Dungeon Dimensions
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
In Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, the Dungeon Dimensions are the endless wastelands outside of space and time.
The sad, crazy things that live there (a pastiche of Lovecraftian horrors) have no understanding of the world, simply craving light and shape. Therefore, they try to warm themselves by the fires of reality, clustering around it like an ocean about a candle. They can survive in this world under special circumstances. For most the reality they crave is soon fatal, due to their lack of a natural morphic field. They are jealous of all things alive and their main emotion is hatred, stemming from that jealousy, of all 'real' creatures. They are lured by heavy concentrations of magic that thin reality and may allow them an easier point to break through. Sometimes they break through into a mind, using that being's mind and body to further their own ends. Magical minds shine like beacons to them. The number eight also seems to attract them which is why wizards are advised to avoid saying it. They are said to resemble a cross between an octopus and a particularly angry bicycle.
The Dungeon Dimensions may or may not be related to the Dark Desert that everyone on Discworld visits (for varying periods of time) after they die.
Named Things From The Dungeon Dimensions are often references to creatures from the Cthulhu Mythos, and include:
- Bel-Shamharoth, the Sender of Eight
- C'hulagen (reference to Cthulhu)
- The Insider
- Tshup Aklathep, Infernal Star Toad with a Million Young (Reference to Shub-Niggurath, The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young)
- Yob Soddoth (reference to Yog-Sothoth)
- Nylonathetep, the Laddering Horror (reference to Nyarlathotep, the crawling chaos)
