A sub-type ofEldritch Abomination, theAnimalistic Abomination is a monstrosity that resembles one animal -or often multiple - in a manner that varies from "just significant enough to recognize" to"disturbingly accurate", while still remaining definitely "alien" on theSliding Scale of Anthropomorphism. However, just because an abomination has an animal's guisedoesn't remotely restrict it to an animal's intelligence.

This type can beeven more nightmarish than your average horror, due to the contrast of something so thoroughly and decidedly unnatural appearing in a form "borne" of nature. Somewhat less commonly, Animalistic Abominations may actuallybe a direct product of their environment, which can sometimes suggest that nature itselfis harboring a severe animosity towards locals... assuming you're still currently on Earth, anyway.

It is somewhat easy to confuse this trope withStarfish Aliens: these are life-forms most simply adapted to a different environment from humanity and might even take onmore familiar forms for our benefit, whereas Animalistic Abominations (like any kind of Eldritch Abomination) will feelwrong and actively tamper with comprehension of it no matter how much they "should" be at home - if it's aware of humanity as a distinct group, then their form being familiar isanything but a good sign for us.

Good candidates for such monstrous beings includevarious reptiles,large insects (and/or arachnids), orcephalopods if you want a niceCthulhu-esque touch; your abomination may also be based on at least one sufficiently-weirdSeldom-Seen Species, or else a combination of various animal species. Heck, you can even make them likeactual starfish if you want! There's no shortage of otherAnimal Motifs to explore and exploit when creating your creepy, cryptic critters.

The Worm That Walks may overlap with this, since an eldritch being may use a mass of smalls animals (or animal-like creatures) such as worms or insects to take ona humanoid form. Some variants of this may also overlap withThe Mindless Almighty, who tend to possess "animal-like" intelligence at most. Contrast theTortured Abomination, which has a feralmentality rather than appearance.

Anime andManga

• Berserk has the Beast of Darkness, a monstrous wolf that isGuts's bloodlust and hatred of Griffith given form. It's one of the swordsman's greatest enemies, and wants nothing more than to make him submit to his darkest desires so it can permanently steal control of his body and freely indulge in its psychopathic bloodlust.
• The Tailed Beasts ofNaruto fame are dangerous monsters made of primal Chakra, and look like massive and unholy versions of otherwise ordinary animals: the Eight-Tails resembles a skinless ox with octopus tentacles; the Yonbi, or Four-Tails, looks like a monkey; and the Nine-Tails is naturally a demonic-looking fox. Most have been sealed inside of human hosts in hopes of keeping the unruly beasts under control, but this often results in the hosts going insane, or else having control of their bodies ripped away by the beasts possessing them - that is, if they're notwarped beyond recognition either way. All Tailed Beasts have names given to them by the Rikudo Sennin himself: Shukaku, Son Goku, and Kurama (the Kyubi) are the only ones known. And according to the Hachibi,they are capable of emotion.
• Puella Magi Madoka Magica has a heavy spoiler example inthe wish-granting entity known as Kyubey, who typically appears in the form of a harmless-looking cutesy feline. This belies Kyubey's nature as an "Incubator", aHive Mind race who eat their dead and take their predecessor's place and identity; Kyubey is frequently seen eating what looks to be his own corpse, and is capable of surviving ludicrous amounts of injury. Despite seemingly lacking emotion and claiming that Incubators have little understanding of mortality or the value of life in their "utilitarian" approach, Kyubey is more than happy to playJackass Genie and leave out vital aspects of the contracts Madoka and company agree to until it's too late..
  • The reason for doing all this to begin with is thatIncubators have a technology that converts emotions into energy, used in order to counter entropy and prevent the impending heat death of the universe - but the Incubators have a lack of emotion such that having them is considered an abnormality, and instead find their ideal subjects among (pre)pubescent human girls. While Kyubey's manipulations serve the purpose of cultivating the desired energy by turning the soul gems of magical girls into grief seeds, and the logic he employs still ultimately remains alien, you wouldn't be blamed for thinking he's just a bittoo good at it.
  • The side-story mangaPuella Magi Kazumi Magica also has a similarly spoiler-y examples:the Pleiades Saints learned the truth about Kyubey and magical girls, and used one of Kyubey's corpses to create their own Incubator in Jubey, who could absorb the darkness from soul gems; they also concocted a spell that would make Kyubey invisible to all other girls in the city, as well as rewrite their own memories to believe they contracted with Jubey, in an attempt to stop more witches from being born. Unfortunately for them, Jubey turns out to be a failure, and Kyubey eventually manages to regain control
  • InThe Rebellion Story, which is set after the series:The witch system has been upended and the Incubators have less emotional energy to harvest, so Kyubey seals Homura outside the Law of Circles' jurisdiction and forces Madoka back into the physical world in an attempt to restore it. This backfires when Homura steals Ultimate Madoka's powers for herself and becomes a witch, rewriting reality to make Madoka and her friends human again while enslaving Kyubey's race to take on the curses of the new world in Madoka's stead - with the result that Kyubey isdriven mad by having emotions forced upon him, inlcuding the combined grief, suffering and despair of every magical girl from the past, present and future. It's the kind of payback that'salmost too good for him after everything he's done.
• InPokémon: Jirachi—Wish Maker, the villain Butler attempts to resurrect a Groudon from a fossilized remnant of it using Jirachi's wish-granting powers. When he finally succeeds, the result is a bizarre manifestation of pure evil thatlooks like Groudon, but pretty clearlyisn't - this Groudon-shaped monster (known as Meta Groudon in Japan) immediately begins absorbing energy from plant life, humans and Pokémon alike using the gelatinous tentacles expelled from its spikes. It takes Butler seeing the error of his ways andcollaborating with Jirachi, Ash and his friends in order to finally destroy the monstrosity.
• In theWitch Hat Atelier manga, the Brimmed Caps possessBlack Magictransformation spells which can turn them into scalewolf-like abominations against their will - while they share the canine appearance and scaly back ofactual scalewolves, these monsters are black-colored beasts with pupil-less eyes.Euini is subjected to a forceful transformation into one in volume 4, and attacks Coco and Tetia in volume 5.

Comic Books

• InBone, theBig Bad of the entire story is revealed to beThe Lord of the Locust, who often manifests as aswarm of locusts. ItsDragon is The Hooded One -the undead Briar Harvestar's body was resurrected and possessed by the Lord of the Locust, and is accompanied by the same swarm. According to the prequel comicRose,it was originally a nightmare spirit that desired to walk the Waking World, possessing the Dragon Queen Mim to do so.
• OneDonald Duck issue reveals thata giant octopus called Ar-Finn sleeps beneath the depths in a sunken city -Cthulhu and R'lyeh, anyone? Donald's reality exists only because Ar-Finn dreams about it: If he wakes up, the world will start to adapt to his image, with the architecture becoming more and more alien and the people more octopoid in appearance. The story ends with Donald horrified to find out thatour whole existence is just a dream.
• Lord Odacon of2000 AD comicSlaine leads an entire species of these. They are cousins of theHumanoid Abomination Fomorians, and arePuppeteer Parasites that look equal parts deep-sea monstrosities and aborted hell-larvae.
• InDC Comics:
  • TheGreen Lantern comics have revealed the existence of alien entities that are incarnations of the various emotional forces that power each society of Lanterns. Examples of this trope among them include the bull-like red Butcher of Rage; the insectoid yellow Parallax of Fear; the three-faced, eagle-like blue Avara of Hope; and themassive, octopus-like indigo Proselyte of Compassion.
  • The Red is an an elemental force that connects all forms of land-dwelling animal life on Earth, and is governed by a group of entities known as the Parliament of Limbs. As a close ally of the plant-centric Green, the Red is far from malevolent and is connected to well known superheroes such as Beast Boy (formerly Changeling), Vixen andAnimal Man, but it's...not exactly pleasant to look at.
• Spider-Man and other spider-themed super-beings (such as Silk, Madame Webb, Kaine, and all the heroes inSpider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) have an innate connection to a mystical force called the Web of Life and Destiny, which in turn connects them to several totemic entities that also resemble spiders. These include The Other, the Gatekeeper, the Master Weaver, the Bride (the direct source of Silk’s powers), and the Patternweaver. Most of these beings are, in fact, benevolent, at least towards those with totemic powers, but not always. Possibly they are all embodiments or vestiges of Neith, one of the Elder Gods and goddess of spiders, whobuilt the Web of Life and Destiny to begin with.
• This is played for laughs inSquirrel Girl's comic, where the heroine's squirrel-friend Tippy-Toe seesGalactus as a giant, armored, cosmic squirrel. This does indeed make sense, as mortal beings cannot comprehend Galactus' true form, always seeing him as a celestial version of their own species.

