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valhahazred · 4 years ago

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Cryptid Mythos - Strange Saurians

Living fossils and dinosaur-like monsters are a popular subject of cryptozoology. What sothic truths might an Investigator uncover when looking into such beasts?

6th in a series comparing the monsters of modern folklore to the creatures of the Cthulhu Mythos.

The Telepathic Thing

Two boys from Villa San Rafael in Calama, Chile had a very strange encounter with a seemingly unique creature while searching for a missing pet snake in 2002. While they first thought it to be a stray dog and armed themselves with rocks to drive it away, it proved to be a bizarre monster with an array of seemingly psychic powers! First the boys began to feel sick, as though they had been struck in the stomach by an electric bolt. While one boy immediately started to retreat, the other claimed he felt unnaturally compelled to approach the creature. When he came within six feet it lit up with a luminous aura and he felt a telepathic voice demand, “don’t stare, just run away”. He felt an immediate and inexplicable bone-chilling cold and both boys decided it was time to run.

While it is not explicitly described as a dinosaur I am interpreting it here as a highly evolved theropod, with a covering of grey fur-like feathers and a bony crest it uses to focus its psychic power.

Stoa

This dinosaur-like animal was one of the many south american cryptids reported by english explorer Percy Fawcett before he went missing on an expedition to the Lost City of Z. The legend goes that he even described his encounters with it to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, inspiring him to write The Lost World. The other main source of information on the Stoa comes from a Scottish gold prospector who goes by the pseudonym 'Reginald Riggs' and relayed it to Czech cryptozoologist Jaroslav Mareš. The Stoa is said to look something like a bipedal caiman, with nearly non-existent forelimbs and a head like a horned frog. It lives exclusively on the plateaus around Mt Kurupira, where it hunts Tapir, Capybara and the local Waiká people.

4 Corners River Dinos

Investigator Nick Sucik has compiled a surprisingly large number of sightings of small, fast bipedal reptiles in the area of the San Juan River Basin. They are described as looking like a “living dinosaur toy” or like “a Jurassic Park flashback”. Their environment seems to be wet environments and riverbanks in particular, hence “River Dinos”.

The sceptical view is fairly simple, that people are seeing ordinary lizards running on their hind legs.

Van Meter Visitor

In 1903 Van Meter was visited by what was called at the time, an “antediluvian devil”. The being was first witnessed roosting on an electrical pole, where it was mistaken for a spotlight on account of its brightly glowing head. Although it’s usually depicted as a pterosaur, some of the witnesses implied that it had four limbs in addition to its wings. If that is accurate it may have actually had a more gargoyle-like body, ruling out any form of terrestrial life. This poor creature was met with extreme hostility at every turn, as the inhabitants of Van Meter opened fire at nearly every sighting and its only recourse was flashing lights and an overwhelming stink. Thankfully it seemed to be unbothered by the gunfire. An armed posse even tracked the Visitor to the local coal mine and confronted a pair of the beings, showering them in lead to no effect as they slowly retreated back into the mine. They were never seen again. Were they surviving dinosaurs that simply moved into the caves to die? Or had the coal miners dug too deep and unleashed paranormal entities from an ultraterrestrial hollow earth realm? There was an alleged plaster cast made of the Visitor’s three toed prints but it does not appear to have survived to be documented.

The Mokele Mbembe

Not only is the Mokele Mbembe the best known of the “living fossil” type of cryptid, it’s one of the most famous cryptids of all. Modern witnesses describe a pygmy semi-aquatic sauropod straight out of a slightly outdated paleoart reconstruction but it was once a slightly stranger beast. The first western account claimed that it had a horn and some other descriptions have thick overlapping scales, dragon-like frills or the whattles of a chicken. While it is a herbivore, it is also supposed to be violently territorial and kills any hippos, elephants or humans that cross its path. Its flesh is very poisonous and anyone who tries the flesh of the Mokele Mbembe dies. While it is widely accepted to be a relic saurian there are various theories otherwise, such as the Mokele Mbembe being a large snake, a long necked relative of the hippo or even a large species of pangolin.

The Ropen

The Ropen is described as a massive flying creature similar to a chimerical pterosaur, with tight reptilian skin, boney wings and a long tail ending in a diamond shaped fin. It’s most recognizable feature is glowing spots on its belly and wings. Supposedly they use the lights to attract fish as they skim overhead. Fish isn’t their only food source as they are also frequent scavengers and even dig up cemeteries for human corpses. Ropen are not the only pterosaur like creatures claimed to live in the area. There are also the Kor, cave dwellers that use their long tails as maces and the Solomon Islands Dragon Snakes, that reportedly spit searing lights! There is even some confusion on the Ropen’s exact identity, with the massive 20 foot wingspan and bony crest possibly belonging to a creature called the Duah, while the Ropen itself would be a much more modest 3 foot Rhamphyrincus like animal. It’s worth mentioning that most Ropen sightings are of unusual lights in the sky and not of any visible creature. Even the original sighting by entomologist Evelyn Cheesman in the 1930s only described the lights and lasted for a short 4 or 5 seconds. It was not until much later that the lights were connected to any sort of pterosaur.

