Cthulhu

An ancient being of unknowable power and influence, Cthulhu is easily the most famous cosmic entity from H.P. Lovecraft’s pantheon of horrors. Solid facts on Cthulhu are sparse, but it is known that he slumbers deep beneath the ocean waves in the sunken city of R’lyeh. Though he dreams for now, he will someday return, and still has a role to play in the supernatural ongoings in the world.

Physiology

• Drawing of Cthulhu made by Lovecraft himself. (source)
• A bas-relief depicting Cthulhu created by an artist named Wilcox who saw him in dreams, described as a combination of an octopus, a dragon, and a human caricature, with a pulpy, tentacled head surmounted by a grotesque and scaly body with rudimentary wings. (source)
• Depiction of Cthulhu from an idol, described as a monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, with an octopus-like head whose face is a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind. This statue was given to the Cthulhu cults by the Old Ones themselves. (source)
• Wilcox describes Cthulhu as being miles high while walking or lumbering about. (source)
• Cthulhu is described as a mountain walking or stumbling, and as mountainous. (source)
• [Strength] Sweeps up three sailors with his flabby claws before they could turn and run, killing them. (source) ([Strength])
• [Durability] The Alert plows through Cthulhu’s massive head, bursting it like an exploding bladder as the ship splits it apart. Cthulhu regenerates by recombining his scattered flesh, described as like jelly. This leads to him getting trapped in R’lyeh again as it sinks. (source) ([Durability])
• [Speed] Wades into waters chasing the Alert and swims after it, raising waves with his strokes. Johansen is confident Cthulhu could overtake the ship until full steam is up. The Alert is a captured 1920s steam yacht. (source) ([Speed])
• [Speed / Flight] The Old Ones, including Cthulhu, came to the young world out of the sky and can plunge from world to world through the sky. This may be physical travel on membraneous wings, as alien entities traversed the interstellar ether that way. (source) ([Speed / Flight])
• The Old Ones are not composed altogether of flesh and blood; their shape is not made of matter. When stars are wrong, they can’t live but aren’t dead, and can still think and communicate mentally. (source)
• Cthulhu is described as gelatinous and sticky, smelling intolerably, with movement sounding like slopping. (source)
• Cthulhu is described as jelly while pursuing the Alert and is generally less than solid. (source)
• Cthulhu’s spawn are made of matter different from Elder Things, able to undergo transformations and reintigrations, not strictly material. Cthulhu may be comparable. (source)
• Cthulhu has existed for at least vigintillions of years. (source)
• A passage from the Necronomicon refers to Cthulhu as a cousin of the Old Ones, able to spy them only dimly, implying he isn’t on the same level or part of a separated but related race. (source)
• A family tree created by Lovecraft shows Cthulhu as a descendant of Azathoth and Yog-Sothoth through Nug, and an ancestor of Lovecraft’s. (source)

Abilities

• The Old Ones know all occurring in the universe, communicate via transmitted thought, and mould dreams of sensitive humans even when dead. Waves blocked their thoughts when R’lyeh sank. (source)
• In 1925, Cthulhu’s psychic presence affected people worldwide during R’lyeh’s surfacing, causing dreams, visions, mental illnesses, and mania. This ended when R’lyeh sank. (source)
• Henry Wilcox had vivid dreams of Cthulhu and R’lyeh from February 28 to April 2, 1925, depicted in artwork, fell into delirium on March 23, and recovered suddenly on April 2. (source)
• Other artists and poets had similar dreams, intense during Wilcox’s illness; one architect went insane. Non-artistic people felt dread or saw landscapes. Survey limited to New England/East Coast. (source)
• Global reports of dreams, visions, illnesses, and mania in places like London, South America, etc. Insane asylums particularly affected with parallelisms; one suicide. (source)
• Cultists set out in a steam yacht to R’lyeh, implied to answer Cthulhu’s call, but were intercepted. (source)
• Cthulhu preserved Old Ones and himself in R’lyeh with spells preventing initial moves. Priests must remove him from tomb to revive others. Confirmed when sailors free him. (source)

Spawn

• Cthulhu’s spawn inhabited Earth before humanity as a land race, waged war against Elder Things driving them to sea, made peace, built Antarctic cities. Sank with R’lyeh when Pacific lands sank. Battles used intricate energy devices. (source)
• Spawn made of different matter from Elder Things, undergo transformations and reintigrations, not strictly material, comparable to Mi-Go. Mi-Go can be wounded by bullets, killed by dogs, not photographed due to electron vibration. (source)
• If octopodic invaders are spawn, they waged war with the Great Race of Yith in Earth’s past. (source)
• Spawn speak R’lyehian, brought to Earth in distant past. (source)

Cthulhu Cult

• Cult worshipping Cthulhu and Old Ones exists since world’s youth, started via dream communication with first men. Led cultists to idols from dark stars. (source)
• Cult center in Arabia, secret; includes Louisiana voodoo practitioners and Greenland Eskimo devil-worshippers. (source)
• Chinese mountain cult leaders are undying and deathless. (source)
• Cult members kill to keep secrecy; narrator suspects uncle killed by cult poison. (source)
• Abdul Alhazred, Necronomicon writer, worshipped Cthulhu. (source)
• Cthulhu worshipped by Aztec tribes, Mi-Go, Deep Ones, and Ugandans as devil god linked to devil-flies. (source)

R’lyeh

• Cthulhu and Old Ones dormant in R’lyeh, one of many ancient cities that sank due to geologic changes. (source)
• R’lyeh’s geometry is all wrong, non-Euclidean, with vast angles and stone surfaces not proper for Earth; angles switch convex/concave; sun distorted by miasma; structures massive, swallow people. (source)
• Built in measureless aeons by vast loathsome shapes from dark stars, possibly including Cthulhu. (source)
• In K’n-yan legends, R’lyeh called Relex, half-cosmic. (source)

Other

• Two sailors die of fright seeing Cthulhu, another goes mad and dies; likely from shock, not power. Johansen survived but died soon after, possibly killed by cult. (source)
• K’n-yan people worship Cthulhu with sacrifices; he brought them from stars with Tulu-metal, sacred and self-magnetic. They see him as spirit of harmony, practice religion aesthetically. (source)
• Cultist Castro says if Old Ones control Earth, mankind becomes free and wild beyond good/evil, learning new ways to revel in holocaust of ecstasy. (source)