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The Katha-Hem was one of the 369 Ogdru Hem, the children of the Ogdru Jahad. It was immensely powerful, being the only known Ogdru Hem who could alter nonliving objects with it's breath, and larger than even the 7 Ogdru Hem which served the third Black Flame.


History[]

Katha-Hem was the fourth of the Ogdru Hem to be set loose upon the world, and by far the most powerful. While Sadu-Hem was foretold to bring about the Plague of Frogs, the arrival of Katha-Hem was an indication that the world would begin to change.

Summoned out of the earth by the occult rituals of the frog monsters and CEO of Zinco Corporation Landis Pope (also known as the Black Flame), Katha-Hem was unlike the Ogdru Hem encountered before- it wasn't a spirit that created a new form for itself with the matter around it, but was one of those imprisoned beneath the Earth and thus emerged at his true strength. At first it emerged as a slug-like creature with green slit-like mouths, barrelling across the landscape before destroying a town with its breath. Military-grade weapons were totally unable to stop the thing, helpless to watch as the larval beast stood atop a tripod of spidery legs to continue its advance. Katha-Hem now resembled a twisted, tentacled tree, its canopy an inferno of hellish blue fire, and numerous, green-toothed maws lining its trunk.

American artillery failed to make a dent in the mammoth creature, while any humans who ventured too close were turned into flaming-headed monsters by a strange green gas emitted from its mouth; a "thousand years of change" which also destroyed buildings. Just as the U.S. President was about to resort to a nuclear strike, B.P.R.D. agent Liz Sherman managed to burn Katha-Hem to ashes, using an ancient artifact that mysteriously amplified her powers a thousand times.

Katha-Hem's destruction (and the apparent mass suicide of the frog monsters) appeared to bring the plague of frogs to a conclusion. Appearances, however, can be deceiving, and the frogs merely retreated underground to resurface months later.

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