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#great old one
bethanythebogwitch · 4 months
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One thing I see a lot in cosmic horror stories is the idea that the great old ones or whatever view humans as like ants. The metaphor being that most people don't even think about ants unless the ants start doing something like getting into their house (which would be like people doing rituals to summon the great old ones) and think nothing of killing them. Occasionally you get the kid who likes burning ants with a magnifying glass, which would be Nyarlathotep.
However, using the same metaphor, we have people who are fascinated by ants, who study them for a living and for fun, and who work to conserve ants and keep them alive. If the metaphor holds, we should see great old ones who are interested in humans but aren't hostile.
What I'm saying is that I want a story where humanity discovers an eldritch abomination that proceeds to start doing a study on our habits and biology and appealing to the other great old ones to set up a nature preserve for our conservation.
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fhtagn-and-tentacles · 5 months
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BRONZE CTHULHU
by Yoneyama Keisuke
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bornulhuu · 7 months
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MSpaint Old gods pt.3
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inkeyjay · 7 months
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🫀 Eucharist of the Ravenous 🫀
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It started out as a bellyache, guts rumbling after two days of barely eating. An unfinished visage, featureless, fixing the blurry sockets it had for eyes into his soul.
The humble priest dropped his brush onto the cold floor of the chapel and stumbled backwards. The walls, towards the ceiling, all full of still fresh perfect faces framed by golden halos, that he had been carefully painting non stop for days. Faces of dead saints and prophets, long gone, commissioned by the high church as a display of power and opulence in an age of religious and political crisis. And this last saint, the one that still had some loose and tired brushtrokes for it's face. There was something about it that made the priest flinch out of his creative trance. He swore the paint moved, vibrated with anticipation at the touch of the brush.
He laid tired in the center of the chapel, exposed to a hundred pair of eyes that almost felt judgemental, knowing of the priest's internal thoughts. "Why am i doing this" "Why do i have to over exert myself with work to survive while i use pure gold to embellish... You. This" "Why"
And the faces remained still and silent.
"Why all this for long gone martyrs that had the fortune to die for their for their beliefs, or to let their God speak through their lips, bestow miracles through their fingers"
"Why this for a God that let them die at the heretical hands of the non believers. That leaves hundreds if not thousands of people to die of the pestilence outside this golden, rotten, WALLS"
The bottle of turpentine exploded and its contents dripped down the wall, dragging hours of work with them, dissolving like acid false flesh and gold leaf alike. And then blood, through the priest's hand, holding the neck of the bottle. He panicked and kneeled towards the wall, trying to undo the mistake with cloth, only to make a bloody mess. Red running through the gold, ichor like.
The priest cried holding his hand, a deep wound running through his palm, burning because of the chemicals. But the pain was not the cause of his tears.
"A sign" "I just need a sign"
But the faces remained still and silent.
The priest got up, slowly, and turned around towards the door. Why be here then. Why remain hungry, at the mercy of a dying church that kept their riches safe in mausoleums and layers of paint upon gold leaf upon stone, while its believers died in the streets famished and sick. The priest saw it clear now. If God did ever exist, it was long gone, uncaring for its creation. He might as well die outside, with his people. It would be like inviting the sickness into his chest but at least his last breaths wouldn't taste of incense. His steps echoed through the chamber, determined, reaching for the doors.
But the faces opened their lips. And with a cacophony of voices, each one vibrating with a torrent of beating wings, It spoke. No.
It sang.
Super happy to finally be able to show you this illustration i made for Tome of Pacts, a zine about warlocks, patrons and their pacts! There's a leftover sale going on right now! This is Pantheon, a shapeshifting entity that impersonates long absent gods and feeds on the faith of their followers, always hungry for more. But it's not for me to tell you.
! First of all, credits to @/gothhoblin, the writer of our team, for helping shape out this Patron "...and it spoke with a cacophony of voices, each one vibrating with a torrent of beating wings, a thousand or more." Is a marvelous line of her creation.
