Father Dagon

the Prince of the Depths, Shadow Lord of the Sea, Demon Lord of the Sea and Sea Monsters, Sea Father, Sea God, the Father of Fishes, Fish-God, the Shadow in the Sea

### Associations

Age, the Bekyar, boggards, deep ones, deformity, desperate or insane coastal dwellers, evolutionary regression, fatherhood, fertility, fish, fishing, gutaki, hidden depths, humanity, Ishiar and the Ishians, jealousy, krakens, longevity, marsh giants, rulership, heretical sahuagin and skum, sailors, the sea, sea monsters, sharlarin, size, timelessness, Ugothanok, wisdom, worship

### Common Blessings

**Watery Breath:** granted gills to breathe underwater.**Call Deep Ones:** able to summon deep ones in coastal areas.

### Symbol

Gold disk inscribed with sinister runes around an open octopus eye

### Sacred Colors

blue, gold

> The twin idols represented Father Dagon and Mother Hydra, carved as they were in a greenish soapstone. Despite their small size, the idols managed to convey a sense of scale, demonstrating that these gods should be considered to be huge in stature. Dagon appeared somewhat humanoid, possessed of a bulbous body from which arms and legs emerged as well as numerous tentacular growths. Its head was a caricature of human and fish, with two saucer-shaped eyes and an exceedingly wide mouth.
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Dagon is a deity who presides over the deep ones, an amphibious humanoid race that currently resides in the Earth's oceans. According to fragmentary notes in certain tomes concerning aquatic matters, Father Dagon and Mother Hydra are considered the god-like leaders of the deep ones, which may mean they are essentially the grand high priest and priestess in terms of the deep one’s connection to Great Cthulhu. It is uncertain whether the pair rules deep one society on a day to day basis or whether they exist within but apart from that society, as figureheads or elders of great wisdom who are, mostly, left to their own contemplation. They are generally considered ancient and mutated deep ones. Father Dagon resides in the city of Ugothanok sunken in the forgotten sea of Ishiar, with its alien architecture.

It may also be that there has been more than one gigantic specimen of deep ones who could have been confused with or mistaken for the original Dagon. All deep ones continue to grow slowly after they reach maturity, provided that they have access to enough nourishment. In fact, there are ancient Dagon-related carvings that display what appear to be several gigantic Deep Ones wrestling with whales, although these may in fact be the creatures known as Silent Ones, a trio of creatures worshipped by the deep ones which are known to eat whales.

Dagon is one of the few deities other than the Elder Gods to take notice of humanity, joining the Annunaki under the names of Enki (Sumerian) and Ea (Akkadian); there is debate about this, however, and whether it happened the other way around, with Enki/Ea using the name Dagon at times. He often helped those ancient humans (or seemingly helped, anyway, for no doubt he had his own reasons) by giving them technology and agriculture. Ea also tried to prevent the Annunaki from sending a flood to punish ancient mortals and took a part in slaying Apsu during his attempt to destroy the Annunaki. Indeed, throughout human history, these beings’ names have been titles given to gods. Both ancient Mesopotamia and Canaan venerated a deity named Dagon, as did people in Assyria, Ugarit, and Elba, where the notion of fertility was attributed to the entity. Culturally, the Dogon people of Mali have revered fish-like ancestor spirits who came to Earth from the stars, and who shall return again one day to herald a new age. Certainly, while such human historical and cultural correspondences suggest a direct link to the Dagon and Hydra of the deep ones, the evidence is patchy and fragmented at best, and could conceivably simply be a matter of coincidence, although grains of truth are often to be found in the human record emerging from the hidden seeds of the Mythos.

The biblical Philistines worshipped the god under his own name, mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures in Judges 16:23. In the modern world, he is worshipped by the Esoteric Order of Dagon, a secret cult based in Innsmouth.

Various oceanic folklore and historical sightings of “sea monsters” bear some resemblance to these strange beings, and suggests that they sometimes roam free within the watery depths. Whether tales of the kraken, sea serpents and other ocean-borne weirdness are the result of sightings of Hydra and Dagon will, undoubtedly, remain a curious mystery.

