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Cthulhu Mythos and Warhammer


Acid_Nine

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So with halloween coming up I decided now is the perfect time to do a deep dive in the Cthulhu Mythos, and lately I have been wanting a discussion about all the ways Warhammer was influenced by lovecraft. Anywhere from cultists to the chaos gods, I want to hear people’s thoughts!

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There is definitely a lot of lovecraftian influence in Warhammer. One of the important ones is the corrupting effect of magic in WFB and WFRP. The fact that you can easily go a bit to far, and end up mad, a mutant or worse very much fits with the nihilistic themes of a lot of Cthulhu mythos stuff.

The Realm of Chaos stuff as a whole also has a very lovecraftian theme, and in many ways it seems that was the original "warhammer" setting, before the Old World of 40K's galaxy were really codified.

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39 minutes ago, CitizenX said:

I feel like the Chaos gods and their motifs are more directly pulled from Moorcock's Eternal Champion books. (The Chaos symbol of the eight pointed star in particular is taken from his writing. ) 

Absolutely.  Even several forms of Arioch echo the design of raw chaos entities and Stormbringer is the original demonic weapon.  When I first got into GW in the late 80's the Elven dragon riders WERE Elric and Dyvim Tvar.  I think I had a Moonglum and Rackhir, the Red Archer as well.

Obviously Lovecraft influenced the influencers but WFB was pretty much Tolkien meets Moorcock.    Blanche and Miller and the rest of the group really ran with the Chaos thing taking it to level 11 on acid.  There are more tentacles/mutations which have Lovecraftian parallels.

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I don't think that Lovecraft influence is particularly strong in WHFB, and probably even less in AoS. It is a bit more apparent in 40k, with the great menacing vast space and underlying nihilism.... and Tyranids! Perhaps more in the early years.

I do think Chaos could be considered to have some lovecraftian flavor, with crazy nightmarish monsters like Spawns or the simple fact that Chaos in itself can make a person go crazy just by trying to understand the whole scope of it (like Archaon?). But Lovecraft doesn't seem to be mentioned as inspiration. Moorcock/Tolkien seem to be the common answer, but apparently Jack Vance and Clark Ashton Smith were equally important (maybe less known?). There is a cool interview with Brian Ansell discussing this: https://realmofchaos80s.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-mighty-avenger-interview-with-bryan.html

Another bit of WHFB fluff that makes me think of Lovecraft are the Old Ones. Maybe obvious reference to the "Great Old Ones" although the way they are presented in Warhammer (being the creators and hanging out in Lustria) makes me think more of Anunnaki Mythos. But of course, one could argue there is maybe a link between both? Who knows!  I really think that AoS could use the Old Ones as narrative development now that it's all about Gods flying around and magical stuff everywhere. And would make sense considering Lizardmen hang out in space, there a dimensional portals and all that.

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There was a general fantasy soup around the time that Warhammer came into life. Moorcock, Tolkien, Conan, Cuthulu, DnD - a lot of big names were formed around the same period of time and there was a lot of influences bouncing around. Of them I think Cuthulu has actually had a bigger revival in more recent times which has put the name into more peoples minds. However I agree that whilst Warhammer and 40K likely had some influences either direct from it or by association from other brands, I don't think its as heavy an influence as some others. 

 

 

Also don't forget that for all its popularity the Cuthulu material is actually quite small and light in content. It's mostly short horror stories without extensive overarching world building. As a result its really easy to start saying "Oh that's cuthulu because its got a tentacle mouth (eg a lictor)" when in reality its just a tentacle mouth without any link. Because the source material for Cuthulu is limited and fairly casual (by today's world building standards) its really easy to see potential casual links were they aren't really present. 

So I think if its there its subtle, a little bit here and a little bit there. You might find some in the Black Library short stories (eg old inferno) and tales which might take some inspiration or use the same story structure etc... in homage. 

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48 minutes ago, Overread said:

There was a general fantasy soup around the time that Warhammer came into life. Moorcock, Tolkien, Conan, Cuthulu, DnD - a lot of big names were formed around the same period of time and there was a lot of influences bouncing around. Of them I think Cuthulu has actually had a bigger revival in more recent times which has put the name into more peoples minds. However I agree that whilst Warhammer and 40K likely had some influences either direct from it or by association from other brands, I don't think its as heavy an influence as some others. 

 

 

Also don't forget that for all its popularity the Cuthulu material is actually quite small and light in content. It's mostly short horror stories without extensive overarching world building. As a result its really easy to start saying "Oh that's cuthulu because its got a tentacle mouth (eg a lictor)" when in reality its just a tentacle mouth without any link. Because the source material for Cuthulu is limited and fairly casual (by today's world building standards) its really easy to see potential casual links were they aren't really present. 

So I think if its there its subtle, a little bit here and a little bit there. You might find some in the Black Library short stories (eg old inferno) and tales which might take some inspiration or use the same story structure etc... in homage. 

For that matter, Cthulhu itself and the tentacled aesthetic it inspired in everything from Mind Flayers and Davy Jones, to some tyranids and the helmets of certain Corsair captains, is actually not that prominent in Lovecraft's work. Most of the stories don't actually involve Cthulhu at all, and records suggest that he didn't consider it as central a part of his mythos as later authors would. Lovecraft called his horror stories "Yog-Sothothery" suggesting that he considered that god to be more central to them than Cthulhu and the Great Old Ones.

However, The Call of Cthulhu is one of the best stories, and became the iconic one, providing a touch stone for a lot of what came later.

The original stories also have several different cycles, which have often been canon welded together into a more coherent setting than originally intended. Some were written by lovecraft, but others were written by Robert E Howard, Clark Ashton Smith and numerous other of their friends. After his death far more authors began contributing to the mythos, leading the its resurgence within gaming circles in more recent times.

Its notable that a lot of people who play Cthulhu mythos games don't actually read the original stories, and so the pop cultural "idea" of what Cthulhu is about has somewhat grown beyond what it actually is about. This means that the more casual and aesthetic influences can be the most obvious, while more subtle themes aren't really recognised as being lovecraftian any more, since every horror author of the last 90 years has put their own spin on them.

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great discussion so far guys. What do you think about some elements within the  black library stories?  In my oppinion, a lot of the Malign portent stories from the campaign had some good lovecraftian vibe. the 'mirror's eye' short particularly felt akin to the Hounds of Tinderlous story that I recently listened to, a man trying to scry events in the realm of death, only to be taken by some unknown entity from a long dead city.  We the reader know what took him, but to the guy is still killed by some unknown, unnameable monster from dead eons.

The warcry cults are also pretty fun to compare to lovecraftian ideas. The Unmade themselves feel very akin to a cult of an outer god, just turned up to 11. Rites and Rituals of madness that allow them to experience new sensations, going mad in the process and seeking to explore more of these dark arts on others does feel like it could be something from the mythos, no?

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