Cthulhu Mythos Revisions (Part 1)

[Ultima_Reality]

Introduction

So, as has been known for a while, the current state of the Cthulhu Mythos profiles is... not so good, and the verse as a whole was supposed to get revised for a long, long while, and fortunately enough, this mythical day has finally arrived. Before anything else, I'd like to give credit to everyone who helped with this.

Due to the size of the verse, this revision will also be split into multiple parts, with this one in specific mainly dealing with the sections of the verse that lie at 1-A and above. There will be another thread addressing the verse's lower tiers, soon after this one.

I'll also link this cosmology blog in here, which is a bit incomplete and lacks some of the additional pieces of evidence you'll find below, but still serves as an excellent reference point that more thoroughly tackles and examines some of the things in this thread.

Summary

So, before introducing the tiering revisions that the profiles will go through, I will first have to make an outline of the overall cosmology, for easy comprehension.

In essence, there are infinite higher spatial dimensions in the Mythos, with everything in a lower-dimensional space being derived from an infinitesimal portion of something in a higher dimension, the latter of which corresponds to "substance and reality," while the former is "shadow and illusion." This hierarchy, as mentioned before, has no end, and extends up to the "dizzy and reachless heights of archetypal infinity."

The waves surged forth again, and Carter knew that the BEING had heard. And now there poured from that limitless MIND a flood of knowledge and explanation which opened new vistas to the seeker, and prepared him for such a grasp of the cosmos as he had never hoped to possess. He was told how childish and limited is the notion of a tri-dimensional world, and what an infinity of directions there are besides the known directions of up-down, forward-backward, right-left. He was shewn the smallness and tinsel emptiness of the little gods of earth, with their petty, human interests and connexions—their hatreds, rages, loves, and vanities; their craving for praise and sacrifice, and their demands for faith contrary to reason and Nature.

Then the waves increased in strength, and sought to improve his understanding, reconciling him to the multiform entity of which his present fragment was an infinitesimal part. They told him that every figure of space is but the result of the intersection by a plane of some corresponding figure of one more dimension—as a square is cut from a cube or a circle from a sphere. The cube and sphere, of three dimensions, are thus cut from corresponding forms of four dimensions that men know only through guesses and dreams; and these in turn are cut from forms of five dimensions, and so on up to the dizzy and reachless heights of archetypal infinity. The world of men and of the gods of men is merely an infinitesimal phase of an infinitesimal thing—the three-dimensional phase of that small wholeness reached by the First Gate, where ’Umr at-Tawil dictates dreams to the Ancient Ones. Though men hail it as reality and brand thoughts of its many-dimensioned original as unreality, it is in truth the very opposite. That which we call substance and reality is shadow and illusion, and that which we call shadow and illusion is substance and reality.

These higher dimensions are not necessarily properties that span the whole cosmology, however, and a single spacetime continuum can easily be construed as having an indefinite number of higher-dimensional planes within itself. Thus, making even a single universe potentially High 1-B.

Any being from any part of three-dimensional space could probably survive in the fourth dimension; and its survival of the second stage would depend upon what alien part of three-dimensional space it might select for its re-entry. Denizens of some planets might be able to live on certain others—even planets belonging to other galaxies, or to similar-dimensional phases of other space-time continua—though of course there must be vast numbers of mutually uninhabitable even though mathematically juxtaposed bodies or zones of space.
It was also possible that the inhabitants of a given dimensional realm could survive entry to many unknown and incomprehensible realms of additional or indefinitely multiplied dimensions—be they within or outside the given space-time continuum—and that the converse would be likewise true. This was a matter for speculation, though one could be fairly certain that the type of mutation involved in a passage from any given dimensional plane to the next higher plane would not be destructive of biological integrity as we understand it. Gilman could not be very clear about his reasons for this last assumption, but his haziness here was more than overbalanced by his clearness on other complex points. Professor Upham especially liked his demonstration of the kinship of higher mathematics to certain phases of magical lore transmitted down the ages from an ineffable antiquity—human or pre-human—whose knowledge of the cosmos and its laws was greater than ours.

This is not strictly the endpoint of the material world, even, as the spacetime continuum itself is nothing but one among endless universes that themselves form an infinite chain comprising the atoms of a "super-cosmos" existing as an even larger world.

I have said that there were things in some of Akeley’s letters—especially the second and most voluminous one—which I would not dare to quote or even form into words on paper. This hesitancy applies with still greater force to the things I heard whispered that evening in the darkened room among the lonely haunted hills. Of the extent of the cosmic horrors unfolded by that raucous voice I cannot even hint. He had known hideous things before, but what he had learned since making his pact with the Outside Things was almost too much for sanity to bear. Even now I absolutely refuse to believe what he implied about the constitution of ultimate infinity, the juxtaposition of dimensions, and the frightful position of our known cosmos of space and time in the unending chain of linked cosmos-atoms which makes up the immediate super-cosmos of curves, angles, and material and semi-material electronic organisation.

And this hierarchy extends even further, with universes existing within larger universes, and escaping from the latter and into the former is compared to breaking through the bonds of (Local) material limitations entirely.

