About one hundred years ago in the United States, the creation of the Federal Reserve took center stage as a major issue, when Great Cthulhu was barely a speck in H.P. Lovecraft's brain (or so we're told). Now, nearly a century later, the Fed is back in the limelight, and so is the Cthulhu like symbolism around it. Right now, Presidential candidates from Obama to Ron Paul and Rick Perry alternatively defend and deride the Fed, espousing alternating perceptions of it as a benevolent financial overseer or a conspiratorial monster. Who does that remind you of?
The incredible longevity of Cthulhuvian forms in relation to the banking system is interesting and certainly noteworthy. It seems to reinforce something inherently loathsome about chilling creatures with tentacles who lurk in the depths, and the dreadful parasitism in modern finance. The dark, the unknown, and the alien nature of the Cthulhu like octopus is weird and frightening, making it a suitable representative of institutions with little public trust or comprehension.
There are enough conspiracies and nefarious occurrences swirling around the Fed to make a Cthulhu cultist blush. Books like The Creature from Jekyll Island provide plenty of real life nightmare fuel. Regardless of what one thinks about the Fed, in an election year, political ire is so high toward Ben Bernanke and his system that more direct Cthulhu comparisons may be coming.
One final curiosity: H.P. Lovecraft shared his state with Senator Nelson Aldrich, the powerful Rhode Island politician behind bringing the Federal Reserve into existence. At one point, Lovecraft and Aldrich both lived in Foster, Rhode Island, just outside of Providence. Today, both are buried in Swan Point Cemetery. Further shadows of a conspiracy? You decide.
-Grim Blogger
The Political Immortality of Cthulhu and the Federal Reserve
This weekend begins the annual rites of a secret society that has attracted much speculation in recent years: the famous Bohemian Club in California. Since the society began in the late 19th century, its high powered members have descended to a wooded area outside Monte Rio, and engaged in curious revelry that looks nefarious to some and childish to others. Whatever the case, no one can deny that the Bohemian Grove is strange, and exudes a surreal atmosphere closely related to weird art and literature.
What Happens at the Grove
The annual meeting of the Bohemian Club generally lasts about two weeks through mid July. During this time, household names from government, business, and media kick back in the woods. Whatever else it is, the event seems designed to take these overstressed individuals out of their every day responsibilities. Many observers contend that the Bohemians end up drinking too much, which causes their exclusive festivities to degenerate into a drunken tirade reminiscent of frat house parties.
Meanwhile, fearful observers from across the political spectrum believe far more nefarious undertakings are occurring in Bohemian Grove. Allegations of orgies, illegal drugs, prostitution, and even sacrificial murder have surfaced in recent years. While left wing conspiracy believers rage against policy decisions they believe are being set by arms of a military-industrial complex, right wing dissidents accuse the Bohemian members of Satanism. Books like Mike Hanson's Bohemian Grove: Cult of Conspiracy round up the most nightmarish aspects of the meeting. No hard proof has ever emerged of the worst claims going on at the Grove, but something strange is taking place.
The big question that distinguishes whether the Bohemian Club is an elaborate joy ride or a closed door policy session is whether deals are being cut under the table. For decades, the summer site has been a gathering point for Presidents, countless bureaucrats, and titans of industry. Scientific, military, and artistic personalities show up as well. It's believed that the Manhattan Project's major components, leading to the Atomic bomb, were partly conceived during a Bohemian Club meeting in 1942. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Although Grove attendees seem intent on engaging in pleasure seeking, it's difficult to imagine that so many rich and powerful individuals gathered in one place never knock around ideas or make deals off the record.
Ritualistic Horror: The Cremation of Care
The most bizarre moment in the Bohemian Club's annual gathering usually occurs on Saturday, when members gather before a gigantic stone owl and perform a play entitled The Cremation of Care. During this event, a mock sacrifice occurs. A gangly human effigy is sacrificed and burned. Ostensibly, this occurrence symbolizes the destruction of the earthly ties that normally bind Grove members, also implied in their slogan, "Weaving spiders come not here."
Unsurprisingly, this faux cremation is the source of many unsettling legends. It's easy to believe the power elite are devils, when they are howling along to occult rituals. There's certainly a wild and immature element to the whoops and hollers captured in scenes from the Cremation of Care, recorded when a notable conspiracy theorist named Alex Jones infiltrated the group in 2000. The full elusive taping was later made into the film Dark Secrets Inside Bohemian Grove, but the Cremation of Care ceremony is undeniably the creepiest part.
Conspiracy or not, we have the makings of a weirdly Lovecraftian performance occurring in the real world. The cultists, rather than being inbred goons from the Louisiana Bayou, are global leaders. It's one thing to listen to drunken nobodies gibbering as though they were at Great Cthulhu's talons, rather than a giant owl's, but hearing it come from society's supposed cream-of-the-crop is exceptionally eerie.
