#You may notice that many of these are lovecraftian horror that is because i love that genre

[booksforthegays]

Do you have any non-YA horror/thriller books (preferably with sapphic or trans poc if possible)

Horror is my favorite genre, so i have a lot of recs for it thanks for the ask! I know a couple with both queer and bipoc rep so I’ll list those first and then separate horror recs after.

BIPOC & Queer Rep - - “Southern Reach Trilogy” by Jeff VanderMeer: Follows Area X a strange phenomenon that has taken over a large area of the coast and is being monitored by a clandestine organization. Probably the main one i’d recommend, though the mc (Grace) who is a sapphic woman of color is not introduced till the second book, every main character in this series is a person of color. The first book Annihilation was also made into a movie though i highly prefer the book series.  - “Abbott Series” by Saladin Ahmed: Graphic novel about a reporter in the 1970s is investigating a case of police brutality when she stumbles upon a sinister lovecraftian presence. The main character is black and bisexual.  - “InSEXts” by Marguerite Bennett: In order to get away from her abusive spouse a woman undergoes a terrifying insect-like transformation. Now free she must use her new found powers to protect her lover and their child. The main character is Indian and a sapphic woman.  - “A Lush and Seething Hell” by John Hornor Jacobs: Follows two stories the first follows a woman charged with taking care of her mentors home while he’s away visiting a sinister place from their shared past. The second follows a man listening to ancient audio tapes from another man traveling in the south. The main character of the first is Hispanic and a lesbian. - “Ring Shout” by P. Djèlí Clark: Follows a secret group that has dedicated their life to fighting horrific monsters that feed on white supremacy. One of the main characters is a lesbian and all of the main cast are black. Sapphic or trans rep only -  - “A Human Stain” by Kelly Robson: Short story where a woman is tasked with taking care of a young orphaned boy who resides in an ancient german castle. You can read this one for free on Tor.  - “Our Wives Under the Sea” by Julia Armfield: Very slow burn horror about grief. A woman must cope with the loss of her wife after she returned from a deep sea expedition completely changed. - “Mother of Stone” by John Langan: Short story about a reporter investigating disturbing incidents at a hotel that occurred after a strange statue was dug up on the grounds I know its for sure included in his anthology series The Wide Carnivorous Sky & Other Monstrous Geographies though it is probably available elsewhere. - “The Worm and His Kings” by Hailey Piper: After her girlfriend goes missing a homeless woman must brave the underground tunnel system filled with ancient horrors to search for her. - “Maplecroft” by Cherie Priest: Two sisters residing in a mansion in the 1890s take on a sinister evil that comes from the ocean. - “The Red Tree” by Caitlín R. Kiernan: After separating from her long term girlfriend an author takes up residents in a remote cabin where she becomes obsessed with the strange red tree in its backyard. Don’t judge the cover on this one its very ugly but i promise its good. - “The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion” by Margaret Killjoy: A traveler searching for answers after her best friends suicide stumbles across a town of squatters who have made a pact with an old god. BIPOC Rep only - - “Butcherbird” by Cassie Hart: A woman returns to her childhood home where her family perished in fire to uncover the secrets of what actually happened that night. - “The Hacienda” by Isabel Cañas: After marrying a man whose previous wife died under suspicious circumstances a woman finds that her new home may be hiding a terrifying evil that no one can save her from. - “The Good House” by Tananarive Due: A woman returns to the home where her child committed suicide to take on the old evil that resides there. This one deals greatly with Vodou mythology. - “These Deathless Bones” by Cassandra Khaw: Follows the second wife of a king at odds with her new step son. - “Bloodchild“ by Octavia E. Butler: OEB’s most terrifying book in my opinion. It follows a young boy who has been chosen to carry on the lineage of the alien race that has enslaved his people. - “Beneath the Rising” by Premee Mohamed: Two life-long friends must face a great evil together after one of them unknowingly creates a machine that lets it enter our world. Please check any CWs here if needed. I hope I was able to introduce you to some fun new titles and authors!

[andrehm22]

My thoughts about Underwater (2020)

Underwater is the last film made by 20th Century Fox under that brand before Disney bought it and was directed by William Eubank who is noticiable for making science fiction films. This movie is no exception, as we see Kristen Stewart as the main protagonist trying to escape from a drilling facility at the bottom of the ocean.

At first, you may notice this movie is the typical disaster storyline where a crew has to escape from a place that is about to explode or destroy, yet time passes on, something more sinister is showing up and that's were we got a twist: This is a actually a Lovecraftian horror inspired movie!

When I started watching this movie I was alright with the cinematography and the use of colors: Pale and barely alive while also looking at the backgrounds that are so empty and barely alive, almost no sign of other humans, only being lighted by some dying lights as a way to show us how corporations care very little towards their employees. Kristen's character called Norah Price is a woman who seems to have spent some long time in here as she mentions that she almost forgot if it's day or night up to this point.

As we keep watching the film and getting more characters, we kind of feel empathy to them: The are just employees who want to leave this place before everything goes to hell and return to their normal lifes at the surface. We have the couple who look each other's back, the wisecracker who always makes jokes even in the most fucked up situation, the loyal partner and the captain who wants to make sure everyone is safe. It's not just about survival but also to be able to handle their mental health sane (as this is a typical subject in Lovecraft) even if they see the monsters lurking at them and trying to comprehend the nature of these beings existence.

And now, as always the good and bad things about this movie:

The Good:

- A Cthulhu mythos movie: I love everything releated to Cthulhu! It got my suprise when I saw these creatures designs and behavior while also dealing with the problems of madness. The big bad Great Dreamer barely can be seen but looks menacing as f*ck!

- The atmosphere: This story is settled in the Mariana Trench, considered by many as one of the deepest places in earth's oceans and as you can expect, the world surrounding our characters is just pure darkness with almost the highest pressure. By giving this place, the expectator feels almost trapped and the shots made when we are inside the suits make the sensation way more terrific!

- Characters: Almost all the characters in this story are made to make us feel empathy. They are normal people like us who have been working probably years in this place and will keep doing it for god knows when. They aren't action heroes or invencible, every moment they are risking their lifes just to reach the surface.

- Not focusing in the gore or the jumpscares: Over the past few years, horror movies tend to focus mostly in the idea of scaring the spectator with the jumpscares or gore, a very commercial and cheap way to get attention, rather than getting scared by the plot. In this case, there are jumpscares but they are barely used because the main topic is not the monsters: It's the fear of the unknown as we don't know what may lurk in the darkness of the ocean while also giving us the idea that we, the humans, are just tiny pawns or cattle to the bigger beings.

- The diving suits and feeling: I loved the design of these suits, it reminded me a lot to the original Alien movie when the 3 members of the Nostromo landed into the planet. They are big and slow but it's the only way they can survive, while also showing us how little free space they have while wearing it. It's like a life-death situation where they need to use it or just die.

- Norah Price: Kristen Stewart has this bad reputation because of the Twilight Saga that makes her feel she is a blank actress. However, in this case she proves she can do more. She feels empathy towards her crewmates and tries to hold em together.

The Bad:

- A lot of Alien inspiration: There's a lot of scenes and references to the classic Ridley Scott film that makes this movie feel very copy-paste but overall it has it's own style of making horror. Scott focused mostly in the feeling trapped idea by using close spaces while Eubank does the reversed with empty giant spaces.

- Ending with a possible sequel we will never get: The movie ends with some messages explaining that the company will continue making explorations, obviously making it look like we haven't seen the end of this story with lot of potentials. Sadly it seems Disney isn't actually focused in this project. It's a shame because I've wanted to know the reasons why they want to deny everything that happened or what do they want to get.

[iyliss]

Hi, sorry if you've already talked about this, but I have a question. I remember seeing some meta floating around a while back about how Season 2 of GX was based on the Lovecraftian Mythos and Cosmic Horror, but I don't know anything about Lovecraft or Cosmic Horror, but you said you did. So could you maybe tell us more about how GX was inspired by Lovecraft? I love digging into the meta of things and hearing what people are interested in! Thank you for your time.