"But what place is this? Is it Paradise or Hell? This is not the world I have known since birth. And those stars-I have never seen them before. Those constellations are mightier and more fiery than I ever knew in life."

"There are worlds beyond worlds, universes within and without universes," said the ancient. "You are upon a different planet than that upon which you were born; you are in a different universe, doubtless in a different dimension,"

"Then I am certainly dead."

"What is death but a traversing of eternities and a crossing of cosmic oceans? But I have not said that you are dead."

"Then where in Valka's name am I?" roared Kull, his short stock of patience exhausted. "Your barbarian brain clutches at material actualities," answered the other tranquilly. "What does it matter where you are, or whether you are dead, as you call it? You are a part of that great ocean which is Life, which washes upon all shores, and you are as much a part of it in one place as in another, and as sure to eventually flow back to the Source of it, which gave birth to all Life. As for that, you are bound to Life for all Eternity as surely as a tree, a rock, a bird or a world is bound. You call leaving your tiny planet, quitting your crude physical form-death!"

"But I still have my body."

"I have not said that you are dead, as you name it. As for that, you may be still upon your little planet, as far as you know. Worlds within worlds, universes within universes. Things exist too small and too large for human comprehension. Each pebble on the beaches of Valusia contains countless universes within itself, and itself as a whole is as much a part of the great plan of all universes, as is the sun you know. Your universe, Kull of Valusia, may be a pebble on the shore of a mighty kingdom. "You have broken the bounds of material limitations. You may be in a universe which goes to make up a gem on the robe you wore on Valusia's throne or that universe you knew may be in the spiderweb which lies there on the grass near your feet. I tell you, size and space and time are relative and do not really exist."

This fractal of realities, albeit ambiguously large, would in turn qualify the greater multiverse for a Low 1-A rating.

As said above, all of these material, spatio-temporal realms are nothing but an infinitesimal "small wholeness" encompassed by the First Gate, a construct separating the physical realm from the dark formlessness that transcends it. Past it, there are only metaphysical worlds beyond the concepts of time, space and dimensions entirely, which are appropriately described as "trans-dimensional" and "undimensioned" multiple times.

By the time the rite was over Carter knew that he was in no region whose place could be told by earth’s geographers, and in no age whose date history could fix. For the nature of what was happening was not wholly unfamiliar to him. There were hints of it in the cryptical Pnakotic fragments, and a whole chapter in the forbidden Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred had taken on significance when he had deciphered the designs graven on the Silver Key. A gate had been unlocked—not indeed the Ultimate Gate, but one leading from earth and time to that extension of earth which is outside time, and from which in turn the Ultimate Gate leads fearsomely and perilously to the Last Void which is outside all earths, all universes, and all matter.

Memory and imagination shaped dim half-pictures with uncertain outlines amidst the seething chaos, but Carter knew that they were of memory and imagination only. Yet he felt that it was not chance which built these things in his consciousness, but rather some vast reality, ineffable and undimensioned, which surrounded him and strove to translate itself into the only symbols he was capable of grasping. For no mind of earth may grasp the extensions of shape which interweave in the oblique gulfs outside time and the dimensions we know.

Likewise, upon traversing the First Gate, Randolph Carter finds himself completely detached from the limitations of space and time, and loses his physical form entirely in the process, becoming identifiable neither as a child nor as an adult, but only as a vague, abstract impression of an entity named "Randolph Carter."

For the rite of the Silver Key, as practiced by Randolph Carter in that black, haunted cave within a cave, did not prove unavailing. From the first gesture and syllable an aura of strange, awesome mutation was apparent—a sense of incalculable disturbance and confusion in time and space, yet one which held no hint of what we recognise as motion and duration. Imperceptibly, such things as age and location ceased to have any significance whatever. The day before, Randolph Carter had miraculously leaped a gulf of years. Now there was no distinction between boy and man. There was only the entity Randolph Carter, with a certain store of images which had lost all connexion with terrestrial scenes and circumstances of acquisition. A moment before, there had been an inner cave with vague suggestions of a monstrous arch and gigantic sculptured hand on the farther wall. Now there was neither cave nor absence of cave; neither wall nor absence of wall. There was only a flux of impressions not so much visual as cerebral, amidst which the entity that was Randolph Carter experienced perceptions or registrations of all that his mind revolved on, yet without any clear consciousness of the way in which he received them.

Almost stunned with awe, and with a kind of terrifying delight, Randolph Carter’s consciousness did homage to that transcendent ENTITY from which it was derived. As the waves paused again he pondered in the mighty silence, thinking of strange tributes, stranger questions, and still stranger requests. Curious concepts flowed conflictingly through a brain dazed with unaccustomed vistas and unforeseen disclosures. It occurred to him that, if those disclosures were literally true, he might bodily visit all those infinitely distant ages and parts of the universe which he had hitherto known only in dreams, could he but command the magic to change the angle of his consciousness-plane. And did not the Silver Key supply that magic? Had it not first changed him from a man in 1928 to a boy in 1883, and then to something quite outside time? Oddly, despite his present apparent absence of body, he knew that the Key was still with him.

