Why the fuck would anyone worship a cosmic horror? Yeah, i know

>>48907065
Hysteria and other mental issues do away with most rationality.
Humans are pack animals, and it is a subconscious drive to follow that which is greater than oneself. They believe in these immensely powerful "deities" and thus revere them, especially given the fact that these monsters actually interact with them on a small yet horrifying level.

If he's gonna destroy everything anyways, might as well give it a shot to do his bidding. Even if he does, at least you tried.

>>48907065
>Why the fuck would anyone worship a cosmic horror?
I haven't got a clue. You tell me.

>Yeah, i know they're driven mad by dreams
Ok...

>how could a Cthulu cult exist if Cthulu is just gonna destroy everything when he arrives?
Cthulhu got run over by a boat. A boat. He is one pathetic being.

>>48907188
>Cthulhu got run over by a boat. A boat. He is one pathetic being.
nah he just went back to sleep cuz the stars weren't right

>>48907065
It's the one chance someone has to learn The Truth before they die.

>>48907198
>nah he just went back to sleep cuz the stars weren't right
That is his excuse, indeed.

>>48907188
Some assholes awoke him before the stars were right, he pokes his head out, a boat phases through him, and he's all "nah fuck it i'm goin back to bed". He wasn't seriously injured by it, merely annoyed.

Cthulhu is still one of the weaker entities in lovecraft

>>48907210
>It's the one chance someone has to learn The Truth before they die.
The truth about what?

>>48907188
Yeah, most people forget the difference between Old Gods and Elder Gods in the mythos.
One is tangible and mostly powerful through psychic bullshit, the other group actually are semi-tangible manifestations of sentient concepts.
Most people think their all invincible, when in reality only one group is.

Religion and cults are like game shows.

>1. charismatic host
>2. simple answers to complex questions
>3.???
>4. fabulous prizes and/or apocalypse

>>48907065
The "cultist" is just someone who's seen beyond the veil of reality (or thinks they have).

For whatever unfathomable reason, calling forth things from beyond time and space just makes sense. Maybe they think they'll ascend to godhood, or have a special place in the new order of things. Maybe they think the only humane thing to do is grant a painless death to everyone they can, before the stars are right.

Maybe their grounding in the mundane world is so shaken that ending the world is just like pulling the plug on a game console.

>>48907065
Because they know something that you don't.

>>48907065
>Cthulu is just gonna destroy everything when he arrives
Imagine that for a second. Cthulu IS going to destroy everything. He IS. Not 'might' or 'could.' He simply will.

With that in mind, currying favour might help you pass from this world in peace, guarantee you a place of favour in any afterlife or might simply be the actual meaning of your existence.

A: There is no grand scheme of things. B: If there were a grand scheme of things, the fact – the fact – that we are not equipped to perceive it, either by natural or supernatural means, is a nightmarish obscenity. C: The very notion of a grand scheme of things is a nightmarish obscenity.

>>48907230
>Some assholes awoke him before the stars were right, he pokes his head out, a boat phases through him, and he's all "nah fuck it i'm goin back to bed". He wasn't seriously injured by it, merely annoyed.
That actually had me laughing. Heh.

It's because they are fucking insane.

I usually see it paired with "we are all gonna die someday to this thing, why fight it?"

Its the difference between a painful death and a painless one. They believe that all we know is but a fragile bubble that will pop. It is inevitable. Why fight that? Better to accelerate the process for the promise to be first in line for annihilation so one does not have to suffer a drawn out death.

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>>48907065

Basically a human cult is ruled by a "mating pair" of alphas who spend most of their time stopping the other humans from boning and making sure the rest of them are sacrificed to their eldritch gods, and then make the rest of the cult raise any part human, part eldritch god, offspring as their own.

>>48907065
Some of the cults do grant power, or connections to powerful things. The Dunwich Horror, any of the dark occult magic of the Necronomicon, etc.

>>48907065
Who says the ground-level cultists know shit?
And given how the higher-ups of successful cults are in real life, I'd reckon they'd reckon they'd attract the attention of their deity and their blessing, given the arrogance and all.

Either that or the cult leaders don't know shit either, and think that Hastur's gonna spirit them all off to Niburu... I mean Carcosa

What's the deal with Hastur, The King in Yellow?
I haven't brushed up on my knowledge of these things recently, and Hastur is entity I've always felt a pull towards. So what is there to know of the God of Shepherds?
What benefits find themselves in the hands of his thralls?
What negative issues present themselves?

