Mother Hydra (Art by Jason Engle)
Mother Hydra, otherwise simply known as Hydra, is the consort of Dagon and the mother of the Deep Ones.
Description[]
Said to resemble a colossal Deep One, Mother Hydra is an enormous humanoid creature with a fish-like face, flapping gills and piscean skin. She, along with Dagon and Cthulhu himself, form something of a “holy trinity“ to the Deep Ones: the three entities worshiped as gods by the aquatic race.
Overview[]
There is much debate on whether Mother Hydra is one of the Ogdru Hem, or if she is simply a massively overgrown Deep One (considering that some Deep Ones continue to grow as they age), but it should be noted that Hydra and her consort Dagon have been entrusted by Cthulhu with the guardianship of his “daughter” Cthylla. This is a duty which they perform in one of the Deep Ones’ mighty submarine cities somewhere beneath the North Atlantic.
It is presumed that Mother Hydra perished at an unspecified point in time though some scholars of cosmisim believe that she likely met her end at the twilight of the Battle of the Powers or when Atlantis warred against her consort Dagon and their army of eldritch aquatic beasts. The latter may have had Hydra be involved in birthing Deep Ones to be used in Dagon's legion only for her to be destroyed at the hands of the Atlanteans as she was vital in them gaining an advantage against Dagon and his legions. According to one Atlantean, she was killed by Charybdis when the Merfolk gained favor from the goddess.
With her death by the Atlanteans and the imprisonment of Dagon underneath what would become the town of Innsmouth, Cthylla would be left unguarded by the two eldritch beings. Irregardless, the Deep Ones continue to revere and worship her alongside their hybrid offspring. In relation to that, due to her death, the Deep Ones opted to mate with humans in order to maintain their lineage and prevent their race from becoming extinct.