#bokrug

[dailycharacteroption]

Deity Drop 11: Bokrug

It’s time for another Great Old One! And this time, we’re looking at… a really big lizard! That’s… kinda all Bokrug is, really. Really plumbing the depths of horror with that one, Howie.

Jokes aside, Bokrug is perhaps the most benign Great Old One of all. He has no plans, no agenda, and no goals beyond chilling in his semi-aquatic realm and watching over those that call upon him from afar. The only times he ever gets up to anything is when those that invoke his name are threatened, and that is when the Water Lizard earns his reputation as a god of revenge.

Indeed, Bokrug is primarily mentioned in the H. P. Lovecraft short story “The Doom that Came to Sarnath” in which a human city slaughtered a neighboring civilization of amphibian people and looted their temple pretty much entirely just because they found them kinda creepy. However, the stolen statue of Bokrug has something to say about that, causing the mysterious bloody deaths of those keeping it, and 1000 years later, the spirits of the slain Beings of Ib rose up to enact bloody ice-cold justice, slaughtering the Sarnathians and bringing ruin to all they had built.

This story is pretty much entirely canon to the Pathfinder version of Bokrug, plus or minus the big guy actually showing up to do some kaiju rampaging in Sarnath alongside the shades of the Ib people.

The long and short of it is that Bokrug and those that worship him are fairly content to leave well enough alone until some fool starts something, and then their fury is overwhelming and all-destroying, even if it takes forever to actually happen.

Bokrug appears as a titanic iguana-like lizard with a beard of tentacles and three tails ending in sharp spines, which is pretty tame as far as Great Old Ones go.

The Water Lizard dwells in a unnamed freshwater lake in the Dreamlands, quite content to hunt and sleep there.

While the Beings of Ib were Bokrug’s first worshippers, he occasionally gets other worshippers in the stable dreamscape of the dreamlands, and by extension, sometimes a dreaming mind will touch on those acts of worship or even Bokrug himself and decide to worship him as well, bringing his faith to the Universe. Blood sacrifice is used to keep the great lizard appeased, but Bokrug has little interest in sapient sacrifice, so only the most wicked of his followers insist on slaying sapient beings in their worship of him. While rare, there are even goodly followers that focus on keeping him appeased so he never decides to visit his wrath on their world, but those are viewed by most as heretical. The mainline idea of summoning him is a classic example of misunderstanding Bokrug’s interests or role. Like, unless your following has been seriously harmed or wronged, what is Bokrug actually going to do when summoned? Find the closest lake to nap in?

The Water Lizard is mostly content to leave alone and be left alone, so he seems like he would be neutral to pretty much every other deity unless they did something to harm his believers.

Bokrug does not seem to have any servants, nor any need for them, which makes sense.

The Water Lizard does have power over Chaos, Destruction, Water, and Weather, with the subdomains of Catastrophe, Ocean, Rage, and Storms, reflecting his elemental power and the fury that he unleashes such power when truly angered.

His 2e domains are destruction, dreams, water, and wealth, which reflects the prosperity of Ib prior to it’s fall and the fact that he dwells in the Dreamlands. He also grants his followers a basic watery attack spell, as well as power over water levels and the weather in the form of wrathful storms.

If any Great Old One has an obedience set of powers, including Bokrug, they do not care to share such rituals with mortals.

Bokrug has not been mentioned in Starfinder, but given his near-immortal nature and tendency to ignore pretty much anything that doesn’t go out of it’s way to bother him, I can imagine him still persisting into that distant future realm, acting much as he always has.

That will do for today, but we have one last deity to cover tomorrow, one that rounds out a dualogy of racial deities.

[jailofmonkeys]

been a long while since I drew, my first art of 2026 is a monsters inc oc for my AU, Bokrug, a veteran from an ancient era where Dæ-Mons (what monsters were once called) and humans lived together

Anyways, I'm getting my art grove back

[thecreaturecodex]

The Great Game: Outer Gods and Great Old Ones

As the deities that are most physically tied to the Material Plane, it is perhaps unsurprising that the various entities collected together as “Outer Gods” and “Great Old Ones” have been paying attention to the Great Game. The allegiances of some of the prominent members of these pantheons are as follows:

Abhoth The Unclean God is patron of disease and fecundity, and knows how these two things are tied together. More are born than can survive, and many of those that die fall to disease before anything else. As such, Abhoth is well versed in ecology, and knows that Lamashtu is overpopulating Golarion with her monsters. Abhoth’s followers seek to spread plagues among monstrous species in order to keep their numbers down, and as such, Mormo counts Abhoth as an ally.

Azathoth The Primal Chaos does not seem to have noticed the Great Game, or much of anything that has happened on Golarion in centuries. This is probably for the best. If any of his attention were to be turned onto the conflict, it could easily become a disaster for both parties…something that Nyarlathotep is hoping for, and working to make happen.

Bokrug The Water Lizard fondly remembers Mormo from before the evolution of true mammals, and they have hunted and sparred together and even mated in the past. Bokrug may be difficult to rouse from his slumber, but his ire is terrible when provoked, and is likely to be directed at the followers of Lamashtu.

Cthulhu The Dreamer in the Deep has dreamt of Golarion, and one or two of his star-spawn have come there. But he cares not for the Great Game; he has his own stars that need to be right once again. A star-spawn of Cthulhu is a dangerous agent of its own right, and one more likely to support Lamashtu than Mormo.

