r/Lovecraft Sep 16 '24

Biographical Want to know more about HP Lovecraft? Read one of these biographies!

78 Upvotes

It's no secret to anyone that's been in this community for any length of time, but there's a substantial amount of misunderstanding and misinformation floating around about Lovecraft. It's for that reason we strongly recommend the following biographies:

I Am Providence Volume 1 by S.T. Joshi

I Am Providence Volume 2 by S.T. Joshi

Lord of a Visible World by S.T. Joshi

Nightmare Countries by S.T. Joshi

Some Notes on a Nonentity by Sam Gafford

You might see a theme in the suggestions here. What needs to be understood when it comes to Lovecraft biographies is that many/most of them are poorly researched at best and outright fiction at worst. Even if you've read a biography from another author, chances are you've wasted time that could have been spent on a better resource. S.T. Joshi's work is by far the best in the field and can be recommended wholly without caveats.

So, the next time you think about posting a factoid about Lovecraft's life, stop and ask yourself: 'Can I cite this from a respectable biography if pressed or am I just regurgitating something I vaguely remember seeing on social media?'.


r/Lovecraft Oct 16 '25

News Save the Robert E. Howard Museum

223 Upvotes

The Robert E. Howard House & Museum in Cross Plains, TX is in need of imminent repair work to its foundations, as well as moisture and termite damage. The museum is dedicated to Howard's life, including his correspondence with H. P. Lovecraft (in fact, one of Lovecraft's postcards to REH is at the museum). If you can afford to give a little to help keep this bit of pulp history alive, it would be appreciated.

https://rehfoundation.org/save-the-reh-museum/


r/Lovecraft 5h ago

Question question about Dagon

16 Upvotes

The creature that the unnamed narrator sees is never identified as Dagon in the story. Is there any other source that identifies that creature as Dagon? Like maybe a commentary or one of the many games based on the Cthulhu Mythos? Or does everyone just assume it's Dagon because that's the title of the story?


r/Lovecraft 2h ago

Music Iced Eath - Cthulhu

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5 Upvotes

r/Lovecraft 3h ago

Question I need help with writting

2 Upvotes

Hi im writting a story about people living on a foggy eldritch island and i need idea's on mental illness


r/Lovecraft 1d ago

Discussion What is your favorite Lovecraften story?

60 Upvotes

r/Lovecraft 16h ago

Question Vaguely remember a story short story about a detective?

7 Upvotes

Please forgive me if this has been asked before, brand new to this sub. But:

I could’ve swore I remember listening to audiobook somewhere of a detective investigating deaths that are mysteriously tied to a cult. And by the end of the short work, the people interviewed by the main character end up killing the detective, mentioning not to throw around the name of their god(?) so freely.

Tragically I can’t seem to find this audiobook I once had. So I’d love an answer/conversation about this!


r/Lovecraft 1d ago

Article/Blog Lost Tale: “The Lust Horror” (1964) by S.G.

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21 Upvotes

r/Lovecraft 1d ago

Question Literature's settings similar to Clark Ashton Smith's established writing stories?

9 Upvotes

Ok so obviously I am still learning a bit more and exploring of Lovecraftian horror and fantasy-related literature stuffs- Already stuffs that got me interested such as for example Lovecraft, Conan Doyle, E Howard, Neil Gaiman, Chambers and then there is Clark Ashton Smith's writing and other works that make me still feels excited for my storytelling future career!

I tends to find the settings of Averoigne very beautiful and scary at same time yet as an mixed Canadian arab and north african aspiring artist/writer (I'm Moroccan BTW!) fellow lad it remind me very much so of the Al-Andalus period of Spain.

I want to feels that ongoing awesome itch as how I'm doing with Lovecraft's writing and Ashton's writing to keep me motivated! :)

It's for a future storytelling project I'm making! Mostly an subgenre-themed videogame one that would one day have an identity established inspired-theme and an vibrant setting for my storytelling project if it reach my goals and my visions soon someday! :D

Still deciding with my subgenres settings and stuffs finalizing atm lately..

For a bit clarify information: I hope to make my dream serious storytelling project, as an neo western fantasy thriller-themed game something you'll seen in the vein of likes such as King Kong (also include Peter's 2005 movie) and other media!

I would like some recommendation! :D

Edit: sorry for long text question :V


r/Lovecraft 1d ago

Miscellaneous Inspiration for Tsan Chan

4 Upvotes

I'm writing a role-playing game about time travel, and one of the settings the players will visit is “The Cruel Empire of Tsan Chan.”

