IX Mythos Bestiary The gugs, hairy and gigantic, once gugs to retake their ancient holdings would make for a devastating and far-reaching conflict Gugs are a civilization of giant black-furred carnivores Their arms terminate in two fore-arms, giving them four spade-clawed hands Their mouths are vertical slits and they have eyes on each side of their heads Gugs are enormous: a typical gug is 3-4 meters tall (~12 feet), and some reach heights of 5-6 meters (~20 feet) They weigh at least 1,500 pounds Gugs are incredibly stealth, hardly making a sound as they move Typically, the first sign anyone sees of an impending gug attack is their sudden and shocking arrival out of the dark Gugs in the Dreamlands were long ago banished reared stone circles … and made strange sacrifices to the Other Gods and the crawling chaos Nyarlathotep, until one night an abomination of theirs reached the ears of earth’s gods and they were banished to caverns below —The Dreams in the Witch House and Other Weird Stories, H P Lovecraft to the underworld, though they can access the waking world through magic passages (which invariably lead to caves and tunnels underground) But the gods’ ban does not apply here, so gugs can scout or invade the surface world as they like Because of their substantial size and excellent night-vision, they like operating in the dark, which makes them harder for surface-dwellers to see The highly intelligent gugs build stone cities, worship the Outer Gods, and make formal sacrifices They have a social structure, though almost nothing about it is known to surface folk, as the primary interaction of gugs with surface-dwellers is in terms of predator and prey Since gugs have no vocal cords and their “speech” operates by means of facial expression (which humans cannot imitate, lacking the vertical mouth), it is basically impossible for outsiders to communicate with gugs and vice-versa Some very intelligent gugs have mastered writing other languages, however, so they can communicate with humanoids that way 347