Lovecraftian inspirations from the real life, science, history and folklore

[Adeptus]

Download: Lovecraftian inspirations from real life and beliefs by Adeptus7

You can use it for absolutely free, in any way You want - as a part of Your games, story, whatever. And You don't have to reward or mention me in any way.

This brochure contains inspiration drawn from the beliefs of peoples who actually inhabit the Earth now or in the past, or from facts taken straight from history or science. Each case includes the suggestion, how given beliefs or facts can be interpreted in the spirit of cosmic horror, emphasizing their appropriate elements or bending them slightly. Sometimes the descriptions are quite brief - a detailed discussion of each topic would take a lot of space and time. These are rather teasers intended to show why a specific thing may be interesting for fans of eldritch vibes and possibly encourage them to take a closer look at the topic.

The article is intended primarily for Game Masters who play games in systems inspired by Lovecraft's works, such as Call of Cthulhu, Trail of Cthulhu or Delta Green. However, I hope that other fans of cosmic horror will also find something for themselves here. The facts presented here may also be interesting for people who are not familiar with the work of The Loner of Providence, but some of the references may be unclear to them.

Here is audio fragment:

If You have Your own "Lovecraftian" trivia, please, share.


Here are contents of my brochure:

GREEK MYTHOLOGY

Typhon – a classic but forgotten abomination

Zeus – embodied energy

In his house underground, dead Hades waits in sleep

Apollo – beautiful, deadly light

Hermes is the gate, Hermes is the key

Erysichton – slayer of living trees, eater of self

NORDIC MYTHOLOGY

A jotun is not the same as a giant, but it can be made into an abomination

Odyn = Nodens, Loki = Nyarlathotep

Or is Odin an abomination?

Einherjers and Odin the human

POLISH FOLKLORE AND LEGENDS

Jan Twardowski – the first man on the Moon

Silent night, starry night

Church in Trzęsacz – Deep ones do not leave their own, even after death

WESTERN EUROPEAN FOLKLORE

The Monstrous German Pied Piper

Ys – Deep Ones princess vs clan of eldritch saints

Jentilak and a Christmas cutthroat

Dragons come in every shape and size

TRUE (OK, SLIGHTLY FAR-FETCHED) HISTORY

Invasion of the Sea Peoples

Greater Germanic Antarctica

The emperor out of the time

The Indus civilization

Order of the Nine Angles – sometimes reality is just as bad and mad as a horror

TRUE (SERIOUSLY) SCIENCE

Mad mathematicians

Humans like ants, ants like zombies

Halny and other foehn winds - the whisper of the wind brings madness

There is more to dimensions than dimensional shamblers

ABRAHAMIC BELIEFS

Covenant with God and Melchizedek

Succubi/incubi, aliens and a sorcerer-pope

Double faith

Stone from the sky, genies and angels

 

[Bobbycheese]

Download: Lovecraftian inspirations from real life and beliefs by Adeptus7

You can use it for absolutely free, in any way You want - as a part of Your games, story, whatever. And You don't have to reward or mention me in any way.

This brochure contains inspiration drawn from the beliefs of peoples who actually inhabit the Earth now or in the past, or from facts taken straight from history or science. Each case includes the suggestion, how given beliefs or facts can be interpreted in the spirit of cosmic horror, emphasizing their appropriate elements or bending them slightly. Sometimes the descriptions are quite brief - a detailed discussion of each topic would take a lot of space and time. These are rather teasers intended to show why a specific thing may be interesting for fans of eldritch vibes and possibly encourage them to take a closer look at the topic.

The article is intended primarily for Game Masters who play games in systems inspired by Lovecraft's works, such as Call of Cthulhu, Trail of Cthulhu or Delta Green. However, I hope that other fans of cosmic horror will also find something for themselves here. The facts presented here may also be interesting for people who are not familiar with the work of The Loner of Providence, but some of the references may be unclear to them.


If You have Your own "Lovecraftian" trivia, please, share.


