Shub-Niggurath
Shub-Niggurath is a literary character who features in the Cthulhu Mythos.
Contents |
Biography
Shub-Niggurath is the Outer God known as the Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young. Representing the cosmic principle of fertility, Shub-Niggurath is among the most widely venerated Outer Gods, having been worshipped under a variety of guises by such peoples as the Tcho-Tchos, Hyperboreans, Muvians, ancient Greeks, ancient Cretans, and ancient Egyptians. She manifests as a cloud or mass from which various appendages protrude and are reabsorbed, and is believed to reside on Earth or on the planet Yaddith. (She may very well reside in both places, considering the nature of the Outer Gods.)
Overview
Personality and attributes
She was often associated with the epithet the Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young. (Novel: The Whisperer in Darkness)
Zamacona y Nuñez likened Shub-Niggurath to be a kind of sophisticated Astarte of Babylonian myth, and found the practices of her cultists to be objectionable. (Novel: The Mound)
Powers and abilities
The Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath were horrifying, pitch-black monstrosities, seemingly made of ropy tentacles. They stand as tall as a tree on several pairs of stumpy, hoofed legs. A mass of tentacles protrudes from their trunks where a head would normally be, and puckered maws, dripping green goo, cover their flanks. The monsters roughly resemble trees in silhouette — the trunks being the short legs and the tops of the trees represented by the ropy, branching bodies. A congregation of these abominations smells like an open grave. They usually dwell in woodlands wherever Shub-Niggurath's cult is active.
She was also worshipped by some non-human species such as the Fungi from Yuggoth. (Novel: The Whisperer in Darkness)
Shub-Niggurath was among the ranks of the Outer God pantheon.
Notes
- Shub-Niggurath was created by H. P. Lovecraft where she featured in the setting of the Cthulhu Mythos universe.
In other media
Television
Video games
- In Quake, Shub-Niggurath appeared as the final antagonist in the setting of the 1990s FPS video game. The absolute of an alternate reality, she was known as the Hell-Mother, All-Mother, and the Witch-Goddess with Shub-Niggurath being the mother of all monsters invading the cosmos. She spawned an army to invade Earth using the humans' own portal technology. She planned on using the four runes to cause such destruction, but the runes were instead sought by the players character and used to gain access to Shub-Niggurath's Pit in confronting the Witch-Goddess.
- In Alone in the Dark, Shub-Niggurath appeared in theShub-Niggurath setting of the 1992 video game. The main antagonist Ezechiel Pregzt claimed he built Derceto Manor as a dedication to Shub-Niggurath.
- In Alone in the Dark, Shub-Niggurath appeared in the setting of the 2024 video game. Shub-Niggurath appears as an overarching antagonist acting through one of her Dark Young.
Novels
- In Doctor Who: Millennial Rites, Shub-Niggurath was referenced in the setting of the Virgin Missing Adventures novel written by Craig Hinton. It was said that she came to conquer the world of Polymos and spawned the Nestene Consciousness.
- In Doctor Who: Divided Loyalties, Shub-Niggurath was referenced in the setting of the BBC Past Doctor Adventures novel written by Gary Russell. She was identified as being a member of a race of beings similar to the Time Lords of a universe presiding the current one.
- In Doctor Who: The Quantum Archangel, Shub-Niggurath was referenced in the setting of the BBC Past Doctor Adventures novel written by Craig Hinton. It was said that Great Old Ones were the survivors of an earlier race of Time Lords from the previous universe. Shub-Niggurath was also identified as having been that universe’s equivalent of the head of the CIA.
Comic Books
Other
- In The Elder Sister-like One, Shub-Niggurath appeared in the setting of the Doujin/Manga series. . In the series a young orphan boy by the name of Yuu is staying at the house of his uncle who is currently hospitalized. While cleaning a storeroom, he finds a hidden basement underneath it, and upon opening it he is faced with the figure of a beautiful woman of approximately 20 years who offers to grant him a wish in exchange for something precious to him upon fulfillment of the contract. Yuu wishes for a sister, having gone without family for most of his life. Shub-Niggurath (the human form of the Ancient Elder One) takes on the name Chiyo and begins to live as Yuu's sister. The series mainly focuses on the daily life of Chiyo and Yuu and their struggles with Chiyo attempting to become more human-like while Yuu struggles with adapting to having a family after not having one for so long.
Appearances
- The Last Test: (1928)
- The Mound:
- The Whisperer in Darkness: (1930)
External Links
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