Ghk

The Ghk, (pronounced "Guk" or "Gik" with a particular focus on the guttural 'gh' ad 'uch' sound), also previously known as Typhons and Chthons are eldritch entities that exist within The Sideways, and that have been the source of multiple tales of monsters, demons, living nightmares and Old Gods of chaos reported from magic users and even neohumans for millennia. The Ghk may have been responsible for influencing the stories H.P. Lovecraft wrote (he may have had access to knowledge of Sideways in some form) and that the creatures exist "between worlds", therefore potentially are able to exist and manifest throughout the multiverse with the help of dark magic.

### **History**

Very little is known of their origins, other than that they are timeless, ever-primordial and chaotic entities of immense comic power, but that have specific limitations in coming to worlds such as our own, in particular in that, despite their immense power, cannot actually form holes in spacetime themselves, and rely on others, particularly magi, to summon doorways for them.

One of the earliest Ghk to be known on this Earth was Lorn the Black-Blooded, a major enemy of Taranis during the early Bronze Age, who was a Ghkspawn-possessed human, supposedly summoned from The Sideways by the halfbreed Chernobog (who was himself later corrupted by a Ghk when he was killed by Quetzalcoatl before his spirit became the mezzite Caliga) as part of an army of darkness, however Taranis killed Lorn before it could grow more powerful and discovered that, despite his power, was only possessed by the spawn of a Ghk, that Taranis referred to as a "*true monster*", that then went on to corrupt his master Chernoborg.

Taranis realised that these creatures may be anywhere, though he never saw anything the likes of Lorn in his lifetime, passed on the knowledge to Volt much later after Tarnais' spirit was banished to the 6th Dimension. Stories of the Ghk were nevertheless etched in stone and paper from his battle and from those who witnessed the creature.

Throughout the 1860s the Dawnshadow Coven attempted to study The Sideways' strange timeless and 'unnatural' properties and stories of the Ghk, wondering if they held the key to immortality.

In the 1900's Aleister Crowley attempted to commune with the help of magi in the Ordo Templi Orientis, but even he found the entities too horrific to contemplate, though his associate, Thomas "UmbraX°" Ledger did apparently manage to commune with one entity known to them as "Cthugrabcht" and discussed with it a great deal about their kind that he referred to as "The Dark Gods"; Most of this was unfortunately destroyed by a House of Seasons raid on one of their coverns in the 1930's.

During the First World War and Interwar periods, American writer H. P. Lovecraft wrote about the horrors that lurk in The Sideways, though most of his stories were inspired by other writers such as Edgar Allan Poe and Lord Dunsany, was a fond scientific researcher and was a speculative realist; this may have led to the Typhonian Order, a UK faction of the OTO, inviting Lovecraft to their fold; while he likely didn't believe, nor have any tuning potential, held a high fascination with their beliefs and tried to ascertain where these descriptions came from and may have taken to writing about creatures described in Dawnshadow documents recovered by the Typhonian Order and published them. It was said that Lovecraft witnessed, or may have taken part in Typhonian rituals attempting to open gateways to The Sideways; though these attempts often failed or descended into delusions, never seeing proof of magic or evidence of such creatures, may have started to believe. Lovecraft felt uncomfortable with such rituals and never returned to the Order.

Since, the Summer-Baldwin cult has been attempting to resurrect UmbraX° and the Death-sect of the Harbingers have some of UmbraX°'s original writings.

The corrupted mezzite Caliga owned by dark magi Zeroth claimed to eventually communicate with Chernobog's corrupted spirit via his magic, and later still, use it's power over deathlessness to resurrect Zeroth after Volt killed him by having Kaos place Caliga inside his heart and activated a months-planned ritual; this gave Zeroth highly enhanced dark magic, though what other properties he may share with a Ghk are as of yet unrevealed.

### **Physiology**

Ghk are, in all essence of reality itself' "unnatural"; they are a living oxymoron, biologically immortal that live caught between an eternity-induced madness, to the point where many of the few references to their way of speaking suggest that many of them seek only to die, while eternally tied to their maddening need to feed on negative emotion; the Ghk are horrific empathic vampires of chaos incarnate who's only real goal is to obliterate as much reality as they can hoping it will end their eternal torture. Ghk cannot die, and cannot starve to death; they are pulled by pure desire to consume negativity, which only prolongs their eternity and empowers their abilities.

