This piece is completely unfiltered. It stemmed out as a transcript containing information from a conversation regarding the Eldritch and Cosmic Beings. It's being archived here in case I need to reference it or use it to aid others. This is a dump and a mess and I am sorry to shove responsibility of sifting through this mess and crap to find value unto the reader.
So the Eldritch. Classified for ease of understanding, Eldritch is an umbrella term and that umbrella has a cosmic range that it covers.
You can loosely try to put these things into paltry boxes to better understand them. And for all intents of purposes those boxes look like this: Outer God Elder God Great Old One. Elder Gods/Great Old Ones are technically the same thing.... But some differentiate those depending on where the came from the Mythos.
Outer Gods are, of course, like Nyarlathotep. Great Old Ones are more so Beings like Cthulhu.
Outer Gods come from Outside Earth. Great Old Ones are Gods that have been here for since Primordial Earth. Many of these are already associated with deep things of the earth. Such as Mother Shub-Niggurath, Cthulhu, etc. They *are from "Outer Space" in short / Alternative Worlds and Spaces.
Then there is Azathoth and Azathoth's dream.
There is the "Cosmic Philosophy" of this field that we all exist within Azathoth's dream. And that hundreds of thousands of other Beings play music and flutes and instruments to keep Azathoth asleep so our reality / existence may continue. For if Azathoth awakens then it is all over. Just like that.
Azathoth is as "Far" as it goes for all intents and purposes. With the other Outer Gods being the Direct Children of Azathoth existing both outside and inside of Azathoth's Dream.
So that's the base principles of the Eldritch / Lovecraftian Philosophy and concepts of classifications of entities.
So. These Beings? They exist in a way where people (humans) or lesser beings are really and genuinely not valuable or worth anything... for the most part. They can go through their entire lives and existence infinitely without needing or even wanting any degree of interactions with us.
Within Lovecraftian Philosophy, Reality is not able to be defined, conformed, or placed into a box. And attempting to do so defeats the entire point. The fragility and flexibility of reality is something that is constantly shifting and constantly changing. It never stays the same. The way that reality and the cosmos as a whole exist for us is in perpetual and consistent metamorphoses. Trying to pin it down is fucking useless and pointless. It's a concept that you "Don't Think About". You "Experience It". And that is how you come to understand it. It's an essence. A sensation and how you engage with it will change and never be something you can actually share with someone else. It will always be unique to you and your own ability to take it all in.
And this is important philosophy.
Because it ties into the Outer Gods. We're going to "trickle down" from Outer Gods all the way down to Old Gods.
If you want me to elaborate on my knowledge as well as UPG with the other Cosmic Horrors let me know at the end. That way you can fill it in as needed.
Azathoth - Is the Idiot Sultan God. This isn't meant as an insult per-se. But Azathoth is mindless. There is no real rhyme or reason to Azathoth. Azathoth is not anything and yet is everything, making up all of reality through Azathoth's Dream.
Azathoth gave Birth to the Outer Gods: The Nameless Mist, the Darkness, and Nyarlathotep.
These Beings exist outside and inside the Dream of Azathoth and have influence over the Dream of Azathoth as their Parent is mindless and without true thought or processes.
The sheer mass and scale of these Beings makes them easily capable of completely disconnecting from our paltry and minute existences.
They exist in such formless and cosmically massive and tremendous scale that it literally cannot be properly comprehended by humans in the current state that they exist without.... changing... things about themselves.
This cosmological state of being is just so massive that people are insignificant the same way that humans do not pay attention to molecules around them.
But there is a "catch" to existing within the Dream of Azathoth. Anything and everything is possible and able to impact the Outer Gods in ways that even they cannot anticipate.
Their existence supposedly exists within all realities and possibilities and they experience all realities and possibilities simultaneously as one whole part of their existence.
The Outer Gods have such an immense presence. I cannot stress that enough.
Now. These Outer Gods gave birth to other Outer Gods.
Darkness gave birth to Mother Shub-Niggurath.
