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]

Lopov played a couple Sherlock Holmes games, and yes I remember him mentioning something about Lovecraft.

I did read Dagon a couple days ago, I can see what you're saying Florens. It is sort of just "okay". Maybe it's because of the Mehrunes Dagon connotation I've got in my head, I was expecting a grand demon to be the main focus of the story. But yeah, Dagon does sort of seem half-finished. And like a dream, it shifts around a few unconnected times.

The protagonist starts off saying he's a drug addict at the end of his life. Then he changes subject, and begins talking about being on a boat at the start of the war? Is he a soldier? Or a stowaway?

It was in one of the most open and least frequented parts of the broad Pacific that the packet of which I was supercargo fell a victim to the German sea-raider

I have read that bit over and over. Maybe it's the language of the times, or something. I can't make heads or tails what's being said here. Maybe "packet of which I was supercargo" is a term which isn't used in our modern times. Or maybe it's a seafarer's term... I dunno!

The story shifts again, and becomes very hellish. Like he's in hell, watching the ocean his boat was floating on turn into this hellish place. Maybe Beth used this portion of the tale to draw inspiration toward the Planes of Oblivion.

Buy yeah, otherwise I don't fully get Dagon. Maybe it's a story written by a morphine addict, his addiction causing all those horrible visions. Or were the visions really supposed to have happened (he was actually in the South Pacific, where he lost his mind)? Don't know.

I like that he mentioned Poe!

This post has been edited by Renee: Oct 29 2023, 10:46 PM