Came here looking for inspiration for a warlock I started creating last night. Didn’t even realize that you literally posted this an hour ago.... the universe is indeed a strange and wondrous place! How appropriate!!
Yog is actually a pretty chill eldritch god. In the Dreams Cycle it actively helps the protagonist when they are in serious danger. It's just their being that is dangerous. When it appears in an avatar it can be quite pleasant.
I'm currently working on a warlock that has a 'close-ish' relationship with her great old one patron and I mean close as in 'that one ant you give a crumb to to see where it goes or what it does'. From there it's entertained by the web of cause and effect her actions create. I'm still working it out but so far I like it
@@sleepystar1638 set a village on fire from just trying to bake bread for a lady to pay off something else.. So pretty good it had nothing to do with her powers but her patron thought it was funny
I find Tharazdun more scary than a great old one. Like, an elder being that doesn't really care or notice mortals or an elder being who hates all of creation and is actively trying to destroy it. Like imagine being on Cthulhu’s personal shit-list just for existing
Azathoth is just a freakier deakier. Gibberish mass that exudes a soup of other elder horrors version of therisdun. Therizdun is azathoth light. The obyrith could well have been parasites on the buttcheeks of azathoths whitenoise machines, and still have been powerful and alien enough to completely fracture the mind of poor therizdun
See an Old One, make Wisdom check or Will save .. Made save , take 1d4 temporary wisdom damage along with other spell like effects. Fail save, take 2d4 temporary wisdom damage and 1d2 permanent wisdom damage with other spell like effects.
One of my players made what is my favorite DnD character to date. Mad is a tiefling warlock of Azathoth from the pandemonium realm. He's about 4'11, has broken horns, frizzy black hair, and is completely insane. Mad was sold off to an unknown being of the lower planes as a baby and ended up in the pandemonium realm where he gained powers from the sleeping idiot god through his insane dreams. At some point in his twenties (exact age unknown) he stumbles into a rift in the fabric of the universe, which causes him to appear at different points in space and time. It is Mad's destiny to awaken Azathoth and end reality as we know it. Mad himself doesn't know about his destiny and is generally just a strange but harmless little guy in most of his incarnations. But one day, he will succeed and bring about the ultimate apocalypse.
Real definition of a great old one: A demigod born from gods exclusively to forms that came from higher planes, though are no higher evolutionary to any other organism, but humans would naturally see them as gods these days but they are anything but gods, in mythology, even the Cthulhu Mythos is actually less malevolent towards life. Real life is more aggressive to life. But the Cthulhu Mythos doesn’t have anything that actively wants to kill off humans, even Nyarlathotep doesn’t want humans gone, the universe basically said “I love these tiny things” in the Cthulhu Mythos and only the lizard people disagreed, even Cthulhu likes humans, because if they know of his existence they worship him which indirectly empowers him in a way, enhancing him mentally, because even great titans of ancient gods have the ability to experience insanity with the fear of Azathoth having just that one second to awaken.
" cough, cough," .. people think Lovecraft was a fictional write, you wouldn't believe some of the things I seen in smoke cover fields of trench warfare during the Great War. Then there have been some freaking zhit working as a gumshoes in Hollywood. -- Planar traveler Richer Kirk P.I.
You guys should read flatland. It's a story about a 3d object that interacts with a 2d world. It does a good job explaining the limits of being in a 3d world and how higher dimensional beings would be incomprehensible.
I'm DMing for a pretty long term campaign and a player wrote up a backstory including the DM as an entity he made a vow to! I was thinking of ruling myself to be a Great Old One and after watching this video, I am very looking forward to the effects that will come over the character as he uncovers more and more about his true purpose, maybe even in the end-game realizing he is a character in a game (with consent of the player of course). Thank you for the clarification and inspiration!
I only wish the “Sanity” stat had came up. As it decreases with more and more contact with these abominations the player gets to almost feel the terror. What happens when your sanity gets low. What happens if your sanity goes to 0 or effectively disappears. Yummm the yummy horror of characters being high level and untouchable in combat ..running in fear or the dark!
I figured in a Lovecraftian campaign you could encounter Aberrations and maybe traditional Lovecraftian horrors along the way as well. I even imagined a chaotic neutral bard having a somewhat personal acquaintance with Nyarlathotep.
Bloodborne is such an excellent game but unfortunately niche (ps4 only) and has a huge skill/patience requirement in order to enjoy the game to the end. I love Bloodborne so much for the experience and for introducing me to Lovecraftian storytelling
Hastur, Hastur, Hastur... One of the characters in my campaign is a Teifling Sorcerer, the player wanted to have two bloodlines converge in his character. I decided he could choose one bloodline for his mother. He decided her family worshiped Asmodeus. I would choose the father's, it would be secret and drive his character in the stories we played. (That's ominous, I just heard you say Asmodeus as I was typing it (35:18) lol.) I left the idea to float around in my head for a bit and then just let things come out. I decided to create a Far Realms god to be the father's bloodline. The campaign is set in an evolving setting of Forgotten Realms. I imagined one of the outer gods granting a young AO the gift to define borders and separations in "reality". With this power AO was able to define the boarders and control the way things work and thus the create the planes themselves. AO would make changes to the boarders a few times, moving from the different cosmology models, Axis, Wheel, and Tree. There would have been other outer gods with powers to create gates and portals, I amused. Some of these powers were handed down to lesser beings and eventually a lot of the gate powers were locked away (kind of ironic) but most of the portal powers found their way and settled in the Lady of Pain. I still have some work defining the undefinable but thanks for covering the topic.
