Talk:Shoggoth/@comment-104.191.5.248-20150802022649/@comment-25035274-20150803124342

The Cthulhu Mythos is a setting contrived by one Howard Phillips Lovecraft, generally agreed to be one of the greatest writers of horror fiction of the 20th century. His Cthulhu Mythos is a setting in which dark gods sleep, nameless(and named) things stalk mankind in the shadowy edges of the cosmos, and men sometimes find themselves drawn to blasphemous tomes bearing ancient and forbidden knowledge of those things which should dread.

If any of those things sound a little cliche to you, then it might help to keep in mind that Lovecraft was not writing in cliche or trope. He was actually the codifier, or originator, of most of those concepts in modern writing. Most modern horror writers owe a lot of their inspiration to him, though his work went largely unknown during his lifetime.

If you're curious to learn more about the Mythos, you can find most of the stories HERE. For the story in which the Shoggoth was first depicted, look HERE. Note that it's a 62-page novella, so some of the other stories might be better as a first pick. You might try The Outsider, Pickman's Model, or The Rats in the Walls (some of my favorites) for a gradual introduction. Alternately, if you want to dive deep into the heart of the mythos, I might suggest probably the most well-known of all Lovecraft's stories, The Call of Cthulhu.