This is a compendium of all those things squamous, rugose, and otherwise weird from the writings of H. P. Lovecraft and pals. Since most of these are eldritch monstrosities, a paragraph descriptor will be necessary for each. The stars are right.

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Notable Humans

Abdul Alhazred

The Mad Arab

Author of the dreaded Kitab al-Azif (better known by its Greek name, Necronomicon), and a Muslim apostate who worshiped the Great Old Ones. Described as an insane poet, Alhazred visited many strange and dark places filled with weird horrors. He was eaten by an invisible monster in broad daylight in 738 A.D. according to one record.

All There in the Manual: "The History of the Necronomicon" provides a short essay on the life of Alhazred, and the publication history of his infamous work.
…And That Little Girl Was Me: In Necronomicon: The Wanderings Of Alhazred, Abdul almost never refers to himself by name in his work and rarely uses the word "I", instead claiming that "a traveller" happened to visit the areas he describes and committed certain acts that he doesn't directly take credit for. It's not until the end of the book that he formally introduces himself as the traveller and by his true name.
As Long as It Sounds Foreign: The name Abdul Alhazred was invented by Lovecraft as a child and makes no sense in Arabic. Some modern stories remedy this by saying that this is a Europeanisation of his original name, which is Truth in Television, since many ancient Arabic writers were known by Latinized names. (Compare Ibn Rushd/"Averroes" and Ibn Sinna/"Avicenna".) Specifically, it is often said to be a corruption of Abd al-Azrad, a name that can be translated as "servant of the Great Lord" or "slave of the Destroyer".
Author Avatar: Abdul Alhazred was Lovecraft's play name when he was younger.
Breakout Character: After Cthulhu and the Necronomicon, "The Mad Arab" is one of the most referenced elements in non-Mythos works.
Crippling Castration: Had his genitals cut off as punishment for getting his sovereign's daughter pregnant, along with his ears and nose; as such, most of his original journey into the eldritch was inspired by the hope of finding something that could heal his injuries. It wasn't until his search was fruitless that he finally gave up on all hopes of returning to his old life and embraced his new existence as a nihilistic scholar.
Cruel and Unusual Death: Hoisted in the air and ripped apart by an invisible demon? Yep.
Death Faked for You: In at least one version of his fate, it turns out that Alhazred wasn't eaten, that being an illusion. Instead, he was kidnapped, tortured, had his tongue and eyes pulled out, and then killed.
Ear Ache: The Wanderings of Alhazred reveals that his ears were cut off as part of his punishment for having an affair with his master's daughter.
Eunuchs Are Evil: In The Wanderings Of Alhazred, he's revealed to have been castrated in his youth as punishment for having an affair with his master's daughter, which proved to be the beginning of his descent into depravity.
Evil Sorcerer: A worshipper of both Yog-Sothoth and Cthulhu, he learned much arcane lore over the course of his studies - much of it through increasingly horrific acts. His incarnation in The Wanderings Of Alhazred is easily the closest to this trope, having committed numerous acts of betrayal, theft, murder, cannibalism, and collusion with malevolent forces to accomplish his ends.
Go Mad from the Revelation: According to The Wanderings Of Alhazred, he made the mistake of trying to mug Nyarlathotep and was given a soul-shattering look at the Black Pharaoh's true face by way of response; this was Abdul's first brush with the eldritch, and it left him sobbing "at the loss of such exquisite emptiness".
Junkie Prophet: In some stories, Abdul does drugs to forget the horrors he has seen, while in others, he indulges heavily in hallucinogenic fungi and venom in order to see clearer into the unknown.
Mad Artist: Was a poet before (and likely after, given how several fragments of the Necronomicon read) encountering the Mythos.
Mad Oracle: Being the author of the Necronomicon also means being this.
Meaningful Name: His surname a homonym of “all has read”, perfect for a Cult leader that authored a Tome of Eldritch Lore (even moreso when you realized his name was an alias for Lovecraft himself, an author).
Nasal Trauma: According to The Wanderings Of Alhazred, one of the punishments he suffered for betraying his sovereign was having his nose cut off. In fact, it's for this reason that Abdul survived his encounter with I'thakuah, who despises beauty in all forms and murders her more attractive visitors; I'thakuah apparently found his mangled face amusing and allowed him to remain as her student.
Noble Demon: in the sequels to The Wanderings of Alhazred, make no mistake, he still lies, steals, kills and commits eldritch rituals, but he is shown to be quite protective and caring of the household he eventually gathers during his adventures to the point of risking his own life to save them from harm and he gives the middle finger to Nyarlathotep when the Black Man offers him to restore his missing parts in exchange of murdering one of his allies.
Sincerest Form of Flattery: Many of Lovecraft's friends created their own unspeakable tomes in homage to Lovecraft's Necronomicon. Like poor Abdul, the fictional writers of these books meet dark ends.
Tome of Eldritch Lore: Wrote the modern archetype of all other eldritch grimoires.

Herbert West

Debut: Herbert West–Reanimator

Medical student, then a doctor. Postulating that human life was purely material, Herbert believed with the right chemicals could restart life. He and an assistant go about trying to prove this, conducting questionable experiments with... interesting results. Other than the setting of Arkham and Miskatonic University, West has little connection to the wider Cthulhu Mythos. He starred in a cult film trilogy in which he was played by Jeffrey Combs.

And I Must Scream: After all of the reanimated corpses that West revived team up and tear West apart, West is given some of his own concoction and is last seen as a conscious, disembodied head being carried away to spend the rest of his existence at the hands of his creations.
Ascended Extra: Originally the star of a serial that Lovecraft didn't like and largely obscure and unconnected from the rest of the mythos, Herbert West has become one Lovecraft's most well-known characters due to his cult film series.
Chemistry Can Do Anything: Including raising the dead in this case.
Damaged Soul: The many failed results of bringing back the dead.
Dragged Off to Hell: West's ultimate fate, as the reanimated bodies come back and tear him limb from limb.
First-Person Peripheral Narrator: West's unnamed assistant, originally a medical student who became fascinated with West.
Mad Doctor: A graduate of the Miskatonic University Medical School no less.
Mad Scientist: Noble in intent, West's methods become increasingly unethical and deadly. It eventually drives him over the edge.
Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Played with. West's goal is to preserve life, as is true of medicine. He's just a little fuzzy on when to give up.
Off with His Head!: His head is ripped off at the end of the story. The dying part on the other hand....

Randolph Carter

Debut: "The Statement of Randolph Carter"

Early 20th century Boston author and occultist. One of the few recurring human characters within the Mythos, Carter is capable of entering the Dreamlands. Another Author Avatar: an unnoticed writer, prone to nervousness and depression. However, he is capable of courageous feats.

Anti-Hero: Despite being Lovecraft's most recurring protagonist, he does almost nothing to help anyone that doesn't benefit him directly in any of his stories. In fact, he seems to outright reject the idea that anything in human reality matters...perfectly mirroring Lovecraft's own views at least during his Decadent period. However, in The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, he repays the cats who saved him from the moon-beasts by alerting them to and helping them foil a Zoog raid (granted, the Zoogs had also helped him at one point, but then he caught one of them regarding a kitten with a Meat-O-Vision leer.). When he discovers three of the ghouls who helped him, captured and being tortured by said moon-beasts at the nameless rock near Sarkomand, he derails his own quest to summon the night-gaunts and the ghoul army to save them.
Author Avatar: Like Lovecraft, he is a horror writer with not much attention given to his work, and firmly believes that nothing in human life actually matters (see Straw Nihilist below).
Badass Bookworm: A member of the Legion of Lost Souls, he fought in World War I and survived (barely — was almost among the 900 legionnaires killed at Belloy-en-Santerre in 1916). That makes him an extreme badass right there, besides the fact that in the Dreamlands, he goes up against moon beasts. You don't even want to think about those.
A Chat with Satan: In the Dreamlands, with Nyarlathotep.
Friend to All Living Things: Friendly to cats, as well as ghouls of all things.
God in Human Form: "Through the Gates of the Silver Key" reveals that he's a fragment of an entity implied, though not stated outright, to be Yog-Sothoth. Who switches his consciousness with another of his facets who was an alien wizard that lived 100,000 years ago.
I Was Having Such a Nice Dream: Carter's journey in The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. Also, Carter's philosophy:
Calm, lasting beauty comes only in a dream, and this solace the world had thrown away when in its worship of the real it threw away the secrets of childhood and innocence.
The Quest: Several, including the well known Dream-Quest but also his travels beyond time and space.
Seers: Since from a young age, Carter had the gift of prophecy, as well as a powerful dreamer.
Straw Nihilist: Comes off as this in The Silver Key.
He saw that most of them, in common with their cast-off priestcraft, could not escape from the delusion that life has a meaning apart from that which men dream into it; and could not lay aside the crude notion of ethics and obligations beyond those of beauty, even when all Nature shrieked of its unconsciousness and impersonal unmorality in the light of their scientific discoveries. Warped and bigoted with preconceived illusions of justice, freedom, and consistency, they cast off the old lore and the old way with the old beliefs; nor ever stopped to think that that lore and those ways were the sole makers of their present thoughts and judgments, and the sole guides and standards in a meaningless universe without fixed aims or stable points of reference. Having lost these artificial settings, their lives grew void of direction and dramatic interest; till at length they strove to drown their ennui in bustle and pretended usefulness, noise and excitement, barbaric display and animal sensation. When these things palled, disappointed, or grew nauseous through revulsion, they cultivated irony and bitterness, and found fault with the social order. Never could they realize that their brute foundations were as shifting and contradictory as the gods of their elders, and that the satisfaction of one moment is the bane of the next.
White Anglo-Saxon Protestant: Standard for a Lovecraft hero. However, though he was raised as a Protestant Christian, Carter was materialistic later in life.

Old Man Whateley

Debut: "The Dunwich Horror"

A sinister, crotchety old farmer from the remote, dying hamlet of Dunwich deep in the foothills of Massachusetts. Possessed strong knowledge of the Mythos from his family's collection of occult tomes, despite most of them being half-rotten and/or incomplete copies (and him being only half-literate). Rumors about him being a wizard of great and terrible power proved true when he called down the Outer God Yog-Sothoth to impregnate his daughter, Lavinia, resulting in the birth of twins, Wilbur Whateley and the unnamed Dunwich Horror.

Abusive Dad: Him using a ritual to get his own daughter impregnated by an Outer God won't win him any parent of the year awards...
Beard of Evil: Most portrayals give him thick, bushy facial hair.
Evil Old Folks: Obviously, given his nickname.
Evil Sorcerer: You don't get much worse than using your daughter as a vessel for the spawn of an Eldritch Abomination with the ultimate goal of having them open the gates allowing it and its kind to enter our world...
Omnicidal Maniac: His life's efforts all lead up to attempting to summon Yog-Sothoth to consume the Earth.
Only Known By His Nickname: We never find out his actual first name in the story; he is always mentioned as "Old Man Whateley" or "Wizard Whateley".
Posthumous Character: He died a few years prior to the events of the short story he appears in.

Great Old Ones

Great Old Ones in General

As their titles suggest, the Old Ones are very ancient entities, all of whom possess a vast range of unnatural powers defying physical laws as humanity (and even alien civilizations) understand them. It was said in the distant past, they traveled across the cosmos and rule over many worlds, but most have chosen to lay dormant, waiting until "the stars are right" before rising again.

At present, most Old Ones are sleeping in various planets (including Earth), though after the introduction of Elder Gods into the Mythos it is then stated a few were imprisoned by the Elder Gods. As such, Old Ones are often the center of cults, as despite being dormant many of them are still capable of contacting and influencing lesser beings from within their prison; such "attention" generally lead to madness, death or worse for whoever is on the receiving end. Despite this, or perhaps because of this, cults are often keen on trying to awaken them.

Originally, the term "Great Old Ones" also included the "Outer Gods" (or "Other Gods" as Lovecraft called them) as in Lovecraft's own circle of writers, there was no strict definition for the latter. Authors use different categories to distinguish them, such as their ages (entities who are as old as Cthulhu or younger are Old Ones, anything older are Outer Gods), or their scope of influence (entities who are not dynamic or powerful enough to extend their influence across the cosmos are Old Ones); this wiki uses the latter category, though there are exceptions — certain Great Old Ones do manifest with avatars across the cosmos (such as Hastur the Unspeakable and Y'golonac the Defiler)

Aliens Are Bastards: Most are of extraterrestrial origin, and nearly all of them are unfriendly or don't care about humanity (or any local lifeforms in the planet they sleep on) to some degree.
Blue-and-Orange Morality: As typical for Eldritch Abominations, it's debatable whether they even have morality at all.
Civilization Destroyer: At the very least, this is the usual result when a planet's local Old One is awake. Worse cases usually mean the end of all life on that planet, or even destruction of the whole celestial body.
Eldritch Abomination: Immensely powerful beings made not of flesh and blood but of something that can only be called matter in the most basic sense. They traveled from world to world when stars were right, but now sleep, waiting until the stars are right once more so they may rule again (incidentally, when they wake up, they plunge the world into madness and terror). Cthulhu is one of them, and although human cultists call him a god he is actually just his race's High Priest to the Outer Gods. Some mythos stories suggest that the Great Old Ones or their spawn were responsible for the creation of mankind, leading to frequent descriptions of creatures of whom the most horrifying thing is that there is something "damnably human" in their appearance.
Evil Is Bigger: Great Old Ones tend to much bigger than humans or any alien race, often to Kaiju levels of size.
Leaking Can of Evil: Blue-and-Orange Morality aside, the Old Ones are incredibly dangerous entities who can cause madness on humans and alien races alike with their mere presence, thus the fact most of them are currently dormant is a boon for the planets where they reside. However, most if not all Old Ones possess the ability to exert their will even when dormant (for example, Cthulhu can communicate through dreams), thus they can marginally affect the outside world and compel their followers to do their bidding.
The Old Gods: It's in their name.
Physical God: Most of them are currently dormant, with very limited ability to move or exert their powers, so at present they are not straight examples of this trope (though their cults would say otherwise). They played it straight in the distant past, and would do so again when the stars are right and the Old Ones wake once more.
Psychic Powers: One thing most if not all Old Ones have in common is the ability to affect reality around them with just their thoughts. The specifics differ for each one, but generally they all can communicate telepathically and exert their will over their followers.
Reality Warper: The Old Ones possess abilities which can only be described as "magic" or "spells" even by their followers and alien civilizations who know of them. Most stories claim it's these spells which they use to preserve themselves over the billions of years they have existed, though the full extent of their magic is not known as most of them are still dormant.
Starfish Aliens: The majority of them don't resemble any living creature.
Sufficiently Advanced Aliens: Zig-Zagged; while Lovecraft heavily implies this to be the nature of the Great Old Ones (especially in his later writings), how much it is this trope and how much the Great Old Ones are genuinely supernatural vary greatly from writer to writer even in the original circle.
Time Abyss: Most of them are more than billions of years old, although most probably spend the majority of it sleeping.
We ARE Struggling Together: According to later writings, the imprisoned Old Ones want to break out of their prisons and revolt against the Elder Gods... except they're just as busy fighting each other. Some are even conflicting with some of the Outer Gods.

Arwassa

The Silent Shouter on the Hill

Debut:The Asylum and Other Tales, Sandy Petersen and Lynn Willis (eds.)

A giant inhuman being with tentacles in place of limbs and a headless neck that opens into a toothless maw which continually yawns as though screaming.

Brown Note: It's always howling in a high frequency that's inaudible to humans, yet still drives people mad.
Canon Foreigner: It was made for the Call of Cthulhu RPG.
Swallowed Whole: Well, without even a single tooth, you don't have much choice.

Atlach-Nacha

Debut: The Seven Geases, Clark Ashton Smith.

A giant spider with a strange humanoid-ish face. Other forms include a young woman with multiple arms. It lives in a cavern under Mount Voormithadreth in ancient Hyperborea and works on an endless task of bridging a chasm. Because of its appearance, Atlach is considered the regent of all spiders. The Spiders of Leng (huge purple spiders) are believed to be her children and servitors.

Animalistic Abomination: Arachnid, in this case.
Gender Flip: Was male when introduced by Clark Ashton Smith. Later writers referred to Atlach as a female.
Giant Spider: Atlach's default form is a massive building-sized spider.
Odd Job Gods: Atlach-Nacha spends all her time bridging a vast chasm.
Spiders Are Scary: Especially when the spider in question is an eldritch monster.
Uncanny Valley: Invoked: its face in its default form is almost-kind-of-maybe human.

Byatis

Debut: "The Room in the Castle", Ramsey Campbell

A deity of divination and forgetfulness, Byatis is a massive toad-shaped being with a large single eye, wings, crab claws, and a proboscis. Called "serpent-bearded", its face is covered in tentacles. Originally called by the Deep Ones to Earth, it was trapped before Roman troops accidentally freed the being. By the 18th century, "The Berkeley Toad" came under the control of Sir Gilbert Morley and used the creature to further his knowledge of the Mythos. It was kept in a cellar under a castle in Severnford.

Animalistic Abomination: Vaguely toad-like in appearance.
Ascended Extra: Originally mentioned (very briefly) in Robert Bloch’s "The Shambler From the Stars". Ramsey Campbell then developed the character in his "The Room in the Castle".
Familiar: According to records, “The Berkeley Toad” was this to Sir Morley. Ironically enough, it's hinted that Morley ended up being eaten by his captive Old One.
Fat Bastard: Byatis feeds on so many people, it grew too big to leave its room!
Hypnotic Eyes: Anyone looking into its single eye will fall under its control.
Sealed Evil in a Can: At least twice. Once by the Elder Gods, and again when Sir Morley disappeared.

Chaugnar Faugn

Debut: The Horror from the Hills, Frank Belknap Long

A proboscidian Great Old One first mentioned in Lovecraft's "The Horror in the Museum" and later fleshed out by Frank Belknap Long. A grotesque being that pretends to be a statue of some nightmarish amalgamation of human, elephant, and octopus, with a lamprey-like trunk, Chaugnar Faugn arrived on Earth eons ago from another dimension, at a time when only simple amphibians ruled the world. From these, he shaped a servitor race called the Miri Nigri, which later interbred with early humanoids to form the Tcho-Tcho.

Animalistic Abomination / Cruel Elephant: He is just elephant-like enough to make all of his more alien-looking traits all the more unsettling.
Continuity Snarl: As is common for the Mythos; supposedly, Chaugnar Faugn is the "grandfather" of the Tcho-Tcho, but there is never any mention of them worshiping him - instead, they are supposedly worshipers of Lloigor and Zhar.
Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Holds the distinction as one of the few eldritch abominations killed by a technobabble raygun.
Expy: In at least the D20 adaptation of Call of Cthulhu, Chaugnar Faugn is depicted as looking like a monstrous rendition of Ganesha.
Gag Nose: He has a distorted elephant's trunk for a nose. Except it ends in a Lamprey Mouth and he uses it to feed on blood.
Lightning Bruiser: He looks like a fat human/elephant hybrid. When he wants to, though, he can move incredibly fast.
Mix-and-Match Critters: This creature looks like an amalgamation of a human, elephant, and octopus.
Our Gargoyles Rock / Nobody Here but Us Statues: Although he's never specifically called a gargoyle, his habit of impersonating a statue puts him in this territory. Worth noting that the trope of gargoyles as living ambush predators, rather than simply statues, was invented by Cthulhu Mythos author Clark Ashton Smith
Our Vampires Are Different: He's a blood-drinking statue of an elephant/man/octopus hybrid.
Silicon-Based Life: Chaugnar Faugn appears to be a statue made from some unidentifiable mineral. However, he's still alive and active... when he wants to be.
Weaksauce Weakness: Got stuck in mud of all things.

