So...one of my players, in a high level one-shot, brought the Great Old One into existence. That's fine. Perfectly fine. I allowed it. It was basically a hyped up wish spell from the Dragon at the Center of the known universe. This cannon carries over to the normal campaign that those same players are in (level 4 right now). So, as level 4 characters, they will come back to a world this weekend where the Great Old One is suddenly alive and well; not sleeping or dormant, but active.
I've searched for any lore regarding this, but came up sort of empty handed. Does anybody have some really great lore or hidden resources regarding Great Old One lore? Or, even better, any ideas on what implications this may have for the normal world. It's typical D&D fantasy with minor science fiction flare.
Thanks in advance for any advice!
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GM with over 20 years of experience. I have a lot of great ideas. Some of them follow through. Others don't. Please don't take offense if I disappear suddenly. I have a life, too. Sometimes I get distra...
The Great Old One isn't, lore-wise, a single entity. Just like the Archfey isn't a single entity, or any warlock patron isn't. The G.O.O. is shorthand for any elder god/far realm deity/unknowable power that warlocks can have as a patron.
Just to name a few: Cthulhu is the most common Great Old One, but so is Yog Sothoth, Dendar the Night Serpent, Hadar, etc.
I'd recommend figuring out WHO your Great Old One is first, and then figure out the repercussions of them being awakened/summoned/etc.
Hermaeus Mora, from Elder Scrolls, has been a good go-to for me in regards to Great Old One as far as depictions and loose lore goes. May be worth looking into.
If you dont mind a bit of reading then you could use the Eldrazi from Magic: the Gathering and use an event from Vampire the Masquarade called Gehenna.
You can find info on the Eldrazi and one in particular called Emrakul, in Planeshift: Innistrad, available here: https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Plane_Shift, and as a bonus it's already been converted to 5e rules.
On the other hand Gehenna is/was the armageddon event for the Vampires in vampire the masquarade, it had lots of signs and portents, powerful beings awakening and causing havoc rough info avialable here: https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Gehenna_(event). You'd need to do a fair amount of homebrewing to swing this over to 5e though.
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In general Great Old Ones in D&D are elder evils from the far realm, so you could look up Elder evils on various wikis. Hadar is probably the one that would be most immediately familiar, as two warlock spells are named after it.
A G.O.O. is a cosmic horror. To make things interesting don't rely on the tired tentacle-monster tropes. Maybe something conceptual. The entity could be the embodiment of a previously unknown color, or a number or equation that shouldn't exist. Or a sentient thought. A G.O.O. should subvert expectations and be difficult to comprehend to a rational actor.
Continuing with Heartofjuyomk2's excellent point, the Great Old Ones are typically based on Lovecraftian monsters, which don't make themselves known right away (at least, not in any form that mere mortals can begin to comprehend. They warp their surroundings and the minds of those nearby (a bit like a dragon's lair's regional changes). They break those who are unfortunate enough to stumble upon them, before outright killing them if it behoves them; sometimes it's good to have people spread the word. And if they do go down that route, expect more preachers who are at first dismissed as raving loonies... and then people start listening, and then there's the changes, and then there's the disappearances. Someone will deal with it, right? There's no false hydra.
They also work best in a world where the gods and other divine beings don't exist or are otherwise significantly more distant. Else God-Hater in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is a great example of how this works: she says the gods don't exist because they don't appear to do anything, but the daedra lords do exist. Granted, the daedra do mostly bad things, but they have a visible, tangible effect on the world. Oblivion is a game about total apocalypse being stopped by brave mortals giving their all, rather than divine intervention, and is a common theme in games like Call of Cthulhu: those who fight will die (if they're lucky), but they've bought humanity one more day of being free to live in ignorance of incomprehensible horror. There's no false hydra.
A G.O.O of my own creation is called Ahj'Qahet, who changes the environment around wherever ỉ̷̩t̷̰͝ is. i̶̳͋ṫ̵̺s influence causes characters to hallucinate heavily disfigured humanoids hiding behind trees or lurching with their backs turned, their oil-like skin shifting to reveal for a split second a different image: a howling face, a cluster of reptilian eyes, fingers beckoning the view to come to them. Ahj'qahet also makes those who would threaten ȉ̶͚̣̲̠̆͌t̵̥̪͐́̈́́ to believe their weapons are talking to them (if the weapon is sentient and able to speak, it constantly screams in horror), and that the deceased - reduced to bubbling pools of slop and steaming bones - sure look mighty tasty (come to think of it, some horse gums would be nice right about now...). The Great Old One, should i̵̛̛͓̜͗͋ṭ̶́̀̆̉́ choose to reveal i̵̢͈̥̯̲̓͌̎͗ẗ̸̪͚͚̲́͂̂̑̈̕̕self, will only manifest from painted black circles or squares which break the laws of physics: Ahj'qahet can go through said circle or square, sending a tentacle--, no, a claw--, no--, err, a perfectly normal number of fins... but nothing can go in. Or maybe people can go in, or maybe not. Wait, it's not quite a circle, is it? It's hard to tell with this headache, I don't think I drank enough. Dehydration, that's it. Maybe some more of that grease will clear my head. Why did I choose to come here again?
