Minion Races
[August Derleth's Cthulhu Mythos]

The Great Old Ones (3) are served by various races of aliens:

There was far more—oddly disturbing paragraphs concerning the return of the Ancient Ones [Great Old Ones (3)], the devotion of the minions who served them, some in the guise of men, others in guises far stranger. [Keeper]

I dreamed that I moved among great dwellings in wonder and beauty, amidst others of my kind, and among aliens as friends, aliens whose very aspect might, in waking hours, have congealed the blood in my veins, all . . . given to one cause, the service to those great ones whose minions we were; dreamed through the night of other worlds, other realms of being; of new sensations and incredible, tentacled beings commanding our obedience and worship . . . [Seal]

After the Great Old Ones (3) were imprisoned, they spawned these minion races to help bring about their return:

. . . but in time these Evil Ones [Great Old Ones (3)] spawned hellish minions who set about preparing for their return to greatness. [Hastur]

Then the Old Ones, the Elder Gods, returned to the stars of Orion, leaving behind them ever-damned Cthulhu, Lloigor, Zhar, and others. But the evil ones left seeds on the plateau, on the island in the Lake of Dread which the Old Ones caused to be put there. And from these seeds have sprung the Tcho-Tcho people, the spawn of elder evil, and now these people await the day when Lloigor and Zhar will rise again and sweep over all Earth! [Lair]

These minion races are based in various locations:

. . . and the minions of the latter existed there unknown to most men—the Deep Ones in the ocean depths, the batrachian people of Polynesia and the Innsmouth country of Massachusetts, the dreaded Tcho-Tcho people of Tibet, the shantaks of Kadath in the Cold Waste, and many others . . . [Space]

In one instance the great mind had just come back from Earth after five years as a British anthropologist, and he pretended to have himself seen the places where the minions of the Ancient Ones [Great Old Ones (3)] lay in wait. Some had been partially destroyed—as, for instance, were a certain island not far from Ponape, in the Pacific, and Devil Reef off Innsmouth, and a mountain cavern and pool near Machu Picchu—but other minions were widespread, with no organization . . . [Space]

. . . the Ancient Ones [Great Old Ones (3)] . . . were still worshipped and served by followers throughout earth and among the planetary spaces . . . [Seal]

Some of these races come from the places where the Great Old Ones (3) were imprisoned:

And, just as the races of men who worshipped various known gods bore sectarian names, so did the followers of the Ancient Ones, and they included the Abominable Snow Men [Outer Ones] of the Himalayas and other Asian mountain regions; the Deep Ones, who lurked in the ocean depths to serve Great Cthulhu, though ruled by Dagon; the Shantaks; the Tcho-Tcho people; and many others, some of whom were said to stem from the places to which the Ancient Ones [Great Old Ones (3)] had been banished—as was Lucifer from Eden—when once they revolted against the Elder Gods—such places as the distant stars of the Hyades, Unknown Kadath, the Plateau of Leng, the sunken city of R’lyeh.[Gable]

But I know that the clouded glass of the gable window was a potent door into other dimensions—to alien space and time, an opening to landscapes Wilbur Akeley sought at will, a key to those hidden places of the earth and the star spaces where the followers of the Ancient Ones [Great Old Ones (3)]—and the Old Ones [Great Old Ones (3)] themselves!—lurk forever, awaiting their time to rise again.[Gable]

. . . a revolt on the part of the Ancient Ones [Great Old Ones (3)] . . . resulted in their vanquishment and banishment to various places in the universe, from which they hoped to rise once more against the Elder Gods, and where they were served by their minions, cults of men and animals reared in their service. [Island]

The minion races work to bring about the return of the Great Old Ones (3):

. . . while Their minions gather’d and sought means and ways with which to free ye Old Ones [Great Old Ones (3)] . . . [Lurker]

. . . the Great Old Ones who have their minions, their secret followers among men and beasts, whose task it is to prepare the way for their second coming . . . [Sky]

There are numerous different minion races:

Should anyone of them fail to carry the star, however, he might fall victim to the Deep Ones, or to the Abominable Mi-Go [Outer Ones], or to the Tcho-Tcho people, the Shoggoths, the Shantaks, or any among a score or more of those human and semi-human creatures dedicated to the service of the Ancient Ones [Great Old Ones (3). [Island]

