The Shans, more commonly known as the Insects from Shaggai, are a sapient race of pigeon-sized flying insectoids, originally from the planet Shaggai.
Biology[]
Shans are insect-like creatures which fly on semi-circular, ridged wings. These wings have a leathery look and are covered in triangular scales. They can achieve extraordinary fast speeds, although they cannot fly for long distances in Earth's atmosphere. The Shans also have three mouths, lidless eyes, jointed tendrils or antennae protruding from their heads, and ten clawed legs which are covered in black tentacles. Their lifespans encompass several centuries.
Despite having three mouths, the Shans don't actually eat, as they evolved to live by photosynthesis, basking themselves in the green light emitted by the two suns of their home system, before their planet was destroyed. On Earth, they spend the days inside their temple and only come out at night, which suggests that they might have switched to artificial light for sustenance.
The most notable aspect of the Shans' biology is that, like the Spawn of Cthulhu and the Flying Polyps, their bodies are not made out of ordinary matter, and they are capable of achieving some level of intangibility which allows them to fly straight into the face of a living victim and enter the victim's head, lodging themselves inside the brain. When this happens, the host starts to experience visions of the Shan's own memories, and finding them normal, as the host is experiencing them through the Shan's own point of view.
Culture and society[]
The Shans originate from Shaggai: a world described as "far beyond the reaches of any earthly telescope", and orbiting a binary star "at the edge of the universe". On Shaggai, they lived in communal domes accessible by door-less orifices, and built towering stone pillars and pyramidal temples, in the latter of which they worshiped the monstrous god Azathoth.
The Insects from Shaggai were an advanced species, and enslaved other races to perform work for them while the masters dedicated themselves to science, religion, and sadistic pastimes, as they reveled in cruelty directed at their slaves. They built outposts and settlements on multiple worlds, and developed the means to mysteriously teleport their temples (and everything inside them) directly to other planets.
Other technological achievements include hand-held cylindrical devices which can disintegrate targets, and a box-shaped crystal which emits a scintillating petal-shaped energy field that interferes with the minds of their Xiclotlan slaves, turning the carnivorous creatures into tame and complacent laborers who accept orders without questioning.
History[]
At some point in their history, the planet Shaggai was mysteriously destroyed by the arrival of a red planetary object within their star system.
After Shaggai's destruction, a group of survivors teleported their temple to the planet Xiclotl, where they enslaved the Xiclotlans and lived for the next 200 years before moving to other worlds after some of the Shans fell victim to the "gods" of the Xiclotlans: a race of carnivorous plants. Whenever they went, they seemed to find some threat or another which prevented them from staying.
They finally settled on L'gy'hx, known to the Human race as Uranus, and were allowed to stay by the tolerant L'gy'hxians, who treated them as equals. However, when the presence of the Shans indirectly inspired the formation of a hostile sect of L'gy'hxian Azathoth worshipers which attacked the temples of their dominant religion, the L'gy'hxians gave the Shans the choice to either leave or convert.
Those who opted to leave teleported themselves to the nearby Earth, arriving in the British Severn Valley in the 1600s. They found, however, that certain components of Earth's atmosphere (the same which prevented them from flying over long distances) prevented them from teleporting again if they wished, and thus had no choice but to stay on Earth indefinitely.
After moving to Earth, they spent their nights seeking Human subjects to mesmerize, and bringing them to the Shans' conical stone temple in the mist-covered woods. At first, they were merely curious about the Human mind and what kinds of depraved thoughts could be found in it; but they soon realized that the members of a local witch coven were thrilled by the experience of linking their minds to those of the alien insects, and the coven started to worship the insects themselves. As a result, the Shans planned on using the witch coven to gather new subjects and gradually become rulers of the Earth. They used the Xiclotlans to guard the entrance of the temple, leading them to be known in their language as the "Daytime Guardians".
Their plans were unexpectedly thwarted when the members of the coven were executed, and for the next centuries, the Shans' further attempts to recruit other Humans were rare and unsuccessful, generally resulting in the Human's permanent insanity or death.
Appearances[]
- "The Insects from Shaggai", by Ramsey Campbell (1964)
Notes[]
- The name "Shans" is not used in the original story.