Power scaling the Cthuth Mythos(and why I hate it]

[SporgyTheReader]

Power scaling is something that universally plagues every line of fiction, I believe that power scaling the Cthulhu Mythos is very idiotic as the Cthulhu Mythos is a work of fiction that cannot and will not be power scaled, as the way how Lovecraft's writes his stories is all up to the reader(regular uses of metaphors, similies, and purple prose) and every single discussion about power scaling is "I'm right you're wrong". As well as how every sighting of all of Lovecraft's monsters are in the prospective of humans and isn't the whole point of the mythos is about how we are ignorant and dumb compare to the grandure of the universe, so how can you power scale something that is suppose to be unknown and we have no possible chance of understanding it.

I think the reason why power scalers exists in a fiction that is impossible to power scale is because believe that the Cthulhu Mythos and Lovecraft's fiction is like DC and Marvel and believe that these entities are also like DC and Marvel, honestly the power scaling community in general is very ignorant to other works of fiction and even religion, as they believe that the Jade Emperor is weaker than the original Buddha for some reason which I consider very offensive as I'm of Chinese descent and the misinformation spread about my culture makes me ill.

 

[CupofJoe]

Okay. I'm not exactly sure what you point is but as far as I see the Cthulhu mythos, is the HP Lovecraft intended it to be unimaginably strange and unknowably vast from the outset.
There is no scale to the power, as it is already at overload when you first encounter it. What sometimes saves the protagonists in his tales is that they just don't know what they are up against and find mundane explanations when the reality would be beyond their comprehension and frequently their sanity. I don't think it is a mistake that in the Call of Cthulhu RPG, Sanity is one of the main stats. As you loose your sanity, you become more attune to the mythos but less attuned to everyday reality. So some of most powerful players are ones locked up in the insane asylums mumbling to themselves about the old gods returning.
As for the DCU and MCU, they are fundamentally based on humans, super-humans, aliens that look like humans etc. There is a scale we can grasp. You can amp that up but it is tethered to a more believable base line.
Within Cthulhu we don't even know where the baseline is...
I couldn't and wouldn't compare the two.

 

[Brian G Turner]

I'm not sure I get your point @SporgyTheReader - in the first line of your first paragraph you imply "power scaling" as a negative thing, then complain that "power scaling" doesn't apply to the Cthulhu Mythos.

If what you mean is that different entities in the Cthulhu Mythos can't be compared in terms of being stronger/weaker than others, then be advised that Deep Ones are obviously weaker than Cthonians who are themselves weaker than Nyarlathotep, for example.

 

[BAYLOR]

Power scaling is something that universally plagues every line of fiction, I believe that power scaling the Cthulhu Mythos is very idiotic as the Cthulhu Mythos is a work of fiction that cannot and will not be power scaled, as the way how Lovecraft's writes his stories is all up to the reader(regular uses of metaphors, similies, and purple prose) and every single discussion about power scaling is "I'm right you're wrong". As well as how every sighting of all of Lovecraft's monsters are in the prospective of humans and isn't the whole point of the mythos is about how we are ignorant and dumb compare to the grandure of the universe, so how can you power scale something that is suppose to be unknown and we have no possible chance of understanding it.

I think the reason why power scalers exists in a fiction that is impossible to power scale is because believe that the Cthulhu Mythos and Lovecraft's fiction is like DC and Marvel and believe that these entities are also like DC and Marvel, honestly the power scaling community in general is very ignorant to other works of fiction and even religion, as they believe that the Jade Emperor is weaker than the original Buddha for some reason which I consider very offensive as I'm of Chinese descent and the misinformation spread about my culture by a bunch of white people makes me ill.

In the lovecratain universe, the most powerful entity In my case is a being called Azathoth referred to as the Dreaming God . The universe a dream that he's having . Cthulhu and the other powerful entities and humanity and all the other races are figments of this dream. If he ever wakes up, its the end of the universe .

 

[SporgyTheReader]

Okay. I'm not exactly sure what you point is but as far as I see the Cthulhu mythos, is the HP Lovecraft intended it to be unimaginably strange and unknowably vast from the outset.
There is no scale to the power, as it is already at overload when you first encounter it. What sometimes saves the protagonists in his tales is that they just don't know what they are up against and find mundane explanations when the reality would be beyond their comprehension and frequently their sanity. I don't think it is a mistake that in the Call of Cthulhu RPG, Sanity is one of the main stats. As you loose your sanity, you become more attune to the mythos but less attuned to everyday reality. So some of most powerful players are ones locked up in the insane asylums mumbling to themselves about the old gods returning.
As for the DCU and MCU, they are fundamentally based on humans, super-humans, aliens that look like humans etc. There is a scale we can grasp. You can amp that up but it is tethered to a more believable base line.
Within Cthulhu we don't even know where the baseline is...
I couldn't and wouldn't compare the two.