One final hint: don't let the party know the G.O.O isn't there. As Counter Monkey once said: "the best way to play Cthulhupunk is to not let the players know they're playing Cthulhupunk." As far as they're concerned this is an ordinary session, no eldritch horrors whatsoever. There is no false hydra. You do not recognise the bodies in the water.
Zero is the most important number in D&D: Session Zero sets the boundaries and the tone; Rule Zero dictates the Dungeon Master (DM) is the final arbiter; and Zero D&D is better than Bad D&D.
"Let us speak plainly now, and in earnest, for words mean little without the weight of conviction."
I think the main issue with cosmic horror is its rather abstract nature and trying to wrap your heads around something so completely alien you haven;t got the capacity to explain/understand it, hence the tentacle monster and madness become the staples of describing the effects a csomic being/eldritch horror/GOO has on the mortal form.
Having a little think about it though, based on the OP saying the party is currently level 4, this might be a good way to go: Have the party play through the story of IT, the GOO is soemthing akin ot Pennywise but maybe not a clown, have it take the form of something else that people are afraid of. As the party are level 4 they are effectively playing the children in the first part of the It story and then they can have a a further final showdown many levels later as maybe a final end of campaign showdown.
I'd just note that there is no requirement for the GOO to be an elder evil or even evil at all. The examples given in the text are of this type of being, but the 5e lore is generic enough to support any inscrutable being whose motives are impossible to understand. As DM, you get to decide which GOO has awakened. Alternatively, since it is your game world, you could substitute a singular being for each of the warlock patrons and then choose what characteristics you want it to have.
"Your patron is a mysterious entity whose nature is utterly foreign to the fabric of reality. It might come from the Far Realm, the space beyond reality, or it could be one of the elder gods known only in legends. Its motives are incomprehensible to mortals, and its knowledge so immense and ancient that even the greatest libraries pale in comparison to the vast secrets it holds. The Great Old One might be unaware of your existence or entirely indifferent to you, but the secrets you have learned allow you to draw your magic from it.
Entities of this type include Ghaunadar, called That Which Lurks; Tharizdun, the Chained God; Dendar, the Night Serpent; Zargon, the Returner; Great Cthulhu; and other unfathomable beings."
As someone mentioned, Hermaeus Mora and the other Daedra from Skyrim might also be examples.
what you'll need lots of background stuff like one of the characters begins seeing "a yellow sign" that no one else notices, but if he points it out everyone else who sees it takes 1hp damage. does the mark indicate monsters nearby? a cache of information? keep them guessing. maybe in one village the wide-eyed unblinking shop keepers return change as gold coins even when copper or silver would do. they're oblivious or maybe eager for you to take the coins, slightly sweaty with condensation. also they drop the characters' names accidentally into conversations where they haven't been introduced yet. do they load up or drop it and run? if they spend it at another town, does it begin happening there too? at another point maybe the players come across a rock (or potted plant, stray dog, etc) which speaks telepathically claiming to be a princess. 'she' desperately pleads to be snuck back into a castle to confront the doppelganger who it claims replaced her. is it true? a trap? or when they get there is it just a potted plant and nothing makes sense? but maybe on the wall is a yellow sign... etc. etc.
i'd hesitate to include much tangible 'hands-on' experience with an aberration or cult or bleeding walls just based on the principal of the movie monster being more scary before you've seen it. it's like HexT keeps saying: there is no false hydra (ugh! stop saying that!). if you really, really need a premade encounter you might look at the first adventure in the Keys from the Golden Vault. the party goes in to steal a thing that might be or become an aberration. it's only a dinky CR2 creature (to challenge 1st level characters) but you could add more or insert something bigger. if it hatches. BUT that's not even the point. the 'movie monster' hasn't been seen yet and there's a lot of creeping around a museum at night which is ripe for seeing things. and failure is an option, which is nice. it might be better for everyone if it gets away and players only encounter the aftermath. also, it include a decent table of eldritch-ish effects.
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unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: providefeedback!
I've searched for any lore regarding this, but came up sort of empty handed. Does anybody have some really great lore or hidden resources regarding Great Old One lore? Or, even better, any ideas on what implications this may have for the normal world. It's typical D&D fantasy with minor science fiction flare.
Thanks everyone. There's definitely some good stuff here.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
GM with over 20 years of experience. I have a lot of great ideas. Some of them follow through. Others don't. Please don't take offense if I disappear suddenly. I have a life, too. Sometimes I get distra...
