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− | The '''Great Old Ones''' are major antagonists in the ''Cthulhu Mythos'' by H.P. Lovecraft. They are a pantheon of demonic extraterrestrial gods that are more known amongst mortals than the [[Outer Gods]], but are infinitely less powerful. |
+ | The '''Great Old Ones''' are major antagonists in the ''Cthulhu Mythos'' by the late legendary horror author H.P. Lovecraft. They are a pantheon of demonic extraterrestrial gods that are more known amongst mortals than the [[Outer Gods]], but are infinitely less powerful. |
Regardless of this fact, the Great Old Ones are completely invincible in comparison to humanity, and their alien nature is so utterly bizarre that it inspires madness in all who gaze upon them. |
Regardless of this fact, the Great Old Ones are completely invincible in comparison to humanity, and their alien nature is so utterly bizarre that it inspires madness in all who gaze upon them. |
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− | Cataclysmic but not necessarily malevolent, the Great Old Ones have the power to end the world on a whim, but never actively seek the destruction of humanity. Perhaps it is due to their vast |
+ | Cataclysmic but not necessarily malevolent, the Great Old Ones have the power to end the world on a whim, but never actively seek the destruction of humanity. Perhaps it is due to their vast power — to a Great Old One, humanity just is not worth the trouble of extermination. |
Of course on the other hand, a Great Old One could simply choose to destroy entire civilizations for no other reason than because it felt like it. A Great Old One has no care if its actions cause the deaths of thousands, and if a Great Old One should become hungry or bored, it sees no wrong in randomly torturing or devouring innocents. |
Of course on the other hand, a Great Old One could simply choose to destroy entire civilizations for no other reason than because it felt like it. A Great Old One has no care if its actions cause the deaths of thousands, and if a Great Old One should become hungry or bored, it sees no wrong in randomly torturing or devouring innocents. |
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[[Category:Mind-Breakers]] |
[[Category:Mind-Breakers]] |
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[[Category:Misanthropes]] |
[[Category:Misanthropes]] |
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+ | [[Category:Cosmic Entity]] |
Revision as of 09:31, 6 April 2020
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The Great Old Ones are major antagonists in the Cthulhu Mythos by the late legendary horror author H.P. Lovecraft. They are a pantheon of demonic extraterrestrial gods that are more known amongst mortals than the Outer Gods, but are infinitely less powerful.
Regardless of this fact, the Great Old Ones are completely invincible in comparison to humanity, and their alien nature is so utterly bizarre that it inspires madness in all who gaze upon them.
Cataclysmic but not necessarily malevolent, the Great Old Ones have the power to end the world on a whim, but never actively seek the destruction of humanity. Perhaps it is due to their vast power — to a Great Old One, humanity just is not worth the trouble of extermination.
Of course on the other hand, a Great Old One could simply choose to destroy entire civilizations for no other reason than because it felt like it. A Great Old One has no care if its actions cause the deaths of thousands, and if a Great Old One should become hungry or bored, it sees no wrong in randomly torturing or devouring innocents.
According to Lovecraft himself, the Great Old Ones were meant to be amoral rather than malicious, in keeping with his belief that the universe itself was alien and uncaring. This, by no means, lessens their danger; it arguably only serves to increase it.
