Cthulhu (Klull - hloo)
The sole purpose of a Cthulhu cult is reverence for, and service to, Great Cthulhu and his siblings, the Great Old Ones. Their goal is to provide sacrifices for abyssal monsters, to keep the cult secret by murdering nosy outsiders, and ultimately to awaken Cthulhu when his time inevitably comes.
Cultists believe that after Cthulhu rises, when he will roam wild across the world, they will be free to consume, kill, and take pleasure as they please along with him. Naturally, his cult attracts the vilest of individuals.
Cthulhu's cult recruits almost exclusively along the coasts and from among those who live on ships. Landlocked would-be cultists cannot easily access the wealth that Cthulhu offers, so typically they follow other Great Old Ones.
The cult of Cthulhu has three main categories of members:
Humanoids
Normal humanoids who worship Cthulhu form the vast bulk of the cult, seeking two distinct rewards. First, they are promised that when Cthulhu comes to clear the world, they will be free to engage in indiscriminate violence, as described above. Second, they gain deep-sea bounty and wealth via contact with abyssal horrors. This wealth often takes the form of valuable objects (statuettes or jewelry) made of gold or silver that mysteriously appear in their fishing nets.Strange Hybrids
If the deep ones are in an area, they almost always organize as a cult of Dagon (a subset of Cthulhu followers). Humans in such a cult who interbreed with the deep ones produce hybrid offspring who start out looking Human but over the years degenerate into the full deep one form. The promise for the humans is that their children will be immortal, while the promise for the hybrids is that they will one day join the Deep One Society. Of course, once the entire community is composed of hybrids, a process that takes only a single generation, their deep one heritage ensures loyalty to the Great Old One's goals.The Deep Ones
The Deep Ones are not an ancient species and did not interact with the true primordial entities, such as the yithians or elder things. They were created a few thousand years ago by the Starspawn, Cthulhu's own race, who sought to form a species that could communicate with, monitor, and if need be, wipe out humanity or the other surface folk. The Deep Ones possess the same physical realities as a normal species: bones, digestion, a need to breathe, and so forth. Where they diverge is in their ability to cross-breed with any other vertebrate species, even one that should be completely incompatible from an evolutionary perspective. The Deep Ones are absolutely loyal to Cthulhu and work to advance his aims whenever possible.Granted Divine Powers
Cultists of Great Cthulhu might have access to any of the following benefits.
Abyssal Horrors. Starspawn recognize and work with human cultists. Usually, the starspawn is in charge, but occasionally Cthulhu sets things up the other way around for unknown reasons.
Blessed of Cthulhu. Certain special cultists are given the mark of Cthulhu. This generally means that part of the cultist's body is transformed into one or more work-like tentacles. For instance, a blessed one might have an eye replaced with a tendril or their hand might become a cluster of writhing worm-like protrusions. Other possibilities include a circlet of tentacles on the chest or a forest of them in place of hair. Typically, the transformed part of the body, the mark, is hidden by the cultist except during special ceremonies. This transformation bestows no special attacks, but does give the cultist advantage on Charisma checks made to influence Cthulhu cultists and indicates Cthulhu himself is more likely to listen when the blessed one interacts with him.
Dreams. Cultists frequently receive special instructions and information from Cthulhu via dream telepathy and the spell Call of Cthulhu.
Shoggoth-twsha. Certain deep ones are appointed to become shoggoth-twshas, specialists able to control shoggoths. The shoggoth-handlers do so with a small amount of enchanted tissue of their personal shoggoth, which they carry with them at all times. Unlike other twsha-users, these handlers are able to control shoggoths without an ability check due to Cthulhu's blessing. Each shoggoth-twsha has one particular shoggoth. These individuals are, naturally enough, guarded by the cult, because their death leads to a dangerously uncontrolled shoggoth. Usually, only deep ones gain this blessing, but very rarely, a human might be granted a shoggoth to control, such as if the creature is needed far inland where deep ones prefer not to tread.
Y'ha-Nthlei. Human cultists know how to contact the deep ones off almost any coast, generally using the ritual Contact Deep Ones.
Treasures. Cultists often have access to Chains of the Deep, Idols of Cthulhu, Starstones of Mnar, Tiaras of Mnar and Yithian Lightning Guns.
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn
Type
Religious, Cult
Alternative Names
Cthulhu (pronounced Kuh - too - loo)
Location
Related Species
The most merciful thing in the world, is the inability of the humanoid mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.
That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die
Only poetry or madness could do justice to the noises.
They worshipped, so they said, the Great Old Ones who lived ages before there were any men, and who came to the young world out of the sky. Those Old Ones were gone now, inside the earth and under the sea; but their dead bodies had told their secrets in dreams to the first men, who formed a cult which had never died....
The name of the hellish entity was invented by beings whose vocal organs were not like man's, hence it has no relation to the Human speech equipment. The syllables were determined by a physiological equipment wholly unlike ours, hence could never be uttered perfectly by Human throats ... The actual sound -- as nearly as any Human organs could imitate it or Human letters record it -- may be taken as something like Khlûl'-hloo, with the first syllable pronounced gutturally and very thickly. The u is about like that in full; and the first syllable is not unlike klul in sound, hence the h represents the guttural thickness.
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