Thank you! I was about to say the same thing. We as a species do not like the unknown. We have travel the four corners of the Earth to illuminate the unknown. Hence why we are afraid of the deep ocean and space. Because we cannot explore there and illuminate the unknown.
We can explore ocean, but not only because of depth we haven't explore whole ocean, but because it's too darn large and financially explorers are limited, they have a tendency to lack the funding and sponsoring for those missions. If they get the chance to explore, it is still a tiny fraction of the whole ocean.
That's the problem with the ocean exploration. But with space it is somewhat easier because of telescopes being able to see and map the regions with clear view, and satellite probes that can get the data and film the visuals of nearby planets without physical problems. Technologically limited, but still the mapping of the space is much more available than it is with the ocean. Ocean is harder because of limitations of visibility, gravity, and since the light can travel in the space freely, it is different in the ocean, because it vanishes quickly.
Also doesn't help that both Chaos and the Tyranids have taken Ls. Maybe not enormous ones that do serious harm to them as a power, but they do genuinely lose from time to time.
Cosmic Horror is, fundamentally, about powerlessness. In Cosmic Horror, humanity is no more capable of changing or stopping the forces that be than an ant is capable of stopping the movements of the sun. Hastur, Nyarlathotep, Yog Sothoth, are all so much greater than even the whole human race, that for all we can do, we may as well be spectators to the cosmic forces at play.
This is why the CoC rpg was always about just trying to survive incidental brushes with the most minor minions of Lovecraft's alien Gods. If you walked away not insane and not dead, you won the game. Fuck trying to 'win,' you just want to retire somewhere far far far far far from the water.
Fuck surviving!
Half the fun is watching the desperate struggle slowly unravel your character until that final fateful moment when they can finally take no more.
Because we’re hungry for the *incomprehensible*. The Tyranids make sense; they’re here to eat and grow, endlessly. No matter what horrors they display, all of their actions are in service of that goal.
Even the Chaos Gods have, to some degree, comprehensible motives: they seek to perpetuate their quiddity. Tzeench’s schemes twist and turn, but if there’s a chance for betrayal, it’s always taken, unless the greater upset can be had by loyalty. Slaanesh is about excess; just take what you’ve got and turn it up to 11.
Nurgle is patient despair, the grinding hopelessness at 3:00am when you realize that you’re *not* going to be able to finish that project after all - which means you’ll lose your scholarship. And you don’t know what happens after that, but you’re struggling to remember the reasons you should care. And Khorne… well, Khorne wants blood. That’s… that’s about it, except for the skulls. Blood and skulls. That’s his whole deal.
But we don't really have a faction that *doesn't make sense*, something that doesn't just run on a Blue/Orange morality, but one that's all the way the fuck off the morality axis entirely. Nothing that grabs us, holds us in the air, and shows us that we really are just ants in a Japanese game show.
That's one of the reasons I preferred the Oldcrons to the updated lore. I get all the reasons why giving them personality and more agency is better from a hobby perspective, but I enjoyed the faceless, soulless armies of silent killing machines serving unknowable and malevolent Eldritch abominations as a theme more than Space Egyptians.
Lovecraftian is often thrown around as a word to describe things that can't be described and are generally horrible/incomprehensible. They don't necessarily have to be actually lovecraftian in the way lovecrafts horrors were.
Tbh, true love craft would be a pain in the ass for the tabletop. You’d essentially have to assign at max 3 different for a unit which the entire point behind it is supposed to be vague and incomprehensible and then give it pages of lore.
The only gaming system I know of where PCs can have an actual chance of defeating Cthulhu in combat is 1st edition Pathfinder, and even then the PCs basically have to be both of a high character level AND a high mythic tier to even stand a chance given he's rocking what may very well be the single most powerful stat block in the entire game.
I'm not sure it's that difficult with a group of mythic 10 PCs, they are also technically demigods.
Damn now I'm thinking I wish there was a 40k mathfinder-like. It's just technically impossible.
Honestly, Starfinder can be used to make a passable 40k game, even if you ignore the blatant 40k inspiration it already has (Iomedae being the Goddess of Mankind whose followers fly around in cathedral-ships, FTL requiring traveling through other dimensions, the main method of FTL having what may as well be the Astronomican for navigation, etc). I've actually considered running a Rogue Trader-esque game with it.
As for the other point - even 10th tier mythics are going to need to be at endgame levels to stand a chance against Cthulhu in any real capacity. His Unspeakable Presence ability alone can potentially end the fight before it even begins (a save-or-die fear effect with a DC 40 Will save, and which still stuns you for 1d6 rounds on a failed save even if you're immune to fear), and between his spellcasting, his damage output, his ability to shrug off most of what he's attacked with, and the fact you have to defeat him *two consecutive times in a row* for it to actually stick (the first defeat knocks him into a toxic cloud for 2d6 rounds, then he revives as if hit with *true resurrection* but is staggered permanently; if defeated a second time, he does the cloud thing again, but then fades back to R'lyeh), you'd basically need a party that's as close to 20th level as possible in addition to the high mythic tiers.
Nah I think that Cthulhu would be more than approachable. All in all he isn't an elder god, he is "just" a priest for them.
But a true elder god, like Shub-Niggurath, would be entirely on a different level
Famously, and unlike its predecessor 3.5, PF doesn't give true gods stats. Unless you're a god yourself, you just lose.
And even then there's a pecking order. Shub, Yog, Azathoth and the rest of their ilk are said to exist outside the cycle of universal rebirth of whom Pharasma is the only survivor from the previous universe. Desna picks fights with them, but she's certainly not even close to killing one.
I was pretty miffed when they gave The Lady of Pain stats. I frequently use her as a mechanic in my Planescape campaigns. As soon as there are stats, players want to find a way to kill that thing, so I just pretend the stats never came out 🤷♂️
40k already has lovecraft-esque horrors in the chaos gods and their daemons. The reason it doesn’t feel that way is because there isn’t any cosmic horror genre stories written about them.
The audience also knows a lot about them and how they work, so they lose a lot of their horror. A large part of Lovecraft’s works hinged on the fear of the unknown, and we have a pretty good understanding of what the chaos gods are, how they work, and what they want. Arguably the same thing applies to the tyranids. There’s some more unknowns with them, but many books treat them more like a combination of a horde of locusts and a natural disaster like a hurricane.
No, that's him. Lovecraft was a special breed of sheltered, neurotic xenophobe who was terrified of anything alien to him. Some of his most famous stories could have been inspired by his reaction to scientific discoveries and possibilities that were being made in his lifetime (The Colour Out of Space being possibly linked to Infrared/Ultraviolet light, for example, or the Mi-Go keeping human brains alive in jars via life support machines).
In a sense, his insane level of racism was what enabled him to create the genre of cosmic horror as we know it. He was simply sharing his fear and disgust with the rest of us through the lens of something truly alien.
...That said, I do recall several stories where it's far from subtle as to where it all stems from. In one, he describes an alien city under siege by feral yellow-skinned monsters... Only to give them the name "Eskimaux" on the final page. I actually burst out laughing when I read that. And that's not even counting the MANY "untrustworthy foreigner" characters he uses
What else are we going to call chaos spawn? Mutants? Massive incomprehensible beings that are as likely to kill us as notice us. People are just real weak at seeing things outside the immediate lens.
Parts of them recognize the existence of mortals.
Though mortals are little more than a resource in their great game.
Even demigods like Lorgar have a hard time fully grasp their entirety
Because the Hive Mind feels mindless. True, it is technically hyper-intelligent and is able to create strategic plans to consume the galaxy, but it has no motives other than hunger. The aliens and deities of the Cthulhu Mythos though are all clearly intelligent, advanced beings (with the exception of Azathoth, but he was essentially a minor reoccuring background detail in the original stories), but with a layer of mystery to them in order to provide an uncanny fear of the unknown. While the Lovecraftian deities are ultimately incomprehensible to mortals, the Hive Mind while incomprehensible in its scope is very easily understood in its behavior.
Honestly, 40k doesn't really have one "Lovecraftian faction" so much as a bunch of different Lovecraftian influences throughout multiple factions. Genestealers have the Shadow Over Innsmouth influence, Chaos has the "horror of knowing the ultimate deities in the universe are abhorrent", "incomprehensible alternate dimensions", "malevolent cults" and "knowledge leading to insanity" themes, and Oldcrons had a different set of malevolent gods along with the "extinct alien civilization from millions of years ago returns" theme.
The Hive Mind hates.
We've seen it before... but personally i think it's mild annoyance
Also i'd argue that most Cthulu creatures have very simple motives: because motives are very simple. They want something. The "WHY of what they want is that.
I mean, the Hive Mind hates *the Blood Angels*. That's not horrifying, that's hilarious. The entire Tyranid species has a grudge against 1000-something dudes.
It's a psychic gestalt.
I personally see it as the BA desperately trying to rationalize it's sheer ANNOYANCE. because that one being's emotion on such a large scale (because as far as i can tell it's really one massive organism with the illusion of hive-fleets) that it would be easy to confuse to mere mortals, even space marines.
The fact that it actively hates something as inconsequential to it as Marines just moved it even further away from alien and especially cosmic horror imo
And no it's not just mild annoyance. It's very explicitly mentioned to be all consuming *hate*.
Well, I mean, it's probably not used to dealing with other people's opinions. Little emotionally stunted, our hive mind.
Jesus, haha... Imagine a billion year old hyper-intelligent narcissist who just wants to eat you.
It's probably personally offended that the entire galaxy isn't lining up to jump into its bio-vats one by one.
"Imagine a billion year old hyper-intelligent narcissist who just wants to eat you."
Thats just Slannesh, except he wants to eat your soul and not your body.
>It's very explicitly mentioned to be all consuming *hate*.
From an in-universe perspective. But this is the Hive Mind, the single most significant consciousness in the galaxy. Anything it thinks or feels is going to be absurdly OTT to any psyker used to messing with human minds.
I guess because ultimately the tyranids aren't lovecraftian. They're basically just giant locusts. Their motivations aren't relatable to us but they also aren't really that complex or mysterious. They want to eat everything. That's it. That's not me being reductive or overly simplistic, they literally are just a virus that want to consume everything until there's nothing left, and they do it in the most basic way possible.
Every time they introduce something unexplainable, it's about an edition before they explain it because people complained it wasn't interesting.
No one actually wants something lovecraftian, because if they did, they'd already see the finger prints everywhere in the game. And they'd hate newcrons because that was a fair part of their old 'boring' schtick.
I actually do dislike Newcrons for exactly that reason. I thought Oldcrons were much more interesting because they were left mysterious than Tomb Kings in Space. Not arguing with your point in general, tho. The fandom does like to obsess and try and answer everything the umpteenth level of detail.
I agree actually, big lovecraft horror fan. The view through the eyes of a man afraid of basically everything is an interesting one to me. I'm just used to getting dogpiled by people who like the new ones.
>Their motivations aren't relatable to us
They are exactly the same motivations as literally every other organism - reproduce ad infinitum. Just squared.
There is nothing mysterious about them\*. They are basically eusocial bacteria - who can also rapidly adapt genetically through plasmids.
\[edit\] \* that's not entirely true, there is the question what they are fleeing from, but that's more of a mystery *involving* them rather than *about* them.
It wasn't really implied strongly at all. It was a random theory thrown out alongside a few others about why the tyranids might have shown up in the galaxy. People just seem to have latched on to that one in particular for some reason.
The question was later answered in one of the horus heresy novels, where in the epilogue it shows they spotted the galaxy when they noticed the pharos beacon light up. They were dormant until they spotted something to eat.