Known Great Old Ones
This is a collection of all of the 180 known Great Old Ones and it is organized as follows:
Name | Epithet(s),
other name(s) |
Description |
---|---|---|
Abholos | Devourer in the Mist | A grey festering blob of infinite malevolence, described as lesser brother of Tsathoggua or spawn of Cthulhu born from his bile and tears. |
Alala | Herald of S'glhuo | An entity of living sound native of the Gulf of S’glhuo, manifesting as a huge monstrous being. He is served by the Denizens of S’glhuo which are made of his same substance. |
Ammutseba | Devourer of Stars | A dark, cloudy mass with tentacles which absorbs falling stars. |
Aphoom Zhah | The Cold Flame,
Lord of the Pole |
Appears much like Cthugha but grey, and cold. |
Apocolothoth | The Moon-God | A mysterious Lunar entity dwelling in the dimension of Enno-Lunn. |
Arwassa | The Silent Shouter on the Hill | A humanoid torso with tentacles instead of limbs, and a short neck ending in a toothless, featureless mouth. |
Atlach-Nacha | The Spider God,
Spinner in Darkness |
A giant spider with a human-like face. |
Ayi'ig | The Serpent Goddess, Aeg, Aega | Daughter of Yig and the Outer Goddess Yidhra, appearing as a gigantic octopus-like horror with serpentine eyes and detachable tentacles which may move independently. She dwells in the cavern of a deep canyon somewhere in Texas. |
Aylith | The Widow in the Woods, The Many-Mother | A tall, shadowy humanoid figure with yellow glowing eyes and strange protrusions like the branches of dead trees. She serves Shub-Niggurath. |
Baoht Z'uqqa-mogg | The Bringer of Pestilence | A huge, flying scorpion with an ant-like head. |
Basatan | Master of the Crabs | Not described, probably a humanoid crustacean or a gigantic crab. |
B’gnu-Thun | The Soul-Chilling Ice-God | Appears as a cyanotic humanoid followed by an eerie blizzard. The fiery Ruhtra Dyoll is the twin brother of his. |
Bokrug | The Great Water Lizard,
The Doom of Sarnath |
Appears as a gigantic water lizard. |
Bugg-Shash | The Black One,
The Filler of Space, He Who Comes in the Dark |
Appears as a black, slimy mass covered in eyes and mouths, much like a Shoggoth. |
Byatis | The Berkeley Toad,
Serpent-Bearded Byatis |
Appears as a gigantic, multicolored toad with one eye, a proboscis, crab-like claws, and tentacles below the mouth. |
Cthaat | The Dark Water God,
"Cthaat Aquadingen" |
A formless mass of shape-shifting water. |
Chaugnar Faugn | Horror from the Hills,
The Feeder, Caug-Narfagn |
A vampiric elephant-like humanoid with a mouth on the end of its trunk. |
Coatlicue | Serpent Skirted One | A humanoid reptilian giant of with two facing snakes in place of a head. She was the former mate of Yig revered in K'n-yan along with her consort. |
Coinchenn | — | A marine tentacled horror made of fish, whale and octopus-like features. |
Crom Cruach | Master of the Runes, Bloody Crooked One | Not described, but likely something gigantic and serpent or worm-like. |
Cthaeghya | — | Half-sister of Cthulhu, which spawned the Star-Spawn of Cthulhu. |
Cthugha | The Living Flame,
The Burning One |
Appears as a huge winged octopus-like creature. |
Cthulhu | Great, Dead, Dread | Appears as a huge winged octopus-like creature with gigantic claws. |
Cthylla | Secret Daughter of Cthulhu | Appears as a huge winged octopus-like creature with six eyes. |
Ctoggha | The Dream-Daemon | No description available. |
Cyäegha | The Destroying Eye,
The Waiting Dark |
Appears as a gigantic black mass of tentacles with a single green eye at the centre. |
Cynothoglys | The Mortician God, She Whose Hand Embalms | Appears as a formless mound with one arm-like appendage. |
Dhumin | The Burrower From the Bluff | A serpentine (likely Tremors-like) earth-shaking horror dwelling in the subsoil of Memphis, USA. |
The Dweller in the Gulf | Eidolon of the Blind | Appears as a huge, eyeless, black, soft-shelled tortoise with a triangular head and two whip-like tails, and suckers on the end of each tail. |
Dygra | The Stone-Thing | A jewel-facetted, semi-crystalline geode with mineral tentacles. |
Dythalla | Lord of Lizards | A gigantic saurian creature similar to Bokrug but terrestrial and endowed with a mane of tentacles. |
