Can we have a thread about awesome primordial beasts? Stuff that looks like it might predate the gods?
How do you do this trope right without going full lovecraft?
You go with titans instead
Like this?
>>47660891
HAHA OH FUCK
DEVIANT ART IS THE STAPLE OF A GENERATION MAN
>>47660899
Knowing nothing about that picture I'd guess someone probably just threw it together when Marvel was bought by Disney
>>47660866
>How do you do this trope right without going full lovecraft?
Basically you just be an imaginative artist.
>>47660891
10/10-IGN: Like Piccaso with DC comics
>How do you do this trope right without going full lovecraft?
I don't understand, it sounds like you are already talking about a different thing
>>47660929
Well fuck
>>47660866
>Stuff that looks like it might predate the gods?
You need to help me understand what this really means. I get the example you posted, dragons in DaS existed before the gods. But that's just this setting. Probably some other.
>>47660947
You can paint a word picture of course, but what you're talking about is almost entirely a visual thing so for many a visual aid is more helpful.
>>47660964
Plus most dragons that existed before the gods just look like regular dragons, Seath not included.
The one in the picture isn't a true dragon of course, being a "wyvern" in the mythology of the setting.
>>47660866
You go with recognizable ancient looking creatures. Most lovecraftian horrors are unknowable masses of tentacles and gaping maws whose whispers can render you insane.
Just go for something simple looking yet obviously incredibly powerful. Like a huge serpent who is said to be able to coil around the entire world and touch the tip of its tail. Or a walking mountain. Something like that, that's what I would do at least.
>>47660964
Sure mate. Stuff like the white whale in Moby Dick, as one guy already said, titans also predated the gods in Greek myth.
Elementals also work. Pretty much anything you could pass offor as an old God without going too Lovecraft
I always liked the idea of primordial and ancient evils that aren't space aliens. Lovecraft had a bit of that, but it was mostly aliens.
I want the evils that were seen in the shadows of man's first fire.
>>47660992
Dinosaurs?
>>47661003
I was thinking more like amalgams of things that cave men would be scared of. Simple stuff, playing into simple fears.
Big cats, howling winds, other people, etc.
>>47661042
Didn't beowolf kill some stuff like that?
Watch the documentary "The Nightmare", it's about sleep paralysis and will give you some great ideas. Take the idea of entities who make you unable to move and fuck with you in your sleep and make them ancient beyond the span of time.
They withdrew from the world when man invented fire and they were forced to see they were merely shadows in the dark. Creatures made of mist and smoke, who could not hold a form to define the light, being lesser than even the shadow of a normal human. They say some times that they still leave their deep caves beneath the Earth where the sun can't reach to try and discover the secret of repelling the light.
>>47661046
Sort of.
http://public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/beowulf.monsters.html
in a lot of cases just looking alien (which is the bulk of lorecrafts focus) wont necessarily inspire the "primordial age" you're talking about. Going for things that don't look polished at all would be your best bet for that.
human work and civilization has a certain ornamental quality to it, and if you focus mainly on things that lack that you get a monster that seaseams older than man.
Jhen mohran from the monster hunter series would be a good example.
I always found this art to hit the mark regarding this.
>>47661118
>jhen Mohran
That actually is an amazing idea.
>>47660979
This guy got the right idea. If you are one of the very first things you can get away with being "just" a giant snake. No need to be fancy.
>>47660866
Time and development brings most of all specialization: From the look to the intents it should be outright obvious what it represents and be as simple as it can; no ecological niche, nor detailed behavior or relations.
It should be different from what your gods introduced: If light and fire were introduced by a god, then it shouldn't look able or be capable at all to know, interact or be adapted to those (it sounds obvious, but it's better to keep it clear in mind)
Decide right from the start the level and type of interactions people have with these entities: Depending on what you want, you could have whole cults having been born around the beasts, an instrumentalization of the creatures' simple functions, simple instinctual fear and repulsion, periodic attacks that led to the erection of countermeasures or contacts so sparse they are mostly unknown and barely alive as myths.
No colors: If it's old it must be blacker and whiter than what's present, dark earthly tones with little variations, irrelevantly from this not being backed up by any fact, we have numerous things correlating old with colorless, from the birth of photos, to dust covering long unkempt spots, to the decay of body pigments in skin and hair with time to the ruination of monuments to the weather up to the association of distant memories with fog.
