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Not really, no. As long as the monster was set up to be something beyond the scale of our characters and said monsters aren't being used to just bully players, then I think it's fine.
Who Am I?
It's possible to set up a creature that cant be defeated by conventional means, but has a mystical weakness that can be exploited (a la the Dunwhich Horror). That makes it more of a mystery/investigation than a flat out fight.
"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."
Exactly. By stats I mean workings, things like vulnerabilities, behavior patterns, specific traits, mythological details. I find that such things make the difference between the enticing and atmospheric classical horror monsters, from Dracula to the Deep Ones, and vapid creepypasta memes like the Slender Man... who, fittingly, exhibits the same "you see it, you die" mentality as Lovecraftian flanderizations. A monster that's difficult to overcome is scary. It's scary because it forces you to process possibilities of how this may be facilitated, and if it turns out to be the herald of even worse things, you get a very specific chill down the spine. And speaking of the Deep Ones, the ultimate fear of the protagonist of A Shadow over Innsmouth came precisely from understanding what they are.. and what he is in turn. His lineage, his own nature - that is what he couldn't fight.
To contrast, a monster touted as impossible to overcome may sound all nice and cool in the "my favorite fictional character can beat up your favorite fictional character" kind of way at first, but in terms of story, it eventually brings about nothing but indifference, because it doesn't inspire thought. It may trigger some instinctive or pathological fear, but unless you throw in some hints regarding its inner logic (or worse, actively maintain that there is none), people are going to just shut it off, the same way they shut off fears of natural disasters. If you truly can't do anything about it, then you might as well not even think about it.
Who Am I?
I once ran an rpg campaign in which there was a creature called "The Game Master". All its stats were infinite, it could spontaneously create an infinite number of npc's and monsters, all of whom would obey it. It was meant as a joke.
"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."
I usually treat statless monsters as "If you're seeing this thing, you really, really screwed up." Most of the games I've sat in had preventing those kinds of monsters from appearing to be the goal of the campaign. Then again, the gamemasters were smart enough not to use those types of monsters frequently.
But I think that's more of a topic for the tabletop RPG thread.
edited 16th Jan '18 12:15:18 PM by dragonfire5000
Yeah, there is a informal rule of "if you stat it, we can kill it" and shift the tone into action thing(just look resident evil now) the elderich abomination are usually a game over condition for that reason: it put everything on the idea of not awaking this thing rather than "find his weak spot!" like some kind of boring videogame monster.
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"
In a way, yes. However, the opposite can also apply, in that even individual monsters are treated as invincible villains whose sole raison d'etre is to be a living "game over" prop. Mind you, I'd say the goal of not awaking them still falls within the logical problem solving attitude, so that's also something to work with. My overall question is whether the monsters themselves are to be the core problem of the setting, or is it the fact that their existence presents far worse implications for the universe at large.
This is another difference between Lovecraftian and Howardian fantasy. To Howard, the slimy creepy things from beyond have no greater meaning, they are just as fleeting as mortal men. But to Lovecraft, they are evidence that the mundane world is likely a cozy exception to the vast horrors of the actual universe, and it's only the ignorance of this fact that keeps men sane. In either case, I find nothing wrong with the creatures themselves having individual vulnerabilities. For instance - if an inter-dimensional sixty foot mutant octopus were to pop into existence anywhere in the world right now, what would be scarier - the octopus bit, or the physics-breaking manner of its appearance, and the implication it can happen again, for no evident reason, at any time and place in the world, and likely with even bigger fish arriving?
I reckon that's also the difference between Lovecraftian fiction and common urban fantasy. While both rely on the idea of the physical and social frameworks of mundane reality being false, urban fantasy usually merely replaces them with its own... which in turn are often just re-dressed mirrors of criminal underworlds or squabbling feudal families. Lovecraft doesn't do that. While experiences with the eldritch are enough to shatter preconceptions of reality, there's little to no new information to help build a larger worldview. Even his most learned characters know next to nothing of the worlds beyond, so every encounter is unpredictable, and without a consistent larger framework to lean on. It's like getting continuously gaslighted regarding the laws of physics themselves... which, fittingly, is a rather effective way to go insane.
