Cthulhu, Calling

Isn’t it funny how a post work conversation can go, sometimes?

It is, though, isn’t it?

I got talking to Will — my boss — tonight, about all sorts of thing.

One of the things that did was … well, believe it or not, H. P. Lovecraft.

The horror writer?

I don’t know if you’re familiar with him, at all, but Howard Phillips Lovecraft was a writer who wrote during the 1920’s and ’30s.

And not one popular during his lifetime, either.

But he did gain something of a cult following in later years; Stephen King’s a bit of a fan, for example.   And some of the people Lovecraft wrote to, whilst alive are fairly well know, to fantasy and SF fans; Robert Bloch, Clark Ashton Smith, and, not least, R. E. Howard — he of Conan The Barbarian fame.

But finding out about Lovecraft through other writer’s isn’t how I came across him.

Nor did I pick any of his work up, at school; the mid Nineteen-eighties possibly did a lot for my education.

But it didn’t exactly include odd American pulp writers who were somewhat darker than most.   Shakespeare, and Arthur Miller, yes, but not early twentieth century New England horror writers …

No, I found out about Mr Lovecraft another way.

Remember me telling you I used to play role-playing games, back in the day?

Very way back in the day!

It’s probably something that sprung out of being a Doctor Who and Lord of the Rings, fan, when younger.   And managed to take in Star Trek, Blake’s Seven — and dear ol’ Conan, bless ’im — along the way.

Oh, and had a quickish look at Michæl Moorcock, as well; who I always thought was odd, but there’s no accounting for taste, is there? 

I do know it’s a legacy that’s left me looking forward to the next Terry Pratchett book.   For most of the past two and a half decades.

Some of Terry’s earlier work …

Well, I’m talking as someone who’d played, read or collected* most of the rpgs current back then, and ‘got’ many of his reference points; I’m still much convinced that Terry Pratchett’s original idea for the city of Ankh-Morpork came not from London — although I have seen the map of Ankh Morpork — but from Fritz Leiber’s ‘Swords of Lankhmar’/Nehwon setting; used as one of many background settings for Dungeons and Dragons.   Something I know Terry Pratchett played.

Funny old thing, Leiber was inspired to go into writing as a result of reading the work of a certain Rhode Islander …

But I’m digressing, aren’t I?

The point I’m trying to make, here, is that I, like others, came across Lovecraft as a result of a game; in this case, the rather good Chaosium 3rd edition of Call of Cthulhu.

Which was — as others in the Chaosium line-up — a derivation of their rules for RuneQuest.   In itself, something of a novelty; one that went against the formula established by the venerable Dungeons and Dragons.

Both games, like many in the Chaosium line up, used a percentage based skills system — as opposed to a level based system — to show how strong, intelligent, or educated a character was.

There were other differences, as well.

Dungeons and Dragons had several different back ground settings.

Call of Cthulhu just concentrated on one …

Which is where H. P. Lovecraft comes in; Call of Cthulhu took its title from a Lovecraft story … and its setting from what’s usually referred to as …

The Cthulhu Mythos …

Hmm …

Should I put sort of drum-roll, there?

Maybe.

That’s what caught my attention, in the various bits of background in the rpg of Call of Cthulhu; mentions of a Cthulhu Mythos.   And got me trotting off to to the local bookshop to get hold of a couple of Lovecraft collections.

You see, something that Lord of the Rings gave me an appreciation of was fantasy works with a well put together background.

A convincing background is the heart — or, at least a major artery — of good fiction.   You have to be sympathetic to the characters, and gripped by the story.   The world they move through, real or imagined, is part of them and the story.

So I was rather interested in reading Lovecraft, after reading and playing,the game based on his world.   Oh, and seeing Reanimator, the 1985 film based on one of his stories.

I’m still reading Lovecraft, years later.

Not so much because I feel he’s a stunning writer.

I’m not convinced he is, although I’m no literary critic.

But more because the background that he built — and that’s a big part of the many short stories he wrote — is much like digging through a gold mine.

You’ll get tons of rubble; some of his views are decidedly politically incorrect, in this day and age.

But the pay-dirt — both Mythos, and stories — makes it worth it.

Call of Cthulhu, The Dunwich Horror and The Shadow Over Innsmouth are core stories.

But the one that scared me witless was The Colour Out Of Space.

To quote a certain Maine based horror writer, “Get thee to Lovecraft and be Scared …”

* Remind me do write something up about Traveller, at some point …