Dzéwà | The White God | A ravenous plant-god arrived from Xiclotl to Earth, awed by the Insects from Shaggai. He appears as a white orb hiding an enormous magenta excrescence, like an orchid or a lamprey mouth with emerald tentacles tipped with hands emerging from the mass. |
Eihort | The Pale Beast,
God of the Labyrinth |
Appears as a huge, pallid, gelatinous oval with a myriad legs and multiple eyes. |
Ei'lor | The Star-Seed, The Plant-God | A plant-like, parasitic horror native of the jungle planet Kr’llyand, which orbits a dead, green star. |
Etepsed Egnis | — | A formless monstrosity with a huge, arm-like appendage. |
Ghadamon | A Seed of Azathoth | A bluish-brown, slimy monstrosity riddled with holes, and an occasional malformed head. |
Ghisguth | The Sound of the Deep Waters | A titanic mass of jelly material. |
Gla'aki | The Inhabitant of the Lake,
Lord of Dead Dreams |
Appears as a giant three-eyed slug with metallic spines, and tiny, pyramid-like feet underneath. |
Gleeth | The Blind God of the Moon | An eyeless and deaf Lunar deity worshiped in the ancient continent of Theem’dra as well as in Dreamlands, often mentioned as similar to Mnomquah, though apparently not related each other. |
Gloon | The Corrupter of Flesh,
Master of the Temple, Glhuun |
Usually manifests through a Dionysian sculpture, but its true form is that of a gigantic wattled slug-thing. |
God of the Red Flux | — | A vaporous red entity haunting the rainforest of Central Africa. It has the power to turn humans in zombie-like servants, the Tree-Men of M'bwa. |
Gog-Hoor | Eater on the Insane | A giant entity dwelling in some reverse dimension, resembling a huge bullet with a long proboscis. |
Gol-goroth | Golgoroth,
The Forgotten Old One, God of the Black Stone, Golgoroð |
Appears as a gigantic, black, toad-like creature with an impossibly malevolent glare, or a tentacled, scaled, bat-winged entity. |
Golothess | — | An entity cut in ten pieces by Yig during a time of great battle (one of these pieces is an alabaster dish found in Egypt, dated back 1,300 BC). It resembles and has a similar domain as Greek god Bacchus. |
The Green God | The Horror Under Warrendown | A sentient plant-entity dwelling in subterranean caverns where it is always served by mutant rabbit-like worshipers. |
Groth-Golka | The Demon Bird-God, The Bird-God of Balsagoð | A monstrous bird-like fiend with sharp teeth, dwelling beneath Antarctica, vaguely resembling an extinct Pterosaur. |
Gtuhanai | The Destroyer God of the Aartna | A destructive entity manifesting as a ravenous metallic vortex. He seems to be another half-brother of Cthulhu, like Hastur and related to the slug-like Gla'aki too. He dwells somewhere in the Pleiades stellar region and when summoned he brings devastation. |
Gurathnaka | Eater of Dreams, Shadow of Night | A shadowy non-corporeal entity dwelling in Dreamlands. |
Gur'la-ya | Lurker in Doom-laden Shadows | A great shadow-thing with two red, glaring eyes, able to transform the skull of its own victims in green glowing stones carved with strange symbols. |
Gzxtyos | Mate of Othuyeg | The consort of Othuyeg, likely similar to her bridegroom. |
Han | The Dark One | A being made of cold, howling mist, bound to Yig's worship |
Hastalÿk | The Contagion | A microbial entity, responsible for plagues. |
Hastur | The Unspeakable,
He Who is Not to be Named, Lord of Interstellar Spaces, The King in Yellow |
Its true form is unknown, but usually manifests either as a polypous, ravenous floating mass endowed with tentacles, drills and suckers or, more frequently, as the King in Yellow, a humanoid being wearing tattered, yellow clothes and a mask hiding the face. It is said to be Cthulhu's (half-)brother. |
H’chtelegoth | The Great Tentacled God | A towering greenish trunk with a crown of tentacles, a row of multiple eyes and a couple of additional, lateral grasping appendages. |
Hziulquoigmnzhah | The God of Cykranosh, Ziulquag-Manzah | Has a spheroid body, elongated arms, short legs, and a pendulum-like head dangling underneath. It is the brother of Ghisguth, and uncle of Tsathoggua. |
