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[Majestic7]

Haha, I can't help but hope he is just trolling to incite the original dude to actually finish the project.

Why?  It's a good game and it exists and you can play it.   Fuck Josh's game.

Because we are in the werewolf country and absurd plot twists are only to be expected. Alternative suggestion, the dude is actually Josh under different alias.

[Zangi]

I'll probably throw money at it and wait to see if anything comes out.

[Cruxador]

Based on the new one: I really love a lot of the details and the creator has a ton of great ideas, is a super adorable little game so far. But the core gameplay loop is boring and repetitive. And core gameplay is the hardest to address conceptually. I worry that this game may fall short of its potential.

[Mephansteras]

Regardless, I'm happy more people are trying to make a game of this sort.

[Scoops Novel]

Hastur vs Cthulu. Fight fight fight!

[Neonivek]

Hastur vs Cthulu. Fight fight fight!

I believe Cthulhu is stronger awake so in terms of raw power... But honestly once you are in the Hastur and Cthulhu levels of power... Things become incredibly murky and there is even a question if one really could defeat another. They are on the same order of magnitude.

So honestly it is kind of a wash overall.

[Cthulhu]

This is the worst kind of thing you can do to this stuff.  Which is stronger, who beats what, it's dumb, come on.

Besides, Hastur isn't a being

[Cruxador]

Hastur vs Cthulu. Fight fight fight!

I found the King in Yellow to be a more enjoyable book and Chambers to be a better author in general.

This is the worst kind of thing you can do to this stuff.  Which is stronger, who beats what, it's dumb, come on.

Besides, Hastur isn't a being

The original sources are ambiguous and contradictory, but it was a being in the very first naming and could have been one in Chambers' stories, though his usage is monumentally varied. Lovecraft and Derleth both held it to be one. Common usage seems to consider Hastur to be the same - or if different, then not in any defined way - as the King in Yellow.

[Cthulhu]

Derleth calling it an entity should be enough evidence it's not imho tbh fam ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[ZeroGravitas]

Hastur vs Cthulu. Fight fight fight!

I found the King in Yellow to be a more enjoyable book and Chambers to be a better author in general.

Somehow William Hope Hodgson is also a better author who wrote earlier. Somehow he always gets left out of the discussions.

[Neonivek]

The original sources are ambiguous and contradictory

Honestly sometimes I wish this was a LOT more intentional then it often ends up being.

I mean, it would make sense... these are myths and legends of beings beyond human understanding... often written by people who are mad or have no strong way of knowing... As well as there being intentional misdirection. There is every reason to believe this information might be inaccurate and the fact that it is true actually helps make the atmosphere uneasy. In fact, even the Lovecraftian gods are not omnisentient and know everything or close to everything.

As well even the aspect of them being "Unknowable" also paints it well with them seemingly having completely contradictory personalities, motivations, and identities. The idea of them being "One thing" is a very human concept and doesn't apply to them at all... As well you never know how it works, it could honestly be a trick or disguise. This also explains why cultists could form, beyond outright insanity, because they don't always take a directly antagonistic role (It just often works out as almost a deal with the devil at least long term).

Unfortunately... It often feels to me that it was just outright inconsistent writing, then it having particularly strong themes.

[E. Albright]

You state well the crux of the matter. Lovecraft was not, alas, a very good writer. His ideas were interesting, but contradictory and included some painfully lazy tropes. A major reason they work and resonate despite this is their vagueness, and tellingly, the more precise they get the more they look like cheesy cardboard cutouts. Derleth, ofc, took failing-through-precision to another level, as do most latter-day homages.

[Ludorum Rex]

I think it's a bit unfair to say Lovecraft had lazy tropes in his work, considering when he lived and how novel most of the themes he explored were. He doesn't have a rather racist bent, even for his time, but apart from that I really can't see what those lazy tropes would be.

As for his mythos, it was probably never intended to be consistent and with an established canon, as is the case with the world-building of modern fantasy, horror and sci-fi litterature. He was trying to make a living from his short stories, and his mythos was a by-product and toolbox of this, rather than the goal. As you probably know, he also considered himself a poor writer and was very harsh in his self-critique. Some of the well-known Lovecraftian tales were binned by the man himself, as he thought they were unfit for publication.

He was an extremely important figure in the development of fantasy, horror and sci-fi litterature, and even if he isn't a great writer in the classical sense, I think most of you are being overly dismissive of his importance and creativity.

[Neonivek]

I think Lovecraft gets a bad wrap mostly because of what other people did with his work... as well as how the popular consciousness views the work that they never read.

People forget that even in his books almost ABOUT the other mythos... It is usually not about them (or they never EXACTLY appear).

So I think they expect Cthulhu to just pop out and go "Boogey boogedy!" or for characters to just constantly go insane all the time.

even if he isn't a great writer in the classical sense

He is actually pretty good. A huge thing he avoids, for example, in one of his stories is making everyone a total idiot just because it is a horror.

This one fact alone upgrades him from the bottom barrel that plagues horror.

[Cruxador]

The original sources are ambiguous and contradictory

Honestly sometimes I wish this was a LOT more intentional then it often ends up being.

In the case of the various stories within The King in Yellow, it is almost certainly designed to work as it does. I think that it's generally safe to assume that such things are intentional when they're published as a set.

You state well the crux of the matter. Lovecraft was not, alas, a very good writer. His ideas were interesting, but contradictory and included some painfully lazy tropes. A major reason they work and resonate despite this is their vagueness, and tellingly, the more precise they get the more they look like cheesy cardboard cutouts. Derleth, ofc, took failing-through-precision to another level, as do most latter-day homages.

Hastur isn't Lovecraft's. The form in which he is most often recognized, if we ignore Derleth's work, is that defined by Chambers. Prior to whom he was a non-specific object of worship for a shepherd that knew next to nothing of society, and in Lovecraft's work, he is referred to only as a name among others.

As for Lovecraft's skill, I think that's too broad of a statement to accurately make. Lovecraft excellently constructed evocative language and his adeptness at pacing was unquestionable. The broader strokes of story, and worldbuilding in particular, may not have been as defined as we expect to see in more modern authors, but complaining that he didn't reach those standards is a bit silly since there's no evidence he really had that kind of thing as a goal. For most of his career, anyway, but he got better at it towards the end of his life by most folks' judgement.