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Tatzelwurm

A fat-bodied snake 7 feet long, with either two, four, or six stubby clawed feet and a head resembling a cat's. Its breath is poisonous.

Newborn Servants of Bokrug

“Well-equipped,  I started out on a spring morning (near the end of April 1929) and after a short climb I reached the top of the Tempelmauer. After a short rest between the cliffs I started to look for the entrance to the cave. Suddenly I saw a snake-like animal sprawled on the damp rotting foliage that covered the ground. Its skin was almost white, not covered with scales but smooth. Its head was flat and two very short feet on the fore-part of the body were visible. It did not move but kept staring at me with its remarkably large eyes. I know every one of our animals at first glance and knew that I faced the one that is unknown to science, the tatzelwurm….[the] tatzelwurm did not have large claws but short and atrophied-looking feet….Most probably the tatzelwurm is a rare variety of salamander living in moist caves and coming only rarely to the light of day.” – unnamed Austrian schoolmaster, quoted in On The Track of Unknown Animals, Bernard Heuvelmans (1955)

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Hellgrammite

Hellgammite

Vengeance writ in a child’s blood

“Nothing in the cry of cicadas suggests they are about to die.” – Matsuo Bashō

“Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.” – Confucius (attributed)

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The Iconodule, a Blasphemous Creation

“Bring on the multitudes….to nourish the Artist, stretch their skin upon an easel to give him canvas, crush their bones into a paste that he might mold them. Let them die, and by their miserable deaths become the clay within his hands that he might form…”

– Maxwell Brock, Beat poet

Creating a piece of artwork can be like a particularly difficult birth; more so if the act of creation has resulted in the birth of an iconodule, a foul and hateful entity that lives within a piece of artwork.  Iconodules are born of frustration, despair, and envy, fused with human creativity, imagination, and desire to create: a tempestuously fertile ground. Iconodules have been found in sculpture, in paintings, even in the written word, corrupting first the work they hide within, then their creator, and finally others within their sphere of influence. 

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Obsequious Servants

The word “shoggoth” simply means “servant” or “slave” in the language of the Elder Things, and as such, the star-headed extraterrestrials designed and bred them into a variety of forms to suit specific functions. The most familiar breed of shoggoth was designed for building Elder Thing citiesa living bulldozer or crane, effectively. Other forms were engineered for other purposes, especially during the wars against the mi-go and the spawn of Cthulhu, during which shoggoths were transformed into living artillery and other forms. 

Those few sorcerers since the decline of the Elder Things who understood the nature of shoggoths as servants have continued to tinker with the malleable protoplasm, designing new forms to suit their own needs. The most common of these are the Obsequious Servants. 

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