@@jacobshelt01 AO is the Overgod of the Realms but there are other spheres and dimensions outside of AO's control and influence. The Outer gods are anything beyond the sphere AO controls. Examples would be Fay Realm and Far Realm gods, even other worlds (settings) that are in different isolated prime material spaces; Eberron, Dark Sun etc. I tweaked and interpreted things to fit my game as any DM does. Basically AO for me is Harrold with a box of crayons not just one purple one. And as different as AO is from a common human so is an outer god to AO. At least in my imagined multiverse structure.
@@arthurwdavis thank you for taking the time sir to explain it to me. I wish I had a reference book something to help me study the very absolute beginning history of the realms so I could know what came first the start of the universe. What races came first etc. that’s why I like to watch channels like this.
I think The Reapers from Mass Effect had really good Great Old Ones vibes, at least in the first game. As they started to explain them and their motivations more in the sequels and the mystery dissolved a bit, they lost some of their terror-inducing charm, I think.
Im currently running a campaign of this. Great old ones with motivation like reapers. They go plane to plane abducting the mass of the populations. Were about every 10000 years civilization is reset by the visiting great old ones.
I really like pulling from Jim Butcher and The Dresden Files for Great Old Ones as well. What he does with beings from "beyond the Outer Gates" really reminds me of the idea of Great Old Ones. Also, I like the idea of a being like the Outsider from Dishonored and the Void as inspiration.
22:00 Brian makes a good point on Lovecraft characters usually having some prestige. I think this might have to do with his stories being in first person from the protagonist's point of view. If the protagonist didn't have prestige, the audience would just think them mad. But due to their status, we are more likely to believe their account of the events they are presenting. - Innkeeper Vase Odin
You should run great old ones like the oblivion war from Harry Dresden files. They are fighting to stay connected to the material plane through the knowledge they exist, and there is an active movement to eradicate them from memory
Point of order: that story was told in second person perspective. (if you're ever unsure of perspective, it's I for first, You for Second and He for third...generally)
After 5 years of DMing for my group ive found a new group where i get to be a PC in 5e for the first time. Ive chosen to play a bladepact GOO warlock that uses psychic attacks to weaken his opponents. His eldritch blast has been flavour modded to be tentacles bursting from his arms (a la Bloodborne) He has however been cursed with wanderlust and if he stays in the same place for a month suffers short term madness and insanity after 2 months (normally a murderous rampage towards the horizon) and so has chosen to sail the world mapping the constantly changing coastlines of our world :D This is my first time listening and im sorry for rantinf but great content and i cant wait to play/hear more :D xx
My half elf warlock murder some children in her town when she was young....their thoughts made her sick....now she entertains her patron Nyarlathotep... I modeled her miniature with tentacles as hands....she also collects hair....
Great Old Ones, in my settings are extra-planar entities who exist in the Void between the planes. They are like the “kraken” of the planes. I typically try not to go into more than that unless it’s part of a characters backstory or a warlock pact. Typically I say they’re the natural evolution of life within the void space, but I have given thought to them being “banished” there by the gods, but I like that idea less as I like the idea that these GOO’s could possibly challenge the gods...
I didnt like the basic DND old ones so I made my own in my campaign called the 'Dark Gods'. There are 3, but they're literally unbeatable. They really play on the 'insignificance' feel. Their entire deal is that they're super hungry and eat realities and worlds, but are unable to get there themselves. But one Dark God is able to easily defeat entire pantheons on its own. And of course they are giant planet sized tentacle monsters.
Fascinating videos. I actually like the idea that the category of Great Old Ones is pretty broad and doesn't have to just be limited to things similar to the Cthulhu Mythos. My favorites are Dawn Titans or Platinum Dragons or other primordials which have more in common with Greek and Norse mythology. They don't have to be evil but are very unlikely to be lawful good.
the game Cultist Simulator is an incredible inspiration for new Great Old Ones, and what interacting with them is like. highly recommend for lovecraftian delving into Things Better Left Alone
Already this show is better than Web DM because I only ever feel like those guys skim the surface and don't actually add anything. It's like the difference between a teacher who actually teaches, and a teacher who reads off from the textbook.
First of all, I’m a first timer to Dungeoncast and great channel here. Love how you describe the Cosmic Horror concept. To be honest, I’m not into DnD, never had the chance or know where to start, and I’m only here for find more info on anything Lovecraftian even from a DnD interpretation for my art for separate fandom. But I just realized recreating Lovecraftian work is very difficult and perhaps unachievable; not in a truest form. If the concept of Lovecraftian mythos are meant to be unknowable, recreating into something else would diminish it’s mysteriousness into something too familiar to Human understanding. Still, I hoping to find the right balance between what is ‘eldritch’ and the familiar. Like it feels very Lovecraftian but in a different fiction or media people are more accustomed to, in my case superheroes.
Aight, don't go dissing Tharizdun like that. Tharizdun isn't "just an evil god", Tharizdun is a being on the level of Ao who would be quite capable of ripping apart the entire multiverse were he ever freed from the illusions that keep him trapped. He's a lot like Azathoth.
It's time for my lizardfolk bard to make up for his low int and wis by opening his mind to the Far Realm! Thanks for the inspiration guys, very well done. I look forward to telepathically poisoning the minds of the soft ones with the madness that consumes me 😍
I like to think of the chaos of the outer dimension as waves crashing on a beach. Our plane of existence is a bubble created by the froth. Our reality floats on the surface of these chaos waves and at any time may crash upon a rock and pop. The outer gods are as disinterested in us as a bubble of froth on the beach. Indifferent, but not opposed to collecting it, examining it, or crushing it.
I would note that Cthulhu is probably a fair bit more powerful than a demon prince that doesn't double as a minor deity. Dagon was widely considered to be Cthulhu's servant and they translated him to be an Obyrith strong enough to go toe to toe with Demogorgon (not that he won but the fact he's still around tells us all we need to know in my opinion).
