Trump Body Pillow Great Old Cthulhu Rises Again From His Home in the Bottom of the Ocean

"That is non dead which can eternal lie,
And with foreign aeons fifty-fifty death may die."

An informal and appropriately chaotic Shared Universe that squarely defines the darkest and edgiest of genres, cosmic horror.

It was started unintentionally past H. P. Lovecraft and his circle of peers (informally called the 'Kalem Club') who belonged to the embryonic Fandom. At that stage less about Speculative Fiction, and more about writing brusque amateur "weird" stories for the 'pulp' magazines, at to the lowest degree for Lovecraft.

Lovecraft had already incorporated small elements of Robert Westward. Chambers' earlier The King in Yellow and the writings of Arthur Machen past way of Shout Outs. As time went on, Lovecraft and his friends began referring to his Eldritch Abominations and Tomes of Eldritch Lore in their writings, though usually not bodily characters, and to share references fabricated in his friends' stories or private messages. Mythopoeia defined the abstract, and original, cosmic setting. The actual term "Cthulhu Mythos" (depending on how yous define it) post-dates Lovecraft'due south death, at which time H. P. Lovecraft'southward work got seized and expanded on by August Derleth. Lovecraft himself called his budding mythology "Yog-Sothothery" because Yog-Sothoth features or is mentioned in many more stories than Cthulhu.

The general premise of the Cthulhu Mythos is thus: Humanity exists within a small flickering firelight of sanity and reason in a cold and utterly senseless universe full of ancient and terrible things with tentacles and too many eyes. Our science doesn't properly describe the workings of the universe - ignorance really is bliss because even trying to understand the horrid truth of reality will surely drive you to madness. Our planet was owned by all mode of unknowable conflicting beings long before nosotros crawled out of the primordial muck, and gauge what? They want information technology dorsum, which means doing a footling pest control...

Due to the Shared Universe's informal nature, several rather divisive conceptions of the Mythos have arisen, more often than not categorized as the Lovecraft purists' version; the version including the wide post-1930s expansions past afterwards writers like August Derleth (who is a controversy unto himself) and Ramsey Campbell; and then there are the rigidly codified and de-mystified Tabletop RPG adaptations which crunch down Mind Screwdriver-style to produce orderly game rules from an inherently hell-raising Catechism. Information from the latter has tended to proliferate across the Cyberspace disproportionately, resulting in simple Google searches producing a majority of pages derived from the game and its various campaigns, rather than from prose literature (allow lone Lovecraft's writings), which are not always labeled as such.

H. P. Lovecraft has his ain trope listing, so tropes hither should be for tropes that are not specific to his work, or take been greatly expanded from his piece of work. See besides Catholic Horror Story for works which bargain with Lovecraft'south themes (and, optionally, make use of the Mythos) and Lovecraft Lite for works that accept Lovecraft and Mythos less seriously.

Come across also the Call of Cthulhu RPG.

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     Related Settings

Sub-settings within the Cthulhu Mythos 'verse include:

• Lovecraft's own inventions of Arkham (containing Miskatonic University), Dunwich, Innsmouth, and Kingsport, Trope Namer for Lovecraft State.
• The Dreamlands: Also created past Lovecraft and inspired by the work of Lord Dunsany. A fantastical world created by people's dreams, more subtly horrific.
• Clark Ashton Smith'southward settings, including Hyperborea, prehistoric Greenland prior to the Water ice Historic period, Poseidonis, the concluding, foundering city of Atlantis, Averoigne in late medieval France and Zothique, assault Earth's last continent, all of which were threaded together over fourth dimension. Clark'south stories tended to focus more on weirdness, exoticism and the macabre than Catholic Horror.
• Kull, Conan the Barbarian, and Bran Mak Morning time: Robert E. Howard's works grade a peripheral part of the Mythos. The stories tend to be human-axial. "The Tower of the Elephant", one of the all-time early Conan stories, features a Lovecraftian abomination and subverts the mythos by making it sympathetic.
• Delta Green: The Mythos meets regime conspiracies and blackness ops. It began as a supplement for the Call of Cthulhu RPG game.
• The Yellow Mythos: Works that focus on the themes that originated in The King in Yellow. Not all stories of the Yellow Mythos are set in the Cthulhu Mythos, but several practise apply the elements and concepts of both.

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Notable Cthulhu Mythos writers include:

     The "Lovecraft Circle"

     Pre-Lovecraft Authors

     Mail service-Lovecraft Writers

Notable authors who have written in the mythos after Lovecraft had passed away:

• Fritz Leiber. Technically a gimmicky, just published stories prepare in the continuity only later.
• Brian Lumley: A prolific writer whose Titus Crow, Primal Land, and Hero of Dreams works form a part of the mythos.
• Chiaki Konaka: Who has written several Mythos stories in addition to his work as an anime screenplay author.
• Lin Carter: The major scholar and archivist of the Mythos, likewise an editor and writer.
• Ramsey Campbell: Notable British horror writer. Much like Lumley, Ramsey got his start writing Mythos fiction for Arkham House. Following a suggestion from Derleth, he created his ain Mythos setting in England thus founding Campbell Country.
• Due south.T. Joshi: Extensive researcher of Lovecraft and his life.
• Robert Price: Religious skeptic and writer of many Cthulhu Mythos stories.
• Ruthanna Emrys: The author of the Innsmouth Legacy, including The Litany of Earth and Winter Tide.
• Anna Thousand. Pillsworth: The author of Summoned and Fathomless.
• C. J. Henderson: Known for combining mystery with the Mythos. Some focus on Inspector Legrasse and others private heart Teddy London.
• Stephen King: Contributed a couple of stories set up in the Mythos.
• Thomas Ligotti: More influenced by Lovecraft'south bleak philosophy than past the particulars of the Mythos, only has written a few explicit homages like "The Sect of the Idiot."
• Peter Clines: Wrote the novel Fourteen and The Fold.
• C.T. Phipps: Who wrote Cthulhu Armageddon, which is a post-apocalypse Weird West series.
• Graham Masterton: draws on the Cthulhu mythos, or at least some of its original referents in Native American mythology, for works such as The Manitou and the Night Warriors series.
• W.H. Pugmire: Writes Mythos stories set in Sesqua Valley, his own cosmos.
• Charles Stross: Has written The Laundry Files, about government agencies focused on the occult, as well as several short standalone stories of the Cosmic Horror diversity.

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In Other Media

Works from other media set in the Mythos. ^notation Non works which but borrow public domain elements of the Mythos, please.

    Anime And Manga

• The Elderberry Sister-like I: Shub-Niggurath forms a pact with an adolescent boy, to human action every bit his elder sister. Piece of Life ensues.

