Screw you, Cthulhu!

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Was looking at a signature, one of the old treasured Lovecraft quotes.

"We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far."

Now, this was written by a manic depressive nihilist around the Great Depression. Things looked bleak.

Go back 20-30 years. Back to the age of Jules Verne and similar authors when information was beginning to build at blinding speed and Mankind seemed to think they could conceive and triumph over anything.

What might the Cthulhu Mythos be like with this indomitable attitude?

We weren't meant to voyage far? Well SCREW YOU, CTHULHU! That's what man DOES. That is practically what defines our race. We go EVERYWHERE. Poke our noses where we never should have been able to poke. It doesn't always turn out right, but eventually enough nose are stuck in that one learns the proper way to do it.

What if man decided that while we may die, at least we die gloriously, or with honor? Man thought he faced things just as frightening in his early history, but he triumphed. The earthquake, the volcano, the hurricane, all things that make man seem like fragile gnats beside an uncaring, impossibly powerful force. We grew, only to find a greater threat in the Elder Evils. Man simply says, 'Lets do this thing.' and continued in the grand tradition. Now we build upon the volcano and predict the earthquake.

Basically, what happens to the Mythos when the despair and feelings of inadequacy is removed? How might things be changed? If fear was not an option, how much knowledge might be gleaned instead of committing suicide or going insane? If man decided that if we're all doomed anyways, let's make it an AWESOME death, fighting it all the way and giving them the finger.

We may be but a soap bubble in a sea of infinite insanity, but it's OUR soap bubble, dammit, and we float where we will!

[Lord_Gareth]

Warhammer 40k?

[dgnslyr]

WarHammer? What about BrightHammer?
"In the NOBLE BRIGHTNESS of the distant future, there is only HIGH ADVENTURE."

[TSGames]

Interesting....

I think we might start studying the ruins the the Old Ones left behind. Since their technology seems to be the only thing that Cthulhu and the elder gods feared, and they seemed to be very afraid of it, we may leap forward in advancement. We may also royally piss off the shoggoths and doom ourselves to extinction.

[warty goblin]

It turns into just another monster story. The thing that makes Lovecraft stand out is the deeply pessimistic, almost nihilistic, worldview. Remove that and you're left with a steamboat and a very large squid.

[arguskos]

"In the NOBLE BRIGHTNESS of the distant future, there is only HIGH ADVENTURE."
Sir, I rarely sig anything, but this cuts the mustard. Hope you don't mind. :smallcool:

[dgnslyr]

Sir, I rarely sig anything, but this cuts the mustard. Hope you don't mind. :smallcool:

Of course you can sig it, please, I feel honored. Sadly, I can't claim credit for the quote, however, as I found it on 1d4chan, here (http://1d4chan.org/wiki/BrightHammer40k_(1st_edition)).

[SuperFish]

Warhammer 40k?
Or rather, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.

...Well, a lot of Super Robot anime, actually.

[The Vorpal Tribble]

I just read up on Warhammer and trying to figure out what the two even come close to having in common. Especially robots? :smallconfused:

[Lord_Gareth]

I just read up on Warhammer and trying to figure out what the two even come close to having in common. Especially robots? :smallconfused:

Chaos Gods = Elder Evils.

[dgnslyr]

Well, WarHammer is a GrimDark setting, more like Neon Genesis Evangelion.

BrightHammer, on the other hand, is more NobleBright, like Gurren Lagann.

All four have mecha, though, so there is common ground.

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Anime is a foreign language to me, an ignorance I cultivate, so sadly referencing it doesn't aid me much :smallwink:

[Gorgondantess]

Well screw you too, Vorpal Tribble.:smallyuk:
:smallwink:

Eh. It'd sorta lose its appeal. I mean, that's what's awesome about the Cthulhu mythos. Without that, well... Actually, not much would change. People would try using magic, and they'd go insane or be killed by a hound of tindalos or die in a myriad of other horrible ways. Even without the pessimism and fear, we're still only human.
And if you make these things less powerful to compensate for that... well, yeah, it's just a cheesy monster thing.

[Jayngfet]

Who said anything about making THEM change power scale? Hell, if Cthulhu would rather phase out than connect with a steamboat I'd love to see what kind of reaction artillery squads give him.

[chiasaur11]

It turns into just another monster story. The thing that makes Lovecraft stand out is the deeply pessimistic, almost nihilistic, worldview. Remove that and you're left with a steamboat and a very large squid.

Yup. Nihilism is the bit that separates Lovecraft from Howard.

Both are fun reads, mind.

(But for the request? X-Com, TFTD. Final boss is Cthulhu with the serial numbers filed off. It even has sanity effects. On the player.)

[Eldan]

Yes. Exactly what I always thought.

Who's tentacle face down there to tell us what we can or can not explore? We're humanity, damn it.


By the toll of a billion deaths man has bought his birthright of the earth, and it is his against all comers; it would still be his were the Martians ten times as mighty as they are. For neither do men live nor die in vain.

