Cosmic Entity

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Ego: What madness do you mouth? You are but a single being, and I a world entire!
Galactus: The words you speak are true! In all of space I stand alone... but I have no need for an ally, for I am Galactus! The be-all and the end all am I!

A Cosmic Entity is any being who possesses powers so great he, she or it can affect entire worlds (or in some cases, entire universes.) If there is more than one such entity in a setting, there will usually be different levels of power between them, and often specific responsibilities as well, forming a kind of Fantasy Pantheon.

Cosmic Beings tend to not care much about "lesser beings" (anybody who isn't 'cosmic') and any harm (or good) they cause is often unintentional. Because of their level of power, when they cause trouble the heroes are often forced to try to reason with them, use a Cosmic Keystone, or ask another Cosmic Entity for help.

A Cosmic Entity could be any of the following:

Examples of Cosmic Entity include:

Comic Books

Fan Works

  • The "True Gods" of the multiverse of the Drunkard's Walk series. Twelve-dimensional beings living at the "top" of a multiverse full of universes ranging from 0-dimensional "dotworlds" all the way up to their unique native cosm, they are able to view and modify universes of lower dimensionality the way a mortal might edit a word processing file. They tend to spawn Physical God avatars in the universes that interest them -- sometimes more than one, each operating independently -- that are something akin to semi-autonomous roleplaying characters.

Literature

  • Some of the "Outer Gods" from H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos qualify. Most notably Azathoth, the Blind Idiot God, who is mindless but said to rule over all time and space.
    • Actually he's the living center of the universe.
  • The Xeelee, the rulers of the Baryonic universe in the Xeelee Sequence. They have existed since seconds after the Big Bang, and used time travel to retroactively speed their own development. They are capable of using entire galaxies as construction material.
  • The Ellimist and Crayak from Animorphs

Tabletop Games

  • Dungeons & Dragons
    • Planescape cosmology includes Deities as a subtype of Powers, i.e. there are entities of standing equal to even greater gods, but not feeding on worship. Most non-godly Powers are paragons of planes and/or planar races. For example, Primus is Supreme Controller of the Entire Modron race and as such is Order incarnate in Its own way, but this doesn't mean any organic mortal can understand Its agenda or as much as meaningfully communicate with It. Some of the Powers (such as Elemental Lords) count as gods in that some mortals worship them and receive divine magic, but they don't really need this and accordingly don't care about it all that much. In Abyss some layers are owned by gods, while others by the most powerful fiends with ambition of becoming gods… and some are just so nasty that even high-ranked fiends don't bother trying to conquer and hold them.
    • In D&D4 the Primordials and older gods, who literally created their Multiverse out of chaos.
  • In Chaos, you play as one. At the lower levels of play, you are "merely" a fairly powerful Reality Warper. But as you start to hit your epic levels, yeah, you're this.
  • Demon: The Descent introduces the God-Machine to the New World of Darkness. Technically less a singular entity and more a sapient ecosystem, this Sufficiently Advanced so-to-speak occult supercomputer with an inscrutable agenda pervades the entirety of the setting, possibly serving as a Bigger Bad to the other splats.

Toys

  • Transformers most famously has Primus, who has a body in every Transformers continuity and while he does not serve the same purpose in every story (he's been everything from the last of the light gods to the sentient will of the universe), these bodies all exist at the same time. Then there is Unicron, who almost always is out to destroy whatever continuity he is in and automatically incarnates in a new one every time he is defeated. Unsurprisingly, this background for them came from Marvel Comics.

Video Games

  • Asura's Wrath: Chakravartin is a Cosmic Being that can manipulate the forces of the Universe and destroy and recreate worlds over and over.