/ysg/ - Yog-Sothothery General

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Makes me think of the desert otherworld from nightvale. I wish it was good

Anyone got links to Slaves Of The Mother for ToC?

Never listened to Nightvale, descriptions of it seemed random for the sake of it, is it actually not that good?

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The corn is where we keep the children. See to it that they are fed.

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I don't feel like there's too much random gratia random, but for me there's too much of this thing where they lingeringly portray a given event/description for the sake of the out-of-universe listeners, to make sure you don't miss how weird and unusual the town is, that brings me out of the experience because obviously the local radio station wouldn't explain to people in-universe that all cats are robots or that everyone knows their houses are bugged.
It scratches my itch for a sp00ky podcast, and it's not bad enough that I've dropped it, but at times it's a bit... horror-flavoured twee rather than actual horror.

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Their other podcast is better. "Alice isn't dead". Actual plot, actual scary bits, no explaining things to characters that already know those things.

Bump

here's my interpretation of Tsathoggua:

Contrary to popular belief, there are not a lot of great old ones that actually eat people. Why would they? It is repeated consistently in Lovecraft's stories that the old ones are not made of the same kind of matter as life as we know it, so digestion would be impossible. Tsathoggua, is somehow an exception to this rule, and is noted for devouring a lot of animal matter, along with his formless spawn. How? I suggest that Tsathoggua, unlike Cthulhu, Hasthur, Cthugga, etc. is like his spawn, formless, and that the form he takes on is a consequence of the terrestrial matter he absorbs, both directly, and through his formless spawn (who are likely appendages of Tsathoggua himself, attached through some extra-dimensional space imperceptible to us). This also explains why Tsathoggua looks particularly familiar and of this world, by great old one standards. He has a mammalian form as a consequence of eating mammals.

tl;dr Tsathoggua is what he eats.

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I feel like urban cosmic horror is underexplored. While wide open spaces seem to allow more isolation and thus more secrecy, as well as larger beings, in practice many more secrets or possible in an urban settings. No one will ever think anything of the strange noises, or the abandoned houses. The sea of background sprawl and decay is already surreal to the human mind, used to dealing with one thing at a time. And the little crowded and not clearly organized spaces can easily turn out to hold spaces and passages nobody fully understands. Lovecrafts "Him" demonstrates the effectiveness of this urban maze as does the following "Fungi from Yuggoth" sonnet:

I held the book beneath my coat, at pains
To hide the thing from sight in such a place;
Hurrying through the ancient harbor lanes
With often-turning head and nervous pace.
Dull, furtive windows in old tottering brick
Peered at me oddly as I hastened by,
And thinking what they sheltered, I grew sick
For a redeeming glimpse of clean blue sky.

No one had seen me take the thing—but still
A blank laugh echoed in my whirling head,
And I could guess what nighted worlds of ill
Lurked in that volume I had coveted.
The way grew strange—the walls alike and madding—
And far behind me, unseen feet were padding.

The city is a very strange place. A lot of surreal horror to date has leveraged this, but little lovecraftian horror. I also find it odd that the two don't have more overlap (not to say that there isn't any, just not as much as you would think).

idk why we don't just have a link to this in the OP, since it gets posted every thread

How urban would you want it to be? A New York City sized area? Quite a few stories I've read take place in a single city, and quite often involve the shadier/decayed parts of town. 'Cold Print' by Ramsey Campbell for instance has a man find a bookstore that holds a terrible secret. Lovecraft did enjoy his dying towns though. The first paragraph of 'The Picture in the House' is a great example.

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bump

One night in Arkham

I think we seen enough hentai to know wehere this is headed.

Why these threads die so easily now?

Because there is no purpose to them. No discussion.

Plus, the fact fucking NOBODY here knows any Lovecraftian stuff besides Lovecraft and Robert Chambers is galling. Maybe a few know machen and Algernon but there's zero discussion of Ligotti or Campbell. Which is an issue because, because of that, we don't have any new or innovative ideas to discuss.

Most of Lovecraft's work that could make it into a game has done so. Likewise with Chambers. Algnernon is inappropiate and Machen is unused...Because he's unused. Likewise with the two newer authors I mentioned.

What I'd like to discuss is how you guys would run a Ligotti or Campbell inspired game but, again, nobody here actually knows who they are to any great degree so I can't.

I'll probably use UA or Gumshoe: Unremitting Horror. I don't know which stories would be best to base it on, maybe Dream of a Mannikin/The Cocoons or The Darkest Par of the Woods respectively? But then, Darkest Part of the Woods seems unintuative for UA.

>Lovecraftian stuff besides Lovecraft
There are good fanfics 'bout Yog-Sothothery?

You might want to check out the book Kraken. It's not tied to yog sothothery but it does have lots of bizarre, sorcerous, and dimensional madness. Set in London and stays within the city.