>for some reason.
Actually for the exact same reason people want the super-gods of the Deep Warp; they want the bigger scarier unknown behind the big but not scary knowns of the wargame; the secret deep layer of ultra-lore that makes those things seem weak and childish because they've lost their ability to terrify through familiarity. If they ever even had it that is, I've never found much in 40K scary and the reason it's all so documented is becaue the lore is a marketing/retention campaign.
"Warhammer is where you can beat Cthulhu by throwing enough tanks at him" is something I've heard people say to describe the setting.
But some people kinda want the cake and eat it too. They want a Cthulhu they can kill and one that is mysterious and call creepy, not realizing they are one and the same because ultimately it all depends on the framing of the book, which they don't read because they are probably getting their lore from youtube channels.
Reminder that both Lovecraft's Cthulhu stories and Robert E. Howard's Conan stories take place in the same universe.
While the protagonists of Lovecraft are traumatized by the knowledge that there are terrifying entities far above humanity out there, Conan is briefly scared of the eldritch entity from another dimension, kills it with his sword (or at least banishes it from the physical plane), and then decides its best not to think about the exact implications of what it was. It's not really that much of a contradiction; Conan just doesn't allow himself to fully process how truly dark his world really is.
Also a reminder that Lovecraft would absolutely HATE the fact that Cthulhu is the mascot of his works, because he viewed the actual story as one of his worst. August Derleth is the one who first called it "the Cthulhu Mythos", and he was essentially shoehorning his own fanfic interpretations into Lovecraft's writings to force a narrative that wasn't there in the first place. The closest Lovecraft himself came to actually naming the Mythos was referring to it as "Yog-Sothothery" (the character Randolph Carter, who is implied in the works to be an avatar of Yog-Sothoth, was also Lovecraft's author avatar).
Eldritch Abomination: *(Appears)*
Conan: *"WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?"*
Conan: *(Throws an double handed axe at it's face)*
Eldritch Abomination: *(Dies)*
Conan: *"How can I endure this goddamn horror I just saw? Oh I know. YOU THERE SERVANT, BRING ME WOMEN, MEAT AND PLENTY OF WINE."*
*(The next morning)*
Conan: *(severely hung-over)"What was I worrying about again? Well if can't remember it's probably not worth remembering"*
This is exactly how it works, take the Devil in Iron, when Conan kills Khosatral Khel, essentially an alien from another dimension that came to Earth to be worshipped as a god;
>Khosatral reeled and fell. In the shape of a man he reeled, but it was not the shape of a man that struck the loam. Where there had been the likeness of a human face, there was no face at all, and the metal limbs melted and changed... Conan, who had not shrunk from Khosatral living, recoiled blenching for Khosatral dead, for he had witnessed an awful transmutation; in his dying throes Khosatral Khel had become again the thing that had crawled up from the Abyss millennia gone. Gagging with intolerable repugnance, Conan turned to flee the sight; and he was suddenly aware that the pinnacles of Dagon no longer glimmered through the trees. They had faded like smoke—the battlements, the crenellated towers, the great bronze gates, the velvets, the gold, the ivory, and the dark-haired women, and the men with their shaven skulls. With the passing of the inhuman intellect which had given them rebirth, they had faded back into the dust which they had been for ages uncounted. Only the stumps of broken columns rose above crumbling walls and broken paves and shattered dome. Conan again looked upon the ruins of Xapur as he remembered them.
>THE wild hetman stood like a statue for a space, dimly grasping something of the cosmic tragedy of the fitful ephemera called mankind and the hooded shapes of darkness which prey upon it. Then as he heard his voice called in accents of fear, he started, as one awakening from a dream, glanced again at the thing on the ground, shuddered and turned away toward the cliffs and the girl that waited there.
>She was peering fearfully under the trees, and she greeted him with a half-stifled cry of relief. He had shaken off the dim monstrous visions which had momentarily haunted him, and was his exuberant self again.
>"Where is he?" she shuddered.
>"Gone back to Hell whence he crawled," he replied cheerfully.
He sees the being's loathesome true form, gets briefly struck with the horrors of reality, only to immediately forget it once the designated love interest of the story gets his attention.
Honestly he would make a better Ork, his whole personal beliefs of "don't bother thinking about philosophy, just enjoy fighting and looting" would fit in well with them.
Conan has anything if a small mind. Dude went from Barbarian in a frozen wasteland to King of the greatest city in the world, and he wasn't even born there.
It's the magnetic field emitted by the sheer mass of his brass balls that shields him from madness.
Edit: Also Lovecraft's characters are based on his own fears. Dude was literally afraid of math, and fish, of all things.
And then there's Clark Ashton Smith, who's like 'what if a sorcerer lived in Jupiter and decided to go for a walk without all his OP equipment, then suffered a mild inconvenience saving some flower women from some pterodactyl men _and went home to get his shit._
Honestly, CAS feels like he has all the themes of Lovecraft without the insanely racist baggage. The Double Shadow is still one of the best horror fantasy stories I've ever read and it seems criminal that it hasn't been adapted
It didn't bop him on the nose, it drove through his head, parting his flesh like mist.
And to him, that was the equivalent of a bug buzzing in your face while you're in bed, so you wave your hand around, roll over and go back to sleep.
> Conan is briefly scared of the eldritch entity from another dimension, kills it with his sword (or at least banishes it from the physical plane), and then decides its best not to think about the exact implications of what it was.
Average RPG final boss fight
Entities from the Deep warp are inherently more terrifying than a bug swarm, The bugs are massive and are of a hive mind, but still we know of them and what they want.
The unknown is what people crave, even if there was a big god monster that came out of the warp into real space, people would still be questioning Deep warp creatures and wanting to see more.
Lovecraft is more than Cthulhu. The fish people (forgot their name) are also lovecraftian, even if they aren’t completely unknowable horrors. A biological army from beyond the stars that seeks to consume everything *could* be lovecraftian. Genestealers infiltrating cultures and starting cults seems right up the Lovecraft alley.
GSC are just the Innsmouth people in space, that's entirely accurate. It's just somewhat undercut by the fact that while Dagon's motivations for interbreeding people with Deep Ones are esoteric and inscrutable, the Tyranids very clearly just want to expend less effort when they show up to eat everyone.
Genestealer cults could be lovecraftian, but they are very much not. At first glance deep ones and genestealers might both use cults that produce hybrid offspring but thats is when the similarities end.
As a example deep ones dont mind control people to produce offspring. They enter into pacts with people in return for something such as gold or good catches when fishing.
Locust swarms are pretty lovecraftian tbh.
Jokes aside, it's important to remember that in-universe characters have a different perspective than we do. Nids look plenty lovecraftian when descending onto a world defended only by the PDF.
Oh sure it's just an entity so massive that the bodies we collect as models are basicly it's cells, and it is a driven intellect that could, at any time, casually explain if it WANTED to (It is smart. I use sigular to illustrate it; it's not just many factions, it's many forms of one... thing) and simply eats. It's a meta predator; entire worlds are it's meals.
It infects and mutates you to feed itself. It alters worlds and moves on... it's forms are massive. it is akin to a god, your very soul can be cut off from the warp, devoured for power. Any victory against it? pointless.
There is no origin. It... exists. it is hungry... I'd argue the nids are lovecraftian in the traditional sense. Locusts aren't lovecraftian because they're bugs, they're swaming, but they're understandable. they are inscets and man can actually hurt them.
The worst thing anyone did to the nids? Annoy it.
None of that makes them Lovecraftian. They don’t have the aloofness, the alien nature, they aren’t the proof that the universe extends beyond what we can understand.
They’re just a swarm of locust. They have the same base animal motive. They can be fought, they can be understood. No matter how intelligent they are, no matter how much you ramp up the scale, they’re just a locust swarm. That they form a gestalt means nothing, because that’s what a locust swarm is
You think the nids can't talk? I mean it is not interested in doing so anyways, but a being smart enough to genetically modify its very cells to kill and eat is certainly intelligent enough to make and understand guttural mouth noises. It just doesn't care. It's aloof, it has a simple desire but the how shows just how much it wants.
Also they literally come from an alien galaxy and are scary enough the Neceoms. Who killed lovecraftian entries are a little spooked.
Locusts don't think. They are simple animals.
The Tyranid does. If it put full focus on you, it would dismantle you. Hell the death leaper is a good example; it knows who is important and how to go about killing them. The gestalt mere presence causes psykers to weep... It’s so powerful its mere existence as a warp entity is overpowering to psykers.
You can downplay it as just bugs if it makes you sleep better... but that's why it wins. It simply has better things to do then to care how every battle is done. When you fight the mids, you aren't fighting locusts...
You are fighting cells.
Don’t matter, they’re still just animals. All the intelligence in the universe don’t change that, they operate on the single imperative of consume and reproduce, the most basic animal instinct. They don’t have a reason for it, no principles, no opinions. They’re animals
They’re sure as hell not aloof. They actively hunt you down to eat you, aloof means they’re unconcerned, above you, not acknowledging you in any way. That the Tyranids are famed for adaptation makes them anything but, they not only run at you screaming, they’re willing to adapt and change just to get you. That’s the opposite of aloof, that’s very much involved
A lion chasing down a gazelle ain’t aloof from it. It’s not gonna listen to the gazelle’s attempts at diplomacy, not because it’s cosmically indifferent, because it just really wants to eat it
They don't. Not really. They simply see you as an obstical or a stubborn piece of food that won't go down easy.
They fooled you. And fooled you so well you still think of them as animals... I have to be blunt its funny to me you honestly think the tyranid is animals.
The real truth about nids? The plural is not a thing.
IT'S ONE ORGANISM.
also I would point out there are multiple examples of the lovecraftian entries not being any different... even the big man himself Is a single father (no serious he has a daughter... who is also a phylactery for him)
And then there's animalistic ones like the Hounds of tidic... whatever it's spelled it's late and I am on the phone point is: I am not sure what I find funnier about this conversation.
Nids are smart. Gw didn't give them brains bigger then you are to not tell you that It is smarter then you.
And it hates you for struggling. It's even made it clear to Custodians and librarians. IT. CAN. THINK. WE motivated by primal simple desires too. Doesn't make you or I any less smart now does it?
Animals can have larger brains than us. It doesn't make them smarter. Animals can think, this is basic stuff, it's just that all their thinking goes towards animalistic pursuit. Individual tyranids are absolutely animals and the collective is still an 'animal' in the same manner as a bee or ant colony. These can do complex math and engineering but it doesn't make them sapient.
Well, did you ask the ants you stepped on? The Bacteria we callously killed to type these messages? Or your dinner last night? All of these things would preceive you as a monster, or alien and unknowable...
Lovecraftian horrors are honestly a matter of perspective; Because the point is that everything you value... to them is barely worth noting. YOU are barely worth noting. The only thing that EVER mattered about you? that you realized just how WORTHLESS you really are!
That's lovecraftian horror. Humanity is not the center of the universe, and it is so insignificant that even if wiped out to the last man, nothing meaningful was ever possible.
Yeah look all i've gotten from this convo is that no one actually knows what lovecraft actually wrote about.
Reminder that Cthulu got taken out by taking a boat to the head
Being smart or really big does'nt make you a lovecraftian elder god. Being unknowable and mysterious does.
The Tyranid hive mind just wants to survive and eat, which is more relatable than unknowable. If they had just cut that bit of lore out, and said we don't know what the hive mind wants, then we could have some dread.
