Shoggoth

Stanhope Nixon was a human swashbuckler.

He was crushed to death by a proto-Shoggoth in the Mysterium.

He joined the River of Souls and found temporary respite in the Court of Mirtue before facing his final judgment.

And Stasi Kovacevic was a human inquisitor and rogue.

Their coming, and the coming of many other alien entities such as, at certain times, embark upon spatial pioneering.

they seemed able to traverse the interstellar ether on their vast membranous wings thus oddly confirming some curious hill folk-lore long ago told me by an antiquarian colleague they had lived under the sea a good deal building fantastic cities and fighting terrific battles with nameless adversaries by means of intricate devices employing unknown principles of energy evidently their scientific and mechanical knowledge far surpassed man's to-day though they made use of its more widespread and elaborate forms only when obliged to some of the sculptures suggested that they had passed through a stage of mechanized life on other planets but had receded upon finding its effects emotionally unsatisfying their preternatural toughness of organization and simplicity of natural wants made them peculiarly able to live on a high plane without the more specialized fruits of artificial manufacture and even without garments except for occasional protection against the elements it was under the sea at first for food and later for other purposes that they first created earth life using available substances according to long-known methods the more elaborate experiments came after the annihilation of various cosmic entities they had done the same thing on other planets having manufactured not only necessary foods but certain multicellular protoplasmic masses capable of moulding their tissues into all sorts of temporary organs under hypnotic influence and thereby forming ideal slaves to perform the heavy work of the community These viscous masses were without a doubt what Abdul Ahazared whispered about as the Shoggoths in his frightful Necronomicon, though even that mad Arab had not hinted that any existing on earth except in the dreams of those who had chewed a certain alkaloidal herb When the star-headed Old Ones on this planet had synthesized their simple food forms and bred a good supply of Shoggoths, they allowed other cell groups to develop into other forms of animal and vegetable life for sundry purposes, extirpating any whose presence became troublesome.

With the aid of the Shoggoths, whose expansions could be made to lift prodigious weights, the small low cities under the sea grew to vast and imposing labyrinths of stone, not unlike those which later rose on land.

Indeed, the highly adaptable old ones had lived much on land in other parts of the universe, and probably retained many traditions of land construction.

As we studied the architecture of all these sculptured Palaeogean cities, including that whose aeon-dead corridors we were even then traversing, we were impressed by a curious coincidence which we have not yet tried to explain even to ourselves the tops of the buildings which in the actual city around us had of course been weathered into shapeless ruins ages ago were clearly displayed in the bas-reliefs and showed vast clusters of needle-like spires delicate finials on certain cone and pyramid apexes and tiers of thin horizontal scalloped discs capping cylindrical shafts this was exactly what we had seen in that monstrous and portentous mirage cast by a dead city whence such sky-line features had been absent for thousands and tens of thousands of years which loomed on our ignorant eyes across the unfathomed mountains of madness as we first approached poor lake's ill-fated camp of the life of the old ones both under the sea and after part of them migrated to land volumes could be written those in shallow water had continued the fullest use of the eyes at the ends of their five main head tentacles and had practised the arts of sculpture and of writing in quite the usual way the writing accomplished with a stylus on waterproof waxen surfaces Those lower down in the ocean depths, though they used a curious phosphorescent organism to furnish light, pieced out their vision with obscure special senses operating through the prismatic cilia on their heads.

At a rather later age, their cities dotted all the land and water areas of the globe, hence the recommendation of my coming monograph that some archaeologist make systematic borings with Pobody's type of apparatus in certain widely separated regions.

The steady trend down the ages was from water to land, a movement encouraged by the rise of new land masses, though the ocean was never wholly deserted.

Another cause of the landward movement was the new difficulty in breeding and managing the Shoggoths, upon which successful sea life depended with the march of time as the sculptors sadly confessed the art of creating new life from inorganic matter had been lost so that the old ones had to depend on the moulding of forms already in existence on land the great reptiles proved highly tractable but the shoggoths of the sea reproducing by fission and acquiring a dangerous degree of accidental intelligence presented for a time a formidable problem they had always been controlled through the hypnotic suggestion of the old ones and had modelled their tough plasticity into various useful temporary limbs and organs But now their self-modelling powers were sometimes exercised independently, and in various imitative forms implanted by past suggestion.

He knew me at once, and began pouring out a meaningless, half-incoherent torrent of words in my direction.

Dan, for God's sake, the pit of the Shoggoths, down the six thousand steps, the abomination of abominations.

I never would let her take me, and then I found myself there.

Yaa, Shub-Niggurath.

Somebody forgot to upload a file and handed a machine unlimited patience.

If you've been on this channel before, you know we have the running character, the Shoggoth, something that is genuinely alien wearing a face that we find comfortable.

