Hello! I'm attempting to write a lovecraftian horror story and I need some advice. I would describe myself as a world builder, so I find it hard to make things truly unknown in my stories without just making it derivative. I don't want to go full August Derleth and catalogue all the horror out of it, but I feel as though if I let it be mysterious, it loses a lot of uniqueness and just turns into a generic carbon copy of Lovecraft's work (which isn't BAD but I do want to add my own spin on it). Since this is an entire sub of people who enjoy H.P. Lovecraft and his contemporaries I thought maybe somebody would have an answer or word of advice?

“The public first learned of it in February, when a vast series of raids and arrests occurred, followed by the deliberate burning and dynamiting—under suitable precautions—of an enormous number of crumbling, worm-eaten, and supposedly empty houses along the abandoned waterfront.” -THE SHADOW OVER INNSMOUTH

I have seen several times on the Internet that Lovecraft had a low opinion of James Joyce and his Ulysses. What do you think about this? What did Lovecraft wrote about James Joyce and other famous modernist writers?

“In February the McGregor boys from Meadow Hill were out shooting woodchucks, and not far from the Gardner place bagged a very peculiar specimen.” -THE COLOUR OUT OF SPACE

"It was in the township of Dunwich, in a large and partly inhabited farmhouse set against a hillside four miles from the village and a mile and a half from any other dwelling, that Wilbur Whateley was born at 5 a.m. on Sunday, the second of February, 1913.” -THE DUNWICH HORROR

For some time I have been planning to search through HPLs fiction and compile a list of dates to post regularly. A monumental task made much more easily by the herculean work of u/mda63 who created a complete, chronologically-organized ebook of the works of Howard Phillips Lovecraft, typeset and organized from transcriptions uploaded to https://hplovecraft.com/ in epub and PDF formats.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Lovecraft/comments/1ifyhqn/comment/makt7xy/

I hope this work inspires even more research, literary criticism, and introduces even more people to HPLs fiction.

For my part, I will create posts daily (or nearly so) on the specific dates mentioned in HPLs fiction. When no date is available and only a month is mentioned, I will do so as well.

Hope you enjoy reading as much as I am compiling.

-*"*Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!

I’m 19, andddd honestly not a reader. I sortve stumbled into this creepy thread and I saw someone ask if what H.P Lovecraft wrote about were things from his dreams and potentially real (shoutout crazy people) and after awhile of reading on him online I wanted to read a book of his. I read a bit of the beginning of “The Call of Cthulhu” but it was sort of overwhelming, any recommendations or should I keep pushing?

Yesterday I was watching an old Boris Karloff movie called "The Body Snatcher." (It's excellent if you haven't seen it.) The ending takes place in a graveyard, and some aspects of the scene reminded me of Howie's short story "In The Vault." If any one else has seen the movie, do you think they may have used his story as inspiration?

I'm reading through Lovecraft's works via the Penguin Classics editions, which include wonderful notes from S. T. Joshi. Well, what irks me is that I'm occasionally invited to read further in a variety of essays, but most of these are hidden in out-of-print chapbooks from small publishers: chapbooks that go for a lot more money than I'm willing to spend on satisfying my curiosity somewhat.

The one that's currently torturing me is an essay by Steven J. Mariconda entitled "Some Antecedents of the Shining Trapezohedron" - which deals with the titular object in The Haunter of the Dark - tying it into a literary tradition of sorts involving other similar magical objects. It's collected within a book of his essays called "On the Emergence of "Cthulhu" & Other Observations".

This is a long shot, but does ANYBODY have a copy of this thing that they can scan, or even take pictures of so that I can read? I'm very curious about the subject, but searching Google has brought up nothing of value so far.

Hello everyone! I wanted to share my upcoming game, The Old One, a cosmic horror action-platformer inspired by Lovecraftian themes. This is my passion project, blending eerie atmosphere, dark mysteries, and tactical teleportation-based combat.

What is The Old One?