And honestly, if we found out something like this today, I'd give us fifty years until we have plans for an Azathoth-powered generator.

[Tengu_temp]

What happens? CthulhuTech happens. It's not exactly a cheerful setting, but humanity does fight against the Mythos, and fight successfully. Using giant biotechnological mecha, in fact. Yes, this game is unashamingly inspired by Evangelion as much as it is by Cthulhu.

[Eldan]

True, true.

But you know what? It doesn't go far enough. Humanity should kick some more general starspawn ass.

[Ravens_cry]

True, true.

But you know what? It doesn't go far enough. Humanity should kick some more general starspawn ass.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
***
Cliché I know, but still a fist in the air of triumph. If this victory should only buy us a single tomorrow, we shall do it again, and again, paying a danegeld of blood, sweat, and toil, striving to push back that which has come to destroy, not just us, not just our children, but our very existence, past, present, and future.
For what is Humanity without the will to strive, to push back the boundaries of what we know, what we can do, but mere naked apes on the savannah?
Today we have won tomorrow, tomorrow we will do it again.
Let's go show them Humanity has teeth.

[Halna LeGavilk]

Personally, I don't think anyone would ever have read it. It would definitely lose all appeal to me. Just the fact that, there is no escape, there is fighting it. You can't win... there is only the comforting oblivion to aid you in forgetting...

[Eldan]

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
***
Cliché I know, but still a fist in the air of triumph. If this victory should only buy us a single tomorrow, we shall do it again, and again, paying a danegeld of blood, sweat, and toil, striving to push back that which has come to destroy, not just us, not just our children, but our very existence, past, present, and future.
For what is Humanity without the will to strive, to push back the boundaries of what we know, what we can do, but mere naked apes on the savannah?
Today we have won tomorrow, tomorrow we will do it again.
Let's go show them Humanity has teeth.

Aye. I totally agree with you.

Humanity fights for it's right to sit on a couch all day and only consume potato chips, dammit! :smalltongue:

Honestly, I've tried reading Lovecraft, but I just found it generally silly. It wasn't scary, it was vaguely amusing.

[Galileo]

What happens? CthulhuTech happens. It's not exactly a cheerful setting, but humanity does fight against the Mythos, and fight successfully. Using giant biotechnological mecha, in fact. Yes, this game is unashamingly inspired by Evangelion as much as it is by Cthulhu.

It's also a pretty well designed game. Takes the middle route with most common game mechanics and welds them together into a fun system, which is fairly easy to get into from GURPS, D&D or Exalted. It's like a gateway drug to almost every system there is! With mecha!

[horngeek]

...there's a game called Exalted.

Now, I'm biased, as I LOVE this game. I love it to bits because of the themes. But I'm going to say that it is almost EXACTLY like what you're describing. It WOULD be a Cosmic Horror story... except for the titular Exalted.

[Ravens_cry]

Personally, I don't think anyone would ever have read it. It would definitely lose all appeal to me. Just the fact that, there is no escape, there is fighting it. You can't win... there is only the comforting oblivion to aid you in forgetting...
You can't win, but you can forestall it. Even Lovecraft allowed that. A steamboat to the goolies, or Ghostbusters crossing the streams, and you can stop Cthulhu until the stars are right again. Inevitable? So? Does that matter? Every second alive, every breath we take, is holding back of the inevitable. The Oldest Enemy will always haunt us. That doesn't mean I can't enjoy living while it lasts, or try to be party to the creation of new life to stand in my place.
I do agree that taking away the dark inevitable WOULD take away much of his appeal. Without it, it would simply be a collection of verbosely written monster tales, nothing more.

[Obrysii]

Was looking at a signature, one of the old treasured Lovecraft quotes.

My signature was this for a long time!

I think it's just meant to mean we aren't supposed to pull together unknowable secrets - information our minds aren't built to handle; of course we'll need a few people to push past that boundary, though.

[pendell]

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
***
Cliché I know, but still a fist in the air of triumph. If this victory should only buy us a single tomorrow, we shall do it again, and again, paying a danegeld of blood, sweat, and toil, striving to push back that which has come to destroy, not just us, not just our children, but our very existence, past, present, and future.
For what is Humanity without the will to strive, to push back the boundaries of what we know, what we can do, but mere naked apes on the savannah?
Today we have won tomorrow, tomorrow we will do it again.
Let's go show them Humanity has teeth.

I like. But is the 'single tomorrow' bit a quote also? It's nice.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Halna LeGavilk]

You can't win, but you can forestall it. Even Lovecraft allowed that. A steamboat to the goolies, or Ghostbusters crossing the streams, and you can stop Cthulhu until the stars are right again. Inevitable? So? Does that matter? Every second alive, every breath we take, is holding back of the inevitable. The Oldest Enemy will always haunt us. That doesn't mean I can't enjoy living while it lasts, or try to be party to the creation of new life to stand in my place.
I do agree that taking away the dark inevitable WOULD take away much of his appeal. Without it, it would simply be a collection of verbosely written monster tales, nothing more.

