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[Spehss _]

PTW too.

I've never read anything written by Lovecraft (or anyone alike). Should I?

Oh yeah, saw this earlier. Go for it. You can find a bunch of his works online for free on websites dedicated to it. So you can try reading stuff without worrying about if you'll like it or not and waste money. You don't even have to go out to a library. If you do like what you read then you can go out and buy your own copies if you want.

I'd recommend Pickman's Model, Cool Air, Rats in the Walls, or At the Mountains of Madness for stuff to start with. I realize that list I linked can look daunting.

[StupidElves]

Oh, yeah. Forgot to mention this. If anyone reads Cthulhu Tech books, be warned that it gets very rape heavy. Which is due to what I think is a reaction to what Lovecraft thought of to be terrifying isn't all that terrifying anymore, so they went with something that, even if you don't find it terrifying, is still uncomfortable.

Slight warning.

[Lord_lemonpie]

PTW too.

I've never read anything written by Lovecraft (or anyone alike). Should I?

Oh yeah, saw this earlier. Go for it. You can find a bunch of his works online for free on websites dedicated to it. So you can try reading stuff without worrying about if you'll like it or not and waste money. You don't even have to go out to a library. If you do like what you read then you can go out and buy your own copies if you want.

I'd recommend Pickman's Model, Cool Air, Rats in the Walls, or At the Mountains of Madness for stuff to start with. I realize that list I linked can look daunting.

Thanks, I'll definitely try reading them if I've got some time left.

[GiglameshDespair]

PTW too.

I've never read anything written by Lovecraft (or anyone alike). Should I?

Oh yeah, saw this earlier. Go for it. You can find a bunch of his works online for free on websites dedicated to it. So you can try reading stuff without worrying about if you'll like it or not and waste money. You don't even have to go out to a library. If you do like what you read then you can go out and buy your own copies if you want.

I'd recommend Pickman's Model, Cool Air, Rats in the Walls, or At the Mountains of Madness for stuff to start with. I realize that list I linked can look daunting.

Also read The Thing on The Doorstep and The Colour Out of Space.

[nenjin]

There's actually several of references to the elder races forcibly impregnating people in his stories. It's just in his day, LC didn't feel the need to dwell on it, or describe it in detail. That and he was coming at it more from the angle of corrupted genetics or hereditary guilt than just plain old violation for shock's sake. To be honest I'm not sure which is worse, given his attitudes about race.

I'd avoid Whisper in the Darkness though, just to start. It's a very long story where the truly interesting bits all happen pretty much at the end. I always kind of sigh when I hit that story in an anthology. It's good story, don't get me wrong. But where Color Out Of Space is also a long story, it draws you in as it tells itself. Whisperer in the Darkness takes dozens of pages to reach what LC has already effectively told you is happening.

I think my absolute favorite story is Rats In the Walls. Strikes a nice balance between reveals and mystery and has perhaps the most effective character ending of all the stories.

[StupidElves]

There's actually several of references to the elder races forcibly impregnating people in his stories. It's just in his day, LC didn't feel the need to dwell on it, or describe it detail. That and he was coming at more from the angle of corrupted genetics or hereditary guilt than just plain old violation for shock's sake. To be honest I'm not sure which is worse, given his attitudes about race.

More along the lines of "There are Deep One rape camps" and "there's this thing that's designed to situate nine people on it and force them to orgasm so that they can drain more Orgone(mana type stuff) from them and then after a few days they're dead and the cult that used it now has more Orgone than they could have gathered without it and they can do some really nasty spells" as well as "those guys that worship Hastur have camps where there's mass torture and rape."

Oh, and Horned Ones. Which are animal people type things. And you will have the best sex of your life. But if you're a woman, then the litter will kill you as you birth them, and if you're a guy, they will kill you once they're done. They get humans and Nazzadi (the other playable race) to have sex with them with pheromones that override common sense.

To be safe, don't play a female character if you know that your DM is a sick guy that likes tormenting his players. So, don't be a female if you know that your DM is like me.

[Spehss _]

More along the lines of "There are Deep One rape camps" and "there's this thing that's designed to situate nine people on it and force them to orgasm so that they can drain more Orgone(mana type stuff) from them and then after a few days they're dead and the cult that used it now has more Orgone than they could have gathered without it and they can do some really nasty spells" as well as "those guys that worship Hastur have camps where there's mass torture and rape."

Oh, and Horned Ones. Which are animal people type things. And you will have the best sex of your life. But if you're a woman, then the litter will kill you as you birth them, and if you're a guy, they will kill you once they're done. They get humans and Nazzadi (the other playable race) to have sex with them with pheromones that override common sense.

Wat. Are we talking about Lovecraft's stories or the Cthulhu Tech stuff now?

[StupidElves]

Cthulhu Tech.

[nenjin]

Yeah, like I said, Lovecraft really stayed at the maximum arm length he could from those topics while still broaching them.

[Spehss _]

Yeah, like I said, Lovecraft really stayed at the maximum arm length he could from those topics while still broaching them.

That's why I was asking, the whole "orgasm machine for harvesting mana" definitely didn't sound like a lovecraft thing.

[wierd]

Sounds like what you would get crossing lovecraft with the Alistair Crowley letters. (Sex magic was one of his things--- and his letters are quite graphically explicit.)

Where lovecraft alludes to hedonistic debaucheries of that type, Crowley gives you a how-to manual.

[Sirus]

So who here has played Darkest Dungeon? It's got some elements of eldritch horror going for it: ancient catacombs, elder beings, cultists, horrific monsters, tentacles, and of course madness. Madness is actually a gameplay element since your adventurers can go nuts from the terrible things they experience. And all of it is lovingly narrated in purple-ish prose.

[TempAcc]

It sets a nice atmosphere, and its a rather good game, but it kind of falls short of giving the player a feeling of actual progress since dungeon runs are a bit too similar to each other. Otherwise it does a good job of setting a lovecraft-ey atmosphere.

Some pages back I mentioned some eldritch horrors that show up in "christian-ish" fiction like the silmarillion (far more so) paradise lost.

And yes, lovecraft's writing style wasn't the most entertaining. It was very heavy with prose and descriptions which sort of clashed with his concept of unknowable evils which are undescribable and incomprehensible. In order to cause horror he often implied things involving the demise of people that got involved with the horrors rather then describing the horrors themselves. I couldn't help but giggle a bit when he tried describing the cthulhu idol. I just kind of depicted buddha with an octopus head and tiny wings in my mind when he did it.

[Spehss _]

Speaking of Christian-ish horrors, some of the biblical descriptions of angels are pretty lovecraftian. Bodies of intersecting wheels covered in eyes, for example.

[Neonivek]

I just kind of depicted buddha with an octopus head and tiny wings in my mind when he did it.

I am not going to lie... Some of his creatures are kind of lame...

Just wait until you see the headless giant baby... Or Buddha with a Elephant head.