Idh-yaa | Cthulhu's Mate, Xothic Matriarch | A gigantic, pale, worm-like horror dwelling beneath the crust of star Xoth. She has been Cthulhu's first bride, which spawned the three main sons Ghatanothoa, Ythogtha and Zoth Ommog. |
Inpesca | The Sea Horror | A formless expansive bluish-black mass, haunting Ecuadorian and Peruvian coasts, mentioned in Cthäat Aquadingen as inimical to the Deep Ones. |
Iod | The Shining Hunter | A levitating, sinuous, glowing creature. |
Istasha | Mistress of Darkness | A cat deity similar to Bastet but vicious and malignant. Her sister is the sylvan Lythalia. |
Ithaqua | The Wind Walker,
The Wendigo, God of the Cold White Silence |
A gigantic, corpse-like human with webbed feet and glowing red eyes. |
Janai'ngo | Guardian and the Key of the Watery Gates, The Lobster of the Deep | A crustacean-like tentacled, half-amorphous marine horror which serves Cthulhu, dwelling in the depths of the Bay of Rhiiklu, somewhere in USA East coast. |
Juk-Shabb | God of Yekub | Appears as a great shining ball of energy. |
Kaalut | The Ravenous One | Likely a gigantic, larva-like horror, dwelling on the distant ammonia planet K'gil'mnon along with the insectoid servants of his. |
Kag'Naru of the Air | — | Mentioned in American comics "Challengers of the Unknown" (1977) as sister of M'nagalah. |
Kassogtha | Bride of Cthulhu, The Leviathan of Diseased | A huge mass of coiled, writhing tentacles. She is Cthulhu's sister and mate, who bore him two twin daughters (Nctosa and Nctolhu) |
Kaunuzoth | The Great One, Cannoosut | A squat, sea cucumber-like monstrosity with five eyes, three-toed, taloned appendages and large mouth. He is described as one of Gla'aki’s brethrens and dwells in Moore Dam lake of USA. |
Khal'kru | All-in-All, Greater-than-Gods | A dark, octopoid horror similar to Norse Kraken, but dwelling inside a temple somewhere in a hidden, warm valley in Alaska. |
Klosmiebhyx | — | Sister of Zstylzhemghi. |
K'nar'st | Spawn of the Forgotten | A humanoid with four, seven-clawed arms with tentacles in place of legs. The head is lion-like but bony and the mouths encases three long tongues. He lies trapped in the seafloor, inside a seamount called Nayhgof. |
Kurpannga | The Devil-dingo | A giant hairless dingo-like fiend living in Dreamlands (or the Dreamtime of Aboriginal myths). |
Lam | The Grey | An alien entity similar to Grey aliens dwelling in the dark side of planet Mars. |
Lythalia | The Forest-Goddess | A female seductive humanoid entity covered in vines and vegetal parts. Somehow she has been mate of the Elder God Nodens bearing him the twin gods Vorvadoss and Yaggdytha. The feline Istasha is the sister of Lythalia. |
Mappo no Ryujin | Harbinger of Doom, Mappo's Dragon | A dragon-like entity covered in pseudopods, regarded as the mother of the Snake-God Yig and said to be imprisoned beneath the sunken continent of Mu. |
M’basui Gwandu | The River Abomination | A spider-eyed, bat-winged horror lurking in Congo River. |
M'Nagalah | The Devourer, The Cancer God | A mass of entrails and eyes, or a massive blob-thing. |
Mnomquah | Lord of the Black Lake, The Monster in the Moon | A very large and eyeless lizard creature with a "crown" of feelers. |
Mordiggian | The Charnel God,
The Great Ghoul, Lord of Zul-Bha-Sair, Morddoth |
A shapeshifting cloud of shadow. |
Mormo | The Thousand-Faced Moon | Mormo appears in many forms, but three are most common: as a mocking vampiric maiden, as a tentacle-haired gorgon, or as a hunched toad-like albino with a mass of feelers instead of a face. This last is the form of her servitors, the Moon-beasts. |
Mortllgh | Storm of Steel | A lustrous orb floating at the centre of a whirling vortex of razor-sharp, metallic looking blades. |
Mynoghra | She-Daemon of the Shadows | A succubus-like fiend with alien traits and tentacles in place of the hair. She is mentioned as cousin of Nyarlathotep in the O’ Khymer Revelations and worshipped in witch-cults of Salem, Oregon. |
Nctosa & Nctolhu | The Twin Spawn of Cthulhu | Twin daughters of Cthulhu, imprisoned in the Great Red Spot of planet Jupiter. They appear as huge shell-endowed beings, with eight segmented limbs and six long arms ending with claws, vaguely resembling their "step-sister" Cthylla. |