    Comic Book

• Autumn of Cthulhu
• Kodoja
• Neonomicon
• Providence

    Flick

For adaptations of Lovecraft's works, specifically, see Lovecraft on Picture show.

• Cast a Deadly Spell: parodic, with Lovecraft as a detective in The Unmasqued World. Lovecraft must prevent the rise of the Nifty Old Ones past acquiring a magic book his employer wants badly.
• The Last Lovecraft: Relic of Cthulhu
• Underwater: The movie'southward climax reveals that Cthulhu himself is personally attacking the deep body of water drilling platform. The film's protagonist disables him at least temporarily by blowing up the station's reactor.

    Literature

• "A Report in Emerald" past Neil Gaiman is a curt story about what appears to be Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson living in a globe taken over by the Great Old Ones.
• Cthulhu Armageddon past C.T. Phipps is an After the Finish activeness series gear up in a globe where the Not bad Quondam Ones have risen and destroyed humanity. The survivors eck out an existence in their shadow.
• The Innsmouth Legacy by Ruthanna Emrys is a Perspective Flip and sequel to The Shadow Over Innsmouth where the protagonist is a survivor of the U.s.a. authorities'south wrongful persecution of the Deep Ones.
• Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff is a story about a group of black men traveling through New England only to discover their ancestors include an evil cult of (very racist) magicians.
• The Titus Crow series by Brian Lumley is a Lovecraft Lite story about the titular character and his sidekicks as they battle various hordes of baddies in the service of the Elder Gods.
• "A Colder State of war" by Charles Stross is an Alternate History brusque story set in the Soviet Union during the Cold War with the soviets having found and captured the sleeping Cthulhu. Things doesn't terminate well once he wakes.
• The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor Lavalle is a retelling of"The Horror at Blood-red Claw" by a black jazz musician who finds himself nether set on past vehement paranoid racists.
• Viridian Saga by Serra Elisen is an Appreciating Parody of both YA and the Cthulhu Mythos that tells a Twilight-esque story of a young woman falling for the man avatar of Cthulhu.
• Nyaruko: Itch with Honey!: Lovecraft creatures turn out to be otaku-oriented extraterrestrials in a comedy-oriented bear witness.

    Music

• The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets

    Podcasts

• Own't Slayed Nobody

    Theatre

• A Shoggoth on the Roof is a parody of Fiddler on the Roof with the daughters of a local Jewish man each getting courted by ane of H.P. Lovecraft'south protagonists.

    Tabletop Games

• Achtung! Cthulhu, the WW2 setting from Mōdiphiüs Amusement.
• Arkham Horror - now pretty much a franchise unto itself, including the carve up but related games:
  • Elder Sign
  • Eldritch Horror
  • Mansions of Madness
  • Arkham Horror: The Card Game.
• Phone call of Cthulhu is the most famous Lovecraftian roleplaying game and one of the most highly regarded tabletop games of all fourth dimension.
  • Masks of Nyarlathotep is a drifting campaign love past millions of fans.
  • Delta Green
• Cthulhu Death May Die: A cooperative strategy game created by CMON.
• CthulhuTech
• Cthulhu Wars: A strategy game designed by Sandy Petersen where followers and beasts of the gods battle to dominate the world.
• Fate of Cthulhu: An RPG where thespian characters aware of a Bad Future caused by the rise of i of the Nifty Erstwhile Ones ready out to stop the events that lead to information technology happening.
• Munchkin Cthulhu
• Outsider: The Calling
• Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu
• Pathfinder: The Great Old Ones and Outer Gods are two of the pantheons worshipped on Golarion. The Strange Aeons Adventure Path is particularly deeply steeped in the Mythos, from starting in an asylum beset by ghouls and shapeshifters, surrounded by impassable fog, to having to acquire a re-create of the Necronomicon in guild to proceed. The Big Bad turns out to be none other than Hastur, and to terminate his twisted plan, the adventurers travel to Carcosa itself in order to sever the link between it and Golarion.
  • Starfinder: Sequel of Pathfinder, where Nyarlathotep has get one of the main 20 deities of the core Pact Worlds area of the setting.
• Pokéthulhu
• Sandy Petersen'south Cthulhu Mythos is a Kickstarter funded setting for Pathfinder 1st Edition and Dungeons & Dragons fifth Edition from the original designer of Phone call of Cthulhu, Sandy Petersen.
• Scion: Masks of the Mythos is a supplement for Scion 2nd edition presenting the global/catholic-level entities of the Mythos as a loose pantheon.
• Tiny Cthulhu (an adaptation of the Mythos to the Tiny D6 system)
• Trail of Cthulhu (an accommodation of Call of Cthulhu to the GUMSHOE system)
• World War Cthulhu, a line of settings for 20th century conflicts (including World State of war II and the Common cold State of war) from Cubicle vii.
• Wrath of the Old Dog

    Video Games

• Anchorhead
• Arcane – Online Mystery Series
• Arkham Horror: Mother's Cover
• Ground forces Of Tentacles
• Phone call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth
• Call of Cthulhu: The Official Video Game
• Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted State
• Phone call of the Sea
• Conarium
• Cthulhu: An Unspeakable Modernistic
• Cthulhu Mythos RPG: The Sleeping Daughter of the Miasma Sea
• Cthulhu Saves the Globe
• Demonbane
• Edge Of Nowhere
• Eldritch
• Forgive Me Father
• Gibbous - A Cthulhu Hazard
• Infra Arcana
• Insmouse No Yakata
• Moons Of Madness
• Sea Salt
• Shadow of the Comet
  • Prisoner Of Ice
• Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened
• The Shore
• The Sinking Urban center
• Smite is a Crossover Cosmology MOBA game between different real globe myth pantheons and has "Abyss"-themed skins, with the Mayan bee god Ah Muzen Cab getting 1 called "Night Whisperer" based after Cthulhu himself. All the same, in 2020 the Peachy Old Ones pantheon was added with Cthulhu under the Guardian role being the first playable Eldritch god.
• Strange Aeons
• Stygian: Reign of the Sometime Ones
• Sundered

    Webcomic

• The Call of Whatever
• Cthulhu Slippers
• Dear Children: teenagers in Lovecraft Country investigate a Cosmic Horror mystery.
• Hello Cthulhu: a parody/cantankerous-over with Hello Kitty.
• Lovecraft Is Missing
• Ow, my sanity
• Shadowgirls
• The Shadows Over Innsmouth
• The Unspeakable Vault (of Doom): humourous strip based on the Mythos.
• The Watcher Of Yaathagggu

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The Mythos includes such specimens as:

