Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath

Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath
Sociocultural Characteristics
Origin	Unknown
Affiliations	Shub-Niggurath
Real World Information
First appearance	"Notebook Found In a Deserted House"
Created by	Robert Bloch

🔀 This is an article about the "shoggoths" species from "Notebook Found In a Deserted House." For the usual ones from "At The Mountains of Madness," see Shoggoth

“	Ever Their praises, and abundance to the Black Goat of the Woods. Iä! Shub-Niggurath! Iä! Shub-Niggurath! The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young!	„
	~ H.P. Lovecraft , "The Whisperer in Darkness"

“	"E hu shub niggur ath n gaa ryula neb shoggoth." That's as close as I can come. The mouths was like leaves and the whole thing was like a tree in the wind, a black tree with lots of branches trailing to the ground, and a whole lot of roots ending in hoofs. And that green slime dribbling out of the mouths and down the legs was like sap!... It came crawling up the hillside to the alter and the sacrefice, and it was the black thing of my dreams-that black ropy, slimy, jelly tree-thing out of the woods. It crawled up and it flowed up on its hoofs and mouths and snaky arms. And the men bowed and stood back and then it got to the alter where they was something squirmin on top, squirming and screaming.	„
	~ Robert Bloch , "Notebook Found In a Deserted House"

Overview

The Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath are horrifying, pitch-black monstrosities, seemingly made of ropy tentacles. They stand as tall as a tree (perhaps between twelve and twenty feet tall) on stumpy, hoofed legs. A mass of tentacles protrudes from their trunks where a head would normally be, and puckered maws, dripping green goo, cover their flanks. The monsters roughly resemble trees in silhouette — the trunks being the short legs and the tops of the trees represented by the ropy, branching bodies. The whole mass of these things smells like an open grave. They usually dwell in woodlands wherever Shub-Niggurath's cult is active. The Dark Young are usually called upon to preside over cult ceremonies. One means for summoning them is found in the Book of Eibon and requires a blood offering. The ritual may only be performed in the deep of the woodlands at the darkest of the moon, and the victim must be sacrificed over a stone altar. Dark young act as proxies for Shub-Niggurath in the accepting of sacrifices and the worship of cultists, in the devouring of non-cultists, and in the spreading of their mother's faith across the world.

Gallery

Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath (Dust 1947)

Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath (Pathfinder)

Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath

Trivia

• The dark youngs make an appearence in the japanese anime Overlord, 5 of them are summoned after the sacrifice of 70.000 humans.