Gateways or Openings
[August Derleth's Cthulhu Mythos]

There are gateways or openings that can facilitate the return of the Great Old Ones (3):

They wait by the gates . . . [Curwen]

. . . Ponape was the outpost of mankind’s civilization, the outpost nearest the gate into the weird and terrible world of the Ancient Ones [Great Old Ones (3)] . . . [Island]

Dr. Shrewsbury and he, Phelan said, had been in search of the “openings” by means of which great Cthulhu might rise from where he lies sleeping “in his house at R’lyeh,” an undersea place, Cthulhu apparently being amphibious . . . [Sky]

[Laban Shrewsbury's] work was either done or had gone as far as it could go, short of ceaseless vigilance to stop up temporarily every avenue to the open that might be attempted by Cthulhu or those who followed him, who worshipped him and did the bidding of the Ancient Ones [Great Old Ones (3)]. [Island]

He [Yog-Sothoth] hath all knowledge; he knoweth where the Old Ones came through in the aeons past, and he knoweth where they will break through again. [Lurker]

At least some of these openings were created by the worshippers of the Great Old Ones (3):

. . . their primitive worshippers and followers . . . effected certain “openings” through which the Great Old Ones and their extra-terrestrial minions might enter, or might be “called,” wherever in space or time they might be, by certain rites . . . [Lurker]

Paradoxically, the gateways are actually everywhere:

Concern’g ye Old Ones [Great Old Ones (3)], ’tis writ, they wait ev’r at ye Gate, & ye Gate is all places at all times, for They know noth’g of time or place but are in all time & in all place togeth’r without appear’g to be . . . [Lurker][Whippoorwills]

. . . ye Gates are for Them ev’rywhere, but ye 1st. was that which I caus’d to be op’d, Namely, in Irem, ye City of Pillars, ye city under ye desert, but wher’r men sett up ye Stones and sayeth thrice ye forbidd’n Words, they shall cause there a Gate to be establish’d & shall wait upon Them Who Come through ye gate, ev’n as Dhols, & ye Abomin. Mi-Go [Outer Ones], & ye Tcho-Tcho peop., & ye Deep Ones, & ye Gugs, & ye Gaunts of ye Night & ye Shoggoths, & ye Voormis, & ye Shantaks which guard Kadath in ye Colde Waste & ye Plateau Leng. [Lurker] [Whippoorwills]

It is conceivable that some of the Great Old Ones (3), like Cthulhu, require localized gateways to access our world, whereas others, like Yog-Sothoth, may be able to effect an opening anywhere.

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