Shoggoth.net

“…a thing all over hairy, all the face hayry & a long nose & I don’t know how to tell you the face looks w’ith two Leggs itt goeth upright & is about two or three foot high & goeth upright like a man…” – Elaine G. Breslaw, “Tituba’s Confession: The Multicultural Dimensions of the 1692 Salem Witch-Hunt,” published in Ethnohistory Vol. 44, No 3 (Summer 1997). 

Alternative names: Great God Pan, Husband to Witches, Witch King.

This mask of Nyarlathotep takes the shape of a goat with the hands and feet of a man, walking upright. A crown of flowers in constant bloom adorns his horns. In this form, he is the mate of the Black Goat of the Woods and her high priest (von Juntz, 1839). 

The being is held in reverence by witches that worship Mythos gods, especially those that follow the Black Goat. He is often called to lead sabbats, forcing followers to dance until they collapse from exhaustion. Such sabbats often involve a willing sacrifice giving themselves over to the He-Goat’s urges. Often these ritualized matings descend into frenzied orgies. 

First born of a Thousand Young

“The man screams dropping to his knees as his vocal cords rip and the cry splits into a roar. His dinner jacket swells and bursts at the seams, his body beneath breaking and bulging.

Popping and snapping, the man’s suit rips to accommodate the new form beneath. One last scream through torn vocal cords echoes and with a ground shuddering stomp, he now stands eight feet tall, matted fur covering his body and poking out through the tears in the black-tie dinner suit, horns curving out and up ending in a deadly point, hooves exploding through the brogues once worn on his feet and yellow goat eyes with a sideways slit pupil blinking with each turn of the head, accounting for everyone in the room.” — Daniel Gulliver – Holmouth Times

A new dimension-traveling threat for the Delta Green RPG.

It swims lazily through the air, propelling itself with waving fiber-optic fronds like some sort of vibrant deep-sea feather star, catching the currents of an ocean that human eyes cannot perceive. It’s a mass of vibrant, curling frills the size of a compact car, pulsating with a hypnotic array of nameless colors to a rhythm matching that of a heartbeat-

Your heartbeat, in fact, which begins to accelerate as you realize that the creature floating before you is drifting in your direction with speed one wouldn’t expect from something so delicate. You try to run, but it’s no use; your entire body feels as if suspended in water, and your feet cannot find any purchase on the ground.

Whatever otherworldly currents this creature swims through, you are now caught in them.

These strange, grotesque creatures were once human women, priestesses of The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young. Each was a matriarch of a cult or temple whose children and grandchildren also served the Outer Goddess. In their twilight years such priestesses are granted special favor to live on and serve their goddess as a Sacred Ewe of the Black Goat. It is considered the highest honor, granted to only the most devout and deserving servants. Such creatures are effectively immortal, although not invulnerable as they can be slain through violence or misadventure. 

“Good afternoon, I’m Dr. Gilman. Amanda, I and the rest of the staff at Sefton are here for your benefit. You understand that, right? Good. Now, for the record, I’m Dr. Theodore Gilman, chief psychiatrist at Sefton Asylum in Arkham, Massachusetts. Will you state your name and then tell us what happened?”

“Phagos” is the Greek suffix for “eating”, and “auto” means the self. The Autóphagos are  humans who devour themselves while becoming an appalling creature. Whether they are infected with a disease, cursed, able to transcend death and transform through intense self hatred or, instead, are preternatural creatures incubating as homo sapiens has not been  determined. 

It looked just like any normal human. It was only under closer examination that the true horror that had lived in our midst became clear. Vile abomination! An unholy blending of human and alien flesh used to invade and undermine our civilization. What’s worse it wore the flesh of an old friend. If I could hunt down every last one of those monstrosities and all of their alien kin I would! Unfortunately you idiots have me locked up in this ‘institution’.

Taken from a transcript of an interview with Martin Case, a patient at Agnews State Mental Hospital, Santa Clara, CA.

Alternative names: Vile abominations. 

C. Davis: “I already said, these fuckers aren’t growing plants!”
R. Miles: “Just breath, Cynthia. Be honest with me. Are you off your meds?”
C. Davis: “Fuck you.”
R. Miles: “Please be calm, Cyn—”
C. Davis: “Are you even listening to me?! I’m telling you. They have some… thing in this lab. Something big. Bigger than a house.”
R. Miles: “I am going to call someone, Cynthia. You need help.”
C. Davis: “Don’t you hang up on me! Don’t you understand? It whispers things, Ron. It told me how to make the seeds. Oh, God! All those missing people…”
R. Miles: “I’m calling the cops, Cynth. You’re not well.”

—Transcript from the last known phone call of Cynthia Davis, Investigative Reporter, Missing since last January.

Elijah, Nathan, and myself, along with a few others, including some of the town’s older boys, went out to the Willow place. Old Jeff had hung himself on the porch, twisting in the wind before his yard. The yard had been plowed up like a field. There were some string-like plants growing there. Pure white with purplish bulges. Kind of rope like. Whole thing was damnable. We hadn’t set one foot on the property and yet we could barely walk given the shudders. You’d think a blizzard was coming in the way we shook, trembling there on the fence line. Elijah finally went forward. I followed. The first stalk we came across was about four feet tall. By far the tallest of the lot. Elijah nudged it with his boot and the thing moved. No wind. It just folded over. Trying to get away. It was then we saw the veins. Thin red ridges pumping away. One of the purplish bulges blinked. Elijah screamed. I’m told I fainted. By the time I came to that “field” had been all torn up. Emma and the children were above ground again. Her had had been split with a plow. Same with the brother and his sisters. Not from us. That must have been old Jeff’s doing. Their bodies had roots and shoots like potatoes. They writhed. They… bled. The Willows and their place were burned that very night.