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Great Old One

A Great Old One is a type of fictional being in the Cthulhu Mythos based in the stories of H. P. Lovecraft. Though Lovecraft created the most famous of these fictional deities, the vast majority of them were created by other writers, many after Lovecraft's death. Collectively, the Great Old Ones (sometimes referred to as the Old Ones by some authors or the Cthulhu Cycle Deities by Brian Lumley in his Titus Crow stories) are not as powerful as the Outer Gods, nor do they have as much influence. Nonetheless, they are served in the stories by devoted congregation of worshippers, made up of both human and non-human cults.

Summary

That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.
—Abdul Alhazred, The Necronomicon

The Great Old Ones are ancient extraterrestrial beings of immense power, and most are also colossal in size. These entities seem to have a physical shape, but being cosmic lifeforms from beyond our space-time continuum means they are not based on matter in our definition of the concept, yet their forms are built on principles similar enough to those of true matter that they appear to be material in their nature. They are worshipped by deranged human cults, as well as by most of the non-human races of the mythos. The Great Old Ones are currently imprisoned—a few beneath the sea, some inside the Earth, and still others in distant planetary systems and beyond. The reason for their captivity is not known, though there are two prevailing theories:

They were sequestered by the Elder Gods for using black magic transgression, or
they are sealed off somehow from the rest of the universe of their own volition.

According to the first theory, the Great Old Ones were once related to the Elder Gods. When they committed some unknown blasphemy, they were cast out and imprisoned in various places in the universe. The Great Old Ones impatiently await the time of their release, eager to seek retribution against their jailors.

The second theory holds that the Great Old Ones are intentionally dormant. To account for this, it is possible that the universe experiences cosmic cycles, similar to the natural seasons which occur on earth. Just as some animals hibernate during the winter, so too must the Great Old Ones rest in a death-like sleep during the present cosmic cycle. If this is so, the Great Old Ones are currently trapped by powerful cosmic forces and must remain so until such time as the planets are in a certain alignment... or "the stars are right"—the event upon which they may be released and can revel once more across the cosmos.

Table of Great Old Ones

Overview

This table is organized as follows:

Name. This is the commonly accepted name of the Great Old One.
Epithet(s), other name(s). This field lists any epithets or alternate names for the Great Old One. These are names that often appear in books of arcane literature, but may also be the names preferred by cults.
Description. This entry gives a brief description of the Great Old One.
References. This field lists the stories in which the Great Old One makes a significant appearance or otherwise receives important mention. Sources are denoted by a simple two-letter code—the key to the codes is found here. A code appearing in bold means that the story introduces the Great Old One. If the code is given as rpg it means that the Great Old One first appeared in the Call of Cthulhu Roleplaying Game.