So I recently learned of an interesting rpg called JAGS Wonderland. Essentially it takes some inspiration from Lewis Carrol's various books, and then turns them into eldritch horror (which to be fair isn't really that hard).

The basic premise is that their is a form a apparently contagious insanity. Those with it occasionally slip into the lower levels of reality where things start to get really strange. The player characters are people with this condition trying to live normal lives while occasionally having to deal with the inconvenience of escaping from another dimension while being hunted by various eldritch horrors.

Dozens. Campbell is great for instance and definitely the guy who comes closest to evoking that feel.

But you see, Yog-Sothothery isn't Lovecraft.It isn't just him. The ideas, themes, atmosphere and monstrosities it makes extend beyond the work of one guy and instead, can be seen used by many authors both before and after Lovecraft.

To just stick to his ideas is stupid. Lovecraft himself referenced other writers, like in The Dunwich Horror.

>Planning to start GM'ing Trail of Cthulhu
>Decide get some pre-made adventures to get the grasp of the system before OC donut steel campaings.
>Almost all of them treat mythos creatures and beings as any regular D&D monster but nominally spooky.
>My face.

How much sci fi do you want in your cosmic horror? how much fantasy?

it's funny, I'm not a big fan of sci fi in general but I find myself mentally trying to tie concepts form science into Lovecraft's stuff and "harden" it if you will. Like right now I', trying to explain the wings of the mi-go etc. which were designed for flying through the aether...which we now think doesn't exist.

There is an interesting tension between the analytical and romantic interpretation of cosmic horror. A lot of that is because Lovecraft himself had this tension.

I have read tons of Mythos authors, and own quite a few collections. I feel that Ramsey Campbell is probably one of the best, but have enjoyed Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard. Robert Bloch, Frank Belknap Long, Henry Kuttner, Fritz Leiber, Brain Lumley, Arthur Machen, Lin Carter, I could go on and on for probably another twenty names.

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>Get away from my waifu!

The sleeping old one looks cute as f'tagn.

>Stupid sexy Dagon.

Im a big fan of the Laundry, which explains magic as high level mathematics. At first it seemed a bitt off and far too controlled, but as the books go on the comfy and controlled 'desk job' feel crumbles around the character.

Charles Stross has a wonderful take on Yog-Sothothery in the modern world too.

how do I get more info on that?
looking up the laundry yields results about dirty clothes

Oh, err, try The Laundry Files and Charles Stross.

There is an RPG by cubicle 7 too. Think its BRP based.

This image is pure art.

If I could find a copy of Ligotti's works sure, and besides we've yammered about Y'golonac and Ghroth the Harbinger.

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>STALKER 2
Please stop reminding me of what will never be.

Ligotti is a GOAT horror writer and it's a crime that he is as underexposed as he is but I don't know if anything he's written would make great fodder for RPGs (I'm only about halfway through Grimscribe/Songs of a Dead Dreamer so I may be wrong). If anything he should be studied by people who want to write straightforward but well executed weird horror.

Delta Green handles modern Yog-Sothothery in a similar, albeit much more bleak way than The Laundry if you're into that kind of thing. Not to disparage either, but I think DG handles cosmic horror in a way much closer to the source material.

Sorry friend, STALKER 2 and Half-Life 3 will always make me sad too.

Can't say I've seen much of Ligotti's work.

haha

I'd fuck it.

Also
T H I S

I'd stick my Monolith in him.

So like the Dreamlands and the Waking World but Lewis Carrol

If this thread dies Azathoth wakes.

So is /ysg/ now RIP?

This is fucking awesome.

make sense, Lewis Carrol also had a sleeping king who is dreaming all of existence and the universe will end if he wakes up

Holy fuck is that true?

yep, the Red King in Alice through the Looking Glass, to quote the actual section in the book:

"He's dreaming now" said Tweedledee "and what do you think he's dreaming about?"
Alice said "nobody can guess that"
"Why about you!" Tweedledee exclaimed, clapping his hands triumphantly. "And if he left off dreaming about you, where do you suppose you'd be?"
"Where I am now of course" said Alice
"Not you!" Tweedledee retorted contemptuously. "You'd be nowhere. Why you're only a sort of thing in his dream!"
"If the king were to wake" added Tweedledum "you'd go out - bang - just like a candle!"

Jesus Christ.

this is why Lewis Carrol is the best way to introduce your children to existential horror at a young age

"But I don't want to go among mad people"
"Oh that can't be helped we're all mad here, I'm mad you're mad"
"I'm not mad"
"You must be, or you wouldn't have come here"

Since it keeps coming up why don't we make a list of Lovecraftian writing for people here to use as a resource? I'll start -
The Laundry Files by Charles Stross
Delta Green books
Thomas Ligotti
Laird Barron
Clive Barker
John Dies at the End - David Wong