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So...one of my players, in a high level one-shot, brought the Great Old One into existence. That's fine. Perfectly fine. I allowed it. It was basically a hyped up wish spell from the Dragon at the Center of the known universe. This cannon carries over to the normal campaign that those same players are in (level 4 right now). So, as level 4 characters, they will come back to a world this weekend where the Great Old One is suddenly alive and well; not sleeping or dormant, but active.
I've searched for any lore regarding this, but came up sort of empty handed. Does anybody have some really great lore or hidden resources regarding Great Old One lore? Or, even better, any ideas on what implications this may have for the normal world. It's typical D&D fantasy with minor science fiction flare.
Thanks in advance for any advice!
GM with over 20 years of experience. I have a lot of great ideas. Some of them follow through. Others don't. Please don't take offense if I disappear suddenly. I have a life, too. Sometimes I get distra...
The Great Old One isn't, lore-wise, a single entity. Just like the Archfey isn't a single entity, or any warlock patron isn't. The G.O.O. is shorthand for any elder god/far realm deity/unknowable power that warlocks can have as a patron.
Just to name a few: Cthulhu is the most common Great Old One, but so is Yog Sothoth, Dendar the Night Serpent, Hadar, etc.
I'd recommend figuring out WHO your Great Old One is first, and then figure out the repercussions of them being awakened/summoned/etc.
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
What Van said.
Hermaeus Mora, from Elder Scrolls, has been a good go-to for me in regards to Great Old One as far as depictions and loose lore goes. May be worth looking into.
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If you dont mind a bit of reading then you could use the Eldrazi from Magic: the Gathering and use an event from Vampire the Masquarade called Gehenna.
You can find info on the Eldrazi and one in particular called Emrakul, in Planeshift: Innistrad, available here: https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Plane_Shift, and as a bonus it's already been converted to 5e rules.
On the other hand Gehenna is/was the armageddon event for the Vampires in vampire the masquarade, it had lots of signs and portents, powerful beings awakening and causing havoc rough info avialable here: https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Gehenna_(event). You'd need to do a fair amount of homebrewing to swing this over to 5e though.
In general Great Old Ones in D&D are elder evils from the far realm, so you could look up Elder evils on various wikis. Hadar is probably the one that would be most immediately familiar, as two warlock spells are named after it.
A G.O.O. is a cosmic horror. To make things interesting don't rely on the tired tentacle-monster tropes. Maybe something conceptual. The entity could be the embodiment of a previously unknown color, or a number or equation that shouldn't exist. Or a sentient thought. A G.O.O. should subvert expectations and be difficult to comprehend to a rational actor.
Continuing with Heartofjuyomk2's excellent point, the Great Old Ones are typically based on Lovecraftian monsters, which don't make themselves known right away (at least, not in any form that mere mortals can begin to comprehend. They warp their surroundings and the minds of those nearby (a bit like a dragon's lair's regional changes). They break those who are unfortunate enough to stumble upon them, before outright killing them if it behoves them; sometimes it's good to have people spread the word. And if they do go down that route, expect more preachers who are at first dismissed as raving loonies... and then people start listening, and then there's the changes, and then there's the disappearances. Someone will deal with it, right? There's no false hydra.
They also work best in a world where the gods and other divine beings don't exist or are otherwise significantly more distant. Else God-Hater in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is a great example of how this works: she says the gods don't exist because they don't appear to do anything, but the daedra lords do exist. Granted, the daedra do mostly bad things, but they have a visible, tangible effect on the world. Oblivion is a game about total apocalypse being stopped by brave mortals giving their all, rather than divine intervention, and is a common theme in games like Call of Cthulhu: those who fight will die (if they're lucky), but they've bought humanity one more day of being free to live in ignorance of incomprehensible horror. There's no false hydra.
A G.O.O of my own creation is called Ahj'Qahet, who changes the environment around wherever ỉ̷̩t̷̰͝ is. i̶̳͋ṫ̵̺s influence causes characters to hallucinate heavily disfigured humanoids hiding behind trees or lurching with their backs turned, their oil-like skin shifting to reveal for a split second a different image: a howling face, a cluster of reptilian eyes, fingers beckoning the view to come to them. Ahj'qahet also makes those who would threaten ȉ̶͚̣̲̠̆͌t̵̥̪͐́̈́́ to believe their weapons are talking to them (if the weapon is sentient and able to speak, it constantly screams in horror), and that the deceased - reduced to bubbling pools of slop and steaming bones - sure look mighty tasty (come to think of it, some horse gums would be nice right about now...). The Great Old One, should i̵̛̛͓̜͗͋ṭ̶́̀̆̉́ choose to reveal i̵̢͈̥̯̲̓͌̎͗ẗ̸̪͚͚̲́͂̂̑̈̕̕self, will only manifest from painted black circles or squares which break the laws of physics: Ahj'qahet can go through said circle or square, sending a tentacle--, no, a claw--, no--, err, a perfectly normal number of fins... but nothing can go in. Or maybe people can go in, or maybe not. Wait, it's not quite a circle, is it? It's hard to tell with this headache, I don't think I drank enough. Dehydration, that's it. Maybe some more of that grease will clear my head. Why did I choose to come here again?
