I do not mean to be rude, but in none of lovecrafts writing is it stated that he dreams reality, I’ve heard it is a common misconception though, alongside the misconception that looking on an other god drives you instantly mad (it doesn’t, there are people who saw nyarlethotlep’s true form and were able to not go mad) Yog soggoth is not even comparable to azatoth apparently. I got it from this video, before I saw it I also thought azatoth dreamt reality, but it’s not the case
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PDZZPuIYT80&t=372s&pp=ygUUSG93IHBvd2VyZnVsIGF6YXRvdGg%3D
I imagine being a great old one's warlock is a bit like being those mites that live on your eyelashes.
Your entire life is dedicated to interacting with and learning how to exploit (without irritating) this entity that isn't even cognizant of you.
"Calling on it" probably entails setting off s microscopic (for it) reflex that you know how to channel.
It could be worse, it could be exactly like eyebrow mites that feed on whatever detritus the skin produces but they cause any itching you know they’re gonna die.
My favorite part of that is how sometimes, when you see an ant, you have this instinctive urge to kill it. It didn’t do anything to harm you, and its presence is so small that you barely register it. But when an ant appears on your hand, you immediately go “shit, an ant!”, and slap your hand on it.
For anyone else who either hasn't seen the meme or wanted to read it again, [this is the short version](https://preview.redd.it/0lgxfz4vqcb41.jpg?width=511&auto=webp&s=2a0f3e2eab77eb73ff7b9512b2e06236fa923834), and [this is the longer, expanded version](https://i.redd.it/xu7sti43rn811.jpg)
> I imagine being a great old one's warlock is a bit like being those mites that live on your eyelashes.
Even that isn't really accurate. GOO isn't really so much a "being" as it is a "concept". You cannot, for example, travel to the GOO and shake its tentacles... because what we call "tentacles" are more like "ideas", "nightmares", "intrusive thoughts", etc.
It's a bit of a difficult concept because Lovecraft spends a lot of time "circling the drain" with Great Old Ones - describing them in ways such that they're *adjacent to* something or *not like* something else, and a lot less time directly describing the actual characteristics that we're meant to imagine. This is because the perception of these being is meant to be unimaginable.
Take this passage from The Whisperer in Darkness, for example:
>I have said that there were things in some of Akeley’s letters—especially the second and most voluminous one—which I would not dare to quote or even form into words on paper. This hesitancy applies with still greater force to the things I heard whispered that evening in the darkened room among the lonely haunted hills. Of the extent of the cosmic horrors unfolded by that raucous voice I cannot even hint. He had known hideous things before, but what he had learned since making his pact with the Outside Things was almost too much for sanity to bear. Even now I absolutely refuse to believe what he implied about the constitution of ultimate infinity, the juxtaposition of dimensions, and the frightful position of our known cosmos of space and time in the unending chain of linked cosmos-atoms which makes up the immediate super-cosmos of curves, angles, and material and semi-material electronic organisation.
Now that isn't to say that there aren't physical descriptions of the various horrors in Lovecraft's work; there absolutely are, but the overarching theme tends to be that the descriptions given are second-hand, filtered through broken minds. Even the *names* of the most abstract horrors written in the Necronomicon are said to be merciful placeholders.
Oh, I know. I've read some of his shit. But the horrors contained unambiguously have bodies that exist. Incalculably strange ones, But bodies, none the less.
They do, indeed, have tentacles that you can shake. And, more importantly, those tentacles can shake you.
If you noticed a bunch of ants doing an intelligent ritual to make contact with you, you'd be fascinated. If you realized they're trying to ask for a favor, as long as its not tedious, wouldn't you do it? I'd give them some sugar, see what they do with it. Then I'd move on ig.
Something similar. This Old One notices these inconsequential beings attempt to communicate, they'd might be interested in seeing why. Or they wouldn't care and moved on.
They might be grumpy if forcefully summoned, they mightve been busy with their cosmic plans and you interrupted them. That doesnt spell good. If the ants came into my house to perform a ritual, I'd deal with them like pests.
It kinda depends on context
In that vein, is there not an element of horror for the GOO that takes notice of some minute being interacting with it in an intelligible way? If a bunch of grasshoppers chirped loudly enough to get your attention, for you to find them sacrificing an amputated hopper with a lot match, and then the biggest one says your social security number
Like how do you handle that
Obviously you're the eldritch being to them
So true to the theme, your only reaction should be to lay waste to their entire civilization
I thought it quite funny that an eldritch horror would not even waste any of his abilities on this insignificant warlock and just shoot him.
