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[IndigoFenix]

If you want to make dwarves go insane, try CHANGE_PERSONALITY for STRESS_VULNERABILITY, along with feeling any sort of negative emotion.  Note that if you induce it with an interaction instead of a substance, you will need to make the severity much higher to have any effect.

[Taffer]

While I love Lovecraft's fiction, adding in new monsters doesn't make sense to me in the context of his work. He has a few stories with recognizable monsters of various kinds, but they're a comparative minority and usually written early in his career. It's a little sad that Lovecraft's influence on modern gaming often boils down to concepts and ideas that aren't really representative of his fiction. He writes about dreaming and the uncertainty of our sense perceptions more often than cults, monsters, or even ancient ones.

Megabeasts aren't a good fit for the ancient ones. Cthulhu is like god to us, so far beyond our perceptions that we go mad trying to understand it. It isn't just some big monster that appears in front of the Alert and isn't even physically present in the sense we understand (as implied when the Alert plows into it, but doesn't hit anything). Cthulhu's "city" features non-Euclidean geometry because it's built in a world/dimension with different physics, not just a different "type of geometry", and certainly not because the builders just built everything crooked.

To paraphrase a youtube video, you can't put a health bar of any kind on an ancient one. I'd much rather see syndromes (like the colour out of space, as mentioned), religious cults, dreaming, and madness. I don't think it's possible with current game mechanics, but a mod that involves exploring an alternate dimension when you sleep is very much in the spirit of Lovecraft. I'd hate to read any combat log that ends with one of Lovecraft's gods being killed or hurt, as that doesn't make any sense in the context of his work.

Lovecraft strongly disliked alcohol (read "Old Bugs"), so one starting point for a Lovecraft mod would be to introduce negative consequences to alcohol and reducing reliance on it. I suspect that he would be disturbed by the game's alcohol mechanics. You could do this in a fort by just not brewing alcohol and relying on water, but then your dwarves will be slow and unhappy.

This whole thread is in the "Dwarf Mode" board rather than the "Modding" board, however, so I surmise the intent wasn't to discuss modding. Toady has mentioned alternate dimensions several times in the past, including a mention of non-Euclidean geometry (see the DF Talks). Starting scenarios should also let you start with the specific goal of making a shrine to something, and I think that the upcoming myth generator looks fantastic, and is definitely (at least in part) in keeping with some of Lovecraft's work. At the moment I don't think you can do much beyond mod the game and roleplay, but some of the promised features definitely remind me superficially of Lovecraft.

[Fleeting Frames]

For unusual architecture & geometry, constantly changing paths could work for confusion, or perhaps, if modding is acceptable using random zone restrictions as well as teleporting some things from x to y, perhaps both areas moving.

Changing pathfinding and connections directly might require memory-hacking, though.

Buildings hanging in mid-air is a staple of DF and good example of fantasy designs. You could build hanging walls over seasonally-freezing water - I believe they would cave-in on loading the save, giving a mystery for someone unfamiliar with the fort. Non-building items can rest upon places without floors, if there is suitable building beneath, even though a dwarf wouldn't want to walk on one.

That said, DF dimensions favour strict 90° angles, even with all of the above, even more than reality.

[RandomizedThinker]

constantly changing paths. i remember reading of how to make labyrinths in dwarf fortress. where many pressure plates and doors all over the place. that could be a way to mimic changing layout. and to go the extra step, try to build your fort with all of the workshops and rooms all over the place instead of the standard compact efficient way.
i'm imagining a dwarf crossing a bridge to reach a workshop, but a pressure plate in a seperate part of the fortress triggers it and drops the dwarf to a different area than he intended. this would definitely be a very inefficient fortress.
not sure if this is completely lovecraftian but typing this out i'd want to attempt this!

[§k]

Weresquids are immobile onland, don't suffocate, and destroy building.

Dwarves turn into shambling wriggling squids and furnitures crumble around them in their deadly gaze.

Remember the giant mosquito siege? Seven hundred mosquito men chat "In a time before time, a nameless creatue attacked someone."

Human poet cancels sleep: too insane.

[TheHossofMoss]

The other is the Bloodgod who you have to lock up and make regular sacrifices to or your entire fort will go insane.

What's the name of this mod, my friend?

[Carpecanum]

megabeasts are an excellent stand in for many HP Lovecraft creatures.  The giant god spider thing, gugs, shoggoths, all the cross breed one shots (Whately etc.) and all the things he hinted at but didn't mention.  No need to move straight to the most powerful Ancient Ones.  Hopefully in the future we will be able to dedicate a fort to a specific god and have that actually effect random events and such. 

[OcelotTango]

Ok, so settle on a haunted ocean, hopefully some interesting weather could set the ambiance. Also, capture every forgotten beast, and have regular sacrifices of animals, captives, and cultists. Make sure they have cool looking matching robes(these are dwarven cultists after all). Set up your fort with canals for aquatic creatures to get around the fort in so you can breed giant squid(which means you also need some savage ocean).