H.P Lovecraft 130 B-Day on August 20th 2020 - New Killer and Survivor?
Hello
On August 20th H.P Lovecraft no doubt a master of written horror gonna have his 130 brithday. Judging by many other, new games or upcoming like Borderlands 3, Baldur's Gate 3, Smite or even World of Warcraft there is a lot of features, characters, skins or even game expansions inspired by H.P Lovecraft horrors. Not only in games but as well in movies for example Lighthouse by Robert Eggers or Color Out Of Space with Nicholas Cage.
How about Dead By Daylight introducing Lovecraftian chapter? It's hard to think about killer character straight outta Lovecraftian world, but let me present my idea/approach to that chapter.
Survivor - Detective from around 1920 with perks to avoid insanity and help others get rid of their current insanity state.
Killer - Tricky thing due to the fact that it will be hard or even impossible to fit Cthulhu or Dagon into the game, but there is Hastur created by Lovecraft and his publisher August Derleth.
Hastur aka The King in Yellow - Would use similar system to Freddy Krueger but instead of sleep would put surviviors into insanity state / madness stacks that would allow to take control of their action for a period of time or A.I would control insane survivors giving rest hard time with reparing generators, blinding them with flashlights running around or directly into Hastur which will end up being hooked.
Staying near Hastur will also grant insanity stacks but slower than from direct ability strike. Insane survivor would be pre programmed to use traps(located like fountains when playing against Plague) to stop, immobilize others and offer trapped team member for Hastur. Of course there would be an option to wake up delusional player which might take a bit of precious time for escape or just wait for that effect vanish. Each hooked survivor will be longer under influence of insanity - Ability base time with 3 stacks - 45 seconds, First hook extra 15s, second extra 30.
New Map - I Would defiently see large cave with ritualistic items, greenish smoke and seaweed aesthetics, many rooms and corners to hide or be chased into and also easy to get lost in and seperated from rest of survivors.
Share your thoughts!
Have Fun and Stay Safe!
Comments
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Maybe who knows
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I believe that would add a bit fresh, new art style but still dark horror fitting current style of DBD. Also there is no legal licensing problems, the majority of Lovecraft's fictional works are in the public domain.
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The thing is, when it comes to Cosmic Horror....there are 2 or 3 games that do it right.
Cosmic Horror is so difficult to apply into a game.
Obviously Bloodborne did it perfect.
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Yeah that would be cool but I feel like Herbert west would make a better survivor
I think the map could def have Cthulhu in the background
Dbd isn't a cosmic horror game
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I never said it was. I just stated how bringing Cosmic Horror into this game would be difficult because a lot of games don't do it right.
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Well, Lovecraft horror is not only cosmic, but in general dark and very psychological so fits dbd well. How I see insanity mechanics beside described above and compared a bit to sleep would be psychological part of it.
You won't know who is controlled by Lovecraftian horror till you will notice by his behavior - no icons like obsession, sick, injured etc. indicating that this particular survivior is under mind-control. This would add more psychological threat into the game/match like in Lovecraft's writings where fear of unknown and threat is not obvious and not always visible.
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The entire lore of DBD is very Lovecraftian in nature. The Entity to me seems like a monster from his fiction. Something beyond our comprehension. And the way trials continue for eternity is a lot like his stuff too. Devs definitely were inspired.
I wouldn't get your hopes up about a killer though.
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Agree. Presented killer is just my suggestion as well his new mechanics that might add something new to the game.
Herbert West sounds great or Randolph Carter who is presumably an alter ego of Lovecraft himself and appears in more than one story.
Definitely new map should be Cave with some holes - space on walls where you can see a background somewhere far away an open sea with dark storm clouds and Cthulhu blended with that clouds like looking at that cave. Technically speaking it would be another map like Pig's or Lab but more with narrow corridors a lot of turns that lead to more or less darker parts of that cave. Much more claustrophobic.
We are talking about Lovecraftian Chapter for DBD with name for example Into The Depths, so theme, not single player game or adaptation. So there is not a lot to do right or wrong.
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As addition there is pretty interesting discussion already on Reddit - https://www.reddit.com/r/deadbydaylight/comments/8j7pa3/lovecraft_killer/
With interesting idea that insanity would be duplicated Doctor ability with small rework. Something like Ghostface and Myers both stalk, both different.
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I mean, it would be cool but it's near-impossible to do Cosmic Horror right in video games. Look at the Call of Cthulhu game. It was horrible.
Would it be cool? Yes. Would it work well? Probably not.
Also The Lighthouse is f***ing awesome.
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Even though H.P lovecraft was a racist #########, the man was a genius when it came to cosmic horror. I would kill to see a cultist.
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The King in Yellow would be an amazing Killer to have, thematically.
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Without doubt dark dbd style cultist with tentacles sounds hot in store just by his aesthetics. We got Spirit, Pyramidhead and masked psychos so why not cultist. About Lovecraft and his racism, well, here I would seperate art from the artist, He was around 130 years ago. We have his art of imagination, things more from his personal life let rest in peace with him.
