Lovecraftian inspirations from the real life, science, history and culture - You can use them in Your own story for free

[Adeptus]

Download: https://adeptus7.itch.io/lovecraftian-inspirations-from-real-life-and-beliefs

Audio fragment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x90at2frlA

The free brochure is intended primarily for Game Masters who play games in systems inspired by Lovecraft's works, such as Call of Cthulhu or Delta Green. However, I hope that other fans of cosmic horror will also find something for themselves here. The interesting facts presented here may also be entertaining for people who do not know the work of The Loner of Providence, but some of the references may be unclear to them.
The article contains several anecdotes – either from real history or from beliefs that exist in the real world, and suggestions on how they can be related to the Cthulhu mythology.

You have my permit to use all those ideas as You wish, in Your scenario, game, book, podcast, video, without the need to reward or mention me in any way.

Below is the table of contents:

GREEK MYTHOLOGY

Typhon – a classic but forgotten abomination

Zeus – embodied energy

In his house underground, dead Hades waits in sleep

Apollo – beautiful, deadly light

Hermes is the gate, Hermes is the key

Erysichton – slayer of living trees, eater of self

NORDIC MYTHOLOGY

A jotun is not the same as a giant, but it can be made into an abomination

Odyn = Nodens, Loki = Nyarlathotep

Or is Odin an abomination?

Einherjers and Odin the human

POLISH FOLKLORE AND LEGENDS

Jan Twardowski – the first man on the Moon

Silent night, starry night

Church in Trzęsacz – Deep ones do not leave their own, even after death

WESTERN EUROPEAN FOLKLORE

The Monstrous German Pied Piper

Ys – Deep Ones princess vs clan of eldritch saints

Jentilak and a Christmas cutthroat

Dragons come in every shape and size

TRUE (OK, SLIGHTLY FAR-FETCHED) HISTORY

Invasion of the Sea Peoples

Greater Germanic Antarctica

The emperor out of the time

The Indus civilization

Order of the Nine Angles – sometimes reality is just as bad and mad as a horror

TRUE (SERIOUSLY) SCIENCE

Mad mathematicians

Humans like ants, ants like zombies

Halny and other foehn winds – the whisper of the wind brings madness

There is more to dimensions than dimensional shamblers

ABRAHAMIC BELIEFS

Covenant with God and Melchizedek

Succubi/incubi, aliens and a sorcerer-pope

Double faith

Stone from the sky, genies and angels

 

[Adeptus]

Heh, so to further prove that I am not a bot and that brochure is not a scam, I am publishing fragment of it.

Double faith is a phenomenon when the same person/group of people de facto professes two religions - usually one openly, the other secretly. It should not be confused with syncretism, when a follower openly mixes elements from different religions. For example, a Roman saying "Zeus and Jupiter are basically the same god, it doesn't matter in which temple I worship him or under what name" is an example of syncretism. However, a man who openly goes to church and sings hymns to the Christian God, and then returns home to secretly worship the old pagan gods of his ancestors, is an example of double faith. As you can easily guess, bifaith occurs most often where monotheistic religions, which do not tolerate competition, begin to dominate, but old beliefs are still alive. A two-liner can sincerely profess both religions, along the lines of "Does the great Lord God really mind if I make an offering to the deity of our river from time to time? But these preachers are pain in the ass…" or he may hate one of the religions and practice it only for show.

It is particularly interesting when there is a specific combination of bi-faith and sykcretism, when a believer literally practices both religions at the same time. For example, when saying "Glory to the Lord God and Mary, the Mother of God", he means "Actually, it is glory to the Heavenly God of Thunder and the Mother Goddess of the Earth." Using the Christian cross, he treats it as a Celtic symbol of the Sun or an Egyptian ankh.

As you can easily guess, such a concept creates great opportunities to introduce Mythical cults pretending to be part of mainstream religions. After all, even the cult of Celestial Wisdom known from the story "The Haunter of Darkness" took on the name of a "church" and made its temple look like a Christian one.