Cthulhu

"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn"

Debut: The Call of Cthulhu

The Eldritch Abomination.

The infamous man-dragon-octopus of horror himself, the monstrous high priest of the Great Old Ones, sleeping in the sunken city of R'lyeh until 'the stars are right' and he can awaken his kin to resume their rule of Earth. A gigantic humanoid form with a squid-like head and dragon wings.

Adaptational Badass: While he's portrayed as a serious threat in his original story, he's still able to be temporarily defeated by being rammed with a boat. Later works usually make the character much more powerful and harder to stop.
All There in the Manual:
- Cthulhu's genealogy was detailed by Lovecraft in one of his many letters. Cthulhu is the son(?) of Nug, one of the Twin Blasphemies. In turn, Nug and Yeb (the other twin) were spawned by Shub-Niggurath and Yog-Sothoth.
- Clark Ashton Smith made Cthulhu and Hzioulquoignmzhah cousins, having shared the same ancestor named Cxaxukluth.
Badass Family: His kids with Idh-yaa are incredibly dangerous and powerful.
Breakout Character: There's a reason H.P. Lovecraft's works are known as the Cthulhu Mythos, despite Cthulhu himself being much less prominent in Lovecraft's original stories compared to Yog-Sothoth or Nyarlathotep.
Breakout Villain: He's only a direct villainous force in one of Lovecraft's stories, however today he's generally seen as one of the top dogs of Lovecraft's Mythos.
But for Me, It Was Tuesday: For humankind, the expedition that put him back to sleep averted an apocalyptic catasrophe that might have ended the world. For Cthulhu, he just went back to bed to wait for when the stars are right.
Combat Tentacles: Having a whole face of them, they're handy to stanch unsuspecting investigators with.
Cthulhumanoid: The Trope Namer for such a look.
Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Happens to the main man himself. See Ramming Always Works.
Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: Happens in "The House of Cthulhu", in which a band of barbarians go to R'lyeh. The leader believes Cthulhu is nothing more than a myth to scare away the weak, and his "tomb" holds vast riches. Let's just say he's wrong.
Draconic Abomination: Although an eldritch alien being who shares more traits with cephalopods than dragons, Cthulhu is still described as a vaguely anthropomorphic dragon, thanks to his green scaly skin and draconic wings. Some depictions give him a reptilian tail to emphasize his draconic qualities. At the end of the day, Cthulhu is still a mind-warping, godlike abomination.
The Dreaded: Every human that knows of him is scared out of their minds by him, sometimes literally.
Evil Is Bigger: While he's roughly human-shaped, he's also a hundred sizes bigger, or somewhere thereabouts.
Extra Eyes: He's technically supposed to have six eyes split into two circles of three, at least according to Lovecraft's original drawing◊, but when was the last time you saw him depicted with any more than two?
Good Thing You Can Heal: It sure helps when some pesky human puts a steam yacht through your head.
Green and Mean: He's green-colored and, while not exactly evil, just utterly alien, he still plays an antagonistic role as far as humanity is concerned.
Green Is Gross: In "The Call of Cthulhu", it's emphasized how disgusting he is, and he is colored green.
High Priest: Of the Great Old Ones.
King in the Mountain: Of the lost civilization of the Great Old Ones. Needless to say, a particularly dark example.
Knight Templar Parent: Played with, Cthulhu goes great lengths to protect his secret daughter, but not because he cares for Cthylla. Any human emotion is beyond the Great Old Ones.
Kraken and Leviathan: Huge, tentacles, destroys sailors. The Kraken in particular may have been an influence on Cthulhu's design.
Lord of the Ocean: Cthulhu has aspects of this, being a large aquatic-looking horror worshipped by unnamed cults. But even then, it just may be a coincidence, as his house/tomb/city just happens to be under the sea.
Mad Artist: For whatever reason, his dreams mostly affect the artistically inclined, who wind up going into fugue states when Cthulhu's dreams are particularly strong.
Mini Mook: His servitors The Star-spawn of Cthulhu, who are basically smaller versions of Big C. Depictions range from 'Deep Ones, but Cthulhu' to almost-perfect copies of him. Lovecraft never describes their size, but the Call of Cthulhu RPG specifies that they're 30 to 45 feet tall.
Our Dragons Are Different: Artists who were affected by his dreams painted a great, winged dragonic beast with the features — usually the head of, but sometimes just the tentacles of — of a squid. He's explicitly referred to as a dragon in his titular story.
Pragmatic Villainy: Goes to great lengths to protect his daughter Cthylla, not because he actually cares about her, but because she's his secret backup plan in the case he dies (he'll reincarnate inside her womb).
Ramming Always Works: Gets rammed into by the boat of the one person who survives him, causing his head to break apart and eventually rematerialise. It buys enough time for the survivor before Cthulhu returns into R'lyeh, which promptly sinks.
Sealed Evil in a Can: Sealed in a tomb under the Pacific, though the Big C is less evil and more just too alien for humanity to comprehend.
Series Mascot: He's the face of Lovecraft's overarching work. It's not called the Hastur Mythos, now is it?
Sickly Green Glow: He's described as having this, when seen.
Signs of the End Times: Every time R'lyeh begins to rise to the surface, strange events occur around the planet: people have dark nightmares, hysteria rises, and cult activities increase.
Sinister Minister: Among the Great Old Ones, he actually functions as High Priest to the Elder Gods, which makes the fact that he has worshippers of his own pretty weird.
Telepathy: If not blocked by water Cthulhu can send out dreams to communicate with Cultists, and cause nightmares for anyone sensitive enough.
Threatening Shark: The Father of All Sharks, one of his avatars, takes the form of an utterly gigantic and wildly aggressive Megalodon-esque shark.
Villain Protagonist: Very often in parodies, Cthulhu will be the protagonist. Taken further with Cthulhu Saves the World, where the Big C is the hero of a video game.
Winged Humanoid: Scaly, membranous wings on a mockery of human shape.

Cthugha

Debut:"The House on Curwen Street", August Derleth

An entity which appears as a giant fireball. The Fire Vampires, little flame-like monsters that ignite anything flammable, are Cthugha's servitors.

Brutish Bulls: Its form known as Living Flame of Deepest Black is a bull-like flaming beast.
The Dreaded: Cthugha is one of most powerful of the Great Old Ones. He is the only entity outside of Azathoth that even Nyarlathotep himself fears.
Elemental Embodiment: Derleth created an Elemental Theory, in which certain Great Old Ones were classified by the four classical elements. However, Derleth ran into a problem: no Great Old One could be considered a Fire Elemental. So Cthugha was created to fill in the gap.
Gender Flip: At least two Affectionate Parodies have Cthugha as a "female".
An Ice Person: Its offspring Aphoom-Zhah. Appearing to be a gray flame, Aphoom freezes upon contact.
Kill It with Fire: Literally.
Our Vampires Are Different: The Fire Vampires look like little bits of flame, and when they appear will burn anything flammable in their reach.
Playing with Fire: Both Cthugha and his Fire Vampires. Its child, Aphoom-Zhah, is An Ice Person instead.
Start X to Stop X: How do you stop Nyarlathotep? By summoning Cthugha. Screw that up, however... and you summon "the Feaster from Beyond the Stars".
The Swarm: Fire Vampires tend to appear in large numbers, especially when accompanying the Burning One when it is summoned.

Cthylla

First Mention: The Transition of Titus Crow, Brian Lumley

Debut: "In His Daughter's Darkling Womb", Tina L. Jens

The secret daughter of Cthulhu, and is very vital to his plans.

Absurdly Sharp Claws: She is able to defend herself by slashing her opponents with sharp talons at the ends of each of tentacles.
Baby Of The Bunch: She is the youngest child of Cthulhu.
Crazy-Prepared: Cthylla serves as a backup plan. Should Cthulhu be ever truly destroyed, the Great Old One is reborn in his daughter's womb.
Daddy's Little Villain: Whether or not by choice, being Cthulhu's daughter alone makes her an enemy of mankind.
Dark Secret: Cthulhu does not want anyone to know Cthylla exists. And the few humans that discover Cthylla's purpose go mad.
Extra Eyes: She has six of them in total.
Good Wings, Evil Wings: like her father, she too has draconic wings. She can make them larger to allow
Kraken and Leviathan: She is often referred as the Kraken, and can back up that title since she is a gigantic monsterous octopus. Or at least, resembles one.
Moe Anthropomorphism: Notable since it's easier searching for art depicting Cthylla as a human girl than an octopus. It might be because of how she is the most docile amongst her siblings.
Red and Black and Evil All Over: She is described as having a red body with black rings.
Sizeshifter: Just like her father, she is able to adjust the size of not only her entire body but also individual limbs.
Tentacled Terror: She is naturally this given her origins. She can also create more of them if needed.

Dagon & Hydra

First Mention: The Shadow Over Innsmouth

Debut: "Dagon"

Sometimes considered part of the Great Old Ones, while other times both are just large (and mutated) Deep Ones. They rule over the lesser specimens of their kind, being considered their monarchs and parents. Dagon is worshipped by the Esoteric Order of Dagon, a secret cult based in Innsmouth that considers him as their father.

Ambiguous Situation: Considering the writings of Lovecraft are deliberately ambiguous and left open to interpretation, this isn't really surprising? But what could these two creatures be? Earth spawned gods? Cohorts with Cthulhu? Perhaps even an alias/avatar of Big C? Fellow Great Old Ones? Deep Ones that are bigger, older and/or mutated? Aliens from another world? The origin behind the mermaid myths? Highly evolved prehistoric animals? The different adaptations have went with every one of the above theories and many possible combinations therefore, which means you can just pick any one (or more) and run with it.
Blue-and-Orange Morality: All they care about is eating and breeding, while their children also craft golden jewelry and worship creatures far more powerful (and worse) than their parents. Justified, seeing as they are the most animalistic beings and lower on the food chain than the Great Old Ones and especially the Outer Gods. However, by human standards this makes them also more benign and seeing as they are basically just Fish People, then Father Dagon and his consort Mother Hydra end up being one of the more sympathetic beings. It's however subverted when they serve the other Great Old Ones, which are far more dangerous and hostile.
Depending on the Artist and Writer: How exactly do they look and relate with the other beings of the mythos? The reason this entry doesn't have a posted image is because people have come up with all sorts of designs for Dagon and Hydra in both "official" materials and fanworks.
Mesopotamian Monstrosity: Dagon is named after a real world historical Canaanite god, and in-universe it's speculated that either he is inspiration behind the myth and/or he is the actual deity. However this is a case of Sadly Mythtaken, seeing as the historical Dagon wasn't a sea and fish god but rather he was a god of grains and crops.
Our Hydras Are Different: Averted, seeing as besides being a large aquatic and scaly creature Mother Hydra doesn't have anything in common with her Greek mythological inspiration.
Physical God: Debatable, however Dagon comes the closest to this trope in the mythos considering most other characters here are way too abstract and shapeless to be properly considered physical beings. This means that besides their large size, they are actually one of the weakest beings in the mythos.
Riddle for the Ages: Was the large Deep One that grasped the monolith Dagon or just a random Deep One? That and many other questions will probably never be answered.
Sea Monster: Whatever interpretation is chosen for them, one thing is agreed upon- both Dagon and Hydra qualify for this trope due to being large terrifying marine creatures.
Unholy Matrimony: Despite being hideous inhuman creatures, they get along surprisingly well. Plus they seem to actually care about their children.
Worthless Yellow Rocks: We humans consider gold one of the most valuable substances in existance and would do anything to get more of it (including making a Deal with the Devil). But for Dagon and Hydra it's just pretty rocks that look good as a decoration. This is actually Truth in Television as some cultures (like the Aztecs and Incas) didn't use gold as currency but simple jewelry. Heck, the Deep Ones are perfectly content with giving away their gold in exchange for breeding with us mortal humans and producing Deep One hybrids which shows how they differently view gold.

Eihort

Debut: "The Franklyn Paragraphs", Ramsey Campbell.

A giant gelatinous oval with many legs, Eihort wanders the labyrinth-like underground tunnels of the Severn Valley. When encountering a mortal, Eihort will chase and corner them, then offer to lead them out of the tunnels in return for letting it implant its egg inside their body. Should they refuse, Eihort will just smash them into a bloody pulp... which is arguably better than what those who accept its offer get, as the egg will eventually hatch, and the victim's body will shatter into countless brood of Eihort.

Beast in the Maze: Eihort wanders labyrinthine tunnels beneath the Severn Valley.
Bilingual Bonus: Eihort's name roughly translates to "Egg Hoard" in German.
Body Surf: The upside to Eihort's bargain: It'll let you experience other lives in other places. Of course, the reverse is true: Eihort's servants could jump into the Bargainer's body, and have that person face some rather horrible experiences.
Face Full of Alien Wing-Wong: Eihort implants eggs inside human bodies.
Freak Out: When the time comes for Eihort's brood to emerge, the bargainer begins to feel some weird sensations.
Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: You're pretty much screwed once Eihort catches you.
An Offer You Can't Refuse: Eihort boasts a particularly shitty offer you can't refuse: die immediately or leave the maze with Eihort's egg inside your body and live only until it hatches. Basically, you don't want to be caught by Eihort under any circumstances.

Ghatanothoa

Debut: "Out of the Aeons", H. P. Lovecraft and Hazel Heald.

Firstborn of Cthulhu, this Great Old One's visage is so horrific that merely glimpsing it leads to... something unspeakable. Once ruling prehistoric Mu where its cult dominated, served by the Lloigor.

Brown Note: Simply looking at him. The narrator has trouble even finding the words to describe it.
"Even now I cannot begin to suggest it with any words at my command. I might call it gigantic—tentacled—proboscidian—octopus-eyed—semi-amorphous—plastic—partly squamous and partly rugose—ugh! But nothing I could say could even adumbrate the loathsome, unholy, non-human, extra-galactic horror and hatefulness and unutterable evil of that forbidden spawn of black chaos and illimitable night."
Complete Immortality: It's right there in the story:
"The spawn of Yuggoth had perished aeons before, but had left behind them one monstrous and terrible living thing which could never die—their hellish god or patron daemon Ghatanothoa, which lowered and brooded eternally though unseen in the crypts beneath that fortress on Yaddith-Gho."
Decomposite Character: Considering the similarities, Ghatanothoa might have been just another name of Cthulhu back when Lovecraft introduced him.
Fate Worse than Death: You look at him, and you are near instantly mummified, save for your brain and internal organs. And you are completely awake and aware of everything that goes on around you for every moment of this existence.
Kaiju: Notable for appearing as the Big Bad in Ultraman Tiga.
Too Many Mouths: One rendering of him at The H.P. Lovecraft Wiki depicts him as this.

Gla'aki

Debut: "The Inhabitant of the Lake", Ramsey Campbell

Once trapped inside a meteor, Glaaki now resides in the lake created by the impact of said meteor in the Severn Valley. Looks like a giant slug with a mouth, eye-tip tentacles and lots of metallic spines. When Glaaki stabs people with its spines, it injects fluids that turn the victims into zombies which it can control using psychic power.

Our Zombies Are Different: After a few decades, Glaaki's zombies become sensitive to sunlight. If exposed, they suffer from "The Green Decay".
Recurring Dreams: People who live by Glaaki's lake have some terrible nightmares. Except it turns out it's a Flashback Nightmare, and Glaaki is sending them out to dreamers.
Slave Mooks: Its undead servants were once humans, until their transformation.
Spikes of Doom: All over its body, and weaponised as the source of its zombification poison.
Tome of Eldritch Lore: The Revelations of Glaaki. It not only deals with the spiky one but also the various weirdness in the Severn Valley.

Hastur

The King in Yellow

First Mentioned: "Haïta the Shepherd", Ambrose Bierce

Debut: The King in Yellow, Robert W. Chambers

"Half-brother" of Cthulhu. Doesn't mean they get along with each other. Known to be the patron of decadence, nihilism, and shepherds. Also the mate of Shub-Niggurath, and possibly fathered some of her Thousand Young. His most well-known avatar is the King in Yellow (a tall masked man-thing wearing yellow rags). Other depictions include that of a octopoid, but Hastur's true form is unknown.

Adaptational Villainy: In Haïta the Shepherd, Hastur was described as a benevolent god of shepherds. Nowadays, while he still has the god of shepherds role, the benevolent part, not so much.
Ascended Extra: When Lovecraft added Hastur to the mythos, all he did was just mention it among a list of eldritch names without any elaboration. Derleth made Hastur into a Great Old One since Ambrose Bierce originally had it as a deity.
Body Horror: Whoever makes the Unspeakable Oath ends up dying and becoming possessed by Hastur. Their body becomes scalier, grotesquely obese, and their limbs seem boneless.
Breakout Character: Easily one of if not the most popular gods in the mythos not created by Lovecraft himself.
Bright Is Not Good: If he takes a humanoid guise, it will often be brightly clothed. He's not any less dangerous.
Brown Note: The Yellow Sign, the play, and even Hastur's name can all drive people to madness.
Cain and Abel: With the Big C himself. With Cthulhu as Abel.
Composite Character: Hastur is essentially a mash-up of several interpretations from several different sources, each either borrowing or name-dropping the previous source. John Tynes finally combined the various aspects, especially the themes of from the original The King in Yellow, for the Call of Cthulhu RPG.
Deal with the Devil: The Unspeakable Oath, which makes a contract between Hastur and a human.
Depending on the Writer: Like mad. Even within Chambers' original book, Hastur is alternately a planet, a person, a city, or a god. Even its relationship to the King in Yellow isn't consistent, and Hastur's traits frequently conflate with those of other characters in subsequent fiction. This is very much an intended trait, however, as it's implied that no two encounters with Hastur, the King, or the play are alike.
Eldritch Location: The eternal city of Carcosa.
Half-Sibling Angst: Played with. It's doubtful the Great Old Ones have human emotions, being such alien entities. But Cthulhu and Hastur are considered half-siblings, and it may be that something of this relationship fuels their antagonism.
Humanoid Abomination: The King in Yellow.
In the Hood: Artwork of Hastur (as the King) often displays him hooded. It's not a hood.
Light Is Not Good: In addition to his yellow robes, Hastur sometimes appears with a halo. He is also usually depicted with angelic wings for no discernible reason. ^note
Mad Artist/Mad Dreamer: Has influence over these.
Malevolent Masked Men: Subversion. It's not a mask.
Meaningful Name: In-universe, scholars try to avoid naming Hastur aloud, and are deeply concerned when the play, the Yellow Sign, or the city of Carcosa are mentioned in text or conversation. They're always right to be worried, too. As a meta-example, the first season of True Detective name-drops the King in Yellow in the second episode, getting the attention of many a viewer.
The Scottish Trope: As a result of Canon Immigrant from the Deities and Demigods Cyclopedia, its name literally became "unspeakable" in the Mythos.
Summoning Ritual: The play ''The King in Yellow'' can call down the eponymous avatar of Hastur. In fact, sometimes just saying his name is enough.
They Would Cut You Up: The Brothers of the Yellow Sign hunt down and torment the Mi-go on behalf of Hastur.

