Eldritch Abominations in Real Life

Would you like to take tea?

"A devil from the Outer Dark... Oh, they're nothing uncommon. They lurk as thick as fleas outside the belt of light which surrounds this world. Some find their way to Earth, but when they do they have to take on some earthly form and flesh of some sort. A man like myself, with a sword, is a match for any amount of fangs and talons, infernal or terrestrial..."

I found myself thinking about the differences in the basic concept between the original Lovecraft stories, and later works such as the Call of Cthulhu game. The latter is infamous for turning insanity into an explicit game mechanic and property of the creatures themselves, with the added element that the more one knows about them, the more screw-loose they become. I find this to be in direct contrast to the actual stories, where the people most learned in the ways of the mythos - such as Randolph Carter, Professor Armitage of The Dunwich Horror or the scientists in At the Mountains of Madness - are also the ones to best endure actual encounters. Meanwhile, the protagonist of Dagon goes bananas after a mere half-remembered sighting, apparently more from the fear of being considered insane, rather than anything inherent in the creature itself.

Consequently, I find there to be a massive shift in perception in post-Lovecraft works in what the "eldritch" aspect of these creatures is supposed to be. Given Lovecraft's not exactly politically correct view, even for his time, the horror comes from the mere existence of such horrible creatures, and the maddening existential dread arrives once his protagonists - such as the one from The Rats in the Walls or A Shadow over Insmouth - discover they themselves being related to such hideous beings.

To contrast, Call of Cthulhu plays off the more socially acceptable misanthropy of later decades, where humanity itself is weak, unprepared, ignorant etc., typically adding an overreaching masquerade that was never a feature of the original tales. It is this shift that's intriguing to me, particularly as a way to define what an "eldritch" being would be. Is it something hideous, disgusting, and inherently lesser than humanity, to the point where the mere thought of being related to it would be soul-shattering; or is it powerful, nigh invincible, and infinitely greater than anything we might comprehend, so that this realisation is maddening in itself? Food for thought... and paranoid nightmares.

edited 16th Dec '17 1:16:32 AM by indiana404

Conan can boast whatever he want but he isnt that good against elderich creatures.

Well, his survival rate is pretty decent, especially compared to everyone else. More importantly though, the thing that actually lends the most gravity to Conan's statement is that he's utterly nonchalant about the eldritch horrors from beyond. He sees them as no different from terrestrial beasts, and no worse than human opponents.

To contrast, Lovecraftian horror (and most urban fantasy in general) is defined by an arbitrary division between the mundane and the mystical, the natural and the ethereal... almost like in religion, only with a profound sense of dread instead of wonder. As befit Lovecraft's worldview, really, him being both an atheist yet still sharing the suspicions against pagan cultures of any scripture-thumping zealot.

Robert Howard, on the other hand, was well-versed and interested in history and mythology, much like the Heavy Mithril fans of later days... themselves often inspired by his writings. Consequently, his eldritch beings are still scary and awe-inspiring, but are regarded as par for the course, nothing unusual for the setting.

To put this all together, one man's eldritch abomination may yet be another's mythical marvel, the only difference being in how they define what counts as natural. Kinda like how interspecies romance is seen as utterly revolting in Lovecraftian works... and fetishized to no end in modern urban fantasy. Including with regard to Lovecraftian creatures themselves. So, against all impressions of the man himself, at least one possible answer to the question of what eldritch abominations would be in real life is... kinda hot, really.

And yet when facing really elderich abomination like Thog or Dagon he dosent even have a chance, so far the only real elderich creatures he defeat is that bat thing in the Valley of lost women, easly is weaker and stupid story to date.

An Eldritch Abomination is the personification of otherness. Whatever the human mind is best adapted to understand, the rules and structures by which the natural order exists, EA's are the antithesis. With Lovecraft, you get the additional wrinkle that the cosmos itself is eldritch, and mankind lives in a fool's illusion of reality. Of course, what counts as most representative of the natural order, and therefore what best personifies otherness, will vary from author to author, and will indeed be sensitive to cultural attitudes prevalent at the time and place of the writing.

