To be entirely fair, it’s not just Funcom.
Howard and Lovecraft were proliferate pen pals and used each other’s ideas and characters/creatures freely.
It is not too much of a stretch to say that Mythos is a part of the Hyborian Age.
Oh, we know the development reasons, but this one refuses to let something as banal as that to intrude upon fun speculation to fill a gaping hole. In the absence of actual cannon, we can craft fannon to fit.
As for them being seen as elders…
They have no vault.
Unless the broken vault down on the Isle of Dusk was theirs. The only survivors of that calamity being the ones we see on the Isle of Dawn.
If we knew more about the Accursed and the First Men, it would be easier to piece this together.
We know the first men are largely dead on the main isle.
The ones on the Southern Archipelago seem to be degenerate and mutated.
On one hand, they work Starmetal.
On the other, they’re cavemen.
Further, there are only males?
Now, are they, or are the Accursed, remnants of the Acheronian civilization that once dwelt on Siptah?
Siptah’s expedition couldn’t scratch the Vaults. But they may have lacked the understanding to forge Starmetal. Both the First men and Accursed use Starmetal (yes it is because the Accursed are copypasta of the Cimmerians from the Mounds of the Dead, but let this one finish spinning their yarn). Perhaps Starmetal could scratch what the Stygians could not and one of these groups managed to shatter the vault for the ones who would become the Grey Ones.
In the absence of official lore it is hard to say, but that the Accursed of the Isle of Dawn seem to venerate or emulate the Grey Ones could be a clue.
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