Elder Things and Alien Races in Nordland

[b-dog]

I am thinking of adding Elder Things and Alien races to Nordland. I am saying that when the gods created the universe out of chaos some pockets of that chaos remained in remote places of space. There are Elder Gods which care nothing for the universe the gods of men created unless they wake up and get hungry. These Elder Gods have servitors that live in space too but sometimes enter the Dungeon Fantasy planet to feed. They also have created races of monsters that also serve them. Some like Cthulhu live at the bottom of the ocean waiting to be released. Most of the Elder Things were shunted to other dimensions by the gods of men but some are free and their spawn and Elder races lurk in deep isolated dungeons. All Elder Things are terrifying to look at because the minds of men can not handle beings created or spawned by the an Elder Thing because these beings are so alien to the universe created by the gods of men. The Elder Gods try to get released by getting cultists to worship them and granting psionic cult spells but once released the Elder Things will just feast on their cults.

[Polkageist]

DF Monsters has Outsider-esque critters like Spheres of Madness and Ramex and things like that. So enemies that have that theme exist to either use straight away or use as inspiration for more variations on that that. From the bottom-up viewpoint that'll make your job a bit easier. I've used them myself down in the deep scary parts of the dungeon because they're pretty tough customers.

Broader story implications... dang I wish I was more familiar with the Nordland setting because I just picked it up recently in the kickstarter and I haven't yet gotten a chance to actually play with it. There are a few bits of worldbuilding that I did pick up.
Gods and Demons do exist, so along that particular theological good-evil axis stuff is already pretty well laid out and probably not a great place to shoehorn in Elder Things. So I'd suggest putting the Elder Things orthogonal to Gods/Demons, good/evil labelled spells and abilities don't affect them. Aim for inscrutable motivations and play up the weird. Otherwise I think you just get oddly flavored demons.
Consider the opinions that the fae would have on them too, Elves have been around a LONG time, they might have experience from the last time Mr. Tentacle got the munchies. The winterfae could either be for (whee! chaos!) or against (my world, mine!) the Elder Things mucking around.
The various jarls will have an opinion, likely scoped around the notion that some weird/bad things are happening (kidnappings, cults, monsters) and that someone should do something about it like prayers for intercession or adventurer's going out to deal with the problem.

Maybe a few question prompts to help clarify things?
- From the perspective of the game's present-day and PC's, are they just waking up now, or have they been awake and causing problems for a while?
- What are the God/Demon's opinions and do they have any care to intervene? The mortals will most likely appeal to them, so what's their answer?
- Are the Elder Things always explicitly evil? What would a cultists motivations to join be?
- They need to 'feed' periodically, so how often is that and what happens if they don't? If they do eat their fill? Is it that they want to break in to the universe in the same way that a glutton wants to break into Golden Corral?
- What does the world need to be doing to maintain the status quo? Close out the Elder Things for good?
- Where is the locus for their invasion? How big is it? Does it disrupt the world around it enough to make it a no-go zone, or is it very subtle?

[DouglasCole]

Elder Things have been part of the Nordlond Setting almost from its conception as a Dungeon Fantasy RPG product. While not much has been done with them to date, the cosmology is pretty much as you described.

In the beginning, the beings that would come to be known as the Aesir wrapped power around a segment of the infinite void. That power is Yggdrassil, the World Tree, and contains all that is within the universe.

Some other 'outsiders' joined in that creation for their own safety and production from other elder things, and in doing so, limited themselves to the rules that exist within Yggdrasil. These include the demons and the faerie. And the Jotunn.

The dragons were part of the creation, but learned how to become equal in power to the Aesir, killed and conquered the Big Dog giants, and took their place in Jotunheim.

Some things in the history of the world caused some gaps in the protection of Yggdrasil from the Outsiders, and Elder Things can enter. There are several large ones both on land and under the seas to the north and east of Nordlond, in the Dragongrounds, even beyond Rosgarth Castle in the lands called The Broken Coast. The humans call them devilrifts.

They offer power, corruption, and temptation, and mostly want to rip Yggdrasil apart so they can get at the chewy center - the Aesir, Elder Dragons, any remaining giants, and Archfaerie. Humans and the minor creations that were born of Yggdrasil are ... appetizers? Useful idiots? A small step in the way of the larger goal?

Anyway, that's the role that the Elder Things play in the setting how I conceived it.

[b-dog]

Cool I like the whole cold blooded alien monsters in Dungeon Fantasy. In my games I would never have them for into good vs evil or bunny vs squid dynamics, the only relationship I would think that would fit for my adventures would be predator vs prey. Anyway hopefully Elder Things can make an appearance in future modules. Tentacled extradimensional alien monsters are cool.