There were, additionally, pertaining to Cthulhu, supposedly inhabiting a secret place on Earth, rather shockingly suggestive legends that certain of his batrachian followers, known as the Deep Ones, had mated with men and produced a horrible travesty of mankind known to be habitants of certain coastal Massachusetts towns. [Island]

He spoke of the servants of the Ancient Ones [Great Old Ones (3)]—of the Deep Ones, the Voormis, the Abominable Mi-Go [Outer Ones], the Shoggoths, the Shantaks . . . [Keeper]

The spawn of Cthulhu and Lloigor among the Tcho-Tcho people in remote Tibet struggle against the the seals put upon them by the retreating Elder Gods, hoping to rise again and spread horror throughout earth. [Sandwin]

. . . of their minions—the Deep Ones of the seas and the watery places on Earth, the Dholes, the Abominable Snowmen [Outer Ones] of Tibet and the hidden Plateau of Leng, the Shantaks, who flew from Kadath in the Cold Waste at the bidding of Wind-Walker, the Wendigo, cousin of Ithaqua . . . [Seal]

. . . among the Tcho-Tcho people of Tibet, and the Abominable Snowmen [Outer Ones] of the high plateaus of Asia, and a strange sea-dwelling people known as the Deep Ones, who were amphibian hybrids, bred of ancient matings between humanoids and batrachia, mutant developments of the race of man . . . [Seal]

. . . Dr. Shrewsbury and he had taken flight by summoning from interstellar spaces strange bat-like creatures [Byakhee], the servants of Hastur, Him Who Is Not To Be Named . . . [Sky]

. . . the Abominable Snowmen [Outer Ones], the Dholes, the Deep Ones, and many others . . . [Valley]

The book evidently concerned ancient, alien races, invaders of earth, great mythical beings . . . all involved in some kind of plan to dominate earth and served by some of its peoples—the TchoTcho, and the Deep Ones, and the like. [Witches]

Derleth lists the Hound of Tindalos among various eldritch beings, but it is not clear whether they are a minions of the Great Old Ones (3) or whether they operate independently:

Yig, the terrible snake-god, of Atlach-Nacha of the spider-shape, of Gnoph-Hek, the “hairy thing” otherwise known as Rhan-Tegoth, of Chaugnar Faugn, the vampiric “feeder,” of the hell-hounds of Tindalos, which prowl the angles of time, and again and again of the monstrous Yog-Sothoth, the “All-in-One and One-in-All,” whose deceptive disguise is as a congeries of iridescent globes concealing the primal horror beneath. [Lurker]

The various minion races serve different Great Old Ones (3):

These races are malevolent:

"The Tcho-Tcho people . . . are inherently malevolent, for they know that they are working for the destruction of all that is good in the world.” [Lair]

Unlike the Great Old Ones (3), the minion races are not imprisoned, and can travel widely, sometimes in disguise:

Out of the building came not one but two strangely hunched figures, who seemed to shuffle and hop along, and passing under a misty light in the street, revealed oddly repellent features, icthyic, if I were to judge. / “If I were to say to you,” whispered Professor Shrewsbury at my side, “that there went two of the Deep Ones, would you still believe that I was the victim of my own wishful imagination, Mr. Colum?” [Keeper]

If the minions of the Ancient Ones [Great Old Ones (3)] are everywhere, what haven is left? [Keeper]

The star-stones of Mnar offer protection from the minion races:

Should anyone of them fail to carry the star, however, he might fall victim to the Deep Ones, or to the Abominable Mi-Go, or to the Tcho-Tcho people, the Shoggoths, the Shantaks, or any among a score or more of those human and semi-human creatures dedicated to the service of the Ancient Ones. [Island]

The members of these minion races can be destroyed, and not merely imprisoned, by the Elder Gods (1):

Holmes told me later what had happened after I passed out that night—told me why the things had been destroyed utterly, annihilated, rather than buried again. . . . destroying forever the brood of Cthulhu . . . It had come to help annihilate an age-old enemy that once before had fought against it. [Depths]

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