I think a good way to have Lovecraftian D&D would be your characters having to become Other for them to be powerful enough to stay relevant, and to show that even the Great Old Ones are small fish in their own pond. They don't really understand the universe much better than anyone else, and the universe doesn't care about them either. So you can be a hero, because the universe doesn't *hate* you. It just doesn't case in the least.
Probably the best campaign I've ever run was a Lovecraftian horror campaign in D&D. My players were awesome, and the entire game was strange, spooky, scary, and intense. I now try to work at least SOME horror style elements into my games, and GOO and strange Elder Gods are my go to choices. The strange and alien makes evil cults and warlock covens way more interesting than just worshiping some demon or standard-type evil gods.
Now I wander if you could play a character who's slowly becoming a great old one as the campaign goes on and the other player characters don't know until they are around 25% to 50% a great old one
Yog-Sothoth actually exists between the dimensions of the Multi-verse as he embodies it, Azathoth on the other-hand exists outside of it altogether as he dreams reality into existence. I also think some Deities such as Old ones which are below Outer Gods should possibly live in The Far Realm.
I don't really like to say that the Great old ones should be only lovecraftian horrors. It would single out only the ''far realms'' beings. I personally consider great oild ones being older than the gods of immense power, like primordials or ancient forgotten gods
They could be more like the Overgods. Check out the Mighty Glue Stick's ecology of them. Examples include Io & Thune. Ao created most of the understood multiverse as a Planescape PC would understand the multiverse, & Thune birthed the Far Realms. These reality creating beings are closer to the greatest of the Old Ones like Azathoth, capable of birthing entire realities with laws of physics totally different from our own.
It was Robert E Howard, the creator of Conan who used to borrow a lot from Lovecraft. They actually wrote a series of letters to each other via Wierd Tales Magazine. There was a book published about it. Y'all should check it out.
This is one of the best videos I've seen about how to explain the Great old ones ever. Question though are the obyrith the equivalent of the great old ones in the DND verse.
So if the players interact some how or are affected by a great old one, should you let the dice determine random actions for it? Let the players try to figure out the motivations and patterns in something that is truly random and maybe induce a bit of madness in them.
A cool idea for a Great Old One to me is an infantile entity; something of impossible power and influence, something that corrupts and taints reality with a mere thought... but it's wholely unaware of its influence because it has the intelligence or 'processing power' (not the phrase I mean, but I can't think of the right phrase lol) of a mortal baby Maybe you can make it talk, or maybe it just sputters and goo-goo's, who knows. But nonetheless it's just an eternal infant with this inexplicable relationship with reality. Maybe it was one of the first entities to come into existence, and the early gods feared its ability to completely re-write reality based on its very uncontrollable and toddler-like emotion and consciousness. A god made it cry? that god's form just got unraveled into a yarn-like pile of god-strings. Like sentient, still-very-alive person-yarn, and that's just its new reality now. Not on purpose, but the baby got scared by something and its brain didn't want that scary thing there anymore 😆 On the planes, it's surrounded by this fracturing and tesselating effect as the reality of the planes itself struggles to accomodate it. Coming close to this being causes time to distort unnaturally. Plants and animals experiencing their lifecycle in both directions, some growing, maturing, decaying and dying within seconds, others seemingly frozen in time. Creatures near it suffering almost a magical radiation effect as its extraplanar essence morphs and twists the material plane, causing creatures to turn into these corrupted amalgamations reminiscient of creatures from the Far Realms Is he evil? Absolutely not! He's just a dood, an innocent lil guy. Just a cosmic baby of unmatched influence and power on EVERYTHING, but it simply can't comprehend that. Impossible power over reality itself, but the maturity and thoughts of an infant mortal. A fun wrench to toss into the gods' work; a wrench they themselves forgot they had discarded to the far reaches of the darkness, all those eons ago 😮
The great old ones are unknowable. The mere hint at their form or nature is enough to fracture the feeble human mind. "Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth. He knows where the Old Ones broke through of old, and where They shall break through again. He knows where They have trod earth's fields, and where They still tread them, and why no one can behold Them as They tread." Howard Phillip Lovecraft. The aforementioned knower will also knock up your albino occultist daughter if the right verses are spoken in ancient heathen languages on the correct nights in spring. That is how the great old one do.
In the world of my current dnd campaign, the main pantheon is the great old ones, the celestials are banished and illegal, I love the world I created, it’s really Lovecraftish Halloween town, with everlasting autumn (created with a wish spell by my GOO warlock), only green lights, vampires, ghosts, 90% of population are witchcraft users, I mean it is awesome.
As far as we can talk about an "official" Forgotten Realms Lore ... would they be above or beneath (more or less powerful than) the "The Luminious Being"? I always thought gods are above mortals, AO is above the gods, and The Luminous Being above even AO. With the "Being" probably coming closest to what many of us - presumably - imagining when thinking of God.
At the end of one of the Men and Black movies when the camera zooms out of our universe and shows giant aliens using our universe as a marble in a game haha. Yeah lovecraftian stories are fun/dreadful to think about. The idea of stumbling upon something greater than yourself that everyone else is unaware of and unwilling to believe you about is scary. Losing your mental faculties or going mad is a big fear in and of itself, let alone reality ending monstrosities.
I always thought of gods to man as man to gold fish. To the gold fish we are giantic infinitely complicated. We would seem a blurry mass above the water that comes and gos with no seeming reason. How we control our environment like light and temp would be beyond anything the gold fish could ever comprehend. Our motivations will never be revealed to the fish.