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     Tropes A-F

• Accented Xenophobe: Yekubians, an conflicting species who destroyed all other intelligent life in their habitation milky way.
• Appreciating Parody:
  • Lovecraft Lite is a genre of cosmic horror where the eldritch monsters aren't completely invincible and humanity actually stands a chance against them.
  • A canon example with Derleth'southward "The Whippoorwills in the Hills", which is a quasi-sequel to "The Dunwich Horror". Every bit if to follow upwardly the parody at the end of "Horror", Derleth parodies the ending of another of Lovecraft's work.
• Alien Animals: Cats, at least in the Dreamlands, are intelligent, speak their own languages, and can bound across space. They're also at state of war with the Cats from Saturn.
• Alien Geometries: Ane of the about notable examples being on the island of R'lyeh, in "The Phone call of Cthulhu". To humans visitors the place seems to be shifting in angles all the fourth dimension.
• Aliens Are Bastards: Just about everything not of this Earth is evil and/or horrifying. About the only exception are Elderberry Things and the Great Race of Yith, who all the same do freaky things like body-swapping with humans so they can visit Earth, and politely mind-wiping the unfortunate human when they switch back. Nodens is probably the virtually pleasant, earthly-seeming deity, and even he only helps unfortunate humans on a whim.
• Alien Heaven:
  • The World of Seven Suns, orbited by seven stars.
  • Shaggai orbits twin green stars. Xoth (Cthulhu'due south original homeworld) is besides said to orbit twin greenish suns.
• Alternating Continuity:
  • Many of the parodies tend to employ the mythos, but have their ain spin on them.
  • One example is The Laundry Files by Charles Stross. Set up in the present twenty-four hours, by and large in the United kingdom, in a top-secret, high-tech government agency devoted to staving off "when the stars are right" for every bit long equally possible. Delta Green meets The Role meets Stale Beer Spy Fiction. The monsters are real, the aliens and Deep Ones share the Earth with united states of america... and most governments have surreptitious Occult Intelligence divisions.
• E'er Cluttered Evil: The majority of beings in the Mythos - the Deep Ones, Great One-time Ones, the Tcho-tcho, the Insects from Shaggai - come off as this. Sometimes may be due to how alien these beings are. Sometimes non.
• Ancient Astronauts: In addition to Lovecraft's Cthulhu, Elder Things, Mi-go, Yithians, and Flying Polyps, later writers added the Shan, Star Vampires and Yuggs.
• Another Dimension: Where Cthulhu and the Mi-go originated. Too the Dreamlands.
• A Planet Named Zok: Most every planet mentioned in the Mythos follows this, the most well-known being Yuggoth.
• Apocalypse Cult: Many of the Mythos cults are trying to bring back the Keen Old Ones, which would end up destroying the world.
• Apocalyptic Log: Oft establish by investigators, and some stories are entirely these.
• Artistic License – Geology: Islands or whole continents rising out of seas. This was the result of Lovecraft and pals cribbing from the Theosophists (using their ideas about Atlantis and Lemura to lend a sense of authenticity), every bit well as the scientific discipline of the fourth dimension. Latter writers knew the scientific impossibility, merely just ran with it for the sake of coolness.
• Antiquity of Doom: Plenty, but the Shining Trapezohedron is probably the most noted. Also an Artifact of Death, if y'all differentiate between the 2.
• Asshole Victim: A common occurrence. Though, the reader may feel pity towards these characters because of their horrific fates.
• Author Appeal: Being a lover of cats, Lovecraft tended to treat felines rather fondly in his works. Friends and later on writers would actually add Lovecraft into his ain Mythos considering of his influence.
• Writer Avatar:
  • An unusual example is that Lovecraft himself became a figure in his own mythos and was written into several stories by other authors, either as an avatar or even more curiously as himself. In addition to this, the beginning Lovecraft brusk story collection The Outsider and Others, put together posthumously, was inserted into the mythos as 1 of the arcane tomes frequently referenced in the stories of other authors, starting with August Derleth (who coincidentally was also that book's publisher...)
  • Robert Bloch killed off a character based on Lovecraft in "The Shambler from the Stars"; in response, Lovecraft killed off a character based on Bloch in "The Haunter of the Dark".
  • Later on, Bloch wrote a sequel which mentions both the Expies and himself and Lovecraft. You lot would call back that Bloch or Blake would accept realized that they were carbon copies of each other down to having written almost identical stories. To top information technology off, the main graphic symbol (Fiske) is also an avatar, as Bloch wrote under a pen proper noun of "Tarleton Fiske".
  • Frank Belknap Long had another character based off Lovecraft in "The Space-Eaters".
  • The chief character of Fritz Leiber's "Terror from the Depths" shares many similarities to Clark Ashton Smith.
  • "HPL" by Gahan Wilson fifty-fifty has Lovecraft (and Clark Ashton Smith) every bit summoners of Mythos entities.
  • Lovecraft himself had several avatars: Ward Phillips, Randolf Carter, and Abdul Alhazred (which was Lovecraft's childhood play proper name).
  • T.E.D. Klein's Black Human With A Horn has a character based off Frank Belknap Long.
• Bad is Good and Good is Bad: Somewhat of a meta example. Lovecraft and his friends and co-writers lived in a viciously racist and xenophobic society and then information technology'south likely they attributed negative stereotypes to aliens if they belived they existed. The underlying implication beneath Gods and extraterrestial aliens having Blue-and-Orangish Morality that they seem to want to give is that they're so unspeakably EVIL that any level of wickedness and depravaty the reader imagines barely scratches the surface and draw nearly of the horror from that, after all they're horror books.
• Based on a Keen Big Lie: A practiced many of the tales are supposed to exist documents, diaries, or excerpts from elderberry lore. In-universe, some are even referenced as some paper story "purported to exist truth" but are met with skepticism.
• Benevolent Conspiracy: Most of the anti-Mythos groups operate covertly. The Wilmarth Foundation practise this to prevent panic and hide from the minions of the Great Former Ones. While very ruthless, Delta Green conspires to salve America from unspeakable horror.
• Bizarre Alien Biology: Almost all the aliens in the mythos have this. At that place's mucus-crab-bat things, Crinoid/plant lifeforms, giant shape-shifting amoeba-similar monsters, and behemothic telepathic squid-worms. And that'south not getting to the Peachy Onetime Ones, who aren't fifty-fifty of normal "matter".
• Black Speech: R'lyehian, the language used by Cthulhu and his spawn. Somewhen, information technology was passed downwardly from aeons to be used by the minions of the Mythos. It'south besides used in general to summon various Great Old Ones or their minions, even those not direct linked to Cthulhu.

  ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn

• Blue-and-Orange Morality: An alternative take on the Mythos by some authors. Most of the beings in the Mythos are beyond skillful and evil, equally we empathise it. For example, Long presents "The Hounds of Tindalos" as "Foul" and "descended of angles". Humans are somewhat "Pure" and literally descended from curves. In "A Note on the Cthulhu Mythos", Derleth explains that the entities of the Mythos are "beyond mundane morality".
• Breakout Villain: Believe information technology or not, only Cthulhu isn't the near important Eldritch Abomination in Lovecraft's work. Information technology's neither the most powerful nor the most frequently referenced. Even so, because "The Call of Cthulhu" became Lovecraft'southward nearly popular work, Cthulhu itself became the iconic character of Lovecraft's universe, to the point that the mythos is unofficially named after it.
• Canon Welding: Very common.
• Chaos Is Evil: Nyarlathotep, the "Crawling Anarchy", is a sinister effigy. The Lurking Chaos, Xexanoth, is considered blasphemous. Literally with Azathoth.
• Christmas Episode: Lovecraft's "The Festival". This being Lovecraft, don't look annihilation traditional about it.
• City with No Name: "The Nameless Urban center".
• Civilization Destroyer: One of the basic characteristics of the Cthulhu Mythos horrors is that well-nigh of the different Eldritch Abominations would rapidly destroy human culture if they always awakened. The exceptions would simply want to toy with united states first, or at least to mold gullible minds who would exist foolish plenty to awaken them.
• Clarke'southward Third Law: Invoked most often in the Mythos works of Charles Stross, which imply that powerful Mythos entities are actually highly-advanced forms of AI and that magic is really a manner of manipulating the underlying mathematics of the universe. It doesn't make these things whatsoever less terrifying.
• Colonized Solar System: An extraterrestrial example. Several worlds in the Solar Organization, including Earth, have been repeatedly colonized by alien species or have native species already living in that location. These range from the Bulbous Vegetable Entities on Mercury to the Mi-Get colonies on Pluto.
• Continuity Nod: Given they are function of a Shared Universe, this is inevitable with many stories in varying degrees, ranging from very subtle such every bit an off-paw reference to Miskatonic University or the Necronomicon to more obvious ones like incorporating famous abominations, to outright referencing plot points from Lovecraft's stories, all of which tin exist put to great use depending on the nature of the tale.
• Continuity Porn: Common from well-nigh the moment of Lovecraft's death onwards, though hardly mandatory.
• Covers E'er Lie: Lovecraft anthologies (especially ones by Del Rey) frequently have weird, surreal imagery unrelated to anything in the stories. Though they do communicate the atmosphere of the books well plenty.
• Creepy Cemetery: "The Walker in the Cemetery" by Ian Watson is ready in one of these.
• Crossover Cosmology: Some characters theorize that all human mythologies are inspired by the Mythos in one way or another. Even the concepts of practiced versus evil is influenced by the conflict betwixt the Elder Gods and the Nifty Old Ones (despite both being beyond practiced and evil).
• Cryptic Background Reference: Lovecraft did this often, and and so did the Kalem Club, throwing out little bits and pieces of elder lore. It left fans wondering and wanting for more than. Trying to piece them all together is part of the stories' appeal.
• Cults: The Mythos is filled with Old One worshipers with horrible rituals. They range from the Arkham witch coven, diverse madmen similar the Whateleys, the Brotherhood of the Yellow Sign, and the English language Temphill Cult to name a few.
• Cultural Cross-Reference: Mythos references have been made in Nippon ranging from the subtle (The Big O, Digimon) to the breathy (Nyaruko: Crawling with Love!).
• Dark Fantasy: Notably by Smith and some of Lovecrafts stories deal with traditional fantasy elements.
• Death by Adaptation: Inspector Legrasse in the 2005 silent film adaptation of The Call of Cthulhu. In the story, he not merely lives, but some writers used him in their own short stories.
  • The same goes for a agglomeration of other characters in The Whisperer In Darkness likewise. Nigh prominently, Albert Wilmarth crashes a plane into a Mi-Go ritual site, subsequently which the aliens relieve his brain.
• Did You Just Romance Cthulhu?:
  • Lovecraft'south "The Dunwich Horror". Yog-Sothoth mates with a human being woman and produces the offspring who will be known every bit Wilbur Whateley.
  • Michael Shea'south "Fatty Face up". An "escort" seeks comfort from a large, seemingly kindly man. Information technology's not a man, and information technology doesn't cease well.
  • Played with Ramsey Campbell'southward "The Faces At Pine Dunes". The protagonist and his girlfriend investigate his parents' strange beliefs. His father is a Man/Eldritch Anathema hybrid, so is the protagonist.
• Did You lot Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Happens to Cthulhu itself in "The Call of Cthulhu" when it was rammed straight into R'lyeh.
• Divine Ranks: The Mythos adult a hierarchy of entities, but it wasn't formalized until later.
• The Dreaded: Nigh of the monsters don't need to kill you to disable you. They tin can do that only past looking really really scary. The Cthulhu Mythos is the Trope Codifier of Eldritch Abomination for a reason.
• Dug Also Deep: Happens in a Lumley tale in which an oil drill ends upwardly drilling into a sleeping Peachy Old One.
• Earth Is the Eye of the Universe:
  • Played with - the primary reason that so many sealed evils are full-bodied on Earth is precisely because they are non concentrated on Earth. There'southward just then damned many of them that Globe ends up having its fair share of octopoid elderberry gods as a matter of normal statistical distribution.
  • In The Dunwich Horror, young Whateley's diary states that the alien intelligences are interested in World as an chemical element in their long-range plans. Organic life, on the other manus, is considered an obstruction, and their real plans tin can get started once they erase all life on World and have it out of three-dimensional space.
• Eldritch Anathema: For all applied purposes, this is the font and origin of all blobby god-things with unpronounceable names.
• Eldritch Location: Lots and lots.
• Eldritch Bounding main Abyss:
  • The ocean floors are inhabited by the Deep Ones: Ageless, cultish Fish People who worship Eldritch Abominations from beyond the stars and receive foreign powers in return. That said, information technology's the Deep Ones who come to land for mates who are the nearly troublesome...
  • The "nightmare corpse-city" of R'lyeh lies at the floor of the remote South Pacific. In information technology, the Great Former One Cthulhu lies in deathless slumber, waiting for the Quondam Gods' return.
  • Even H. P. Lovecraft, creator of many an aquatic Eldritch Abomination, had an irrational fright of the bounding main.
• Elemental Embodiment: Baronial Derleth had used an Elemental Theory: the idea that the Sometime Ones can be sorted by the four classical elements; for instance, Cthulhu for h2o, and Derleth creations Cthugha and Ithaqua for fire and air, respectively. However, the theory is debatable and trivial used by other Mythos writers.
• Evil-Detecting Dog: In The Colour Out of Space, cats cease upwardly leaving the accursed farm, likely knowing what actually landed. In The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, the onyx city of Inquanok would welcome cats, but information technology'due south too close to the evil plains of Leng and the northern desert; "...in that far land there broods a hint of outer infinite which cats practice non like, and to which they are more sensitive than men."
• Evil Only Has to Win In one case: If any of the Dandy Old Ones are ever freed or awakened fully, then it's practiced-bye to mankind.
  • In the case of Azathoth, it's good-bye to everything including the other eldritch gods.
• Evil Smells Bad:
  • In general the Corking Old Ones olfactory property "foul", a sign people would know them. In Cthulhu's example, he probably wouldn't aroma and so practiced afterward being stuck in a tomb for millions of years.
  • Ill-reputed Innsmouth smells like fish.
• Evil Takes a Nap: A mutual theme in the mythos. Many Great Erstwhile Ones and contrasted eldritch abominations are sleeping and bring ruin as they shift in their sleep. Their enkindling, which is said to be inevitable, will bring about The End of the World as We Know Information technology, something that was barely, barely averted in "The Telephone call of Cthulhu" when the title monster awoke.
• Expanded Universe: A rather informal ane, with Lovecraft'south tales being the nucleus of the chaos.
• External Retcon: Happens, but most notable with Hastur.
• Optics Practise Not Vest There: Wilbur Whateley has eyes where they should not exist.
• Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Despite not being a real mythology, the Mythos tends to get tossed into such stories.
• Fantasy Pantheon: With three sets of them!
  • The Outer Gods seem to personify the cosmic forces of the universe, just they're still by and large uncaring towards humanity. With the exception of Nyarlathotep, their messenger, who'south actively malicious (and basically Satan).
  • The Great Old Ones are, for the most part, merely treated equally vast, unknowable alien beings who are waiting in hibernation to repossess their control of the Earth. Cthulhu itself fits in here.
  • The Elder Gods could be considered the Great Erstwhile Ones' Proficient Analogue (or proficient enough, really). While the Onetime Ones are utterly unknowable and terrifying, the Elderberry Gods are helpful to humanity and familiar (some live in the Dreamlands and many of them are from existent-world mythologies).
• Fictional Document: The various unspeakable books, commentaries on said books, as well as the various final testaments.
• Fish People: The Deep Ones and their One-half-Human Hybrids resemble hideous humanoid fish.
• Formerly Sapient Species:
  • "The Creature In The Cavern" describes cave-habitation humans who degenerated into savage monsters.
  • "The Rats in the Walls": The La Poer family unit sated its cannibalistic appetites by breeding "human being pigs" in immense surreptitious food pens. The breeding stock was and so inbred and twisted towards the end that some of them had devolved into quadrupeds, and they had largely lost the capacity for thought.

