Monday, September 19, 2016

Great Cthulhu

Great Cthulhu was essentially the one major fuckup of existence. It (he, she, whatever) resided in another universe until Vecna got very desperate and opened a portal to the -------- (where -------- is your unspeakable word of choice). 

Nobody does that shit, ever. For very good reason.



The -------- is essentially at a higher existential pressure. What this means is akin to opening a sub hatch directly out to the ocean. It takes a lot of pressure, but once you open it, the water will rush in and drown you. (or mutate you, or drive you insane, or merge with you, or drag through a sentient creature that really doesn't want to be forcibly abducted from its universe and and thusly arrives super pissed.)

Different universes are fundamentally incompatible. They were created in different formats with different intents in mind. To compare them is not like comparing apples and oranges. Those come from plants, which is a basic similarity. Different universes have different molecular structures (if they have structures at all), timescales, scales of size and depth and weight and mass...for another good comparison, google "outsiders" + "goblin punch".

So, Great Cthulhu is actually a very benign power. Instead of getting really angry the instant Vecna tore open the boundary between universes and abducted him, it decided to gently tug on the cords of the alien reality it was emmeshed in an attempt to unravel the existential knots. 

We are like ants to Great Cthulhu, except that we are alien ants whose motives are almost impossible to understand and whose thought processes are incredibly fast. 

When Cthulhu first tugged on the strings of reality, it did exactly what Vecna (who was dead by then) wanted it to do and murdered a god. 

It just didn't murder the god Vecna wanted to.

Great Cthulhu was trying to contact any great source of "power" that it sensed. This was Satan (the old Asmodeus). When Cthulhu tugged on the Satan "string", it ripped it (whoopsie), and Satan was glomped out of reality with a despairing wail. His vestige still gets a chance to walk, murder, and grow in power, though.

Sensing this disruption and resulting backlash of power, Great Cthulhu stopped. Floating strands of reality (cleric domains!) were attracted to its power and attached themselves to it, resulting in an alien power tangled in the Weave of reality with tethers to our world via other strings.

The leading cultists of Cthulhu have managed to establish a form of contact where Cthulhu speaks to them through an artifact of our universe (which we can comprehend) using utterly foreign languages (which are harder to comprehend). Think of it as a god molding Silly Putty into the simplest shapes it can translate its intent into, while we watch. The puny mortals must learn how to comprehend. They've learned the hard way that spells that force you to understand (Comprehend Languages) either reshape your brain and make you useless to communicate with humans or deform it utterly. There's a new spell on the block. The higher ups of Cthulhu call it "Get a Hint to what the fuck this Language Means." By hinting and guesswork, the cultists know that Cthulhu is trapped. They also have a hazy idea that Cthulhu wants to return to where it came from, but they and their "god" don't know how that would work. Concepts have been floated (doomsday, massive human sacrifices, appeals to Amanautor and Selenis) but have all been rejected for obvious reasons. Try explaining cosmic physics and beams of reality to an ant that ages rapidly and acts incredibly fast.

So, as an infinite being, Great Cthulhu has learned infinite patience. This means that it won't destroy this universe because it wants to go home right now. After a few thousand years, however, it might get a bit antsy...

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