Omgg thank you so much for asking!! I already talked a bit about cthulhu mythos and gx (you may find about inspirations of arcana forces that doesn’t have much meta, about the world and the devil that are more focus on anime interpretations and that very scary looking reply about judai being randolph carter). But I can sure develop about season 2, and GX in general, since this was about more specific points. I’ll try to keep it decently readable, Im sorry if i get carried away ^^ Also I hope I don’t make too many mistakes, I’ve red most of the stories I will refer too, but not all, and a part comes from other sources so it might not be exact (and I might reconsider some aspects as I keep reading). Also I will avoid repeating things I said in the 3 posts linked up there. First of, why would Gx and s2 more specifically be related specifically to the Cthulhu Mythos, amongst other inspirations? Beside the arcana forces being quite obvious references, there are some narratives, aesthetics and themes in common. Amongst other things:

An entity from outer space partially coming to earth and leadingit to it’s destruction

The mix of weird sci-fi (aliens, space, white holes...) and occultism (tarot, spirits, ghosts...)

A sect. A whole sect right there.

A general mystery of some aspects of the universe (what is the light of destruction? What is the extent of it’s power, and influence? Where does it and gentle darkness come from?)

About “knowing too much” (mostly Saiou knowing the future, but you can see a bit of it in Judai’s evolution)

And so many aspects of Saiou but it’s harder to explain it all

I think that even without having red anycosmic horror litterature, the villain being the leader of a sect that try to destroy the world in honnor of an out of space (and reality) super-powerful entity screams lovecraft. Ill try talking about other points down there that are less obvious. In a way, the “main” characters of s2 (judai, edo, kenzan and saiou) follows lovecraftian main characters archetypes. Judai ressembles characters such as, well, Randolph Carter, and Charles D Ward. Innocent, a bit naive and immature, generally nice though lacking some sense of consequences. There’s often this kid who doesn’t actively try to get involved in things, but have some strong relationship with occult things and will get in all kind of trouble that never really ends well. Edo… is more about how he loves litterature, doesn’t have much friends, has a (black) cat, drink tea and is american but more about European style. That sounds stupid but it’s also an important part of lovecraftian imagery. Kenzan is interesting cuz he’s an paleontologist (at least of passion), but in a very stupid way. That may be an unwilling coincidences but I swear the number of incredibly unprofessional (and unrealistic) field rescearcher/archeologist there are in those stories… And Saiou… There’s this underlying theme (fueled by lovecraft’s racism tbh) about beings/people that are weird, monstruous, different (=not white american protestant men for him), and they probably know some secret dangerous occult magic that will destroy the world, because that is obviously what they want. And that’s pretty much how Saiou was treated. But, what makes those stories more interesting than simple racist metaphores is that said « monsters » are never shown actively doing anything bad (the dunwich horror mostly, and the shadow over innsmouth are especially interesting. In the first, it actually makes more sense than our main monster Wilbur Whateley actually tries to save the world). Which well also goes with Saiou’s story.

And it’s actually hard to explain deeply because I am often scared to associate scenes and aspects that are just a bit alike. But if i have to develop on some specific lovecraft stories, beside The dream quest of the unknown Kadath for s3 and Through the gate of the silver key for s4... In s2 some aspects reminds me of The repairer of reputation (old, very close friend of a good man have been slowly becoming the leader of a cult that does quite shady things and want the return of an old god, while maintaining a good face to his friend who noticed nothing despite everyone else thinking he’s strange), the dunwich horror (Boy hated by everyone deals all alone with an incredibly powerful entity that only brings destruction, ambiguously helping or stoping it, until at the very end the other characters finally realizes that they have to stop it too), at the mountain of madness (Hero with an affinity for spiritual things discover aliens are a thing, but they’re actually nice. But there’s also something evil those aliens tried to fight and failed, and now it’s after the humans), or The case of Charles Dexter Ward (Well meaning boy brings back his very powerful and evil double-from the past- at first tries to deal with him alone, gets all kind of trauma, asks for help as a last resort and no one understands. Notice it works both for the light/Saiou and Haou/Judai). But for that I actually think it’s more that similar themes (which could be  more likely inspired by typical Cthulhu mythos tropes and stories) leads to similar scenarios than direct references. However, s2 strongly feels like an incredibly good “adaptation” of cthulhu mythos, especially because it deals a lot more with the dehumanization and trauma that are only implied in the stories. I say adaptation because this universe is actually much more vaste than just H.P. lovecraft (and that’s why I say “cthulhu mythos”, because it’s not just him) and, at this point, is more about the tropes and themes than the characters or creatures. Also I want to conclude with insisting that, while the extend of lovecraftian inspiration in S2 is debatable, it’s clear that there’s at least one person behind ygo who has a very good knowledge of cthulhu mythos, and has it as a strong inspiration. Not only in GX, but also in the tcg (outer gods), in zexal (i personnaly have some thoughts about don thousand being based of Nyarlathotep) and in Vrains (tindangles being Tindalos Hounds).

[jeffreycombs]

Female-Driven Horror Films You May Not Have Heard Of: A Rec List for October

Perhaps it is just from the small circle of blogs I follow, but I’ve noticed only a select few films being constantly reblogged and discussed, especially those about women in horror, things like The Witch, Jennifer’s Body, or Suspiria, which are films I like very much, but I as an avid horror film fanatic, I’d like to recommend some of the female oriented horror films I’ve grown to love, and unfortunately don’t see a lot of on this site. Keep reading if you’d like some recs!

The Descent

All female cast, effectively claustrophobic, strong script and characters.One of those where you don’t expect it to be as good as it is.

Annihilation

Focus on the main female group, probably the best use of cosmic horror in a not Lovecraftian Film, and beautifully surreal as well as horrific. This is one I’ve seen many times on this hell site, but there’s still some people who have never even heard of it. I think it’s great.

Hostel II

Female-Based Saw film basically, beautiful and original uses for blood and gore, intricate and realistically flawed female characters as well as a strong smart lead. Better than Hostel I.

Possession (1981)

Exemplary allegory for divorce and separation.Tackles affairs, abortion, and homosexual guilt all in subtext using horror as the front narrative. This is another I’ve seen on this site, but I think most people know it from the subway station memes, and it is truly a film that needs watching with Isabelle Adjani being the lifeblood of it. 

Repulsion (1965)

Old classic, exemplifies the natural fear in women, surreal and fantastic.

Martyrs (2008)

If you’re looking for a not so tame film because you want to expand your horror film list, this is certainly disturbing on another level, fantastic narrative, and characters. I can’t say much else because it would ruin it.

High Tension

Not the most well-crafted film on this list, but certainly a joyful ride if you’re looking for a mysterious slasher. The female protagonist is extremely dynamic for the type of film it is.

Excision

This film showed me; women can be grotesque too. I think that’s awesome for horror.

American Mary

Nip/Tuck meets Katharine Isabelle from Ginger Snaps. What more could you want?

The Blackcoat’s Daughter

All girls school. Fantastic and monotone. Honestly just brilliant if you’re willing to sit in for a slower type of film. 

[doodelli]

Thoughts on Yellow Submarine

Once I got past the initial absurdity of Yellow Submarine and saw it a second time, I found it just wasn’t that engaging.

I think they dropped the ball in deciding to tell a start-to-finish story as opposed to a surreal line of music videos like Fantasia or even just going for a lighter plot like The Three Caballeros, which would’ve allowed them to just mess around for 90 minutes. Instead, they throw in all these plot elements like an impending invasion, some sort of alternative universe, a prophecy etc. They build up this great quest, but you don’t get the sense that the Beatles actually care about saving Pepperland or anything happening around them for that matter.

Half the fun in stories like Alice in Wonderland is seeing the main character’s reaction to all the strange things they encounter. Problem is, the Beatles barely emote throughout the story, even at times of grave danger. They don’t even care about eachother, as they just shrug when Ringo falls into a pit of Lovecraftian horrors.

Speaking of which, Ringo’s relationship with the Nowhere Man is the closest we get to an emotional core. It’s the only interaction that feels like a genuine friendship, so you’d think they’d focus on that near the end of the film. Seeing as love and music are the key to defeating the Blue Meanies, that is. Yes, the Nowhere Man ends up converting the main bad guy, but there’s little focus on the fact that our comic relief gets kidnapped leading up to that scene. Before the rescue attempt, they had already had several numbers defending Pepperland, so you feel like it’s just dragging on. Chances are, you might not have even noticed Jeremy Hillary Boob PhD was missing!

