Shoggoth

A shoggoth (occasionally shaggoth) is a fictional monster in the Cthulhu Mythos. The being was mentioned in passing in sonnet XX ("Night-Gaunts") of H.P. Lovecraft's sonnet cycle Fungi from Yuggoth, written in 1929-30, and were expounded upon in his novella At the Mountains of Madness (1931).

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A Shoggoth as seen in the game Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth

Description

It was a terrible, indescribable thing vaster than any subway train – a shapeless congeries of protoplasmic bubbles, faintly self-luminous, and with myriads of temporary eyes forming and un-forming as pustules of greenish light all over the tunnel-filling front that bore down upon us, crushing the frantic penguins and slithering over the glistening floor that it and its kind had swept so evilly free of all litter.

— H. P. Lovecraft, At The Mountains of Madness

The definitive description of shoggoths comes from the above-quoted story. In it, Lovecraft writes them as massive amoeba-like creatures looking like they're made out of tar, with multiple eyes "floating" on the surface. They are described as "protoplasmic", lacking any default body shape and instead being able to form limbs and organs at will. An average shoggoth measured 15 feet across when a sphere, though the story mentions ones of much greater size.

Mythos media most commonly shows them, although intelligent to some degree, dealing with problems using their great size and strength. For instance, the original one mentioned in The Mountains of Madness simply rolled over and crushed giant albino penguins that were in the way as it pursued the characters.

The character of the Mad Arab, Abdul Alhazred, found the mere idea of their existence on Earth terrifying.

Origin and history

The shoggoths were created by the Elder Things as living bioengineered construction equipment. Being amorphous, they could take on any shape needed, making them very versatile within their aquatic environment. Though able to "understand" the Elder Things' language, they had no real consciousness and were controlled through hypnotic suggestion.

The shoggoths built the underwater cities of their masters. Over millions of years of existence, some shoggoths mutated and gained independent minds. Some time after this, they rebelled. Eventually, the Elder Things succeeded in quelling the insurrection, but thereafter watched them more carefully. By this point, exterminating them was not an option as the Elder Things were fully dependent on them for labor and could not replace them. It was during this time that, despite their masters' wishes, they demonstrated an ability to survive on land.

Within the Mythos, the existence of the shoggoths possibly led to the accidental creation of Ubbo-Sathla, a god-like entity supposedly responsible for the origin of all life on Earth, though At The Mountains of Madness brings up the possibility of the Elder Things being the creators, having made early life as discarded experiments in bioengineering.

Other connections

When the Elder Things retreated to the oceans, they brought the shoggoths with them and eventually let them develop the ability to exist on land out of desperation. In contrast to their failing society, the shoggoths began to imitate their art and voices, taking over the cavern city underneath Antarctica and creating a twisted imitation of the society of their masters.

Aside from their main appearance in the Mountains of Madness story, shoggoths also appear in other Mythos stories, often as servitors or captives to powerful cults and entities. They are known to endlessly repeat "Tekeli-li", a cry that their old masters used.

Other appearances

• Shoggoths are mentioned in the Lovecraft short stories "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" (1931) and "The Thing on the Doorstep" (1933).

• Shoggoths appear in both the Chaosium and the Wizards of the Coast Call of Cthulhu role-playing game supplements.

• Shoggoths are featured in Charles Stross's novelette "A Colder War", in which they are used as weapons of mass destruction. The Atrocity Archives, the Iraqi Intelligence Service was said to be collaborating with Yusuf al-Qaradawi on raising shoggoths for use in combating the West.

• A shoggoth appears in Grant Morrison's The Invisibles.

• Shoggoths are prominently featured in the parody CD of The HP Lovecraft Historical Society: the Lovecraftian Broadway musical A Shoggoth on the Roof.

• A Shoggoth is a key boss in the multi-platform video game Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth.

• Shoggoths appear in the PlayStation game Persona 2: Eternal Punishment as enemy creatures. When contacted during a boss battle, they ramble nonsensically about red stars.

• Shoggoths appear as acidic recoil inflicting monsters in the online game Wyvern.

• Shoggoths with approximate radial symmetry are available as plush figures produced by Toy Vault.

• A Shoggoth is mentioned in the 'exit screen' (Being the text you receive when prompted to exit the game) in both Quake and Daikatana.

