Eldritch Etchings
Gee, Eldra, why does Mother Hydra let you have two blogs?
I have two blogs:
Eldritch Etchings (you are here): general purpose posts, game reviews, and blog posts that provide my thoughts and behind-the-scenes information about the Eldritch Echoes podcast. I don’t like to give my commentary during the story videos.
Blog of Hours: Weather Factory game posts. Cultist Simulator and Book of Hours content.
I have them separated out because some people really don’t like Cultist Simulator or Book of Hours. Other people only are here for the Cultist Simulator and Book of Hours content.
“The Mysterious Ship” by H.P. Lovecraft
Did you know: Lovecraft’s first work featuring an arctic environment was not “At The Mountains of Madness?” It was “The Mysterious Ship,” which he wrote in his youth.
This story marks Lovecraft’s first fiction piece featuring an arctic (or Antarctic) environment! Most famously, we obviously see him explore the Antarctic ‘Mountains of Madness’ in later works. There are no shoggoths to be found in this story. For historical context, note this story was written in 1902, when Lovecraft would’ve been 11 or 12. It was thus written seven years before Peary’s claim of having reached the North Pole. A lot of younger audiences may not know this: the race to the North and South Poles was somewhat like the space race to the moon. It was an achievement many countries were vying for, so it would’ve been a part of both the American cultural zeitgeist. It may have also been a common theme in pulp, adventure, and mystery fiction, of which Lovecraft was openly and clearly a fan.
I highly perusing Brown’s scans of the typed manuscript. Lovecraft’s art is adorable. Brown Digital Repository | Item | bdr:425208 I’ve provided snippets of said art at the bottom of this blog post.
I read the ‘long version’ of the story for my reading and decided against doing two separate videos (one for the short version, one for the long version.) I had to ad lib some parts that Lovecraft left unfinished, especially at the end, and skip over what may have been spelling mistakes. Note that the chapter marks are part of the original text.
This is another piece of Lovecraft’s juvenilia and it shows. It’s got his fascination with pirates, the sea, mysteries, and spring mechanisms. Note that the springs mentioned are the boing-boing type springs, not water springs.
This story is rather Vernian, given the mention of not just one, but two submarines. Note that Vernes’ “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea” was first released in English in 1872. It is thus not out of the question that Lovecraft read this book as a child.
I need to get my tentacles on another copy of S.T. Joshi and David E. Schultz’s “Lovecraft’s Library: A Catalogue.” I had a copy back in university. I highly recommend it as a resource for anyone interested in a deeper exploration of Lovecraft’s influences. I don’t think there’s a publication by S.T. Joshi that I wouldn’t recommend. If S.T. Joshi sold printer paper, that’s all I’d use exclusively, by merit of it being Joshi approved. I am an S.T. Joshi Stan (S.T.an?)
The motives of the pirates are never revealed. Why are they kidnapping people? Who is funding their submarine expeditions?
I don’t know what a ‘Madagascar reaper,’ is. It’s mentioned in the story at the end. Google failed me. Thanks, Google. I assume that, given Dahabea was kidnapped while doing farmwork, it’s literally a reaper: a scythe or some other instrument used to collect crops. Sometimes, a white whale is just a white whale, and sometimes, a reaper is just a reaper.
The Mysterious Ship cover art
I don’t know if Lovecraft himself drew this or not, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he did. He was a much better artist at the age of twelve(?) than I was and I wonder if he ever considered pursuing training in the visual arts. Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?
H.P. Lovecraft’s Rhode Island Flag
I would like to formally petition the state of Rhode Island to change their flag to this hand drawn version of the flag by the prince of Providence, Howard Phillips Lovecraft. If they change the flag, I will move there.
“The Mystery of the Grave-Yard,” Or, “A Dead Man’s Revenge,” A Detective Story by H.P. Lovecraft
Lovecraft’s suggested price: twenty-five cents. Honestly? A fair price.
This story was written in 1898, making Lovecraft under ten year olds when he wrote it. This text has a lot of spelling mistakes in the base text, dutifully transcribed on the H.P. Lovecraft website maintained by Donovan K. Loucks. The story is divided into twelve extremely short chapters, most only a few sentences long — but who am I to question young Lovecraft’s vision?