Here are contents of my brochure:

GREEK MYTHOLOGY

Typhon – a classic but forgotten abomination

Zeus – embodied energy

In his house underground, dead Hades waits in sleep

Apollo – beautiful, deadly light

Hermes is the gate, Hermes is the key

Erysichton – slayer of living trees, eater of self

NORDIC MYTHOLOGY

A jotun is not the same as a giant, but it can be made into an abomination

Odyn = Nodens, Loki = Nyarlathotep

Or is Odin an abomination?

Einherjers and Odin the human

POLISH FOLKLORE AND LEGENDS

Jan Twardowski – the first man on the Moon

Silent night, starry night

Church in Trzęsacz – Deep ones do not leave their own, even after death

WESTERN EUROPEAN FOLKLORE

The Monstrous German Pied Piper

Ys – Deep Ones princess vs clan of eldritch saints

Jentilak and a Christmas cutthroat

Dragons come in every shape and size

TRUE (OK, SLIGHTLY FAR-FETCHED) HISTORY

Invasion of the Sea Peoples

Greater Germanic Antarctica

The emperor out of the time

The Indus civilization

Order of the Nine Angles – sometimes reality is just as bad and mad as a horror

TRUE (SERIOUSLY) SCIENCE

Mad mathematicians

Humans like ants, ants like zombies

Halny and other foehn winds - the whisper of the wind brings madness

There is more to dimensions than dimensional shamblers

ABRAHAMIC BELIEFS

Covenant with God and Melchizedek

Succubi/incubi, aliens and a sorcerer-pope

Double faith

Stone from the sky, genies and angels

The king in yellow sees all

 

[Adeptus]

The king in yellow sees all

And He wears no mask. Have You seen the Yellow Sign yet?

 

[Bobbycheese]

And He wears no mask. Have You seen the Yellow Sign yet?

The yellow sign appears only in dreams

 

[Adeptus]

The yellow sign appears only in dreams

And what is so called "reality" if not the dream of the blind idiot-god, whose name no lips dare speak aloud?

 

[Bobbycheese]

And what is so called "reality" if not the dream of the blind idiot-god, whose name no lips dare speak aloud?

Maybe the dreams are signs trying to guide us to carcosa and meet the yellow king

 

[Adeptus]

Maybe the dreams are signs trying to guide us to carcosa and meet the yellow king

Or maybe we are already in Carcosa... we always were... and everything other is just a dream?

 

[Bobbycheese]

Or maybe we are already in Carcosa... we always were... and everything other is just a dream?

Surely if we were in carcaso we would be driven mad by the true form of these superior beings which we are usually ignorant off

 

[Bobbycheese]

Download: Lovecraftian inspirations from real life and beliefs by Adeptus7

You can use it for absolutely free, in any way You want - as a part of Your games, story, whatever. And You don't have to reward or mention me in any way.

This brochure contains inspiration drawn from the beliefs of peoples who actually inhabit the Earth now or in the past, or from facts taken straight from history or science. Each case includes the suggestion, how given beliefs or facts can be interpreted in the spirit of cosmic horror, emphasizing their appropriate elements or bending them slightly. Sometimes the descriptions are quite brief - a detailed discussion of each topic would take a lot of space and time. These are rather teasers intended to show why a specific thing may be interesting for fans of eldritch vibes and possibly encourage them to take a closer look at the topic.

The article is intended primarily for Game Masters who play games in systems inspired by Lovecraft's works, such as Call of Cthulhu, Trail of Cthulhu or Delta Green. However, I hope that other fans of cosmic horror will also find something for themselves here. The facts presented here may also be interesting for people who are not familiar with the work of The Loner of Providence, but some of the references may be unclear to them.


If You have Your own "Lovecraftian" trivia, please, share.


Here are contents of my brochure:

GREEK MYTHOLOGY

Typhon – a classic but forgotten abomination

Zeus – embodied energy

In his house underground, dead Hades waits in sleep

Apollo – beautiful, deadly light

Hermes is the gate, Hermes is the key

Erysichton – slayer of living trees, eater of self

NORDIC MYTHOLOGY

A jotun is not the same as a giant, but it can be made into an abomination

Odyn = Nodens, Loki = Nyarlathotep

Or is Odin an abomination?