You’d expect something based on The Beatles to be character-driven, but you don’t even get that. All four of them have a monotone mumble that’s hard to pick up (partially thanks to the sound mixing), while the character actions do very little to set them apart.

Ringo is the most defined as being the sensitive one, which stays consistent throughout. We get a little bit of George having a zen vibe to him in his introduction. Similarly, Paul shows signs of being a bit of a diva when he first appears, but few of these traits are emphasized in the choices they make. As for John, his most memorable scene was him going on a tangent about parallell universes while the gang is actively trying to solve the problem at hand, which points to him being a little pretentious.

Perhaps this is my DnD side showing, but this party feels unbalanced in both personality and skill set. The Fab Four are virtually interchangable and we don’t get to see their individual strengths in the limelight. Not even the Nowhere Man with his jack-of-all-traits education really comes to use until the very end.

Simply put, the Beatles as portrayed in this movie do not have personalities strong enough to carry the whole feature.

As for the newcomers, many have potential but go underutilized. Sgt Pepper has no real personality aside from speaking gibberish when panicking, I guess. He vanishes for a good chunk of the movie, but I can’t tell you when or why.

The leader Meanie was fun to watch, with his over-the-top mannerisms and volatile mood swings, but his constant close-ups made me think the filmmakers just wanted to scare the kids and stoners watching.

The Nowhere Man was mildly amusing, but could have been implemented better. The song number meant to aquaint us with him, though beautifully animated, rings hollow in that there isn’t any narrative demand for it. This could have easily been fixed by placing the song after Ringo suggests bringing him along. Seeing as Nowhere Man has a loose sense of identity and is shown to be quite a tragic character, the song could have been the gang’s way of ascribing a sense of meaning to him.

This film being a jukebox musical works in detriment to its story, which should never be the case in a musical. We’re never given a narrative reason why this particular character should be singing this particular song. Does John singing LSD while being entranced by poorly rotoscoped women tell us anything about him? If you squint perhaps. Personally, I just couldn’t put aside the fact that the only reason John is singing LSD is because... well, John Lennon is the main singer in LSD. Why his character is singing LSD? Who knows, who cares, the music’s good.

That last part really sums up the over all attitude of this movie. ”We’re the Beatles, we don’t care, have some wacky colors”. Even though I have a fondness for most of these songs (this soundtrack is my favorite Beatles album, fight me) and I dig some of the stylistic choices, I just can’t get onboard with the underwhelming narrative and characterizations.

I’m sure this is someone’s cup of tea and I’m glad you’re able to enjoy it. These are just some reasons why others may not.

[qm-vox]

The Far Realms vs. Obyriths: Cosmic Horror in D&D

Shout-out, once again, to Afroakuma, from whom I learned most of the material I’m about to explain and with whom I’ve had many fascinating discussions about this topic.

It’s ya boi Vox, back at it to complain about RPG shit in an educational fashion again. Remember when I did a whole article about (evil) gods in D&D, arguing that they have more potential than to be used like supervillains? We’re gonna do that again, but this time with incorporating cosmic horror elements into your D&D campaign. Some of this advice may also be useful for games similar to D&D but for the sake of my own sanity I’m gonna confine myself to the one system or I’m gonna be here until my kids are in college.

This article will be broken down into three parts: an overview of cosmic horror’s origin and original thesis (in which we travel my favorite magical land, Full And Complete Context), a breakdown of the Far Realms in D&D (including older takes from late 2e & 3.5, how those changed in 4e, and their ambiguous state in 5e) & how you might use them for a cosmic horror campaign, and a breakdown of Obyriths in D&D and how you might use them in your campaign.

No discussion of cosmic horror is complete without some Content Warnings. Right up front: cosmic horror has its roots in extremely racist fiction, and I’m going to be talking about that straight-up. Also included in this article will be body horror, descriptions of mind control and mental corruption, supernaturally-induced madness, violence, and medical horror, among other things. This is a genre that hit the ‘fuck shit up’ button with its face on fuckin’ Zero Day and does that but again every time we successfully write something in it. Additionally, spoilers for some of Lovecraft’s work will be in here, with absolutely no tags and no warnings before they happen. You have been warned; do as thou wilt.

HP Does A Racism - Origins Of Cosmic Horror

Yeah, I’m about to be like that about it.

In the beginning there was Howard Phillips Lovecraft, an absolute garbage fire of a human being whose personal issues are such a knotted mess that I’m half-sure that the concept of the Ouroboros is just the echo of his bullshit reaching backwards through time. Like many authors of his time, Howie Love here was born into significant wealth, and while his education would be cut short (he had some manner of health problem in high school that ended his attempts at schooling) it was pretty high-quality, as it tends to be when you’re rich and white in the late 1800s. When he began writing his most famous body of work, Lovecraft had three attributes which would shape it: EXTREME racism, an incredible love for the works of Edgar Allen Poe, and every fucking phobia ever turned loose on God’s green Earth.

If you want to know more about that first point, try looking up what he named his cat; Lovecraft was so racist that even other racists thought he was too racist. Mother fucker was so racist that he wrote about the dangers of contaminating one’s bloodline with French-Canadians. His racism made it into all of his works in some way, shape, or form; many had themes of miscegenation, plenty included people of color only as deranged cultists of terrible powers, and as we’ll get into later in this segment the very racism that caused him to do these things also made him write the...let’s say ‘villains’ for lack of a better term, of his ongoing body of work as thinly-veiled stand-ins for white people.

No, really.

Lovecraft’s early work included a few short stories in the American Gothic style, the most famous of which is The Rats in the Walls. It’s a fairly classic story as far as those go, but Howie Love would soon abandon American Gothic for the genre he founded and defined: cosmic horror. Keep the racism and phobias in mind going forward, they’re about to become real important.

Howie Love Clowns On Himself - Themes And Thesis Of Cosmic Horror

While Dagon is generally accepted as the ‘first’ cosmic horror story, I prefer The Colour Out Of Space as the definitive example of the original thesis of cosmic horror at its most clean and clear (it’s also the work of Lovecraft’s that has aged the best; I highly suggest it if you haven’t read it yet!). In it, an alien presence - arguably but not necessarily an entity - crash-lands outside the fictional town of Arkham. Our narrator, a surveyor, coldly investigates the horrors that occur after and learns the sorry tale of a family destroyed by this alien presence as it blights their land, corrupts their bodies, and drives them to madness. The presence leaves, but not wholly; a fragment of itself remains behind, alongside the chilling possibility of a repeat performance.

The Colour Out Of Space, and indeed most of Howie Love’s work, was written at a time in the United States and the United Kingdom where human exceptionalism was the norm. Humans were not merely important, but special, chosen, exalted in nature and placed in a universe whose sole purpose was to be the stage for our domination. The Colour Out Of Space proposed a different idea: that we ain’t shit. Not only is humanity not exalted, but humanity is insignificant, existing at the mercy of fate, able to be casually annihilated at any time by forces we do not understand. It was a shocking proposal when it was published, and though the zeitgeist that gave it power has faded (most people realize we ain’t shit these days, can’t imagine how that fucking happened) it still resonates with many people.

The later works that defined the Cthulu Mythos would build on this theme, introducing powerful beings which claim dominion of Earth or of all reality. You’ve probably heard of most of them - Cthulu is the big one, of course, but there’s also Yog-Sothoth (The Dunwich Horror), Azazoth, Catboi Slim (Nyarthalotep), and many more, not all of which were written by Lovecraft himself. These beings are gods, or else so far above humanity that the difference is academic, and this brings us to the second defining theme of cosmic horror that Lovecraft would lay out, that of forbidden knowledge.

Protagonists in Howie Love’s stories have a tendency to lose their minds. Later authors would chalk this up to the idea that witnessing these gods or their works is so inherently horrifying that the mind simply snaps in their presence, or even that these gods are bound up in the concept of madness (this second one is a rather incompetent reading, not that I’m thinking of any PAIZO in particular that just ran with it in their RPG setting), but Howard’s own work doesn’t always bear that out. The protagonist of Call of Cthulu is not driven mad by that being - he is driven towards the brink by the realization that the Cult is still out there (and coming for his life), and that Cthulu will only rise again. Our viewpoint character in At The Mountains Of Madness realizes he has committed unspeakable atrocities on living beings much like himself by mistake, and that if further explorers come to disturb their slumber they will only repeat the same errors and lead to mankind’s annihilation. It’s not just that these ancient powers are terrifying or even that they are alien, but that to comprehend them is to understand that humans are so far beneath them that their attitude towards us cannot be thought of as ‘benevolent or ‘malevolent’, because we are beneath their notice, lesser in comparison than even a bacterium. In such a context, all humans do is consume resources better used by our superiors, and thus our existence is a profanity upon the divine. The only moral action, the stories argue, is self-annihilation; only ignorance permits us to justify our own existence to ourselves.

