The Old ones

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• Text 547849, v1 - Inmatad av Radisshu
• Av H.P. Lovecraft

The Old Ones är de ondskefulla Gudarna som i Lovecrafts Cthulhu Mythos kom till jorden för att ta över den, men låstes in emellan dimensionerna av the Elder Gods.

Ibland dessa gudar ingår bl.a:

Azathoth, Daemon Sultan.
Azathoth är den kraftfullaste av alla Old Ones, och är antagligen varelsen som skapade universum. Den är dessutom oförmögen att tänka och är mer en slags levande blandning av vrede, kaos och kratfull energi någonstans i Universum.
...that last amorphous blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the centre of all infinity—the boundless daemon-sultan Azathoth, whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin, monotonous whine of accursed flutes; to which detestable pounding and piping dance slowly, awkwardly, and absurdly the gigantic ultimate gods, the blind, voiceless, tenebrous, mindless Other Gods whose soul and messenger is the crawling chaos Nyarlathotep. (“The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath”)

Nyarlathotep, The Crawling Chaos.
Nyarlathotep är en ondskefull skepnadsskiftande Old One som fungerar som Azathoths budbärare, eller språkrör. Han är antagligen en av dom kraftfullaste, eftersom att han kanaliserar Azathoths energi. Den enda av Nyarlathoteps skepnader det berättas om i Lovecrafts historier är ett utseende som påminner om en egyptisk farao.
And it was then that Nyarlathotep came out of Egypt. Who he was, none could tell, but he was of the old native blood and looked like a Pharaoh. The fellahin knelt when they saw him, yet could not say why. He said he had risen up out of the blackness of twenty-seven centuries, and that he had heard messages from places not on this planet. Into the lands of civilisation came Nyarlathotep, swarthy, slender, and sinister, always buying strange instruments of glass and metal and combining them into instruments yet stranger. He spoke much of the sciences—of electricity and psychology—and gave exhibitions of power which sent his spectators away speechless, yet which swelled his fame to exceeding magnitude. Men advised one another to see Nyarlathotep, and shuddered. And where Nyarlathotep went, rest vanished; for the small hours were rent with the screams of a nightmare.
“Nyarlathotep”)

Shub-Niggurath, Black Goat of the Woods, Mother of a Thousand Young.
Shub-Niggurath sägs vara en kvinnlig Old One som symboliserar fruktbarhet, och ska manifestera sig som en getlik varelse. IÄ! [Ayah] används i Lovecraftiansk litteratur oftast för att åkalla denna. Iä! Shub-Niggurath!(The Last Test,” “The Dunwich Horror,” “The Mound,” “Medusa’s Coil,” “The Horror in the Museum,” “The Thing on the Doorstep,” and “The Diary of Alonzo Typer”)
“One squat, black temple of Tsathoggua was encountered, but it had been turned into a shrine of Shub-Niggurath, the All-Mother and wife of the the Not-to-Be-Named-One. This deity was a kind of sophisticated Astarte, and her worship struck the pious Catholic as supremely obnoxious.” (“The Mound”)

Ythogtha.
Ythogtha är en av Cthulhus tre (?) barn.

Cthylla.
Cthylla är en av Cthulhus tre (?) barn.

Hastur.
I noveller skrivna av H. P. Lovercaft själv har det aldrig skrivits mycket om Hastur - förutom att det är mycket farligt att uttala hans namn.
“I found myself faced by names and terms that I had heard elsewhere in the most hideous of connexions—Yuggoth, Great Cthulhu, Tsathoggua, Yog-Sothoth, R’lyeh, Nyarlathotep, Azathoth, Hastur, Yian, Leng, the Lake of Hali, Bethmoora, the Yellow Sign, L’mur-Kathulos, Bran, and the Magnum Innominandum—and was drawn back through nameless aeons and inconceivable dimensions to worlds of elder, outer entity at which the crazed author of the Necronomicon had only guessed in the vaguest way.... There is a whole secret cult of evil men (a man of your mystical erudition will understand me when I link them with Hastur and the Yellow Sign) devoted to the purpose of tracking them down and injuring them on behalf of the monstrous powers from other dimensions.” (“The Whisperer in Darkness”) Utdrag från www.hplovecraft.com: These are the only places in Lovecraft’s fiction where he mentions Hastur. Lovecraft borrowed the term “Hastur” from Robert W. Chambers, who had, in turn, borrowed it from Ambrose Bierce. In Bierce’s “Haïta the Shepherd,” Hastur is “the god of shepherds.” Chambers borrowed the term and used it as the home city of Cassilda and Camilla, but also used it as the name for a groundskeeper in “The Demoiselle d’ Ys.”

