Music for the ArticleAlso known as Ancients, Forerunners, Great Old Ones, Old Ones, Elder Gods, Anchient Ones, and Engineers
A precursor are a standard fixture of much science fiction and fantasy: an ancient race whose culture and knowledge rose to its pinnacle in ages long past but which is now extinct or Ascended to a Higher Plane of Existence.
Abundance of Sealed Evil in a Vessel with flimsy seals and easily found keys? They did it on purpose. They even labeled the can as Happy Fun Time For All! to make sure you'd open it - or "Evil Inside!!" just relying on humanity's inability to ignore Bait. There's even some odds that THEY are the evil in the can. Plagues? Oh, they made it. Then even stored it with crates of candy to make sure you'd catch it. They did not just leave a Lost Super Weapon for villains to acquire; they gave the villain a manual, tech support and a 10,000 millenium powertrain warranty for the superweapon.
In short, the Evil Precursors cause problems through more direct acts than their neglectful equivalent, with the clear intent of doing so. To make it worse, it's likely they are still around and powerful enough that you can't do a thing about it. If a setting has both Neglectful and Evil Precursors, expect them to have been at war, and that the Evil Precursors either won or ended up as Sealed Evil in a Vessel or Mostly Dead. Now that their sworn enemies have become Energy Beings and moved to another plane of existence they might be ready to come back. Also, there are very good odds that both types of precursors share origins somehow, with either one race creating the other, both races being offshoots of one another or of a third race, or both being different cultures of the same race. Just to compound the problem, while other surviving Precursors are likely to be Energy Beings, these are more likely to be Cosmic Abominations who have an impossible geometry and biology.
Incase you're wondering how alien, They do not speak, but rather alter reality so that they have already spoken.
When this advanced race responsible for seeding life on Earth awakens from slumber they will immediately try to destroy humanity.
These Precursors created horrifying monsters, in an effort to achieve immortality. Naturally, they didn't want to use themselves as test subjects, so instead they used humans. This Human Beings beyond recognition and forced into mindless, torturous servitude to the point they look like this
Then they tried to exterminate their failed test subjects.
The beings that became known as the Evil Precursors did not originate from this Universe, but the one before it. They were originally a powerful race of beings who were the equivalent of God in their native space. However, when their Universe ended, the Evil Precursors shunted themselves into a parallel dimension which collapsed seconds later into the new Universe. This allowed them to pass into the new Universe which had different laws of physics, and they discovered that they had gained god-like powers which allowed them to manipulate the new Universe in which they now existed
Ancient carvings dating at least fifteen million years ago show that the Evil Precursors ruled everywhere before they died out and went into hibernation after fleeing from the predators with a touch of decay. They managed to escape from the great cosmic disaster in order to flee into a Time Vortex where they became non-physical entities thus leaving their bodies behind on Earth.
Their minds have sought to return to their bodies when the stars were correctly aligned as the tidal forces of the stars in conjunction can bring about a sufficient tear in the space-time continuum which can bring about a pathway through which they can reunite with their bodies. However, as the stars were constantly expanding and contracting, they never returned to the same configuration as the time when the Evil Precursors went into hibernation. Thus, they required the assistance of their followers to attract the attentions of their bodies autonomic insticts and allow them to chance to compensate. As they were unable to affect the world physically, they used the influence of their powerful minds to achieve their goals
Sometimes they are living in regions with "very little reality", and are now nightmarish monstrosities that crave the reality that those in more solid universes take for granted. They tend to try to invade the mundane universe in the vain hope of becoming more real themselves, "with the same effect as the ocean trying to warm itself around a candle." They don't actually have form; the reason that they look like an incomprehensible mass of tentacled horrors is because when they do acquire some substance by coming close to the real world, they're terrible at it.
It has been noted that should they ever break through, the Universe would be destroyed
Some of them can survive in this world under special circumstances and become demon-like
However their existence is not dependent on human belief, and second because, as they are completely lacking in vitality, they are neither good nor evil, but the opposite of both.
For most though, the reality they crave is soon fatal, due to their lack of a natural shape.
