Hello everyone! :waves:
Question: Of the Great Old Ones, or other interested parties, who would most be in conflict with Talona, a Forgotten Realms deity dedicated to poison & disease?
The reason I ask is two-fold:
1) I’m hesitant to admit this but I’m not super familiar with the Cthulhu Mythos over and above Cthulhu. So I figured I asked the experts.
2) I’m very near the end of a 3+ year campaign wherein Talona and her minions figured prominently in the PC’s antagonisms. I have an epilogue planned where I’d like to segue into a cthulhu-inspired campaign. Therefore I was thinking, “who’s best suited to take her on?”
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
I don’t know much about Talona, but I think it depends on the GOO in question.
For example, Y’Golonac and Quachil Uttaus are both avatars of a sort disease or entropy, so they might get along. Or they could hate each other for stepping over each others domains. I’d imagine Shub-Niggurath, being a fetid fertility GOO, probably wouldn’t like a disease deity. Yig is kinda a poison god, but mostly of snakes, so there could be some interaction there. Probably most GOO would care unless Talona went after their worshippers specifically.
That being said, since GOO are kinda nebulous in their thinking, and mortals can’t possibly comprehend why a GOO would do anything, it doesn’t really matter which one becomes the new bad guy. Just pick one you like, have it show up and kick Talona’s ass (and if the players witness the smackdown, introduce the Dread mechanic and have them start going crazy.), and boom, new campaign.
If the players start asking questions about whichever GOO’s motive, just say “Yog-Sothoth works in mysterious ways!” and waggle your eyebrows.
I agree with Lucky Hastur. GOOs are not really associated with specific functions and usually have very vague descriptions in their original stories. That said, there are definitely some traits associated with some of them that you could use for your campaign. I’ll mention some ideas:
– Yog-Sothoth: Contains all space and time within itself (arguably the reason it’s made up of spheres). When encountered by Randolph Carter, it mentions that all intellectuals, scientists, artists, explorers and other thinkers are reflections of fragments of itself. This facet is not always explored but it gives the mutant-spawning deity from the Dunwich Horror a deeper look. Maybe Talona’s plan goes against YS’s intentions of spreading his own spawn? Or, it may have lent its power to a Talona cultist and it has been accidentally set loose.
– Shub Niggurath: One of the vaguest of all deities, but usually associated with fertility. Creatures that threaten her “thousand young” might be antagonic to her intentions. Adding to this, since she’s also called the “Lord of the Forest” or “Black Goat of the Woods”, a pestilence deity might be an offense to her preference for ancient, untamed wilds. She is also known to conspire against other deities like Gathanothoa, who can mummify living beings on sight.
– King in Yellow: Not a Lovecraftian creation but part of the mythos. He seems to work recruiting a court of undead and worm-like beings that become his agents. While his goals are mysterious, he would probably not be happy if his potential agents are being killed or rendered useless. Maybe a massive gathering of the play The King in Yellow was foiled because of Talona’s cult?
– Tsathoggua: Large, underground, toad-like deity that probably existed for some time in the underground world of Yoth. Some have associated it with sloth and gluttony. Since it doesn’t move, it demands that its cultists bring tribute and sacrifice to where it lies. Maybe Talona has been interfering with his cult or the spread of her pestilence has contaminated some of his formless spawn and rendered them useless. Enraged by this, he might take a personal hand in the matter.
Hope these help a bit!
Honestly, one of the reasons Hastur is my favorite Great Old One is because he’s so vague. The only reference to Hastur in Lovecraft’s works is in passing. Robert E Howard and Robert W. Chambers expanded on him a little, but the original stories by Ambrose Bierce only really tells us he’s from Carcosa and knows the name Hali. (He’s more benevolent in “Haïta the Shepherd”, if you can believe that.)
He was attached to the King in Yellow and the Yellow Sign later by Chambers in his King In Yellow collection, but again, only in passing. They don’t specify the connect, the roleplaying games and such made up that the King in Yellow (There character, because there a character, play, book, short story, collection of other short stories including the short story, and at least three RPG books.) is an avatar of Hastur. Basically my point is all of these stories could be “canon” to Hastur:
~A story where a meteor is falling towards the earth, and on it is Hastur. As the Meteor gets closer and closer, the inhabitants of earth all start going crazy and reality starts warping to Hastur’s preference, so when he arrives it’s a suitable climate for him to exist on earth. So as the game progresses a bunch of weird monsters gain power and start destroying everything, people start forming mobs and eventually cults to tear down everything, and eventually the laws of reality completely change. Then the Meteor hits and everyone has to fight Hastur because why not?
~Hastur is a spiritual guardian of the players’ homeland, and Carcosa is the name of the land/tribe that Hastur protected. Since the modern society is so decadent and and probably trampled over Hastur’s people to to get there, he waits and strikes vengeance upon the descendances of the people who committed such acts. Not by just straight up killing them, that’s Bokrug’s MO. But by slowing replacing them with doppelgangers, or by taking over the minds of the descendants, until eventually the entire society is replaced with Hastur’s people from long ago. Basically Invasion of the Body Snatchers but with Hastur.
~People have been falling into coma’s with alarming frequency. After some investigation with no avail, everyone who was catatonic eventually wakes back up and starts telling everyone they talk to about this fabulous city, one where wonders never cease and space, work, and freedom is plentiful. Then everyone, including the players, begins to dream of this city, a city, with a benevolent King in Yellow, called Carcosa. It turns out Carcosa was a city in the Dreamlands, and it was destroyed a long time by a Dhole or something. But, the King survived, and is looking for a suitable place for Carcosa to be resurrected. Things get frighteningly real when a mysterious stranger arrives in town, preaching the glory of the god Hastur…
You get my point. Thanks for letting me gush about my fav GOO.
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