Lovecraftian Horror - How to use it?

[NeoTiamat]

Everyone loves H.P. Lovecraft. Classic author, master of horror, happens to be from my home state, etc. However, Lovecraftian Horror is by its very nature different from Gothic Horror. If Gothic Horror takes its scare-factor from the manipulation of human emotions (case in point, the focus on curses, which are very frequently the very embodiment of revenge), Lovecraftian Horror operates based on the Alien (the unknowable aspect of it all, that humanity does not matter).

Now, my question is the following: Those people who have been in games where the DM used Lovecraftian-style Horror, how did the DMs manage to convey the sense of alien unknowability? Did it work?

I'll kick off with a story of how I handled it in my own campaign, the Eye of Anubis over on the boards. Basically, I wasn't entirely confident in my ability to carry off unknowable and alien horror, so I decided to side-step the issue. When my PCs entered a classic Lovecraftian city beneath the desert, I had the city start to turn them and their fellow NPCs mad via visions and dreams and various ominous scenes. The bulk of the adventure's conflict came about first figuring out what was going on, and then trying to get all the NPCs and PCs out of the city safely, made tricky by the fact that some of the NPCs had gone violent (an elven sniper was having PTSD flashbacks to Azrael's takeover of Sithicus, for instance, and was shooting at people). In other words, I used Lovecraftian Horror to promptly segue into personal, Gothic Horror. I used the trappings of Lovecraft, the ancient, cyclopean cities, the bizarre magic, but for the actual conflict I relied on good old fashioned human horror.

How do the rest of you do it?

[ewancummins]

I've never really thought that full-blown 'cosmic horror' fit Ravenloft very well. Some of HPL's early works are closer to the Gothic tradition ['The Tomb' for example]. I would be hesitant to make much use of the Cthulhu Mythos or similar material, though.

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

-HPL, from the Call of Cthulhu

That is one, to me, of the best summations of HPL's idea of cosmic horror: a profoundly alien, uncaring, inhuman reality that would blast our pathetic minds should we even begin to understand its true nature.

In contrast, Ravenloft is a Gothic universe built on human ideas of good and evil, morality and punishment, hard-won redemption and the glamour of sin. The Dark Powers may be 'unknowable' but they do seem to take a strong interest in human moral life.

Some of Lovecraft’s stories would work well in Ravenloft, though.
Two that spring to mind:

Rats in the Walls
The Tomb

[DilisnyaRevenge]

Some of Lovecraft’s stories would work well in Ravenloft, though.
Two that spring to mind:

Rats in the Walls
The Tomb

In The Vault is another good one.

[Sareau]

The trick to using Lovecraft is to do exactly what Lovecraft did-focus entirely on the mood, and be very vague about descriptions. The plasticity of the monsters and their shape-changing helps with that-focus onthe surface of their hides, the way light plays off it instead of, "oh, it's a big jelly".

By describing monsters and never giving them names, you'll have a certain effect on the cosmic horror that was Lovecraft's specialty-I once made a low-level group flee in horror from a giant centipede by this method.

Another point that helps is to have the monsters ignore the players unless they're right there-no real chasing them or changing plans to counter them-it was a major part of Lovecraft's paradigm than humanity had almost nothing to do with the cosmos at large. By killing the players but not really giving chase, you reinforce their microbal effect on the Big Bads...

[Mouseferatu]

This may or may not help, but a little while ago, WotC published one of my short stories on their site, here: http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx ... /20071031a

It was a deliberate attempt to write a Lovecraft-style tale in Ravenloft. You might find it useful.

Or not.

[cure]

Cthulhu and its peers might be a bit difficult to fit in, but alien creatures with alien agendas are certainly not, with the Illithid being the prime example. For my money, I see the Mountains of Madness, er, Misery with their Dark Mother lurking far beyond as ground zero of aberrent, malign intelligence in the Core. Indeed the dwarves of Darkon should not have bonuses for fighting orcs but rather abberations, as it is these creatures that swell up from the depths and overun their mines. And evidently the society of the seekers of the Dark Mother are cultists of the first order.

[A G Thing]

Mouseferatu wrote... Quite literally!!!

This may or may not help, but a little while ago, WotC published one of my short stories on their site, here: http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx ... /20071031a

It was a deliberate attempt to write a Lovecraft-style tale in Ravenloft. You might find it useful.

Or not. Wink

WOW!!! Great job for a short story!!! Ya gotta love free Ravenloft fiction, and you do know how to write it well!

Thanks for sharing the link!

[ewancummins]

Cthulhu and its peers might be a bit difficult to fit in, but alien creatures with alien agendas are certainly not, with the Illithid being the prime example. For my money, I see the Mountains of Madness, er, Misery with their Dark Mother lurking far beyond as ground zero of aberrent, malign intelligence in the Core. Indeed the dwarves of Darkon should not have bonuses for fighting orcs but rather abberations, as it is these creatures that swell up from the depths and overun their mines. And evidently the society of the seekers of the Dark Mother are cultists of the first order.

Yes, fighting cloakers!

