Elder Thing

The Elder Things (also known as the Old OnesThe term "Old Ones" is ambiguous in the Cthulhu Mythos and can also refer to the Great Old Ones, a separate group of beings described as being enemies of the Elder Things in At the Mountains of Madness. and Elder OnesIn 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.) are a fictional alien species created by H. P. Lovecraft, which make their first appearance in the 1936 novel At the Mountains of Madness. Additional references to the Old Ones appear in Lovecraft's short stories The Dreams in the Witch-House and The Shadow Out of Time.
==Overview==
The Elder Things were the first alien species to come to the Earth, colonizing the planet about one billion years ago.Harms, "Appendix D: Timeline of the Cthulhu Mythos", The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana, p. 384. They stood roughly six feet tall and had the appearance of a huge, oval-shaped barrel with starfish-like appendages at both ends. The top appendage was a head adorned with five eyes, five eating tubes, and a set of prismatic 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, retractable wings, which were used both for atmospheric flight and for sailing through the "ether" of empty space. They had five sets of tentacles that sprouted from their torsos, which divided twice into finer tentacles that could be used for swimming and manipulating objects. Both their tentacles and the slits housing their folded wings were spaced at regular intervals about their bodies.
The Elder Things were vegetable-like in shape, having radial symmetry instead of the bilateral symmetry of bipeds. They also differed in that they had a five-lobed brain. The Elder Things exhibited vegetable as well as animal characteristics, and in terms of reproduction, multiplied using spores, although they discouraged increasing their numbers except when colonizing new regions. Though they could make use of both organic and inorganic substances, the Elder Things were preferably carnivorous. They were also amphibious.
The bodies of the Elder Things were incredibly tough, capable of withstanding the pressures of the deepest ocean and the harsh vacuum of space. Few died except by accident or violence. The beings were also capable of hibernating for vast epochs of time. Nonetheless, unlike other beings of the Mythos, the Elder Things were made of normal, terrestrial matter.
Their blood was thick and green and had a horrible, indescribable stench that was detectable from very far away. Their presence generally caused dogs to become violent and provoked them into attacking them.
==Technology==
The technology that the Elder Things possessed was not described at length other than as being extremely advanced, and At the Mountains of Madness even makes an off-hand mention that they may have had directed-energy weaponry. For the most part they made minimal use of high technology, as their natural resilience and movement abilities made many forms of life-support and transportation unnecessary.
They are also described as having a great command of biological principles and genetic engineering, and are known to have synthesized many lifeforms, including the Shoggoths and the ancestral forms of all native life on Earth. 
Carvings found in the Elder Things' lost city in Antarctica hint that they possessed an understanding of cosmology and physics at least equivalent to that of mankind as of the mid-20th century, and likely much greater.
The Elder things were also mentioned to have had a very advanced agriculture. The murals on the walls described the Elder things as possessing vast vineyards and having domesticated many prehistoric animals as workforce and as pets. Among them was also a primitive primate that looked similar to humans and were kept for entertainment.
Elder Thing architecture mimics their five-pointed symmetry, and was built almost entirely by Shoggoths.
==Society==
Because the Elder Things reproduced through spores, there was little biological basis for families to form, and they would thus live together with others whom they would get along with. Elder Thing "families" lived in large dwellings, where furniture and other decoration was placed in the center of the rooms, to leave the walls open for murals.
In "The Dreams in the Witch-House", the central character is sent through a dimensional portal to a planet in a triple star system (with a yellow, red, and blue star) located "between Hydra and Argo Navis", and populated by Elder Things.
==History==
On Earth, the Elder Things built huge cities, both underwater and on dry land. They may be responsible for the appearance of the first life-forms on Earth, including the entity known as Ubbo-Sathla (although sources differ in this regard). They bio-engineered the dreaded Shoggoths to be their all-purpose slave race, but after several million years the Shoggoths developed sentience and rebelled–an event that hastened the decline and ultimate collapse of their civilization.