Bohemian Grove and the Weird
The Cremation of Care ceremony isn't the only Bohemian Club aspect related to supernatural literature. The entire event glows with an uncanny atmosphere best received in the pages of Lovecraft, Poe, or Machen. It's ultimately the Grove's lingering mysteriousness that causes it to look and feel so strange. Secrecy also breeds monsters, even very human ones, and perceptions of malevolence.
Atmosphere aside, the Bohemian Club's exclusive products share a similarity with weird fiction books too. Anyone acquainted with the literary horror genre knows how pricey and scarce certain story collections and novels can be. Likewise for limited edition plays, yearbooks, and other publications issued by the Club to its members. Don't be surprised to see rare copies of these items floating around E-bay and booksellers for thousands of dollars.
What really happens at the Bohemian Grove every July is only known to the attendees, and very few of them are talking. The annual gathering is a blessing and a curse for seekers after real world weirdness. The rituals and the covert shadows prove that highly unusual and creepy happenings arrive in this world. However, their unknown nature drives fear and closet admiration for lovers of the strange aesthetic.
Although the Zalgo front has been relatively quiet in the last few months, the Lovecraftian meme is not dead, but dreaming. Today, mid-term elections are being held for federal and statewide offices across the United States. Whatever the result, few will notice the conspiratorial blackness seething around the angelic faces of America's leaders.
While the best paranoid researchers are off blaming oil tycoons, Masons, and Reptoids for infiltrating government, it seems that H.P. Lovecraft and his most ubiquitous digital emissary to date are ignored. You can't blame them, though. Who would think to look back at the Necronomicon rather than, say, Project Paperclip or Bilderberg Group documents for nefarious corruption? And would anyone seriously forego following the latest money trails from BP and Halliburton to examine the black tendrils trailing from the $1000 sleeves of Democratic and Republican leaders?
Change is coming again, but it won't be issuing from Obama or Tea Party stalwarts this time. There is only one phenomenon that can seize on the quasi-apocalyptic mood settling over early 21st century politics. It is a bipartisan and otherworldly enterprise called Zalgo, and it will happily consume our hopes and horrors, immeasurably better than any party or politician could dream of doing.
A slightly controversial article from the Washington Examiner connects Edgar Allan Poe's political fable embedded in "The Masque of the Red Death" to the politics of today and yesteryear. Though the economic woes plaguing America and the world today are difficult to relate to a virulent pestilence, writer Neil Hrab may have a point in identifying a chilly, disconnected sense in Washington. And nothing spells out decadent indifference toward the public better than Poe's depiction of Prince Prospero.
Ultimately, any weird fiction reader knows that Prospero and his aristocratic cohorts meet their fate in the mysterious and highly contagious party crasher who arrives with an unmistakable vengeance from outside. Only time will tell whether or not the recessionary cancer creeps into the lives of Obama's administrators, patrons, economic wizards, and both political parties. Unlike today, where justice escapes most high ranking offenders in power, Prospero's downfall might be viewed as a populist political fantasy come true. The ruling caste's fortress fails to protect them, and they are forced to share the doom visited on the grave sunken society outside the castle walls.
Edgar Allan Poe, like H.P. Lovecraft, has joined the ranks of weird writers who find their works and wisdom re-applied to another heated political season in the United States. Compared to Lovecraft, Poe's words hold possibly more relevance and much less poison for today's cultural attitudes. Look for the his re-emergence in the coming election cycles as an observer not just of broken psychology and terror, but real political merit.
A provocative post by Kerry Bolton at the Counter-Currents blog spotlights H.P. Lovecraft's political leanings in the context of his times, and wisely charts his development from backward looking monarchist to reason seeking socialist-fascist. In retrospect, it's not surprising that Lovecraft came to admire the command economy and civilization building quests of the socialists and fascists. As Bolton notes, the perceived failures of democracy and capitalism loomed large in HPL's day, as did the fear of Soviet communism, and remained unresolved by his death in 1937.
As unpalatable as ideas defended by Lovecraft might be--especially in today's charged and very present day consumed discourse--pieces like these beg the question of whether or not H.P. Lovecraft should be evaluation as a serious political philosopher. Many will be quick to note, quite rightly, that his ideology did not break much new ground. He was not a Marx, Mussolini, or Keynes, but he was forced to respond to all three, as well as many other socio-economic thinkers. More than anything, it seems like Lovecraft's spin on his ideology that was new, and the passion he deployed in defending his ideals.
For Lovecraft, as much as he prided himself on rationalism, it seems passion engendered his strongest views. His juvenile support for aristocracy, legendary Anglophilia, racism, and late life authoritarian inclinations all arose from what he loved and despised most. So, while it may be a stretch to evaluate the political Lovecraft as an original philosopher, there's definitely merit in studying his evolution and arguments, for they reflect the sharpest debates of his era.