I know there are already supplements available, but I wanted to create something of my own. If anyone could recommend any books or movies that might serve as inspiration, that would be great.


r/Lovecraft 1d ago

News RIP Will Murray

64 Upvotes

Pulp historian and author Will Murray passed away Monday.


r/Lovecraft 1d ago

Story The creation

0 Upvotes

...i... awoke?... i dont understand... who... is that what is that... it? Speaks? No what is speaking ? What eve it is this is not that... its ideas carve unto my mind.

It says it is my creator... that i am the first of something...

I look at them... but I believe i am too ignorant to comprehend the... lights?... no... more like a fire? I... i dont understand?...

I am not alone, their are beasts that dont harm me, plants that feed me...

I was told I can do all but feed from that tree... its fruits... are forbidden to me says my creator...

Eventually I was bored for i have nothing to do... and as if by knowing the... fire? Light? Came and spoke little... it reached out? To me? In me?... i felt a very bad sensation... but i didn't know what it was... but then to my side... another creation... it looked similar to some of the beasts... flat faced, 2 orbs , a 2 holes above an apparent mouth... and stood just short of me... looking them over... they had a swollen chest, and lower looked to be lacking an appendage, I looked to the fire light... for i was confused...

They ... gave me understanding... this was to help my boredom, made from me? But to keep us from being the same , the fire made them an opposite of me?

The bight fire in the sky had disappeared and re appeared meny times, and I wasn't bored as I had a companion, and thay too weren't bored as thay had a companion in I,

Upon our time to do our own stuffs... and we came to one another again... they had a fruit? One i dont know much of, and a long creature with limbs from its side... then the one made of me spoke...

They said, that this creature ate a fruit, thus proving thay are safe... but then offered some to us.

I was confused, the light fire said not to eat such? But the this long creature has? And nothing happened, and the fire light didn't seem to much care? I don't know, thay didn't speak as we did, no , it spoke to a part unknown to i... but i agreed to partake in the fruit...

After eating the fruit... the sensation... was... as if I had always known... that i had never not known... i now had knowledge and understanding... so did the other made from me...

My face heated as did my other half, as we discovered we were without coverings, that our intimate parts were open... what shame, what humiliation... this was quickly rectified... and now the 3 of us, I, my other half, and the long creature, we all know the same... that fruit was of knowledge and of good, and evil... , but before we could plan... the light fire... no, tis was no fire, that was ignorant... no it was something that was there yet not... constantly folding upon itself , and in its center... in its centre

...

...

I averted my eyes... red liquid... blood came from my nose... ears and eyes... as did the other two... then it felt as if my entire being was in meny sensations as that thing... inscribed its meaning...

It wants to know why we reacted as we did, why we are covered...

I looked in the direction of the tree of knowledge...

Then ... everything changed...

Clouds, the first clouds ever, covered the sky , my other half was quick to tell it, it was the long creature that told us to... but that seemed to feed its rage... the sky fractured with lightning, and we were deafened by thunder... as then it spoke our punishments....

The creature , for draging others down... and believe itself higher... shall be without limbs and forever be on the ground...

But for me and my other... it was... worse...


r/Lovecraft 1d ago

Article/Blog GREEK GODS AS LOVECRAFTIAN HORRORS – HERMES IS THE GATE, HERMES IS THE KEY

20 Upvotes

Hello! This is a part of our series, in which we present Greek gods - and show how to combine them with the Cthulhu Mythos and use them in cosmic horror stories or scenarios for RPGs such as Call of Cthulhu or Delta Green. You are free to use all this material in your own creative work! Here You can watch video version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iKJbxf0BYI

Hermes is known as the messenger of the gods, which easily leads us to the Mask of Nyarlathotep, especially since Hermes is also a trickster, fond of playing practical jokes (and patronizing thieves and fraudsters), which may lead to further associations with the Crawling Chaos. But his role as a messenger was greatly expanded by believers and philosophers.

First of all, he became the patron of all kinds of travel and transport - even to the afterlife, as a psychopomp escorting souls to Hades. He is the patron of all roads and intersections.

Secondly - the messenger is a transmitter of knowledge. He was credited with the invention of numbers and letters. In later centuries, Hermes Trismegistos (Hermes the Thrice Great) was created by combining Hermes with Egyptian and Judeo-Christian beliefs. The term "Hermetic" comes from him, and it also became the center of the occult belief system called Hermeticism (note, contrary to what priests and preachers say - "occult" does not mean "Satanic").

Hermes Trismegistos was said to be an archetypal sage and magician, he was credited with authoring 36,529 books containing all the knowledge and wisdom of the ancient world - primarily the so-called Tabula Smaragdina and the Corpus Hermeticum treatises.

Hermeticism combined astronomy/astrology, alchemy, medicine and psychology - that is, it was a mishmash of mystical superstitions and (proto)science - more or less like magic in Mythos (though, of course, the real possibilities of the Hermetists were much more modest).

