Yuggoth

Yuggoth
Universe Cthulhu Mythos
Notable races Mi-go
Notable people Tsathoggua, Cxaxukluth
Created by H. P. Lovecraft
Genre Science fiction horror

Yuggoth (or Iukkoth) is a fictional planet in the Cthulhu Mythos of H. P. Lovecraft. It is deemed to be located at the very edge of the Solar System.

At the time of the discovery of the then-planet Pluto in 1930 Lovecraft himself very casually suggested, in a letter to a friend, that Yuggoth might "probably" be the same as Pluto . Other writers have since claimed that it is actually an enormous trans-Neptunian world that orbits perpendicular to the ecliptic of the solar system. The Italian astronomer Albino Carbognani has suggested that any planet discovered beyond Pluto might be named Yuggoth.[1]

In the Cthulhu Mythos

Yuggoth... is a strange dark orb at the very rim of our solar system... There are mighty cities on Yuggothgreat 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 bridgesthings built by some elder race extinct and forgotten before the beings came to Yuggoth from the ultimate voidsought 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 progeny 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.

It (Rhan-Tegoth) came to the earth from lead-grey Yuggoth, where the cities are under the warm, deep sea.
H. P. Lovecraft, "The Horror in the Museum"

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.

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 ZoneMarch 15, 2337"

In Richard A. Lupoff's short story "The Discovery of the Ghooric ZoneMarch 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 speedperhaps 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

Moons

Nithon

Nithon is a cloud-laden moon of Yuggoth. It is covered by fungi and has luminescent clouds that block all sunlight.[2]

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 Zonea green-litten subterranean cavern containing a putrid lake where "puffed shoggoths splash".[3]

References

Notes

  1. Albino Carbognani, "Pluto and the astronomy of H.P. Lovecraft", Urania, 30 June 2012
  2. Fantina, Michael (1974). Night Terrors. Plainfield.
  3. Lupoff, Richard A (2001). Claremont tales. Urbana, IL: Golden Gryphon Press. ISBN 9781930846005.

Bibliography

Other references

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