Fan Works

• The fanon ofMy Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic likes to do this with many of its pony characters, as well as theBig Bads.
  • The originalGarry's Mod Applejack model was sofreaky that it was reinvented asEppaljeck, in the style of other GMod abominations.
  • Popular fanon is that Celestia and Luna, rather than beingPhysical Godesses, are benevolent versions of this trope, considering theirincredible age, almost unmatched power,Non-Standard Character Design, and beingworshiped as deities by their subjects with a combination of unquestioning obedience and paralyzing fear. Luna is more frustrated that being imprisoned in the moon for a thousand years means she's aFish Out of Temporal Water, rather than frombeing imprisoned for a thousand years.One fanfiction even has Luna casually mention that she and her sister are more thanfour hundredmillion years old, spending most of that time playing in the glaciers and lava flows of the planet respectively, and the other ponies are continually reminded that the two are very much Other.
  • Cloudcuckoolander andGenki Pony Pinkie Pie is also sometimes speculated to be an Equestrian Abomination, and there is a disturbingly high amount of supporting evidence, what with her tendency to casually break even the magical rules of Equestria: this especially includes appearing wherever she wants whenever she wants (much to the horror of Rainbow Dash and Cranky Doodle), including in places that couldn't possibly be large enough. And it's especially notable that whenDiscord first appeared, everypony else (including Celestia) was fearful whilePinkie wasecstatic.
  • ThePony POV Series has several - the most obvious areDiscord's parents. His mother Entropy is theAnthropomorphic Personification of heat death, and so massive that her justrising from the ocean of chaos she calls home creates waves so massive they could drowncontinents; Celestia refuses to describe anymore than her skin color to Twilight. If Entropy merelysays someone doesn't exist (at least, in her own realm), then theynever did. The Windigos? They weretiny pieces of her. Her mate Havoc is theAnthropomorphic Personification of mass hysteria and described as every fear that ever has, does, or ever will exist personified. He is so horrific to behold that justlooking at him will leave a mortal pony incapable of sleeping for the rest of their days. His merevoice would reduce them to horrified wrecks. Entropy erasing Havoc from existence, then himwilling himself back into it is equal to one member of a bickering couple shoving the other to them. Celestia's parents probably qualify as benevolent versions as well, considering they're just as massive, powerful, and indescribable, but are among the kindest beings in existence, even stepping in and saving the pony world from Havoc and Entropy's wrath when they were accidentally enraged.
  • InUnder The Northern Lights, Luna's and Celestia's great-uncles and great-aunts are described in a vision as "lights... sounds... patterns of magic in a black sphere that itched the brain and made the soul cry". They decided the laws of nature, seemingly on a whim. The only hostile one seems to be Discord, though, and his reality warping powers are presumably because he never agreed to what his siblings decided. The generation of their parents has some traits of abominations but are closer totitans, having motivations similar to mortal ungulates despite their ancient age, huge size, and in-equine shape.
• ThePokémon fanficLatias' Journey is chock full of these, all led and mostly created by theBig BadDeoxys, who is the embodiment ofevil and chaos. Others include:
  • Dark Latios, the evil undead brother of the main protagonist who ends upmind raping her until she transforms into anEldritch Abomination herself.
  • Mewgle, aShout-Out to the Moogles fromFinal Fantasy. Starting off as the innocent dungeon master of Team Rocket's virtual reality software, Mewgle is recruited by Deoxys and turns into a sadisticKiller Game Master withJoker Immunity.
  • Leviathan, an enormous red serpent who devours all the Ghost Pokemon in the world and is made out of thousands of corpses. Oh, andshe is Latias's mutated mother.

Film

• The titular monster ofJohn Carpenter'sThe Thing is first shown in the very convincing guise of a sled dog, running towards an American research station in Antarctica. When it's placed in a kennel with other dogs on-site, they immediately realize it's nothing like them and act hostile towards it, just before it transforms to attack the other dogs and absorb most of them.
• InAnnihilation, animals exposed tothe Shimmer are mutated into a form that, while recognizable, are far more alien and freaky than anything found on Earth. On the more mundane side of things is an alligator with a mouth full of shark teeth, while far more extreme is a bear with its skull exposed that can mimic the dying screams of a human it killed, and has one of her eyes and quite possiblyher entire skull assimilated into its being.
• Pirates of the Caribbean has Calypso, the goddess of the sea whose favored form seems to be a vast swarm of crabs. The Kraken would also count, from the way Gibbs describes it.
• While there is a lot ofArtistic License inAnaconda, it doesn't seem like the snake is more than a... giant snake. The sequel, however, claims it is in fact an avatar of a local deity, making this Trope a possibility.
• In theJurassic Park franchise, most of the dinosaurs, while ferocious and deadly, are just dinosaurs, acting solely out of hunger and instinct. However, inJurassic World (the third movie), theMega Corp decides to push the limits they’ve already pushed at playing God and use genetic engineering to create a beast like none other, the Indominus Rex, am abomination spawned by technology. This massive hybrid-super-dinosaur starts with the base genome of a T-Rex, making her incredibly strong, then adds the DNA of a gigantosaurus, making her huge, carnotaurus, giving her an armored carapace, mundane snake DNA, allowing her to track heat signatures, a tree frog infusion, giving her excellent climate adaptability (and hide her own heat signature), cuttlefish DNA for accelerated growth and camouflage, deinosuchus for powerful jaws and teeth, xenosaurus, giving her arms far more stronger and useful than those of the typical T-Rex, and most lethal of all, velociraptor, giving it the uncanny intelligence and cunning shown by those dinos in the previous films. And those are just the named ones, there are other dinosaurs in this genetic cocktail whose inclusion isn’t explained. It’s even hinted that she might have some human DNA in her, explaining opposable thumbs, problem solving abilities, and general ruthlessness. The end result is something far more malicious than anything previously seen in the franchise. They initially created two of these hybrids, but this one killed her sibling shortly after hatching. Not only does she seem to intentionally hunt down humans in preference to other prey, she hunts them long after her hunger is clearly sated, and slaughters other dinosaurs and leaves their corpses to rot, simply for fun. This is not a dinosaur, she isan avatar of Death itself, possibly eventhe embodiment of Nature's rage. Still, a big reason she proved as dangerous as she was is due to the reluctance to kill her - out of sheer greed - by her creators, as much like the rest of this franchise,Humans Are the Real Monsters .
• The Foodimals inCloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 is this Trope overlapped withAnthropomorphic Food, mutations created by the malfunctioning FLDSMDFR that resemble odd crosses between food and animals, many of them prehistoric. Many are intelligent and sapient, and most are, for the most part, nonagressive and even friendly.For the most part, that is, they quickly become hostile towards Chester and Live Corp forreasons that eventually become obvious.