I think we have to define some things here: there is a diferent from the starfish aliens lovecraft use and the "star gods" properly define, the former can be beaten and he later...no, even conan follow that when he face dagon(who description is used in human abomination trope quote) he is toss around over and over and barely win because he found the dagger use to seal him.
And the reason for that feel more in line with Lovecraft caring very little about consistency or worldbulding, he just move along as he saw it, not surprising more of the mythos was build by his friend(including howard, after all cimmeria is past of lovecraft verse).
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"
Quite. Mind you, the idea of a horrible creature with only a very specific way to kill it is fairly common in mythology. Howard may have envisioned something like that rather than presenting Khosatral Khelnote as an invincible behemoth defeated by sheer luck.
For that matter, another difference between the two is that Howard is very much enticed by ancient history and myth, while Lovecraft is more ambiguous, both fascinated and disdainful of the ancient peoples. Moreover, Howard's characters are willing to take the mythical aspects of the world at face value, while Lovecraft's protagonists tend to over-analyze things and get a mental breakdown when they can't reconcile what they've seen with what they believe about the world.
In this regard, per my earlier Typhon analogy, it may be the case that even something as common as a minotaur could be considered an eldritch abomination. It certainly ticks all boxes - demi-human, animalistic, cannibalistic, and the father is definitely not one to mess with. If you weren't familiar with Hellenistic mythology and had encountered such a thing, if you had to think of a rational explanation for its existence, it would easily shake your preconceptions of reality. I reckon if Lovecraft had focused on Minoan rather than Sumerian myths, he'd be just as likely to write about scary bull-people hiding in deep caves. The actual fulcrums of horror are again the fear of massive invasion or other cataclysm, and the sense of alienation, of inability to even mention such threats in polite company, lest one is regarded as insane for it.
Shin Megami Tensei IV
I certainly like the idea of using old mythological monsters as Lovecraftian horrors, most of them already fit the defintion
Who Am I?
I think that Greeco-Roman myths are probably a little too familiar too us to evoke the psycholgical impression of absolute otherness that Lovecraft was looking for. He needed something semi-obscure, something sufficiently exotic to his readers for that. In this day of google and popular anthropology, I dont know if any RL mythology could accomodate that.
"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."
Indeed. I reckon the concept of the Hyborian Age presents a solution - an invented epoch with invented mythologies, but such that wouldn't be considered invented in-universe. The myths can be as obscure as necessary, with the explanation being that they are simply even more ancient than most currently known civilizations, and there hasn't been a Rosetta-style breakthrough in deciphering them... and the few scholars who somehow did score some finds, now unfortunately live in padded rooms. At any rate, this is an aspect I want to pursue in my works - the sense of myth and exploration beside the horror. As I mentioned, I find modern urban fantasy to be severely lacking in that regard, being more akin to prime crime drama or harlequin romance in silly cosplay.
In terms of biology, one thing I think a Lovecraftian setting could function without is the explicit reference of the various creatures as aliens, though perhaps other dimensions are still fair game. Not for else, but that nowadays there are extensive endeavors in the search of alien life in space, and I'm not much fond of the spiel that their discoveries are being hidden, or that their monitoring operations are so incompetent they can't note when a house-sized monster drops down.
Instead, I prefer to use mutants, though the mutagens themselves may come from above, like in The Colour out of Space. Mutation still carries the nice "body horror that could happen to you" angle, and unlike with aliens, there's no reflexive guns-blazing solution to reach for. It's also less likely to make the news or require an extensive cover-up, which as I noted tends to overshadow the actual supernatural elements in stories set in the present-day. It's simply a more sustainable concept - you see some creepy people with fish-like genetic mutations, you find ancient legends about a primordial Leviathan-like being that they might be related to, and you're left wondering if that won't be showing up any time soon.
Finally, a fun fact: there is a substance known as "star jelly", which is currently only known for being somewhat organic... and that's about it. It contains no discernible genetic information, nobody knows how it appears, and it tends to evaporate without a trace. I figure if you're going with extra-dimensional creatures and want to hand wave why they leave no evidence, it might be a scientifically plausible explanation that they melt into this gooey goodness before their existence can be confirmed.
edited 17th Jan '18 2:13:40 PM by indiana404
Who Am I?
What you actually want is an "impossible creature"-something that can't possibly be alive, yet is, so it isn't simply a biological entity from another planet or dimension or whatever, yet also isnt recognizably a mythical or magical creature either. Slenderman is a good example, although SM himself is too well known by this point. But something in that vein.
