I see a lot of references to the Far Realm and tentacled critters all through 4E and even in the 4E adventures posted online at the WotC website. Now, I know that there has always been a background of Mythos-like stuff in D&D with mind flayers, aboleth, and similar beings, but it was always low key and not at all prominent.
Pathfinder comes along and James throws both Mythos-like and actual Mythos creatures into the Pathfinder adventures mix. We get stuff like shaggoths, gugs, the Plateau of Leng, and more, months prior to any 4E stuff hitting the market. Did WotC have his fingers on the pulse of what gamers want, or were they simply 'inspired' by Paizo's Mythos vision?
James wrote the Mythos-inspired 3rd edition supplements, as well.
I'm referring to more blantant Mythos stuff, like Star Pact warlocks and the Dungeon #155 adventure 'Sleep in the Tomb of Dreams'. The mythos seems to have gone from vague background or optional ruleset to front and center plot element in 4E.
I think Mythos-flavored stuff has been creeping into DnD at an increasing pace since around 2E (and before, I'm sure, but I wasn't around to see it then!)
The Gates of Firestorm Peak, for example, or the Aliestist casting method from Spells and Magic.
3E eventually introduced the Far Realms, and even an area beyond even that, with Binder's Vestiges. I'm glad to see 4E embrace the idea even more so. :)
Creative Director
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Yeah... WotC's been including Lovecraftian elements (although not actual Lovecraftian stuff) in D&D stuff since they got the game back in the late 90s. And TSR was doing the same now and then. Lovecraft's actually one of the largest influences on D&D; his work is at least as influential on the game as Tolkein, in fact, if not more; aboleths, ghasts, the Underdark, evil books (like the Demonomicon in particular), ancient gods, and the like have been with the game from the start.
Bruce Cordell's actually been a big proponent of including mythos inspired elements in the game. He's the one who invented the Far Realm, in fact! And I myself have put a lot of Mythos elements into D&D, be they inspired by the mythos (such as the obyrith demons or the aboleth history in Lords of Madness or the Fiend Folio's kaorti) or actual elements (such as by publishing the adventure "And Madness Followed" in Dungeon).
As for the Far Realm becoming more central in 4th, that makes sense since it's one of the most popular other planes that isn't actually a mythological place like Heaven or Hell. One of WotC's big reasons for restructuring the multiverse, I suspect, was to downplay mythological locations and focus more on their own (copyrighted) intellectual property instead, of which the Far Realm is arguably among the most popular.
That said, we DID beat Wizards to the punch by making Asmodeus one of our world's core deities, so that's pretty nifty. ;-)
Yeah... WotC's been including Lovecraftian elements (although not actual Lovecraftian stuff) in D&D stuff since they got the game back in the late 90s. And TSR was doing the same now and then. Lovecraft's actually one of the largest influences on D&D; his work is at least as influential on the game as Tolkein, in fact, if not more; aboleths, ghasts, the Underdark, evil books (like the Demonomicon in particular), ancient gods, and the like have been with the game from the start.
Bruce Cordell's actually been a big proponent of including mythos inspired elements in the game. He's the one who invented the Far Realm, in fact! And I myself have put a lot of Mythos elements into D&D, be they inspired by the mythos (such as the obyrith demons or the aboleth history in Lords of Madness or the Fiend Folio's kaorti) or actual elements (such as by publishing the adventure "And Madness Followed" in Dungeon).
That said, we DID beat Wizards to the punch by making Asmodeus one of our world's core deities, so that's pretty nifty. ;-)
Cool! I had heard Bruce came up with the Far Realm, but wasn't certain so didn't repeat it. Nice to have confirmation. :)
I heard another reason for a recent influx of Lovecraft is because it is now an open license. I've only heard this, but it makes sense. I knew August Derleth had the rights after Lovecraft, but I don't know of anybody else picking up the license so I figured it was just a matter of time before it became open domain.
JP
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Bruce Cordell's actually been a big proponent of including mythos inspired elements in the game. He's the one who invented the Far Realm, in fact!
Spoiler for Keep on the Shadowfell follows:
Which is interesting, and ironic, as I took his Keep on the Shadowfell and removed the "Shadowfell" and made it the Far Realms. I mean, the end game has a priest performing a ritual so a "tentacled thing" can enter via a portal. Tentacles! How more canon can that be?? :-) I felt that the Orcus/Undead/etc. thing has been overdone (at least for me.) I changed the antagonist from Orcus to Vecna and put in all sorts of fun Mythos references in the town and peoples. It's gone over very well.
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Creative Director
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I heard another reason for a recent influx of Lovecraft is because it is now an open license. I've only heard this, but it makes sense. I knew August Derleth had the rights after Lovecraft, but I don't know of anybody else picking up the license so I figured it was just a matter of time before it became open domain.
