Footnotes
^ H. P. Lovecraft, "The Dunwich Horror", The Dunwich Horror and Others, p. 170.
^ H. P. Lovecraft, "The Whisperer in Darkness", The Dunwich Horror and Others, p. 226.
^ H. P. Lovecraft, "The Dreams in the Witch House", At the Mountains of Madness, p. 293.
^ H. P. Lovecraft, "The Thing on the Doorstep", The Dunwich Horror and Others, pp. 287, 296.
^ H. P. Lovecraft writing as Zealia Bisop, "Medusa's Coil", The Horror in the Museum, pp. 189-190; H. P. Lovecraft writing as Hazel Heald, "The Man of Stone", The Horror in the Museum, pp. 225, 232; H. P. Lovecraft writing as Hazel Heald, "The Horror in the Museum", The Horror in the Museum, pp. 225, 232; H. P. Lovecraft writing as William Lumley, "The Diary of Alonzo Typer", The Horror in the Museum, p. 321.
^ H. P. Lovecraft writing as Adolphe de Castro, "The Last Test", The Horror in the Museum, p. 47.
^ H. P. Lovecraft writing as Zealia Bishop, "The Mound", The Horror in the Museum, pp. 144-145.
^ Price, Shub-Niggurath Cycle, p. xiv.
^ Lovecraft, "The Whisperer in Darkness", p. 223.
^ Robert Bloch, "The Shambler from the Stars", Mysteries of the Worm, p. 31.
^ August Derleth, "The Return of Hastur", The Hastur Cycle, pp. 255-256.
^ Price, p. xiii.
^ H. P. Lovecraft writing as Hazel Heald, "Out of the Aeons", The Horror in the Museum, pp. 273-274; Price, p. xiii.
^ Cited in Price, p. xv.
^ Ferraresi, "The Question of Shub-Niggurath", Crypt of Cthulhu #35, pp. 17–8, 22.
^ Lord Dunsany, "Idle Days on the Yann", A Dreamer's Tales.
^ Robert M. Price, Shub-Niggurath Cycle, p. xii.
^ Price, p. x.
^ Campbell, "The Moon-Lens", Shub-Niggurath Cycle.
^ http://www2.warnerbros.com/web/arcane/home.jsp

February's Mythos Monster of the Month

2008-02-10T23:18:00.001-07:00

The little-known Great Old One Othuyeg is this month's Mythos creature. Othuyeg looks like a giant eye, much like Cyäegha. It is known as The Doom-Walker, which is kind of interesting because I think that an eye would be more likely to roll than to walk. Or maybe to float or hover. But to date I've never seen an eye with feet.

There is an interesting page dealing with August Derleth's biography of Solar Pons which briefly mentions Othuyeg. It can be found here. And this list of fascinating tales might lend more clues about this doomful eyeball. At least at some point. Some of the other stories are complete but the one about Othuyeg is still pending...hmmm....

Certainly this FBI file will shed some light on the subject. Of course the subject may not like having light shed on it. Put out your flashlight, Mulder, and come into this dark corner with me like a good boy...

Abandon hope of finding an image of Othuyeg or even Cyaegha. At least I had to. But if you are more fortunate, pray tell me the link. For while Hastur is He who Shall Not Be Named, Othuyeg is apparently He/She/It that Shall Not Be Seen. Only it is allowed to do the seeing, for it is a giant eyeball!

January's Monster of the Month: The Moonbeast

2008-01-17T00:04:00.000-07:00

Moonbeasts are not pretty. In the Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, Lovecraft describes the Moonbeasts as being "great grayish-white slippering things which could expand and contract at will and whose principle shape--though it often changed--was that of a sort of toad without any eyes, but with a curious vibrating mass of short pink tentacles on the end of its blunt, vague snout."
Read the Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath, courtesy of the Dagon Bytes website.

I found this picture of Moonbeasts at 3x6.net. I can't read the text because it is in French, and I am tres illiterate in French. There are a lot of great pictures on the site, and if you can read French, you will be so much the happier to visit.

The moonbeasts dwell on the dark side of the moon. They travel both on water and through space in great black galleys and enslave, consume, and experiment on beings of other races. They serve Nyarlathotep.

Moonbeasts are generally thought of as being utterly hideous in appearance. However, at least one writer postulates that they are adorable but nonetheless sadistic and bloodthirsty, such as this one seen in the picture below (available from Pen and Paper RPG Shop)

Read Ian Klych's account of the wicked and horrific exploits of the bloodthirsty and sadistic yet disturbingly cuddly Moonbeast.

Welcome Back

2008-01-17T00:00:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the new and better Mythos Encyclopedia. Now that I've finally found my focus through the foggy maze (or amazing fog) of my bipolar mind, the way has become clear. Ia, Ia, and all that sort of stuff. We will now feature a Monster of the Month and a writer of the month. We would feature a Mythos Movie of the Month, but I'm not sure there were ever any that didn't suck. HPL's stories were too atmospheric for most modern movie-makers. Making them into gore-fests doesn't work.
I will be adding the elements from the sidebar back in but for now, by Hypnos, I'm tired! That being said, on with the show.