'H.P. Lovecraft is so influential in the science-fiction and fantasy genres that 'Lovecraftian' is an often-used adjective; even similar writers like Robert E. Howard and Edgar Rice Burroughs who were incredibly popular in their day never managed to define a whole new genre like Lovecraft did. Yet many people don't write him particularly highly as a writer.

So where do you stand on Lovecraft: timeless talent or pulp hack? Do you use his work as inspiration, and how do you think his legacy affects your writing?';

'undefined';

'>>92552475
Lovecraft was once in a millennia genius. Anyone who says otherwise is just a contrarian wanting to feel smart.';

'>>92552401
Necromancy is a very big deal in a story I'm working on, and I'm trying to come up with some necromancy-based items my main character is trying to create, but I've hit a few snags. For one thing, I need some materials that can be used to make said items besides bones or other pieces of human remains, materials that are sufficiently attuned to the energies of necromancy to effectively channel said forces, I mean. What say you, and is there anything I should keep in mind when writing necromancy in general?';

'undefined';

'undefined';

'Fer a moment, I thought this was a "Writhing" general, but I clearly mis-read that, now I feel like dumbass...';

'>>92563495
Well, it's certainly starting to look like a "Writhing" general: >>92559264';

'What curse should thirty coins of silver Judas got for betraying Jesus hold? Certainly not some "Owner will always be poor" bullshit, they are associated with the biggest betrayal ever/';

'>>92552401
What's the easiest setting to mess up and turn into a cliche ridden mess?
For me I think I think it is steampunk and steampunk inspired/derivative genres. Especially when it comes to worldbuilding.';

'>>92556440
Check how people in this world treat their dead. If for instance they burn the deceased, then their ashes or leftover logs could be used.
Maybe they do the thing where they put bells near the graves so that unintentionally living people buried can call for help, so bells become important for necromancers as well.';

'>>92564311
Insatiable greed for money, to the point where they will give up things with much more emotional value to them for money they don't even need. E.g. abandoning their lover for a bag of coin. They don't want to but they can't stop themselves, it's like heroin to them.';

'>>92552401
Has anyone here ever used the Tarot in their writing, either as inspiration or as an active plot element, and if so what did you do? Also, why are these threads so dead lately?';

'>>92573186
Judas didn't betray Jesus just because of the money, and condition like this seems to be a game over since all you do after getting it is sell out your friends and gear. I'm thinking more of curse being placed on the coins themselves, not whoever posesses them. Like how priests wouldn't take this money back to the temple's treasury after Judas returned because they considered it blood money';

'>>92573527
I always use tarot meanings whenever heroes use divination or have prothetic dreams. Naturally, they see a lot of towers.';

'>>92573527
Yes actually they're a very important element during one of the previous arcs.

MC and MCette have a sit down meeting with a gypsy woman with special powers. She does a tarot reading that foreshadows a lot of not just the immediate coming arc, but also hints at all ensuing future events as well.';

'>>92564311
Option A: Accepting them always comes with a blood price, the recipient's or someone's they care about.
Option B: Wherever they go and whoever they go to is deconsecrated and becomes a magnet for the unholy and evil.
Option C: They literally drain the faith and will to live from you.
Option D: Lolvampire
Option E: Owners can't die, and they're haunted by every sin they've ever committed.';

'>>92566177
Not really a setting, but anything involving time travel.';

'>>92573527
>>92573739
>>92574023
I know why people gravitate towards tarot, but hasn't it been overdone in fantasy?';

'>>92577528
>but hasn't it been overdone in fantasy?
It's been done in fantasy. I wouldn't exactly call it overdone, since it gets used in a lot of very different ways.

Gypsy fortune teller using tarot is overdone as shit though. Although fortune teller as a disguise still has some legs before becoming trite.';

'>>92555635
b...b... but racism!';

'>>92578125
>Although fortune teller as a disguise still has some legs before becoming trite.
Muh subverted expectations';

'>>92576410
What are some common mistakes to avoid then?';

'>finished the first outline draft for the story, beginning, middle, and end before the end of December
>hasn't written anything for it since
I just feel no motivation to actually write it now that I feel pretty good about the actual story/plot of it.';

'>>92585483
>What are some common mistakes to avoid then?
Mistake #1 is getting out of your depth. Stick to either
>The past and future can't be changed. A time travel has already or will already be in every point of time they visit. The timeline is completely stable.
>Changing the past changes the future instantaneously and absolutely with no paradoxes or weird shit associated with that. Travel to the future removes you from a timeline until you reinter it. You cannot go to a future of a timeline where you've already returned from your future travels.
>Changing the past creates an alternate dimension and there may or may not be travel allowed between those dimension. In this context, changing the past is going to any point earlier in any timeline than you have already been through. Travel to the future removes you from a timeline until you reinter it, but does not split the timeline. You cannot go to a future of a timeline where you've already returned from your future travels.
DO NOT MIX THESE unless you're introducing multiple mutually exclusive methods of time travel and even that I don't recommend. There are other ways to write time travel, but 99% of authors that try to write something original inevitably write something incoherent, contradictory, or stupid. These cliches are good cliches.

