Great Cthulhu
Great Cthulhu is a monster from the dNetHack variant.
&: 400 damage claw attack, 1d10 wisdom draining passive gaze attack, 8d8 retaliatory poison attack.
Great Cthulhu is the second or third most dangerous creature in dnethack, and as such should be avoided rather than confronted. Great Cthulhu is generated asleep on one of the altars in R'lyeh, and plan A should always be to keep him that way. Great Cthulhu can be sensed from a distance as "an unknown monster causing you dread" regardless of whether or not you have warning.
Should the character need to approach Great Cthulhu, it is vitally important to avoid looking at him. Extinguish light sources and remain out of sight or blind yourself. Great Cthulhu's gaze attack permanently reduces wisdom by 1d10 points, though not below 3. In this case, the character's wisdom is reduced to 3 and the character then takes 10 damage for each point of wisdom drain remaining.
It is vitally important to remain at least 2 squares away from Great Cthulhu if at all possible, as his melee attack deals 400 damage and is essentially guaranteed to hit.
Should combat become unavoidable, Great Cthulhu is actually decently easy to take down, thanks to his slow effective speed (Speed 3, despite the listed speed of 15) and lack of a ranged attack. Should he be stricken down, however, he will revive at full strength after only a few rounds.
Origin
Great Cthulhu is just an alternative name to Cthulhu.
Cthulhu comes from the works of H.P. Lovecraft. The encyclopedia entries are excerpts from Lovecraft works. It's an important monster, giving it's name to the "Cthulhu mythos" universe.
He appears gigantic, hundreds of meters tall, humanoid, an octopus-like head with an undefined number of tentacles, a pair of rudimentary membranous wings and a scale covered body. His ability to disintegrate in a cloud when defeated, and then reforming him self, is in the story.
Encyclopedia entry
"The Thing cannot be described -- there is no language for such
abysms of shrieking and immemorial lunacy, such eldritch
contradictions of all matter, force, and cosmic order. A
mountain walked or stumbled. God!... the Thing of the idols,
the green, sticky spawn of the stars, had awakened to claim
his own. The stars were right again... great Cthulhu was
loose again, and ravening for delight."
[ The Call of Cthulhu, by H.P. Lovecraft ]
The exact origins of Cthulhu are lost to time, but it is
known that in aeons long past a race of space faring
beings came to this world and Cthulhu was amongst their
number as the high priest who interceded between them
and the dark gods they worshipped. Whether Cthulhu is
a long lived individual or a title of office, is not
known, but a creature bearing this name lives on,
trapped in eternal slumber in the ruins of his great
city.
I shall never sleep calmly again when I think of the
horrors that lurk ceaselessly behind life in time and in
space, and of those unhallowed blasphemies from elder
stars which dream beneath the sea....
[ The Call of Cthulhu, by H.P. Lovecraft ]
