View source for Star-Spawn of Cthulhu

The '''Star-Spawn of Cthulhu''' (sometimes confusingly called the "[[Old Ones]]", or "Xothans", or simply "Star-Spawn") are from [[H.P. Lovecraft]]'s "[[Call of Cthulhu]]".

==Description==
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<blockquote>
These Great Old Ones, Castro continued, were not composed altogether of flesh and blood. They had shape — for did not this star-fashioned image prove it? — but that shape was not made of matter. When the stars were right, They could plunge from world to world through the sky; but when the stars were wrong, They could not live. But although They no longer lived, They would never really die. They all lay in stone houses in Their great city of R'lyeh, preserved by the spells of mighty Cthulhu for a glorious resurrection when the stars and the earth might once more be ready for Them. But at that time some force from outside must serve to liberate Their bodies. The spells that preserved Them intact likewise prevented Them from making an initial move, and They could only lie awake in the dark and think whilst uncounted millions of years rolled by. They knew all that was occurring in the universe, but Their mode of speech was transmitted thought, and even now They talked in Their tombs....
<br>— [[H.P. Lovecraft]], "[[Call of Cthulhu]]"
</blockquote>

In Lovecraft's Mythos, the Star-Spawn of Cthulhu are members of [[Cthulhu]]'s kind, similar in composition and appearance as vast octopoid-dragon-things, alien beings which accompanied their High Priest to Earth in prehistory, and which are entombed with Cthulhu in its tomb in [[R'lyeh]].

In [[Lin Carter]]'s [[Xothic Cycle]], [[Hastur Mythos|Derleth's Mythos]], the ''[[Call of Cthulhu (RPG)]]'', and other alternative versions of the Cthulhu Mythos, the Star-Spawn similarly descended to Earth with Cthulhu, only to be trapped under the ocean when R'lyeh fell below the waves, though some escaped and dwell even now in the deepest trenches of the oceans near [[Ponape]] and elsewhere where they are served by [[Deep One]]s, [[Yugg]]s and other such entities, or on alien worlds such as [[Carcosa|Dim Carcosa]] in the [[Hali|Lake of Hali]], awaiting the days when the Stars are Right for their return to serve by their father and master, Cthulhu - their names are countless, but include [[Dagon and Hydra]], [[Ubb]], [[Cthylla]], [[Zoth-Ommog]], [[Ythogtha]], [[Ghatanothoa]], and [[Hastur|Hastur the Unspeakable]], their cult kept alive in such abominable tomes as ''[[Ponape Scripture|The Ponape Scripture]]''.

It [[Malleus Monstrorum|is said]] that there are among their number Five Watchers in hiding across the globe who hold the keys to the Tomb of Cthulhu and know the arts which will revive Cthulhu and the other Old Ones, watching the stars for Signs, and waiting for the time to come for The Watchers to rise up and stride forth to R'lyeh to unlock the crypts of R'lyeh, and set in motion the mighty works of alchemy and science, astrology and magick which will open the Great Seals of R'lyeh and revive that which is entombed and preserved within yet cannot die, that which is not dead, but dreams on forever in the corpse-city, in preparation for the day when their Gates of R'lyeh are opened and their names called forth, so that they might live again and stride as kings through the Gates to rule the Earth once more.


==Heresies and Controversies==
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==Keeper Notes==
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==Associated Mythos Elements==
* tome: ''[[Necronomicon]]'' (a maddeningly indirect account in poetic allegory and metaphor of the myth of Cthulhu and the Star-Spawn)
* tome: ''[[Ponape Scripture]]'' (an account of the [[Xothic Cycle]] version of the Cthulhu Mythos)
* artifact:  [[Elder Sign (symbol)]] (has a warding effect on Cthulhu and its kind)
* deity: 
** [[Cthylla]]
** [[Zoth-Ommog]]
** [[Ythogtha]]
** [[Ghatanothoa]]
** [[Hastur]]
** [[Dagon and Hydra]]
** [[Ubb]]
* race: compare/contrast with [[Deep One]]s and [[Dagon and Hydra]], [[Ubb]] and [[Yugg]]s/[[Yuggya]], etc.
* location:  [[R'lyeh]] and [[Ponape]]
* cult:  [[Cult of Cthulhu]], [[Esoteric Order of Dagon]]

==References==
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* fiction: [[H.P. Lovecraft]]'s "[[Call of Cthulhu]]"
* fiction: [[Lin Carter]]'s ''[[Legends of the Xothic Cycle]]''
* sourcebook: ''[[Malleus Monstrorum]]''


[[Category:Races]]
[[Category:LovecraftMythos]]
[[Category:XothicCycle]]
[[Category:Xothan]]
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