"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."
Impossible Gender Forge
So, I like to do tabletop rpg design as a side hobby.
I have strong opinions about having "statless" creatures. I think they're fundamentally a cop-out. They represent a desire by a GM to not allow players to gain-say the story the GM has created.
You could always represent them in the mechanical framework in a way that doesn't allow them to be murdered, if that's your intent.
A thunderstorm can be represented in game mechanics, but that doesn't mean you can stab it to death. Mechanics just describe what it does and how it is dealt with.
If you deal with the horror by exorcism, and it's otherwise impossible to interact with, that can be fine. If it's just represented by mechanical effects it inflicts upon people, that's alright.
But fundamentally, having something that players have no meaningful way to interact with is just frustrating and pointless.
Exactly. You're not presenting your players/protagonists with a physical opponent to defeat, a puzzle to solve, or a threat to overcome. You're not giving them a myth to explore, or a scientific concept to ponder. Unless you can hook them on sheer paranoia, there's nothing particularly impressive in what is effectively a generic doomsday invincible villain. I reckon that's why the Cthulhu mythos retains at best a cult status - its concepts are great but so is the temptation to overplay the defeatist and anti-intellectual aspects, particularly by misanthropic writers and sadistic game masters.
For that matter, an "impossible" creature doesn't necessarily have to mean invincible. Per my own mutants, the horror comes from the realization that biology can go wrong in so many ways, seemingly with no rhyme or reason, and often with no prevention or cure. But that doesn't mean that individual creatures can't just be double-tapped and dropped back in the pits they crawled out of.
And speaking of cures, I'd say a fairly useful source of inspiration may be the daily life of a CDC BSL-4 emergency specialist; as in, the people sent to deal with deadly diseases. Just imagine - you're tasked with clearing out a seemingly innocuous flu outbreak... but the bug you find eventually causes symptomes that make Ebola look like a sniffle, nothing works on it, even air-tight seals can barely contain it, half the staff gets sick (but only half - the others turn out to be immune, yet start acting strange in other ways), finally you call it quits and request a sterillization of the site. The last news you hear on the case is that, evidently, the same location the disease originated from - some ancient burial ground apparently - is also connected to an underground lake that a recent earthquake just displaced into having a direct route to the ocean. And then, for some reason, you sneeze...
Really, compared to the kind of stuff the CDC has to deal with, fighting Cthulhu would be a vacation.
Who Am I?
Well, there is a narrative convention within the horror genre, in that at some point during the story it must look hopeless for the protagonists to win, both because that's where the horror comes from, and it builds dramatic tension.
Obviously it must not be the case that it really is hopeless for the protagonists to win, it must only appear that way. Finding a way to survive and/or defeat the creature despite the impossible odds describes something like 95% of the horror thrillers out there.
"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."
I'm reminded of this Extra Credits video concerning Cthulhu:
They basically state that video games make a mistake in making an Eldritch Abomination like Cthulhu an enemy for players to overcome. They state that the true fear when it comes to beings like Cthulhu is the lack of control people feel when faced with such beings, the sudden revelation at how helpless they are against such entities coming crashing down.
Also, this is one of the few times I'm glad I read the YouTube comments, because this particular comment I really like:
Eventually, he gets close enough to affect the world itself, storms, earthquakes, tsunamis, have him devastate the world, just by being near it, Cromulon style.
So the game has you building an army, or amassing weapons, preparing in some way to challenge this titanic creature, who's head alone can span the horizon, a feat seemingly impossible.
You build up the challenge, develop the threat, have the player anticipating the end game battle, even have the player gear up, they're ready for this fight, and it will be epic!
B..u..t.. then Cthulu just carries on, floats on past our tiny blue marble, not even throwing us a cursory glance, never even registering the attacks if the game even lets you go for the kill.