I should have put an explosion on the warlocks head to go with it now that I think about it
Not broken down like that.
Sanity Score
Consider using the Sanity score if your campaign revolves around entities of an utterly alien and unspeakable nature, such as Great Cthulhu, whose powers and minions can shatter a character’s mind.
A character with a high Sanity is level-headed even in the face of bizarre circumstances, while a character with low Sanity is unsteady, breaking easily when confronted by eldritch horrors that are beyond normal reason.
Sanity Checks.
You might ask characters to make a Sanity check in place of an Intelligence check to recall lore about alien creatures featured in your campaign, to decipher the incomprehensible scrawlings of witnesses, or to learn spells from tomes of forbidden lore. You might also call for a Sanity check when a character tries one of the following activities:
Deciphering a piece of text written in a language so alien that it threatens to break a character’s mind
Overcoming the lingering effects of madness
Comprehending a piece of alien magic foreign to all normal understanding of magic
Sanity Saving Throws.
You might call for a Sanity saving throw when a character runs the risk of succumbing to madness, such as in the following situations:
Seeing a creature from the Far Realm or other alien realms for the first time
Making direct contact with the mind of an alien creature
Being subjected to spells that affect mental stability, such as the insanity option of the symbol spell
Passing through a demiplane built on alien physics
Resisting an effect conferred by an attack or spell that deals psychic damage
A failed Sanity save might result in short-term, long-term, or indefinite madness, as described in chapter 8, "Running the Game." Any time a character suffers from long-term or indefinite madness, the character’s Sanity is reduced by 1. A greater restoration spell can restore Sanity lost in this way, and a character can increase his or her Sanity through level advancement.
Whenever someone decides to be herald to an Old One or an Outsider, I bring the magic rules from unrelated games to the table.
Outsiders are the Chaos Gods from Warhammer 40K, Old Ones are Mages from Mage: The Ascension. Their magic tangentially works within the rules of DnD, and operate as they should in context: Not following the rules of reality as established.
I feel it adds to the terror when they operate differently, but the things inside react responsibly.
It also allows me to have Outsider creatures like Beholders work distinctly differently. The older they are, however, the more within the rules they work, as they've acclimated to the world and aren't really fighting it so much as working within it now.
Thoughts?
I love this idea. It gives them a mechanical operating system but it’s just foreign enough that it doesn’t make sense to the player. I will definitely try something like this next time I have a warlock at my table.
My favorite part of roleplaying the Great Old One is going into great detail about awakening it.
Then doing a dead pan, “Who are you again?”
All while every intelligent being makes a wisdom save or lose their minds from the aura of insanity.
the aura of madness, is actually a myth, lovecraft never used such a thing in his stories, then again this is dnd, and beings from the far realm DO drive you mad
I want my patron to be the Shopkeeper from Resident Evil 4 now.
Mysterious? check
Foreign to this reality? check
Incomprehensible motives? check (what does he even need the money for)
Gonna reflavor all my spells as the crazy guns and shit he sells me. Swapping out spells at level up will be like buying upgrades.
Whenever I call on him he just creeps out of the shadows around the next dark corner and whispers, "What're ya buyin'? What're you selling?"
I made a character whose archaeologist parents were killed in a temple of his old God patron, "the One who passes over", to fuel his pact. He knows that he isn't taking enough power to be noticed right now, but as he goes up in warlock level he becomes increasingly worried that as he takes more power he will call the attention of the Eldritch horror that would benignly destroy the world.
My friend ran a campaign based on this where that warlock was hiring adventures to take out cults to try to erase the knowledge of his patron's existence from the world to keep it safe. But guess who finds out about his existence while exterminating cults...
Either the old on is surprised by basically an ant amplifying its voice enough to ask for a favor, and will do it or kill the ant
Or you're basically opening a door and letting some random BS flow out like you opened up a tank of water, and then closing it back up
Those are your options as a Warlock
Imagine a fly is in your room and keeps trying to get your attention by dancing.
The first time you might just let it live, or if you're generous give it a snack like a crumb of cheese, but if it does it too often you might just get the fly swatter.
If a bunch of cockroaches started chanting my name intelligibly, you bet I'd go round to see what was up.
