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Where Stock Superpowers meets Body Horror.
Usually, when you gain some special ability, it will manifest in some fairly conventional forms. Energy blasts, psychic powers, steel skin, control over different forms of matter and varieties of magic are all relatively common.
For the less lucky, however, such new talents will have a rather disturbing biological component. They find themselves able to sprout thrashing razor-tipped tentacles, drool highly corrosive acid saliva, or extrude venomous thorns from their flesh. Alas, for these people have been Blessed With Suck and granted a squicktastic Lovecraftian Superpower.
The name originates from classic scifi/horror writer Mr. HP Lovecraft, whose characteristic creations often seemed equal parts Nightmare Fuel and biology textbook.
A subtrope of Bad Powers Bad People, usually, possibly because Magic Is Evil. May be a useful side-effect of The Virus or The Corruption. Often manifests as Combat Tentacles, a less-pleasant form of Shape Shifting, Bloody Murder, or a Bee Bee Gun, and is likely not quite controllable. Can overlap with One Winged Angel and usually counts as a supertrope of Spider Limbs.
Examples
Anime
- Mushizo of Ninja Scroll is a deformed hunchback with a hornet's nest growing straight out of his back.
- Likewise, Shino and the Aburame clan in Naruto turn their bodies into living hives for their Kikkai insects, but are portrayed much more sympathetically, and with only a few tiny holes in their cheeks as the only visible indicator of their trait (they wear rather concealing clothing, so any further changes are unseen).
- The aliens in Parasyte.
- Mentuthuyopi from Hunter X Hunter, one of the elite Chimera Ants, has the ability to mutate his own body.
- This is Naraku's main method of attack.
- In Ranma 1/2 the character of Pantyhose (Yes, really) Tarou is bad enough with his ability to turn into a giant Bull/Yeti-Thing in his first appearence. Just to show how Bad Ass (or Jerk Ass more like) he goes and mutates his body more to add tentacles (thankfully not naughty ones though).
- In Speed Grapher, one of the Euphorics *
(people with disturbing sexual fetishes turned into super powers) is a dentist who can make lots of tentacles made out of dental instruments sprout out of his back. Because backs sprouting tentacles and dental tools weren't terrifying enough on their own.
- Guyver tends to invoke this trope, especially with the first activation of the titular suit.
- In King Of Thorn, infection by Medusa can grant this to those with sufficient willpower. The good news: you can make all your dreams into reality! The bad news: by having them explode out of your body like chestbursters. Body Horror doesn't begin to cover it.
- Xam'ds in Xam'd: Lost Memories. Even the most subdued use of their powers involves transforming an arm into a grotesque alien appendage or blade.
Comic Books
- Spike's mutant ability (especially the film version) allows him to quickly sprout and regrow hollow horns from his wrists, which he then throws at people.
- In the Xmen Evolution series he eventually becomes completely covered in armadillo like plates which he can't get rid of. Although on the upshot, he gains the ability to launch spikes that are on fire.
- And of course, there's Wolverine's claws. Which are bone knives that slice through his forearms and hands everytime they extend. Good Thing He Can Heal indeed.
- There's at least one video on the web that parodies this- the characters are offered mutant healing or metal claws, and they choose the claws...
- Let's not forget his (Spike's) probable inspiration from the comics, Marrow, as her powers are virtually identical (except for that last one).
- One short-lived member of X Force had creep tentacle things growing from his face and tentacular feet and hands.
- Spider-Man has on at least one occasion turned into a literal multi-limbed arachnid-humanoid creature. Even normal Spider-Man, in those incarnations where the sticky white silk he shoots from his hands is organic, arguably counts.
- Or the time when he fights Miss Arrow. Or, really, just her entire being. Bonus points for being a Lovecraftian horror in the FIRST place, madam.
- The Bride of Nine Spiders from Immortal Iron Fist can summon hordes of spiders from her chest.
- Milder example in Fantastic Four: The Thing looks like a giant rock hulk.
- The various 'Symbiotes' in the Marvel Universe all have this, to varying degrees. Most noticeable is Carnage, a psychopathic serial killer whose symbiote tends to turn into a cloud of barbed tentacles whenever it feels like it.
- Of course, in the Spider-Man: Web of Shadows videogame, Spider-Man's old 'Black Suit' symbiote also has the potential to turn into this, if you buy all its upgrades. Waves of writhing, black tentacles covering half a city block is just the beginning...
- The Incredible Hulk is one of the most prominent examples of this trope.
Literature
- The Banned And The Banished features a wide variety of magic users. When the Big Bad warps these individuals to his cause, then their original more mundane magical gifts tend to take on a Lovecraftian air.
Film
- Engineers from Tokyo Gore Police are genetically modified humans who sprout weapons from injuries they receive. For example, the first one in the film grows a bio-mechanical chainsaw after his arm is cut off.
- Seth Brundle in The Fly gains the ability to wallcrawl, super strength, and even vomit a corrosive enzyme to dissolve food (or enemies). Unfortunatly, he gained these abilities when he accidentally fused his genes with a fly, and slowly mutates into a grotesque giant insect/human hybrid. Blessed with suck indeed.
