In the beginning, Azothoth, the "Blind Idiot God," slumbered at the center of infinity, and from his incomprehensible dreams, the universe was born. A swirling chaos of stars and void, both order and madness, came into existence, bound by no reason that mortal minds could grasp. Azothoth, with no awareness of his own creation, lies in eternal sleep, his monstrous court of lesser horrors swirling around him, playing strange, discordant music to keep the dream alive. From this dream, the Elder Gods emerged—beings of immense power and cosmic might, entities so far beyond understanding that to gaze upon their forms would drive even the most enlightened minds to madness. There are forty Elder Gods, each more unknowable than the last, rulers of reality, but distant, detached, and unconcerned with the plights of the small beings that would eventually rise in their wake. For the Elder Gods, existence is a mere fragment of Azothoth's dream, something to be watched, but not interfered with.
To serve their purposes, the Elder Gods created the Great Old Ones, beings of raw malevolent power that embodied the dark and violent forces of the universe. Among these were the terrifying Cthulhu, Hastur the Unspeakable, and Nyarlathotep, who walked between worlds. These entities, though far weaker than the Elder Gods, were gods to lesser beings, their influence spreading throughout the cosmos. Though the Great Old Ones were originally created as slaves, their ambitions grew. They reveled in the worship of mortal races and sought dominion over all creation, spreading chaos and madness wherever they touched.
The Serpentmen were the first sentient race. They worshipped the Great Old Ones, built most of the ziggurats, and many of the megalithic structures.
There came a time when the Great Old Ones defied their creators. Whether through hubris or some forgotten transgression, they incurred the wrath of the Elder Gods. The Great Old Ones were cast down, imprisoned in far reaches of the universe—buried beneath oceans, locked away in time, or sealed in forgotten dimensions. The cosmos trembled, but the Elder Gods, ever indifferent, left their slaves to rot in their eternal prisons. Yet, even now, the Great Old Ones stir in their slumber, whispering their will to the minds of mortals and otherworldly creatures like the shoggoths and the Mi-Go—things that still lurk in the dark places of the world, remnants of an age before mankind.
As time passed, humanity and other mortal races emerged, their minds too small to comprehend the Elder Gods, but instinctively drawn to the dark and terrible forces that pulsed beneath their reality. They turned their prayers to the Great Old Ones, beings like Cthulhu and Yig, finding in them both terror and hope. The rise of human gods, such as Set, a spawn of the Great Old Ones, marked a new age of divine worship.
While the more "civilized" among mortals turned their faith to these newer, more comprehensible gods, there remained pockets of degenerate and forsaken humans who clung to the old ways, hoping to one day release their imprisoned masters. These cults, hidden and hunted, seek to awaken the Great Old Ones from their ancient prisons, hoping to unleash a new age of madness and dominion upon the world.
The universe itself is but a small part of Azothoth's dream, and somewhere, in the infinite dark, the Elder Gods watch over the ruins of their forgotten slaves, oblivious to the desperate prayers of mortals and the eternal struggle of the imprisoned Great Old Ones.