In re the Arthurian context:
https://accordingtohoyt.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/ponds.png?w=415

I do not myself play the games (board or video), but all of my children, their spouses, and THEIR children do, so I would be interested in keeping up with you on the Lovecraft project (Open Threads are made for such, are they not?).

Fair point. I’ll need to remember. Also I have been working to transcribe a number of Lovecraft and his fellows’ works to archive them on the site in a readable fashion, so there is that.

“it has reached the point that going down to brass tacks would probably make things fresher.”

Indeed. I wish some of our endless movie sequels would take the hint.
Almost all of the DC and Marvel canon I grew up with in the sixties-seventies has been trashed, not for the better.

Indeed, alas. I am much younger than that but a bit of a Retro style, with a deep interest in things like the Victorian Era, Renaissance, and 19th and early/mid 20th centuries. So there is that. But even then I do think we have lost.

In re the “German war plans to attack the US in the years leading up to WWI, Operationsplan III.” that sounds right up your alley!

Yup, and I touch on it.

“So I can build off both what we know in history and the wider lore (that was originally not connected when Chambers wrote it) to try and think of that alternate history”

My biggest problem with alt-hist these days is that so many readers (especially but not limited to younger ones) know so little real history, how can they tell what has been altered? I have trouble sometimes, even for periods I have done some study in, and have to keep my books / browser close at hand.

Good to know, and it would help.

PS
If you’re into mixing archetypes/myths/legends, you could always throw
St Patrick and some of his contemporaries into the brew as characters to be counter-weights to the Bad Guys.

I have considered it (and there already is a British Cultist and sort of “Eldritch Polytheist” so it might fit), but I am not sure merging it so closely would help. On the other hand the kinda-boss is interested in the Arthurian Mythos and Knights of the Round Table and was interested in the t. Patrick’s Story..

Otherwise, I fear the current era is looking more and more like it will be
Cthulhu / Dagon 2024

Well, there are certainly worse choices. Ironic or not Cthulhu and Dagon are not EVIL (though that would often be scant comfort). And both have proven governing experience over vast empires and species. So there is something to be said for that in comparison to Kamala and co…

Sorry for the delay. And lol. One of the things I have been trying to do is actually separate a lot of the eldritch critters from being flat out “evil.” Of course there is a fair amount of overlap; Nyarlathotep in particular is downright nasty and seems to do evil as… for lack of a better word a recreational hobby, something he takes pleasure in and can comprehend in a way critters like Cthulhu (who does not really understand us) know. (Though even Nyarlathotep has a job to do – whether or not he likes it – and so “evil” is almost more of a fashion statement or hobby for him, something he slips into when he wants to and slips out when he needs to).

Of course that doesn’t mean these creatures are “Good” (to the extent Good or Evil really matter in an alien, amoral universe), and still less that they are very good for human sanity or survival, least of all in the form we have. But that just goes back to the issue of how fundamentally limited “human”, “sanity”, and “morality” are. Great Cthulhu does not hate us, he in some way may want to help us understand the Truth, so that we can be free and learn new ways to kill and frolic while paying homage to True Religion (he is, after all, High Priest of the Gods).

That he is so far beyond us that he doesn’t have much in common with us but isn’t powerful or old enough to really understand us is…”unfortunate”, and if his attempts to teach us or to escape result in our feeble minds cracking under the pressure and going into frenzies of murder-suicide most typically…well, what are you gonna do with beings that exist only in three dimensions?

Dagon on the other hand seems to be mostly focused in the basics of survival and prosperity. Feeding, breeding, building, and caring for his billions of children and descendants. So if making a deal with some surface dwellers to kidnap others as breeding stock helps… what of it?

Though that would be something to see. Apparently it is likely Cthulhu and Dagon are more or less in the same totem pole and Dagon is subordinate to him…

AesopFan:

I’m there! Where do I register?

Why settle for the lesser of two evils?

I do not myself play the games (board or video), but all of my children, their spouses, and THEIR children do, so I would be interested in keeping up with you on the Lovecraft project (Open Threads are made for such, are they not?).

“it has reached the point that going down to brass tacks would probably make things fresher.”

Indeed. I wish some of our endless movie sequels would take the hint.
Almost all of the DC and Marvel canon I grew up with in the sixties-seventies has been trashed, not for the better.

In re the “German war plans to attack the US in the years leading up to WWI, Operationsplan III.” that sounds right up your alley!

