How Many Great Old Ones is Too Many

>>55050142
Make it one old one awakening another, and not four unless it's important

You can make as many as you want so long they dont appear at all. Eldritch horror work best the less you show them. Make their presence felt, but not seen or touched.

>>55050194
The idea was that something the populace did from the awakening of a previous one combined with the birth of the god would awaken another brother, like some of the people stricken with plague from the first's awakening would disturb another and fall under its influence trying to find a cure, etc

>>55050239
I'm not going to have them fight them as bosses, they'd stay underground or underwater or wherever. The most I'd have them interact with would be the effects of their awakening, their broods and the fucked up remains of the people under their influence

I'm going to hijack this thread for a bit to ask another question relating to elder things

How would a society that worshiped a Elder god openly work? Asking because a setting a friend and I are working on has a empire where the stat religion worships not!cthulhu or something

>>55050556
Same as normal. Depends on how observant they are. They could just have symbols around, or they could stop to pray every 8 hours.

>>55050556
Some pagan deities from real historical religious traditions were similar to fictional elder god type beings in that they were powerful entities with mysterious motives, capricious moods, and little regard for human life. Look at how real cultures evolved in relation to their belief in such beings.

Regarding daily religious behavior; If they are afraid of the god, maybe they have a tradition of averting their eyes while making sacrifice and use various nicknames and euphemisms to refer to it so as to avoid drawing its attention. The Greeks did this with Hades. They would knock upon the ground so he could hear, call him by some euphemistic title, make the sacrifice and then leave in a hurry, averting their eyes from the ground the whole time.

If the god has an agenda other than merely being worshiped in perpetuity then its followers would probably incorporate that into their religious beliefs. Most people would still have normal daily lives they would carry on with, but there would be religious orders devoted to "immanentizing the eschaton" so to speak, and these could have far reaching influence if backed by a strong government and organized church. What kind of activities such fraternities and paramilitary orders would get up to would depend on the exact nature of the god's agenda.

I think the best way to pull it off is to have everything seem connected. Have a red string run through the story tying things together.
Instead of just another old one, yawn, make it obvious that the appearance and actions of this being are connected to a greater purpose.
Maybe this one elder god is actually just a servant of the real big cheese. Maybe that other one was imprisoned by the same entity.

Have two or three big players and all the other weird shit can be traced back to those actors with some investigation.
Gives your players something to DO instead of ju react to the insane stuff happening.

Only example I can think of pulling this off (somewhat) was blood borne. In the end it turned out that
all the weird shit got put into motion by humans dicking with two elder gods, one of which they ended up killing. And all the events of the game are another elder god tidying up the mess in a predatory manner

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>>55050142
>He thinks there is more than one

Mortals...