Tome of pacts has 11 more patrons and 24 warlocks for your enjoyment, all beautifully depicted by teams of artists and writers. Im super proud to have been able to participate in this project 💛
This short story is about an original character i created after the patron, just as an appetizer, pun intended. You get it right??
Hungry for a copy?
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thecreaturecodex · 10 months
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The Great Game
The galaxy is sick, and has been for so long that even most of the gods have forgotten what it was like when it was healthy. If a cosmology is like an ecosystem, Golarion and its surrounding worlds have too many predators, not enough prey, too much competition, not enough mutualism. The Material Plane is a little too similar to a chaotic, evil world—like the Abyss specifically. On Golarion, it’s kill or be killed.
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The reason is Lamashtu. In ages past, the Mother of Monsters ambushed Curchanus, stripping from him the portfolio of Animals and leaving him for dead. He survived long enough to pass his domain of Travel to his protégé, Desna, but Lamashtu was able to use that surge of power to claim divinity for herself and become the Queen of Demons. Since then, Lamashtu has done as she willed, fighting and fucking her way across reality and leaving thousands of new species of horrors in her wake.
But Lamashtu is a neglectful mother. Because of her influence, animals in the Material Plane are overly hostile, too aggressive, liable to pick fights that they can’t win. Animals are liable to view humanoids as prey, which leads to savage reprisals and environmental catastrophe. The species created by Lamashtu and her followers, both demonic and mortal, are born without a niche, and their shoving into the world around them leads to disruption and devastation. It’s not a coincidence that crazed wizards and misguided druids have brought so many new monsters into existence, and that one-off horrors are liable to mutate and become entire species.
But this has not gone unnoticed.
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Deep within the First World lives a goddess. A Goddess of Predators, although she is only quasi-divine. For now. Mormo, the First Medusa, Goddess of Predators, has been alive since before the Age of Serpents, since before the birth of mammals. She is a primordial entity, a Great Old One, although more benevolent than most. She and Yig call each other Brother and Sister, although this may or may not represent a genetic linkage. She retreated from the Material Plane as humanity became a growing power, disgusted by the callousness of the Azlanti and the machinations of the aboleths.
But now she has chanced to gaze upon the Material again. And is horrified to see how much things have gotten worse in her absence. Mormo wants to help. And to help the best way she knows how. By killing and eating something. Someone. Lamashtu.
Mormo’s ultimate goal is to do to Lamashtu what Lamashtu did to Curchanus. Weaken her to the point where she can be fought, strip the domain of Animals from her, and ideally kill her for good. Leave the demons without a Queen, so they can go back to clawing at each other’s throats for a while. Restore the ecological balance of Golarion and allow the biological exuberance of the First World back onto the Material Plane.
But she needs help. And Lamashtu may be confident, but she’s not complacent. She knows that Mormo is gunning for her. And is bringing together allies of her own.
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This is the Great Game, the cosmological underpinnings of the Age of Monsters. Gods, demigods and other entities are picking sides, or choosing to remain neutral, or remaining neutral on the surface but shoring up their favorites in secret. The teams are not defined by alignment. There are those of all alignments, of all of the planar power groups, who support Team Lamashtu or Team Mormo, in large ways or small. Any conflict where Desna and Pazuzu both have the same enemy is bound to get complicated, after all. Further articles will be posted throughout the year, tagged with The Great Game, discussing who is on who’s side, and why.
Full statistics for Mormo are forthcoming—those are likely going to be the capstone of Monster Girl Summer, posted in August. Mormo is a N great old one, with the portfolio of reptiles, terror and ecology. Her domains are Knowledge, Scalykind, Strength and Trickery, and her subdomains are Competition, Fear (modifying Trickery), Thought and Venom.