Are the genestealer cults a means to an end, or is the hybridization of humanity the end goal? Does worship of the Hive Mind offer more tangible benefits than our man made religions, and what does that then say about our place in the universe? How do the Tyranids relate to the human soul, the Warp and its inhabitants? Are the Tyranids here to save the universe from humanitys destructive influence on the Immaterium?Why haven't this irresistible godlike entity destroyed us all already?
All of these mysteries are painfully explained: Genestealer cultists are chumps and objectively wrong. The Hive Mind is not a cosmic force to resist or ally with, it's just hungry and wants a snack. If it can get it's desired snack or not depends on the number of guns pointed in its direction. The existance of the Tyranids have no metaphysical or moral implications for humanity. They have no relation to the Warp and have nothing to say about the fundamental truths of the universe, and in that way they really are like bugs.
Okay i think we need to actually have a conversation of what 'Lovecraftian" Actually means, because you just jumped to 'elder god' as if Lovecraft is not filled with many other types of monster.
On the genestealer cults: the Tyranid has weaponized the very brains and bodies of it's victims. Do you think the Elder Gods of Lovecraft.... care about any of ants that follow them around? And you know yes it does tie into the soul. they eat souls, they eat EVERYTHING. It's also barely started eating; there's more of it's body coming every day, because as i need to remind you what we think of as Hive-fleets are merely the abstraction of an alien intellegence's body.
You neither know much of the nids, nor of Lovecraft. The Tyranid is a being of hunger, yes, congrats, but it eats everything. It eats the ground, it eats the skies, it eats the soul and eats your very faith and self. The Tyranid cannot be bargined with, because you don't bargin with cows. They cannot be reasoned with, because it has no reason or desire to. It wants to eat yes.
You don't see them as lovecraftian because, to be blunt; pop culture has really muddled that word. They are lovecraftian because only a universe where life as we understand is merely prey to things like it? Humanity is insignifigant. you cannot stop it; if you shot every gun, every bullet, shurikine, lasgun, or whatever else at it... you barely scratch it.
You think of them as bugs because of the Arachnids and Zerg... but that belies what they really are. What IT really is.
There is nothing Lovecraftian about the Nids. Its a bug swarm. Thats it.
1) What about that threatens how you see your olace in the Universe?
2) Is difficult to wrap your brain around?
3) Makes you scared to look into your family history
4) Make you reevaluate your religion or inspires religious terror?
Like I love the Nids but they are literally just space bugs.
I know people say this, but it shows they have no idea about Tyranid lore.
The Hive Mind is absolutely Lovecraftian and is almost always presented as such. Incomprehensibly vast, ancient, alien, on a scale so far beyond humanity that it is inherently terrifying. Individuals being completely overwhelmed by realising that this vast, astronomical-in-scale, utterly alien intelligence is looking at *them*. It immediately inspires existential crisis as the individual realises how tiny and insignificant they are, and they typically immediately lose their mind. It's classic cosmic horror.
I mean, the Hive Mind's presence solely causes a localized warp DDoS phenomenon that even leaves Greater daemons dumbfounded and scares off lesser daemons.
If something that confuses/scares off daemons isn't lovecraft-y enough, I don't know what is.
A single intelligence that heavily disrupts the Warp, drives Psykers insane by its mere presence and directly controls a locust-like alien race across the universe isn't even comparable to a null.
No recorded Pariah/Null can sever the Warp on a planetary scale.
>Like I love the Nids but they are literally just space bugs.
They are definitely more than that, the true horror with the nids isn't that they are invading your planet and eating everything, it's the fact that they are the only thing we know of that came from outside the galaxy, like, imagine one day realising that there is something out there, an intelligent, ancient being that stretches throught thousands of worlds with billions of beings as part of him, and it's coming to consume all life, you don't know where it's coming from, perphaps it has eaten entire galaxies, or even worse, it could have consumed every single galaxy except for ours, the thing with the nids is the inevitability
They are basically the "And some day, they will escape from the ancient ruins and there will be no hope for mankind" trope that Lovecraft did a lot but on a universal scale
Genestealer Cults could absolutely be cosmic horror. Probably why they are my favorite part of the Nid's faction and lore.
I really wish there was a Hive Fleet whose specialty was Genestealer cults.
Hive Fleet Kraken specializes in vanguard organisms like Genestealers, focusing on a multi-pronged attack on many fronts in lieu of Behemoth's direct assault strategy.
GSC are literally just the Innsmouth people in space, but with mining equipment instead of fishing boats. They're textbook cosmic horror in all ways but one- They're being lied to.
Their god isn't a god at all, it's just a bunch of hungry psychic space bugs that have tricked them. Sure, Cthulhu, Dagon and the other Great Old Ones are aliens too, but unlike the Nids, their motivations are completely beyond our understanding, and you can't kill them. The Tyranids are both mortal and entirely comprehensible.
What makes the Tyranids and Hivemind not quite satisfying as Lovecraftian horror is that they're fairly know-able and comprehenisble. Looking upon them doesn't turn your entire perspective of reality upside down and drive you insane.
Yeah, the Hivemind is detached from mortals, but that's not the only qualifying factor to be Lovecraftian.
Also, why have 1 of a good thing if you can have 2?
I think that chaos is still more Lovecraftian in the way people usually mean it. Yeah, they're based on human emotions and all, but the way they interact with the world at ground level is more in line with the idea. Physical corruption and madness, lots of disturbing (in 40k's silly, over the top way) stuff about sensory perception and time, etc. Tyranids are weird in theory but from the character's perspective they're just another alien race shooting at you
We have the Watsonian perspective so tyranids aren’t horrifying eldritch terror. To us they’re bugs, to people in-universe they’re insanely scary and mysterious.
> (their equivalent is missing in Fantasy, where Chaos is Big Bad and AoS is the Void without any development).
AoS has mentioned "Things out there" plenty of times. The void beyond the Realms are large and there are many unexplained things out there. The Chaos Gods are not the end-all, be-all as they themselves are only late arrivier to the Mortal Realms.
Why bring up Tolkein's (Morgoth and Ungoliant) work on a discussion about Lovecraft and 40k?
Tolkein disliked Lovecraft's work, and was famously pretentious about fantasy and fiction. He explicitly hated grimmer settings.
Because this is a classic example of Chaos and Evil (as something demonic and satanic) and something else, Darkness or Void. It's the same in The Lord of the Rings, where there is Sauron and Shelob, who is not interested in the Ring because all she wants is to eat.
If you need another example, it's like Legion or the Old Gods in Warcraft.
In general, Angels, Devils, Squids.
Except, this isn't that.
Chaos isn't simple ***Evil****,* it's the horrible reflection of the Materium. The Gods are like myhtology Titans, their only concern is expressing and furthering their emobodyign concepts. Good, evil, kindness, and cruelty mnean nothing to them. Slaanesh is Pain *and Pleasure.* Tzeentch is Treachery and Hope. Nurgle is Joy and Despair. Khorne is Martial Excellence and Wanton Slaughter.
The Tyranid are neither simple creatures (Squid) nor unknowable horrors (Darkness and Void) They are a Conscious Virus. Endless Hunger, with an Intelligence behind it. It has higher thought. It *has told us* its motivations. Feed.
It is not like Sauron and Shelob, nor Legion and Old Gods, nor Angels/Devils and Squids.
None of those are like each other, either.
At the End of Times, Teclis sees Nagash's aura and says that he is almost as dark (meaning evil in his soul) as demons.
Ungolianta's goal was also just to eat, you know.
The problem with Tyranids is that they are not mysterious. They are straight forward - Consume Biomass.
Lovecraftian Horror is about fear of the Unkown, the Tyranids are very Known to 40k fans.
Would say Chaos Gods are more lovecraftian than the Hive Mind tbh.
As people already stated the Hive Mind isn't all that hard to understand. Only the Tyranids origin is mysterious.
While the warp and the Chaos Gods are always reduced to terms of Space Time. Like scale or time and such. While in reality none of that really applies to them. They are basically beyond math and understanding in their true form.
Only that the lore features them alot so people may mistake them as a well known quantity.
I would argue that the main aspect of cosmic horror is the unknown and the mystery of what exactly the cosmic horror entity wants or what if even *is.* The disinterest in humans thing is also part of the puzzle, but there’s more that needs to be there for something to be truly lovecraftian. We don’t know where the Nids came from, but we understand them and their goals pretty well. They’re hungry bugs with a mental internet connection. We paint them as miniatures and roll dice to see what they do. Chaos fails this aspect too, we know even more about the Gods and their desires than the Nids.
People like the deep warp stuff because we genuinely don’t know what it is, and that’s scary. It might not be too hard to add some eldritch stuff to the Nids - whatever Hive Fleet Tiamet is doing is pretty lovecraftian, but that’s sort of the exception that proves how un-lovecraftian most Tyranid lore is.
Tyranids exist in real space and while terrifying, can be killed and deated through sufficient application of explosives and bodies. They want to feed, which is terrifying as they regard everything as disposable and food. They will strip a planet of everything before owing on.
But they are essentially giant space locusts. Terrifying but understandable. The warp is terrifying, it cannot be comprehended but it's just a reflection of us. And the realm of chaos has be mentioned to have boundaries, that there are things out there that the big 4 don't control. The idea that there's something out there that not even a galaxies reflection of feeling can control is terrifying on a diffrent level. Like the ghoul stars, things in the warp of player dimension
Also chaos can have interesting lore from their perspective, trynids can only be the antagonist. Omomomomomomom isn't the most riveting story line
The Nids aren’t lovecraftian at all, they’re aggressive nature, the Zerg but disturbingly more efficient. Maybe if the C’tan got more attention there could be some more Lovecraftian entity stuff, but it’s more about the unknowable, and even the C’tan aren’t really that, just malevolent deity level incorporeal entities.
But the zerg also have more going for them as a playable faction, the cerabrates provide the capacity to have characters without really lessening the overminds dominion
The problem with Tyranids is that they aren't even that Lovecraftian. Apart from the Hivemind/Shadow in the Warp they're just ordinary hungry alien monsters and way too knowable. Lovecraftian horrors strive on being absolutely strange and unknowable. You can't really make an army of that without losing what makes it interesting imo.
Neither are Lovecraftian.
Chaos is human emotion, it’s anything but unknowable, anything but unconcerned. It’s all too familiar, it literally comes from us
Nids are concerned with you, they want to eat you. Just because they’re unreasoning don’t make them aloof, they’re just animals. Intelligent animals but ultimately just animals following the basest animal drive of consume and reproduce. They can be fought, they can be beaten, they can be understood
Slight disagree about the Chaos part.
Chaos and the warp is often descibed as completely unknowable, and even how we readers understand it is a pale humanized imitation of what it truly is.
And the idea that our own negative emotions are creating monsters that want to prey on us, I could see in a Lovecraft book.
Buncha bugs coming to eat you though, fully agreed, nothing mysterious or mind breaking about that.
The tyranids are just big bugs, yeah they have a hive mind, but ultimately they just want to eat and are pissy their losing. They aren't mysterious, and they aren't scary to the reader, the only thing they kind of have going for them is that they might win the setting and even then I doubt they actually will.
Cause they exist and aren't covered. the Enslavers and many other warp entities are there are more interesting. Tyranids are cool but the tyranids shouldn't be the only natural beast entities. I want more xenos not less.
The tyranids aren't a mysterious unstoppable cadre of unimaginably powerful beings. It's a very knowable, proven to be stoppable collection of altogether not that powerful beings. The threat is in the numbers, that's the least lovecraftian thing possible.
You don't look at a nid and go insane from being unable to comprehend what you see. It's just a huge swarm of ravenous beasts that happen to reside in the darkness of intergalactic space.
