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IX Mythos Bestiary
The gugs, hairy and gigantic, once
gugs to retake their ancient holdings would make for a
devastating and far-reaching conflict.
Gugs are a civilization of giant black-furred
carnivores. Their arms terminate in two fore-arms,
giving them four spade-clawed hands. Their mouths
are vertical slits and they have eyes on each side of their
heads. Gugs are enormous: a typical gug is 3-4 meters
tall (~12 feet), and some reach heights of 5-6 meters
(~20 feet). They weigh at least 1,500 pounds.
Gugs are incredibly stealth, hardly making a sound
as they move. Typically, the first sign anyone sees of
an impending gug attack is their sudden and shocking
arrival out of the dark.
Gugs in the Dreamlands were long ago banished

reared stone circles … and made
strange sacrifices to the Other
Gods and the crawling chaos
Nyarlathotep, until one night an
abomination of theirs reached
the ears of earth’s gods and they
were banished to caverns below.
—The Dreams in the Witch House and
Other Weird Stories, H. P. Lovecraft

to the underworld, though they can access the waking
world through magic passages (which invariably lead to
caves and tunnels underground). But the gods’ ban does
not apply here, so gugs can scout or invade the surface

world as they like. Because of their substantial size and
excellent night-vision, they like operating in the dark,
which makes them harder for surface-dwellers to see.
The highly intelligent gugs build stone cities, worship
the Outer Gods, and make formal sacrifices. They have
a social structure, though almost nothing about it is
known to surface folk, as the primary interaction of
gugs with surface-dwellers is in terms of predator
and prey. Since gugs have no vocal cords and
their “speech” operates by means of facial
expression (which humans cannot imitate,
lacking the vertical mouth), it is basically
impossible for outsiders to communicate
with gugs and vice-versa. Some very
intelligent gugs have mastered writing
other languages, however, so they
can communicate with humanoids
that way.

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