Literature

• The works ofJ. R. R. Tolkien, such as theThe Lord of the Rings, have quite a few examples:
  • Shelob is a terrifying giant spider who happens to be the daughter of Ungoliant, a monstrousEldritch Abomination that terrorized Middle Earth before Sauron rose to power. While she doesn't possess her mother's apocalyptic appetite and godlike strength, she's still one of few beings that the One Ring has no power over, and is framed by the narration as being less an animal and more a demon masquerading as one.
  • The cephalopod-like Watcher at the gates of Moria may be one of those things that managed to crawl its way up to the surface, or it may be one of Morgoth's creations, but either way it is a borderline abomination.
• Nodens, Lord of the Abyss, is an Elder God that appears in theCthulhu Mythos, and is one of the few Elder Gods created (though not referred to as such) by Lovecraft himself. An enemy of Nyarlathotep, Nodens generally appeared in a humanoid form, which may either be his true form orone he took in order to not drive mortals insane.
• Stephen King works feature a veritable assortment of creepy-ass creatures.
  • At one point inIT, the eponymous monster is perceived as aGiant Spider by the protagonists, because this was the closest analogue that their rational minds could find for Its appearance. Before that, it appeared astheMonster ClownPennywise. The true identity of IT isan embodiment of fear and an appendage of the Deadlights, which exist beyond the edge of the universe.
  • The Dark Tower: Mordred Deschain is a half-demon who normally appears human, but when threatened he becomes aspider-like monster.
  • InPet Sematary, anything buried in a particular cemetery willbe resurrected as aMonster From Beyond the Veil - and many children had their dead pets buried there.
• The Ancient Enemy fromDean Koontz'sPhantoms is a massive, lake-sized mass of black sludge older than the dinosaurs that consumes other life forms as sustenance, and is able to perfectly mimic any creature it consumes. It can also create examples of these in small "probes" or "phantoms" that imitate the life forms it's consumed, including animals, to go forth and hunt more prey.
• InThe Power of Five, the main antagonists are examples of this.The Old Ones are godlike creatures that used to rule Earth before the humans defeated them ten thousand years ago and sealed them in another universe via the Nazca Lines; the animal shapes drawn into the Earth were actually representative of each of the Old Ones, with the familiar animals being the closest approximation the human mind could come to the Old Ones' horrifying appearance.
• Perdido Street Station byChina Mieville:
  • The slake-moths - monstrous, insectoid creatures that feed on the very sentience of their prey, leaving their victims utterly mindless shells. How terrible are these abominations? At one point, the government of New Crobuzon attempts to strike a deal with Hell to get them to intervene and stop the threat, andthe demons are too frightened to get involved.
  • And then you have the Weaver, who the New Crobuzon government turns to when the demons turn them down. It's agigantic spider that existsbetween dimensions and is capable of traversing them as easily as we would walk down the street. It is alsobatshit crazy, speaking in the "flight of ideas" style most often seen in unmedicated schizophrenics and capable of doing anything to anyone, friend or foe, merely because it seems "fitting". During the brief time that the heroes are in its presence, the Weaver cuts off the ears of everyone in the room for reasons known only to itself. It also repaired the ears of some of the people, again for reasons unknown. It also has an obsession with scissors and happily accepts them as gifts, if the term 'happy' can be applied to it; apparently it enjoys collecting things in general, as it is mentioned that before its obsession with scissors, it collected chess sets.
• The Creepers encountered in the works ofTerry Brooks were created by the Shadowen, and are creatures ofcomposite machine, insect, and mammal.
• WhileThe Bible does not go into detail about the origins of the Serpent in the Garden of Eden,Paradise Lost leaves no question that it isSatan in disguise.
• The Hound of the Baskervilles has the titular canine, which is implied throughout the novel to be a sort of demonic hound.This trope is ultimately subverted when it's revealed to be aScooby-Doo Hoax perpetrated by the true villain, who covered a dog in phosphorus to make it glow in the dark.

Live-Action TV

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer is full of animal-like monsters, but the one that truly qualifies is Olvikan, the "giant demon snake thingy" that Mayor Wilkins turns himself into in the epsiode "Graduation Day".

New Media

• TheDogscape, a creation ofSomething Awful and4chan's /co/, is a colossal organic mass of dog parts smothering the entire globe, leaving only trees growing puppy fetuses and occasional masses of milk teats as the only sustenance for the few remaining scraps of humanity.
• Thanks toTumblr, theMy Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fandom now hasLoony Luna.
• FromSomething AwfulZoofights, we have Swanmass. It starts out as a bunch of swans with gorilla arms, but after the Zoofights people reanimate it withBlack Magic,it gets much, much worse.

Oral Tradition,Folklore, Myths and Legends

• The Bible:
  • InChapter 9 of theBook of Revelation, the first eleven verses describe "locusts" that are summoned from the Abyss, and appear asarmored horses with human faces, long hair, scorpion tails and leonine teeth. Unlike a typicalPlague of Locusts, they were sent to torment and harm "those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads" for nearly half a year; they are also led by the angel of the Abyss, known asAbaddon in Hebrew, and Apollyon (or "Destroyer") in Greek. From Revelation 9:7-10:

The locusts looked like horses prepared for battle. On their heads they wore something like crowns of gold, and their faces resembled human faces. Their hair was like women’s hair, and their teeth were like lions’ teeth. They had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the thundering of many horses and chariots rushing into battle. They had tails with stingers, like scorpions, and in their tails they had power to torment people for five months.