Einherjers and Odin the human

POLISH FOLKLORE AND LEGENDS

Jan Twardowski – the first man on the Moon

Silent night, starry night

Church in Trzęsacz – Deep ones do not leave their own, even after death

WESTERN EUROPEAN FOLKLORE

The Monstrous German Pied Piper

Ys – Deep Ones princess vs clan of eldritch saints

Jentilak and a Christmas cutthroat

Dragons come in every shape and size

TRUE (OK, SLIGHTLY FAR-FETCHED) HISTORY

Invasion of the Sea Peoples

Greater Germanic Antarctica

The emperor out of the time

The Indus civilization

Order of the Nine Angles – sometimes reality is just as bad and mad as a horror

TRUE (SERIOUSLY) SCIENCE

Mad mathematicians

Humans like ants, ants like zombies

Halny and other foehn winds - the whisper of the wind brings madness

There is more to dimensions than dimensional shamblers

ABRAHAMIC BELIEFS

Covenant with God and Melchizedek

Succubi/incubi, aliens and a sorcerer-pope

Double faith

Stone from the sky, genies and angels

One other really good thing too include if u wanna use stuff like hp love craft is the idea of the amygdala in bloodborne were we can't see creatures because they are superior or one a different wave length but are their non the less their is an actual theory name for it I just forgot

 

[Adeptus]

Surely if we were in carcaso we would be driven mad by the true form of these superior beings which we are usually ignorant off

How do You know we are not mad?

One other really good thing too include if u wanna use stuff like hp love craft is the idea of the amygdala in bloodborne were we can't see creatures because they are superior or one a different wave length but are their non the less their is an actual theory name for it I just forgot

Yes, Bloodborne lore is great! Funy thing - I am usually not playing soulslike games, because of my pathetic reflexes... But I spend hours on reading their lore, because they represent mix of dark fantasy and cosmic horror I like very much.

 

[Bobbycheese]

How do You know we are not mad?

Yes, Bloodborne lore is great! Funy thing - I am usually not playing soulslike games, because of my pathetic reflexes... But I spend hours on reading their lore, because they represent mix of dark fantasy and cosmic horror I like very much.

Blood borne is one of my all time favourites and it's lore is really good for stories and stuff I always think of ideas when I play souls like

 

[Bobbycheese]

How do You know we are not mad?

Yes, Bloodborne lore is great! Funy thing - I am usually not playing soulslike games, because of my pathetic reflexes... But I spend hours on reading their lore, because they represent mix of dark fantasy and cosmic horror I like very much.

We are all truly mad some just hide it better

 

[Adeptus]

Blood borne is one of my all time favourites and it's lore is really good for stories and stuff I always think of ideas when I play souls like

Can You recommend some media with similar vibes? Games, movies, books, comic... E.g. Darkest Dungeon, Berserk.

 

[Bobbycheese]

Can You recommend some media with similar vibes? Games, movies, books, comic... E.g. Darkest Dungeon, Berserk.

My bad for late reply tbh I dunno soulslike for games true detective s1 maybe the labyrinth rlly old movie

 

[Adeptus]

ANd here You can listen to fragment of the brochure, telling about the Order of the Nine Angles, real life eldritch cult:

Academics have found it difficult to ascertain "exact and verifiable information" about the ONA's origins given the high level of secrecy it maintains. As with many other occult organisations, the Order shrouds its history in "mystery and legend", creating a "mythical narrative" for its origins and development. The ONA claims to be the descendant of pre-Christian pagan traditions which survived the Christianisation of Britain and were passed down from the Middle Ages onward in small groups or "temples" which were based in the Welsh Marches – a border area which is located between England and Wales – each of which was led by a grand master or a grand mistress. Sounds like anothe New Age pagan group? Well, ONA members consider themselves „traditional satanists”. And they are not Laveyan Satanists, aka atheists who like edgy, dark vibes.