The small amount of research done by the few that have encountered them have a little information on their abilities and form; but no two looked the same and were as unfathomable and ever-changing as Lovecraft described, entities composed of multiple eyes, teeth and maws, tentacles and ever-shifting flesh, bone and whatever else they may try to be including various other forms of matter, including liquids, rock, stone, metal even pure energy and pure shadow. Unlike the books he wrote about, however, it was very unlikely that a full-size "Elder" Ghk existed on our Earth; they would be noticeable, but the concept of one living in the depths of the oceans fascinated Lovecraft; it was entirely possible that Lovecraft himself, or his family were somehow connected to the OTO and had knowledge of Cthugrabcht.

It is known that they are, for lack of a better word, an eternal cancer; a corruption of reality itself. Some have concluded that perhaps the Ghk were not unlike us, and hailed from a reality not unlike our own who sought for the secret of immortal life and cosmic power. In the end they achieved it. But the nature of The Sideways corrupted them so absolutely their kind grew, and grew, endlessly spreading throughout their universe and consuming all and everything; they grew to such an extent that they took up all available space in that reality that it shattered, only finding release within the very negative space between worlds.

There they churned, tumbling and warping, starving and growing madder and madder until they no longer looked like anything recognisable; horrific nightmares, in the space between worlds they learned to separate into individuals once more, but ones of such warped biology and personal space, the creatures had become evil incarnate.

For all their power in The Sideways to warp the reality in almost any way they pleased, they could not actually open the veils to other realities from their side, and even then any portals and gateways opened by curious magi or even the few neohumans or alts that drew their power from the Sideways were miniscule; This, however served as an experiment.

#### **Spawn**

While biologically immortal and seeking nothing but the death of all reality, including themselves, It is said that regardless the Ghk learned to reproduce, by sending out "Ghkspawn", tiny creatures small enough to pass these gates and possess a living being; This spawn was underpowered and weak at first, but it would slowly grow and control it's host, feeding on it's host and the negativity of those around it. Those infected by a Ghkspawn usually had no idea that it existed within them unless they specifically knew what they had summoned. These spawn acted like inside agents to a universe, with their primary goal to grow stronger so that they may help open a bigger gateway to the sideways; For lack of a better word ghkspawn were essentially eldritch 'sperm' that could infect others and, given the right timeframe, grow into a new Ghk, though this process was incredibly slow and risked actually burning out the host, or having the host die of old age before the Ghk could reach it's next stage, wherein the spawn simply fades out of existence, possibly back to the Sideways to be re-absorbed. As such many ghkspawn attempt to find new hosts before they find one suitably strong enough to be able to manipulate and fuse with permanently.

#### **Brood**

Over time human-spawns learned, and overtook their hosts personality and minds, often requiring them to jump to younger bodies during this cycle as it took many decades, it was then that the spawn would start becoming more like a Ghk, but instead known as 'Brood', and start to harness their innate physiology to influence the minds and perceptions of others as well on the body of their host. In particular these Ghk-possessed human Brood usually used their abilities to weaken opponents minds, but over time some Brood started to develop more physical abilities too; the ability to alter their biology into something more horrific, and some had an innate potential for dark magic akin to a kind of negative-tuning effect. Eventually, however Brood become more and more inhuman, and the host either dies before it can attain a permeant form; if the Ghk has accomplished it's main objectives, even if it never manages to open a gateway for an elder Ghk, it has no problem with ceasing to be.

In rare instances the human mind of the host can be stronger than the Ghk, and the Brood tends to become smart enough to not be so reckless, even form it's own plans; these Prime-Broods develop more control and balance of their powers, and have more of a darker agenda; masquerading as anyone who inspires fear. Taranis has suggested that many killers, legends of horror, cruel dictators and leaders of corrupt nations may be Brood.

The first Brood known on our Earth was Lorn; a bronze-age Slavic warrior and loyal knight to the Halfbreed known as Chernoborg, whose power over the shadows was enhanced and deepened by black magic. Already empowered by Chernoborg, Lorn became a host for one Ghkspawn that Chernoborg had come to control and it gave Lorn incredible powers; while Chernobog's fascination with his own power and the shadow realm that he drew his power from started off as an experiment to aid him in world domination, it was in fact Chernoborg that was eventually become the experiment, to an end that the Ghk would try to use him to become the ultimate spawn; but he was later scarified by the time he had been possessed by the Dragon Quetzalcoatl.

