Elder Things

[Belabras]

This week we return to the Cthulhu Mythos for the Elder Things and their long lost star empire.

[Gy Aldrin]

I've been using Elder Things and other Cthulhu mythos things from the start of Starfinder as kind of a "price for coming out here" kind of background threat.

In my take on the Mythos the Elder Gods were the first sentient things to exist after the Elemental Gods shattered the elemental chaos to create the ordered universe. It was the Elder Gods that first pooled wriggling proteins together to create biological life. And with no template of form just let that life evolve into all manner of aberrant shapes.

Finally Trillions of Eons later the Elemental Gods realized their place for Order was teeming with horrors, and they created the Dragons to destroy them. (that's why dragons are so powerful and they also have an elemental theme to them) And they started to take a more active role in the direction of the universe.

[Belabras]

Gy Aldrin wrote:

I've been using Elder Things and other Cthulhu mythos things from the start of Starfinder as kind of a "price for coming out here" kind of background threat.

In my take on the Mythos the Elder Gods were the first sentient things to exist after the Elemental Gods shattered the elemental chaos to create the ordered universe. It was the Elder Gods that first pooled wriggling proteins together to create biological life. And with no template of form just let that life evolve into all manner of aberrant shapes.

Finally Trillions of Eons later the Elemental Gods realized their place for Order was teeming with horrors, and they created the Dragons to destroy them. (that's why dragons are so powerful and they also have an elemental theme to them) And they started to take a more active role in the direction of the universe.

I like the ideas you are playing with, and definitely feel like Mythos as the "price for coming out here" is very much in vein with Starfinder. Unspeakable horrors are out there, and they've been around a LOT longer than you.

[Metaphysician]

My own take on 'elder thing' cosmology for the Paizoverse. . . basically, not everything from the prior iteration of the universe was destroyed. Some things. . . well, 'survived' is a very strong and deceptive word for what they did, but they persisted. Being unconnected to this current universe and also having survived uncountable amounts of non-time in the non-space that is non-existence, these non-beings are at best alien and usually outright inimical to pretty much everything in the entire Planar Sphere. 'Qlippoth' is the term used to refer both the 'region' outside the Planar Sphere that is the home of these beings, and also to the beings themselves. This is distinct from the 'Dark Tapestry', which is basically the portion of the Planar Sphere where the barrier separating existence from the Qlippoth is thinnest: the distant darkness between stars, where neither matter nor thought has any presence.

Now, actual Qlippothic beings are extremely rare inside the universe, and with good reason. However, some fragments and pieces of Qlippothic forces 'learned' how to hide inside a shell of Planar Sphere substances, sustaining and shielding themselves. This is where Aberrations come from. An Aberration isn't just some life form with tentacles, its basically a tiny fragment of non-universe inside a meat suit. For added fun, they aren't connected to the River of Souls either, which is part of why most aberrations are so carelessly hostile- unless they are metaphysically expelled from the universe, they just reincarnate eventually.

( For the record, yes, this means a lot of critters that get labeled as 'Aberration' I recategorize. Bantrids and the like are just life forms with different anatomy than humanoids, and so are Magical Animals or Monstrous Humanoids or the like. 'Aberration' is restricted to metaphysically hostile species. Being descended from cephalopods doesn't make you an 'aberration' anymore than being descended from an insect does. )

Oh, and the most powerful Qlippothic entities are in the range of gods, which is where the Mythos deities come from. Also, yes, this does include Desna, because while being Qlippothic does make you incredibly alien, its not actually *impossible* to choose to embrace the new universe. Its just incredibly rare, hence why a big part of Desna's job is "Keep her kin out of the universe, because most of them suck".

[Goth Guru]

Then there are the Flumps. They may have evolved into magical creatures, but I think aberrations can be any alignment. Mythos creatures are on the other side of the dark tapestry as you said, but qlippoths are things from beyond the demonic layered abyss. Beyond limbo is true horrendous chaos. And beyond utopia is crystalline worlds with geometric solids made of crystal that are more obsessed with symmetry than human laws. Star trek Tholians are a good example of this sort of behavior.

The forces of chaos may be partially right about the outer chaos being infinite, but they cannot sneak around and attack the inevitables through the back door because the outer order is infinite too. You go too far in any direction and you hit the bleeding edge of creation in 10 or more dimensional space.