Once again let me remind and highlight that we are talking here about inspired - THEMED Chapter, not making single player game like Call of Cthulhu or Sinking City where your are not in themed chapter or realm, you are litteraly in the adaptation of Lovecraft stories from start to very end. That's why I was very clear about impossible port of Cthulhu or Dagon or any of the Elder Ones/Cosmic Horror into the game and mainly focused on Hastur or Cultist.
Absolutley. Found few discussions about possible return of old Freddy. That's why it would be cool to make Lovcraftian killer a bit like old Freddy mixed with reworked or better word upgraded madness of The Doctor.
Hastur for example could be in his madness realm, invisible for survivors just like Freddy used to be in his dream world. In this case Hastur would not be able to attack beside applying insanity on the surviviors that will end up, after few stacks, in his twisted reality where there is a lot of illusions of Hastur, tentacles and other corrupted things. Longer insane survivior is running around without proper help from the rest of his team, more horrors they all going to face. From tentacles holding generators to even defending hooked survivors for a short period of time attacking anyone close enough. This would be a very hard killer to play but very rewarding, a lot map controlling and nothing eazy for players looking to simply chase and nuke survivors.
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Anyone know HP Lovecraft's cat's name?
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Correct me if I'm wrong (I have yet to read the king in yellow) but isn't hastur BS op? like, how can the entity control him op?
that said, Hell yeah lovecraft chapter. would love it.
I wonder who the survivor could be... or the map... a museum maybe? (I played elder sign way too much... XD)
everyone knows he was a racist piece of #########. even considering the time he lived in, he was still awful.
no need to bring it up.
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Unfortunately due to how rampant racism has always been (with some improvement the last 50ish years), if we were to drop every artist or deceased famous person in general who was proven to be -- you'd be missing a lot. Albert Einstein, who did amazing things for science, and even supported equal rights for people of color, was extremely racist towards the Chinese. He compared them to insects if I recall correctly.
Still, I admit I was really disappointed when I found out how bad Lovecraft was. I'm a huge fan of his work, and all of the games, movies, etc. it spawned.
That's how I always describe the base lore to people. A creature that is some what God like (or alien) creates it's own realm in order to feed off of hope. It's perfectly Lovecraftian.
Edit: And to add, I think I seen on that contraband website they're bringing some shirts to the store in the near future that have "Kraken" in the titles. So perhaps that's their small way of marking it. I don't even know what they look like though.
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I vote Nyarlathotep. He isn't massive like Cthulhu and he tends to interact with humans the most out of Lovecraft's Old Ones.
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I'm split. On one hand, I ######### hate lovecraft as a person. On the other hand, his mythos is cool as hell.
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That's one of the good things about Lovecraft. Not only did he allow people to use his work, he encouraged it. He felt it expended the mythos. Nowadays we got so many copyright laws it's hard to come up with anything that isn't taken.
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Well you can't have an Elder Being such as Cthuhlu, Hastur or Nyarlothotep as they are quite possibly more powerful than the Entity, but also extradimensional and therefore incomprehensible to humanity on a fundamental level.
I've said it before, but having an Insmoth fish-person would be actually fit rather well
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Cathulu
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Isn't the Entity, an eldritch horror that only manifests tendrils of itself at a time, already pretty Lovecraft-inspired?
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Isn't this how hes normally depicted?
Hes pretty massive, the devs could size him down though.
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Right, can't exactly hold the sentiments and beliefs of the time against our current day social and political climate. In 50 years, we'll all look like cavemen compared to where we may be.
But his work was genuinely genius.
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Pretty sure they would just copy/paste the same killer that already exists in IDV for this.
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As much as I like the stories he wrote and the legacy he left for everyone else to build upon, he was also a raging xenophobe with a severe mental disorder.
The Entity is already considered an Eldritch god of sorts, I think the surrounding lore of the game is supposed to lead to that idea. I think adding something like that into the game would really lose its flavor very quickly. I mean that can also be said for pretty much everything, but a figure like that wouldn't do well as a killer. Maybe one of its followers, something like a priest or monk who sets it upon themselves to follow the will of the Entity or something like that, but not an eldritch deity themself.
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A killer who could work really well is Wilbur Whateley, a half-human "fathered" by Yog-Sothoth, one of the greatest of old ones. He was also twin brother of the invisible giant monstrosity - the Dunwich Horror - also half-human but taking more from his father's side. Wilbur wasn't a great old one and was entirely mortal, but still had plenty of eldritch horror in him. He's also from one of Lovecraft's oldest and best known works, its the one included in the keeper's guide for Call of Cthulhu 8th edition.
He was characterized by extreme intelligence, an oversized, barely human form, and was well educated in eldritch magic. His main goals were taking care of his brother, and possibly working towards summoning his father. He could easily have a very interesting and unique power, either involving using eldritch magic from the necronomicon, or summoning his brother, possibly both. Imagine a power like oni's where you gain magical energy, but instead of going beast mode, you summon a great invisible wrecking ball to wreak havoc somewhere on the map.
