What do GOOs want?

[Cheesegear]

Imagine realizing a dangerous false assumption. The source is not inanimate. It is conscious and noticed you.
(The cool patch starts to move. It starts to chase the blind lizard.)

This is what my player and I have basically come up with.

For backstory reasons, he needed power. Fortuitously, he found that power.
As he levels up, he continuously takes more and more power, whilst simultaneously gaining more and more knowledge. What's the harm?

On the other side of the fabric of reality...
A monstrous, colossal, stellar sized Being has been stung. Ow. That hurt. Whatever. It was only a small sting, and the Being can't find what did it.

...A few adventures later...

Whatever is stinging the Being had better cut that **** out.

[OldTrees1]

This is what my player and I have basically come up with.

For backstory reasons, he needed power. Fortuitously, he found that power.
As he levels up, he continuously takes more and more power, whilst simultaneously gaining more and more knowledge. What's the harm?

On the other side of the fabric of reality...
A monstrous, colossal, stellar sized Being has been stung. Ow. That hurt. Whatever. It was only a small sting, and the Being can't find what did it.

...A few adventures later...

Whatever is stinging the Being had better cut that **** out.

Sounds like you have an answer. Something the Warlock is doing is annoying the GOO. The GOO wants it to stop it. But it has to find the Warlock is the source first. Although that does restrict your options since it has the GOO want the warlock to stop.

An alternative:

For backstory reasons, he needed power. Fortuitously, he found a wellspring of knowledge.
As he levels up, he studies the knowledge and becomes more adept at using it. What's the harm?

One day he feels a presence. Something is watching him but there is no signs of any bandits hiding nearby nor any scrying sensors. Bit by bit it dawns upon him that the knowledge in his mind itself is the source of this "someone is watching me" presence.

As time goes on the Warlock notices an increasing number of stray thoughts in their mind that are not their own. Things like a sudden urge to stand up or a wave of sleepiness in the middle of the day. You can use this to help the Warlock better understand the ineffable presence that is partially sharing the Warlock's mind.

On the other side of the fabric of reality...
A monstrous, colossal, stellar sized feels itself being stretched / extended. Huh. Whatever. Wait it keeps happening? What is causing it. Oh that creature is causing it. That warlock is carrying part of my <mistranslated to left arm> around in their mind. How do I feel about that?

So if a concept was aware, how would it feel about being in people's heads. Would it want to spread? Would it fear mistranslation / misrepresentation.

[TigerT20]

I've been rereading the Discworld series and the early stuff is actually surprisingly inspirational for DnD stuff.

If you've read it you can guess where I'm heading with this: The Things from the Dungeon Dimensions.

In some ways they're more similar to 5e's demons, but they could still be used for your GOOs.
They lie in the cold, silvery desert world that lies a shadow's thickness away. They cluster in the dark around the candle of life, hungry, wanting. They feed off magic and desire to take life and shape, break into worlds with magic and consume it all. They use people like Simon or Trymon to attempt to enter the world - these are your warlocks.

Reflavour it a bit to match 5e's current lore - rather than them seeking out powerful mages, those seeking power or knowledge stumble across them and find themselves siphoning magic off them. They think they've gotten off scot-free. But inside their head, waiting... They might occasionally forget how to walk, or think their arms are tentacles. However it manifests, as they use magic more and become more powerful, the Things feed off them more. One day they may wake up and not be themselves at all, but Something Else.

Edit: Sort of like a sentient tree, giving people apples then absorbing their nutrients when they die, or an investment - the Things give you magic, and gradually take it all back and more. You think you're siphoning it off Them; but they are siphoning it off you

[Bohandas]

I recently killed a PC (eat it, nerd). The player now wants to roll a Great Old One Warlock. Fair enough.
My Cthulu mythos knowledge is basically non-existant.

What is it, exactly, that GOOs want out of their Warlocks?
What exactly can I make up, to make the adventure, well, personal?

In the mythos a lot of the Great Old Ones had been bound or cursed or imprisoned after a war with another race of gods or aliens, and the primary thing they sought was freedom from these fetters. Other than that they were generally apathetic to the affairs and fates of mortals, although they did accept sacrifices.

[Segev]

This is what my player and I have basically come up with.

For backstory reasons, he needed power. Fortuitously, he found that power.
As he levels up, he continuously takes more and more power, whilst simultaneously gaining more and more knowledge. What's the harm?

