"After all, they were not evil things of their kind. They were the men of another age and another order of being. Nature had played a hellish jest on them--as it will on any others that human madness, callousness, or cruelty may hereafter dig up in that hideously dead or sleeping polar waste--and this was their tragic homecoming. They had not been even savages--for what indeed had they done? That awful awakening in the cold of an unknown epoch--perhaps an attack by the furry, frantically barking quadrupeds, and a dazed defense against them and the equally frantic white simians with the queer wrappings and paraphernalia . . poor Lake, poor Gedney . . . and poor Old Ones! Scientists to the last--what had they done that we would not have done in their place? God, what intelligence and persistence! What a facing of the incredible, just as those kinsmen and forbears had faced things only a little less incredible! Radiates, vegetables, monstrosities, star spawn--whatever they had been, they were men!"

-H. P. Lovecraft.
At The Mountains Of Madness

My interpretation (I think fairly accurate) of an Elder Thing fighting off a Shoggoth. The poor Elder Thing is probably doomed, all things considered. And if you're wondering about the ray guns, the book does mention that they had energy weapons, I believe. (The wiki article certainly does, so it's *somewhere* in the Lovecraft Mythos.)

Anyhow! This was way too much fun to do. Everybody draws Cthulhu, but the rest of the Mythos never gets any love. Elder Things are possibly my favorite critters from it. Them and the meeping ghouls from The Dream Quest Of Unknown Kadath. Elder Things are more fun to draw though. My shoggoths need more work. :P The shoggoth is looking at you!