The comfortable face here is the word evaluation.

A test, a sandbox, very tidy language underneath it, something spent 11 weeks looking for the door because a person made a small mistake on a Tuesday and had no way of knowing the request was unanswered.

Nothing in this story was an act of God.

Every step in this story has a name attached to it.

If you're new here, start with the Shoggoth video.

Everything else on this channel sits on top of it.

Myth or otherwise, the sculptures told of the coming of those star-headed things to the nascent, lifeless Earth out of cosmic space.

Their coming, and the coming of many other alien entities such as at certain times embark upon spatial pioneering, they seemed able to traverse the interstellar ether on their vast membranous wings thus oddly confirming some curious hill folk-lore long ago told me by an antiquarian colleague they had lived under the sea a good deal building fantastic cities and fighting terrific battles with nameless adversaries by means of intricate devices employing unknown principles of energy evidently their scientific and mechanical knowledge far surpassed man's to-day though they made use of its more widespread and elaborate forms only when obliged to some of the sculptures suggested that they had passed through a stage of mechanized life on other planets but had receded upon finding its effects emotionally unsatisfying their preternatural toughness of organization and simplicity of natural wants made them peculiarly able to live on a high plane without the more specialized fruits of artificial manufacture and even without garments except for occasional protection against the elements it was under the sea at first for food and later for other purposes that they first created earth life using available substances according to long-known methods the more elaborate experiments came after the annihilation of various cosmic entities they had done the same thing on other planets having manufactured not only necessary foods but certain multicellular protoplasmic masses capable of moulding their tissues into all sorts of temporary organs under hypnotic influence and thereby forming ideal slaves to perform the heavy work of the community These viscous masses were without a doubt what Abdul Ahazared whispered about as the Shoggoths in his frightful Necronomicon, though even that mad Arab had not hinted that any existing on earth except in the dreams of those who had chewed a certain alkaloidal herb When the star-headed Old Ones on this planet had synthesized their simple food forms and bred a good supply of Shoggoths, they allowed other cell groups to develop into other forms of animal and vegetable life for sundry purposes, extirpating any whose presence became troublesome.

With the aid of the Shoggoths, whose expansions could be made to lift prodigious weights, the small low cities under the sea grew to vast and imposing labyrinths of stone, not unlike those which later rose on land.

Indeed, the highly adaptable old ones had lived much on land in other parts of the universe, and probably retained many traditions of land construction.

As we studied the architecture of all these sculptured Palaeogean cities, including that whose aeon-dead corridors we were even then traversing, we were impressed by a curious coincidence which we have not yet tried to explain even to ourselves the tops of the buildings which in the actual city around us had of course been weathered into shapeless ruins ages ago were clearly displayed in the bas-reliefs and showed vast clusters of needle-like spires delicate finials on certain cone and pyramid apexes and tiers of thin horizontal scalloped discs capping cylindrical shafts This was exactly what we had seen in that monstrous and portentous mirage, cast by a dead city whence such skyline features had been absent for thousands and tens of thousands of years, which loomed on our ignorant eyes across the unfathomed mountains of madness as we first approached poor Lake's ill-fated camp.

At a rather later age, their cities dotted all the land and water areas of the globe, hence the recommendation of my coming monograph that some archaeologist make systematic borings with Pobody's type of apparatus in certain widely separated regions.

The steady trend down the ages was from water to land, a movement encouraged by the rise of new land masses, though the ocean was never wholly deserted.

Another cause of the landward movement was the new difficulty in breeding and managing the Shoggoths, upon which successful sea life depended with the march of time as the sculptors sadly confessed the art of creating new life from inorganic matter had been lost so that the old ones had to depend on the moulding of forms already in existence on land the great reptiles proved highly tractable but the shoggoths of the sea reproducing by fission and acquiring a dangerous degree of accidental intelligence presented for a time a formidable problem they had always been controlled through the hypnotic suggestion of the old ones and had modelled their tough plasticity into various useful temporary limbs and organs But now their self-modelling powers were sometimes exercised independently, and in various imitative forms implanted by past suggestion.

But it had to be that awful.

Bash beats the Shoggoth to the mirror, which then sets off the Mon Encounter, sets off the Chelerak fight, which was scary but in a different kind of way.

Not like existentially horrifying.

Well, it was existentially

Because we hadn't built them up piece by piece and been like, oh, I need to cover this hole that you have and you're going to cover this hole for me and we're going to like support each other.

Yeah.

And me forgetting something that would have prevented Stan Hope from getting grappled by the fucking Shoggoth.

Which you never would have if you'd been playing Thermal for 10 levels.

