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'''Xothans''' (AKA "Old Ones", "Great Old Ones", "Star-Spawn of Cthulhu", "Race of Cthulhu", and the like) are an alien race from [[Lin Carter]]'s short stories, ''[[The Xothic Legend Cycle]]''

==Description==


<blockquote>
A monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind. This thing . . . was of a somewhat bloated corpulence . . . It lumbered slobberingly into sight and gropingly squeezed its gelatinous green immensity through the black doorway.... A mountain walked or stumbled.
<br>— [[H.P. Lovecraft]], ''[[The Call of Cthulhu (fiction)]]''
</blockquote>

In [[Lin Carter]]'s [[Xothic Cycle]], the Xothan race as it is known on Earth was founded by [[Cthulhu]] and its "bride" [[Idh-yaa]], who spawned [[Ghatanothoa]], [[Cthylla]], [[Ythogtha]], and [[Zoth-Ommog]], who between them spawned a host of servitor races similar to themselves. Cthulhu is said to be their leader and high priest on Earth, though the race appears to have colonized other worlds besides Earth, with even those entities known to inhabit Earth having once dwelt on other worlds in the Solar System before migrating to Earth.

As aliens originating from the planet [[Xoth]], they are partly immaterial and invisible, entities which somehow "filtered down" or "leaped" or "flew" from that world to Earth in a prehistoric era "when the stars were right", mostly settling into the general vicinity of what is now the Pacific Ocean but then was a major continent which over time would become [[Mu]] and/or [[Lemuria]], and which would include regions that are now submerged beneath the ocean such as [[Ponape]], [[R'lyeh]], and the [[Abyss of Yhe]].

These entities are powerfully psychic, apparently arriving on Earth through some form of [[Astral Plane|astral projection]] from which they either manifested on this world in semi-material bodies they constructed for themselves, or by [[Metempsychosis|stealing the bodies]] of the [[Lemurian|amphibious denizens]] of primitive Lemuria in the [[Pnakotic Age]]. Though they remain partly immaterial and invisible, the Xothan race can be dimly spied by human beings, perhaps via thought projection; in this way, the Xothans are perceived by human beings in dreams and in person as titanic, gelatinous, polypous, and seemingly amphibious entities, consisting of a variable mix of anthropoid, octopoid,and draconic features, typically including such features as corpulent and pulpy bodies, clawed feet and hands, leathery webbed bat-like wings, and tentacles.

In spite of an aquatic or amphibious appearance, however, the Xothans on Earth who were on Lemuria and Mu when those land masses sank beneath the waves seem to have been trapped in their "houses" or "tombs" by the ocean's waters, imprisoned in these "tombs" in a state that [[Abdul Alhazred]] described in the ''[[Necronomicon]]'' as "not dead, but dreaming" - awaiting an age when their stars will once again be right for their return, an age when Cthulhu will call out psychically to all of humanity to awaken them to the new reality of the new age of the Xothan apocalypse, when man will either instantly die out from the shock or horror, die at the hands of other men who have gone mad from the revelations of the the Old Ones, or go mad themselves, joining in with the throngs of other madmen revel and shout and kill and rave alongside the Xothans in their reign of "a thousand and one years" on earth, until the end of yet another ageon Earth for them comes to past.

The Xothans appear to have mastered their alien arts of science, technology, and magic, becoming powerful wizards and scientists who were able to manipulate energy, matter, time, and space to create many strange wonders of architecture, art, and technology, ranging from biologically engineering servitor races from raw protoplasm, to constructing sprawling cyclopean city complexes of non-Euclidean and extra-dimensional architecture where angles can behave as if they are obtuse and acute at the same time, the interiors are larger than the exterior, hallways extend through the dimension of time rather than space, and other sanity-shaking effects are possible. The technological capabilities of the Xothan civilization - such as it was - are, however, a peculiar mix of brutally primitive - buildings of simple, raw, stone blocks constructed with brute force by [[Shoggoth]] slave labor, and other stone-age technologies, for example - and technologies so far in advance of human beings that they seem indistinguishable from magic.