Note to Hollywood: please make a young Lovecraft movie, a la Young Frankenstein (it’s Franken-SCHTEIN.) I would watch it. I mean, maybe only I would watch it, but that’s besides the point.
This story is very much indicative of Lovecraft’s love of adventure tales and detective stories. It features everything: tombs, tunnels, hidden mechanisms/traps, a manhunt, and ‘treasure,’ in the form of the ransom money and the golden ball. We see the usage of a lot of stock characters: the detective with guns, the ‘kidnappers,’ and the person who escapes a situation using McGuyver-esque solutions (making a key out of a mold they made of wax.)
There really wasn’t a lot of detective work done in this ‘detective story.’ It’s a detective story insofar as there is a detective. King John doesn’t do any actual detective work. He shows up with guns at the right place at the right time, as a contributor/s so astutely stated on the Lovecraft Fandom wiki. If King John is a detective, so is the Payday squad in every single job.
I didn’t know if King John was a stock character from pulp stories but I can find no trace of him via a cursory Googling, so this may be one of Lovecraft’s original characters.
This is Lovecraft’s first story to be clearly stated to be set in England, given the mentions of Kent and usage of pounds in description of the ransom, but there’s no ‘Mainville’ in England as far as I can tell.
This was the first one of Lovecraft’s stories I had to censor when reading because of his description of the ‘hackman.’ He used a term that isn’t racist, just descriptive but antiquated. The hackman may be the first person whose skin tone is described in the works of Lovecraft. That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re the first person of color to appear in a work by Lovecraft. The lack of description of any character’s skin tone does not mean that we should assume Lovecraft wrote them — or intended them to be read as — a given ethnicity or not.
My policy for now will be to give any words Lovecraft used that same treatment, because his word choice wasn’t key to the story he was telling. Substituting it or removing it doesn’t change the story, here or in the majority of Lovecraft’s works. I’m just trying to read the stories, not get into an academic debate, and I’m also not trying to get my YouTube account banned.
This story opens with a funeral. “The Secret Cave” closed with a funeral. Lovecraft was no stranger to death at the age he wrote this story, and perhaps this story was inspired by the imagination of that fidgety boy in a scratchy suit attending long quiet New England funerals. The usage of a funeral as a plot device to lead into why someone would go into a tomb was very elegant.
I didn’t see the twist in this story coming. I won’t spoil it for you if you haven’t. The twist was rather silly.
I think it’s adorable that someone, perhaps Lovecraft, wrote a price on the back of the folder. I don’t know if the writing on the folder was from Lovecraft as a child, put on by an adult, or put on the folder when Lovecraft’s work went to auction. Either way, it’s a cute touch.
“The Secret Cave” (Or, John Lee’s Adventure) by H.P. Lovecraft
H.P. Lovecraft yearned for the caves…or did he?
“The Secret Cave” is the second surviving work by Howard Phillips Lovecraft. H.P. Lovecraft was only seven when he wrote this, the same age he was when he wrote “The Little Glass Bottle.” Like “Bottle,” this story features boats and treasure, but unlike “Bottle,” “Cave” takes a far darker turn.
The treasure in this story isn’t plain dollars, like in “Bottle,” but a hunk of gold. It’s no eldritch relic, but it’s the first time we hear of a rock featuring prominently in a work.
It’s also our first time reading about a secret passage in the works of H.P. Lovecraft. I believe I once read that Lovecraft was attested to have drawn inspiration from the tunnels of Pembroke College (one of the Seven Sisters women’s colleges, associated with Brown, now closed) but I cannot find the source. If you know what I’m talking about, send a tweet to me and I’ll update this post accordingly. Until then, the source: it came to me in a dream.
I digress. This story’s usage of tunnels is very Scrooge McDuck/Indiana Jones adventure pulpy. I think that is a more likely and realistic explanation of Lovecraft’s fascination with tunnels. Kids like tunnels. Kids like pulpy adventure content. -
I’m not sure if Alice’s fate was meant to seem like a twist in the end, but the mention of the “body” throughout the latter half of the work, at least to me, originally read as being just a random body or skeleton of some other treasure hunter, perhaps. Technically, this is the first death in Lovecraft’s oeuvre. Interestingly enough, Lovecraft was an only child. It’s also interesting that Lovecraft was writing about a protagonist that was older than him. A ten year old boy must seem very grown up to a child of only seven. It does make sense with the plot: perhaps seven is too young for a protagonist to have been left at home alone, babysitting another child, but ten was more common at the time? Maybe it was just a rule in Lovecraft’s own home?