The ONA believe that humans live within the causal realm, which obeys the laws of cause and effect. They also believe in an acausal realm, in which the laws of physics do not apply, further promoting the idea that numinous energies from the acausal realm can be drawn into the causal, allowing for the performance of magic. The Order promotes the idea that "Dark Gods" exist within the acausal realm, although it is accepted that some members will interpret them not as real entities but as facets of the human subconscious.These entities are perceived as dangerous, with the ONA advising caution when interacting with them. Among those Dark Gods whose identities have been discussed in the Order's publicly available material are a goddess named Baphomet who is depicted as a mature woman carrying a severed head. Another of these acausal figures is termed Vindex, after the Latin word for "avenger". The ONA believe that Vindex will eventually incarnate as a human – although the *** and ethnicity of this individual is unknown – through the successful "presencing" of acausal energies within the causal realm, and that they will act as a messianic figure by overthrowing the current forces and leading the ONA to prominence in the establishment of a new society. Nyarlathothep?


The ONA arose to public attention in the early 1980s. During the 1980s and 1990s, it spread its message through articles in magazines. In 1988, it began publication of its own in-house journal, titled Fenrir. Among material it has issued for public consumption have been philosophical tracts, ritual instruction, letters, poetry, and gothic fiction. Its core ritual text is titled the Black Book of Satan. It has also issued its own music, painted tarot set known as the Sinister Tarot, and a three-dimensional board game known as the Star Game


The group largely consists of autonomous cells known as "nexions". The original cell, based in Shropshire, is known as "Nexion Zero", with the majority of subsequent groups having been established in Britain, Ireland, and Germany. Nexions and other associated groups have been established in the United States, Australia, Brazil, Egypt, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Serbia, Russia and South Africa.


The Satanism, the ONA assert, requires venturing into the realm of the forbidden and illegal in order to shake the practitioner loose of cultural and political conditioning. It should undermine society and establish its own „Imperium”. ONA texts such as "The Dreccian Way", "Iron Gates", "Bluebird" and "The Rape Anthology" recommend and praise rape and pedophilia, even suggesting rape is necessary for "ascension of the Ubermensch". And all of this is not some posturing by wannabe villains „huhu, we are so evil!!!'. The FBI officially considers ONA nexion 764 and its offshoots terrorist organizations. According to Global Project Against Hate and Extremism", "[764] operates within the framework of the broader ONA, which advocates the destruction of society through criminal acts such as violence, sexual assault, murder, and terrorism [and] is implicated in a network of online cults that exploit and groom children." https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/28/new-york-satanic-cult-764-fbi As of November 2023 Finnish police was investigating at least three terrorism cases connected to ONA. Russian Sergey Chulkov ("Nosferatu") allegedly raped a 14-year-old girl — several times in his car, then in an apartment on Moscow Zavodskaya Street. Chulkov is a member of a Russian nexion according to the police, was arrested with ONA literature and was tattooed with satanic occult symbols. In December 2024, a high school student in Guadalajara, Mexico broadcasted himself attacking his classmates with an axe. His social media posts showed his allegiance to the Order of Nine Angles, including blood pacts. 23-year-old Hugo Figuerola, member of the ONA, was arrested in late February 2025 in Spain for threatening a mass shooting and bombing in Valencia, A Wisconsin teen is alleged to have killed his father and mother on February 11, 2025 and planned to assassinate Donald Trump to "save the white race" and start a revolution. The teen was also in possession of ONA material and identified himself as a member of ONA. https://www.fox6now.com/news/wisconsin-teen-homicides-plot-assassinate-trump


So, when You are watching a horror about some satanic evil global conspiracy, and someone says „actually, real life Satanists are not like that”, You can answer „actually, some of Satanists are exactly like that”.