On the other side of the fabric of reality...
A monstrous, colossal, stellar sized Being has been stung. Ow. That hurt. Whatever. It was only a small sting, and the Being can't find what did it.

...A few adventures later...

Whatever is stinging the Being had better cut that **** out.

So this one is less a "Patron" and more a "victim." Though "victim" is a strong word for a guy being annoyed by a mosquito or a horsefly.

Still, I can make a likening to a situation I had last night.

I was in bed, and I heard this droning buzz. It was not a fly; something bigger. I didn't know if it was a stinging/biting insect or not, and the way it was flying and thumping into things, I didn't want it thumping into my headboard and landing on me. Especially since I know I snore, and the mental image of it landing in my mouth was quite...disturbing.

So, I got up and turned on my lights.

The buzzing stopped and I could only localize it to a region of my room.

To me, this is annoying and a little nerve-wracking, because bugs move in ways that I can't move fast enough to react to, so they tend to startle. I'm in a "shoot the thing" minigame without a useful projectile.

To it, I'm sure, the lights coming on were that sense of being watched. There's this...this THING in the room with it. Bigger, more powerful, and its only defense is the fact that it's hard to see. And it can't ... do much ... without giving its position away. At which point it's relying on its inconsequential nature but unpredictable (to the Other Thing) patterns of behavior to survive.


Now, this doesn't convey the Patron aspect; I'm not giving the bug superpowers and it's not taking any from me. But the WAY this Warlock is drawing power from his "Patron" - by annoying it and perhaps making the Patron uncomfortable or worried about what the bug/Warlock might do...not with the powers stolen, but just in the process of bumbling around in the Great Old One's hyperspace - seems like a good way to visualize it.

Like the bug in my room, until the lights come on, there's probably not even a hint to the Warlock that the Great Old One is more than part of the scenery. Is aware of or interested in him. When the lights come on, that's when he learns there's an intelligent entity out there that is...looking for him. For some reason.

[KorvinStarmast]

I tend to see the Great Old ones as the Xel Naga of the Starcraft Universe who went mad and became cosmic ...

Great Old Ones don't want things that are comprehensible to mortals.

The powers the warlock receives from his "patron" are expressions of an alien madness too large and strange to fit in a mortal mind. Trying to interpret them as wants will eventually drive the warlock mad.

(ie. you can give them contradictory and strange suggestions about what their patron wants based on their interpretations of dreams and visions they get)

This is good.

It looks like some warlocks just steal power from the GOO but the GOO are to powerful to notice. {snip} The warlock can live in fear the the GOO will notice him.

This.

Great Old Ones want:

• Their warlocks to call and visit more often.
• Their warlocks to come show them how to set up their new magic item (especially spell routers).
• Their warlocks to recruit another generation of warlocks.
• Their warlocks to listen to their stories of earlier days (again and again and...).
• Their warlocks to listen to their stories of their health problems (retirement beyond space & time isn't easy).

*snort* My mother in law is a GOO. Yeah, so where is my warlock power, right?

They want every third pebble on every road in the world to be turned the other way.

And it makes perfect sense as soon as you understand the significance of the number 23.

If you stare into the abyss long enough, the abyss stares back, and now it wants to see more. It will use your eyes, and if you're very lucky, it will allow you to keep them in your head.

Also excellent GOOness.

What a GOO wants
What GOO needs
Is to enslave all of humanity
And I'm thanking you for giving exactly..
(repeat)

That's MGOO: Möbius Great Old One (also called Mr McGoo by careless Warlocks ...)

[SociopathFriend]

I remember a game called Eternal Darkness that featured 3 beings that were kind of Greater Old Ones.

One embraced madness and knowledge (Mind)
One embraced distorting time and space (Sorcery)
One embraced raw destructive force (Strength)

Sorcery < Mind < Strength < Sorcery in a triangle.

How is this relevant? Simple- perhaps the GOO doesn't actually care about the Warlock at all. They're just giving them power due to some higher-dimension shenanigans. Perhaps the Warlock is just a butterfly effect that centuries down the road prompts a given rock to be kicked aside to break the heel of someone that might someday prove a threat to the GOO and stop them from ever setting off in a journey.

Perhaps the GOO needs to have a greater presence on the world in order to interfere in it further and the Warlock is just the first stepping stone of many. It starts with the Warlock and the stronger the Warlock grows the more influence the GOO can exert on the world.