• In the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game system, the shoggoth is referred to as a gibbering mouther. The shoggoth also could be considered the basis of the ooze family of creatures, or more specifically the black pudding. Much like the shoggoth, the black pudding is tar-like in appearance as well as amorphous. The glossary entry for puddings in the computer game NetHack quotes and cites the eyewitness description of a shoggoth in Lovecraft's original story.

• Robert Anton Wilson asserts in his Schrödinger's Cat trilogy that it is not a "shaggy shoggoth story," a portmanteau of "Shaggy dog story" and "Shoggoth," playfully implying that the book is indeed a rambling series of nonsequiturs dealing with otherworldly concepts. The Shoggoth also plays its role in the The Illuminatus! Trilogy, in which it is linked to the Law of Fives and the Necronomicon, and it is a Shoggoth that consumes crimeboss Robert Putney Drake, after he has betrayed the Illuminati.

• In the board game Arkham Horror, the Shoggoth is one of the many monsters from Cthulhu and the H. P. Lovecraft books that roam the streets of Arkham.

• A Shoggoth appears in The Real Ghostbusters episode, The Collect Call of Cathulhu, In the episode, it is summoned by cultists to combat the Ghostbusters, however it is swiftly defeated by a spell from a Cthulhu historian.

• Creatures matching the physical description of shoggoths, named with the alternative spelling of "shuggoths," appear toward the end of the novel Frek and The Elixir by Rudy Rucker.

• Shoggoths make an appearance in the novel "Move Under Ground" by Nick Mamatas, a spin-off of the Cthulhu mythos involving Jack Kerouac.

• Author Neil Gaiman has written several short stories based in the Cthulhu mythos, one of which takes place in the town of Innsmouth where a wandering tourist is treated to several pints of "Shoggoth's Old Peculiar" ale.

• Shoggoths appear as major foes in the novel The Spiraling Worm by David Conyers and John Sunseri.

• In The New Traveller's Almanac, Captain Nemo encounters a shoggoth while exploring the south pole.

• Tom Smith's song, "I had a Shoggoth" was written for The Funny Music Project and was performed live at MarCon 2008. It was translated into ASL by Judi Miller.

• A novelette "Shoggoths in Bloom" by Elizabeth Bear features the creatures prominently

• In the videogame Resident Evil 2, a recurring boss of the game is a monster that has been constantly mutating into various forms throughout the game. The final form it reaches is a Shoggoth-like blob with eyes, tentacles, and teeth forming and deforming into its bloated figure. Similar to the Shoggoth in At the Mountains of Madness, the blob is constantly rolling down on the player as they navigate a train car.

• The Invaders from Getter Robo Armageddon may have been inspired by the shoggoths, being black, amorphous creatures covered in eyes (but with the addition of sharp, bony protrusions).

• The Japanese game Demonbane features a Shoggoth as a pet kept by one of the main characters, although its appearance differs significantly from Lovecrafts description.

• The Sagoths, ape-like creatures in the Edgar Rice Burroughs Pellucidar, may or may not have been named in reference to the Shoggoths.

• In the Nintendo DS game Scribblenauts the player is able to spawn a Shoggoth, Cthulhu and the necronomicon.

• Many of the beings in the videogame Prototype match the descriptions of shoggoths, although in this case they are bio-engineered from modern terrestrial lifeforms - which are in some stories considered to be descendants of mutated shoggoths.

References

• Burleson, Donald R. (1983). H. P. Lovecraft, A Critical Study. Westport, CT / London, England: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-23255-5.

• Harms, Daniel (1998). "Shoggoths". The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana (2nd ed. ed.). Oakland, CA: Chaosium. pp. 273–4. ISBN 1-56882-119-0. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)

• Lovecraft, Howard P. (1985) [1931]. "At the Mountains of Madness". In S. T. Joshi (ed.) (ed.). At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels (7th corrected printing ed.). Sauk City, WI: Arkham House. ISBN 0-87054-038-6. {{cite book}}: |editor= has generic name (help) Definitive version.

• Pearsall, Anthony B. (2005). The Lovecraft Lexicon (1st ed. ed.). Tempe, AZ: New Falcon Pub. ISBN 1-56184-129-3. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)