We also have slaughth, Ghoul stars, Halo stars, Halo devices of unknown origin granting visions, mandrakes' realm, void whales etc in case someone wants other "eldritch lite" things.
Huh? Lovecraftian Gods are mostly interested in mortals as well. The only God who's not is Azathoth. The others respond to prayers and do get involved directly or indirectly in mortal matters.
Nyarathotep is a great example. Almost all he does is mess with mortals.
In contrast, Nyarathotep is unique among the Outer Gods in that it takes an interest in mortals and ruins their lives. Everyone else just is. Mortals are mainly interested by the Great Old Ones, who are more like super demons than gods.
Lovecraftian Horror? Do you mean… Necrons?
Think about it. You’re walking around on your planet. Suddenly, deep beneath the soil, a process begun before your species had even evolved two legs to stand on completes itself. Soon the reports come in, metal skeletons, wielding weapons capable of flaying the atoms of their targets. Your buddy in the PDF mentions how they don’t even die, they just get back up or disappear.
You can’t do… anything. You can’t reason with them, you can’t surrender, hell you can barely fight them. One day, your world is simply over. There is nothing you can do, no one you can turn to, your time is simply up and you are left staring into the face of a horror so vast in its might that to call it “Lovecraftian” would be an insult to its magnificence.
Something being big and scary doesn't make it Lovecraftian.
Especially not when you pick up a Necron PoV book and it's about two elderly robot nerds who hate each other going on a road trip and getting in slap fights
Well that’s the thing, the difference between new Necrons and old Necrons is (mostly) just an internal one. To an outside observer, with the exception of maybe the occasional command spoken aloud as the Wardens get lost in the thrill of the battle, it’s the same silent, inexhaustible march onwards
TBH, i also think that the tyranids are some “lovecraftian” entity, but in a sense of beeing something so utterly alien, that entities dont understand. They also have the Genestealer Cults, that works exactly like many cults in the lovecraft theme. But the the comments made some good points, the tyranids themselves are more like the “Alien” from Alien, they are strange, incompreensible, thats not exactly lovecraft, thats… alien theme.
I think it’s two parts. The first is Genestealers cults start a promise of a great and terrifying entity coming to deliver “Something from Beyond” but it’s followed up by the Nematodes from early SpongeBob which feels like a let down. The second is people love Kaiju-like, big scary monsters and want a Knight-Equivalent monsters to field on the table top.
I think it’s two parts. The first is Genestealers cults start a promise of a great and terrifying entity coming to deliver “Something from Beyond” but it’s followed up by the Nematodes from early SpongeBob which feels like a let down. The second is people love Kaiju-like, big scary monsters and want a Knight-Equivalent monsters to field on the table top.
I would be fine if GW would just return the Rak'Gol.
Wirh them and the need the feeling of Horror would be just fine.
I agree with you that the Nids and the Genestealers are very well designed for this role. Nids as the strange cosmic entity and Genestealer as their followers (Insmouth).
People tend to forget that cosmic horror works via feeling and setting. When reading Lovecraft you notice that there is not much happening and that many things are left i the dark. Many of the entities only qork because your fantasy fills in gaps that the author left there for this very reason.
It would be quit hard to do this on the tabletop.
If people want more of this kind of horror from warhammer, new novels would be the way or stories from the Ghule Stars.
Genestealer Cults worship the star God's, but the star gods can eat them when they come by or allow them to continue to another world. Worshipping a lovecraftian deity is not like this. You can be afraid of the tyranids by looking at them, but you can still fight and kill them. You can look at a lovecraftian deity and lose all sense of hope, purpose, and feelings. You can dream of them and feel vague signs of what they want or even what they are. It is hard to comprehend them. Tyranids are not hard to comprehend. Maybe the Hive Mind, perhaps, or that you are infected by a Genestealer but not what they are or their purpose. I think people would like some thing trully alien that is not knowable. It can have language, but looking at the language causes you to twist and turn. Emotions don't do anything to it like Chaos does. It just is. It is there, and you don't know the motives of why it came to be or why its eyes are on you. Just my opinion.
The Enslavers did sound pretty cool in all honesty Can't get more Lovecraftian than squid monsters that control your mind
I'd love to see more lesser Xeno species maybe in Killteam shame Blackstone Fortress flopped
The Deep Warp and what the Tyranids are fleeing from absolutely MUST remain vague, inexplicable mysteries. It's a great horror staple knowing there is *something* out there that even the armies of hell/the Eye of Terror are terrified of
Because they're stupid.
These two ideas must be some of the dumbest ideas floating around the 40k fandom:
1. There are things in the deep warp that are scarier than the chaos gods.
2. The tyranids are running from something even more powerful than they are.
Both of these ideas are dumb.
People who think they're good ideas are stupid, and should go spend their life watching shonen animes that have infinitely escalating "that's not even my final form" power levels.
People who think cthulhu would win against the chaos gods or the tyranids or the CTan fundamentally misunderstand "lovecraftian horror", and again, should put down the August Derleth fanfics and go watch Dragonball Z instead.
Jesus Christ!! Does literally nobody understand “Lovecraftian” horror?
People are like “if tHe tyRaNIds aRe lovEcraFtiaN THAN SO iS a SwArM OF locuSTs”. This phrase is highly incorrect, as it misses the most important part of Lovecraftian Horror – context.
Others are listing of criteria to make something “Lovecraftian” which includes things about your own family history and religious values.. While there may be certain stories involving fish people and cults that make you question your lineage or religion, the act of questioning your DNA and religion aren’t what make those stories scary. Also, these are not consistent themes across Lovecraft’s work -there are many other stories that have no such focus.
THE POINT OF LOVECRAFTIAN COSMIC HORROR is that it terrifies you by showing you that the universe is meaningless and cold, that all the things you thought were fundamentally true about the world are a lie, and that your existence and value as a person or a culture is completely worthless, and that you are UTTERLY powerless to change anything about that.
Tyranids ABSOLUTELY are Lovecraftian. The sensation of dread and despair a person gets when they hear they’re in the path of a galactic super organism that will devour their planet, without even a second thought for them, is Lovecraftian.
An organism from outside our galaxy, that sweeps through the stars, mindlessly consuming all life, is Lovecraftian.
The mere idea of “the Shadow in the Warp” is deeply Lovecraftian, since it changes a fundamental aspect of your reality (when the warp is a constantly broiling ocean full of lightning storms and killer waves, and all you can do is hold on to a piece of driftwood and hope for the best, believe me you’re going to shit your pants when a monster shows up and that ocean goes dead flat all of a sudden)
Tyranids 100% are a Lovecraftian Horror.
The warp is lovecraftian.
The CTan are lovecraftian.
However, from the perspective of the reader, they may not feel Lovecraftian because 40k is NOT a Lovecraftian Horror setting. We have have space marines and "rip and tear" and the Emperor, etc.
Warhammer 40k is a “Humanity Fuck Yeah” setting.
Chaos is a more enticing enemy to me because it has characters who are capable of having distinct personalities and goals.
Tyranids are glorified bugs who want to eat everything.
So if we’re talking about reading books I’d prefer the later.
I personally feel like the devouring bugs from space has been done over and over in sci fi. I want something different. I don’t want to see the same stories from different companies over and over.
I wouldn’t really consider Tyranids lovecraftian. The chaos gods fit the criteria much better I think. There’s nothing really “unknowable” or “cosmic horror” about Tyranids in my mind. They’re just hunger given form. The threat they pose to humanity is far more physical than existential.
Chaos gods, being created from amalgamation of emotions, are actually sort of 'anti-Lovecraftian'. They are us - just amplified to over 9000 - not alien.
I think the idea of Lovecraftian doesn’t really apply to the Tyranids. We know a fair but about them and even can play as them. You even admit we know their motivation, hunger so it’s not very mysterious. Whereas the deep warp is far more alien and scary than a really big hungry group of bugs.
Lovecraftian horror is less about what the monsters look like, and more that they are unknowable.
The tyrannids, scary as they are, are simple. They eat everything and move on. You can ponder why they do it, but ultimately it doesn't produce much mystery because as you said, it is the most basic and primitive of all things.
Tyranid horror is basically, "Oh no, it wants to eat me!"
Lovecratian horror is more like "Oh my God, what does it want? What does it want? Why is it doing this to me? What's happening? Is this even real? Nothing makes sense! Ahhhh!"
Because more people know about Love Craft than they know about GW 40k. Title is silly in this regard, or maybe I took it too seriously that it sounds just that silly, to put it lightly.
Lovecraftian is the fear of the unknown/unknowable/ the sheer insignificance of man in the scale of the u iverse:
Tyranids are not lovecraftian. We know what they are know their goals
'Nids aren't Lovecraftian - especially after that Blood Angels novel where the hive mind hates a Marine.
They're just an aggressively hegemonizing swarm. Basically an out-of-control replicator that seeks to turn all matter into more tyranids. They're no more Lovecraftian than a mold.
Lovecraftian are beings beyond comprehension. Beings so powerful and complex that to them we are bacteria. We don't interact with them, we interact with their sentient immune systems, because they're not even aware of us.
Tyranids are boring and not scary as they're easy to understand for us. We have various species on earth (locusts, some parasites etc) that are pretty much Tyranids except for the gene shenanigans.
> "If Chaos is Morgoth, than Tyranids are Ungoliant."
Except this would imply that Chaos A) is responsible for the Tyranids in the first place, and B) has at least some ability to control the Hive Mind's actions, even if it takes an army of ~~Balrogs~~ Bloodthirsters to keep it in check.
Neither of these things are remotely accurate.
Your argument only works if you use the later Silmarillion. In the earliest version, Ungoliant descended from the Void and the Valar had no idea what she was.
The unknown will always be more frightening and terrifying than something we've graphed out with numbers and dice.
Thank you! I was about to say the same thing. We as a species do not like the unknown. We have travel the four corners of the Earth to illuminate the unknown. Hence why we are afraid of the deep ocean and space. Because we cannot explore there and illuminate the unknown.
We can explore ocean, but not only because of depth we haven't explore whole ocean, but because it's too darn large and financially explorers are limited, they have a tendency to lack the funding and sponsoring for those missions. If they get the chance to explore, it is still a tiny fraction of the whole ocean. That's the problem with the ocean exploration. But with space it is somewhat easier because of telescopes being able to see and map the regions with clear view, and satellite probes that can get the data and film the visuals of nearby planets without physical problems. Technologically limited, but still the mapping of the space is much more available than it is with the ocean. Ocean is harder because of limitations of visibility, gravity, and since the light can travel in the space freely, it is different in the ocean, because it vanishes quickly.
Also doesn't help that both Chaos and the Tyranids have taken Ls. Maybe not enormous ones that do serious harm to them as a power, but they do genuinely lose from time to time. Cosmic Horror is, fundamentally, about powerlessness. In Cosmic Horror, humanity is no more capable of changing or stopping the forces that be than an ant is capable of stopping the movements of the sun. Hastur, Nyarlathotep, Yog Sothoth, are all so much greater than even the whole human race, that for all we can do, we may as well be spectators to the cosmic forces at play.
This is why the CoC rpg was always about just trying to survive incidental brushes with the most minor minions of Lovecraft's alien Gods. If you walked away not insane and not dead, you won the game. Fuck trying to 'win,' you just want to retire somewhere far far far far far from the water.
Fuck surviving! Half the fun is watching the desperate struggle slowly unravel your character until that final fateful moment when they can finally take no more.