You play as a grizzled old wizard—too stubborn (and perhaps too cursed) to die—trapped in a world unraveling under eldritch forces. The city of Mize, once shielded by arcane wards, is now besieged by the unknowable. With a trusty staff and the ability to teleport (in place of jumping), you must navigate collapsing realities, battle horrific entities, and barter with an ancient, trickster-like lantern that offers power... for a price.

Why Cosmic Horror?

Lovecraftian horror is about the fear of the unknown, the insignificance of humanity, and the horrors that lurk beyond perception. The Old One embraces this with:

• Madness-inducing entities that distort reality
• Factions with conflicting beliefs, from mutation-worshiping cults to scholars deciphering eldritch weaves
• A world steeped in mystery, where every choice alters your fate
• Mechanics built on knowledge vs. risk, forcing you to decide how much eldritch power is worth the corruption it brings

The Factions – How Humanity Responds to the Unknowable

In a world teetering on the edge of oblivion, different groups have formed their own interpretations of survival, worship, or defiance. You’ll interact with them, but whether they see you as an ally or an obstacle depends on your choices.

🔹 The Augurs of the Weave – Scholars of the cosmic fabric, obsessed with deciphering the strange magical weaves that have emerged since the Old Ones’ return. They believe these are messages—either warnings or instructions—and use arcane technology to study them. Their pursuit of knowledge is relentless, even if it means tampering with forces beyond their control.

🔹 The Tolerance – Once a doomsday cult, now a society that views bodily mutations as spiritual enlightenment. While others see the corruption of flesh as a curse, the Tolerance embraces it, believing it brings them closer to the divine. The most grotesquely altered among them are revered as leaders.

🔹 The Order of the Sunken Saint – Deep in the lake near Mize, something ancient stirs. The Order worships a massive, mutated fish-like entity (nicknamed The Cod Father—working title) and believes feeding it human sacrifices maintains balance. They harvest its secretions to produce sacred oils, used in candles and lanterns. Whether their rituals are appeasement or merely desperate superstition remains unclear.

🔹 The Riftdivers – Equipped with strange, shifting armor linked to their minds, these warriors dive into dimensional rifts to seal them before they consume reality. However, if they fail to return in time, their minds remain trapped on the other side while their bodies die. These lost souls, now spectral echoes in their armor, continue their duty even in undeath. To them, everything—including you—is secondary to maintaining the fragile balance of dimensions.

Each of these factions sees the unraveling world differently—some seeking answers, others embracing change, and a few desperately trying to hold back the tide.

Gameplay & Inspirations

If you enjoy games like Blasphemous, Hollow Knight, or Castlevania, this might be for you. The Old One features:

• Strategic teleportation-based combat instead of traditional jumping and dodging
• A branching progression system, where sacrificing old powers earns new ones
• A rich world of lore and hidden horrors, for those who love to dig into mysteries

Kickstarter

I’m currently running a Kickstarter to bring this world to life. If this sounds like something you’d enjoy, check it out here:
🔗 https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/creativewaste/the-old-one-a-side-scrolling-cosmic-horror-action-adventure

Would love to hear your thoughts—what are your favorite elements of Lovecraftian horror in games?

A complete, chronologically-organized ebook of the works of Howard Phillips Lovecraft, typeset and organized by me from transcriptions uploaded to https://hplovecraft.com/

It is available in epub and PDF formats.

Also included is a PDF that uses a dyslexia-friendly font.

https://archive.org/details/lovecraft-complete-fiction_202502/

So I was reading "Whisper in the darkness", and I found "ll" (double L's) at the end of some words. Is it a print mistake or is it intentional and mean something? (attaching the link of images of the words below)

https://imgur.com/a/9RB88eM

It has been two or so decades since I last played a gamebook, but recently I decided to try them again. I restarted my "choose your own adventures" by replaying the first Lone Wolf, a game I remember enjoying back in the day. Sadly, I found it quite tropey and somewhat disappointing (the combat especially was a slog!). Next, after seeing much praise for it online, I picked up Heart of Ice . It was a much better experience, but it still didn't capture me as much I had hoped (I think my expectations were set too high for this one). So, for my third attempt, I decided to just "roll the dice" and find something at random.