Hziulquoigmnzhah

Debut: "The Door to Saturn", Clark Ashton Smith

Tsathoggua's uncle, living in the upper atmosphere of Saturn, where he fled to avoid irritating worshipers and cannibalistic family members. Similar in appearance to Tsathoggua, but with a long neck and many small, elephantine feet.

Keeper of Forbidden Knowledge: Unlike most, however, all you really need to do is ask.
Our Monsters Are Weird: His appearance, while not as disturbing as the vast majority of the Old Ones, is definitely bizarre.
The Philosopher: In "The Family Tree of the Gods", Smith describes Hzi as "a rather reflective and philosophic deity". This is likely why he wants to be left alone.
True Neutral: Possibly the most harmless of Lovecraftian deities, simply by wanting to be left alone.
The Unpronounceable: Even for the Mythos. Given that his debut story is distinctly comedic, this may have been Smith having a laugh at the conventions of the Mythos.

Ithaqua

The Wind-Walker

Debut: "Ithaqua", August Derleth

Great Old One that is humanoid in appearance, with glowing red eyes. Limited to frozen wastes, Ithaqua can literally walk on wind as if it was solid ground. He is the central villain of two of Brian Lumley's Titus Crow novels: Spawn of the Winds and The Moons of Borea.

Alien Abduction: Tends to kidnap people, typically sacrifices, and even entire towns if need be.
Archenemy: Is this to Armandra and Hank Siberhutte.
Big Bad: The villain of both Spawn of the Winds and The Moons of Borea.
Elemental Embodiment: Like Cthugha, Ithaqua was introduced (as an embodiment of air) into the mythos to balance out Derleth's classification of the Great Old Ones into elements.
Evil Overlord: Ithaqua rules over Borea as its God-King with only the Plateau being free.
Expy: Of the eponymous being in Algernon Blackwood's "The Wendigo".
Gilded Cage: His prison by the Elder Gods amounts to his own planet to rule, full of human worshipers.
A God Am I: Forces the people of Borea to worship him as a god.
God-Emperor: Of most of Borea.
Grim Up North: This Old One tends to haunt Alaska and Siberia.
An Ice Person: Rather, an ice deity.
I Love You, Vampire Son: Wants Armandra to join him as his ally since he suffers terminal loneliness.
Leave No Witnesses: Anyone who sees Ithaqua is bound to be hunted down by him.
Mars Needs Women: Ithaqua attempts to reproduce with humans, apparently so his children would have his powers, but not be imprisoned by the Elder Gods.
Physical God: Is as close to this as exists in the Lumleyverse.
Red Eyes, Take Warning: Especially if that guy is one of the Great Old Ones.
Weaksauce Weakness: Anything other than subarctic temperature bars him from movement.
Wendigo: Ithaqua is known as this as well.
Where da White Women At?: A relic of Lovecraft's writing is Ithaqua prefers Caucasian human females to mate with.

Nug and Yeb

The Twin Blasphemies

Debut: "The Last Test", H. P. Lovecraft and Adolphe de Castro

Spawned together on the doomed nebula of Zlykarior through the union of Yog-Sothoth and Shub-Niggurath, Nug and Yeb are the parents of Cthulhu and Tsathoggua, respectively. Their aspect matches their mother's, being amorphous spheres of mist which constantly produce and reabsorb eyes, tentacles, maws and hooves (although they are among the smallest Old Ones at only ten feet in diameter). While Nug is known as the "Father of Ghouls," Yeb is the leader of Abhoth's Unclean Ones.

Apocalypse Maiden: Their job is the destructive transfiguration of Earth, for the purpose of paving the way for the returning Old Ones. They seek to accomplish this by using something called the "Black Flame", instrumentalized via two devices referred to as the "Furnace of Yeb" and the "Torch of Nug".
Flat Character: Even for the already poor standard for the quite nebulous and largely unknowable Old Ones, Yeb and Nug are vaguely characterized and hardly ever find a mention in Mythos works.
Composite Character: Nug and Yeb are sometimes identified with Zhar and Lloigor, The Twin Obscenities. With both duos being obscure twin deities, and both having very similar titles, the basis is definitely there.
Decomposite Character: In-universe, they are theorized be the result of the androgynous Cxaxukluth budding via fission, creating the male Nug and the female Yeb. The reason for this idea might be an attempt to reconcile the contradictions between Lovecraft's and Smith's respective family trees. Given the explicitly inhuman nature of the gods in Lovecraft's setting, this theory falls into less acceptable territory for most fans.
Panspermia: They are said to have never visited Earth, yet their progeny happened to foster more ambitious touristic inclinations.
Truly Single Parent: Fitting their ameboid likeness, they each fissioned into Cthulhu (Nug's spawn) and Tsathoggua (Yeb's spawn).

Rhan-Tegoth

Debut: "The Horror in the Museum", H. P. Lovecraft for Hazel Heald

Originally from Yuggoth, Rhan-Tegoth came to Earth millions of years ago, settling in what would become the arctic. However, Rhan went into hibernation and can't move without some outside aid. One of the more unfortunate Old Ones, as he got stuck being used as some statue in a museum. Physically, he's ten feet tall, covered in small tentacles, has six serpentine appendages with black crab pincers, a three-eyed and gilled head, a globular torso, as well as a proboscis.

Cosmic Keystone: One character believes if Rhan-Tegoth dies, the Great Old Ones will never return. Then again, said character wasn't exactly sane...
Gods Need Prayer Badly: Apparently went into hibernation after his original followers abandoned him. Although, it's more due to that Rhan-Tegoth needs blood to sustain himself than prayer.
Human Sacrifice: Played with, the blood of any living thing is sufficient to awake Rhan.
Refuge in Audacity: What do you do with a monster that's been sleeping for eons? Stick him in a waxwork display!
Wax Museum Morgue: The guy who found Rhan-Tegoth runs one of these. Subverted in that some of the statues were various horrors of the Mythos, instead of people.

Shudde M'ell

See Titus Crow

Tsathoggua

The Sleeper of N'kai

Debut: "The Tale of Satampra Zeiros", Clark Ashton Smith

Old One whose visage is that of a furry, huge toad. The Sleeper was born outside the solar system, where he immigrated with his family to Yuggoth and eventually making his way to Earth. He briefly resided under Mount Voormithadreth and is often mentioned in the Hyperborean Cycle. Tsathoggua currently resides in N'kai, deep under the Earth and under red-lit Yoth. He is served by the Formless Spawn, black ooze capable of changing shape.

Affably Evil: Surprisingly witty and laid-back for an Eldritch Abomination.
Amphibian at Large: For the most part Tsathoggua resembles a big, fat and furry toad.
Animalistic Abomination: He has elements of toad, sloth, and bat in his appearance
Bad Is Good and Good Is Bad: In Christianity, sloth is considered one of the Seven Deadly Sins, but to Tsathoggua, it's a divine trait.
Beneath the Earth: Tsathoggua's lair. Specifically, somewhere beneath Greenland.
Deadpan Snarker: He has a sardonic personality and a dark sense of humour.
Dysfunctional Family: Humorously for a cosmic monster, Tsathoggua has a number of family members. Some of which want to eat each other.
Evil Sorcerer: The patron of these back in Hyperborea (The Smith one), including the infamous Eibon.
Fat Bastard: Frequently described as fat, and despite being more personable than most Great Old Ones, he's still not a good person.
Jerkass Gods: As befits Clark Ashton Smith's more swashbuckling pulp sensibilities, Tsathoggua is written more as one of the temperamental gods of an old pantheon than as some unfathomable force of destruction, the way Lovecraft's gods tend to be.
- Depending on the Writer: Later writers sometimes drop Smith's characterization, treating him as more of another incomprehensible force of pure evil to better fit in with Lovecraft's creations.
Lazy Bum: Frequently described as such.
Muck Monster: In "The Tale of Satampra Zeiros", one of his abandoned temples is guarded by such a monster, which is called a "formless spawn" in most other media. "The Testament of Athammaus" gives what might be the spawn's origin.
Mundane Made Awesome: He's a giant, furry toad from space with magical powers.
Oh, Crap!: Was once a popular deity among the K’n-yani. When they discovered N'kai and some horrid things down there, they quickly removed any imagery or worship of the toad.
Portal Door: The titular The Door to Saturn was given by the Toad as a gift.
Tome of Eldritch Lore:
- The Parchments of Pnom, which chronicles the genealogy of Tsathoggua and several Great Old Ones. Unlike some other examples, it's not notably dangerous.
- The Book of Eibon (aka the Liber Ivonis), which told of the adventures of the titular Hyperborean wizard. Eibon also recorded Tsathoggua's secrets and rituals in the book.

The Unimaginable Horror

See Cthulhu Armageddon

Yig

Father of Serpents

Debut: "The Curse of Yig"

The half-human "Father of Serpents", this Old One is the patron of snakes. May have been the inspiration for the Aztec Quetzalcoatl, Yig was worshiped in North America by Plains tribes and the K'n-yani. Very impulsive and tyrannical, but beneficial to that kind to his "children".

Animalistic Abomination: Represented as a semi-anthropomorphic serpent.
Canon Welding: Later writers posit that Yig is also the Great Serpent of the snake people from Robert E Howard's Kull stories, and either the father of Set, or Set himself, from Howard's Conan stories.
Fate Worse than Death: Do anything bad to his children, Yig torments the transgressor and mutates them into a snake-like creature.
"Instant Death" Radius: Done in the Call of Cthulhu RPG, where his poison will instakill if it touches bare skin.
Papa Wolf: Yig loves his snakes. Just don't do anything to them.
Swallowed Whole: Also from the Call of Cthulhu RPG.

Ythogtha

First Mention: "Out of the Ages", Lin Carter

Debut: "The Thing in the Pit", Lin Carter

The second son of Cthulhu, resembling a really large humanoid frog with a single eye. Imprisoned in the Abyss of Yhe by the Elder gods. In ancient Mu, he had a cult led Zanthu. Served by the Yuggs, giant things resembling white flatworms.

That's No Moon: When Zanthu attempts to free Ythogtha, he mistakes the creature's fingertips as mountains.
Tome of Eldritch Lore: The Zanthu Tablets, inscribed by the titular wizard on black jade. It tells of his struggle with Ghatanothoa's cult, as well as the failed attempt to release Ythogtha.

Y'golonac

Debut: "Cold Print", Ramsey Campbell

Illustration by Michael Bukowski

Trapped behind some wall somewhere, the Defiler or the God of Depravity and Perversion, is the Old One of Squick. His earthly manifestation is that of a fat, headless body with mouths on its hands. Typically seeks out closet perverts, offering them to become his servants in exchange to experience their sick desires.

As Long as There Is Evil: He's the god of all depravities, human, Eldritch, or otherwise.
Brown Note: Merely reading his name in the right context is enough to summon him.
Depraved Bisexual: Implied to go as far as Extreme Omnisexual, although this may be a way of satisfying the needs of his respective hosts.
Did You Just Romance Cthulhu?: Although "romance" might not be the best way to put it.
The Dreaded: Even the cults of Cthulhu fear him and don't dare to speak his name.
Fat Bastard: His default form is a grossly obese man with no head and mouths on its palm.
Faux Affably Evil: He's quite polite and urbane, but he's depraved and evil to the core.
God of Evil: Because those with hidden deviations and obsessions are easier to control, he has essentially adopted the role of their god.
Hate Sink: One of the few of his kind that can be regarded as truly evil and all-around odious, being a cosmic Serial Rapist and Serial Killer that has absolutely no problems with defiling and murdering anyone he gets his hands on. While there are some others like him who are genuinely malevolent, he's still far more repugnant than most of them.
Manipulative Bastard: He knows how to manipulate people.
Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Known as "the Defiler" and "the Violator".
Power Palms: Its mouths are on its palms, which consume people.
Serial Killer: Gravitates toward these. He also shares similar behaviors to them, luring children and teenage boys into a bookstore to devour them.
Serial Rapist: There are damn good reasons he's called "defiler" and "violator".
Speak of the Devil: In some cases, simply reading his name is enough to summon him.
Squick: In-universe example. It's telling that not even the servants of Cthulhu will talk about "the Violator".
To Serve Man: He eats people with his Power Palms.
The Unfettered: He will, quite literally, do anything to escape his prison.
We Can Rule Together: In "Cold Print", he offers the protagonist Sam Strutt a chance to become his high priest… and eats him alive when Strutt refuses.

Zhar and Lloigor

The Twin Obscenities

Debut: "The Lair of the Star-Spawn", August Derleth and Mark Schorer

Originally from Arcturus, these two horrors now inhabit the Plateau of Sung, in the underground city of Alaozar. Both appear to be extremely large masses of tentacles, of which Lloigor has wings. Both are served by the Brotherhood of the Star Threader, a cult of Tcho-tcho.

Conjoined Twins: The two are connected by tentacles.
Telepathy: How Zhar commands his Tcho-tcho servants.

Zoth-Ommog

Another child of Cthulhu. Said to has a cone-shaped body with Tyrannosaurus rex-like head, with hair-like tentacles and four thick pseudopods as a mane.

The Brute: Among children of Cthulhu. He doesn't have special powers like Gatanothoa or Ygthogtha and will attack whoever gets close to him.
Combat Tentacles: Like father, like son.
T. Rexpy: Its head is described as being similar to a Tyrannosaurus rex; some artists interpret this as being identical to that of a T. rex, while others opt to make it more shark-like, but still resembling a rex.

Zushakon

Debut: "The Bells of Horror", Henry Kuttner

A winged humanoid of the Great Old Ones, who hates light. For the Mutsune tribe of California, it is a god of Death.

Dark Is Evil: It really hates light, and is always accompanied by darkness.
Enemy to All Living Things: Its cursed bells drives anyone, human and animal alike, in close proximity to insanity.
For Doom the Bell Tolls: Literally with the titular "Bells of Horror". When those bells ring, it summons Zushakon.
Unseen Evil: It is never seen, either because it's too dark... or people have already clawed out their eyes.

Outer Gods

Outer Gods in General

In Lovecraft's writings, occasional cryptic references to entities known as "Other Gods" appear from time to time, and they appear to be a specific group of entities among the Great Old Ones. However, neither Lovecraft nor his peers elaborate on the term, other than specifying certain entities like Azathoth, Yog-Sothoth and Nyarlathotep are among these other gods, who are not of Earth despite being capable of exerting their influence on the planet.

The title "Outer Gods" originated in the Call of Cthulhu RPG, and subsequently has been used within Mythos literature and works influenced by the Mythos. In the RPG, Outer Gods refer to entities who operate on a cosmic scale, who tend to be far more powerful than most Great Old Ones (to the point some of them are noted to be ancestors to certain Old Ones).

Like the Old Ones, writers come up with various categories to define the Outer Gods. A number of writers (including Lovecraft) define Outer Gods as entities who predate time and universes alike, both of which began from Azathoth as the center of all infinity; "outer" beings who came from beyond reality as it is now. Others have related the Outer Gods to natural forces of reality itself, such as Radiation, Space-Time, or Propagation.

Above Good and Evil: The Outer Gods cannot be held to conventional morality in any definition of the word. They are best equated to forces of nature, to try to call them evil would be like calling a hurricane evil when it levels a town. For the most part they don't care about humanity (and indeed, most lifeforms in the cosmos), and while summoning rituals and spells might get their attention and they may interact with lesser beings, they are never motivated by drives or desires which could be equated to anything remotely human. Nyarlathotep is the only exception.
Aliens Are Bastards: Outer Gods are not native to the physical universe, meaning they are alien even to the most eldritch aliens in the Mythos. While some are not as horrible as others, as a whole they are either jerkish or apathetic by human standards. The only exception is Azathoth and its coterie, and that's only because they are mindless.
Always a Bigger Fish: Most of the Old Ones are already godlike beings who can threaten entire worlds in their dormant states. Not only are the Outer Gods even more eldritch, they are cosmic entities which sneer at what few limitations the Old Ones have.
Blue-and-Orange Morality: Like the Old Ones, if they even have morality, it is utterly beyond human comprehension. The only exception, of course, being Nyarlathotep, and even his two most common depictions are inhuman in themselves: either uplifting humanity to their true potential by any means, or kicking over the anthills of humanity for a laugh.
Complete Immortality: The Outer Gods predate physical reality: in other words they had existed before the first instance of “death” even existed. When they enter reality, whatever forms they have might be possible to harm, but that can never kill the Outer God.
Cosmic Entity: To the point all of space-time continuum is barely scratching their scope of influence. Interestingly, this trope is played with as it is precisely because the Outer Gods exist on an incomprehensibly vast scale of existence there outside of space, they barely even notice what happens here. As such, as far as mortals are concerned, only a few actually exert influence enough to come across as this trope, mainly those who manifest with physical avatars which are actively mobile like Nyarlathotep and Ghroth.
Eldritch Abomination: Generally the biggest examples in the Mythos.
Evil Is Bigger: In physical form, most of these cosmic entities tend to be larger than even the Great Old Ones.
Evil Smells Bad: "As a foulness shall ye know Them." Applies to both the Outer Gods, and their spawn (e.g. the Dunwich Horror).
Fighting a Shadow: It is generally assumed none of the Outer Gods actually enter the cosmos as they truly are, instead manifesting a physical form as a compromise of their true nature. Some works posit that Nyarlathotep is the manifested will of the Outer Gods, which is why he seems to be more meddlesome in human affairs than most Gods.
Home of the Gods: Downplayed. Despite being explicitly connected with each other, the Outer Gods don't share a home; most are doing their own affairs somewhere across reality (which might or might not even be in the known universe). The Court of Azathoth exists, located at the "center of all infinity" but it is not made clear if it actually serves as the home for all Outer Gods other than being their origin (as all of reality originated from Azathoth).
Non-Malicious Monster: With the exception of Nyarlathotep, most of them aren't actually malevolent, they just happen to be so powerful and dangerous that their mere presence is deadly to Puny Earthlings, much in the same way your own immune system kills billions of micro-organisms without you even knowing about it.
The Old Gods: The oldest of them all.
Physical God: Outer Gods who enter physical reality are sometimes deified by civilizations who either encounter them by accident or summon them by intent.
Reality Warper: They command vast, immeasurable power over reality far beyond even Great Old Ones. Yog-Sothoth and Nyarlathotep in particular use these powers very often.
Sufficiently Advanced Aliens: Zig-Zagged. Like the Great Old Ones, it depends on the writer whether or not these Outer Gods are really supernatural.
Time Abyss: Impossibly ancient, being older than space and time.
Void Between the Worlds: Lovecraft's letters concerning "Other Gods" tend to mention an outer void beyond space itself, which is where they reside.

Abhoth

Debut: The Seven Geases, Clark Ashton Smith.

