View source for Gyaa-yothn

'''Gyaa-yothn''', AKA "Unicorn"; see also [[Gnophkeh]] and [[Gnoph-keh]]

Origin:  (earliest known story/scenario the creature appears in, indicate whether this is uncertain)

==Description==
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<blockquote>
"...He could not refrain from crying out in terror at what he saw when he passed through the great vine-draped pylons and emerged upon the ancient road. He did not wonder that the curious Wichita had fled in panic, and had to close his eyes a moment to retain his sanity.... He merely hinted at the shocking morbidity of these great floundering white things, with black fur on their backs, a rudimentary horn in the centre of their foreheads, and an unmistakable trace of human or anthropoid blood in their flatnosed, bulging-lipped faces. They were, he declared later in his manuscript, the most terrible objective entities he ever saw in his life, either in [[K'n-yan]] or in the outer world. And the specific quality of their supreme terror was something apart from any easily recognisable or describable feature. The main trouble was that they were not wholly products of Nature.... The flesh they ate was not that of intelligent people of the master-race, but merely that of a special slave-class which had for the most part ceased to be thoroughly human, and which indeed was the principal meat stock of [[K'n-yan]]. They - or their principal ancestral element - had first been found in a wild state amidst the Cyclopean ruins of the deserted red-litten world of [[Yoth]] which lay below the blue-litten world of [[K'n-yan]]...."
<br>&mdash; [[H.P. Lovecraft]] and [[Zelia Bishop]], "[[The Mound (fiction)]]"
</blockquote>

Gyaa-yothn began their existence as a quadrupedal and vaguely reptilian descendant of the proto-human [[Serpent People]] which had retreated to [[Yoth]] at an early period of Earth's prehistory and fallen into decadence.  As Yoth fell under conquest of the [[People of K'n-yan]], these reptilian creatures were subjected to biological engineering and interbreeding with "inferior" mammalian humanoid (K'n-yanian) stock to produce a sapient class of carnivorous beasts of burden, transportation, sport, and war.

In their modern form, the creatures are awkward, flabby, albino, ape-like quadrupeds of monstrous appearance and disposition, with paws resembling human hands and feet, monstrously humanoid/anthropoid faces, and a single short, rudimentary, reptilian horn projecting from low on the creature's forehead, leading to comparisons to repulsive and terrifying "unicorns".

The beasts serve the [[People of K'n-yan]] as transportation equivalent to surface world horses, guards and spies equivalent to surface guard and hunting dogs but capable of complex thought and speech, beasts of burden and slave labor equivalent of surface oxen, pets and messengers, and in unspeakable forms of spectator sport, entertainment, and pleasure in the monstrous rites and amphitheaters of [[K'n-yan]].


==Heresies and Controversies==
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* Note that the description of Gyaa-yothn vaguely resembles that of the allegedly bear-like unicorn [[Gnoph-keh]], as well as the monstrously proto-humanoid [[Gnophkeh]]; one might suggest a correspondence of the three creatures as relatives, separated only by the degree of biological meddling by the [[People of K'n-yan]] ranging from the basic "inferior" humanoid stock (Gnophkeh), to the monstrously sub-human (Gnoph-keh).


==Keeper Notes==
<!-- Optional. Suggestions for using these creatures in the CoC RPG, and in fan-fiction. -->


==Associated Mythos Elements==
* race: [[People of K'n-yan]]
* race: [[Serpent People]]
* races:  [[Gnophkeh]] and [[Gnoph-keh]] (see "heresies and controversies" above)
* location:  [[Hollow Earth]], in [[K'n-yan]], [[Yoth]], and elsewhere
* deity: [[Tsathoggua]]
* cult:  [[Cult of Tsathoggua]]


==References==
* Fiction: "[[The Mound (fiction)]]" by [[H.P. Lovecraft]] and [[Zelia Bishop]] 


[[Category:Races]][[Category:Mythos:Location:HollowEarth]]