One final hint: don't let the party know the G.O.O isn't there. As Counter Monkey once said: "the best way to play Cthulhupunk is to not let the players know they're playing Cthulhupunk." As far as they're concerned this is an ordinary session, no eldritch horrors whatsoever. There is no false hydra. You do not recognise the bodies in the water.
Zero is the most important number in D&D: Session Zero sets the boundaries and the tone; Rule Zero dictates the Dungeon Master (DM) is the final arbiter; and Zero D&D is better than Bad D&D.
"Let us speak plainly now, and in earnest, for words mean little without the weight of conviction."
- The Assemblage of Houses, World of Warcraft
I think the main issue with cosmic horror is its rather abstract nature and trying to wrap your heads around something so completely alien you haven;t got the capacity to explain/understand it, hence the tentacle monster and madness become the staples of describing the effects a csomic being/eldritch horror/GOO has on the mortal form.
Having a little think about it though, based on the OP saying the party is currently level 4, this might be a good way to go: Have the party play through the story of IT, the GOO is soemthing akin ot Pennywise but maybe not a clown, have it take the form of something else that people are afraid of. As the party are level 4 they are effectively playing the children in the first part of the It story and then they can have a a further final showdown many levels later as maybe a final end of campaign showdown.
I'd just note that there is no requirement for the GOO to be an elder evil or even evil at all. The examples given in the text are of this type of being, but the 5e lore is generic enough to support any inscrutable being whose motives are impossible to understand. As DM, you get to decide which GOO has awakened. Alternatively, since it is your game world, you could substitute a singular being for each of the warlock patrons and then choose what characteristics you want it to have.
"Your patron is a mysterious entity whose nature is utterly foreign to the fabric of reality. It might come from the Far Realm, the space beyond reality, or it could be one of the elder gods known only in legends. Its motives are incomprehensible to mortals, and its knowledge so immense and ancient that even the greatest libraries pale in comparison to the vast secrets it holds. The Great Old One might be unaware of your existence or entirely indifferent to you, but the secrets you have learned allow you to draw your magic from it.
Entities of this type include Ghaunadar, called That Which Lurks; Tharizdun, the Chained God; Dendar, the Night Serpent; Zargon, the Returner; Great Cthulhu; and other unfathomable beings."
As someone mentioned, Hermaeus Mora and the other Daedra from Skyrim might also be examples.
what you'll need lots of background stuff like one of the characters begins seeing "a yellow sign" that no one else notices, but if he points it out everyone else who sees it takes 1hp damage. does the mark indicate monsters nearby? a cache of information? keep them guessing. maybe in one village the wide-eyed unblinking shop keepers return change as gold coins even when copper or silver would do. they're oblivious or maybe eager for you to take the coins, slightly sweaty with condensation. also they drop the characters' names accidentally into conversations where they haven't been introduced yet. do they load up or drop it and run? if they spend it at another town, does it begin happening there too? at another point maybe the players come across a rock (or potted plant, stray dog, etc) which speaks telepathically claiming to be a princess. 'she' desperately pleads to be snuck back into a castle to confront the doppelganger who it claims replaced her. is it true? a trap? or when they get there is it just a potted plant and nothing makes sense? but maybe on the wall is a yellow sign... etc. etc.
i'd hesitate to include much tangible 'hands-on' experience with an aberration or cult or bleeding walls just based on the principal of the movie monster being more scary before you've seen it. it's like HexT keeps saying: there is no false hydra (ugh! stop saying that!). if you really, really need a premade encounter you might look at the first adventure in the Keys from the Golden Vault. the party goes in to steal a thing that might be or become an aberration. it's only a dinky CR2 creature (to challenge 1st level characters) but you could add more or insert something bigger. if it hatches. BUT that's not even the point. the 'movie monster' hasn't been seen yet and there's a lot of creeping around a museum at night which is ripe for seeing things. and failure is an option, which is nice. it might be better for everyone if it gets away and players only encounter the aftermath. also, it include a decent table of eldritch-ish effects.
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/38191
https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=h. p. lovecraft&submit_search=Go!
Yes, I have the resource. We all have the resource, because project Gutenberg is amazing.
Thanks everyone. There's definitely some good stuff here.
GM with over 20 years of experience. I have a lot of great ideas. Some of them follow through. Others don't. Please don't take offense if I disappear suddenly. I have a life, too. Sometimes I get distra...