The Nameless Mist gave birth to Yog-Sothoth
Nyarlathotep may have reproduced the same way and gave birth to Viburnia.
Viburnia is not considered an Outer God though. She is a bit of something else even if she is descended from an Outer God.
From here, these Outer Gods also make up the Outer God Pantheon.
These Outer Gods then bred and reproduced and created what we can consider "Elder Gods" / Slightly Outer Gods. Nug and Yeb are a bit in-between. But like I said, it's a bit of a difficult thing to put them into boxes.
Outer Gods have a tenancy to spit out offspring like maggots bursting from a corpse. The Nameless Mist as well as the Darkness have a bigger reputation for doing this. And thus these wads of eldritch essence drift about space and time at random. Oftentimes they are mindless masses of Cosmological Mush that has the capacity to mutate and grow like a mould wherever they land. Mother Shub-Niggurath, spawn of of the Darkness gives birth to many beings that have behaved in this way.
Together, Yog-Sothoth as well as Mother Shub-Niggurath gave birth to Cthulhu as well as many others, Nug and Yeb included as well as Tsathoggua. Not all of these Old Gods reside within or around / on Earth. But they, as the Children of Outer Gods, inherited the desire to lay claim to parts of the Cosmos and galaxies.
Some of them are competitive with one another and do not get along. As such "Big Fish" on a cosmological scale they do not like bumping elbows with their siblings very easily.
It gets messy.
Fuck. When a being like Nyarlathotep orgasms it rips apart reality and destroys entire star systems and punches a hole in a galaxy in and of itself. With the wave of a hand, a being like Nyarlathotep can just... "poof" fix the cumshot hole in reality as if it never even happened.
But that's neither here nor there.
Now the Children of the Outer Gods, - as we have pitifully attempted to understand them as "Old Gods" (which only applies for us as a species if they are within our relative and loose spheres of reality and understanding) have resided on and within the realm of our pitiful little rock long before a molecule could decide if it was going to turn into a semi-sentient being.
They are known for deep slumbers and immense forces as well as their connections that bridge the entirety of the cosmos and universe that we perceive to our little planet.
They, too, exist in a degree of mass and immensity that is beyond how small humans are.
Their connection to the cosmos is not lost.
And they oftentimes are far more concerned with their own ordeals and accesses to the liberties of the Outer Gods.
Cthulhu is not just the Dreamer of R'lyeh but the High Priest.
Cthulhu is the Augur of the Outer Gods.
Mother Shub-Niggurath is the raw Primordial Being of the Birthing And Chaotic Mess of the universe. Creation and Destruction and the cycle that ever burns and brandishes itself across space and time.
There are things that sort of... can be defined - through the Old Gods.
Eldritch beings can be "sort of" defined with a couple of quotas.
Indescribable. They usually have to "Scale Down" to be even slightly perceived by humanity.
They embody things so alien and incomprehensible to humans that they have a very difficult time discerning their presence without being confused, sickened or unnerved in ways that other beings do not affect them.
Their connections and roots go back to the stars or to deep and dark places, things, and structures.
And even that list is... abysmally sad to say. The whole sort of.. "point" is that none of this can be properly described. It usually has to be "Experienced".
And your experience is the understanding.
The essence and state of being of these Horrors are so beyond human comprehension that they cannot be properly put into words that can encompass their essence without missing out on massively huge and valuable parts of them.
As for the debilitating madness. Everyone gets this wrong.
Mental Instability from interacting with these Beings is not what people think it is. It isn't a "You see this horrific thing and just lose it."
No. My Grandfather bore an adage that makes sense. "With Great Knowledge Comes Great Sorrow."
The way that the madness and lose of sanity works with the Eldritch is not from their presence alone. But your experience of them.
When you.... work with them, it sort of gives you the opportunity to know and understand things the way that they do. You spend hours or even days being able to think, take in, and comprehend the universe as well as concepts far beyond the capacity of human comprehension.
