The latter is inspired by several dark fantasy influences, notably that of H. P. Lovecraft ; most notably, Dimensional Shamblers appear as enemies, the " Spawn " enemies are called " Formless Spawn of Tsathoggua " in the manual, the end boss of the first episode is named Chthon, and the final boss is named Shub-Niggurath ( though actually resembling a Dark Young ).

Shub-Niggurath, often associated with the phrase “ The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young ”, is a deity in the Cthulhu Mythos of H. P. Lovecraft.

The next Lovecraft story to mention Shub-Niggurath is scarcely more informative.

Shub-Niggurath is called " the Mother Goddess ", and reference is made to " her sons ", presumably Nug and Yeb.

Although Shub-Niggurath is often associated with the epithet " The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young ", it is possible that this Black Goat is a separate entity.

Rodolfo Ferraresi, in his essay " The Question of Shub-Niggurath ", says that Lovecraft himself separated the two in his writings, such as in " Out of the Aeons " ( 1935 ) in which a distinction is made between Shub-Niggurath and the Black Goat — the goat is the figurehead through which Shub-Niggurath is worshipped.

In apparent contrast to Shub-Niggurath, the Black Goat is sometimes depicted as a male, most notably in the rite performed in " The Whisperer in Darkness " ( 1931 ) in which the Black Goat is called the " Lord of the Woods ".

In Ramsey Campbell's story " The Moon Lens ", the English town of Goatswood is inhabited by once-human worshippers of Shub-Niggurath.

In " The Last Test " ( 1927 ), the first mention of Shub-Niggurath seems to connect her to Nug and Yeb: " I talked in Yemen with an old man who had come back from the Crimson Desert — he had seen Irem, the City of Pillars, and had worshipped at the underground shrines of Nug and Yeb — Iä!

The reference to " Astarte ", the consort of Baal in Semitic mythology, ties Shub-Niggurath to the related fertility goddess Cybele, the Magna Mater mentioned in Lovecraft's " The Rats in the Walls ", and implies that the " great mother worshipped by the hereditary cult of Exham Priory " in that story " had to be none other than Shub-Niggurath.

Other evidence of Lovecraft's conception of Shub-Niggurath can be found in his letters.

Robert M. Price points to a passage from " Idle Days on the Yann ", by Lord Dunsany, one of Lovecraft's favorite writers, as the source for the name Shub-Niggurath:

Lovecraft only provided specific information about Shub-Niggurath in his “ revision tales ”, stories published under the names of clients for whom he ghost-wrote.

The revision story " The Mound ", which describes the discovery of an underground realm called K ' n-yan by a Spanish conquistador, reports that a temple of Tsathoggua there " had been turned into a shrine of Shub-Niggurath, the All-Mother and wife of the Not-to-Be-Named-One.

Finally, in " Out of the Aeons ", a revision tale set in part on the lost continent of Mu, Lovecraft describes the character T ' yog as the " High Priest of Shub-Niggurath and guardian of the copper temple of the Goat with a Thousand Young ".

In the story, T ' yog surprisingly maintains that " the gods friendly to man could be arrayed against the hostile gods, and ... that Shub-Niggurath, Nug, and Yeb, as well as Yig the Serpent-god, were ready to take sides with man " against the more malevolent Ghanatothoa.

Gary Myers's story, " What Rough Beast ," casts Shub-Niggurath as the mother of all the gods, and her children as the chapters of her ongoing revelation.

It should be noted the RPG company Chaosium is responsible for the vast misconception that the shoggoth in that story is one of the young of Shub-Niggurath.

The Black Goat may otherwise be a male, earthly form of Shub-Niggurath — an incarnation she assumes to copulate with her worshipers.

Tshup Aklathep, Infernal Star Toad with a Million Young, who according to Victor Tugelbend tortures his victims to death by showing them pictures of his grandchildren until their brains implode, is an amalgam reference to Shub-Niggurath, The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young, and Tsathoggua, often described as " toad-like ".

After all of the runes are collected, the floor of the Start opens up to reveal an entrance to the End level which contains the final boss, based on the god Shub-Niggurath from the Cthulhu Mythos.

August Derleth classified Shub-Niggurath as a Great Old One, but the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game classifies her as an Outer God.

The CthulhuTech role-playing game, in turn, has returned to Derleth's classification of Shub-Niggurath as a Great Old One.

As Price points out, “ For these clients he constructed a parallel myth-cycle to his own, a separate group of Great Old Ones ,” including Yig, Ghatanothoa, Rhan-Tegoth, " the evil twins Nug and Yeb "— and Shub-Niggurath.

Even the knowledge that she was losing another boy, as a mother always does when a marriage is made, did not prevent her from having the first carefree, dreamless sleep that she had known since they dropped down the canyon and into Bear Valley, way, way back there when they were crossing those other mountains.

And that is the way I first saw her when my Uncle brought her into his antique store.

Why, in the first place, call himself a liberal if he is against laissez-faire and favors an authoritarian central government with womb-to-tomb controls over everybody??

Life is further characterized, in antithesis to Piepsam, as animal: the image of a dog, which appears at several places, is first given as the criterion of amiable, irrelevant interest aroused by life considered simply as a spectacle: a dog in a wagon is `` admirable '', `` a pleasure to contemplate '' ; ;

In the first instance, `` mimesis '' is here used to mean the recalling of experience in terms of vivid images rather than in terms of abstract ideas or conventional designations.

This is the primary function of the imagination operating in the absence of the original experiential stimulus by which the images were first appropriated.

The first half of The Charles Men, ending on the climax of the battle of Poltava in 1709, is more dramatically coherent than the second.

He is, first and foremost, a defender of public morals, a servant of society.

The first of two possible variations on this theme is symbolized by Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer.

Noting such evidence is the first step ; ;

So it is that we relive his opening statement in the first television address with the dramatic immediacy of the present.

and it is surely clear that the first of these is the result of the way in which the individual's command of language interacts with the other two.

The first thing to do is get her some money by a temporary but definite adjustment pending a final disposition of the case.

When I take over Taliesin, the first thing I'll do is fire you ''.

If `` Jack the Courtier '' is really to be taken as Swift, the following remark is obviously Steele's comment on Swift's change of parties and its effect on their friendship: `` I assure you, dear Jack, when I first found out such an Allay in you, as makes you of so malleable a Constitution, that you may be worked into any Form an Artificer pleases, I foresaw I should not enjoy your Favour much longer ''.

At this point a working definition of idea is in order, although our first definition will have to be qualified somewhat as we proceed.

`` History has this in common with every other science: that the historian is not allowed to claim any single piece of knowledge, except where he can justify his claim by exhibiting to himself in the first place, and secondly to any one else who is both able and willing to follow his demonstration, the grounds upon which it is based.

We saw it frequently afterward, but our suggestion for the very first encounter is near sunset.

Master Gorton, having foully abused high and low at Aquidneck is now bewitching and bemaddening poor Providence, both with his unclean and foul censures of all the ministers of this country ( for which myself have in Christ's name withstood him ), and also denying all visible and external ordinances in depth of Familism: almost all suck in his poison, as at first they did at Aquidneck.