One of the gods living under Mount Voormithadreth in ancient Hyperborea. It's a pool of gray, protean mass, which constantly spawns monsters from itself. No two of Abhoth's children are alike; some look like singular body parts, while others look like complex Mix-and-Match Critters. Abhoth grabs and devours most of its children, returning them to the mass, although some of them manage to escape. Abhoth shares a large number of characteristics with Ubbo-Sathla, another Clark Ashton Smith deity, to the point that they may be different names for the same creature at different points in its history.

Affably Evil: For a pool of gray goo, it's surprisingly intelligent and polite:
"I, who am Abhoth, the coeval of the oldest gods, consider that the Archetypes have shown a questionable taste in recommending you to me."
Auto Cannibalism / Offing the Offspring: It fits both tropes.
Blob Monster: Abhoth looks like a grayish, swelling, quivering protean mass.
Combat Tentacles: Grabs creatures with these.
Mother of a Thousand Young: Technically, but it reproduces by fission.
Muck Monster: Even considered the "ultimate source of all miscreation and abomination". Maybe this is why some mistake or equate it for Azathoth.
Small, Secluded World: Abhoth likely considers his cavern as his entire world:
"There is a bleak and dreary and dreadful limbo, known as the Outer World, of which I have heard dimly..."

Azathoth

The Daemon Sultan

Debut: "Azathoth"

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/azathoth_0.jpg

“And because mere walls and windows must soon drive to madness a man who dreams and reads much, the dweller in that room used night after night to lean out and peer aloft to glimpse some fragment of things beyond the waking world and the greyness of tall cities."

The most powerful entity in the main canon (the other candidate, Yog-Sothoth, is implied), Azathoth is a mindless, formless being of unlimited power which may have created reality itself and its countless expanses, of which the known universe is one of many. It dwells at the center of all infinity, with a coterie of (relatively) minor deities which serve as its "entertainment".

Almighty Idiot: He's the most powerful being in all of reality. He also has no mind to think with. One of his most common epithets is "the Blind Idiot God".
"Before" and "After" Pictures: Done in Campbell's "The Insects from Shaggai", where the protagonist sees an image of Azathoth before it became insane. The Daemon Sultan once looked like a multi-legged clam, with cylinders for appendages, a mouthless face, and black hair. The narrator also sees the "After" picture...
Breakout Character: While not quite to the extent of Cthulhu, Azathoth is certainly more of a recognized name than many other characters on this page. He's quite a popular combatant in online Hypothetical Fight Debates as an example of an OP character.
Decadent Court: Of a decidedly bizarre sort: most of it is amoral gods revelling in extremely bizarre ways, all working to make sure Azathoth doesn't wake up and completely annihilate the universe.
Deus ex Nukina: Literally, since Azathoth is said to be related to radioactivity by later authors, and can be supposedly summoned using fissionable materials. It's even theorized that its physical presence was the Big Bang.
Don't Wake the Sleeper: In some versions he's meant to be kept asleep by the piping and drummming of his court of madness else he destroy reality as everything knows it. In Lovecraft's stories other than a mention of him being "lulled" he's implied to be very much awake, gnawing hungrily yet mindlessly. Yet further in some interpetations and stories, his waking results in the destruction of the universe because it's his dream.
Expy: Editor Robert Price thinks it is one for MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI from The Gods of Pegāna, and indeed Lovecraft has mentioned in letters that he got ideas for his "Other Gods" (his term for what later became the Outer Gods) from that book. The Malleus Monstrorum sourcebook even makes MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI another of Azathoth's names.
- He's also rather similar to Chaos from Classical Mythology, who was a mindless, formless void-thing from which the cosmos and all the other gods sprang forth.
The Ghost: At least in Lovecraft's stories, Azathoth was only referred to (though it is possible that he was intended to appear in the unfinished story of the same name). Some other writers have shown a bit more, but very few have actually had the nerve to have their protagonist come face-to-face with it.
God Is Evil: The "nuclear chaos" and "daemon sultan" at the center of reality, the Outer God Azathoth is often interpreted as this. Judging from Azathoth's literary inspiration, Mana-Yood-Sushai, it seems that Azathoth has the power to end quite literally everything, including all the other eldritch horrors, but for now just chooses not to. And considering Nyarlathotep is its messenger, it would seem likely that Azathoth is also malevolent.
God Is Neutral: Another interpretation. Azathoth is so neutral that not only is it created reality without noticing, but is completely oblivious to everything that exists.
God of Chaos: Represents pure chaos and uncertainty on a cosmically vast, all-encompassing level.
Have a Gay Old Time: Lovecraft described Azathoth as The Nuclear Chaos. At the time, "nuclear" referred to something in the center, as in nucleus. As time went on, "Nuclear" became associated with atomic energy and weapons. Later writers took advantage of this, and made Azathoth the patron of radiation.
King of All Cosmos: One of the weirdest supreme beings out there. Even in the Mythos, it's referred to as "blind idiot god" since it is mindless, and one must be a blind idiot to worship it.
Mad God: The Blind Idiot.
Magical Flutist: The Servitors of the Outer Gods, who play flutes and drums to Azathoth. Needless to say, the music likely isn't pleasant to human ears.
No Name Given: "Azathoth" is a pseudonym. Its real name is (thankfully) unknown.
Obliviously Evil: Comes with being utterly mindless.
Ominous Floating Castle: Replace "Castle" with "Throne", and instead of floating in the air, it floats in the center of cosmos.
Pointy-Haired Boss: Nyarlathotep seems to think of him this way, striking Azathoth's head in resentment over being his messenger in one poem from "Fungi from Yuggoth".
Primordial Chaos: Lovecraft called it "Ultimate Chaos". Later authors made Azathoth an inversion: It wasn't always ultimate chaos. It became that way after losing its mind.
Red Baron: Widely known as the Daemon Sultan.
Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies: Occurs in the Arkham Horror board game when Azathoth is summoned.
Top God: Unlike Yog-Sothoth, his role as this in the Cthulhu Mythos is absolute.
Truly Single Parent: If you can call it reproduction, Azathoth reproduced by fission, producing offspring who were hermaphroditic. These "androgynes" also count as this, as they oddly did not need any aid for reproduction.
The Tunguska Event: One of its children, a Spawn of Azathoth, is responsible for this.

Buddha

Debut: Secrets of Japan, Michael Dzielinski

Yes, that Buddha. It dwells in Nirvana, which is actually the court of Azathoth at the center of all reality (Azathoth, being the Blind Idiot god, is unaware of the Buddha), and is in some ways Azathoth's (much less powerful) opposite.

Blue-and-Orange Morality: The Buddha is noted as being partial to "helping" humanity through the offer of Enlightenment. However, attaining Enlightenment in the Buddhist sense constitutes slowly losing your humanity (in game terms, your Mythos score increases and your Sanity decreases permanently, although you can pass as somewhat sane in polite company). Enlightened people who join with the Buddha are no longer even remotely human in a psychological sense.
Canon Foreigner: Another fellow from the Call of Cthulhu RPG.
Enlightened Antagonist: It is the original Buddha, after all.
Humanoid Abomination: The Buddha doesn't have tentacles, wings, or other such weirdness. You still don't want to meet it.
Laser-Guided Karma: Tends to be the Buddha's sole method of attack/self-defense.

Cxaxukluth

Debut: Genealogical chart of the Elder Gods, Clark Ashton Smith

An Outer God that is a direct spawn of Azathoth formed by fission. Cxaxukluth shares similar traits with Azathoth in terms of its physical experience.

Big, Screwed-Up Family: The Great Old Ones tied to Cxaxukluth, including Tsathoggua fled from their settlement on Yuggoth due to Cxaxukluth's cannibalistic tendencies. Tsathoggua also inherited the Outer God's appetites.
Bizarre Alien Reproduction: Like Azathoth, it produces offspring through fission.
The Dreaded: Feared by Great Old Ones and Outer Gods alike for its appetites for Eldritch Flesh.
Had to Be Sharp: In a reality like the Cthulhu Mythos, a fragment of the Daemon Sultan needed to get powerful in order to survive, it is most likely that it grew in power by consuming lesser beings and kept building in power until it was strong enough to casually munch on the unspeakable horrors that make the setting the bleak cosmos it's known for.
I Am a Humanitarian: Is this towards its Eldritch brethren.
No Biological Sex: Shares both male and female characteristics, and yet does not procreate using human sexual reproduction.
Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Smaller than most Outer Gods, enough to inhabit a cave on Yuggoth (which is Pluto by another name) and strong enough to overpower other eldritch horrors and consume them.
Took a Level in Badass: Had to do this in order to survive in the Cthulhu Mythos.
Tome of Eldritch Lore: "The Supplication Of Cxaxukluth" a prayer from the Book of Eibon.

Daoloth

The Render of Veils

Debut: "The Render of the Veils", Ramsey Campbell.

Extradimensional Outer God who appears to humans as a strange geometrical jumble. Seeing it in person would drive a man to madness. Despite its alien nature and the dangers inherent in summoning it, however, Daoloth is actually one of the Mythos deities least inimical to humanity.

Another Dimension: Daoloth can send others into these.
Ascended Extra: Campbell completed a trilogy of novels featuring him, called appropriately enough The Three Births of Daoloth.
Be Careful What You Wish For: Can be summoned to grant a wish, which in one instance is used to show the true nature of reality. It doesn't go so well.
Body Horror: His gift for three of his most devoted acolytes? Fuse them into a single body.
Cult: His is called the Church of the Eternal Three.
Mechanical Abomination: When summoned to our dimension, Daoloth looks like an incomprehensible jumble of every piece of machinery/technology imaginable (or unimaginable) that is constantly moving and expanding in physically impossible ways. Seeing it is just as hard on the human psyche as seeing any Outer God, and its goals seem to be the advancement of scientific/technological knowledge without any regards to the consequences (imagine giving the secrets to easily make nuclear-powered rayguns to bronze-age people but without caring enough to warn them of the potential dangers or to give them radiation shielding).
Sinister Geometry: Not intentionally, but Daoloth is dangerous to contact.
Summoning Artifact: The image of Daoloth is needed to contact him, as well as some sort of black plastic pentacle to hold him. You do not want to botch the pentacle part.
You Cannot Grasp the True Form: Daoloth's images are difficult enough for human eyes to perceive. Also, be careful when The Render reveals how reality itself really appears.

Ghroth

The Harbinger

Debut: "The Tugging", Ramsey Campbell

A red-brown planet-sized Outer God that travels space. When he approaches a world, it awakens the local Great Old Ones which leads to a planet's demise.

Bad Moon Rising: So bad it ends worlds.
Eyes Do Not Belong There: Has a single, gigantic eye. No planet should have a literal eye.
Genius Loci: A living planet-sized Outer God.
Herald: Its coming is a sign of bad things to come. In "The Tugging" the appearance of Ghroth is what drives the story's protagonist to investigate his past.
Hidden in Plain Sight: How does anyone not freak out when a world-sized Old One approaches a world? Ghroth simply keeps its eye closed.
Rogue Planet: Ghroth is a planet-sized Outer God that drifts through space.
That's No Moon: Might as well be the "Death Star".

Magnum Innominandum

The Nameless Mist

The progenitor of Yog-Sothoth, and by consequence the source of one majority of Lovecraft's cosmic deities (the rest being mostly covered by its sibling, as explicated in further detail below).

All-Powerful Bystander: By definition of being the direct offspring of Azathoth, and just as dedicatedly passive (though without the excuse of mindlessness).
All There in the Manual: Its very existence in the canon. Lovecraft conceived of the Nameless Mist in a dream and conveyed the idea as such in his letters. It subsequently found a few aside mentions in several works, but was never elaborated upon beyond its non-name.
Composite Character: A nebulous (no pun intended) between this and Decomposite Character, since Lovecraft separately mentioned a "Magnum Innominandum" in one letter, and then a "The Nameless Mist" during a later correspondence. Lin Carter ultimately decided that those two were one and the same.
No Name Given: Later authors of the RPG and the card game named it "N'yog-Sothep", invoking both Nyarlathotep and Yog-Sothoth. Given the spurious and obscure nature of this non-canonical name, it is not used in the title above.
Primordial Chaos: A more appropriate candidate than its parent, since there is no indication that the Nameless Mist had ever been anything else before.
Time Abyss: Taken to its logical extreme, since its child is the embodiment of space-time, implying that it precedes the Big Bang.

Magnum Tenebrosum

The Darkness

The progenitor of Shub-Niggurath, and thus the source of almost all other cosmic deities not covered by its above-mentioned sibling.

All There in the Manual: Just like the Nameless Mist, the Darkness comes from Lovecraft's letters. This is an even more extreme case, however, since it was never even mentioned in any works.
Casting a Shadow: A logical conclusion.
Flat Character: Beyond giving birth to the goddess that was herself notoriously known for giving birth a lot, the Darkness is basically non-existent.
No Name Given: Due to naming the Nameless Mist, Lin Carter found it appropriate to likewise name the Darkness, likewise in Latin fashion, as seen in the title of its character page.
Power of the Void: Self-explanatory in its name.
Primordial Chaos: A more appropriate candidate than its parent, since there is no indication that the Darkness had ever been anything else before.

Nyarlathotep

The Crawling Chaos

Debut: Nyarlathotep

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/4e33a74ba448a2462457be9fe19eaa4b.jpg

“And where Nyarlathotep went, rest vanished, for the small hours were rent with the screams of nightmare.”

The heart and soul of the Outer Gods, messenger of Azathoth. The most human of the Outer Gods, and indeed, among all the horrors. Perhaps not-coincidentally the most malevolent. Has many "Masks"/avatars that range in different shapes and forms. The most common visage is that of a tall, dark (so much so that his skin is usually described as literally black) man with a regal appearance.