Mistake #2 is completely fucking your stakes. If events can't be changed, you can't make too much shit known. If travel to the past overwrites a timeline, that has ethical implications. It also means that returning to an "original" timeline state is literally impossible and a return trip from a future will destroy that future. If travel is to another dimension, it needs to be treated with dignity and not as a disposable clone world.

Mistake #3 is not having characters consider the implications of time travel. Or worse having them do it dumbly, eg "we have to be careful not to change the future" (it's either already changed or it can't be, so go big or go home).';

'>>92552401
Xhol'Abath, the Languid Leviathan

Domains: Cosmic Apathy, Parasitic Symbiosis, The Depths Between Stars

Communication: None directly, but dreams of an endless black sea and the sensation of countless things crawling beneath one's skin are common among followers.

Xhol'Abath is not merely large, it is a contradiction to the scale comprehensible to mortals. Its bulk blots out starlight, each pass through a system an eclipse that can last generations.
Its body resembles a titanic sunfish, yet riddled with orifices, growths, and protrusions. Each is the nesting place of some otherworldly parasite, symbiotically linked to the Great Old One.
These parasites are varied beyond imagination, some capable of short-lived independent existence, others barely recognizable as life. They flit around Xhol'Abath like morbid moons, sometimes falling to planets it passes, seeding alien corruption.
The Great Old One seems unaware of any worship, or indeed of the wider cosmos. It drifts in a slow, uncaring migration through the universe, following unknown urges.

Xhol'Abath has no organized cult, but draws the mad, the sick, and those disillusioned with meaning. They view its vastness as freeing, importance erased in the cosmic scale.
Self-mutilation and the intentional fostering of disease are common practices, hoping to become worthy of hosting the Great Old One's lesser spawn.
Their texts are rambling, incoherent, filled with gaps where the author simply trailed off or drew images of impossible sky-fish. Attempts to systematize worship fail, mirroring Xhol'Abath's own uncaring nature.

Xhol'Abath's very presence warps spacetime. Regions it frequents may have time pass erratically, or become prone to spontaneous wormholes and dimensional breaches.
Some theorize the parasites are not truly separate beings, but Xhol'Abath's own thoughts, dreams, or even discarded organs given form.';

'undefined';

'>Lovecraft adores and encourages other writers adding to the Mythos
>CoC is very successful and widely-played TTRPG
>No one iterates on anything and it's the same 5 beasties over and over again';

'>>92576403
How does one drain faith?';

'>>92594343
shake someone's beliefs or disillusion them?';

'>>92592450

When you get it right first time you don't need to evolve. Like crocodiles. Other IPs need to try out all kinds of ludicrous shit to get by, but the Mythos just has to sit and wait, and nerds will wander along eventually and get hooked by its compelling lore and unique monsters.

In a hundred years time Marvel will be on its millionth iteration of Spiderman and the X-Men, and will just be about to introduce overpowered superhero team #27401780. Meanwhile Cthulhu will still be his same squid-faced self, chilling beneath the ocean and driving people insane.';

'>>92594343
>How does one drain faith?
https://www.google.com/search?q="just+sold+for"';

'undefined';

'undefined';

'I'm in a pickle regarding a setting god I've made on account of his specific vision (giving gifts to "champions" so that they will tread upon the thrones of the world, with those gifts passing down to their children) being very contradictory once you break it into the broader domains of tyrants, gifts, and bloodlines. What do? Do I do anything?';

'>>92552475
Absolute timeless talent. But people forget he was in massive danger of being disregarded as a hack by (((academics))) until Call of Cthulhu came out. (I'm old enough to remember this) Sandy Peterson himself is rather humble about this to the point of farce. But I still believe he singlehandedly bought Lovecraft into the mainstream. The dude has had such a profound impact on culture with shit like Doom, Age of Empires, Halo, Microprose and Lovecraft.';

'>>92552475
He was pretty cool guy, but not my personal jam. I have no strong feelings on him one way or another.';

'>>92600876
>he was in massive danger of being disregarded as a hack by (((academics)))
You said this as of these invidious snakes aren't still trying it.';

'>>92573527
Sometimes when I'm writing I'll use a Solo RPG table or two to sort out my writer's block. It works well for me as a springboard.