• TheBlack Shuck of English folklore is a canine apparition that is frequently recorded as an omen of death, and other legends of spectral black dogs have been linked to it. The Shuck tends to appear as a shaggy black dog of varying description, with consistent traits including fiery eyes (or sometimeseye, as captured in the page image) and its immense size. In the most notable report, the Shuck was said to have burst through the doors of a church with the sound of a thunderclap, killing two people and causing the church steeple to collapse through the roof, and then leaving scorch marks on the north door as it disappeared - the account's author describes it both as a black dog and "the divel in such a likenesse". Another account recorded in the Peterborough Chronicle suggests that Black Shucks are used as part of aWild Hunt.
• Norse Mythology has numerous examples:
  • Fenrir, or Fenrisúlfr -theBig Badass Wolf among Big Badass Wolves and one of Loki's three monstrous children by a femalejötunn (often translated as "giant", despite not every jötunn being especially large). The Æsir raised Fenrir among them while devising a plan to try and permanently bind the ever-growing canine - they coaxed Fenrir into testing fetters through promises of fame for his strength, and when placing the dwarven-made Gleipnir Fenrir suspected there was trickery afoot, but allowed them to test it on the condition that Týr place his hand in Fenrir's mouth as a pledge of good faith. As the only one who had been courageous enough to approach and feed the wolf, Týr obliged - when it turned out that Gleipnir would hold, so did Fenrir, and off came the hand. The gods then thrust a sword into his mouth when he tried to bite them, holding it opening and gagging him; this caused him to produce horrible howls as saliva ran from his mouth, which formed the river Ván (Old Norse "hope"), and so he would remain bound until Ragnarök comes.
    • Andwhen Ragnarök comes, Fenrir is prophesized to break his binds and "go forth with his mouth opened wide, his upper jaw touching the sky and his lower jaw the earth, and flames will burn from his eyes and nostrils" - he will aid the forces of Surtr alongside his sibling, the World Serpent (who is another example discussed below), and consume the King of the Æsir, Odin.
    • Fenrir's sons, Sköll and Hati Hróðvitnisson, are each aBig Badass Wolf in their own right, and eternally chase the sun and moon respectively across the sky; one of the signs heralding Ragnarök is Skölleating the sun and Hatiswallowing the moon. Then, the stars will then disappear from the sky, the earth will shake violently, trees will be uprooted, mountains will fall, and all binds will snap – and then their father will break free.
  • Jörmungandr the Midgard Serpent, one of the monstrous offspring of Loki and a giantess. Starting out big, he grew so large that he canencircle the world, and sleeps at the bottom of the ocean depths while keeping his tail in his mouth - one of the signs of Ragnarök is finally releasing his tail, then causing to seas to flood as he thrashes onto the land and fills the water and air with his poison. Joining Loki and his other children in confronting the gods, Jörmungandr's role in the conflict is a battle with hisArch Enemy Thor that ends in aMutual Kill - the hammer-wielder successfully slays the Serpent, but is felled by his poison after walking nine steps.
  • Garmr, another monstrous wolfguarding Nifhelm.
  • Norse folklore originated the Kraken of theKraken and Leviathan trope.
• Egyptian Mythology:
  • Apep (Greek "Apophis") is an example that makes the tropeOlder Than Dirt: he isa titanic snake (or sometimes a crocodile) that represented the primal chaos of darkness, and is thought to dwell in the underworld. Apep would regularly attack Ra as his solar barge made its daily sojourn through the 12 Hours of Night, and was sometimes thought of as an Eater of Souls. Apep is notably the closest thing in the folklore to a captial-D Devil-figure - the Egyptians often buried their dead with spells that could destroy Apep, and any "worship" that related to Apep was with the aim of repelling or purging his influence, such as the annual rite called the "Banishing of Chaos" where he was burnt in effigy. Egyptian priests even had a detailed guide dedicated specifically to fighting Apep, referred to as"The Books of Overthrowing Apep" (or "The Book of Apophis" in Greek). Even Set - a remarkably vicious and evil deity in his own right, to the point of constant and sometimes literalDemonization -was said to protect Ra against Apep's onslaught during his journeys.
  • Ammit is a demon who devoured the souls of evildoers in the Hall of Judgment, and wasa giant combination of a crocodile, hippopotamus, and lion - three animals that Egyptians (rightfully) feared the most.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons:
  • One of the various backstories of Asmodeus, the Lord of Nessus and King of Hell, is that he is actually one of these. What others see when dealing with himis actually an advanced illusion - Asmodeus' real body is that of a titanic,miles-long serpentine creature who is some sort ofprimordial entity that predated the Gods, and is still injured from the Gods throwing him into an abyss so hard, it created the Nine Hells.
  • Possibly the Froghemoth, which is a frog the size of an elephant, standing upright, with three eyes, and four tentacles in place of arms. While this is indeed weird, the "abomination" part is a theory put forth by Baron Lum the Mad, who claimed to have encountered strange, cylindrical chambers of metal buried in the ground from which froghemoths emerged (of course, thereis a reasonLum was called "the Mad"). Also, inForgotten Realms, there is a legend stating that theprimordial god Ubtao created froghemoths, first doing so by transforming a toad who dared to insult him; also, Kubazan, one of the Nine Trickster Gods of Chult, tooks the form of a Froghemoth. This suggests these monsters are at least originally divine creations. Whatever the case, it is clear they are "not of this world".
  • The yuan-ti are a race ofSnake People; their leaders are monstrous beings called|anathemas. Horrific, cruel, powerful, immortal, and completely insane, anathemas are believed to be powerful yuan-ti who were transformed into avatars of their demonic gods (much like common yuan-ti were transformed humans) who were driven mad after the connection to those gods was severed.