And as mentioned before: This is only the First Gate, and after passing through the Ultimate Gate leading directly to the outer void outside of existence, Carter perceives a multiplicity of them, indicating that there is indeed a 1-A hierarchy at play here.

Randolph Carter’s advance through that Cyclopean bulk of abnormal masonry was like a dizzy precipitation through the measureless gulfs between the stars. From a great distance he felt triumphant, godlike surges of deadly sweetness, and after that the rustling of great wings, and impressions of sound like the chirpings and murmurings of objects unknown on earth or in the solar system. Glancing backward, he saw not one gate alone, but a multiplicity of gates, at some of which clamoured Forms he strove not to remember.

Now, to showcase that this is fact a proper hierarchy of levels of existence, we then take a step aside and look at another important story that explains a great deal about the cosmology: Hypnos.

in it, the narrator and the title character use special drugs to project their astral forms into a universe of dreams, described as deeper and of a more fundamental level than the world of time, space and matter, which is described as being birthed out of it, in the same way a bubble of smoke emanates out of the pipe of a jester.

Of our studies it is impossible to speak, since they held so slight a connexion with anything of the world as living men conceive it. They were of that vaster and more appalling universe of dim entity and consciousness which lies deeper than matter, time, and space, and whose existence we suspect only in certain forms of sleep—those rare dreams beyond dreams which come never to common men, and but once or twice in the lifetime of imaginative men. The cosmos of our waking knowledge, born from such an universe as a bubble is born from the pipe of a jester, touches it only as such a bubble may touch its sardonic source when sucked back by the jester’s whim. Men of learning suspect it little, and ignore it mostly. Wise men have interpreted dreams, and the gods have laughed. One man with Oriental eyes has said that all time and space are relative, and men have laughed. But even that man with Oriental eyes has done no more than suspect. I had wished and tried to do more than suspect, and my friend had tried and partly succeeded. Then we both tried together, and with exotic drugs courted terrible and forbidden dreams in the tower studio chamber of the old manor-house in hoary Kent.

And within this universe, Hypnos and the unnamed narrator then begin to ascend into increasingly more primal levels of reality, becoming less and less restricted by the limitations of the material world as they plunge into more remote regions. The breaking of these limitations is represented in this world by a series of cloudy "obstacles" which the two occasionally tear through during their travels.

Among the agonies of these after days is that chief of torments—inarticulateness. What I learned and saw in those hours of impious exploration can never be told—for want of symbols or suggestions in any language. I say this because from first to last our discoveries partook only of the nature of sensations; sensations correlated with no impression which the nervous system of normal humanity is capable of receiving. They were sensations, yet within them lay unbelievable elements of time and space—things which at bottom possess no distinct and definite existence. Human utterance can best convey the general character of our experiences by calling them plungings or soarings; for in every period of revelation some part of our minds broke boldly away from all that is real and present, rushing aërially along shocking, unlighted, and fear-haunted abysses, and occasionally tearing through certain well-marked and typical obstacles describable only as viscous, uncouth clouds or vapours.

Then, they eventually come across remote areas that the narrator describes as "limitless vacua beyond all thought and entity" that unfold entirely new perceptions of infinity upon the two, with the narrator himself eventually reaching a final obstacle, incalculably denser than the last, which he is unable to penetrate, but which Hypnos passes through without much difficulty.

There was a night when winds from unknown spaces whirled us irresistibly into limitless vacua beyond all thought and entity. Perceptions of the most maddeningly untransmissible sort thronged upon us; perceptions of infinity which at the time convulsed us with joy, yet which are now partly lost to my memory and partly incapable of presentation to others. Viscous obstacles were clawed through in rapid succession, and at length I felt that we had been borne to realms of greater remoteness than any we had previously known. My friend was vastly in advance as we plunged into this awesome ocean of virgin aether, and I could see the sinister exultation on his floating, luminous, too youthful memory-face. Suddenly that face became dim and quickly disappeared, and in a brief space I found myself projected against an obstacle which I could not penetrate. It was like the others, yet incalculably denser; a sticky, clammy mass, if such terms can be applied to analogous qualities in a non-material sphere.

As the narrator abandons the world of dreams and his perception shifts back to that of the material world, he also describes his sense of infinity itself as reverting to the local scale, indicating that these "vacua" indeed marked higher levels of infinity, which he and Hypnos ascended through to eventually reach the void outside of all existence, inhabited by the Ultimate Gods.

The tension of my vigil became oppressive, and a wild train of trivial impressions and associations thronged through my almost unhinged mind. I heard a clock strike somewhere—not ours, for that was not a striking clock—and my morbid fancy found in this a new starting-point for idle wanderings. Clocks—time—space—infinity—and then my fancy reverted to the local as I reflected that even now, beyond the roof and the fog and the rain and the atmosphere, Corona Borealis was rising in the northeast. Corona Borealis, which my friend had appeared to dread, and whose scintillant semicircle of stars must even now be glowing unseen through the measureless abysses of aether. All at once my feverishly sensitive ears seemed to detect a new and wholly distinct component in the soft medley of drug-magnified sounds—a low and damnably insistent whine from very far away; droning, clamouring, mocking, calling, from the northeast.