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macabrecabra · 5 months
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LOVECRAFTOBER: DAY SEVENTEEN: Cthulhu; The Great Dreamer, The Sleeper of R'lyeh, Him Who Shall Rise Again, The Star Spawn
Affiliation: The Court of Shub-Niggurath
And finally, the big squid himself, the famous, the all-known great old one himself, Cthulhu! He has a reputation of being strong, one whom Shub-Niggurath can trust any mission to, who will grapple with any elder god and who finds victory in all he does.... or that's the Cthulhu that used to be.
Now he's kind of depressed, entering a "death-like sleep" just to avoid followers and duties, having a mid-eon life crisis perhaps and just staying in, watching TV, eating tons of junk food he gets delivered to the docks near Innsmouth. The rest of the court just insists he'll be back once he's feeling better, no need to rush him. Hastur though is always trying to get Cthulhu to fight him...no luck so far. Makes Hastur rather peeved his "rival" won't come out....
Maybe he will rise again to be as he was in eons past. Maybe after someone asks not what is Cthulhu doing, but maybe...how is Cthulhu doing....?
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time-traveler08 · 5 months
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The King In Yellow (malevolent podcast)
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mercury-and-scry · 5 days
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my special, amoral, and eldritch boy
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luc3 · 11 months
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Black Elderberry. [French Folks Traditions]
In the 19th century, the peasants of France still attributed magical properties to the Elderberry, and its wood was sometimes used to make sorcerer's staffs and divinatory wands.
In the legend, Judas, after having betrayed Christ, would have gone to hang himself from an Elderberry branch. Thus, it is said in Vienne, that the person who breaks an elderberry branch in the garden of his neighbors will betray this one in the year, even without wanting it and without knowing it.
It should also be noted that in certain regions, Elderberry served as a panacea : everything was good in Elderberry for healing, in the past. But that following the curse linked to Judas, its powers had been supposedly removed.
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Protective Magic :
Côtes d'Armor : Elderberries are planted near houses to ward off evil spells and snakes. It is also used to protect livestock (diseases and evil spells) by placing a branch in the cows' litter.
Yonne : Pick up a branch of Elderberry on the passage of the Corpus-Christi procession and then place it in an apple tree, it'll protect it against caterpillars. (?!)
Lower Brittany, Côtes d'Armor : You should never hit a cow with an Elderberry branch, it will make it sick, or cause its milk to dry up. Same thing for pigs. Moreover, if you burn Elderberry wood, you risk preventing the hens from laying eggs.
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Magical Medicine:
Côte d'Armor : It is said that the Dlderberry is a "doctor", because the fairies took refuge in the flowers to flee the world when it became too mean. (a special one for my dear @lailoken )
Vienne, Vaucluse : the patient who touches an Elderberry will get better in the next few days, and to cure fevers you have to slip his name and date of birth into a previously hollowed-out elderberry tree.
The feast of Saint John is (of course) favorable to the Elderberry, whose virtues it multiplies.
In the Gospel of the Cattails it is said that warts are cured by rubbing it with an Elder leaf on the eve of Saint John, a leaf which is then buried. As the leaf rots, the wart dries out.
In Upper Brittany, Elderflowers collected on Saint John's Day are used to make an herbal tea to treat sick eyes.
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Witchcraft :
Jura : We know the story of a sorcerer who introduced a little excrement from the person or animal he wanted to bewitch into a hollowed-out elderberry stick. He then fixed this stick in running water while reciting a prayer. The victim had stomach aches as long as the water agitated the stick.
In addition, Collin de Plancy in his Dictionnaire Infernal reports that : "when one has received some curse from a sorcerer whom one does not know, one hangs one's habit from one ankle and strikes on it with an elderberry stick; all the blows will fall on the back of the guilty sorcerer, who will be forced to come, in all haste, to remove the spell."
I learned SO MUCH HERE (snakes / little neighbors / sick eyes) while I came confident and persuaded to find other things in these quotes... Thus I'll continue to thank and pay tribute by posting the work of J. Fournier on the subject. (Once translated.)