     Tropes Grand-50

• Genocide Backfire: The Doom that Came to Sarnath is a result of a human city wiping out some other non-human city.
• Get Mad from the Revelation: The Trope Namer - many of Lovecraft's protagonists practice not take well to grim discoveries. Encountering the Mythos in general is not skillful for one's sanity either.
• Gratuitous German: The Unausprechlichen Kulten. Co-ordinate to S T Joshi, a leading Lovecraft dominance and who provides the annotations for Lovecraft'due south stories for the Penguin Classics editions, it's also wrong German language. It should be "Die Unausprechlich Kulten". Odd, since Lovecraft spoke German. And it'due south notwithstanding wrong: The correct form would be either "Unaussprechliche Kulte", "Die unaussprechlichen Kulte" or "Von Unaussprechlichen Kulten" (note the capitalization).
• The Greatest Story Never Told: People journey into the depths of horror, sometimes preventing such nightmares from rise - and very few (if anyone) actually learn of the tale.
• Half-Human Hybrid: And not the cute furry kind, nor the sympathetic outcast kind.
• Detest Sink: Y'golonac is ane of the few of his kind that tin be regarded every bit truly evil, being a catholic Serial Rapist and Serial Killer that has absolutely no problems with defiling and murdering anyone he gets his easily on.
• He Knows Too Much: Whoever finds out likewise much almost the Mythos (such equally the Cthulhu Cult) tends to exist hunted downward and killed. That is, if the person in question doesn't become insane first or go eaten.
• Historical Domain Character: Information technology's common for Mythos stories past later authors to feature Lovecraft himself as a grapheme, frequently with the premises that he wrote truth disguised as fiction. Lovecraft Is Missing is a prominent example.
• Homeworld Evacuation: The Insects From Shaggai (AKA Shan) in Ramsey Campbell'due south stories. When their dwelling planet was destroyed by a Mythos abomination, some of them fled to a succession of other planets, finally ending up on Earth.
  • Yith itself is a dead planet, but the Corking Race which evolved at that place fled to primordial World via mass heed-swap.
• Hostile Terraforming: Allies of the Mythos are trying to piece of work towards "immigration off the Globe" for the Swell Old Ones.
• How We Got Hither: Typically of the "See, this is why I must commit suicide before sundown..." variety.
• Human Sacrifice: Whether it'southward being used in some unspeakable experiment/ritual or simply beingness a snack for an Old I, it's very common.
• Humans Are Cthulhu: As shocking equally it may seem there are some stories, even by Lovecraft himself, where humans are not at the lesser of the cosmic food chain. For instance "Memory" has a daemon and a genie talking well-nigh a race that congenital the ancient ruins in a valley: Man. And in "Through the Gates of the Silver Key" Randolph Carter possesses an alien from the afar past who is "disgusted by the thought of the homo earth-mammal" that holds him prisoner in his own trunk for millions of years, long after the remainder of his race is extinct.
• I Take Many Names: All of the Great Quondam Ones and other incomprehensible beings have multiple aspects and/or names. Part of this is due to multiple attempts at spelling a alien word (Cthulhu, Ktulu, Clooloo, Q'thulu, Tulu, etc.) and partly just due to the use of epithet (Nuclear Chaos or The Daemon Sultan for Azathoth) in the case of The Scottish Trope where the true proper name is forbidden (even "Azathoth" is a pseudonym).
• Informed Aspect: A big theme of the setting is the fact that nigh of the gods and monsters are indifferent to humanity and/or operate on Blueish-and-Orangish Morality, and thus the human concepts of benignancy and malevolence aren't really applicative to them... merely they usually behave in much the same way a truly malevolent entity would anyway.
• Insectoid Aliens: The Mi-Go and the Insects From Shaggai.
• Kaiju: In that location are some actually large monsters in the Mythos. Cthulhu is described as a walking "mount". Most of his children are almost as large- one of them whose talons alone are the size of mountains. Not to mention Dagon, Zhar and Lligor, several of Nyarlathotep's masks... all big. And then there'south Ghroth, a monster the size of a planet.
• Living Bodysuit: Nyarlathotep, Hastur, Y'Golonac, and the Insects from Shaggai.
• Lizard Folk: The Serpent Men of Howard's Conan stories, and later on used by Lovecraft.
• Loads and Loads of Races: HPL himself mentioned or sometimes showed a few dozen aliens and monsters, and subsequent authors and co-writers have expanded this greatly. That's not even getting into the godlike deity-aliens. Overall at that place are at least xxx intelligent races described.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Upper-class Anglo-Saxons seem to be the merely people on Earth unaware of the horrors going on.
• Lovecraft Lite
  • The stories by Smith, Derleth, Lumley, and Howard, in particular. Smith'south tales focus on the weirdness rather than the horror, and Howard's characters were simply badass enough to face cosmic horrors and fight them. Fifty-fifty Lovecraft had some lighter tales.
  • Naturally, the Mythos parodies and homages tend to be this too.

