Star-Stones
[August Derleth's Cthulhu Mythos]

The star-stones of ancient Mnar carry the magic of the Elder Gods (1):

A grey stone—and instantly I remembered reading of it in the Library at Miskatonic University—“the five-pointed star carven of grey stone from ancient Mnar!” which had the power of the Elder Ones in its magic. [Sky]

It is a stone impregnated with the power of these Elder Gods . . . [Spawn]

Clithanus had found on the seacoast the five-pointed stone, emblem of the power of the Elder Gods, and feared by the Ancient Ones [Great Old Ones (3)] and their minions. [OutThere]

The star-stones provide protection against the minion races that serve the Great Old Ones (3):

For within the five-pointed star carven of grey stone from ancient Mnar lies armor against witches and daemons, against the Deep Ones, the Dholes, the Voormis, the Tcho-Tcho, the Abominable Mi-Go [Outer Ones], the Shoggoths, the Valusians and all such peoples and beings who serve the Great Old Ones and their Spawn, but it is less potent against the Great Old Ones themselves. [Curwen]

“Armor against witches and daemons, against the Deep Ones, the Dholes, the Voormis, the Tcho-Tcho, the Abominable Mi-Go, the Shoggoths, the Ghasts, the Valusians and all such peoples and beings who serve the Great Old Ones and their Spawn lies within the five-pointed star carven or grey stone from ancient Mnar, which is less strong against the Great Old Ones themselves. [Lurker]

“The Deep Ones,” offered Phelan. “They are everywhere, but we’ve had other followers far more dangerous. The star protects us from them; they cannot harm us as long as we carry it.” [Island]

The Deep Ones . . . purpose was clearly menacing, but the power of the five-pointed star, which was sealed with the seal of the Elder Gods, rendered them impotent. Should anyone of them [Shrewsbury's team] fail to carry the star, however, he might fall victim to the Deep Ones, or to the Abominable Mi-Go, or to the Tcho-Tcho people, the Shoggoths, the Shantaks, or any among a score or more of those human and semi-human creatures dedicated to the service of the Ancient Ones [Great Old Ones (3)]. [Island]

Next he gave me a small, five-pointed star, which he identified as a kind of amulet which would assure my protection, as long as I carried it on my person, from all such beings as the Deep Ones, though it was powerless against the Ancient Ones [Great Old Ones (3)] themselves. [Keeper]

. . . under the protection of an ancient, enchanted five-pointed carven grey stone from ancient Mnar, they need not fear the minions who served the Great Old Ones—the Deep Ones, the Shoggoths, the Tcho-Tcho People, the Dholes and the Voormis, the Valusians and all similar creatures—but their activities had finally aroused the superior beings directly serving great Cthulhu, against whom the five-pointed star is powerless . . . [Sky]

All of us carry a talisman [star-stone] which is potent against the Deep Ones and the minions of the Old Ones, but not against the Old Ones themselves, or their immediate servitors, who also come to the surface of earth on special missions to destroy such of us as learn the secrets and oppose the coming again of great Cthulhu, and those others. [Sky]

The star-stones serve to seal the Great Old Ones in their prisons:

. . . the Ancient Ones who remained on Earth were imprisoned under the five-pointed star which was the seal of the Elder Gods. [Space]

The star-stones also serve to imprison the Cthulhu spawn:

[The Cthulhu spawn were] held down by the power of the blessed stars laid out over the water in the form of one great star, the five points marking the directions of the earth and the secret place beyond the earth from which the things of Evil had first come . . . [Depths]

. . . get you down and remain, by the power of the five-pointed stars, blessed and sacred, made powerful by the Elder Gods who loathe the evil you work in all being . . . Go now, and the power of the five-pointed star shall forever hold you below the face of the earth in the hidden and lost sea kingdoms of the vast unknown! [Depths]

The star-stones have power in many places, even places that are or have been controlled by the Great Old Ones and their minions:

In the land of Yhe as in great R’lyeh, in Y’ha-nthlei as in Yoth, in Yuggoth as in Zothique, in N’kai as in K’n-yan, in Kadath-in-the-Cold-Waste, as in the Lake of Hali, in Carcosa as in Ib, it shall have power. . . [Curwen][also paraphrased in Lurker]

Some of the star stones bear the Elder Sign, also called the seal of the Elder Gods:

"As is evident, the opening he had closed was the roof of the tower; he had closed it with a stone bearing a mark which, though I have not seen it, must and can only be the Elder Sign, the mark of those Elder Gods whose strength against the Great Old Ones is absolute, the mark the Great Old Ones fear and hate." [Lurker]

That we did eventually reach Damqut seems to me now in retrospect evidence that, if we were being pursued, as I am convinced we were, we were also under a protection other than that afforded us by the grey five-pointed stones bearing the seal of the Elder Gods. [Keeper]

His House at R’lyeh, toward which at once all His minions swam and strove against all manner of obstacles, and arrang’d themselves to wait for His awaken’g powerless to touch ye Elder Sign and fearful of its great pow’r . . . [Lurker]

However, it appears that many of the star stones bear a different symbol, called the Seal of R'lyeh.

When he came back he carried what I saw at once were objects of stone, roughly in the shape of five-pointed stars . . . “These stones are among the thousands bearing the Seal of R’lyeh which closed the prisons of the Ancient Ones [Great Old Ones (3)]. They are the seals of the Elder Gods.” [Witches]

Supposedly the star-stones give the power to command, though this aspect of their power is never demonstrated in Derleth's stories:

He who hath the five-pointed stone shall find himself able to command all beings who creep, swim, crawl, walk, or fly even to the source from which there is no returning. [Curwen]

The possessor of the stone shall find himself able to command all beings which creep, swim, crawl, walk, or fly even to the source from which there is no returning. [Lurker]

The star stones can be used as a weapon:

The five-pointed star has great power, an older power than that which created the thing on Vömma. It is a weapon used eons past, when the Elder Gods fought and conquered the hosts of evil for possession of Earth . . . [Spawn]

The touch of a star stone was sufficient to kill the spawn of the Maelstrom:

I shall never forget the change that came over him. His face went suddenly gray, and his body seemed to shrivel together in the chair. I saw his hand crumble suddenly away, and in a moment his face fell inward. In not more than one minute, a living thing died, fell together, and vanished-disintegrated before our eyes! [Spawn]

However, the power of the star stones wanes over time:

. . . but even as the stars wane and grow cold, as the suns die, and the spaces between the stars grow more great, so wanes the power of all things—of the five-pointed star-stone as of the spells put upon the Great Old Ones by the benign Elder Gods, and there shall come a time as once there was a time, and it shall be shown that / That is not dead which can eternal lie, / And with strange eons even death may die. [Curwen]

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