Lovecraft is verry well know when talking about horror, but which are some of the best Lovecraftian monsters?
Lovecraft is one of their greatest names when talking about horror, some say he's the legitimate successor of The Poet, Edgar Allan Poe, and he certainly caused more than his fair share of nightmares with his writing. Having inspired many, he created this particular brand of monsters, horrors based on psychological fear, science and trying to describe things beyond human compression.
There are a lot of Lovecraftian monsters, created by the author himself or inspired by him. But here we'll talk about 15 of them, the ones that are sure to send chills up your spine or hunt your dreams at night.
15. Kassogtha
Of a particularly bad temper, Kassogtha was the "Leviathan of Diseases" and the mother of twins sired by Cthulhu himself.
Often associated with sickness, she is usually residing in some large body of water which is poisoned by her presence. Being aquatic is fitting since her only description is a mass of incredibly long tentacles from which her prey cannot hope to outrun nor hide from. Believed to be somewhat of a parasitic entity, Kassogtha is said to bond with other creatures and disappears from time to time… I guess not much can be expected from an angry mass of writhing tentacles that mated with her own brother. And yes, our dear octopus head is said to be her brother. Incest is just the crowning detail.
14. Gugs
Kinda the evil nightmarish version of Ben 10's Four Arms, they are a breed of terrifying monsters.
Local residents of Kadath, a place of uncertain location but said to be beyond the plates of Leng, Gugs are quite big and very ugly, as usual for Lovecraftian monsters. Their four paws could easily gut any of us and these creatures of black fur have pink eyes that protrude from the sides of their heads. But the scariest part of a Gugs body is certainly their mouths, extending from top to bottom of their barrel shaped heads vertically and full of yellow fangs. I imagine dental care isn't really accessible in Kadath.
Gugs are also hunters and know to pray on ghasts, humanoid things with Kanguru like legs and faces lacking many important features like a forehead or a nose that is the size of a small horse. One on one not much of a challenge for a Gug, who are about 16 feet tall.
13. Shudde M'ell
The slimy king of chthonian monsters, he is a massive burrower and causes earthquakes just by moving.
Shudde M'ell is described as long and worm like, with tentacles for a head and sickly grey skin. He was imprisoned by the Elder Gods beneath the sands of an Ethiopian desert for a long time, but humans mistakenly freed him because we just can’t keep our hands off of shiny things. Besides the power to wreak havoc just by moving through his burrows, he melts all the rocks that touch him with the acid from his skin.
The infamous 1906 San Francisco earthquake is suspected to be his fault so it's always wise to give Shudde M'ell a wide berth.
12. Nyarlathotep
With many other imposing names, from the God of a Thousand Forms to the Crawling Chaos, tough my favorite is certainly Mr. Tiddles.
In spite of that Nyarlathotep is not to be taken lightly and one of the only from the Mythos to still actively roam Earth. An Outer God, he has immense powers, including immortality, traveling the planes of existence freely and shapeshifting. Able to appear as a normal human when he so pleases, he has many other forms, all with the lovely reputation of doing way with a person’s sanity by the mere sight of them. Servant and son of Azathoth, Nyarlathotep does his bidding as well as plays the messenger for the other Outer Gods.
Instead of death and destruction, madness is more of his brand and he also doesn't shy away from deception and manipulation to reach his goals.
1. Mi-go
All the way from what is implied to be Pluto, these insect like fungoid creatures are very scary.
Quite the science-centric species, they are very proficient in it, especially in surgery and neuroscience. While their communication is said to be through variating the colors of their heads, Mi-gos are completely capable of changing their physical structure to be able to talk in our languages. The bat like wings are the tamest part of their bodies, having crustacean torsos with many legs and long claws. To top it all of, where the head is supposed to be they're simply covered in antennae.
As means of transportation for lesser beings such as ourselves, the Mi-go simply remove our brains and put them in cylinders. Truly nightmare inducing.
10. Dagon
Probably inspired by the Mesopotamian god of fish, Dagon is the leader of the Deep Ones.
Also believed to be the first of them, Dagon is an amphibian humanoid of massive size, usually depicted with a mermaid-like tail. As all king needs a queen, Dagon rules beside Mother Hydra who is equally fishy and hideous. Having his own personal cult, the Esoteric Order of Dagon, escaping his grasp is very hard even on land away from the murky depths he inhabits.
Practically immortal, going against Dagon would probably just end up with you as a ritual sacrifice to him.
9. Nug and Yeb
The Twin Blasphemies are Great Old Ones with a weird family tree and weirder appearance.
