Elder Thing

The Elder Things, (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5) or Star People, (PROSE: White Darkness) were purportedly an advanced alien species who settled on Earth for some time, millions of years prior to humanity's day. (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5, White Darkness) One account suggested they were also known as the Old Ones. (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5)

They created a class of servitors known as the Shoggoths, who went on to turn on them, (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5, White Darkness) leading their civilisation to ruin. As recounted in an account which treated all of this as genuine history, this caused most of the survivors to return to the stars, leaving the reptile men and Great Ones (with whom they had shared the planet) to their hibernation. (PROSE: White Darkness)

According to other accounts, the events of At the Mountains of Madness, Shoggoths and all, were pure fiction, created by H. P. Lovecraft. (AUDIO: The Lovecraft Invasion, PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5) Nevertheless, the 25th century, fringe archaeologists like Bendecker, Vildson and Urnst believed they were real. Twelve million years before the 20th century, a Celestis fictional generator used At the Mountains of Madness to bring the Elder Things and their city into existence in Antarctica. A group of Time Lords from the War's future, not knowing the Elder Things' true nature, were regenerated to resemble them. They killed the creatures, then took their place, thinking they were blending in. They set up a base in the city as part of their plan to free the Fendahl for use against the enemy. (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5)

Biology
The body of an Elder Thing was an upright ribbed cylinder and quintilaterally symmetrical, like a starfish. It had a five-pointed-star-like head. It had ten tentacles, five used as arms and five as legs, as well as black wings resembling a bat's. They communicated via microwaves. (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5)

Behind the scenes
The Elder Things appeared in H.P. Lovecraft's 1936 novel At the Mountains of Madness.