     Tropes M-R

• Magic from Technology: Often hinted that the "magic" of the Mythos is but avant-garde scientific discipline.
• Magic Is Evil: In that location are plenty of evil (and insane) sorcerers. However, in that location are besides examples of good people using "magic" to stop the bad guys. Titus Crow is ane instance, and Lovecraft'south Professor Armitage is some other. It's hinted that the magic may non be evil outright, just extremely dangerous to united states of america ignorant humans. It's this interpretation that the Telephone call of Cthulhu RPG takes, where using spells will sap Sanity.
• Masquerade: Ane of the defining aspects of the Mythos, living in ignorance of the true horrors of reality.
• Medium Awareness: Lovecraft encouraged the authors he corresponded with to use elements of his mythos in their stories, fifty-fifty if those stories were not office of the mythos itself. This emergence of common elements in seemingly unrelated works of literature created the impression that the mythos was actually real, thus leading to the fan theories that Lovecraft actually had encounters with eldritch entities. This culminated in a peculiar case when an infamous Moral Guardian by the name of Patricia Pulling included in a questionnaire submitted to police as a means of investigating people for possible occult affiliations, a question regarding whether or not the suspect had heard of and read the Necronomicon. This question, among various other things, led to her discrediting every bit a credible skillful in the surface area of occult crime.
• Mistaken for Quake: When the footing shakes in a Mythos tale, you can bet it's either a Cthonian hive nearby or something worse.
• Moe Anthropomorphism: You can notice well-nigh, if non all, of the mythos beings depicted every bit human girls. Cthylla is notable here since, existence called Cthulhu's daughter, it's much easier to search for her moe art than her squid-similar grade. ''Nyaruko: Crawling with Honey! takes this to the next level, with Nyarlathotep, Cthugha, and Atlach-Nacha as cute moe girls.
• Monster in the Ice: "Cold Water Survival" by Holly Phillips has a grouping of adventurers setting upwards a base of operations on an iceberg that's split off from Antarctica realize that diverse Eldritch Abominations frozen in the water ice are slowly thawing out every bit the berg travels into warmer regions.
• More than Three Dimensions: This trope is all over the Mythos. Most of its famous monstrosities exist in many more dimensions than we humans can perceive, so what we practise see are just limited projections of their true multidimensional forms onto the 3D "reality".
• Multiple-Choice Past: Details vary between story to story, even if it'southward the aforementioned author. It may have been done on purpose to create a sense of ambiguity.
• Mushroom Man: The Fungi from Yuggoth, though less man and more than flying-thing.
• Mysterious Antarctica: "At the Mountains of Madness", every bit well equally the material that follows up on the plot, such as roleplaying supplements and the novel Hive.
• Names to Run Away from Actually Fast: Pretty much all of them, unsurprisingly.
• Natural Stop of Time: Destined to happen when Azathoth wakes up. Which could happen at anytime.
• No Biological Sex activity: Almost all the monsters created by Lovecraft himself are sexless. The simply exceptions are the Deep Ones.
• No Hugging, No Kissing:
  • Lovecraft'due south stories contain nigh no hanky-panky. His narrators are universally chaste, at least during the bodily story. Female characters are most consistently abominations in disguise. When they aren't, they're picayune more footnotes, like Nathan Peaslee'due south ex-wife. On the very rare occasions that sexual action is unsaid, it is depicted negatively and guaranteed to result in inhuman hybrid demon spawn. The just even semi-notable exception is the unnamed mother of Charles Dexter Ward, who, while remaining a side character, deeply loves her son and falls ill out of business organization for him; when her husband discovers what their son is really up to, he does everything he can to keep her from knowing just how atrocious things really are out of fear that he'd lose her forever, either mentally or altogether, from the shock.
  • There's the poor Lavinia Whateley in The Dunwich Horror, who goes over her head nether the coaxing of her grandad, and meets a grisly catastrophe afterwards on because she'due south not happy with the idea of destroying humanity. Nearly of the time women and romance aren't so much evil as completely absent from Lovecraft'south stories, since he had no idea how to write female characters and was reportedly rather uncomfortable with sexual matters. Fifty-fifty Asenath Waite was actually the spirit of a human being inhabiting the torso of his daughter.
  • Every bit in the infinite of a story (days, maybe weeks) the male heroes spend fourth dimension among creatures like Innsmouth hybrids or man-eating degenerate beings from The Lurking Fear, it would be pretty horrible to imagine what they could do if they weren't chaste.
  • Averted with Smith and Campbell, where romance plays a role in some of their stories.
• Non-Indicative Name: Cthulhu only appears in one of the original Lovecraft stories, and his role beyond that one is adequately minimal. Though he is the most iconic character in the Mythos, he is definitely not the primal figure—technically, "The Nifty Old Ones Mythos" would exist a more accurate title.
• Non-And then-Safe Harbor: Not surprising considering how it's mostly set in New England, but Innsmouth is especially noteworthy. Also not surprising considering Lovecraft's phobia towards all things aquatic, thus marine and octopoid creatures as a consistent source of horror.
• Occult Detective: Several characters attempt this, but often it doesn't end well. Titus Crow is a traditional case, while Teddy London is a individual detective that worked on cases involving the Mythos.
• The Old Gods: The Smashing Old Ones and the Outer Gods. Averted with the Elderberry Gods, who imprisoned the Great Quondam Ones.
• Our Titans Are Different: The Groovy Old Ones once ruled the cosmos, but are now trapped, limited in power, or sleeping.
• Our Vampires Are Dissimilar: The fungoid creature in "The Shunned House" is Lovecraft's version of a vampire. It bears little resemblance to the undead humans of other works. Other authors added Star Vampires and Fire Vampires, which are even less conventionally vampire-similar.
• Paranormal Investigation: Plenty of investigators, and very few survivors.
• Perspective Flip:
  • "The Litany of Globe" tells the story of 1 of the survivors of Innsmouth, thematically engaging with Lovecraft'southward fear of the other.
  • The works of W.H. Pugmire do this a lot. Almost of his protagonists are not-human and linked to Lovecraftian entities.
• Picky People Eater: Some of the horrors of the mythos desire claret or brains instead of eating people entirely.
• Plant Aliens: Both the Mi-Get and the Elder Things are described equally being fungoid.
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis: Thanks to the innumerable popular culture references, people have learned near the Mythos from almost everything merely the original stories.
• Posthumous Collaboration: Several stories were finished after Lovecraft'south expiry past Derleth.
• Product Placement: Partly a Shout-Out - in one of Derleth's stories, the characters acquire the anthology "The Outsider and Others" by H.P. Lovecraft for their investigation. "The Outsider" was the first book published by Arkham House, Derleth's and Donald Wandrei's company that was founded to help preserve Lovecraft's legacy. It was also a practical way to get the word out to the fans.
• Psychological Horror: Much of the focus is on the emotional and mental state of the man protagonists equally they delve deeper and deeper into the Mythos. Insanity is often equally common a fate equally decease. Those lucky few who live tend to be cleaved by their experiences.
• Public Domain Character: Even when it was created. H.P. Lovecraft encouraged creative diverseness in the original Cthulhu Circle, such that at that place was (and is) no single all-enjoining Canon, but rather what amounts to multiple authors' Ascended Fanon. In this sense, the Cthulhu Mythos more resembles an organic Mythology with numerous variations.
• Puny Earthlings: Anybody else in the cosmos is either vastly stronger, powerful, or more advanced than the fragile-minded humans.
• Majestic Prose: Lovecraft, Howard, and Smith indulged in this. Later writers, non so much.
• Replaced with Replica: Many souls tried and failed to defeat the horror known as Ghatanathoa, but none are more well-known than T'yog, the loftier priest of Shub-Niggurath. He crafted a ringlet that was meant to protect him from the dreaded curse that fell on those who looked upon Ghatanathoa or a perfect likeness of him. But T'yog was undone when the priesthood of Ghatanathoa stole the curlicue in question and replaced information technology with a fake.
• Reptilian Conspiracy: The Serpent Men of Howard's Conan stories, and later used by Lovecraft.
• Retcon:
  • All over the place. Range from Derleth's ideas of morality or Smith's Greek pantheon-style genealogy (including such gems as Cthulhu beingness Hastur'southward half-brother), to Fan Wank trying to avert Science Marches On, similar explaining various winged creatures like the Byakhee & Elderberry Things flying through space, originally ascribed to "ether", equally biotechnological solar sails.
  • Lovecraft fifty-fifty did it to himself, such equally placing the locales of some of his earlier short stories into the setting of the Dreamlands. (You'll notice that 'The Cats of Ulthar', for instance, never mention being anywhere but in the real world, let alone a shared dream consciousness.)