:smallbiggrin: I'm not saying that we can't fight. I enjoy a good story like that as much as you do. I'm just saying that Lovecraft's tales wouldn't be any good without that sense of dread, of waiting for death, or insanity, or mutation, or what have you. It's his whole appeal.

Now, see, that's what I don't get. If you don't like this sense of dread, if you don't like the aura of fear, don't read Lovecraft. Watch Tenga Toppen Gurran Lagann. It doesn't make sense to me- you can't beat Cthulhu with sheer balls- you have to play his game, do the dark rituals, sacrifice children, and, in the end, become the monster you are fighting. In the Lovecraft universe, there isn't any fighting. You either lose or become what you fear. Either way, the darkness wins.

[Ravens_cry]

I like. But is the 'single tomorrow' bit a quote also? It's nice.

Respectfully,

Brian P.
Well, it is now, since you quoted it. But no, that's me. :smallredface: I like writing Sir Patrick Stewart Speeches.

[Worlok]

Waiting for insanity - That's sort of the point. The primary weapon of the Elder Gods? Insanity. As in, reducing people to a gibbering, screeching, violent mess. The driving force behind the rise of the human race? Insanity. As in, someone millenia ago having randomly decided to whack stuff with sticks and then set it on fire. The great asset of any living thing threatened and knowing that? Insanity. As in, having 'already being a gibbering, screeching, violent mess' hardwired into their genes since basically forever. From the mightiest of rabbits, to the lowliest of dinosaurs, everything has the potential to go out in hissing, thrashing, bloodcurdling berserk glory. Therefore, I honestly think that if the Elder Gods were to throw down on us en force, they'd end up making us stronger - if they'd even change anything at all. For Man has earned his right to hold this planet against all comers, by virtue of occasionally producing someone totally batsh*t insane (http://xkcd.com/556/). :smallbiggrin:

[Ravens_cry]

:smallbiggrin: I'm not saying that we can't fight. I enjoy a good story like that as much as you do. I'm just saying that Lovecraft's tales wouldn't be any good without that sense of dread, of waiting for death, or insanity, or mutation, or what have you. It's his whole appeal.

Now, see, that's what I don't get. If you don't like this sense of dread, if you don't like the aura of fear, don't read Lovecraft. Watch Tenga Toppen Gurran Lagann. It doesn't make sense to me- you can't beat Cthulhu with sheer balls- you have to play his game, do the dark rituals, sacrifice children, and, in the end, become the monster you are fighting. In the Lovecraft universe, there isn't any fighting. You either lose or become what you fear. Either way, the darkness wins.
I both agree and disagree with you. Mostly I agree that this feeling is what Lovecraft is all about. Though even in canon Lovecraft, it can be delayed. Do I need to remind you of the boat incident again?
And, if only for gameplay reasons, humanity in that grimdarkest of grimdarkness, Warhammer 40k, has still not lost. We've twisted in the process, become hard, zealous, many our best qualities burnt away by the fires of endless war and left only an ashen husk. But it is still us, it is still humanity.
In the end, yes, we are all <expletive redacted/>. But while that end may be certain, when it will be is not. Even in Lovecraft. And in some ways that makes it worse.

[WalkingTarget]

I both agree and disagree with you. Mostly I agree that this feeling is what Lovecraft is all about. Though even in canon Lovecraft, it can be delayed. Do I need to remind you of the boat incident again.

Also, remember the work done by Henry Armitage and his associates in Dunwich. They didn't just hit the baddie with a big hunk of metal (or with a bunch of Marines like the Innsmouth incident), they beat the weirdness at its own game and came out in (relatively) good shape.

The Dunwich Horror is, in my opinion, the only reason that the Call of Cthulhu RPG makes any sense. If there was no hope at all of winning even a minor battle, then the game loses something. I'm also a big fan of the Delta Green supplements with their inclusion of at least some sort of organized resistance, even if the overall pessimism is still there. DG is built on the standard Lovecraft base, but cranks humanity up at least one notch (from "pond scum" to "rather interesting pond scum")

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Meh, we may be but mere microbes... but so is a flesh eating virus.

[WalkingTarget]

I've been trying to think of things I've read/watched that have anything like Lovecraftian horrors that humanity does ok against. I'm having trouble thinking of anything beyond the localized Ghostbusters-style event where it's a small group of intrepid heroes, nothing where it's Humanity! at work.

Best I can think of are the government conspiracy stuff.

The Delta Green fiction anthologies.
Charles Stross' books about The Laundry.
Tim Powers' Declare to some extent.

And in those cases, the situation is generally a holding pattern; just waiting for the hammer to fall.

From what I've heard of it, the Cthulhutech setting is about what you're looking for.

Edit - and I'm not trying to be a downer, VT. I'm just trying to envision something that both captures that idea of Humanity is Awesome! Woo! Go us! mid-to-late Victorian mindset and retains the sense of threat that a Lovecraftian universe represents (because it sounds interesting). I'm drawing a blank, though.