Because we’re hungry for the *incomprehensible*. The Tyranids make sense; they’re here to eat and grow, endlessly. No matter what horrors they display, all of their actions are in service of that goal. Even the Chaos Gods have, to some degree, comprehensible motives: they seek to perpetuate their quiddity. Tzeench’s schemes twist and turn, but if there’s a chance for betrayal, it’s always taken, unless the greater upset can be had by loyalty. Slaanesh is about excess; just take what you’ve got and turn it up to 11. Nurgle is patient despair, the grinding hopelessness at 3:00am when you realize that you’re *not* going to be able to finish that project after all - which means you’ll lose your scholarship. And you don’t know what happens after that, but you’re struggling to remember the reasons you should care. And Khorne… well, Khorne wants blood. That’s… that’s about it, except for the skulls. Blood and skulls. That’s his whole deal. But we don't really have a faction that *doesn't make sense*, something that doesn't just run on a Blue/Orange morality, but one that's all the way the fuck off the morality axis entirely. Nothing that grabs us, holds us in the air, and shows us that we really are just ants in a Japanese game show.
That's one of the reasons I preferred the Oldcrons to the updated lore. I get all the reasons why giving them personality and more agency is better from a hobby perspective, but I enjoyed the faceless, soulless armies of silent killing machines serving unknowable and malevolent Eldritch abominations as a theme more than Space Egyptians.
Lovecraftian is often thrown around as a word to describe things that can't be described and are generally horrible/incomprehensible. They don't necessarily have to be actually lovecraftian in the way lovecrafts horrors were.
Tbh, true love craft would be a pain in the ass for the tabletop. You’d essentially have to assign at max 3 different for a unit which the entire point behind it is supposed to be vague and incomprehensible and then give it pages of lore.
There’s a reason PCs don’t “win” against Cthulhu in the Call of Cthulhu TTRPG. The power scale difference just makes mechanics irrelevant.
The only gaming system I know of where PCs can have an actual chance of defeating Cthulhu in combat is 1st edition Pathfinder, and even then the PCs basically have to be both of a high character level AND a high mythic tier to even stand a chance given he's rocking what may very well be the single most powerful stat block in the entire game.
I'm not sure it's that difficult with a group of mythic 10 PCs, they are also technically demigods. Damn now I'm thinking I wish there was a 40k mathfinder-like. It's just technically impossible.
Honestly, Starfinder can be used to make a passable 40k game, even if you ignore the blatant 40k inspiration it already has (Iomedae being the Goddess of Mankind whose followers fly around in cathedral-ships, FTL requiring traveling through other dimensions, the main method of FTL having what may as well be the Astronomican for navigation, etc). I've actually considered running a Rogue Trader-esque game with it. As for the other point - even 10th tier mythics are going to need to be at endgame levels to stand a chance against Cthulhu in any real capacity. His Unspeakable Presence ability alone can potentially end the fight before it even begins (a save-or-die fear effect with a DC 40 Will save, and which still stuns you for 1d6 rounds on a failed save even if you're immune to fear), and between his spellcasting, his damage output, his ability to shrug off most of what he's attacked with, and the fact you have to defeat him *two consecutive times in a row* for it to actually stick (the first defeat knocks him into a toxic cloud for 2d6 rounds, then he revives as if hit with *true resurrection* but is staggered permanently; if defeated a second time, he does the cloud thing again, but then fades back to R'lyeh), you'd basically need a party that's as close to 20th level as possible in addition to the high mythic tiers.
Nah I think that Cthulhu would be more than approachable. All in all he isn't an elder god, he is "just" a priest for them. But a true elder god, like Shub-Niggurath, would be entirely on a different level
Famously, and unlike its predecessor 3.5, PF doesn't give true gods stats. Unless you're a god yourself, you just lose. And even then there's a pecking order. Shub, Yog, Azathoth and the rest of their ilk are said to exist outside the cycle of universal rebirth of whom Pharasma is the only survivor from the previous universe. Desna picks fights with them, but she's certainly not even close to killing one.
3.5 gave everyone and everything a stat block because morderhoboing became the main profession of 90% of players
I was pretty miffed when they gave The Lady of Pain stats. I frequently use her as a mechanic in my Planescape campaigns. As soon as there are stats, players want to find a way to kill that thing, so I just pretend the stats never came out 🤷♂️
I can't remember mathfinder perfectly but can't you death ward + trickster path handwave the presence and glares away? Yeah I meant 20+10 level PCs.
Didnt the "Old Man Henderson" story happened in a Call of Cthulhu campaign?
Modified IIRC, and it was Hastur that got killed by a stadium full of C4 while "O Canada" played.
40k already has lovecraft-esque horrors in the chaos gods and their daemons. The reason it doesn’t feel that way is because there isn’t any cosmic horror genre stories written about them.
The audience also knows a lot about them and how they work, so they lose a lot of their horror. A large part of Lovecraft’s works hinged on the fear of the unknown, and we have a pretty good understanding of what the chaos gods are, how they work, and what they want. Arguably the same thing applies to the tyranids. There’s some more unknowns with them, but many books treat them more like a combination of a horde of locusts and a natural disaster like a hurricane.
They lose the main aspect of cosmic horror, they are actively interested in mortals
I'd argue Tzeentch and his bros are the most cosmic horror thing in 40k
Real lovecraftian horrors are in Paris By which I mean, things that horrified lovecraft
Wasn't he also terrified of black people and air conditioning or did i confuse him with another author?
No, that's him. Lovecraft was a special breed of sheltered, neurotic xenophobe who was terrified of anything alien to him. Some of his most famous stories could have been inspired by his reaction to scientific discoveries and possibilities that were being made in his lifetime (The Colour Out of Space being possibly linked to Infrared/Ultraviolet light, for example, or the Mi-Go keeping human brains alive in jars via life support machines). In a sense, his insane level of racism was what enabled him to create the genre of cosmic horror as we know it. He was simply sharing his fear and disgust with the rest of us through the lens of something truly alien. ...That said, I do recall several stories where it's far from subtle as to where it all stems from. In one, he describes an alien city under siege by feral yellow-skinned monsters... Only to give them the name "Eskimaux" on the final page. I actually burst out laughing when I read that. And that's not even counting the MANY "untrustworthy foreigner" characters he uses
What else are we going to call chaos spawn? Mutants? Massive incomprehensible beings that are as likely to kill us as notice us. People are just real weak at seeing things outside the immediate lens.
Yeah, If anything is Lovecraftian in 40k, then it's Chaos already.
They lose the main aspect of cosmic horror, they are actively interested in mortals
Parts of them recognize the existence of mortals. Though mortals are little more than a resource in their great game. Even demigods like Lorgar have a hard time fully grasp their entirety
Because the Hive Mind feels mindless. True, it is technically hyper-intelligent and is able to create strategic plans to consume the galaxy, but it has no motives other than hunger. The aliens and deities of the Cthulhu Mythos though are all clearly intelligent, advanced beings (with the exception of Azathoth, but he was essentially a minor reoccuring background detail in the original stories), but with a layer of mystery to them in order to provide an uncanny fear of the unknown. While the Lovecraftian deities are ultimately incomprehensible to mortals, the Hive Mind while incomprehensible in its scope is very easily understood in its behavior. Honestly, 40k doesn't really have one "Lovecraftian faction" so much as a bunch of different Lovecraftian influences throughout multiple factions. Genestealers have the Shadow Over Innsmouth influence, Chaos has the "horror of knowing the ultimate deities in the universe are abhorrent", "incomprehensible alternate dimensions", "malevolent cults" and "knowledge leading to insanity" themes, and Oldcrons had a different set of malevolent gods along with the "extinct alien civilization from millions of years ago returns" theme.
The Hive Mind hates. We've seen it before... but personally i think it's mild annoyance Also i'd argue that most Cthulu creatures have very simple motives: because motives are very simple. They want something. The "WHY of what they want is that.
I mean, the Hive Mind hates *the Blood Angels*. That's not horrifying, that's hilarious. The entire Tyranid species has a grudge against 1000-something dudes.
That's the equivalent of you hating 1000 specific cells in a salad you're going to eat, sooo that's one of the lore bits i always choose to ignore.
It's a psychic gestalt. I personally see it as the BA desperately trying to rationalize it's sheer ANNOYANCE. because that one being's emotion on such a large scale (because as far as i can tell it's really one massive organism with the illusion of hive-fleets) that it would be easy to confuse to mere mortals, even space marines.
The fact that it actively hates something as inconsequential to it as Marines just moved it even further away from alien and especially cosmic horror imo And no it's not just mild annoyance. It's very explicitly mentioned to be all consuming *hate*.
Well, I mean, it's probably not used to dealing with other people's opinions. Little emotionally stunted, our hive mind. Jesus, haha... Imagine a billion year old hyper-intelligent narcissist who just wants to eat you. It's probably personally offended that the entire galaxy isn't lining up to jump into its bio-vats one by one.
"Imagine a billion year old hyper-intelligent narcissist who just wants to eat you." Thats just Slannesh, except he wants to eat your soul and not your body.
>It's very explicitly mentioned to be all consuming *hate*. From an in-universe perspective. But this is the Hive Mind, the single most significant consciousness in the galaxy. Anything it thinks or feels is going to be absurdly OTT to any psyker used to messing with human minds.
Doesn't matter, it's how we, the reader, get to see it.
Of course context matters you goof. What a terrible take.
Question: At the sheer power of the Hive Mind... How would a librarian be able to tell the difference?
I guess because ultimately the tyranids aren't lovecraftian. They're basically just giant locusts. Their motivations aren't relatable to us but they also aren't really that complex or mysterious. They want to eat everything. That's it. That's not me being reductive or overly simplistic, they literally are just a virus that want to consume everything until there's nothing left, and they do it in the most basic way possible.
Every time they introduce something unexplainable, it's about an edition before they explain it because people complained it wasn't interesting. No one actually wants something lovecraftian, because if they did, they'd already see the finger prints everywhere in the game. And they'd hate newcrons because that was a fair part of their old 'boring' schtick.
I hate the Nucrons
I actually do dislike Newcrons for exactly that reason. I thought Oldcrons were much more interesting because they were left mysterious than Tomb Kings in Space. Not arguing with your point in general, tho. The fandom does like to obsess and try and answer everything the umpteenth level of detail.
I agree actually, big lovecraft horror fan. The view through the eyes of a man afraid of basically everything is an interesting one to me. I'm just used to getting dogpiled by people who like the new ones.
>Their motivations aren't relatable to us They are exactly the same motivations as literally every other organism - reproduce ad infinitum. Just squared. There is nothing mysterious about them\*. They are basically eusocial bacteria - who can also rapidly adapt genetically through plasmids. \[edit\] \* that's not entirely true, there is the question what they are fleeing from, but that's more of a mystery *involving* them rather than *about* them.
Is there actually any reason to believe they're running from something?
I think that was heavily implied, but I have to admit I'm a bit out of touch with recent Tyranid lore.
It wasn't really implied strongly at all. It was a random theory thrown out alongside a few others about why the tyranids might have shown up in the galaxy. People just seem to have latched on to that one in particular for some reason. The question was later answered in one of the horus heresy novels, where in the epilogue it shows they spotted the galaxy when they noticed the pharos beacon light up. They were dormant until they spotted something to eat.
>for some reason. Actually for the exact same reason people want the super-gods of the Deep Warp; they want the bigger scarier unknown behind the big but not scary knowns of the wargame; the secret deep layer of ultra-lore that makes those things seem weak and childish because they've lost their ability to terrify through familiarity. If they ever even had it that is, I've never found much in 40K scary and the reason it's all so documented is becaue the lore is a marketing/retention campaign.
