In which setting do you play?

[antares]

Originally Posted by jeff_wilson

I picked that one up at Waldenbooks in paperback about 25 years ago.

Here's the HPL quote, IIRC: "The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild, and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and reveling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom."

What is HPL?

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by antares

What is HPL?

This smiling fella.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by antares

No idea. It is years that I have seen him. The book was about conjuring ancient Babylonian gods or demons.

Since we are chasing this off topic tangent anyway:

That's the absolutely awful "Simon" Necronomicon. It has little and nothing to do with the mythos but rather is and elaborate an incoherent hoax by some guy who didn't bother to do any research.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by antares

What is HPL?

The same guy I quoted in #8. In fact Jeff and I picked the exact same lines to illustrate how much of a parallel there was between his ideas and transhumanism.

Bill Stoddard

[antares]

Ok, I see. Seems like there is more substance behind it then I thought.
I thought it was like a kids version of Crowley going crazy (well, even more crazy one could argue ...)

[sir_pudding]

This is a very well organized and formatted free (or $0.99 via Whispernet) ebook collection of all of Lovecraft's short fiction and prose poetry that's currently public domain.

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by whswhs

You aren't reading the Cthulhu material very carefully. Here are Lovecraft's exact words about what happens when the stars are right and Cthulhu rises:

The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom.

I think that can be read as a portrayal of transhuman existence—as seen by someone who dreads it, to be sure.

Lovecraft's underlying idea is not that superstition as such is true. It's that exact, accurate scientific knowledge of the world reveals horror and despair; that beings who could live and function with that knowledge would not be what we regard as "human" and would not care about anything that human beings value. The ancient tomes and necromantic spells are meant only as early glimpses of the true world, badly misunderstood by the people who saw them—as was inevitable, because of SAN loss.

I've been having good luck with a THS cosmic horror campaign, in which I've faced the PCs with everything from a genetically engineering memetics genius to a living metal cyberentity from another solar system.

Bill Stoddard

You brought a smile to my face with the use of 'SAN.' Play CoC much, Bill? :)


THS is a great fit for weird horror.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

You brought a smile to my face with the use of 'SAN.' Play CoC much, Bill?

Actually, no. I've run one campaign, I'm currently playing in one, and I'm setting up to run a campaign in the Laundry Files, which is basically CoC with minor tweaks; that's only three. The only rpg I'd say I play "much" is GURPS. But I figure everyone will get "SAN loss."

Bill Stoddard