I agree that EA (insert Electronic Arts joke here) can best be regarded as representing otherness. My one consideration is to gauge the different reactions to otherness to begin with. A great example would be The Challenge from Beyond, where Lovecraft's chapter describes the protagonist evidently switching bodies with an alien creature and being utterly mollified and disgusted by it... yet as the next chapter is written by Robert Howard, said protagonist quickly recovers from his revulsion and is instead filled with adventurelust and eagerness to explore his newfound physiology. I find this to be the clearest evidence that the horrifying aspect of encountering the eldritch lies most with the person, rather than the phenomenon itself.

Though there is something else to consider. The other difference in styles is that for Robert Howard, the strange creatures are something his characters go to, if often by accident, but are otherwise unconnected to the mundane world. For Lovecraft, however, the eldritch is something that comes, and it's the knowledge and fear of its inevitable arrival that drives certain characters insane. Cthulhu isn't scary because he's an invincible mountain-sized octopus-dragon sleeping in the ocean depths... he's scary because it's only a matter of time before he wakes up.

So yeah, I reckon encountering an eldritch abomination is not so much a reality-shattering realization by itself... but rather, it often involves the realization that one's reality is about to be shattered. On the personal level, Lovecraft's trademark horrifying self-realization features the same concept of the truth destroying one's image of oneself rather than the world, sometimes without even involving anything explicitly supernatural, as in The Rats in the Walls. To him, the most horrifying and maddening place to find an eldritch abomination would be... in the mirror.

edited 24th Dec '17 4:30:59 PM by indiana404

Otherness is, indeed, an entirely subjective experience. What is other obviously depends on what one is. Some people see tbemselves as entirely autonomous individuals, and for them the greatest horror would subjugation. Other people see themselves as fundementally dependent on some outside source of comfort and protection, and for them the ultimate horror would be the collapse of that outside source, leaving the person alone and lost. It isnt hard to think of other possibilities as well.

Indeed. The remarkable thing about Conan above is not only that he's able to hold his own against various monsters - I still say the Thog battle was at least a draw (I also don't recall him fighting a creature named Dagon, at least not in the original stories) - but that he's entirely unperturbed by their existence, despite or maybe because he has at least a functional understanding of what they are. Compared to Lovecraft, who is horrified even by likely terrestrial creatures (and them being terrestrial is actually what's frightening), Robert Howard thinks nothing of outright otherworldly monstrosities - to him, they are not "others", but full-fledged inhabitants of the universe, no better or worse than anything else.

I reckon the question remaining, from a world-building point of view, is whether an eldritch abomination would better be written truer to form - that is, an extra-dimensional tentacled menace striking at random and disappearing without a trace - or tailored to the fears of modern society, such as the ones you mentioned. One thing I notice is that any modern setting involving "others" - be it a horror tale or an urban fantasy series - tends to feature a lot more anxiety regarding why they remain hidden from society at large. It often even devolves into purely anti-establishment fantasies where the real bad guy is the government, for keeping people ignorant... of the monsters explicitly created for said setting.

Essentialy, Lovecraftian fiction involves fear of the unknown, the unexplored, the genuinely undiscovered, as befit his time, when the boundaries of the familiar Universe were being rapidly expanded. Modern plays on the concept, however, seem more inclined to forcibly reject what is explored, effectively saying "everything you know is wrong", which was never that prominent in original eldritch horror tales. Fears of authority and suspicions of hidden secrets have all but replaced the original cosmic horror aspect where the government is the least of problems. It's not that this can't be played for horror, but I wonder if it really fits the spirit of the original source material.

edited 29th Dec '17 6:12:34 AM by indiana404

It doesn't, and you can probably blame the passage of history for that. The actions of governments during WWII, the Vietnam War, and since, have exploded the idea of anyone simply trusting them for anything. And the things humans have done to one another in the real world have redefined what horror is—next to Hitler and the SS, Cuthulhu is just another cartoon monster. So now instead of being afraid of the unknown, people are far more afraid of manipulation and deceit. We are more afraid of the person next door than we are of extradimensional aliens.