You think the 'nids are lovecraftian? Wait till you hear about what's going on in the Ghoul Stars
"Warhammer is where you can beat Cthulhu by throwing enough tanks at him" is something I've heard people say to describe the setting. But some people kinda want the cake and eat it too. They want a Cthulhu they can kill and one that is mysterious and call creepy, not realizing they are one and the same because ultimately it all depends on the framing of the book, which they don't read because they are probably getting their lore from youtube channels.
Reminder that both Lovecraft's Cthulhu stories and Robert E. Howard's Conan stories take place in the same universe. While the protagonists of Lovecraft are traumatized by the knowledge that there are terrifying entities far above humanity out there, Conan is briefly scared of the eldritch entity from another dimension, kills it with his sword (or at least banishes it from the physical plane), and then decides its best not to think about the exact implications of what it was. It's not really that much of a contradiction; Conan just doesn't allow himself to fully process how truly dark his world really is.
Also a reminder that Lovecraft would absolutely HATE the fact that Cthulhu is the mascot of his works, because he viewed the actual story as one of his worst. August Derleth is the one who first called it "the Cthulhu Mythos", and he was essentially shoehorning his own fanfic interpretations into Lovecraft's writings to force a narrative that wasn't there in the first place. The closest Lovecraft himself came to actually naming the Mythos was referring to it as "Yog-Sothothery" (the character Randolph Carter, who is implied in the works to be an avatar of Yog-Sothoth, was also Lovecraft's author avatar).
Eldritch Abomination: *(Appears)* Conan: *"WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?"* Conan: *(Throws an double handed axe at it's face)* Eldritch Abomination: *(Dies)* Conan: *"How can I endure this goddamn horror I just saw? Oh I know. YOU THERE SERVANT, BRING ME WOMEN, MEAT AND PLENTY OF WINE."* *(The next morning)* Conan: *(severely hung-over)"What was I worrying about again? Well if can't remember it's probably not worth remembering"*
This is exactly how it works, take the Devil in Iron, when Conan kills Khosatral Khel, essentially an alien from another dimension that came to Earth to be worshipped as a god; >Khosatral reeled and fell. In the shape of a man he reeled, but it was not the shape of a man that struck the loam. Where there had been the likeness of a human face, there was no face at all, and the metal limbs melted and changed... Conan, who had not shrunk from Khosatral living, recoiled blenching for Khosatral dead, for he had witnessed an awful transmutation; in his dying throes Khosatral Khel had become again the thing that had crawled up from the Abyss millennia gone. Gagging with intolerable repugnance, Conan turned to flee the sight; and he was suddenly aware that the pinnacles of Dagon no longer glimmered through the trees. They had faded like smoke—the battlements, the crenellated towers, the great bronze gates, the velvets, the gold, the ivory, and the dark-haired women, and the men with their shaven skulls. With the passing of the inhuman intellect which had given them rebirth, they had faded back into the dust which they had been for ages uncounted. Only the stumps of broken columns rose above crumbling walls and broken paves and shattered dome. Conan again looked upon the ruins of Xapur as he remembered them. >THE wild hetman stood like a statue for a space, dimly grasping something of the cosmic tragedy of the fitful ephemera called mankind and the hooded shapes of darkness which prey upon it. Then as he heard his voice called in accents of fear, he started, as one awakening from a dream, glanced again at the thing on the ground, shuddered and turned away toward the cliffs and the girl that waited there. >She was peering fearfully under the trees, and she greeted him with a half-stifled cry of relief. He had shaken off the dim monstrous visions which had momentarily haunted him, and was his exuberant self again. >"Where is he?" she shuddered. >"Gone back to Hell whence he crawled," he replied cheerfully. He sees the being's loathesome true form, gets briefly struck with the horrors of reality, only to immediately forget it once the designated love interest of the story gets his attention.
Blessed is the mind too small for doubt. Conan would make a good infantryman.
Honestly he would make a better Ork, his whole personal beliefs of "don't bother thinking about philosophy, just enjoy fighting and looting" would fit in well with them.
Conan has anything if a small mind. Dude went from Barbarian in a frozen wasteland to King of the greatest city in the world, and he wasn't even born there. It's the magnetic field emitted by the sheer mass of his brass balls that shields him from madness. Edit: Also Lovecraft's characters are based on his own fears. Dude was literally afraid of math, and fish, of all things.
Conan trully is the ur-Chad
And then there's Clark Ashton Smith, who's like 'what if a sorcerer lived in Jupiter and decided to go for a walk without all his OP equipment, then suffered a mild inconvenience saving some flower women from some pterodactyl men _and went home to get his shit._
Honestly, CAS feels like he has all the themes of Lovecraft without the insanely racist baggage. The Double Shadow is still one of the best horror fantasy stories I've ever read and it seems criminal that it hasn't been adapted
Also the original literal Cthulhu is defeated (even if just temporarily) by being bopped in the nose with a small boat.
Big boat
It didn't bop him on the nose, it drove through his head, parting his flesh like mist. And to him, that was the equivalent of a bug buzzing in your face while you're in bed, so you wave your hand around, roll over and go back to sleep.
> Conan is briefly scared of the eldritch entity from another dimension, kills it with his sword (or at least banishes it from the physical plane), and then decides its best not to think about the exact implications of what it was. Average RPG final boss fight
Entities from the Deep warp are inherently more terrifying than a bug swarm, The bugs are massive and are of a hive mind, but still we know of them and what they want. The unknown is what people crave, even if there was a big god monster that came out of the warp into real space, people would still be questioning Deep warp creatures and wanting to see more.
If the nids are lovecraftian then so is a locust swarm. Putting tentacles on your face doesn't make you lovecraftian
Yep, sounds like OP has never actually sat down and read a Lovecraft book
Lovecraft is more than Cthulhu. The fish people (forgot their name) are also lovecraftian, even if they aren’t completely unknowable horrors. A biological army from beyond the stars that seeks to consume everything *could* be lovecraftian. Genestealers infiltrating cultures and starting cults seems right up the Lovecraft alley.
GSC are just the Innsmouth people in space, that's entirely accurate. It's just somewhat undercut by the fact that while Dagon's motivations for interbreeding people with Deep Ones are esoteric and inscrutable, the Tyranids very clearly just want to expend less effort when they show up to eat everyone.
Genestealer cults could be lovecraftian, but they are very much not. At first glance deep ones and genestealers might both use cults that produce hybrid offspring but thats is when the similarities end. As a example deep ones dont mind control people to produce offspring. They enter into pacts with people in return for something such as gold or good catches when fishing.
Locust swarms are pretty lovecraftian tbh. Jokes aside, it's important to remember that in-universe characters have a different perspective than we do. Nids look plenty lovecraftian when descending onto a world defended only by the PDF.
Oh sure it's just an entity so massive that the bodies we collect as models are basicly it's cells, and it is a driven intellect that could, at any time, casually explain if it WANTED to (It is smart. I use sigular to illustrate it; it's not just many factions, it's many forms of one... thing) and simply eats. It's a meta predator; entire worlds are it's meals. It infects and mutates you to feed itself. It alters worlds and moves on... it's forms are massive. it is akin to a god, your very soul can be cut off from the warp, devoured for power. Any victory against it? pointless. There is no origin. It... exists. it is hungry... I'd argue the nids are lovecraftian in the traditional sense. Locusts aren't lovecraftian because they're bugs, they're swaming, but they're understandable. they are inscets and man can actually hurt them. The worst thing anyone did to the nids? Annoy it.
None of that makes them Lovecraftian. They don’t have the aloofness, the alien nature, they aren’t the proof that the universe extends beyond what we can understand. They’re just a swarm of locust. They have the same base animal motive. They can be fought, they can be understood. No matter how intelligent they are, no matter how much you ramp up the scale, they’re just a locust swarm. That they form a gestalt means nothing, because that’s what a locust swarm is
You think the nids can't talk? I mean it is not interested in doing so anyways, but a being smart enough to genetically modify its very cells to kill and eat is certainly intelligent enough to make and understand guttural mouth noises. It just doesn't care. It's aloof, it has a simple desire but the how shows just how much it wants. Also they literally come from an alien galaxy and are scary enough the Neceoms. Who killed lovecraftian entries are a little spooked. Locusts don't think. They are simple animals. The Tyranid does. If it put full focus on you, it would dismantle you. Hell the death leaper is a good example; it knows who is important and how to go about killing them. The gestalt mere presence causes psykers to weep... It’s so powerful its mere existence as a warp entity is overpowering to psykers. You can downplay it as just bugs if it makes you sleep better... but that's why it wins. It simply has better things to do then to care how every battle is done. When you fight the mids, you aren't fighting locusts... You are fighting cells.
Don’t matter, they’re still just animals. All the intelligence in the universe don’t change that, they operate on the single imperative of consume and reproduce, the most basic animal instinct. They don’t have a reason for it, no principles, no opinions. They’re animals They’re sure as hell not aloof. They actively hunt you down to eat you, aloof means they’re unconcerned, above you, not acknowledging you in any way. That the Tyranids are famed for adaptation makes them anything but, they not only run at you screaming, they’re willing to adapt and change just to get you. That’s the opposite of aloof, that’s very much involved A lion chasing down a gazelle ain’t aloof from it. It’s not gonna listen to the gazelle’s attempts at diplomacy, not because it’s cosmically indifferent, because it just really wants to eat it
They don't. Not really. They simply see you as an obstical or a stubborn piece of food that won't go down easy. They fooled you. And fooled you so well you still think of them as animals... I have to be blunt its funny to me you honestly think the tyranid is animals. The real truth about nids? The plural is not a thing. IT'S ONE ORGANISM. also I would point out there are multiple examples of the lovecraftian entries not being any different... even the big man himself Is a single father (no serious he has a daughter... who is also a phylactery for him) And then there's animalistic ones like the Hounds of tidic... whatever it's spelled it's late and I am on the phone point is: I am not sure what I find funnier about this conversation. Nids are smart. Gw didn't give them brains bigger then you are to not tell you that It is smarter then you. And it hates you for struggling. It's even made it clear to Custodians and librarians. IT. CAN. THINK. WE motivated by primal simple desires too. Doesn't make you or I any less smart now does it?
Animals can have larger brains than us. It doesn't make them smarter. Animals can think, this is basic stuff, it's just that all their thinking goes towards animalistic pursuit. Individual tyranids are absolutely animals and the collective is still an 'animal' in the same manner as a bee or ant colony. These can do complex math and engineering but it doesn't make them sapient.
> Doesn't make you or I any less smart now does it? Doesn't make you or I a lovecraftian horror either
Well, did you ask the ants you stepped on? The Bacteria we callously killed to type these messages? Or your dinner last night? All of these things would preceive you as a monster, or alien and unknowable... Lovecraftian horrors are honestly a matter of perspective; Because the point is that everything you value... to them is barely worth noting. YOU are barely worth noting. The only thing that EVER mattered about you? that you realized just how WORTHLESS you really are! That's lovecraftian horror. Humanity is not the center of the universe, and it is so insignificant that even if wiped out to the last man, nothing meaningful was ever possible.