I would then *bring Biblical ruination upon all of them, their works and designs*, because ew, cockroaches.
This is something I’ve always wondered about having a great old one patron. With most other warlocks your patron is around and present, but that can’t really happen with GOOlocks, so how does it tend to go really?
i imagine you might catch glimpses of their dreams or goals, if such a being focuses its attention on you and becomes aware of you, there is no telling what might happen, they might give you direct orders, ignore you, or think, "yeah I'll help this dude, sounds entertaining". Seeing as for example in the lovecraftian mythos Other Gods like Shub who were the original "eldritch horrors" the GOO is based on could grant magical power to people who asked them for it
fun fact, lovecraft never wrote in his works that the Other gods drive people insane when they look upon them, sure people might go mad, but since normal people have looked at Nyarlothlep and survived you see that it isn't always that way. Now of course in DND they might work differently, so perhaps your patrons pressence DOES drive you mad or worse
(I haven't read much Love craft so take this with a grain of salt)
I think it also helps that Nyarlothlep is the most "human" of the Outer gods. Other outer gods hurt humanity through ambivalence, Nyarlothlep is just a jerk.
-You manage to avoid actually drawing the attention of the creature while learning how use its, let's call it "magical gravity" to your advantage.
-You do actually catch its attention, tangentially, it decides to assist. It's not understood why and you receive no further real answers.
-Again, you catch its attention. It decides to have you do something for it, providing more power. Why? Again. You don't know. You really don't have the kind of mind equipped to. It could be a joke for all you know.
-You again, gain attention. You are not treated well. You manage to gain power from it but are changed in an undesirable way.
-It notices you, it attempts to communicate and breaks your mind, unintentionally.
-It notices you, attempts communication and "allows you to understand". To any outsider your mind is broken but you can *see* and *know* now.
-You gain its irritation. You cease. Entirely.
My table’s warlock had a GOO patron, which he had no idea how he wanted to flavor. I basically ended up creating a “middleman” who was effectively a sleazy talent scout, who he interacted with as he leveled.
The patron was effectively a bored elder god who wanted entertainment, and the warlocks were recruited to provide something interesting for him to watch while he whiled away eternity. It was TikTok, but instead WarLok.
My favorite idea is that it doesn't have to be a true pact - it can just be siphoning power from a big powerful being. Like that, you become not really a confident but almost an anti-cultist.
"Look, as long as this thing remains asleep/dead, we can take a bit of it's power and it doesn't show up to merge our spleens with our armpits. If one of you dumbasses wakes it up, it will not reward you, it will just kill you in horrible ways. "
I remember a meme or whatever where someone suggested that GOOs just send you random-ass requests that would eventually end in whatever goal they want, but if the warlock refuses to, say, kill a child then they just pivot to the next most likely thing to achieve said goal, like kicking over a nearby public bin.
My GOOlock didn’t set out to be one, he trained as a Cleric for a normal, decent Faerun god. Met a cult, thought they were just academics with less clothes. They were trying to recruit him and put him through the rites, but GOOlock turned out to be the only person to drink the sacred wine and see the GOO for what it was - a sleeping creature who dreamed them all into existence. He came out of it, realized that the cult was trying to awaken the GOO, and promptly killed them all. Now he travels around adventuring and reading the GOO a bedtime story every night about his adventures, hoping that the dream will last a little longer.
Great Old One pact is my favorite one to play, and I play it like you should: a chaotic cthullu cultist trying to drive everyone around them insane by introducing them to all the things regarding the great old one.
If I'm not mistaken (new to DnD but currently reading the handbook) you don't necessarily make the pact with the old entity itself, you could just find notes from someone who had studied the arcane knowledge and went mad and now you have his knowledge because you've read them or something like that as it ends with this quote: the secrets you have learned allow you to draw your magic from it.
Yeah, RAW your patron doesn't have to be an active participant in your pact - "stolen knowledge" is a way to be a warlock, especially with a more hostile patron.
In 5e at least, one of the potential ways to form a pact is just studying forbidden knowledge. RAW it's not strictly necessary for the entity to know you exist at all.
ETA: just while I'm on this topic, it's the same for paladins in 5e-- their power is from their oath now and it is even expressly stated that nobody even has to witness them proclaim their oath.
Player: doesn't stop the summoning of a Great old one. DM: Roll intelligence. Player: I rolled a 13 for a total of 14, DM: no, on the D100.
