Elder Thing

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Elder Thing
Fan illustration of a generic Elder Thing specimen
First appearance	At the Mountains of Madness
Last appearance	"The Shadow Out of Time"
Created by	H. P. Lovecraft
In-universe information
Type	Extraterrestrial life form

The Elder Things (also known as the Old Ones

Six feet end to end, three and five-tenths feet central diameter, tapering to one foot at each end. Like a barrel with five bulging ridges in place of staves. Lateral breakages, as of thinnish stalks, are at equator in middle of these ridges. In furrows between ridges are curious growths—combs or wings that fold up and spread out like fans ... which gives almost seven-foot wing spread. Arrangement reminds one of certain monsters of primal myth, especially fabled Elder Things in the Necronomicon.

—H. P. Lovecraft, At the Mountains of Madness

In the Mythos canon, the Elder Things are the first extraterrestrial species to come to the Earth, colonizing the planet about one billion years ago.^[4] They stand roughly eight feet tall and have the appearance of a huge, oval-shaped barrel with starfish-like appendages at both ends. The top appendage is a head adorned with five eyes, five eating tubes, and a set of cilia for "seeing" without light. The bottom appendage was five-limbed and was used for walking and other forms of locomotion. The beings also had five leathery, fan-like retractable wings and five sets of branching tentacles that sprouted from their torsos. Both their tentacles and the slits housing their folded wings were spaced at regular intervals about their bodies.

Lovecraft described the Elder Things as vegetable-like or echinoderm-like in shape, having

The

Mi-go

, and a rebellion of the Shoggoths weakened them. Radical climate change eventually forced them to abandon most of their great cities. The final fate of the Elder Things is explicitly unclear, and the human scientists in the story openly speculate that hidden undersea cities may still survive in some places.

In "

The Dreams in the Witch-House", the central character is sent through a dimensional portal to a planet in a triple star system located "between Hydra and Argo Navis

", which is populated by Elder Things.

Notes

1. Great Old Ones, a separate group of beings described as being enemies of the Elder Things in At the Mountains of Madness
   .
2. ^ In At the Mountains of Madness, Professor Lake dubs the specimens he discovers "Elder Ones" in reference to the Elder Things of the Necronomicon, unaware that they are actually the same beings.
3. ISBN 978-0974878911
   .
4. The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana
   , p. 384.
5. ^
   ISBN 9781789045116
   .
6. ISBN 9780586025963.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link
   )

References

• Harms, Daniel (1998). "Elder Things". The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana (2nd ed.). Oakland, CA: Chaosium. pp. 99–100.
  ISBN 1-56882-119-0
  .
• Lovecraft, Howard P. (2005) [1936]. "At the Mountains of Madness". At the Mountains of Madness: The Definitive Edition. New York, NY: The Modern Library.
  ISBN 0-8129-7441-7
  . Introduction by China Miéville.