[ArlEammon]

I've been trying to think of things I've read/watched that have anything like Lovecraftian horrors that humanity does ok against. I'm having trouble thinking of anything beyond the localized Ghostbusters-style event where it's a small group of intrepid heroes, nothing where it's Humanity! at work.

Best I can think of are the government conspiracy stuff.

The Delta Green fiction anthologies.
Charles Stross' books about The Laundry.
Tim Powers' Declare to some extent.

And in those cases, the situation is generally a holding pattern; just waiting for the hammer to fall.

From what I've heard of it, the Cthulhutech setting is about what you're looking for.

Edit - and I'm not trying to be a downer, VT. I'm just trying to envision something that both captures that idea of Humanity is Awesome! Woo! Go us! mid-to-late Victorian mindset and retains the sense of threat that a Lovecraftian universe represents (because it sounds interesting). I'm drawing a blank, though.

What about having a Human form of magic. (Arcane Magic)
And a long forgotten form of Magic (Divine Magic)?
Add some Oriental type super powers (Martial Arts badassery/Chi) into the mixture.
Then add Modern Day into it. Almost no one believes in Arcane Magic, many don't believe in miracles (Divine) and I"m pretty sure very few believe in the Powers of Anime either.

Yet in this setting it exists. Therein lies the problem to Mankind's solution. . . Even if such powers can be rediscovered they are very hard to use and master. While the player characters race through the clock trying to arm an unbelieving Humanity, Cthulhu and his kin are already beginning to awaken.

[Eldan]

Actually, virions aren't microbes... they aren't alive, so they don't fulfill the "bios" part of the word and...

I'll shut up now.

[ArlEammon]

Actually, virions aren't microbes... they aren't alive, so they don't fulfill the "bios" part of the word and...

I'll shut up now.

::Shoots Eldan:: "He knew too much!"

[Eldan]

*Eldan's face dissolves as the shot hits it, the flesh running down where bone should be, revealing a pulsating, black mass beneath it, before, against all reason, running back up, forming the face again.*

"You shouldn't have done that."

[WalkingTarget]

What about having a Human form of magic. (Arcane Magic)
And a long forgotten form of Magic (Divine Magic)?
Add some Oriental type super powers (Martial Arts badassery/Chi) into the mixture.
Then add Modern Day into it. Almost no one believes in Arcane Magic, many don't believe in miracles (Divine) and I"m pretty sure very few believe in the Powers of Anime either.

Yet in this setting it exists. Therein lies the problem to Mankind's solution. . . Even if such powers can be rediscovered they are very hard to use and master. While the player characters race through the clock trying to arm an unbelieving Humanity, Cthulhu and his kin are already beginning to awaken.

Was this a particular, existing setting you had in mind or were you just positing a hypothetical? (edit - I don't remember martial-arts stuff in the Dresden Files, but the presence of magic and miracles is there, otherwise).

Having "human powers" that are separate from what the badness uses seems un-Lovecraftian to me. They are the ones who understand the way the universe actually works, after all. We just stumble along as best we can.

The presence of "divine" magic/miracles would undermine the idiom anyway since they imply a caring, benevolent deity. Unless it's just Nyarlathotep ****ing with us again.

Again, we come across the problem of giving humanity a chance while keeping it Lovecraftian and not simply Modern Fantasy World #3856: Now with tentacles!

[Halna LeGavilk]

I both agree and disagree with you. Mostly I agree that this feeling is what Lovecraft is all about. Though even in canon Lovecraft, it can be delayed. Do I need to remind you of the boat incident again?
And, if only for gameplay reasons, humanity in that grimdarkest of grimdarkness, Warhammer 40k, has still not lost. We've twisted in the process, become hard, zealous, many our best qualities burnt away by the fires of endless war and left only an ashen husk. But it is still us, it is still humanity.
In the end, yes, we are all <expletive redacted/>. But while that end may be certain, when it will be is not. Even in Lovecraft. And in some ways that makes it worse.

Well, I think the delaying is more desperation than anything. My problem is that it's being made out as heroic. It's not. It's... eh... Whatever. I don't actually care that much. :smallbiggrin:

Personally, I love the Imperial Guard's idea of fighting. Now, that is TRUE badassery. Give each person a gun and a flak jacket and send 'em on out, and they still manage to win. :smallcool:

[ArlEammon]

Was this a particular, existing setting you had in mind or were you just positing a hypothetical? (edit - I don't remember martial-arts stuff in the Dresden Files, but the presence of magic and miracles is there, otherwise).

Having "human powers" that are separate from what the badness uses seems un-Lovecraftian to me. They are the ones who understand the way the universe actually works, after all. We just stumble along as best we can.

The presence of "divine" magic/miracles would undermine the idiom anyway since they imply a caring, benevolent deity. Unless it's just Nyarlathotep ****ing with us again.

Again, we come across the problem of giving humanity a chance while keeping it Lovecraftian and not simply Modern Fantasy World #3856: Now with tentacles!