In the Mythos

Thanks to Yith stasis vaults and domesticated populations sheltered by ancient species, pre-KPG-extinction megafauna survived much closer to the modern day than they would have otherwise. To the Empires of Valusia they were the Xinli, serving as mounts and hunting companions. Dinosaurs were also known to the ancient people of Mhu Thulan until the Greenland Ice sheet wiped them from the surface of the Earth. But beneath, in the depths of Voormithadreth the Root Archtypes still mimic Saurian forms. Our best bet for living dinosaurs are the dragons of Thuria and they may have even survived into the days where it was called Africa. But that would be too easy for our poor cryptozoologist Investigators.

Hagarg Ryonis

The Great Ones of the Dreamlands generally appear as beautiful humans but there are those known for stranger shapes. Hagarg Ryonis is one such Great One. She has few cults of her own and is usually depicted as a horrifying predatory reptilian monster called “The Lier-In-Wait”. Amongst the Great Ones she serves as the goddess of murder, hunting those who would show offence to the gods of the Dreamlands. The Great Ones rarely have any interest in the waking lands, where their powers wane. However, should a Dreamer earn their enmity the small gods might follow them to a world where their own powers of creation and dream-logic are likewise stunted. Investigators might be contacted by an old friend, sounding exhausted and desperate. They’re a Dreamer of course but lately Dreaming has become too dangerous after the Great Ones began to hound them. They’d been trying to stay awake to avoid them but obviously that can’t go on forever. Even worse, something seems to have followed them to the waking world. They’ve seen glimpses of something huge and scaley in the woods near their home. When they fled into the city it began to appear there too, lurking in alleys and perched on rooftops. Can the Investigators help their friend find a way to make recompense before the inevitable happens and they pass out and are forced to face the Great Ones? Or will a far grislier fate come to pass, as the Lier’s patience comes to an end?

Y’nathogguan Necrotech

The Y’nathogg were never the biggest players in Earth’s history. Always crowded by the Progenitors and pushed back by the paranoid Yith’s exclusion zones. While their necrobiology was robust and adaptable it could not stand up to the sheer power of the Shoggoth and the Star Spawn. They felt like their own planet had no place for them. Then came Quyagen. It wielded the Eye of Zyslm and promised them an opportunity to fight, to take what was rightfully theirs. The Eye brought ruin to their enemies, a mighty weapon and an amplifier for the abattoir foundries of necrotech. Cakatomia was theirs for the taking. But Quyagen underestimated the Yith and the future secrets they bore. The great Cyclopean was sealed away, just as the Polypous Ones were millenia ago. Without the Eye the war that followed was short and brutal. The remaining Y’nathogg retreated to the borehole prison of Quyagen. They cultivated the frozen god’s tissues and made themselves cocoons with which to wait out the aeons, until a time when they would be free to rule without competition. Now Quyagen stirs. The Y’nathogg awaken. The abattoirs pulse with unlife. The time of Quy has come at last!

Byakhee

It’s an interesting coincidence that many of the so-called living pterosaurs are said to produce light in various ways. The Ropen and its cousins glow with bioluminescence, the Van Meter Visitor shines its horn and the Thunderbird (if it is a giant pterosaur) might be able to flash like lightning. The humble Byakhee, with its boney body, leathery skin and bat-like wings, all shining with the light of Carcosa fits the description to a tittle!

Dragons of Yoth

The serpent diaspora started in Yoth. Deep beneath the earth they found Tsathoggua, the lord of N’kai and some of the serpents decided to follow his sorcerous tutelage instead of their maker’s. Yig grew jealous and with the cooperation of his faithful the followers of the bat-toad god were cursed to degeneration. They became worms of the earth, pitiable things that would never slither in the light of the sun again. However, before Tsathoggua left for Voormithadreth to visit revenge on Yig he offered a choice. The worms could continue as they were or they could bathe in the pools of Formless Spawn and be reborn in a greater form. Snake Handling has never been the most accepted religious practice but when six people, including the pastor, at the High-Way Gospel Church die of unusually potent snake venom during a ritual it tends to raise suspicion. When Old Woodrow claimed it was revenge for one of the deceased shooting at a “dinosaur” out in the desert it was laughed off. But now, three sightings and another horribly necrotized corpse later, maybe it isn’t so funny.

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I have to admit that I think “Living Fossils” are among the least believable of all cryptids. They have all the usual problems while also being chimerical and inaccurate versions of things that we know existed. The african ones in particular have the stink of the Great White Hunter all over them, tall tales to sell books of derring-do in Darkest Africa. The Telepathic Thing is better known as the Telepathic Football but that name is dumb and I’m changing it

#call of cthulhu campaign ideas #cryptozoology #cryptid mythos #my art #the telepathic football #stoa #four corners river dinos #Van meter visitor #mokele mbembe #ropen #hagarg ryonis #y'nathogguan #serpent men #yoth #cthulhu mythos #eldritch

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