Abstract Apotheosis: In some depictions, he's literally the will of the Outer Gods manifested.
Ancient Egypt: Where it originally was worshiped (at least by humanity), gaining the suffix -hotep. However, The Mighty Messenger Mask was so evil that Egyptians forbade its cult. On the other hand, the Black Pharaoh Mask looks like the idealized king of this period, and maybe the one form that isn't outright frightening.
Anthropomorphic Personification: He is described as the heart, the soul, and the messenger of the Outer Gods (particularly Azathoth, from whom all the others are born from). What does it really mean or how he is so has never been properly explained (as it is questionable if human concepts of heart or soul even apply to Outer Gods), thus it has been theorized he is the physical embodiment of the Psychic Powers or even the Willpower of all Old Ones.
Arch-Enemy: In the original Lovecraft, it's heavily implied that Nodens, a Celtic deity that rescues Randolph Carter from Nyarlathotep and leads him out of the Dreamlands and back to reality, is his nemesis. Most depictions run with this and make the two bitter enemies.
Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: One modern depiction is that his constant activities and schemes on Earth are in service to elevating humanity to be like the Gods, or at least a little more squamous and tentacled.
Big Bad: Probably the best contender. As he does not operate on Blue-and-Orange Morality and fully understands human morality; said understanding he uses to torment mankind.
Black Sheep: Unlike the rest of the Outer Gods, (and most Eldritch Abominations in general) Nyarlathotep is NOT Above Good and Evil. By human standards, that is. Depending on the depiction, other Gods either view him as insane, wasteful, or a liability.
Chaos Is Evil: He's called the Crawling Chaos. Not coincidentally, he's the most malevolent of the Outer Gods by far.
Character Filibuster: His speech to Randolph Carter and the end of "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath" goes on for several paragraphs on end. In the audio version, it goes on for seventeen minutes. This is all the more notable for being the only moment in the story in which anyone at all speaks—at all other times it is narrated that communication takes place.
The Chessmaster: More or less the greatest example of this in the Mythos.
Dark Is Evil: His Masks tend to invoke darkness and the color black, such as Haunter of the Dark, Black Wind and many others. Even his human Masks tend to be colored black; see Scary Black Man below.
Deal with the Devil: He will try to sucker you into one if he simply doesn't try to gruesomely murder you. The latter is usually preferable unless you don't mind what dealing with a malicious, all-powerful god can lead to.
Depending on the Writer: Even Lovecraft himself had different depictions; he's outfoxed by a random Dreamland explorer in one story, has his avatar destroyed by light in another, and yet is an unstoppable God in others. Modern-day depictions tend to agree with him having an interest in humans, but one camp depicts him as wanting to uplift humanity to something greater (and Eldritch), and the other camp just likes fucking with the primitve apes on this mudball he found.
Did You Just Romance Cthulhu?: The Wanderings Of Alhazred claims that he's not above having sex with mortal women, having taken human form at least partly to indulge in human company.
Evil Is Petty: Compared with Cthulhu's continent-destroying and Ghroth's world-shattering, Nyarlathotep is pretty small-scale in his schemes and tends to spend a significant amount of time tormenting beings who should by all rights be beneath his notice. This is likely intentional. Much of his pursuit of Randolph Carter is just 'cause he was there.
Fantastic Racism: The depictions of Nyarlathotep that specifically like targeting humanity often do it because they loathe human beings.
Fighting a Shadow: All of Nyarlathotep's physical forms are merely avatars. Being the personification of the soul of the Outer Gods, he may not have a true form at all.
Fisher King: In the poem that bears his name, after he moves to a city and presents a show there, the city seems to twist and warp in eldritch ways. But then again, it might just be a case of Unreliable Narrator.
Flanderization: His petty cruelty has been greatly played up by writers post-Lovecraft, to the point that he is usually thought of as tormenting humans for his own amusement more than performing his metaphysical role as the gods' herald and messenger — if his role is even remembered at all.
For the Evulz: While most of the Outer Gods are either Obliviously Evil or completely alien in mindset, he (in some writers' canons at least) commits atrocities and terrorizes people just for the sheer joy of evildoing.
A Form You Are Comfortable With: He's one of the few gods in the pantheon to even bother taking one, because he enjoys manipulating humans as much as simply driving them to madness.
Gambit Roulette: Justified in this case, since it's perfectly reasonable to assume he can actually predict and even engineer all possible outcomes.
Giant Flyer: His Haunter of the Dark avatar, summoned via the Shining Trapezohedron is described as a winged creature—often portrayed as a monstrous bat—with a single "three-lobed burning eye".
God of Evil: Very much so. Since he is the heart and soul of the Outer Gods, there is more or less nothing in the Mythos that can stop him from doing anything he wants. On top of that he is tormenting people not out of any necessity or reason besides enjoyment.
Hate Sink: Quite possibly THE most vile and depraved being in the entire Mythos. While most deities in Lovecraftian lore are too alien to truly qualify as heinous, Nyarlathotep is a gleeful sadist who drives humans to madness for no reason other than his own amusement and even leads entire civilizations to ruin.
Have a Gay Old Time: In Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, he is described as being "resplendent in gay, prismatic robes". The fact that he's described as being tall, slim, and boyish-faced doesn't help.
The Heavy: Among the most active of the Outer Gods, with many of his appearances being spent to torment humans or other lifeforms in some capacity.
Herald: For the Outer Gods.
Hoist by His Own Petard: In Fall of Cthulhu, he drives Cy to madness by telling him his true name. He intends to later send Cy to the Court of Azathoth to speak his (Cy's) name, so Azathoth's attention will be drawn to Earth. Thanks to the Harlot's advice, Cy instead speaks Nyarlathotep's name, causing the god to be drawn back home.
Humanoid Abomination: Usually, Gnarly appears with human-ish avatars—although even among those, few won't drive to madness or outright kill a person.
- Everything's Better with Samurai: Aku-Shin-Kage, a Mask that plagues Japan. Looks like an armored samurai, but its face is covered in mouths. Can also take a normal human look, which was Oda Nobunaga in the past, but usually a businessman in the present.
- Flaming Devil: Nyarlathotep's avatar as the overlord of the Dreamlands is an extremely attractive youth in a sparkly robe and jewelry—a "real flamboyant dude," to quote the H. P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast.
- Formulaic Magic: The Kruschtya Equation—a complex mathematical formula. Whoever solves it is possessed by Gnarly.
- Gender Bender: He has used several female Masks, including the Bloated Woman and the Queen in Red. These female appearances tend to be used in Mythos-derived works, such as Ow, my sanity, Demonbane and Nyaruko: Crawling with Love!.
- Light Is Not Good: The White Man, an angelic-looking blond man with white robes.
- Nepharious Pharaoh: The Black Pharaoh, an Egyptian pharaoh wearing a brightly colored robe. Also, The Mighty Messenger.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: The Howler in the Dark is capable of shapeshifting and can impersonate other people.
Hates the Job, Loves the Limelight: In probably the most bizarre example of this trope out there, he is shown to have resentment for his position as Azathoth's messenger, but he sure does love to put on a show when performing his cosmic errands.
Humans Are Bastards: To a degree. The Outer God best in touch with the human sense of morality and yet, also by far one the most reprehensible. In many modern depictions, he outright weaponises the worst of humanity's excesses, like religious fundamentalism for his many cults.
I Have Many Names: In addition to all its Masks, Gnarly has a number of titles: Crawling Chaos, Black Messenger of Karneter, Lord of the Desert, etc.
Intrigued by Humanity: Of the Outer Gods, he interacts the most directly with humanity, although his interest is mostly portrayed as being sadistic in nature. Going by the usual metaphor of humanity being like ants to the Outer Gods, then Nyarlathotep can be likened to a cruel kid who loves to torment the ants by burning them with a magnifying glass.
Ironic Name: Hotep means 'be content' or 'be reconciled' or 'at peace'. Needless to say it isn't a very accurate description of him.
It Amused Me: Seems to be his reason for everything he does. He is all-powerful and can make people worship him if he wants to, but he uses propaganda and manipulates people into worshiping him instead. He can destroy the human race whenever he wants, but would rather trap one in a Deal with the Devil and eventually Fate Worse than Death.
Jerkass Gods: For the depictions where he's a misanthrope horribly breaking human sanity for shits and giggles. Sometimes it's borne from his hatred of the pond scum who think they're so intelligent and smart. Sometimes he just does it for laughs.
Karma Houdini: Considering the setting, Nyarlathotep still roams around the cosmos to freely wreck havoc, unopposed and unpunished. While he does become a Sore Loser after getting outsmarted by Randolph Carter, that's just an inconvenience at best.
Keeper of Forbidden Knowledge: Knows a lot about science and horrible secrets, and will provide answers... for a price.
Mad Scientist: Lovecraft presents Nyarlathotep as this in the eponymous poem.
Mouth of Sauron: His official role as Herald of the Outer Gods.
No Celebrities Were Harmed: His role as a traveling scientist/showman who gives demonstrations of projectors and electricity is very similar to Nikola Tesla.
No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine: Has a friendly conversation with Randolph Carter in The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, though it's just to trick him.
Official Couple: According to Clark Ashton Smith, the elk-goddess Yhoundeh is Nyarlathotep's wife.
Only Sane Man: He is the only one among the group of all-powerful, all-knowing eldritch entities that actually have any mind to think with. Justified since he is that group's living embodiment of consciousness.
Our Monsters Are Different: When not outright Eldritch Abominations, his non-human Masks tend to look like various things.
- Our Banshees Are Louder: The Dweller in Darkness can create wind-like sounds (even when there is no wind) and strange cries at night.
- The Blank: The Dark One.
- Our Demons Are Different: The Black Demon and Dark Demon are traditional versions: black, furry, and snouted beasts. The Haunter of the Dark is a bat-like thing with a three-lobed eye.
- Hostile Weather: Yes, the "Crawling Chaos" even manifests as weather, such as the Crawling Mist, Black Wind, and Messenger of the Old Ones.
- Kaiju: The Bloody Tongue, a huge giant thing with a red tentacle coming from an orifice.
- Living Statue: The Faceless God and The Beast masks are these of The Sphinx.
- Mechanical Monster: The Tick Tock Man, in which he appears as a mechanical being. Could range from Clockwork Creature to Artificial Intelligence.
Our Souls Are Different: He is the "soul of the Outer Gods", seemingly literally. He may be Azathoth's soul which is shared with the Daemon-Sultan's closest emanations.
Psychopathic Manchild: The Wanderings Of Alhazred describes him as this, claiming that he regards mortals as playthings "to be taken up for a time, then abruptly cast away and trodden into the earth."
Revision: L'rog'g (a twin-headed bat worshiped on Uranus) and Shugoran (The Black Man with a Horn) had no connection to Gnarly in the works they appeared in. Later RPG material changed it so they were his avatars.
- Some subsequent works suggest that the King in Yellow is an aspect of Nyarlathotep, rather than Hastur. Given Nyarlathotep's power and duplicity, both may be true.
Sadist: You wouldn't exactly want to be friends with a guy whose pastime consists of terrorizing humans for his amusement.
Satanic Archetype:
- A messenger (which is what the word "angel" means) for Azathoth who's shown to have resentment for the Outer Gods, one of few truly evil figures in the mythos, and a supreme manipulator. Yeah, Gnarly's the closest thing to the Devil, if not worse.
- The Arkham Witch coven believed that The Black Man was the fallen angel. Whether or not this was intentional on Nyarlathotep's part or its what the witches just assumed is unknown.
Scary Black Man: How his human avatars tend to appear. Although it should be noted that it's usually just the color of his skin (as in pitch-black) instead of overall physiognomy.
Sinister Minister: Among Japanese artists who don't go for the Moe Anthropomorphism route, Nyarly's human form tend to commonly be portrayed as a dark skinned priest clad in mostly black and red.
Snake Oil Salesman: Appears as this in the story that shares his name. Traveling from town to town, he gives demonstrations on hypnosis and strange electrical devices. When the narrator makes the mistake of heckling him... well, most of the audience is never heard from again.
The Sociopath: Unlike his peers, The Crawling Chaos stands out as a cruel and manipulative Eldritch Abomination that enjoys tormenting mortals for his own twisted amusement, while lacking any capacity for compassion or empathy.
Southern Gothic Satan: Handsome and impeccably dressed in human form, building cults and corrupting communities. In Nyarlathotep he's a showman traveling from town to town, a Stage Magician demonstrating untold technological wonders... and displaying images of other worlds which leave the inhabitants Plagued by Nightmares as he goes on to the next town. In Delta Green, he has cultivated a Christian cult/megachurch springing up through desperately poor parts of the American Midwest and South centered around the ritual murder of one of his avatars.
Summoning Artifact: The Shining Trapezohedron, which calls the Haunter of the Dark Mask.
Troll: He's somewhere between this and The Gadfly. A lot of his actions can be summed up as "he loves to meddle into human affairs without directly harming them."
Unperson: The Egyptians took great lengths to remove any and all reference to Gnarly, though a few cults remained.
Villains Blend in Better: It helps that his Masks include several human(ish) forms, however. He's been known to impersonate other people as well before revealing his true nature. invokedHe could be anyone.
Villains Out Shopping: According to The Wanderings Of Alhazred, he enjoys being around humans "when they drink wine and gamble."
Yellow Peril: His "Bloated Woman" avatar takes the form of either an attractive Asian Dragon Lady who hides writhing, bloated tentacles, or a Fat Bastard of a woman who better resembles Y'golonac's default form poorly cosplaying as an Asian woman.
You Cannot Grasp the True Form: "... pray to all space that you may never meet me in my thousand other forms."
Well-Intentioned Extremist: There are some depictions that state his interest in, and meddling with, humanity is geniunely wanting to uplift them.

Shub-Niggurath

The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young

First Mentioned: "The Last Test", H. P. Lovecraft and Adolphe de Castro

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Shub-Niggurath.jpg

Outer Goddess of fertility. One of the most worshiped of the Mythos entities, she is revered by the Mi-go, K'nyani, and human cults past and present, among others. While never described directly in Lovecraft's tales, Shub-Niggurath is often portrayed as a cloud or a gigantic tree (or both) with constantly changing hooves and tendrils. Notably, she is Cthulhu's grandmother.

Affably Evil: Seemingly one of the least apathetic of the Outer Gods, a goddess of fertility who looks after her cultists. It's not as if anyone but her cultists would want her attention, however.
The Ageless: Can confer biological immortality to followers/sacrifices by ingesting them, and being reborn through her. The catch is, the person's body is horribly transformed into something unspeakable, which inspired (but not like) Fauns and Satyrs.
Call a Smeerp a "Rabbit": Shub-Niggurath looks like anything but a goat.
The Cameo: Most notably in Quake.
Composite Character: In the short-lived official AD&D version of the Cthuhlu Mythos (Cthuhlu and his buddies got a chapter in the first edition of Deities & Demigods, but later editions removed it after a copyright dispute with another publisher), Shub-Niggurath is apparently conflated with Abhoth, being depicted as a noxious lake of protoplasm in a cavern beneath a mountain, constantly generating various monsters out of its own mass and then re-consuming any that foolishly stumble too close to it again.
Depending on the Writer: Some writers list "her" as an Outer God, others as a Great Old One. Perhaps she's the borderline between the two? In addition, sometimes she's as mindless as Azathoth, content to simply pump out her vile children, and sometimes she's just as malevolent as Nyaralthotep.
Explosive Breeder: If her title of Mother of a Thousand Young is any indication.
The Ghost: Lovecraft himself only referred to her and vaguely hinted at her character in his stories (most memorably "The Whisperer in Darkness", where the Mi-Go were shown to worship her). It was through later writers that her true nature was revealed.
Hermaphrodite: Also has been called The Black Ram of The Forest With a Thousand Ewes, so Shub-Niggurath may have a male aspect as well. Then again, considering the Outer Gods are beyond human comprehension, attempting to discern the sex of one isn't necessarily a valid idea.
Love Goddess: Probably the closest thing the Mythos has to one, and even then it just may be interested in fertility.
Mother of a Thousand Young: Trope Namer. (The horrible cloud with tendrils and mouths in that trope's image? That's her.)
Mutagenic Goo: Some RPG materials have Shub-Niggurath producing a substance known as "Mother's Milk" that can cause radical biological changes in whoever ingests it.
Official Couple: With Hastur. And Yog-Sothoth.
The Smurfette Principle: Out of all Lovecraft's Old Ones, Shubby is the only one explicitly mentioned to be "female".
When Trees Attack: The Dark Young, which look like leafless trees with hooves. Their branches are actually tentacles.

Tulzscha

Debut: "The Festival"

An obscure god who appears on Earth as a pillar of green flame that casts no shadow, produces venomous verdigris wherever it burns and radiates the clamminess of death and corruption rather than warmth.

Cold Flames: Literally, the green flames that Tulzscha casts lower heat, rather than emitting heat.
Elemental Embodiment: Like Cthauga and Aphoom-Zhah, is an elemental outer god that manifests as a living ball or pillar of flames. However, the precise element is unknown; while there are implications that he is some manner of ice elemental like Aphoom-Zhah (the "clammy flames"), it's just as likely that Tulzscha is instead better classed as a poison or radiation elemental.
Retcon: In The Festival, neither Tulzscha nor his servant monsters are named. Call of Cthulhu RPG named him, and the monsters are stated to be Byakhee.
Technicolor Fire: Described as a "sickly, eerie green" shade.

Ubbo-Sathla

Debut: "Ubbo-Sathla", Clark Ashton Smith

A huge, ancient protoplasmic entity that rests in a grotto beneath the frozen Earth. It is constantly spawning primordial single-celled organisms and is said to have spawned the prototypes of all life on Earth.

Blob Monster: It's described as a large mass of protoplasm.
Combat Tentacles: It has pseudopods, and anything it touches with them is devoid of life.
Mother of a Thousand Young: It has spawned countless single-celled creatures and is basically the source of all life on Earth. This makes it similar to another god, Abhoth, and it has been speculated that they may be the same entity.

Yibb-Tstll

Debut: "The Caller of The Black", Brian Lumley

An obscure Mythos entity; a gigantic, female, humanoid with detached eyes and clad in a great green cloak. Watching the universe revolve around her, she sees everything at the same time. Has great wisdom, only surpassed by Yog-Sothoth.

Alien Blood: The Black, Yibb-Tstll's ebon-hued ichor. Adding to the strangeness is that the blood is not fluid, but appears like snowflakes.
Bloody Murder: The Black can be used as by sorcerers to attack and destroy their enemies. It does involve a complicated ritual to do. Not to mention the spell could be reversed.
Covered in Gunge: Any victim of The Black is covered head to toe in the stuff.
Monster Progenitor: An ambiguous case with the Nightgaunts, which are described as suckling on her innumerable breasts.
Multiboobage: It has innumerable breasts, from which Nightgaunts feed.
The Omniscient: Knows a lot since she sees the universe revolve around her.
Tome of Eldritch Lore: The Cthäat Aquadingen, which hold details how to dream of Yibb, call The Black, or even summon the Ancient One! However, there's always some danger.

Yog-Sothoth

The Key and the Gate

Debut: The Case of Charles Dexter Ward

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/05d893ec65babd829c3f5a900eecb162.jpg

"Yog-Sothoth knows the gate, Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate."

The other (possibly) supreme deity of the original Lovecraftian canon, Yog-Sothoth is the sentient embodiment of the fabric which makes up reality, including space-time continuum which forms the known universe. Thus, he/it is aware of all things happening in every point of space and time, and thus generally only manifests when specific rituals are used to gain its attention. Its most well-known form is a conglomeration of ever-changing distortions of space, which appear like glowing spheres to lesser beings. Still, this is just one of several forms.

It serves as a largely neutral but sentient entity who can converse with mortals, as it once did with Randolph Carter. It also utilizes a humanoid avatar known as Tawil at-'Umr who guards the Ultimate Gate, a metaphysical gate which can access Yog-Sothoth's domains over reality. However, this by no means implies it is harmless; it was once infamously called upon to impregnate a human female during the The Dunwich Horror.

Affably Evil: At least in the form of Tawil at-'Umr, in an Above Good and Evil way, if not just a nice guy — he helps out the protagonists more than once.
And I Must Scream: Some depictions, like A Colder War, show him as devouring human beings — there, they experience every possible fate, including all the horrible ones, for all eternity as Yog-Sothoth
"There is life eternal within the eater of souls. Nobody is ever forgotten or allowed to rest in peace. They populate the simulation spaces of its mind, exploring all the possible alternative endings to their life. There is a fate worse than death, you know.''
Benevolent Abomination: Generally seen as such, to the point where he's almost a Token Good Teammate among his fellow Outer Gods. He exists simultaneously at all points in time and space and so knows everything, and is surprisingly willing to share that knowledge with his loyal followers. He's also known for having casual chats with human beings and even grants the occultist Randolph Carter a wish on one occasion. There are several stories where Yog-Sothoth is invoked against less powerful deities as a protector; in Lovecraft's own final tale, "The Haunter of the Dark," the protagonist fervently prays to Yog-Sothoth to save him from the titular monster. Even Yog's appearance is less nightmarish than the other Eldritch Abominations: while they're monstrous, he takes the form of a series of glowing spheres. It's somewhat downplayed in that Yog-Sothoth can still drive people insane and operates on Blue-and-Orange Morality; he's just generally more subtle about it than the rest of the group.
Blue-and-Orange Morality: Even for the Outer Gods, Yog-Sothoth especially is this. Since Yog is the embodiment of space, time and whatever exists outside of both, it has access to all knowledge and all places both past, present and future. Given its non-linear view of reality, it bases its decisions and actions on what has happened, is happening, and will happen simultaniously. Try making sense of the moral decisions of a creature for which causality doesn't apply.
Complete Immortality: While all Outer Gods have this, Yog-Sothoth may one-up most of them by being the very fabric on which reality itself forms on, and even in the physical universe it exists as space-time.
Demoted to Extra: Lovecraft originally referred to his loose Mythos as the "Yog-Sothoth Cycle"; later writers and readers generally do not place much focus or importance to him.
Depending on the Writer: Lovecraft depicted him as mostly benign for the most part, though he did father a child who would go on to be The Dunwich Horror and murder several families. Other depictions show him as just as malevolent as other Gods, with A Colder War locking in humans he absorbs into simulation spaces where they experience every fate (including the horrible ones) For the Evulz.
Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?: Or in this case Cthulhu's grandpa. Randolph Carter encounters it in the form of its avatar, Tawil at-'Umr, and then later in Yog-Sothoth's sphere form in the Ultimate Gate, as it converses with Carter and even grants his wish.
Extra Eyes: Another form Yog-Sothoth occasionally uses is a group of eyes on stalks.
Evil Sorcerer: Yog serves as the patron of these.
Face Full of Alien Wing-Wong: Once summoned to impregnate Lavinia Whateley, the logistics of which are perhaps best left unexamined.
A Form You Are Comfortable With:
- Tawil at-'Umr, a vaguely humanoid figure donning a cloak. In this form it is able to communicate with mortals, as it does with Randolph Carter.
- Otherwise, Yog usually appears as distortions in space resembling spheres coming from somewhere outside reality, which are often described as similar to foam coming out of soapy water. Just don't look too closely into the spheres... you might get an eyeful of dimensions forming reality, or even other universes beyond your own.
Gate of Truth: Being the Gate and knowing much.
God: Some writers have interpreted Yog as the Abrahamic God.
Interspecies Romance: Oh, those Whateleys!
Light Is Not Good: Yog's avatar Aforgomon, who appears with a blinding flash, and only shows up when it is somehow angered. That being said, Aforgomon is considered to be sacred to the folk of Hestan, at least to them.
The Man Behind the Man: To Cthulhu, who is both his high priest and grandson.
The Omnipotent: Explicitly described as such in Through the Gates of the Silver Key.
The Omnipresent: All of space-time continuum is part of Yog-Sothoth, along with whatever exists beyond it. A relatively accurate metaphor is if Azathoth is the center of all infinity, then Yog-Sothoth is the infinities which expand from it.
Omniscient Morality License: Perhaps. Or perhaps not.
Ret-Gone: Aforgomon does this to particular offenders such as those who screw up space and time by using Xexanoth's power. Instead of wiping them outright, the avatar speeds up the normal process of oblivion. Instead of years, people slowly forget the victim and any record eventually fades away in weeks.
Space Master: Helps that Yog is space-time.
Sphere of Destruction: Literally in this case. Physical contact with Yog-Sothoth in its sphere form leads to serious injuries.
Threshold Guardians: Tawil at-'Umr serves as this before anyone passes The Ultimate Gate.
Time Master: Goes without saying.
Top God: Possibly shares this role with Azathoth, certainly has the powers to back it up.
Void Between the Worlds: It is both space and time, and like all Outer Gods it is also something who exists "outside" it as well.
You Cannot Grasp the True Form: Even more so than most Outer Gods. Its attempt to distort space to create a physical form which can interact with lesser beings are only observable as a series of spheres to humans and other lesser aliens.