They are jealous of all things alive and so far as their emotions can be understood, they feel mostly hatred, stemming from that jealousy, of all 'real' creatures and they break through into a mind, using that being's mind and body to further their own ends.
Othertimes the the Evil Precursors are supernatural celestial bureaucrats. The the Evil Precursors hate life, because it is messy and unpredictable, which makes them fall behind on their paperwork; they much prefer barren balls of rock orbiting stars in neat, easily predictable elliptical paths. They really hate humans and other sentient beings, who are much more messy and unpredictable than other living things, and they have attempted more than once to deal with this 'problem'.
One could almost call the Evil Precursors "gods". Indeed, the the Evil Precursors find belief inherently repulsive. You see The Evil Precursors are inhuman intelligences responsible for maintaining the laws of the universe that appear as adversaries due to their hatred of the disorder of life and individuality. Belief and imagination are the ultimate mess: They shape and reform the physical world in almost infinitely varied and complex ways.
Basically they can easly and often the very laws of reality are broken to the point twisted like playthings by them, and posses an inherent ability to perceive the universe in ways no other species can.
For example where the Evil Precursors see a fragment of carbonaceous chondrite heated by the friction of atmospheric entry, imagination sees a falling star. Where the Evil Precursors see a random cleft in granite, imagination sees a dark cave haunted by monsters. To the Evil Precursors, this is infuriating; after all, how can one catalogue or quantify a dragon, a god, poetry or Justice? The Evil Precursors not only existed long before humans, but would be quite happy to exist long after them.
Fortunately for humanity and every other living thing, the Evil Precursors can't simply wipe out life, because that's against the Rules; the Evil Precursors can't break the Rules because, in a certain sense, they are the Rules. Unfortunately, a loophole exists in the Rules which allows the Evil Precursors to influence humans into doing what they cannot do directly
They sometimes hire humans to perform tasks that will make the world less "messy", paying them with the gold they created out of thin air using their abilities to manipulate reality
Did I forget to mention they are so dangerous that when a villian made a creature cobbled together from several monster parts including the torso of a Evil Precursors' host took a large army of people to kill.
In all cases they beings that live outside of time in eternity, are immortal. They can take anyone they want from any point in time and force them to do whatever they wish. They are not invincible, though; if somehow trapped in our reality, they are mortal and vulnerable.
In rare cases, can use the imagination of people from our universe to form realities.
They were known to be one of a number of creatures that had adapted in a way that made them capable of perceiving the higher dimensions
Sometimes evil incarnate from almost the beginning of the universe, albeit one without a body of its own, instead possessing others' bodies. This is because they are not part of the physical plane and therefore do not have physical bodies, and must manifest themselves by possessing some material. They have the opportunity to gain a new physical body every 1000 year during there incarnation.
They were known to possess physical bodies which they sought to return to and had a third part of their form which existed in the outer dimensional planes which some believed was where they originated from.
Here are the Bodies that they possessed
They are an unkillable, hideous monstrosity whose first order of business when he manged to escape was to suck up the souls of everyone in the world
In all cases they possess incredible age and intelligence.
Other Times they they cannot be looked upon in their true forms without driving the observer perminantly insane and can only manifest by possessing humans, melting all features from their faces in the process.
the few People that survived encounters with their true forms were driven almost permanently insane by the experience.
They are unimaginably ancient creatures that were preserved in humanity's race memory as their worst nightmares. They were conceived as creatures that spread evil, chaos and destruction wherever they went.
They are the former rulers of this reality, before their slaves, the first humans, managed to find a weapon capable of driving them into another reality. They are so evil and sadistic that even their own shadows were afraid of them.
These monstrous primal entities ruled the Earth with an iron fist for untold millennia until humanity eventually supplanted them.
They deliberately left Lost Technology around for future species to find to encourage them to evolve along the lines they want, thus making it easier to completely obliterate them when they return to "reap" what they have sown and have planned this 37 million years ago.
They also released a deadly-to-everything-but-humans plague, gained Mind Control abilities, and used it to enslave the rest of the galaxy and for them to worship them as gods.
They will wipe out half of humanity and then work the other half to death, before destroying the Earth.
Fortunally they can be destroyed by the heroes
Wed Feb 27, 2013 6:43 pm