What’s also interesting biographically is that the work is about children being left at home alone, yet, according to Lovecraft’s Wikipedia page, he was ‘never [let] out of [his mother’s] sight’ (H. P. Lovecraft - Wikipedia.) Does that make this a story about the dangers of being left alone? Or about yearning for unsupervised freedom? Perhaps both?
“The Little Glass Bottle” by H.P. Lovecraft
Did you know: H.P. Lovecraft was only seven years old when he wrote “The Little Glass Bottle?”
The Hay Ride Paragraph
I have a dark secret: I haven’t actually read all of Howard Phillips Lovecraft’s works, even though my focus is on his content. I want to change that, and if you’re in the same boat as me, you’re in the right place.
I know that these long preambles are usually found on recipe blogs (often about how a hay ride inspired an apple cider donut recipe,) not a weird librarian’s sideblog, but you must forgive me. It’s what Lovecraft would want.
I’m a big advocate for reading the works of an author in the order they were released. It’s why I overwhelmingly recommend people watch “Key and Peele” in its entirety, from start to finish, season one episode one onwards. That way, folks can understand how Jordan Peele grew as a horror auteur and see how themes he explored in that show were further fleshed out in his future works.
So, that’s how I decided I’d read through Lovecraft: in chronological order.
I’m making video recordings of my readings for a few reasons:
External growth as a content creator because I’m still a really small creator, nearly a year since debuting, which is on me. I don’t release consistent content and my content is very much ‘variety content’
I have a very bad habit of speed reading and skimming content. Reading the works aloud forces me to make sure I do not skip anything! Plus, I don’t know how to edit videos, so I have to do everything right in a single take. If I mess up a word or stumble, I have to restart the reading. Oh no — a second (or third…or fifteenth…) chance to read a work! How dreadful!
To log my progress in reading through Lovecraft’s works
I am utilizing Donovan K. Louck’s Lovecraft website for this. I am utilizing both his chronological ordering of Lovecraft’s works as well as the text he gives: Lovecraft's Fiction - Chronological Order
The Story
Lovecraft’s possible first story, “The Noble Eavesdropper,” is currently lost media. With a potential writing date of 1897, Lovecraft would’ve been seven when he wrote the story. His second story, “The Little Glass Bottle,” is dated to the same year.
“The Little Glass Bottle” shows how Lovecraft's work really can trace some of its roots to the adventure, mystery, and pulp genres. It features a treasure hunt at sea, the exotic (to Lovecraft) Southern Hemisphere, and, surprisingly for Lovecraft (but not for a boy his age): a prank. We continue to see this fascination with the Southern Hemisphere and Pacific Islands in other works by Lovecraft. Unlike other works by Lovecraft, it’s extremely short, to the point, and not very purple in its prose — perhaps due to his age.
One fun fact: I wasn’t sure what I should say in my reading when it came to the dollar amount listed in the story. The dollar amount listed in the text is “$25.0.00” — twenty five, dot, zero, dot, two zeroes. This text actually appears in the original manuscript.
Ironic the Lovecraft was only accepted to Brown posthumously (original take of the day)(not)
Lovecraft is consistent with this numbering in the story. I don’t know if this is supposed to be $25, $250, $2,500, or $25,000, so I went with $25 in my reading.
I think Lovecraft’s little map is just adorable too. So darling. I should’ve used this for the thumbnail. It’s brown, just like the paper in the story. Did the paper age and become brown over time? Was it brown to begin with? Truly, a mystery lost to the ages.
I am very impressed that he could (almost) spell Australia. Maybe Aust-rail-ia is a place with lots of trains…
MythosHQ Auditions Silhouette Theories: What are My-THOSE?
What are my-THOSE? MythosHQ has opened the Wonka Factory — err, auditions — and I have theories about who their new pantheon will feature.
