Cthulhu Mythos Encyclopedia

by Daniel Harms

  Yog-Sothoth is known as “the key to the gate, whereby the spheres meet”, and is said to exist everywhere in time and space. Paradoxically, the Lurker at the Threshold appears to be shut out from our own dimension, only coming to this world when summoned. It has been suggested that Yog-Sothoth has been imprisoned by the Elder Gods at a point where all space and time converge, creating such a gravitational effect that it may not leave. It may also be possible that Yog-Sothoth dwells in a parallel dimension and can either manifest itself in space or time, but not both. It could also be that the Other God is omnipresent but can fully manifest itself only with the aid of certain ceremonies. Once Yog-Sothoth has arrived, however, it may ignore any terrestrial boundaries, making it a dangerous being indeed.

  The mi-go revere Yog-Sothoth as the “Beyond One”, and certain minds made of vapor know it as a mysterious sign. Various cultures on our planet, such as the Aztecs and the people of Averoigne, have worshiped him, but this devotion does not seem to have been widespread even among these. On our own world, certain sorcerers worship Yog-Sothoth in exchange for limited command of both time and space. Using these abilities, the worshiper can do anything from warping space to hold a chosen victim to stepping outside of time itself to return to Earth after hundreds or thousands of years have passed. Yog-Sothoth eventually takes all of these misguided souls to itself, a fate from which not even physical destruction can save them.

  To summon Yog-Sothoth, a tall stone tower or circle of standing stones is often used. Upon speaking the words of the summoning, an intelligent being must be sacrificed to the god. The proximity of the chosen sacrifice is unimportant. The traditional time for such a summoning is on Lammas (August 1), but May Eve is another possibility, and others assert that the god may be called upon at any time. Interested summoners should also note that speaking Yog-Sothoth’s name with the correct pronunciation results in the speaker’s destruction.

  Legend has it that Yog-Sothoth was the spawn of the Nameless Mist, though others maintain that the Outer God has existed forever. Yog-Sothoth seems to share the rulership of the universe with Azathoth. According to von Junzt’s Unaussprechlichen Kulten, Yog-Sothoth is the “father” of Cthulhu, Hastur, and Vulthoom. In addition, it has spawned Nug and Yeb on Shub-Niggurath.

  Some say that ‘Umr at-Tawil is in actuality Yog-Sothoth disguised, and certain manifestations of UFOs have been attributed to appearances of Yog-Sothoth. Kenneth Grant has linked Yog-Sothoth to Choronzon, the guardian of the Abyss that the adept must cross to gain enlightenment.

  Three interesting theories about Yog-Sothoth deserve mention here. The first is that Yog-Sothoth is diametrically opposed to Nodens, the Lord of the Great Abyss, who it shall pursue until the end of time. Another holds that Yog-Sothoth lay beneath an Elder Sign at the Black Mountain, or Mount Sinai, until freed by Moses, and that Yahweh is in fact a manifestation of the Outer God. Yet another claims that Yog-Sothoth is made up of a trinity of beings who, when summoned, will allow the god to remain in this dimension forever. Neither of these theories has gained wide acceptance, however.

  See Bugg-Shash; Bugg-Shoggog; Cthulhu; dimensional shamblers; Great Old Ones; Iagsat; Klarkash-Ton; Liber Damnatus; Mülder, Gottfried; Necronomicon (appendices); Nodens; Nug and Yeb; Old Ones; Othuum; Outer Gods; Reflections; Shub-Niggurath; Sothoth; tomb-herd; ‘Umr at-Tawil; Vulthoom; Yad-Thaddag. (“Glimpses”, Attansio; “The Church on the High Street”, Campbell; “Zoth-Ommog”, Carter; “The Lurker at the Threshold”, Derleth and Lovecraft; Necronomicon: The Book of Dead Names, Hay ed.; Outside the Circles of Time, Grant; “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward”, Lovecraft (O); “The Dunwich Horror”, Lovecraft; Selected Letters IV, Lovecraft; Selected Letters V, Lovecraft; “The Electric Executioner”, Lovecraft and de Castro; “The Horror in the Museum”, Lovecraft and Heald; “Through the Gates of the Silver Key”, Lovecraft and Price; “The Statement of One John Gibson”, Lumley; The Transition of Titus Crow, Lumley; Prey, Masterton; “The Holiness of Azedarac”, Smith; The Winds of Zarr, Tierney.)

