Yuggoth

Infobox fictional planet
name=Yuggoth


imagesize=
caption=
universe=Cthulhu Mythos
locations=
races=Mi-go
people=Tsathoggua, Cxaxukluth
creator=H. P. Lovecraft
genre=Science fiction horror

Yuggoth (or Iukkoth) is a fictional planet in the Cthulhu Mythos. H. P. Lovecraft himself said that Yuggoth is the then newly-discovered dwarf planet Pluto. However, other writers claim that it is actually an enormous, trans-Neptunian world that orbits perpendicular to the ecliptic of the solar system.

Yuggoth in the mythos

Yuggoth... is a strange dark orb at the very rim of our solar system... There are mighty cities on Yuggoth—great tiers of terraced towers built of black stone... The sun shines there no brighter than a star, but the beings need no light. They have other subtler senses, and put no windows in their great houses and temples... The black rivers of pitch that flow under those mysterious cyclopean bridges—things built by some elder race extinct and forgotten before the beings came to Yuggoth from the ultimate voids—ought to be enough to make any man a Dante or Poe if he can keep sane long enough to tell what he has seen...
—H. P. Lovecraft, "The Whisperer in Darkness"

Yuggoth is the planet where the extraterrestrial Mi-go have established a colony. The Mi-go's city sits at the edge of a pit wherein dwells an ancient and horrifying entity feared by the Mi-Go. They periodically abandon the city on those occasions when it rises from the pit and can be seen directly.

The being Cxaxukluth, along with Tsathoggua and his parents, migrated to Yuggoth from Xoth. A dysfunctional family in their own right, Cxaxukluth's progenies abandoned their patriarch and sought refuge deep in the bowels of Yuggoth, owing to Cxaxukluth's cannibalistic tendencies. Soon thereafter they fled Yuggoth, though Cxaxukluth still dwells there to this day.

tok'l-metal

On Yuggoth, the Mi-go mine a strange metal known as "tok'l". Tok'l-metal is used in the manufacture of the Mi-go's notorious "brain cylinders", but it also has other ritual uses as well.

Yuggoth in other fiction

Yuggoth itself hung directly overhead, obscenely bloated and oblate, its surface filling the heavens... and all the time pulsing, pulsing, pulsing like an atrocious heart, throbbing, throbbing.
—Richard A. Lupoff, "The Discovery of the Ghooric Zone—March 15, 2337"

In Richard A. Lupoff's short story "The Discovery of the Ghooric Zone—March 15, 2337", Yuggoth is hinted to be the hypothetical Planet X. Lupoff's Yuggoth is a colossal, crimson planet, twice as massive as Jupiter. It is flattened at the poles and pulses eerily, no doubt because of its tremendous rotational speed—perhaps as fast as 80,000 kilometers per hour. It has numerous moons, including Nithon and Zaman, and the twin-moons Thog and Thok.

Other references to Yuggoth

* Yuggoth is briefly mentioned in John Bellairs' "The Face in the Frost", as part of a wizard's model of the cosmos. It is described as "the terrible black planet...which rolls aimlessly in the stupefying darkness."
* A being or "living concept" which is dubbed a Yuggoth by the narrator possesses Allan Quatermain's abandoned mortal shell in the illustrated story "Allan and the Sundered Veil" in the first graphic novel volume of "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen". The Yuggoth is described as being known as "a creature, a planet, and an idea" and is an abstract alter-dimensional entity which is entering through the hole in the fabric of time that the story revolves around.
* Yuggoth is the name of a deletion program in Digimon: Tamers (3rd Season).
* Yuggoth is also a theme which is discussed in detail in Kenneth Grant's Typhonian Trilogy.
* Yuggoth is mentioned in Dave Lovelace's Retarded Animal Babies. When a character mentions Yu-Gi-Oh, Bunny declares "Yugioh Yuggoth! Spawn of Cthulhu commands you to spill the blood of a dozen men!" at which point Puppy beats him over the head, and says "No words of the Elder gods around Bunny!"
* The H. P. Lovecraft story The Whisperer in Darkness is the main focal point in the Electric Wizard song "Weird Tales: Electric Frost/Golgatha/Altar of Melektaus." This can be seen in lyrics such as "From ancient Yuggoth, black rays emit, Evils narcotic cyclopean pits."

Moons of Yuggoth

Nithon

Nithon is a cloud-laden moon of Yuggoth. It is covered by fungi and has luminescent clouds that block all sunlight.

Thog and Thok

Thog and Thok are twin moons of Yuggoth. Very little is known about these moons, though Thog is said to be a pitch-black world. On the surface of Thog is the fabled "Ghooric Zone"—a green-litten subterranean cavern containing a putrid lake where "puffed shoggoths splash".

References

Bibliography

* Campbell, Ramsey. "The Mine on Yuggoth" (1964) [tok'l, Yuggoth] .

* Fantina, Michael. "Nithon" (1974) in "Night Terrors". Poem. [Nithon] .

* Lovecraft, Howard P. "The Whisperer in Darkness" (1931) [Yuggoth] .

* Lupoff, Richard A. "The Discovery of the Ghooric Zone—March 15, 2337" (1977) [Planet X, Nithon, Thog and Thok, Yuggoth, Zaman] .

* Smith, Clark Ashton. "The Family Tree of the Gods" (1944) [Yuggoth] .

Other references

* Harms, Daniel. "The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana" (2nd ed.), 1998. Chaosium, Inc. ISBN 1-56882-119-0.

* Detwiller, Dennis. "Delta Green Eyes Only Volume One: Machinations of the Mi-Go," 1998. Pagan Publishing.

External links

* [http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/nonfiction/45/ "The Family Tree of the Gods" by Clark Ashton Smith]

* [http://www.epberglund.com/RGttCM/nightscapes/NS14/ns14po3.htm "Night Terrors" by Michael Fantina] , a poem containing references to Yuggoth

* [http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/ghooric.htm "The Discovery of the Ghooric Zone—March 15, 2337"] by Richard Lupoff