Elder Gods

Elder Gods in General

Entities of the Mythos who oppose the Great Old Ones and Outer Gods. They are not particularly well defined by Lovecraft himself (as he only ever wrote two of them; Nodens and Hypnos, and the latter is a confusing case of The Ghost suffering under Unreliable Narrator), though later writers would establish them as a pantheon of entities who are mortal enemies with the Great Old Ones. Depending on the Writer, they're either outright benevolent gods protecting humanity, or just as prone to Blue-and-Orange Morality as much as any Eldritch Abomination in this page who are only 'benevolent' because they happen to be targeting the Great Old Ones and Outer Gods.

Home of the Gods: Glyu-Uho, the home of the Elder Gods. It corresponds with the star Betelgeuse.
A Lighter Shade of Black: For interpretations that have them as Eldritch Abominations, they're not "good" or "caring", but they are opposed to a bunch of eldritch horrors suffering from severe cases of Blue-and-Orange Morality or Obliviously Evil Non-Malicious Monster tendencies, along with the occasional actually malevolent ones.
Depending on the Writer: Their depictions range from traditional Gods with human morality protecting humans to horrid things just as Eldritch and hostile to humans who are only on "our side" because they hate the more actively malicious Gods.

Bast

Mythos Debut: The Call of Cthulhu RPG

Based off the mythological goddess of the same name, Bast is the Elder God of Cats. Was classified as Elder God in the Call of Cthulhu, since Lovecraft was rather fond of felines. Bast was also used in several Mythos tales by Robert Bloch. The story of The Cats of Ulthar is also tied to her in the Call of Cthulhu. For her historic details, check out the Egyptian Mythology Character sheet.

Abstract Apotheosis: A primordial concept of hunger and everything to do with it in Delta Green.
Animalistic Abomination: Bloch mashes this up with Humanoid Abomination: he depicts Bast as a ten-foot giant woman with a cat head.
Artistic License – Religion: Most depictions of her in Egyptian myth are benevolent. Bloch depicts her as a ghoulish (literally) giant who eats people.
Depending on the Artist: Ranging from her traditional historic depiction to an ugly, wrinkled Beast Man.
Depending on the Writer: As much as her historical depiction, too! Like the other Elder Gods, she ranges from actually benevolent, to — in her first appearance as written by Bloch — a ten-foot tall Humanoid Abomination with a cat head who loves feasting on human sacrifices, to even being a primal, primordial force of hunger in
Historical In-Joke: The Delta Green version of her states that her violent tendencies are likely what inspired the Sekhmet myth; in some versions of Egyptian Mythology, Sekhmet is the Superpowered Evil Side of Bastet for fighting wars, violent and hungry to the point she had to be sealed away by the other Gods.
Horror Hunger: In Delta Green, she's a force of hunger, and one of her signifiers that she's present is that random animals, even omnovorous or herbivoous animals, will suddenly devour her targets whole and/or commit autocannibalism.
Human Resources: Her Delta Green incarnation posits that she created reality and biological matter for use as her personal food factory and her larder.

Hypnos

Debut (?): "Hypnos"

Another deity appropriated from Mythology, this time from Greece. Listed as an Elder God of sleep in Call of Cthulhu, and as such Lord of Dreams. Other than that, little is known of this being.

Calling Card: Apparently leaves behind statues of himself.
Depending on the Writer: Hypnos being an Elder God comes from the Call of Cthulhu game. The original short story is told from a questionable perspective, so it's not clear if Hypnos even existed.
The Ghost: In Lovecraft's short tale "Hypnos", the character's friend fears something that the narrator or reader never sees. In fact, Hypnos is almost never depicted in any artwork, except only as a marble bust.
Pillar of Light: If, for some unknowable reason, a dreamer attracts his attention, Hypnos will seek that person out, and pull them up in a golden light.

Kthanid

Cthulhu's benevolent brother, said to be as good as his brother is evil is in the Titus Crow series. See his entry in Titus Crow

Nodens

Lord of the Great Abyss

"And hoary Nodens raised a howl of triumph when Nyarlathotep, close on his quarry, stopped baffled by a glare that seared his formless hunting-horrors to grey dust."

Debut: "The Strange High House in the Mist"

Named after an obscure Celtic deity, Nodens is unusual in that his main apparition is an old man. Apparently a great hunter seeking out the servants of the Great Old Ones, he is typically seen riding in a seashell chariot drawn by fantastic beasts. Opposes Nyarlathotep.

Anti-Villain: Described as almost friendly to the humans he speaks with despite being an amoral deity. Apparently, he also has a strong dislike for Nyarlathotep.
Artistic License – Religion: His historical namesake is a healing God. Here, he's definitely a hunter God.
Big Damn Heroes: Nodens, along with the violet gas S'Ngac, helped Randolph Carter to escape Nyarlathotep's diabolical trap and return safely to his home realm.
Cool Old Guy: What he appears to be (In any case, he is old) - he's described as "hoary", which was an archaic word for someone who's old, especially someone with graying hair. While he may not fight the horrors out of compassion for humanity, he still occasionally helps out mortals, such as Randolph Carter.
Depending on the Writer: Lovecraft depicted him as mostly benevolent, driving away Nyarlathotep from Randolph Carter and leading him back to the waking world. Modern depictions either follow this, turn him into a gruff old man who tolerates humanity at best because they're usually not fond of Nyarlathotep and who is prone to Friendly Fire when humans call on him for his "help", or just as malevolent as Nyarlathotep, albeit more focused on hunting sport.
Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Takes out the Hunting Horrors pursuing Randolph Carter pretty easily with a burst of light, and manages to drive off Nyarlathotep after that happens. Justified in that Nodens is a god and far more powerful than a puny normal human.
The Dreaded: The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath repeatedly emphasizes Nodens is feared by various beings, including Earth's Gods and their servants.
Egomaniac Hunter/Hunter of Monsters: He hunts the servants of Nyarlathotep and other horrors. Depending The Writer, it's either because Nodens is protecting humans, or not because Nodens cares for humanity, but because the Great Old Ones provide the best sport.
God-Emperor: Is revered and worshipped as such by the night-gaunts, the alien race mentioned in the Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. So much so, that the night-gaunts don't fear even the Outer Gods in comparison to their master.
Grumpy Old Man: Less benevolent depictions show him as a crotchy, ill-tempered elder who merely tolerates squishy, pathetic humans at best and hates them outright at worst, and is generally uncaring of rescuing any humans unless they happened to be in his vicinity.
Humanoid Abomination: He may look like an old man, but he is just as eldritch as the others.
Red Baron: The Lord of the Abyss.
Shout-Out: To The Great God Pan, where the name Nodens is briefly mentioned.
You Can Not Grasp The True Form: Possibly; considering how alien the cosmos is, it's unlikely Nodens actually looks human. It may be he's taking such an anthropomorphic shape as a courtesy.

Vorvadoss

The Troubler of Sands

Debut: "The Invaders", Henry Kuttner

A lesser-known Elder God who appears in the writings of Henry Kuttner. Sometimes appears as a cloaked, hooded being, enveloped in green flames, with fiery eyes. He may otherwise appear as a misty, silvery being with an inhuman face.

Alien Geometries: Vorvadoss's body seems to follow an alien pattern.
Dissonant Serenity: As alien and disconcerting as Vorvadoss may appear, people around the Kindler of Flame feel a wave of assurance in its presence.
Monochromatic Eyes: Eyes dark as space.

Xexanoth

The Lurking Chaos

Debut: "The Chain of Aforgomon", Clark Ashton Smith

The "chief cosmic power" hostile towards time, known on the world of four suns named Hestan. Not considered an Elder God properly, its nature makes it opposed to at least one Outer God.

Arch-Enemy: To Aforgomon, Lord "of the minutes and the cycles" and avatar of Yog-Sothoth.
God of Evil: To the priests of Aforgomon since its effects on time causes the logical cycles of nature to go slightly out of whack.
This Is Unforgivable!: Using its power is considered too blasphemous, even for evil sorcerers. As one in The Chain of Aforgomon points out:
"Gladly would I help you... animate her still unwithered body and draw it forth from the tomb. But that which you purpose is another matter. You alone must perform the ordained rites, must speak the necessary words: for the consequences of this thing will be direr than you deem."
Time Master: As the bane of sequential time, the Lurking Chaos can cause people and entire planets to relive a moment in their past.

The Dreamlands

Great Ones

Weak gods of the Earth who reign over Earth's Dream Land. Not even remotely as powerful as the other Ancient Ones, although they are still worshiped in the Dreamlands. They appear to be similar to humanity and distinguished by certain facial features. For whatever reason, the Great Ones are protected by the Other Gods, which include Nyarlathotep. Not to be confused with the Great Old Ones.

Big Fancy Castle: Their home on Kadath.
Deface of the Moon: Carved on the hidden side of Mt. Ngranek is a portrait of the Great Ones. It proves to be an important plot point in The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath.
Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: While one can trick or go against the wishes of the Great Ones, the Other Gods will wreak their vengeance in retribution.
Have You Seen My God?: It turns out to be the case for Randolph Carter. When he arrives at Kadath, he discovers the place is empty.
Home of the Gods: Kadath is the home of the Great Ones. But no one knows where to find it, and a large part of the "Dream-quest" is finding out where it is. However, it turns out the Great Ones have found a new home: Carter's dream memory of Boston.
I Just Want to Be Normal: Maybe. In The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, Nyarlathotep tells Randolph Carter how the Great Ones desire to abandon their godhood and live as normal humans in the waking world.
Interspecies Romance: The younger Great Ones tend to go down to Earth in disguise and take human women as wives.
Physical God: Rather limited ones at that, capable of being tricked by a mortal who is wise enough.

The Harlot

Debut: Fall of Cthulhu

An ugly, feminine being that inhabits Earth's Dreamlands. She fashions herself an Information Broker, trading away knowledge of the Mythos in return for something from the other party. Everything that is given to her, the Harlot puts into one of her boxes.

Canon Foreigner: The Harlot debuted in Fall of Cthulhu, long after Lovecraft's death.
The Chessmaster: While Fall of Cthulhu is one big Gambit Pileup between Nyarlathotep and Nodens, the ending reveals that it was the Harlot who played the game best. Nyarlathotep thought Cy was his instrument of destruction, only to realize that Cy had been the Harlot's pawn the whole time.
Deal with the Devil: Her modus operandi. She will give you the knowledge you seek, but in return you must give up something of yourself. The more valuable the information, the more she claims in return.
Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: While she is far weaker than him, she's influential enough that Nodens thinks twice before challenging her.
Evil Versus Oblivion: She's definitely not a good "person", but she prefers humanity as it is; Easily manipulated and played with. She has no interest in Nyarlathotep's plans to wipe them out.
Legacy Character: At the end of Fall of Cthulhu, the Harlot informs Lucifer that she isn't the first to carry the title, and won't be the last; Lucifer is her chosen successor.

Nightgaunts

Debut: The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

Thin, black humanoids with large wings, rubbery skin, and barbed tails. They are the servants of Nodens, and Brian Lumley had associated them with Yibb-Tstll.

The Blank: Part of what makes them so unnerving is that they're so human-like... except for the total lack of a face.
Dark Is Not Evil: Downplayed. They torment humans in their nightmares, and are definitely dangerous, but they also serve Nodens, one of the few gods friendly to humanity, and are happy to help Randolph Carter in his quest.
Giant Flyer: Nightgaunts tend to carry people away, and drop them in unwanted places. The Ghouls can also use them as mounts.
Horrifying the Horror: Nyarlathotep's servants, especially the shantak-birds, fear nightgaunts deeply, and will flee in terror if they so much as spot one.
Our Gargoyles Rock: They look much like the stereotypical gargoyle.
Tickle Torture: Using their barbed tails, they tend to do this to the people they capture.

Gugs

Debut: The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

The subterranean giants of Dreamlands. Gugs have vertical mouth, ran from the top to the bottom of the head, and each arm split at elbow into two forearms. Said to be banished to the Underworld by the Great Ones.

Food Chain of Evil: Ghasts, another species of predatory subterranean horrors, make up the bulk of the gug food supply, while ghouls happily feed on the giant corpses of the gugs.
Multi-Armed and Dangerous: They have four forearms attached to two upper arms.
Our Giants Are Bigger: And in the Dreamlands, these giants are stranger.
To Serve Man: And since humans are rarely encountered in the Dreamlands' Underworld, we're kind of legendarily delicious.

Ghouls

Debut: "Pickman's Model"

Cannibal humanoids with rubbery skin, bony claws, and dog-like faces. They tend to live underground, lurking near graveyards, and their burrows stretch between the waking world and the Dreamlands.

Changeling Tale: Ghouls are also known for kidnapping babies and replacing them with ghoul babies. Don't worry though, they just teach the abducted children how to become ghouls. The ghoul babies also tend to return to ghoul society after living a few decades as humans.
Good All Along: Although presented as horrific, they are sometimes presented in a positive light, being loyal and helpful to those who can approach them in their language or who do them good turns. Considering the Mythos being filled with unspeakable, apathetic horrors, ghouls are one of the nicer species one can encounter. If one knows their language...
Grave Robbing: The ghouls probably call this "grocery shopping" — their main method of feeding is by digging corpses out of graves.
Monstrous Cannibalism: Traditionally, ghouls would eat their wounded after a battle. However, Pickman has been trying to discourage this.
Our Ghouls Are Creepier: Dog-faced, clawed green-skinned humanoids who live underground, feed on the dead, and supplement their population by taking human children to raise to be ghouls.
Tome of Eldritch Lore: The Cultes des Goules, which presumably dealt with Ghouls and their cults.
Tunnel Network: They live in extensive warrens and tunnel systems, which they use both to scurry unseen beneath human notice and to move in both the real and dreaming worlds.
Was Once a Man: Hanging out with ghouls long enough can transform a human into one, as what happened to Richard Upton Pickman. Ghoul babies switched with human babies invert this, although eventually most discover their origins and return to ghoul society, making it a Double Subversion.

Moon-beasts

Debut: The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

Pale, toadlike creatures with no eyes but a mass of pink tentacles at the end of their snout. They live on the Dreamland's version of Earth's moon.

Monster Mouth: They have a mass of tentacles where their mouth should be.

Shantaks

Debut: The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath

Elephantine bird-like creatures with scaly slimy skin, bat wings, two talons, and horse heads. They can be used as steeds, and serve Nyarlathotep and Ithaqua.

Call a Smeerp a "Rabbit": Also called Shantak-birds. Except for flying, these creatures have little in common with birds; their main physical characteristics describe are leathery wings and horselike heads.
Giant Flyer: Large enough for Randolph Carter to ride one.
Horrifying the Horror: As with most servants of the Crawling Chaos, they're terrified of nightgaunts.
Our Dragons Are Different: They can be described as slimy-skinned, horse-faced wyverns.

Other Creatures

Other Creatures in General

Various monsters and aliens. Some act as servants of the Great Old Ones, while others are relatively independent.

Bizarre Alien Biology: Don't expect anything resembling human biology from these things. Even the ones who don't fall into the "alien" category certainly fit into the "bizarre" one.
Blue-and-Orange Morality: Downplayed, at least when compared to other beings such as the Outer Gods. Most of the mythos races, like the Elder Things, DO have a sense of "morality" of some kind that can be recognized by humans. It just so happens that their culture and civilization themselves are so "out there" that they still come off as eldritch by our standards.

Byakhee

Debut: "The House on Curwen Street", August Derleth

Beings that live in interstellar space, noted for their "great wings". Capable of traveling interstellar distances, they can be summoned to be used as transports. Just remember to take some Space Mead or a space suit, since you still need some sort of protection against the cold vacuum. They are servitors of Hastur.

Batman Can Breathe in Space: The Byakhee can. Not necessarily the people they carry.
Giant Flyer: Large enough to be used as mounts by those willing to summon them.
Harping on About Harpies: Though never described in detail by Derleth, the mythological harpies were probably an influence on the author. Celaneo was the name of the Harpy Queen in The Aeneid.
Magical Library: At the "Fungi From Yuggoth" Call of Cthulhu supplement, the Library of Celaeno is infested with Byakhee, who make sure no one smuggles out any books.
Speak of the Devil: Mentioned in the 1980 Dungeons & Dragons Deities and Demigods Cyclopedia, that Hastur sends Byakhee to kill whoever speaks his name.

Cats

Debut: The Cats of Ulthar

Lovecraft had a special love of felines, and it is reflected within his work. In particular are the cats of the Dreamlands, who are intelligent and more wonderful. They are protected by the Elder God, Bast.

Always Lawful Good: Earth's cats are always depicted as heroic and benevolent, only ever fighting in defense of themselves or their allies. This makes them one of the few examples of unambiguous good in Lovecraft's writing and the Mythos as a whole.
Arch-Enemy: The cats from Saturn, whom the Dreamland cats have set up outposts to be on the look out for.
Author Appeal: Yup, Lovecraft was a cat lover and liked to put cats in his works.
Cats Are Magic: The cats of the Dreamlands are practically Cat Folk: they're intelligent, have their own language, and are capable of leaping through space to other worlds.

Colour Out of Space

Debut: The Colour Out of Space

A... presence, for lack of a better term, from outer space, whose visible manifestation is an unknown hue. Contact with earthly life leads to ... terrible fates.

Came from the Sky: Mistaken for a meteor, or was catching a ride with one. Either way, it falls to Earth in its debut.
Evil Tainted the Place: While suggesting that it's "evil" is a stretch, the presence of the color blights the land, taints the water, and drives those who live nearby to madness.
Fictional Color: When heated in a spectroscope, a meteorite that carried the colour "displayed shining bands unlike any known colours of the normal spectrum". A globule inside the meteorite and vegetation grown in the area where the meteor fell also display the non-spectrum colors. The colour monster itself is made up of these colors.
Fisher Kingdom: The Blasted Heath, which was once a farm before everything began to mutate and turn into gray dust.
Not of This Earth: Some sort of alien entity from the stars.
Science Cannot Comprehend Phlebotinum: Scientists studying the meteorite that the colour comes down from are baffled by its properties.
Starfish Aliens: Considered the most alien of all of Lovecraft's creatures. While some physical information and effects on Earthly life are known, nothing about the intentions or purpose of the colour is. It's not even clear if the creature is intelligent or not.
Underwater Ruins: The Blasted Heath, once the Arkham reservoir is built. Unfortunately, the plant life around the new water source has become rather twisted.

Chthonians

Debut: The Burrowers Beneath, Brian Lumley

See Great Old Ones: Shudde M'ell

Deep Ones

Debut: "Dagon" / The Shadow Over Innsmouth

An isolationist underwater civilization of fish-people with a certain... interest in humanity. Physically, deep ones are humanoid, a cross of fish and frog, with grey-green skin, white bellies, webbed paws, and gilled necks. Their progenitor is Father Dagon, one of the less actively malicious beasties—apparently wants some peace and quiet more than bringing the world to an end. Not that that's going to help you if you accidentally enter his domain, though.