Ngirrth’lu | The Wolf-Thing, The Stalker in the Snows, He Who Hunts, Na-girt-a-lu | A ferocious and towering wolf-like humanoid with bat wings. He is served by werewolf servants known as the Lupine Ones. |
Northot | The Forgotten God, The Thing That Should Not Be | A mysterious entity related to Yog-Sothoth, Shub-Niggurath and Azathoth too which manifests either as a faun-like humanoid with colour-changing hair or as a glowing halo of unknown colour. |
Nssu-Ghahnb | The Heart of the Ages, Leech of the Aeons | Sort of a gigantic beating heart secluded in a parallel dimensions. It would have spawned the monsters of all the times. |
Nug and Yeb | The Twin Blasphemies | Two horrid nebulous masses of shape-changing vapour from which eyes, tentacles, maws and hooves emerge; somewhat like Shub-Niggurath. They have been spawned by Yog-Sothoth and Shub-Niggurath and both (or either) are regarded as blasphemous parents of Cthulhu |
Nyaghoggua | The Kraken Within | A blurry, dark, kraken-like entity mentioned in the Song of Yste and said to dwell in the Outer Space. |
Nycrama | The Zombifying Essence | A tall larva-like monstrosity with hundreds of segmented, taloned tendrils, exiled by the Elder Gods in a parallel dimension with close connection with South America rainforests, wherefrom he lures human victims to enslave from other dimensions. Formerly he was too an Elder God. |
Nyogtha | The Thing which Should Not Be,
Haunter of the Red Abyss |
Appears as an inky shadow. |
Ob'mbu | The Shatterer | A giraffe-like reptilian monster. |
Oorn | Mnomquah's Mate | Appears as a huge, tentacled mollusc. |
Othuum | The Oceanic Horror | A twisting, ropy-tentacled mass with a single alien face somewhere in the center of the slimy squirming mass. |
Othuyeg | The Doom-Walker | Appears as a great, tentacled eye similar to Cyäegha, but much more to the monster featuring in the horror movie The Crawling Eye. It dwells in the subsoil of Kansas in the fabled Seven Cities of Gold along with the consort of his, Gzxtyos. |
Pharol | Pharol the Black | A black, fanged, cycloptic demon with arms like swaying serpents. The entity normally dwells in another dimension—a "seething and sub-dimensional chaos" beyond the mundane universe. The wizard Eibon of Hyperborea sometimes summoned Pharol to query him for arcane information. |
Poseidon | — | A powerful extragalactic entity awed by ‘Ymnar. It battled against the Elder God Paighon. |
Psuchawrl | The Elder One | A tall humanoid with an eyeless, sea anemone-like face and a beaked grinning mouth, who can be summoned like a jinn. |
Ptar-Axtlan | The Leopard That Stalks the Night | A mysterious entity related to zoomorphic shapeshifters, especially werecats. |
Quachil Uttaus | Treader of the Dust | Appears as a miniature, wrinkled mummy with stiff, outstretched claws. |
Quyagen | The Eye of Z'ylsm, He Who Dwells Beneath Our Feet | Worshiped as a deity in a lost continent located in southern Atlantic Ocean. It appears related to Nyarlathotep and its form is likely octopoid, with myriads of horns along a maddening body. |
Q'yth-az | The Crystalloid Intellect | A towering mass of crystals, residing on the lightless planet Mthura. |
Raandaii-B'nk | — | A shark-like humanoid native to the Bermuda Triangle, possibly similar to Cthulhu's avatar the Father of All Sharks. |
Ragnalla | Seeker in the Skies | A titanic raptorial fiend with a huge, single eye and a crown of tentacles. |
Q'yth-az | The Crystalloid Intellect | A towering mass of crystals, residing on the lightless planet Mthura. |
Raphanasuan | The One From Sun Race | A gigantic and likely multiarmed fiend. |
Rhan-Tegoth | Terror of the Hominids, He of the Ivory Throne | A three-eyed, gilled, proboscidian monster with a globular torso, six long, sinuous limbs ending in black paws with crab-like claws, and covered in what appears to be hair, but is actually tiny tentacles. |
Rhogog | The Bearer of the Cup of the Blood of the Ancients | A dead-black leafless oak tree, hot to the touch, with a single red eye at the centre. |
Rh'Thulla of the Wind | — | Mentioned in American comics "Challengers of the Unknown" (1977), as brother of M'Nagalah. |
