Prophecies of the Great Return
[August Derleth's Cthulhu Mythos]

The Great Old Ones (3) have foreseen the future:

“Nay, Master. Have I been long gone? Two years? Ten?” / Ambrose’s chuckle was audible and terrible to hear. “But a breath of time! More than twenty times ten. Great changes have come, even as the Old Ones [Great Old Ones (3)] foresaw and we were given to know. You will see them.” [Lurker]

Their return has been prophesied:

Man rules now where once They ruled; soon They shall rule again where man rules now. After summer is winter, and after winter summer. They wait patient and potent, for here shall They reign again, and at Their coming again none shall dispute Them and all shall be subject to Them. [Lurker][paraphrased from HPL Dunwich (online text)]

Great Cthulhu shall rise from R’lyeh, Hastur the Unspeakable shall return from the dark star which is in the Hyades near Aldebaran, the red eye of the bull, Nyarlathotep shall howl forever in the darkness where he abideth, Shub-Niggurath shall spawn his thousand young, and they shall spawn in turn and shall take dominion over all wood nymphs, satyrs, leprechauns, and the Little People, Lloigor, Zhar, and Ithaqua shall ride the spaces among the stars, and those who serve them, the Tcho-Tcho, shall be ennobled, Cthugha shall encompass his dominion from Fomalhaut, and Tsathoggua shall come from N’kai . . . [Curwen][also paraphrased in Lurker]

Then shal They return & on this great Return’g shal ye Great Cthulhu be fre’d from R’lyeh beneath ye Sea & Him Who Is Not To Be Nam’d [Hastur] shal come from His City which is Carcosa near ye Lake of Hali, & Shub-Niggurath shal come forth & multiply in his Hideousness, & Nyarlathotep shal carry ye word to all the Gr. Old Ones & their Minions, & Cthugha shal lay His Hand upon all that oppose Him & Destroy, & ye blind idiot, ye noxious Azathoth shal arise from ye middle of ye World where all is Chaos & Destruction where He hath bubbl’d & blasphem’d at ye centre which is of All Things, which is to say Infinity, & Yog-Sothoth, who is ye All-in-One & One-in-All, shal bring his globes, & Ithaqua shal walk again, & from ye black-litt’n caverns within ye Earth shal come Tsathoggua, & togeth’r shal take possession of Earth and all things that live upon it, & shal prepare to do battle with ye Elder Gods when ye Lord of ye Great Abyss [Nodens] is apprised of their return’g & shal come with His Brothers to disperse ye Evill. [Lurker]

He [Cthulhu] shall be freed to embrace ye Earth again and make of it His Kingdom and defy ye Elder Gods anew. [Lurker]

Abdul Alhazred seems to expect the Elder Gods (1) to win this final battle:

Then shal They [the Great Old Ones (3)] return . . . & togeth’r shal take possession of Earth and all things that live upon it, & shal prepare to do battle with ye Elder Gods when [Nodens] ye Lord of ye Great Abyss is apprised of their return’g & shal come with His Brothers to disperse ye Evill. [Lurker]

However, Marius Phillips believed that the Great Old Ones (3) will triumph:

. . . our brethren of the seas [the Deep Ones] who serve and wait upon the day of the resurrection, when Cthulhu and Hastur and Lloigor and Yog-Sothoth shall rise again and vanquish the Elder Gods in that titanic struggle which must come. [Seal]

In Derleth stories (though not in Lovecraft), the time-travelling Great Race is aware of the Great Old Ones' pending return:

. . . the Great Race would begin again to build its civilization, always hoping to escape the holocaust which would come about when the Ancient Ones [Great Old Ones (3)] . . . escaped their bondage and joined again in titanic battle with the Elder Gods in their remote fastnesses among distant stars. [Space]

The time of the Great Old Ones' (3) return is soon:

They wait by the gates, for the time draws near, the hour is soon at hand, and the Elder Gods sleep, dreaming, and there are those who know the spells put upon the Great Old Ones by the Elder Gods, as there are those who shall learn how to break them, as already they know how to command the servants of those who wait beyond the door from Outside. [Curwen][also paraphrased in Lurker]

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