To be eaten first.

>>48907065
They want to put their dick into it.

>>48907065
Most religious eschatologies look pretty disturbing to those who don't buy into the supposed benevolence of the God/gods in question. I'm a Christfag myself, but even I'll admit that Christian eschatology would look pretty damn disturbing from the perspective of someone who wasn't on board with the idea that God is all-loving.

And that's basically where H.P. Lovecraft was at. He was an atheist who believed that if there was a God/gods, they probably wouldn't really be concerned with the well-being of mere mortals in the slightest. Cthulhu cults are basically a negative spin on eschatologically-inclined religion in general.

>>48907230

Yep, it's like when you wake up at 2am and get up to maybe poke around in the fridge, but you step on a d4 on your way there, and just decide fuck it, I'm going back to bed.
Poor Cthulhu just wants a late night snack and some douche jabs him with a boat while he's all groggy.

>>48907400
>The King in Yellow
If you are interested you should read some Chambers, The King in Yellow.

>>48907400
>I haven't brushed up on my knowledge of these things recently, and Hastur is entity I've always felt a pull towards.
Heh, why?

>>48907400
>So what is there to know of the God of Shepherds?
Who calls him that?

>>48907444
Af and Hemah are two Christian angels.
They are five-hundred parasangs in height, and "Forged of chains of black fire and red fire".
Samael, the "Venom of God", is fucking made of eyes and severs the souls of the dead from their bodies.
Christianity is Metal as fuck, Horrifyingly Eldritch, and Damn Awesome.

>>48907065
maybe some people just want it to all burn
maybe they want to try to gain a bit of favor and stay alive

>>48907065
Some folks just want to be on the winning team.

>>48907460
> Heh, why.
I honestly don't know. I just feel an attachment similar to having a favorite character, but I know much less about him compaired to others found in the mythos.

> Who calls him that.
Ambrose Bierce refers to him as a God of Shepherds in "Haita the Shepherd", Written in 1893. I think that was his first mention, actually.

>>48907511

Make Arkham Great Again!

>>48907506
FWIW, those specific examples are from apocrypha and folklore rather than "official" Christianity.

But yes, there is plenty of eldritch and metal shit in Christianity, even if you restrict yourself to official canon.

>>48907566
>I honestly don't know. I just feel an attachment similar to having a favorite character, but I know much less about him compaired to others found in the mythos.
Well, from what I know he is mentioned in "The Whisperer of Darkness" and that is pretty much it, if you are simply looking at Lovecraft.

>>48907566
>Ambrose Bierce refers to him as a God of Shepherds in "Haita the Shepherd", Written in 1893. I think that was his first mention, actually.
You are probably correct. I thought Chambers "King in Yellow" was the first though?

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>>48907065

It's the only way to acquire the most narly of lemons.

>>48907694
> You are probably correct. I thought Chambers "King in Yellow" was the first though?
I'm not sure on this, but I thank you for your input, Friend.
These things really are interesting, aren't they?

>>48907724
>I'm not sure on this, but I thank you for your input, Friend.
>These things really are interesting, aren't they?
They are indeed. Especially when I all of a sudden get confused.
From what I know "The King in Yellow" is a book of short stories written by Chambers. As for Bierce, how is he involved? Did he inspire Chambers? Or is Chambers/(and) Lovecraft writing about the same being mentioned in "Haita the Shepherd", which I have never read?

>>48907065

In HPL there were two possible answers for this questions. Cultists couldn't always be put squarely in one of these categories but I think the cover most of their motivations.

1) Wizards or worse, hungry for power. Your usual /tg/ shit, really. An example could be Wilbur Whatley and his grandpa: they didn't want the world to end, they wanted the powers that Yog-Sothoth and Wilbur's brother could bestow on them.
Actually I think most "power-mad" wizards in HPL aren't that mad. Maybe Robert Suydam was, but who really knows.
Which makes them even more dangerous, doesn't it?

>I dare to say in some cases the pact was perfectly rational while not that attractive to nomale human beings: see Innsmouth's denizens.

2) Case 2. The orgiastic rites in Louisiana in Call of Cthulhu.
Those guys did it because, well, because YOLO. If you're mad enough to care about only orgies and violence, why not worship the guy who'll get you in the final and best party?
In the meantime you get to have not-too-shabby parties and maybe some friends with magic.

>actually, sociopathy aside, it does sound a little too much rational, doesn't it?

