Shub Niggurath
Shub Niggurath made her first appearance in the H.P. Lovecraft story “The Last Test.” She is a curious Lovecraft monster because she’s never described in the original canon of the Cthulhu mythos. Instead, Sub Niggurath is a deity that other Lovecraft characters and monsters pray to, call out to, and use in various magical incantations.
Shub-Niggurath became a fixture of the Cthulhu mythos after Lovecraft’s death, as other writers took up his universe and mythology. The writers who most often wrote about Shub Niggurath were Lovecraft’s own student August Derleth and mythos writers Lin Carter and Brian Lumley.
Shub Niggurath -- Lovecraft Monster
H.P. Lovecraft monsters share a few common characteristics. For the most part, the monsters of HP Lovecraft are god-like, possessing powers that surpass anything known on Earth. Shub Niggurath is no different, and in fact may be something of an extreme example of the deity status of Lovecraftian creatures. Shub Niggurath has been interpreted by modern day Cthulhu mythos writers and artists as a black fertility goddess, with black in this sense meaning perverse or opposite.
Like all great Lovecraft creations, Shub Niggurath is an amorphous slimy blob without much in the way of identifying features. Shub Niggurath appears to humans as a big cloud of goo, a mass of material covered in slimy black tentacles, thousands of mouths, and countless goat or deer legs poking out all over the place. Shub Niggurath is able to reproduce through fission and, according to some Mythos writers, sexually or asexually as well. In most descriptions of Shub Niggurath, little monsters are constantly spitting out of her form, and scamper away into the darkness or reabsorbed into Shub Niggurath’s slimy mass.
Shub Niggurath Mythology
The fact that Shub Niggurath became a major Lovecraft monster in the writings of Lovecraft’s closest friends and students tells us that this creature was a big part of Lovecraft’s larger mythology. Robert Bloch and August Derleth, two of Lovecraft’s most famous students, are also the two Cthulhu mythos writers whose musings on Shub Niggurath are the most canonical.
Lovecraft gave Shub Niggurath the moniker “The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young,” and the concept of the young plays a big part in Shub Niggurath’s identity. The Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath come flying out of her amorphous form. They are described as “horrifying, pitch-black monstrosities,” composed of slimy tentacles and shaped like trees. They have tentacles where a head would normally be, drip an evil green slime all over, and a smell like rotting flesh.
The young pop up wherever the insane cult of Shub-Niggurath meets. Shub Niggurath’s young are like the acolytes of her cult’s religious rites. These evil Dark Young stand in for Shub-Niggurath when it comes time to accept a sacrifice from her minions or to receive worship. Shub Niggurath’s ultimate goal is to be worshipped across Earth and to become its deity.
Shub Niggurath’s Cult
In the Cthulhu mythos, some deities that wield more power than others. Shub-Niggurath is one of these Lovecraftian super-beings, worshipped by more people than any other Lovecraft creation. Shub Niggurath is constantly worshipped by the druidic and barbaric cults of the Earth.
According to the writings of Lovecraftian horror authors, anyone can find the items necessary to summon Shub-Niggurath if you’re in the woods during the new moon. According to some mythos writers, Shub Niggurath merely transports to Earth from her home on the planet Yaddith. Other writers have suggested that she lives in another dimension where she is the supreme mother of all gods and served by acolytes who transport with her to this dimension as her Dark Young.
Shub Niggurath in Pop Culture
Something about Shub Niggurath appeals to artists and horror fans. She’s made appearances in short stories, video games, songs, and fantasy novels, and her influence can be felt in an even wide range of media. Here’s a look at Shub Niggurath in the popular culture.
Shub Niggurath: Quake
If you spent any time playing video games over the past couple of decades, you’re familiar with Quake. Appearing in 1996 on the waves of the mega-successful Doom, Quake was the must-have game, the game kids played on computers in school when they were supposed to be learning HTML or Pascal.
The final boss in Quake is called Shub Niggurath, and the game’s designers admit the heavy Lovecraft influence. Shub Niggurath in Quake has no attack affect all on her own, instead depending on the children she spews out to try and kill the player.
At the end of the game, it turns out that Shub Niggurath is Quake, making the game essentially a Lovecraft video game. If only the monster in Quake was anything like the Shub Niggurath described in the Cthulhu mythos—her evil ways and creepy appearance would probably have made Quake an even bigger hit.
Shub Niggurath: Band
When you name one of your creatures “The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young,” you’re bound to attract attention from heavy metal fans. This kind of creepy fantasy imagery is perfect for heavy metal, a genre that combines D&D / fantasy tropes with heavy chords, distortion, and loudness.
A Mexican death metal band took the name Shub-Niggurath, releasing several albums between 1990 and 1997. Take a look at their record titles and you’ll see just how far these guys took their love of Lovecraftian horror: Horror Creatures, Unknown Adorer, Blasphemies of Nether World, The Black Goatlike Arise, Evilness And Darkness Prevails, and The Kinglike Celebration (Final Aeon on Earth).
Shub-Niggurath is just one of those creations that people get a hold of and run with. How is it that a mysterious fertility goddess that oozes slime and wants to use her horrible offspring to take over the world could become popular enough to spawn a band and a video game? Once again, this is the weird appeal of Lovecraft’s writings. They are dark and attractive at the same time, like the twisted cults of his mythological universe.