I could make an argument that human appearing aliens like The Thing or the Body Snatchers were the first modern eldritch abominations.

Yeah, those feel pretty close to the mark.

I wonder about two other aspects. For one, eldritch abominations often feature a religious element; things that were once worshipped as gods, despite being less than caring of their worshippers. This can be an explicitly existential threat, for both atheists and conventional believers, as encountering such a being would bring about the uneasy realization that, for an atheist - that God exists; and for anyone else - that God exists... and it ain't theirs. Now, both science and religion offer various other explanations of such creatures, such as undiscovered species and unholy demons, respectively, but I reckon can still be a test of faith if you've only seen God in pictures in books, and there's a mountain-sized octopus-dragon right in front of you.

The other element at hand is that these things are usually alien, as in explicitly extra-terrestrial. Among all discoveries yet to come, the first encounter with alien life would still fare among the most pivotal moments in human history, irreversibly shaping our self-image as a species. And because this change would be so great - likely just as worldview-shattering as the above religious revelation - modern fiction tends to utilize various masquerades and other means to prevent it from manifesting in full. It's just that such necessary weasels often take on a life of their own, resulting in the above anti-establishment developments.

For that matter, I reckon it's also, for lack of a better word, safer to believe that the most dangerous and malicious beings in one's world are bad people in badly tailored suits. Humans can be fought, after all, and there's usually a method to their malice. But the eldritch, the inexplicable, the unnatural, the unholy - it need only exist in order to present an existential threat. It need only be encountered in order to effect irreversible change in one's worldview. Question is, what would such an encounter be today. The Thing is scary in its own way, but I guess in this day and age, when aiming for truly eldritch, we have to think of something bigger...

I think it was Neil Gaiman, in one installment of The Sandman, wrote a story about a dreaming city. It's dreamworld was truely surreal and inhuman, not a place anyone could understand or feel safe. But it"s asleep, so the only way to get there was a magic portal. If it ever woke up, though...

Think a city sized verson of the house in Oculus. Then there was the haunted spaceship in Event Horizon.

I quite agree. My other candidates would be the Sphere, and the Zone from S.T.A.L.K.E.R.. The latter film, as well as the original short story Roadside Picnic, are explicitly based around the idea of humanity being like ants, stumbling onto random alien junk which they can barely comprehend. The former tale, on the other hand, presents an interesting twist on characters dealing with the revelations brought upon by the titular alien artifact, by using its own power to make themselves forget about the entire ordeal.

Speaking of revelations, I find it notable that even Lovecraftian characters tend to endure the eldritch encounters better when they have some academic preparation for them... or more to the point, that there can be academic preparation for them. The modern exaggeration of the mythos, not helped by the role-playing game, all but mandates that any knowledge of eldritch affairs, even from books, is inherently harmful - something I've yet to see in the original tales. Sure the Necronomicon was written by the Abdul Alhazred the mad Arab, but there's no mention of anyone going bananas from merely reading it, especially considering it was actually copied and translated in multiple languages.

Essentially, this is something I'd rather avoid. If there's one major flaw in Lovecraft's work, it's that it frequently relies on telling how hideous and scary the monsters are, rather than explaining even broadly why they are so. And in turn, consequent works focus on them being inherently maddening, to the point even second-hand knowledge is dangerous. I find this to actually limit the genuine horror element, since it mostly relies on general paranoia and slasher-style jump-scares, rather than anything more developed. The experience boils down to characters going "I came, I saw tentacles, Ia Ia Cthulhu Fhtagn." No wonder such attitudes result in such heroes like Old Man Henderson, the only person to "win" at Call of Cthulhu^note Trail of Cthulhu, actually... by being a dedicated belligerent ignoramus. When it comes to world-building, I'd really rather not create any setting, creature or circumstance where this would be the go-to guy to deal with it.

edited 1st Jan '18 8:46:50 AM by indiana404

Yeah at worst its flanderized into a borderline knowlage is bad, which it kinda weird consider how Book rat lovecraft was.