MythosHQ, winner of the ‘Rising VTuber Org’ award at the 2024 VTuber Awards hosted by Filian, has opened auditions for the very first time. They’re looking for three people to play the part of three pre-made female characters. While the exact identities of the new characters are unknown, Mythos has posted silhouettes based on the new characters in their auditions teaser posts. Note that it is not unknown for promotional and teaser silhouettes to use custom art and not necessarily utilize a Live2D model, so while my guesses are based only on publicly available information, they’re really just that — uncertain guesses.
The tl;dr:
I have four sets of guesses, listed from most likely to least likely
Theory A: Norse Gods
Theory B: Minor Hellenic Humanoids
Theory C: Minor Hellenic Monster Girls
Theory D: Hercules Movie
The three relevant posts are linked, quoted, and shown below. Each was paired with a different new character and some flavor text. For ease, we’ll be referring to the models as WolfGirl, BirdGirl, and MysteryGirl.
Theories
Theory A: Norse Gods
Likelihood: High. This is the theory that, like Sleipnir, I believe has the most legs. The fact the promo for the group states they are looking to form an ‘era-changing’ gen is a clue: the Hellenic era and the Viking period are distinct. With few exceptions, MythosHQ tends to focus on the stereotypically more popular/powerful dieties, rather than what are classified by academics as more ‘minor’ gods. They’ve nearly exhausted the pool of Olympians, if they haven’t already. The silhouettes don’t ‘read’ as wearing Hellenic-inspired clothing, but some MythosHQ talents, like Hermes and Hephasteus, have more modern outfits.
I think WolfGirl is Loki, BirdGirl is Odin, and MysteryGirl is Thor. Some Twitter commenters seem to agree with this.
Why This Trio:
Odin, Loki, and Thor may be the most well-known Norse gods. I’m not about to go off on a whole tangent and provide Google Trends data for the Norse pantheon
They’re the trio of major gods for the Norse civilization in Age of Mythology
They’re the trio of major Asgardians in the Marvel Cinematic Universe
With the exception of Vestia? maybe?, Mythos has exhausted the list of the twelve Olympian gods and goddess (note: I said Olympian, not all, not demi-gods, as will be covered later.)
The ‘halls’ mentioned in the BirdGirl promo could reference Valhalla
Why Loki:
The emoji for this character is a sly face
The tone of the post is playful and mentions having fun
The character has a tomboy type design and figure, fitting with a mischiveous/impish archetype
Might have horns, but that could just be spiky hair
Tricky looking hands
I have the least evidence for this guess, and it’s mostly a guess that this is Loki based on the flavor text provided, as well as the fact that Loki is the third member of the trio in other media
Why Odin:
The emoji for this post is winking, which means it only has one eye open. Traditionally, Odin is portrayed as wearing an eyepatch and/or blind in one eye
Odin is often portrayed with a raven, as he has two raven familiars
Cape seems regal and has epaulets, a symbol of rank
Winky emoji in the promo post could be a reference to Odin’s one eye
Why Thor:
The emoji posted is a curled bicep, signifying fitness and combat. Thor is associated with combat.
Thor is sometimes portrayed with a winged helmet, I believe in many Wagner adaptations, as well as in the MCU(?)
Theory B: Minor Hellenic Humanoids
(Hellenic basically means Greek or Roman)
Likelihood: Medium
WolfGirl: Pan (could be a goat girl)
BirdGirl: Hercules, due to the cape (reminiscent of the Nemean lion cloak of legend)
MysteryGirl: Icarus, due to the wings on the head
Theory C: Minor Hellenic Monster Girls
Likelihood: Unlikely, because MythosHQ doesn’t have a history of doing generically monster themed girls, vs. deities
WolfGirl: Minotaur (horns, fur)
BirdGirl: Harpy (birbs)
MysteryGirl: ???
Theory D: Hercules Movie
Likelihood: Extremely unlikely, but let a girl dream.
WolfGirl: Philoctetes, because that is who was furry in that iconic trio
BirdGirl: Hercules, due to the cape, as explained earlier
MysteryGirl: Pegasus, due to the feathered wings on the head
I really want Theory D to be true, and for Philoctetes to be played by Danny DeVito in his corpo VTuber debut. I mean, he could be an indie. I don’t know everybody.