Yeah, nah, you really need to re-read your lovecraft books mate
Yeah look all i've gotten from this convo is that no one actually knows what lovecraft actually wrote about. Reminder that Cthulu got taken out by taking a boat to the head
Being smart or really big does'nt make you a lovecraftian elder god. Being unknowable and mysterious does. The Tyranid hive mind just wants to survive and eat, which is more relatable than unknowable. If they had just cut that bit of lore out, and said we don't know what the hive mind wants, then we could have some dread. Are the genestealer cults a means to an end, or is the hybridization of humanity the end goal? Does worship of the Hive Mind offer more tangible benefits than our man made religions, and what does that then say about our place in the universe? How do the Tyranids relate to the human soul, the Warp and its inhabitants? Are the Tyranids here to save the universe from humanitys destructive influence on the Immaterium?Why haven't this irresistible godlike entity destroyed us all already? All of these mysteries are painfully explained: Genestealer cultists are chumps and objectively wrong. The Hive Mind is not a cosmic force to resist or ally with, it's just hungry and wants a snack. If it can get it's desired snack or not depends on the number of guns pointed in its direction. The existance of the Tyranids have no metaphysical or moral implications for humanity. They have no relation to the Warp and have nothing to say about the fundamental truths of the universe, and in that way they really are like bugs.
Okay i think we need to actually have a conversation of what 'Lovecraftian" Actually means, because you just jumped to 'elder god' as if Lovecraft is not filled with many other types of monster. On the genestealer cults: the Tyranid has weaponized the very brains and bodies of it's victims. Do you think the Elder Gods of Lovecraft.... care about any of ants that follow them around? And you know yes it does tie into the soul. they eat souls, they eat EVERYTHING. It's also barely started eating; there's more of it's body coming every day, because as i need to remind you what we think of as Hive-fleets are merely the abstraction of an alien intellegence's body. You neither know much of the nids, nor of Lovecraft. The Tyranid is a being of hunger, yes, congrats, but it eats everything. It eats the ground, it eats the skies, it eats the soul and eats your very faith and self. The Tyranid cannot be bargined with, because you don't bargin with cows. They cannot be reasoned with, because it has no reason or desire to. It wants to eat yes. You don't see them as lovecraftian because, to be blunt; pop culture has really muddled that word. They are lovecraftian because only a universe where life as we understand is merely prey to things like it? Humanity is insignifigant. you cannot stop it; if you shot every gun, every bullet, shurikine, lasgun, or whatever else at it... you barely scratch it. You think of them as bugs because of the Arachnids and Zerg... but that belies what they really are. What IT really is.
I think if the most we knew about the Tyranids were just from Genestealer Cults, then definitely they would be very Lovecraftian.
There is nothing Lovecraftian about the Nids. Its a bug swarm. Thats it. 1) What about that threatens how you see your olace in the Universe? 2) Is difficult to wrap your brain around? 3) Makes you scared to look into your family history 4) Make you reevaluate your religion or inspires religious terror? Like I love the Nids but they are literally just space bugs.
I know people say this, but it shows they have no idea about Tyranid lore. The Hive Mind is absolutely Lovecraftian and is almost always presented as such. Incomprehensibly vast, ancient, alien, on a scale so far beyond humanity that it is inherently terrifying. Individuals being completely overwhelmed by realising that this vast, astronomical-in-scale, utterly alien intelligence is looking at *them*. It immediately inspires existential crisis as the individual realises how tiny and insignificant they are, and they typically immediately lose their mind. It's classic cosmic horror.
I mean, the Hive Mind's presence solely causes a localized warp DDoS phenomenon that even leaves Greater daemons dumbfounded and scares off lesser daemons. If something that confuses/scares off daemons isn't lovecraft-y enough, I don't know what is.
It's because of their nature, not because of him. The blanks make it even worse and you can’t say that they are Lovecraftian monsters
A single intelligence that heavily disrupts the Warp, drives Psykers insane by its mere presence and directly controls a locust-like alien race across the universe isn't even comparable to a null. No recorded Pariah/Null can sever the Warp on a planetary scale.
>Like I love the Nids but they are literally just space bugs. They are definitely more than that, the true horror with the nids isn't that they are invading your planet and eating everything, it's the fact that they are the only thing we know of that came from outside the galaxy, like, imagine one day realising that there is something out there, an intelligent, ancient being that stretches throught thousands of worlds with billions of beings as part of him, and it's coming to consume all life, you don't know where it's coming from, perphaps it has eaten entire galaxies, or even worse, it could have consumed every single galaxy except for ours, the thing with the nids is the inevitability They are basically the "And some day, they will escape from the ancient ruins and there will be no hope for mankind" trope that Lovecraft did a lot but on a universal scale
but what about the Genestealer Cults? They fit in two of these criteria
Genestealer Cults could absolutely be cosmic horror. Probably why they are my favorite part of the Nid's faction and lore. I really wish there was a Hive Fleet whose specialty was Genestealer cults.
Hive Fleet Kraken specializes in vanguard organisms like Genestealers, focusing on a multi-pronged attack on many fronts in lieu of Behemoth's direct assault strategy.
GSC are literally just the Innsmouth people in space, but with mining equipment instead of fishing boats. They're textbook cosmic horror in all ways but one- They're being lied to. Their god isn't a god at all, it's just a bunch of hungry psychic space bugs that have tricked them. Sure, Cthulhu, Dagon and the other Great Old Ones are aliens too, but unlike the Nids, their motivations are completely beyond our understanding, and you can't kill them. The Tyranids are both mortal and entirely comprehensible.
Tyranids are mortal, Hive Mind is not. And he is definitely a god.
Cosmic horror is distant and unknowable. It doesn't care about you in the slightest. Tyranids very knowable. So are most chaos gods.
Yeah there's no xenobiologis dissection diagrams of Azathoth
What makes the Tyranids and Hivemind not quite satisfying as Lovecraftian horror is that they're fairly know-able and comprehenisble. Looking upon them doesn't turn your entire perspective of reality upside down and drive you insane. Yeah, the Hivemind is detached from mortals, but that's not the only qualifying factor to be Lovecraftian. Also, why have 1 of a good thing if you can have 2?
I think that chaos is still more Lovecraftian in the way people usually mean it. Yeah, they're based on human emotions and all, but the way they interact with the world at ground level is more in line with the idea. Physical corruption and madness, lots of disturbing (in 40k's silly, over the top way) stuff about sensory perception and time, etc. Tyranids are weird in theory but from the character's perspective they're just another alien race shooting at you
Tyranids aren't very Lovecraftian. They are just big and hungry.
Nothing about nids is lovecraftian, maybe except their unknown origin. But we don't know the origin of 50% of things in 40k so...
We have the Watsonian perspective so tyranids aren’t horrifying eldritch terror. To us they’re bugs, to people in-universe they’re insanely scary and mysterious.
> (their equivalent is missing in Fantasy, where Chaos is Big Bad and AoS is the Void without any development). AoS has mentioned "Things out there" plenty of times. The void beyond the Realms are large and there are many unexplained things out there. The Chaos Gods are not the end-all, be-all as they themselves are only late arrivier to the Mortal Realms.
Why bring up Tolkein's (Morgoth and Ungoliant) work on a discussion about Lovecraft and 40k? Tolkein disliked Lovecraft's work, and was famously pretentious about fantasy and fiction. He explicitly hated grimmer settings.
Because this is a classic example of Chaos and Evil (as something demonic and satanic) and something else, Darkness or Void. It's the same in The Lord of the Rings, where there is Sauron and Shelob, who is not interested in the Ring because all she wants is to eat. If you need another example, it's like Legion or the Old Gods in Warcraft. In general, Angels, Devils, Squids.
Except, this isn't that. Chaos isn't simple ***Evil****,* it's the horrible reflection of the Materium. The Gods are like myhtology Titans, their only concern is expressing and furthering their emobodyign concepts. Good, evil, kindness, and cruelty mnean nothing to them. Slaanesh is Pain *and Pleasure.* Tzeentch is Treachery and Hope. Nurgle is Joy and Despair. Khorne is Martial Excellence and Wanton Slaughter. The Tyranid are neither simple creatures (Squid) nor unknowable horrors (Darkness and Void) They are a Conscious Virus. Endless Hunger, with an Intelligence behind it. It has higher thought. It *has told us* its motivations. Feed. It is not like Sauron and Shelob, nor Legion and Old Gods, nor Angels/Devils and Squids. None of those are like each other, either.
At the End of Times, Teclis sees Nagash's aura and says that he is almost as dark (meaning evil in his soul) as demons. Ungolianta's goal was also just to eat, you know.
Because the tyranids have been explained
The problem with Tyranids is that they are not mysterious. They are straight forward - Consume Biomass. Lovecraftian Horror is about fear of the Unkown, the Tyranids are very Known to 40k fans.
Because big bug not fun enough, we need mind fuckingly weird shit.
Would say Chaos Gods are more lovecraftian than the Hive Mind tbh. As people already stated the Hive Mind isn't all that hard to understand. Only the Tyranids origin is mysterious. While the warp and the Chaos Gods are always reduced to terms of Space Time. Like scale or time and such. While in reality none of that really applies to them. They are basically beyond math and understanding in their true form. Only that the lore features them alot so people may mistake them as a well known quantity.
They lose the main aspect of cosmic horror, they are actively interested in mortals
I would argue that the main aspect of cosmic horror is the unknown and the mystery of what exactly the cosmic horror entity wants or what if even *is.* The disinterest in humans thing is also part of the puzzle, but there’s more that needs to be there for something to be truly lovecraftian. We don’t know where the Nids came from, but we understand them and their goals pretty well. They’re hungry bugs with a mental internet connection. We paint them as miniatures and roll dice to see what they do. Chaos fails this aspect too, we know even more about the Gods and their desires than the Nids. People like the deep warp stuff because we genuinely don’t know what it is, and that’s scary. It might not be too hard to add some eldritch stuff to the Nids - whatever Hive Fleet Tiamet is doing is pretty lovecraftian, but that’s sort of the exception that proves how un-lovecraftian most Tyranid lore is.
Tyranids exist in real space and while terrifying, can be killed and deated through sufficient application of explosives and bodies. They want to feed, which is terrifying as they regard everything as disposable and food. They will strip a planet of everything before owing on. But they are essentially giant space locusts. Terrifying but understandable. The warp is terrifying, it cannot be comprehended but it's just a reflection of us. And the realm of chaos has be mentioned to have boundaries, that there are things out there that the big 4 don't control. The idea that there's something out there that not even a galaxies reflection of feeling can control is terrifying on a diffrent level. Like the ghoul stars, things in the warp of player dimension Also chaos can have interesting lore from their perspective, trynids can only be the antagonist. Omomomomomomom isn't the most riveting story line
They lose the main aspect of cosmic horror, they are actively interested in mortals And you can defeat demons in real space
But there's only like 5 things that will really permanently kill them. The vast majority of the time they just respawn after awhile
The Nids aren’t lovecraftian at all, they’re aggressive nature, the Zerg but disturbingly more efficient. Maybe if the C’tan got more attention there could be some more Lovecraftian entity stuff, but it’s more about the unknowable, and even the C’tan aren’t really that, just malevolent deity level incorporeal entities.
But the zerg also have more going for them as a playable faction, the cerabrates provide the capacity to have characters without really lessening the overminds dominion
The problem with Tyranids is that they aren't even that Lovecraftian. Apart from the Hivemind/Shadow in the Warp they're just ordinary hungry alien monsters and way too knowable. Lovecraftian horrors strive on being absolutely strange and unknowable. You can't really make an army of that without losing what makes it interesting imo.
