In the novella "At the Mountains of Madness" by H.P. Lovecraft, a race of alien beings who, millions of years ago, built a vast civilization somewhere on the continent of Antarctica. They were eventually destroyed by their artificially-created servants the Shoggoths.

As a race they are distinct from the Great Old Ones, that assortment of extraterrestrial menaces that includes Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth.