The Cthulhu Mythos

As written in Call of Cthulhu RPG.

Based on the premise that knowledge and sanity are contraditory things. The more the human grasp the true extend of the cosmos the more it will lose his mind.

A General Summary

We know that some entities of the Cthulhu Mythos are clearly superior or inferior in their powers. Gods are the mightiest, followed by the Great Old Ones. The universe is ruled by beigns variously known as the Elder Gods, Outer Gods, or Other Gods. Only a few of these deities are known by name. They are all extremely powerful alien beigns and some may be of extra-cosmic origin. The Outer Gods rule the yniverse and have little to do with humanity, except for Nyarlathotep. They appear almost to be true gods, as opposed to the alien horror of the Great Old Ones, and some may personify a cosmic principle. Only a few seems to be interested in the human race, mainly using them to break through cosmic walls or dimensions, to wreak havoc. Those unfortunate souls that enter in contact with the gods end up dead or insane. All the races and lesser deities of the Mythos acknowledge the Outer Gods, and many worship them.

The Outer Gods are controlled to some extent by their messenger and soul, Nyarlathotep. When the Outer Gods are discomforted, Nyarlathotep investigates. Azathoth, the daemon sultan and ruler of the cosmos, writhes mindlessly to the piping of a demon flute at the center of the universe. Yog-Sothoth, either a second-in-command or co-ruler, is coterminous with all time and sapce, but locked somehow outside the mundane universe. Yog-Sothoth can be summoned to this side only through the use of might spells, but Azathoth can only be seen by traveling far enough through space. A group of Outer Gods and bizarre beigns dance slowly around Azathoth, but none are named.

The term Elder Gods sometimes refers to another race of gods, neutral to and possibly rivals of the Outer Gods. They don't seem as dangerous to humankind as the Outer Gods, and Nodens is the best-known of its kind.

Both Outer and Elder Gods are sometimes called Other Gods, but this term primarily refer to gods of the outer planets and not of our Earth. Confusingly, a set of minor Outer Gods are known collectively as the Lesser Other Gods. Species associated with Other Gods are deities such as the shantaks, hunting horrors, servitors of the Outer Gods and dark young of Shub-Niggurath. They are sometimes called here and when they do appear is to wreak horror.

The Great Old Ones are not as supernatural as the Outer Gods, but are nonetheless god-like and terrible to human eyes. Humans are much more likely to worship Great Old Ones, who are comparatively near at hand and who occasionally participate in human affairs or contact individual humans, than they are to worship Outer Gods. Entire clans or cults may secretly worship Outer Gods, and they frequently inhabit remote parts of the Earth. Investigators most often encounter their worshipers and alien servants.

The Great Old Ones appear to be immensely powerful alien beings with supernatural-like abilities, but not to be true gods in the sense that the Outer Gods are reported. Each Great Old One is independent of the rest and many seem to be temporarily imprisoned in some way. It is said that, "When the stars are right," the Gread Old Ones can plunge from world to world. When the stars are not right, they cannot live. "Cannot live" need not mean death, as the famous couplet from the Necronomicon suggests:

That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die.

Cthulhu is a Great Old One, and the most important one. With the rest of his race, he sleeps in a vast tomb at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Others of different forms exist and they are recorded as being both less powerful and more free than Cthulhu. But all those known on Earth are invoked or worshiped by humans. Some minor Great Old Ones may have no worshipers, but wizards may know spells to summon them.

Other alien species are also important, and sometimes have been able to hold their own against Great Old Ones. Such beings vary in power and some are now extinct. At the dawn of the Cambrian age, beings known only as the elder things flew to the Earth. They inhabited much of the land, warred with other species, and finally were pushed back to Antarctica. The elder things, perhaps mistakenly, bred organisms eventually to evolve into the dinosaurs, mammals, and humanity. They also bred the horrible shoggoths, whose ultimate revolt led to the near-extinction of the elder things.