Here’s a good description of a great old one... because I do know the origin of Cthulhu so they didn’t have a good description. Description: an entity with power similar to a god but weaker than a god. Good description for a true god: an entity with nothing but mystery and paradoxes behind it’s existence, it could tell you everything about how it exists and 99% of it you would never be capable of even understanding even in the slightest.
Great old ones = 4dimensional beings … they see us in our entirety of our timeline all at once… and if true 4th dimension being - they furthermore see all of the multiverses across all time all at once - and like a drawing on a piece of paper can interact w us at any time within our timeline easily or anywhere within all multiverses. But why would they even care? Does a man concern itself w the life of ants?
Great Old Ones kind of have a primal or primordial evil kind of vibe, kind of like the beast from revelations, or the snake at the start of time in Charmed. I say this because they tend to be monstrous godlike individuals older than time itself, just look at the examples. On the other hand a Cthulu mythos Old one is more like an intentionally, sadistic like, mad god, in an evil oriented universe.
there is a theorie that the mist and the dark tower books are conected. they say the creatures in the mist are the things between the realms in the dark tower.
+briankool1 my understanding is that almost all stephen king books exist in a shared multiverse. It, Salem's Lot, Dark Tower all in the same multiverse.
That is certainly the theory shared on the Film Theory's channel "Pennywise's Greatest Fear." he argues that the entire Losers Club in the story "It" all have The Shine that Danny Torrance had in "The Shining."
Im currently working on a kenku warlock that made a pact with a great old one to be granted free though and artistic freedom and the ability to speak but know is paranoid of others thinking they are trying to remove that from him and is willing to do anything to maintain his speech and mental freedom even turn on allies but he’s slowly going insane from it due to the pact
Im so excited to make a npc for my game based on hp lovecraftian characters especially call of cthulu. Not sure how im going to bring this character to my players yet but it is tktally going to be a character who has nigthmarish dreams of the great old one & becomes fanatic about it. Maybe he started out as a scholar of forgotten lore or/& a archiologist who was so into his work of knowledge that drove him completely mad. This character has to have a very epic & tragic backstory but i gotta limit myself on telling the players everything about him but they could stumble apon little bits of his story every now & then if they have a interest in it
I object to calling Cthulhu evil. To call him evil for wishing to destroy humanity, is to say it is evil for a human to crush the ants infesting their home.
I think the detective in Shadow of innsmouth something like that he and a somewhat Drury hotel he's hearing strange noises and other rooms takes a room at a hotel set up near seaside village
Awfully late to this i know, but wouldn't the Oborith technically be very similar to the great Old Ones? Brings from another reality, who to survive in ours would have to change it to be more like there's?
I like the idea of beholders being the small murmurs of an old one, a drop of a dream from a dream, rippling through the mundane realm as a nightmare.
That's some soulsborne level thinking. Did you watch Mr Rhexx's astral dreadnought episode on them+beholders+old ones far realm shenanigans?
@@draxthemsklonstI think you meant ajpikett he's the one who said the stuff about astral dreadnought being the connection you're speaking about
It chills me when I think of it and maddens me when I dream of it.
Came here looking for inspiration for a warlock I started creating last night. Didn’t even realize that you literally posted this an hour ago.... the universe is indeed a strange and wondrous place! How appropriate!!
josh mack got a female half elf warlock that has Nyarlathotep. She collects hair.....
Yog is actually a pretty chill eldritch god. In the Dreams Cycle it actively helps the protagonist when they are in serious danger. It's just their being that is dangerous. When it appears in an avatar it can be quite pleasant.
I'm currently working on a warlock that has a 'close-ish' relationship with her great old one patron and I mean close as in 'that one ant you give a crumb to to see where it goes or what it does'. From there it's entertained by the web of cause and effect her actions create. I'm still working it out but so far I like it
How's this going?
@@sleepystar1638 set a village on fire from just trying to bake bread for a lady to pay off something else.. So pretty good it had nothing to do with her powers but her patron thought it was funny
@@eriseverblight729 lol sounds like a blast, i bet she stumbles right into trouble.
@@sleepystar1638 only most the time but bright side the job gets done just don't ever ask her to cook anything for everyone's safety
@@eriseverblight729 she sounds like a peach, I hope everything works out.
I find Tharazdun more scary than a great old one. Like, an elder being that doesn't really care or notice mortals or an elder being who hates all of creation and is actively trying to destroy it. Like imagine being on Cthulhu’s personal shit-list just for existing
Azathoth is just a freakier deakier. Gibberish mass that exudes a soup of other elder horrors version of therisdun. Therizdun is azathoth light. The obyrith could well have been parasites on the buttcheeks of azathoths whitenoise machines, and still have been powerful and alien enough to completely fracture the mind of poor therizdun
Lovecraft's work is great but so difficult to understand, especially when trying to roleplay one of the old ones. Great video guys!
It was never about understanding something that is the beauty of lovecrafts work
See an Old One, make Wisdom check or Will save ..
Made save , take 1d4 temporary wisdom damage along with other spell like effects.
Fail save, take 2d4 temporary wisdom damage and 1d2 permanent wisdom damage with other spell like effects.
"Stars. Can't do it. Not today."
"Guys you are boke, you've got nothing to bet with!"
I immediately read that in the blond guys voice 😂 maaaaaan I miss that movie! Need to watch again.
Maybe they should call this place Chel Dorado
One of my players made what is my favorite DnD character to date. Mad is a tiefling warlock of Azathoth from the pandemonium realm. He's about 4'11, has broken horns, frizzy black hair, and is completely insane. Mad was sold off to an unknown being of the lower planes as a baby and ended up in the pandemonium realm where he gained powers from the sleeping idiot god through his insane dreams. At some point in his twenties (exact age unknown) he stumbles into a rift in the fabric of the universe, which causes him to appear at different points in space and time. It is Mad's destiny to awaken Azathoth and end reality as we know it. Mad himself doesn't know about his destiny and is generally just a strange but harmless little guy in most of his incarnations. But one day, he will succeed and bring about the ultimate apocalypse.