1. Alternate deities exist in Lovecraft, such as Bast and Nodens, the Hunter.
2. The bad guys can still be more powerful than the good guys. It wouldn't be so Unlovecraftian until the "Sequal" of the setting. (It's not an existing setting)

[The Glyphstone]

*Eldan's face dissolves as the shot hits it, the flesh running down where bone should be, revealing a pulsating, black mass beneath it, before, against all reason, running back up, forming the face again.*

"You shouldn't have done that."

What are you doing here? I thought you were vacationing in 5600 BC, convincing the Atlanteans that carbonic fusion reactors were an awesome idea.

[Eldan]

I am, actually. But I had surgery last week to get rid of my causality.

[The Glyphstone]

I am, actually. But I had surgery last week to get rid of my causality.

Our health care plan covers elective procedures like that?

[Eldan]

Well, of course! It's been scientifically proven that it increases work efficiency by more than 7% on average, so they have to pay for it.

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Actually, virions aren't microbes... they aren't alive, so they don't fulfill the "bios" part of the word and...
That's still under debate and even more exemplifies the 'humans matter so little are they even truly a life form beside such a thing as an eldritch abomination?' mindset.

[chiasaur11]

I've been trying to think of things I've read/watched that have anything like Lovecraftian horrors that humanity does ok against. I'm having trouble thinking of anything beyond the localized Ghostbusters-style event where it's a small group of intrepid heroes, nothing where it's Humanity! at work.

Best I can think of are the government conspiracy stuff.

The Delta Green fiction anthologies.
Charles Stross' books about The Laundry.
Tim Powers' Declare to some extent.

And in those cases, the situation is generally a holding pattern; just waiting for the hammer to fall.

From what I've heard of it, the Cthulhutech setting is about what you're looking for.

Edit - and I'm not trying to be a downer, VT. I'm just trying to envision something that both captures that idea of Humanity is Awesome! Woo! Go us! mid-to-late Victorian mindset and retains the sense of threat that a Lovecraftian universe represents (because it sounds interesting). I'm drawing a blank, though.

X-COM, Terror From The Deep?

Horrible psychic things from beyond the stars, hideous death or worse for all, and victory is Pyrrhic at best.

On the other hand, to paraphrase Hudson, squad of ultimate badasses, and the best science teams in fiction.

[TSGames]

Y'know, I saw this thread title and I thought:

"In Soviet Russia..."

Darn you Cthulhu, you win this round.

[WalkingTarget]

1. Alternate deities exist in Lovecraft, such as Bast and Nodens, the Hunter.
2. The bad guys can still be more powerful than the good guys. It wouldn't be so Unlovecraftian until the "Sequal" of the setting. (It's not an existing setting)

Bast is not named explicitly anywhere in Lovecraft's writings. The cats' "goddess" and her "temples of Bubastis" (being a place where she was worshipped in Egypt) were mentioned once in passing in The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath in the scene where the cats are fighting the moon-beasts.

Nodens, likewise, is mentioned in Dream Quest and again in one paragraph in "The Strange High House in the Mist". In the former, he's mentioned primarily as being in charge of the nightgaunts and as somewhat friendlier to Carter than Nyarlathotep would be (and the Dreamlands have a bunch of other, unspecified "great ones" or "other gods" talked about). In the latter, he's in the company of Neptune, tritons, and nerieds. He's the "lord of the great abyss", not "the hunter". The implications I get from context is that he has to do with the empty void between the waking world and the realms of sleep (and maybe also the depths of the ocean). Lovecraft throws his name out there without much in the way of detail. Other than the fact that he's hanging out with Neptune or the other Great Ones in Kadath it's not even really hinted that he could be considered a "deity".

Both of these stories fit more securely in Lovecraft's Dunsanian Dream-cycle phase of writing.

[The Glyphstone]

Well, of course! It's been scientifically proven that it increases work efficiency by more than 7% on average, so they have to pay for it.

I guess I missed that clause - I was busy fuming at the increase in our premiums after Shubby used the 'family plan' loophole to get coverage for all of her thousand young.

[Eldan]

Heh. At least you didn't see how Nyarlathotep showed up three times with different faces just to score three complimentary solstice gifts...

[TechnoScrabble]

Cthulhu's kids are called STARspawn.
So obviously they're from space.
So obviously the first people to colonize another solar system will be insane.
Or squids.

[chiasaur11]

Cthulhu's kids are called STARspawn.
So obviously they're from space.
So obviously the first people to colonize another solar system will be insane.
Or squids.

Hey, in X-Com Cthulhu's an alien.

Who you kill with lots of high explosives.

(X-Com kills everything with high explosives)

[Bhu]

Basically, what happens to the Mythos when the despair and feelings of inadequacy is removed? How might things be changed? If fear was not an option, how much knowledge might be gleaned instead of committing suicide or going insane? If man decided that if we're all doomed anyways, let's make it an AWESOME death, fighting it all the way and giving them the finger.

We may be but a soap bubble in a sea of infinite insanity, but it's OUR soap bubble, dammit, and we float where we will!


Then we die that much quicker unless we can figure out the rules of how reality really works. And if we do we end up losing our humanity in the process.