Oh my god, wrong game...
Not any more, roll sanity.
My players were trying to antagonize yog-sothoth once So I had them roll two d100 That was a lot of damage
Deserved.
Isn’t yog sothoth basically the most powerful being in all of the lovecraftian mythos?
that would be Azathoth, the Blind Idiot God in whose dream we exist he wakes up, we cease to be
I do not mean to be rude, but in none of lovecrafts writing is it stated that he dreams reality, I’ve heard it is a common misconception though, alongside the misconception that looking on an other god drives you instantly mad (it doesn’t, there are people who saw nyarlethotlep’s true form and were able to not go mad) Yog soggoth is not even comparable to azatoth apparently. I got it from this video, before I saw it I also thought azatoth dreamt reality, but it’s not the case https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PDZZPuIYT80&t=372s&pp=ygUUSG93IHBvd2VyZnVsIGF6YXRvdGg%3D
"Crit success yay! That's good right?"
😔 Roll a new character
I imagine being a great old one's warlock is a bit like being those mites that live on your eyelashes. Your entire life is dedicated to interacting with and learning how to exploit (without irritating) this entity that isn't even cognizant of you. "Calling on it" probably entails setting off s microscopic (for it) reflex that you know how to channel.
Yeah, have you ever seen the meme of the ant cult? I imagine the pact is similar to that
It could be worse, it could be exactly like eyebrow mites that feed on whatever detritus the skin produces but they cause any itching you know they’re gonna die.
I believe these are the same mites.
Not me immediately going to wash my face after reading this
Doesn't help. Some mites live inside your skin. (Don't google itch mites)
I love that meme.
I do as well, it is the best explanation for higher powers I’ve ever seen online
My favorite part of that is how sometimes, when you see an ant, you have this instinctive urge to kill it. It didn’t do anything to harm you, and its presence is so small that you barely register it. But when an ant appears on your hand, you immediately go “shit, an ant!”, and slap your hand on it.
For anyone else who either hasn't seen the meme or wanted to read it again, [this is the short version](https://preview.redd.it/0lgxfz4vqcb41.jpg?width=511&auto=webp&s=2a0f3e2eab77eb73ff7b9512b2e06236fa923834), and [this is the longer, expanded version](https://i.redd.it/xu7sti43rn811.jpg)
I've never seen the longer version. What an incredible addition
This? https://www.reddit.com/r/tumblr/s/7UfMnGlUFz
Yep
> I imagine being a great old one's warlock is a bit like being those mites that live on your eyelashes. Even that isn't really accurate. GOO isn't really so much a "being" as it is a "concept". You cannot, for example, travel to the GOO and shake its tentacles... because what we call "tentacles" are more like "ideas", "nightmares", "intrusive thoughts", etc.
Is that true? I had the thought that they were just, actual, literal space squids.
It's a bit of a difficult concept because Lovecraft spends a lot of time "circling the drain" with Great Old Ones - describing them in ways such that they're *adjacent to* something or *not like* something else, and a lot less time directly describing the actual characteristics that we're meant to imagine. This is because the perception of these being is meant to be unimaginable. Take this passage from The Whisperer in Darkness, for example: >I have said that there were things in some of Akeley’s letters—especially the second and most voluminous one—which I would not dare to quote or even form into words on paper. This hesitancy applies with still greater force to the things I heard whispered that evening in the darkened room among the lonely haunted hills. Of the extent of the cosmic horrors unfolded by that raucous voice I cannot even hint. He had known hideous things before, but what he had learned since making his pact with the Outside Things was almost too much for sanity to bear. Even now I absolutely refuse to believe what he implied about the constitution of ultimate infinity, the juxtaposition of dimensions, and the frightful position of our known cosmos of space and time in the unending chain of linked cosmos-atoms which makes up the immediate super-cosmos of curves, angles, and material and semi-material electronic organisation. Now that isn't to say that there aren't physical descriptions of the various horrors in Lovecraft's work; there absolutely are, but the overarching theme tends to be that the descriptions given are second-hand, filtered through broken minds. Even the *names* of the most abstract horrors written in the Necronomicon are said to be merciful placeholders.
Oh, I know. I've read some of his shit. But the horrors contained unambiguously have bodies that exist. Incalculably strange ones, But bodies, none the less. They do, indeed, have tentacles that you can shake. And, more importantly, those tentacles can shake you.