That sounds very Moorcock. I love it!
the thing that i love about yog sothoth is that he is just as the summoner think he his, there is a story in wich he is actually a very nice guy
Zu'ul was an underling, along with Vince Clortho, were the key master and gate keeper to the one I believe you were referring to: Gozar the Gozarian.
Yes you are correct!
Real definition of a great old one:
A demigod born from gods exclusively to forms that came from higher planes, though are no higher evolutionary to any other organism, but humans would naturally see them as gods these days but they are anything but gods, in mythology, even the Cthulhu Mythos is actually less malevolent towards life. Real life is more aggressive to life. But the Cthulhu Mythos doesn’t have anything that actively wants to kill off humans, even Nyarlathotep doesn’t want humans gone, the universe basically said “I love these tiny things” in the Cthulhu Mythos and only the lizard people disagreed, even Cthulhu likes humans, because if they know of his existence they worship him which indirectly empowers him in a way, enhancing him mentally, because even great titans of ancient gods have the ability to experience insanity with the fear of Azathoth having just that one second to awaken.
" cough, cough," .. people think Lovecraft was a fictional write, you wouldn't believe some of the things I seen in smoke cover fields of trench warfare during the Great War. Then there have been some freaking zhit working as a gumshoes in Hollywood. -- Planar traveler Richer Kirk P.I.
@@krispalermo8133 everything he wrote about he himself said was fake.
Also I don’t recognize the quote.
You guys should read flatland. It's a story about a 3d object that interacts with a 2d world. It does a good job explaining the limits of being in a 3d world and how higher dimensional beings would be incomprehensible.
I like to believe that gravity fall's bill cipher may be an inhabitant of flatland. Possibly the one who viewed the convergence
I'm DMing for a pretty long term campaign and a player wrote up a backstory including the DM as an entity he made a vow to! I was thinking of ruling myself to be a Great Old One and after watching this video, I am very looking forward to the effects that will come over the character as he uncovers more and more about his true purpose, maybe even in the end-game realizing he is a character in a game (with consent of the player of course). Thank you for the clarification and inspiration!
This is awesome...
Tpk
Event Horizon is one of my favorite movies. Love the reference! Another great episode guys.
I only wish the “Sanity” stat had came up. As it decreases with more and more contact with these abominations the player gets to almost feel the terror. What happens when your sanity gets low. What happens if your sanity goes to 0 or effectively disappears. Yummm the yummy horror of characters being high level and untouchable in combat ..running in fear or the dark!
If you summon a Starspawn of Cthulu and don't promptly die, you are _its_ familiar.
I figured in a Lovecraftian campaign you could encounter Aberrations and maybe traditional Lovecraftian horrors along the way as well. I even imagined a chaotic neutral bard having a somewhat personal acquaintance with Nyarlathotep.
Darkest Dungeon is very good lovecraftian horror game.
Also Bloodborne has done very good job with the cosmic horror.
Bloodborne is such an excellent game but unfortunately niche (ps4 only) and has a huge skill/patience requirement in order to enjoy the game to the end. I love Bloodborne so much for the experience and for introducing me to Lovecraftian storytelling
I dont feel that is the case at all
Hastur, Hastur, Hastur...
One of the characters in my campaign is a Teifling Sorcerer, the player wanted to have two bloodlines converge in his character. I decided he could choose one bloodline for his mother. He decided her family worshiped Asmodeus. I would choose the father's, it would be secret and drive his character in the stories we played.
(That's ominous, I just heard you say Asmodeus as I was typing it (35:18) lol.)
I left the idea to float around in my head for a bit and then just let things come out. I decided to create a Far Realms god to be the father's bloodline. The campaign is set in an evolving setting of Forgotten Realms. I imagined one of the outer gods granting a young AO the gift to define borders and separations in "reality". With this power AO was able to define the boarders and control the way things work and thus the create the planes themselves.
AO would make changes to the boarders a few times, moving from the different cosmology models, Axis, Wheel, and Tree. There would have been other outer gods with powers to create gates and portals, I amused. Some of these powers were handed down to lesser beings and eventually a lot of the gate powers were locked away (kind of ironic) but most of the portal powers found their way and settled in the Lady of Pain.
I still have some work defining the undefinable but thanks for covering the topic.
What are outer gods? I thought ao was the first god?
@@jacobshelt01
AO is the Overgod of the Realms but there are other spheres and dimensions outside of AO's control and influence. The Outer gods are anything beyond the sphere AO controls. Examples would be Fay Realm and Far Realm gods, even other worlds (settings) that are in different isolated prime material spaces; Eberron, Dark Sun etc.
I tweaked and interpreted things to fit my game as any DM does. Basically AO for me is Harrold with a box of crayons not just one purple one. And as different as AO is from a common human so is an outer god to AO. At least in my imagined multiverse structure.
@@arthurwdavis thank you for taking the time sir to explain it to me. I wish I had a reference book something to help me study the very absolute beginning history of the realms so I could know what came first the start of the universe. What races came first etc. that’s why I like to watch channels like this.
2 years late to the podcast but thank you so much. You turned me onto Lovecraft. SO much inspiration for D&D here.
Would you file the Dark Powers from Ravenloft as a GOO? Would you, as a DM allow a warlock in Ravenloft to make a GOO pact with the Dark Powers?