The Ageless: Barring violence or accidents, deep ones are biologically immortal.
Ambiguously Evil: It's implied that the Deep Ones may be not much more than unenthusiastic Punch Clock Villains for Cthulhu, and the narrator of The Shadow Over Innsmouth ultimately decides that they're not so bad.
For the present they would rest; but some day, if they remembered, they would rise again for the tribute Great Cthulhu craved.
Body Horror: Their hybrids start out seemingly human. And then, after a few years, they start to mutate...
Cult: The Esoteric Order of Dagon in Innsmouth, which the human collaborators of the deep ones use in worship and controlling the town.
Face Full of Alien Wing-Wong: While not required for their reproductive methods, the deep ones can breed with humanity when they so want.
Fish People: Their appearance
Half-Human Hybrid: Deep ones can mate with humans to produce these.
Horny Sailors: Lovecraft doesn't provide much detail into the "breeding" of the Hybrids. But considering Innsmouth is a port, its only major industry was shipping, and a sea captain who made the alliance with the Deep Ones, it implied that this could be the case.
Hybrid Monster: Deep ones can produce half-shark and half-dolphin hybrids by mating with these animals.
Kraken and Leviathan: Dagon and his mate, Mother Hydra, being very huge monsters.
Lord of the Ocean: Again Dagon and Mother Hydra, who are worshipped by the lesser Deep Ones and their human collaborators.
Mars Needs Women: They're eager to mate with humans, although all the individual pairings we hear about are male humans and female Deep Ones.
Our Mermaids Are Different: In-universe, the deep ones inspired the mermaid myth. The problem is, the reality is far more horrible.
Sea Monster: Arguably they qualify for this, though not to the extent of their parents.
Slow Transformation: Deep One hybrids are born identical to humans, but begin to transform as teenagers, start to show deformations by middle age and become normal Deep Ones when they grow old.
Town with a Dark Secret: Innsmouth. Everybody knows something odd about the place, but few are willing to learn why.
Underwater City: Several, such as the city of Y'ha-nthlei.

Elder Things

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_elder_thing.jpg

Debut: The Dreams in the Witch House

Aliens that once colonized Earth billions of years ago. They developed a highly advanced civilization, and they accidentally led to life arising on Earth in the process of creating the shoggoths. They're described as a barrel-shaped body with a starfish-like head and feet. Featuring radial symmetry, they have five eyes, tentacles, wings, feeding tubes, and brain lobes.

Advanced Ancient Acropolis: Their city in the "Mountains of Madness".
Ancient Astronauts: They're aliens who came to Earth eons before any natural life evolved. In fact, it's implied they begat all life on Earth. By accident.
Batman Can Breathe in Space: Subverted, the Elder Things could travel through deep space, but only by absorbing "certain chemicals". They eventually lose this knowledge, and end up trapped on Earth.
Bizarre Alien Biology: At one point Dyer states that the aspects of their biology that make them so long-lived and resilient are probably beyond human understanding.
Blue-and-Orange Morality: Downplayed. It had been noted at least by Lovecraftian cosmic horror standards the Elder Things had moralities and mentalities which, while still alien, most resembles that of Humans. Dyers noted many of their behaviours and actions were not only still comprehensible to humans but uncannily resemble them, leading him to remark that despite their differences fundamentally the two races were not so different to each other.
Dyers: "They were the men of another age and another order of being [...] They had not been even savages—for what indeed had they done? [...] God, what intelligence and persistence! What a facing of the incredible, just as those carven kinsmen and forbears had faced things only a little less incredible! Radiates, vegetables, monstrosities, star spawn—whatever they had been, they were men!"
Colonized Solar System: Contributed to this aeons past, having colonised Earth along with the Yithians, Star Spawns and others while other races such as the Mi-Go took Pluto and other places.
Commie Land: From what little Dyers could tell based on their engravings, the Elder Things were pretty socialistic in terms of how they organised their society. Helps that they were an enlightened race which due to having No Biological Sex have no real distinctions between individuals, which may had shielded them from some of the pratfalls of socialism or necessitated it.
Creating Life Is Unforeseen: Hinted that terrestrial life could be the unexpected consequence of the Elder Ones trying to grow food and Shoggoths.
Creatures by Many Other Names: Within "At the Mountains of Madness," the creatures that built the Antarctic civilization are generally called "Old Ones;" since that name is generally used to refer to a very different class of being in the Mythos they originate from later writers generally refer to them as the "Elder Things," with this page following suit.
Disintegrator Ray: Used "curious weapons of molecular and atomic disturbances".
Freak Out: The Elder Things who were thawed out by the 1931 expedition are implied to have experienced one upon waking up in an unfamiliar time surrounded by unfamiliar creatures, leading to them slaughtering the humans and dogs who dug them up in a frenzy before calming down. Dyers noted it's an understandable reaction especially when considering the dogs were instinctively hostile to them and the humans were dissecting a few who may or may not actually be still alive.
Godzilla Threshold: At least in some versions/adaptations of "At the Mountains of Madness", the Elder Things contacted the feared Outer Gods in desperation to defeat Cthulhu and his Star Spawns during their war against them, sinking Ry'leh and causing the stars to become 'wrong' to force them into deathless hibernation.
Heroic Neutral: Long gone, for the most part, by modern times, but their enemies coincided with many of those that now trouble humanity. The narrators of the story in which they appear even compare them to human beings. They're also one of the only inhuman races Lovecraft portrayed with any kind of sympathy, explaining the frenzied murder of the researchers in At the Mountains of Madness as a hysterical reaction to unknown circumstances. Imagine waking up after sleeping for thousands of years and finding one of your kin dissected on a table.
Lost Technology: Among other technologies and techniques, spaceflight became this for the Elder Things as they had forgotten how to fly through space at some point and were stranded on Earth, unable to escape the gradual decline of their race and civilization.
Made of Iron: Capable of living under deep sea pressures, as well as the rigous of space (though they needed special preparations to do the latter)
Mirroring Factions: A rarity in the mythos, the Elder Things don't actually behave too differently psychologically to humans, something which is lampshaded in At the Mountains of Madness. Sure, they killed and dissected those explorers and their dog, but the explorers (unknowingly) did the same to them first!
Mysterious Antarctica: Where their last city ends up being located. It's implied to be where they first set up shop on Earth as well.
Neglectful Precursors: They didn't really give a damn about the life on Earth which they accidentally spawned as a result of their experiments, which may or may not proved to be both a bad and good thing for primitive humanity when they showed up.
No Biological Sex: Elder Things reproduce asexually by spores, although apparently practice Population Control so they don't do it unless they want to colonise new areas.
No Name Given: They're only called Elder Things because they are elder and they are things, and that's about how much is known of them. If they have a real name it's never revealed.
Nuclear Option: When the Shoggoths first revolted, they resorted to nuclear weapons to quell them. It is unknown whether they used them to stop the second great revolt, but if they did it didn't work.
Plant Aliens: More like half-plant, half-animal aliens.
Precursors: To all terrestrial life. They didn't particularly cared for them however beyond the occasional study subject or beasts of burden.
Pride: In Pathfinder, this is noted as their biggest racial weaknesses. Elder Things keep making the same mistakes over and over, most notably recreating Shoggoths because each colony assumes it's superior to the ones who suffered such disasters in the past and surely it can keep things under control.
Proud Scholar Race: The Elder Things were this to rival the Yithians in contrast to the more violent and monstrous races such as the Star Spawns and the Flying Polyps. In conflicts with other races and civilizations, what they lacked in physical or martial prowess, they made up with advanced technological weaponry as well as transdimensional sorceries. Even the last few survivors of their race, waking up in an unfamiliar time surrounded by monstrous creatures after aeons of hibernation, took time to study the humans and dogs whom they slaughtered upon awakening after they stopped freaking out and assessed their situation more rationally.
Roaring Rampage of Revenge: The Elder Things who slaughtered the members of the 1931 expedition who dug them up were implied to be acting partly on this, as the Humans were dissecting several of their members who may or may not had been still alive if unawakened.
Solar Sail: As a result of advances in science, later writers explained that the Elder Things used their wings as living solar sails. They somehow lost the ability to do that during the long aeons of inhabiting Earth, leaving them stranded even as their race and civilization slowly died out.
Starfish Aliens: Literally in this case, with the Elder Thing's radial physiology and starfish-shaped heads, though they are some of the more comprehensible aliens in the mythos.
Sufficiently Advanced Alien: The Elder Things were extremely advanced as a race and civilization, notable for their mastery of biological manipulation but were also no slouches in other fields like molecular sciences and nuclear energy. Unfortunately they gradually lost their sciences and became an Insufficiently Advanced Alien race/civilization as a result of their decline.
Unreliable Expositor: While studying their historical art, Dyer considers the possibility that the Old One’s history may be colored by their pride. The professor wonders if the alien masters of the Star-Spawn and Mi-go are mere mythological constructs to explain the Elder Thing’s defeats. It is also notable that their annals don’t mention the Yithians either.
Vestigial Empire: After shoggoth rebellions, wars against Cthulhu's spawn, the Great Race, and the Mi-go, and the cooling of Earth, the Elder Things are reduced to this.
We Will Use Manual Labor in the Future: Elder Things don't need much in vehicles due to their ability to fly anywhere they like, but when they needed to carry heavy loads they are noted to still use beasts of burden, including to quote Dyers "a curious variety of primitive vertebrates" at least on land. They also created the Shoggoths as a Slave Race to do all their manual work, although this would bite them in the tentacles later on.

Fire Vampires of Fthaggua

Debut: "The Fire Vampires", Donald Wandrei

Described as a sphere of blue-flame, Fthaggua is similar to Cthugha. However, whereas Cthugha is imprisoned, Fthaggua is free and riding across the universe on the comet Ktynga. He is served by his Fire Vampires, which appear as red lighting. It's unknown if Fthaggua is a Great Old One or not, also if it has any relation to Cthugha.

Comet of Doom: Ktynga, which houses a bunch of Fire Vampires.
Hive Mind: Fthaggua and his Fire Vampires are described as such.
Our Vampires Are Different: A radical example, although the basic synopsis is the same. Upon destroying a victim (akin to spontaneous combustion), the Fire Vampires absorbs both the lifeform's energy and memories.
Yellow Lightning, Blue Lightning: Averted with the Fire Vampires—they're red.

Flying Polyps

A species who colonized Earth and three other planets in the Solar System more than 600 million years ago. They built basalt cities of huge windowless towers. They warred with the Great Race of Yith until they were driven from the surface. The Great Race then sealed the entryways to the polyps' subterranean abode with trapdoors, which afterwards were diligently guarded. The polyps' cities were left abandoned, perhaps as a reminder of the horrors that dwelt below. Eventually, the polyps rose up and almost exterminated the Great Race, afterwards returning to their subterranean haunts. Having no conception of light, the polyps seem content to remain there, annihilating the few intruders that chance upon them. The entrances to their dwellings are mostly deep within ancient ruins where there are great wells sealed over with stone. Inside these wells still dwell the polyps.

Aliens Are Bastards: To put it mildly with these creatures.
Bizarre Alien Locomotion: Despite being called "flying" polyps, they have no wings or other apparent methods to keep them aloft. In fact, even though they levitate, they somehow leave behind five-toed radial footprints wherever they go.
Bizarre Alien Psychology: Their minds are so strange that the Great Race of Yith can't use their Psychic Powers on them.
Bizarre Alien Senses: They don't "see" like humans do, but they're able to sense what lies beyond material obstructions.
Blow You Away: They can control and direct wind to use as a weapon.
Great Offscreen War: They fought a war against the Great Race of Yith and were driven from colonizing the oceans by the Elder Things.
Inscrutable Aliens: To put it simply: all the tropes listed in this folder is equivalent to the sum total of everything that is known about them In-Universe.
Invisibility: They can turn themselves invisible, although it's somewhat negated by the whistling noises they make when they move.
Nigh-Invulnerable: Since they're not made of ordinary matter, they're heavily resistant or even immune to most damage. They do have a weakness to electricity
No Name Given: Lovecraft never gave their species a true name.
Sealed Evil in a Can: The Great Race of Yith drove the polyps underground and sealed their tunnels with trapdoors. This didn't stick and the polyps managed to escape, slaughtering the Great Race. However, they also decided they liked it better underground.
Starfish Aliens: They're not even made of the same matter as most other life.
Take Our Word for It: The Great Race of Yith's records never really describe them in detail, only referring to them as horrible, evil creatures.

Great Race of Yith

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/yithian_3.png

Debut: The Shadow Out of Time

A highly intelligent race that lived on Earth long before humans. Their bodies consist of fleshy cones with four tendrils (two ended in pincers, one a mouth and one a pair of eyes) sticking out of the top. They ruled a portion of the Earth that includes what is now Australia when Cthulhu was active. They use psychic powers to leap from body to body across time. Their society is described as socialist and placing a high value on individual intelligence. The Great Race of Yith is wiped out in a war with the Flying Polyps but will be re-created in the future thanks to their time-traveling powers. Yithians come across as the closest thing to a "good" race out of the original Lovecraft critters.

Badass Bookworm: One of the more (conventionally) intelligent races in the setting, and the Mi-Go and the Star Spawn of Cthulhu respected them.
Bizarre Alien Biology: not unexpected considering the setting. They also reproduce by spores....
Brain Uploading: Their specialty via their Psychic Powers. They actually escaped the destruction of their own world by uploading their minds en masse to the species of conical lifeforms they're now associated with, and then they did the same trick to escape into a far-flung future species to avoid being wiped out by the Flying Polyps.
Commie Nazis: Their political system is referred to as "fascistic socialism" though this is not used to mark them as evil.
Everyone Has Standards: While they're not unambiguously good (they do mentally kidnap sentient beings from the future for research purposes, steal large parts of their lives, wipe their memories of the event, and in emergencies will transfer their entire race's minds into the future, replacing the victim race completely in the process), they do have some moral standards, to a degree unusual for Lovecraft aliens:
- Those they swap with are well-treated, with extensive access to Yithian society and libraries. They particularly go out of their way to treat their victims well if the original body dies (trapping them forever in a Yithian body); victims of such accidents are treated as honored guests by the Yithians for the rest of their lives.
- They're willing to steal minds temporarily for research purposes, but intentionally swapping minds permanently with an unwilling subject is normally considered a heinous crime. It's also not strictly clear whether the races they replace when moving the entire Yithian race forwards in time to escape catastrophes are sentient.
Grand Theft Me: Usually combined with the mental time travel mentioned below. Can be temporary for research purposes or permanent.
Invading Refugees: The conical creatures and the Great Race are actually different entities. The real Great Race originated on the planet Yith, but mentally overwrote the minds of Earth's cone-creatures to avoid extinction. They then pulled off a time-travel variant to escape the war with the Flying Polyps.
Laser-Guided Amnesia: Before reversing a temporary body swap, the 'guest' mind is stripped of its memories of its stay with the Yithians. As Professor Peaslee (of "The Shadow Out Of Time" fame) will attest, the process isn't always quite 100% effective.
Lightning Gun: They wield lightning guns to battle their arch-enemies: the Flying Polyps.
No Biological Sex: The conelike bodies of the Yithians do not possess either male or female sex organs. Instead, they reproduce by releasing spores.
Psychic Powers: The Yithians use their psychic powers to possess the minds of other races, even across different time periods.
Shock and Awe: The main weapon of the Yithian armies is a lighting-shooting device that looks like an old camera.
Time Travel: Of the mental variety, and the source of the appellation "Great Race," as they were the only species to master it.

Hounds of Tindalos

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_hound_of_tindalos.jpg

Debut: "The Hounds of Tindalos", Frank Belknap Long

Creatures from the primordial past that are capable of traveling through time. They are only able to enter our dimension through angles.

Alien Geometries: The Hounds are descended literally from angles. All natural life (including humans) are descended from curves. As a result, the monsters can enter anywhere and anytime there are angles. The only way to hide from the beasts is to be in a totally curved room.
Call a Smeerp a "Rabbit": They do not look like hounds.
Clock Roaches: Halpin Chalmers caught their attention when he sent his consciousness too far back in time. However, it's not clear if they're a natural defence against messing with time travel, or are just predators who opportunistically chose him as their prey.
From Cataclysm to Myth: Due to some unspeakable act in near the primordial past, the Hounds became “foul” while normal life remained “pure”. The event itself was forgotten, but the myths such as The Fall from Genesis are allusions to this event.
The Ghost: The Hounds are never seen in the original story they debuted. They're only described as "hungry" and "foul" by one of the characters. As a result, the RPG books get very inventive with their descriptions. Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu describes them as resembling, basically, large shaggy hounds caked in thick blue toxic slime with elongated tongues they use for sucking blood. Pathfinder keeps the tongue but makes them huge-eyed, leathery-skinned, vaguely insectile quadrupeds, somewhat similar to the chupacabra.
Hellhound: Described as this, but more for their ravenous, relentlessness hunger than for their physical appearance.
Immortality: Theoretically they have Biological Immortality since no enzymes exist within the bodies of the Hounds.
Implacable Man: Once they catch the scent of someone, they will keep on hunting until they get their target.

Hunting Horrors

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_hunting_horror.jpg

Debut: The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, by H. P. Lovecraft

Serpentine horrors that chase down any unfortunate mortal that came across them. They serve Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos.

Draconic Abomination: The Hunting Horrors resemble winged serpents with tentacles that end in razor-sharp talons.
Dragons Are Demonic: They're hostile serpentine abominations that serve Nyarlathotep, The Crawling Chaos, by hunting down unfortunate mortals at his command.
Reduced to Dust: They're on the receiving end of this trope, thanks to Nodens vaporizing them with a great flash of light.

Hydra

Debut: "Hydra", Henry Kuttner

A massive monster looking like an ocean of gray goop, upon which sit many heads — some human, but mostly alien. Thankfully it dwells in Another Dimension, but it has worshipers on Earth.

Not to be confused with Mother Hydra.

Alien Sea: Could be mistaken for one of these.
And I Must Scream: Yeah, those heads? From the creature's victims. And they're still very well alive.
Multiple Head Case: Technically, since all those heads are still conscious. Not played for laughs though.
One-Steve Limit: Averted; it shares its name with Mother Hydra, Queen of the Deep Ones.
Power Parasite: Using its victim's brains helps empower the being.
Tome of Eldritch Lore: Not so much a book, but a pamphlet on "astral projection". It's really a Death Trap, allowing the Hydra to enter our universe.

K’n-yanians

Debut: The Mound, H.P. Lovecraft and Zealia Bishop

Human-like inhabitants of the subterranean land of K’n-yan, a blue-lit cavern under Oklahoma. According to their legends, they came to Earth with Tulu (aka Cthulhu) and settled underground as the surface was uninhabitable. When R'lyeh sunk, the K’n-yani became isolationist and spent millions of years underground alone. They developed a virtuous high tech civilization, but then abandoned much of it to become a cruel hedonistic aristocracy. They worship a large number of Great Old Ones, Cthulhu and Yig being the most prominent.