Maybe another GOO is creating a champion specifically to take on the one the Warlock serves and so it reached out to the Warlock to get them started on their own path to becoming a viable champion they can call upon.

GOOs pretty much by definition are required to have goals that are difficult for the mortal mind to figure out. It's ripe with potential but little example. In general however anything you can envision a God giving a Cleric power for works just as well for Patrons.

[Segev]

*snort* My mother in law is a GOO. Yeah, so where is my warlock power, right?

You know, I'd be sorely tempted to make a pact with an otherworldly creature for the power of falling in love with and wooing a wonderful woman. So maybe you're closer than you think.

Falling in love is hard.

[Addaran]

I remember a game called Eternal Darkness that featured 3 beings that were kind of Greater Old Ones.

That game is one of my favorite game ever. It was on gamecube. It's really influenced by lovecraft so they really are GOOs.

There's also a 4th one, and if you finish the game 3 times, having the bad guy be a different GOO each time, then

Spoiler

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you learn that the 4th one, that get imprisonned by the bad guy actually planned everything all along. He manipulated some of the characters, including the main one into killing his rivals in different timelines. So the 3 end up dead and he's slowly rotting away and dying all alone in his prison. Brilliant ending.

[nickl_2000]

What a GOO wants
What GOO needs
Is to enslave all of humanity
And I'm thanking you for giving exactly..
(repeat)

I came here to say this exact thing after trying to resist for days!

[BloodBrandy]

Why is Ctherine so THICC?

Also, this would make a great character for the next Cathrine game.

It's the Doritos and Ryleh Dew

[iTreeby]

Imagine the great old ones have many great and terrible powers that they used just after the dawn of time. They won glorious victory and banished or destroyed most of their brethren, but now they are the biggest fish in the sea, nothing really threatens them. They know that one day they may have to fight their siblings (if they picked the right direction to return) and the wounds they sustained in the fighting will be a long time healing. Suppose they wanted to find novel ways of using their capabilities. Why not give a sliver of power that can be reclaimed later in order to learn more efficient means of utilization? Thus a warlock is gifted power, and observed.

[Joe the Rat]

I know the OP has his solution, but since we're on the subject, I'd share my two favorite GOObers.

The Cold Ones, from the WoD fan-product Genius: the Transgression. What do they want? In. They want Matter. Order. And that delicious Heat.

Spoiler

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The Cold Ones are what sits at the current end of time. At the Heat Death of the Universe, all that remains amongst the ashes of stars and protons are Intelligences, the final remn as nts of humanity, worked into the fabric of reality to endure eternally... but now there is nothing left. But they remember, and thry hunger for true existence. All it may take is for one errant time traveler to show them the way back...

The other is, of course, Jolene.
https://m.imgur.com/gallery/4jv7NOz

[J-H]

Anything suitably odd or mysterious.

1 To keep track of the mortal world whilst sleeping and awaiting their time
2 Entertainment via re-living the highlights of the day in the warlock's dreams every night. When traveling in deep space for untold eons, the scenery gets old after a while.
3 To entice creation of a cult that will eventually discover/re-discover/create the ritual to allow it to manifest on this plane and devour all life. The stars won't be aligned for this for another 4d100 years, but it's laying the groundwork.
4 Trying to find good material to restart its breeding program after Innsmouth was destroyed
5 To counteract agents of its ancient foes (shoggoths or druids or whatnot)
6 Because it's Tuesday and your character's DNA smells good.
7 It gets more power in the game of snergal by manifesting xing on the Material Plane to counterbalance its pilplod. (intentionally incomprehensible)
8 Because someone needs to look out for the poor gauths, nothics, and other aberrations.
9 It's not a GOO; it's actually a super-high level Elder Aboleth dwelling in the deep dark ocean. But what's the difference between friends, anyway?
10 Pesky cultists keep bothering it in its sleep. Make them go away. Maybe giving power to someone totally unrelated and then having him kill the cultists will help make them stop.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

9 It's not a GOO; it's actually a super-high level Elder Aboleth dwelling in the deep dark ocean. But what's the difference between friends, anyway?

Aboleths are originally from the Far Realm so, one could theoretically be a GOO.

[Cheesegear]

To it, I'm sure, the lights coming on were that sense of being watched. There's this...this THING in the room with it. Bigger, more powerful, and its only defense is the fact that it's hard to see. And it can't ... do much ... without giving its position away. At which point it's relying on its inconsequential nature but unpredictable (to the Other Thing) patterns of behavior to survive.

