Lovecraft vs. Warhammer!

[triggrhappy94]

I'm curious to see how many people actually took the time to read the Necronomicon, it's fucking huge.
I was tempted to read it over the summer, but decided against it and settled for At The Mountains of Madness. I'm half way through The Dream Quest of the Unknown Kadath, for those of you who know what I'm talking about.

Spoiler

If I remember correctly, what's his face has just gotten to the place where the people who look like gods live.

You'll excuse me if I'm too stupid to see what you did there, but the Necronomicon isn't a real book. Theres a lovecraft collection that called itself the Necronomicon, which I have but haven't finished the last few stories of, but the book itself is something entirely different within the fictions.

Also, did you mean to choose two of his longest works? Most of Lovecrafts stuff are short stories but you've started with his novellas, not that it's a bad thing but you might be a bit jarred when you see the shortness of his other stuff.

Well, can't a collection of stories still be called a book, it really just seems like semantics. The physical Necronomicon I mean. And as you can probably tell I haven't read the stories that the Necro appears in, so I only knew about the physical one. I didn't neccesarily mean to start with one of his longer 'story compilations', I actually think I had a thread on here about which 'compilation' I should start with. Mountians seemed like a good place to start and I think it was. I really won't mind the stories being shorter as long as they stay just as good.

 

[Gottesstrafe]

Cthulu is relatively weak when compared to Lovecraft's Outer Gods Azathoth and Yog-Sothoth.

Look at this artist's interpretation of Azathoth.

When I look at this, I imagine him as unfathomably immense. At the center of all infinity.

They're called cosmic entities for a reason. Metaphysical chaos given form and an agenda. Unbound by the laws of flesh, host to thoughts and motivations eons beyond the scope of simple human morality. A fraction of one second of what passes through their hallowed minds is more dense than the combined life histories of our entire planet. There is no benevolence at work here, the best one can hope for is apathy or disinterest.

The Warhammer chaos gods have discernible motivations, though wide in scale they are fairly simplistic enough to divide into pantheons. They require followers and armies, they measurably struggle against each other and the forces of entropy. Show me a "Chaos God" that threatens all of existence passively by merely being awake.

 

[Joseph Alexander]

Or Khorne would just lay waste to his face and make him sad and die. Problem soooolved!

his dreaming is reality, killing him would just end up wiping out reality.

but really, this is like setting a man(WH40K) in a death match against superman(lovecraft mythos).
its a "what the fuck do think was going to happen you idgit?".

and anyways, the original always beats out the cheap knockoff.

warhammer ripped off Michael Moorcock not Lovecraft

Moorcock's conception of Chaos also heavily inspired, and in some cases was lifted verbatim by Games Workshop in the creation of its Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 fictional settings. Notably, however, they only briefly used Moorcock's conceptions of Order or the Balance. The descriptions of Chaos, of the eight-pointed star, of the Chaos Lords, the strange multicolored hues of energies, mutations and warping of matter and flesh, and so forth found in the Warhammer settings are all derived directly from Moorcock's works.

indeed they are, but warhammer 40k didn't just pull from moorcock.
and while i will agree they did not pull directly from Lovecraft they did pull the same elements that Moorcock pulled(which he did change greatly in attaching singular themes to them).
but it also took elements from both Heinlein and Tolkien as well.
Tolkein's influence is a given even if it is more present in the "ye olde" WH.
Heinlein's is a couple key elements and a race, the totalitarian fascist human empire, the imperial troopers(the red shirt army) and the tyranids(even after the cosmetic change that made them also alien ripoffs) are all pulled from starship troopers.

 

[karchevs lawyer]

But Azatoth? No way man...No way. As far as I'm aware, his attack ranges from "Destroy the very fabric of the universe and plunge everything into nothingness" to "Destroy the very fabric of the universe and plunge everything into nothingness" with no room in between...

Si...El Correcto.