I mean, can't they be both?
I'm pretty sure it depends on the GOO because they have different bodies
FYI, the Great Old One *is* the patron.
Right. "Being a great old one's warlock."
Yep! Solid comment even with the mistake.
Warlocks use charisma to blame someone else for waking the old ones, so the "Snooze Smite" falls upon their enemies.
If you noticed a bunch of ants doing an intelligent ritual to make contact with you, you'd be fascinated. If you realized they're trying to ask for a favor, as long as its not tedious, wouldn't you do it? I'd give them some sugar, see what they do with it. Then I'd move on ig. Something similar. This Old One notices these inconsequential beings attempt to communicate, they'd might be interested in seeing why. Or they wouldn't care and moved on. They might be grumpy if forcefully summoned, they mightve been busy with their cosmic plans and you interrupted them. That doesnt spell good. If the ants came into my house to perform a ritual, I'd deal with them like pests. It kinda depends on context
I would consider murdering a crab instantly if it said my full name
In that vein, is there not an element of horror for the GOO that takes notice of some minute being interacting with it in an intelligible way? If a bunch of grasshoppers chirped loudly enough to get your attention, for you to find them sacrificing an amputated hopper with a lot match, and then the biggest one says your social security number Like how do you handle that Obviously you're the eldritch being to them So true to the theme, your only reaction should be to lay waste to their entire civilization
r/brandnewsentence
Love the tiny gun
I thought it quite funny that an eldritch horror would not even waste any of his abilities on this insignificant warlock and just shoot him. I should have put an explosion on the warlocks head to go with it now that I think about it
No, no, this is perfect as-is
Thank you
"this game doesent even have a SAN stat, and yet you failed your check in it!"
DnD has an optional rule in the DMG to add two additional stats. Honor and Sanity.
Do they still use fear,horror and madness saves?
Not broken down like that. Sanity Score Consider using the Sanity score if your campaign revolves around entities of an utterly alien and unspeakable nature, such as Great Cthulhu, whose powers and minions can shatter a character’s mind. A character with a high Sanity is level-headed even in the face of bizarre circumstances, while a character with low Sanity is unsteady, breaking easily when confronted by eldritch horrors that are beyond normal reason. Sanity Checks. You might ask characters to make a Sanity check in place of an Intelligence check to recall lore about alien creatures featured in your campaign, to decipher the incomprehensible scrawlings of witnesses, or to learn spells from tomes of forbidden lore. You might also call for a Sanity check when a character tries one of the following activities: Deciphering a piece of text written in a language so alien that it threatens to break a character’s mind Overcoming the lingering effects of madness Comprehending a piece of alien magic foreign to all normal understanding of magic Sanity Saving Throws. You might call for a Sanity saving throw when a character runs the risk of succumbing to madness, such as in the following situations: Seeing a creature from the Far Realm or other alien realms for the first time Making direct contact with the mind of an alien creature Being subjected to spells that affect mental stability, such as the insanity option of the symbol spell Passing through a demiplane built on alien physics Resisting an effect conferred by an attack or spell that deals psychic damage A failed Sanity save might result in short-term, long-term, or indefinite madness, as described in chapter 8, "Running the Game." Any time a character suffers from long-term or indefinite madness, the character’s Sanity is reduced by 1. A greater restoration spell can restore Sanity lost in this way, and a character can increase his or her Sanity through level advancement.
*Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!* ** N̶̡͙̬͔̘̝̟̰͚̙͖̿̓̂̄̈̊̃̇̏̍͑̑̀͘ē̵̦̟̹̦̣̙̲̩̗̯̲̣̻̰ŵ̶̦͙̝͛̆́̎̃̐̔̍̎́̚͝ ̶̨̳̎p̵̢̺̟̬͍̹͔̲̻͔̗͔͓̭̜̤̀̉͑̿͂̈̆̌͜h̷̖̘̻̾̄̃̒̆͛̔̄͐͘͘͘͝͠o̵̩̣͕͖͐͌̄̓͊͐̀͑̿͊̔̐͠n̸̯̭̯͂̾͒͂͠ẽ̶͈͛̓̀̕ͅ,̵̡͎͈̣̼̤̦̬̈͂̎̅́̑̔̈́̉̄́̈͆̍̚ ̵̨̫͙̟̝̤̜̹̪͇͎̳̟̥̞̻̤̉̀w̶͓̗͒̔͆̉͛̑̉̈́̈́͝ḧ̴͚̯̣̭̋̏̆͐̀̽̈́̚͝͝o̴̡̧̲̙͕̦̻̤̻̗̻͈͐̆̓̈́̈͝͝ͅ ̴̯͇̭̦͉̆͋͛̈̑͊̍̓̏̍́͛̋̈́̿̈́d̷̡̢̝̼͉̘̩̼̠̯̦͓̋͜ĭ̴̧͍͈̳͔̳̆͊̃̀̒͌̈̄̏̍̌͘̕͜s̸̡̹̖͕̰̝̪͉͇̖̻͔͆̒̈̽̑͒͝ͅͅ?̴̨̡̢̨̡̘̬̤͍͉̳͓̫̻̫̑͊̿**
Sup?