Browsing Archive.org's gamebook collection a cover caught my eye. At first glance it looked like a pterodactyl flying alongside a zeppelin, which made me think of the cancelled Hammer film with the same premise that I wish existed ever since I learned about it. So of course I needed to learn more about this game!

Well, it turns out my mind just filled in the details it wanted to see. Once I could see the cover in full (and not just a thumbnail), it was clear it wasn't a prehistoric creature flying alongside the airship, but some kind of vampire or demon. Nonetheless, it had a zeppelin and the premise made it sound interesting enough.

The book in question was Terrors Out Of Time, a 2nd book in the Forbidden Gateway series.

This is not a review of that book. I haven't played through hat book yet. That's because the Forbidden Gateway stories are connected, and I decided to start my adventure with the first book in the series instead. So, this is a review of Where the Shadows Stalk - a book that also has an intriguing premise... and a very goofy looking cover!

Quite frankly, the book doesn't make a good first impression. Neither the cover (a cartoony mutant bigfoot wearing a leather baseball cap - really?), nor the title (a rather generic and clunky turn of phrase) do this gamebook any favors. If it wasn't for the back cover blurb promising a sanity and science defying adventure in a remote Welsh valley, I would have discarded it as a cheap goosebumps ripoff. This however seems to be a Lovecraft ripoff, which in my eyes, it's a much more interesting kind of ripoff - especially for a gamebook released in 1985!

Flipping through the pages confirms that this is a much more serious Lovecraftian horror than the cover would make us believe. Jonathan Heap's ink illustrations do a great job conveying the atmosphere of both the traditional horror of decaying corpses and the weird horror of tentacled alien creatures. While not all of the illustrations are winners (there's one with some silly looking floating dogs repeated multiple times throughout), altogether they hint at a solid, Lovecraft-inspired horror narrative. The interior art is what really made me give this gamebook a try.

The story feels like playing a pulpy Call of Cthulhu RPG scenario (you even receive a letter from an old friend asking for help with supernatural happenings to begin with!). However instead of reusing Lovecraft's creations, the authors created their own cosmic horrors for this book (and mixed them with some Welsh folklore). I prefer this method of "adding to the mythos" as it allows the authors more freedom, and keeps the players familiar with Cthulhu Mythos on their toes (as they won't know what are the capabilities of all those new creatures). As with most pulp, the plot won't win any awards for depth or complexity, but it will keep things exciting! You will experience more action here than in all of Lovecraft's work combined!

You play a psychic investigator(sic!), who doesn't posses any psychic powers and feels more like a knobkerrie wielding Indiana Jones, than anything else. You'll to climb, jump and fight through a mining complex (and surrounding countryside) filled with weirdness to find a way to get rid of the strange mist which engulfed this remote Welsh valley and trapped its inhabitants inside. The adventure will be exciting, but it won't be easy...

...because the dice system you're supposed to use to do all fun those actions is quite bad.

On paper, the system looks fine. You roll 3 stats (Strength, Mentality and Dexterity), calculate your HP for body (Stamina) and mind (Endurance), write down two weapons (fists and knobkerrie) and you're good to go. Whenever you perform a risky task you'll be asked to roll 2d6 below a chosen stat to succeed. Quick and simple - nothing to complain about, right?

Well the problem is that your stats range from 4 to 9, so on average you will have 50% chance of success. It doesn't sound too bad until you realize that there's instant deaths upon failure and that combat (which requires you to cross reference a table for each enemy, sometimes twice) will usually make those chances worse (every creature you encounter is quite strong), which makes combat almost useless.

In all fairness, the instant deaths are not too common (and often you get two rolls to avoid them) and some of the combat is dealt in a more narrative way (so, you don't need to stand there and exchange blows), but the truth is, the system makes the experience worse. In the end I mostly disregarded the dice system, opting instead for rolling against odds that seemed fair, and flipping back to last paragraph when I encountered one of the insta-deaths.

