Under the Sign of the Black Goat - When Shub-Niggurath comes to Earth

Shub-Niggurath represents life. 

It is the spark that leads to the creation and origin of everything. But the "Black Goat with a Thousand children" is not merely life, it is the fury of existence, the need to propagate, the desire to fertilize, to reproduce, to expand at all costs ... 

The ancient cults claims that all carnal conjunction is carried out in their name, and that the sexual act fulfills the desire of the Magna Matter. It is the antithesis of Azathoth, the Universal Entropy, but forms with the Daemon Sultan a delicate cosmic balance: it is Life while its counterpart is Death. It is from the goddess that life flows in all aspects, forms and senses. 

But is deceived who assumes that this entity is an allied force of humanity. The Black Goat is above all a principle of mutation that does not tolerate stagnation and operates changes in everything around it. When Shub-Niggurath is summoned to Earth, it manifests itself in all its glorious blasphemous majesty. 

Its form is gigantic, a colossal mass, ascending to the heavens, just like a grotesque pillar of pulsing flesh seething on and on. On the surface of its bright brownish-green body, a multitude of tentacles-like filaments are swaying without stopping. In the mass, you can see vaginal canals, genitals and huge mouths full of teeth and tongues that bite and suck, clicking loudly. Saliva mixes with black bile and semen, dripping and running from these cavities, which open, close and stir, expeling or ejaculating a torrent of viscous substances. 

Large bubbles of organic matter spontaneously form, like huge tumors the size of gas balloons while structures like ganglia grow until they explode. Parts of her body have different textures and patterns, as if it were formed from a patchwork of tissue and muscles sewn one over the other. There are eyes everywhere, purulent and yellowish, tearing. None of them remain for a long time, since its entire surface bubbles and rebuilds after a few seconds. 

At the lower end, among thousands of testicles, are dozens of muscular but emaciated legs that end in hooves that support its titanic corpulence. As it moves, the ground shakes in front of its several tons. Despite being able to move, the goddess prefers to simply levitate in the air, a few feet off the ground. Her legs fluttering in the air, the tentacles whipping and the mouths snapping. There is a mixed sound of moaning and bleating in the midst of the general cacophony. The smell of the thing is incredibly pungent and offensive, and can be detected for miles. 

When she wishes to bless her cultists, the goddess forms a massive udder at the bottom of the mass and makes appear a set of immense tits. These swell until begin to pour a dark substance, which their followers usually refer to as the black milk of Shub-Niggurath. Those who drink from this substance are affected by hallucinations and premonitions, and often end up manifesting deep mutations. 

One of Shub-Niggurath's most striking features is her ability to spawn other creatures. Her form absurdly swollen to the point of bursting, evidences the fact that she is always pregnant. Taken with spasms, sometimes an overt volume squirms under the layers of pustular flesh and a mouth or orifice opens to give birth or vomit a smaller protoplasmic mass that creeps alive until it is absorbed once more. 

Shub-Niggurath is an unprecedented abomination. Few who glimpse their absurd form retain their sanity, still less are those who survive after approaching. 

The very environment in which it manifests itself is altered and its presence has the effect of corrupting nature in such a way that it perverts and transforms everything around it. The ancient cults that dared to invoke their physical presence on Earth call this effect the "Rapture of the Goat". 

Wherever the goddess manifests, a wave of life spreads from ground zero and overflows so quickly that nothing is able to contain its action. The vegetation grows wild, fields open in bloom, fruits swell and burst, throwing juice and seeds in the air that grow immediately, trees are laden with leaves and fruits until their branches break with the weight. Animals lose control and their instincts. Insects sing wildly, birds fly in the wrong direction and plunge into the soil, fish defy the flow of rivers, and finally, all animals indulge in uncontrollable heat for reproduction alone 

Humans are not immune to this frenzy. The ancient cults said that "blood boiled in the veins of those under the influence of Shub-Niggurath." Affected by this collective ecstasy, individuals of both sexes surrender uncontrollably to the breeding of mating in savage and primal orgies. Perhaps this manifestation is the basis for the legend of the Maenads, the cultists of classical Greece who served the God Dionysus. The Bacchae, as they were called, indulged in a sexual breakout of size, which were "shredded" physically and spiritually in a whirlwind of often violent lasciviousness in which they wounded and flogged their own flesh. 