>>48907814
Upon looking somewhat further into this, it does indeed appear the Bierce wrote of it first.
However, it is entirely possible that it was merely as a passing name to pray to, so there was not much in the way of description. However, the Mythos covers a great many works so it stands to reason that the name was built upon throughout the years.

>>48907814

>not having the Encyclopedia Cthulhiana to take your basic informations from

Really anon, do you even unspeakable library of forbidden lore?

>In Bierce's "Haita the Sheperd", Hastur is the benevolent god of sheperds. Chambers later appropiated Hastur and used the term as both a person and a place in his own stories. Derleth took Haster from Chamber's fiction and referred to it as a Great Old One. The title "Him Who Is Not To Be Named" does appear in Derleth, but the idea of people being destroyed merely for speaking his name appears first in the Deities and Demigods Cyclopedia, and later in Call of Cthulhu [the RPG]."

>>48907065
Why is /pol/ worshiping Kek right now?

>>48907975
These discussions are certainly helping to answer my initial questions. You guys sure are great.

>>48908019

No prob.

I find interesting how those guys copied things like that from each other without much ado. If I took the Seven from GRRM, hell, even in a fantasy RPG campaign the players would be pissed off.

>actually it's nightime here but I can't fucking sleep. If some anon has questions that can be answered with that book, feel free to ask.

>>48907065
To be eaten first of course!

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>>48907065
That's an Elder Thing not a Cosmic Horror.

Also what about followers of Nyarlathotep, he's pretty fucking groovy. He's humanlike and just in general wants to troll people for shits and giggles.

>>48908054
It's an odd synergistic relationship to be sure.
It's quite amazing, all things considered, that its all worked out to form a single "canon".

"The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom. Meanwhile the cult, by appropriate rites, must keep alive the memory of those ancient ways and shadow forth the prophecy of their return."

Its similar to a Slaaneshi cult. Pain, pleasure, death and freedom all mixing together. This is why only mad men worship the old ones.

Also their is the nihilistic view. Cthulhu's return is inevitable. He will destroy us all. This current reality is a pretty lie we humans tell each other.

Its not so much thinking you will be saved. Its obsessing over how there is no safety so might as well get it over with.

Also I find it rude to call an Elder Thing a cosmic horror. They were Men!

>>48907065
If you know that cosmic horrors exist and that there is nothing that humans can do to stop then you might as well call Yog-Sothoth for some favors

>>48908058
t. Nyarlathotep

>>48907249
Some are victims of true cultists too. Look at the Arkham Horror. Old man Whateley knew full well what was going on but it seemed like Lavinia didn't understand the full scope of her actions.

>>48908004
because it's working

>>48908058
... I miss /ysg/

>>48908058
>>48908151
Yeah, nice try Nyarly we know you shitpost on 4chan.

>>48907239
The truth about the truth.

>>48907240
Doesn't really matter if they're not invincible, compared to them, humans are so insignificant that even the least powerful of the Great Old Ones could lay waste to the entire civilization

>>48908243
True.
The difference, I suppose, is that in the far-future our technology could conceivably oppose one, whereas the other is a truly unreachable existence.

>>48908290
The Eldar Things were able to hold back the Star Spawn through the use of radiation weaponry but were eventually defeated by the Mi'Go. If any race of non-godlike beings could defeat any of the Old Gods it would be them.

>>48907400
He has a tendency to drive acolytes mad, but can actually be invoked to drive off other nasties. The King in Yellow cares for His court.

>>48907646
Ib shall rise again!

>>48908311
Such is the boon granted by the advancement of technology.

>>48908326
Really? Thank you for that information. This does sound like a better deal than most.

>>48908341
#justiceforIb
#fishylivesmatter

>>48907332

The dunwich horror mostly offered albinos and even then the albinos had steal a copy of the necronomicon from miskatonic U to do anything notable.

>>48907724
>>48907694
>>48907566

Beirce's "hastur" was a very different thing from Chamber's King in Yellow - Lovecraft mentioned one and the other, and then darleth or the other guy decided they were the same thing.

Bierce also came up with the place name of "Ancient and Forgotten Carcosa":
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/An_Inhabitant_of_Carcosa

>>48908357
Well, everyone who reads his book dies in terror, so just avoid reading the damnable thing and you should be okay. I'd supplement the Pnakotic Manuscript.

>>48908357
Well, Eldar Things were millions, if not billions of years ahead of the game compared to humans and the Mi'Go are an extra-dimensional being with a multiverse spanning empire.