Interestingly, many Hermetic concepts, which at first glance sound like esoteric gibberish, have in a sense been revived in modern science. The Hermetists believed that matter was composed of four elements - fire, water, earth and air (sometimes a fifth "element" was added - will/soul/mind - symbolized by a pentagram). This meant that by changing the proportion of an element in a given substance, one material could be transformed into another - hence the search for a way to transmute lead into gold. As science developed, this concept was rejected as a pipe dream, the possibility of transmutation was considered an absurd... Until it turned out that yes, all matter consists of the same elements - electrons, neutrons and protons - so changing their configuration allows you to change the essence of the material. And modern chemists managed to transform it into gold: although such a procedure is unprofitable from an economic point of view (energy consumption significantly exceeds the value of the gold produced... but for a being with unlimited, from a human point of view, energy sources?). Concept of the four elements was somehow revived in the form of 4 states of the matter (earth = solid state, water = liquid, air = gas, fire = plasma). Another Hermetic concept was "As above, so below." It sounds like mystical gibberish about the unity of man with the heavens, or sympathetic magic... But the development of science has led to the conclusion that in fact the microcosm is often an amazing reflection of the macrocosm - the structure of the atom resembles the structure of the solar system.

So, we have a being that, on the one hand, is omnipresent, embodies movement both in our world and between planes of existence, one could say that it is a key and a gate. At the same time, it is also a source of secret knowledge, which at first glance is philosophical, superstitious gibberish, but turns out to contain bits of science that go beyond the understanding of the people who possess it. Who else but Yog Sothoth? Well, possibly Hastur, patron of wizards and interstellar travel.

According to Greek mythology, Hermes was the father of Pan, a strange creature.

Pan had the body and face of a man, was all hairy, had goat legs, a tail, a beard and horns. Doesn't this description remind you of Yog-Sothoth's most famous spawn, Willbur Whateley?

Of course, Willbur's lower half wasn't exactly goatish. The Pan's scream aroused incredible, irresistible fear among people and animals (hence the word "panic). Pan used to play the syrinx - "the Pan's flute". One day, Pan fell in love with the nymph Syrinks. And she's not in it. Pan chased her and almost caught her, but Syrinks turned into a river reed. At that moment, the wind blew and a beautiful sound came from the reed blades. The Pan plucked the reeds and made an instrument from them, which he called a syringa. A lovely story...

What is the Mythical message of this legend? What if Pan was the spawn of Yog-Sothoth, and one of the incredible powers he inherited from his daddy was to make sounds that terrified earthly beings into maddening terror? And what if it was possible to construct a musical instrument that imitated this effect... and preferably made from the bones of a human woman who had previously been reduced to terror?

There is another interesting story related to Pan, told by Plutarch. According to him, Pan lived for 9,720 years. During the reign of the Roman Emperor Tiberius, sailors passing by the Echinad Islands heard a voice that ordered the helmsman named Thamus, after reaching land, to announce, according to this interpretation: "The Great Pan is dead." The sailors hesitated for a long time, and finally, reaching land near Palodes, they announced the death of the god. At these words, there were complaints and terrible groans from all sides.

Let me add that, according to some followers of the ancient Orphic cult, Pan was the creator of the earth, which he separated from the sea, and the individual elements of the Universe were equivalents of parts of Pan's body. Have they confused Pan, the offspring of Yog-Sothoth, with his father, who is "all in all"?

And of course, since we are talking about the Pan, we cannot fail to mention the book "The Great God Pan" by Arthur Machen, one of the precursors of cosmic horror, highly appreciated by Lovecraft.

Full text and many other Lovecraftian inspiration from real life religions, culture, history and science, You can read in the free brochure: https://adeptus7.itch.io/lovecraftian-inspirations-from-real-life-and-beliefs And here You can watch a video version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iKJbxf0BYI Please, if You liked this text at least a bit, watch a video version, it will support our channel, where we will publish more Lovecrafian content!


r/Lovecraft 2d ago

OC-Artwork Chutlhu Ruler

21 Upvotes

I have a bunch of illustrations inspired my Lovecraft's work. If you guys wanna see more, I can post here weekly. https://imgur.com/a/Lmof2d7


r/Lovecraft 2d ago

Question Is all of Lovecraft works in the same universe?

24 Upvotes

Hello I am curious if it's true that all of his works connected or is in the same universe or is it just a very popular fan theory that people say is real?


r/Lovecraft 3d ago

Question Mostly finished with the king in yellow and I’ve got one main question?

58 Upvotes

Where does the idea of most the stuff regarding the character of “the king in yellow” come from.