ONA members describe themselves as Satanists, but their core concept – existence of the acausal reality, which denies established rules of logic and science and bizarre „Dark Gods” which are connected to it and which are dangerous to be contacted, makes them potential antagonist in the Lovecraftian story as an eldritch cult, just using „Satan” as name recognizable in the culture (well, is Satan not just one of the faces of Nyarlathotep?). And their behaviour sounds very similar to the credo of the cult of Cthulhu: „Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom”. Want to give Your players real chill? What about making their characters fighting ONA, and when they will go home and do the search on Internet, be shocked by the revelation that those mad degenerates actually exist and are just as evil as those in the game?​

 

[Adeptus]

We published another video:

Mathematics is a language that describes reality and the universe. And since the nature of reality is shocking in cosmic horror, the logical conclusion is that studying it can lead to madness. The motif "magic, if it works, is really mathematics and physics, the understanding of which exceeds the human mind" appears in Lovecraft, for example in "Dreams in the Witch House". This usually works on the principle that the Necromicon and other "books of magic" contain scraps of advanced knowledge obtained from inhuman beings, which superstitious sorcerers then treat as magic. Therefore, it should also work the other way round – a professional scientist should be able to discover dirty and blasphemous secrets through scientific research. Here are some viable candidates for "scholars who looked into the abyss, and the abyss looked into them."

Kurt Gödel (1906-1978) – Austrian-American mathematician, physicist and philosopher. He dealt with, among others, theory of relativity (which in itself negates the image of the world that "common sense" dictates to us), deriving from it equations intended to prove the possibility of time travel. Towards the end of his life he went crazy, among other things. believing someone was trying to poison him. When his wife was hospitalized for a long time and was unable to taste his meals to prove the lack of poison, Gödel starved himself to death.

Georg Cantor (1845-1918) – German mathematician, creator of set theory. Over time, he delved deeper into mysticism and claimed that mathematics could be used to reach conclusions about metaphysics. Some Christian (Cantor himself considered himself a devout Christian) philosophers of his time claimed that Cantor's mathematical theories were contrary to religious dogmas (it was something about proving the existence of an infinite being, other than God – I am not a mathematician, I don't really understand what is going on). Cantor was tormented by bouts of depression, sometimes so severe that they led to hospitalization.

Ludwig Boltzmann (1844-1906) – Austrian physicist, pioneer of the kinetic theory of gases. He theorized the "Boltzmann brain" – a hypothetical self-aware entity that emerges from chaos through random fluctuations. Boltzmann proposed that we and our observed low-entropy world arose from a random fluctuation in a higher-entropy universe. He committed suicide by hanging. "If our current level of organization, having many self-aware entities, is the result of random fluctuation, and it is much less likely to be so than a level of organization that produces only self-aware self-aware entities, then in any universe with the level of organization we see, there should be a huge number of solitary Boltzmann brains floating in unrecognized environments. In an infinite universe, the number of self-aware brains spontaneously, randomly emerging from chaos, along with false memories of life like ours, should far outweigh the number of real brains evolved in the observable universe, arising from unimaginably rare fluctuations". Did I understand it? Not really, but it sounds quite Lovecraftian – self-aware beings emerging from chaos, our world as a result of random processes taking place in the "higher" universe… it's easy to spin a cosmic horror out of it. And let's theorize that Boltzmann's suicide was due to the terrifying conclusions he had reached…

Paul Ehrenfest (1880-1930) – Austrian-Dutch physicist. He researched the theory of relativity (which, as I mentioned, very often leads to "crazy" conclusions about the nature of reality) and laid the foundations for quantum physics (which is even crazier). Towards the end of his life, he fell into severe depression and shot first his son and then himself.

Grigory Perelman (1966) – the only still living member of this group, a Russian mathematician. He had a brilliant career in Russia and the USA. His greatest achievement was presenting evidence for the so-called Poincaré's hypothesis regarding the shape of the universe. Unexpectedly, in 2005 he left his job and broke off all contacts with the scientific community… And not only that – he stopped leaving his apartment, communicating only by phone or through the door. He consistently rejects all job offers and awards (including the Millennium Award worth one million dollars!).

Each of these gentlemen (except Perelman) lived at the turn of the 20th and 19th centuries. Each of them can be used in the scenario – either as a living and active NPC, as a dead source of knowledge (in the form of unpublished notes containing mythical secrets), or as a background reference ("Don't think about it, Professor X conducted research in this direction… and how did he end up?).