Likewise, the pressing lovers, influenced by Shub-Niggurath act ferociously, and the term "animalistic" can be used to describe their actions. The dispute over the right of copulation turns into a hallucinatory fight as occurs with many species in nature. Males face each other violently and may even kill their competitors for the attention of females of the species. During the frenzy there is no civilization, reason gives rise to reproductive disorientation. Even hallucinating females are capable of shattering male bodies if they are not impregnated immediately. 

Fortunately, after the episode, the human mind tends to erase from memory all that occurred during the rapture in order to protect the sanity of such a revelation. Exposure to fertile energy discharge, which accompanies the arrival of Shub-Niggurath, lasts a few hours, but its effects are much longer. After the rapture, nature is hopelessly defiled 

The vegetation that has grown uncontrolled gradually assumes a sickly color and appearance. The bushes and twigs seem to move by themselves, despite the wind and external factors. Flowers bloom in horrible shapes and dramatically altered appearance, their scent is sour and musky. Fruits continue to grow swollen and beautiful, but with a taste so sweet and concentrated that makes consumption unviable. The roots break the ground and scatter like a rugged carpet over the ruffled soil, exuding an omnipresent humus scent. Thick sap looks like dark blood from the top of moss-lined trunks. The bushes are everywhere, weeds cover the landscape. The seasons cease to influence the course of nature. The flowers grow in winter, while in the height of spring the leaves fade and fall. 

The animals also experiment changes. Many sense something strange and avoid the area that is quiet and deserted. The offspring affected by the goddess begin to change and grow. They present congenital deformities: insects of bizarre coloration and constituted by a brilliant chitin exoskeleton. Animals are born with extra or atrophied limbs and females have several uterus. Their proles are plentiful, with dozens of hatch at each mating. Many of these forms of life are so altered that in the end they stand out from the species that gave rise to them. 

And once again humans are not spared the same effects. The children conceived during the Shub-Niggurath Rapture have distinct traits. They are said to be born under the sign of the black goat since they were "blessed" by it. They are strong and robust children, but somehow strange. Sensitive individuals feel disconfort near them, even if most of the time they can not say for what reason. In some cases, these children have unusual features: distinctly colored eyes, straight and white hairs, a fair ammount of hair on their bodies... in some cases the mutation is even more pronounced and it is undeniable that some of these children have a haunting goatish look, something that refers to the legends of fauns and satyrs. 

Many people say that these children behave in an unusual way and they are not wrong in their observations. Children are born with a distinct perception of the world. In the words of cultists "they are able to see beyond appearances and see what exists between the recesses of the real world and the imaginary." To the casual observer, they seem to suffer from autism, but a professional would not be so sure of that diagnosis. 

For all intents and purposes these children are different and, of course, preserved by worship, predestined to become leaders or candidates for important rituals. 

In Goatswood, for example, where the cult of the black goat is very strong, once every five years a child conceived during the Rapture of the Goat is ritually sacrificed. After tearing the victim's throat, her own mother removes the viscera and throws them on a stone altar so that the priestess can make a precise reading of the future, consulting the Haruspices. In Sköpk, an isolated village in the interior of Serbia, when a child conceived in the night of the Rapture becomes adult, there is a great festivity. At the end of the celebration, he is taken to the center of the village and forced to impregnate a woman specially chosen by the cult. According to tradition this will give birth to a Gof'nn Hupadgh - a special baby, born with a man's body, head and goat's feet. 

Finally, in the dark forests of Chiloe, in the extreme south of the Chilean Patagonia, Brujeria, a sect of powerful sorcerers, is infamous for conducting a sinister ritual in which a baby is tied up and laid up inside a dead tree. While suffering a slow, agonizing death, the spirit of the sacrificed victim passes to the tree trunk that becomes one of Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath, the abominable Black Children. 

Shub-Niggurath is one of the most powerful forces of the cosmos and its manifestation in no way should be treated as something petty. The consequences of Her invocation are serious and almost always dire.