It's a such a shame, because the (interior) art is great and the story, while simple, is a blast to play through. Sure, it had some tropey moments and could have been written much better, but, unlike my two previous attempts, I was fully engaged in the narrative! I just wish the authors used a better system (like the one in Heart of Ice for example), or pushed the existing design a little bit further. I can almost feel that the authors were on the cusp of discovering a fail forward approach in mid 80!

If you're a fan of pulp adventure and cosmic horror (and don't mind some Welsh folklore mixed in) playing through Where the Shadows Stalk is a fun way to spend an evening. The gamebook can be read online on Internet Archive and copies, while somewhat rare, are not expensive.

Just be weary of the dice system.

I'll be playing Terrors Out Of Time next!

Long have I been a Lovecraft fan. Now finally I have started a music project thoroughly steeped in Eldritch lore.

If you're intrigued, I'd be honoured I've you'd give a listen to our debut track, 'Nasht & Kamen-Thah'. If you like it, help us spread the word, The King in Yellow has arrived.

https://thevioletlight.bandcamp.com/track/nasht-kamen-thah

What the title says I know there is magic, like in the Call of Cthulhu game, but I was wondering if potionmaking existed too?

This Line Isn’t Secure is an actual play podcast for the Delta Green Roleplaying Game -  a popular modern setting based on the Call of Cthulhu Roleplaying game and the Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft. Season One sees our players begin the critically acclaimed campaign Impossible Landscapes. Inspired by great audio dramas like Archive 81 and Malevolent, and the films of David Fincher, TLIS is focused on high production value and immersion, using music and sound design to transport the listener into the story.

Enjoy our teaser trailer, and make sure to subscribe and join us for Episode 1, premiering February 6th at 6 PM EST.

Watch the trailer here >>> https://youtu.be/BAzwgSKtSO4?si=N5Q5lRpU-AmQDetr

So, I'm in process of making my own version of the necronomicon (I use the term loosely), where I have drawn images of individual creatures and deities as a full page. However, on the reverse side of each page I want full text about each illustration. Yo get my cogs ticking has anyone got any idea? I am not sure if I want to make it "factual" and descriptive a out each thing....or if I want to go full lore and write a mini story kind of thing.

Title

It's currently free to watch on Youtube at the moment so was just curious.

Confirmed by Red Hook Studios.

https://x.com/DarkestDungeon/status/1885043495187980748

Hi hi. Is there any outer god or great old one associated with lust or depravity of any kind?

(Definitely a question I never thought I’d ask lol)

So, I’ve really enjoyed the Books of Cthulhu anthology series. I like listening to to them on audible.

And all of them are well done audiobook productions.

Except The Book of Yig: Revelations of the Serpent.

The voice acting is pretty monotone, and the audio quality is…well, lets call it unprofessional.

I guess I don’t understand why the other audiobooks were good quality and this one entry is hard to listen to.

Hello, Lately I have been doing a small lovecraft collection of mine. Books, Statues, Medallions and such-

I have been searching for a full set of (This) to make a Necronomicon prop/book/fanbook or whatever you wanna call it. Though, I can't find a nice collection of these. If someone can shine a light on this then it'll be much appreciated.

Introduction

It's high noon! The Wild West has new outlaws arriving in town, although these varmints aren't interested in tin. What they're after? I don't know; I'm at sea on that one. What I do know, they ain't human.

Anyway, role-playing aside, Cosmic Horror has set its sights on the Wild West, tainting the lands and life. Creating a new wilderness to conquer and ancient wickedness to drive people mad with greed. Yet, this is an (as I believed) uncommon combination; I'll showcase four games I discovered by chance.

1. Yesterdreamt by Saffron Streams Interactive.
2. Grimstone Valley (Itch and Steam) by Cut The Mines.
3. Has Sobrevivido: Wyrm by Gorgon Games.
4. Fear of Unknown by Arimakishka, Asboind and Blazing Fikusyara. Submission for Join The itch.io Selects Spring Bundle 2024 (Disqualified) and Roguelike Jam 7.

