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While browsing the old Fraternity of Shadows fansite for Ravenloft, I found this interesting passage from John W. Mangrum, the author of many 3rd edition Ravenloft products.
I found this particularly interesting in light of how often Gothic and Lovecraftian trappings are casually mixed in horror gaming. I'd sensed something was off, but I hadn't been able to put it into words.
Of course, this could just be purist nonsense. What do you think?
John W. Mangrum said:As a note, had we been able to write Van Richten's Guide to Eldritch Horrors (which would have been about illithids and their fleshcrafted spawn), the "hook" would have been presenting this Lovecraftian horror in a Gothic context. (There was little to no point in doing a simple rehash of the Illithiad or Lords of Madness.) Because it's true, beyond the surface conventions Gothic and Lovecraftian horror are inherently thematically incompatible.
Each of Van Richten's [Ravenloft's Van Helsing and in-setting writer of monster guides] foes presented a different thematic/moral threat -- a different take on evil. Werebeasts represented our darkest natures unleashed; Created was about the hubristic need to control our surroundings. Shadow Fey morality was skewed by their lack of mortality. Fiends were ultimate evil, interested in nothing more and nothing less than spiritual destruction for its own sake.
The underlying thematic threat of Bluetspur's [domain of the illithids in Ravenloft] inhabitants would be the threat of transforming the cosmos from Gothic Horror to Lovecraftian Horror. In other words, that the true threat of the illithids was the destruction of morality itself -- that, in a cosmos where the illithid way of life rules supreme, all that we know as Good and Evil would be stripped away, replaced by an utterly alien morality -- one into which mankind may not even figure. A cosmic paradigm shift, if you will. In other words, better the devil you know than the thing you can never understand.
I found this particularly interesting in light of how often Gothic and Lovecraftian trappings are casually mixed in horror gaming. I'd sensed something was off, but I hadn't been able to put it into words.
Of course, this could just be purist nonsense. What do you think?