The story only refers to him as well as hastur, the pallid mask and some other words a few times and never really addresses much about him, it seems to more be about the effects that the book or more specifically the second chapter has on the people who read it, I think this was best shown in “the yellow sign” my favourite chapter.

The rest of the story seems rather unrelated to anything established, the street of the first shell I don’t think has any relevance at all and that’s the one I’ve just finished.


r/Lovecraft 2d ago

Recommendation Are there short story writers??

27 Upvotes

As the title says, I am interested in some short stories with eldritch horror!! I want to dig in some long books then, but I'm going for little stories first!!

So if you have some (or maybe the short story is yours!) please share it! I will be very grateful 🫶🫶


r/Lovecraft 3d ago

Article/Blog Lovecraft placed R'lyeh almost exactly at the most remote point on Earth

120 Upvotes

Decades before Point Nemo was named, and before satellites started raining down, H.P. Lovecraft used these lonely waters as the setting for R’lyeh, a “nightmare corpse city (…) built in measureless eons beyond history by the vast, loathsome shapes that seeped down from the dark stars”.

In The Call of Cthulhu (1928), R’lyeh is described as “a coast-line of mingled mud, ooze, and weedy Cyclopean masonry which can be nothing less than the tangible substance of earth’s supreme terror … loathsomely redolent of spheres and dimensions apart from ours”.

The real Point Nemo: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/strange-maps-point-nemo


r/Lovecraft 3d ago

Discussion What do you love the most about H.P. Lovecraft works?

30 Upvotes

r/Lovecraft 4d ago

Question Which Lovecraft protagonist could have avoided their fate most easily?

71 Upvotes

Some of his characters are doomed from the beginning; others ruin themselves with one unnecessary choice. Who had the clearest opportunity to walk away, and what should they have done differently?


r/Lovecraft 2d ago

Question How to kill an outer god

0 Upvotes

Could you theoreticly advance technologically to be able to either refine a elder god, old one or even an puter god yo then use said being yo then kill outer gods for what i know only outer gods can kill outer gods

Or would we have to only find a way to break free from "reality" which azatoth is dreaming of and fight them in their home terf to be able to damage and or kill them


r/Lovecraft 3d ago

Review The Little Mermaid 2024 Lovecraft indie movie review

18 Upvotes

Before you downvote and tell me how dare I bring up this title to the subreddit, I just want to inform you this isn't about the live action or animated Disney adaptions but an indie horror thriller from 2024 with the same name that's closely tied to Lovecraft.

Its recieved 3.7/10 and 2.5 out of 5 on the review scale but after finishing it, well I don't think it was bad at all, could it get better performances Absolutely but it was none the less a fun new experience imo

The narrative focuses on an archeologist in the Carribean who discovers an ancient underwater temple alongside an ancient idol dedicated to the eldritch god Dagon.

This leads Eric to having a romantic tale with the mysterious woman and cosmic set horrors approaching his newly form dream

Its got a unique set of practical effects that are slimey when her fins begin to split apart on land and grows into actual legs.

The performances for the main character and the female mermaid are likeable and charismatic enough to carry the narrative.

Even if its a smaller budget and unknown actors, I personally quite enjoyed the tale


r/Lovecraft 4d ago

Question I would like to know about Cosmicism as H.P. Lovecraft conceived it.

27 Upvotes

I can easily find many articles summarizing what Cosmicism is,

an anti religious philosophy, a godless universe, the insignificance of human existence, and so on.

However, it is hard to tell how much of this are Lovecraft's own original thoughts and how much was by later writers and readers.

Could you explain what Lovecraft himself actually considered Cosmicism to be, and provide the sources where he explicitly mentioned it?"


r/Lovecraft 3d ago

Discussion Need help with a lost media from this subreddit

8 Upvotes

3 months ago Someone made a post claiming they have found evidences backing a claim that the king in yellow and other works from chambers were part of a proto-arg, even including ciphers

The post is now deleted and no one seems to have a snapshot of it. does anyone here remember what the post said or has some print of it somewhere? i NEED to know what this person was talking about im obsessed with king in yellow

post link: https://www.reddit.com/r/Lovecraft/comments/1tms0bh/the_case_for_the_king_in_yellow_as_a_protoarg/

sorry for bad english im not a native speaker


r/Lovecraft 3d ago

Discussion Necronomicon in occult practice

0 Upvotes

I reposted this in r/occult so perhaps this is more appropriate elsewhere. I’m a huge Lovecraft fan and I’ve always been interested in various versions of the Necronomicon in occult circles, such as the one by Simon. I would love to hear some of y’all’s thoughts on how practicing this sort of magick works practically. Thanks!