Howdy fa/tg/uys!
I need a little bit of help if you don't mind. Long time fantasy/post-apoc gamer and been asked to contribute a NPC deity that will play a part in my DMs story (as much as I'm told). I'm not very versed in Lovecraft/deity's lores however so posting what I have. Any contributions of assistance would be appreciated.
Name: Ianto the Sion (wip); hallmarks include a solitary twig of buds jutting out of a dead tree on the apex of a hill; associated with tumultuous noises.
Background: a surviving elder god who has watched the world advance. exists outside of the current pantheon's influence or knowledge.
Typical attributes:
cynical, lazy, apathetic, tired, shell-shocked, world-worn, "not my problem" guy
Single record of his involvement describes is as:calculating, harsh, stern, compassionless, merciless, justice, etc.
(OP)
Specific things I'm looking for:
1) How did he survive, what did he do?
2) How/if he draws his powers
3) What powers he would possess
4) Any flavor text you thing I should add, suggest, etc.
s.s.b
>>37274011
Leave HP alone, you haven't understood his work.
His only being that would watch is Nyarly, and please let's not. Overused!
To even assign intellect to Elder Beings that humans could perceive is a stretch. These are forces of nature, their passage bends reality.
Look to the Aesir for cool deities that watch and sometimes care.
If you insist on Mythos then take a Shan or a Mi-go who set himself up as a 'god' to some human cult.
Pic inaccurate.
>>37276906
aight, you know what
while I agree with your sentimentthat he got lovecraft's work wrong, so did you
the implications of the old ones is not that they bend reality by existing, but that reality is something so alien to us that these seemingly impossible creatures exist regardless.
The old ones are NOT gods, NOT forces of nature, remember, just really big aliens.
And like all things real, they can be smacked down, as the Elder Things did with big C itself.
>>37276995
If Cthulhu stirs in his slumber, countless humans are caught in dreams that mesmerize them into becoming wandering cultists. That's the 'force of nature' aspect I am referring to.
Azathoth:
>He is described as a "nuclear chaos", a "blind idiot god" who created the universe without knowledge or caring.
You cannot talk to them. You cannot discern any reason. They are removed from our scale.
You can have it out with the lesser races though. Deep Ones and Shoggoths come up a lot. And lots of shotguns can sometimes help with that...
>>37277066
And you know what he does when he finally gets up? He gets spooked by the ocean, tries to wander into it anyway, and gets into a one-sided fight against a yacht.
Sure, the old ones are pretty fucking good with their psionics, at least the few that have psionics, but they're still just creatures, with a strick science behind them. That science just doesn't happen to be the one we know, or at least know well.
Azathoth on the other hand is pretty godlike, him and yog are the only two I'd ever concede are probably at the very top of things.
>>37277124
>when he finally gets up
He was just checking the stars. If he had gotten up, mankind would have ended. If you believe a puny yacht in his head is something that concerns such a multidimensional entity then read the story again. It is told from an unreliable narrator's perspective and includes his questionable conclusions.
>>37277201
bullshit, Cthulhu was fully up for a few moments, and he got his shit wrecked. Granted, yes, it was in a pool of his one weakness, but still. The old ones ain't shit but hookers and tricks, and if thulhu were to fully rise AND register on the global radar, he'd be dissassembled sooner than he could do anything about it.
Hell, the deep ones might even help once they figure out their natural habitat is the one thing Cthulhu and his bros hate most.
>>37277264
Imagine a drawn character, alive on the page. Draw him guns and lasers and nukes, give him black holes and gamma ray bursts to wield for all I care. None of his 2 dimensional weapons can even touch you. And lift your finger from the page and you just disappeared into nothing from his perspective. Even if you press your face to the page, he will never make out any expression on it. He can drive boats through your face, it won't even tickle. And yet his in and out is an open book to you, a picture you can take in at a glance. Now imagine that drawn character tiny as a speck of dust, lost in the grain of your page.
That is what you are to Cthulhu.
