The High Priest of Tsathoggua Cult is usually a skilled wizard and zealous of his status. He quickly learns to commune with the Formless Spawns and uses them as guardians of the temple. The proximity to the God gives the High Priest a knowledge of the Mythos greater than any other of the subordinates. The structure of the cult resembles a pyramid, with the High Priest, sometimes a archdruid, occupying the top. A few sectarians, hand-picked and trusted, serve him, who in turn offers some instruction and make them disciples. The function of the apprentices is to coordinate the other cultists and keep them in line. The High Priest and his disciples care very little for these subaltern cultists, they are nothing more than material to supply with raw vital energy the rituals or sacrifices at times when God awakens and his hunger needs to be appeased.
The greatest and most important rituals devoted to Tsathoggua are performed on the eve of Halloween. It is in this period that God awakens briefly from his hibernation and is invoked to bless the Cult with its nefarious presence. On these occasions he appears waiting for a tribute and in return offers teaching, spells or artifacts collected by the High Priest. Rituals are always performed on new moon nights between midnight and three in the morning. In general, such rituals begin at the surface and pass into an underground environment with access to caves or deep grottos. Tsathoggua usually manifests itself in these subterranean places where it appears through portals that opens uniting the Caves of N'Kai to the place of invocation. Immediately upon manifesting, he demands a sacrifice. If satisfied after eating, he moves on to the second part of the ritual, in which he graces the cultists with his gifts, returning to the darkness where he then disappears.
Much is said of Tsathoggua's wrath when the tribute of blood is not enough to quench his voracious hunger. The Toad God feeds on flesh, and devours all those offered to him, yet his hunger varies, as does his mood. If by chance he is still hungry after devouring the sacrifices, the God will simply begin to feast on the cultists. It is not known when hunger will be appeased, but to avoid problems, cultists tend to keep a large number of victims to be offered at festivals so there is no risk. It is known of some cults that were virtually wiped out by Tsathoggua and his glutony.
Ironically, among the beings of the Mythos of Cthulhu, Tsathoggua is perhaps the least inherently evil. Still, he could never be considered a benign deity. Its most striking feature is its indifference to the human condition. It is very likely that the Toad God simply prefers to ignore human beings and their little existence since, to him, mortal beings are just irritating in their transience and represents nothing. The only instance where God devotes any tiny portion of attention to humans is when he is hungry.
The greed of Tsathoggua is well known. The Book of Eibon - a text dealing in detail about the Toad God, mentions that he is ALWAYS hungry and that his full satisfaction is impossible. He may, however, momentarily ignore his hunger to deal with other pressing matters, such as bargaining with his cultists. It is not known, however, whether eating is a necessity or a pleasure for which he has great appreciation. In most of the depictions in which he is portrayed, Tsathoggua emerges feeding or about to feed on some sacrifice offered to him. There are also images of him on a bed of crushed bones or with desperate victims trying to escape from his apetites. In all scenes, Tsathoggua always seems willing to devour more victims, giving the impression that nothing can satiate his hunger.
Another striking feature of Tsathoggua's images is his indolence. The God is treated with epithets like the somnambulist, the asleep and he is called even of lazy . Such adjectives refer to the fact that Tsathoggua being a God of little activity, who keeps sleeping or meditating most of the time, waking up for few and precious moments.
Physically Tsathoggua is an impressive entity because of its size, being at least six meters high (about 20 feet). He has, however, stocky and poorly distributed corpanzil being, with a protruding bulge shaped belly with numerous folds of flaccid skin form. The abdomen is so vast that it looks as if it could hold dozens of people at once, which is true. The general appearance of God resembles a mixture of a giant sloth and an bullfrog, bloated beyond belief. The God looks morbidly obese, with all sagging and the immense belly.
The legs are short and compact ending in huge feet adapted to support their immense weight. Dark, recurve nails protrude from the four toes on each foot. The arms are quite long and also end in four fingers endowed with the same dark nails. When he moves, he does it with a sway that resembles the movement of a huge bear balancing on its hind legs. He never moves on all fours, being a humanoid creature. Tsathogua is covered in a thick fur, with gorilla-like hairs that run down its back and accumulate in the chest, legs and genital area. This body hair is rough and tends to retain dirt patches and traces of food that get stuck producing a stench of nauseating putrefaction. The coloration varies: on the back it is mostly black with a dark green shade and more graying on the chest.
Tsathoggua has a long tail that crawls across the floor and allows him a little more balance as he moves. This tail curiously has no hairs, being smooth and muscular almost like the appendage of an amphibian still in formation. In addition to assisting in balance, the tail has no practical function. She curls up in front of him as he sits down. Tsathoggua is found almost always sitting, letting the weight of his body settle on the crouching legs, the arms resting on the circumference of the belly like a caricature of a obscene buddha.
The snoring of Tsathoggua is powerful, producing a gurgling sound as the belly rises and descends rhythmically. Other than that, it emits coughing sounds that reverberate loudly. Tsathoggua does not speak verbally, but communicates through telepathy. He knows all human languages and addresses his interlocutors with a guttural tone of baritone that sounds immensely unpleasant. He rarely looks at the person with whom he communicates, and most of the time he addresses them without even opening his eyes.
Tsathoggua's face is terribly strange, but still, it finds similarity in terrestrial animals. Some compare his head to that of an immense vampire bat or sloth, with long, pointed ears protruding from the sides. The eyes are comparatively small and rounded with black orbits, although they remain at most semi-closed. Underneath are rugged skin bags and yellow patches. The muzzle may be what most refers to a bat; flat and deep nasal cavities from which mucus flows abundantly.
The mouth is broad extending longitudinally from side to side of the face. A thick drool constantly dripping on his imense belly. The mouth is provided with small teeth, all of the same size and shape in "v", arranged in rows side by side. The teeth are not necessarily sharp, but the jaw force resembles a hydraulic press and can cut an adult man in half with a single bite. Teeth fulfill their role of processing the food by grinding the bones and cartilage that are pushed through the saliva to the gullet. Tsathoggua has a long tongue that resembles that of a toad. This tongue is brownish red and muscular, covered by a thick sticky saliva that serves to glue the prey and pull them to the mouth. A victim catched in this way is swallowed whole at once. The fate of this victim is irreversible, for the acid bile and the digestive juices of God's stomach are especially potent. A swallowed person, however, may be lucky enough to die quickly, crushed by the movements of the stomach.
It is believed that Tsathoggua is able to change its shape according to the environment in which he is. On Saturn it looked quite different - or so some texts say. There is enough evidence to suggest that he can voluntarily change his size and corporal mass as his needs dictate. If this is true, it is likely that the God uses as the "raw material" for his chosen form, the image of native animals, which explains why an alien being would have traces of animals from the terrestrial fauna.
Probably immortal by the passage of time, Tsathoggua is one of the major entities among the Great Old Ones, a being of immense power and vast knowledge who tends to be sometimes underestimated as a minor Deity. But those who confuse Tsathoggua's apparent tolerance with complacency are wrong, he has always been, and will continue to be, one of the most important cosmic forces inhabiting our System.
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