Rlim Shaikorth | The White Worm | A gigantic, whitish worm with a huge maw and eyes made of dripping globules of blood. |
Rokon | — | A mysterious extradimensional entity regarded as brother of Yig, ruling over a dimension called Zandanua. |
Ruhtra Dyoll | The Fire God | Not described, likely fiery and the opposite of his sibling, B'gnu-Thun. |
Saa'itii | The Hog | A gigantic, ghostly hog. |
Scathach | — | One of Hziulquoigmnzhah's children, supposedly female. |
Sebek | The Crocodile God | A crocodile-headed reptilian humanoid, equal to the Ancient Egyptian god Sobek. |
Sedmelluq | The Great Manipulator, Ishmagon | A colossal glowing worm with starfish-shaped head dwelling in Antarctica and served by the Mi-go. |
Sfatlicllp | The Fallen Wisdom | The granddaughter of Tsathoggua, an amorphous mass which mated with a Hyperborean Voormi and spawned the legendary thief Knygathin Zhaum. In Chaosium's Dead Leaves Fall RPG supplement she appears as a fiend with oily, snakey skin and prehensile dreadlocks like a Gorgon. |
Shaklatal | Eye of Wicked Sight | Dark skinned humanoid horror with tentacles sprouting from his head and glowing red eyes, worshiped by earliest African civilizations as the god Amun. He is said to be rival of Cthulhu. |
Shathak | Mistress of the Abyssmal Slime, Death Reborn, Zishaik, Chushaik | Not described, likely an amorphous mass. |
Shaurash-Ho | — | Mysterious entity mentioned in Howard Phillips Lovecraft's letter to James F. Morton as descendant of Cthulhu which spawned other two horrid descendants (K'baa the Serpent and Ghoth the Burrower). The latter would have sired with a Roman noblewoman Viburnia the legendary ancestor of Lovecraft himself in a fictional family tree. The appearance of Shaurash-Ho has never been described. |
Sheb-Teth | Devourer of Souls | An eyeless, alien humanoid entity massively overgrown with strange flesh and machinery. |
Shlithneth | — | A gigantic, slimy worm with a mass of black tentacles surrounding its maw. |
Sho-Gath | The God in the Box, The Big Black Thing | A dark smoky column with red malevolent eyes and a grotesque face imprisoned in a vintage box. |
Shterot | The Tenebrous One | A starfish-like horror spawned by the Outer God C'thalpa. It has been cut in pieces but individual fragments live independently. |
Shudde M'ell | The Burrower Beneath,
The Great Chthonian |
Appears as a colossal worm with tentacles for a head. |
Shuy-Nihl | The Devourer in the Earth | A dark blob of darkness endowed with tentacles. |
Sthanee | The Lost One | A gigantic marine horror with twelve snaky limbs endowed with suckers and a beard of tentacles, served and revered by vicious merfolk known as the "Children of Sthanee". |
S'tya-Yg'Nalle | The Whiteness | An invisible entity made of snow and chill, servitor of Ithaqua. |
Summanus | Monarch of Night,
The Terror that Walketh in Darkness |
A mouthless, grotesque humanoid with pale tentacles protruding from underneath a dark robe. |
Swarog | — | A hideous being appearing as a dark gigantic, legless bird-like horror swathed in dark flames, with its long neck topped by a black lump, half of which endowed with a big glowing eye and the other being covered in innumerable tentacles. It was revered by Slavic and Viking folks as the Solar god Svarog, though sharing almost nothing with the traditional deity. |
Thanaroa | The Shining One | A mysterious evil entity manifesting as a pillar of dazzling light dwelling in the ruins of Nan Madol near Ponape. Its name recalls that of Polynesian creator God Tangaroa. |
Tharapithia | The Shadow in the Crimson Light | Slavic and Ugric God-like creature, photophobic and burrowing fiend awed in Middle Ages. It cannot endure the Solar light and eludes it by tunnelling deep under the roots of the oaks. |
Thog | The Demon-God of Xuthal | An octopoid monster of Hyborian Age which haunts the underground of Xuthal city. |
Th'rygh | The Godbeast | A monstrous entity manifesting as a horrible patchwork of flesh and soil and alien matter. |
Tsathoggua | The Sleeper of N'kai,
The Toad-God, Zhothaqqua, Sadagowah |
Appears as a huge, furry, almost humanoid toad, or a bat-like sloth. |