Video Games

• Undertale has one of these inEndogeny, one of the Amalgamates that takes on the vague shape of a large canine: it has two pointed ears atop its "head", a single vaguely mouth-like orificewhere a face would be that produces "Happiness Froth" when it's excited, and a wide body with six digitigrade legs that form the silhouettes of five smaller canines, which display satisfied faces once it's content. For all itsweirdness, though, it's very much like a normal dog, and the key to Sparing it is playing with it like one.
• Bloodborne has many, but the Cleric Beast and Vicar Amelia are among the most iconic examples. They look like massive bipedal wolves with reindeer antlers that have been starved to death, and their screams sound truly hellish. Both seem to be some form of Wendigo, with the latter introducing herself byerupting forth from the body of a seemingly normal priestess.
• The Elder Scrolls has alot of eldritch monsters hanging around, and with thevagueness surrounding the franchise's intentionally contradictory lore, it only figures that some of them are animal-like in nature:
  • Barbas is a benevolent and adorable example, being a talkingBig Friendly Dog with a Brooklyn accent and the best bud of Daedric Prince Clavicus Vile... as well as an aspect and the conscience of the Prince himself that tries to protect anyone unfortunate enough to bargain with him. Furthermore,The Elder Scrolls: Redguard shows that he doesn't strictly stick to the form of a dog, and can be seen randomly changing forms before resetting back to his dog form. Clavicus will even comment on it, saying that he likes being a dog on sunny days, as well as many other things.
  • While they don't look too different in comparison to your stereotypical sauropod-like Western dragons, the dragons ofThe Elder Scrolls aren't fire-breathing lizards so much as they areDraconic Divinities (orDemons) with a connection toAkatosh himself. They're immortal creatures that can't be permanently killed unless their souls are absorbed, and find mortality to be so alien of a concept that ithurts them if they're forced to comprehend it. They also don't breathe fire, but insteadspeak it into existence, with the dragon language giving them all sorts of other fantastic powers that include becoming ethereal and greatly weakening anyone they fight.
  • Alduin, one of the most powerful dragons in the series, cranks this up even further. He is either the firstborn son of Akatosh, an aspect of him, or Akatosh himself, and that's ignoring the likely explanation that he'sall three at once somehow. His powers go further beyond his weaker brethren, and include being able to raise dragons from the dead as well astraveling directly to Sovngarde, the Nordic afterlife, and devouring the souls of the honored dead to become even stronger. His role is meant to be that of a living apocalypse that plays into the world's cycle of death and renewal, hence his moniker "The World-Eater".
• Sincethe Heartless fromKingdom Hearts are an entirerace of Eldritch Abominations, the ones with more animalistic forms fit this trope, such as thePowerwilds, Bouncywilds andPot Spiders. But even among them, there are a few that stand out:
  • Skoll, a massive wolf Heartless named after the giant sun-chasing wolf fromNorse Mythology. It fights by summoning packs of ghostly wolf minions, firing off powerful ice attacks, and trying to crush Sora and friends underneath a mass of darkness big enough to fill up the sky. But what makes itreally special is the fact that it's the Heartless ofFrozen character Prince Hans, who's been completely corrupted by the darkness in his heart.
  • Scar ofThe Lion King similarly becomes consumed by hatred and rage - but unlike Hans, his inner darkness is so powerful that he manages to hold onto his original form after becoming a Heartless... a feat only shared byAnsem, Seeker of Darkness.And even in death, Scar's ghost lingers as a powerful presence that haunts the Pride Lands, eventually turning into amassive Heartless called the Groundshaker after merging with a ton of other ghost Scars.
• The Halloween Hack has the Desire Dog that appears inDr. Andonuts'sMagicant - it appears as a Zombie Dog in the overworld, but in-battle the front half of its body consists of gooey tentacle-like pseudopods that it frequently uses to attack. Upon defeat, it collapses into an array of wriggling tentacles.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Final Fantasy VIII: During the third stage of theFinal Boss, Ultimecia the Sorceress (a Sorceress effectively being an enhanced human) junctions herself unto the Guardian Force Griever, resulting in a hybrid felinid form with Ultimecia's torso and arms on its chest, and deformed limbs and wings resembling Ultimecia's.Ultimecia draws this Guardian Force from Squall's mind during the second stage, and he will have whatever name the player chose for the lion on Squall's ring, with "Griever" being the default; this Guardian Force is not only a symbol of the virtues Squall values, but is his interpretation of the ultimate Guardian Force.
  • Sin ofFinal Fantasy X manifests as a giant whale-like monster the size of an entire city, and emerges from the depths of the ocean to completely annihilate all settlements larger than small villages at random intervals. It leaves swarms of smaller monsters in its path and everyone who survives coming into contact with its toxins (fortunately) suffers from massive memory loss. It can also apparently wipe out entire armies by causing distortions of space.
• Deadly Premonition has one where you'd least expect it, personally confirmed by the creator:Willie the dalmatian is the overseer forForrest Kaysen, and delivers him instructions from the Red World.
• InMonster Hunter, Elder Dragons as a whole are essentially this by the standards of the local fauna. They're incredibly powerful monsters that don't fit into the tree of life like every other monster classification, and often have their powers manifest in ways that can't be explained away by an elemental sac or any biological function. Many are either worshiped and revered as gods, or else feared as demons, and their presence drives away other monsters through an environmental anomaly.
  • The Elder Dragon Yama Tsukami isweird even by this standard - it looks nothing like a traditional dragon and more like a gigantic floating octopus covered in moss and earth, possessing a mouth full of disturbingly human teeth. It isn't aggressive or malicious, but it can destroy entire ecosystems by devouringeverything it flies over, including entire lakes and forests.
  • Fatalis and its relatives are easily some of the most eldritch and unholy monsters in the series, which is no small feat. Armor and weapons made from their body parts are said to plague those who wield them with horrifying nightmares, dark voices in their heads, and animalistic bloodlust; the Fatalis sword in Pokke village is constantly regenerating scales as well... These weapons and armor tend to driver their users insane if they don't die under mysterious circumstances - they can also possess their wielders, and possiblyturn them into another Fatalis entirely. Between this anda Crimson Fatalis somehow hatching from a clutch of Tigrex eggs in 4U's eggstraction quests, this implies that it's impossible to truly kill a Fatalis since they'll always find some way to resurrect. Their powers are also anomalous even by the standards of other Elder Dragons: Crimson Fatalis can send meteors crashing down to Earth, while the White Fatalis is introduced triggering a solar eclipse by emerging from a mysterious portal, hinting that it might beextradimensional to some extent. The standard Black Fatalis is comparatively more mundane, but even it famously wiped out an entire civilization overnight.
  • In a series where wielding two different elements can make a monster especially dangerous, Alatreon having power overall of them is downright mind-breaking. While it doesn't go out of its way to cause chaos, its powers are so unstable that it's practically a natural disaster in the form of a dragon. Like with Fatalis, equipment made from its body parts are said to drive the wielder completely insane over time.
  • Dire Miralis, which is treated less like a monster and more like Satan himself, is feared as a harbinger of the apocalypse. A titanic Elder Dragon that looks like a Fatalis carved out of volcanic rock, Dire Miralis's body can naturally generate lava that it fires from its "wings", which are basically an organic gun battery as opposed to any sort of proper animal appendage. It's so powerful and destructive that it can sink entire islands, and even when it isn't being actively malicious it can still boil entire oceans into lifeless wastelands just by stepping into them. Like with Fatalis, it's hinted that killing it doesn't even stop it for good, since its heart beats independently of its body and is rumored to be able to regenerate a completely new Dire Miralis over time.
  • Gore Magala looks like the unholy spawn of Venom, a Xenomorph, and a dragon, and is such a biological anomaly that no one really knowswhat to classify it as, ultimately settling for a class simply labeled as "???". It's essentially a plague given life, and casually spreads a virus that turns monsters exposed to it into rabid berserkers.It turns out to be the juvenile form of the Elder Dragon Shagaru Magala, which is still a dangerous plaguemaster in its own right despite being a "proper" life form... or as proper of a life form as an Elder Dragon can be, anyway.