Pic 1 @incroyables-plantes ; pic 2-3 @lherbier-d-elsa
Quotes arranged by me from the Dictionnaire de la France Mystérieuse by MC Delmas.
Also @graveyarddirt, I know you have some and you'll like it Sis' <3
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madcat-world · 2 years
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Great Old One III - JJcanvas (Jorge Jacinto)
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asta-daily · 6 months
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Great Cthulhu IV
“When the stars were right, They could plunge from world to world through the sky; but when the stars were wrong, They could not live.” ― H.P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu
/* Pencil Doodle on A5 Sketchbook - Porte-mine sur carnet A5 */
"Quand les astres s'alignaient favorablement, ils pouvaient alors sauter d'un monde à l'autre à travers l'ether; mais dès lors que les astres leur devenait défavorables, ils ne pouvaient même pas vivre. ― H.P. Lovecraft, L'Appel de Cthulhu
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seekingcylem · 1 month
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Jalo got a power upgrade and more importantly an outfit change
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fhtagn-and-tentacles · 6 months
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THEY DON'T UNDERSTAND OUT LOVE
by Thomas Elliott
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bornulhuu · 9 months
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MSpaint old gods
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GOOLock: Reloaded
Like the Berserker Reloaded from a while back. I like taking subclasses I find to be lacking but have fun theming and try to make them a bit more powerful/fun to use.
By the way, there is an exploit with Cosmic Madness that can allow you to use it on people on other planes of existence. This is 100% intentional because I think it is funny.
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thecreaturecodex · 10 months
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The Great Game: Outer Gods and Great Old Ones
As the deities that are most physically tied to the Material Plane, it is perhaps unsurprising that the various entities collected together as “Outer Gods” and “Great Old Ones” have been paying attention to the Great Game. The allegiances of some of the prominent members of these pantheons are as follows:
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Abhoth The Unclean God is patron of disease and fecundity, and knows how these two things are tied together. More are born than can survive, and many of those that die fall to disease before anything else. As such, Abhoth is well versed in ecology, and knows that Lamashtu is overpopulating Golarion with her monsters. Abhoth’s followers seek to spread plagues among monstrous species in order to keep their numbers down, and as such, Mormo counts Abhoth as an ally.
Azathoth The Primal Chaos does not seem to have noticed the Great Game, or much of anything that has happened on Golarion in centuries. This is probably for the best. If any of his attention were to be turned onto the conflict, it could easily become a disaster for both parties…something that Nyarlathotep is hoping for, and working to make happen.
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Bokrug The Water Lizard fondly remembers Mormo from before the evolution of true mammals, and they have hunted and sparred together and even mated in the past. Bokrug may be difficult to rouse from his slumber, but his ire is terrible when provoked, and is likely to be directed at the followers of Lamashtu.
Cthulhu The Dreamer in the Deep has dreamt of Golarion, and one or two of his star-spawn have come there. But he cares not for the Great Game; he has his own stars that need to be right once again. A star-spawn of Cthulhu is a dangerous agent of its own right, and one more likely to support Lamashtu than Mormo.
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Hastur The King in Yellow respects Lamashtu and her ravenous appetites. Although he has his own plans to absorb chunks of Golarion, or the whole world if he can, into the Nightmare Kingdom of Carcosa, he is at least nominally on the Mother of Monster’s side. As long as their cultists can keep sharing the same sybaritic festivities.
Ithaqua Ithaqua is more concerned with consuming anyone on either side that he can sink his talons into. The Wind Walker is slightly more favorably minded towards Lamashtu than Mormo, but any relationship between their cults is likely to be a tenuous one that could break down into ravenous hunger at any point.
