I've gotten asked about this one, and it's pretty important, so I'm gonna cover this right now.
First Appearance: "In His Daughter's Darkling Womb" by Tina L. Jens, 1997
Tina's story is incredibly important not only to Yog-Sothery, but to the more general and stupid Cthulhu Mythos. The biggest bomb in Yog-Sothery history is dropped in that story. If you follow that sort of thing, you won't need it explained to you, but for the others, let's examine.
Cthylla, one of Cthulhu's daughters (via Idh-yaa, perhaps better known as the Worm That Gnaws, but we'll get to that later), and a Brian Lumley creation, became a central figure in the Cthulhu Mythos when an ancient prophecy revealed that she was the key in continuing Cthulhu's legacy beyond the grave. Yes, while Cthulhu may eventually die by silly human standards, the great god himself would be reincarnated through the womb of his daughter.
What? Yes, not only is Cthulhu going to die, but Cthylla having a child will mean that he is already gone.
So if you want to use Lumley's Cthylla, in order to tell a story that's not contradictory (which, for those Yog-Sothery folks who don't understand, the Cthulhu Mythos people like to maintain a tight continuity and cohesive universe. No, they don't ignore like half of the writers including CAS. Yes, it doesn't make any sense. No, I'm not joking. Yes, people take this very seriously.), you're going to have to kill off the big C himself.
So... that's what Tina did.
So, just to make this as clear as crap:
CTHULHU IS DEAD IN CTHULHU MYTHOS CANON AS OF 1997.
HE CAN'T COME BACK.
THE FUCKING END.
Now, to normal folks like you and me who don't make the mistake of thinking that all of Yog-Sothery forms a cohesive whole that never contradicts itself, this is really cool, but not that big of a deal. If you go with it, there's about 15,000 other Great Old Ones you can use, and if you don't, no one really cares.
But read that bit off to a hardcore Mythos "scholar?" Pande-fucking-monium. "Cthulhu can't die! He's a god!"
No, no he's not. He's an alien with suspiciously octopus-like DNA, as Tina's story will attest. Yes, Cthulhu's kids have DNA. Weird? Not really, there are still real life scientists who think that all alien life in the entire universe MUST be made of DNA, and it's why we haven't officially recognized some Earthlings as being alive. They're called Nanobacteria, and they will fuck you up, but to some real live professional scientists, they are actually MORE alien than, say, Ghatanothoa.
But wait wait wait wait... hold the phone here. So who's Cthynhi, you ask? Well, Cthynhi IS Cthulhu. Sort of. He is the child of Cthylla and Mike the Mechanical monster (and also, *SPOILER* Katherine whatever her last name was) that is the supposed reincarnation of great Cthulhu himself.
At first Cthynhi seems relatively unremarkable for a great old one. Created via artificial insemination and reverse-genetic-engineered tech talk, the new great Cthulhu is essentially a carbon copy his mother, with no variations in form other than not having any pigment in his body.
But through, I guess magic or something, Cthylla transfers Cthulhu's... I don't know, soul or whatever, into Katherine's womb, creating either an Aryan super baby or a slimey, bloody ball of tentacles most likely analogous to Cthynhi's previous form.
The story is focused on the observation of Cthylla in a controlled environment and the personal crisis Katherine has gone/is going through about her inability to carry a child to term. Her womb is like poison to babies, I guess. Heheh, baby poison. Anwyas, the tone of the story extremely similar to "At the Moutains of Madness" with, if you can believe it, an 100% reliable narrator. Because of this, we learn a lot about the GOOs in the story as hard facts that wont sit well with the CM crowd. Just more reasons to love the story.
But as events wear on, it becomes apparent that Cthylla and her child aren't... all that predictable. Actually, that bit about Cthulhu's "soul" isn't really a joke. Cthylla touches the pregnant Katherine's belly with one tentacle and wraps another one around the young Cthynhi, sends a jolt into Kath, and then neglects Cthynhi, who starts to wither away like a husk. It should be obvious whats happening here.
And that's, unfortunately, all there is to him so far. I haven't seen any other stories featuring Cthynhi other than Tina's. It SEEMS really important, but just as hypocritical as always, CM folks seem to have forgotten this story exists, despite it's strict adherence to the Lumley and Lovecraft canon and Earth-shattering revelations that effect the main character of the series.
But what of Cthulhu? If Cthynhi is Cthulhu's reincarnation, then how did Cthulhu die in the first place? The good news is that there is an answer. The better news is that, if you're still reading, you're going to love it.