  • Gogmazios is framed as something truly horrible and unknowable, even by the standards of this series' Elder Dragons. It looks like a skeletal dragon submerged in a tar pit, which said tar being passively generated from its body and weaponized in the form of explosive projectiles and super-heated tar lasers. And despite being roughly as big as Godzilla, it's a skillful flier and stealthy to the point that there are no recorded sightings prior to the player's encounter with the beast. Some players believe it to be a heavily mutated relative of the Gore Magala, while others believe it to be the fabledEqual Dragon Weapon from the series' old concept art and background lore. But if there's one thing the fandom can agree on, it's that its weird biology, bizarre powers, and mysterious nature make it feel like an obscene and otherworldly anomaly.
• The Legend of Zelda franchise has Ganon, who often appears as a large boar-headed demonic being and sometimes even closer to an actual boar (though still monstrous and far from any less abominable).
  • The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess has the second stage of theFinal Boss:Ganondorf is purged from Zelda's body, and turns into a monstrous boar known as Dark Beast Ganon; Link must find a way to attack the weak point on his stomach while in Wolf form.
  • InThe Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, during theFinal Boss fightGanon's demonic spirit escapes to Hyrule Field and manifests into the Incarnation of Malice and Hatred: aMalice-consumed gigantic boar with flaming "hair" similar to hisTwilight Princess incarnation. Princess Zelda claims that this is Ganon giving up on resurrecting and instead opting to release his wrath onto the world.
• Super Smash Bros.:
  • Ganondorfturns into his demonic boar form as part of his Final Smash fromSuper Smash Bros. Brawl onward.
  • Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS / Wii U introduces the Master Core - either a superpowered form of Master Hand, or some sort of abomination that took his guise. It surrounds itself with The "Swarm", a mass of darkness that it can shape into a number of terrifying forms: the ones that qualify for this are the Master Beast, which appears as a scorpion-tailed hound with violent high-speed attacks and bites that can shake the stage, and theMaster Shadow if you're using an animal-like fighter such asDonkey Kong.
• Falzar and Gregar fromMega Man Battle Network 6 overlap withMechanical Abomination - both are obscenely powerful, animalistic superprograms that are feared as harbingers of the apocalypse, and serve as the game's version mascots. Gregar is a wolf-like amalgamation of Bugfrags not unlike Gospel, and Falzar was meant to be a countermeasure to Gregar that turned violent and unpredictable. When MegaMan.EXE is forced to absorb one, he turns into a feral and uncontrollable Mechanical Abomination due to their raw power, withhis appearance altered accordingly.
• ThePokémon series has an abundance of examples, typically in the form of itsOlympus Mons. They're somewhat downplayed overall in the "abominable" department, considering the abilities possessed by more mundane Pokémon and the fact you can catch these Olympus Mons to begin with - Poké Balls work as power limiters that allow you to control what you catch with them, and as pointed out byGhetsis inPokémon Black and White: "A Pokémon, even if it's revered as a deity, is still just a Pokémon". With that in mind, many of these creatures display more than enough power beyond what most Pokémon are capable of (including the ability to control various aspects of the Pokémon world), while also beingPhysical Gods at minimum; some of the game's plots also feature villains that try to control these Pokémon through methods other than Poké Balls in order to unleash their full power.
  • The super-ancient trio ofPokémon Ruby and Sapphire - Groudon, Kyogre, and Rayquaza - areWeather Control Creatures that lurk in places normally beyond the reaches of man, and the awakening of either the dinosaur-like Groudon or the whale-like Kyogrealone constitutes an apocalyptic event that could devastate the world; Team Magma and Team Aqua respectively seek out the version mascot in order to create their ideal domains for people and Pokémon alike using control orbs. The third version,Pokémon Emerald, hasboth of them awakened, and you must find the trio master Rayquaza in order to force them back into slumber before their conflict potentially destroys the region. All three of them are at leastPhsyical Gods with an ability to control the continents, ocean and sky, respectively, and they're all believed to behundreds of millions of years old. Where Groudon and Kyogre can also induce droughts and flooding across much of the region, Rayquaza can outright force clear skies with its presence.
  • The fourth generation of Pokémon introduces the creation trio ofPokémon Diamond and Pearl: Dialga, Palkia and Giratina,draconic Pokémon that embody the concepts of time, space, and anti-matter. The plot ofBig Bad Cyrus, leader of Team Galactic, who wants to control Dialga and/or Palkia inPokemon Diamond/Pearl/Platinum at their full power by using the Red Chain rather than any type of Poké Balls.
    • Both Dialga and Palkia aresauropod Pokémon said to be able to create new universes, either on their own or through working with each other, and each normally reside in a different dimension from ours. Dialga has complete control over time, and its birth is said to mark the beginning of time's flow; Palkia can warp space, connect dimensions and create alternate realities, and is said to stabilize the space it controls with each breath.
    • Giratina rivals both Dialga and Palkia in power, and dwells inthe Distortion World, a dimensionwhere time and space do not work like they should. Like the others, it can also travel to different universes and warp reality, but represents gaseous and "ghostly" antimatter, as opposed to "solid and resilient" time and fluid space - it can turn itself into a shadow and merge the Distortion World with the Pokémon world, which risks it being destroyed in the process. Its Pokédex entry states that it was banished to the Distortion World for its violence - the third version,Pokemon Platinum, also has Giratina as the mascot and gives it a surprise role in the plot, where it demonstrates how highly aggressive and protective of its home it is bysnatching Cyrus into the Distortion World right in front of you in a way that looks likeit's lunging at the screen. There'sa good reason why people compare it to Yog-Sothoth or evenSatan.
    • Arceus -the Alpha Pokémon and "The Original One" - it is the creator of the lake guardians and the creation trio, possibly the Sinnoh and Ransei regions, and maybe even theentire Pokémon universe. It is said to have created the universe with "one thousand arms", including the Plates that are said to be shards from that creation, and can use those Plates or Z-Crystalss to change its type to any of the other 17. It also lives in a pocket dimension, the Hall of Origin, seemingly located above Dialga and Palkia’s summoning grounds on Spear Pillar, and all music associated with it just sounds...wrong. As shown by an event involving a special distributed Arceus inPokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver, it can recreate the latter trio of Pokémon, presumably to guard the dimensions when a Trainer has caught one of them - the event preceded by its battle theme playing over a disorienting series ofMind Screw-inducing images.
  • Xerneas and Yveltal ofPokémon X and Y are the incarnations of life and death, respectively, and otherworldly to a T. Xerneas breaks the usual mold of cute, cuddly Fairy-Types and is a divine, imposing stag who can grant eternal life to those it deems worthy. Yveltal, on the other hand, is a ghastly vulture-like Pokémon who can suck the life out of people, Pokemon, and the very Earth itself,rendering its victims statues; when it reaches the end of its lifespan, it steals the life energy of everything around it and then transforms into a cocoon to sleep. A living being drained by Yveltal can only be restored to life by Xerneas.
    • Eldritch as they are, neither Xerneas nor Yveltal hold a candle to the third member of their trio: Zygarde. While Xerneas and Yveltal at least have recognizably animalistic forms, Zygarde is instead aHive Mind collective of tiny cell-like creatures; depending on the amount of Zygarde Cells gathering around a "Core", it can take on the appearance of a hound, a bizarre alien serpent, or a hulking monstrosity that looks like some sort of alien Gundam. No matter the form, it’s a hyper-vigilant protector of nature that will eliminate any and all threats to the ecosystem with extreme prejudice - thankfully, it's an otherwise benevolent and gentle creature.
  • Pokémon Sun and Moon has a small handful of examples including the Ultra Beasts, interdimensional beings that make their debut here whose appearances and powers are unlike those of even the most eldritch Pokémon. Those that most fit this trope include:
    • Nihilego looks like an oddly humanoid jellyfish, but is inexplicably a Rock/Poison type instead of anything even remotely aquatic. It secretes a venom thatturns victims into rabidly insane husks of their former selves, and drives the conflict behindPokémon Sun and Moon byturning the once-kind and loving Lusamine into a narcissistic sociopath who terrorizes her children and innocent Pokémon alike.
    • Serving as something of an unofficial "leader" of the Ultra Beasts, Guzzlord is a gluttonousDraconic Demon that acts as a living black hole. Its monstrous appetite allows it to devour anything -- whether it be people, buildings, or nuclear waste -- and convert it all into energy. It never leaves any waste behind, and is hinted to have been created by nuclear disasters that devastated its home dimension.
    • While Solgaleo and Lunala are pretty otherworldly, they're at least comprehensible enough -- the same can't be said for Necrozma. A strange Pokémon seemingly made of black crystal, it has a vaguely humanoid shape with spiked shoulders, thin arms, gigantic hands, and a tail-like protrusion on its head. Its face is actually a prism-like object known as the brain prism, which holds a collection of multicolored eye-like shapes and glows when it absorbs and feeds on light. Necrozma fires off light constantly, including in the form of its signature Prismatic Laser, andis unceasingly vicious towards other life forms - it's also believed to be impossibly ancient, and is said to be reminiscent of the similarly-alien Ultra Beasts.
