Shoggoth

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Origin: H.P. Lovecraft, At the Mountains of Madness (fiction)

A Shoggoth is a gigantic protoplasmic glob of cells that were originally created by the Elder Things to be used for manual labor. It is uncertain how intelligent they are, as they were originally designed to be mindless creatures by the Elder Things, but eventually gained minds of their own, and even rebelled against the Elder Things. They are first introduced in Lovecraft's "The Mountains of Madness".

An amorphous Shoggoth...

Shoggoth Description

A average Shoggoth is about 15 feet in diameter when contracted into a sphere, but larger ones do exist. The only permanent structures that they seem to have are eyes and mouths, each Shoggoth having dozens of both. Shoggoths are generally Amoeba-like, and so presumed to capture prey using tentacle-like pseudopods. Shoggoths often mimic the habits and speech of their old masters, and it is not unusual to hear them shouting "Tekeli-li" in the piping voice of the Elder thing. Shoggoths are incredibly strong creatures, and when not being controlled, very aggressive. They are noted as killing their victims by sucking their heads off, and it is noted that Elder Things used them as weapons of war.

Shoggoths are found primarily in Antarctica, the last bastion of the Elder Things, though there is mention of various other cults and groups, such as the Deep Ones, making use of the creatures.

Proto-Shoggoth

"Danforth has on rare occasions whispered disjointed and irresponsible things about 'the black pit', 'the carven rim', 'the proto-shoggoths ', 'the windowless solids with five dimensions', 'the nameless cylinder', 'the elder pharos', 'Yog-Sothoth', 'the primal white jelly', 'the colour out of space', 'the wings', 'the eyes in darkness', 'the moon-ladder', 'the original, the eternal, the undying', and other bizarre conceptions; but when he is fully himself he repudiates all this and attributes it to his curious and macabre reading of earlier years. He, indeed, is known to be among the few who have ever dared go completely through that worm-riddled copy of the Necronomicon kept under lock and key in the college library."
— H.P. Lovecraft, At the Mountains of Madness (fiction)

There is little more than the vaguest hints in Lovecraft's stories to what a proto-shoggoth might be, and how it might differ from other shoggoths; the name implies that a proto-shoggoth is the original form or stock from which the shoggoths were developed by the Elder Thing scientists, which might or might not have been a formless, protoplasmic slime. A proto-shoggoth is sometimes reckoned to be a smaller, more flexible/fluid Shoggoth lacking mutational qualities but instead being able to maintain its shape for long periods of time.

Shoggoth Lord

TO_DO.

Shoggoth Lords are from Michael Shea's "Fat Face".

Heresies and Controversies

• Proto-Shoggoths are smaller, more flexible/liquid Shoggoths, lacking the mutational qualities of Shoggoths but instead holding the ability to maintain a shape (such as humanoid) for extended amounts of time, perhaps with the help of a stiff human-shaped suit of leather, rubber, etc. (Sandy Petersen)

Associated Mythos Elements

• tome: Necronomicon
• race: Shoggoth
• race: Shoggoth Lord

References

• Fiction: H.P. Lovecraft, At the Mountains of Madness (fiction)