Dagon
The next day, when the Philistines came to strip the dead, they found Saul and his sons fallen on Mount Gilboa. They stripped him and took his head and his armor, and sent messengers throughout the land of the Philistines to proclaim the news among their idols and their people. They put his armor in the temple of their gods and hung up his head in the temple of Dagon.
Little is known about the origin and worship of Dagon to modern scholars, except that the ancient Mesopotamians of modern Syria revered him. He was seen as a "father of gods," a deity of prosperity who brought in grain for the harvest and bestowed royal legitimacy. Yet, he was never directly connected to agriculture or the land. In the early 20th Century, a temple was discovered in the South Pacific, filled with ancient carvings depicting humanoid creatures with webbed hands and bulging eyes. Among them was a colossal figure, as large as a whale, identified as Dagon. Around the same time, the U.S. government investigated a cult calling themselves the Esoteric Order of Dagon. The Atlanteans curse and spit at the mention of his accursed name.
History
Ancient peoples imposed various origins for Dagon, reflecting their perspectives more than the nature of the entity himself. In Sumer and Babylon, he was believed to be the firstborn son of Anu and Ki, the older brother of Ea, and the Annunaki god of wind and air. Before them and the Hyborian cataclysm, Dagon was worshipped as a death god in Kush and Zamora. In biblical times, the ancient Philistines worshipped the legendary Dagon, the Fish-God. Dagon desired all life to return to the seas. Early depictions of Dagon show an anguiped creature the size of a blue whale with fish-like features, his intelligence so savage and possessive that it seemed unlikely he was a deity from this reality.
The Thurian Age
Dagon spawned hellish creatures like Khosatral Khel, Dagoth, and the fishmen. Khosatral Khel was a lesser god worshipped in the empire of Dagonia on the isle of Xapur, rediscovered by Conan in the Vilayet Sea during the Hyborian Age. The sea-demon Dagoth lurked in the Western Sea, attracting worshippers from Kalumesh to modern-day Cornwall, England. The fish-men, known to grow continuously throughout their lives, sought to breed with humans to avoid times when the females would devour their young to control their population. Children born from these couplings emerged looking like normal human infants, whether from eggs or human mothers, but took on more fish-like traits as they aged until they returned to Dagon in the sea. The fish-men inhabited an ancient city on the ocean floor of the Western Sea, predating human existence.
When the Great Cataclysm sank Atlantis and Lemuria, Kalumesh was cursed by the Elder Ones for spreading the cult of Dagoth and was sent to the ocean's depths. The capital city of Dagonia was overrun and destroyed by the tribal people of the nearby Akrim Valley. The Celestials' upheaval of the lands and seas did not spare the fish-men's city, which was leveled and buried as the continent shifted into the Hyborian shape. The details of Dagon's true nature and worship were largely lost along with the cities of his spawn.
The Hyborian Age
An area within the Western Ocean was considered forbidden by the seafaring peoples of the Hyborian Age, as entering that cursed region meant defying the wrath of Dagon, much like the fate of Ahmaan the Merciless, who vanished a century before Conan's time. Despite this ominous curse, many in Kush, Ophir, and Zamora revered Dagon as a benevolent god, the father of fishes. Meanwhile, a treasure as fabled as the Phoenix-Trove or the Treasure of Tranicos, known as The Talons of Dagon—a hoard of ancient jewels—was said to dwarf the legendary treasure trove of Cap'n Bloodraven.
During the height of Hyborian civilization, Dagon had disciples who were said to have joined with the sea. These worshippers transformed into fish-men, or "men of the sea," in Dagon's name. They appeared in tales, often depicted as mermaids or sirens, luring sailors or raiding villages to capture humans, subjugating them under Dagon's control, and transforming them into more of his spawn. Dagon's ultimate goal was to return all life to the sea.
Before Conan claimed the crown of Aquilonia, he was recruited on a quest by Queen Taramis to escort her niece, Princess Jehnna, to claim the Heart of Ahriman and the Horn of the Dreaming God, Dagoth. Unbeknownst to the Cimmerian, the Queen was a member of the resurgent cult of Dagoth, seeking to awaken the creature by replacing the horn upon the statue, thus reanimating the demon from stone. The promises she made to Conan were all lies, and her captain of the guard was ordered to kill the Cimmerian once the horn was claimed. After the Heart of Ahriman was claimed from Thoth-Amon inside his eerie castle and the horn from an ancient, shadowy temple, Akiro, Conan’s chronicler, discovered the horn’s ritual purpose and that Jehnna would be sacrificed to awaken the monstrous Dagoth. The captain of the guard abducted Jehnna, but Conan and his allies pursued them back to Queen Taramis' castle, rescuing Jehnna from the ritual. Dagoth broke free from his stone prison and killed Queen Taramis, but Conan slew Dagoth, the spawn of Dagon, sending the sea-demon back to the 7 hells.