I think The Reapers from Mass Effect had really good Great Old Ones vibes, at least in the first game. As they started to explain them and their motivations more in the sequels and the mystery dissolved a bit, they lost some of their terror-inducing charm, I think.
Im currently running a campaign of this. Great old ones with motivation like reapers. They go plane to plane abducting the mass of the populations. Were about every 10000 years civilization is reset by the visiting great old ones.
John Carpenter's "The Thing", "Prince of Darkness" and "In the Mouth of Madness" are all also excellent movies with mythos themes.
In the Mouth of Madness crept me out, as a teen.
I really like pulling from Jim Butcher and The Dresden Files for Great Old Ones as well. What he does with beings from "beyond the Outer Gates" really reminds me of the idea of Great Old Ones. Also, I like the idea of a being like the Outsider from Dishonored and the Void as inspiration.
Would Bill Cipher from Gravity Falls be considered a great old one.
Absolutely.
Is he incomprehensible?
Check!
Is he interdenominational?
Check!
Is he far more powerful than humanity?
Check!
Is he really dead?
Check-ish?
The Dungeoncast would Arceus from Pokemon be a Great Old One.
MysterygamerX1234 I think he is a creation deity
Bill gives me a sorta younger sibling to the great old ones vibe but I agree with you he's definitely among them
Listened to the whole audiobook...that time well spent, thank you
22:00 Brian makes a good point on Lovecraft characters usually having some prestige.
I think this might have to do with his stories being in first person from the protagonist's point of view. If the protagonist didn't have prestige, the audience would just think them mad. But due to their status, we are more likely to believe their account of the events they are presenting.
- Innkeeper Vase Odin
You should run great old ones like the oblivion war from Harry Dresden files. They are fighting to stay connected to the material plane through the knowledge they exist, and there is an active movement to eradicate them from memory
I bet the players and dungeon master would resemble the great old ones to our in game characters.
You could view it that way, for sure.
I was looking for the video on The Small New Ones :)
Have to rewatch this episode every time Cater does something crazy in SQS.
36:00
Holy crap I had no idea you guys were in the same room!
It was like a Great Old One pushing into his dimension XDDD
Point of order: that story was told in second person perspective. (if you're ever unsure of perspective, it's I for first, You for Second and He for third...generally)
After 5 years of DMing for my group ive found a new group where i get to be a PC in 5e for the first time.
Ive chosen to play a bladepact GOO warlock that uses psychic attacks to weaken his opponents. His eldritch blast has been flavour modded to be tentacles bursting from his arms (a la Bloodborne)
He has however been cursed with wanderlust and if he stays in the same place for a month suffers short term madness and insanity after 2 months (normally a murderous rampage towards the horizon) and so has chosen to sail the world mapping the constantly changing coastlines of our world :D
This is my first time listening and im sorry for rantinf but great content and i cant wait to play/hear more :D xx
That sounds epic
My half elf warlock murder some children in her town when she was young....their thoughts made her sick....now she entertains her patron Nyarlathotep... I modeled her miniature with tentacles as hands....she also collects hair....
Great Old Ones, in my settings are extra-planar entities who exist in the Void between the planes. They are like the “kraken” of the planes. I typically try not to go into more than that unless it’s part of a characters backstory or a warlock pact. Typically I say they’re the natural evolution of life within the void space, but I have given thought to them being “banished” there by the gods, but I like that idea less as I like the idea that these GOO’s could possibly challenge the gods...
I didnt like the basic DND old ones so I made my own in my campaign called the 'Dark Gods'. There are 3, but they're literally unbeatable. They really play on the 'insignificance' feel. Their entire deal is that they're super hungry and eat realities and worlds, but are unable to get there themselves. But one Dark God is able to easily defeat entire pantheons on its own. And of course they are giant planet sized tentacle monsters.
Fascinating videos. I actually like the idea that the category of Great Old Ones is pretty broad and doesn't have to just be limited to things similar to the Cthulhu Mythos. My favorites are Dawn Titans or Platinum Dragons or other primordials which have more in common with Greek and Norse mythology. They don't have to be evil but are very unlikely to be lawful good.
That's how mind flayers were made lol
the game Cultist Simulator is an incredible inspiration for new Great Old Ones, and what interacting with them is like. highly recommend for lovecraftian delving into Things Better Left Alone
The dark one from the wheel of time would be considered a great old one
Already this show is better than Web DM because I only ever feel like those guys skim the surface and don't actually add anything.
It's like the difference between a teacher who actually teaches, and a teacher who reads off from the textbook.
First of all, I’m a first timer to Dungeoncast and great channel here. Love how you describe the Cosmic Horror concept.
To be honest, I’m not into DnD, never had the chance or know where to start, and I’m only here for find more info on anything Lovecraftian even from a DnD interpretation for my art for separate fandom.
But I just realized recreating Lovecraftian work is very difficult and perhaps unachievable; not in a truest form.
If the concept of Lovecraftian mythos are meant to be unknowable, recreating into something else would diminish it’s mysteriousness into something too familiar to Human understanding.
Still, I hoping to find the right balance between what is ‘eldritch’ and the familiar. Like it feels very Lovecraftian but in a different fiction or media people are more accustomed to, in my case superheroes.
Aight, don't go dissing Tharizdun like that. Tharizdun isn't "just an evil god", Tharizdun is a being on the level of Ao who would be quite capable of ripping apart the entire multiverse were he ever freed from the illusions that keep him trapped.
He's a lot like Azathoth.