 

[Bobbycheese]

We published another video:

Mathematics is a language that describes reality and the universe. And since the nature of reality is shocking in cosmic horror, the logical conclusion is that studying it can lead to madness. The motif "magic, if it works, is really mathematics and physics, the understanding of which exceeds the human mind" appears in Lovecraft, for example in "Dreams in the Witch House". This usually works on the principle that the Necromicon and other "books of magic" contain scraps of advanced knowledge obtained from inhuman beings, which superstitious sorcerers then treat as magic. Therefore, it should also work the other way round – a professional scientist should be able to discover dirty and blasphemous secrets through scientific research. Here are some viable candidates for "scholars who looked into the abyss, and the abyss looked into them."

Kurt Gödel (1906-1978) – Austrian-American mathematician, physicist and philosopher. He dealt with, among others, theory of relativity (which in itself negates the image of the world that "common sense" dictates to us), deriving from it equations intended to prove the possibility of time travel. Towards the end of his life he went crazy, among other things. believing someone was trying to poison him. When his wife was hospitalized for a long time and was unable to taste his meals to prove the lack of poison, Gödel starved himself to death.

Georg Cantor (1845-1918) – German mathematician, creator of set theory. Over time, he delved deeper into mysticism and claimed that mathematics could be used to reach conclusions about metaphysics. Some Christian (Cantor himself considered himself a devout Christian) philosophers of his time claimed that Cantor's mathematical theories were contrary to religious dogmas (it was something about proving the existence of an infinite being, other than God – I am not a mathematician, I don't really understand what is going on). Cantor was tormented by bouts of depression, sometimes so severe that they led to hospitalization.

Ludwig Boltzmann (1844-1906) – Austrian physicist, pioneer of the kinetic theory of gases. He theorized the "Boltzmann brain" – a hypothetical self-aware entity that emerges from chaos through random fluctuations. Boltzmann proposed that we and our observed low-entropy world arose from a random fluctuation in a higher-entropy universe. He committed suicide by hanging. "If our current level of organization, having many self-aware entities, is the result of random fluctuation, and it is much less likely to be so than a level of organization that produces only self-aware self-aware entities, then in any universe with the level of organization we see, there should be a huge number of solitary Boltzmann brains floating in unrecognized environments. In an infinite universe, the number of self-aware brains spontaneously, randomly emerging from chaos, along with false memories of life like ours, should far outweigh the number of real brains evolved in the observable universe, arising from unimaginably rare fluctuations". Did I understand it? Not really, but it sounds quite Lovecraftian – self-aware beings emerging from chaos, our world as a result of random processes taking place in the "higher" universe… it's easy to spin a cosmic horror out of it. And let's theorize that Boltzmann's suicide was due to the terrifying conclusions he had reached…

Paul Ehrenfest (1880-1930) – Austrian-Dutch physicist. He researched the theory of relativity (which, as I mentioned, very often leads to "crazy" conclusions about the nature of reality) and laid the foundations for quantum physics (which is even crazier). Towards the end of his life, he fell into severe depression and shot first his son and then himself.

Grigory Perelman (1966) – the only still living member of this group, a Russian mathematician. He had a brilliant career in Russia and the USA. His greatest achievement was presenting evidence for the so-called Poincaré's hypothesis regarding the shape of the universe. Unexpectedly, in 2005 he left his job and broke off all contacts with the scientific community… And not only that – he stopped leaving his apartment, communicating only by phone or through the door. He consistently rejects all job offers and awards (including the Millennium Award worth one million dollars!).

Each of these gentlemen (except Perelman) lived at the turn of the 20th and 19th centuries. Each of them can be used in the scenario – either as a living and active NPC, as a dead source of knowledge (in the form of unpublished notes containing mythical secrets), or as a background reference ("Don't think about it, Professor X conducted research in this direction… and how did he end up?).

W content twin

 

[Adeptus]

I am not sure what it means, but thanks!