  YOMAGN’THO (or THAT WHICH RELENTLESSLY WAITS OUTSIDE or THE FEASTER FROM THE STARS)

  Being which manifests itself as a circle of flame with three petal-like objects inside. Yomagn’tho dwells in a place called “Pherkard”. It may be contacted during a failed summoning of Cthugha and must be dismissed using a banishing from the Necronomicon. Even then, Yomagn’tho will extract a horrible vengeance upon the caster if it ever returns.

  See Sorcerie de Demonologie. (“The Feaster from the Stars”, Berglund (O); “The Thing in the Library”, Berglund and Burnham.)

  YOTH

  Red-lit caverns found beneath the underground realm of K’n-Yan. In these caverns lie several deserted cities built by the serpent-people, who fled to Yoth following the destruction of Valusia. These reptilian creatures manufactured many types of beasts for their pleasure, as well as creating new bodies for themselves. The decline of the colony came when the serpent-people turned from their worship of Yig to embrace the new god Tsathoggua, images of which they had found in black N’kai. Yig brought down his curse upon them, and the few who remained loyal to the snake-god fled to the caverns beneath Mount Voormithadreth.

  The people of K’n-Yan visited Yoth occasionally and learned much of their science from the serpent people’s lore. Yoth may be the home of the Great Old Ones Nyogtha and Yig, along with an offspring of Azathoth who once warred with its father.

  See gyaa-yothn; N’kai; Nyogtha; Sss’haa, Tsathoggua; Zin. (“The Vengeance of Yig”, Carter; “The Descent into the Abyss”, Carter and Smith; “Red-Litten Yoth”, DeBill; “The Mound”, Lovecraft and Bishop (O).)

  YOTHIC MANUSCRIPTS

  Writings detailing the customs of the people of Yoth. They were found in the Vaults of Zin, beneath Yoth’s greatest city.

  See Zin. (“The Mound”, Lovecraft and Bishop (O).)

  Y’QAA

  Grey-litten cavern in which Ubbo-Sathla dwells. This place is said to be multidimensional, and the seeker may find gates to it in many places and times.

  See Ubbo-Sathla. (“Zoth-Ommog”, Carter (O).)

  YR-NHHNGR

  Set of formulae that may be used both to bring beings from beyond Kadath to this dimension and to send them back, though the complete version of all of these formulae is difficult to obtain. Yr and Nhhngr may also be other dimensions that lie on the far side of Kadath in the Cold Waste.

  See Kadath. (“The Thing under Memphis”, Carter; “The Lurker at the Threshold”, Derleth and Lovecraft; “The Dunwich Horror”, Lovecraft (O).)

  YSTE, SONG OF

  See Song of Yste.

  YTHOGTHA

  One of Great Cthulhu’s supposed “sons”, along with Ghatanothoa and Zoth-Ommog. Ythogtha appears as a bipedal creature with webbed hands and feet tipped with suckers and whose head is covered with tentacles radiating from a single eye. It is currently imprisoned beneath an Elder Sign within the Abyss of Yhe, located in the sunken land of Mu far to the south of R’lyeh. It is served by the yuggya.

  Ythogtha’s cult was powerful in Mu for many years, gradually losing influence as Ghatanothoa’s worship gained ascendancy. The last Muvian priest of Ythogtha, Zanthu, conceived of a daring plan to raise his god up from its chasm and regain his religion’s former power. Ythogtha’s ascent, however, set a series of catastrophic events in motion that destroyed the land of Mu.

  From time to time, statues of Ythogtha have come into the possession of humans. Through these idols, Ythogtha can manifest himself through the dreams of the owner. Madness is the most common result of this contact.

  It is said that Ythogtha is the manifestation of a force that brings about confusion in the thought processes of those it contacts.

  See Cthulhu; Ghatanothoa; Idh-yaa; Rituals of Yhe; Yhe; Yuggya; Zanthu; Zanthu Tablets. (“Out of the Ages”, Carter (O); “Perchance to Dream”, Carter; “The Thing in the Pit”, Carter; The Transition of Titus Crow, Lumley; Other Nations, Marsh and Marsh.)

  YUGGOTH (also IUKKO
TH)

  Trans-Neptunian planet usually said to be identical with Pluto, but which is sometimes described as a huge world beyond the nine known planets which rotates perpendicular to our solar system’s orbital plane.