Described to have a striking resemblance to their mother, that is not at all comforting since Shub-Niggurath is a huge cloud-like mass of tentacles with goat legs and many mouths dripping with slime. As for familial relations, Nug is the parent of Cthulhu and Yep of Tsathoggua. Worshiped as some distorted version of yin yang, these horrid creatures are also to "clear" the Earth for the Great Old Ones return.
Whatever that may mean it's by no means good since they'll use the Furnace of Yen and the Torch of Nug to do so.
8. Yog-sothoth
The Key and the Gate, Yog-sothoth is a god amongst the Other Gods and the list of his powers is both impressive and terrifying.
Born of the Nameless Mist, he is Cthulhu's grampa. Being a cosmic entity he has many forms, but usually shows up as glowing orbs and eyes or tendrils. He is at least implied quite heavily to be omniscient and some mortals even dare summon him to help in occult rituals, usually to use his powers to resurrect an individual.
In a diabolic theme, he was also called once to impregnate a woman, with whom he had twin half-human children.
7. Soggoth
Initially made and bred by the Elder Things, Soggoths eventually developed consciousness and rebelled against them.
Although shapeshifters, they usually present as a mass of false limbs, eyes and mouths that produce the most god awful stench imaginable. Once servants they raged against their masters and killed them. Incredibly fast, these creatures kill by enveloping and using suction to decapitate their enemies, which must certainly not be a pleasant way to go.
Although not many of them survive here on our planet, the Mi-go have produced a tamer hybrid from them that they control telepathically.
6. Ghatanothoa
The Thing on the Mount is the epitome of ugly, with no possible redemption on sight.
Ghatanothoa is Cthulhu's firstborn, a huge amorphous thing of nightmares. Any who look upon this goddess, or a perfect replica of her, is immediately paralyzed by her hideousness. Her victims don't have the right to the sweet release of death, being stuck completely conscious with practically no chance of salvation.
Probably because of that, an alien race brought her to Earth, build a huge ass fortress on a mountain and sealed her behind a trapdoor.
5. Y’golonac
A perverse and sadistic Great Old One, Y'golonac is THE god of depravities of has a questionable aesthetic taste.
Although his true for is not known, he can possess a human host to manifest in our world. And his usual chosen appearance is that of a very obese man with no head and mouths in his hands, basically Deidara from hell. Gladly, he is stuck behind a brick wall in a ruin somewhere.
He does go after humans that share his particular tastes in literature to either become their priest or to eat so be careful of your internet history.
4. Cthylla
The Secret One is truly daddy's little girl, pivotal to his nefarious plans and because of this closely guarded.
Cthylla is the youngest of Cthulhu's kids and probably the most important. Because of her importance, the cults tried hard to hide all signs of her existence. Besides that, she is always being protected by Deep Ones and their progeny with yuggs. All that is because Cthylla is supposed to, after he dies, give birth to Cthulhu's reincarnation. It doesn't get more daddy issues than that anywhere.
Similar to her father, she has an octopus head with more eyes than necessary and bat like wings she can expand to fly around.
3. Shaurash-ho
Though never officially having his appearance described, Shaurash-ho's lineage is certainly worth mentioning.
Having mated with Bast (an Egyptian goddess), this Deep One is the Father of All Ghouls, a species of "lovely" humanoid cannibals. Cthulhu is his father, and notably, it's from his line that came the creature that mated with the Roman noblewoman Viburnia. She was an ancestor of Howard Phillips Lovecraft himself, casting a new interesting light upon the genius writer.
2. Azathoth
The Blind Idiot God, Azathoth is an insane existence in the Mythos, being the first ancestor of Cthulhu.
This particular thot is simply omnipotent and very hard to describe. According to some, he is a massive black hole full of evil intent. He had some offspring, but unlike the others he needed no one to mate with, just reproducing by fission. He is mentioned in the Necronomicon, and Azathoth's mere name inspires fear in those who have read it.
Truly a being of Chaos, his worshipers are known to do unspeakable things to still living victims in rituals for him.
1. Cthulhu
Of great power, The Great Dreamer couldn’t be excluded from a list about Lovecraftian monsters. He is the most famous of them for a reason.
Davy Jones on steroids, this Great Old One is widely known for his octopus head, scaly humanoid body and impressive bat wings. Vastly powerful, Cthulhu is an immortal with a particular inclination to cause madness. Although not pretty by any means, he mated with more than one creature, one of them being his sister, and had quite a few children.
He lies in slumber deep beneath the Pacific but his power is so great he can still influence and turn people to insanity through telepathy and dreams. He and all Great Old Ones, want to rise again to turn mankind into something free and mad and murderous to burn the world to their liking.
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