Hastur The King in Yellow respects Lamashtu and her ravenous appetites. Although he has his own plans to absorb chunks of Golarion, or the whole world if he can, into the Nightmare Kingdom of Carcosa, he is at least nominally on the Mother of Monster’s side. As long as their cultists can keep sharing the same sybaritic festivities.

Ithaqua Ithaqua is more concerned with consuming anyone on either side that he can sink his talons into. The Wind Walker is slightly more favorably minded towards Lamashtu than Mormo, but any relationship between their cults is likely to be a tenuous one that could break down into ravenous hunger at any point.

Mhar Mhar wants off of Golarion. He sees a change in the status quo as the best way of achieving that goal, and is resentful of lamia clerics of Lamashtu for helping Karzoug the Runelord to build a palace on his surface and deface him. Mhar’s release would likely be devastating for Mormo’s goals of making Golarion a richer and more diverse ecosystem. But on the other hand, volcanic ash and lava rock makes for excellent fertilizer, and his eruption might not be as destructive as he hopes it will be.

Nhimbaloth As a devourer of souls and a corrupter of wild things, Nhimbaloth is an ally of Lamashtu. Of course, she does respect Mormo’s goals of eating Lamashtu as a fellow apex predator. But Nhimbaloth thinks that the Goddess of Predators is too arrogant and needs to be taken down a peg. Nhimbaloth would happily eat Mormo herself if given half a chance, and for that reason, Mormo keeps a wide berth of Nhimbaloth’s home world, Voidbracken.

Nyarlathotep The Crawling Chaos is delighted by this galaxy spanning conflict, and on the surface is playing both sides. Lamashtu is his real dog in the fight, as he views Lamashtu as being more likely to lead Golarion to ruin, cracking open and releasing Rovagug. That would be a fun show to watch, seeing how the Rough Beast would react after eons of imprisonment. The Mask of Nyarlathotep that is most actively involved is the Black Pharaoh, whose cults are pushing technological advances into the hands of demon cultists and dangerous maneaters.

Orgesh The Faceless God is technically on Lamashtu’s side, although not by any direct aiding or abetting. Orgesh wants to fight Mormo himself. And is sending his chardra to pick fights with her worshipers, and is gunning for her most powerful servitors himself, in the hopes of getting Mormo’s attention. Worst case scenario, Orgesh will be killed and be able to respawn on another planet. Unless Mormo gets sick of his interference, and starts doing research on a way to kill him for real before setting her sights higher.

Shub-Nugganoth* The Goat of the Woods views Lamashtu as a kindred spirit, and the two of them have indeed collaborated on the spawning of horrors in the past. They are doing so again, notably through the personage of one of the Goat’s most powerful mortal worshipers in Avistan, a fleshwarping-obsessed alchemist named Doctor Agatha Shiny. Doctor Shiny and her creations are actively hunting down Mormo’s allies in order to transform them into blasphemous horrors, or just murder them.

Tsathoggua Saint Toad knows what it’s like to be forgotten and abandoned. He is a supporter of Mormo, if only because she’s the underdog in this fight, and Tsathoggua has a soft spot for underdogs, as much as he would deny that. Mormo knows that the Father of Night is a fickle and somewhat dangerous ally, so doesn’t rely on his help, but does appreciate his guidance and wisdom.

Yig The Father of Serpents calls Mormo “sister”, and the Goddess of Predators calls Yig “brother” in return. This may be an actual genealogical relationship, it may not be. But Yig is among Mormo’s closest allies, and the two are active collaborators. Those colonies of serpentfolk who worship Yig are hotspots for burgeoning cults of Mormo, as they see the two ophidian Old Ones as a way to reclaim some of the lost glory of the Age of Serpents without relying on the increasingly unstable Ydersius.

Yog-Sothoth The Key and the Gate views things on a vast, cosmic scale, even more than the other Outer Gods. As such, the safety and long term stability of the galaxy is his highest priority (after all, it has to collide with another galaxy in approximately 1.2 billion years, and then enough of it has to be around to decay into degenerate matter as the universe shifts past its stelliferous era. So anything that dramatically accelerates that process, or might get large portions of the galaxy pulled out of the Material Plane altogether, are not ideal outcomes for Yog-Sothoth. As such, he supports Mormo, but is doing so in a subtle way—opening portals in the right places, weakening planar boundaries—rather than sending his children to fight en masse.

*This is the name I am going to be using for that particular Outer God in the future. Clearly the same entity that has been developed into a character by Mythos authors over the last 100 years, but doesn't have a racist slur built into the name.

[macabrecabra]

LOVECRAFTOBER: DAY SIX: Bokrug, The Voiceless One

Affiliation: Court of Shub-Niggurath I only ever did a quick paint of Bokrug, but now they got more official concept art above to give more idea for me how the limbs go together and stuff c: I saw a lot of depictions of Bokrug as a pretty derpy lizard...but I felt a komodo dragon with a whispy feel and multiple red eyes fit better!

True to form, the voiceless one is a silent great old one who's attacks are sudden and violent for those that disrespect. Bokrug spends most of their time in the dreaming realm causing pandemonium, but at times will join Dagon and Hydra for shenanigans.

Still fighting to get caught up!

[radstarsaur]

I’ve always loved the works of H.P. Lovecraft, with my favorite being At the Mountains of Madness. Here’s a few of his creations (Plus Hastur/The King in Yellow!)

[multidimensionalpineapple32]

Bokrug, Lord of Monsters.

This is AI generated by Midjourney.

[weirdletter]

Bokrug, by Borja Pindado, via DeviantArt.

[mekagojira3k]

Bokrug