Now, sure, Godzilla vs. Cthulhu is not canon to the Heisei series, no one is arguing that. It is, after all, fan fiction. Really good fan fiction that somehow makes this obnoxiously one-sided match seem fair (mostly through superfluous description of how long it takes Cthulhu to launch an "attack"), but fan fiction none the less.
However, it is the ONLY story ever written that gives so much as even a hint of just how Cthulhu is supposed to be dead in 1997. If you've read it, you'll recall that at the end of the "fight" Cthulhu takes a nasty hit from Godzilla's beam and realizes that if he continues to press his luck, he's going to die, and then runs away, hides in his tomb, and, here's the best part, PURPOSEFULLY RE-SINKS R'LYEH TO GET AWAY. So, the fight was near fatal for Cthulhu.
But that's not enough evidence, could Godzilla's beam weapon really be enough to kill Cthulhu in, as far as I can recall, one hit? Oh good lord yes. Follow along with me and let's figure out what happened together:
While the "sealed away by Elder Gods" bit is unique to three specific authors and isn't utilized outside of their work, the fact remains that Cthulhu is sealed underwater. By elder gods? Depends on who you ask, but Lovecraft would have told you that Cthulhu's city sank at an incredibly opportune time to save him from the "stars" because the "stars weren't right." To your average cultist nutjob this sounds like a mystical prophecy regarding the alignment of the stars in the sky. The night sky. Of earth. Well, that doesn't hold up very well to the whole "not being from earth" part, does it?
The tales from when Cthulhu was most active and NOT on earth come from his stay near the double-star Xoth. It was here that Cthylla herself was born, and where there happened to be a metric shit-ton of Great Old One and Outer God related occurances. Take your pick of GOO, I'll bet you dollars to donuts they were active in the Xothic system simultaneously with Cthulhu. So what is it about Xoth that attracted all those monsters, or, perhaps more accurately, all those writers?
Donald Tyson's Necronomicon (the ONLY serious complete effort) tells us that it isn't the alignment of the stars, but their color. Xoth is green. Green is not a color of star that appears naturally. Something was up with Xoth that made it green. When it was green colored, Cthulhu and his kin were thriving. On earth, with a yellow sun, Cthulhu eventually sunk himself until the sun's color was right.
Meaning, you know, green. It's actually incredibly simple, but it doesn't seem to click for a lot of folks. However, there is a sort of failsafe in the necronomicon. While the idea that different colors of radiation (hint), such as the hottest naturally occurring star, blue (hint hint), could be used to actually kill Cthulhu, it wouldn't really kill him because of a poorly worded passage about sigils on another planet that allow the GOOs consciousness to be passed into a different physical body. The exact process through which this occurs is poorly worded, like I just said, probably because it is not understandable in human terms.
Remember now, GOOs are still the children of Outer God's. Physical body or not, there is still something extra-cosmic about them that is literally impossible for us to understand fully. Obviously, this is what is meant by Cthynhi being a "reincarnation." It also means that blue radiation is the most deadly force in the universe to the physical body of (at least) Cthulhu.
So, Godzilla happened.
Now we have a failsafe explanation for the event's of "In His Daughter's Darkling Womb," as GXC occurs in between Godzilla vs. Space Godzilla and Godzilla vs. Destroyah, somewhere around 1995. But how can a non-canon fanfic in one continuity count as a viable prequel for something in another?
That answer, my friends, is the most glorious thing about Yog-Sothery. It's not a media empire. There is no singular controlling force. Ideas and names flow freely to be reinvented and reinterpreted throughout the decades from an innumerable number of perspectives and styles. James Ambhuel and the CoC rpg have also written Godzilla into the "Mythos" as well.
Now, for all the macho posturing this blog does, it's important to remember that I really do hate the "Mythos," and that Yog-Sothery is the real deal. Because of this, I don't really care whether someone wants to write a story about Cthulhu taking place in 29X6, it's all gravy. What IS important here that in the "Mythos" you do not have the luxury of NOT using Cthynhi, since he replaced your main character.
And that's really all that Cthynhi is notable for, honestly. We've seen one possible way a GOO can be born, but the monster itself is just an octopus/human hybrid. The story is far more remarkable than the monster itself, which, depending on who you ask, might be a good thing.
And having concluded my discussion of the controversy that Cthynhi creates, there isn't any more to say about the little bugger except that I hope somepony uses him again. I would like to see a grown up Cthynhi. That would be hella-sick.
Next time: probably Hoppwood Tenant or... naw, I'll save him for later. Maybe a classic, like a CAS one or something. I'll figure it out later.
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