 

[Zen Toombs]

Spoiler

Cthulu is relatively weak when compared to Lovecraft's Outer Gods Azathoth and Yog-Sothoth.

Look at this artist's interpretation of Azathoth.

When I look at this, I imagine him as unfathomably immense. At the center of all infinity.

Why, yes, isn't it a beauty? I personally like this picture of Shub-Niggurath more, but Azathoth is not without its merits.

That forest down there? With the fleshy nightmarish tree thingies? And that small stone circle among them? The black specks there would be people. Welcome to Lovecraftland. My money goes on the things that are more powerful than the Chaos gods, while not being actual gods. And, no Cthulhu isn't really that powerful. Nyarlathotep loves messing with people but I don't know if ol' Crawling Chaos there

Spoiler: artist's interpretation

can beat some of the WH40K thingies. I'm betting it can. Or at least would mess with them. He is very Deceiver-ish, as far as I'm aware.

Oooh, pretty elderitch horrors. *yoink*

Also, I recognice that middle one from a TVtropes page.

Whoever wins, you lose, mortals!!

But we can just worship a Chaos god if they win, no?

As a mortal, you have a very interesting definition of "not losing".

Toombs concurs with your analysis.

 

[Zen Toombs]

-DOUBLE POST, CURSE CAPTCHA-

 

[Zen Toombs]

Oh, and by the way, doesn't "Blood for the Blood God" actually come from somewhere else, too? Like, some sort of Viking war cry?

Harriers for the Cup!

More OT:I think this is incorrect. However, if someone has a source for this I'd be highly interested.

But Azatoth? No way man...No way. As far as I'm aware, his attack ranges from "Destroy the very fabric of the universe and plunge everything into nothingness" to "Destroy the very fabric of the universe and plunge everything into nothingness" with no room in between...

Si...El Correcto.

Hi, and welcome to the Escapist! Just so you know, that post would qualify as a "low content post" which could get you a warning. Do your best to add a bit more to the discussion when you post, because I'd like to keep seeing you around!

Have a great day,
Zen Toombs

 

[kouriichi]

Next week on GOD FIGHTS: EXTREME EDITION, Cthulhu, the master of madness wrestles the Pain Bringer, the Destroyer, and our raining champion Khorne "Sits on A Throne of Skulls" Blood God! GET YOUR TICKETS NOW ON PPV, or miss out on the greatest fight in history!

Honestly? Its to close of a tie for me. I mean, Azathoth is a boss and everything, but Papa Nurgle holds a special place in my heart.

 

[Dogstile]

I say warhammer purely because I don't like the idea of gods that can just go "derp, i win" and press the destroy universe button. Its a tad boring.

 

[Lord S. Binkleheimer]

I say warhammer purely because I don't like the idea of gods that can just go "derp, i win" and press the destroy universe button. Its a tad boring.

Actually, in Azathoth's case it's more like.

"Oh, look! A universe to make frien- Aww. It's gone now."

 

[Therumancer]

Strictly speaking there are a lot of analogies here. Warhammer is a giant rip off, errr, homage, to Michael Moorcock's "Champion Eternal" cycle (which includes more than just Elric) right down to the taint of chaos, and how a lot of the units happen to look. Moorcock was himself inspired by HP Lovecraft and other, similar writers. Some of his earliest work like "Sojan The Swordsman" was created due to him not caring for some of the limitations placed on the mythologies of other writers who allowed their characters to be borrowed. All told it was a pretty incestuous period of writing, even involving a bit of necrophilia in using the work and being directly inspired/ripping off people who were dead. Copyright laws and such weren't quite what they are now, and the community actually encouraged this to an extent with a lot of odd crossovers and things being borrowed sometimes just occuring based on an exchanged letter or handshake.

The point here being that both universes have a lot of overlap in their concepts.

Overall, I'd give this one to Lovecraft's mythology. Cthulhu himself is actually a pussy, he's just the high priest of the old ones from a race that happened to colonize earth during the extensive pre-history. Cthulhu not only got stunned by a boat, but his entire race was defeated by the Yithians, who were themselves driven off earth by the Flying Polyps.

