Is there a relationship between The Dark (Nightbane) & The Old Ones

[Warshield73]

I have been doing a lot of reading on alien intelligences and greater supernatural beings in general trying to find connections to The Old Ones. For most beings nothing is listed and only a few even have hints but you can make some assumptions.

One being I keep coming back to is The Dark, the power behind the NIghtlords in Nightbane. Now I have never run or even played NB but I have read the first 5 books, several cover to cover, and I use it extensively in both Rifts and Heroes unlimited so I am pretty familiar with the setting. One question I have always had is the nature of The Dark. How does it fit into the Palladium megavers as a whole.

If there is something in the more recent books that I missed I would love to hear it but mainly I am interested in peoples opinions. What do you think The Dark is and do you think it is connected to the Old Ones in any way?

Spoiler:

When I used NB in Rifts I had a few ideas but I never really nailed it down to just one. My favorites were:

1-The Dark is a small part of an Old One, I was think Netosa but Erva is a possibility, that is seeping through the magic slumber trying to get free.

2-The Dark is a semi-sentient tool created by the Old Ones to corrupt the souls of lesser beings or maybe as a weapon they wanted to use in the war with the forces of light. They lost control if it when they were locked in slumber The Dark was set loose and continues its mission. In the alternative maybe it was a tool of Xy alone and when he was betrayed it was set loose.

3-The Dark is the residue left of Xy when the circle turned him into Thoth. My idea was that Thoth got all the mystic knowledge, the intelect and even the physical body of Xy (see his true MDC in the description) but all that was left, mainly raw power and hate/anger, was left over in The Dark.

4-The Dark is older than The Old Ones, maybe the creator of them or more likely where they got much of there power. I was thinking this origin would be more primal. Not so much spells and rituals but raw magic power willing its evil into existence. It was imprisoned by the old ones and they drained much of it's power. When the Old Ones themselves were imprisoned the Dark was able to reach out to followers to try and free itself. In this scenario I figured I could tie in the story around Thoth as the only being with the knowledge to free it.

Just a few of my ideas on this, love to know if anyone else has thought on it.

[Grazzik]

The Dark may simply be just one alien intelligence among thousands... millions, that just happened to select one dimension/plane of existence to be its personal playground. Consider the Dweller in DB3 pg 29 - a similar AI the wants to consume the Megaverse - to show that the Dark is not unique.

There doesn't have to be a connection between the Dark and the Old Ones, unless you want there to be one. Even if you want there to be a connection, it is unclear whether canon would allow it because on the same page, the same section even, we have the following conflicting info:

The Old Ones are believed to be an extinct race of mega-powerful Alien Intelligences indigenous to the Palladium World in another dimension. Whether their influence ever extended beyond the Palladium realm is uncertain...

...It seems apparent that the Old Ones not only enslaved other beings, but entire planets across the dimensional web of the universe. Those they did not enslave, they tormented and destroyed.

Despite these two conflicting statements regarding the Old Ones' extradimensional misadventures, there is no explicit canon connection between the Dark and the Old Ones.

[Curbludgeon]

I kinda like to have The Dark related to Apsu. In some notes on a pre-Janus Experiment setting I added some societies to Lemuria, Atlantis, and the Nazca. One incorporated Shadow, Dark Manipulation, and Psionic abilities into their ziggurats. Before Apsu was bound the AI had subjugated the original habitants of what became the Nightlands, stripping the agency and intelligence Apsu's relative had largely distributed.

There's a bit of Old One Lovecraft style warring between alien species here. The Shadow Chariot (or whatever the shapechanging vehicle is called) is like nothing so much as a generally under control Shoggoth. There's also possibility for having characters being ambiguously between NIghtbane, gods, or something else. The Ogdoad of Hermopolis, for example, could be remnants of Apsu's forces, early divine resistance to the Nightlords, some of the most ancient of Ancient Nightbane, what have you.

[Jockitch74]

The Dark (connected to Molock) is possibly Apsu , from the Babylonian Gods of Darkness, which is mentioned to likely be a race closely related to the Old Ones.

So, likely.