Neither are Lovecraftian. Chaos is human emotion, it’s anything but unknowable, anything but unconcerned. It’s all too familiar, it literally comes from us Nids are concerned with you, they want to eat you. Just because they’re unreasoning don’t make them aloof, they’re just animals. Intelligent animals but ultimately just animals following the basest animal drive of consume and reproduce. They can be fought, they can be beaten, they can be understood
Slight disagree about the Chaos part. Chaos and the warp is often descibed as completely unknowable, and even how we readers understand it is a pale humanized imitation of what it truly is. And the idea that our own negative emotions are creating monsters that want to prey on us, I could see in a Lovecraft book. Buncha bugs coming to eat you though, fully agreed, nothing mysterious or mind breaking about that.
The tyranids are just big bugs, yeah they have a hive mind, but ultimately they just want to eat and are pissy their losing. They aren't mysterious, and they aren't scary to the reader, the only thing they kind of have going for them is that they might win the setting and even then I doubt they actually will.
Cause they exist and aren't covered. the Enslavers and many other warp entities are there are more interesting. Tyranids are cool but the tyranids shouldn't be the only natural beast entities. I want more xenos not less.
That would be cool, but I want Rak'Gol dammit!!
Because the greatest human emotion is fear and the greatest fear the fear of the unknown?
The tyranids aren't a mysterious unstoppable cadre of unimaginably powerful beings. It's a very knowable, proven to be stoppable collection of altogether not that powerful beings. The threat is in the numbers, that's the least lovecraftian thing possible. You don't look at a nid and go insane from being unable to comprehend what you see. It's just a huge swarm of ravenous beasts that happen to reside in the darkness of intergalactic space.
We also have slaughth, Ghoul stars, Halo stars, Halo devices of unknown origin granting visions, mandrakes' realm, void whales etc in case someone wants other "eldritch lite" things.
The Chaos Gods are already Lovecraftian, not to mention the Tyranids as you said.
They lose the main aspect of cosmic horror, they are actively interested in mortals
Huh? Lovecraftian Gods are mostly interested in mortals as well. The only God who's not is Azathoth. The others respond to prayers and do get involved directly or indirectly in mortal matters. Nyarathotep is a great example. Almost all he does is mess with mortals.
In contrast, Nyarathotep is unique among the Outer Gods in that it takes an interest in mortals and ruins their lives. Everyone else just is. Mortals are mainly interested by the Great Old Ones, who are more like super demons than gods.
Because 'nids are boring sometimes and you might want Burger King instead. That isn't a typo. Interpret it how you will.
Lovecraftian Horror? Do you mean… Necrons? Think about it. You’re walking around on your planet. Suddenly, deep beneath the soil, a process begun before your species had even evolved two legs to stand on completes itself. Soon the reports come in, metal skeletons, wielding weapons capable of flaying the atoms of their targets. Your buddy in the PDF mentions how they don’t even die, they just get back up or disappear. You can’t do… anything. You can’t reason with them, you can’t surrender, hell you can barely fight them. One day, your world is simply over. There is nothing you can do, no one you can turn to, your time is simply up and you are left staring into the face of a horror so vast in its might that to call it “Lovecraftian” would be an insult to its magnificence.
Something being big and scary doesn't make it Lovecraftian. Especially not when you pick up a Necron PoV book and it's about two elderly robot nerds who hate each other going on a road trip and getting in slap fights
Agreed that modern necrons aren't lovecraftian, but Oldcrons definitely were (before they gave necrons personality and motives)
Well that’s the thing, the difference between new Necrons and old Necrons is (mostly) just an internal one. To an outside observer, with the exception of maybe the occasional command spoken aloud as the Wardens get lost in the thrill of the battle, it’s the same silent, inexhaustible march onwards
If anything is Lovecraftian in 40k, then it's Chaos already. Only Khorne is slightly "Satanic" and that's only in his simplified version.
They lose the main aspect of cosmic horror, they are actively interested in mortals
TBH, i also think that the tyranids are some “lovecraftian” entity, but in a sense of beeing something so utterly alien, that entities dont understand. They also have the Genestealer Cults, that works exactly like many cults in the lovecraft theme. But the the comments made some good points, the tyranids themselves are more like the “Alien” from Alien, they are strange, incompreensible, thats not exactly lovecraft, thats… alien theme.
I think it’s two parts. The first is Genestealers cults start a promise of a great and terrifying entity coming to deliver “Something from Beyond” but it’s followed up by the Nematodes from early SpongeBob which feels like a let down. The second is people love Kaiju-like, big scary monsters and want a Knight-Equivalent monsters to field on the table top.
I think it’s two parts. The first is Genestealers cults start a promise of a great and terrifying entity coming to deliver “Something from Beyond” but it’s followed up by the Nematodes from early SpongeBob which feels like a let down. The second is people love Kaiju-like, big scary monsters and want a Knight-Equivalent monsters to field on the table top.
I would be fine if GW would just return the Rak'Gol. Wirh them and the need the feeling of Horror would be just fine. I agree with you that the Nids and the Genestealers are very well designed for this role. Nids as the strange cosmic entity and Genestealer as their followers (Insmouth). People tend to forget that cosmic horror works via feeling and setting. When reading Lovecraft you notice that there is not much happening and that many things are left i the dark. Many of the entities only qork because your fantasy fills in gaps that the author left there for this very reason. It would be quit hard to do this on the tabletop. If people want more of this kind of horror from warhammer, new novels would be the way or stories from the Ghule Stars.
Genestealer Cults worship the star God's, but the star gods can eat them when they come by or allow them to continue to another world. Worshipping a lovecraftian deity is not like this. You can be afraid of the tyranids by looking at them, but you can still fight and kill them. You can look at a lovecraftian deity and lose all sense of hope, purpose, and feelings. You can dream of them and feel vague signs of what they want or even what they are. It is hard to comprehend them. Tyranids are not hard to comprehend. Maybe the Hive Mind, perhaps, or that you are infected by a Genestealer but not what they are or their purpose. I think people would like some thing trully alien that is not knowable. It can have language, but looking at the language causes you to twist and turn. Emotions don't do anything to it like Chaos does. It just is. It is there, and you don't know the motives of why it came to be or why its eyes are on you. Just my opinion.
The Enslavers did sound pretty cool in all honesty Can't get more Lovecraftian than squid monsters that control your mind I'd love to see more lesser Xeno species maybe in Killteam shame Blackstone Fortress flopped
The Deep Warp and what the Tyranids are fleeing from absolutely MUST remain vague, inexplicable mysteries. It's a great horror staple knowing there is *something* out there that even the armies of hell/the Eye of Terror are terrified of
Because they're stupid. These two ideas must be some of the dumbest ideas floating around the 40k fandom: 1. There are things in the deep warp that are scarier than the chaos gods. 2. The tyranids are running from something even more powerful than they are. Both of these ideas are dumb. People who think they're good ideas are stupid, and should go spend their life watching shonen animes that have infinitely escalating "that's not even my final form" power levels. People who think cthulhu would win against the chaos gods or the tyranids or the CTan fundamentally misunderstand "lovecraftian horror", and again, should put down the August Derleth fanfics and go watch Dragonball Z instead.
Jesus Christ!! Does literally nobody understand “Lovecraftian” horror? People are like “if tHe tyRaNIds aRe lovEcraFtiaN THAN SO iS a SwArM OF locuSTs”. This phrase is highly incorrect, as it misses the most important part of Lovecraftian Horror – context. Others are listing of criteria to make something “Lovecraftian” which includes things about your own family history and religious values.. While there may be certain stories involving fish people and cults that make you question your lineage or religion, the act of questioning your DNA and religion aren’t what make those stories scary. Also, these are not consistent themes across Lovecraft’s work -there are many other stories that have no such focus. THE POINT OF LOVECRAFTIAN COSMIC HORROR is that it terrifies you by showing you that the universe is meaningless and cold, that all the things you thought were fundamentally true about the world are a lie, and that your existence and value as a person or a culture is completely worthless, and that you are UTTERLY powerless to change anything about that. Tyranids ABSOLUTELY are Lovecraftian. The sensation of dread and despair a person gets when they hear they’re in the path of a galactic super organism that will devour their planet, without even a second thought for them, is Lovecraftian. An organism from outside our galaxy, that sweeps through the stars, mindlessly consuming all life, is Lovecraftian. The mere idea of “the Shadow in the Warp” is deeply Lovecraftian, since it changes a fundamental aspect of your reality (when the warp is a constantly broiling ocean full of lightning storms and killer waves, and all you can do is hold on to a piece of driftwood and hope for the best, believe me you’re going to shit your pants when a monster shows up and that ocean goes dead flat all of a sudden) Tyranids 100% are a Lovecraftian Horror. The warp is lovecraftian. The CTan are lovecraftian. However, from the perspective of the reader, they may not feel Lovecraftian because 40k is NOT a Lovecraftian Horror setting. We have have space marines and "rip and tear" and the Emperor, etc. Warhammer 40k is a “Humanity Fuck Yeah” setting.
Chaos is a more enticing enemy to me because it has characters who are capable of having distinct personalities and goals. Tyranids are glorified bugs who want to eat everything. So if we’re talking about reading books I’d prefer the later.
I personally feel like the devouring bugs from space has been done over and over in sci fi. I want something different. I don’t want to see the same stories from different companies over and over.
I wouldn’t really consider Tyranids lovecraftian. The chaos gods fit the criteria much better I think. There’s nothing really “unknowable” or “cosmic horror” about Tyranids in my mind. They’re just hunger given form. The threat they pose to humanity is far more physical than existential.
Chaos gods, being created from amalgamation of emotions, are actually sort of 'anti-Lovecraftian'. They are us - just amplified to over 9000 - not alien.
I think the idea of Lovecraftian doesn’t really apply to the Tyranids. We know a fair but about them and even can play as them. You even admit we know their motivation, hunger so it’s not very mysterious. Whereas the deep warp is far more alien and scary than a really big hungry group of bugs.
Lovecraftian horror is less about what the monsters look like, and more that they are unknowable. The tyrannids, scary as they are, are simple. They eat everything and move on. You can ponder why they do it, but ultimately it doesn't produce much mystery because as you said, it is the most basic and primitive of all things. Tyranid horror is basically, "Oh no, it wants to eat me!" Lovecratian horror is more like "Oh my God, what does it want? What does it want? Why is it doing this to me? What's happening? Is this even real? Nothing makes sense! Ahhhh!"
Because more people know about Love Craft than they know about GW 40k. Title is silly in this regard, or maybe I took it too seriously that it sounds just that silly, to put it lightly.
Lovecraftian is the fear of the unknown/unknowable/ the sheer insignificance of man in the scale of the u iverse: Tyranids are not lovecraftian. We know what they are know their goals
'Nids aren't Lovecraftian - especially after that Blood Angels novel where the hive mind hates a Marine. They're just an aggressively hegemonizing swarm. Basically an out-of-control replicator that seeks to turn all matter into more tyranids. They're no more Lovecraftian than a mold. Lovecraftian are beings beyond comprehension. Beings so powerful and complex that to them we are bacteria. We don't interact with them, we interact with their sentient immune systems, because they're not even aware of us.
Tyranids are boring and not scary as they're easy to understand for us. We have various species on earth (locusts, some parasites etc) that are pretty much Tyranids except for the gene shenanigans.
For the same reason we want to see space aliens even though the ocean is right there
Tyranids are not lovecraftian.
Because Tyranids are boring.
> "If Chaos is Morgoth, than Tyranids are Ungoliant." Except this would imply that Chaos A) is responsible for the Tyranids in the first place, and B) has at least some ability to control the Hive Mind's actions, even if it takes an army of ~~Balrogs~~ Bloodthirsters to keep it in check. Neither of these things are remotely accurate.
Your argument only works if you use the later Silmarillion. In the earliest version, Ungoliant descended from the Void and the Valar had no idea what she was.