>>47661118
You could also do the inverse, and have everything in the present dilapidated and dull, with things from an older age appearing almost unreasonably grand and ornate, creatures that look more like living idols, despite being organic.
>>47661881
This guy knows what's up
>>47662142
Are you the false machine guy
>>47663374
since I don't know what you are talking about I think not
>>47660978
Wasn't the gaping dragon a real dragon that got corrupted?
>>47661881
Yup, good point. Don't overdesign them, but make them gargantuan and exuding power. This also ties in with avoiding Lovecraft shit, which isn't necessarily huge, but is intentionally overdesigned so that the power comes from being unable to understand it.
The primordial stuff OP wants should derrive it's apparent power from players being able to entirely wrap their head around the creature and understand how strong it is.
>>47662142
Black and white are not ancient colours, they are very rare in nature for a reason. Faded greens, browns and tan are the true ancient colours. Look at Crocodiles.
>>47663750
yeah. my personal approach would be to get something that's the platonic ideal of "big snake" - like it seems more real than real, like those hyper-realistic renders of objects
>>47663831
came here to say this, if they're primordial they should seem like natural parts of the world only obviously more powerful due to being the original (there's a cultural thing for the progenitor of something always seeming to be the strongest, I wonder why)
What about primordial beast of an idea? Like a Beast of Strength or something like that.
If it helps im going to see if I can post art of generally big stuff from my files for when I need inspiration.
But the idea of not overdesigning it is a very good place to start with things. I'm a massive lovecraft fan and have a habit of cramming in cosmic nonsense wherever I can in my setting, but even I can appreciate something that is merely very powerful and very old, without needing to be from the edges of space.
im beginning to notice a pattern of "small man with back turned to viewer for scale" in these images
all I really have for now, may post some more if the thread is still alive in a bit.
>>47664608
This weapon choice is cancer incarnate.
The jumping skeleton is the real hero in that picture.
>>47660866
While Lovecraft is a perfectly fine vibe to go with, my personal preference is for something closer to the primordial destructive forces of myth.
Typhon, Apophis, Tiamat, Jormungandr, Leviathan, all are good choices for inspiration.
>>47664608
>>47664681
Fuck that anime edgelord with his meme scythe, leaping skelebro is the real hero here.
This guy could be a titan.
>>47664608
It's a very common scene set up to emphasis size.
>>47661054
nice!
10/10 will steal
>>47663867
We idealize the past and feel fear in the present.
>>47665779
That dude has a crucified motherfucker hanging from his mace
He is my new favorite thing
>>47666200
>awakenedvoiddragon.jpg
>>47664850
>Stealing for Exalted
>>47664311
to make a creature around a theme certainly helps
>the wind that hungers: a hole in the ground as deep and wide as a mountain with costant strong currents blowing straight inside of the pulsating mouth forming its walls, along with everything caught by the irresestible flow even miles away from it.
>the voyager: the crawling beast known as the voyager could pass for a fossilized forest of giant trees who pierce the clouds if not for its slow and incessant errand, the large pillars rise and flex in uncountable articulations.
>the world serpent: many legends tell of the the enormous serpent strangling the bowels of the earth in its spires, only few of them get near the truth of the feathered serpent soaring high above outside of eye's reach instead, its shining back sliding unnocited on the dark veil of stars behind.
>the nighthound: a feral beast reminiscent of a wolf or a lion, if not for the mane of wings and tentacles crowning its shape, it does not howl, nor does the forest around it when it prowls the ground to reap its chosen prey.
>the drawfaghast: thin and slender, the height of this being would rival the treetops if it wasn't endlessly crouching on the ground, its long manipulative fingers leaving complex shapes everywhere they touch, from humid mud to monumental rocks, legends identify it with the stealer of knowledge, its passing having gifted mankind of gods' secrets, other tales describe it as a wretched soul that witnessed the birth of this world and the death of the one before it, whatever its true origins and the meaning of its designs, the few who sighted it saw a humanoid form barely distinguishable from a beast, with large void and luminous eyes.
>>47660983
what the everloving FUCK is that??
>>47667082
google tells me it's a sunken shipI don't trust google
>>47667082
Sunken Warship covered in coral. That's most likely the Torpedo bay.
>>47660866
have them be exactly like in cthullu except that they are noblebright
>>47666712
fucking kek of keks! /tg/ in ubermonster form!
