Quote from: VectorSigma;533852Pop Cthulhu : Lovecraft :: WoW : Tolkien ?

Meh.

Let me know when you guys make it deeper into the 20th Century and get to Borges so I can at least pretend to keep up.

I doubt I'll ever make it that far into the 20th century!  My useful literary knowledge ends at about 1937.

Quote from: misterguignol;533853I doubt I'll ever make it that far into the 20th century!  My useful literary knowledge ends at about 1937.

Heh. Don't worry, I've got a good amount of post-WWII stuff under my belt.

Quote from: VectorSigma;533852Pop Cthulhu : Lovecraft :: WoW : Tolkien ?

That's a pretty good analogy, actually! Lots of people have tried to tackle this problem, but perhaps the most comprehensive is S. T. Joshi's The Rise and Fall of the Cthulhu Mythos. Not the best of books, but well worth a read if you're interested in the development of the Mythos over the decades after Lovecraft's death.

Quote from: misterguignol;533596Much of my scholarship and teaching centers on the Decadent literature of the fin de siecle.  While the "weird tales" of the 20th century have been mined extensively for use in RPGs, the work of the Decadent and Aesthetic movements is still ripe for adaptation.  Here are a few off-the-cuff ideas:

This is great - thanks for sharing!

I don't know much about the study of literature, but as I'm currently inspired by Conrad's Heart of Darkness (first published 1899), I'm curious to learn how this work and the weird fiction of Kipling (my other inspiration) fit into the period. I'm intending to use Trail of Cthulhu to give this a shot, with a higher emphasis on insanity and human induced horror. The mythos probably won't feature in this adventure, but 'the weird' will, I think.

If anyone has any recommendations for further reading along these lines, I'd love to hear about it.

The unprecedented raise in spiritualism, occultism and atheism, caused by cultural and scientific factors of the time (WW1, rapid scientific development, Communism on the raise, experiments on atom and quantum physics etc. etc.) is also an important factor on Lovecraft's works - and on the period generally (Hitler was not as much unique in his love of occult, as a child of his times). As for the works I'd suggest myself:

1) Sherlock Holmes. Can't believe Doyle didn't get a mention yet. It's all great crime mysteries ready to go. Slap a cult in there somewhere, and you are ready to go. Especially fitting:

- Sign of Four, just put a Cthulhu's statue in the treasure and you have already a quite "puritan Lovecraft" scenario.
- Hound of Baskervilles - perhaps there is indeed something on the mires more then a.... well, no spoilers .

2) Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness - a great material for an  adventure in any RPG, really. To not cheapen the book's already quite strong hit, (in order to decrease quite literal railroading, I'd suggest a few forks in the river) I'd suggest to not make Kurtz a cultist - but perhaps a man who simply knows a few things, and knows what is even deeper in the jungle. Gives his last lines a whole new meaning, eh?

Quote from: Thalaba;533871This is great - thanks for sharing!

I don't know much about the study of literature, but as I'm currently inspired by Conrad's Heart of Darkness (first published 1899), I'm curious to learn how this work and the weird fiction of Kipling (my other inspiration) fit into the period. I'm intending to use Trail of Cthulhu to give this a shot, with a higher emphasis on insanity and human induced horror. The mythos probably won't feature in this adventure, but 'the weird' will, I think.

If anyone has any recommendations for further reading along these lines, I'd love to hear about it.

I don't know much Conrad (I've only read Heart of Darkness) but Kipling has some great "weird" or Gothic tales that are about the "colonial adventure."  The one I'd recommend right off the bat is his "The Mark of the Beast."  

Something else that might fit into a Colonial Weird adventure is the H. Rider Haggard novel She.  Like Heart of Darkness, it's also about exploration in Africa, but this has a supernatural twist to it.

The Robert E. Howard book I'm reading right now has some interesting colonial horror in it as well; "Wolfshead" and "Shadow of the Beast" both fit the bill.

And lastly, in a bit of self-promotion, I tried to sketch the "Colonial Weird" in the free Flavors of Fear pdf linked in my sig.

I totally love this idea. This is an utter inspiration for tapping literary sources I feel are normally ignored in the realms of mystery and horror gaming.

What do you think about Japan's rich source of pre-Meiji Restoration era and pre-WWII Japan. Both are rich in eras ending dramatically, a real shift in the culture, but with a strange malaise beforehand. I'm thinking specifically authors like Yasunari Kawabata (pretty much anything really, but especially "The Scarlet Gangs of Asakusa," "Snow Country," "The House of Sleeping Beauties" etc.), Dazai Osamu, and the like.

Actually there's a rich source of this depressive sickness and decadence in Korean short stories contemporary with the above writers. Oooh! And there's a whole bunch in my pre-&-post-colonial lit! Premchand, Tagore, Soyinka, Achebe, hmmm... now I feel like combing my library for some cool moody settings.

Quote from: Opaopajr;534173I totally love this idea. This is an utter inspiration for tapping literary sources I feel are normally ignored in the realms of mystery and horror gaming.

What do you think about Japan's rich source of pre-Meiji Restoration era and pre-WWII Japan. Both are rich in eras ending dramatically, a real shift in the culture, but with a strange malaise beforehand. I'm thinking specifically authors like Yasunari Kawabata (pretty much anything really, but especially "The Scarlet Gangs of Asakusa," "Snow Country," "The House of Sleeping Beauties" etc.), Dazai Osamu, and the like.

Actually there's a rich source of this depressive sickness and decadence in Korean short stories contemporary with the above writers. Oooh! And there's a whole bunch in my pre-&-post-colonial lit! Premchand, Tagore, Soyinka, Achebe, hmmm... now I feel like combing my library for some cool moody settings.

I can only say that I think it sounds cool because I'm not at all familiar with the literature!  You should have a go at writing one up for sure!

Actually I'll have to hold off on doing so. I'm still doing research on UAE, Abu Dhabi, and Dubai. Mercifully enough, most of everything seems to have been a recent emergence, which means I can populate my By Night with anything. But it's still taking quite a bit of time.

Quote from: Thalaba;533871This is great - thanks for sharing!

I don't know much about the study of literature, but as I'm currently inspired by Conrad's Heart of Darkness (first published 1899), I'm curious to learn how this work and the weird fiction of Kipling (my other inspiration) fit into the period. I'm intending to use Trail of Cthulhu to give this a shot, with a higher emphasis on insanity and human induced horror. The mythos probably won't feature in this adventure, but 'the weird' will, I think.

If anyone has any recommendations for further reading along these lines, I'd love to hear about it.

Conrad doesn't fit into weird fiction at all, though I love his work and think that he succeeds in what Lovecraft consistently sought after in his craft (the evocation of a certain mood). I can't speak to Kipling as he's far outside of my area of expertise, but I absolutely think Conrad works as fin de siecle literature - his The Secret Agent is shockingly close to Chambers' own when it comes to a sense of the strange and anxiety over the present milieux. There was a very good paper written on Heart of Darkness some years ago that argued that the novel is Conrad's case study on why atheism is justifiable and sustainable over and against a religious state... Though I don't think that would be of much help here.

My own particular pet favourite fin de siecle literature is, simply, the Sherlock Holmes stories. I've always found it fascinating that Holmes and Professor Moriarty are specifically described as opposing forces over the coming century, and whoever wins between them will shape and guide the whole of the new era.

Aleister Crowley not only wrote but actually performed a series of plays called the Rites of Eleusis, which were both dramatic pieces and literal invocations of the stellar gods.

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