Proppingupthemythos
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Spoiler Thread for Leaf 008!
🕑 Added 2018-12-21 21:45:18 +0000 UTCHappy Solstice!
Pages 15 and 16 combine Lovecraftian (and Clark Ashton Smith-ian) mythology with a tale from Iceland I learned when I was a child. The idea here of the "hidden children" of Shub Niggurath comes from a story of Eve hiding her unwashed children from God ( https://books.google.com/books?id=CnAAAAAAMAAJ&printsec=titlepage ). It made quite an impression on me, and so I was eager to incorporate it into my warped origin story.
At the Mountains of Madness tells us the Elder Things created life as an accident, but I felt there had to be a way to present this information in a more mytho-poetic fashion. So we get a lesson about not lying to a God, and the introduction of two of the Guides of the Four Paths, Ubbo-Sathla and Abhoth. These two beasties come from tales by Clark Ashton Smith (Ubbo-Sathla from a titular story and Abhoth from The Seven Geases). Both stories claim them as creators of life on Earth, but Abhoth specifically denies creating mankind, so I saw an opportunity. For the purposes of my narrative, Abhoth is the progenitor of Snake Men, the worm creatures from The Festival, etc. while Ubbo-Sathla is the father of Deep Ones, Ghouls and humans.
Taking things one step further, I'm hinting strongly (through references again to At the Mountains of Madness) that Ubbo-Sathla is actually beneath the City of the Elder Things at the climax of that story. Lovecraft drops a lot of hints (and I'll be returning to that well quite a bit in the future), but this is one concept I'm happy to have down on the page.
On page 16 we have a note from Sir Randolph on the translation of the term Antiqua Creaturae by Dr. Dee. I had already committed to the term Ancient Ones before realizing the term Elder Thing was used by Lovecraft's characters who had read from the Necronomicon. My solution? Give the Latin term here and leave it up to the translator to choose. After all, the Miskatonic edition of the Necronomicon is the older Latin anyhow.
Jumping ahead to page 33 we have one half of an interesting procedure for binding a Mythos entity into your tome. The Adumbrali are an obscure Lovecraftian monster created by Robert Lowndes (note I name dropped him in the text: "Tempteth one into the entrapment with a Lowndes taper") and I really like the notion of a 2D creature existing on a page. I'll have more to say about this once Leaf 009 has been mailed out.
Page 34 features a unique depiction of Shub Niggurath as both motherly and yet deadly. Is it clear yet that I have an affinity for her? I find it fascinating who (by virtue of Lovecraft choosing to vilify them in his stories) by writing an "evil" book I get to draw on as my protagonists. The Necronomicon is the realm of female characters such as Keziah Mason and Lavinia Whateley. These are the adventures of "Nautical Negroes" and "Deathless Chinamen", but they are the powerful leaders and wise mystics of this narrative. I may be exploiting a loophole of sorts, but I wouldn't actually be faithful to Lovecraft if my main characters were all White Male Europeans.
Thanks as always for all of your support and input! I can't wait for you all to see what comes next. As we close in on the end of the first Quire I am damned proud of what we are creating here.
Comments
I’m also reminded of the Sekhmet/Hathor duality, in Egyptian mythology; Sekhmet and Hathor, destroyer and protector, are both aspects of the same entity. I quite enjoyed this page! Unfortunately I’ve nothing more specific I can say, at present, as I’m currently halfway across the US from my pages (Yuletide family gatherings and all), but I am looking forward to taking a solid evening or two to sit down and dig through the heavily mathematical pages that you’ve put out thus far, to see what I can make of them.
Christian Matzke
Exactly! You hit it in the head. I am fascinated by the idea that growth and expansion are neutral words. It is positive when you are talking about kids and family, but negative when talking about locusts or cancer cells. Shub-Niggurath may not see it the same way. Also there has to be an unfathomable quality to all of these gods.