JP
It's actually a LOT more complicated than that. By the book, most of Lovecraft's writings are in the public domain now... but the laws regarding Public Domain are SUPER complicated and weird (thanks, Disney!). Whether or not Derleth had the rights isn't clear, since those rights changed and the legal contracts seem to have been lost. The themes and ideas of the Lovecraft mythos are certainly an open concept, and Lovecraft himself encouraged other writers to use his creations in their own stories, though. I've done quite a bit of research into it, and everything I've managed to find out indicates that Lovecraft's stories are in the public domain, but that there COULD be a legal challenge to that, and if there WERE, it would most likely result in confirmation that they're in the Public Domain.
The use of the mythos in game context is even tricksier, since a lot of that stuff IS copyright by Chaosium. We've taken steps to retain a friendly relationship with Chaosium, and make sure to mention them and the Call of Cthulhu game whenever we do similar stuff, in any event.
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I see a lot of references to the Far Realm and tentacled critters all through 4E and even in the 4E adventures posted online at the WotC website. Now, I know that there has always been a background of Mythos-like stuff in D&D with mind flayers, aboleth, and similar beings, but it was always low key and not at all prominent.
Pathfinder comes along and James throws both Mythos-like and actual Mythos creatures into the Pathfinder adventures mix. We get stuff like shaggoths, gugs, the Plateau of Leng, and more, months prior to any 4E stuff hitting the market. Did WotC have his fingers on the pulse of what gamers want, or were they simply 'inspired' by Paizo's Mythos vision?
Lovecraft trumps all that. Thats probably the orgin for everyone.
Bruce Cordell's actually been a big proponent of including mythos inspired elements in the game. He's the one who invented the Far Realm, in fact!
Spoiler for Keep on the Shadowfell follows:
** spoiler omitted **
Keep on the Shadowfeel spoiler
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It's actually a LOT more complicated than that. By the book, most of Lovecraft's writings are in the public domain now... but the laws regarding Public Domain are SUPER complicated and weird (thanks, Disney!). Whether or not Derleth had the rights isn't clear, since those rights changed and the legal contracts seem to have been lost. The themes and ideas of the Lovecraft mythos are certainly an open concept, and Lovecraft himself encouraged other writers to use his creations in their own stories, though. I've done quite a bit of research into it, and everything I've managed to find out indicates that Lovecraft's stories are in the public domain, but that there COULD be a legal challenge to that, and if there WERE, it would most likely result in confirmation that they're in the Public Domain.
The use of the mythos in game context is even tricksier, since a lot of that stuff IS copyright by Chaosium. We've taken steps to retain a friendly relationship with Chaosium, and make sure to mention them and the Call of Cthulhu game whenever we do similar stuff, in any event.
This jogged a memory of some news I read earlier this summer, that Google, in conjunction with CMU, Project Gutenberg and PG's Distributed Proofreaders, created a searchable list of copyright renewals for the United States. You can read more about it yourself at the Inside Google Book Search blog. The short version is that a lot of copyrighted content was not renewed from 1923-1978, and thus would fall under the public domain now.
Lovecraft's work has been under a lot of 'who owns what' controversy. So I decided to download the good work from the Google, and after sifting through the 300mb(+) xml file, I found 11 titles with Lovecraft listed as an author. Some of them seem to be compilations of previous/shorter work, although I am by no means an expert on Lovecraft. As I understand it, anything not listed as renewed is public domain material in the United States. (Per the wiki article, the EU copyright length is just 70 years after death, so any work published during his lifetime is public domain now. It varies in other territories, many nations having a 50 years after publication/death term.) For those interested, these were the titles that were renewed and thus may be under copyright still:
- The outsider and others
- Beyond the wall of sleep
- Marginalia
- Best supernatural stories of H.P. Lovecraft
- The lurker at the threshold
- Something about cats
- The Gable window/The Survivor and others
- The Shuttered room and other pieces
- Dreams and fancies
- The Dunwich horror and others
- Collected poems
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Did WotC have his fingers on the pulse of what gamers want, or were they simply 'inspired' by Paizo's Mythos vision?
The story of relationship between HP Lovecraft's vision and D&D is very, very NOT new. It dates back to Deities & Demigods, if not Blackmoor (OD&D Supplement 2) and the actual game sessions that inspired it way before there even was an OD&D.
Did WotC have his fingers on the pulse of what gamers want, or were they simply 'inspired' by Paizo's Mythos vision?The story of relationship between HP Lovecraft's vision and D&D is very, very NOT new. It dates back to Deities & Demigods, if not Blackmoor (OD&D Supplement 2) and the actual games that inspired it.
I'm referring to more blantant Mythos stuff, like Star Pact warlocks and the Dungeon #155 adventure 'Sleep in the Tomb of Dreams'. The mythos seems to have gone from vague background or optional ruleset to front and center plot element in 4E.
I'm not saying that there has never been Mythos stuff in D&D before, I'm saying that it is suddenly very very prominent, and Paizo made it prominent months before Wizards did the same.