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Flying polyps are one of the most terrifying species

emanate winds which pull a target back toward them,

Lovecraft created, with a history to back up their

rather than push a target away. Typically, a hungry

reputation. They are genius-level predators with

polyp emits a strange sucking wind to hamper a

terrifying abilities.

target while at the same time flying forward at top

A single polyp is a terrifying threat: a creature with

speed. By concentration and focus, a flying polyp can

multiple bodies, each shifting in and out of existence.

become totally invisible, and anyone trying to strike at

While it has in theory a size and weight, this is difficult

the polyp must be guided by other senses—typically

to measure because it keeps moving in and out of

sound, as flying polyps emit a continual piping noise.

our dimension and does not seem to be affected by

Damage from a polyp's tentacles looks like

gravity as are beings of normal matter. When grouped

desiccated tissue, almost like a mummified patch of

together, the mock-flesh of a single polyp body is at

flesh.

least 16 feet across. When killed, the remaining flesh
usually weighs a few thousand pounds at least.

Ecology

History
When the flying polyps first arrived from space, they
occupied four different worlds. They built cities of

Flying polyps don’t obey known physical laws. They

basalt with high windowless towers and fed horribly

shift in and out of mortal reality, and at any given time

on the native life. They were eventually defeated in war

much of their existence is on other planes of existence

with the great race of Yith and forced underground.

(though they feed on creatures on the material plane).

The ingresses to flying polyp habitats are typically

With their polypous, gestalt nature, the various parts

old ruins, within which are huge pits sealed with stone.

of their form in our dimension don’t even need to

The polyps live deep below these pits, waiting and

be adjacent, which may help explain how they can

deadly.

"...the basis of the fear was a horrible elder race of half-polypous, utterly alien
entities which had come through space from immeasurably distant universes and had
dominated the earth and three other solar planets about 600 million years ago."
—H.P. Lovecraft, The Shadow Out Of Time

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