This hierarchy is then referenced again in The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, where Randolph Carter is dragged out of the material world and into the Ultimate Void by Nyarlathotep's hunting-horrors, and after leaping off of the monster before it can bring him to the Court of Azathoth at the center, he is described as falling through "endless voids" before returning to his home in Boston. Interesting to note is that he is also described as falling through them for aeons, in his perspective.

Onward unswerving and relentless, and tittering hilariously to watch the chuckling and hysterics into which the siren song of night and the spheres had turned, that eldritch scaly monster bore its helpless rider; hurtling and shooting, cleaving the uttermost rim and spanning the outermost abysses; leaving behind the stars and the realms of matter, and darting meteor-like through stark formlessness toward those inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond Time wherein black Azathoth gnaws shapeless and ravenous amidst the muffled, maddening beat of vile drums and the thin, monotonous whine of accursed flutes.

Thick though the rushing nightmare that clutched his senses, Randolph Carter could turn and move. He could move, and if he chose he could leap off the evil shantak that bore him hurtlingly doomward at the orders of Nyarlathotep. He could leap off and dare those depths of night that yawned interminably down, those depths of fear whose terrors yet could not exceed the nameless doom that lurked waiting at chaos’ core. He could turn and move and leap—he could—he would—he would—

Off that vast hippocephalic abomination leaped the doomed and desperate dreamer, and down through endless voids of sentient blackness he fell. Aeons reeled, universes died and were born again, stars became nebulae and nebulae became stars, and still Randolph Carter fell through those endless voids of sentient blackness.

Said voids being described as "sentient blackness" also lines up with passages from the Necronomicon quoted in Through the Gates of the Silver Key, which describes the horrors beyond the First Gate as "Blacknesses."

“And while there are those,” the mad Arab had written, “who have dared to seek glimpses beyond the Veil, and to accept HIM as a Guide, they would have been more prudent had they avoided commerce with HIM; for it is written in the Book of Thoth how terrific is the price of a single glimpse. Nor may those who pass ever return, for in the Vastnesses transcending our world are Shapes of darkness that seize and bind. The Affair that shambleth about in the night, the Evil that defieth the Elder Sign, the Herd that stand watch at the secret portal each tomb is known to have, and that thrive on that which groweth out of the tenants within—all these Blacknesses are lesser than HE Who guardeth the Gateway; HE Who will guide the rash one beyond all the worlds into the Abyss of unnamable Devourers. For HE is ’UMR AT-TAWIL, the Most Ancient One, which the scribe rendereth as THE PROLONGED OF LIFE.”

So, yeah, given how the hierarchy leading to the Ultimate Void is described as one of "limitless vacua" and "endless voids" in two separate occasions, I'd say it's enough to suggest a 1-A+ structure, overall.

Beyond that, obviously, is the outer void beyond existence inhabited by the Ultimate Gods, which is described as a place where no dreams reach. This is consistent with how the narrator of Hypnos was unable to penetrate the last obstacle leading to it, in spite of attaining a similar nature to the title character during his travels throughout higher spheres of reality.

There were, in such voyages, incalculable local dangers; as well as that shocking final peril which gibbers unmentionably outside the ordered universe, where no dreams reach; 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 amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin, monotonous whine of accursed flutes; to which detestable pounding and piping dance slowly, awkwardly, and absurdly the gigantic ultimate gods, the blind, voiceless, tenebrous, mindless Other Gods whose soul and messenger is the crawling chaos Nyarlathotep.

Likewise, it is also described as an ultimate, genuine infinity, which holds the local spacetime globule (And presumably the rest of existence as well) as an atom of itself, and Walter Gilman, an expert mathematician who had also studied eldritch lore, concluded that it exists beyond the mathematics of any cosmos.

I have said that there were things in some of Akeley’s letters—especially the second and most voluminous one—which I would not dare to quote or even form into words on paper. This hesitancy applies with still greater force to the things I heard whispered that evening in the darkened room among the lonely haunted hills. Of the extent of the cosmic horrors unfolded by that raucous voice I cannot even hint. He had known hideous things before, but what he had learned since making his pact with the Outside Things was almost too much for sanity to bear. Even now I absolutely refuse to believe what he implied about the constitution of ultimate infinity, the juxtaposition of dimensions, and the frightful position of our known cosmos of space and time in the unending chain of linked cosmos-atoms which makes up the immediate super-cosmos of curves, angles, and material and semi-material electronic organisation.

Their main immediate abode is a still undiscovered and almost lightless planet at the very edge of our solar system—beyond Neptune, and the ninth in distance from the sun. It is, as we have inferred, the object mystically hinted at as “Yuggoth” in certain ancient and forbidden writings; and it will soon be the scene of a strange focussing of thought upon our world in an effort to facilitate mental rapport. I would not be surprised if astronomers became sufficiently sensitive to these thought-currents to discover Yuggoth when the Outer Ones wish them to do so. But Yuggoth, of course, is only the stepping-stone. The main body of the beings inhabits strangely organised abysses wholly beyond the utmost reach of any human imagination. The space-time globule which we recognise as the totality of all cosmic entity is only an atom in the genuine infinity which is theirs. And as much of this infinity as any human brain can hold is eventually to be opened up to me, as it has been to not more than fifty other men since the human race has existed.