Presentation

Yesterdreamt follows a gunslinger named Folke, who is tasked with protecting the people of Eld Riche against unspeakable horrors after his mentor goes missing. As a gunslinger, Folke is armed with a six-shooter, shooting targets from a distance via aiming with the right thumbstick, eventually gaining spells from collecting three Conclave cards of the same set. As per the norm, spells cost sanity. Yesterdreamt is a Metroidvania, although mixed in Soul-Like exploration with shortcuts, utilising spells to remove obstacles. The demo doesn't present everything, with the full release including a map and information tracking; there's enough to distinguish the setting, as it appears to have similar elements of Lovecraft's Dreamlands.

Grimstone Valley follows a vaquero (Spanish for cowboy) named Maria. She was a victim of a ritual performed by a cult, losing her right arm and gaining ropy tendrils in its place. With these tendrils, she can lasso objects or enemies, moving them around or flicking them towards hazards and other enemies. Grimstone Valley isn't a full-fledged game; it has three levels (one being the tutorial) with notes and souvenirs that reveal more about the world. A (admittedly) voiced cast of characters. Cut The Mines has expressed working on a full-fledged version only if they have a publisher.

Has Sobrevivido: Wyrm follows a bounty hunter named O'Brien. He is hired to hunt down alleged outlaws who have taken over the Dragoon Mountains mines, which are owned by the Herschell Mining Co., their lawyer. With one exception, O'Brien partners with Falkson, with whom he has an unpleasant past. As a Visual Novel, Wyrm is mostly a kinetic experience with choices, branching out towards one of four endings, three of which are bad. While there are some spelling mistakes, the writing is surprisingly good; it kept me engaged to the end. Lovecraftians might enjoy the Wyrm approach.

Inspired by Lovecraft's The Transition of Juan Romero, Fear of Unknown takes place in the abyss scene and follows an unnamed individual trapped in a dark cave with a smothering campfire. The gameplay differs from the typical Bullet Heaven genre, with the objective of completing a ritual with objects. Pickups randomly spawn throughout the arena, one being campfire fuel and the other ammo. Strange neon flowers spawn, trailing towards ritual objects and the campfire location, respectively. Fear of Unknown does have a technical issue; there are no instructions on what to do.

Collapsing Cosmoses

The Wild West is perilous, where wildlife and residents survive in a harsh landscape. These Cosmic Horrors transform tropes like the iconic lasso and retribution into strengths amid a hail of bullets.

The Wild West is now more untamed.

I've recently read lots of stories made by Lovecraft and I cant get enough of it. So I also read The Fisherman by John Langhan. That was really great and now I want even more. Can you guys recommend other Lovecraftian horrors books (preferred in the form of short story, novels are fine too) made by other than HP Lovecraft himself.

Edit: Thank you all for who suggested. I've got more than enough suggestions.

So back at the end of the twenty-first-century, Chaosium did a whole series of paperbacks called the Cthulhu Cycle. And each book would follow a theme or deity of the Mythos. It'd open with stories that had influenced Lovecraft in that respect of the Mythos, would then have a few HPL stories on that element in the mythos, and then have stories from the back half of the twentieth century that expanded on it. So, for example, the Hastur Cycle opened with some Ambrose Bierce stories that refer to Hastur and Carcosa, then had some Chambers stories, Lovecraft's "Whisperer in the Darkness," Blish's "More Light," some stuff by Lin Carter, Karl Edward Wagner, etc.

Now, a lot of the later twentieth-century stuff was... unremarkable -- there was a bunch of Derleth, after all -- but there were some occasional gems as well.

But of course, that collection only goes up to the end of the twentieth century. I was wondering if there's been any sort of comparable round-up in the intervening two and a half decades? Like, folks in the 1990s and later who played around with the Mythos. I know that Stross did wonderful stuff with a slightly tweaked Mythos, and I know that there's lots of Lovecraftian weird fiction out there like Laid Barron, Thomas Ligotti, etc. (and frankly, this is often better than the later twentieth-century guys who just rattled off Lovecraftian names). But if I'm in the mood for good, pulpy fun with the Mythos, I was wondering if there's been any sort of round-up of what twenty-first-century guys have done with it.