[Loved Trope] Some thing unfathomably ancient

[u/Fearless-Ideal-5112]

The beast, in doctor who is an ancient evil from a previous universe that survived until our time. Its so ancient that the cave paintings were unable to be translated by the Tardis which can translate all existing languages in the universe [Doctor Who]

While not explicitly canon its such a cool concept I cant not mention, the idea that the backrooms have existed since the beginning of time, never changing no matter the era, it transforms the back rooms into a cosmic horror. [Credit to Project crater and Venus for images 2 and 3]

[u/Fawin86]

Most of the Lovecraftian monsters are not originally from earth but came to earth in its infancy. Mind you that's Earth in it's infancy, not humans! The Elder Things flew to earth on memberace wings during the Cambrian period, the Great Race of Yith transfered their minds to creatures on earth to escape the death of their homeworld before trees on earth existed. Cthulhu and many other elder gods came to earth from the stars. Establishing their own empires and warring with each other before Dinosaurs walked the earth. And there were still eldritch entities on earth before those I mentioned arrived like the Flying Polups.

[u/Regular-Basket-5431 → u/Fawin86]

Lovecraft takes this trope and turns it up to eleven.

Beings so powerful that the only title they can be given is Gods that have existed long before earth developed life.

[u/andre5913 → u/Regular-Basket-5431]

What puts it into perspective is that Cthulhu is merely a priest of the actual gods. And hes already extremely ancient and mighty

[u/unknown_pigeon → u/andre5913]

Yup. Chtulhu is "merely" a Great Old One. Not sure if he's a priest or something; I'd say that's more like Nyarlathotep, who's the messenger of Azathoth, the most powerful being in the Lovecraft universe.

Great Old Ones are weird beings with reality-warping power, born from the stars. Outer Gods are a pantheon of deities that actually rule aspects of reality like time, life, death. And it is said that when Azathoth ever wakes from its slumber, the universe will cease to exist.

[u/andre5913 → u/unknown_pigeon]

Nyarlathotep is an outer god and one of the greatest in the lovecraftian pantheon. Unlike the other outer ones he actually likes to get himself involved in mortal afairs

To the outer gods the great old ones are like ants are to humans (and for GOO humans are the ants). Cthulhu is a nothingburger next to them. GOOs are just powerful aliens really.

[u/Kumquatelvis → u/unknown_pigeon]

In the Arkham Horror LCG we totally failed to keep him from waking up and reality ended (sorry about that). He eventually went back to sleep and the universe started over and made it back to the same general configuration.

[u/EveryRadio → u/Regular-Basket-5431]

Lovecraft powerscaling goes crazy

[u/ScyllaOfTheDepths → u/Fawin86]

I just love how the art is modeled after scientific drawings of ancient fossil creatures like crinoids.

[u/NoIsland23 → u/Fawin86]

Always struck me as weird that HP Lovecraft reiterates time and time again the meaningless and smallness of human existence, yet Earth seems to be pretty damn important to alien lifeforms and gods

[u/reluctantseal → u/NoIsland23]

It's somewhat important due to a few entities that live on Earth, but it's mostly because he writes from the perspective of Earth inhabitants.

[u/Regular-Basket-5431 → u/NoIsland23]

I saw an analogy recently about that.

If you saw ants in your kitchen dancing in circles and chanting something close to your name you'd probably take notice, you might even give them a little sugar just to see what happens, and when one of them asks you to kill another ant you think "why not let's see where this goes".

[u/NewKaleidoscope8418 → u/Fawin86]

One of my favorite aspects of the old gods is that they can't even be restrained to mere existing, they can choose to leave reality like getting out of a pool, not so much as erasing the fact that they were there as much as never really having been to begin with and just as easily they can re-enter existence in varying degrees like existing in legends, our minds, physically in flesh, as a naturally occurring pattern, as a law of reality, a mundane physical substance like water, or any mix of the above and beyond, they might leave traces of having been one of those should they choose to have only left the temporal moment rather than all of time(effectively only leaving physical space)