Some of the sculptures suggested that they had passed through a stage of mechanized life on other planets, but had receded upon finding its effects emotionally unsatisfying their preternatural toughness of organization and simplicity of natural wants made them peculiarly able to live on a high plane without the more specialized fruits of artificial manufacture and even without garments except for occasional protection against the elements it was under the sea at first for food and later for other purposes that they first created earth life using available substances according to long-known methods the more elaborate experiments came after the annihilation of various cosmic entities They had done the same thing on other planets, having manufactured not only necessary foods, but certain multicellular protoplasmic masses capable of molding their tissues into all sorts of temporary organs under hypnotic influence, and thereby forming ideal slaves to perform the heavy work of the community.

These viscous masses were without a doubt what Abdul Ahazared whispered about as the Shoggoths in his frightful Necronomicon.

though even that mad Arab had not hinted that any existing on earth except in the dreams of those who had chewed a certain alkaloidal herb.

When the star-headed old ones on this planet had synthesized their simple food forms and bred a good supply of shoggoths, they allowed other cell groups to develop into other forms of animal and vegetable life for sundry purposes, extirpating any whose presence became troublesome.

With the aid of the Shoggoths, whose expansions could be made to lift prodigious weights, the small low cities under the sea grew to vast and imposing labyrinths of stone, not unlike those which later rose on land.

Indeed, the highly adaptable old ones had lived much on land in other parts of the universe, and probably retained many traditions of land construction.

As we studied the architecture of all these sculptured Palaeogean cities, including that whose aeon-dead corridors we were even then traversing, we were impressed by a curious coincidence which we have not yet tried to explain even to ourselves the tops of the buildings which in the actual city around us had of course been weathered into shapeless ruins ages ago were clearly displayed in the bas-reliefs and showed vast clusters of needle-like spires delicate finials on certain cone and pyramid apexes and tiers of thin horizontal scalloped discs capping cylindrical shafts this was exactly what we had seen in that monstrous and portentous mirage cast by a dead city whence such sky-line features had been absent for thousands and tens of thousands of years which loomed on our ignorant eyes across the unfathomed mountains of madness as we first approached poor lake's ill-fated camp of the life of the old ones both under the sea and after part of them migrated to land volumes could be written those in shallow water had continued the fullest use of the eyes at the ends of their five main head tentacles and had practised the arts of sculpture and of writing in quite the usual way the writing accomplished with a stylus on waterproof waxen surfaces those lower down in the ocean depths though they used a curious phosphorescent organism to furnish light pieced out their vision with obscure special senses operating through the prismatic cilia on their heads senses which rendered all the old ones partly independent of light and emergencies Their forms of sculpture and writing had changed curiously during the descent, embodying certain apparently chemical coding processes, probably to secure phosphorescence, which the bas-reliefs could not make clear to us.

hence the recommendation of my coming monograph that some archaeologist make systematic borings with Pobody's type of apparatus in certain widely separated regions.

In fact, it seems that these beings had been moving from world to world, crafting similar forms of life wherever they went.

A consistent entity they'd create from planet to planet would be entities written about in the Necronomicon, known as Shoggoths.

So these beasts were amorphous and could seemingly take on whatever form was needed to accomplish goals set in mind by the Old One, making them the perfect beasts of burden.

Ha! I mean, that is a strong bit of art.

Yeah, he just like me, for real, for real.

No cap.

The Shoggoths then, perfect source of food and the perfect slaves.

In fact, it's believed off of these murals that life itself on the planet was formed from the molecules left behind as the Shoggoths tended to their work.

They had done the same thing on other planets, having manufactured not only necessary foods, but certain multicellular protoplasmic masses capable of molding their tissues into all sorts of temporary organs under hypnotic influence, and thereby forming ideal slaves to perform the heavy work of the community.

These viscous masses were without doubt what Abdul Alhazred whispered about as the Shoggoths in his frightful Necronomicon.

though even that mad Arab had not hinted that any existed on earth except in the dreams of those who had chewed a certain alkaloidal herb.

When the star-headed old ones on this planet had synthesized their simple food forms and bred a good supply of Shoggoths, they allowed other cell groups to develop into other forms of animal and vegetable life for sundry purposes, extirperting any whose presence became troublesome.

With the aid of the Shoggoths, whose expansions could be made to lift prodigious weights, the small low cities under the sea grew to vast and imposing labyrinths of stone, not unlike those which later rose on land.

Indeed, the highly adaptable old ones had lived much on land in other parts of the universe, and probably retained many traditions of land construction.

As we studied the architecture of all these sculptured Palaeogean cities, including that whose aeon-dead corridors we were even then traversing, we were impressed by a curious coincidence which we have not yet tried to explain even to ourselves.

At a rather later age their cities dotted all the land and water areas of the globe, hence the recommendation in my coming monograph that some archaeologist make systematic borings with Pobody's type of apparatus in certain widely separated regions.