On the other hand when you start getting into some of the concepts, and don't argue the idea that they are all the same beings under differant names, in differant worlds (which could happen), the bottom line is that the forces of Chaos in Warhammer get spanked regularly, including the chaos gods when they run into other god-class opposition. Heck, Sigmar did a bit of a job on them, and he was a mortal at one point. In Lovecraft's mythology part of the terror is that there are no benevolent powers that can stand against them, these things are pretty much the actual truth of the universe, that's why it's cosmic horror. Deities like Hastur basically ARE the center of the universe... and well, the chaos gods might be powerful entities, but if they both existed they wouldn't hold a candle to that.

In the spirit of things an actual Lovecraft/Warhammer crossover might be an unheard of situation with say Chaos and the rest of the world actually working together to protect reality (which can't be corrupted and conquered if something else takes it all over, or worse yet... eats it), you know where the Dwarf gods or Sigmar (via Sigmarite visions) actually tell their minions to coordinate with their enemies, as there is now something worse than the encroaching chaos wastes.

Such an alliance couldn't KILL the ultimate enemies, but could perhaps imprison them, lock them out of the dimension (for a time... only for a time), and defeat the minions trying to give them full access to the world.

 

[nasteypenguin]

Well, can't a collection of stories still be called a book, it really just seems like semantics. The physical Necronomicon I mean. And as you can probably tell I haven't read the stories that the Necro appears in, so I only knew about the physical one. I didn't neccesarily mean to start with one of his longer 'story compilations', I actually think I had a thread on here about which 'compilation' I should start with. Mountians seemed like a good place to start and I think it was. I really won't mind the stories being shorter as long as they stay just as good.

I didn't mean it exactly like that, it just might be a bit confusing when you asked if anyone read the Necronomicon. It may be a name for a Lovecraft collection, but it's much more popularly known by it's fictional counterpart which is very different and a very prominant part of the mythos, you'll see when you read about it (I would still recommend The Nameless City for that.)

Actually, re-reading you're post, I think I may have misunderstood you. I was talking about the actual story of At the Mountains of Madness, I think you might have been referring to another compilation book of the same name? Both Mountains of Madness and Dream Quest (the stories, not the books) are novellas and much longer than most of his other stuff, it shouldn't make any difference but I much prefer his shorter stuff personally, I was just mentioning for the sake of interest.

Still on team Lovecraft for victory.

 

[DevilWithaHalo]

Might I suggest looking elsewhere in the 40k mythos for considerations of absurd power levels? An Alpha level psyker's will pretty much works exactly like Azatoth in Lovercraft (although on a much more tangible level).

The question is how aware does Azatoth have to be of it in order to blink it out of existence? One needs to question how well anyone could technically distinguish the Changeling because it doesn't even know what it is anymore.

I'm also curious if Azatoth could accidentally blink itself out of existence by becoming aware of itself. I'm sure the Deceiver or Tzeentch could make that happen.

Considering the Chaos gods are manifestations of the culminations of emotions and ideas from sentient races, they don't really have a specific existence which could be blinked out of existence. The very idea of removing something from existence would be a fundamental change of the dynamic of reality; which Tzeentch is the incarnation of. Sure their power level might be dramatically altered, but it/they would simply re-manifest right after. Azatoth being a sentient whateverthehellyouwanttocallit, would generate the Chaos gods by its actions.

I'm calling stalemate. Although it would be beyond awesome to see this play out in various ways.

 

[ScreamingNinja]

Or Khorne would just lay waste to his face and make him sad and die. Problem soooolved!

I don't think you understand Azathoth cannot be harmed in any way as soon as something comes in contact with Azathoth, or Azathoth even notices it exists, it no longer exists. Azathoth is an infinite being, an amorphous blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the center of all infinity beyond space and time on a curiously environed black throne at the centre of Chaos. He created everything and if he ever becomes aware of it he will destroy it.

