The Masks of Lovecraft (part 3) - Report on the Miskatonic Expedition

"...The things once rearing and dwelling in this frightfull masonary in the age of dinosaurs were not indeed dinosaurs, but far worse. Mere dinosaurs were new and almost brainless objects - but the builders of the city were wise and old, and had left certain traces in rocks, even then laid down well nigh a thousand million years - rocks laid down before the true life of earth had advanced beyond plasmic groups of cells ¹ - rocks laid down before the true life of the life of earth had exsisted at all. They were the makers and enslavers of that life, and above all doubt the orignals of the fiendish elder myths which things like the Pnakotic Manuscripts and the Necronomican offrightlingly hint about.

At the Mountians of Madness, and other tales of terror, H.P. Lovecraft, 1939.

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¹ Cells Classified by Sub-Cellular Materials ("-plasmic")In a broader structural sense, groups of cells or tissues are often grouped and named by the type of cellular material ("-plasm") they dominate in or how they develop:

• Cytoplasmic / Protoplasmic Groups: Living cell matter containing the cytosol and organelles.
• Neoplasms: A group of abnormal cells forming a tumor or new tissue growth (cancerous or benign).
• Sarcoplasm: A term used specifically for the specialized cytoplasm found within groups of skeletal muscle cells.

AI overview

Ubbo-Sathla

“For Ubbo-Sathla is the source and the end. Before the coming of Zhothaqquah or Yok- Zothoth or Kthulhut from the stars; Ubbo-Sathla dwelt in the steaming fens of the new-made Earth: a mass without head or members, spawning the gray, formless efts of the prime and the grisly prototypes of terrene life...And all earthly life, it is told, shall go back at last through the great circle of time to Ubbo-Sathla.”

The Book of Eibon

“The Book of Eibon, that strangest and rarest of occult forgotten volumes ... is said to have come down through a series of manifold translations from a prehistoric original written in the lost language of Hyperborea. „

Clark Ashton Smith, "Ubbo-Sathla"

Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, Ubbo-Sathla, Clark Ashton Smith

More of Lovecraft's Cthulha's Mythos

It has been almost nine years since I last posted anything Lovecraftian, however recently a came into a small cache of Lovecraftian literature and I will be making a few new posts on this topic.

Thirteen Primary Stories of the Cthulhu Mythos

The Nameless City
The Festival
The Colour out of Space
The Dunwich Horror
The Whisperer in Darkness
The Dreams in the Witch House
The Haunter of the Dark
The Shadow Over Innsmouth
The Shadow out of Time
At the Mountains of Madness
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
The Thing on the Doorstep

Although argumentatively it could be said that there are other texts associated with the mythos, these thirteen were written by the creator of the Mythos, H. P. Lovecraft.

I have read the titles that have been italicized.

Inferences to the King in Yellow

‘Ambrose Bierce, created a fictional character, a god: Hastur; “Haite the Shepherd”, 1891. H. P. Lovecraft made an inference to Hastur and elements from Bierce’s story in his “The Whisper in the Darkness” and his poem “The Elder Pharos”. This character Hastur was further developed by August Derleth. Derleth depicts Hastur as one of the Great Old Ones.’

The House on Curwen Street

"Knowledge is power. But knowledge is also madness, and it is not for the weak to take arms against these hellish beings."

The House on Curwen Street, August W. Derleth

The Impetus for H.P. Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu?

It is said that the stimulus for Lovercraft’s The Call of Cthulhu was found in Lord Tennyson’s 1830 poem The Kraken. He might have also been influenced by William Hope Hodgson’s The Boats of the Glen-Carrig, where a creature having some of the same characteristics as the Cthulhu creature is described. In deed Lovercraft even mentioned that he had read the work of Hodgson, although Lovercraft went a lot further in the description of his creature and even added associative mysticisms.
"The Kraken" (1830)
Alfred Lord Tennyson

Below the thunders of the upper deep;
Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides: above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumbered and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages and will lie
Battening upon huge sea-worms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.

The Call of Cthulhu Kickstarter Games

I am on the look out for at least one Kickstarter project to fund this year and have been keeping my eyes and ears open for would be games. Having just completed some reading of H.P. Lofecraft, including his The Call of Cthulhu, the following posts on these two crowd funded games caught my eye.

Unspeakable Words Call of Cthulhu Delux Edition!

Unspeakable Words is a card game for 2 to 8 players. It is a game were players earn points based on the number of angles in the letters in their words. There are Cthulhu pawns, cards, a 20DS, rules, and a bag to carry your madness around with you, just in case the mood strikes for another game.

This project still has 24 more days to reach its goal,(as of 1/27/15) but has already reached its goal of $12000. That means more stretch goals will be coming your way if you fund this project with a minimum of a $35 pledge

Rise of Cthulhu

“Rise of Cthulhu is a strategic card game of influence and horror for 2 players”. Rise of Cthulhu includes 74 cards with some very neat art, 1 token, rule-book, and it all comes in a nice looking box. This project will be open for another 21 more days, but has already met its goal of $7000, that means more stretch goals for someone with a pledge of $50 or more.

Quotes from The Call of Cthulhu by Howard Philips Lovecraft

"Loathsome waits and dreams in the deep, and decay spreads over the tottering cities of man.”

Quotes from The Call of Cthulhu by Howard Philips Lovecraft

"Cthulhu had a cuttlefish head, dragon body, scaly wings." (Description of the actual Cthulhu creature as described by a horrified antagonist of the story.)

Quotes from The Call of Cthulhu by Howard Philips Lovecraft

Description of a statue that the cult of Cthulhu worshipped and sacrificed.

“The statue represented a monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of fillers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long narrow wings behind.”

Quotes from The Call of Cthulhu by Howard Philips Lovecraft

The quote is from Howard Philips Lovecraft’s, short story, The Call of Cthulhu. The Call of Cthulhu has a modern cult following, not like the cult described within this short story, but at lass, a cult just the same.

“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.”

More quotes and links on this topic will follow.