Conan's many years of high adventures led him to command Kozaki bandits and raid Turanian settlements, prompting the local counselor to offer the Nemedian princess, Octavia, in exchange for prisoners. Conan fell for the trap, unable to resist tales of Octavia's beauty, and Octavia fled to an island in the Vilayet Sea amidst the chaos. Conan defeated his captors and pursued her to Xapur, a mysteriously rebuilt village. There, he peers into the windows of the deserted city, and he encounters the ghostly Yateli, who, unfazed by his presence, reveals the city’s protection by the monstrous Khosatral Khel, only to become bewildered by her own death at the hands of revolting slaves in a dream, before drifting into a mysterious slumber. Conan followed more bodies of slumbering villagers to the throne room of Dagonia, discovering Khosatral Khel’s history and reawakening. When Khel attacked, Conan’s sword proved useless. He and Octavia escaped to a steel-lined room but reclaimed a magic dagger after Khel, distracted by approaching Turanian soldiers, left to kill them. Conan killed the enemy commander with the dagger just as Khel emerged from the water. Conan ultimately slew Khel and watched the rebuilt city fade into smoke and dust alongside Octavia.
Antiquity
The ancient Philistines worshipped the monstrous Fish-God, Dagon in eerie temples at Beth-Dagon in Gaza and Ashdod. Dagon, a towering deity of the Canaanite religion, was revered with awe and dread. When Samson, betrayed by Delilah, lost his strength, he was captured and taken to 1 of these sinister temples to perform for his Philistine captors. As his hair grew back, Samson prayed for his strength to return, and with a surge of power, he tore down the pillars, collapsing the temple and killing everyone inside, including himself. After Saul’s defeat at Mount Gilboa, the victorious Philistines displayed the decapitated heads of Saul and his sons in the temple of Dagon, a gruesome tribute to their dark god. The Philistines, emboldened by their victories, captured the Ark of the Covenant, hoping it would secure their dominance. However, the Ark brought plagues and tumors wherever it went, until it was placed in the temple of Dagon in Ashdod. The next morning, the statue of Dagon was found prostrate before the Ark. The Philistines restored the statue, but it was found prostrate again the following night, with its head and hands broken off, a chilling sign of Dagon’s defeat.
The Industrial Revolution
In July 1917, an unnamed man threw himself from a window, leaving behind a harrowing note detailing an encounter in the South Pacific that led to his morphine addiction. During the Great War, his cargo ship was captured by a German vessel, and he escaped on a lifeboat. After drifting aimlessly, he landed on a black, muddy expanse reeking of decaying fish and other indescribable horrors. He waited for the ground to dry for 3 days, believing it to be part of the sea floor raised by a volcanic upheaval, but it never did. Venturing inland, he discovered an immense pit and a gigantic white stone monolith inscribed with hieroglyphs depicting oceanic life and humanoid creatures with fish-like traits. As he examined the monolith, a monstrous fish-man emerged from the water, wrapping its slimy arms around the stone and bowing its hideous head. The creature emitted eerie sounds, and the man fled in terror. His next memory was waking in a San Francisco hospital, with no reports of any volcanic event or the monstrous creature he described. The note ended with the man, out of morphine, hearing the sound of a massive, slippery body slithering against his door.
In 1923, the government investigated the mysterious destruction of Innsmouth, a Massachusetts town shrouded in superstition and isolation. A young man, drawn by the town’s antiques, rare books, and peculiar architecture, discovered that the residents, known for their narrow heads, flat noses, and bulging, starry eyes, were rumored to be inbred. Investigators found that most of the townspeople shared a common ancestor, Obed Marsh, who spoke of encounters with fish-frog men he called Deep Ones. As the investigation continued, bodies exhumed from Innsmouth revealed that many had been replaced with rocks, and those who died during a supposed illness had been mauled or murdered. On a November night, the town erupted into chaos, and the young man, Robert Olmstead, disappeared. The bus he rode into Innsmouth was found in a shop with no mechanical issues. By 1931, Olmstead, a distant relative of Obed Marsh, had not been seen since he broke a cousin out of a mental hospital, leaving behind a trail of unanswered questions and eerie mysteries.
References
- Dagon on Wikipedia
- Dagon (short story) on Wikipedia
- Conan the Destroyer on Wikipedia
- Dagon (Old One) (Earth-616) on Marvel Database
- Dagon (New Earth) on DC Database
- Dagon on the H.P. Lovecraft Wiki
- Dagon (shot story) on the H.P. Lovecraft Wiki
- The Shadow over Innsmouth on the H.P. Lovecraft Wiki
- Dagon on Conan Wiki
- The Devil in Iron on Conan Wiki
Aliases:
- Ellil
- Enlil
- Father Dragon
- The Father of Fishes
- Fish God
- Sea God
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