It wasnt reading the tome, per se, that was dangerous to ones sanity, but coming to understand the truth about the universe and our place within it (order is an illusion and Azathoth is the only Truth). Once a character is over that hurdle, understanding spells and such confers no additional cost.

In terms of narrative tension, I think information should be revealed to the reader incrementally. The first hints should seem vaguely disturbing, and each additionally reveal should come across as more and more creepy, until the main character is face to face with the antagonist.

Yeah, that's how I go about it as well - the protagonists research ancient legends, strange clues and vague eyewitness accounts long before they ever encounter anything tentacled.

One aspect that intrigues me is the status of the mythos as, well, a mythos. That is, the mundane or academic perception of the stories. Lovecraft often mixed real-world religions and concepts with his inventions, so I reckon the latter were meant to come off the same way as we perceive, say, ancient Sumeric or Mayan legends. They are rare and barely explored, so there's still an air of mystery to them, but there's nothing approaching the stark division between the mundane and the mystical, which later works overuse.

There is again this evolution where the original stories focused on things that were legitimately mysterious at the time of writing, while modern perceptions, namely that the world has already been explored in full, place an arbitrary boundary before the mythical elements, to the point even second-hand knowledge is kept separate.

So, coming from the former concept, there actually are quite a lot of eldritch abominations in real life religions, with some - such as the Hellenistic cthonic deities - well fitting the concept of gods that ultimately don't care about their followers, yet can shake the world with but a minor motion. As someone who pretty much lives on the site where once Zeus spilled the blood of Typhon, I'd say it would be quite disconcerting indeed if I were to find out the beast still lives, and is about to awaken.

edited 3rd Jan '18 1:12:37 PM by indiana404

Imagine how you would feel if it were proven to you that, while Typhon is very real, and various parties are actively trying to awaken it, Zeus is a merely a lie humanity has told itself...

Yeah, that'll do it. Though there is another aspect which I find even more prominent in Lovecraft's works. Unlike all sorts of natural disasters that can be just as destructive and inevitable, the eldritch beings aren't even acknowledged by mainstream society, while witnesses would face ridicule or even be regarded insane for discussing them openly. There is a profound sense of alienation befalling most Lovecraftian protagonists, placed between an eldritch hammer and a social anvil by their experiences.

To contrast, notice how Robert Howard's heroes, such as Conan and Solomon Kane, live in times where the supernatural is already somewhat acknowledged, and mentioning it in casual conversation would be at worst regarded as a tall tale, a creative exaggeration of a posisble actual experience. More to the point, Conan and Kane are already dismissive of civilized society to begin with, so the prospect of being shunned by it doesn't really bother them. Thus, while the monsters from beyond still pose a physical threat, the knowledge of their existence presents no existential problem to the individual. There's no fear that one's concerns would be deemed insubstantial and imaginary.

For that matter, it'll be mighty difficult these days to find an issue that at least some people wouldn't gather around, up to literally believing the world is flat. Kind of annoying, really - modern eldritch horror would feel uncomfortably close to the conspiracy theory ramblings about evil lizard people controlling society. But hey, at least there's some evolution in that regard - they used to be fish.

edited 5th Jan '18 3:38:13 AM by indiana404

In the case of conan I wonder he is condicionate to acept horror since he come from cimmeria, the howard versión of lovecraft county.

On the other hand the tower of the elephant is the most anti lovecraft history: his no the alíen the evil forcé but Yara the sorcers who exploit said alíen, he even lampshade the whole "ugly looking alíen" by having said alíen saying conan look ugly to him.

It was shock to me read that.

Well, like I said, to Howard, creatures from the worlds beyond are just part of the scenery, no better or worse than anyone else. There's also at least one generally decent^note or at least not always chaotic evil sorcerer - Pelias from The Scarlet Citadel - so there's no inherent stigma against magic either. The tales of Solomon Kane outright feature the original magical black best friend - N'Longa the shaman - who gives Kane an eldritch artifact that the adventurer thenceforth uses as a walking stick. You don't get more casual than that.