Now, this doesn't convey the Patron aspect; I'm not giving the bug superpowers and it's not taking any from me. But the WAY this Warlock is drawing power from his "Patron" - by annoying it and perhaps making the Patron uncomfortable or worried about what the bug/Warlock might do...not with the powers stolen, but just in the process of bumbling around in the Great Old One's hyperspace - seems like a good way to visualize it.

This. As an Australian, I have, at any given time, probably half-a-dozen to a dozen spiders in my house.
But, every morning, I wake up, there's cockroach shells, spider ****, and maybe a web where there wasn't one before.

Can I find the spiders? Probably not without moving all my furniture and taking everything off the walls. It's just not worth the hassle. Where are they? No idea, and I couldn't be bothered to find out. But I do know that they're there. There's evidence.

Couple of things:
Are any of the spiders dangerous? I don't know. But I do know, that if I go poking my fingers where they don't belong, or I put my hand in the wrong place underneath the wrong piece of furniture, I could get bitten. I know the spiders are in my house. I just don't know what kind of spider they are, or where they are, and I'm almost afraid to find out... Almost.

But, one day, I'll get up in the night to take a piss, and turn on the light.
Spider on my wall. Eating whatever it's just caught. It can't run away without leaving its food. So it just freezes.

Oh? It's only a Huntsman. You can live. I like you. You're cleaning my house of all the other spiders and bugs. Because I like you so much, I will relocate you to where I know a few cockroaches hang out. And because I like you, I also wont capture you and feed you to birds in the morning.

Oh ****. It's a Redback (Australian Black Widow). You die. Right now. I'm not feeding you to birds in the morning. I'm killing you. Straight up. Right now. And I'm not going back to sleep until I know you're dead.

[Lvl45DM!]

Oh? It's only a Huntsman. You can live. I like you..

Good mate! Huntsmans are spider mates.

I just had a thought after playing Shadows of the Colossus.
Maybe what the GOO wants is to be left alone.
The mighty magics the BBEG are wielding are eroding the walls of my home.
Get them to knock it off, heres some magic, let me go back to sleep.
Ew, theres demons all over my front lawn, seeking the power to rewrite reality. Demons are icky, smite them for me.
Stupid adventurers tearing at the walls of my cell, trying to kill me. Go away im tired, go mind**** them into leaving me alone

[Cheesegear]

The mighty magics the BBEG are wielding are eroding the walls of my home.
Get them to knock it off, heres some magic, let me go back to sleep.
Ew, theres demons all over my front lawn, seeking the power to rewrite reality. Demons are icky, smite them for me.

So what you're saying is...
Get a Huntsman to kill all the other spiders and bugs in your house. A Huntsman isn't dangerous to the GOO (and also doesn't make webs), but he is dangerous to everything else, by virtue of being bigger and faster than everything else. And if you feed that Huntsman all the other spiders and bugs, it will get bigger, it will get faster, and it will get smarter...But it will still be no threat to the GOO.

[Logosloki]

I was once sitting outside on a university campus when a rather bold sparrow slowly made its way near me. Popped right onto the seat beside me and as a reward I held out my hand and with a bit of coaxing it took a few crumbs I left there. I stood up to leave and the poor thing bolted. I lost a few crumbs but got to see something new. brief, and in the moment.

A few years ago I was in a touristy area and there were some ravens running the usual grift of a bird that can think and is in an area where humans are careless. I'd just put some food down and was talking with my friend when they motioned that one of the friendly ravens had taken the opportunity to divest me of my lunch. I turned to look and the raven just stood there stock still. Turned my head just enough to keep an eye on the raven and watched it sidle to my food and grab a bit.

I figure that would be what a Great old one might think if they were taking the least bit of notice of what was happening. Imagine being so old and powerful that another being taking something from you gets bemusement at most. Like you matter so little that the thought of them doing anything to you that might harm you frankly doesn't even cross their mind. That even when you do interact with them that at best you can only offer them crumbs because they are too tiny to even survive anything else.

[JoeJ]

Ever since Out of the Abyss, I've thought demon princes portrayed the way they are in that book make fantastic GOOs. They've got the insanity aura, the massive senseless destruction, and the threat to reality they pose simply by existing. So I decided that goolocks get their power from demons, while fiendlocks get it from devils.