THE CTHULHU MYTHOS

"The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are, and the Old Ones shall be. Not in the spaces we know, but between them, they walk serene and primal, undimensioned and to us unseen. Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth. He knows where the Old Ones broke through of old, and where They shall break through again."
 - The Dunwich Horror, H.P. Lovecraft

    There are few if no other author who have a widely used adjective used to describe their style of writing. However, there are many authors who are considered to have written in the Lovecraftian style such as Robert Bloch, Brian Lumley, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, Ramsey Campbel, and even Stephen King.

Coc_Spot_E.jpg (44389 bytes)    "The Cthulhu Mythos" was coined by writer August Derleth, co-founder of Arkham House in 1939 and Lovecraft's publisher and friend. The term was never used by Lovecraft although he sometimes regarded his  stories (informally) as "the Arkham cycle" or "Yog-Sothothery". He had little or no intention of creating a consistent Mythos, his interest was in writing individual stories, some of which had elements in common which all expressed his personal philosophy and aesthetical views. "The Cthulhu Mythos" refer to the plot devices created by Lovecraft and other "Lovecraftian" authors which relate to Cthulhu, The Necronomicon or other elements of Lovecraft's fiction. The Mythos is as authors and biographers of Lovecraft refer to it is an anti-mythology, not a mythology nor philosophy, it is merely a series of plot devices involving characters, monsters, books, and gods. The ideas expressed in the Mythos are not meant as occult truths, as some have come to believe, only the product of Lovecraft's fanciful and ingenious imagination.

    "... secret supernatural forces define and control the cosmos. Some of these forces are true cosmic principles in choate form, concepts such as chaos and fertility, onto each of which is grafted the barest sketch of a personality, no more self-aware than the constellation Orion. Other forces are merely gods, supernatural beings of such power and age that the planets are young to them. And still others could simply be called monsters: strange, hidden races with their own cultures, dynasties, and agendas. 
    These forces taken together are not the Cthulhu Mythos, however. They are simply reality, the way things are.
     The body of knowledge known as "the Cthulhu Mythos" is the result of human attempts to make sense of this reality. We interact with these forces in tentative ways, and come away with suspicions about their true nature. We take these fumbling conceptions and express them in the form of a mythology like that of Odin and Thor, Shiva and Kali, Moses and Noah. It is the human interpretation of reality that comprises the Cthulhu Mythos..."
     - The Call of Cthulhu Roll Playing Game, D20 Edition

    Although Lovecraft's works revolve around many kinds of creatures including the Old Ones, the Elder Gods, and the creatures of the Dreamlands; one singular creation has become the archetypal representation of both Lovecraft's work, as well as his writings which seems to encompass everything about him. 
Coc_58a.jpg (133392 bytes)     
    "CTHULHU. Great Old One resembling a clawed, octopus-headed humanoid with great bat-like wings. Cthulhu sleeps beneath the pacific Ocean, but according to legend, he will one day awaken to rule the world..."  
    - ENCYCLOPEDIA CTHULHIANA, Chaosium, 1994, pg. 41

     "Ph-nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn."
"In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming."
 - The Call of Cthulhu

    Cthulhu has become central to the mythology surrounding Lovecraft's fiction, this one being, although not the principle or most powerful of Lovecraft's creations, he has been referred to in more of his works and has become the most popular of his creatures. Cthulhu is in fact a Great Old One, an alien being who came to Earth long before the dinosaurs and led a war against the Elder Gods (Things). Cthulhu came to be worshipped by primitive human beings (soon to become the Cult of Cthulhu) where he resided in the great stone city of R'lyeh. One day for reasons unknown the city of R'lyeh sank below the sea rendering Cthulhu and his spawn (Cthulhi) incapable of escaping and they fell into hibernation where they wait until the stars are right to free them from their prisons. Cthulhu is apparently capable of telepathic communication through dreams of those possessing sensitivities to psychic signals.

Cthulhu.gif (99576 bytes)    “If I say that my somewhat extravagant imagination yielded simultaneous pictures of an octopus, a dragon, and a human caricature, I shall not be unfaithful to the spirit of the thing. A pulpy, tentacled head surmounted a grotesque and scaly body with rudimentary wings... It represented a monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind. This thing, which seemed instinct with a fearsome and unnatural malignancy, was of a somewhat bloated corpulence...It lumbered slobberingly into sight and gropingly squeezed its gelatinous green immensity through the black doorway... A mountain walked or stumbled.”
- H.P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu (1926)

OTHER CREATURES OF THE CTHULHU MYTHOS

   Among the many creatures who populate the pantheon of Lovecraft's mythos many of the creatures he used where his own original creations, except creatures such as Dagon (Judges 16:23, I Samuel 5:2-7, and I Chronicles 10:10.) and Tsathoggua (created by Clark Ashton Smith).

THE ELDER (OUTER )GODS:

AZATHOTH - Azathoth IS chaos incarnate. "... which rules all time and space from a curiously environed black throne at the centre of Chaos" (“The Dreams in the Witch House”). "... that last amorphous blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the centre of all infinity—the boundless daemon-sultan Azathoth, whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin, monotonous whine of accursed flutes; to which detestable pounding and piping dance slowly, awkwardly, and absurdly the gigantic ultimate gods, the blind, voiceless, tenebrous, mindless Other Gods..." (“The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath”).

SHUB-NIGGURATH - The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young, "... the All-Mother and wife of the the Not-to-Be-Named-One. This deity was a kind of sophisticated Astarte, and her worship struck the pious Catholic as supremely obnoxious.” (“The Mound”)

YOG-SOTHOTH - “Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth. He knows where the Old Ones broke through of old, and where They shall break through again. He knows where They have trod earth’s fields, and where They still tread them, and why no one can behold Them as They tread.” (“The Dunwich Horror”)

NYARLATHOTEP - The crawling chaos, “And it was then that Nyarlathotep came out of Egypt. Who he was, none could tell, but he was of the old native blood and looked like a Pharaoh. The fellahin knelt when they saw him, yet could not say why. He said he had risen up out of the blackness of twenty-seven centuries, and that he had heard messages from places not on this planet. Into the lands of civilization came Nyarlathotep, swarthy, slender, and sinister, always buying strange instruments of glass and metal and combining them into instruments yet stranger. (“Nyarlathotep”)


Cthulhu Family Tree

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