Throw in a good vs. evil plot on the planets surface, disguised as a secondary plot, or side missions, and you've got a game. Better yet, you have a perfect excuse for your player character to become the most powerful entity on the planet, Ala most games, yet still powerless before Cthulu.
edited 18th Jan '18 12:46:04 PM by dragonfire5000
The way I go about it is envision the high-level monsters as akin to natural disasters - a thunderstorm is indeed one such example, same as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, meteorite impacts etc. It certainly meets the "uncaring and unconcerned" criteria - such disasters are what they are, having no malice that we can relate to. Meanwhile, the lower-level critters are mutated results of such events - it's not their power that's frightening, but that their very existence speaks of threats that cannot be "fought" in the true sense of the word... unless you're in a Jaeger, I guess. It's kinda like how Godzilla is both a devastating beast in its own right, and also a living example of the dangers of misusing nuclear power. You can fight the monster, but not the monstrosity, so to speak.
Artisan of Auspicious Artifacts
So Cthulhu just walked through my town and half of the survivors are gibbering messes but he got bored and left so we're probably fine until the Mi-go arrive to figure out what happened.
I might be married to a Deep One now.
edited 19th Jan '18 5:32:12 AM by Belisaurius
So in short what you taking about are tiers: fighting shaggoth orhound of tindalos? dificult but happen, cthulhu, nayarlothep and the big guns? no way in hell.
If anything, warhammer kinda go this right: you can bansih demons not matter how great all you want but facing the GODS itself is not posible, not really.
"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"
Who Am I?
Godzilla is an interesting contrast. Godzilla is unstoppable, and does cause a lot of collatoral damage, but he (she/it) is fated to always oppose even more destructive forces that threaten the natural order on the planet. Godzilla is an embodiment of the destructive forces of nature, which are in balance with the creative forces of the same natural order, albeit an order that cares nothing for humans or their concerns. It's our job to adjust ourselves and our behavior as a species to that natural order (and Godzilla), but at least that's possible. One can ultimately exist in a world with Godzilla, whereas that's flat out impossible with Cthulhu (let alone Azathoth).
A Godzilla vs. Cthulhu match up would be interesting, though not desirable, as humanity might not survive the encounter.
edited 19th Jan '18 5:13:16 PM by DeMarquis
"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."
Our Favorite Cowgirl, er, Mare
However, once you start connecting the dots, you realize exactly how messed up the situation is. That whatever caused such petty incidents is actually far beyond out current capabilities to handle, and it's only a matter of time before the hammer drops for real. That's also why I'd rather not have such major threats be creatures in the strictest sense, because given humanity's modern arsenal, there are few things we can't destroy if we tried hard enough. Storywise, it's just not believable anymore that there can be a monster that can simply No-Sell that kind of firepower. Thus, the threat should be something that can't be destroyed per se - a disease, a cataclysm, a fundamental shift in our understanding of natural laws. Something like a rogue black hole that's gonna pass through our neighborhood, and the creatures are just mutants caused by green rocks from its outer orbital system. Something that cannot be killed, because killing it doesn't even enter the same conceptual vocabulary. How do you destroy destruction itself?
In a lighter vein, I reckon the difference between Lovecraft Classic and Lovecraft Lite is that the latter simply doesn't feature such upper tier causes for its lesser monsters. Sometimes, slimy mutants from space are just slimy mutants from space, no greater threats than ones already found in mundane reality. Indeed, no more stable than men.
Some of what this
article talks about could be mutually eldritch with us.
[[quoteblock: On ancient Old Earth (Information Age), the ailogist Hans Moravec had pointed out that there were an infinite number of nontrivial ways of transforming the actual universe into a representation following its own laws, where each event in the real universe would be represented but in a different context. ]]
A typical example would be viewing the Fourier-transform of the universe: particles would be replaced with waves, and local interactions with non-local (and vice versa). A new set of physical laws would describe the Fourier-universe, but the underlying material reality would be the same as the normal universe. He also suggested that at least in some of these alternate representations there could exist intelligent life, consisting of widely dispersed processes and correlations in our own universe. quoteblock]]
edited 20th Feb '18 9:59:02 AM by supermerlin100
As I've mentioned before, the original Lovecraftian monsters that actually end up in a fight thankfully don't work like that. Some are vulnerable to acid, others can be banished by spells comprehensible to mortal men, or even ravaged by ordinary dogs. In general, there is a mechanism by which they work, and while the implications of that mechanism can be far-reaching and horrifying - the very existence of eldritch dimensions coming randomly in contact with ours is basically a kiss goodbye to physics as we know it - the individual encounters aren't as immutably perilous as pop-cultural osmosis would suggest. That's not where the horror lies.