Horror writer H.P. Lovecraft created his own fictional universe full of creatures and beings that he would often references his works. He seemed to have created a fully formed mythos, with a hierarchy of these creatures, and a loose back story and creation myth for many of them as well. There are many creatures in his mythos with some making frequent appearances and some of the most popular being only mentioned briefly but with little description of what their role or place is in the hierarchy and history of the world. Here is a list of the top three H.P. Lovecraft fictional creatures.

Azathoth

This often mentioned, but rarely seen Outer God, Azathoth is often mentioned as residing in the center of the universe and is said to be “blind and mad.” Sometimes said to be the “leader”, Azathoth is referred to as chaos personified and one glipse of the god would drive them insane. Some artists have drawn and put on display easel artwork of Azathoth as a mass of swarming, tentacled chaos with no real “body” or form. Azathoth is one of the most strange and frightening of the creatures in Lovecraft’s mythos.

Dagon

One of the less creative of Lovecraft’s monsters, and the one with the closest relationship with an actual diety worshipped in Middle East history, Dagon is the god of the sea, and the leader of the Deep Ones, a race of half man, half fish-like creatures. The image and idea of a serpent, fish-like or dragon-like creature in the sea known as Dagon has been around since early man, with Semitic peoples reported to have worshipped a god with the same name making Lovecraft’s use of Dagon all the more interesting in his mythos.

Shoggoth

These horrid, strange creatures and described by Lovecraft as “terrible, indescribable thing[s] vaster than any subway train…shapeless congeries of protoplasmic bubbles, fainly self-luminous, and with myriads of temporary eyes…” They make a famous appearance in Lovecraft’s novel “At the Mountains of Madness,” where they drive the explorers from the Elder Things cave and are revealed to be very old “worker Bee” type creatures created by the Elder Things to build their underwater cities. They are hostile, feared and loathsome and one of Lovecraft’s best monster creations.