      • Ultra Moon andUltra Sun make Necrozma a significant part of the games' new storyline, grants it a pair of new forms andsheds some light on Necrozma's biology and its violent tendencies: Necrozma came fromthe world of the Ultra Megalopolis, where it was called the "Blinding One", and once had the ability to give light - but it was severely injured and partly shattered whenthe ancestors of the Ultra Recon Squad tried to steal that light from it. This made Necrozmaextremely violent and forced it to search for light to consume, both to sustain itself andregain its original form; in its desperation,it also stole light from other beings and places, which left them in near-permanent darkness -- this also gave it a reputation as a "pillager of light" in ancient Alola. Necrozma also displays the same ability to make portals into Ultra Space as Solgaleo and Lunala, and can eventake control of Solgaleo or Lunala, dominating them body and mind in order to fuse -- this makes iteven more vicious to the point of brutalizing any perceived enemy. Its new signature move is Photon Geyser, a pillar of destructive light that runs of the higher of Necrozma's offensive stats. And those fragments of Necrozma that it lost? They might well bethe Z-Crystals you've used throughout those games.
      • And then there's the form of Necrozma that players encounter as the main boss of the story:Ultra Necrozma, a colossal four-winged dragon composed of pure light energy, whose entire body uses its base form as a sort of "skeleton" - these portions of the body glow gold from the light energy it's absorbed. Its body temperature exceeds10,000 degrees Fahrenheit (or 5,540 degrees Celsius), melting anything it touches. Its Photon Geyser can also become one of the strongest Z-moves in the game:Light That Burns the Sky, which is likely the basis for what the Pokédex entry describes as a laser that can burn through anything in its pathfor up to 18 miles. Andthat's whatthe ancestors of the URSpissed right the fuck off.
  • Pokémon Legends: Arceus marks the first non-event appearance of the titular Mythical Pokémon, and Arceus and the creation trio that it leads also play much heavier roles in the plot, with the game and its events revealing a lot about them.
    • Dialga and Palkia each have theirown Origin Formes now, which partly explains whythey were believed to be "almighty Sinnoh" (aka Arceus) by their respective clans, as well as the Pokédex entries that stated they were revered as deities in ancient times. And what of the titular Arceus?Oh, it's "only" responsible for the creation of the Noble Pokémon that the Hisui people worship, the Ride Pokémon that guide you through a blessing that made them stronger,and the Arc Phone you use throughout the game. Arceus is also capable of human speech, and simply took on the name that humans called it. Around the time you finally encounter it near the end of the game, there are hints that its physical appearance is onlya fragment of its unknown and incomprehensible true form (a theory that is supported by at least one PokeDex entry claims it "shaped the world with its thousand arms") that exists outside the dimension it calls home. After you capture this 'fragment', Arceus appears in your dreams and creates the Eternal Battle Reverie, where you can fight various Pokémon as challenges.
    • And then finally there's none other thanGiratina - its portrayal here leans way more into the Satanic archetypes, with the power to create space-time distortions that rip holes in reality and can drive both Dialga and Palkia berserk...as well as creating Alpha Pokémon and driving Noble Pokémon into their berserk Lord/Lady States. The player learns of Giratina from Volo after they successfully reconcile the warring clans and he asks them to collect the Plates: upon obtaining 17 of them, Volo informs the player of a Legendary Pokémon as powerful as Dialga and Palkia, which was banished to another world due to its cruelty. Volo takes the player to the ruins of the Temple of Sinnoh, where he reveals that he sought out Giratina in order to cause a space-time rift that would make Dialga and Palkia appear - this would summon Arceus,whose power Volo wants to destroy the world and create a superior one. When you defeat Volo in battle, Giratina appears immediately afterward to attack you, even transforming into its Origin Forme partway through - defeating it earns you the final plate and foils Volo's plot for the time being.
  • Several of theGlitch Pokémon that appear as other Pokémon fit this on a conceptual level, includingMissingno. - glitch Pokémon on a gameplay level are essentially junk data given form, and as such the game will pull the images and cries of other 'Mons from the index for them. Many of them warp or alter music, graphics and save data, possess bizarre dimensions, and can induce game crashes; some such as'M and itsYellow counterpart3TrainerPoké $ can evenevolve into actual Pokémon!
    • MissingNo. in particular is known for its ability to duplicate items, mess with save data like the Hall of Fame entries, and scrambling in-sprites when sent out to battle. It hasthree "special" forms inPokémon Red and Blue as well asYellow: two of them resemble the Kabutops and Aerodactyl fossils from the Pewter Museum of Science, due to the game using the index numbers of these images to get their front sprites. In these forms, MissingNo. has no constant base stats, experience types or starting moves, and instead copies those of the last Pokémon in the party (minus another special MissingNo.); a "special" MissingNo. sent out by a rival Trainer instead takes on the qualities of the previous Pokémon they sent out.
  • Possibly the Paradox Pokémon fromPokémon Scarlet and Violet. Initially, the Professor claims these overly aggressive Pokemon are from the distant past or far future (depending on which game you are playing) brought to the present by theTime Machine discovered in the Great Crater of Paldea, but whether that is true or whether these are truly Pokémon at all is debatable. Sure, you can catch them, train them, battle them, and even love them as you would any other Pokémon, but true to their name, much about them just does not make sense and often contradicts established lore on the Pokémon they resemble. To give one example, Brute Bonnet seems to be an ancient version of Amoongus, and like the latter, has markings on its head and arms resembling PokéBalls… a strange situation for a Pokémon that supposedly existed millennia before PokéBalls were invented. In-game lore suggests that possibly the Time Machine is nothing of the sort, and that they were concepts from the Professor’s dreams of a “perfect” ecosystem of Pokémon, the machine being aReality Warping device that made the figments real.
• Some examples lurk among the horrors infestingSpooky's Jumpscare Mansion:
  • Specimen 8 looks like a humanoid deer wearing a robe, but its "body" is a mass of screaming faces of its past victims tucked under its rib cage. It kills its victims by assimilating them into itself, and every time it attacks you you're assaulted by disturbing imagery in the form of subliminal messages and sudden closeups of its freaky face.
• Hollow Knight has a spoiler-riffic example:The Radiance is aCosmic Horror that vaguely resembles a fluffy moth crossed with one of the Bible's more outlandish angels. She can invade the minds of bugs and manifest a viral plague thatMind Rape them into feral shells of their former selves, and can stop existing entirely if enough people forget about her... only to re-materialize upon being remembered. Even her roars are mind-bending and otherworldly, sounding more like an angry ethereal choir instead of any kind of earthly creature.
• InMight & Magic 9, the Great Honk is implied to be this. The Founder of the Temple of Honk stated that devout believers could achieve spiritual redemption via the Way of the Bread (which stated one should never get agitated and should instead rise up over adversity) which would result in the Great Honk’s blessing causing them to be reincarnated as geese. (The present-day cult is far less benign.)In truth, however, the Great Honk (whose name is actually Philip) is nothing but a giant goose whom the goddessFre keeps as a pet. In fact, one late-game side quest has Fre telling the heroes to get rid of the cult - it’s embarrassing.
• Fallen London:
  • The Masters of the Bazaar, the rulers of London, areBat Out of Hell asNot Hyperbole.
  • Sorrow Spiders are common fauna in London, but they are basically justGiant Spiders. The Spider Council is… different. Described in the narrative as “an abominable monster like an amalgamation of several large sorrow-spiders” the regular sorrow spiders graft the eyes of their victims onto this thing as part of the process to hatch more of them. The fact that it speaksSurprisingly Good English is even more unsettling.
  • In Spite, cats (whom you can nab to collect Cryptic Clues) aresassy,magic, andoften mean, and most of them can talk. Black Cats, however, seem to stand out. Again, the narrative betrays their true nature, "You didn't know cats came in this particular black. It's as if someone's cut a hole in a shadow and filled it with ink.” Failing to catch one makes your character wonder if it was even there at all; successfully catching one is an eerie experience that seems more like the cat has caught you, and the reward is an Appalling Secret and a Tale of Terror (both of which are items in the same category of Cryptic Clues but more valuable). It seems these cats are minions of the Dutchess, who is herself something of an abomination.
  • THE OVERGOAT!

