Shoggoth

A shoggoth (or shaggoth) is a fictional monster in the Cthulhu Mythos. The being first appeared in H. P. Lovecraft's novella At the Mountains of Madness (1936).

Description

It was a terrible, indescribable thing vaster than any subway train – a shapeless congerie of protoplasmic bubbles, faintly self-luminous, and with myriads of temporary eyes forming and un-forming as pustules of greenish light all over the tunnel-filling front that bore down upon us, crushing the frantic penguins and slithering over the glistening floor that it and its kind had swept so evilly free of all litter.

— H. P. Lovecraft, At The Mountains of Madness

Shoggoths are protoplasmic entities of mutable form and are considered to be among the most frightful entities of the mythos. They look like gigantic amoebae made of tar with eyes on the surface, often depicted as able to spontaneously form body parts and organs at will. An average Shoggoth, when a sphere, was about 15 feet across, though later ones grew much larger and had greater intelligence. They reproduce through binary fission, and are commonly shown as capable of tremendous feats of strength, such as tearing apart large machinery.

The shoggoths are terrible things to behold—even the Mad Arab, Abdul Alhazred, author of the Necronomicon, was terrified by the mere thought that they might have existed at all on Earth.

Origin and history

The shoggoths are the slave race created by the Elder Things. Before native life arose on the Earth, the Elder Things bioengineered the shoggoths to serve as living construction equipment. Being amorphous, they could take on any shape their controllers desired, making them very versatile within their aquatic environment. Though they could "understand" the Elder Things' language, they had no conscious minds of their own, obeying their masters only through hypnotic suggestion.

The Elder Things used the shoggoths to build their underwater cities. Over millions of years, however, some shoggoths mutated and gained conscious, independent minds. Some time after this, they rebelled against their creators. Eventually, the Elder Things succeeded in quelling the insurrection, but thereafter took greater care in maintaining their newly intelligent slaves. By this point, exterminating the shoggoths was not an option, as the Elder Things were dependent on them for labor and could not replace them, having lost the art of creating new species. It was during this time that, despite their masters' wishes, the shoggoths demonstrated an ability to survive on land. The existence of the shoggoths possibly led to the accidental creation of Ubbo-Sathla, a god-like entity supposedly responsible for the origin of all life on Earth, though other legends dispute this claim -- the Elder Things are also supposed to have directly created primordial life as discarded experiments in biological engineering.

Other connections

When the Elder Things retreated to the oceans, they brought the shoggoths with them and eventually let them develop the ability to exist on land as well out of desperation. Eventually, in contrast to the failing society of the Elder Things, the shoggoths began to imitate the Elder Things' art and voices, and took over the cavern city underneath Antarctica and created a perverted imitation of the Elder Things' society. Nonetheless, a few of the shoggoths appear here and there, often as servitors to the other beings of the mythos, such as the Deep Ones. Some shoggoths may be held in captivity by cults, perhaps for use in their ceremonies or for other more nefarious purposes. Shoggoths are known to mindlessly repeat the cries of their former masters: "Tekeli-li".

Other appearances

• Shoggoths are mentioned in the Lovecraft short stories "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" (1936) and "The Thing on the Doorstep" (1937).

• Shoggoths appear in both the Chaosium and the Wizards of the Coast Call of Cthulhu role-playing game supplements.

• Shoggoths are featured in Charles Stross's A Colder War, in which they are used as weapons of mass destruction.

• A shoggoth appears in Grant Morrison's The Invisibles.

• Shoggoths are prominently featured in the parody CD of The HP Lovecraft Historical Society: the Lovecraftian Broadway musical A Shoggoth on the Roof.

• A Shoggoth is a key boss in the multi-platform video game Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth.

• Shoggoths appear in the PlayStation game Persona 2: Eternal Punishment as enemy creatures.

• Shoggoths appear as acidic recoil inflicting monsters in the online game Wyvern.

• A reference to the shoggoth appears in a Bob the Angry Flower comic strip.

• Shoggoths with approximate radial symmetry are available as plush figures produced by Toy Vault.

• A Shoggoth is mentioned in the 'exit screen' (Being the text you receive when prompted to exit the game) in both Quake and Daikatana.

• In the webcomic Orneryboy, the main characters inadvertently turn their pet cat into a shoggoth while trying to cure it of zombiism.

• In the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game system, the shoggoth is referred to as a gibbering mouther. The shoggoth also could be considered the basis of the ooze family of creatures, or more specifically the black pudding. Much like the shoggoth, the black pudding is tar-like in appearance as well as amorphous. The glossary entry for puddings in the game Nethack quotes and cites the eyewitness description of a shoggoth in Lovecraft's original story.

• Robert Anton Wilson asserts in his Schrödinger's Cat trilogy that it is not a "shaggy shoggoth story," a portmanteau of "Shaggy dog story" and "Shoggoth," playfully implying that the book is indeed a rambling series of nonsequiturs dealing with otherworldly concepts. The Shoggoth also plays its role in the The Illuminatus! Trilogy, in which it is linked to the law of 5 and the Necronomicon.

• In the table top strategy game Warhammer Fantasy, in the armies of Chaos, Dragon Ogre Shaggoths are ancient creatures of titanic proportions, being dragon ogres who have endured for centuries rejuvenating in lightning storms.

• A Shoggoth appears in The Real Ghostbusters episode, The Collect Call of Cathulhu, In the episode, it is summoned by cultists to combat the Ghostbusters, however it is swiftly defeated by a spell from a Cthulhu historian.

• Shoggoth is also a name for a widely-used machine for restaurants.

• Creatures matching the physical description of shoggoths, named with the alternative spelling of "shuggoths," appear toward the end of the novel Frek and The Elixir by Rudy Rucker.

• Shoggoths make an appearance in the novel "Move Under Ground" by Nick Mamatas, a spin-off of the Cthulhu mythos involving Jack Kerouac.

• Author Neil Gaiman has written several short stories, one of which takes place in the town of Innsmouth where a wandering American tourist is treated to several pints of "Shoggoth's Old Peculiar" ale.

• Shoggoths appear as major foes in the novel "The Spiraling Worm" by David Conyers and John Sunseri.

References

• Burleson, Donald R. (1983). H. P. Lovecraft, A Critical Study. Westport, CT / London, England: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-23255-5.

• Harms, Daniel (1998). "Shoggoths". The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana (2nd ed. ed.). Oakland, CA: Chaosium. pp. pp. 273–4. ISBN 1-56882-119-0. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help); |pages= has extra text (help)

• Lovecraft, Howard P. (1985) [1931]. "At the Mountains of Madness". In S. T. Joshi (ed.) (ed.). At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels (7th corrected printing ed.). Sauk City, WI: Arkham House. ISBN 0-87054-038-6. {{cite book}}: |editor= has generic name (help) Definitive version.

• Pearsall, Anthony B. (2005). The Lovecraft Lexicon (1st ed. ed.). Tempe, AZ: New Falcon Pub. ISBN 1-56184-129-3. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)

External links

• At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft

Further reading

• Gaiman, Neil. "Shoggoth's Old Peculiar". A young American tourist on a walking tour of the British coastline stops for a meal at a pub in Innsmouth, weirdness ensues.