They are known to have warred against the Cthulhi, the Great Race of Yith, and the Mi-Go. Despite these conflicts, it was the gradual cooling of the planet during the last ice age that finally spelled their doom. Retreating to their undersea cities deep in the ocean, they would thereafter have no further dealings with the outer world. Their last surface city, located on a high plateau in the Antarctic, remains frozen in ice. The ruins of this city were discovered in 1931 by two members of an Antarctic expedition from Miskatonic University.
Populations of Elder Things continued to thrive on other planets, most notably those encountered by the protagonist of The Dreams in the Witch House.
==In Other Media== 
*The Elder Things (as Old Ones) were one of the species detailed in Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials. In it, Wayne Barlowe retcons that the Elder Things' wings, instead of propelling them through the aether (a concept that had been discredited since Lovecraft's time), were foils that utilized solar wind, essentially transforming them into solar sails. The appearance of them in the Guide was later used in the supplemental materials that came with the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society's 1930's-radio style production At the Mountains of Madness.
*The story "To Mars and Providence" from War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches equated the Elder Things with the Martians from The War of the Worlds.
*In the novelette A Colder War, by Charles Stross, the technology of the Elder Things (who are referred to by the CIA as "Predecessors") is central to the plot, and Stephen Jay Gould examines the remains of one. In Stross's novel The Atrocity Archives, it is implied that mutated and devolved descendants of the Elder Things, now little more than starfishes, inhabit the coast of England, off of Dunwich. It is also mentioned that one of the bases of the British Antarctic Survey is located over an Elder Thing city and is secretly involved in exploring it.
*The Elder Things are referenced but do not appear in Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth.
*The Elder Things are featured in the Doctor Who novel The Taking of Planet 5 by Simon Bucher-Jones and Mark Clapham. The story is set in a fictional city that is explicitly based on At the Mountains of Madness.
*An Elder Thing, along with a Mi-Go and a Cthulhu cult, appear in the "What Ho, Gods of the Abyss?" section of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier. In it, Bertie Wooster's Aunt Dahlia is possessed by the cult, but are saved by Thomas Carnacki and the other members of the League.
*In the first edition of the Dungeons & Dragons game, the original version of the Deities & Demigods book presents Elder Things as one of the example monsters of the Cthulhu Mythos, but are given the name "Primordial Ones".
*Hellboy II: The Golden Army, directed by Guillermo del Toro, features the Elder Things making a few cameo appearances in the BPRD headquarters and in the Troll Market. Also, in a possible reference to At the Mountains of Madness, a major character from the previous film (Myers) is mentioned to have been transferred to Antarctica.
*The video game Conarium is a sequel to Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness and thoroughly depicts Elder Things.
*In the Uchi no Meido ha Futeikei light novel series, the Elder Things (referred to as the "Great Old Ones") are mentioned during Tekeli's backstory. 
*The mobile game Fate/Grand Order features the character Katsushika Hokusai, who is possessed by Cthulhu. The design for her third Ascension has a starfish motif, as a nod to the Elder Things. 
*The DC Comics supervillain Starro, created by Weird Tales contributor Gardner Fox, was a homage to the Elder Things.
*The Quintessons from the Transformers franchise appear to be heavily inspired by the Elder Things.
* In the comic Providence by Alan Moore, Khalid ibn Wazid, the historical basis for Abdul Alhazred, was transported in a dream to a planet inhabited by the Elder Things: "Here there were men made in a foreign way, so that they did not seem like men at all, but more like unto things that grow on stones beneath the ocean, although monstrous big and with a great air of intelligence and purpose, and their heads were stars." The "star-headed men" instruct Khalid in interplanetary communication, philosophy, alchemy, healing methods, and the Aklo language, from which Khalid writes Khalid's Book of the Wisdom of the Stars, the basis for the Necronomicon.
==Gallery==
==References==
Category:Species Originating From Lovecraft Circle Works
Category:Sapient Species
Category:Extraterrestrial Species