     Tropes South-Z

• Sapient Cetaceans: A story in Tales from Innsmouth has dolphins as allies of the Deep Ones.
• Scientific discipline Fiction: Several of the various monsters are given scientific (or quasi-scientific) explanations and origins.
• Sci-Fi Horror: Several stories are conspicuously set up in the subgenre - going into scientific particular of the horrors in the works.
• Scrapbook Story: About famously, the original Call of Cthulhu story does this, and other writers take followed suit.
• Surreptitious History: The Mythos' history is catholic in telescopic, starting aeons agone before Earthy life fifty-fifty existed. Most people don't know almost it considering of the obscurity of the Mythos. The limited few who practise larn of information technology are unable to bear witness information technology beyond first paw testimony. And in some cases (such every bit the Cthulhu Cult), some are actively trying to prevent it from existence known.
• Sentient Catholic Force: Yog-Sothoth for the Infinite-Fourth dimension Continuum. The various Outer Gods could be interpreted to exist this. For example, every nuclear reaction is Azathoth.
  • At to the lowest degree one version says Azathoth'southward physical presence was the large blindside.
• Serial Mascot: Cthulhu, naturally; it's neither the most powerful of the Outer Gods nor their leader, but it's the near famous because of the story information technology was featured in.
• Shout-Out: To Lovecraft and the other writers in Lovecraft'south circle. What started as in-jokes became hard continuity with Adaptation Expansion. References to the Mythos are as well common in popular culture.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Nigh of the time, then cynical yous could use the scale as a trebuchet. Competes with Warhammer 40k for the championship of most cynical popular body of fiction.
• Solo Tabletop Game: In that location are several solitaire capable games based on the Mythos. Fantasy Flying'southward Arkham Horror, Eldritch Horror, and Elder Sign can be played alone or co-operative. In the mid-1990's, Chaosium had the Mythos CCG, which in addition to standard multiplayer also had solo variant rules.
• Sorting Algorithm of Evil: In essence, in that location are 3 tiers to the Mythos; at the bottom are the "mere" horrors — aliens, ghouls, mad sorcerers, etc. Above these are the Cracking Old Ones, which are basically Concrete Gods. And to a higher place these are the Outer Gods, which are to the Dandy Quondam Ones what the Smashing Old Ones are to the lesser races. To put it in perspective, Cthulhu worships the Outer Gods.
• Spacetime Eater: Conversed between the narrator and a Lovecraft-expy in Long'south "The Infinite Eaters". They talk about Eldritch Abominations in general, with the Expy request what would happen if they "eat their manner to united states of america through space!"
• Spared by the Accommodation: The narrator in the 2005 silent picture show accommodation of The Telephone call of Cthulhu. The beginning of the original story refers to the "late" Francis Wayland Thurston. How he died is not revealed. The film doesn't actually hint at this at all.
• Spell My Proper name with an "Southward": Intentionally; most of the Nifty Sometime Ones and the like have names that can't exist rendered in man languages, and then they're spelled in all sort of different means in different stories.
• Spotlight-Stealing Title: Despite being the virtually well known and iconic character, Cthulhu himself has only a few small appearances in the stories and is more than of a minor background character compared to Yog-Sothoth, Dagon, and Nyarlathotep.
• Starfish Aliens: All of HPL's aliens, and quite a few world-abode creatures. Howard, for such an early writer, was good at ensuring his aliens were actually alien. And in the case of the Elderberry Things, one of the more sympathetic species, almost literal Starfish Aliens. Later authors accept followed conform.
• Stuck in Their Shadow: In-universe example: The protagonist of Black Man With A Horn by T.E.D. Klein feels that his literary career was overshadowed by his friend H.P. Lovecraft.
• Sufficiently Advanced Aliens:
  • The Great Old Ones are some of the, er, oldest examples. All too frequently this aspect gets ignored in favor of The Theme Park Version'southward literal gods.
  • In an inversion, in their introductory story, the Elder Things are presented equally being men- that is, in comparing to the other aliens and horrors out there, the Elder Things built things, created a civilisation, wrote, created, learned, taught. They built things and invented things. They're human compared to the near-godly Cthulhu Spawn and the horrific Shoggoth(southward?).
• Sufficiently Advanced Bamboo Engineering: Many of the alien tech look similar they're aboriginal stone ruins or tools. Some of it is actually so very advanced it may exist beyond human being comprehension.
• Superweapon Surprise: Of the Bigger Brother variety, in Lovecraft'southward Dreamlands stories "The Doom that Came to Sarnath" and "The Other Gods", to proper name a few. (Not in stories set in our world, though, or else said Bigger Brothers would have wiped humanity off the page.)
• The Taming of the Grue: Y'all can buy Cthulhu plushie dolls. Adorable, aren't they?
• Tabletop Games:
  • Spawned several RPGs, including the Phone call of Cthulhu RPG, Trail of Cthulhu (using the GUMSHOE system and focused in the 1930'southward), Arkham Horror and Yellow Dawn - The Historic period of Hastur RPG (ready in a post-apocalyptic world).
  • The franchise as well inspired Card Games, like the Mythos CCG, the Call of Cthulhu Living Card Game, and even Munchkin Cthulhu.
• Tentacled Terror: The octopus-headed star spawn, and their leader, the Dread Lord Cthulhu, Master of R'lyeh. H.P. Lovecraft had a strange thing nearly tentacles and invertebrates in full general. There's ever, e'er tentacles, to the extent that anything with tentacles will for better or worse be compared to a Lovecraftian horror. The reason there'due south such a stiff "slimy animal from the sea" motif in Lovecraft's monsters is because he was both violently allergic to pretty much all seafood and had a phobia towards them — seeing marine creatures as among the vilest and disgustingly ugly animals in the world. Of course, the Sometime Gods aren't actually cephalopods or anything else that resembles terrestrial life, it's but the closest approximation of their true advent that our brains can sympathise.
• These Are Things Homo Was Non Meant to Know: The entire Mythos is filled with these.
• Through the Eyes of Madness: Several stories by Lovecraft, who was likely inspired by Chambers.
• Tomato in the Mirror: Several stories involve the protagonist discovering something unpleasant about his heritage.
• Tome of Eldritch Lore: Near notably the Necronomicon, but too De Vermis Mysteriis, the Pnakotic Manuscripts, the... well just wait at the list. Proper noun-dropping 1 of these is a stock horror Shout-Out.
• Besides Many Mouths: Ane of the classic Eldritch Abomination traits. In a particularly corporeal case, the Nifty Old I Y'golonac (you fool, you lot've doomed us all!) has them on his palms.
• Town with a Night Secret: Oh then many, from Innsmouth to Jerusalem'south Lot to Temphill...

