What the heck is a Cthulhu?

Answer 1

Cthulhu first appeared in H.P. Lovecraft's "The Call of Cthulhu" in 1928 ( i think) and while Lovecraft himself did not use the character much afterwards, the name became part of the mythos cycle that other authors adopted, when they wanted to write in a similar vein to Lovecraft, often adopting characters and events from Lovecraft. Cthulhu itself is related to the elder gods, and is supposedly a "Deep One" so, while not an actual elder god itself, Cthulhu does have ties. Cthulhu's family background is supposedly along thse lines: Cthulhu's parent is the androgynous deity Nagoob. Nagoob mated with the Outer God Yog-Sothoth to bear Cthulhu. Yog-Sothoth is mentioned from time to time, a lot more often than Nagoob. Because Cthulhu is a Deep One and resides underneath the sea, sleeping, he is often represented as having a multi-tentacled head (very much like an octopus in form) and is amphibious and winged.


see also Lovecrafts "the Dunwich Horror", and "At the Moutains of Madness"

Answer 2

Cthulhu is a elder god. Sorry Great Old One
Cthulhu Sleeps at the bottom of a lake waiting for his followers to awaken him again along with Daggon.

Call of Cthulhu is a roll playing game and now also a video game too.

Go Pods ! Did you get some byakhee on you ?

The Cthulhu mythos is not included in DnD but Wizards of the Coast has a D 20 Cthulhu game too.

Answer 3

Cthulhu is a Great Old One created by HP Lovecraft in the 1920s. He is the escense of evil and power. Check out the Chaosium website for more information.

Answer 4

A god or a monster, dependng on perspective.

H. P. Lovecraft turned out a lot of horror stories about the Old ones, like Cthulhu, the ones from Outside. The technique was to slowly build an atmosphere of dread, then give the reader a glimpse, just a quick look, at creatures so horrible that the mere image of them would drive you insane. They are beyond human experience, beyond our universe, utterly alien and totally malevolent.

It didn't always work. What Lovecraft was really doing was yelling "Oooga booga! Watch out! You can't handle this, it's too much for you!" But he only managed to pull it off a couple times. Usually it just irritated me.

But I remember... reading one story, not about the Old Ones, but about the Deep Ones. There's a ceremony of hooded acolytes in a cellar or dungeon... then they follow a tunnel to an underground lake, and each acolyte mounts the back of a hideous little water creature (there's a bunch of them), and they all swim away in the dark. It sounds stupid when I tell it, but the story freaked me out.

Answer 5

The Call of Cthulhu is a short story by american writer H.P.Lovecraft. It's really good. I read it a long time ago. Cthulhu itself is a kind of mysterious "entity". It also turns up in some of his other novels. Also, other writers took up this theme and built a kind of mythological world around it. You know, like "The Middle Earth".

Answer 6

That's one of the elder gods which some people refer to as demons. Appeared in the works of H. P. Lovecraft and I think he's also been included in Dungeons & Dragons.

Answer 7

Read the short story (link to full text below) and then you'll know.
Oh yes, then you'll know.
And you'll wish you didn't.
(insert spooky insane laughter here)

Answer 8

ITS A STUPID WORD CUZ NOBODY CAN PRONOUNCE, IT SHOULD BE SOMETHING A LIL MORE PRONOUNCEABLE, PLUS, IF IT WAS A GOD, THATS STUPID CUZ THAT MYTHOLOGY CRAP IS REALLY A WASTE OF TIME, THERE IS ONLY 1 GOD.