Examples:

- a secluded village where the inhabitants, like villagers in general, are very devout - although their religious practices differ from the orthodox mainstream. At first, only minor differences are visible, which can be put down to local folklore, but as time goes on, the blasphemous nature of the local heresy becomes more and more obvious. Players may appear in the village by accident, or maybe circumstances brought them there? Maybe their friend went missing in the area (was sacrificed) or contact with the Great Old Ones caused phenomena worth investigating? Is the local parish priest also the priest of the cult, or is he the only person in the village who does not realize that his flock are not good Christians at all?

- a contemplative monastery inhabited by monks staying away from the sinful world. Players come here to read a rare book kept in the local library, or to visit a friend who has joined a monastery. The monks are silent (except perhaps for the abbot or a monk delegated to contact with the laity), and much of the monastery - including, oddly enough, the chapel/church - is closed to lay people ("so as not to disturb the atmosphere of contemplation"). Characters familiar with theology or occultism will notice strange symbols woven into the reliefs and sacred images decorating the monastery.

- charismatic Christian group – oooo, charismatic groups are horror material in themselves. Exorcisms, trance techniques, obsession with "spiritual warfare", speaking in languages unknown to humanity, revelations, meeting outside the "main" services, often greater authority of the group leader (often the exorcist) than some bishop or pope... A figure familiar with linguistics may associate that in the case of this particular group, "speaking in tongues" is not typical singing gibberish - it is actually a language, it has a specific structure, but it is not related to any speech known to science.

- a group of genealogy researchers - from what I know, Judaism and Mornomism are faiths that strongly pay attention to lineages, so they may be a good cover for the group of Deep Ones who are actually trying to find lost hybrid lines.

Here are examples of specific doctrines that may be followed by groups of Mythical cultists pretending to be followers of mainstream religions:

- Azathoth is the creator of the universe, incomprehensible, distant. Nyarlathotep is a spawn of Azathoth, and a part of his being that takes human form and communicates with mortals. Yog-Sothoth is often indicated as the supreme being, in seeming contradiction to Azathoth's position, he is omnipresent, pervades everything, is a source of secret knowledge and revelations, and resembles energy rather than being. They are what the group members mean when they say "Glory to the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit!"

- the group has a clear obsession with fire. Jesus and the angels are always depicted as figures in flames. There are quotations referring to fire in sermons, such as Hb 12:29; cf. Deut 4:24; Isaiah 33:14, Deut 4:24, Rev 1:14. They may also quote a quote from St. Augustine of Hippo "Even the nature of eternal fire is undoubtedly good, although it is intended as a future punishment for the damned. Because isn't a beautiful fire bursting with flame, alive, alert and luminous? (…) It is absurd to praise fire for shining and blame it for burning, because those who do so take into account not the nature of fire, but their own comfort and discomfort: they want to see, they do not want to burn. And they won't think about it, that the same light is so nice to them, sometimes harmful to sick eyes because it is not suitable for them, and the heat of fire is so unpleasant for them, but for some creatures it is necessary and useful for life because it is suitable for it" or Origen, who wrote about spiritual fire, "does not allow us to have any desire for earthly things and converts us to a different love. Therefore, he who loves these things, even if he has to give up everything, mocks pleasure and fame and even sacrifices life itself; and he does all this with great ease. The heat of this fire, if it penetrates the soul, removes all indolence and makes the one it embraces lighter than a feather. The temple is filled with candles, especially compared to other churches. The community celebrates Holy Saturday (when in the Catholic Church in front of the churches large bonfires are lit with great enthusiasm) and Pentecost (when the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles in the form of tongues of fire). In reality, the group worships Cthugha, and his angels (specifically seraphim, whose name comes from the Hebrew "lehisaref", meaning "to burn") are fire vampires.