And then you're back to yourself. …
``People, especially games, get eldritch madness wrong a lot and it’s really such a shame.``
``An ant doesn’t start babbling when they see a circuit board. They find it strange, to them it is a landscape of strange angles and humming monoliths. They may be scared, but that is not madness.
Madness comes when the ant, for a moment, can see as a human does.
It understands those markings are words, symbols with meaning, like a pheromone but infinitely more complex. It can travel unimaginable distances, to lands unlike anything it has seen before. It knows of mirth, embarrassment, love, concepts unimaginable before this moment, and then…
It’s an ant again.
Echoes of things it cannot comprehend swirl around its mind. It cannot make use of this knowledge, but it still remembers. How is it supposed to return to its life? The more the ant saw the harder it is for it to forget. It needs to see it again, understand again. It will do anything to show others, to show itself, nothing else in this tiny world matters.
This is madness.``
As I said, my Grandfather had an adage. "With Great Knowledge Comes Great Sorrow."
There is that risk. What are you willing to gain - to sacrifice - to be able to perceive things like this. And how have you been looped into everything already?
The Cosmic Horrors and the Old Gods are intrinsically meshed and mixed into humanity whether they like it or not. As we are all "Born from Azathoth's Dream" within the Lovecraftian Philosophy of the universe, all things are children of Azathoth or the family of Azathoth technically one way or another. Even if you are born from the unions of other Cosmic and Elder Gods.
Some families, clans, tribes, etc have bred with these beings and helped shape and give birth to people and civilisations as an entire whole (within theory and belief of the mythos).
Their desire to collect and to own as well as use lesser races is not an uncommon trend. Similarly to the ant understanding the circuit board and experiencing things beyond its comprehension, a lot of these Eldritch Beings do not inherently have the capacity to experience things that lesser species experience.
And that bothers them. They have such infinite time and ability to waste and yet we are insignificant and useless to them far and wide. However, they can use humans to experience things the way humans experience them through the deals, pacts, and relationships they form. They do not have to do anything. Everything they do is because it satiates their raw and unadulterated experiences, thoughts, and essences in some regard. They have a tendency to enjoy having a degree of control over the Dream of Azathoth as well as all it has to offer. Infinite Possibilities and Infinite Experiences as well as Powers - But every other Being just as big as them also shares this capacity. Which means that reality can be shaped or adjusted by their Siblings and even their Children.
This creates tense competition.
And it complicates their relationships with one another.
And so they oftentimes will make an effort to covet people or concepts as well as experiences by offering lesser Beings like humans things in return for their engagement and worship. They don't need it. But everything can impact the Dream of Azathoth. And some things that are so incredibly small and insignificant can do things or be in places within the circuit board of the Dream of Azathoth that a Cosmic Eldritch Horror may not be able to do without breaking certain things in order to get to the components. And this is where Lesser Beings come in.
Through Ritual and Ceremony dedicated to certain Outer Gods or Old Gods they can impact and influence the Dream of Azathoth and turn the tides in the favour of these other Beings.
I am at least 99.9% sure that none of this was UPG as far as I can remember. This is all collected from my understandings of all of the Mythos and Works revolving around the subject.
UPG time.
The eldritch is just as hostile and cold as the vacuum of space. Their natures are just as the "stories foretold". Lovecraft and similar authors are almost like prophets/augurs of their existence. Mostly out of the concept that similar structures and ideas have existed before in anthropological contexts. I mean, fuck, there is Divine Darkness both from old and ancient Uzbek / Uzbekistan as well as recognized in biblical structures just as my favourite example.
But people like that racist fuck aren't unique. People experience a lot of these things globally. It's not particular to Lovecraft. But he certainly spearheaded it into modern texts and peoples.
A lot of what I iterated earlier checks heavily with my own experiences. But it goes a lot deeper and a little more broad. There is this indifference from Cosmic Beings that is cold and isolated in ways I cannot even put into words. But... They are usually impressed by certain lesser species and their ability to connect to their existence and engage with them. Additionally, the Outer Gods have a good understanding for what breaks lesser species innately. And thus "compress" themselves if they are interested in what you have to offer. And offering things is easier said than done. They rarely give a fuck about anything material you have to offer.
