All posts by Bruce Priddy

The Tables of Maxctli was defaced centuries ago. From context clues, we can see there was once instructions to summon the so-called Serpents That Walk but someone chiseled them from the stone. Their true name was removed as well. It is unknown if the epitaph carved in the wound, Messenger of Yig, was an attempt at humor on the part of the vandal or an attempt to placate them. 

Alternative names: The Serpents That Walk, Zsthu

The Tables of Maxctli gives us a sort of family tree of the Court of Yig. This may be the most suppressed part of the text. You’ll find few translations. The implications are not fit for polite society. Especially in regards to the Aygghya, a title given to twins that are both children and grandchildren of the Snake God. 

Other Names:  Mother-of-All-Serpents, Aygghya

The Tables of Maxctli give us the best picture of the Apocalypse Serpent, which the Ophidian Folk call Yqphuactl. A snake leagues upon leagues in length. A head crowned in feathers, much like Quetzalcoatl of the Aztecs. A mouth so wide it could, and will, eat the sun. Of course, this is probably all metaphor, Yqphuactl is too large to be seen whole by the human eye. 

Other Names:  The Great Dragon, Yqphuactl, Jörmungandr

Arif opened the small wooden box. Inside, resting on a bed of excelsior wool and its own long hair was a tiny mummy. Something like the remains of a man that was withering away, in danger of shrinking down to nothing. Was it human, though? It was the rough shape of a man or something close, certainly. A monkey? Thin arms terminating in long claws crossed its chest. Tusks protruded from the top and bottom of the mouth. As we examined the tiny creature, it seemed to shift in its bed. We jumped back from the shock. Not a mummy but a living thing! “Welcome to the Church of Kailour. He is pleased to accept your worship,” said Arif. 

Alternative names: psychic mummies

We turned out flashlights to the laughter and saw her. Floating between the trees. Beautiful. Glowing. A white gown clung around her round belly, so full it looked like she was bound to give birth at any time. Wind whipped her long hair. And claws reaching from her fingertips to her ankles. We were too terrified, too mesmerized, to move. “Oh God,” Daniel said in a harsh whisper. “She knows what I’ve done.” Before we could ask him what he meant, in a blink she was on us. A veiny brown proboscis lashed from her mouth, striking Daniel in the face. He clutched his eye, rivets of blood leaking through fingers. He fell backward and as he did, those claws ripped him open. Insides piled on the ground. She, it, fell to her knees, drinking up the offal through the proboscis. “Ke-ke-ke-ke,” she laughed. 

Alternative names: Pontianak, Sundel Bolong, Langsuir

Angela reached toward the crying infant, softly cooing to calm it. As she tried to reach a hand under it to pick it up, the baby turned. Where a face should have been was a hole, filled with row after row of sharp teeth. It leapt on her, teeth sinking into her exposed neck in a spray of blood. Angela fell backward, her hands batting at the creature in a panic. A gurgled screamed drowned in the blood erupting from her mouth

Alternative names: Tianac, Leech Children

It came out of the trees alongside the road, floating just a foot over the asphalt ahead of us. The headlights of our car illuminated a human figured, cocooned in dirty-white linens. It wiggled and struggled against its prison of bindings. A decaying face, eyes bulging and grin wide from rot, peered from the shroud. Suddenly, the driver unleashed a gout of blood-tinged vomit and passed against as the steering wheel. 

Alternative names: Hantu Bungkus, Kain Kafan, Shroud Ghost

Lurch by lurch, it squeezed itself through the narrow hallway. A trail of slime on the corrosion-eaten walls and floor marked its passage. It was something of a man with the fact of an insect. Mandibles worked back and forth, and over themselves, as if it were tasting the air. It seemed to have a slug-like lower half. Only when it dragged itself closer could we that a curtain of flesh, pulled down by the heavy locks hooked into the skin, concealed its legs. Keys worked into the fingers on one of its hands clinked and clanked against one another incessantly.    

Alternative names: Low Xopolhiti, Lord of the Regents, Ruler of the Abattoir

The nethermost caverns…are not for the fathoming of eyes that see; for their marvels are strange and terrific. Cursed the ground where dead thoughts live new and oddly bodied…out of corruption horrid life springs…

– HP Lovecraft, “The Festival”

Alternative Names: Bearer of the Black Milk, the Foul Fecundity