Sound familiar? Almost like this is the exact argument chucklefuck racists make about the existence of people of color, Jews, and anyone else they happen to not like? Yeah. This is the part where Lovecraft accidentally made himself the villain of his own work. Congratulations Howie, you played yourself. And since his audience was largely fellow white men also hard up on that whole racism thing, this idea of human profanity tapped a deep well of anxiety. I’m not about to argue that racism is over (it isn’t) and that’s why this vision of cosmic horror is less popular; indeed, it’s retained a pretty solid cult (heh) following, in part because the idea of such beings is inherently kinda terrifying. But I’d be remiss not to bring up the fact that this terror has its roots in racism, so...there you have it.

Other authors also built on the Cthulu Mythos, with Lovecraft’s enthusiastic blessing. These days their works tend to be mistakenly attributed to Howie Love himself, but that’s not actually his fault; they were published on their own, under their own authors’ names, and as far as we can tell Howard never tried to take the credit. These other authors had a tendency to substitute the indifferent divinity and corrupted humans of Lovecraft’s work with direct malice; their vision of these god-like beings was one in which they noticed humanity and did harm to it, creating a movement away from Howie Love’s original thesis (”human insignificance will lead to the unimportant and unmarked event of our destruction” & “seeking knowledge can only lead to self-annihilation”) during his life which only picked up momentum after his death. Indeed, most modern attempts at Lovecraftian horror mimic this overt malevolence, often without even lip service to the original thesis. It’s not necessarily an unworkable angle of horror, and it definitely has bones in with its origins; “God is real and He hates you personally” is a terrifying idea! But this movement away from the cold indifference of stories like The Colour Out Of Space definitely contributed to the current climate of...sloppy adaptations, let’s say.

Not that I’m thinking of any Paizo in particular.

So Should I Use Mythos Content Directly In My D&D Game Or What?

No, because I will cry and tell everyone that you punched my children and kidnapped my girlfriends.

More helpfully, probably not. The presence of other divinities, but especially evil divinities like Erythnul (Greyhawk) or Malar (Forgotten Realms) makes the thematics of cosmic horror pretty fucking weird. If you really wanted to, your best bet is to not use the published system of divinity at all (see the previously-linked article, up at the top of this one) and instead make Lovecraft’s gods the setting’s only gods. That means asking yourself some hard questions about clerics in your game world and possibly divine magic in general - that’s a separate article though - and even then you’re in for a rough row to hoe. D&D’s characters tend to be competent, dynamic, empowered - a far cry from the educated but otherwise fairly helpless protagonists on which cosmic horror tends to trade. Themes of futility in the face of incomprehensible beings don’t really make for good D&D most of the time, not when so much of the system (any edition, it doesn’t matter) is set up to create and reward cunning and heroic struggle. Classic cosmic horror, in the original proposed form, is not a good fit.

Thankfully, we have two solutions to give you what you crave in-house. Let’s start with the one that is somehow both the closer fit and the further fit.

You Have Fucked Up - The Far Realm Overview

Originally introduced in late AD&D 2e, the Far Realm as an idea hit its stride during 3.0/3.5 before getting a major rework as part of 4e’s cosmology, where it became the source of most/all aberrations. We’re gonna go ahead and pretend 4e didn’t happen, not because 4e is bad (and for the love of fuck please don’t start an edition war on my cosmic horror post) but because 4e’s cosmology just doesn’t really fit in with any of the rest. 1e <-> 3.5 is more or less coherent and you can beat 5e into line with a wrench and some harsh language, but 4e...well, anyway.

The Far Realms is outside reality. No, not in another dimension, we know what those are - those are the Planes. It’s outside reality; it is Somewhere Else. “It” is probably even the wrong term, since by definition any place (”place”) that isn’t the multiverse as D&D knows it is the Far Realm. To paraphrase Afroakuma, if the Great Wheel is a Lego brick, the Far Realm is a giant squid; if the Great Wheel is a bowl of Fruit Loops, the Far Realm is the theory that intelligences from Pluto rig the results of major sporting events. The contexts are not compatible. These two things do not go together in any way. Combining the two can only end in sorrow and woe.

So mortals try to combine the two all the time, because we’re dipshits like that.

Every now and again, some truly, monumentally stupid person - usually but not always someone inside reality - breaches the skin that contains reality inside itself, and lets in the essence of Outside. This is a phenomenally bad idea; the immediate result is corruption in both directions as the essence of each form of reality bleeds into the other. Both attempt to ‘scab’ the breach, translating the foreign substances and beings into something more like the reality they have moved to. If a breach happens, there is one of three outcomes. If you are very, very lucky, no being on the other side notices the breach, and you’ve ‘merely’ blighted and corrupted a vast stretch of land, tainting it with something sort of like, but not enough like, Chaos and Evil for millennia to come - maybe even forever. If you’re not lucky, a being on the other side notices the breach and acts to seal it, the ripple of which causes you to not have a nation or continent any more as said corruption absolutely consumes the lands in which you live. And if you are phenomenally unlucky, the being on the other side is just as stupid as you are, and it comes through. The last time that happened the original Gnomish pantheon got murdered. Their homeworld doesn’t exist any more.

There is no ‘good’ outcome. This is the repeated and absolute theme of the Far Realms; whatever your reasons for getting involved with them, whatever you wanted, whatever you were seeking, you don’t get it. Mortals fuck with the Far Realms because our inability to comprehend them leads us to think of them like things we can experience. The scabbed-over beings we meet that are from there (Psuedonatural creatures; see the Alienist prestige class in Tome & Blood and Complete Arcane, as well as the bigger version in the Epic Level Handbook) are Chaotic Evil because that is how reality translates them. They aren’t Chaos, they’re another reality, and their unwilling and unwitting corruption of all around them gets redefined as Chaotic Evil in order to reduce their damage to all of existence to a manageable fucking level. Were you seeking the Far Realms in order to harness power for great change? Get fucked, you can’t control what happens. Were you seeking magical power? Get fucked; the reason people go mad when exposed to the Far Realms isn’t just that the knowledge they gain makes no sense, it’s that the complete lack of context means all of the stuff you killed and stole and lied and cheated for is more or less completely goddamn useless. Trying to escape existence for some reason? One, death is faster, but two, hope you enjoy suffering the entire time you die - and that’s if the breach stays open long enough for you to be able to enjoy death as a concept before you get sealed away in a place where mortality doesn’t meaningfully exist.

You don’t get what you want. This was a bad idea. You fucked up.

5e, the most recent edition of D&D, mainly continues this trend. It has suggestions of the lazier interpretation of Lovecraft’s work tied to the Far Realms, which I heartily suggest you ignore, but some of the other ideas are phenomenal. The Great Old Ones Pact for Warlock has one in particular that I like quite a bit, which suggests that the Warlock-to-be created an unintended connection to a Far Realms intelligence and gained power against both of their wills and possibly without the intelligence in question even noticing. You don’t need to change a lot in 5e’s run to bring out the extant themes of the Far Realms - though admittedly this is greatly assisted by the fact that 5e barely has any Far Realms content to begin with, so there’s not a lot to edit. That also means there’s not a lot to use, so if you want to use Far Realms stuff in 5e you’re gonna have to get ready to spend a lot of time making your own. Which brings us to...

Who The Fuck Funded This Research?!? - Using The Far Realms In Your Game

Considering that all-important theme - “this was a bad idea” - the Far Realms are likely to be antagonistic in nature in your game, even if ‘antagonistic’ isn’t the right term. Published adventures have used Far Realms content as a sort of backdrop (Firestorm Peak comes to mind here) before, and you can easily make Far Realms creatures a more direct problem for your PCs by centering the campaign around a cult or research team attempting to cause a new breach. This could be a great time to engage with player-side themes such as the ethics of magic use, the cost of power, and the burden of responsibility for said power, assuming your group is down for it. Even if they’re not, horrifying monstrosities that by definition have no place in this universe are great to kick in the head(s).

