H.P. Lovecraft
Howard Phillips Lovecraft was a writer of horror fiction for 1920s pulp magazines. He pioneered the idea of "cosmic horror", in which the horror arises not from prosaic fears of death and dismemberment but from the idea that the universe itself is utterly alien and indifferent to us, full of unguessable horrors that our minds are ill-equipped to cope with.
This idea replaced the traditional spooks, werewolves, vampires and psychos with tentacled monstrosities from beyond space and time, dark gods sleeping beneath the ocean, secretive cults carrying out terrible rites to bring their masters back to the world of the living, and the simple fact that the entirety of human existence was pathetically insignificant by comparison to everything else out there in the universe. His influence can be felt throughout our culture - Mind Flayers in D&D, the insidious cults and corrupting influence of the gods of Chaos in Warhammer, and of course Call of Cthulhu.
Influences on Tabletop Gaming
- The monsters of DnD-- Mindflayers (cthulhu), gibbering mouthers (shoggoths), kuo-toa (deep ones).
- The Jabberslyth in Warhammer Fantasy (shoggoths)
- The concept of Chaos in both the Warhammer Fantasy and 40,000 settings, in conjunction with Michael Moorcock.
- Magic the Gathering's entire Eldrazi set, as cheesy as it was, was about the Old Ones awakening.
- The Pathfinder RPG gets a lot of mileage out of Lovecraftian themes, like the stuff about aboleths creating the human race, the Vault Keepers, Aucturn the Stranger, and the Dark Tapestry.
- All works based on the Cthulhu Mythos
See Also
Cthulhu Mythos and works based on it, including:
Other /tg/-relevant sci-fi authors:
- H.G. Wells
- Robert Heinlein
- Isaac Asimov
- Arthur C. Clarke
Matthew Ward*BLAM* Heresy!