==Associated Mythos Elements==
Settings:
* [[Xothic Cycle]]
* [[Thuvian Age]]

Great Old Ones:
* [[Cthulhu]], said to be the "husband" of [[Idh-yaa]]
* [[Dagon and Hydra]], either exceptional members of the [[Deep One]] servitor race, or [[Great Old Ones]] in their own right, or even Cthulhu itself, depending on who you ask
* [[Zoth-Ommog]], said to be the son of Cthulhu
* [[Ythogtha]], said to be the son of Cthulhu
* [[Cthylla]], said to be the daughter of Cthulhu
* [[Ghatanothoa]], said to be the spawn of Cthulhu
* [[Gloon]], a [[Great Old One]] associated with the [[Deep One]]s
* [[Ub-B'gzth]] AKA [[Ubb]], apparently related in some way to [[Zoth-Ommog]]
* [[Chaat]], another soggy [[Great Old One]] with a suspicious resemblance to the likes of Cthulhu or Dagon
* [[Hastur]], [[August Derleth|said to be]] a "brother" of Cthulhu, with a very similar octopoid appearance
* [[Tsathoggua]], said to originate on Xoth as well as a "cousin" of Cthulhu

Servitor Races:
* [[Star-Spawn of Cthulhu]] AKA Xothan (the catch-all name for the Great Old Ones and races descended from planet Xoth)
* [[Deep One]], a fishy alien race that serves [[Cthulhu]] and [[Dagon]]
* Deep One Hybrids, hybrids between Deep Ones and humans
* [[Child of Chaat]], a sort of Deep One-like race that serves [[Chaat]]
* [[Servant of Gloon]], a sort of Deep One-like race that serves [[Gloon]]
* [[Yugg]], a sort of Deep One-like race, resembling [[Zoth-Ommog]], which serves [[Ub-B'gzth]]
* [[Yuggya]], a hybrid Yugg
* [[Shoggoth]]s, serving as slave labor for the Xothans

Locations:
* location: [[Panope]], [[Abyss of Yhe]], [[R'lyeh]], [[Mu]], [[Lemuria]]
* [[Lake Hali]], on [[Carcosa]] (Hastur's resting place)
* Planet [[Xoth]], home planet of the Xothan race, which is clustered with [[Abbith]], [[Ymar]], and [[Zaoth]]

Tomes and Cults:
* ''[[The Ponape Scripture]]'', details the history, nature, and mythos of the Xothan cults
* ''[[Chaat Aquadingen]]'', similar content to ''The Ponape Scripture''
* [[Esoteric Order of Dagon]], cult connected to [[Devil's Reef]] and [[Innsmouth]] by way of Captain [[Obed Marsh]], who established the cult after making a terrible bargain with the [[Deep One]]s; serves [[Cthulhu]] under the name "[[Dagon]]' with a bastardized version of the Cthulhu Mythos
* [[Cult of Cthulhu]], world-spanning cult serving [[Cthulhu]]
* [[Fellowship Within the Water]], a comparatively peaceful cult of people who believe themselves to be [[Children of Chaat]] (which could possibly include other, similar races like [[Deep One]]s)

==References==

* fiction: [[Lin Carter]], ''[[The Xothic Legend Cycle]]''
* sourcebook: ''[[Malleus Monstrorum]]''

[[Category:Races]]
[[Category:XothicCycle]]
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@@ Line 90: / Line 90: @@
 [[Category:Xothan]]
 [[Category:XothicCycle]]
 __NOTOC__

@@ Line 72: / Line 72: @@
 Tomes and Cults:
 * ''[[The Ponape Scripture]]'', details the history, nature, and mythos of the Xothan cults
-* ''[[Chaat Aquadingen]]'', similar content to ''The Ponape Scripture''
+* ''[[Cthaat Aquadingen]]'', similar content to ''The Ponape Scripture''
 * [[Esoteric Order of Dagon]], cult connected to [[Devil's Reef]] and [[Innsmouth]] by way of Captain [[Obed Marsh]], who established the cult after making a terrible bargain with the [[Deep One]]s; serves [[Cthulhu]] under the name "[[Dagon]]' with a bastardized version of the Cthulhu Mythos
 * [[Cult of Cthulhu]], world-spanning cult serving [[Cthulhu]]

@@ Line 50: / Line 50: @@
 * [[Ghatanothoa]], said to be the spawn of Cthulhu
 * [[Gloon]], a [[Great Old One]] associated with the [[Deep One]]s
-* [[Ub-B'gzth]] AKA [[Ubb]], apparently related in some way to [[Zoth-Ommog]]
+* [[Ub-Bg'zth]] AKA [[Ubb]], apparently related in some way to [[Zoth-Ommog]]
 * [[Chaat]], another soggy [[Great Old One]] with a suspicious resemblance to the likes of Cthulhu or Dagon
 * [[Hastur]], [[August Derleth|said to be]] a "brother" of Cthulhu, with a very similar octopoid appearance

Xothan - Revision history

Ywhateley: Categorization.

Ywhateley: Typo correction.

Ywhateley: Typo correction.

Ywhateley: Typo correction.

Ywhateley: Page created.