As he bathed and changed clothes he tried to recall what he had dreamed after the scene in the violet-litten space, but nothing definite would crystallise in his mind. That scene itself must have corresponded to the sealed loft overhead, which had begun to attack his imagination so violently, but later impressions were faint and hazy. There were suggestions of the vague, twilight abysses, and of still vaster, blacker abysses beyond them—abysses in which all fixed suggestions of form were absent. He had been taken there by the bubble-congeries and the little polyhedron which always dogged him; but they, like himself, had changed to wisps of milky, barely luminous mist in this farther void of ultimate blackness. Something else had gone on ahead—a larger wisp which now and then condensed into nameless approximations of form—and he thought that their progress had not been in a straight line, but rather along the alien curves and spirals of some ethereal vortex which obeyed laws unknown to the physics and mathematics of any conceivable cosmos. Eventually there had been a hint of vast, leaping shadows, of a monstrous, half-acoustic pulsing, and of the thin, monotonous piping of an unseen flute—but that was all. Gilman decided he had picked up that last conception from what he had read in the Necronomicon about the mindless entity Azathoth, which rules all time and space from a curiously environed black throne at the centre of Chaos.

Given all of that, as well as the context in the sections above, the Ultimate Void, and by extension, the Outer Gods, definitely qualify for High 1-A.

About the Tier 0s

So, as it stands, Cthulhu Mythos is rated at 0 because of the common idea that Azathoth is responsible for dreaming the entire setting into existence (Including the Ultimate Gods and the void in which they reside), which will cease to exist once he eventually awakens, and so on and so forth.

As has been known for quite a while, by now, this whole concept is quite frankly pure headcanon that has little basis to actually back it up. For reference, this is the excerpt that serves as the primary piece of evidence supporting it:

Out in the mindless void the daemon bore me,
Past the bright clusters of dimensioned space,
Till neither time nor matter stretched before me,
But only Chaos, without form or place.
Here the vast Lord of All in darkness muttered
Things he had dreamed but could not understand,
While near him shapeless bat-things flopped and fluttered
In idiot vortices that ray-streams fanned.

They danced insanely to the high, thin whining
Of a cracked flute clutched in a monstrous paw,
Whence flow the aimless waves whose chance combining
Gives each frail cosmos its eternal law.
“I am His Messenger,” the daemon said,
As in contempt he struck his Master’s head.

As you can see, there is not much suggesting that all of existence is Azathoth's dream in here, especially when this quote is viewed in a vacuum and with no preconceived notions in mind. Instead, it just says that Azathoth lies dormant in the center of the Ultimate Void, and mutters the contents of his own dreams, which are things that even he cannot understand.

For the matter, eldritch entities being in a state of "dreaming" is a recurring motif throughout all of Lovecraft's works, and the most well-known instance of it is Cthulhu himself, with the phrase that describes his current state being ”Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn,” or, in English: “In his house at R’lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.”

This is repeated in the higher echelons of the cosmology, where the Ancient Ones, the entities who reside past the First Gate and guard the entrance to the Ultimate Void, are described as residing in a dormant state, partaking in cosmic dreams until an explorer presents themselves to them and seeks to pass through the Ultimate Gate.

At last, continued the Swami, the swaying and the suggestion of chanting ceased, the lambent nimbuses around the now drooping and motionless heads faded away, while the cloaked Shapes slumped curiously on their pedestals. The quasi-sphere, however, continued to pulsate with inexplicable light. Carter felt that the Ancient Ones were sleeping as they had been when he first saw them, and he wondered out of what cosmic dreams his coming had wakened them. Slowly there filtered into his mind the truth that this strange chanting ritual had been one of instruction, and that the Companions had been chanted by the Most Ancient One into a new and peculiar kind of sleep, in order that their dreams might open the Ultimate Gate to which the Silver Key was a passport. He knew that in the profundity of this deep sleep they were contemplating unplumbed vastnesses of utter and absolute Outsideness with which the earth had nothing to do, and that they were to accomplish that which his presence had demanded.

So, no, Azathoth being in a dreaming state doesn't necessarily equal him being the dreamer of all existence, in the context of the verse's themes and motifs. Likewise, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that he is on the same level of existence as the other Ultimate Gods: For instance, he is often described as sitting on a throne at the very center of the outer chaos, surrounded by servants that play music to him for eternity.

Eventually there had been a hint of vast, leaping shadows, of a monstrous, half-acoustic pulsing, and of the thin, monotonous piping of an unseen flute—but that was all. Gilman decided he had picked up that last conception from what he had read in the Necronomicon about the mindless entity Azathoth, which rules all time and space from a curiously environed black throne at the centre of Chaos.

