Miskatonic Arcihves

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An encyclopedia of strange fiction, its creators, places and mythos. Follow the sources; draw your own conclusions.

Tagged: Dark Young

Entities & creatures

Dark Young

The dark young are the tree-like, tentacled servants of Shub-Niggurath described in Call of Cthulhu. They give a specific monstrous form to imagery that remains much less anatomically defined in Lovecraft’s invocations of the deity.

2 min read · 325 words

Games, comics & audio

Games and the Mythos

Games adapt the Mythos by giving participants choices, procedures and possible outcomes. Tabletop roleplaying, cooperative board games, campaign card games and digital adventures do this in different ways. Their investigators, rules and scenarios form important later traditions, while remaining distinguishable from the events and descriptions in Lovecraft’s fiction.

5 min read · 939 words

Entities & creatures

Shub-Niggurath

Shub-Niggurath is the invoked power associated with the Black Goat of the Woods and a multitude of young. The name recurs across Lovecraft’s fiction and revisions, acquiring maternal, cultic and protective associations without receiving one sustained eyewitness description of a complete body.

5 min read · 1,023 words

Literature

The Tree on the Hill

The Tree on the Hill concerns a solitary excursion whose photographs reveal a landscape different from the one consciously perceived. In this collaboration with Duane W. Rimel, a scholar uses an ancient crystal to expose the presence disguised as an inviting tree. The story links dreams, optical evidence and deceptive scale without assigning its unnamed antagonist to a familiar Mythos species.

8 min read · 1,479 words