With their cephalopodic heads and their brooding demeanor, the Mindflayer family is one of the darkest, most viscious group of fiends in the Final Fantasy series. The history of these abominations is fascinating. From their god-like beginnings in the Cthulhu Mythos they've become a staple in not only Final Fantasy, but in our pop culture.

Probably the most notorious of these beings came from the mind of horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, the Cthulu. One of many Great Old Ones, the Cthulhu has a humanoid body, draconian wings and a Giant Octopus-like head. Cthulhu has become a regular reference in pop culture, including a couple of appearances in South Park. It has also inspired many other creations, including Davy Jones in the Pirates of the Caribbean series, Zoidberg of Futurama and the Illithids of Dungeons & Dragons.

The Illithids were created by Gary Gygax for Dungeons & Dragons. After seeing the paperback cover of Brian Lumley's Chtulhu Mythos novel, "The Burrowers Beneath", he created a race of demons with similar features and dark personalities.There are a wide variety of Illiads and are most commonly called Mind Flayers. They use their tentacle covered mouths to devour ...

Better Know a Fiend: The Dark Elves With their crooked arms and disgusting tongues dangling from their mouths, the Dark Elves are some of Final Fantasy’s most recognizable villains. Their racial history goes back to Norse Mythology and has been represented in various sources of fiction, including J. R. R. Tolkien’s works, the Marvel Universe, and Dungeons & Dragons. Like most early fiends in the Final Fantasy series, they were influenced by these sources.

The Dark Elves of Norse lore, known as Dökkálfar, were dark-skinned subterranean Elves. They were the opposite of the fairer Ljósálfar, who reside in the heavens. They are mentioned in the 13^thcentury Prose Edda and may be related to the svartálfar who reside in Svartálfaheimr (who may have been synonymous with Dwarves).

Tolkien, author of the books that the popular Lord of the Rings movie franchise was based on, created the Moriquendi, who first appeared in the story Fall of Gondolin, one of his Lost Tales. The story also formed part of The Simallirion. They are elves who refused the summons of Valar and didn’t witness the ...