Archive for Creatures

It was weird, hell it was terrifying. Three eyes, I shit you not, and they glowed red! How the hell does that happen?

He told me to do stuff and I did it. I threw coffee on people, sang loudly, just random crap–and he kept apologizing. It was like he was grabbing me tightly, but in my mind. Lost my damn job.—Paul Erickson, former employee at Mug o’ Joe.

These items begin as normal Caryatids, namely a female figured carved from, or serving in place of, a structural support column. They are often found at holy sites, such as temples, or in important civic buildings, such as a forum or governmental offices. They vary wildly in size, and are sometimes depicted as holding something, such as a weapon, a jug of water, a bundle of wheat, or a bunch of scrolls. Enchanted Caryatid are often found in pairs, stand between five and eight feet tall, and are always carved holding an object. 

Across the world bodies of water are often the lairs of malevolent creatures. A common type takes the form of a beautiful women who possesses the power to enchant their victims and draw them to a watery death. The mighty Nile river is no exception. In rural areas the river’s banks and canals are the hunting ground of the alluring and deadly En-Naddaha.  

A En-Naddaha appears as a beautiful woman with long dark hair, wearing a semi-transparent lose fitting garment, standing knee to waist deep in the water. It lurks and listens near the water’s edge, sometimes for many days or even weeks, before obtaining what it seeks – a man’s name. Once an En-Naddaha learns a man’s name it gains power over him, often marking his doom.

We had the best of intentions. Our team included endocrinologists, neurologists, geneticists, and medical doctors. We were trying to engineer a panacea–something that would slow age, prevent dementia, make the body more durable, resistant to injury, and much faster to heal. We never imagined these abominations.–Dr. Richard Treemont, M.D.

Hunit dalas. Hunit. Kedit. Klss kedit. Hngy. Kllyou. Eat.–Test Subject A5, Patient Zero, and former college student. Actual name withheld for national security purposes.

We went there to clean, okay? The old lady died. The family wanted an estate sale. Routine job. The place was a fucking mess, right? She must have really let herself go before she finally bit it. The walls were covered with sharpie scrawls, as though toddlers and not an 80-year-old lived there. Same goes for the piles of trash. It smelt of piss and shit. Unwashed bodies. How many times do I have to go over this? I don’t know where Junior is. He’s cleaning one moment, screaming the next. Then… nothing. Gone. Vanished. His clothes were all we found, lying there on that awful bathroom tile as though he had come home drunk and stumbled into the shower. No sign of him. No blood. No nothing. Just the clothes. The mirror all fogged up too, though it was cold as hell in there. I would be lying if I told you I did not hear anything…. I thought something was tapping from the inside of that mirror. Tap tap tap on glass, echoing out of that endless slate of grey. Try and find him if you want. I’m not going anywhere near that fucking house again. 

As long as men have dreamed of a better future, there have been dreams that have failed catastrophically, ruining the lives of not only the dreamer, but of everyone around them. While many of these have come crashing down due to human fallibility, several have had a darker influence manipulating events. In these cases, human aspirations have been fanned, twisted, and torn apart by an entity referred to in Mythos grimoires as the Uebbho-Ko. Whether this is a singular entity reappearing across time, or members of a species of dream-eaters, is a matter of minor debate among Mythos scholars; a few texts reference the Uebbho-Ko serving a greater entity, euphemistically referred to as the Pontifex of Incubi, but as always, the validity of sorcerers’ insights is questionable at best. 

The play The King in Yellow has been introduced to the oddest and most inaccessible of places. One of those was the blood and fecal churned mud in the trenches of the Western Front. As soldiers reached out for any talisman, mascot, or gris-gris that might protect them from the random, impersonal death that haunted the mazes of entrenchments that stretched from Switzerland to the sea, more than one man on leave stumbled upon the Yellow Sign. Some thought them to be a variation of the popular Buddhist swastika that was found in great numbers on either side of No Man’s Land. Others believe them to be a good luck charm of Arabic origin. Whether found in a shop or sent in the mail by worried and superstitious family or friends, the Yellow Sign was not unknown in the trenches. And where the Yellow Sign Goes, the play The King in Yellow is sure to follow. Perhaps the manuscript arrives at the battalion HQ via the post from an anonymous sender. A play that might be performed in order to alleviate the boredom that settles in between the gargantuan efforts to shift the front a mile or two east? Maybe the pages arrive as nothing more than wadded packing around a shipment of preserved food sent from the hole? In any event, the play is here now and Carcosa will soon follow.

“For almost one hundred years, the residents of the French Hill Neighborhood have seen a terrifying figure wandering through the streets and sometimes even their homes. An evil, ancient hag nursing a giant rat. Even as French Hill becomes a trendy, gentrified, upscaled neighborhood, the old superstitions remain. Everyone knows the name Keziah Mason. And everyone knows not to anger her. …– Marion Elwood, The Ghosts of Old Arkham.

Although it is rare Deep Ones can, and do, mate with a variety of sea creatures. While dolphins and sharks are the most common partners, a number of other examples exist. One such variety is the Deep One / Eel Hybrid. These are most commonly found in the darkest depths of the ocean, lurking on the outskirts of a Deep One colony, or near a shore side community of Deep One hybrids. While there is a great deal of variation between individuals, depending on the species of eel they are born from or sired by, a few common traits exist. Deep One / Eel Hybrids have a humanoid the upper body similar to common Deep Ones but with much larger and wider mouths and the lower serpentine bodies eels. While they can breathe air they are seldom found on land, as they move slow and clumsily when out of the water.

Moss Skeletons

I want your skull, I need your skull

— The Misfits

Typically native to marshlands and lowland wooded areas the Bonescraw are in fact a single, semi-sentient bryophyte which fell to Earth on an ancient meteorite. Once it has contaminated an area it will spread as a deep, dense network of carnivorous, acidic moss and lichen that blights the land. Any creature unfortunate enough to enter the moss falls prey to the sedative pollen that it releases and is slowly dissolved and digested, leaving only their bones behind.