Only to taunt had Nyarlathotep marked out the way to safety and the marvellous sunset city; only to mock had that black messenger revealed the secret of those truant gods whose steps he could so easily lead back at will. For madness and the void’s wild vengeance are Nyarlathotep’s only gifts to the presumptuous; and frantick though the rider strove to turn his disgusting steed, that leering, tittering shantak coursed on impetuous and relentless, flapping its great slippery wings in malignant joy, and headed for those unhallowed pits whither no dreams reach; that last amorphous blight of nethermost confusion where bubbles and blasphemes at infinity’s centre the mindless daemon-sultan Azathoth, whose name no lips dare speak aloud.

There were, in such voyages, incalculable local dangers; as well as that shocking final peril which gibbers unmentionably outside the ordered universe, where no dreams reach; 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 amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin, monotonous whine of accursed flutes; to which detestable pounding and piping dance slowly, awkwardly, and absurdly the gigantic ultimate gods, the blind, voiceless, tenebrous, mindless Other Gods whose soul and messenger is the crawling chaos Nyarlathotep.

And, of course, you have the excerpt above, where Nyarlathotep literally punches him in the face, for some reason.

That is not to undermine Azathoth's importance in the cosmology, though, make no mistake. After all, he is repeatedly described as being the lord of all existence who rules over the Ultimate Gods themselves, and there is, of course, this infamous family tree showing him to be at the root of the lineage, having birthed everything in the setting from himself. However, having created the Outer Gods obviously isn't necessarily evidence than he holds them as part of his dreams, and so, he pretty clearly just scales to High 1-A due to being superior to them to an unknown degree.

But, not all is lost: Keep the family tree linked above in mind, because it will come to play a pretty important role in the explanation below.

Basically, in Through the Gates of the Silver Key, we are introduced to the idea that reality as perceived by mortals and lesser beings is nothing but a fragmentary, partial illusion that exists as an imperfect aspect of the true nature of the world, which is a changeless, static oneness devoid of any differentiations, that exists beyond all perspectives.

Time, the waves went on, is motionless, and without beginning or end. That it has motion, and is the cause of change, is an illusion. Indeed, it is itself really an illusion, for except to the narrow sight of beings in limited dimensions there are no such things as past, present, and future. Men think of time only because of what they call change, yet that too is illusion. All that was, and is, and is to be, exists simultaneously.
These revelations came with a godlike solemnity which left Carter unable to doubt. Even though they lay almost beyond his comprehension, he felt that they must be true in the light of that final cosmic reality which belies all local perspectives and narrow partial views; and he was familiar enough with profound speculations to be free from the bondage of local and partial conceptions. Had his whole quest not been based upon a faith in the unreality of the local and partial?
After an impressive pause the waves continued, saying that what the denizens of few-dimensioned zones call change is merely a function of their consciousness, which views the external world from various cosmic angles. As the shapes produced by the cutting of a cone seem to vary with the angles of cutting—being circle, ellipse, parabola, or hyperbola according to that angle, yet without any change in the cone itself—so do the local aspects of an unchanged and endless reality seem to change with the cosmic angle of regarding. To this variety of angles of consciousness the feeble beings of the inner worlds are slaves, since with rare exceptions they cannot learn to control them. Only a few students of forbidden things have gained inklings of this control, and have thereby conquered time and change. But the entities outside the Gates command all angles, and view the myriad parts of the cosmos in terms of fragmentary, change-involving perspective, or of the changeless totality beyond perspective, in accordance with their will.

The inhabitants of this ultimate reality, then, are the Archetypes, eternal, unchanging and uncreated entities who participate in this totality beyond all divisions, and hold all lesser entities as nothing but facets of themselves.

All descended lines of beings of the finite dimensions, continued the waves, and all stages of growth in each one of these beings, are merely manifestations of one archetypal and eternal being in the space outside dimensions. Each local being—son, father, grandfather, and so on—and each stage of individual being—infant, child, boy, young man, old man—is merely one of the infinite phases of that same archetypal and eternal being, caused by a variation in the angle of the consciousness-plane which cuts it. Randolph Carter at all ages; Randolph Carter and all his ancestors both human and pre-human, terrestrial and pre-terrestrial; all these were only phases of one ultimate, eternal “Carter” outside space and time—phantom projections differentiated only by the angle at which the plane of consciousness happened to cut the eternal archetype in each case.
...
The archetypes, throbbed the waves, are the people of the ultimate abyss—formless, ineffable, and guessed at only by rare dreamers on the low-dimensioned worlds. Chief among such was this informing BEING itself . . . which indeed was Carter’s own archetype. The glutless zeal of Carter and all his forbears for forbidden cosmic secrets was a natural result of derivation from the SUPREME ARCHETYPE. On every world all great wizards, all great thinkers, all great artists, are facets of IT.

This portrayal of the Ultimate Gods, however, appears only once, in this specific story, and greatly conflicts with how they are depicted in the rest of Lovecraft's works. For instance, Dream-Quest describes them (From the point-of-view of a third person omniscient narrator, mind you) as having been born at some point, at the same "time" as space itself:

Then through the glittering vault ahead there fell a hush of portent, and all the winds and horrors slunk away as night things slink away before the dawn. Trembling in waves that golden wisps of nebula made weirdly visible, there rose a timid hint of far-off melody, droning in faint chords that our own universe of stars knows not. And as that music grew, the shantak raised its ears and plunged ahead, and Carter likewise bent to catch each lovely strain. It was a song, but not the song of any voice. Night and the spheres sang it, and it was old when space and Nyarlathotep and the Other Gods were born.