Tulushuggua | The Watery Dweller Beneath | A mysterious subterranean horror dwelling deep within the flooded caves of Florida, served by the eel-like horrors known as the Tulush. |
Turua | Father of the Swamps, The Bayou Plant God | A fungine entity with tentacles and tendrils which haunts the swamplands of Florida, somehow similar to the The Green God. |
Uitzilcapac | Lord of Pain | A sadistic entity trapped by the Elder Gods in a remote dimension of Space-Time continuum and appearing as a 4-m tall lizard-like horror with 6 legs and a mouth filled with vicious fangs. |
Ut'Ulls-Hr'Her | The Great Horned Mother, Black Glory of the Creation | A huge faceless creature with various appendages sprouting from its head, a beard of oozing horns, and many reddish teats and fish-like fins sprouting from an egg-shaped body. |
Vhuzompha | Mother and Father to All Marine Life, The Hermaphroditic God | An amorphous monster of prodigious size, covered in a multitude of eyes, mouths, projections and both male and female genitalia. |
Vibur | The Thing from Beyond | A huge furry and rapidly shifting entity casting radioactive stones. |
Vile-Oct | — | A dragon-like or reptilian entity said to be familiar of Yig. |
Volgna-Gath | Keeper of the Secrets | A slimy shape-shifing mass, which can be summoned with mud and the blood of the invoker. |
Voltiyig | Yig's Terrifying Son | Spawn of the Snake-God Yig appearing as a winged and feathered serpent with flaming nostrils, somehow similar to the Aztec God Quetzalcoatl, trapped inside a dark tower topped with a giant five-pointed star. |
Vthyarilops | The Starfish God | A tentacled horror similar to a Sun star but endowed with branching tentacles, spines, myriads of blue glaring eyes and gaping maws. |
Vulthoom | The Sleeper of Ravermos,
Gsarthotegga |
May appear as a huge, unearthly plant. |
The Worm that Gnaws in the Night | Doom of Shaggai, The Dweller in the Pyramid | A massive, worm-like fiend, similar to a Graboid from Tremors. |
Xalafu | The Dread One | A titanic, globular mass of various dark colours, endowed with a huge, single eye in the middle of the alien bulk. |
Xcthol | The Goat God | A sadistic, mind-controlling, faun-like humanoid, likely related to Shub-Niggurath. |
X'Chll'at-aa | The Unborn God, Lord of the Great Old Ones, Enemy of all that Live | A giant, grotesque human fetus that is possibly equal in power to an Outer God. |
Xinlurgash | The Ever-Consuming | A bristly mass with large gaping maws, made up with tentacles and spidery limbs. |
Xirdneth | Maker of Illusions, Lord of Unreality | An illusion-making entity with no true form. |
Xotli | Lord of Terror, The Black Kraken of Atlantis | A rolling cloud of ebony darkness or a vortex of boreal cold, revered by the Atlantean priests of the Hyborian Age. |
Xoxiigghua | — | A three-eyed, octopoid and parasitic horror trapped inside a mountain range of Central America. |
Yegg-Ha | The Faceless One | A 10 foot-tall winged being which rules over the Nightgaunts, defeated in ancient Britain by a centuria of Roman soldiers. |
Y'golonac | The Defiler | Appears as a naked, obese, headless humanoid with a mouth in the palm of each hand; other features are nebulous. |
Yhagni | — | A hideous female or hermaphroditic entity of tremendous power, cousin of Cthulhu and Hastur imprisoned by the Great Old Ones being themselves awe of her powers. She dwells in Temple of Pillars in the depths of Kyartholm, located somewhere in Northern Hemisphere. Her appearance is never described, but likely formless, larva-like and tentacled as the minion-spawn which serve her parasitizing human victims. |
Yhashtur | The Worm-God of the Lords of Thule | A worm-like monster dwelling at Northern Polar latitudes, said to be rival or inimical to Nyarlathotep. |
Yig | Father of Serpents | A giant snake with human arms covered in scales. Son of the Mappo's Dragon, children of his are Ayi'ig and Voltiyig, whereas Rokon is regarded as the brother of Yig. |
Y'lla | Master of the Seas | A monstrous, barrel-shaped sea worm with tentacles and lamprey-like mouth. |
