A few weeks ago I asked Greg Ewald and Erich Orser to write an article to answer the popular TONMO.com visitor question, "what is Cthulhu?"... and they have submitted their response! While this is not a holistic Cthulhu definition, a true, good description can be found in Erich's first "spoken" paragraph of the article. He succinctly explains the Cthulhu character, which comes from the mind of legendary author H.P. Lovecraft. The rest of this article is (quite obviously) pure fiction -- but highly entertaining and very much in the spirit of Cthulhu/H.P. Lovecraft lore and fandom. Enjoy, and THANKS to Greg and Erich for the contribution!

Who and/or What is Cthulhu?

OMG!:roflmao:

Well, that is sure going to stop me from wacking anymore coprolites with my hammer. :lol:

You know, Kevin, if you can properly identify the species (within thirty percent, mind you) based upon texture, shape, what have you, then I don't think a serious scientist like you has much to worry over. If it looks like an RV-sized chunk of petrified cuttlefish dung, then I might be a little worried. I'm sure that your coprolites are perfectly harmless. I hope.:shock:

The world is a giant coprolite, a produce from an Elder God who had a rather "long sit" at the loo.

An exellent hypothesis!
"Intelligent Defecation" anybody?

Oooooo, that's good!

Wow, this thread is going right down the toilet. I wonder who's fault that is..? Oh, wait, nevermind...

But...Cthulhu wasn't an Old One, he was their cousin!

That depends on which branch of Cthonicism you adhere to, the one straight from HPL, or the additional branches added on by August D and others.

True. I'm afraid I never really enjoyed Derleth's work, though. He took things in a much more conventional "Good v.s. Evil" direction, and I fear I gave up on him, so I tend to forget what he did with the Mythos. Sorry about that.

upon reading the article, I started out enjoying the absolute factness of it... it sounded very profesional. Ya, that was short lived, but I still enjoyed it none the less! :D

True. I'm afraid I never really enjoyed Derleth's work, though. He took things in a much more conventional "Good v.s. Evil" direction, and I fear I gave up on him, so I tend to forget what he did with the Mythos. Sorry about that.

I am in your court completely ! Derleth wrecked a perfectly good non-explainable theology, which is what Lovecraft wanted, not interstellar cowboys and indians. Beings that were so alien that nothing like good or evil applied to them, the concept would have been un-understandable ! I think the story that applies HPL's theorem the best is "The Colour Out of Space", a life changing force that doesn't give a fig about our views of the world as we see it.

Think I've read one Derleth story. Can't rememebr which one, but I also disagree with his classification of the Great Old Ones- Space monsters with different powers according ot the elements...

It all ends up a bit like Captain Planet, or Voltron or something... :rolleyes:

Maybe Lovecraft wasn't the most "proffessional" writers in history, but he knew how to take a fantastic story and add it to everyday events, with normal characters and make it seem real. People don't know why Rl'yeh appears sometimes when the stars are right (and sometimes even not) or what the Great Old Ones' motives are...

Another writer that annoyed me a bit was Brian Lumley. I've only read The Burrowers Beneath and forgot about the other two stories in the volume... He created a superhero, Titus Crow, and his trusty sidekick fighting against the baddies; Shudde M'el, Cthulhu (Doctor Doom:lol:) etc. I dare say his Necroscope and Vampire Wars series are excellent, but Marvel and Mythos really shouldn't mix.:lol: At least, not as a horror story. And a pulpy action story, yes! but cosmic horror?

Quite true, another great series of writers have contributed to the "non derlith" sort of Cthonic mysteries, Stephen King, Robert Bloch, etc, have stuck with HPL's original idea of Cosmic beings so far out of our imagination that they are mind-crippling.

Must go now, meteors eat at my mindgate.

Where does Ramsay Campbell stand in it all? I have his Cold Print compilation, but I can't start it til I've finished Mountains of Madness second time around :lol:

Ahhh, the Mountains of Madness...truly one of the best short stories ever written. I like how the Elder Beings (or whatever) are not evil at all, just curious as we humans are.

Tekeli-li to you!

Absolutely! That's the way it should be- the creatures in Lovecraft's stories are no more, or indeed less, evil than us humans. Makes it all the more believable.

LMAO :roflmao: giant poo

It's not something i've ever thought about, oddly, considering how many souls he likes to munch through.

Yeah, Lovecraft's impersonal cosmic horror doesn't play so well with most people; they want good to triumph over evil in time for them to be home for dinner. Beings who could squash our entire world and never even notice aren't popular. On the good/evil side, if Humboldt squid are intelligent enough to communicate even semi-complex ideas, what do you suppose the image of our fishing boats is with them?

Roach coaches.

"tough on the outside, but inside, just soft and pink"

LOL. I don't know, it seems like they lose more squid to our fishermen than we ever lose fishermen to the squid.

Just wait unitl the stars are right...then...

Unspeakable Words just came in the post today :grin::grin::grin: It's an awesome little word-based card game where scorings are based on the number of angles (euclidian obviously) in each letter. You get the cutest little Cthulhu "pawns" that indicate sanity points. Start out with 5, for every word you have to match the score with a D20 roll. Fail and you lose a SP. First to 100 wins. :smile: It's just a fun wee game. Made by Playroom Entertainment. Check out their site, they have loads of stuff. Alternatively, Chaosium tend to stock it (For the Brits, I got it from City in the Sea through their Ebay shop, but they have their own site too). Chuffed to bits :smile:

Ah, yes...THEN... but intill THEN I think I'll check out the game. Thanks, Graeme!