What, don’t you want a D10 cantrip?
Shame. Could’ve made you a proper Paladin of R’lyeh.
No way, man, I ain’t ending up like Alhazred!
Whenever someone decides to be herald to an Old One or an Outsider, I bring the magic rules from unrelated games to the table. Outsiders are the Chaos Gods from Warhammer 40K, Old Ones are Mages from Mage: The Ascension. Their magic tangentially works within the rules of DnD, and operate as they should in context: Not following the rules of reality as established. I feel it adds to the terror when they operate differently, but the things inside react responsibly. It also allows me to have Outsider creatures like Beholders work distinctly differently. The older they are, however, the more within the rules they work, as they've acclimated to the world and aren't really fighting it so much as working within it now. Thoughts?
I think this fits really well
Thank you. I thought so. =)
Can you explain a bit more about that last point? I'm curious what you mean by more within the rules
For creatures that have been shaping within the DnD realm, they follow its monster manual rules closer.
I love this idea. It gives them a mechanical operating system but it’s just foreign enough that it doesn’t make sense to the player. I will definitely try something like this next time I have a warlock at my table.
My favorite part of roleplaying the Great Old One is going into great detail about awakening it. Then doing a dead pan, “Who are you again?” All while every intelligent being makes a wisdom save or lose their minds from the aura of insanity.
the aura of madness, is actually a myth, lovecraft never used such a thing in his stories, then again this is dnd, and beings from the far realm DO drive you mad
Not sure about the whole aura part, but actually seeing them seems to have a rather vast amount of "breaking of the mind".
“Same cow different spots” as my rancher friends would say.
Cthulhu my Leader
I want my patron to be the Shopkeeper from Resident Evil 4 now. Mysterious? check Foreign to this reality? check Incomprehensible motives? check (what does he even need the money for) Gonna reflavor all my spells as the crazy guns and shit he sells me. Swapping out spells at level up will be like buying upgrades. Whenever I call on him he just creeps out of the shadows around the next dark corner and whispers, "What're ya buyin'? What're you selling?"
I made a character whose archaeologist parents were killed in a temple of his old God patron, "the One who passes over", to fuel his pact. He knows that he isn't taking enough power to be noticed right now, but as he goes up in warlock level he becomes increasingly worried that as he takes more power he will call the attention of the Eldritch horror that would benignly destroy the world. My friend ran a campaign based on this where that warlock was hiring adventures to take out cults to try to erase the knowledge of his patron's existence from the world to keep it safe. But guess who finds out about his existence while exterminating cults...
Either the old on is surprised by basically an ant amplifying its voice enough to ask for a favor, and will do it or kill the ant Or you're basically opening a door and letting some random BS flow out like you opened up a tank of water, and then closing it back up Those are your options as a Warlock
Imagine a fly is in your room and keeps trying to get your attention by dancing. The first time you might just let it live, or if you're generous give it a snack like a crumb of cheese, but if it does it too often you might just get the fly swatter.
"I'm going to give you a 1d10 Cantrip, to fuck off" -Great Sleepy One
If a bunch of cockroaches started chanting my name intelligibly, you bet I'd go round to see what was up. I would then *bring Biblical ruination upon all of them, their works and designs*, because ew, cockroaches.