The same story also portrays them as being mutable entities who are capable of reproduction, and Carter himself comes across larval Ultimate Gods multiple times during his journeys. This depiction, in turn, fits in with the aforementioned family tree, as well.

It was dark when the galley passed betwixt the Basalt Pillars of the West and the sound of the ultimate cataract swelled portentous from ahead. And the spray of that cataract rose to obscure the stars, and the deck grew damp, and the vessel reeled in the surging current of the brink. Then with a queer whistle and plunge the leap was taken, and Carter felt the terrors of nightmare as earth fell away and the great boat shot silent and comet-like into planetary space. Never before had he known what shapeless black things lurk and caper and flounder all through the aether, leering and grinning at such voyagers as may pass, and sometimes feeling about with slimy paws when some moving object excites their curiosity. These are the nameless larvae of the Other Gods, and like them are blind and without mind, and possessed of singular hungers and thirsts.

Unswerving and obedient to the foul legate’s orders, that hellish bird plunged onward through shoals of shapeless lurkers and caperers in darkness, and vacuous herds of drifting entities that pawed and groped and groped and pawed; the nameless larvae of the Other Gods, that are like them blind and without mind, and possessed of singular hungers and thirsts.

Thankfully, Through the Gates of the Silver Key itself already offers an explanation of sorts to this apparent inconsistency, namely:

To this variety of angles of consciousness the feeble beings of the inner worlds are slaves, since with rare exceptions they cannot learn to control them. Only a few students of forbidden things have gained inklings of this control, and have thereby conquered time and change. But the entities outside the Gates command all angles, and view the myriad parts of the cosmos in terms of fragmentary, change-involving perspective, or of the changeless totality beyond perspective, in accordance with their will.

To paraphrase that, the Archetypes are stated to be capable of experiencing the cosmos either as the unchanging, undivided wholeness that it truly is, or in the form of fragmentary, change-involving perspectives that they naturally exist beyond, in accordance to their own will. In essence, this would mean that they can actively choose to perceive reality as local identities that other stories identify as "The Ultimate Gods," which are far more limited, lower equivalents of their true selves.

This is then supported by another passage of the story, where Randolph Carter identifies the Supreme Archetype as the same entity that denizens of lower worlds worshipped under the name of Yog-Sothoth, and at the same time, he realizes that even the identity of "Yog-Sothoth" is nothing but an illusory, fractional conception of a much greater being.

In the face of that awful wonder, the quasi-Carter forgot the horror of destroyed individuality. It was an All-in-One and One-in-All of limitless being and self—not merely a thing of one Space-Time continuum, but allied to the ultimate animating essence of existence’s whole unbounded sweep—the last, utter sweep which has no confines and which outreaches fancy and mathematics alike. It was perhaps that which certain secret cults of earth have whispered of as YOG-SOTHOTH, and which has been a deity under other names; that which the crustaceans of Yuggoth worship as the Beyond-One, and which the vaporous brains of the spiral nebulae know by an untranslatable Sign—yet in a flash the Carter-facet realised how slight and fractional all these conceptions are.

So, given that, the Archetypes would be Tier 0, as opposed to their lower, illusory selves, The Ultimate Gods, who are High 1-A. This will be reflected on the revised profiles as the two being assigned separate keys.

Interestingly enough, Randolph Carter's Archetype, although primarily identified with Yog-Sothoth, is also stated to reign chief among the people of the Ultimate Abyss, and to be the "Supreme Archetype" that encompasses all of existence and subsumes all others within itself. These descriptions, of course, also call to mind Azathoth, who is himself described as the lord and master of the Ultimate Gods in multiple occasions.

Given how the whole message of the story is that individuality is nothing but an illusion inherent to lower realities, as well as how Azathoth and Yog-Sothoth themselves act as complementary counterparts to one another in the context of the cosmology (Yog-Sothoth being all-encompassing and holding all of past, present and future as one within himself, while also simultaneously embodying the Ultimate Gate, and Azathoth being the nucleus who resides at the center of its infinity, governing all of existence from his throne), it's reasonable to say that the Supreme Archetype would be a representation of the two of them, as opposed to being exclusively an equivalent to Yog.

Due to that, it will be inserted as a key on both of their profiles, which naturally scales above the other Archetypes.

TL;DR

• Universe = High 1-B
• Greater Multiverse = Low 1-A
• Hierarchy of Gates / Vacua = 1-A+
• Ultimate Void = High 1-A
• Archetypes = 0
• Supreme Archetype = 0

For reference, here are the revised pages:

Nyarlathotep
Azathoth
Yog-Sothoth
The Ultimate Gods
Shub-Niggurath
Nodens
Hypnos
Hunting Horrors
Nightgaunts

 

[Ned_the_outer_god]

Legit thought the high end was accepted
I agree with this also, thank god it's done

 

[Ovy7]

As someone who worked on this, it's only natural for me to disagree with it.

