Bast was used quite a lot by Robert Bloch in his Mythos fiction. I think the RPG made her an Elder God only to bulk the numbers out. There isn't really a good reason why she should be and Nyarlathotep should not be!Whakahoa wrote:Ever since I read Neil Gaiman's 'American Gods', I've thought Bast would be an interesting figure to incorporate into an Egypt based scenario but I haven't seen many mentioned. Most of the AP's I've listened to tend to stay away from Elder Gods.
The problem with the Elder Gods is that Derleth presented them as the "good guys", and good guys tend to be less interesting adversaries. Of course, because some humans think the Elder Gods are nice because they've done things which have had a good effect for humans doesn't actually mean that the Elder Gods are nice. I have for years now been arguing that rather than cops and robbers we actually have gang wars, i.e. the Elder Gods are just another bunch of thugs trying to displace the Old Ones, but with no more interest in Humanity than the Old Ones have. It is also interesting to note that if you look at how Derleth introducing the Elder Gods in early stories like "The Return of Hastur" he seems to get very confused about what is an Elder God and what is an Old Ones, for example: "...beings are of two natures, and two only: the Old or Ancient Ones, the Elder Gods, of cosmic good, and those of cosmic evil, bearing many names, and themselves different groups, as if associated with the elements and yet transcending them [...] the Old Ones banished from the cosmic places all the Evil Ones, imprisoning them in many places..."
So the Elder Gods are the Old Ones, and the Great Old Ones of the RPG are the Evil Ones!
When I've used the Elder Gods in an adventure or story, I've tended to show them to be as implacable and coldly alien as the Great Old Ones. In fact the last one I used, Vorvardoss, was going to destroy the Earth as a verminous nest of Old Ones without the slightest interest in what other life forms lived on the planet.
There is clearly a human cult to the Elder Gods who tell us they are good, but then, there are cults to the Old Ones who say the same thing about them too.