Lovecraft Influences in Games Options

[Renee]

I finally sat down the other day and really read a Lovecraft story, Mammoth Cave, also known as The Beast in the Cave. Was surprised to learn he was only fourteen when he wrote this tale! So I decided to make a thread listing a variety of Lovecraft influences in Bethesda games, and here it is. I'm sure these influences can be found in other games, as well as other media altogether, so feel free to add these as you'd like as well.

It struck me though. The Beast in the Cave features a pale-skinned creature with snow-white hair, which the protagonist kills toward the end of the tale. Before he killed this creature, he could only hear its footfalls (he was in total darkness), and apparently the creature alternated between walking on two feet, and walking on four feet. After killing it, he managed to find the tour guide he'd gotten separated from. He and the guide were then able to return to the creature, and were able to see it with a torch.

At the very end of the tale, the protagonist describes the creature he'd killed as having once been a MAN!!! ... There is an implication that this MAN once lived aboveground, perhaps. Because it's impossible for him to have been born underground.

And to me, this sounds like a reference to the falmer of Skyrim, who also once were an aboveground-living race, called snow elves.

[Renee]

So, I finally found my Lovecraft book: The Transition of H.P. Lovecraft: The Road to Madness. No joke: I think the book is haunted. It keeps disappearing! Bought it whenever I started this thread (which I see was August of 2018), and since then the book has just *poof* vanished twice or three times. It'll vanish, then I'll find it in some odd spot. None of my other books do this!

Now that I work in a bookstore I could've just bought a second copy (and at a discount) and maybe the forces that be knew this. Because I found the original I bought in 2018, this time on an odd shelf underneath my housemate's entertainment system, of all place. Karen, my housemate, says she didn't move the book and I believe her because other than an occasional newspaper or magazine article, she's not a reader.

Anyway, I wanted to type my thoughts on a few of the short stories I've read. None of them have anything to do with gaming, so technically I'm off-topic. Oh well.

---------

The Book: This one's really creepy, partially because it's unfinished. It details a story of a man who found a 'worm-riddled book' in some outdoor location, near a river where "the mists always swirl." Super creepy.

After reading the book, the protagonist goes mad, of course. He (get this) locks himself into an attic filled with candles. As he loses touch with reality, he can't even remember if he's got a family. He begins hearing 'scratching' at the windows. Pretty soon he finds himself 'foating above the city', but then abruptly awakes back in the candle-filled attic.

And that's how the story ends. It's only 3 pages long!

-------------------

The Transition of Juan Romero. The protagonist this time is day laborer, a white man who works amongst Mexicans and Native Americans, and so on. They're all working in a goldmine. 🪙 A few of the laborers he works with are superstitious, which can often be shrugged off. But one of them, Juan Romero, just happens to eventually stand out.

Juan is fascinated with a 'Hindoo ring' which the protagonist wears. He seems to know there's some sort of magic within this ring, or something. The ring is beset with Hieroglyphics.

A part of the mountain they're mining gets blasted with too much TNT, and things go wrong. By the way Lovecraft describes, an entire portion of the moutainside falls away, leaving behind a huge cavern. Juan becomes attracted to something deep within the cavern that night, some sort of menacing rumble which throbs from deep beneath the ground. AT this moment, the Hindoo ring is glowing.

Juan goes running off into the cavern, while the protagonist initially follows. Something happens to Juan down there. Lovecraft gets sort of vague about what it could be. But later the next day, Juan is found by some of the other men. Still alive, but unconscious. And the protagonist's Hindoo ring, it's now missing from the protagonist's finger.

Next one I'm gonna read should be REALLY interesting. It's called Dagon!

This post has been edited by Renee: Oct 20 2023, 03:37 AM