We’re back and we’re following up last episode’s discussion of Clark Ashton Smith with a look at one of his stories. The Seven Geases is part of Smith’s Hyperborean cycle, the series of his that most intersects with the Cthulhu Mythos. In fact, the The Seven Geases adds more entities to the Mythos than any other single Smith story, making it a fascinating read for Call of Cthulhu Keepers.
As usual, we dig into aspects of the story that would make good gaming material. The Seven Geases is a little different than the types of stories we normally discuss. While many of its elements have found their way into Lovecraftian horror fiction and games, the story itself is a weird mix of sword-and-sorcery and black comedy. This disparity of genres has never stopped people incorporating elements from Smith’s stories into Call of Cthulhu games, however, and usually to great effect.
Even with this in mind, however, Call of Cthulhu Keepers who read The Seven Geases for inspiration may find it a strange and jarring experience. While the story introduces major Mythos entities, such as Abhoth and Atlatch-Nacha, and reincorporates a number of others, the way in which they behave differs markedly from their use in Call of Cthulhu. Mythos deities are rarely as chatty as those encountered here.
“Just pull up a corpse and sit down. Now, let’s have a nice little chat about blood sacrifices. Scone?”
If this episode inspires you to run a game set in Hyperborea, good friend of the Good Friends Stephanie McAlea has put together a rather lovely map of the lost continent. Stephanie has been the cartographer of most of the work we have written for Chaosium, and does excellent work. You can buy her map via DriveThruRPG, or download it directly if you back her on Patreon.
As Bret Kramer, another good friend of the Good Friends, pointed out, we neglected to mention The Double Shadow podcast in our overview of Smith. This was a major oversight. If you have any interest in Smith and his work, you should definitely give it a listen. The hosts know their subject well and delve into each story and its context in loving detail.
And still speaking of good friends of the Good Friends, we mention in the episode how Frank Delventhal amazed and alarmed us with his feats of strength during our recent chat with Patreon backers. Frank has made videos of some of these feats and placed them where lesser mortals may see them. One particularly terrifying example may be found below.
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I’m pretty sure I only like this story in a fandom sense, in that I liked reading about the creatures I already knew of through Call of Cthulhu. If I had come to it cold, I doubt I would have liked it at all. This happens all the time though. For instance, even as a horror fan, I doubt I would have liked the film Dagon if The Shadow over Innsmouth wasn’t already one of my favorite stories.
I always felt this was written more as a fable than a dramatic story, also, that it’s more than a bit of a joke. The character survives all these Lewis Carroll-like encounters without really doing anything, and then makes a dumb mistake and falls to his doom (unless he’s actually alive, trapped in webs or whatever plot device you can think of). I think it’s a fun bunch of pages.
Enjoyed the ep, btw! And the podcast.