Over millennia, Dagon created five "wild tides", which swept great numbers of sharlarin into the Pacific Ocean from the Mediterranean Sea, to be slaughtered by his minions. Eventually the sharlarin abandoned their gods and turned to worshiping Dagon.

## Size

At a very advanced age, some deep ones reach enormous sizes. Such individuals engender the cult of Dagon, who worship these creatures as deities. They are, in fact, entirely corporeal beings whose great age contributes to their massive size. There is fossil evidence that the oldest, largest of these beings reached sizes of over 50 feet in height.

## Description

Dagon is an enormous specimen of a deep one that has been mentioned in texts since at least the time of Mesopotamia. Dagon stands 50 feet tall, with a foul appearance hybridizing fish, eel, and octopus elements with black rubbery skin, many unblinking red eyes, four tentacles in place of arms, and the lower body of an eel. Its spawn usually take its form. His horrifically monstrous face is centered around a maw full of rows of long fangs; shielding his skin are fish scales. He is worshipped as a deity by a devout cult of both humans and deep ones. While apparently immortal, his longevity may be attributable to his fraternization with the star spawn, who sometimes select formidable specimens from a given species to protect, nurture, and empower for reasons known only to them.

## History

One tale, told by an inhabitant of Innsmouth, Massachusetts, likened the pair to Cthulhu’s star-spawn, which remains a possibility in terms of their origin. Some conjecture that their names are honorific titles passed down a lineage, so represent a status in deep one society rather than being the names of two long-lived individuals. Or perhaps that they are two individuals who exist as ghosts, residing in the title and taking over those who are given the title almost (but not quite) entirely, as a form of monarchical possession. Another reasoned argument proposes that Dagon and Hydra are facets or avatars of Great Cthulhu, as portions of the whole that did not become trapped or imprisoned in sunken R’lyeh.

One of the oldest beings in the oceans, Dagon is said to predate the advent of human life, and to have begun his own life as a ravenous, nameless, mindless sea monster that ate everything that crossed his path. After having consumed countless eldritch and ancient creatures lost to the the ever-probing eyes of science, Dagon became intelligent.

Dagon is said to have slain the great kraken Kaktora, thereby creating the devilfish now haunting Earth's most secret oceans.

### The Hyborian Age

The following events can't be clearly set in time, due to the lack of information on that matter.

Many cities of Dagon's spawn were destroyed in violent events:

* Kalumesh sank after being accursed by the remaining elder things, who abandoned its ruins to the cult of Dagoth.
* The city of Dagon was overran and destroyed by the Yuetshi, and Khosatral was forced into slumber.
* The city of deep ones in the Western Sea was leveled and buried in 18,000 p.e.v., and would end up in Ophir in the Hyborian Age, (though the fish-men may have survived.

In the Hyborian Age, Dagon was seen by some as a benevolent god, the father of fishes, despite his true nature, and his jealousy-driven goal of returning all life to the sea. He had disciples who became one with the sea, turning into deep ones, in the name of Dagon. Those disciples were mentioned in tales, presented as mermaids and sirens. They raided villages to capture new members, who were controlled and transformed by Dagon.

In Cimmeria, which became the British Isles, a cavern was known as Dagon's Cave. The relation, if any, of that place (or its reptilian inhabitants, the Dark People) to Dagon is unknown.

An area within the Western Ocean was considered forbidden, to enter being to defy the curse of Dagon, as the black corsair Ahmaan the Merciless had vanished there a century before Conan.

The Talons of Dagon were a hoard of ancient jewels, dwarfing the fabled treasure-trove of Cap'n Bloodraven, and as fabled as the Phoenix-Trove or the Treasure of Tranicos.

### Antiquity

The ancient Philistines had a legend about Dagon, the Fish-God, and worshiped him.

The Israelites, then including many idol-worshipers, went to battle with the Philistines, bringing the Ark of the Covenant to ensure their victory. Allegedly, due to God being angry with the Israelites for worshiping idols, the Philistines won the battle and took the Ark. They brought it to their city of Ashdod and placed the Ark in the temple of Dagon. The two next nights, the statue of Dagon fell or broke, and the Philistines returned the Ark to the Israelites, as the prophet Samuel had said they would.