The Ageless: Having discovered the secret of Immortality, they have ceased to age.
Animate Dead: The y’m-bhi—one of the many slave classes used. Reanimated by using nuclear power, many were other slaves who were used by the Old Ones for "entertainment". As a result, many are horribly mutilated.
Astral Projection: Can dream themselves to visit distant places.
Beneath the Earth: K’n-yan, with red-litten Yoth below, and dark N'Kai below that.
City of Gold: In-universe, K’n-yan is the source of all the legends about El Dorado. It turns out that gold and other precious metals on the surface are merely the most common building metals underground.
Disintegrator Ray
Human Aliens: Very odd for a setting with very alien aliens. However, the Old Ones have the power to make themselves intangible at will thanks to their psychic powers.
Humanoid Abomination: Gyaa-yoth—white beasts with black fur on their backs, little intelligence, a singe horn on the forehead, and vaguely humanoid shape. Despite their carnivorous nature, they're somewhat harmless. They're the result of crossbreeding slaves with reptilian beasts.
The Fair Folk: The Old Ones have great powers, and amuse themselves by tormenting slaves and anyone who comes close to their surface entrances. Any outsider who enters K’n-yan can no longer leave. Visitors may be treated nicely (if lucky), but if they attempt to escape...
Lost Technology: Once had an advanced industrialized culture. Then they merely abandoned machinery finding it unsatisfying.
Slave Race: The y’m-bhi and the gyaa-yothn. Along with them are a K’n-yanians slave caste, some of which are classified as livestock.
The Social Darwinist: The ruling class—apparently they rose to power when K’n-yan developed a democratic society. Thus rose the most intelligent, while workers became exhausted and were enslaved.
Telepathic Spacemen: Telepathy is their primary means of communication, verbal speech being abandoned save for rituals.

Lloigor

Debut: "The Return of the Lloigor", Colin Wilson

Vortexes of energy that once ruled the prehistoric continent of Mu. Originally from the Andromeda galaxy, they began to lose their power while on Earth, and eventually went into hibernation. Occasionally the Lloigor can take the form of flying reptiles. Servants of Ghatanothoa.

Not to be confused with the Twin Obscenities, Zhar and Lloigor.

The Cynic: Due to their alien psychology, the Lligor are extremely pessimistic. Humans may understand pessimism, these creatures live it.
Energy Beings: Living whirlpools of psychic energy.
Human Resources: Because of their weakened state, the Lloigor need to gather energy from sleeping, humans. The good news is that it just leaves a person temporarily drained.
Mind over Matter: Capable of creating massive explosions and altering time with this power.
Our Dragons Are Different: Their temporary psychical forms are likely the basis for Dragons, and why there are no remains of said creatures.
Walking Wasteland: Near centers of Lloigor activity, the crime rate increases dramatically with increasingly more depraved activity.
You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: They will casually destroy any of their human servants if they even prove the slightest inconvenience.

Mi-gos

Fungi from Yuggoth

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/z_cf8c7226.jpg

Debut: "The Whisperer in Darkness"

Crab-like fungi aliens that come to earth for mining.

Alien Abduction: In the Call of Cthulhu game, the Mi-Go are the ones who carry these out.
Batman Can Breathe in Space: Some subspecies.
Blue-and-Orange Morality: The Mi-Go brain functions more like a computer hard disk than a human brain. They either know something, or they do not, and intuition is an alien concept to them. This is what fascinates them about humans: our ability to just guess in the absence of any solid information, or to be Right for the Wrong Reasons. They find this unnerving. They also have no empathy, and casually show humans things that shatter their comprehension of reality without even the intention of driving people mad, with all the same innocence as a small child microwaving a wet kitten to dry them off.
Brain in a Jar: How other subspecies that can't breathe in space travel. Also fond of doing this to humans.
Cool Gate: The Devil's Steps in the Severn Valley houses a portal to Yuggoth. Fortunately, a human can use the gate as it reconfigures the traveler to survive its destination. Unfortunately, Pluto houses things far worse than Mi-go...
Grand Theft Me: They sometimes implant the brain of one of their kind in someone's skull.
Hive Caste System: At least one sourcebook for the RPGs divides the Mi-Go into three castes: warriors, workers, and scientists.
Lightning Gun: In the role-playing supplements The Stars Are Right! and Terror from the Stars describe the Mi-go as having Electric Rifles.
Multiversal Conqueror: Potentially, as it seems their influence expands beyond our own universe.
Mushroom Man: They're fungus aliens but don't have much in common with men.
Organic Technology: The Call of Cthulhu RPG has them using this.
Plant Aliens: They seem to be made of some kind of fungus.
Solar System Neighbors: The Mi-Go are a race of winged, fungal Mad Scientists inhabiting Yuggoth, a dark planet at the edge of the solar system that's implied to be Pluto. H. P. Lovecraft's initial writings on Yuggoth actually predate the discovery of Pluto; the novella that prominently features the Mi-Go was written immediately after the discovery.
That's No Moon: Call of Cthulhu sourcebook Malleus Monstrorum mention how Mi-go harvest flesh of the Outer God Ubbo-Sathla and use it to construct a bio-mechanical super weapon capable of traveling through time and space, the living moon Charon.

Shans

Insects from Shaggai

Debut: "The Insects from Shaggai", Ramsey Campbell

Extraterrestrials that worshiped Azathoth. Although highly advanced, this species was also extremely decadent. The Shan are about the size of a pigeon, with leathery wings, large lidless eyes, ten legs with tentacles, six brain lobes and three mouths.

Asshole Victim: Their homeworld was destroyed when a celestial body (likely Ghroth) passed. Considering their extreme decadence, the Shan deserved it.
Cold-Blooded Torture: As a form of ritual or entertainment.
Futuristic Pyramid: The Insects' conical-shaped temples to Azathoth, which are not only capable of teleportation, but also have gateways that allow direct contact with "The Demon Sultan".
Intangible Man: Because of their affiliation with Azathoth, the Insects are able to phase through organic matter.
Invading Refugees: Once their homeworld destroyed, some of the Insects keep on jumping from planet to planet until finally getting stuck on Earth.
Mass Teleportation : The Shan are well versed in teleportation technology, capable of transporting their temples across interstellar spaces.
Oh, Crap!: Twice, often after discovering something disturbing on a planet they visited. And most likely the third time when they realize that Earth's atmosphere interferes with their temple's teleportation system.
Puppeteer Parasite: With their phasing abilities, and in combination with their psychic powers, the Shan are able to infest and dominate humans.
Slave Race: The Xiclotl, tall, meat-eating creatures, which the Shan conquered.
Telepathy: Allowing then to communicate their thoughts and memories, even into non-Shan beings.
Tome of Eldritch Lore: the Massa di Requiem par Shuggay, an opera that tells of the Shan's travels. It's also impossible to perform, since Azathoth would be summoned midway through the second act. The result would be nightmarish.
When Trees Attack: To humans, they look like trees. Then they move...
Weakened by the Light: Sol's electromagnetic radiation has an adverse effect on the Shan's metabolism.

Shoggoths

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/02_shoggoth.png

Debut: At the Mountains of Madness

Vile gelatinous creatures bio-engineered by the Elder Things. They are massive, amorphous, with eyes floating on its tar-like body, and emits green light. They are able to create organs at will.

Blob Monster: Shoggoths have no real shape. They can adjust their form into whatever is practical for a specific task, but usually, resemble large gelatinous blobs sometimes depicted with tentacles and/or multiple eyes and mouths.
Decomposite Character: Robert Bloch's "Notebook Found in a Deserted House" features creatures called Shoggoths but which don't particularly resemble the ones from At the Mountains of Madness, being tree-like creatures with hoofed feet. Sandy Petersen used these as the basis for the Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath in the Call of Cthulhu TTRPG, and claims creator-ship of them.
Dumb Muscle: Meant to be living construction equipment/servants.
Extra Eyes: Usually are covered in eyes, absorbing and reforming them as needed to see whatever they can.
Partial Transformation: Shoggoths are versatile shapeshifters, able to create any organ they need. However, the ability seems limited, as most Shoggoths appear to be a horrendous mishmash of organs and black goo.
Servant Race: Shoggoths were bred by the Elder-Things since in theory, they were the perfect servants, and who can blame them? Their capability to easily change shape as needed meant that they were capable of a nearly limitless variety of tasks. Unfortunately, that also made them formidable adversaries when they developed intelligence. The Deep Ones might also use Shoggoths (they were referred to in The Shadow Over Innsmouth), possibly with more success.
Slave Race: After gaining intelligence, and after their first failed revolt, to the Elder Things. Others (such as the Deep Ones) also use them for their bidding.
Squick: An in-universe example for Alhazred, who would not even mention Shoggoths unless he was high on drugs.
Turned Against Their Masters: Quite famously so. When they evolved intelligence enough to realize they were nothing but slaves to the Elder Things, they turned on them.
Voluntary Shapeshifting: Capable of forming whatever organ it needs. Shoggoth Lords are better at this, able to imitate human beings.

Star Vampires

Shamblers from the Stars

Debut: "The Shambler from the Stars", Robert Bloch

Monsters from outer space that hunger for blood. If they're seen (never a good sight), they're a gelatinous mass with a huge mouth and talons, covered in trunk-like tentacles—each one ending in a sucker.

Giggling Villain: Its presence is marked by mocking giggling sounds.
Invisible Monsters: Totally invisible... until they feed.
Our Vampires Are Different: Different form, but the basic principle is the same.
Tome of Eldritch Lore: The De Vermis Mysteriis, or "The Mysteries of the Worm". Written by Ludwig Prinn (a 15th-century sorcerer), the book contains the secrets of summoning these creatures.

Star-Spawn of Cthulhu

Debut: At the Mountains of Madness

The descendants of the Great Cthulhu. An ancient civilization of Sufficiently Advanced Aliens who flew in to colonize the Earth many millions of years ago. Unfortunately, it has already been occupied by another interstellar civilization, that of the Elder Things. After a long confrontation, the spawn of Cthulhu managed to stake out a land mass in the Pacific Ocean, where the city of R'lyeh was built. There they lived for an indefinitely long period, until the stars changed their position, and the entire population of the city fell into a planned hibernation, in their language called fhtagn. Some time later, as a result of geological processes, R'lyeh sank to the bottom of the ocean, where it remains to the present, only occasionally rising for a short time due to perturbations of Earth's crust.

Cthulhumanoid: Outwardly, the spawn of Cthulhu resembles, as it is not difficult to guess, Cthulhu himself the same overweight gigantic humanoids with wings behind their backs and a head similar to an octopus.
Final Solution: The awakening of Cthulhu and its spawn is one of the main options for The End of the World as We Know It, and the extinction of humanity in Lovecraftian horrors. So it will actually happen or not we do not know. The protagonist of The Shadow Out of Time read in the chronicles of the Great Race an accurate account of how humanity died out, but refused to divulge the details.
Shapeshifter: According to the chronicles of the Elder Things, they had the ability to change shape, but whether this is so or just an element of political propaganda designed to justify defeat is not completely clear.

Spawn / Children of Yog-Sothoth

Debut: The Dunwich Horror

Old Man Whateley used a ritual to impregnate his own daughter with the essence of Yog-Sothoth. The result would be the birth of twin creatures: one is Wilbur Whateley who is a strange Humanoid Abomination who could pass for a human when wearing clothes, the other is a truly horrific Eldritch Abomination known only as the Dunwich Horror.

Call of Cthulhu would later class beings like Wilbur as being “Children of Yog-Sothoth”, while categorising the Dunwich Horror as a “Spawn of Yog-Sothoth”.

Wilbur Whateley

Adaptational Attractiveness: In the book, Wilbur Whateley is a hulking, goatish Humanoid Abomination. In the 1970 movie, he's a young, nebbishy Dean Stockwell.
Adaptational Villainy: In the original novel, Wilbur Whateley was merely a puppet groomed by his grandfather, with it being Old Man Whateley who intends to unleash Yog-Sothoth. In the film, it is Wilbur himself who is the mastermind and does the atrocities of his own volition.
Alien Blood: He has yellow-green ichor.
Alliterative Name: Wilbur Whateley.
Animals Hate Him: Dogs loathe Wilbur Whateley, to the point where he has to start carrying a gun to defend himself from them. In fact, it's a dog that eventually kills him.
Author Avatar: One (mostly busted) theory is that Wilbur may have been one, adding Reality Subtext to the story.
"Wilbur's being raised by a grandfather instead of a father, his home education from his grandfather's library, his insane mother, his stigma of ugliness (in Lovecraft's case untrue, but a self-image imposed on him by his mother), and his sense of being an outsider all echo Lovecraft himself." - Robert M. Price in the introduction to The Dunwich Cycle.
Creepy Child: Wilbur Whateley is described to be very creepy (both visually, and from his behaviour; he actually is much much much younger than he looks) by all his neighbors and the people he meets. When he dies, it is revealed from a quick look on his half naked corpse that he actually is an Humanoid Abomination which bottom part isn't even remotely human looking.
Enemy to All Living Things: People are creeped out by him and animals can't stand him - dogs especially try to attack him on sight.
Evil Smells Bad: "By Their smell can men sometimes know Them near, . . . As a foulness shall ye know Them."
Eyes Do Not Belong There: Wilbur has a second pair of eyes on his hips.
Half-Human Hybrid: Wilbur himself, having a human for a mother and the Outer God Yog-Sothoth as a father.
Younger Than They Look: Because of his heritage, he grows at an accelerated rate. He was the size of an adult when he was but a toddler.

The Dunwich Horror

Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: While it is typically Invisible to Normals, it does leave gigantic footprints the size of barrels. Curtis Whateley being one of the few unfortunate enough to have seen it, describes it as being the size of a barn.
Eldritch Abomination: Whoo boy. It’s described as being a gigantic mass of tentacles, mouths, and eyes. It’s overall the size of a barn, and for the most part it’s invisible.
Facial Horror: It's described as having half a face atop its body.
Half-Human Hybrid: As hard as it is to believe, this thing was birthed from a human female.
Invisible Monster: As it doesn’t fully exist in our reality, it has a corporeal but for the most part, invisible form.
I Want My Mommy!: Father variant with the titular horror, whose last words before being destroyed are desperately crying out for its father's help.
Nothing Is Scarier: It's a creature built around this idea. We barely get to see it, we don't know its motive or purpose, and all it does is spread destruction.
Only Known by Their Nickname: It's never given a proper name throughout the story, only being referred to by the moniker “The Dunwich Horror“.

Tcho-Tcho

Debut: "The Lair of the Star-Spawn", August Derleth and Mark Schorer

"Abominable humanoids", short and hairless, who serve the Great Old Ones. Their abode is in Burma, on the Plateau of Tsang (which is also an extension of Leng).

Bald of Evil: Along with their short stature and other grotesque features, this is a major tipoff as to how creepy these guys are.
Brain Food: "Bak bon dzhow" (mashed ganglia from human brains) is a Tcho-Tcho delicacy.
Cannibal Tribe: As if Mythos cults weren't disturbing enough already.
Depending on the Artist: Ranging from short, disturbing Yellow Peril men with sharp teeth to red-skinned barely-human things that have more in common with ghouls than a human/
Depraved Dwarf: Basically their hat.
Half-Human Hybrid: Descendants of humans who mated with the Miri Nigri, a species of dwarfs made from amphibian flesh by Chaugnar Faugn.
Hillbilly Horrors: They live and carry out their perverse rituals in the depths of the Southeast Asian jungle, where few outsiders ever travel.
Insanity Immunity: Call of Cthulhu has their SAN halved at birth, and it only gets worse from there.
The Secret of Long Pork Pies: They even have restaurants that specialize in serving "ethnic cuisine" to unwitting outsiders.
To Serve Man: Human flesh is a dietary staple.
Town with a Dark Secret: In T.E.D. Klein's "Black Man With A Horn," a missionary goes to investigate the group:
"… the nastiest people who ever lived …They'd been living way up in those hills I don't know how many centuries, and whatever it is they were doing, they weren't going to let a stranger in on it."
The Triads and the Tongs: Having migrated to America, the Tcho-Tcho had created crime syndicates to continue their "traditions".
Yellow Peril: They're one of the most racist things to come out of the Mythos. Ironically, the degenerate cannibalism part was not inserted by the infamously racist Lovecraft; that characterization was introduced by the modern role-playing game. Some players for both Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green either depict them as so vaguely human that they don't resemble Asian humans at all, depict the Tcho-Tcho who are involved with the Mythos as no more obligated to being cannibal cultists as the average man is obligated to become a serial killer, or simply depict them as an actual Southeast Asian ethnic group.

Tomb-herd

Debut: "The Church in High Street", Ramsey Campbell

Immaterial, white, jellylike flopping things. They are capable of creating portals to burial vaults, where they feed off a fungus growing off bodies. Affiliated with Yog-Sothoth, as sites of its worship attract their attention. Because of their lack of substance, they have to possess statues (or someone) for their ghastly deeds.

Festering Fungus: Leaves an alien fungus behind, though it doesn't seem to have any harmful effects (save for growing on people).
Intangibility: At least in our reality.
Living Statue: In order to interact with the material world, these things have special statutes that they can inhabit.
Puppeteer Parasite: what they can become when they inhabit a living being.
Space Master: The Herd can warp space to turn back on itself. So if a person wants to get away from a location, they always end up at that location no matter which direction they go! However, this power has a limited range.
Temple of Doom: In Temphill of the Severn Valley there is a temple of Yog-Sothoth that exists in the same area as a local church. The Herd visits the Ancient Tomb located bellow, and the local cult goes there for worship.

Characters / Cthulhu Mythos

Notable Humans

The Mad Arab

Great Old Ones

The Silent Shouter on the Hill

The King in Yellow

The Wind-Walker

The Twin Blasphemies

The Sleeper of N'kai

Father of Serpents

The Twin Obscenities

Outer Gods

The Daemon Sultan

The Render of Veils

The Harbinger

The Nameless Mist

The Darkness

The Crawling Chaos

The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young

The Key and the Gate

Elder Gods

Lord of the Great Abyss

The Troubler of Sands

The Lurking Chaos

The Dreamlands

Other Creatures

Fungi from Yuggoth

Insects from Shaggai

Shamblers from the Stars

Wilbur Whateley

The Dunwich Horror

Alternative Title(s): The Dunwich Horror

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Index

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Characters / Cthulhu Mythos

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Notable Humans

The Mad Arab

Great Old Ones

The Silent Shouter on the Hill

The King in Yellow

The Wind-Walker

The Twin Blasphemies

The Sleeper of N'kai

Father of Serpents

The Twin Obscenities

Outer Gods

The Daemon Sultan

The Render of Veils

The Harbinger

The Nameless Mist

The Darkness

The Crawling Chaos

The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young

The Key and the Gate

Elder Gods

Lord of the Great Abyss

The Troubler of Sands

The Lurking Chaos

The Dreamlands

Other Creatures

Fungi from Yuggoth

Insects from Shaggai

Shamblers from the Stars

Wilbur Whateley

The Dunwich Horror

Alternative Title(s): The Dunwich Horror

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Index

Next