What motivates people to cause a breach? Mainly stupidity, but the special kind of stupidity you only get when someone is highly educated and deeply intelligent. For awhile, in the real world, there was a burst of designers making D20 heartbreakers - successors to D&D 3.5 meant to fix its many catastrophic flaws. Each person thought they had it, the secret to make the system they both loved and hated finally function, and they were all wrong. Causing a breach into the Far Realms is like that. Every sign points to it being a bad idea. Reading the research and spells of the last people who tried it reveals that it’s a bad idea. All of the diaries and primary sources of those who did it and those who stopped them say it’s a bad idea, but that’s okay because I, Wizardhat von Dipshit, am not like those fools. I will be more careful, and the power to reshape the Planes will be mine!

The easiest way to make Far Realms creatures for use in your campaign is to start with an existing monster and fuck it up; rearrange its abilities (adding or emphasizing mental attacks and psychic damage, if you can), alter its physical form, and generally just make that shit wrong and fill its blood with spiders. If you want to get more alien from there or make something original, the best guideline I can offer for you is that aboleths were the result of Far Realms taint in the beginning of this reality (it’s telling that the closest thing reality could translate their progenitor into was a Greater Deity).

No one wants power for its own sake, of course, but what your antagonist actually wants is more or less irrelevant because the important bit is that they had every chance to know better and they’re about to make this bad decision on purpose anyway. This is how the Far Realms brings out cosmic horror themes in a heroic context; power that is beyond both mortal comprehension and control, which has no place in this reality and recoils from us as violently as we recoil from it. Like Lovecraft, whose stories revealed a deep cynicism about knowledge and science, your antagonists will be erudite individuals whose ruinous plans are only possible because of what they have learned and, in turn, chosen to ignore. If nothing is done, unstoppable catastrophe will be unleashed, and with it will come madness and desolation. If only some heroes were on hand, eh?

The disconnect the Far Realms has from classic cosmic horror is also the source of why they fit; they don’t belong here. In Lovecraft’s work, it’s humanity that doesn’t belong - we are a blight upon the rightful property of higher beings. The Far Realms are instead an intrusion, something from Elsewhere which doesn’t want to be here as much as we don’t want it here. That helps those classic cosmic horror themes work much better in this context, but maybe you’re looking for something else, something from here. Do the Planes have cosmic horror from within the shell of Reality?

Yes. Oh yes, they do.

Ancient Evil Survives - Obyrith Overview

In the beginning, there was war.

The primordial War of Law and Chaos is the greatest conflict to have ever rocked the Planes. It was so destructive, so all-encompassing, that it consumed entire Material Plane worlds, reshaped the nature of the Planes themselves, and is still happening, even now. It began in the early days of the Great Wheel and was prosecuted by Chaos, led by the self-styled Queen of Chaos, over a single question: should reality be real? Should effects follow causes, should gravity exist, should fire burn and light reveal, should things age and die, should...

The forces of Law said yes to these questions and fought to establish and maintain an order and logic to reality. Chaos fought for an unbound reality, one in which each individual would be completely free to express their own true essence as tangible changes in the existence around them. The War was never truly won or lost, but the imprisonment of Miska the Wolf-Spider broke the backs of the Chaotic coalition and brought the War to a stalemate of sorts, in a reality which, if not dominated by Law, is definitely Law-leaning. Mortals are familiar with the terrible demons used as footsoldiers by the Abyss, the Tanar’ri, who reign yet in that terrible place. But it was not the Tanar’ri in command of Chaos, and not the Tanar’ri who prosecuted that terrible War. Indeed, the beings we now recognize as demons rose up against their creators, the Obyriths, after the imprisonment of Miska. They overthrew the Obyriths in a great slaughter and replaced them as the dominant exemplars of Chaotic Evil.

The Obyriths are not dead. They plan, and they wait, and they wage war and slaughter upon their wayward slaves in the Abyss. Every last one of them burns to reignite the War and achieve their vision of unbound reality, free of the wretched Law and all too weak to survive without it.

Prisoners Of The Flesh - Obyrith Nature

So what are Obyriths? The easiest answer is that they’re demons - the first demons, in fact, which preceded the more famous Tanar’ri (when you think of demons in D&D chances are you’re thinking of a Tanar’ri), and while this answer is entirely correct it is not the whole story. Tanar’ri are famously Chaotic Evil; they revel in corruption and destruction and are driven to maliciously annihilate or taint all they come across. A demon army marching across the land will stop to personally kick every puppy between point A and point B and they will absolutely mutiny against you if you try to stop them from doing so. What is good and pure must be soiled; what exists must be made to not exist, its foundations shattered, its virtues turned against themselves, its values abandoned. Tanar’ri respect only raw might, and only as long as they think they can’t defeat it.

But Obyriths, their progenitors, are Evil Chaos.

Let’s have some examples. This little guy is a draudnu, a kind of Obyrith made from the bones of chaotic celestials which post-dates the ‘end’ of the War by a pretty significant amount of time. They’re on the weaker side for Obyriths.

(You’ll find this boi in Monster Manual V for 3.5 incidentally.)

Take a nice long look. Really take it in - because that’s not the draudnu. That’s the prison of flesh, the scab, that reality has forced on the draudnu, that the terrible Law has locked it within. The actual draudnu looks like it’s inside me God it’s inside me I can feel it growing and twisting it HURTS get it out, it’s seeping into my blood it’s inside me it’s INSIDE ME -

Let’s have another example. This is a sibriex, recently re-published in Mordenkeinan’s Tome of Foes for 5e with no mention of Obyriths, which is a damn shame. They were instrumental in defining the forms of the common breeds of Tanar’ri.

Fun, right? But again, that’s not a sibriex; the actual form of a sibriex is perfection. Absolute beauty and grace. I am nothing compared to this perfection. I am no one in the face of this perfection. My existence can only profane this perfection. I must serve the Perfect One. I must let it remake me and reshape me, I must appease it, I must make amends for the crime that is my trespass upon the reality made for the Perfect One.

Those two are ‘common’ Obyriths, examples of that race of demons which have peers who are much like themselves, but the Obyriths still have extant Demon Princes. The Queen of Chaos is still alive and nursing her ancient hate. Pale Night’s true form is so profane that reality cannot stand its existence; when she reveals it to you, the multiverse destroys your soul so that knowledge of her truth does not exist. Obox-Ob, murdered by the Queen of Chaos, yet exists as an Aspect of himself - and the Planes live in fear of the rise of the Prince of Vermin, whose truth is agony, rot, and corruption, such that even if you magically remove memory of it from your mind you continue to die from the soul outward.

And Dagon plots within the depths of his palace, sponsoring and advising Demogorgon - the Prince of Demons - and contemplating unimaginable lore of evil. The Demon Prince of Depths looks like this.

This is the form carved on blasphemous altars in the depths of the oceans, where sunlight has never reached. This is the form worshiped by mortals who delight in corruption, destruction, and fear, who dream of a sea where vision is a distant memory and predators hunt by the scent of blood. It is the form sought by those who lust for ancient lore, kept in places far from mortal sight and utilized by an evil older than many gods and mortal races, a form whose mere touch can taint a body of water, mutating & mutilating all within and unleashing their fury, their terror, their slaughter, for ages to come. And it is not Dagon. Dagon’s true form, imprisoned within that flesh, is I’m drowning in the cold dark, I can feel my bones breaking, my eyes are bursting, I’m blind and I’m drowning and I can’t die, my lungs are gone, the water is seeping into my blood I’m drowning and I just want to die make it stop I’m DROWNING.

It’s telling that witnessing Dagon’s true form, his Form of Madness, can give even creatures that breathe water, or which do not breathe at all, crippling hydrophobia.

The true forms of Obyriths are not flesh or matter; they are not, by nature, Material beings the way other Outsiders and mortal things are. Their true forms are that you, personally, are going mad. You, personally, are being assaulted, violated, and infected; you, personally, are being victimized, corrupted, consumed, and betrayed. Imagine if the act of pouring flesh-eating beetles into someone’s eyes had a personality, will, and desires - not the person doing it, the act itself - and that’s an Obyrith. They are evil because what they are is evil, much in the way Erythnul is evil. Unlike their creations, the Tanar’ri, Obyriths aren’t in it to kick every puppy that has ever existed. They want to throw off the yoke of the Law and release their unbound forms. They want an existence of darkness and isolation in which all beings are free to express their true essence to the limit of their might and their will.