Table

Great Old Ones
Name	Epithet(s), other name(s)	Description	References
Aphoom-Zhah	The Cold Flame, Lord of the Pole	Appears as a vast, cold, grey flame.	AF, HG, LP
Arwassa	The Silent Shouter on the Hill	A vast, wailing, floating monstrosity.	rpg
Atlach-Nacha	The Spider God, Spinner in Darkness	A giant spider with a human-like face.	PS, AT,SG
Baoht Z'uqqa-Mogg	The Bringer of Pestilence	A huge, flying, scorpion-like beast.	rpg
Basatan	Master of the Crabs	?	MC
Bokrug	The Great Water Lizard, The Doom of Sarnath	Appears as a giant lizard.	DC, SC
Bugg-Shash	The Black One, The Filler of Space, He Who Comes in the Dark	Appears as a slimy mass covered with eyes and mouths.	DI, EL, KB, RS
Byatis	The Berkeley Toad, The Serpent-Bearded	Appears as a gigantic, spider-like crab with a proboscis.	BY, RC, SF
Chaugnar Faugn	Horror from the Hills, The Feeder, Caug-Narfagn	An elephant-headed humanoid.	HF, HM, FO, RH
Cthugha	The Living Flame, The Burning One	Appears as a living ball of fire.	DD, EL, HC, LM
Cthulhu	The Sleeping God, Master of R'lyeh, The Great Priest, Kthulhut, Tulu	A gigantic, winged, octopus-headed humanoid.	AM, BI, CC, FH, GU, HC, HM, LY, MO, PS, RH, SE, TU, YT?
Cthylla	Secret Daughter of Cthulhu	Appears as a huge, octopus-like creature.	ID, TC
Cxaxukluth	—	Probably appears similar to Azathoth.	FT, TA
Cyäegha	The Destroying Eye, The Waiting Dark	Appears as a gigantic eye covered with tentacles.	DM
Cynothoglys	The Mortician God, She Whose Hand Embalms	Appears as a shapeless, mutating entity with a single arm.	PR
The Dweller in the Gulf	Eidolon of the Blind	Appears as a huge, eyeless reptilian creature with whip-like tails.	WL
Eihort	The Pale Beast, God of the Labyrinth	Appears as a huge, pallid, gelatinous oval with a myriad legs and multiple eyes.	BS, FP
Father Dagon and Mother Hydra	—	Both appear as abnormally large Deep Ones.	DA, DB, RD, SI
Ghadamon	A Seed of Azathoth	A shapeless, inky, protoplasmic mass.	rpg
Ghatanothoa	The Usurper, God of the Volcano	amorphous with multifarious appendages and grotesque members; too horrid to behold, viewing causes petrification.	HT, OE, RL, SX, TP
Ghisguth	The Sound of the Deep Waters	Appears as a monstrous whale, sixty feet long, with two massive tentacles replacing its tongue.	FT
Glaaki	The Inhabitant of the Lake, Lord of Dead Dreams	Appears as a giant slug with metallic spines.	GL, IB, IL
Ghluun	The Corrupter of Flesh, Master of the Temple	Manifests through a Dionysian sculpture; resembles a monstrous sea slug.	TE
Gol-goroth	Golgoroth, Gol-Goroth, The Forgotten Old One, God of the Black Stone	Appears as a gigantic, black, toad-like creature with an impossibly malevolent glare.	FO, FR, GB
Hastur	The Unspeakable, He Who is Not to be Named, Lord of Interstellar Spaces, The King in Yellow	"True" form remains a mystery; said to be amorphous, possibly octopoid.	FA, HS, LT, RH, SS, WD, YS
Hziulquoigmnzhah	—	Has spheroid body, elongated arms, short legs, and a pendulum-like head dangling underneath.	DS, FT, TA
Idh-yaa	—	—	OA
Iod	The Shining Hunter	A levitating, sinuous, glowing creature.	HU, IN, SZ
Ithaqua	The Wind Walker, The Wendigo, God of the Cold White Silence	A horrifying frozen giant.	BW, CD, IM, IQ, SW, TW, WE
Juk-Shabb	God of Yekub	Appears as a great ball of energy.	CF
Kag’Naru of the Air	?	?	?
Kassogtha	?	?	?
Lloigor	See Zhar and Lloigor below.
M'Nagalah the Eternal	The Great God Cancer, The All-Consuming	A massive, tumorous, blob-like thing.	TU
Mnomquah	Lord of the Black Lake	A very large and eyeless lizard-creature with a "crown" of feelers.	MD, MQ, SB
Mordiggian	The Charnel God, The Great Ghoul, Lord of Zul-Bha-Sair	A horrifying giant with eyeless head and limbless body, much like a worm.	CG, IC, RE
Nug and Yeb	The Twin Blasphemies	Appear similar to Shub-Niggurath.	BF, EH, LA, OA, TO
Nyogtha	The Thing which Should Not Be, Haunter of the Red Abyss	Appears as an inky shadow.	AF, HG, SH, SR
Oorn	?	Appears as a huge, tentacled mollusc.	MD
Othuum	Deep Slumberer in Green, Great Master of Those-Who-Wait-Without	Black, cyclops-like demon with two pairs of legs.	OT, RS
Othuyeg	The Doom-Walker	Appears as a great, tentacled eye (similar to Cyäegha).	DF, VC, SP
Quachil Uttaus	Treader of the Dust	Appears as a miniature, wrinkled mummy with ankylosed, outstretched claws.	KU, RU
Q'yth-az	?	A crystalline entity.	EF
Rh’Thulla of the Wind	?	?	?
Rhan-Tegoth	He of the Ivory Throne	A tall humanoid with crab-like appendages; hard to describe in a few words.	HM, AF, LT, RR, PD
Rlim Shaikorth	The White Worm	A gigantic, whitish worm with a huge maw and eyes made of dripping globules of blood.	CW, HG, LP
Saa'itii	The Hogge	A giant, spectral hog.
Sfatlicllp	—	—	FT
Shathak	Mistress of the Abyssmal Slime, Death Reborn, Mother of the Kraken	Appears as a seventy-foot long kraken with twenty-foot-long massive tentacles	FT
Shudde M'ell	The Burrower Beneath, The Great Chthonian	Appears as a colossal worm with anterior tentacles.	BU, CS, TC, WU
Summanus	Monarch of Night, The Terror that Walketh in Darkness	A mouthless, grotesque human with tentacles.	FH, WG
Tsathoggua	The Sleeper of N'kai, The Toad-God, Zhothaqqua, Sadagowah	Appears as a huge, furry, almost humanoid toad.	BC, DS, FT, IU, OL, RT, SG, TS
Ut'ulls-Hr'her	?	?	?
Vulthoom	The Sleeper of Ravermos, Gsarthotegga	May appear as a monstrous plant with an enormous, elf-like blossom.	VU
The Worm that Gnaws in the Night	Doom of Shaggai	A massive, worm-like fiend.	AG
X'chll'at-aa	Lord of the Great Old Ones, The Unborn God, Enemy of All That Live	Appears as a large, black or translucent-skinned creature somewhat like a humanoid embryo with enormous eyes, six arms, and a set of octopoid tentacles in place of legs.	rpg
Y'golonac	The Defiler	Appears as a naked, headless human with a mouth in the palm of each hand; other features are nebulous.	CP
Yhoundeh	The Elk Goddess	Perhaps an elk-like humanoid.	DS, LE
Yibb-Tstll	The Patient One, The Watcher in the Glade	Gigantic, bat-winged humanoid with detached eyes; truly horrible to behold.	CB, OK, SC
Yig	Father of Serpents	A scaly, serpent-like humanoid.	CY, SJ, VY
Ythogtha	The Thing in the Pit	Appears as a colossal, cyclops-like Deep One.	OA, PD, TC, TP
Zathog	The Confuser, the Tempter of Those Who Search in Envy	Appears as a dark, purple-orange humanoid with a foot-long proboscis, muscular arms, antelope horns and a glowing green aura	FB, WZ
Zhar and Lloigor	The Twin Obscenities	Both appear as a colossal mass of tentacles (have a rumoured triplet).	SA, LS, TP, SX
Zoth-Ommog	Dweller in the Deeps	A gigantic entity with a cone-shaped body, a reptilian head, and starfish-like arms.	HG, OA, TC
Zstylzhemghi	Matriarch of Swarms, Zystulzhemgni	?	FT, TA
Zushakon	Dark Silent One, Old Night, Zul-Che-Quon, Zuchequon	Appears as a swirling, black vortex.	BH, KD
Zvilpogghua	Feaster from the Stars, The Sky-Devil, Ossadagowah	Winged, tentacle-faced, toad-like giant.	LT, RM, SV

