Elder Things

Interesting critters, really. Here are a few, mixing qualities of several types of echinoderm. It's interesting Lovecraft chose echinodermata as the basis of his descriptions of them, especially considering Helicoplacus was described as early as 1933, allowing us to determine that the earliest echinoderms appear to be sessile organisms (though, to be fair, At the Mountains of Madness was published in 1931). It's also interesting that he chose the method of movement that he did for such an ungainly critter; I'm having to make minor changes to some things to make them fit our current xenobiological speculative knowledge (which, ironically, has surpassed the expectations of the 30s and of Lovecraft in general), namely, that most life forms we run into are going to move "front forward," by and large being that you want your senses oriented in the direction you're moving.

Here, the elder things will twist and turn, facing any number of directions depending on their current needs, their bodies thick and yet flexible enough to rotate like this, due to their largely aquatic lifestyle. It should be noted that elder things are the most human-like life forms in the universe, aside from beings living in the Dreamla Phase Space.