Tsathoggua.
Tsathoggua sägs vara ett av Cthulhus barn.
“This was a squat, plain temple of basalt blocks without a single carving, and containing only a vacant onyx pedestal.... It has been built in imitation of certain temples depicted in the vaults of Zin, to house a very terrible black toad-idol found in the red-litten world and called Tsathoggua in the Yothic manuscripts. It had been a potent and widely worshipped god, and after its adoption by the people of K’n-yan had lent its name to the city which was later to become dominant in that region. Yothic legend said that it had come from a mysterious inner realm beneath the red-litten world—a black realm of peculiar-sensed beings which had no light at all, but which had had great civilisations and mighty gods before ever the reptilian quadrupeds of Yoth had come into being.” (“The Mound”) (H.P Lovecraft skapade dock inte Tsathoggua- det är en skapelse av Clark Ashton Smith)

Yog-Sothoth,the All in One and One in All.
Yog-Sothoth är porten the Old Ones kommer att återvända till världen genom när Stjärnorna Står Rätt.
Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth. He knows where the Old Ones broke through of old, and where They shall break through again. He knows where They have trod earth’s fields, and where They still tread them, and why no one can behold Them as They tread.(“¤5¤”)

Ygolonac.
Ygolonac skapades inte av HPL, och manifesterar sig som en fet naken man utan huvud med munnar på händerna. (Jag har tyvärr glömt vem som skapade honom =P) Han sägs komma till en bara man läser hans namn. Inte hänt mig än.

Dagon.
Dagon är antagligen den minst kraftfulla Old One, och den enda som fortfarande finns på Jorden under havsytan i en av the Deep Ones många jättestäder. Han fungerar som en monark och Gud åt dom, och manifesterar sig som en enorm fiskmänniskovarelse, bär ibland på en stor monolit med mystiska symboler över axeln.Vast, Polyphemus-like, and loathsome, it darted like a stupendous monster of nightmares to the monolith, about which it flung its gigantic scaly arms, the while it bowed its hideous head and gave vent to certain measured sounds.... Once I sought out a celebrated ethnologist, and amused him with peculiar questions regarding the ancient Philistine legend of Dagon, the Fish-God; but soon perceiving that he was hopelessly conventional, I did not press my inquiries.
(Dagon)

Cthulhu.
Cthulhu är den kändaste och antagligen populäraste av alla The Old Ones, men trots det långt ifrån den kraftfullaste. Han uppenbarar sig som en humanoid varelse, med fjällig kropp som liknar en drakes, stora, smala läderartade vingar, långa klor på händer och fötter - och med ett huvud som ska ha otaliga tentakler utstickandes. Han är The Old Ones Överstepräst, och leder därmed the Deep Ones dyrkande av dem. Just nu är han infångad i sin grav/sovkammare i R'lyeh - en Deep One-stad som fångats emellan dimensionerna av the Elder Gods. Han har tre barn, och en fru jag inte kan stava namnet på, och Cthulhus kult är i Lovecraftiansk litteratur spridd över hela världen.
If I say that my somewhat extravagant imagination yielded simultaneous pictures of an octopus, a dragon, and a human caricature, I shall not be unfaithful to the spirit of the thing. A pulpy, tentacled head surmounted a grotesque and scaly body with rudimentary wings... It represented a monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind. This thing, which seemed instinct with a fearsome and unnatural malignancy, was of a somewhat bloated corpulence...(“The Call of Cthulhu")