• Tuckerization: In improver to all the Writer Avatars and Shout Outs, the Lovecraft Circumvolve tossed out references to their pals:
  • Lovecraft mentions the Atlantean priest Klarkash-ton.
  • Robert Bloch wrote of the Egyptian Luveh-Keraph, priest of Bast.
  • A Comte d'Erlette wrote the Cultes des Goules.
• Ultraterrestrials: Deep Ones, Ghouls, Sand Dwellers, and the creatures inhabited by the Great Race of Yith.
• Universe Concordance: Daniel Harms' The Cthulhu Mythos Encyclopedia and before Encyclopedia Cthulhiana.
• The Unpronounceable:
  • All the Corking Quondam Ones qualify.
  • In one short story a fan of Lovecraft in a world where the stories are in truth based on reality has surgery to allow her to pronounce R'lyehian correctly. This gives her an eldritch wait, and when she actually practices the power, it sort of causes the finish of the earth as a side issue.
• Unreliable Canon: The Mythos tin take this trouble given hundreds of writers accept contributed to it.
• Venus Is Moisture: Venus is depicted equally a tropical globe filled with lush jungles, though its temper is poisonous to whatsoever unprotected humans. It's home to a race of primitive reptilian humanoids.
• Wainscot Order: Various twisted cults and factions accept what amounts to a parallel society in port cities and remote human being communities, subconscious from the mass of society but with a structure of its own. Ghouls, mostly living under human cities, have fairly frequent contact with humanity, oftentimes via such cultists and maniacs, as well as happily eating any human corpses they tin become hold of, while the aquatic Deep Ones and their half-human hybrids have a fair amount of influence in the human being world.
• Weaksauce Weakness:
  • The Cthonians dissolve in h2o. Justified: Considering the Cthonians are able to survive intense estrus and pressures, can burrow surreptitious, and have telepathic powers capable of decision-making people's minds, the fact that Earth is by and large h2o may be the just reason why they haven't wiped humanity out.

    Not a particularly exploitable weakness for the bigger ones though. Shudde-M'ell (the chief Chthonian) is described every bit a mile long, so immersing him in water would be ... pretty challenging.

  • H2o isn't good for the Bully Old Ones according to The Phone call of Cthulhu, either - it blocks their telepathic powers completely, trapping them to their lairs both physically and mentally, until R'lyeh rises again.
  • The Haunter of the Dark, one of Nyarlathotep's many forms, is extremely weak against calorie-free. Granted, it comes from a dimension where no visible lite exists (and where it would presumably be invincible), and it tin't exist killed, only banished back to that dimension, but all the same, it'southward an Eldritch Abomination that can kept at bay with a flashlight! Just you'd better hope your batteries last until you detect something else... the Haunter tin wait, information technology simply needs to catch you in one case.
  • In Robert Bloch's story "The Shadow From the Steeple" (considered out of canon by some) it gets better: after a serious blunder past a academy professor attempting to contain information technology, information technology takes over his body, therefore becoming about unaffected past lite, changes the man'south field of expertise to theoretical physics, then joins the Manhattan project so nosotros'll succeed in creating a weapon that could actually annihilate us. Information technology'south besides an avatar of the god Nyarlathotep, The Crawling Anarchy.
  • Call of Cthulhu itself offers one. You may exist surprised that, despite existence an ancient and unspeakably powerful entity able to bulldoze humans to insanity with nary a glance, Cthulhu is just as vulnerable every bit anything else to being rammed with large objects.
• When the Planets Align: The Great Erstwhile Ones will return when The Stars Are Right.
• Who You Gonna Telephone call?: Professor Shrewsbury, Inspector Legrasse, Titus Crow, The Wilmarth Foundation, Delta Green, and Teddy London''.
• Wolverine Publicity: Cthulhu only appears in one story, still his name is used for the whole torso of fiction. Justified in that Cthulhu or the events from The Call of Cthulhu is alluded to in other stories.
• You Cannot Grasp the True Form: Contrary to pop belief, people can see the truthful form of many eldritch beings just fine. Information technology's just sometimes the truth is merely also much for the homo heed. But there's a few that do play the trope straight. See the Grapheme folio for more than detail.

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Cthulhu fhtagn... what a wonderful phrase...

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Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Franchise/CthulhuMythos

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