Alternate Great Old One Patrons

[Turtlemancer]

Why oh why did they have to put Great Old One in the CORE BOOKS as a Warlock Patron I get that Lovecraft is popular but that sort of stuff has far reaching world bending LORE KILLING consequences for any D&D world you put them in. In short it screws over world builders in the worst way possible. Want to make a fun light Hearted world, Too bad its in the PHB so know you have to run Lovecraftien horror! Every Warlock wants to take Great Old one too! Seriously?

Anyways onto the topic I have to home-brew something to take its place mechanically that isn't still just another great freaking old one. Any Ideas? I have considered a Really powerful Mind-Flyer but that feels a bit to spot on. Maybe the Giant centuries old brain of a Mad Wizard?

[Amechra]

Actually, all of the default settings have some kind of Lovecraftian entity in there somewhere.

Greyhawk has Tharizdun.
Forgotten Realms has a couple (Dendar the Night Serpent and Kezef the Chaos Hound being my two favorites).
Eberron has the Lords of Dust (or some of the more powerful Quori, if you prefer).
Generic 3.x had Thoon (THOON IS THOON, AND THOON IS ALL!), as well as the Elder Evils sourcebook.

That being said, you can straight up tell people no (heck, just a simple "hey, I want this to be a light-hearted game - let's come up with a source for these powers that fits that" would work just as well).

If you don't feel like it... just replace it with something like The Inner Madness or the like. It doesn't even require any rules changes.

[Ninja_Prawn]

Yeah, I'm with Amechra. All the core settings have Elder Evils. I mean, aboleths and illithids are iconic D&D monsters and they run off the same themes. Okay, they're kind of ghettoised, but then, so is a warlock patron. The patron doesn't have to appear in the game in person. They could be an abstract and disinterested power source (that approach suits GOOs better than fiends or fey anyway).

I actually had a quick look around for named Elder Evils in the D&D canon, and I found 13 (5 of which are just really powerful aboleths):

Atropus, the World Born Dead
Bolothamogg, Him who Watches from Beyond the Stars
Dendar, the Night Serpent
Haask, Voice of Hargut
Holashner, the Hunger Below
Ityak-Ortheel, the Elf-Eater
Kezef, the Chaos Hound
Pandorym
Piscaethces, the Blood Queen
Shothotugg, the Eater of Worlds
Shothragot
Y'chak, the Violet Flame
Zargon, the Returner

...So they could form a starting point for your homebrew.

[CantigThimble]

Just because Great Old Ones exist doesn't mean they have ultimate cosmic power or are actively trying to destroy the world. They may very well have been shoved into a corner by the deities of the material plane and all that's left of them are the rare tomes of lore or other artifacts that warlocks use to tap into their power. Warlocks aren't like clerics, they don't need to have a friendly relationship with their patron to keep getting power, the power just exists and they can take it and use it however they like.

That being said there's really nothing stopping you from replacing Cuthulu with Squiddykins, Supreme Mindflayer God of BRAAAAAAINS.

[Turtlemancer]

I was talking mostly about DM created worlds.

I gave my guy two options.

Tazzar, The Giant disembodied brain of a centuries old mad wizard.

Sull, The Slumbering Moon, A sun eating space creature placed into an eternal slumber by the gods.

Tazzar is Chaotic Neutral, Sull True Neutral. Just Lovecraftien enough but not enough of an issue to screw with my worlds lore. Though Sull is a new addition, but it was such a cool idea I would have used it anyways.

[CantigThimble]

I was talking mostly about DM created worlds.

I gave my guy two options.

Tazzar, The Giant disembodied brain of a centuries old mad wizard.

Sull, The Slumbering Moon, A sun eating space creature placed into an eternal slumber by the gods.

Tazzar is Chaotic Neutral, Sull True Neutral. Just Lovecraftien enough but not enough of an issue to screw with my worlds lore. Though Sull is a new addition, but it was such a cool idea I would have used it anyways.

So why exactly do you have a problem with Great Old Ones in your campaign setting? I'm confused about the purpose of this thread.

Edit: Just to be clear I know you're asking for ways to implement Great Old Ones so that they don't disrupt your campaign setting, but I don't understand how or why they are disrupting it so I don't know how to come up with a solution.

[Turtlemancer]

That was my solution though the idea was to find monsters that may work better.