And yet, Khorne would rip what passes for a face off it, and spit down what is left of what it has as a neck. Winning!

Nope, that was just the delusion he had as he passed out of existence.

Nope, seems like that'd be Khorne killing him. Because if it's two mythos' facing one other, then clearly Azathoth would wake up after being fragged, destroy himself and his own universe, whilest Khorne goes back to his own. Leaving the Chaos Gods the winnars!

 

[ScreamingNinja]

Or Khorne would just lay waste to his face and make him sad and die. Problem soooolved!

his dreaming is reality, killing him would just end up wiping out reality.

but really, this is like setting a man(WH40K) in a death match against superman(lovecraft mythos).
its a "what the fuck do think was going to happen you idgit?".

and anyways, the original always beats out the cheap knockoff.

Slaanesh would shag him to death. End of story.

 

[nasteypenguin]

snip

I absolutely love the amount of thought you have put into this.

The thing about Azathoth is that he's not exactly in control of the power he has (edit: thats not quite right, it's more a case of he has so much power, he created the universe without meaning to, and without caring that he did.) If, theoretically, a choas god manifested itself infront of him and did somesort of pokemon-esque hyper beam thing into its, for lack of a better word, face, it wouldn't consciously realise that its there and poof it out of existence; it would be more like, it becomes aware of existence as a whole and thereby end it because it IS existence, or it is the dreamer of existence or something.

I'm not entirely sure about this, because then there is Yog Sothoth whom is everything as well (All-in-One and One-in-All and all that), but he's also not part of our reality, or not IN our reality, or is trapped outside of our reality... I'm going to stop there before I hurt myself, I hope someone who knows Lovecraft better than me could chime in.

However, in saying that I guess your right, if by trying to 'kill' Azathoth, it 'kills' everything else, thats as good a stalemate as you can get. Although if you look at it a another way, if its reality v reality, a 40k thing could do a suicide mission to the Lovecraft universe and end existence there by waking up Azathoth, but leaving 40k unharmed... I don't think the rules of this fight are particularly clear on, well, anything.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

Although if you look at it a another way, if its reality v reality, a 40k thing could do a suicide mission to the Lovecraft universe and end existence there by waking up Azathoth, but leaving 40k unharmed... I don't think the rules of this fight are particularly clear on, well, anything.

If that plot was ever made into a book I would buy 10 copies just for it's sheer awesomeness. How could people write cross-overs of stuff like My Little Pony/Fallout, but never think of this sort of idea.

The thought of a horde of Spacemarines, Orks and Necrons blasting their way madly through the Lovecraft universe encountering all the horrors (like those dog-things that live in time and travel through obtuse angles or something) to try and reach Azaroth while the Eldritch Abominations seep into the 40k universe and duke it out with the Chaos Gods who desperately try to stall them from dissolving the 40K universe by disrupting the very fabric of reality simply through existing. Epic.

 

[Doclector]

Who would win in a fight? Not sure.

Who would be more terrifying? Well...the chaos gods have an army. They're letting you join them. There's even sometimes an element of choice, and you may even end up with incredible power.

Lovecraft's creations do not negotiate. They do as they please, whether you like it or not. Want to join them? Form an army for them? It ain't gonna make much difference most of the time, and if they do want you on their side, it is not your choice, and it will not be a pleasant path to take.

Chaos gods would surely be terrifying, of course. What I'm saying is there's more of a chance that if you choose to give in and admit defeat, they're more likely to let you join them in some manner.

Then, of course, there's the fact that if you run around screaming about chaos gods, there's an entire empire that knows of the threat of chaos. In lovecraft's universe, if you survive, your fate is probably in a dismal asylum somewhere, screaming your warnings until they come around with the sedative again.

 

[Timedraven 117]

Actually the chaos gods have a trump card. The changeling can change into any creature it want's even gods. So he can turn into a god adn be just as powerfula dn kill them. And then kill the others. maybe.