IN> Any Cthulhu fans in here?

[Saxon Brenton]

On Tuesday 3/April/2007 theheretik [theheretik at earthlink.net] asked
about IN/Cthulhu mythos combinations:
 
I would propose that how you would go about it would depend on how 
powerful you want to make the Mythos entities.  (Which leads directly 
into the question: how much do you want to bend, fold, spindle and 
mutilate IN Canon?)
 
The version which makes them the least powerful is that the Mythos 
entities are indeed 'just' Ethereals, probably Fear strand as William 
pointed out.  But by their nature they are ALIEN.  In the stories 
they are almost incomprehensible to the poor pathetic humans, and as 
Ethereals they are the same to the celestials.  Relatively low 
powered but still quiet scary to your average angel and demon Mythos 
entities would be things that they cannot properly see and cannot 
predict, and which can therefore dance about the angels and demons in 
much the same way the angels and demons dance about the humans.  
Perhaps they are immune to creating disturbance when they use their 
abilities.  Perhaps they are so alien in thought that when an angel 
or demon tries too hard anticipate what Mythos entities are thinking 
and planning that it causes them to become discordant and in extreme 
cases destabilise them to the point that they start to fall or redeem.
 
A more powerful version is that they are still Ethereals but have 
'somehow' gained enough essence to put them on par with the 
Celestials.  (There had been a writeup on this called 'Where Angels 
Fear To Tread' by Mark Chase, but I cannot now google up a copy :-(  
Anyway, perhaps there's a cosmic plot device involved.  Perhaps it's 
a scheme by Kobal (your dark Trickster figure).  Or perhaps the old 
idea from the mailing list that Beleth holds the Word of 'Nightmares' 
because 'Fear' has already been taken by Someone Else.
 
Another slight variation is that the Mythos entities are at base 
Fear strand Ethereals, but have managed to find and tap into the holy 
grail of ethereal cosmology, the 'Omnipotence' strand (although I may 
be getting the name slightly wrong).  This is notion bandied about by 
some Ethereals in canon that YHVH started out as just an Ethereal, 
but was able to tap into the Omnipotence strand and elevate himself 
above the other Ethereals and pretend that he was the universe's 
creator all along.  In this scenario is DOESN'T MATTER whether YHVH 
is a jumped up Ethereal or not.  If the existence of the Omnipotence 
strand is kept a secret then you have Mythos entities which are as 
powerful or near as powerful as Celestials.  If the existence of the 
Omnipotence strand becomes common knowledge, then this casts doubt on 
the origins of the Celestials.  Now, you remember all the fear and 
doubt that Kobal and Malphas were able to create in Heaven when they 
faked Maximilian's fall in the 'Fall Of The Malakim' adventure?  
Right, it'll be like that, only instead of a large amount of angst 
about Heaven's elite warriors, it'll be a ginormous amount of angst 
about the very validity of both Heaven and Hell.
 
Moving on to even greater canon breaking... There is the possibility 
that the Mythos entities are not and never were Ethereals at all.  
They have always been the peers of the Celestials.  Perhaps they are 
entities that (ala Alan Moore's description of The Darkness in his 
run on the _Swamp Thing_ comic book) existed prior to the creation of 
the ordered universe (in this case, the Symphony) and have been 
excluded until now that the Trickster has let them in.  Possibly they 
are Celestials from another Symphony with radically different laws 
from the canon setting.  In either case the Sotto Voce setting by 
Michael Cleveland has an attack on both Heaven and Hell by entities 
very much like those of the Cthulhu Mythos, and might give you some 
ideas:
     http://www.stormloader.com/users/stormbringer/in_nomine.htm
     http://www.stormloader.com/users/stormbringer/ishniggurab.htm
     http://www.stormloader.com/users/stormbringer/Rashagal.htm
     http://www.stormloader.com/users/stormbringer/TheVoice.htm

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Saxon Brenton     Uni of Technology, city library, Sydney Australia
The Girl Genius comic of Phil and kaja Foglio is now online at:
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