I'm joking lol

 

[Lapsad]

At last.

 

[KingPin0422]

I participated in the making of these revisions, so it should be obvious that I agree with everything that has been proposed here.

 

[InfiniteDay]

I agree.

 

[TOAAPRESENCE1]

its finally done, so seems like its just gonna be outer gods as H1A and yog with azzy remain as 0

edit to say i agree

 

[Ned_the_outer_god]

Also, what do you mean by part 1?
Funnily enough, while CM gets upgraded to high 1-A, Shinza is getting downgraded to measly 1-A

 

[Roachman40]

While I didn't work on this with y'all much, I agree 100%

great work as always, ultima

 

[Ned_the_outer_god]

Also, what do you mean by part 1?

 

[TOAAPRESENCE1]

Also, what do you mean by part 1?
Funnily enough, while CM gets upgraded to high 1-A, Shinza is getting downgraded to measly 1-A

part 1 is for the cosmology and the High tiers

the rest is for the mid to low tiers

 

[Lapsad]

Also, what do you mean by part 1?
Funnily enough, while CM gets upgraded to high 1-A, Shinza is getting downgraded to measly 1-A

I think part 2 is specially for haxs addition

 

[Ned_the_outer_god]

part 1 is for the cosmology and the High tiers

the rest is for the mid to low tiers

Ah cool

 

[DarkDragonMedeus]

I'm going to complement Ultima for working so hard on this; though the tiers are over my head, so I don't have the best judgement for this. But will follow for potential counter arguments. But otherwise support this for now due to hard work.

 

[KieranH10]

It's finally happening.

This is crazy research though, amazing work guys. From a glance this seems to make sense. Following and looking over properly later.

 

[Ned_the_outer_god]

Welp, guess I won't be doing the Hajun vs Nyaralethotep rematch when the Shinza bois become 1-A

 

[deonment]

dear god this wall of text is massive, lemme read through it before i make my judgement

 

[QuasiYuri]

It fits the vision I already had of the verse, so I obviously agree.

Tho just wanna say that High 1-A could easily be seen as 1-A+, so justifications would need to emphasize this part.

 

[Sadistic_Sleuth]

I support this.

Holy hell, good job on these revisions.

 

[Overlord775]

Seems good

 

[Rikimarox2]

its finally done, so seems like its just gonna be outer gods as H1A and yog with azzy remain as 0

edit to say i agree

Perhaps I'm reading this crt wrong, but aren't the outer gods gonna be tier 0 as well? Or, well, the archetype forms?

 

[Ned_the_outer_god]

Perhaps I'm reading this crt wrong, but aren't the outer gods gonna be tier 0 as well? Or, well, the archetype forms?

Yes, they are getting tier 0 keys

 

[ThisThingisReallyBroken]

legit Azathoth now is the most powerful person on the wiki

 

[The_Unknown_Warrior1]

I do not take credit for this meme, but it is accurate in this case.
Legit though, 100% hats off to those who worked on this CRT for all the work they put into it and I too agree with this.

 

[Panpanpanjeidj]

Damn it, Tier 1 or above characters are too difficult.
I didn't even understand why they were tier zero.

 

[RM97]

Looks fantastic.

Though I have a question. What tier would "Angled Space" or "Spaces with Angles" be?

 

[Ned_the_outer_god]

Damn it, Tier 1 or above characters are too difficult.
I didn't even understand why they were tier zero.

Now we can have actual legit tier 0 CM

 

[Sparteh]

Temporary following. Will wait to see whether there are counter arguments, but based on the first post, I tend to agree.

 

[Lapsad]

I'm 100% sure 70% on our wiki site will agree with this

 

[Planck69]

This looks great. Many thanks to those that worked on it.

I agree with this.

 

[deonment]

Reading through the evidence proper, and damn that is THE wall of text, but yeah this looks good I agree

 

[InfiniteDay]

legit Azathoth now is the most powerful person on the wiki

(Yog-sothoth)

 

[Ned_the_outer_god]

But, muh math

 

[InfiniteDay]

But, muh math

(User blog get rekd )

 

[InfiniteDay]

But I mean we're all sleeping on composite human

 

[Ned_the_outer_god]

But I mean we're all sleeping on composite human

Composite Tree stomps
Anyways, let's not derail

 

[TOAAPRESENCE1]

I'm 100% sure 70% on our wiki site will agree with this

i mean everyone kinda knew about it and what tier they would be so no surprise if everyone agrees

 

[FinePoint]

I'm not sure there's actually grounds to say Cthulhu Mythos is now "the strongest verse".

Anyways, I agree with this.

 

[Planck69]

Yeah, these tiers have been on people's minds for the better part of a year so the unanimous approval shouldn't be surprising. That said, it would be better if all people read through it thoroughly before making a decision.

Now, we wait for staff.

 

[Lapsad]

Sure , the tier is keep in my mind before this revision , i'm also agree with this anyway