Spawn of a Master and a feather-gartered-demon at the Feast of the Exceptional Rose! Guardian of the Bazaar's deepest cellar! It consumes smoke and defecates flame! It rises like flies and walks on the cavern roof! It ate the tongue of the King with a Hundred Hearts! It can only be tamed by the child who has one green eye and one blue! In its roar is heard the voice of the Old God of the Cavern! In its heart burns the fire of the first candle! ...and so on. Grains of truth in oceans of rumour

• Arguably the most important example isthe Bazaar itself. The buildings that make up the hub of London is the physical body this being has assumed, but it's true body (never seen, as assuming this form would tear London apart) is a giant crab covered with runes of the ancientlanguage of the Judgements.

Visual Novels

• In theNasuverse,Tsukihime has Nero Chaos, whose body is composed of hundreds of animals that can detach from him to attack and feed.

Web Comics

• Played for Laughs in aDinosaur Comics stripexploring various possibleAlternate Universes. In the one resulting fromFor Want of a Nail, gazing upon T-rex and Utahraptor's true colours would cause one toGo Mad From the Revelation.
• xkcd featuresSheeple. Do not wake the Sheeple.

Web Original

• SCP Foundation:
  • A prime example isSCP-682 ("Hard-to-Kill Reptile"). Areptillian being of indeterminate gender, it's not only extremely intelligent and capable of speech, but alsoridiculously adaptive,extremely destructive and tough to bring down - and the Foundation wants it destroyed as soon as possible. It hasregeneration abilities that allows it tosurvive several factors of otherwise-lethal force -extensive testing reveals that anything that even manages to do significant damageonly "works" once. What makes it abominable is that,as indicated by its own words, it finds human life "disgusting" and tries its damnedest to kill anyone and everyone it can get within reach of -the SCP thought to be God by the Foundation claims it's"not one of his", and it is such a biological mystery that researchers wonder if it's even "alive" insofar as we understand the concept.
    • ...And as shown by that testing andits character page, the questions don't end there. It's well-established that said testing is extremely unlikely to result in a successful kill - beyond gauging its durability, these tests would ideally reveal more about the creature's properties and origins.
    • It is implied thatthe Scarlet King might have had some hand in creating SCP-682, giving it divine blood and possibly even making it a sort ofAnti-Christ.
  • SCP-5683 isan arachnid-like being thatadapts its form to resist anything posing a danger to it. It doesn't seem to be particularly intelligent, but is smarter than it looks and still a capable hunter, especially with itsridiculously adaptive body -it's extremely destructive and tough to bring down, and the Foundation wants it neutralized as soon as possible. It absolutely hates humanity and tries its damnedest to kill anyone and everyone it can get within reach of -does all this sound familiar? One of the staff assigned to it even dealt with SCP-682 previously, and seems quite ambitious about it.Turns out, it's because the SCP is really part ofa tailor-made hell to punish them for their grievous failures in handling 682.
  • SCP-5962 overlaps this withMonster Clown. Biologically, this creature is a cow and was born from one at a Midwest American farm, but it resembles a monstrous version of Ronald McDonald that is 4 meters tall and weighs over 5 tons, and it continually spits out fully-packaged McDonalds products. The owners of the farm sold it to a Chinese McDonalds franchise, where they enjoyed an incredible boost in profits for a while until the Foundation found out about it. They also found out thatthe food was made from human flesh -all of it. The bacon and fries are human cartilage and ligaments; the chicken nuggets were made from reproductive organs; the bread is made of hair, nails, and skin; and the coffee and ice cream were made from... various human waste products.(Yeah, a lot of folks in-story were grossed out too.) The weird part is, nobody knowswhere the stuff comes from: SCP-5962 has never been known to attack anyone save one time when it spewed hot coffee ona visiting Burger King manager,possibly the guy who tipped off the Foundation; it seems relatively mindless and never really does anything except produce the food - when analyzed, the food's genetic material matches that of still-living humans, who seem unharmed by this process.
    • SCP-5962 isn’t even the only example of this trope that came fromthat farm.SCP-4158 is the other; it looks closer to a cow than SCP-5962, but is huge, monstrous, and deformed. Some sort of anomalous birth defect gives it uncontrollable regenerative ability, causing it to grow at an alarming rate, requiring the Foundation to sever its limbs and shear off parts of its muscle on a weekly basis, lest the poor beast’s spine snap under its own weight - fortunately, the same condition makes it unable to feel pain, and it seems docile and harmless. Meat sheared off of SCP-4158 is edible and safe (in fact, its original owner was selling it for such) but few people are willing to eat it if they know where it came from…
  • SCP-2845, aka "The Deer From Saturn". Whether or not it is truly from Saturn is debatable, but it isnot a deer, rather a primordial entity in the shape of a deer. (Possibly Cronus, the Titan fromGreek Mythology who is also associated with Saturn.) It has vast powers of deconstruction and reconstruction meaning if it doesn't like something (or someone, or some place) it can take it apart and put it together again in a way it likes better. The Foundation must perform a blasphemous and unethical ritual regularly simply to keep it apeased, which is so difficult to complete that keeping SCP-2945 contained is a joint project with theGlobal Occult Coalition.
• RWBY: The Grimm are monsters that resemble animals that feast on humans andare attracted to their negative emotions. Their forms consist of black hides with outward skulls and bones throughout their bodies.
• The Rake is a well-known creepypasta creation that's a freakish hairlessdog-man with seemingly similar stalking habits toSlenderman, albeit being more direct with his victims: Where Slendy watches from a distance, the Rake likes to sit on your bed. While you're in it. He's even been integrated into the mythos ofEveryman HYBRID.

Western Animation

• The Talking Cat from theRick and Morty episode "Claw and Hoarder: Special Ricktim's Morty". This creature seems to be your averageTalking Animal at first, but its true form(which the viewers do not see) is so horrific that it actually caused Rick, who has stood up to planet sizedEldritch Abominations andThe Devil himself without fear,topanic and nearly commit suicide.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • Discord, themismatched spirit of chaos and disharmony. PossessingReality Warper powers so formidable he would be unstoppable if it weren't forthe Elements of Harmony (not evenCelestia and Luna could defeat him without them), within hours he plunges Equestria into aWorld Gone Madand aWorld of Chaos, seeking nothing more thanhis own amusement andthoroughly breaking ponies.
  • The Windigos that appear in"Hearth's Warming Eve". Spirit horses that feed on hatred to bring eternal winter, they're even based an awful lot off the version of the Wendigo from theCthulhu Mythos, who was an Eldritch Abomination as well.
  • Word of Dante has it thatNightmare Moon also shows traces of this, as not all of her is Luna.
• Used as aBrick Joke inThe Owl House. In the first season, Eda tells Luz that giraffes are natives of the Boiling Isles; the "joke" is supposed to be that "giraffes are so silly that they must have originated elsewhere." Or so it seems. Fast forward to season 3 where Amity, Gus, Willow, and Vee (all of them natives of the Boiling Isles themselves) visit a zoo in the human world and take a photo of a giraffe,causing it to show them its true face.Even they areterrified.
• A benevolent (probably) version of this trope is the Koala inStar Trek: Lower Decks. This god-like entity that looks like a negative-image of koala (sometimes normal-sized, sometimes giant-sized) has been seen by dead or dying mortals. It resides in what humans describe as "a black mountain" and can talk, but does so in reverse.
• Kite Man: Hell Yeah! has two of these, both played for laughs like most of the show in general:
  • First, there is Cheshire, Malice's cat familiar, which overlaps withAdorable Abomination. Given to her by her godfather, (Darkseid) he is usually a cute little kitty cat, but on his master's command he turns into a giant, vicious, Kaiju sized demon. Despite this, Malice still regards him as herMorality Pet, and he keeps her true evil nature mostly submerged.
  • Second example overlaps withDeity of Mortal Origin andEverything's Better with Chickens. (It Makes Sense in Context, really it does.) After Kite Man and Golden Glider manage to steal the Anti-Life Equation from Helen Villigan (and realizing they can neither keep it nor throw it away) they escape with a cattle transport truck carrying live chickens, and foolishly stash it with the merchandise. This causes one of the chickens to gain sapience and an evil personality, again grow to Kaiju size, and develop a hunger for human flesh. (But it is reasonable enough to spare a couple who say they are vegans - for now.) Even worse, it proves even stronger than Cheshire. While Kite Man is miraculously able to get the Equation away from it, causing it to revert to normal, the carnage it causes is a small sample of what the Equation could do if an actual villain gets a hold of it.

• Trope
• Animalistic Abomination
• Pages Original to All The Tropes
• Eldritch Abomination
• Otherness Tropes
• Cosmic Horror Tropes
• Horror Tropes
• This Trope Is an Abomination
• Alien Tropes
• Index of Fictional Creatures
• Older Than Dirt
• These Are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know
• Tropes of Legend