Few remember him, which is apt. For Byatis is the God of Forgetfulness. Those who are caught in his cyclopean gaze forget all, their mind turning to an all-consuming void that rips every memory out like weeds off a fertile garden. Those who foolishly turn to face the abominable entity and lock their gaze to the abyssal eye are lost forever, guided by the voices that pluck at their souls to turn steps towards the maw of the great old one, becoming the source of his imperishable vitality. It bears great spite towards humanity and once free of his imprisonment it might be the first bringer of desolation to the frail cities of men. For one daring, bold and impossibly shortsighted warlock of yore managed via great enchantments and potent sacrifices to bind the beasts of many names to his bidding, forcing Byatis to enhance his arcane potency, grant vision and eradicate the minds of his opposition. But in its enslavement, Byatis grew stronger, fed the mortal flesh and minds of countless sacrifices, until it regained its full powers, easily braking the tethers of the ancient rites to consume its jailor. Now, trapped under the castle, too bloated with energies to move, it rests in a stupor, digesting the monstrous magic that bound it in the first place. Once done, it might wake once more in the future unknown, to rip the hills that lay upon it now and burst from the very ground like szejtan of old, casting its baleful gaze upon the world ripe for the harvest of souls and minds.
The fifth in a series exploring the popular modern folklore of cryptozoology and what Mythos forces may have inspired it.
Water monsters
If any cryptid is discovered to literally exist, precisely as described by legend and folk-lore, it will probably be a water monster. The ocean is a big place and it's easy to believe we could miss a large animal in the lightless depths.
That said, the physical evidence for sea serpents is just as dubious as it is for any other cryptid, with a lack of clear photos and any biomaterial turning up inconclusive at best and known animals or hoaxes at worst.
Water Horse
Typified by its relatively stocky build and a horse-like head with a mane and/or short horns. Water horses once seemed ubiquitous amongst sea and lake monsters but have been largely replaced outside of a few stubborn hold outs, such as the Loch Oich monster.
Plesiosauroid
Relic plesiosaurs are definitely one of the most iconic cryptids, with their humped back, four diamond shaped flippers and curving swan-like neck. Funnily enough, paleontologists do not think that prehistoric plesiosaurs could lift their necks at an angle like that. Either their modern descendants evolved to more easily stretch out of the water or the plesiosauroids are actually a completely different animal exhibiting parallel evolution.
Or they’re the ghosts of sauropods.
Super Eel
These immense serpents are common sights amongst sea monsters although they range wildly in detail. Super eels have been described as literally just giant eels or similar fish, elongated crocodilian reptiles and something like a basilosaurus.
Many-finned
Described as a long serpentine creature with a segmented armored hide, a dozen fins and in at least one sighting, a walrus-like head. A similar serpent with a distinctly arthropod appearance known as the con rít (centipede) has been sighted in the waters around vietnam.
Not all sightings can be neatly classified however.
A serpent sighted in Cape Sable, Nova Scotia in 1976 was certainly an odd one. It is said that it was built like a 50 foot sea horse, with greyish snake-like skin covered in barnacles. The strangest part was its head, which witnesses described as something like a crocodile's but tusked and having huge bloodshot red eyes that projected out of the skull on stalks!
Kaunuzoth, the glowing thing of Moore Lake
Members of Glaaki's slug-like species can be found in freshwater lakes all over the world, resting from their interdimensional journeys. Kaunuzoth is one such entity, albeit a particularly strange one.
Something really has been seen in the Moore Lake Reservoir. In 1968 a trio of youths (known only as Michael, Richard and Cindy) were having a midnight fish at the side of the lake. Around 2 in the morning one of the fishers noticed a red glow in the water about a quarter mile away before it disappeared. At first they remained unconcerned but suddenly all the night noises ceased and they noticed the glow was back, only 30 feet from the dock. They claimed that the red glow they noticed was a pair of eyes, set in a white crocodilian skull. But what really scared them is that there was something else out there, something huge that loomed in the darkness behind those glowing red eyes. As the crocodile-like head surged towards the dock they raced back to their car and fled the area, leaving their supplies behind. As they looked behind, they noticed the red glow filling the water around their abandoned dock. The local police investigated, although they found nothing but the remains of what seemed to be a feast of raw horned trout.