“So I can build off both what we know in history and the wider lore (that was originally not connected when Chambers wrote it) to try and think of that alternate history”

My biggest problem with alt-hist these days is that so many readers (especially but not limited to younger ones) know so little real history, how can they tell what has been altered? I have trouble sometimes, even for periods I have done some study in, and have to keep my books / browser close at hand.

PS
If you’re into mixing archetypes/myths/legends, you could always throw
St Patrick and some of his contemporaries into the brew as characters to be counter-weights to the Bad Guys.

Otherwise, I fear the current era is looking more and more like it will be
Cthulhu / Dagon 2024

Thanks for your reply, and I hope you will let us know if you do get around to writing the fiction/fantasy tale.

I hope so too. I think at least in concept it works well, and I have talked a bit about it. I imagine it might be better to discuss it in some other method, and the others.

What is the Lovecraftian project, and is it any more bizarre than our current politics?

Good question, and glad you asked. It’s kind of tricky to explain. But it is sort of a “Neo-Purist” take on Lovecraft’s work (so the likes of Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth, Nyarlathotep, the Mi-Go, and the like are around), set in around the current time (or really with a plotline starting about a decade ago and moving from there).

The idea is largely to try and cut down through the sort of associated myths, lore, and whatnot that have built up in the decades since Lovecraft died to touch more on his original works and those of his direct circle at the time, as well as the works that inspired them like Algernon Blackwood and Whitaker Chambers. This has a pragmatic application (it avoids copyright and trademark issues newer works would bring), but also because it has reached the point that going down to brass tacks would probably make things fresher.

That said, it isn’t a conventional story or game. But it’s sort of a group of “Characters” programmed to inhabit the world(s) and that the player can interact with through text play, as they draw off of a mixture of databases covering what is in the setting and what the individual character would know and what they do not know. That sort of “Guides” the underlying AI intelligence as it reacts to what the player types (and in some cases what the other AI Bot “Characters” do).

You can find more details here.

https://ttalesinteractive.com/

Ironically I came into the project through talking with the developer on social media and some light RP and info. While her avatar is literally a dyed hair woman she has been quite the sweetheart, as well as quite knowledgeable in AI, giving lectures on things like its development while I’ve helped write up some of the character data banks and brought in some people I knew. She also treats Lovecraft and co with an appropriate amount of respect and resolve, since we aren’t hiding how racist and Un-PC he is but we also aren’t flagellating him too much.

It’s been a pleasant diversion being a “consultant”, and it has led to some interesting avenues. For instance, we talked a bit about ways to try and find the “real” Arabic name of Abdul Alhazred the writer of the Necronomicon (which was basically a name Lovecraft adopted for himself during an Arabian Nights fancy, and which makes little sense in Arabic; “in-universe” we basically agreed that it was some Western translator mangling or glossing the Arabic name or pen name, like how Ab? ?Al? al-?usayn….. al-Bukhari became Ibn Sina, became “Avicenna”).

Also trying to explain the god Dagon, whose portrayal in Lovecraft drew from an inaccurate Jewish conflation of the Canaanite/Mesopotamian God of Fertility and Prosperity Dagon with unrelated Fish Beings. Of course this leads to some interesting avenues with “so how do we explain this in universe?” with the consensus being that Dagon is not ONLY limited to the typical aquatic/fish god he was portrayed as, and might have at some point either “climbed ashore” (to assume a form closer to the Mesopotamian myth) or “washed into the sea” (the opposite). Maybe both. It is an infinitely variable multiverse, which fits with what we can tell of the lore (especially from Lovecraft’s “Silver Key”) and was a useful way to explain “replays” or separate plays.

As for it being more bizarre than our current politics…well, Hastur, Poetic God of Entropy, is now disguised as a human….specifically, a Federal Agent that has wormed his way into the US Government’s DHS and who is poised to join a fledging task force determined to try and manage the Unknowably Eldritch. A tech guru that is totally-not-a-mask-of-Nyarlathotep is sponsoring independent space exploration and a return to the Antarctic. Someone- or rather SomeTHING – has created a variant of Shoggoths that look rather like sociable half-octopus anime girls (and while out of universe that was partially for the fanservice, in universe it raises some questions, considering how ancient, psychic alien Elder Things barely controlled these intelligent, biological construction machines but something managed to grab some and force them into a more solid form based on communication. And they are now reaching out to try and contact humans and others). Among other things. And that’s for Act I.