My point is that these people are festering in the Lovecraft community and going on a obnoxious crusade around every discussion about the Mythos in terms of who beats who and what not(which is not how it should be discussed), with them claiming Yog-Sothoth is stronger than Azathoth and relying on their own interpretation of the mythos and treating like it's a truth and putting words in a dead man's mouth by saying Lovecraft intended about Yog-Sothoth to be the strongest, even though Lovecraft stated that Yog-Sothoth is an immature concept and not meant for any serious literature(arguably all of the entities in Lovecraft's beastiary could be considered "immature"). They would make the half-ass argument that Lovecraft changed his mind about Yog-Sothoth but if he did, then he would've done the same thing to other characters like Dagon instead of just making an entirely different character to convey the same idea he intended to have. They also end up using titles and descriptions of these entities as proof of who's stronger because there are no scenes of any of these entities fighting, like "All-in-One" even though its obviously a metaphor like "Crawling Chaos", "Daemon-Sultan", and "Mighty Messenger". There's nothing wrong with a unorthodox interpretation of the mythos, as the mythos has no canon, the problem is that these people are treating the power scaler's interpretation as truth and being extremely annoying while doing it.

I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who thinks comparing DC and Marvel with the Cthulhu Mythos is ridiculous, but you'd be surprised how much people make that comparison, like saying "The CM is greater [or almost greatp as DC". Ultimately I cna just ignore them but they are unbelievably annoying.

 

[SporgyTheReader]

What I mean is that

I'm not sure I get your point @SporgyTheReader - in the first line of your first paragraph you imply "power scaling" as a negative thing, then complain that "power scaling" doesn't apply to the Cthulhu Mythos.

If what you mean is that different entities in the Cthulhu Mythos can't be compared in terms of being stronger/weaker than others, then be advised that Deep Ones are obviously weaker than Cthonians who are themselves weaker than Nyarlathotep, for example.

What I mean is not which entity is stronger or weaker but rather who beats who, as there are no scence or instances in Lovecraft's stories that entities like Nyarlathotep or Yog-Sothoth fight, I should've been more concrete of my point of making this post early as I wrote this in the late hours of the night. I already replied to someone in this tread to my issue with power scaling the mythos so feel free to read that.

 

[SporgyTheReader]

In the lovecratain universe, the most powerful entity In my case is a being called Azathoth referred to as the Dreaming God . The universe a dream that he's having . Cthulhu and the other powerful entities and humanity and all the other races are figments of this dream. If he ever wakes up, its the end of the universe .

I already know that, I've been reading Lovecraft's literature for about a year now but I have been interested in his work for I think about three.

 

[BAYLOR]

I already know that, I've been reading Lovecraft's literature for about a year now but I have been interested in his work for I think about three.

If you're interested in Lovecraft there are some other writers that might want to take a look. . Clark Ashton Smith and Robert E. Howard they were contemporaries and friends of Lovecraft , Interestingly , they never met one another face to face but wrote Letters back on forth and the stories. August Derleth a number of lovftain stories and he took unfinished story fragment of Lavecrat and created the novel The Lurker at the Threshold.

books and stories that Lovecraft admired Edgar Allen Poe
The King in Yellow by Robert W Chambers
The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson
The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen
The White People by Arthur Machen
The Willows by Algernon Blackwood
Fish Head by Irving Cobb
The People of the Pit by Abraham Merritt
The Moon Pool By Abraham Merritt
The Dark Chamber by Leonard Cline
The Nightmare and Other Tales of Dark Fantasy by Francis Stevens

Writers that came after Lovecraft you might want ot check out

Rim of the Morning Two Tales of Cosmic Horror by William Sloane
The Great White Space by Basil Copper
The Earth Brain by Edmond Hamilton
The Manitou by Graham Masterton
The Hungry Moon by Ramsey Campbell
Bloodstone by Karl Edward Wagner

Unrelated but you might find these stories to be of Interest

The City of The Singing Flame by Clark Ashton Smith
The Night Wire by H F Arnold

 

[Ningauble]

books and stories that Lovecraft admired Edgar Allen Poe

[snip]

The Nightmare and Other Tales of Dark Fantasy by Francis Stevens

There is no evidence that Lovecraft admired Francis Stevens (knew about her, yes). There is an admiring quote mistakenly attributed to Lovecraft, but this actually comes from Augustus T. Swift, a real individual and not a pseudonym of Lovecraft.