Fictional beings from the Cthulhu Mythos, Dark Young are described as enormous writhing masses, formed out of ropy black tentacles. Here and there over the surfaces of the things are great puckered mouths which drip green goo. Beneath the creatures, tentacles end in black hooves, on which they stamp. The monsters roughly resemble trees in silhouette - the trunks being the short legs, and the tops of the trees represented by the ropy, branching bodies. The whole mass of these things smell like open graves. Dark young stand between 12 and 20 feet tall. Such entities are the "young" referred to in Shub-Niggurath's epithet, "Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young". They are closely connected to her, and are found only in areas where she is worshipped. Dark young act as proxies for Shub-Niggurath in accepting sacrifices, accepting worship from cultists, devouring non-cultists, and spreading their mother's faith across the world.

"Something black in the road, something that wasn't a tree. Something big and black and ropy, just squatting there, waiting, with ropy arms squirming and reaching... It came crawling up the hillside... and it was the black thing of my dreams - that black, ropy, slime jelly tree-thing out of the woods. It crawled up and it flowed up on its hoofs and mouths and snaky arms." - Robert Bloch, "Notebook Found in a Deserted House."