  This world serves as a base for the mi-go. From those humans who have traveled to or viewed Yuggoth, we hear that it is a planet of cities filled with black, windowless towers beneath warm seas and great mines of tok’l and other strange minerals. Glaaki stopped for a time on this world on his way to Earth, and it is here that the mi-go constructed the Shining Trapezohedron. Yuggoth served as a home for Rhan-Tegoth before he came to earth, and Tsathoggua’s grandfather Cxaxukluth may still dwell beneath its surface. Some even claim that all of the life in this solar system originated on Yuggoth.

  The mi-go were not the first creatures to live on Yuggoth. A previous species built massive bridges over the planet’s black rivers. A city of green pyramids rests on a ledge in a cleft near one of the fungi’s metropolises, and the mi-go take care to desert that particular town at certain times of the year. They also have a particular horror of the large moon that hovers overhead, prohibiting all travel to it lest the individual be destroyed. Aside from these precautions, though, the mi-go are the undisputed masters of Yuggoth.

  See Book of K’yog; Cxaxukluth; Daoloth; Ghatanothoa; Ghisguth; Ghooric zone; Glaaki; Hziulquoigmnzhah; Nithon; Nyarlathotep (Haunter of the Dark); Rhan-Tegoth; Shining Trapezohedron; Thog and Thok; tok’l; Tsathoggua; Yaddith-Gho; Zaman; Zaoth; Zone of the Thirteen Faveolate Colossi. (“The Mine on Yuggoth”, Campbell; “The Haunter of the Dark”, Lovecraft; “Recognition”, Lovecraft (O); “The Whisperer in Darkness”, Lovecraft; “The Horror in the Museum”, Lovecraft and Heald; “Out of the Aeons”, Lovecraft and Heald; “The Discovery of the Ghooric Zone”, Lupoff; “Documents in the Case of Elizabeth Akeley”, Lupoff; A Guide to the Cthulhu Cult, Pelton; “Family Tree of the Gods”, Smith; “The Throne of Achamoth”, Tierney and Smith; Necronomicon, Tyson.)

  YUGGOTH, FUNGI FROM

  See mi-go.

  YUGGS

  Servitors of Ythogtha and Zoth-Ommog that resemble huge white worms. Yugg biology is simultaneously like that of annelids and mollusks. Some of their more unusual anatomic traits are the ability to intake sulfides without suffocating and the presence of iacula, small organic darts which may be fired into another creature and allow for exchange of genetic information between them. Yuggs form a single collective mind that shares information with their leader and parent Ubb. The yuggs can live in any earthly environment, though they spend most of their time burrowing beneath the crust or living in the ocean depths. A subspecies of yuggs bears wings and dwells in tunnels beneath the Pacific.

  The yuggs may be working in concert with Ubb to free their imprisoned masters. They do have relations with Deep Ones at times, but these are often strained due to religious differences. Yugg interaction with humans is usually short and violent. They will sometimes work with humans nonetheless, bestowing great wealth in exchange for continued human sacrifice. A formula for summoning one of these beings may be found in the Zanthu Tablets.

  Some say that the yuggs burrowed beneath Kadath and were the beings who struck fear and awe into the Elder Things, even inspiring the shoggoths to rebel.

  See Ubb; Worms of the Earth; Ythogtha; yuggya; Yuggya Chants; Zoth-Ommog. (“Out of the Ages”, Carter (O); “The Winfield Heritance”, Carter; Other Nations, Marsh and Marsh.)

  YUGGYA

  1) Plural of “yugg”; used interchangeably with “yuggs”. (“Out of the Ages”, Carter (O).)

  2) Crossbreed offspring of a yugg and a Deep One. The result of the union is a being that can pass as human but possesses great strength and resiliency. Its thought processes are alien, and it often has trouble understanding human emotions and motivations upon first contact. The yuggya are empathic, however, and can form friendships use their enemies’ fears and desires against them. They can also inject pleasure-inducing chemicals into others’ bodies and gain understanding of another species by imbibing its DNA or RNA. They are part of the yugg collective, and their weaponry is said to be considerably advanced. (Other Nations, Marsh and Marsh (O).)

  YUGGYA CHANTS

  Volume only known to scholars by rumor. It is said that the eccentric anthropologist Henry Hadley Copeland purchased a copy of this manuscript from a sailor in San Francisco shortly before his demise, though no such manuscript turned up in a search of his library.

  See yuggs, yuggya. (“Out of the Ages”, Carter.)

  Z

  * * *

  ZAMACONA Y NUÑEZ, PÁNFILIO DE (c. 1512 – ?)

