Lovecraft Influences in Games Options

[Lena Wolf]

HP Lovecraft writes Olive Garden's menu

Syl should have hired him to write the menus for the House of Dementia. And may be she did?

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

A heads up:

The Last Case of Benedict Fox comes out April 27th. As you can see from the trailer, it is a 2D (2.5D?) side scrolling action platformer in the vein of Castlevania Symphony of the Night and Metroid, and so may not be for everyone here, but it looks to have a very strong Lovecraftian feel to it. Khajiit is very interested in this title.

This post has been edited by TheCheshireKhajiit: Mar 27 2023, 11:26 AM

[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.

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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

[SubRosa]

The Book really showcases the Lovecraft style of writing. It is all mood and setting and feeling, and short on things like character and plot. That was the way he liked it. What he wanted to do was create an experience for the reader, to get them to feel as they read his work. Which is what art is supposed to do after all. He really did not care about anything else.

I just looked in my audiobook version of his works. The Readme has a list of his stories in the order that they were written, as well as another list breaking them down by genre. The Book was done in 1933, so it is near the end of his career, when he had really crystallized his own style.

The Transition of Juan Romero is one of those stories of his that deals with the Hollow Earth, and the idea that there are huge, open spaces down there, where all manner of dark and horrific monsters brooded and plotted. It is an early stab at the concept. My readme file says it is from 1919, so it is really early in his career. He would go on to develop the idea much more The Festival, The Nameless City, and The Mound. He really hits it out of the park with At the Mountains of Madness and The Shadow Out of Time.

Dagon was ok. Not one of his best to be sure, but one where he started to really show his own unique style of writing. I remember a podcast talking about it, and they brought up that at the time someone had criticized the plot, saying that it didn't make sense. Lovecraft shot back at them that he knew it was right, because he had dreamed it that way. That was often how he got his inspiration. He wrote what he dreamed. It is definitely in keeping with his decision to focus on mood and feeling, rather than on plot and characterization.

[Renee]

Okay, that helps what you just said: "all mood and setting, short on character and plot". Never thought of it that way, but that's a very succinct way of putting it. I was assuming since a lot of these shorts were published in pulp magazines that he was dealing with a lot of short deadlines, as well. Wow, that was written in his latter years.

Do you think he meant for The Book to end so abruptly like that from the protagonist's viewpoint? Or was it maybe an editorial thing? Maybe the publication would only accept so many words (assuming the story went into a magazine), so he had to trim The Book down and make it end like Thereafter I was more cautious with my incantations, for I had no wish to be cut off from my body and from the earth in unknown abysses whence I could never return. ?

The Lovecraft book I've got puts ellipses at the end. So it's like "whence I could never return..."

Whoa, I love that retort. "It has to be right, that's how I dreamed it!" That's something I didn't know, and now it makes sense, because some of the stories definitely come across as dreamy. The way The Book changes course several times is an example.

I'll read Dagon some point this weekend.

This post has been edited by Renee: Oct 20 2023, 03:52 PM

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

I’ve always liked Dagon. It’s pretty short and I think it can serve as a great entry point for someone new to Lovecraft’s work to really get a feel for his style. It has all the weirdness and creature horror that a lot of his work features without throwing a lot of his more “out there” ideas at you.

[SubRosa]

Renee: I am sure Lovecraft wanted The Book to end that way. He was not a very financially-minded person. He did not write stories to get paid, he wrote them because he wanted to, and then shopped them around to magazines afterward. There were much more profitable genres that he could have written in, but he vehemently opposed that, and he kind of snobbishly looked down his nose at people who did basically just write for the buck. In the end he could not write something that was not in his nature. For him it was all about the Art.

That is why he was not a big success in his lifetime. He had a niche of fans, but they were small. He really did not start to get popular until the 80s, when his work started getting re-released, and the game Call of Cthulhu came out. Ironically there were writers in his lifetime who were hugely successful that sometimes get named, and I have never heard of them. Once they retired, they just faded into obscurity, like last week's pop star. I think Lovecraft's lasting fame is due to him sticking to his artistic vision, in spite of all the people telling him to write in ways that were more commercially successful.

The podcast Voluminous covers all this in great detail. It is on probably permanent hiatus now, but they have a very extensive back catalog of episodes. It is put on by two Lovecraft nerds who take a letter of his each week and read it in full. Then they talk about it, what was going on in the world at the time, and in Lovecraft's life in particular, and just add another layer of conclusions. It shows all the really good things, and all the really, really bad things about him.

Khajiit: Dagon is one I put in the lower end B-Sides. Again, it is one of those where Lovecraft is working out ideas that would eventually blossom into great things. I don't think we would have gotten The Shadow Over Innsmouth without Dagon. Just like I don't think we would have gotten At The Mountains of Madness without The Nameless City first.

[mirocu]

Just came to mind; Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened.


Have been some years since I saw a LP of this game but it was pretty good. Started out as a typical Sherlock detective story but evolved into a supernatural Lovecraft story. If you like detecting and puzzle stuff at a slower (usually) pace with some Deep Ones thrown into it, maybe look into this!

[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

[SubRosa]

A packet is a term for a ship that made a regular route back and forth between two ports. So one that always ran back and forth between say San Francisco to Brisbane. Think of it as a ship version of a bus or train. It is an older term, because we don't really use ships for people's transportation much anymore, except luxury cruises.

A supercargo is likewise an old term for a passenger on a ship.