Bonus Theory E: I’m Totally Wrong
Likelihood: nearly 100% but DraftKings wouldn’t host the bets for this because ‘we don’t know who you are’ and ‘how did you get into our offices’
There’s only one way to know for certain who these new talents are going to be portraying and that’s waiting for official word from MythosHQ. I’m excited to see which new characters join their pantheon.
Lovecraftian Games I’m Yearning For In 2025
Railgods of Hysterra features sentient and possibly sapient Lovecraftian living trains. I’m not sure if this was inspired by Blaine the Mono from Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series. Think less Thomas the Tank Engine or The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, more H.R. Giger meets Snowpiercer. I’m not into trains, but what I am into is weird games and Lovecraftian games. Games that do something I haven’t seen before always pique my interest.
This isn’t the first time I’ve seen a Lovecraftian train in a game. Tormentum: Dark Sorrow featured a Lovecraftian train. There’s a sentient monstrous train in The Dark Tower, as well as every train in Thomas the Tank Engine. I’m sure other games have explored this combination as well.
The intersections of body horror and machinery are by no means new territory either. It’s a theme that’s been explored in art since the advent of the Industrial Age, if not earlier. In university, I studied countless poems written about the horrors of industrialization and their effect on the English countryside alone. The idea of the train as the dragon, as a symbolic, slithering thing that obliterates all in its path, inhuman and powered by fire, is not new. The equation of dragons with eldritch beings is by no means a ‘hot take’ either. I’m pretty sure Lovecraft himself has made the comparison, and of course, kaiju exist. I’m pretty sure Godzilla and Cthulhu are in a water polo league together.
However, this is the first time I’ve seen it made the focus of a video game, and not merely an interesting looking backdrop.
2. Traveling at Night by The Weather Factory
Traveling at Night is the next mainline game in the Secret Histories universe. It’s described as a cross between the Weather Factory’s previous games and Disco Elysium. I liked Disco Elysium. I love the other Secret Histories games. I’m excited for this game based solely on its provenance and influences.
3. Do No Harm
The gameplay loop reminds me of Strange Horticulture or No Umbrellas Allowed. Lovecraftian medical sims have been done before, but it’s a good combination of genres. Both can feature body horror and allow the player to have a more up close and personal encounter of the third (and fourth…and fifth through fifty millionth…) kind than they would if they were going up against Cthulhu himself.
My one apprehension about this game is that it looks like it uses four traditional humours as treatments, rather than diagnostic samples. However, given the patients are experiencing Lovecraftian physical conditions, perhaps an inversion of the sample and the medicine works. I’ll have to play it before forming more of an opinion.
4. Aether Collector
I like retro style games. I like point-and-click games. Is this the first Lovecraftian pixel art-y retro style point-and-click game? No. Just off the top of my head, The Last Door comes to mind. But it doesn’t have to be the first. It just has to be interesting.
5. Operation Lovecraft: Fallen Doll
Yes, this game is highly NSFW. Yes, it’s unlikely I’ll be able to stream it unless there’s a special streamer mode implemented, but that mode would take away from the essential plot of the game. This is not the first game to feature sexualized Lovecraftian content, but the graphics and conceit are so over-the-top and pulpy (complimentary) that it oddly enough is the type of work that would fit in Weird Tales…or perhaps Heavy Metal?
6. Hunt the Pale Gods
I like deck building games. I like Lovecraftian horrors, although I prefer playing as them rather than fighting them.
7. The Shadow over Cyberspace
I’m a sucker for interesting aesthetic mashups. Y2K style retro graphics mixed with Lovecraftian horror? Sign me up. I’m a fan of the game aesthetically, but the dialogue in the screenshots leaves a little to be desired, which is why this game doesn’t rank higher on my list.
I’m not usually a fan of works in which cosmic horror figures are portrayed as very human and very mortal. Part of what appeals to me about cosmic horror is the idea that it’s beyond the fathoming of human comprehension and the sense of scale. Dialogue like, ‘Nyarlathotep is still deciding if they can trust you. They have been betrayed in the past, and remain suspicious of you as a result,’ lacks that scale.
It reveals what a cosmic being is feeling, making it too knowable to feel imposing or cosmic in scale
I’m not a huge fan of fiction writing that tells rather than shows, but that issue is amplified when we’re discussing Lovecraftian works
It implies that your presumably human protagonist can earn Nyarlathotep’s trust within your mere human lifetime