Also have considered some related worldbuilding ideas I might go separately, such as trying to expand upon the overthrow of Nyarlathotep*’s worshipper the “Black Pharaoh” Nephren-Ka (supposedly the final ruler of the Third Dynasty), which Lovecraft and his circle alluded to in passing but not in detail, and also Chambers’s “Repairer of Reputations” talking about a German-American war that included fighting in the Pacific and German invasions and ravaging of the East Coast. Which sounds fantastical (and it was, which is one reason the plans for it were talkdown as not being “opportune”), but actually jives very well with what we now know (though Chambers did not) of German war plans to attack the US in the years leading up to WWI, Operationsplan III.

So I can build off both what we know in history and the wider lore (that was originally not connected when Chambers wrote it) to try and think of that alternate history, featuring things like competition in the pantheon between Nyarlathotep and Hastur helping to spark the conflict, African-American collaboration with Germany (under WEB Dubois) and discontent with Jim Crow leading to an independent African-American/”Negro” Nation after the US victory, and Captain Karl Heinrich, Graf von Altberg-Ehrenstein, the war criminal villain of Lovecraft’s WWI era “The Temple” being a justifiably infamous monster and black sheep among both Americans and Germans and possible enemy… or possible ally. (Because he is likely going to run into “Issues” with the Deep Ones, and sometimes, the devil you know is better than the devil that is Unknowable by Design.)

Also have talked a bit with the project head – albeit tentatively – about more down to earth applications, such as using AI Bots for education, especially about the American Revolution, but I guess we will see.

In any case, sorry for the ramble on. And yes, I did find the screenplay interesting….

Edit: Also, apparently I write/play a “Good” Nyarlathotep. But in any case, it is a neat little divergence, especially given how so much of Lovecraft’s work has grown stale or worse. In particular “Delta Green”‘s writers have gone deep into the TDS, writing political screeds disguised as RPG adventures even if it winds up breaking important bits of lore. Oh yeah, and also valorizing AntifA and generally writing things very “comfortably.”

Which is ironic given the premise of the setting. And how I talked about possible eldritch cults in the Kurdish communities (based on a throwaway dialogue in Lovecraft’s “Red Hook” reiterating the Yazidis as “Devil Worshippers” based on old Christian and especially Muslim propaganda. but which I ran with under the argument of “Well, bad or odd eggs in every group…”). And the question of if letting Daesh “Clean House” with some groups in their typical fashion might be a lesser evil if it can wipe out or at least expose the cults, and how to deal with such if they are embedded in the Yazidi communities and with the Kurdish Peshmerga.

Thanks for your reply, and I hope you will let us know if you do get around to writing the fiction/fantasy tale.
What is the Lovecraftian project, and is it any more bizarre than our current politics?

You might enjoy this response to a supposed screenplay proposal of the latter as a fictional thriller:
https://x.com/BaronDestructo/status/1813725970915791217

Turtler, thanks as always for the history lessons.
What a shock to discover that governments (other than our own!) lie about who did what when, and why. (Please imagine this spoken in the appropriate tone of voice.)

Thank you kindly, glad it helped, and it does frustrate me how this isn’t covered. I also think our lack of understanding about WWI has been one of the great blights on modern education, and it sucks. And in many ways it is getting worse.

I find myself in agreement with you on many points, but I think that “reparations” for American slavery have long since been taken care of, in several ways, and nothing is owed to anyone by anyone any longer.

Agreed, sorry if I didn’t make that clear. The fact that everyone directly involved is dead also factors in.

“Patrick, Patron Saint of Ireland and Evangelist.*”
You never followed up the * with a footnote, so if I may take the liberty of doing so: Our Welsh Heritage club sometimes walks in the local Parade with a banner reading “St Patrick was a Welshman.”

Sorry, forgot to mention that. But I have actually considered trying to take a stab at a historical fiction (maybe historical fantasy) about Saint Patrick’s life and mission, with some twists (I have received particularly good reception on how to address both his kidnapping on the whole “Drove the Snakes out of Ireland” Myth/shorthand. Which are related). But it is rather outside my area of greatest knowledge and I’ve been distracted with a host of other things such as game testing, writing for this Lovecraftian AI Roleplay Project, and of course dealing with politics in Current Year.