In Wales during the period the Roman Empire occupied the British Isles, a moor was known as Dagon-Moor, a mound as Dagon's Barrow, a lake Dagon's Meer, another place Dagon's Ring. The relation, if any, of those places to Dagon is unknown.

### The Micronesian votive idol

At some point, Ulysses Bloodstone somehow came into possession of a Micronesian votive idol which possibly represented Dagon, which ended up in his curios.

## Descendants

Dagon was the progenitor of hellish spawn, including Khosatral Khel, Dagoth, and the deep ones themselves:

* The god Khosatral Khel was worshiped in the Hyperboean Age by the Dagonians, who ruled over the city of Dagon, capitol of the Empire of Dagonia (on the isle of Xapur, in the Vilayet Sea).
* the sea-demon Dagoth, was worshiped in the city of Kalumesh (off the coast of Cornwall, near the little town of Penmallow). Dagoth himself served a greater evil, Shuma-Gorath.
* the deep ones who serve him.

## Cult

The worship of Dagon and Hydra by humanity appears to be ancient, with many cults flourishing and dying out throughout history. It is probable that many such human cults were interwoven, inspired by, or instigated by deep one contact.

In the modern world, the pair’s worship can most readily be seen in the Esoteric Order of Dagon, an insular religious movement believed to have originated in Innsmouth, Massachusetts. Elsewhere, human communities influenced by the deep ones have used other names for such religious organizations, such as the Hearts of the Sea Mission, located in Skegness on the mid-eastern coast of the United Kingdom, or the Gilbourne Order of the Seas originating in Australia. Such organizations present a benign façade, allowing these cults to operate in public while hiding their true nature and purpose.

The surface of Ishiar is inhabited by fiendish humans of demonic bloodlines known as Ishians, who seek to impress Father Dagon by constantly fighting each other and by claiming new islands in his name.

Dagon is quite active in the world, regularly sending his demonic minions to the deep oceans of the world to become high priests for evil aquatic races, such as the gutaki. He is even worshiped by some of the more savage sahuagin tribes.

Unfortunately, Dagon's foul influence is not limited to the ocean depths; he is also revered by some debased coastline societies, who often maintain a façade of another, more acceptable religion. In these twisted communities, land dwellers mix with ichthyic beings from the depths, spawning horrible cross-breeds which have no place in the natural order of things. Marsh giants are normally the most fervent of Dagon's land-based followers, but his cult has been growing amongst humans in isolated villages, who secretly turn to his worship, sometimes on the promise of bountiful fishing or alien golden jewellery.

Some sailors worship Dagon, luring ships to collide with rocky shores and performing blood sacrifices to call forth sea monsters.

Dagon is one of the three entities primarily worshiped by the Bekyar people of Africa.

### Temples and shrines

Dagon is usually worshipped in decaying churches, caves, or lighthouses located near the sea, or dark underwater cathedrals.

### Religious symbol

Dagon's religious symbol is an octopus eye surrounded by a gold disk inscribed with ancient looking runes.

## Encounters

The growth of the Esoteric Order of Dagon along the New England coast, as well as other similarly fronted religious and fraternal orders elsewhere, means that the names of Dagon and Hydra are becoming relatively more well-known in certain quarters. Membership, infiltration, or examination of such sects is likely to uncover associations with this pair of aquatic deities, and may uncover the hidden extremes of human sacrifice and the possibility of a personal appearance from either Dagon or Hydra.

Otherwise, a chance sighting on the sea may warrant exploration. Those involved in sea-based archaeology, wreck salvage, and other oceanic activities may find sunken clues to the worship of Dagon and Hydra or, at worst, direct contact with these beings.

## Aura

The qualities of timelessness and hidden depths would be evident in encounters with these beings or things associated with them. Touching a representational idol likely conveys a sense of the sea, with both auditory and visual hallucinations possible, as well as something malign and apart from humans.