They just wanna be themselves.

No matter who has to die.

The Foes Of All Reason - Using Obyriths In Your Campaign

Do you enjoy life’s little conveniences, such as cause-and-effect, linear time, predictable & observable physical laws, not having your body boil away beneath the agonizing will of some random asshole, and the capacity to recognize patterns in nature? Then Obyriths are your enemies. As demons, Obyriths can be summoned and are thus easy to use in the sort of ‘guest star’ role that Tanar’ri are often used in, even if it takes a moon-sized pair of brass balls to decide you can contain one. However, this use - while valid - is not a good way to bring out their cosmic horror themes, and since you decided to read an article about cosmic horror in D&D this far down I’m going to go ahead and assume you’d like to do that.

As one of the Planes’ most ancient and active evils - arguably the most ancient one that hasn’t died or otherwise fucked off - Obyriths are absolutely prime for campaigns that deal with ancient lore, primordial conflict, and unreality. If you like the idea of long-burn plots by masterminds with the patience of aeons, Obyriths are definitely for you. For an example of one such story, check out The Tale of the Whale, written by Afroakuma. The downside to using Obyriths in this way is that if you want to do so in canon settings, you need to be prepared to do some absolute fucking deep dives on the lore, which may require access to books or PDFs as far back as 1e & 2e. If you’re using your own setting this problem is lessened, though at that point you do have to manage to sell the ancient nature of such beings in a way that makes them feel suitably eldritch.

For more...let’s go ahead and say modern for lack of a better word, takes, keep in mind that Obyriths are not Tanar’ri. They do not scheme to overthrow the government of a nation; your pale, fleshly shadow of the Law is nothing to them. The plots of Obyriths upend the Laws which underpin reality itself. Could the great contract that details the alliance between the tribes of Men and Cats be found and perverted, turning each against the other in all reality? Could the insects of this realm be infected with the essence of Obox-Ob so that the Demon Prince of Vermin can feast on mortal souls and effect his own return to power? Could a bridge linking the Deep Ethereal to the Abyss be constructed, permitting the sibriexes and their master, the Prince of the Chrysalis, to shape new slaves from the very essence of raw Potential? Obyriths pervert what is and should be, not just because it suits their end goal of chaos unbound, but because corruption and violation is their very nature. It’s how they think, how they move, what they believe in, love, and value.

Obyriths have a lot to suggest for them when it comes to cosmic horror stories in D&D’s context. They bring out direct themes of madness, terrible truth, malign alien intelligence, and reality-unreality. You can comprehend their motives and even their nature, sort of, but their end goal is completely alien to mortal beings; the reality they want would be completely unrecognizable to the denizens of the current one. They are evil as mortals understand the concept, but not in a way that matches or even relates to their peers, which means they act in surprising and unpredictable ways.

All of this of course damages their ability to fulfill the classic cosmic horror thesis, but there’s something to be said about the idea that an alien intelligence, to be horrifying, needs something humans can attempt to relate to. It certainly makes writing for them easier.

If you’re using Obyriths in 3.5, you’re set to go; look for them in the various Monster Manuals, as well as Fiendish Codex. If you’re attempting to use them in Pathfinder, good decision but you’re gonna have some stat block converting to do. Trying to use them in 5e is gonna be the absolute bitch of a job, and I’m not sure where to even start on those suggestions except to note that the signature trait of Obyriths - the thing that makes them them, mechanically - is a Form of Madness ability, where they reveal their truth to their victims. Forms of Madness are mind-affecting abilities which hit all non-demons near the Obyrith, tainting them in some way. You can see some example ideas above, and the ones from 3.5 in the published books I just mentioned, but here’s hoping I can find an expert on 5th Edition’s mechanics kind enough to lend me a hand here.

I hope this article proved helpful to you! As with all of my work, questions and critique are welcome. Thanks for reading!

[divine-identite]

☾ ♣

mun related

send me one ( or more ) of the following.

@serenefulmine

♣ ━ share five random facts about yourself

I’m critical lol I’ve known for quite a while and probably learning to reel it in more so that it doesn't land, of myself and of people, so im keeping that under wraps more so I don’t make enemies of people lol.  

I enjoy a lot of Lovecraftian horrors, got all his books and Poe stuff. So a big fan of gothic horror stuff actually, and LoTR as well. Love me some J.R.R. Tolkien. Sometimes you will find me reading by myself or reading and drawing lol. 

I’m the IT guy in my family, anything electronic or involving subnetting or Ip address, or wireless setup, I have to do really. I’ve always wanted to build my rig just never had the money to get there. Also, I need to be more physical, starting to fatten up a bit so I need more physical activities. Also been hammering down for my security plus test in May 25th.

I’m an introvert, I enjoy talking but I just- need to take people in doses I’ve noticed. If you’re not someone I click with or someone I worked into my regular schedule than you gotta pace it with me lol.

Despite writing, I am quite passionate about drawing a lot, and probably my biggest focus outside of writing actually since my whole life. I actually planned to get good enough to where I can hyper-realism actually. One of my favourite artist, who shares the same first name, Kelvin Okafor is rather good at it. Here is an example of his work too and the artist. Now these pieces are huge and just require a lot of mental work lol

☾ ━ how many pets do you own? if none, what kind of animals do you like?

None sadly, but the family has planned to buy a schnauzer. I do quite enjoy schnauzer,  mostly because my uncle had a young one which annoyed me- but grew on me how she followed me everywhere, to be honest, and I would probably invest in a cat. I do like both animals really; most likely a Russian Blue or a Siamese, but their a bit too social,  but those are my plans.

[hermanwatts]

Sensor Sweep: Battle Tech, Manly Wade Wellman, Savage Heroes, Space Force

Science Fiction (Tor.com): Anyone who has played Traveller (or even just played with online character generation sites like this one) might have noticed that a surprising number of the characters one can generate are skilled with blades. This may see as an odd choice for a game like Traveller that is set in the 57th century CE, or indeed for any game in which swords and starships co-exist. Why do game authors make these choices?  Just as games mix swords and starships, so do SFF novels. The trope goes way back, to the planetary romance novels of the Golden Age. Here are five examples.

Fiction Review (Legends of Men): Savage Heroes is a sword & sorcery anthology that’s pretty rare in the U.S. That’s because it’s a U.K. publication. The first S&S anthology I reviewed was Swords Against Darkness. It’s a great anthology that came highly recommended by an expert scholar in the field. Savage Heroes is better though. It captures very well the combination of historical adventure, lost world fiction, and cosmic horror that makes Sword and Sorcery unique.

Fiction (Wasteland & Sky): Hard-boiled noir is an interesting subgenre. It’s mostly remembered in the mainstream, if at all, for cheesy parodies that family sitcoms and cartoon used to do back in the 1990s. What it is remembered for is as a genre about hapless detectives in black and white 1930s settings having to find a killer among a cast of twelve or so shifty character archetypes. Plenty of fun is poked, but they hardly take the genre seriously.

Science Fiction (Scifi Scribe): We’ve all seen the memes, right? The minute the world started talking about the mere idea of a United States Space Force, we were all instantly greeted by “LOL, Space National Guard/Space Force Reserves!” All joking aside, the irreverent interservice banter and, shall we say, “robust,” back-and-forth on social media reflects the very real, and very important, national-level discussions about creating a new military service branch.

Cinema (Jon Mollison): The birth of Dungeons and Dragons is a strange and fascinating story of how creatives can draw forth order from the froth of chaos. I went into this film expecting a lot of defensive snark about how Gary Gygax was a Johnny-come-lately who yoinked the idea of RPGs out from under Dave Arneson’s nose.  A fraudulent Edison to Arneson’s Tesla, if you will.  And there are hints of that within this film, but only hints.

Art (Mutual Art): Theron Kabrich quietly gazes at Roger Dean’s watercolor, The Gates of Delirium. He has been Dean’s friend and representative at the San Francisco Art Exchange for thirty years, selling his paintings, drawings, and prints to an international audience of collectors. Millions of copies of the image have been made. If Tolkien’s timeless classic inspired Dean’s enduring fascination with pathways at the beginning of his career, it is Robert McFarlane’s writing about wandering journeys along the ancient tracks twisting through the British landscape that have his attention in the present.

