Yog-Sothoth

## ヨグソトース (Yogusotōsu)

**Yog-Sothoth** (ヨグソトース, *Yogusotōsu*β) is a fictional cosmic entity and Outer God created by H. P. Lovecraft. He is a core part of the Cthulhu Mythos (which Lovecraft would refer to facetiously as "Yog-Sothothery"). Born of the Nameless Mist, he is the progenitor of Cthulhu, Hastur the Unspeakable, and the ancestor of the Voormi. He is also the father of Wilbur Whateley.

## Origin

### Beginnings

Kenneth Grant suggested Lovecraft's description of Yog-Sothoth as a conglomYumetion of "malignant globes" may have been inspired by the Spheres of the Qliphoth.

The cosmic entity *Yog-Sothoth* was first mentioned in *The Case of Charles Dexter Ward* (written 1927, first published 1941). The being is said to take the form of a conglomYumetion of glowing spheres. It is an all-knowing deity, which means it knows the past, present, and future, and its nature is different from any other class of Cthulhu Mythos deities. Yog-Sothoth is coterminous with all time and space, yet is supposedly locked outside of the universe we inhabit. Its cosmic nature is hinted at in this passage from "Through the Gates of the Silver Key" (1934) by Lovecraft and E. Hoffmann Price:

> It was an All-in-One and One-in-All of limitless being and self—not merely a thing of one Space-Time continuum, but allied to the ultimate animating essence of existence's whole unbounded sweep—the last, utter sweep which has no confines and which outreaches fancy and mathematics alike. It was perhaps that which certain secret cults of earth have whispered of as YOG-SOTHOTH, and which has been a deity under other names; that which the crustaceans of Yuggoth worship as the Beyond-One, and which the vaporous brains of the spiral nebulae know by an untranslatable Sign...
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### Overview

Yog-Sothoth sees all and knows all. To "please" this deity could bring knowledge of many things. However, like most beings in the mythos, to see it or learn too much about it is to court disaster. Some authors state that the favor of the god requires a human sacrifice or eternal servitude.

According to the genealogy Howard Phillips Lovecraft devised for his characters (later published as "Letter 617" in *Selected Letters*), Yog-Sothoth is the offspring of the Nameless Mists, which were born of the deity Azathoth. Yog-Sothoth mated with Shub-Niggurath to produce the twin deities Nug and Yeb, while Nug sired Cthulhu through parthenogenesis. In Lovecraft's short story "The Dunwich Horror", Yog-Sothoth impregnates a mortal woman, Lavinia Whateley, who then gives birth to twin sons: the humanoid Wilbur Whateley and his more monstrous unnamed brother.

In Anders Fager's short story "Grandmother's Journey", a tribe of dog or wolf-like humans (analog to the "ghouls" of the Lovecraftian mythos) is said to have sacrificed to Yog-Sothoth to become "different". In Fager's "Herr Goering's Artifact", Yog-Sothoth is invoked to protect a couple of witches from Father Dagon.

Yog-Sothoth has some connection to the mysterious Old Ones mentioned in "The Dunwich Horror" (1929), but their nature, their number, and their connection to Yog-Sothoth are unknown. Nonetheless, they are probably allied to him in some way, since Wilbur Whateley, the half-human son of Yog-Sothoth, tried to summon them so that they could control Wilbur's more tainted twin and make it reproduce.

At the end of Lovecraft's last story "The Haunter of the Dark", the protagonist Robert Blake calls on Yog-Sothoth to save him from the eponymous malign entity that he has let loose.

## Appearance

Yog-Sothoth takes the appearance of a massive and gigantic eyeball capable of levitation.

Yog-Sothoth's only part has a yellow sclerae and a pure-white iris, followed by irregular arrays of unnatural-looking colors and shapes. The eye is bloodshot with many sharp and crooked green lines of blood, and possesses countless other eyes of variating sizes inlaid into it. Around the eye is often seen a number of gaping mouths and thin black tubes coming out of the back.

## Personality

Yog-Sothoth is cold-hearted, ruthless, intimidating, and primitively unintelligent. He sees no value in any humans he has encountered and shows little value in his own subordinates. Rarely ever visually upset or happy, he appears completely monotone and detached on most occasions, even when he callously murders his own subordinates. The only times he ever shows emotion are when his vision of perfection is moving forward or when he has subordinates completely submit to his will.

## Trivia

* Yog-Sothoth is often referred to as "All-in-One" and "One-in-All" by his subordinates
* It is still unclear and unknown whether all of Yog-Sothoth's body is just an eye or if this is just a singular part of his body