They still ain't got shit on Yog-Sothoth though

>>48908377
Really? Thank you for this information, friend.

>>48908388
Yog-Sothoth is the composition of every genius and mage in all realities. No one outside of Azathoth has shit on Him.

>>48908388
Greater beings than most have sympathized with Humanity before. We're just big enough to garner pity, but small enough to avoid most attention.
If, and although this is unlikely it is possible, we manage to survive indefinitely then we will advance to such a place.
It is almost assuredly not going to happen, but it is possible nonetheless. It will have had happened in some reality, after all.

>>48907065
Nigga that ain't a cosmic horror, that's an Elder Thing and they're bros for humanity.

>>48908388

Old Ones also had interstellar empire, and there's a still inhabited city of the damn things living the extra-dimensional reimannian space visited in "Dreams From the Witchhouse" (a lovecraft story that lovecraft hadn't really finished, Derleth apparently sent it to be published after Lovecraft sent it to him to read over in a letter, which I only mention because that story also raised the classic question: What does Nyarlethothep need with a baby?) so clearly the old ones also had interdimensional empires going on, and it was mostly just the earth civilisation that died off and lost their tech base over the eons.

>>48907065
The cults exist because the cult's leaders and recruiters lie to the cultists to get them in, and within a few months to years they're too mindfucked or indoctrinated to see anything else.

Look at things like Jonestown and the Heaven's Gate cults; real-life cults that all ended with a nasty bit of mass suicide over the belief that it was for the better. I imagine old god cults would be no different - to them, Cthulhu ending the world would be their Rapture, and they think they'd go to a special heaven for helping bring it about.

Maybe they think this is the last chance to evacuate planet Earth before it's recycled?

I just wanted an excuse to post the song honestly. Listen through to the end - they use a bit of the last recording of the Heaven's Gate cult before they killed themselves. It gives a weird bit of insight to what cults believe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-zPWBu--Q4

>>48908455
I believe the Mi'Go wish to help us ascend to a higher level of existence. Sadly that higher level is putting our brains in jars so we can experience the universe

>>48908466

As much as we humans are bros for hamsters.

>>48908548
Keep us alive for being cute instead of eating us?

>>48908522
Even then there will always be a step higher.
With their help we will skyrocket upwards towards whatever limits there may be.
And then we will seek to grow even greater.

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>>48908522
>Sadly that higher level is putting our brains in jars so we can experience the universe

...and?

>>48908565
and occasionally be shoved up their butts

>>48908585
They have issues with asking first and not replacing people so they can brain-jar more people.

>>48908565

That's what happened.

>It interested us to see in some of the very last and most decadent sculptures a shambling primitive mammal, used sometimes for food and sometimes as an amusing buffoon by the land dwellers, whose vaguely simian and human foreshadowings were unmistakable. In the building of land cities the huge stone blocks of the high towers were generally lifted by vast-winged pterodactyls of a species heretofore unknown to palaeontology.

(At The Mountains of Madness)

Well, no, they ate us too. Such is life!

>>48907703
Is that fruit-cancer?

>>48907065
probably just to make it stop

>>48908672
It explicitly says they ate a non-sentient predecessor to humanity.

You know who also eats primitive shambling foreshadowings of humanity? Mankind.

>>48908751
It's HPL. Probably anyone before Egypt looked "simian" enough.

>>48908497
Nyarly + Baby= Several Years of love and tender care as a father/mother till eventually the child understands the concepts of death and betrayal. You can guess what happens next.

>>48908819
... Gentle comforting?

>>48908819

So Usagi Drop was really about one of Nyarlathothep's masks raising a child?


>>48908689

No, literally a breed of lemons known as "Buddha's Hand" - they're a less widely cultivated type of lemon and so are being waifu'd heavily by hipster gourmands atm.

>>48909089
Everything is about Nyarlathotep if you try hard enough.

>>48909231
Even the Friend Zone?

>>48909286

He invented it, and then banged your mom in it.

>>48909286
>implying Nyarly doesn't assume a Mask as a hot chick or dude and friendzone people for fun

>>48909365
This... this makes me question the nature of my existence.
Was it after my birth? Is there a darkness beyond mortal kin and ken that resounds throughout the deepest bones of my soul?
Was I conceived through Cosmic Cucking?

>>48909393
Good, good. Embrace the despair of cuckery.

>>48909459
It's in my blood!? WHAT THE FUCK AM I!?

>>48909488
You are part of the Million Favoured Ones, you are like your old man. A total fucking douchebag.