Art (DMR Books): Stephen  Fabian, as I’ve pointed out before, is a living legend in the fantasy art community. His output from the 1970s to the 2000s—both in quality and quantity—can only be called astounding. I covered some of that in my three-part series on his Robert E. Howard-related art. However, a friend of mine recently brought Fabian’s artwork for In Lovecraft’s Shadow to my attention. That book, in some respects, may be Stephen’s greatest sustained work. In Lovecraft’s Shadow was a collection of August Derleth’s Lovecraftian fiction published in 1998 through a joint venture by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box and Mycroft & Moran.

Review (Tea at Trianon): I remember as a twenty-two-year-old being excited when I saw a new book called the The Mists of Avalon by an author called Marion Zimmer Bradley. Mists was presented as the retelling of the Arthurian legend from the point of view of the women of Camelot, which I thought was a thrilling idea. However, I found the book heavy on paganism and morbid, explicit sex scenes, but light on romance, heroism, chivalry, mystery, faith and all the qualities I had come to love in the Camelot stories. This brings us to Moira Greyland’s recent book, The Last Closet: The Dark Side of Avalon.

Fiction (Adventures Fantastic): I’m going to look at three of his stories that feature the same  character, Sergeant Jaeger. First is “Fearful Rock”.  Originally published in the February 1939 issue of Weird Tales, the central character of this novella is Lt. Lanark. He and Jaeger are leading a cavalry patrol in Missouri during the Civil War, looking for Quantrill. What they find is a young woman being sacrificed by her step-father to the Nameless One in an abandoned house under the shadow of a formation known as Fearful Rock.

Fiction (DMR Books): Tanith Lee was a force to be reckoned with in the ’70s, ’80s and on into the ’90s. She exploded onto the SFF scene with her debut novel for DAW Books, The Birthgrave. That book was labeled at the time as being “sword-and-sorcery”. I would probably call it heroic fantasy, but it remains a minor classic regardless of specific sub-category. During her forty-plus-year career, Tanith published ninety novels and a myriad of short stories. Her prolificity was on display right away. She quickly followed up The Birthgrave with more notable books like The Storm Lord and Volkhavaar, along with short stories like “Odds Against the Gods” published in Swords Against Darkness II.

Science Fiction (Men of the West): The book. Not the movie. If you can even call Verhoeven’s bastardization “Starship Troopers” at all. Robert A. Heinlein is an increasingly controversial figure in recent years, moreso than he was in his lifetime. This, of course, is due to his dubious content in his later career. But he was nothing if not influential on the genre, and his early works, such as his juvenile novels (of which this was the last), remain worth a read. We may go into Heinlein’s other works later, but the focus is not so much on the man as on the book.

D&D (Jeffro’s Space Gaming Blog): I think Gygax is pretty clear about how initiative works in the DMG. (His surprise rules do make a bit of static, though.) Here’s my take on it: 1) DM decides what the monsters will do. Check reaction and/or morale if need be. 2) Players declare their actions. If they want to win at rpgs, they will advise a high t caller who will then speak for group.

Cthulhu Mythos (Marzaat): “Bells of Horror”, Henry Kuttner, 1939. This is a fairly good bit of Lovecraftian fiction from Kuttner. He uses a typical Lovecraft structure. Our narrator opens by mentioning a weird event then gives the back story of what led up to it and concludes with a not all surprising event. (Sometimes Lovecraft managed to surprise with his last lines, sometimes not.)

Authors (Goodman Games): While all of Wellman’s oeuvre is worth reading, it is his Silver John stories that most impacted the world of fantasy role-playing. Wellman is one of the names on Gygax’s Appendix N roster of influential authors. Although no specific title is listed alongside his name, it’s been suggested that the character of Silver John influenced the bard class in D&D—a wandering troubadour who uses song, magic, and knowledge to defeat supernatural menaces. Stripped of the pseudo-medieval trappings of D&D, the bard and Silver John become almost indistinguishable from one another.

Pulp Art (Dark Worlds Quarterly): It shouldn’t be any surprise that the artists that illustrated Short Stories would appear in Weird Tales and vice versa, though to a lesser degree. Fred Humiston is a good example. For many years, he illustrated half of each issue of Short Stories along with Edgar Wittmack.

Cinema (Film School Rejects): Most movie fans associate Martin Campbell with the Bond franchise and other blockbusters. However, before he became one of Hollywood’s A-list directors, he helmed Cast a Deadly Spell, a genre-bending TV movie that originally aired on HBO back in 1991. It isn’t the most known movie in his oeuvre, but it’s easily one of his most entertaining and rewatchable efforts.

Tolkien (Monsters and Manuals): I have no idea what Tolkien had in mind for the geography of Rhun and the peoples within it. But it seems to me that, while one shouldn’t think of Middle Earth as being too closely paralleled with the real world, there is a case to be made that its character is roughly akin to the Eurasian steppe this side of the Urals – more specifically the Pontic Steppe north of the Black Sea (with the Sea of Rhun here being a bit like the Black Sea).

Gaming ( Walker’s Retreat): The other day I posted a new BattleTech lore video. I mentioned that the channel posting that video did more to promote BattleTech than anything that the current owners of the property–Catalyst Game Labs–have done. All of the other lore channels and battle report channels contribute to this effort, and it helps that Harebrained’s adaptation is very close (but not identical, which it should have been) to the tabletop game, but there’s sweet fuck-all for marketing from the company itself.

Sensor Sweep: Battle Tech, Manly Wade Wellman, Savage Heroes, Space Force published first on https://sixchexus.weebly.com/

[theantisocialcritic]

This AntiSocial Life: The Wonderful Worlds of Alex Garland

There was a great anecdote I heard back a while ago that one of the sad truths about the world of sports is that there’s a good chance that we will never know who the greatest sports players in history are merely because the best sports players in history have probably never played professionally. It’s just a fact of life that sometimes the best that our species has to offer is forced to live on the margins while the plasticine and empty gets pushed forward to the center. This isn’t a reason to fear or despair however. What’s really important in life is that we stay humble, do our best and leave behind a legacy that matters to those around us. 

In the world of filmmaking this can very easily be said to be true. The greatest, most complex, artistic and imaginative filmmakers in history are definitely people on the fringes of filmmaking. They’re outsider artists making small stories about the biggest questions of life. They paint on a small canvas and create more value out of a single frame than some directors can craft out of an entire film. As fans of the craft and as cinephiles it’s our duty to seek out many of these creators and celebrate their work. There’s a reason film critics adore the indie scene. Independent filmmaking abounds with filmmakers like this who struggle to get their ideas made on tiny budgets. 

Today I want to offer the spotlight that my small reach affords me to celebrate a filmmaker that has been producing quiet miracles of science fiction and has quietly become one of my favorite directors ever: Alex Garland. 

For full disclosure, I’ve actually had the opportunity to briefly meet Alex Garland in 2015 during his pre-release press tour. Granted at the time I was a boom operator in the graduating class of Tribeca Flashpoint College and my full interaction with him was a brief conversation about pinning a lavaliere microphone to his shirt. 

I have the utmost respect for his talents as a director and fully intent to fully intent to offer him the honesty and due criticism all artists deserve and need to grow and evolve. 

Writing and Screenwriting (1996-2013) 

Alex Garland’s writing career began in the 1996 with the publication of his first of three published books. The Beach is an existential journey of a young backpacker exploring his way across Thailand that released to widespread acclaim and success enough for acclaimed director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionare) to take notice and option the book for an adaption. Though Garland’s subsequent novels The Tesseract and The Coma would be released neither would gain quite the attention of his first book. 

The Beach would only be the first of Garland’s collaborations with Danny Boyle. The two went on to collaborate in 2002 with Boyle’s deconstructionist take on the zombie genre 28 Days Later. The film was lauded as a critical success and remains a very unique take on the zombie genre. The best Zombie films are the ones that fully imbibe the fully breadth of what it’s story means. Romero’s films all use their stories to explore how the world reacts to change and how society atrophy and the lack of progress destroys humanity. 28 Days Later shifted the nature of the zombie genre into something new, violent and very focused that still barked and shined like the low budget genre film that it was. Boyle and Garland would go on to collaborate one more time in 2007 with their science fiction film Sunshine which wasn’t a well received. 

