".the basis of the fear was a horrible elder race of half-polypous, utterly alien entities which had come through space from immeasurably distant universes and had dominated the earth and three other solar planets about 600 million years ago. „
~ HPL , The Shadow Out Of Time
This blog post is going to pick right up from here. We know that the flying polyps caused the mass extinction of a huge number of species at various early stages in time on Earth. This is according to HP Lovecraft's The Shadow Out of Time. The flying polyps those Lovecraftian horrors finished off anything that crossed their paths in past epochs. According to the H.P. Lovecraft wiki; "Around 70 million years ago (during the Cretaceous era), the Polyps rose from their subterranean haunts to exact revenge by exterminating the Yithians in one fell swoop." They lost because the Yithian's minds had alreay jumped ahead in time according to the novella.
But this leaves quite a few more questions then answers. Dire questions of mass extinction events going back to the formation of the Earth. Everyone thinks that Cthulhu & it's ilk are the worst. But the flying polyps may be the real home grown alien horrors that lurk on the fringes of Earth's solar system.
In the 2d6 time travel rpg Empire of Time there are a number of alien life forms from the very early stages of Earth. These races know fear through the very thought of the polyp monsters lurking just below Earth's surface.
Imagine that time travel drives are invented & this event triggers the reawakening of the flying polyps. Why?! Because of the fact that the Yithians machinations of time travel may have attracted the flying polyps in the first place. And things went from bad to worse. So do the PC's stand any chance against these horrors?! In the short term yes & in the long term no. They can destroy the polyps with electrical weaponry ala Yithians. We're talking about an alien species that can sleep for millions of years, whose numbers are unknown, and whose agenda we don't really even understand.
The fact is that if the flying polyps have colonies & cities below the sands of Mars. A time traveling mission maybe to save the time colonists on Mars before the polyps wake up! Outpost Mars may become more then a casual rpg template. The real horror begins to awaken.