'Ymnar | The Dark Stalker | A shape-shifting entity spawned by the Outer God Ngyr-Korath to serve him only. It may grant great powers to whoever chooses to serve it and its master but its final aim is the destruction of all sentient and intelligent life in the Cosmos. |
Yog-Sapha | The Dweller in the Depths, Lord of the Things Which Dwell Beneath the Surface | A gigantic, amoeboid, glowing and multihued gelatinous mass living in dark depths of Earth. |
Yorith | The Oldest Dreamer | A huge crystalline being residing in the seas of the ocean planet Yilla. Its hypnotic abilities force those spacefarers who stray too closely to plunge into the depths of its lethal sea. |
Ysbaddaden | Chief of the Giants | One of Hziulquoigmnzhah's children, supposedly male and gigantic. |
Ythogtha | The Thing in the Pit | Appears as a colossal Deep One, with tentacles surrounding its one eye. |
Yug-Siturath | The All-Consuming Fog | A vampiric vaporous entity which adsorbs vital forces. |
Zathog | The Black Lord of Whirling Vortices | A festering, bubbling mass that constantly churns and whirls, putting forth vestigial appendages and reabsorbing them. Bubbles burst on its surface to reveal hate-filled eyes, and slobbering mouths form and close randomly about his horrible body. It dwells in the Xentilx galaxy served by the Zarrian aliens. |
Zhar and Lloigor | The Twin Obscenities | Both appear as a colossal mass of tentacles, trapped in the Plateau of Sung, somewhere in Burma. |
Zindarak | The Fiery Messenger | A mysterious fiery entity that shall release Cthulhu from his prison as the stars are right. |
Zoth-Ommog | Dweller in the Depths | A gigantic entity with a cone-shaped body, a reptilian head, a beard of tentacles, and starfish-like arms. |
Zstylzhemghi | Matriarch of Swarms,
Zystulzhemgni |
Spawn of the Outer God Ycnàgnnisssz, she is described as a living, alien swarm. She has also a sister named Klosmiebhyx. |
Zushakon | Dark Silent One,
Old Night, Zul-Che-Quon, Zuchequon |
Appears as a swirling, black vortex, revered by Mutsune Native Americans as a dire death god. It is also worshiped by the mysterious servitors known as the Hidden Ones. |
Z'toggua | — | An obese bat-winged humanoid with a long polypous snout and a wide mouth opening in the belly, served by the Deep Ones. |
Zvilpogghua | Feaster from the Stars,
The Sky-Devil, Ossadagowah |
A bat-winged, armless toad with tentacles instead of a face. |
Inspiration in Other Media
The Great Old ones have inspired countless cosmic malevolent across films, TV Shows, books, comics and short stories.
Notable ones include:
- The Ogdru-Jahad, Ogdru Hem and Behemoth from the Mike Mignola's Hellboy comic book series and the following 2004 Film-adaptation. The version of the 2004 Film especially bear a resemblance to Great Old Ones.
- The Nestene Consciousness from Doctor Who.
- The Wall of Monsters of the 1994 horror movie In the Mouth of Madness.
- The Old Gods from World of Warcraft.
- The Ancient Ones from the 2012 comedy horror movie The Cabin in the Woods.
- The Drowned God worshiped by the Ironborn, who is likely inspired by the Cthulhu and Dagon.
- Clover from the 2008 film Cloverfield and the 2018 film The Cloverfield Paradox.
- Bill Cipher from the Disney XD series Gravity Falls.
- The Leviathan from Purgatory on the CW series Supernatural. Ironically, the H.P. Lovecraft of the Supernatural-universe had opened a portal to Purgatory and saw what was lying on the other side (presumably the Leviathan among other possible monsters). In Season 13, the show introduced two tentacled deities -- Yokoth and Glythur -- named in reference to Shoggoth and Hastur, that hailed from an alternate universe.
- The Octalus from the 1998 horror film Deep Rising.
- Abeloth from the expanded Star Wars-media.
- The Summa-verminoth from Solo: A Star Wars Story.
- The Old Gods from the universe of the SCP Foundation.
- The Great Ones from the 2015 dark fantasy game Bloodborne.
Gallery
Trivia
- According to Lovecraft lore, the Great Old Ones were at war with whom they called the "Pain Lords", the Elder Gods (sometimes referred to as "Elder Gods"), cosmic beings who have mostly human-like appearance and they are benevolent in nature. Not only that, they were exalted by many human cultures in different parts of Earth.