mrloucifer wrote:June was a big month with lots of activity within the house (see the
June folder tab for details). And to help keep things going this month, I'm looking for thoughts, advice and help in designing a new House of BTS exclusive supernatural monster.
The illustration is an unnamed creature, illustrated by Beyond the Supernatural alumni artist Mike Dubisch. Its a very different looking monster, and one could go a lot of different ways in imagining what it is, and what it does.
Take a closer look at the
illustration page, then read what's been written about it so far below, and finally, feel free to contribute to the ideas on our
Facebook page, or here on the forums topic, or send an email to
host@houseofbts.net.
Most Chinese and Thai restaurants serve a dish called Crab Rangoon: cream cheese, crab meat, possibly a dash of curry powder folded into egg roll pastry and deep fried. Most crab Rangoon is folded so as to appear as a triangle or a central core that has four upright folds, --like how a table cloth hangs on a table and the corners fold a certain way --think of that, but upside down. Well, one particular Thai restaurant that I have frequented does theirs rather uniquely. My young son called the crab Rangoon "jellyfish" because their folding style looks a lot like the art of this particular monstrous entity --minus the tentacles.
So, the name for my version of this malevolent beastie is: TENTACLE RANGOON. But, it is certainly not filled with cream cheese crabby delight, and will not *curry* favor --sorry, couldn't resist the pun-relation. Although, this particular fungus/'shroom/hybrid jellyfish did originate from Asia, Burma (Myanmar is the new name). "Rangoon" literally means "End of Strife." And that is exactly what this entity does: it ends strife. How it provides this charitable service is rather horrific, though.
Somehow, in the depths of the Burmese jungles, over the last several hundred million years or so, jellyfish colonies migrated into brackish waters and intermingled with river fungus. A symbiotic relationship was formed with coastal mushrooms that thrived on riverbanks in secluded, sheltered and shadowed regions of the jungle too dangerous for humans and other hominids to venture. Something went very right for this unlikely intersection of life forms --or very wrong.
Some jellyfish contain a gene that renders them immortal. When the cells get old, they simply "switch" back to a youthful state. This is real, scientific fact. In fact, scientists are now trying to determine exactly how a particular jellyfish accomplishes this miracle. The Tentacle Rangoon has been alive for millions of years. Because of a strange alignment of planets, the Earth's very own electromagnetic field, a particular frequency of solar activity, a nearby meteor strike that seeded ancient Burma with an enigmatic element (along with high levels of radioactive material), a poisonous algae bloom, and a great flood brought about by a polar/crustal shift that reversed both the magnetic and geographical north and south poles, the Tentacle Rangoon enjoyed a grand, unanticipated synergetic growth of unprecedented magnitude.
It became self-aware.
For millions of years it grew slowly and expanded in its cavern system, feeding off of the unwary animals (and primates) that slipped into its camouflaged cavern entrances. Torrential rains caused flash floods that washed unlucky victims of all kinds into its subterranean presence. Slowly, it grew, it learned and became more aware, somehow fusing the ancestral knowledge present in every one of its ancient cells into a perceptive representation of the world around it --that it could comprehend and understand.
It yearned for answers.
For millions of years, it tested and developed new strategies to control its evolution and growth in ways that would allow it to manipulate the world around it. Its most desired method of physical interaction involved TENTACLES. However, it learned that it could send spores out to influence wildlife and primates around it channel primate perception with mushrooms that it provided for them to ingest. As the primates ingested state-altering mushrooms, their own perceptions of reality changed and human spirituality was borne.
It learned about the world and humans.
For hundreds of thousands of years, it interacted with humans, controlling them. Teaching them how to hunt, how to kill. It showed them how to bring food and sacrifices to it, so that it no longer had to hunt. It had created hunters and gatherers from simple primates. But then, something happened. Something changed. In an equally paradoxical intersection of events and astronomically impossible chance, the primates met another intelligence --something from far away, in the sky and the place of stars and the great golden Life Bringer (the sun). The primates were given fire and became self aware, realizing they had been under the spell of the TENTACLE RANGOON.
It killed the unbelievers.
For thousands of years, primates became humans and warred against the monstrosity that lurked in the caves. They drove it back with FIRE. With their own intelligence in the form of strategy and invention and structured warfare.
It sunk into deep depths, into the realm of forgotten nightmare.
For thousands of years, humans forgot about the Tentacle Rangoon. They colonized the world and only occasionally dreamed about the beast. Like a sandcastle at high tide, memories faded.
It waited. It grew. It fed on hydrocarbons (oil). It colonized vast regions of the underworld and spread around the globe, seeping through the earth's very crust, and some sections of the mantle --and some still yet undiscovered subterranean regions far below the surface and even venturing into the world of the inner sun...
It wanted revenge.
It now sends spores to the surface, subtly influencing those simple, prosaic primates that call themselves humans. The spores take root inside and grow fungus, and generate jellyfish cells that are somehow connected to the tentacle Rangoon. Of course, its real name is unpronounceable by humans. It has been responsible for almost every war generated by humans since the American Civil War (some suspect far earlier).
It seeks to return to the surface.
Someday soon, a Lovecraftian entity will surge from a Great Lake or Yellowstone National Park or off the coast of a major city... causing a series of sinkholes to form across our country and around the world, sending hundreds of its spore drones to eliminate *everything.* At first. It actually seeks to end the strife that it caused (by manipulating humans to fight each other) by taking mind-control over the humans that are left. It wants its servants back, and in return, will provide for them again as long as they provide for it. It will end the strife it created by enslaving humanity in hallucinogenic ecstasy.
Okay, that's my take! TENTACLE RANGOON! So, the next time you order crab Rangoon, just realize that something could be lurking several yards or miles beneath your feet...