- In District 9, Wikus is exposed to alien fluid which slowly transforms him (starting with his arm) into one of the aliens. This gives him both an alien's strength and the ability to operate their weapons. The "blessed" part of Blessed With Suck never really comes into play.
Live Action TV
- In one of the Heroes online novels, one man's superpower was to involuntarily grow spikes; he accidentally killed his wife this way, and then everyone in the van he was being transported to prison in (except for a guard who could turn into liquid).
- And then, of course, there's volume 3 Mohinder, who uses his own serum to grant him Spider Man-style powers, with the side-effect of growing scales over his skin.
- Maya could cry toxic tears.
- In another graphic novel, there was a character who breathed out chlorine gas instead of carbon dioxide.
- Pathfinders in Farscape can shoot poisonous bristles from the gills in their heads.
- Aside from the Corlata's ability to shapeshift in a particularly gruesome way, one of them aparently had the power to exude an explosive fluid from his hands.
- The Halosians can animate their vomit into a seperate entity.
- When starved, Delvians produce venomous buds from their skin and exhale clouds of paralysing spores.
- E'Alet, the villain from "A Prefect Murder" could grow swarms of mind-controlling sgabba flies inside his skull and emit them.
Mythology
- The warp-spasm from Celtic Mythology is all this. Think the Incredible Hulk, only uglier
 .
- Incidentally, that article is talking about a hero that you may know better as Lancer. One wonders why that didn't ever pop up there...
- Lancer did mention at one point that he could have been summoned as Berserker.
- Longrunning 2000 AD strip Slaine (being a fusion of Celtic mythology, Rober E Howard novels and the good old fashioned, classic 2000 AD, punk aesthetic) has it's titular hero (an appropriate fusion of Cuchulainn and Conan, with a punk aesthetic) warp-spasms similarly.
Tabletop Games
- A feature of The Dreadful Secret of Candlewick Manor, a supplement for Monsters And Other Childish Things. The more powers you have, the more creepy other people find you and the less you can pass for normal. (In the original game, you have a mon companion. In Candlewick Manor, you have an eerie power which (usually) manifests physically, or else mentally or psychically.)
- Sorcerers in the game Sorcerer who have Parasite demons commonly have this kind of power.
- Many of the mutations Chaos champions gain in Warhammer and Warhammer40000 fit this, usually a physical boon specific to the chaos god they represent. If they are unlucky, however, they might get something like an eye on their navel or an emu's leg.
- Chaos Marauders, at least in their Age of Reckoning manifestation, use Chaos energies to spontaneously mutate their limbs into a variety of crablike claws and similar weapons.
- In fact, a persistent danger to Chaos champions is that their gods will "gift" them with so many of these mutations that their minds collapse. These are known as Chaos Spawn.
- GURPS lists the Battle Jaw, Tentacle Transplant and Ripsnake as potential body modifications, which can come as quite a shock to the unsuspecting.
- Several Dungeons And Dragons prestige classes do this. The Alienist is very explicitly Lovecraftian, as it involves abandoning their sanity, summoning outsider beings, and modifying their bodies with otherworldly effects. There's also the Vermin Lord ("Turn into an insect") and the Cancer Mage (how does "Sentient Tumour" sound as a superpower?)
- In the same game, the spell Phantasmal Killer, which essentially makes you appear to your foes as though transformed into a alien monstrosity.
- Another notable one is called the Warshaper, which basically involves taking a character that can change shape in some way, and going nuts with it. Sprouting claws, horns, mouths and spikes at will, being able to double the length of limbs for better reach. Growing more limbs, all of the above at once...
- Fourth Edition warlocks (particularly the Star-Pact variety) can attack foes with writhing tentacles and swarms of crawling unearthly vermin that sprout directly from the enemy's flesh, or simply attack their sanity with visions and apparitions of this nature. Gained, as the name suggests, by channeling the powers of various cosmic God-beings.
- The Pathfinder campaign setting offers sorcerers different bloodlines. One of them, the Aberrant bloodline, gives the practitioner slightly 'wiggy' anatomy (which gets progressively more so as he gets higher in level).
- In Vampire The Masquerade is the Obtenebration discipline, which at a certain level allows the user to make tentacles out of shadows.
- Don't forget what Tzimisce can do with their Vicissitude, which allows them to sculpt themselves or others into slimy pus-heaps or powerful mutant monsters, as they see fit.
- A few of the bloodlines in the successor game, Vampire The Requiem, have similar abilities. Take the Carnival, whose special Discipline ranges from contortion tricks to merging with another vampire to form a hybrid. Or the Noctuku, who alter their flesh so they can absorb more blood and better digest vampiric flesh. Or the Norvegi, who lack fangs but make up for it by producing bony spines that allow them to feed through their fingers. Or...
- Several varieties of Exalted's Lunar and Abyssal charms give body-warping and pestilence-spreading combat perks.
- The World Of Darkness Cherion Group thaumatechnology from Hunter The Vigil is based on implanting monster organs and body parts into a human host.