- the group has another obsession – stars. The temple is decorated with carefully reproduced maps of the night sky, with some celestial bodies marked in a special way - they have no major significance from the point of view of any "normal" religion, but a person familiar with the Mythos may recognize their significance. The group's favorite quotes include: Judges 5:20, Ps 8:3-4, Deuteronomy 1:10, Job 38:31-33, 1 Cor 15:40-41, Mt 2:1-8, Job 38:7, Rev 22:16, Rev 1:16, Dan 12:13, Rev 9:1. The cross is always decorated with additional arms to look like a star. If you prefer, for example, pseudo-Judaism to pseudo-Christianity, fragments of the New Testament fall out of the quotes, and the star cross is replaced with the special devotion to the Star of David. Of course, the group is another variation on the Church of the Starry Wisdom.

- the group's teaching strongly emphasizes the concepts of "transfiguration" and "new birth." There is a concept that people turn into angels after death (which is present in both pop culture and folk Christianity, but is a heresy from the point of view of the teachings of most sects). Favorite quotes are, for example, 1 Jn 3:2, Mt 22:29-33, Mk 12:25, Jn 3, Jn 1:12-13. The group has great respect for the apocryphal Book of Enoch (Enoch is only mentioned in the canonical Bible, but according to extra-biblical beliefs, after his ascension, this patriarch was turned into Metatron, the greatest angel in heaven). They may also repeat a maxim that sounds blasphemous in the ears of modern Christians, but is attributed to various Fathers of the Church, such as St. Athanasius or Irenaeus of Lyons: "God became man so that man might become God." A characteristic feature of this group is that its members, after reaching a certain level of initiation, disappear, which the group can explain in various ways - "he went to preach the Word in distant lands", "devotes himself to prayer in isolation", "left our community and did not we know what happened to him." What really is the "transfiguration" that makes these members disappear? Maybe they are turning into blasphemous monsters kept in the basement of the temple? Maybe their bodies disappear and their minds unite with the deity (or, contrary to the believers' faith, they are also annihilated)? Perhaps they are sacrificed, and the otherworldly beings summoned by this ritual are mistakenly recognized by other worshipers as a new form of sacrificed brothers? Maybe they are simply devoured, with the hope that by uniting with the "angels" they will receive some of their glory?

 

[Adeptus]

Time for the audio (and graphic) fragment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x90at2frlA

Do You think that all Satanists are just edgy atheists liking metal music? Do You think that Scientologists are the worst real life cult? Do You think that nobody is crazy enough to seriously worship eldritch abominations? I invite You to watch our video about the Order of the Nine Angles. You can use them as bad guys in Your RPG scenario/story/horror video game, whatever.