[Marillion]

Personally, I love the Imperial Guard's idea of fighting. Now, that is TRUE badassery. Give each person a gun and a flak jacket flashlight and a t-shirt and send 'em on out, and they still manage to win. :smallcool:

Fixed that for you. :smallcool:

[Science Officer]

Obligato. (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LovecraftLite)

Sans hopelessness, Lovecraftian horror isn't just another monster thing. It's got a certain aesthetic, at least, that is unique.

Charles Stross' The Laundry series, as mentioned above, is a great example.
There are bad, bad things out there, but if we're smart enough, we can avoid them. And there are some things that we don't have much trouble handling ourselves. Of course, when CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN begins, well, all bets are off.

But yeah, if I wanted to make a "hopeful" version of the Mythos, I'd take away the "Go Mad from the Revelation" bit.
Non-euclidean? Non-issue!
Weird-o cephalopods? Awesome!
Hyper-advanced alien races? -Errrrp... well, at least now we know...

[WitchSlayer]

Cthulhu becomes a regular Superman villain.

[Eldan]

I never really understood the "go mad from the revelation" bit in the first place.

I think that if you ever showed a bit of non-euclidean space to a physicist, he wouldn't start screaming, rocking back and forth and whimpering. He'd start grinning, laughing and demanding bottles of champagne. An engineer would probably have an orgasm before building a machine that used bent space to break a few laws of thermodynamics or something.

I've always liked tentacled things. I really, honestly, once inquired about the possibility of owning pet squid in my country.

And aliens? There's a lot of problems with them, really, but looking weird? Strange technology? not a problem in and off itself.

Edit: our RP group used to consist of a history/literature guy, an ecologist and an engineer. I think we could dry and drive a GM mad if we wanted to...

[Killer Angel]

Man thought he faced things just as frightening in his early history, but he triumphed. The earthquake, the volcano, the hurricane, all things that make man seem like fragile gnats beside an uncaring, impossibly powerful force. We grew, only to find a greater threat in the Elder Evils. Man simply says, 'Lets do this thing.' and continued in the grand tradition. Now we build upon the volcano and predict the earthquake.


Call the bluff of Elder Evils, and discover that Cthulhu is only a giant squid.
It's also in the human nature to fear the unknown (be it the volcano, the hurricanes or the Elder Evils). Hic Sunt Leones - Here there are lions.
After Chtulhu, we'll have a new frightening horizon, that will give us new mithos and will mark our lives, 'til someone will pass the limit, setting the bar at a new level.
We race with our fears, and it's a constant surpass from both sides.

[Adumbration]

Do you want to be a nicer person? Are you looking for inspiration to do good things? Well keep looking. But if you're into opening up terrifying vistas of reality then the Esoteric Order of the Old Ones and Cthulhu Cultists want to help. Contact us today to find out how. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnbYcB9ctu8&feature=player_embedded)

[Eldan]

Or for all your needs in flying polyp defence: Elder Sign! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWT07iRvI9M)

[Science Officer]

Re: Go Mad from the Revelation

around the time of Lovecraft's writings (or at least during his life time, that he might have been influenced), Einstein's theories of General and Special Relativity were being more and more widely understood. That aspects of space and time might be,in some ways, relative caused something of a scientific culture-shock with Newtonian ideas about the world and what can be known of it.
Now this might be verging into philosophy/religion, and I am almost certainly repeating the words of someone else in this thread, but the revelation that the universe was created by an uncaring, blind, idot god (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azathoth) who may one day awaken and hit the universe's reset button, well, it'd be something. The ideas of absurdism, nihilism, and existentialism (especially for such an existance) can be frightening to some.

tl; dr? read this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmicism)instead.
actually, just read that.

As for fish and the molluscs, all squamous and rugose, well, some people have phobias of snakes, or spiders that just drive them mad. Though I can't confirm it, I've read that Lovecraft was afraid of such creatures of the deep.

By aliens, I meant those which are either uncaring or menacing, that have lived, do live, and will live upon this very Earth. The thought that humanity is not unique, as intelligent life, in the universe, not even on this planet, is pretty shattering to some mindsets. This is of course, to focus on the meta-physical threat they pose, rather than the physical threat they often do.


Edit: Personally, many aspects of the Mythos that others find grim or bleak seem only natural to me. I have difficulty envisioning Lovecraft's works as horror, I see them as something more of a slightly dark fantasy/science fiction. Weird Fiction (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weird_fiction).
And cephalopods are awesome.

IN CONCLUSION:
This is sort of off topic, but I liked it anyways.
"Wikinomicon: An online Necronomicon that anyone can edit..." (http://www.mythostomes.com/)
Anyone wishing a better understanding of the grimdark, horrorterror-ness of Lovecraftand why it is so, them do I urge to read this page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmicism). (previously linked to in this post)
Insania est virtus solus...
"...And remember children, Cthulhu loathes you..."