- The reality deviant worshippers in Second Sight get a whole section of Body Horror-themed features and rituals.
- Sin-Eaters have the Caul Manifestation, allowing them to assume a whole range of horrifying forms. Most notable are the Industrial Caul (which allows them to implant objects in their body) and the Phantasmal Caul (which lets them transform into a living nightmare that can induce paralytic fear or outright madness).
- And then there's the Centimani of Promethean The Created, Prometheans who turn their back on the Great Work and embrace Flux. They can buy all sorts of twisted mutations, from tentacles to extra organs to the ability to turn into a puddle of sentient liquid.
- Similarly, the Zeky get a whole bunch of unwholesome Transmutations based around atomic energy and its side effects. Three words: Mind. Control. Tumor.
- Mages have Branding Paradox, where the Abyss warps their body in various ways, which can include temporarily granting them strange mutations of their bodies (such as horns, claws, tails, and, of course, tentacles). There is also a Left-Handed Legacy called "the Legion", whose whole shtick is that they give up parts of their body to the Abyss, and receive mutated transplants in return.
- In the Glorantha setting of Rune Quest, Chaos Features (powers granted by exposure to "primal Chaos") often have a physical side effect like this—But some folks get Chaos Flaws instead, all side effect and no power.
- In Cthulhu Tech, Tagers and their Nyarlathotep-worshiping counterparts, the Dhohanoids, manifest a Guyver-style ability to transform into Eldritch Abominations.
Video Games
- The viruses and the Las Plagas parasites from Resident Evil usually spawn such mutations in those they infect. Even villains who don't go full-on One Winged Angel tend to have giant claws and Combat Tentacles.
- As Albert Wesker, who himself gained quite a few of these powers, revealed, this was the ultimate intention of the plague; to transform select humans into superpowered monsters and kill all others.
- The hero of FPS The Darkness, Jackie Estacado, sprouts a pair of snapping serpentine demon-heads from his shoulders, as well as producing dark tentacles to impale foes and destroy walls as needed.
- Bio Shock's "Insect Swarm" plasmid causes a small hive-like growth to form on your palm, which allows you to throw live swarms of hornets at your foes.
- Similarly to Warhammer and Warhammer 40000, ADOM features various "corruptions" that you eventually gain after enough exposure to the forces of Chaos (from traps and Chaos beings, but also simply being deep in a dungeon). These most commonly take the form of Lovecraftian superpowers - although as "superpowers", they're mostly examples of Blessed With Suck. Also similarly to the Warhammer games, taking enough corruption will turn you into a "writhing mass of primal Chaos".
- Prototype has the main character capable of significantly altering his own body, allowing him to grow everything from claws to Combat Tentacles to better destroy absolutely everything around him... or he can eat someone to steal their appearance and blend into a crowd. Combine this with Super Strength, Super Speed, and Nigh Invulnerability, and you've got one very scary Anti Hero on your hands.
- Metal Gear Solid 3 has I'm covered in bees! The Pain, who is technically covered in hornets. He attacks by spitting hornets that burrow into Snake's flesh unless removed.
- Yuri and other Harmonixers (except Shania) in Shadow Hearts fuse with various demons, including Cosmic Horrors, in ways that cause their bodies visible pain and take a toll on their minds.
- The Spines and Thorns powersets from City Of Heroes/City Of Villains.
- Final Fantasy XI has this in Blue Mages and the backstory's precursor experiments toward creating the Blue Mage. The original experiments included grafting monstrous appendages and material to people, which gave them power but either drove them insane, or transformed them into flan (spell-casting blobs) or soulflayers (read: D&D's mindflayers with the serial numbers barely filed off). When they attempted to just graft a portion of a monster's magic and spirit to the experiments' subjects, they created the first viable blue mages, but even then, a Blue Mage gains their power from assimilating their opponents, and if one pushes too far, has the risk of becoming a soulflayer as well. Which brings some Fridge Logic Nightmare Fuel. Just imagine how many players have unlocked Blue Mage on any given server...
Webcomics
Web Original
- Ruby Quest, quite literally, in the form of "the treatment". Apparently a universal panacea (even for death), it causes ongoing mutations and loads of Body Horror, which give its victims powers as a result (for instance, a third eye with some sort of true seeing in Ruby's case). Apparently the use of it also allows a Cosmic Horror called "Cjopaze" into this world, though that's never made quite clear.
- Carmilla in the Whateley Universe, since she literally is a Cosmic Horror: one of her grandparents is Shub-Niggurath, on on her mother's side she's directly related to Cthulhu and the Deep Ones. And you thought your family was freaky. She's got the Combat Tentacles and wierd shapeshifting down. In one story, she split her face open to reveal what it looked like inside, and scared a superhero so bad he wet himself.
Western Animation
- The Big Bang from the Static Shock animated was practically an area-of-effect Green Rock that simultaneously gave all nearby characters varying superpowers. The Metabreed was a gang of these characters who banded together specifically because they were the unfortunate characters stuck with Lovecraftian Superpowers
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