They trade in energy or information.
They, too, experience things and if you can offer an experience that the Outer God likes then that is your ticket in.
They want things that can be coveted or be considered valuable in a cosmological sense. Which is incredibly difficult when you are isolated to one planet. Having a singular planetary mindset really impacts this.
Astral work has been the best gateway. To them, this is no different than walking two houses down.
For lesser species like us? It's cosmos away.
Nyarlathotep has had plenty of time to exist in ways that are beyond our understanding. And also develop certain skills, attributes and interests. Which can be fleeting.
The Darkness and the Nameless Mist are very mindless and are more so like forces that can be engaged with within reason but are somewhat limited.
well - they are not limited. Our ability to "get something" from them is limited.
It's like trying to engage with a quasar. While you can learn from them, they don't reciprocate in the same ways as sentient things are. And sentience is a fickle concept as a whole.
Yog-Sothoth is one of my teacher's .... Patrons...
And within the contexts of that, it's a strange concept. But Yog-Sothoth is like the whole of cosmic knowledge in its entirety. And it takes great interest in cataloguing and engaging with lesser species because it offers infinite experiences and concepts to consume.
Even if two realities are similar there will be differences and reasons for those differences and ripples across the infinity that impact that as a whole that trickle into nuanced experiences that shift everything like unstable sand.
When working with or Invoking Outer Gods or trying to invoke them, it's better to do so outside.
It can be done inside. But I prefer doing so outside.... I have passed out from the pressure of their presences way way way more times than I can even count or recall. To a point where I started setting everything up like an outdoors nighttime picnic and prepped pillows and blankets. I get bloody noses a lot from it as well as the pressure causes blood vessels to pop in my face. I have bitten my own lips and cheek enough to cause substantial discomfort and damage just by clenching my jaw. It's been a lot of "desensitising myself" to be able to properly work with some of them. All the while Nyarlathotep was perfectly capable of compressing enough to not actually impact me. But the Crawling Chaos wanted to see how much I was willing to subject myself to before I gave up.
I am stubborn.
And I have faced more discomfort before in other things I have done. But that does not mean it was not unpleasant.
Nyarlathotep does a lot because N wants to and has a want. It's all based around the whims and curiosities of these beings.
Which is the most disconcerting feeling in the universe.
Your existence, experiences, and time / place before these beings is based solely around "They want you there" and there really is not anything you can do to change that.
They aren't like other beings that you can "force" to show up. There is nothing you can do but poke them and hope they pick up the line.
Everything they do is because they want to. And you get that impression immediately. You are there because they say you will be. They put you there. You are helpless to stop that once they show up.
Additionally....
When you begin recognizing and working with Eldritch Beings....
When you start to notice them and experience them - as soon as you make that connection and you bridge the gap you have between you and the cosmic whole of everything? That's...
That's when other things begin to notice you as well.
You're bleeding out in the ocean. Infinitely.
You're no longer safe in the bubble of ignorance you once had.
You're fair game. To everything. And everything now can engage with you. And nothing has to step in to "save you". They don't have to do anything. And oftentimes they won't.
But they will watch you squirm, struggle, suffer, and get thrown around like a plaything.
They want to watch and see what happens.
They are far removed from the concepts of our comfort and they begin to become interested in the same way term of "Morbid Curiosity" would be described.
You are a tiny little beer pong ball that can now be thrown around as anything sees fit. And you will be thrown around if you are not already being thrown around. The way you survive this without going absolutely insane or losing connection to yourself as a whole or even ||dying|| is you stop thinking about it. Don’t try to put anything in a box as much as you can help yourself. And if you do try to start boxing things, be aware and conscious that you have to remain open to the idea that those boxes can and will change shape, dimension, and content. Things are flexible and fluid and boxes of ideas can help you remain “grounded” (whatever the fuck that even means out here) but they are always temporary and going to be unique per your experience and the time you spent in that experience. And they may be completely useless otherwise. Your understanding of things will not and cannot ever compare to what these other Beings experience.