>>37277380
but that's wrong, dumbshit, they aren't upperdimmensional, they're still stuck on the same plane of existence we are, the just know how to interact with it better. Probably, I would guess, through the same angle-based technology used in the dreams of the witch house.
Keep in mind, Cthulhu and his ilk who use psionics are hindered by water, with cthulhu visibly hesitant to enter it during his awakening. I wouldn't place much money on something that gets weaker the more you splash it. In addition, the Elder Things did not use upper dimmensional tech to take cthulhu and his spawn out the first time around, they used brute goddamn force. Sure, yes, they can't kill him, decay doesn't work for whatever cthulhu's species has constructed themselves out of, but it's not because cthulhu's anchored in another dimension as people seem to mistake him for being.
Find me your goddamn sources on anything explicitly saying Cthulhu is upper dimmensional, that cannot be explained with the odd-angle physics science explored in Dreams of the Witch house.
>>37277505
>dumbshit
Go and troll your mom, kid.
"[...] common human laws and interests and emotions have no validity or significance in the vast cosmos-at-large... To achieve the essence of real externality, whether of space or time or dimension, one must forget that such things as organic life, good and evil, love and hate, and all such local attributes of a negligible and temporary race called mankind, have any existence at all... [W]hen we cross the line to the boundless and hideous unknown—the shadow haunted Outside—we must remember to leave our humanity and terrestrialism at the threshold."
"The city is a vista of vast angles and stone surfaces - surfaces too great to belong to anything right or proper for this earth, and impious with horrible images and hieroglyphs. The geometry of R’lyeh is abnormal, non-Euclidean, and loathsomely redolent of spheres and dimensions apart from ours."
-HP Lovecraft
So he sleeps in a tomb that is non-Eukledian, with abnormal geometry, surfaces too great to belong, and loathsomely redolent of spheres and dimensions apart from ours. How are you not getting this? Do you need an encounter sheet with a challenge rating?
>>37277545
Yes, because using an excerpt from some contemporary work totally does lovecraft's work justice.
No, horseshit. Bring me back actual, Lovecraft sources that Cthulhu is upper dimensional and I may concede.
Cthulhu is a pansy that loses fights with tiny boats, regardless of how unkillable, and would most likely be chopped up and frozen were he to reach coastal waters, were he to even try, given how much he hates the big blue.
>>37277751
there we go, thank you, this is valid evidence.
Still doesn't change how a "Miles high" monster gets tackled by a tugboat and loses, for the second time in a row after the war that put him in his cage.
Yes, that will do.
>>37276995
>really big aliens
Derleth fag detected.
>>37277862
Derleth was the one who called them gods, I hate derleth
>>37274011
That's not Lovecraft at all, so I don't know why you brought him up.
>>37277800
>how a "Miles high" monster gets tackled by a tugboat and loses
see
>>37277201
>told from an unreliable narrator's perspective and includes his questionable conclusions
the Cthulhu mythos is not science fiction. stop treating it as such.
>>37274011
now on to something on topic. we really can't help you with your NPC unless you describe the setting which he inhabits. why are all the other "elder gods" dead? what available sources of power are there for him to draw from? what is the usual amount of power possessed by a god? would this guy's elderly status mean he has more or less of it? etc.
(OP)
THANK YOU ALL!
>>37277380
That is one INFECTED vulva.
>>37276906
I have greatly misspoken and apologize for inciting a Cthulhuian-riot. I did say elder god but as such I meant ancient, pre-dating the currently [known] pantheon and more than likely everything we've done since launch. Was not intentionally stepping on toes. I believe he was just trying to get apart the abstract concept and I ran with my only known notion of an elder god (Lovecraft, who I have not read; & Hellboy, whom I have barely read).
>>37278092
setting and inhabitants will be mid-fantasy setting; magic and steel, no firearms (sans bows)
Unsure if my DM is just fishing for plot hooks or just wanting a character concept to work off of (we've all individually done this in part- over 5+ years with varying campaigns -- my turn again I guess).
>>37278756
(OP)
Signing off for the night but I've not decided on the appearance in any sense of the word, was actually going to be humanoid rather than abberant. Go wild with anything else. And again, much appreciated.