#### **Anighk**

Sometimes, for whatever reason, Ghkspawn can inhabit the bodies of animals; usually this is via rituals and spells through dark magic; both the Followers of UmbraX° and Dawnshadow had the opportunity to harness Ghkspawn "gifted" to them by their Dark Gods; the creatures quickly degenerated into mindless, monstrous forms only controlled through spells, potions and rituals prepared beforehand; these creatures were hard to control and hard to kill but did not usually live beyond a few hours. Why smaller, less-evolved creatures mutate into horrific creatures so quickly was thought to be highly linked to their sentience. Nevertheless, it enabled some of these cults to create and control extremely powerful creatures as weapons throughout the millennia.

### **Known Individuals**

#### **Bvretl**

Also known as "The Leviathan", Bvretl was the entity that supposedly lives in the Mariana Trench; it may have been Bvretl that inspired Lovecraft's creation of Cthulhu. The creature was around 41.8 meters long, possessed multiple tentacles and a mouth that could open up into a ring of eyes and teeth, exposing an infinitely dark maw. It was supposedly summoned by a huge gathering of magi in the 1740's, but Bvretl was considered one of the least powerful entities and not one of the Elders. It was extremely intelligent, nevertheless, and could feed on negative emotion and fear from vast distances, allowing it to live beneath the surface of the ocean indefinitely without moving, feeding on passers fear; it is said that there is a small spot above the trench some 30 miles from Guam known by magi as the Black Zone, where an invisible vortex of negative emotion swirls; anyone who passes through the vortex feels both an intense depression, terror and desires of self-mutilation, harming others or even suicide, to the point where some have thrown themselves from boats. the House of Seasons have found no direct evidence of the creature nor the so-called Black Zone, but regularly patrol the area. Bvretl may be directly related to, or may have been a fully-formed Brood of Cthugrabcht.

#### **Cthugrabcht**

The entity UmbraX° was supposedly in communication with through dark magic and vast reams of knowledge gathered by the likes of the Dawnshadow Coven, and was almost driven mad each time he attempted to talk with it via a small gate originally conceived by Dawnshadow. Cthugrabcht spoke in a "primal-dark" language UmbraX° described as reverberating with the most primal parts of the human psyche; fear and terror, and with concentration, spells and protection rituals, found a way to transcribe words and images; This process, however is said to have eventually killed him. Nevertheless some description of Cthugrabcht is described in his grimoire as an "*entity of tremendous inkiness, an eye as deep red as smouldering embers, but within small eyes like black stars, teeth and jaw at the end of serval tentacles, and his body too amorphous and enormous to comprehend fully.*"

### **Subspecies**

While the Ghk are all considered one formless and ever-present cancer that became unique entities over time, these entities share many common abilities and traits, notably their ability to feed on negative emotional energy, notably terror and fear, to empower the abilities and sustain their twisted forms, there were a few noted creatures and entities that were hunted and sought by various para-mystical organisations such as the House of Seasons and Ordo Templi Orientis et all, that may have had common root ancestors:

#### **Yōkai**

In Japanese mythology, several recordings of strange monsters and entities may have been ancient Ghkspawn, Brood or perhaps smaller Ghk that had been controlled by very early Japanese magi and disassociated with the Ghk physically and psychologically, becoming a new thing altogether and creating long-standing myths and legends; however most magi lost control of many of these creatures and many of them began killing, as is their nature, over time these entities learned to sustain their existence via other forms of energy and matter rather than emotion; They became highly intelligent, often this included themselves learning and actually 'eating' magic, making them extremely difficult to kill. Some even displayed compassion and seemingly, a want to help others, even being kind or passive; however this was underlined with a more sinister motive; Yōkai, like Ghk, lived to consume. Many strangely vanished over time, while some say they still exist in hidden woods as strange ghosts and spirits; or worse spread throughout the world as unique, abnormal entities. Many magi circles believe they are responsible for the countless missing and unsolved murder cases across the globe; and to this extent still a major concern. As these entities cannot truly die, they can only grow over the centuries, giving many magi no choice but to eradicate any they encounter with no questions asked.

#### **The Fractal Ones**

Only one story, supposedly from UmbraX° himself, exists claiming that there are Ghk who tried to create their own universe; as even the most Elders found it nigh-impossible to manifest inside a universe without a gateway opened from said universe, some Ghk tried to reconstruct their old universe. The result supposedly shattered them into infinite pieces, but remained 'alive' and reformed as beings composed purely of colourful geometric shapes and infinite variables that made it impossible for many species to look on them without being driven mad; these Ghk were considered 'enlightened', although no more as absolutely terrifying and sinister as their more muted and organic cousins; the beings supposedly saw such pleasure in the fractalization of themselves, it is their wish now to fractalize everything and destabilise the dimensions themselves into one; However their 'enlightenment' trapped them within their own reconstituted fractal universe for now.