The Original, the Eternal, the Undying

All that Danforth has ever hinted is that the final horror was a mirage. It was not, he declares, anything connected with the cubes and caves of those echoing, vaporous, wormily-honeycombed mountains of madness which we crossed; but a single fantastic, demoniac glimpse, among the churning zenith-clouds, of what lay back of those other violet westward mountains which the Old Ones had shunned and feared.

  – HP Lovecraft, At the Mountains of Madness

Other Names: The Source, the Primal White Jelly, Ur-Shoggoth, God of the Shoggoths, the great gray goo.

If the Original, the Eternal, the Undying has a true name, it is obscured behind vague titles. Few tomes acknowledge the existence of the deity. Those that do only hint at its nature.

Contrary to what is written about the creation of the shoggoths, the Elder Things did not make the monstrosities. They were but a tool to bring the shoggoths into existence on Earth. From its unreachable throne beyond all space and time, the God of the Shoggoths seeks out advanced civilizations. It touches the minds of sleeping scientists, teaching them how to create shoggoths—sowing the seeds of that civilization’s destruction.

Each civilization builds their own version of the shoggoths, based on their current technology. The living bio-weapons of the Elder Things are but one example of a shoggoth. Countless more examples exist throughout the universe.

Once a critical mass of shoggoths is reached on a world, a minor fragment of the Original, the Eternal, the Undying can manifest among them.

Within the next century, the Original, the Eternal, the Undying will whisper in the dreams of human scientist. The techno-shoggoths will then be born. All life on the planet will be consumed, as has life on innumerable worlds.

Cult

No cult, organized or otherwise, exists among humans or other beings. Even the shoggoths have no worship of the deity.

Bruce Priddy

Bruce is a sociology student and co-host of The Crypt Keepers podcast