#august derleth

[charnel-grounds]

“. . . Could some act of his have opened the way for occult forces to invade his privacy?”

Matt Fox (1906–1988), illustration to “The Ormolu Clock” by August Derleth

from ‘Weird Tales’ Vol. 42 #2, January 1950

source

[toomuchhorrorfiction]

Arkham House founder and HP Lovecraft publisher August Derleth born Feb 24, 1909

[bitterkarella]

Midnight Pals: More Elon Racism

King: submitted for the approval of the midnight society, i call this the tale of Elon Musk [rising from bushes]: eyyyy stephano king Musk: dida you know da pure aryan race issa gonna be outbred by da mongrel jews anna saracens? King: Barker: Koontz: Poe: Lovecraft: Lovecraft: let's hear him out

Musk: mama mia we musts protect da precious bodily fluids offa da white race or we gonna be overrun by da nikklenaks anna da boofnoggins King: i King: what Lovecraft: no no he's right Lovecraft: this makes perfect sense to me Musk: da jibbojammers lust forra our pure white women Lovecraft: exactly!

Lovecraft: you know, he makes a good point Barker: funny you would say that August Derleth: EXCUSE ME Barker: oh here we go Derleth: EXCUSE ME Derleth: I FEEL IT MUST BE REMEMBERED Derleth: HOWARD IS ONLY AS RACIST AS THE AVERAGE MAN OF HIS TIME

King: i have to say, i'm almost impressed by elon's new old timey racism King: i mean, some of these slurs haven't been said in a hundred years King: it takes some real effort to dig these up Musk: didda you know da asiatic haffa da sideways vagine King: Musk: mama mia!

Musk: mama mia da anglo-irish-scot culture offa america, now datsa spicy meataball! [chef's kiss] Joyce carol Oates: [rolling up sleeves] well well well Oates: looks like someone's come back for a second helping Oates: of pain

Mary Shelley: sup fuckers Barker: i think joyce carol oates is about to kill elon Barker: you want in on this, mary? Shelley: naw she's got this

Oates: so you're the richest man in the world huh Musk: si Oates: and yet Oates: [unsheathing skiomi-zue] Mary Shelley: oh shit here it comes

Oates: and yet you know less about history than a used wad of toilet paper stuck to a dirty bathroom floor Mortal kombat announcer: FATALITY Musk: eyyy you can't talk to me lika dat! Musk: my momma says ima cool Mortal Kombat announcer: BABALITY

Lovecraft: i don't understand Lovecraft: we're both racist yet Lovecraft: he's the richest man in the world and i have to skip lunch to buy a postage stamp Lovecraft: what does he have that i don't? Lovecraft: Lovecraft: obviously there is a conspiracy of the boofnoggins to blame

[uwmspeccoll]

Wood Engraving Wednesday

Frank Utpatel

Wisconsin illustrator and wood engraver Frank Utpatel (1905-1980) was a frequent collaborator with Wisconsin poet, author, and publisher (Arkham House of H. P. Lovecraft fame) August Derleth (1909-1971). Today we show the small engravings Utpatel devised for Derleth's 1962 collection of poems, This Wound, printed from the original blocks by Carroll Coleman (1904-1989) at his Prairie Press in Iowa City, Iowa.

View more wood engravings by Frank Utpatel.

View more posts on works by August Derleth.

View more posts with wood engravings!

[illustrioussanguine]

PSINKTOBER_DAY15

Prompt: Ragged

[doubtspirit]

Artwork (1973) by John​ Holmes for 'The Shuttered Room and Other Tales of Horror' by H.P. Lovecraft and August Derleth, Ballantine Books

[thetygre]

I realize it’s a relatively minor gripe in comparison to everything else he did, but the fact that August Derleth took the nameless flying creatures from Lovecraft’s ‘The Festival’, proceeded to name them, tie them to another completely separate entity (which was itself a combination of two other entities), and forever bound them to the science fiction portion of the Cthulhu Mythos when as aspects of a Kingsport story they are clearly (CLEARLY) supposed to be part of the Dreamlands/fantasy section of Lovecraftiana does distinctly stick in my craw. Now it’s a century later and I’ve got Sandy Petersen trying to explain how a bit of phantasmagoria can fly through space according to the known laws of physics. The byakhee have more in common with shantaks and nightgaunts than Cthulhu or the mi-go. Pelgrane and Arc Dream had the right idea combining shantak birds and the byakhee into one adjustable stat block for their games.