This is why a lot of people say that if you want to read Lovecraft, first buy yourself a good dictionary... Every time you read him, you are going to learn a new word.

Anyway, I am sure the protagonist is a morphine addict because of this experience he had where he saw Dagon. That is what Lovecraftian horrors do to you. They drive you insane, or make you wish you were insane, as that is a comfort compared to facing the reality you have just borne witness to.

[Renee]

Ah okay, yea I was getting the feeling that was an actual term. It'd be like if you went back 100 years ago and said "My boy's an influencer with over twenty-thousand clicks on my latest site. I've gone green, I'm a vegan, and my mom's off the grid", nobody in 1919 would know what the heck! -- Even the way 'boy' is being said, that's more likely a guy talking about his buddy, not an actual kid.

Cool, that helps. The guy goes mad and winds up on morphine, got it.

This post has been edited by Renee: Oct 30 2023, 02:09 AM

[Renee]

I read The Tomb the other day. Which tells of a lad named Jervas who discovers a half-hidden entrance to a crypt near (or nearby) his family's property. The entrance is locked, and the lad becomes fascinated with what could be inside. Sure, I can relate. He's a child. Imagination takes over. I can remember being a kid, roaming the woods behind our street, hoping to find a wild child; a boy or a girl native American who lived in the woods and had been cast away from society. I would discover this child. Teach him or her English or whatever. We'd come inside "Look mom! Here's my new friend!" Can they stay over for the night?"

Jervas begins visiting the Tomb whenever he can, sitting outside its locked entryway for hours, sometimes until night befalls. Eventually his fascination becomes obsession. He begins going mad, apparently.

Two things stand out. Actually three.

1). I love how the protagonist, Jervas Dudley, jumps right into the story. No backstory, hardly any preamble at all. He's already a mess by the time he's writing his morbid account.

The backstory comes a paragraph & two later. Jervas reveals his family is wealthy. And that he's grown up reading 'ancient and little-known books.' Must be nice.

2). This story also uses actual full names, rather interesting. Nowadays there are all sorts of disclaimers in works of fiction: the people and places mentioned in this story are not to be associated with anyone or anything real, and are the results of the author's pure imagination, or whatever. Wonder if Lovecraft, or the magazine (or whatever publication) The Tomb was published in, would've had to make a similar disclaimer.

3). Lovecraft uses the word "whilst" instead of while. I've been assuming whilst is a British word ever since I first heard Callidus Thorn and ghastley and others who are from the U.K. use whilst in our forums. Never ever have I heard anyone, any of my elder relatives, my grandparents for instance, who were born just after WWI, use the word whilst. But Lovecraft uses whilst instead of while.

So my question is, during his lifetime, would people be saying whilst, which got phased out during the 1920s and later? Or is this word being used because this story is supposed to be set back in the 1800s when whilst was still commonly said?

Anyway, Jervas predictably goes mad after finally breaking into the tomb, and laying within an open casket. The story loses focus, not that it's expected focus should remain; this is a Lovecraft tale after all. But still, it's unclear (to me) what exactly happens next; Jervas suddenly claims he's no longer a youth after this moment, suddenly he's the age of 21.

Henceforward I haunted the tomb each night; seeing, hearing, and doing things I must never reveal.

I love that he keeps some info to himself. He "must never reveal". Dude's gone wack, perhaps he doesn't want others to suffer whatever he's going through. Or maybe he fears being locked in an asylum. Heh. Too late for that, buddy.

And then a second horror took possession of my soul. Burnt alive to ashes, my body dispersed by the four winds, I might never lie in the tomb of the Hydes! Was not my coffin prepared for me? Had I not a right to rest till eternity amongst the descendants of Sir Geoffrey Hyde?

Seems he's been possessed. Living whatever Sir Hyde experienced.

Later Jervas gets rescued apparently by two locals. And then there it is: On the following day I was brought to this room with the barred windows... Good gosh, man!

[Lena Wolf]

You picked up "whilst" but not "betwixt"?

Men of broader intellect know that there is no sharp distinction betwixt the real and the unreal...

I've known quite a few modern day Americans who used to say "whilst". Perhaps it is more common in other parts of the USA? But admittedly, I've never heard anyone say "betwixt".

[Renee]

Ah, but we don't say 'betwixt' in America, or anything close! ---- Unless betwixt is supposed to be derived from between? I honestly don't know.

Okay, but you have heard a few Americans say 'whilst', okay. As stated, I never, ever have.

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

Lovecraft loved to use language and spelling that we, and even his American contemporaries might have considered “archaic”. He felt that New England culture had become too much influenced by modernity, and by what he considered to be inferior cultures as compared to the WASP culture that became dominant in New England during colonial times up to about the Civil War. He purposefully used this language to evoke that of those earlier times when things were, as he believed, “better”.

[Lena Wolf]

Ah, but we don't say 'betwixt' in America, or anything close! ---- Unless betwixt is supposed to be derived from between? I honestly don't know.

"Betwixt" is just an old form of "between".

Okay, but you have heard a few Americans say 'whilst', okay. As stated, I never, ever have.

It's not that uncommon, actually. There are whole lengthy discussions being held among professional writers regarding this word - whether one should always use "while" or always "whilst", some people feel very strongly about it. Personally, I don't think it matters that much. They mean the same thing.

And yeah - what Khajiit said!

This post has been edited by Lena Wolf: Yesterday, 06:47 PM