In the Cthulhu Mythos the Old Gods have been around since the beginning of the creation of our planet, but just how old are they exactly? I've seen in videos about them that some are as old as 6 million years old but I haven't managed to tack down a solid answer.
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3Do we know for certain how old Lovecraft thought the Earth was? I don't know that the modern accepted figure of 4.5-4.6 billion years was "true" in the 1920s.– Zeiss IkonMar 17, 2020 at 14:39
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1Our planet is the planet Earth. The current age of the Earth accepted by scientists a lifetime after Lovecraft originally wrote, is about 4,540,000,000 years, plus or minus about 4,000,000 years. That is about 756.6666 times as old as 6 million years, though of course people thought the Earth was much younger when Lovecraft wrote. Anyway, I don't know if there is any canonical age of any Cthulhu Mythos gods.– M. A. GoldingMar 17, 2020 at 14:45
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1Good point by zeiss. Estimates of the age of earth varied from 20 to 100 million years and the consensus only began to change in the 1920s.– AbulafiaMar 17, 2020 at 14:47
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3The Old Gods are terrible and ancient deities from the space beyond our Earth. Their age isn't related to our Earth age, because they did exist before us, and some of them even come from other dimensions. There isn't a specific canon source for their general age, as far as I know.– IloneSPMar 17, 2020 at 15:58
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2Probably the only answer you will really get is "extremely"– Lux ClaridgeMar 17, 2020 at 17:47
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1 Answer
At least one of the Gods in the Lovecraft Mythos, Azathoth, exists outside of time, making the question of its age meaningless.
...that last amorphous blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the centre of all infinity—the boundless daemon-sultan Azathoth, whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time...
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2@Shamshiel The "Old Gods" doesn't seem to be an agreed upon term in the fandom anyway. It's Outer Gods, Elder Gods, and Great Old Ones as far as I can tell (and maybe the Outer and Elder Gods are lumped together under Other Gods). I'm also not convinced that the distinction is actually meaningful, or anything Lovecraft ever intended. I think Lovecraft was a bit looser with the terms than the modern fandom would have liked, and the categories have been imposed after the fact. OP can feel free to clarify if they care, and if so, which they want.– HarabeckMar 17, 2020 at 21:33
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I’ve only read Lovecraft; I find his following and their obsessive need to enumerate and categorize everything distasteful and gross. Nevertheless, they did not make it all up from whole cloth. Azathoth and Nyarlathotep are clearly delineated from such as Nodens or Cthulhu. Mar 17, 2020 at 22:02