Cthulu? Wtf..?


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William Ronald said:
I also seem to recall an old story where someone killed Cthulhu -- temporarily -- by running a ship through him.
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That's from "The Call of Cthulhu," pretty much the definitive Cthulhu story by Lovecraft. He wasn't really killed at all; the ship ran through his head, and he simply reformed, or "recongealed" when the ship had passed.
 


Kristivas said:
Anyway, what in the holy bejesus is a Cthulu?
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Here is your difinitive answer: Please note that I am not a massive Lovecraft fan, but I understand it all and definitely understand the attraction.

In the early 1900's Howard Philip Lovecraft basically invented the modern Horror genre of literature. At least he took it to places where Edgar Allen Poe could never imagine in his worst nightmares. All of the big name modern horror writers like King and Barker will invariably cite Lovecraft as an influence.

Anyway, HPL's stories were so powerful that they are basically a world unto themselves. All you need to do to get a glimpse of this is read 2 or 3 of them. They are all short stories, usually 20 pages or so. They are sold in Lovecraft collections in any bookstore.

The basic theme in Lovecraft's world is that reality is not what it seems. We live in a world where the truth is so unimaginably horrible that to get a glimpse of the truth drives you insane. It goes like this: The world is pre-dated by the "elder gods" aliens from elsewhere in the universe who are malevolent, but who monitor and control our history. These are beings like Hastur, (don't say it aloud three times!) Cthuhlu, Yog-Sothoth, Nyarlathotep, and a littany of others. Some humans know or seek the truth and worship these gods in evil cults. The world is always on the razor's edge of these gods running amok. The short story called "The Call of Cthuhlu" is considered archetypal, of the entire collection, which are collectively called the "Cthulhu Mythos".

HPL stories are almost always about an innocent reporter, or regular person who gets a glimpse of something distrubing and super-natural and investigates it more deeply. Wierd stuff happens and the main character sees more of the what underlies the world. Evil cults, elder gods, wicked tomes that hold evil spells, horrible plots with unfathomable motives etc.... The main character ususlly ends up dead or insane.

Anyway, Lovecraft fans are as dedicated to the genre as any sci-fi or fantasy fan is dedicated to theirs. Lovecraft's world and style are unique and vast. Cthulhu Mythos fan fiction abounds to the degree that the number of fanfic mythos stories now outnumbers HPL originals by about a thousand to one. HPL's world is alive and well.

When D&D hit big in the late 70's a company called Chaosium www.chaosium.com licensed the RPG rights from the Lovecraft estate, and created a RPG called "Call of Cthulhu". Players run "Investigators" who get a glimplse of wierdness and research it out, and uncover the progressively evil supernatural or cult plots. The ultimate end of an investigator is invariably to go insane. There are elaborate sanity rules, including sanity scores, and detialed rules for every type of madness that players end up roleplaying until they character is so far gone that they are institutionalized. At which point a player roles up a new investigator and keeps on playing. WOTC briefly had a license to produce a d20 edition rules set of the CoC game, but the license was pulled a few years ago. Look on eBay for d20 call of cthulhu and you will find that copy. Purists however will tell you that the Chaosium Rules are superior.

That is pretty much all I know about it. I will add this however. I am a hardcore D&D guy, but there is something spectacularly fun about playing Call of Cthulhu. Lovecraft's world is quite possibly the most ideally suited setting for any RPG. Very fun.
 

Buzzardo said:
I am a hardcore D&D guy, but there is something spectacularly fun about playing Call of Cthulhu. Lovecraft's world is quite possibly the most ideally suited setting for any RPG. Very fun.
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Before abject poverty forced me to sell nearly all of my game collection, I was really interested in using Grim Tales to run a Faerun Cthulhu variant that would have been to the Forgotten Realms what The World of Darkness is to our own Earth. Some day, I'll have to look into that again, provided that I can turn up another copy of Grim Tales (it seems to be pretty uncommon around here).
 

William Ronald said:
I also seem to recall an old story where someone killed Cthulhu -- temporarily -- by running a ship through him.
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No, you're thinking about the Disney Cartoon, "The Little Mermaid" where the guy rams a ship into Queen Ursula's gut.
 



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