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Mhar Mhar wants off of Golarion. He sees a change in the status quo as the best way of achieving that goal, and is resentful of lamia clerics of Lamashtu for helping Karzoug the Runelord to build a palace on his surface and deface him. Mhar’s release would likely be devastating for Mormo’s goals of making Golarion a richer and more diverse ecosystem. But on the other hand, volcanic ash and lava rock makes for excellent fertilizer, and his eruption might not be as destructive as he hopes it will be.
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Nhimbaloth As a devourer of souls and a corrupter of wild things, Nhimbaloth is an ally of Lamashtu. Of course, she does respect Mormo’s goals of eating Lamashtu as a fellow apex predator. But Nhimbaloth thinks that the Goddess of Predators is too arrogant and needs to be taken down a peg. Nhimbaloth would happily eat Mormo herself if given half a chance, and for that reason, Mormo keeps a wide berth of Nhimbaloth’s home world, Voidbracken.
Nyarlathotep The Crawling Chaos is delighted by this galaxy spanning conflict, and on the surface is playing both sides. Lamashtu is his real dog in the fight, as he views Lamashtu as being more likely to lead Golarion to ruin, cracking open and releasing Rovagug. That would be a fun show to watch, seeing how the Rough Beast would react after eons of imprisonment. The Mask of Nyarlathotep that is most actively involved is the Black Pharaoh, whose cults are pushing technological advances into the hands of demon cultists and dangerous maneaters.
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Orgesh The Faceless God is technically on Lamashtu’s side, although not by any direct aiding or abetting. Orgesh wants to fight Mormo himself. And is sending his chardra to pick fights with her worshipers, and is gunning for her most powerful servitors himself, in the hopes of getting Mormo’s attention. Worst case scenario, Orgesh will be killed and be able to respawn on another planet. Unless Mormo gets sick of his interference, and starts doing research on a way to kill him for real before setting her sights higher.
Shub-Nugganoth* The Goat of the Woods views Lamashtu as a kindred spirit, and the two of them have indeed collaborated on the spawning of horrors in the past. They are doing so again, notably through the personage of one of the Goat’s most powerful mortal worshipers in Avistan, a fleshwarping-obsessed alchemist named Doctor Agatha Shiny. Doctor Shiny and her creations are actively hunting down Mormo’s allies in order to transform them into blasphemous horrors, or just murder them.
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Tsathoggua Saint Toad knows what it’s like to be forgotten and abandoned. He is a supporter of Mormo, if only because she’s the underdog in this fight, and Tsathoggua has a soft spot for underdogs, as much as he would deny that. Mormo knows that the Father of Night is a fickle and somewhat dangerous ally, so doesn’t rely on his help, but does appreciate his guidance and wisdom.
Yig The Father of Serpents calls Mormo “sister”, and the Goddess of Predators calls Yig “brother” in return. This may be an actual genealogical relationship, it may not be. But Yig is among Mormo’s closest allies, and the two are active collaborators. Those colonies of serpentfolk who worship Yig are hotspots for burgeoning cults of Mormo, as they see the two ophidian Old Ones as a way to reclaim some of the lost glory of the Age of Serpents without relying on the increasingly unstable Ydersius.
Yog-Sothoth The Key and the Gate views things on a vast, cosmic scale, even more than the other Outer Gods. As such, the safety and long term stability of the galaxy is his highest priority (after all, it has to collide with another galaxy in approximately 1.2 billion years, and then enough of it has to be around to decay into degenerate matter as the universe shifts past its stelliferous era. So anything that dramatically accelerates that process, or might get large portions of the galaxy pulled out of the Material Plane altogether, are not ideal outcomes for Yog-Sothoth. As such, he supports Mormo, but is doing so in a subtle way—opening portals in the right places, weakening planar boundaries—rather than sending his children to fight en masse.
*This is the name I am going to be using for that particular Outer God in the future. Clearly the same entity that has been developed into a character by Mythos authors over the last 100 years, but doesn't have a racist slur built into the name.
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