Other people have seen the red glowing eyes or were plunged into a stifling silence but nobody has reported seeing the huge thing in the darkness since.
Bokrug, the Great Water Lizard
Bokrug is one of the small gods, a native to Earth’s Dreamlands. Bokrug was once a greater and more active god but when his people, the Thunn'ha of Ib, were destroyed he was made lesser for it. He spent 1000 years gathering strength for his final revenge against the perpetrators and nearly spent the last of himself in their destruction.
Now he sleeps at the bottom of his lake, with only the shades of Ib to keep him company. Very little could persuade him to come to the waking world but there are a few things that could awaken his ire enough to make the trip.
The Covington family are old, old money. Descended from british nobility, their family has traditionally lived in a palatial estate in the english countryside and they want for nothing. Lately however, their fortunes appear to have changed. The Covingtons are dropping like flies and the servant staff has fled. Rumours abound of ghostly figures seen wandering their land and a serpent has been seen in the nearby lake, each time coinciding with the death of a Covington. Lord Covington is desperate for this to stop and has spared no expense in bringing all manner of Investigator to the estate.
However, he hides a secret from those who would help; in the secret history of their family they came from a city called Sarnath in the country of Mnar, a place that has never appeared on any map of any age. They fled some ancient disaster with the treasures of that land and used it to buy their nobility. Their ancestors sent forward a warning, to stay far from water, to fear the Great Lizard and to anoint the “shard of Ib” with blood every 10 years. Lord Covington never believed that superstitious twaddle and when his father died a decade ago, he sold the stupid thing on auction.
Chaugnar-Spawn
One of the more out-there theories hanging over the loch ness monster is that it is in fact a swimming elephant, either having escaped from a zoo in the 1930s or perhaps even stranger, a hidden species of pachyderm native to western Europe. Perhaps they’re on to something?
While not at all elephants, the vampiric entities known as the Chaugnar-Spawn do closely resemble them and share some anatomical features. Just like an elephant the Chaugnar-Spawn can use their trunks as a snorkel while swimming!
The advancement of humanity has driven the Chaugnar-Spawn out of their traditional hunting grounds, into deep woods and jungles and more insidiously, beneath the waters of the world. So much of human civilization is located on the shore it is very convenient for a semi-aquatic predator looking to snatch some easy prey.
Byatis
The serpent bearded Byatis, 3rd god of divination. Lore of Byatis is widespread but light on detail, with only the 3rd volume of the Revelations of Glaaki having any real information.
In regards to its supposed relation to Cthulhu and the Star Spawn, human authors were actually more accurate than they usually are in claiming such things. While Byatis is neither a star spawn itself or any kind of “water elemental” it is a member of another species that calls the stellar corona of Xoth home. It came to Earth with them, hitching a ride as the remora does the shark.
Byatis is adept at a form of astral projection that is massively disruptive to local subspace conditions, awakening spirits and drawing residual psychic impressions (also known as a stone-tape haunting) from both past and future. Its projections can even manifest in a smaller, ectoplasmic form in these zones, the spidery toad-like spirit giving rise to the legend of the Berkeley Toad.
Yith-Parrallel Aquaform
Although their technology often resembled it, the Yith did not have much use for magic. In their eyes the whims of greater powers can't compare to the reliability of rune circuitry, psychic metal and atomic power. Things changed when the time came that the Polypous Ones broke free of their ancient prison to war against the Yith. Some radical thinkers (not coincidentally many of them deemed unworthy of braincasting forward in time) turned to the occult lore so far only recorded for historical posterity. With the aid of an unknown entity (or entities) these Yith escaped sideways onto another earth, one where the Elder Things never landed, where the Polypous Ones were never born and the biosphere grew independent of the Shoggothim.
Now they are back in this instance of Earth. Perhaps they have been for millennia, watching and waiting. But for what? Are they merely following in the footsteps of the ancient Yith and observing for anthropological purposes, or is the presence of their aquatic spies a sign of some more nefarious goal?
Or at least my first stage attack on Byatis - this one is fun and a nightmare, since it's a mishmash of like twenty gosh darn critters mixed into one pulpy soup, so I went for a bit of harsh exploration to make three stout boys... Pick one!