Academics have found it difficult to ascertain "exact and verifiable information" about the ONA's origins given the high level of secrecy it maintains. As with many other occult organisations, the Order shrouds its history in "mystery and legend", creating a "mythical narrative" for its origins and development. The ONA claims to be the descendant of pre-Christian pagan traditions which survived the Christianisation of Britain and were passed down from the Middle Ages onward in small groups or "temples" which were based in the Welsh Marches – a border area which is located between England and Wales – each of which was led by a grand master or a grand mistress. Sounds like anothe New Age pagan group? Well, ONA members consider themselves "traditional satanists". And they are not Laveyan Satanists, aka atheists who like edgy, dark vibes.
The ONA believe that humans live within the causal realm, which obeys the laws of cause and effect. They also believe in an acausal realm, in which the laws of physics do not apply, further promoting the idea that numinous energies from the acausal realm can be drawn into the causal, allowing for the performance of magic. The Order promotes the idea that "Dark Gods" exist within the acausal realm, although it is accepted that some members will interpret them not as real entities but as facets of the human subconscious.These entities are perceived as dangerous, with the ONA advising caution when interacting with them. Among those Dark Gods whose identities have been discussed in the Order's publicly available material are a goddess named Baphomet who is depicted as a mature woman carrying a severed head. Another of these acausal figures is termed Vindex, after the Latin word for "avenger". The ONA believe that Vindex will eventually incarnate as a human – although the sex and ethnicity of this individual is unknown – through the successful "presencing" of acausal energies within the causal realm, and that they will act as a messianic figure by overthrowing the current forces and leading the ONA to prominence in the establishment of a new society. Nyarlathothep?
The ONA arose to public attention in the early 1980s. During the 1980s and 1990s, it spread its message through articles in magazines. In 1988, it began publication of its own in-house journal, titled Fenrir. Among material it has issued for public consumption have been philosophical tracts, ritual instruction, letters, poetry, and gothic fiction. Its core ritual text is titled the Black Book of Satan. It has also issued its own music, painted tarot set known as the Sinister Tarot, and a three-dimensional board game known as the Star Game
The group largely consists of autonomous cells known as "nexions". The original cell, based in Shropshire, is known as "Nexion Zero", with the majority of subsequent groups having been established in Britain, Ireland, and Germany. Nexions and other associated groups have been established in the United States, Australia, Brazil, Egypt, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Serbia, Russia and South Africa.
The Satanism, the ONA assert, requires venturing into the realm of the forbidden and illegal in order to shake the practitioner loose of cultural and political conditioning. It should undermine society and establish its own "Imperium". ONA texts such as "The Dreccian Way", "Iron Gates", "Bluebird" and "The Rape Anthology" recommend and praise rape and pedophilia, even suggesting rape is necessary for "ascension of the Ubermensch". And all of this is not some posturing by wannabe villains "huhu, we are so evil!!!'. The FBI officially considers ONA nexion 764 and its offshoots terrorist organizations. According to Global Project Against Hate and Extremism", "[764] operates within the framework of the broader ONA, which advocates the destruction of society through criminal acts such as violence, sexual assault, murder, and terrorism [and] is implicated in a network of online cults that exploit and groom children." https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/28/new-york-satanic-cult-764-fbi As of November 2023 Finnish police was investigating at least three terrorism cases connected to ONA. Russian Sergey Chulkov ("Nosferatu") allegedly raped a 14-year-old girl — several times in his car, then in an apartment on Moscow Zavodskaya Street. Chulkov is a member of a Russian nexion according to the police, was arrested with ONA literature and was tattooed with satanic occult symbols. In December 2024, a high school student in Guadalajara, Mexico broadcasted himself attacking his classmates with an axe. His social media posts showed his allegiance to the Order of Nine Angles, including blood pacts. 23-year-old Hugo Figuerola, member of the ONA, was arrested in late February 2025 in Spain for threatening a mass shooting and bombing in Valencia, A Wisconsin teen is alleged to have killed his father and mother on February 11, 2025 and planned to assassinate Donald Trump to "save the white race" and start a revolution. The teen was also in possession of ONA material and identified himself as a member of ONA. https://www.fox6now.com/news/wisconsin-teen-homicides-plot-assassinate-trump
So, when You are watching a horror about some satanic evil global conspiracy, and someone says "actually, real life Satanists are not like that", You can answer "actually, some of Satanists are exactly like that".
ONA members describe themselves as Satanists, but their core concept – existence of the acausal reality, which denies established rules of logic and science and bizarre "Dark Gods" which are connected to it and which are dangerous to be contacted, makes them potential antagonist in the Lovecraftian story as an eldritch cult, just using "Satan" as name recognizable in the culture (well, is Satan not just one of the faces of Nyarlathotep?). And their behaviour sounds very similar to the credo of the cult of Cthulhu: "Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom". Want to give Your players real chill? What about making their characters fighting ONA, and when they will go home and do the search on Internet, be shocked by the revelation that those mad degenerates actually exist and are just as evil as those in the game?