  Conquistador whose name has become connected with a curious document found in Caddo County, Oklahoma. A younger son of Pedro Guzman y Zamacona and Ynés Alvarado y Nuñez, Zamacona left his native port of Luarca for the New World at the age of twenty. He accompanied Coronado on his expedition into what was to become the western United States, but continued on his way when Coronado turned back in 1541. He then descended to the underground caverns of K’n-yan, where he spent the rest of his life and from which he was attempting to escape when killed.

  See K’n-yan. (“The Mound”, Lovecraft and Bishop (O).)

  ZAMAN

  According to some sources, one of Yuggoth’s moons.

  (“The Ancient Track”, Lovecraft (O); “Discovery of the Ghooric Zone”, Lupoff.)

  ZANN, ERICH (c. 1865? – c. 1925)

  Mute German violinist who ended his life in the Rue d’Auseil in Paris. He is believed to have played at the Paris Opera House, where an accident in 1897 left the young musician permanently deaf. After this he moved to Stuttgart, married, and had at least one child. Around 1924, he unaccountably left his family and returned to Paris.

  In another version of his history, Zann was born in 1834, and became one of Europe’s greatest violinists. He built his Theater of the Clowns in Rome between 1859 and 1860. This was in honor of the woman he loved, and when she died at a performance, he swore off music. Moving to Paris in 1872, he became a drug addict and a curiosity of that city’s artistic scene.

  In Paris, Zann joined an orchestra at a cheap theater to provide himself with income. He became known to the tenants of his apartment because of the strange unearthly violin music that he played at night. He is believed to have vanished while performing one of his “experimental pieces” in his garret apartment one night. The police were baffled by the lack of clues, and soon afterward called a halt to their search.

  Zann may have been connected in some manner with Hastur or Tru’nembra. The loss of a manuscript detailing his philosophy has made this determination difficult.

  See Rue d’Auseil; Tru’nembra. (“La Musique de la Nuit”, Aniolowski; “Suicide Watch”, Dembo; Miskatonic University, Johnson et. al.; “The Music of Erich Zann”, Lovecraft (O); “The Silence of Erika Zann”, Wade.)

  ZANTHU

  Last high priest of Ythogtha on the continent of Mu. Zanthu had wanted this post from an early age, and through his acquisition of the powerful Black Seal of Iraan, he was able to achieve his dream. He was one of the most powerful wizards of all time, and even outwitted the Great Race itself on one occasion. By the time Zanthu took up this office, the priests of Ghatanothoa had been consolidating their power for the last ten thousand years. Just after Ythogtha’s priest had accepted the priesthood, the priests of Ghatanothoa banned the worship of all gods except their own throughout the lands of Mu.

  Zanthu could not accept this affront. Searching through the annals of his predecessors, he discovered a formula which would call forth Ythogtha from his home in the Abyss of Yhe. When he and the other priests of Ythogtha used this formula, however, something went wrong, and a cataclysm took place that in the end was to destroy the entire continent. Zanthu and his fellow priests escaped in their sky-chariots to the Plateau of Tsang in central Asia, where Zanthu carved the stone plaques known to modern scholars as the Zanthu Tablets. Zanthu died on the Plateau, and his followers buried him with his
Tablets in a stone mausoleum.

  See Copeland, Harold; Ghatanothoa; Ponape Scripture; Shamballah; Tsang; Ubb; Ythogtha; Zanthu Tablets. (“The Dweller in the Tomb”, Carter (O); “The Offering”, Carter; “The Thing in the Pit”, Carter; Other Nations, Marsh and Marsh.)

  ZANTHU TABLETS

  Ten (or twelve) black pieces of jade inscribed in hieratic Naacal by a high priest of Mu named Zanthu. This Zanthu, who according to some brought down the wrath of the gods upon Mu and caused its destruction, fled to the Plateau of Tsang in central Asia, where he later died.

  In 1913, the controversial anthropologist Harold Hadley Copeland, following the instructions given in the Ponape Scripture, mounted an Asian expedition to discover the tomb of Zanthu and reclaim the tablets. Three months after he set out, Copeland walked into an outpost in Mongolia, raving of the things he had seen and having no idea of the other members’ fates. Following his recovery from this ordeal, Copeland worked on his translation of the tablets. He published his findings at San Francisco in 1916 in a privately-published thirty-two page pamphlet, The Zanthu Tablets: A Conjectural Translation. Both the public and the scientific community denounced this work. Two years after its publication, Copeland was committed to an asylum.