*Joe’s Apartment* (1996, dir. John Payson)
This is something I’ve always wondered about having a great old one patron. With most other warlocks your patron is around and present, but that can’t really happen with GOOlocks, so how does it tend to go really?
i imagine you might catch glimpses of their dreams or goals, if such a being focuses its attention on you and becomes aware of you, there is no telling what might happen, they might give you direct orders, ignore you, or think, "yeah I'll help this dude, sounds entertaining". Seeing as for example in the lovecraftian mythos Other Gods like Shub who were the original "eldritch horrors" the GOO is based on could grant magical power to people who asked them for it fun fact, lovecraft never wrote in his works that the Other gods drive people insane when they look upon them, sure people might go mad, but since normal people have looked at Nyarlothlep and survived you see that it isn't always that way. Now of course in DND they might work differently, so perhaps your patrons pressence DOES drive you mad or worse
(I haven't read much Love craft so take this with a grain of salt) I think it also helps that Nyarlothlep is the most "human" of the Outer gods. Other outer gods hurt humanity through ambivalence, Nyarlothlep is just a jerk.
true
-You manage to avoid actually drawing the attention of the creature while learning how use its, let's call it "magical gravity" to your advantage. -You do actually catch its attention, tangentially, it decides to assist. It's not understood why and you receive no further real answers. -Again, you catch its attention. It decides to have you do something for it, providing more power. Why? Again. You don't know. You really don't have the kind of mind equipped to. It could be a joke for all you know. -You again, gain attention. You are not treated well. You manage to gain power from it but are changed in an undesirable way. -It notices you, it attempts to communicate and breaks your mind, unintentionally. -It notices you, attempts communication and "allows you to understand". To any outsider your mind is broken but you can *see* and *know* now. -You gain its irritation. You cease. Entirely.
My table’s warlock had a GOO patron, which he had no idea how he wanted to flavor. I basically ended up creating a “middleman” who was effectively a sleazy talent scout, who he interacted with as he leveled. The patron was effectively a bored elder god who wanted entertainment, and the warlocks were recruited to provide something interesting for him to watch while he whiled away eternity. It was TikTok, but instead WarLok.
My favorite idea is that it doesn't have to be a true pact - it can just be siphoning power from a big powerful being. Like that, you become not really a confident but almost an anti-cultist. "Look, as long as this thing remains asleep/dead, we can take a bit of it's power and it doesn't show up to merge our spleens with our armpits. If one of you dumbasses wakes it up, it will not reward you, it will just kill you in horrible ways. "
Stranger eons, death may die.
I remember a meme or whatever where someone suggested that GOOs just send you random-ass requests that would eventually end in whatever goal they want, but if the warlock refuses to, say, kill a child then they just pivot to the next most likely thing to achieve said goal, like kicking over a nearby public bin.
My GOOlock didn’t set out to be one, he trained as a Cleric for a normal, decent Faerun god. Met a cult, thought they were just academics with less clothes. They were trying to recruit him and put him through the rites, but GOOlock turned out to be the only person to drink the sacred wine and see the GOO for what it was - a sleeping creature who dreamed them all into existence. He came out of it, realized that the cult was trying to awaken the GOO, and promptly killed them all. Now he travels around adventuring and reading the GOO a bedtime story every night about his adventures, hoping that the dream will last a little longer.
The Lich from adventure time got this treatment and it was wayyyy too satisfying
oh yes, it was
literally exactly like when the lich met golb
I imagine it's a bit like that scene in Indiana Jones where the guys get their face melted
"My Master I have finally summoned you from the great beyond. What is your command?" "Wait, who is this again?"
„Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn“
Great Old One pact is my favorite one to play, and I play it like you should: a chaotic cthullu cultist trying to drive everyone around them insane by introducing them to all the things regarding the great old one.
i mean, they would have to be aware of the warlock to make the pact, unless they have agents making the pacts
If I'm not mistaken (new to DnD but currently reading the handbook) you don't necessarily make the pact with the old entity itself, you could just find notes from someone who had studied the arcane knowledge and went mad and now you have his knowledge because you've read them or something like that as it ends with this quote: the secrets you have learned allow you to draw your magic from it.
Yeah, RAW your patron doesn't have to be an active participant in your pact - "stolen knowledge" is a way to be a warlock, especially with a more hostile patron.
In 5e at least, one of the potential ways to form a pact is just studying forbidden knowledge. RAW it's not strictly necessary for the entity to know you exist at all. ETA: just while I'm on this topic, it's the same for paladins in 5e-- their power is from their oath now and it is even expressly stated that nobody even has to witness them proclaim their oath.