True Rite Of Transcendence

The True Rite Of Transcendence is a spell used by various races in order to Transcend. Most of The Great Old Ones, Elder Gods, and Outer Gods were formed by The True Rite of Transcendence. The Rite was discovered by the Hyperboreans over 700,000 years ago in the city of Ulthar, however the destruction of the Hyperboreans prevented them from using it. The remaining Hyperboreans have been attempting to create a body which humanity can transcend into.

Transcendence
Transcendence, using the True Rite, involves several steps. The True Rite takes the empathy between all members of a given species and makes it into a new, separate consciousness, more powerful than any of its constituent parts. Yet it does not eliminate individuality, rather, it is the embodiment of the relationship between all members of a species.
 * 1) The recitation of The True Rite of Transcendence
 * 2) The consolidation of the empathy between all members of a given species into a new, collectively influenced but separate consciousness.
 * 3) The projection of this new consciousness onto a sufficiently capable body.

Essentially, it is Magical Fusion on a much larger scale.

A species must also possess a certain level of mental and social advancement before Transcending.

Pre-Earth
The first incident of Transcendence occurred between the Cxaxukluth of the planet Yakaoldi. They created Cxaxukluth, a Great Old One using their collective consciousness and established a small galactic empire within the region, enslaving several species in the process. However, many of the enslaved races learned the Rite on their own through the process of cultural diffusion and during this time an explosion of new deities came onto the scene. Some of these new deities were convinced by Nyarlathotep to worship Azathoth while other split off and created a new faction of deities called The Elder Gods, led by Nodens. The two would battle for many millennia, with The Elder Gods imprisoning many of The Great Old Ones on the planet Earth.

Early Earth
Almost all of the species of the early Earth attempted to master the True Rite of Transcendence. Some were successful, with the Serpent People creating The Great Old One, Yig. Others, such as The Elder Ones, tried for millions of years to master The True Rite but failed due to a natural lack of empathy. Most of the deities created on earth were fairly weak and were easily defeated by powerful enough magicians.

Hyperborea
The first hominids advanced enough to contemplate Transcendence were the Hyperboreans. The hominds had a natural capacity for empathy far higher than almost any other species in the galaxy, even experiencing love for each other, a capacity that it took most species billions of years to perfect. As a result of their immense latent power, The Outer Gods immediately took notice of the Hyperboreans and used the ice age brought about by Ithaqua and Tsathoggua to kill them as quickly as possible. Many millions died during this time and aside from a small handful, Hyperborean civilization was largely wiped out.

Yet a group of powerful Hyperborean magicians living in the city of Ulthar were able to master the True Rite as their civilization collapsed. The few remaining Hyperboreans Transcended and projected their body onto a black cat living in the magicians' house. Despite being based on a small number of Hyperboreans and being given a weak and unstable body, the resultant deity, called Ulthar, was able to defeat both Ithaqua and Tsathoggua, forcing the latter to flee to the South pole and imprisoning the former beneath Mt. Voormis. Yet Ulthar could only survive so long as the Hyperboreans survived, and the Hyperboreans were still slowly dying.

Humanity
A small population of Hyperboreans continued to exist, sustaining the existence of Ulthar. However, a new species began to arise after the Hyperboreans fell. This was humanity. Humanity had even greater latent potential than the Hyperboreans but were less advanced and hardly capable of understanding the True Rite of Transcendence let alone accomplishing it. The few remaining Hyperboreans agreed that they would work together to help humanity transcend to that they might continue to protect the earth for the hominids after Ulthar died.

For hundreds of thousands of years, the Hyperboreans secretly worked to help mankind develop into an advanced race, introducing various technological advances at a slow pace to keep The Outer Gods from noticing humanity's rise to prominence. They also worked tirelessly to fashion a body for humanity, called simply Man.

In 1912, the Hyperboreans, believing humanity to be sufficiently advanced to begin contemplating Transcendence, revealed the ruins of the city of Ulthar to the explorer James Field. Field was able to discover and translate some of the Rite, but went mad in the process. He brought some of the tablets containing the Rite back, and the four proxies of The Cult of Transcendence began to vie for control of the True Rite, ssowing the seeds for a conflict that would set the cause of Transcendence back over a century and bring the dark star Ghroth closer to earth, endangering all of mankind.