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KingsOfEvilArt avatar KingsOfEvilArt — Lovecraftian Toad Thing, Various
Lovecraftian Toad Thing, Various
#conan #frog #howard #james #lovecraftian #monster #octopus #servitor #toad #mrjames #rehoward
Published: 2019-01-24 17:43:03 +0000 UTC; Views: 5433; Favourites: 190; Downloads: 12
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Description One of the iconic Mythos monsters, despite not appearing in HPL's stories. Instead, it can be traced back to M. R. James treasure hunting tale.  Extremely similar freak appears in one of the R.E. Howard Conan stories where it roams dungeons of a mad sorcerer.  Lovecraft's own Moonbeast seems like a curious inversion of this concept, giving it a tentacled head and toad-like body. I like how flattened I made it. Its skeleton is rudimentary and it is kind of collapsing under its own weight. 



"The weeping grew nearer as he advanced, and lifting his torch he made out a vague shape in the shadows. Stepping closer, he halted in sudden horror at the amorphic bulk which sprawled before him. Its unstable outlines somewhat suggested an octopus, but its malformed tentacles were too short for its size, and its substance was a quaking, jelly-like stuff which made him physically sick to look at. From among this loathsome gelid mass reared up a frog-like head, and he was frozen with nauseated horror to realize that the sound of weeping was coming from those obscene blubbery lips. The noise changed to an abominable high-pitched tittering as the great unstable eyes of the monstrosity rested on him, and it hitched its quaking bulk toward him. He backed away and fled up the tunnel, not trusting his sword. The creature might be composed of terrestrial matter, but it shook his very soul to look upon it, and he doubted the power of man-made weapons to harm it. For a short distance he heard it flopping and floundering after him, screaming with horrible laughter." 

Robert E. Howard, The Scarlet Citadel 


"'My dear Gregory, I am telling you the exact truth. I believe I am now acquainted with the extremity of terror and repulsion which a man can endure without losing his mind.  I can only just manage to tell you now the bare outline of the experience. I was conscious of a most horrible smell of mould, and of a cold kind of face pressed against my own, and moving slowly over it, and of several--I don't know how many--legs or arms or tentacles or something clinging to my body.
(...)
One thing I did notice in the carving on the well-head, which I think must have escaped you. It was a horrid, grotesque shape — perhaps more like a toad than anything else, and there was a label by it inscribed with the two words, “Depositum custodi”*."

*'Keep that which is committed to thee.’"

M.R. James, The Treasure of Abbot Thomas
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Comments: 21

BluegirlWoomy [2022-06-19 17:47:41 +0000 UTC]

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IWantToBeASandwich [2019-07-20 18:14:29 +0000 UTC]

Pfft, It looks like Java The Huts cousin...

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KingsOfEvilArt In reply to IWantToBeASandwich [2019-07-22 18:36:22 +0000 UTC]

XD perhaps they are related. 

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IWantToBeASandwich In reply to KingsOfEvilArt [2019-07-22 21:31:46 +0000 UTC]

Yha that would be funny! 

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Nightwalker50 [2019-05-18 06:22:18 +0000 UTC]

Love your bestiary.   Things that could exist on planets orbiting other stars way "out there."   

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KingsOfEvilArt In reply to Nightwalker50 [2019-05-21 19:03:14 +0000 UTC]

Perhaps they are. Thank you! 

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HteMarkOfGundabad [2019-04-28 19:47:37 +0000 UTC]

Hidden by Admin

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KingsOfEvilArt In reply to HteMarkOfGundabad [2019-04-28 21:13:54 +0000 UTC]

Perhaps. I haven't read that one yet. 

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HteMarkOfGundabad In reply to KingsOfEvilArt [2019-04-29 08:59:42 +0000 UTC]

Hidden by Admin

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lapis-lazuri [2019-03-12 20:00:02 +0000 UTC]

Reminds me of stuffs. Probably the talking pets (historical arch-villains, currently disgraced and humiliated) from the classical StarControl universe. Has the same nasty look on the ummm.... face? Front side? Whatever XD

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KingsOfEvilArt In reply to lapis-lazuri [2019-03-15 09:53:18 +0000 UTC]

Oh come on after your stamp on non human faces needing more attention don't discriminate toad faces XD

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lapis-lazuri In reply to KingsOfEvilArt [2019-03-15 13:35:44 +0000 UTC]

lol, you have a point XD

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Chaosfive-55 [2019-01-26 22:52:42 +0000 UTC]

I always had a soft spot for Lovecraftian toad-things! 

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KingsOfEvilArt In reply to Chaosfive-55 [2019-01-28 08:19:43 +0000 UTC]

They are quite funny

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Chaosfive-55 In reply to KingsOfEvilArt [2019-01-28 12:42:16 +0000 UTC]

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Chamjari [2019-01-25 17:46:35 +0000 UTC]

Nice. A friend of mine once told me he was swimming out in the gulf and something really big and weird touched him. He jokingly called it a "squirbula." This reminds me of that. This thing definitely looks like a Squirbula. I like that Howard's version makes disturbing titters, cries, and laughs.

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KingsOfEvilArt In reply to Chamjari [2019-01-28 08:19:18 +0000 UTC]

Good it didn't eat him

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Torquinox [2019-01-24 23:12:51 +0000 UTC]

Everything goes better with tentacles

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KingsOfEvilArt In reply to Torquinox [2019-01-25 07:54:22 +0000 UTC]

Yeah

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SkyPotatoFire [2019-01-24 18:07:32 +0000 UTC]

Cool.

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KingsOfEvilArt In reply to SkyPotatoFire [2019-01-24 18:35:38 +0000 UTC]

Thanks!

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