Father Set

The works of Robert E. Howard, a friend of Lovecraft feature a malign serpent god named Father Set, worshipped by the villainous Thoth-Amon. Named after a character from Egyptian mythology and based on the Egyptian demon, Apophis, Set is implied to be one of the Great Old Ones from Lovecraft's mythos which sometimes overlaps with Howard's.

In popular culture

The boss C'Thun in the MMORPG World of Warcraft is one of the "Old Gods", a group of beings within the game, and is a reference with a similar name like Cthulhu and Cthuga and is a giant fanged mouth with dozens of eyes and tentacles.
In the Justice League episode "The Terror Beyond," it is learned that in ancient times, the people of Thanagar worshiped The Great Old Ones. At that time, Thanagar was a hard world with a primitive and savage culture; in return for offerings made to Ixthultu, the Old Ones' leader, they received agriculture, mathematics, and philosophy—the foundations of their entire culture. As they matured, however, the Thanagarians stopped worshiping them; modern Thanagarians bow down to no higher power. Their knowledge of the Great Old Ones was used in the creation of their personal weaponry.
The Great Old Ones have inspired many other demonic gods in Lovecraftian works of fiction such as the Faceless Ones from Skulduggery Pleasant, the Ogdru Jahad from Hellboy and the Dark Ones from Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go.
The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray by Chris Wooding is based on many of HP Lovecraft's stories. The dark gods known as the Glau Meska appear to be an amalgamation of the Great Old Ones and the Deep Ones.
The Outsiders from The Dresden Files are similar to the Great Old Ones.
The Power of Five series by Anthony Horowitz features dark gods known as the Old Ones as the main antagonists.

References

Books

Harms, Daniel (1998). The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana. 21nd edition, Oakland, CA: Chaosium. ISBN 1-56882-119-0.

Lovecraft, H.P. (1982). The Best of H. P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre. 1st edition, Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-345-35080-4.