Ghroth

Ghroth (AKA "The Harbinger", "The Maker of the Doom of Worlds") is from Ramsey Campbell's "The Tugging (fiction)"

In the Mythos

It was red as rust, featureless except for bulbous protrusions like hill.... Except that of course they weren’t hills if he could see them at this distance; they must be immense. It seemed to hang ponderously, communicating a thunderous sense of imminence, of power.... Then it moved.... The surface of a planet doesn't move... the surface of a planet doesn't crack, it doesn’t roll back like that, it doesn’t peel back for thousands of miles so you can see what’s underneath, pale and glistening.
—Ramsey Campbell's "The Tugging (fiction)"

[A] nineteenth century British cult believed in [a] comet-god who sang to the stars and planets as it passed by them in its orbit. They said it destroyed those worlds it passed, by waking up demons or ancient gods ... who slept on each world.
—Kevin A. Ross, "The Music of the Spheres"

Ghroth (the Harbinger) resembles a small, rust-colored planet or moon with a single, gigantic red eye which it can close to avoid detection. Ghroth drifts throughout the universe singing its siren song, the Music of the Spheres. As it swings by a planet, any Great Old One or Outer God sleeping there is awakened by the song. This usually results in the extinction of all life on the planet or perhaps even the utter destruction of the planet itself. (Kevin A. Ross, "The Music Of The Spheres", Made In Goatswood, pp. 211 & 222).

Ghroth is believed to be responsible for the periodic mass extinctions that wiped out 90% of all life on earth, including the extinction of the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous era. It may also have caused the destruction of the planet Shaggai, the homeworld of the intelligent, insect-like Shan. (Daniel Harms, "Ghroth", The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana, pp. 118 & 119) For this reason, Ghroth is also known as Nemesis, or the Death Star, named after the Nemesis Hypothesis, first proposed by American astronomers David Raup and Jack Sepkoski.

Cult

Ghroth has a few worshipers, mostly astrologers and others interested in the stars. One small organized cult is the Cult of Ghroth in the Goatswood area of England (and possibly elsewhere).

Associated Mythos Elements

• tome: Revelations of Glaaki
• race: Human Cultists
• location: Goatswood

References

• fiction: Ramsey Campbell's "The Tugging (fiction)"
• fiction: Kevin A. Ross's "The Music of the Spheres"

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