Not really sure if this goes in this forum or not, but I know that we sometimes get into good discussions about what constitutes Lovecraftian horror and theme, in his writing and how it translantes into games. Its a hard thing to get across in RPG sessions, but tonight I've had a bit of a revalation and an understanding about how some of what he wrote could be considered truly horrific.

Let's just say that I have written, in a totally free-form and unscripted way, the perfect ending to a Lovecraft story. I'll go into more details in private if anyone really carse, but suffice to say it involved some mind altering substances.

So, here it is:


"And those shadows... looming over me. If I turn around now the wraiths will be standing over me, they watch what I write and they want my fear.

They won't have it."


(obligatory scrawl of blood-soaked fingerprints across the page)

Very cool.

One of the reasons I love CoC is the aspect of going out with style.  

My most "Lovecraftian" ending was when my demented doctor helped the others escape the floating research facility, then takes the elevator back down to the waiting ghouls below because "I have sought immortality all my life and I am eager to pay this price".

Lovecraft definitely takes on a classical ethos, and it's a defiance of the post-modernizing of man. Robert W. Chambers' prescience in "The King in Yellow" alludes to the coming break in culture. It just so happens that Lovecraft was sort of locked in his own time warp, longing for a fading modernist age where Progress! and the Betterment of Man (and white man's burden and all that) were truly the soul of the times. By the end of WWI most such illusions were shattered in the West and a real malaise and escapism pervaded (hence the really cool, but ultimately squandered, potential of 1920s CoC).

It also explains the nigh-suicidal desire of his learned men to Explore the Unknown! in a fictional world where real, implacable, unknowable horrors exist. In our age it's hard to sell the buy-in for players to do things that would now be viewed as suicidal and pointless. Perhaps we are too distant from the source cultural context to truly appreciate and continue with such a mindset. We easily slip into metagaming "How to Survive a Horror Movie" mode instead. I know in my CoC experience it takes most players a while to put down the shotgun and take up the flashlight...

Quote from: Opaopajr;477939It just so happens that Lovecraft was sort of locked in his own time warp, longing for a fading modernist age where Progress! and the Betterment of Man (and white man's burden and all that) were truly the soul of the times.

Hm, I've never heard that said of Lovecraft before.  I think you may have a point.  He's a modernist who sees modernity as leading to Inevitable Doom.  Quite different from a traditionalist like Tolkien who also sees modernity as leading to Inevitable Doom - with Tolkien you can hope to go Back to the Shire (post-Scouring).  With Lovecraft the Hobbits have already interbred with the Goblins, little half-Goblins are running around everywhere, and it's all Far Too Late.

Lovecraft often looks back to a lost innocence in his tales. His characters wish to go back to a time when they did not know the awful Truth that they know now, a Truth which makes it a futile effort for them to continue their lives as before.

This Truth can be a relatively simple thing, to our minds at least, inbreeding, mixed race origin, alcoholism have all figured as Truths in HPL stories.

 The Mythos also rears it's head but in a different way than most people seem to think. The true horror of the Mythos is that by it's very existence as Truth it sets at naught all that civilized education has taught us about the world. The Cults are not ignorant savages worshiping false gods, the gods are very Real. According to all the knowledge of the Modern age they should not and cannot exist, and yet they do.  

Yes, Tolkien believes that having broken the power of the Shadow we can go home again. Lovecraft believes that even if we go home we will discover that the Shadow will never be broken, because we cast it.