At the Mountains of Madness part 3

We’re back and we’re catching up with some history. Happily, the folks who lived here before documented the entire story of their civilisation in easy-to-read comics. Even more conveniently, they carved them on walls everywhere. If more graffiti were like this, we would all be historians. Sure, it’s in an alien language and filled with concepts beyond human comprehension, but that won’t stop us piecing it together. Just give us a few hours.

Main Topic: At the Mountains of Madness part 3

This is the section of At the Mountains of Madness in which Lovecraft tells us of the decline and fall of the Old Ones. While we’re experiencing the story at two degrees of remove, it’s still quite gripping. More importantly for Call of Cthulhu players, this is probably the largest history of the Mythos Lovecraft offered us in any of his tales.

This is also the part of the novel where things really get moving and the novel turns into a full-bore horror story. You will find gore, slime and sinister penguins aplenty down here in the dark. Better still, the narrative pace accelerates like a speeding shoggoth.

Links

Things we mention in this episode include:

News

The Blasphemous Tome issue 5

We have started work on issue 5 of The Blasphemous Tome! This is the print-only fanzine we produce exclusively for our Patreon backers. Once again, this issue will feature a new scenario for Call of Cthulhu, called “Number 22”, written by our own Matt Sanderson. You will also find plenty of other juicy articles, stories and artwork. If you have any short pieces of prose (no more than 500 words) or black-and-white art you would to submit, please send them our way before the end of this month!

Dragonmeet 2019

At least some of us shall be attending Dragonmeet next month. The one-day convention takes place at the Novotel in West London on the 30th of November. If you see any of us wandering around, please do say hi (or anything else that takes your fancy). We’ll try not to bite.

Other Stuff

Songs

If, like some of the unfortunate members of the Miskatonic expedition, you were vivisected by an alien monstrosity, you may well cry out in terror and agony. We, on the other hand, scream with pleasure in honour of two new $5 Patreon backers. These cries are no less bloodcurdling, however.

Also, be warned that we are making some changes to our backer rewards soon. Once we have worked our way through our current backlog of $5 Patreon backers, we shall stop recording new songs. They have been great fun to do, but as listeners with ears as keen as young Danforth’s may have noticed, we are struggling to keep them fresh. We hope that their discontinuation will prove more of a relief than a disappointment.

Review

We share a marvellous new review from hobsoninthehills in the UK. If you feel inspired to write a review of your own — whether on Apple Podcasts or anywhere else you might find podcasts — we would be delighted!

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2 comments on “At the Mountains of Madness part 3”

Ryan Hanson Nov 2, 2019

Barbapapa is definitely a Shoggoth Lord.
This image proves it:
https://sannamerilainen.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/barpapapa02.jpg
I hope I’m not the only one who knew who Barbapapa was.

hijackthemic Nov 5, 2019

I chuckled a bit at the suggestion that Lovecraft was pro-slavery, I doubt he was, but it also shows how confused a topic American racial relations have become. Rhode Island was a free state after all, and Lovecraft’s racial views would have not seemed very shocking to many of the soldiers who gave their lives on the battlefield to end slavery some 30 years before his birth. They probably would have seemed rather normal. That the topic has fallen so far into hysteria that we’ve lost the ability to attain the nuance required to have even a basic comprehension of history really suggests maybe we’re way past time for some sanity to be restored. And thinking that Lovecraft having retrograde racial views may have meant it likely he also pined for overturning the 13th Amendment is definitely not comprehending American sociology in the 19th and 20th centuries at a useful, adult level.

Ryan Hanson Nov 2, 2019
Barbapapa is definitely a Shoggoth Lord.
This image proves it:
https://sannamerilainen.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/barpapapa02.jpg
I hope I’m not the only one who knew who Barbapapa was.
hijackthemic Nov 5, 2019
I chuckled a bit at the suggestion that Lovecraft was pro-slavery, I doubt he was, but it also shows how confused a topic American racial relations have become. Rhode Island was a free state after all, and Lovecraft’s racial views would have not seemed very shocking to many of the soldiers who gave their lives on the battlefield to end slavery some 30 years before his birth. They probably would have seemed rather normal. That the topic has fallen so far into hysteria that we’ve lost the ability to attain the nuance required to have even a basic comprehension of history really suggests maybe we’re way past time for some sanity to be restored. And thinking that Lovecraft having retrograde racial views may have meant it likely he also pined for overturning the 13th Amendment is definitely not comprehending American sociology in the 19th and 20th centuries at a useful, adult level.