H.P was just a man absolutely terrified of everything he didn't understand, which was other races, poor people, outside, the ocean, air conditioners, math, nearly everything tbh because he was also sort of an idiot. He did have a great talent with prose though can't deny that. But the main reason his works are so remembered and influential is because he got his friends to all write in the same universe as him, many of the most influential works weren't written by him. His particular lunacy did lend something to the genre, but the work of many others went into it as well.
Also don't forget that despite being an omnipotent incomprehensible alien god, Cthulhu did get koed by a boat to the noggin in his titular story, so there is in fact an upper limit to their power.
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What if the old ones teamed up with the entity or something, and cultists were killers. Maybe a cultist legion outfit.
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Oh god I want this in the game now.
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Nope lol
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Yes there is a need to bring it up because it would be in poor taste to make a chapter around a super racist while everything that's going on. His racism directly effected his work so you can't argue about distancing his views from his work because they influenced each other
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Here's the thing though, his work was directly influenced from his racism. His work at 2 major influences; him being a shut in (so thusly the outside world is filled with horror) and his racism ( thats what made the outside world scary for him..)
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People are so willing to ignore how much his racism effected his work cuz they like it... Oof.
You can make a cosmic horror chapter revolved around the entity without having a racist's name slapped on it.
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Who cares, everyone was racist back then. We as a species are in the process of learning from that mistake. But that doesn't make his work any less valid. if you start looking at that then you'll won't have many people from the past you can like things about.
There's a high chance you have done or said something that will be considered offensive in a 100 years. Does that mean that your actions now can't have any meaning in the future?
As long as they don't bring the actual racist themes into the game if they make a Lovecraftian chapter, there is no problem.
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You are ignorant with how racist he was; he wasn't just old time racist. He actively wrote about how he liked and supported Hitler, he wrote about superior Aryan race. Wrote a poem about N(badword)rs. Are you saying we should forgive Adolf cuz its been 80ish years?
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His work was rife with his racism. Hence why I said if they want to do cosmic horror that they don't need to use his name and characters. It's like trying to remake a Birth of A Nation and claim "well it was played in the white house and its 100 years old so yeah its gonna be kinda racist." Without ever knowing what its about
https://lithub.com/we-cant-ignore-h-p-lovecrafts-white-supremacy/
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Yeah it would be neat. The entity is already pretty lovecraftian. Sadly I don't think we ever will because some people will lose their minds over it.
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I see what you did there.
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Unintentional in all honesty. But it would have been pretty sly had it been on purpose, eh?
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Here's the thing people keep doing to justify him is "well it was in the past" yes it was but he was extremely racist even for his times. It's like saying "Hitler was as racist as everybody else". Yes everyone has done bad, but when it heavily out ways the good then yes we can hate them. Ghandi was racist but even he sent a letter to Hitler telling him to cool it. His actions outwayed his horribleness. HP didnt passively hate other racist; he would write and write about it, about aryan superiority and the like. Some of his horror stories were directly influenced by his fear of other races and power they held.
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He's also been human sized. I guess he can take various shapes.
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I don't know why people think because you're doing cosmic horror that you just gotta use old racist HP. Everything gothic doesnt have to be Edgar Allan Poe. You can have a nice chapter revolved around the entity instead of a lovecraft specific critter. Or since the next two killers are licensed; pennywise or a different Steven king's take on cosmic horror
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You can still separate the art from the artist.
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As a huge Stephen King fan, I would love to see one of his todash monsters like the crimson king in the game from the dark tower. Maybe even Randall Flagg from the stand.
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That's also an alternative. Wilbur had a pretty messed up eldritch body that'd work well for a body-horror style killer design.
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If we were to go through ALL of our history and take out what is "now" considered inappropriate how much would be left? I'm against changing history for any reason because I believe in "Those who do not learn from their history are doomed to repeat it".
Would you chisel off Michelangelo's dong because you don't support nudity? Jefferson owned slaves and his face is still on Mount Rushmore. How many people have been killed because of the words in the bible?
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Quite a difference between racist talk and a war that cost millions of lives don't you think? Kinda distastfull to even make that comparrison tbh
He died in 1937. before the war even started. Lots of people supported adolf at that time. How did you think he rose to power. Lovecraft racisme wasn't even a case of hate. It was a case of fear
If somebody makes a poem about boomers today and in 20 years boomers turns into a slur do we disregard everything that person has done in his life too? Do we remove all information about cavemen out of history because they hunted and killed animals to use their bones as tools? Where does it stop?
Now before the obvious reply comes. I in no way support his racist themes. It was distastfull and pathetic. but that doesn't undo the good work he did. Every person has a bad side. If you disregard all the good that bad people do then there would be no good left.
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It's not a true horror game anymore either.
And considering demogorgon is in it, it's pretty close to cosmic horror elements. Side dimensions, mind flayers, hydras made of biological....mass.
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I know, It still sucks though. Not to mention the fact he was a massive racist even for his time.
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