I love me some cloakers. Here's my wee entry in Mangrum's monster thread:

CLOAKER, DREAD, OUTLANDER [MONSTER MANUAL]


They say the air went bad, and that made me imagine what happened after the cave-in. It isn't so! The collapse sealed us in, but it opened up a deeper tunnel. Good air came through the gap, but not only air. It let THEM in. Gods! It all happened so fast. They hit the lantern bearers first, so we didn't have a good look at 'em 'fore the lights went dark. I just saw these flat shapes moving along the stone walls, hard to make out against the stone. The colors seemed to blend in, like a rock lizard will do. There was this queer noise, like clothes rustling in a draughty hall closet. Then it went pitch black, and all I could hear were the screams of my mates. I hid under a mine cart. Was still there, three days later, when the rescue crew broke through to us- to me, since all the others had vanished. That gap had been closed up, too. Those things must have done it. That's why I had to quit the mines. Cannot stand to be shut in, or left in the dark. And those things are still down there....

- a story told by an old man in Bergovitsa, likely a lie to excite the sympathy of strangers-[/
_________________
'' When I have a little money, I buy books. If anything is left, I buy food and clothes.'' - Erasmus

[Sareau]

Cloakers, illithids-did everyone forget the gibbering mouther, which seems to have leaped right out of the mythos into AD&D?

Of course, Lovecraft himself had a weakness for ghouls and inbred families degenerating into same-ghouls, sahuagin, and the like. Although I would love to do an adventure based on The Shunned House with it's gloriously gruesome vampire fungi in the basement...

[Joël of the FoS]

A while ago, I did a short essay on HPL and RL, it's in the Parlor.

In short, many possibilities, as long as the big guys stay out of Ravenloft. But alien cultists working hard to bring them in fits. Or Illithids and Bluetspur.

Joël

[The Giamarga]

Deep Ones are another monster that fits quite well with RL. Check out the Nocturnal Sea Gazetteer.

As for cloakers, the son of Balfour de Casteele wears a cloaker. Can you imagine? Though the idea of wearing them is right from the RL monster description of cloakers in DoD.

[DocBeard]

That is one, to me, of the best summations of HPL's idea of cosmic horror: a profoundly alien, uncaring, inhuman reality that would blast our pathetic minds should we even begin to understand its true nature.

I think it's important to remember that for all of his deploring of the weakness of the civilized mind, Lovecraft was good friends with Robert H. Howard, to the point of considering the stories where Conan confronts elements of the Cthulhu Mythos practically canon. I say this because some people view a "proper" Lovecraftian reference as one where the protagonists inescapably go mad, are corrupted, or are destroyed, and otherwise the opposite of the Howardian pulp-fantastic world where one gritty man can endure massive suffering and triumph, or at least survive, in a corrupt world.

I think these themes are not as irreconcilable as one might think, is the point.

[Isabella]

http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/TheP ... jects.html

Skimming through the author notes, Mangrum had some thoughts on Lovecraftian Horror a little bit down the page.

[cure]

A Darklord, and his pawns, messing around with Lovecraftean evils:

"Sena gazed upon the blasted wastes with wide-eyed confusion. Horace had the look of a hunted animal. Which in fact he was, as were we all. I was very much worse for wear, and more than a little concerned that our fate now rested upon the trustworthiness of the Vistani, and, for that matter, of our employer. Lying on the ground between us was a native of the sunless realm, one of the proprietors of the vast butcher shop. The thing, tentacles and all, was bound tight as a drum, or nearly so, and covered with two score of leeches supplied by the doctor. They, or at very least my swift kick to its head, were proving to be effective. Nonetheless, not two feet away from me, the thing's stomach noisily digested Victor's brain. A second kick to its head did my toe little good and less for poor Victor. Repeated kicks to its belly had failed to oblige it to part ways with its breakfast. Minutes seemed to pass as hours. Then a sudden and violent gust of wind threw up a wall of dust. When I could see clearly again, our rescuers and their vardos stood in waiting. We would live to reach the ile of Domina, to deliver the damn thing, to reap our reward."

-Brutus Nostrum retelling himself how he came to be confined in Doctor Daclaud Heinforth's Asylum for the Mentally Disturbed

[ewancummins]

That is one, to me, of the best summations of HPL's idea of cosmic horror: a profoundly alien, uncaring, inhuman reality that would blast our pathetic minds should we even begin to understand its true nature.

I think it's important to remember that for all of his deploring of the weakness of the civilized mind, Lovecraft was good friends with Robert H. Howard, to the point of considering the stories where Conan confronts elements of the Cthulhu Mythos practically canon. I say this because some people view a "proper" Lovecraftian reference as one where the protagonists inescapably go mad, are corrupted, or are destroyed, and otherwise the opposite of the Howardian pulp-fantastic world where one gritty man can endure massive suffering and triumph, or at least survive, in a corrupt world.

I think these themes are not as irreconcilable as one might think, is the point.

Hmm... I haven't explained this well. I'm not talking about swords and sorcery or heroism being incompatible with the Mythos, but about the moral nature of the two millieux[ Ravenloft and the Cthulhu Mythos].
IMO, Ravenloft is fundamentally different from the amoral, alien, uncaring universe of the Mythos because the Ravenloft milieu is built on human ideas of good and evil, sin, redemption, curses, and passions.
Combining the two is problematic for me. If you have a different take on it, that's cool. I'm not telling you that it cannot be done; I'm telling you why I don't like doing it.