Exactly
It's time for my lizardfolk bard to make up for his low int and wis by opening his mind to the Far Realm! Thanks for the inspiration guys, very well done. I look forward to telepathically poisoning the minds of the soft ones with the madness that consumes me 😍
A lizardfolk Bard you say... interesting
I love anything great and old and ones
Woot woot, love your vids, even more when it's subjects I adore like this! Keep it up 👌
I like to think of the chaos of the outer dimension as waves crashing on a beach. Our plane of existence is a bubble created by the froth. Our reality floats on the surface of these chaos waves and at any time may crash upon a rock and pop. The outer gods are as disinterested in us as a bubble of froth on the beach. Indifferent, but not opposed to collecting it, examining it, or crushing it.
Does anyone remember that Cthulhu is on the list of Great old one patrons?
Cosmic horror has become my favorite type of horror.
Tharizdun has existed since at least 3e! If not earlier. I have the article from dragon mag
I would note that Cthulhu is probably a fair bit more powerful than a demon prince that doesn't double as a minor deity. Dagon was widely considered to be Cthulhu's servant and they translated him to be an Obyrith strong enough to go toe to toe with Demogorgon (not that he won but the fact he's still around tells us all we need to know in my opinion).
yes more gods been waiting for this.
I'm remembering your episode on the origin of the plane that orcus and demons are from. If that chaotic evil essence gained sentience
In my game, many of the old ones were banished from the material realm except for one, and that old one is the god of the clerics knowledge domain
I have been waiting for this subject matter since I subscribed to the channel. Danm! Will can read me stories whenever he likes
I think a good way to have Lovecraftian D&D would be your characters having to become Other for them to be powerful enough to stay relevant, and to show that even the Great Old Ones are small fish in their own pond. They don't really understand the universe much better than anyone else, and the universe doesn't care about them either. So you can be a hero, because the universe doesn't *hate* you. It just doesn't case in the least.
I'm a fan of the "Horton Hears a Who" Great Old One Warlock idea someone put on Reddit.
Probably the best campaign I've ever run was a Lovecraftian horror campaign in D&D. My players were awesome, and the entire game was strange, spooky, scary, and intense. I now try to work at least SOME horror style elements into my games, and GOO and strange Elder Gods are my go to choices. The strange and alien makes evil cults and warlock covens way more interesting than just worshiping some demon or standard-type evil gods.
For even death may die. Ïa Ïa!
Now I wander if you could play a character who's slowly becoming a great old one as the campaign goes on and the other player characters don't know until they are around 25% to 50% a great old one
Yog-Sothoth actually exists between the dimensions of the Multi-verse as he embodies it, Azathoth on the other-hand exists outside of it altogether as he dreams reality into existence. I also think some Deities such as Old ones which are below Outer Gods should possibly live in The Far Realm.
Lovecraft never stated Azathoth dreams existence. This was added later and was based on work of another author and another mythos
@@RealWorldGames It’s still in the Cthulhu Mythos. Multiple authors contributed to the mythos.
Scarlet Witch from Marvel was given her powers from a combination of the High Evolutionary and Marvel's chaos God Cthon, their version of C'thulu
Oh God ive been waiting for this forever
Take a quasit and call it a tiny squid. Sounds cooler.
I don't really like to say that the Great old ones should be only lovecraftian horrors. It would single out only the ''far realms'' beings. I personally consider great oild ones being older than the gods of immense power, like primordials or ancient forgotten gods
They could be more like the Overgods. Check out the Mighty Glue Stick's ecology of them. Examples include Io & Thune. Ao created most of the understood multiverse as a Planescape PC would understand the multiverse, & Thune birthed the Far Realms. These reality creating beings are closer to the greatest of the Old Ones like Azathoth, capable of birthing entire realities with laws of physics totally different from our own.
It was Robert E Howard, the creator of Conan who used to borrow a lot from Lovecraft. They actually wrote a series of letters to each other via Wierd Tales Magazine. There was a book published about it. Y'all should check it out.
Love Rob E Howard. Yeah he was a bit of a pupil of Lovecraft and adored his work. Lots of omages and influences throughout.
I tend to think of the Obyrith (or at least some of them) as being good fodder for elder ones in D&D.
Yog-sothoth is just Hermaus Mora 😂😂😂😂
This is one of the best videos I've seen about how to explain the Great old ones ever. Question though are the obyrith the equivalent of the great old ones in the DND verse.
Obyrinths are a close approximation. I look forward to talking more about them in our Abyss episode and possibly a general Fiends episode.
Best episode yet.
Trying to do research so I can figure out how to convince my dm to let me become one through some sort of crazy events in our campaign
So if the players interact some how or are affected by a great old one, should you let the dice determine random actions for it? Let the players try to figure out the motivations and patterns in something that is truly random and maybe induce a bit of madness in them.
A cool idea for a Great Old One to me is an infantile entity; something of impossible power and influence, something that corrupts and taints reality with a mere thought... but it's wholely unaware of its influence because it has the intelligence or 'processing power' (not the phrase I mean, but I can't think of the right phrase lol) of a mortal baby
Maybe you can make it talk, or maybe it just sputters and goo-goo's, who knows. But nonetheless it's just an eternal infant with this inexplicable relationship with reality. Maybe it was one of the first entities to come into existence, and the early gods feared its ability to completely re-write reality based on its very uncontrollable and toddler-like emotion and consciousness.
A god made it cry? that god's form just got unraveled into a yarn-like pile of god-strings. Like sentient, still-very-alive person-yarn, and that's just its new reality now. Not on purpose, but the baby got scared by something and its brain didn't want that scary thing there anymore 😆
On the planes, it's surrounded by this fracturing and tesselating effect as the reality of the planes itself struggles to accomodate it. Coming close to this being causes time to distort unnaturally. Plants and animals experiencing their lifecycle in both directions, some growing, maturing, decaying and dying within seconds, others seemingly frozen in time. Creatures near it suffering almost a magical radiation effect as its extraplanar essence morphs and twists the material plane, causing creatures to turn into these corrupted amalgamations reminiscient of creatures from the Far Realms
Is he evil? Absolutely not! He's just a dood, an innocent lil guy. Just a cosmic baby of unmatched influence and power on EVERYTHING, but it simply can't comprehend that.
