FWIW, I think your Dream Quest material should have wonder but also a strong touch of cosmic horror, since I'm noticing that, as you have put it (iirc), these stories are half-way points between his Dunsany phase of wonder and the later phase of nihilistic horror. The wonder should be there but should lead to the horror. Then again, being a hopeful dreamer, seeing vistas of wondrous beauty, and then being quashed by nihilism is pretty stinking downbeat and negative. Seems even worse than being a clerk or historian and stumbling on the Mythos, as in CoC. But what do I know? Forgive the rambling...
I disagree about the horror bit, as I'd prefer to see the more secret world of Lovecraft - the one beyond the eldritch reach of the tentacle or the burble of a gilled cultist.
I think it would be very interesting if Dream-cycle Lovecraft were a major, if mostly hidden, NPC within the game, and maybe contemporary New Englander E.E.Cummings (or at least his goat-footed balloon man) as the world's scribe.
Dream-cycle Lovecraft himself would provide a fascinating in-game frame and (ironically!) its chief background deity. He could travel about the Dreamlands riding his dreamcycle, role-playing at his own personas, never once revealing that he is not only the environment's inspiration, but in deepest truth, its designer.
I used to ride my bicycle in the night With a dandy acetylene lantern that cost $3.00
FWIW, I think your Dream Quest material should have wonder but also a strong touch of cosmic horror, since I'm noticing that, as you have put it (iirc), these stories are half-way points between his Dunsany phase of wonder and the later phase of nihilistic horror. The wonder should be there but should lead to the horror. Then again, being a hopeful dreamer, seeing vistas of wondrous beauty, and then being quashed by nihilism is pretty stinking downbeat and negative. Seems even worse than being a clerk or historian and stumbling on the Mythos, as in CoC. But what do I know? Forgive the rambling...
ReplyDeleteI disagree about the horror bit, as I'd prefer to see the more secret world of Lovecraft - the one beyond the eldritch reach of the tentacle or the burble of a gilled cultist.
ReplyDeleteI think it would be very interesting if Dream-cycle Lovecraft were a major, if mostly hidden, NPC within the game, and maybe contemporary New Englander E.E.Cummings (or at least his goat-footed balloon man) as the world's scribe.
Dream-cycle Lovecraft himself would provide a fascinating in-game frame and (ironically!) its chief background deity. He could travel about the Dreamlands riding his dreamcycle, role-playing at his own personas, never once revealing that he is not only the environment's inspiration, but in deepest truth, its designer.
I used to ride my bicycle in the night
With a dandy acetylene lantern that cost $3.00