Formless Spawn

Formless Spawn
Sociocultural Characteristics
Origin	Unknown
Affiliations	Tsathoggua
Real World Information
First appearance	CIRCLE: "The Tale of Satampra Zeiros"
Created by	Clark Ashton Smith

“	At any rate, when the men of K'n-yan went down into N’kai’s black abyss with their great atom-power searchlights they found living things—living things that oozed along stone channels and worshipped onyx and basalt images of Tsathoggua. But they were not toads like Tsathoggua himself. Far worse—they were amorphous lumps of viscous black slime that took temporary shapes for various purposes.	„
	~ H.P. Lovecraft & Zealia Bishop , "The Mound"

The Formless Spawn are amorphous entities in service to Tsathoggua.

Physical Appearance and Abilities

True to their name, formless spawns are polymorphic entities made of black ichor and looked like amorphous goo. They are extremely resilient and very difficult to dispatch. Much like Shoggoth, they can shapeshift both to take various forms and to shape appendages to suit their needs for accomplishing their master's bidding and attack their targets in nearly every conceivable way. They are surprisingly flexible and plastic-like, and can quickly flow into a room through the tiniest of cracks. They attack by trampling their targets, biting them, or crushing them with their grasp. The Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game's entry on Formless Spawn also claims that they are powerfully acidic in substance and can dissolve human flesh with even a slight touch.

Formless spawn often rest in basins in Tsathoggua's temples and keep the sanctuary from being defiled by nonbelievers.

Appearances

The Tale of Satampra Zeiros

The Formless Spawn are found resting in a great basin beneath an idol of the god Tsathoggua by the thief Satampra Zeiros and his companion Tirouv Ompallios. Described as "a torrent of black quicksilver" and "an undulant ophidian form which immediately developed more than a dozen short legs" the creature attempted to devour the interlopers.

The Mound

The people of the subterranean world of K'N-Yan had once worshipped Tsathoggua until a scientific expedition exploring N'Kai, encountered the Formless Spawn. Those who escaped had all the images of Tsathoggua destroyed, and his temple re-dedicated to Shub-Niggurath.

At the Mountains of Madness

In this story, H. P. Lovecraft states that "[a] few daring mystics have hinted at a pre-Pleistocene origin for the fragmentary Pnakotic Manuscripts, and have suggested that the devotees of Tsathoggua (includes Formless spawns) were as alien to mankind as Tsathoggua itself." Formless spawn themselves had no direct appearance in this story, but did feature another creature more horrifying than them despite sharing similar shape-shifting abilities to perform various tasks.

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