“Iä! Shub-Niggurath! Iä! Shub-Niggurath!”
Shub-Niggurath, called
The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young in
The Venturos, is an
Outer God that resides in the
Dark Tapestry. It has recently come to light that the
Watcher in the Bay could be a manifestation of the perverse being.
Appearance
Shub-Niggurath is a perverse and violent fertility deity, said to appear as an enormous mass which extrudes black tentacles, slime-dripping mouths, and short, writhing goat legs. Small creatures are continually spat forth by the monstrosity, which are either consumed into the miasmatic form or escape to some monstrous life elsewhere.
The Watcher in the Bay
The
Watcher in the Bay is a sea monster with great many tentacles that is believed to reside in Avalon Bay in Lake Encarthan. It is said to be an ancient being with equally ancient knowledge that watches the shores and intrudes in human events as it sees fit to alter the course of history. As far as anyone knows, the creature has been there forever.
Count Haserton Lowls IV, the current overlord of
Versex, has a childlike obsession with the tales of the creature, but he also wishes to know if it is something he can harness to bring power to himself and
Thrushmoor.
It is believed that the Watcher might be the long term presence of a reality altering outsider that
Professor Petros Lorrimor wrote about in his
letter to Professor Crowl.
The
Esoteric Order of the Palatine Eye recently warned the Fellowship:
"We believe that the Watcher in the Bay is a manifestation of the Outer God, Shub-Niggurath. We believe the Watcher slumbers in some way, and, if that is the case, we do not wish it awakened by foolish prodding, or worse, intentional waking by occultists. This is a GOD we are speaking of here, tread lightly when it comes to any of its paths you may cross."
Cult of the Black Goat
The
Cult of the Black Goat worships Shub-Niggurath as a violent fertility goddess. Its members revel in lust and gluttony and often react to any interaction with anger and aggression; while they are not necessarily foolish, their raw emotions rule rather than intellect. Their cult rituals seem like bloodthirsty orgies to outsiders. Their own lives no longer matter compared to service to the goddess and her needs.
Many of Shub-Niggurath’s cultists are social outcasts. Higher-class devotees often start out as dilettantes and hedonists but soon succumb to the mind-corroding influence of the goddess. Most members eventually become dangers to themselves and others.
Though mad, cultists of the Black Goat generally manage to restrain themselves around others. They live a secret life, in which they are devoted to the Goat, beneath a façade of normalcy; their friends and neighbors have no inkling as to their true allegiance.
Like other Mythos sects, the cultists of the Black Goat are not focused on any kind of coherent afterlife: their reward is in the here and now. Indeed, the cult’s massive orgies are their immediate reward for worship, and further gifts include fertility and bounty. Finding new members increases the pleasure and depth of their worship services, in which the awful offspring of the Black Goat take full part. Constantly seeking new meat for their goddess’s pleasure, cultists evangelize and lure unsuspecting recruits deeper into the mysteries with promises of increasingly intense carnality, bountiful food, or numerous offspring (for those who value such things).
Sometimes cultists build up a cult in a city or developed area, but more often they restrict their activities to the woodlands and wilderness. Depravity can be found everywhere, and the Goat is flexible and undiscriminating. Typically, the cult leaders of the Goat are not human: Shub-Niggurath prefers
dark young, fungi from Yuggoth,
Leng ghouls, brain cylinders, and other monstrous forces to lead the lesser human mob. Monstrous minions are often more reliable, particularly compared to human minds warped by the orgies and rituals of the Black Goat’s worship. Also, if the authorities descend upon such a cult, seeding the ranks with monstrous combatants helps the cult survive. The mi-go make particularly effective masters of these cults, infusing the organization with their alien technology and using common humans as expendable resources.
Some Cults of the Black Goat take over entire communities. In these cases, they often encourage or force most community members to crossbreed with satyrs and other monsters, and drink of the mother’s milk, thus devolving into monstrosities themselves. In due course, entire villages of monsters can arise in which everyone is a Mythos satyr, ghoul, or other hybrid. The most deformed villagers stay in hiding except after dark, while those who look more normal wear clothing in an attempt to conceal their true natures. If the cult is careful, other folks may travel through or even visit the cursed land and never know the truth.
Kyrrn learned about the Cult after receiving notes based on a portion of the
Celaneo Fragments from the
Esoteric Order of the Palatine Eye. It is possible a faction of the cult exists in the the town of
Illmarsh. The Fellowship also discovers a cultist in the town of
Thrushmoor named Ravisterr who owned a bookstore called
New Chapter. From him they learned that Count Lowls was planning on journeying to Illmarsh on a pilgrimage. Kyrrn accidently exploded his head when she cast
agonizing despair on him.
Dark Young of of Shub-Niggurath
The
Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath are horrifying, pitch-black monstrosities, seemingly made of ropy tentacles. They stand as tall as a tree (perhaps between twelve and twenty feet tall) on a pair 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.
Kyrrn previously had a vision at the
Stairs of the Moon where she was fighting such a creature deep beneath the sea.