[Eldan]

Another thing that makes me probably a bad target audience for Lovecraft: I've never been afraid of the unknown. I have a large list of phobias and I am, quite honestly, a coward, but I'm afraid of things I know can kill me. I'm afraid of fire, animals, blades, pointy objects, heights, but not, say, dark rooms, strangers, aliens.

[WalkingTarget]

Another thing that makes me probably a bad target audience for Lovecraft: I've never been afraid of the unknown. I have a large list of phobias and I am, quite honestly, a coward, but I'm afraid of things I know can kill me. I'm afraid of fire, animals, blades, pointy objects, heights, but not, say, dark rooms, strangers, aliens.

I'm just about as big a Lovecraft nerd as you can be as an amateur, but I'm not actually horrified by his tales and don't even have a phobia to call my own.

I simply dig the mood he creates and like exploring the philosophical consequences of his brand of cosmic indifference. Entertaining an idea without believing it.

[Incompleat]

One possible way to write this kind of plot without having it become a simple monster story could be playing up the consequencies of humans interacting with Things That They Were Not Meant To See.

We would not stand down. We would not resign ourselves to be another forgettable species of barely sapient critters, birthed from blind primal forces only to descend into madness and extinction the first time a peon of some ancient being from the starts sets its gaze upon us. We would not accept that we would never be able to grasp the true nature of the universe, even though the diminutive glimpses of it that our minds could somehow begin to see were more than enough for shattering them. We would not content ourselves of surviving - for a time - on the surface of sea bubble in a sea of infinite insanity.

And so we dived right in.

We set to met that what we could never face. We studied the tomes written by deranged cultists of beings whose very names bode ill upon us. We experimented with forces much beyond our ken, which could be only invoked through acts too depraved to be comprehended, and we learned from both their unspeakable truths and from their unspeakable lies.

We had commerce with the Mi-Go, though their prices were steep, and they taught much to us.

We changed the nature of our very bodies and minds through eldritch, half-understood sorcery. And somehow, some of the times, some of us survived. And the others learned from their gibberings, and from the way in which they had been broken by the forces that they summoned.

Honor be upon them.

And so we stand, far after Cthulhu the priest - no longer Great Cthulhu for us, for we now are greater - rose and claimed that speck of dust that we once called home, far after the star around that that worthless abode circled grew dim and decrepit.

We prosper, and grow further, and the ancient and once terrifying powers regard us as their equals, for that we now are. We do not fear the crawling chaos, just as it does not fear us - not yet, at least - and the music of the pipers who entertain the blind sultan at the center of the cosmos is recorded and played to our children as a lullaby.

And yet, much of what old humanity was remains with us. Even though our daily actions would sicken our ancestors and drive them to unspeakable insanity, even though our shapes now span uncountably many dimensions, even though we now see time and space precisely as they are, we can tell that there is no more difference between them and us than that between a tiny medusa floating with the currents and a majestic colony of adult polyps of the same species.

We are humankind, and we are of the beings that we in our witless youth called "Outer Gods".

For now.

[VanBuren]

Yes. Exactly what I always thought.

Who's tentacle face down there to tell us what we can or can not explore? We're humanity, damn it.



And honestly, if we found out something like this today, I'd give us fifty years until we have plans for an Azathoth-powered generator.

A guy on another forum I go to on man's greatest achievement:

Nature's all "welp humans, see that moon? Yeah, it's like, hundreds of thousands of miles away. And even if you were patient enough to go that far, you can't get out of your atmosphere. And even if you could, there's no air. And if you somehow manage to evolve to the point where you no longer need to breathe (good luck!) there's nothing there", and we're all "**** you and the horse you rode in on, we're gonna build a rocket powerful enough to get out of the atmosphere, fast enough to get us there in a week, make snazzy spacesuits with tons of air, and when we get to the moon, we're gonna play golf, just because we can."



I never really understood the "go mad from the revelation" bit in the first place.

I think that if you ever showed a bit of non-euclidean space to a physicist, he wouldn't start screaming, rocking back and forth and whimpering. He'd start grinning, laughing and demanding bottles of champagne. An engineer would probably have an orgasm before building a machine that used bent space to break a few laws of thermodynamics or something.

I've always liked tentacled things. I really, honestly, once inquired about the possibility of owning pet squid in my country.

And aliens? There's a lot of problems with them, really, but looking weird? Strange technology? not a problem in and off itself.

Edit: our RP group used to consist of a history/literature guy, an ecologist and an engineer. I think we could dry and drive a GM mad if we wanted to...

It's a cultural thing. Back then we were learning that everything we thought we knew was probably wrong. Which tended to freak people out.

Nowadays we tend to operate with that general assumption, so if a scientist came across something Lovecraftian-like, he'd probably joygasm and get to work figuring out how to reverse engineer it.

[The Glyphstone]

A guy on another forum I go to on man's greatest achievement:

Nature's all "welp humans, see that moon? Yeah, it's like, hundreds of thousands of miles away. And even if you were patient enough to go that far, you can't get out of your atmosphere. And even if you could, there's no air. And if you somehow manage to evolve to the point where you no longer need to breathe (good luck!) there's nothing there", and we're all "**** you and the horse you rode in on, we're gonna build a rocket powerful enough to get out of the atmosphere, fast enough to get us there in a week, make snazzy spacesuits with tons of air, and when we get to the moon, we're gonna play golf, just because we can."

