Dungeons and Dragons in its 5th¹¹ 5th by convention, not by counting, as there was an edition before 1st edition and some fractional and unnumbered editions too. edition rule books (5e) have warlocks who take powers from dubious powerful entities, including from a great old one. Loosely inspired by H. P. Lovecraft’s Old Ones, 5e’s great old ones are much vaster and less concrete than Lovecraft’s. While most warlocks get power by some kind of agreement or contract, warlocks of a great old one take power from beings that might be unaware of your existence.

What must be going through the mind of a mortal that is stealing power from a comic-scale horror?

I wrote this using a form I’ve neither used before nor seen used elsewhere, designing a form of structured verse based on chiasmus. Chiasmus are roughly lists said forward and then backward, but adjusted slightly on the way out, with a climax or most important part in the middle. I decided to apply this idea to the number of stressed syllables per line and to the rhyme scheme, as well as a somewhat less direct mirroring of ideas than in the prose chiasmus I’ve read.

To the best of my knowledge, the name Yargoth never appeared in Lovecraft’s works, but it is inspired by linguistic patterns I observed in his naming of the Old Ones.

Restraint

A madman’s journal taught me how to find and reach into the mind of Yargoth
    (a boundless, knowing horror that exists outside of space and time)
        and there to parasite its mind before it swats me senseless.
            From what I’ve gulped as I have dodged its gaze and claws
                I’ve learned reality is a delusion.
                    Why should its laws cause me to cower?
                        If I cast off its chains,
                            I could cause
                                the fall
                                of all!
                            Why should I pause?
                        All arguments and pains
                    would crumble to this awesome power!
                Why do I stay within this real illusion?
            I chose to stay; I must have had some reasoned cause…
        Oh, right. Without its cover I would be exposed, defenseless.
    Reality’s a home to me. That was the madman’s guiding rhyme.
I’m in control. I am not mad. Now let me go and feed again from Yargoth!