In short, Lovecraft prefers to draw sharp distinctions between the mundane and the mystical, the terrestrial and the eldritch, the familiar and the unknown. Howard prefers to blur the lines - even what he defines as barbarism is actually the middle ground between the hypocrisies of civilization and the animalistic brutality of primitive tribes. It is notable that Conan himself starts off wild and untamed, and ends up on a throne, defending the world's greatest kingdom from tribal assaults.

One thing that annoys me is the exaggerated defeatism in post-Lovecraftian works, including the role-playing game. In his own stories, a number of direct confrontations lead by reasonably competent characters actually tend to end badly for the monsters at hand. The fear of an impending mass invasion or other cataclysm is one thing, but in purely practical terms, the monsters are hardly invincible. Per The Dunwich Horror, even the veritable equivalent of the Antichrist can apparently be banished permanently, if the respective expert, Professor Armitage, is to be believed. Maybe even the big C just needed a bigger boat. So in that regard, I wonder just how, er, abominable, the abominations have to be, in order to be considered mythos-compliant, so to speak.

Conan's understanding of the basic principles by which his world operated were basically accurate, and that included the strengths and weaknesses of his monsterous opponents. Strictly speaking, there was no true "otherness" in the universe he lived in.

Well there is a diferent etween random monster and the big ones like gods, Conan can be a shoggot? sure, cthulhu? meh.

there was otherness Conan never worry that much about them since there were sleeping.

But howard definite take on god come from the Iron status of the moon

""What gods?" he(Conan) muttered. "The nameless, forgotten ones. Who knows? They have gone back into the still waters of the lakes, the quiet hearts of the hills, the gulfs beyond the stars. Gods are no more stable than men." "

God are not more stable than men....is a very powerfull message in more that one sense.

Like I said, no reall otherness. Conan understood the essential nature of the Gods, because he and other humans shared it.

For that matter, correspondence between Howard and Lovecraft indicates that while the former was as skeptical of civilization as his emblematic characters, the latter was perhaps too appreciative, to the point of praising Mussolini's fascism as a beacon of culture. Consequently, it makes perfect sense that his characters would be terrified of the nasty outworld monsters come to tear this vision of the world apart, while the likes of Conan and Kane would shrug with indifference - they have nothing to lose in that regard.

I was thinking about how to avert something which I consider a considerable flaw in Lovecraftian fiction and its descendants. Namely, medium abuse. That is, to abuse the fact that the monsters are poorly described or altogether nonsensical, in order to feed the point that they are inherently indescribable or incomprehensible.

It's kinda like that episode of TNG where Troi beats Data at chess in order to "prove" how her intuitive approach is superior to logic. Now, the validity or lack thereof of such arguments notwithstanding, thing is since they play by the otherwise unknown rules of 3D chess, and Data concedes before the game plays out, we don't even see if she's right or not. She wins because the writers say so, and that's it.

Back to Lovecraft, a lot of the monsters seem incomprehensible because, as I've seen it put elsewhere, I wouldn't trust a Lovecraftian description of a glass of milk. They seem powerful, because the protagonists usually feint or high-tail it before a confrontation can even ensue. For all we know, if we go by the shared universe themes with Conan's tales, most of the eldritch horrors might really be just paper tigers, indeed no more stable than men.

My question is, should the lack of logic in descriptions be inherently interpreted as the presence of illogic in what is described? Is this at all necessary for such stories, or can the horror be based elsewhere, like in apocalyptic dread or existential paranoia? To put it in gaming terms, can the players know the stats of what they're up against, so at least they can panic accordingly?

I thought that when it came time for players to face against such monsters (I'm assuming you're using a tabletop RPG analogy), said monsters usually don't have any stats because they're far too powerful. It'd be pointless to give them stats because of such difference in power.