It's a cultural thing. Back then we were learning that everything we thought we knew was probably wrong. Which tended to freak people out.

Nowadays we tend to operate with that general assumption, so if a scientist came across something Lovecraftian-like, he'd probably joygasm and get to work figuring out how to reverse engineer it.

Yeah, one of Lovecraft's flaws is that he was very much a product of his times, and not just the horrific racism. Humans today have a completely different zeitgeist, where the unknowable/impossible isn't necessarily terrifying anymore.

[Avilan the Grey]

Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
***
Cliché I know, but still a fist in the air of triumph. If this victory should only buy us a single tomorrow, we shall do it again, and again, paying a danegeld of blood, sweat, and toil, striving to push back that which has come to destroy, not just us, not just our children, but our very existence, past, present, and future.
For what is Humanity without the will to strive, to push back the boundaries of what we know, what we can do, but mere naked apes on the savannah?
Today we have won tomorrow, tomorrow we will do it again.
Let's go show them Humanity has teeth.

So spoketh Shepard. And The reapers responded in rage.

[horngeek]

Or, as I said, play Exalted, where you can bash tentacle-face to death with his own appendages. :smallcool:

[Eldan]

In Exalted, however, you aren't really humanity. You get the power of gods, not humanities inherent power.

[pendell]

To me, the horror of Lovecraft is that the universe doesn't make any sense any more. Your physical laws, your logic, your cause and effect, no longer have any meaning. It's much like a dream -- or a nightmare. Worse, it may be like being trapped in someone else's nightmare. People turn into monsters , up becomes down, left becomes right, there are impossible colors, impossible smells, things that just aren't supposed to happen happen, all at the whim of the dreamer.

Who is not you. All YOU can do is hang on for dear life as best you can.

On the one hand , it's hard to see how a person could live in such a world and NOT go insane. 'Sanity' implies a reasoned, consistent worldview, a clear rationality, an understanding of cause and effect.

I'm having a hard time seeing exactly why such a worldview would be an asset in a Lovecraftian world. Sanity is not useful in an insane world, nor is rationality a valid response to an irrational universe.

And yet.

It seems to me that not everyone falls apart into despair or suicide or horror when faced with this sort of situation. Alice in Lewis Carroll's Wonderland entered a world every bit as strange and counter-intuitive, as irrational, as Lovecraft's. And yet Alice didn't go mad. Instead -- as written by the original author and not by the later re-imaginers who inflict 21st century sensibilities on 19th-century art -- Alice survives, even thrives, down the rabbit hole. The world doesn't make sense, but it doesn't bother her.

I am also reminded of the character of Jadis in Lewis' 'The Magician's Nephew'. She went from being queen of one world to an entirely different world where her magic didn't work any more. All her power, all her greatness, all her majesty, were all stripped from her in an instant.

It phased her for about five seconds. She then set about conquering the new world with the abilities she still DID have -- her cunning and her strength.

In fact, Jadis goes through a couple different worlds in that series. She goes from one world to another to yet another. In each one, she lands on her feet, learning the rules and logic of wherever she is and ruthlessly applying it to her own advantage. Evil? Yes. But neither mad nor gibbering insane.

As I said, I think you have to have a particular kind of mind to fall apart when confronted by a Lovecraftian world. I suspect further that few people who read Lovecraft's work have that kind of mind. If that kind of world filled you with horror beyond description, why contemplate it in literature? Better to read flopsy cottontail or whatever, construct a mental fortress of certainty, and angrily shout down anything that threatens it.

In short, the kind of mind that would be horrified beyond description by Lovecraft is probably not the kind of mind that would choose SF or fantasy to begin with.

I welcome correction if my assumption is in error.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Frozen_Feet]

I think that the people who really do have a set worldview wouldn't necessarily be any more frightened - because in the end, they're reading fiction from the safety of their own coach, and can always fall back on "oh, that doesn't really apply in my world".

Instead, I think ability to be horrified by, well, any fictional work is a factor of one thing: empathy, and especially ability to feel ittowards imaginary characters. No work of horror, or infact any other work trying to invoke a strong feeling, can work if the reader distances himself from the events too much.

I've been horrified by Lovecraft's stories, despite being unfazed by tenets of his cosmicism, simply because I put myself in the shoes of his characters very strongly. However, as has been said, Lovecraft's works are "fruits of his time" - which naturally makes it harder for a modern person to relate to them because of dissonant values. Infact, judging by outrage towards his "racism", sometimes attitudes held by his narrator/protagonist are more alien and/or horrifying to a modern reader than the monsters he uses...

[The Succubus]

I'm interested to see what a Cthonic Tribble looks like now.

[The Glyphstone]

Like VT's current avatar, but with tentacles instead of teeth.