I only use Tarot to commune with the spirits teaching me how to summon a succubus. Just as /x/ intended.';

'>>92556440
Obsydian glass is pretty spooky. It coming from volcano's could be a good reason it has 'death' energy.

Maybe also desert sands? Earth from a location where life can't sustain itself.

To take some inspiration from the Egyptians, maybe gold or another precious metal? Greeks would burry men with coins so that could play into things. They'd also dry out bodies in Natron (desert salt) for preservation, and salt has a lot of mystical qualities attributed to it.';

'>>92564311
Of note he wasn't given silver coins. He was given silverware. That said- it would not at all be out of the ordinary for them to be melted down into coins (and likely into roman coins at that given how much longer the Roman Empire lasted).';

'>>92564311
Each coin has a separate curse but holding even one drives one to acquire all of them to the point of madness. They know that if they just push on and get every last coin they'll be rewarded somehow. Sacrificing friends, family, and sanity even as the curses pile up to make someone miserable.

And if someone gets all the coins, they are visited by Judas himself. Who laughs in their face and disappears. Leaving them with their curses and a desperate urge to give the coins to as many passers by as possible. Even though that doesn't remove the curses from them.';

'>Throughout "Math Arc" the party is lead to believe the villain is a negative number
>The big twist at the end: It's actually an imaginary number
How obvious am I making this if I name him "Professor I"? It's actually "Professor i" but the party doesn't figure this out until the very end, since they sound the same phonetically.';

'>>92601821
Why would his name be professor L?';

'>>92601821
>>92604339
Professor Vertical Bar?';

'So Im debating some stuff, feel free to give opinions.

Im planning out some stuff for the next arc. Among other big things, there's gonna be a sort of tournament arc. Here's some context:

MC + mentor go meet up with an old demon friend and ask for their help with crucial information. Demon friend being a bit of an ass is happy to help on the condition that they both participate in his tournament - hes running a big sort of underground boxing/fighting stadium thing. Some shenanigans ensue (like both MC + Mentor getting a pair of power-dampening bracers so they dont melt the competition) and then the finale.
I want to put the semi-final to be MC v Mentor. The final, will be one of them vs Another important character. A former student to the same mentor, and former mentor to MC, an ally turned villain turned neutral 3rd party. And here's my dillema. I cant decide which character should win the semi final and go into the finals. Both characters have a great deal of drama with the champ and both could lead to great amount of tension and story appeal. Also, both the mentor and MC just came off a timeskip/training arc, so I dont want to many either seem "weaker" by comparison.

Thoughts?';

'undefined';

'Weird question.

Going off of Lovecraftian inspirations. What sort of powers would you attribute to a Slug? Trying to design a character similar to pic rel, but trying to find some originality rather than just copying Bloodborne.';

'>>92607563
Tournament arc seen like a weird fit for a horror setting.';

'>>92564311
The Dresden Files curse for them is a pretty good one.

>Each coin carried by the Denarians contains the trapped spirit of a Fallen Angel. Whoever touches the coins is tainted by the Fallen within, tempted and given power; the Fallen leads the mortal deeper and deeper into its influence until eventually they have surrendered enough of themselves that the Fallen can take control';

'Probably a bit off topic but what´s your favourite Child-soldier Birthing Unit (C.B.U.).
In regards to at least a semblance of morality I´d pick the Axolotl tanks from dune.
In terms of horribleness the Demonculaba from Warhammer 40k.
Lastly if asked for the most effective one(and decently horrible) , I´d answer the Units that the ICOG from Xeelee- Sequence use.
The positions of the last two are debatable, but do you know some more C.B.U.´s or horrible fates one could suffer?
Bonus points if it is a fate that even god like beeings have to deal with.';

'>>92610073
There's horror themes, but not entirely a horror setting.';

'>>92610065
>What sort of powers would you attribute to a Slug?
Basically the only thing a slug can do is extrude slime. Maybe it could be a very poisonous slime, but slime is the main arrow in its quiver.

>>92611825
>a brief life burns brightly
I read a couple of the Xeelee novels at random when I was in my early teens, and let me tell you, lesbian clone tweens having an orgy then going out to get gorily shredded by an enemy they can't even really comprehend, let alone fight effectively, certainly left an impression.';

'undefined';

'There's honestly barely any good Azathoth art online. Like most of them are just uninspired balls of tentacles or giant kaiju which misses the point. Pic related is decent though.';

'>>92620230
Here's another good one';

'>>92620230
I love this one thought';

'>>92620230
I like this one. Really feels like something from beyond our universe.

>>92525394
btw, this guy has more stuff out
https://www.youtube.com/@Mercurio.fiction/videos';

'Good morning, sirs.';