“Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn”
― H.P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu
In February of 1928 a then obscure magazine that fell into the ‘Pulp’ category would publish a short story from an author who was not greatly renowned in his lifetime. The story would start a number of story cycles based on the mythos introduced by this one, single, story. The author would write a number of stories in that milieu and they would also lead to other authors writing in the same setting to a greater or lesser ability. The magazine is ‘Weird Tales’, the story is ‘The Call of Cthulhu’, and the author is Howard Phillips Lovecraft. The Cthulhu stories are still being written and published in books, magazines and online. RPGs, board games and computer games have been designed and published. But the first one still haunts me. Still gives me the creeps.
Lovecraft would influence a number of other writers, both his contemporaries as well as later writers. One, Robert E. Howard, would work some of the creatures of Lovecraft into his writings of Conan. Those overlaps of two of the best known of the writers in the magazine show the closeness of their friendship. They would be watered down in reprints and anthologies but if you look at the ones that are unedited, well, they are there. August Derleth also published stories in Weird Tales and coined the term ‘Cthulhu Mythos’. He too was a friend of Lovecraft and after Lovecraft’s death, was the main writer of further stories of the Eldritch beings. He is probably the one that comes closest to getting the atmosphere right. There are more but that would cover more than just a blog. Some, like Derleth, catch the right setting, some do not and it is a shame. The idea of stories that unsettle or cause a bit of the creeps are far more fun than a movie full of pedantic and predictable blood and gore. My opinion.
RPG and tabletop miniature game creators, and I have stated this elsewhere, found fertile ground to create games from the mythos. Chaosium’s ‘Call of Cthulhu’ is, I think, the oldest game of the setting. Starting in 1981 and pretty much continuously published since then. It is in its seventh edition and seems to still be going strong. Games Workshop even published some source books for an adventure based in the UK. Chaosium also published a cooperative board game ‘Arkham Horror’ in 1987 based on the RPG. In 2006 Fantasy Flight Games would publish a second edition and follow up with a third in 2018. I have not played it but it looks like fun. If there are any criticisms of those games that I have heard from those who play the games it is that the minis are a disappointment. If you find that the minis in the box don’t work for you there are other sources that you can go to get better minis.
There are a great number of companies that have made, and still make, minis for the Horror games so you will be spoiled for choice. Considering my large collections I can use some of the minis on the shelf in ‘horror’ stories, particularly in my latest obsession ‘Pulp Alley’. Vampires, Skeletons, Wraiths and more are on the shelf that I can add to the game to go with investigators, students and adventurers. The minis from Reaper, Artizan, Iron Wind Metals, Pulp Figures, and more will give you things like Deep Ones or Dagon, to mutants and so on. Then there are a number of the Eldritch entities like Cthulhu or Soggoth to move across the table to lay waste to the younger people. If you go look at the local first you’ll find some things there. If not there you can go to many online stores like Noble Knight Games. New as well as old can be found. If you can’t find it, at least you can go and look on eBay.
If you want to play a horror game there are a number of games you could choose from and though I have talked mostly about Cthulhu there are more games based on other stories. Games like; The Doomed, Dracula’s America, Malifaux and more are out there. Some have minis, some are mini agnostic and some don’t really need minis. Take a look around your local, a bookstore or online. You’ll find them. Most are pretty good. Some seem like they will never die, looking at you Ravenloft. Some have popped up, were popular, and then disappeared leaving only the minis to be seen at garage sales and swap meets. Like the Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb from the heady days when GW made games other than, well, you know. Some are canceled, declared dead, like Mantic’s The Walking Dead All Out War and would rise up when you least expect them.
Ultimately the game you want to play, the genre and sub-genre, is up to you. I say this time and again, Play what you want. One of the many conversations at the local has been about how this person hates zombie games or how still playing vampires running America is silly. Meh, they are games, a distraction, a frippery. Something to do for fun. It is far more niche than what we would like to think and those who like to play horror are even fewer. Most of them are pretty good. Few are bad and fewer still should never have been. I will say no more about them. So, go and play a game of Pulp Alley with the Horror Deck. Play the Walking Dead. Or go hardcore and seek the Colour out of Space or seek the Dunwich Horror.
Few will answer the call. Fewer still will survive. Most of those will be insane from the experience. I will leave with a quote from The Call of Cthulhu;
“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 deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.”
— H. P. Lovecraft, ‘The Call of Cthulhu‘
Remember though, when you feel that smell of a fetid breath from behind, on a dark night and feel the cold passing of a nameless something that is more ancient than you thought possible. You have gone too far and they have noticed you. They. Have. Noticed. You. You were warned not to look too deep into the subject… and now, it is too late to scream…
joehough1960 