Great Old Ones, Outer Gods, and their Servants

[James Jacobs]

Wrong John Silver wrote:

Snorter wrote:

"Neither a vole, nor a buzzard, not a beaver, nor an isopod, nor a platypus, nor an anemone, nor a panda...."

Yes, yes, we get what it's not, but can you tell us what it is?

Right, that's one of the things about Lovecraft's works that I actually singularly dislike--the occasional outright refusal to describe something. We end up stuck with people saying, "Meh, graft some more tentacles to it."

That, and the fact that the theme of Lovecraft's stories was that we shouldn't explore, really sticks in my craw.

The stuff is classic and evocative and innovative for its time, though, I'll give him that.

I actually think the element from the Festival where he describes the creature is really cool. The story's not ABOUT those monsters, so they don't need descriptions, and by skirting the edges there, he gives the reader room to fill in the blanks, which is a very effective way of creating visions of something horrible.

Lovecraft never shied away from describing his monsters when he needed to do so... just look at the several pages of detail he puts in on the elder things in "At the Mountains of Madness."

I wouldn't say the theme in Lovecraft's stories is that we shouldn't explore... it's that we shouldn't assume we DESERVE to explore. There's a big difference there. Lovecraft himself was a huge fan of exploraiton, and did a lot of it himself (although not of far-flung places like Antarctica).

[Jeff Erwin]

The things that something is not - are only worth noting it there is some sort of similitude. Let the list guide you, yet turn it sideways, if you get my drift.

[KtA]

"The Festival" IMO is only a mediocre Lovecraft story. And Lovecraft actually wrote quite a few mediocre to bad stories -- it's just that his best are classics. (Part of the problem IMO is that all his early uninspired stuff has not only survived, but is easily accessible online and reprinted often... which isn't necessarily true of other pulp authors of the era).

Ironically, though, that one passage ...

Spoiler:

a horde of tame, trained, hybrid winged things that no sound eye could ever wholly grasp, or sound brain ever wholly remember. They were not altogether crows, nor moles, nor buzzards, nor ants, nor vampire bats, nor decomposed human beings; but something I cannot and must not recall. They flopped limply along, half with their webbed feet and half with their membranous wings;

... is, to me, the one part of that story that rises above the rest -- an attempt to describe the indescribable not by saying what it is but by what it suggests.

Eh. It works for me.

[KtA]

I agree that byakhee stats would probably not actually be super interesting. They're really creepy looking, but they don't really have any bizarre powers beyond the ability to fly through space using wings (which is actually pretty common in the Mythos, the mi-go and elder things can do it too.)

I'm not sure I'd necessarily use a gargoyle, though. I think I'd take a giant eagle, change the alignment (to either N or CE depending on whether you think it's basically a servitor with no will/interests of its own or an active agent of Hastur), and add starflight taken from the shantak.

---

As for description vs. non-description: three of the stories with very detailed descriptions ... "The Mountains of Madness" has like a page of description of the Old Ones/Elder Things (quoted by Kthulhu above), "The Shadow Out Of Time" has a very detailed description of the Yithians, "The Dunwich Horror" has a pretty clear description of Wilbur Whateley's weird features after he gets killed....

Anyway, in all three stories, I think that helps to set up the greater horrors that are NOT described in detail or described in more allusive ways (the shoggoths, the flying polyps, and Wilbur's twin brother respectively).

Actually, the shoggoths do get some degree of description, but only when they're being treated as a historical ... thing. Not when they actually show up. (same with the mi-go corpses in "The Whisperer in Darkness", and the weird reptile mummies in "The Nameless City"... which is mostly "At the Mountains of Madness" except written much more badly, but I like it anyway for some reason.)

[James Jacobs]

If we DID do byakhee stats, we'd try to make them and their flavor as interesting as possible. That's kind of the whole philosophy and point of monster creation as far as I care! :P

[Snorter]

Jeff Erwin wrote:

The things that something is not - are only worth noting it there is some sort of similitude. Let the list guide you, yet turn it sideways, if you get my drift.

Exactly.

"The following morning, we set out again. The bearers picked up a trail, and soon I was witness to a new creature. The head bearer told me it was an okapi, and it was a curious beast, being not quite a giraffe, and not quite a zebra, an altogether odd amalgam of the two, that defied all my taxonomical efforts, until such time as I could bag a specimen for detailed study."

[Journ-O-LST-3]

Irnk, Dead-Eye's Prodigal wrote:

Snorter wrote:

"Neither a vole, nor a buzzard, not a beaver, nor an isopod, nor a platypus, nor an anemone, nor a panda...."

Yes, yes, we get what it's not, but can you tell us what it is?

.

Nope.

Your mind can't handle the description.

[Sarcasmancer]

I like the description (well, of course I would). Like the narrator's mind has sort of blocked it out because it was simultaneously unnatural but recognizable enough in its resemblance to natural things to be disturbing.

Kind of like in Communion, where the narrator remembers seeing owls or a skeleton riding a motorcycle, but those are just screen memories because the actual memory was too traumatic?

[Andros Morino]

GV, where are these books referred in?

-Codex of the Ebon Depths
-Grimoire of Impossible Secrets
-Kargeth’s Blackest Encyclopaedia

I ask because I had kept a list of the other ones yet I did not recognize the above 3.

[Axial]

I read the first story of Robert W. Chambers' The King in Yellow, The Repairer of Reputations. I was thinking of running a oneshot based on it.

Obviously, it'd be in some generic kingdom instead of an alternate history 20s New York. Louis would be an LG cavalier, Constance and Hauberk would be Experts, Mr. Wilde would be an evil wizard with a cat familiar, and Hildred Castaigne would be a CE Aristocrat/Cleric of Hastur. The goal would be to expose Hildred and Wilde's plans to summon Hastur and stop their plans by any means necessary.

[Snorter]

Sarcasmancer wrote:

I like the description (well, of course I would). Like the narrator's mind has sort of blocked it out because it was simultaneously unnatural but recognizable enough in its resemblance to natural things to be disturbing.

Under that criteria, a platypus would cause SAN loss, surely?

"It was not quite a duck, nor yet quite an otter, nor even a beaver, but something I cannot, dare not describe."

[Sarcasmancer]

The platypus skull already resembles a Lovecraftian horror.

[Snorter]

Given the way Doctor Doofenschmirtz is incapable of recognising Perry Playpus/Agent P, until he puts on his secret agent hat, maybe there is something to the idea that the mind blanks out that which man was not meant to know...?

[Jeff Erwin]

Axial wrote:

I read the first story of Robert W. Chambers' The King in Yellow, The Repairer of Reputations. I was thinking of running a oneshot based on it.

Obviously, it'd be in some generic kingdom instead of an alternate history 20s New York. Louis would be an LG cavalier, Constance and Hauberk would be Experts, Mr. Wilde would be an evil wizard with a cat familiar, and Hildred Castaigne would be a CE Aristocrat/Cleric of Hastur. The goal would be to expose Hildred and Wilde's plans to summon Hastur and stop their plans by any means necessary.

There is a Trail of Cthulhu adventure reprising the story out from Pelgrane Press, though it focuses on alternate-NY and cultural themes, so it may be only partially useful to you.

[Evil Midnight Lurker]

That cat is not a familiar. It's a vicious little psychotic.

[Espagnoll]

I wonder if in the future we are going to get APs which contain issues taking place on Earth in the early 20s and heavily focused into pulp adventure meets Lovecraft mythos.

[Dragon78]

I would like to see an AP were you start on earth and end on Golarion by the end of the first volume.