[cinder-wrought]

I didn’t discover the Hastur Mythos all at once. Like a lot of things in horror, it crept in through atmosphere and suggestion. I first brushed up against it in RPGs that dabbled in the edges of the unknowable, games where the horror wasn’t in what was shown, but in what was implied. At first, it was just a name. Maybe a weird NPC reference. A scribbled symbol. An old play, someone warned you not to read aloud. Nothing that stood out on its own, not if you weren’t looking.

But I kept running into it. Or maybe it kept running into me.

Eventually I got curious. I started reading. Not just the games, but the stories behind the stories. Bierce. Chambers. Lovecraft. Derleth. I was trying to trace the roots of this unnameable god, but they never stayed still. It wasn’t linear, not like Cthulhu or Nyarlathotep. It was more like a pattern that emerges only when you’re not quite paying attention.

The stories weren’t connected by plot, more by mood. Disconnection. Identity slippage. Art that drives people to madness. A fictional play that eats your mind just by existing in it. And the thing is, Chambers never gives you the whole play. Just pieces. Just reactions. And that makes it worse. Because your brain fills in the gaps, and it knows exactly how to destroy you.

It's personal.

Intimate.

The madness is tailor-made.

I thought it was just a clever literary trick. A device. But then I kept noticing it. That sense of dislocation. That creeping unreality. I’d be reading something or watching a movie or walking around late at night and there’d be this flicker, like I’d caught a reflection in a mirror that shouldn’t be there. Something was… thin. And behind it, something watching. Wearing my thoughts like a mask.

I think what keeps pulling me back to this mythos is the way it frames horror as yearning. Most cosmic horror pushes you away. Hastur draws you in. The Yellow Sign doesn’t repel, it calls. And even when you know it’s a trap, you might still answer. Because it promises meaning. And in a chaotic, indifferent universe, sometimes that’s the most terrifying thing of all.

When I think back to the early moments, the games, the handouts, the symbols, I realize now that those weren’t my first steps into Carcosa. I didn’t know it then, but I was already walking the shores of Lake Hali, already hearing the King’s song. And that’s the way it happens, isn’t it? Not with a scream. But with a whisper. Not with a monster. But with a story.

And once you’ve read it, really read it, you are never the same.

Delta Green, especially, made the Mythos feel present. It didn’t just use the imagery, it asked what it would mean if this kind of horror existed in our world. What if a piece of fiction could rewrite your perception of reality? What if art and madness weren’t opposites, but neighbors? In Delta Green, The King in Yellow is a memetic hazard. A story that spreads not because of a monster lurking behind the curtain, but because the curtain itself is the danger. The idea that the world we live in might be a beautiful lie, and some part of us longs to know the truth underneath it.

You don’t fight it. You remember it. That’s the genius of it. It’s not coming for you. You were always part of it. The Yellow Sign doesn’t mark, it reveals. You don’t discover Carcosa. You come home.

What keeps me coming back to the Hastur Mythos isn’t the monsters or the horror tropes. It’s the way it blurs boundaries: between fiction and reality, between sanity and meaning, between art and identity. It taps into something human, the desire to understand, and the cost that can come with understanding too much.

It’s not about losing your mind. It’s about what happens when you begin to question what your mind is built on.

I’ve seen the faces of those who came before me. They are blurred, indistinct, but they carry the same hollow gaze, the same feverish yearning. They were the same as me. They all are me. And soon, I will join them. I will be one with the play, one with Carcosa. The script has already been written. The King is waiting. And when the final act begins, it will consume us all.

Sometimes when I write, I don’t remember choosing the words. They come in yellow. They hum softly. They wait patiently, like old friends. I think they’ve always been there, just out of reach, behind a veil I didn’t know was thin.

I hear the drums again. They are closer now, pounding in my chest, matching the rhythm of the Yellow Sign. The city’s streets are opening wide before me, like a gaping mouth, ready to swallow me whole. I step forward. I know what is waiting. I know the end. But it’s no longer frightening. It’s not a fall. It’s not even a beginning. It is simply the next line in the play.

The city is near now. I can hear water. I can see towers through the mist. The mask fits better every day. The lines are written. The curtain is rising.

We are all players here.

The city is open now.

The curtain is rising.

He is coming.

He has always been.

And you—yes, you—will know the final line, when it comes.

Do you see it now?

The Yellow Sign?

You’ll understand soon.

We all do, in time.

We have laid aside disguise. Haven’t we?