 

[Adeptus]

We published another video:



Mathematics is a language that describes reality and the universe. And since the nature of reality is shocking in cosmic horror, the logical conclusion is that studying it can lead to madness. The motif "magic, if it works, is really mathematics and physics, the understanding of which exceeds the human mind" appears in Lovecraft, for example in "Dreams in the Witch House". This usually works on the principle that the Necromicon and other "books of magic" contain scraps of advanced knowledge obtained from inhuman beings, which superstitious sorcerers then treat as magic. Therefore, it should also work the other way round – a professional scientist should be able to discover dirty and blasphemous secrets through scientific research. Here are some viable candidates for "scholars who looked into the abyss, and the abyss looked into them."

Kurt Gödel (1906-1978) – Austrian-American mathematician, physicist and philosopher. He dealt with, among others, theory of relativity (which in itself negates the image of the world that "common sense" dictates to us), deriving from it equations intended to prove the possibility of time travel. Towards the end of his life he went crazy, among other things. believing someone was trying to poison him. When his wife was hospitalized for a long time and was unable to taste his meals to prove the lack of poison, Gödel starved himself to death.

Georg Cantor (1845-1918) – German mathematician, creator of set theory. Over time, he delved deeper into mysticism and claimed that mathematics could be used to reach conclusions about metaphysics. Some Christian (Cantor himself considered himself a devout Christian) philosophers of his time claimed that Cantor's mathematical theories were contrary to religious dogmas (it was something about proving the existence of an infinite being, other than God – I am not a mathematician, I don't really understand what is going on). Cantor was tormented by bouts of depression, sometimes so severe that they led to hospitalization.

Ludwig Boltzmann (1844-1906) – Austrian physicist, pioneer of the kinetic theory of gases. He theorized the "Boltzmann brain" – a hypothetical self-aware entity that emerges from chaos through random fluctuations. Boltzmann proposed that we and our observed low-entropy world arose from a random fluctuation in a higher-entropy universe. He committed suicide by hanging. "If our current level of organization, having many self-aware entities, is the result of random fluctuation, and it is much less likely to be so than a level of organization that produces only self-aware self-aware entities, then in any universe with the level of organization we see, there should be a huge number of solitary Boltzmann brains floating in unrecognized environments. In an infinite universe, the number of self-aware brains spontaneously, randomly emerging from chaos, along with false memories of life like ours, should far outweigh the number of real brains evolved in the observable universe, arising from unimaginably rare fluctuations". Did I understand it? Not really, but it sounds quite Lovecraftian – self-aware beings emerging from chaos, our world as a result of random processes taking place in the "higher" universe… it's easy to spin a cosmic horror out of it. And let's theorize that Boltzmann's suicide was due to the terrifying conclusions he had reached…

Paul Ehrenfest (1880-1930) – Austrian-Dutch physicist. He researched the theory of relativity (which, as I mentioned, very often leads to "crazy" conclusions about the nature of reality) and laid the foundations for quantum physics (which is even crazier). Towards the end of his life, he fell into severe depression and shot first his son and then himself.

Grigory Perelman (1966) – the only still living member of this group, a Russian mathematician. He had a brilliant career in Russia and the USA. His greatest achievement was presenting evidence for the so-called Poincaré's hypothesis regarding the shape of the universe. Unexpectedly, in 2005 he left his job and broke off all contacts with the scientific community… And not only that – he stopped leaving his apartment, communicating only by phone or through the door. He consistently rejects all job offers and awards (including the Millennium Award worth one million dollars!).

Each of these gentlemen (except Perelman) lived at the turn of the 20th and 19th centuries. Each of them can be used in the scenario – either as a living and active NPC, as a dead source of knowledge (in the form of unpublished notes containing mythical secrets), or as a background reference ("Don't think about it, Professor X conducted research in this direction… and how did he end up?).

 

[Ragura]

https://www.reddit.com/r/regionalgothic is very good

burialgoods and cyriak on Youtube are FUN Inspiration

 

[Adeptus]

https://www.reddit.com/r/regionalgothic is very good

burialgoods and cyriak on Youtube are FUN Inspiration

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Thanks for recommendation!