But you’re not completely at the mercy of the cosmic slaughter. These Beings are competitive. They are interestingly volatile towards one another. That is, I suppose, the nature of things in the cosmos. Violently explosive and aggressive towards everything around it - chaotic and wildly unpredictable when they clash with one another. I wouldn’t call it pride - but they have a particular reaction to things that they lay claim to. And they do not give them up easily. They are not keen on parting with things that they want or would like to covet.
If you’re drawing comparisons between these concepts of behaviour and humans then you’re solely missing the point. Black Holes don’t like to give up things that they are consuming. Gravity is a thing with these Beings and that Gravity is a sentient “personality” that is always operating based around what these beings are attracted to. They are less concerned about you as an individual and more interested in you as an object or a raw material that they can entangle themselves in - you are matter and that matter can influence the Dream of Azathoth depending on what your skills, ability, and impact is on the Dream of Azathoth. And they are oftentimes very keen on expanding their ability to influence the Dream of Azathoth through many different avenues.
That, at least, is somewhat predictable of the Eldritch. They know you are vulnerable. And that’s something that will never abate. You’re not capable of being at a degree of excessive mass and raw unadulterated and unfiltered cosmological power. You can work with this. And that is what is usually recommended. Either you make as much effort as possible to fly under the radar or… since you absolutely cannot beat them….
Join them.
By playing smart you can gain access to liberties, protections, skills and understandings that are going to be unique to you and your connection. Some people call this “Your Archetype”. Whatever Archetype that has drawn you in and taken you into its proverbial maw grants you a part of that Archetype. Sometimes you can mix them. Sometimes you cannot. For example, The King in Yellow does not get along with Nyarlathotep. Yog-Sothoth is on neutral/decent terms with Nyarlathotep. And this allows you to also work with Shub-Niggurath with relative ease within Mother Shub-Niggurath’s nature given how wild and primordial she is.
Makes the Outer Gods and Shub-Niggurath / Nyarlathotep seem more appealing?
Think again. The King in Yellow is actually very lesser-race sympathetic. The King in Yellow also has the cosmic capacity to hold Their own against Nyarlathotep. The King in Yellow is exceptionally formidable and Carcosa is probably one of the safest places for anyone to wind up if you are travelling / astral anywhere. And that is saying something. Carcosa is a unique place that has a keening tilt to knowledge, literature, the arts and sciences as a whole.
There is no wrong answers here. There is no right answers. There is just the consequences of what you have available to you and what will suit your needs the most. The concept of a moral high ground doesn’t exist here. Everything around you is in perpetual and mutual usage of things that are going to get you from point a to point b. But The King in Yellow has cultivated the deep understanding of intimate emotions and feelings as well as the “human condition”. This makes it an easy thing to engage with and far more appealing as the King in Yellow has a larger capacity to relate to the “human condition” - by default making people far more comfortable.
So the moral of those last several paragraphs is that you should be aware of what your options are and what ship you want to pick you up in the cosmic sea of volatile forces before it blends you to bits. Or you can continue to try and fly as much under the radar as you can without being noticed. But this is a task that is far easier said than done.
If you choose to accept the aid of an Archetype it doesn’t exempt you from danger. Yog-Sothoth is *not* going to come down and smite another cosmic eldritch being from causing you harm. It does not work like that. But you do not have access to informations, resources, knowledge and locations you can use to help you survive and engage further with your tasks and goals or things you are seeking to accomplish. You have now, as of course you said (Baou mentioned before) now some Licences that look a bit more like that. You *can* also use your licences to invoke a sense of fear or discomfort with things that *would* normally be considered threatened by these forces. It’s usually a bluff but it is enough to make them second guess or think twice because the risks do not outweigh the benefits.