>>48909542
I see. So m-my destiny is... something like this?
https://youtu.be/w0BxBsfzuJE

>>48908522

Nah, I'm pretty sure the putting our brains in jars so that we slowly go mad thing is like a psychic lava lamp. They sell 'em at Mi-go novelty shops. Look at the interesting patterns the brain makes in the ether as it slowly screams out in terror and loneliness!
Ooooooh!

>>48907065
Some people are easily impressed.

>>48907065
Because he'll kill you first, so you don't have to see everything you love erased.

>>48910142
I can totally buy this.

>>48910142
>tfw we're already in jars but our brains still haven't processed this fact

>>48907065
>Cthulu is just gonna destroy everything when he arrives?

This is a common misconception; Cthulhu will not "destroy the world". Here is a quote from a cult member:

>That cult would never die till the stars came right again, and the secret priests would take great Cthulhu from His tomb to revive His subjects and resume His rule of earth. The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom.

What's described here is not the extermination of humanity, but rather a global revolution in which the delusions of mankind will be swept aside in favor of the glorious truths revealed by Great Cthulhu. Cthulhu will rule the world and his followers will know "ecstasy and freedom". Following Cthulhu thus makes a great deal of sense, because he's going to wake up no matter what we do, so you might as well make the best of it by joining his team and getting in on that "ecstasy and freedom".

>Don't you want to be "free and wild"?
>Don't you want to be "revelling in joy"?
>Don't you want "ecstasy and freedom"?

Then join the Cult of Cthulhu today!

>>48910382
I'll stick with his half-brother, The King in Yellow.

>>48907065
>Why the fuck would anyone worship a cosmic horror?

To die first and cleanly

>>48907444
I was raised hard core catholic (am atheist now) and can confirm that from the outside Christianity looks fucking insane. When compared to stuff like elder god worship though: it almost feels like Christianity, which is a real ass religion, is trying to lie and hide it. More so at least than a fake fictional cult.
Which is saying some stuff.

>>48907065
Confirmed for not reading the stories, in the books it talks about how Cthulu will bring to people the hedonistic destruction that his race celebrate in, and that degenerate humans are drawn to it

>>48911620

Though taken into its logical conclusion with the inevitability of the Old One apocalypse that would mean the revelling proles were right all along, and the civilized New England gentlemen the ones deluded.

>>48911810
Yeah, honestly the story is good but it's really easy to see Lovecraft's bias in it, and he wasn't really able to craft an ambiguous cosmic horror as well as people think he could.

>>48907065
For the same reason that certain sects of Christianity do everything they can to make the world align with the biblical conditions for the apocalypse. Sometimes people believe weird shit.

In a game we tried to stop a generic cosmic horror deity, and ended up sealing it away with an offered sacrifice. It ended up having the reverse desired effect though because giving a person to it, sort of gave it a taste of mortals and physical reality, and forced an identity and personality onto it.

So it went from formless nighmare cosmic horror poised to just consume and destroy the world, to having motivations and interests towards the world and designs, which actually were fairly attractive to some people. So while the followers before were just mad cultists, the following greatly increased when the deity became partial and even friendly or favored towards followers and promised not even that terrible of an outcome for the world.

>>48907065
Same reason some people actively seek to get infected by stds: degeneracy

>>48908054
Please stop using greentext until you know how it works. Other than that, good help anon.

>>48908819
>Nyar occasionally replaces people's parents
>Raises them to be mostly normal, but with crippling inadequacy and neurosis that they will never shake for their entire life
>watches them and laughs
>this happened to you

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>>48907065
Think about all the doomsday cults that actually exist- there's no shortage of people with a death wish out there. Now half the time these members are people who actually got manipulated or coerced into the whole deathwish part. You come for community and salvation, stay when the cult leader puts a gun to your back and tells you to recite the Necronomicon passage. Or you just get slowly introduced to the insane Lovecraft stuff one step at a time so you never quite realize just how far down the rabbit hole you've actually wound up by the time you're actually worshiping an Elder God.

Point is, most people are seldom crazy when they first join a cult- it's usually more a mix of desperation or naive gullibility that the ringleaders are keen to take advantage of.

Unless you're one of those damn dirty foreigners in Red Hook, in which case it's because you're an evil mongrel and that's what your kind does.

>>48907065
>Why would addicts use drugs when they know it will destroy their body, live and possibly their family?
They peeked beyond the veil of reality once, there is no going back until they see the whole truth.