Garland would go on to spend the next several years working on additional projects. He broke out into video games as a writer for the critically acclaimed cult game Enslaved: Odyssey to the West in 2010. He would work again on DMC: Devil May Cry as a story supervisor. During this time he worked on additional two films. He wrote the screen play for Never Let Go which released in 2010. In 2012 one of his best films he wrote for was released in theaters. Dredd would not go to be remembered as his greatest success but it’s fervent cult following can speak to it’s strengths. Unlike it’s schlocky 1995 Stallone vehicle predecessor known as Judge Dredd, Dredd was a very well done ultra violent action movie with some of the best visual ideas in a comic book adaptation we’ve seen in years. It’s a fully fleshed out world of crime and horror but once the story slowly pulls back into a single location it truly reveals itself for what it is. The film is an homage to The Raid. It handles world building, visual storytelling and violence as well as almost any major action film of recent years. Sadly the poor marketing of the film under the title of Dredd 3D more than likely sunk the film in an already crowded film market during a very busy movie season. 

Ex Machina (2015) 

Great movies are rarely unraveled to significant fanfare at the time of their release. Often they’re underrated, they underperform at the box office or they aren’t recognized by the press enough to help them build a following. Alex Garland’s directorial debut had the unfortunate timing to be released in the vicinity of Avengers: Age of Ultron and suffered severely from it’s proximity to the highly profitable blockbuster. It’s a shame because the film in question is one of the smartest, most exciting sci-fi thrillers in years. It’s a small scale film that mostly takes place in one extremely isolated location but it’s also a film that has more to say than the vast majority of major film releases. It’s a film about identity, artificial intelligence, empathy and misogyny with some of the most haunting visuals and ideas put into a major film in years. For a first time director it’s more than just a miracle, it’s a masterpiece. In just one film, Alex Garland went from intermittedly successful science fiction writer to one of the most vital and important independent filmmakers in Hollywood. 

Annihilation (2018)

Garland’s newest project just released to theaters yesterday and it’s already proving to be one of the most enjoyable films in his already excellent body of work. The movie is an adaption of the Jeff VanderMeer novel of the same name which is itself the first chapter of a trilogy of science fiction novels. While there is no indication that subsequent sequels are incoming what we have now is nothing short of beautiful. Annihilation is a film largely conceived of contrasting elements. It’s a film of immense beauty and yet immense horror. It portrays a world evolving and shifting in ways that are visually astounding but are brought about in some of the most appalling and horrific methods imaginable. A lot of the writing coming out about this film talks about the film’s being confusing and tonally disparate. It’s rather rare for a film that has this much wonder and tenderness to turn heal so hard into outright body horror and lovecraftian madness. There is obvious truth to much of these criticisms and at times it seems like the film is slightly too ambitious for the up and coming director but the sheer ambition and risk that is poured into this film is simply astounding. 

The reason I love Alex Garland’s art is because he’s the kind of artist who is going on and creating exactly the kind of thing I love. I adore science fiction and seeing a writer/director who has the talent and ambition to bring worlds to life is absolutely wonderful. Even when he isn’t on top of his game he still has the ability to write some amazingly wonderful pieces of storytelling. He absolutely deserves your attention! 

Thank you all for reading!

If you would like to see more reviews, articles and podcasts lemme know by tweeting me at @AntiSocialCriti or commenting below. Check out my review show The Fox Valley Film Critics! Also check out my articles on Geeks Under Grace!

Live long and prosper!

[beefsteakmilkshake-blog]

Inner Gods

Well, I guess I should get started then. Here’s a little lovecraftian pastiche I worked up a while back.

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There may not be many who believe this story. Had I not experienced the events first hand, I myself would laugh such a tale away as the ravings of one gone mad, or at least the dreams of a particularly imaginative story-teller. I tell you now, my kin among the Infinite Ether, that it is true. I tell you this because I love you, and would not wish for such horrors to befall any one of you. One encounter with the grotesque, uniform creatures and their wretched world is enough for all of waking reality.

I am Dgast'ilial. I spawned long ago from the undulating back of the Great Void Ithilial. I have spent my entire existence wanting for nothing. I do not desire the power or omnipresence of my beloved parent, having instead chosen to forge my own path through the endless expanse. I have roamed the chaotic infinity for eons uncountable, merging with and separating from entities both lesser and greater than myself, sharing my memories and emotions with them as they do me. Becoming one greater, before parting ways, each a bit wiser for their experience together. I have been embraced by the warmth and love of infinity. My journey has been far, and my friends great in number. Misery and fear were nearly unknown to me, experienced only as memories of those I have coupled with. I had not truly felt these emotions for my own until I was forced to experience that which I am recounting. That immutable, unforgettable event which will haunt me until my essence thins and I scatter to what lies beyond infinity.

I cannot say for certain when it was that it happened. I had been wandering through the cacophonous expanse alone for quite some time. I was admittedly lonely at the time, but the comforting warmth of the fractals surrounding me brought me no small amount of joy. It was at this time that I felt it. That undeniable, immense pulling sensation. A sense of being brought low, of becoming lesser instead of greater. My essence seemed to gather and was wretched through time and space to a place I can only vaguely describe, perhaps as I was too fearful to note too much, or perhaps because my mind will not let me remember. What I do recall is the sudden and unmistakable sense of suffocation. The space of infinity was suddenly gone. The place I had suddenly found myself in was finite. While the borders of this place marched ever outward in a faint mockery of the endlessness of home, it felt as if instead those walls closed in on me. Geometry had taken on an unspeakable linearity that sent pain throughout my being. Light struck me in blasphemous, unrelenting waves. What had happened to the beautiful fractals which light should have been spiraling out from? Why was the comforting cacophonous chaos suddenly restricted? Twisted in to uniformity? What unseen forces were responsible for the blasphemous nature of this place?

I will admit that in my sudden panic, it took me a moment before I noticed the creatures. Those things, so small yet so utterly wrong that the thought of them still freezes my essence with fear. The creatures. The only way I can possibly describe them is "half-dead," but even these words betray their true blasphemy. Their bodies were all confined to one form. A central chamber from which sprouted five appendages. One was short and round, the others longer and straighter. From two of these appendages sprouted each five more, all reaching out towards me. They kept this form, as unchanging as that of a corpse, yet they moved as though they were alive. They felt. They thought. I could feel those thoughts piercing in to my mind, forcing their way in as if they had no control over it. A screaming torrent of language, alien and incomprehensible was uttered from one of them. They could not feel one another as I did them. They were forced to use those grating noises to communicate. Through the horrific assault of sound, I heard an uttering which could nearly be construed as my name. They tried to utter more of their nonsense to me, though to my dread I already knew of their intentions. These things believed me the key to their ascension. They wished to couple with me, as I had with many before them. To share in my knowledge, and elevate themselves above their peers for purposes unimaginably cruel. Yet many of those before me felt fear, revulsion at my lack of form, and some were even stricken to madness.

In my panic, and in my revulsion I have done something that I had never done before, or intend to do ever again. I had ended life. Each of them, but a speck before me, felt my feral and thoughtless wrath. I tore them apart, reduced them to their most base of essences. Even such essence mocked me with its spherical uniformity, bound together by those same damning forces which chained the rest of that tiny, unfortunate reality. But at least their thoughts had ceased their assault on my mind.

The destruction of the creatures released a great hold on me, and I felt myself returning home. Yet before I returned to the cacophonous expanse, I had a dreadful sensation. I sensed that which of this entire tale still terrifies me the most. For a brief moment I felt them. Though I had exterminated those who wished to become one with me, there were far, far more still left behind and limited as much as their universe but still great in number. They still exist, somewhere in some other reality they exist. I fear that one day they will gather and attempt to bring one of us back to that horrid place. I cannot know for certain, but I send this tale across infinity as a warning to all. Beware these creatures. Do not acquiesce to them. I have felt the hatred that bleeds from their minds. It has tainted me beyond any chance of purity. Because of this I seek no longer to share my mind with my kin, for to couple with others would be to pass that hatred on to them as well. I go now in to exile, to spend the rest of my existence alone. Mark my story, my kin, and mark it well. Fear them.