N'gah-Kthun

The N'gah-Kthun are one of the six major precursor races that have inhabited Earth before humanity evolved. To a greater or lesser degree, they have existed alongside the 'Ithra, the Shoggoth, the Flying Polyps, the Great Race, and the Yuggya.

Biology
"They are more vegetable than animal, if these terms can be applied to the sort of matter composing them, and have a somewhat fungoid structure; though the presence of a chlorophyll-like substance and a very singular nutritive system differentiate them altogether from true cormophytic fungi."

--H. P. Lovecraft, "The Whisperer in Darkness"

N'gah-Kthun biology conforms to rules alien to our own transform, but through convergent physics and evolutionary pressures still bears broadstroke similarities to biological norms within our baseline reality. While they imitate a number of characteristics that belong in wholly separate clades here on Earth, their physiology and metabolic processes are primarily akin to terrestrial fungi. The physiology and life cycle of the N'gah-Kthun is predicated on parasitism. Similar to certain terrestrial fungi, they seed the nervous systems of host creatures to metastasize through their bodies, taking control of and imitating them. It is believed the arthropod-like bodies the majority of them have are derived from the species they originally evolved to subsist off of, which became a staple livestock when they developed sapience and began developing tool use. The average N'gah-Kthun is roughly the size of a human being, ignoring those that have wings. They have a central, segmented body with six limb roots; the N'gah-Kthun are biramous like certain terrestrial arthropods, with each limb branching in two after the base segment. All of an N'gah-Kthun's limbs terminate in a hand-like claw with four long, serrated "fingers" and two pad-like "thumbs" which can be folded inward to form a broad palm when the limb is needed for support or walking. The chitinous shell tends to have a pinkish or reddish hue, with a grey streak running up the dorsal region where mycelia peek out from underneath. At the top of this structure is a knotted mass of grey, fleshy ropes tangled together and covered in bristling antennae. These antenna-like structures act as their primary sensory organ, detecting wavelengths of light. The flesh of the head also contains chromatophores, allowing it to change color and rapidly form complex patterns. This, in tandem with mild psionics, forms the primary language of the N'gah-Kthun.

It should be noted that an N'gah-Kthun brain is a decentralized thing, with the assortment of short antennae on their "heads" being fruiting bodies that are each rooted in a single cognitive node, each containing its own discreet memories and capacity to think. An N'gah-Kthun is not only a parasite but, functionally, a colony organism. Indeed, the N'gah-Kthun stumbled into sapience by accident. They evolved to be low-intelligence mimics who parasitize a host and use it to spread their offspring to more hosts. However, through a fluke of adaptation they were actually capable of "planting" multiple nodes onto a single host, causing these clusters to grow together into a single colony mass, pooling their cognitive output. This also necessitated much greater caloric intake to power the larger brain mass, of course--a fact that basically required developments like agriculture for them to continue in this fashion. Considering the anatomical characteristics of a baseline arthropod host--particularly the long limbs and prehensile grasping appendages--it's likely they originally filled an ecological niche akin to monkeys or other climbing animals.

Psychology
N'gah-Kthun psychology is fundamentally mimetic, as one might expect from a parasitic mimic. However, the colony nature of an N'gah-Kthun's mind produces some interesting idiosyncrasies. For one thing, an N'gah-Kthun's focus is not centralized, and can not be. Each discrete cognitive node has its own independent ability to focus on the thoughts, memories, and emotions within it, rapidly exchanging this information with the nodes it is connected to. This fact carries some benefits, as well as some drawbacks. Perhaps the most consistently beneficial aspect is that the N'gah-Kthun have exceedingly associative trains of thought, and are masters at correlating disparate pieces of data and figuring out how they fit together--after all, an N'gah-Kthun's knowledge is spread out among many small brains, and when they think about a subject each individual node sifts through its small contents at the same time, exchanging data points with the wider collection as they are found. Another is that this decentralized focus makes the thaumatalogical use of Aklo exceedingly easy for the N'gah-Kthun. Another still is that it led to the N'gah-Kthun accidentally evolving psionic ability: because they reproduce by seeding new hosts with cuttings from an existing N'gah-Kthun (as well as trading cuttings between one another to share memories) the N'gah-Kthun, as a species, share much of the same conceptual structure, making it quite easy for one N'gah-Kthun to generate Ghooric overlap with the mind of another.

However, there are downsides. For instance, the connections between cognitive nodes is not perfect and occasionally fails. Sometimes an N'gah-Kthun will temporarily be unable to access the information in a specific node--they'll still have a feeling that they know what they're trying to recall, but they can't bring it to the surface. Likewise, they can experience a general partial disconnect between their cognitive nodes that significantly slows cognition and effects how they process sensation, both leading to a sort of "brain fog." Another problem is emotional confusion: the colony's nodes do not experience emotional states as a unity, but individually, and situations that trigger strong emotional responses can lead an untrained N'gah-Kthun into a discordant state as each node floods them with a different response. For this reason, it is common cultural practice for N'gah-Kthun to train their fledglings in the act of emotional detachment, to avoid such states. The N'gah-Kthun' associative thought patterns also mean that often, they will slide from one topic to another rapidly, unable to remain focused on a single thing.

History
The history of the N'gah-Kthun isn't known beyond a certain point--even to them. Based on their physical structure and alien composition, it is believed that they actually evolved within some forgotten corner of the Gulf of S'ghluo. If this is the case, however, at some point they performed a species-wide exodus to Gilman Space, making that alien reality their permanent abode. What triggered this exodus is unknown, though some occultists have suggested it was a planet-wide infection by Hastur that led to the N'gah-Kthun abandoning their homeworld.

Culture and Habitat
“Do you know that Einstein is wrong, and that certain objects and forces can move with a velocity greater than that of light? With proper aid I expect to go backward and forward in time, and actually see and feel the earth of remote past and future epochs. You can’t imagine the degree to which those beings have carried science. There is nothing they can’t do with the mind and body of living organisms. I expect to visit other planets, and even other stars and galaxies. The first trip will be to Yuggoth, the nearest world fully peopled by the beings. It is a strange dark orb at the very rim of our solar system—unknown to earthly astronomers as yet. But I must have written you about this. "

--H. P. Lovecraft, "The Whisperer in Darkness"

[Gilman Space and colonies, lloigornos and religion, colonial interaction with other species, nonlinear writing]

Technology and Magic
[Telepathy, Ghooric anchoring, Surgery and Grafting (wings, voice boxes, et alia), Brain Cases and Sensory Devices]