Red-litten Yoth is a fictional subterranean location featured in the novella The Mound, written by H. P. Lovecraft based on a story prompt by Zealia Bishop. It is adjacent to blue-litten K'n-yan and black N'kai, and was formerly inhabited by a species of sapient quadrupedal reptiles.
Since The Mound wasn't published until 1940, the first mention of Yoth in print was in Lovecraft's The Whisperer in Darkness.
Description[]
Yoth is a subterranean world deep inside the Earth, located beneath K'n-yan, but above lightless N'kai. It is filled with the Cyclopean ruins of a non-human civilization that existed long before the rise of humanity. Beneath the largest Yothic city are the vaults of Zin (HPL: The Mound), which also exist in the Dreamlands (HPL: The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath).
The source of the red light that illuminates Yoth is unknown. However, Pánfilo de Zamacona y Nuñez speculated that the blue light of K'n-yan might result from a phenomenon akin to the aurora borealis: an explanation that the American ethnologist who found Zamacona's manuscript finds reasonable, although he also suggests that radioactivity might be involved. (HPL: The Mound)
Inhabitants[]
When the K'n-yanians explored the Cyclopean ruins of red-litten Yoth, they came across reptilian horned animals believed to be the degenerate and unintelligent descendants of the sapient Yoth natives. These reptiles were cross-bred with a mammalian species to produce the creatures called gyaa-yothn.
Carvings and manuscripts found in the vaults of Zin, underneath the ruins of the largest Yothic city, confirm that the Yothics were reptilian and quadrupedal. However, they also reveal that these creatures (like the Elder Things) had the means to create and modify new species.
In the Dreamlands, the vaults of Zin are inhabited by the leaping Ghasts (HPL: The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath), perhaps hinting at a relationship between them and the Yothics.
The Yothics explored black N'kai, containing the ruins of an extinct, even older civilization of sightless creatures. They found temples and idols of Tsathoggua, and brought the Tsathoggua faith to Yoth. After the Yothics' own extinction, the K'n-yanians likewise found the images and adopted Tsathoggua as a god, to the point of naming the K'n-yanian capital Tsath after their new deity. However, the Tsathoggua faith was abandoned by the K'n-yanians, and the passage leading from Yoth to N'kai was sealed, after they discovered the Formless Spawn.
Since the Yothic manuscripts claim that no life was found in N'kai, some K'n-yanians have speculated that at some point after the manuscripts were written, a natural disaster might have opened up a passage to unsuspected lower chambers, and allowed the Formless Spawn to return to their temples. The possibility that their arrival might have been connected with the fall of Yothic civilization hasn't gone unnoticed. (HPL: The Mound)
In 1928, the creature that impersonated Henry Wentworth Akeley claimed that the Mi-Go have explored the subterranean areas of Earth, including blue-litten K'n-yan, red-litten Yoth, and lightless N'kai. (HPL: The Whisperer in Darkness)
Behind the Mythos[]
The extinct inhabitants of Yoth are similar to the extinct inhabitants of the Nameless City in Lovecraft's eponymous short story. Both are sapient, quadrupedal horned reptiles that evolved long before the dawn of humanity.