Impossible power over reality itself, but the maturity and thoughts of an infant mortal. A fun wrench to toss into the gods' work; a wrench they themselves forgot they had discarded to the far reaches of the darkness, all those eons ago 😮
I'm thinking about making my own Elder God for a future 5E campaign.
I started watching this on the same day I started watching an Old Ones Supernatural episode. Coincidence?
A lot of Stephen Kings books you mentioned is connected to The Dark Tower
In Lovecraft stories, the old ones brought humans to earth
The reapers from Mass effect, and their machines. However the leviathan, the fleshy race that became the reapers, fit normally
The great old ones are unknowable. The mere hint at their form or nature is enough to fracture the feeble human mind. "Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth. He knows where the Old Ones broke through of old, and where They shall break through again. He knows where They have trod earth's fields, and where They still tread them, and why no one can behold Them as They tread." Howard Phillip Lovecraft. The aforementioned knower will also knock up your albino occultist daughter if the right verses are spoken in ancient heathen languages on the correct nights in spring. That is how the great old one do.
In the world of my current dnd campaign, the main pantheon is the great old ones, the celestials are banished and illegal, I love the world I created, it’s really Lovecraftish Halloween town, with everlasting autumn (created with a wish spell by my GOO warlock), only green lights, vampires, ghosts, 90% of population are witchcraft users, I mean it is awesome.
As far as we can talk about an "official" Forgotten Realms Lore ... would they be above or beneath (more or less powerful than) the "The Luminious Being"? I always thought gods are above mortals, AO is above the gods, and The Luminous Being above even AO. With the "Being" probably coming closest to what many of us - presumably - imagining when thinking of God.
At the end of one of the Men and Black movies when the camera zooms out of our universe and shows giant aliens using our universe as a marble in a game haha. Yeah lovecraftian stories are fun/dreadful to think about. The idea of stumbling upon something greater than yourself that everyone else is unaware of and unwilling to believe you about is scary. Losing your mental faculties or going mad is a big fear in and of itself, let alone reality ending monstrosities.
I think maybe malevolent, but malignant works too
26:30 The story was The Dunwich Horror.
I always thought of gods to man as man to gold fish. To the gold fish we are giantic infinitely complicated. We would seem a blurry mass above the water that comes and gos with no seeming reason. How we control our environment like light and temp would be beyond anything the gold fish could ever comprehend. Our motivations will never be revealed to the fish.
Here’s a good description of a great old one... because I do know the origin of Cthulhu so they didn’t have a good description.
Description: an entity with power similar to a god but weaker than a god.
Good description for a true god: an entity with nothing but mystery and paradoxes behind it’s existence, it could tell you everything about how it exists and 99% of it you would never be capable of even understanding even in the slightest.
Great old ones = 4dimensional beings … they see us in our entirety of our timeline all at once… and if true 4th dimension being - they furthermore see all of the multiverses across all time all at once - and like a drawing on a piece of paper can interact w us at any time within our timeline easily or anywhere within all multiverses. But why would they even care? Does a man concern itself w the life of ants?
Great Old Ones kind of have a primal or primordial evil kind of vibe, kind of like the beast from revelations, or the snake at the start of time in Charmed.
I say this because they tend to be monstrous godlike individuals older than time itself, just look at the examples.
On the other hand a Cthulu mythos Old one is more like an intentionally, sadistic like, mad god, in an evil oriented universe.
there is a theorie that the mist and the dark tower books are conected. they say the creatures in the mist are the things between the realms in the dark tower.
+briankool1 my understanding is that almost all stephen king books exist in a shared multiverse. It, Salem's Lot, Dark Tower all in the same multiverse.
That is certainly the theory shared on the Film Theory's channel "Pennywise's Greatest Fear." he argues that the entire Losers Club in the story "It" all have The Shine that Danny Torrance had in "The Shining."
Im currently working on a kenku warlock that made a pact with a great old one to be granted free though and artistic freedom and the ability to speak but know is paranoid of others thinking they are trying to remove that from him and is willing to do anything to maintain his speech and mental freedom even turn on allies but he’s slowly going insane from it due to the pact
I need that dimensions quote saved, holy cow...
Have you thought about doing some episodes about the story and backgrounds of artifacts like the Orbs of dragonkind for example?
Im so excited to make a npc for my game based on hp lovecraftian characters especially call of cthulu. Not sure how im going to bring this character to my players yet but it is tktally going to be a character who has nigthmarish dreams of the great old one & becomes fanatic about it. Maybe he started out as a scholar of forgotten lore or/& a archiologist who was so into his work of knowledge that drove him completely mad. This character has to have a very epic & tragic backstory but i gotta limit myself on telling the players everything about him but they could stumble apon little bits of his story every now & then if they have a interest in it
even horizon is my favorite horror movie of all time. its a mush watch if you like horror
I object to calling Cthulhu evil. To call him evil for wishing to destroy humanity, is to say it is evil for a human to crush the ants infesting their home.
"How ones?"
Well I laughed...
I think the detective in Shadow of innsmouth something like that he and a somewhat Drury hotel he's hearing strange noises and other rooms takes a room at a hotel set up near seaside village
Awfully late to this i know, but wouldn't the Oborith technically be very similar to the great Old Ones? Brings from another reality, who to survive in ours would have to change it to be more like there's?
you missed my favorite version, the Orz from star control 2.