Ythogtha
Ythogtha is a fictional character in the Cthulhu mythos of H. P. Lovecraft. He was created by Lin Carter and appears in his short story "The Thing in the Pit", one of the five tales that make up The Xothic Legend Cycle.
Ythogtha resembles a gigantic, humanoid frog, or
Deep One, with only a single, huge eye in the center of his forehead like a
cyclops. A dense mane and a beard of writhing tentacles grows from his head.
Ythogtha is the second son of
Cthulhu and
Idh-yaa. Like his other siblings
Ghatanothoa,
Zoth-Ommog, and
Cthylla, Ythogtha was spawned on a planet orbiting the green star
Xoth (it is speculated that "Xoth" could be a corruption of
Sothis, the
Ancient Egyptian or
Arabic name for
Sirius, the
Dog Star). Both he and his younger brother, Zoth-Ommog, are served by the
planarian-like
yuggya who are led by
Ubb, the
Father of Worms.
Zanthu, the high priest of Ythogtha, plots to depose the
cult of Ghatanothoa after his priests outlaw all other religions in
Mu. The cult of Ghatanothoa is the dominant religion in Mu following the defeat of
T'yog, high priest of
Shub-Niggurath, who had sought to vanquish the tyranny of Ghatanothoa forever.
Zanthu hopes to oust Ghatanothoa's cult by freeing the god Ythogtha from
The Abyss of Yhe, where the
Elder Gods imprisoned him. This act of blasphemy does not go unnoticed by the Elder Gods, who destroy Mu and sink it beneath the sea. Zanthu himself abandons the ritual and flees after discovering the true nature of the god.
Following the destruction of Mu, Zanthu and his followers escape to the
Plateau of Tsang in Inner
Mongolia, where they later die. Before his death, Zanthu inscribes his story on
The Zanthu Tablets, a series of ten or twelve black
jade slabs, which also include the sacred rituals and mysteries of Ythogtha.
* Carter, Lin. "Perchance To Dream" (1988) in
The Xothic Legend Cycle, Robert M. Price (ed), 1997. Chaosium, Inc. ISBN 1-56882-078-X.
* Carter, Lin. "The Thing in the Pit" (1980). Ibid.
* Lovecraft, Howard P. and Hazel Heald. "Out Of The Aeons" (1935) in The Loved Dead And Other Revisions, 1997. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers. ISBN 0-7867-0445-4.
*
"The Thing in the Pit" by Lin Carter
