Appendix N & Deeper Reading Into The Lovecraft Circle of Writer's Creations for Campaign Creation

Sometimes going back to the root of your old school games is necessary to get into the right frame of mind for a game. I've written extensively about H.P. Lovecraft's Shadow Out Of Time & the works of the Great Race of Yith. There's something to be said for growing up with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons especially Kuntz's & Ward's Deities & Demigods. This wasn't my first exposure to the Lovecraft Mythos but it was my constand reminder of the Mythos when playing AD&D first edition. For a moment take a look at the Deities & Demigods stats on the Great Race of Yith. These guys are psionic bruisers.


I was going over my notes from the weekend & rereading several of the free "Fantastic Story Quarterly" pulps which I've blogged about before.  But what if the Great Race of Yith was operating across a multitude of time streams & epochs. Could even the gods stand against them?! It really got me thinking about Godbound & the Great Race of Yith. Back in 2017 I blogged about a Frank Belknap Long story called 'The Museum' ; 

' 'The Museum' by Frank Belknap Long is a whole other matter. This story services a perfect bridge gap between the Mythos and traditional science fantasy adventures. The concept is about a museum which alters its visitors and staff into alien life forms shapes ala polymorph spell technologies.  Perhaps your adventurers might work for the staff on a few expeditions across time & space. Again this sounds very similar to Great Race of Yith technologies. HP Lovecraft's 'The Shadow Out of Time' contains many of the technologies described in these stories implied or within the background of the novella.' 

Many of the technologies & things discussed in the Museum are very much in the fashion of the Star Trek especially the television pilot  "Assignment: Earth".  Certain details that were in the wiki entry on  "Assignment: Earth" made me think of the Great Race of Yith; Although not revealed in the Star Trek broadcast, according to "Assignment: Earth" researcher Scott Dutton's sources, "Gary Seven is a man sent back in time from the 24th century, the only Earth man to survive the transit."^[1] His goal in the original series proposal would have been to defeat the Omegans, a race of shape-changing aliens who have sent agents back in time to change Earth’s history so they can defeat Earth in the future.^[3]

Seeing humans and Vulcans together, Seven realizes that the starship has come from the future, while the crew suspect that Seven is also a time traveler.

Seven, assigned by his planet's agency as a Class One Supervisor known as Supervisor 194, has been sent to determine why two resident agents, colleagues Agent 201 and Agent 347, had stopped reporting to their superiors. When he discovers that they have been killed in a traffic collision, he takes over their immediate task of sabotaging the launch of an orbital missile platform by the U.S. to prevent nuclear war on Earth"

The whole thought experiment had me thinking about TSR's Gamma World & specifically the Famine in Far Go adventure from '82. The adventure debuted in 1982. But there's more to Famine in Far-Go by Michael Price then might meet the eye.



I remembered a comment from the Grognardia blog entry on Famine in Far Go by Reverend Keith; "What amazed me about the factory wasn't this coincidence, but the impact dropping a huge functional pre-apocalypse chunk of technology into your game. I mean, after decades of collapse, here is a fully operational building with a nuclear power plant, robots, food and guns all being managed by a non-homocidal computer you can negotiate with. Add in the fact that your PCs have literally saved the plant from destruction, you can see how it can impact the setting and should be taken into consideration if you plan on playing more games around Far-Go after the adventure is over. If anything, it sounds like great fodder for basing a campaign around it. Neighboring communities, cryptic alliances, and wanna-be dictators will be doing whatever they can do to get control of the La Prix Industries Automated Chicken Processing Factory."

The implications of the technologies of the the La Prix Industries Automated Chicken Processing Factory run amok are the stuff of dreams or nightmares of dungeon masters if they take the scenario to its logical conclusion. But what if this is being done on purpose?! A guiding set of hands if you will? What if the Great Race of Yith has been using time & dimensional technologies to move entire space time continuums to their advantage. What if First & Second Edition Gamma World's Gamma Terra is a broken time & planar setting? What happens if the Great Race of Yith has been lining up entire worlds, times, & dimensions to favor their own hyper cosmic racial consciousness & circumstances for thier contiued existance. What would happen if their living among us & they continue to poke & experiment right across Advanced Dungeons & Dragons campaign settings. Greyhawk might be a good example of this.


If we were to take  "Assignment: Earth" as proof of the continued experimentation & interference with Earth's affairs. We are left with the fact that the Great Race might be a god level cosmic set of intellects who could be using Godbound's words for many of the effects of their technologies. The word of 'Artificial Intelligence' might account for the beta five computer series.


The implications of a race of time manipulating advanced godlike alien intelligences guarding its own lawful neutral existence is indeed beyond scary. But do these intelligences know about the hungry lean things that exist at the edges & angles of time? The Hounds of Tindalos were also the creation of  Frank Belknap Long. One wonders if not only the gods but also others worry about the coming of such entities into the realms of humans. Perhaps its right that Great Race of Yith fears for its own continuing existence across time & space. The implications are very frightening indeed folks.