A Russian's desire for her town's mayor to undergo exorcism is an especially bizarre intersection of politics and the supernatural. Dismiss her as eccentric, if you must. You wouldn't be wrong. But don't expect this to be an isolated incident. The economic hard times means a global rise in "off with their heads!" sentiment, which means a significant minority may start seeing their own rulers as demon employed miscreants.
In a biting follow up to the discussion on Lovecraft as conservative from "Secular Right," Volgi of "The Gormogons" lashes out, convinced that the political Lovecraft was little more than a lunatic fascist. His heavy opinion is thought provoking, even if a sizable group of Lovecraft admirers will find the tone and some of the content disagreeable. Overall, however one might feel about the historical and political opinions taken by the author, "The Gormogons" piece provides a nice counterpoint to the sympathetic stance taken by most bloggers on "Secular Right."
For the record, I find Volgi's entry relies too much on the modern socio-political lens, where democracy and racial diversity have become sacrosanct. One would be hard pressed to find a Lovecraft reader today who isn't bothered by the draconian and prejudiced leanings of HPL on civilization, race, and government. On the other hand, the heightened passion some commentators continue to direct at Lovecraft on these matters seems more than a little overblown.
Do I believe Lovecraft to have been terribly mistaken in his opinions? Sure. Does that mean those distasteful opinions can be dismissed as psychologically "crazy," as Volgi's post asserts? No, especially in the context of the historical period.
It's also baffling to have the article's author state reluctance to "let him off" (Lovecraft) as S.T. Joshi allegedly has. What does this mean? It seems too intent on putting a dead man on perpetual trial, or permanently searing a scarlet "R" for Racist and "F" for Fascist over all works written by or about Lovecraft.
While "H.P. Lovecraft, Fascist" contains some disagreeable points (at least for this blogger), it's a well crafted, if emotional, case portraying the darker side of Lovecraft's politics. That makes it both an interesting read and an effective contribution to the broadening blogosphere of weird fiction.
An interesting discussion has been held at the politically conservative blog "Secular Right" this past week. It involves the ever intriguing political transition of H.P. Lovecraft, and one commentator very effectively shoots for an understanding of HPL's views on government, culture, and art. Examining these components seems to be the most efficient means for arriving at any conclusions about Lovecraft's political beliefs. A more general difficulty haunting Lovecraft scholars has been the shifting nature of Lovecraft's political affinities, ambling across the modern spectrum from monarchism, to American conservatism, to fascism, and Rooseveltian socialism.
"Secular Right" is an eye raising production in that it espouses views close to Lovecraft's own for much of his life, so their commentary is an unexpected, but welcome contribution. One commentator even successfully digs into the transparent root of Lovecraft's alternating, but somewhat similar ideological views: "...Lovecraft was a pessimist and a conservative of a certain sort."
This is an important distinction that was true throughout Lovecraft's entire life. As the same commentator notes, Lovecraft's admiration of fascism nearly coincided with his support of enlightened socialism, as the Providence author dreamed of an idealistic hybrid between the two ideas. What does this mean when one links it back to his earlier liking of monarchism, aristocracy, and the early days of the American Republic? It seemingly expresses a yearning by Lovecraft for a sense of order, stability, and even predictability in the world. This appears to be the thrust of much of Lovecraft's political thought and activity.
As a firm materialist and lover of science, as well as traditional art forms whose beauty lay in their ordered styles, Lovecraft was naturally bent toward different types of conservatism that prided themselves on bringing order to a chaotic world. The backward glances to colonial America and old Europe provided one model for Lovecraft. Once he realized how permanently extinguished the old hierarchies of Western society had become, he naturally latched onto certain promises by Mussolini and Marx that sought to bring back stability in a time of economic upheaval.
The positives and benefits for the inner mind and persona of Lovecraft, as well as Lovecraft the social entity, can be gauged by focusing on some of the prejudices and unrealistic expectations the writer harbored throughout his life. Here, "Secular Right" has done a thorough job too. It's refreshing to see a discussion of Lovecraft--and a political one, no less--thoughtfully carried on without the usual intrusions of modern political/cultural bias. Definitely read their full posting if you're looking for a unique take on H.P. Lovecraft as political creature.
Charles Stross, who penned the notable Cthulhu Mythos tale, "A Colder War," has recently posted a blog article shedding new light on this story's inception and its meaning. As most readers have long suspected, Stross sought to strain the paranoia, anxiety, and outright terror of the Cold War into a concentrate through the filter of H.P. Lovecraft's universe. Though its premise is borderline pulpy on the surface--an "alternative" imagining of the Cold War incorporating a secretive military-industrial complex (from both the US and the USSR) wrangling with Lovecraftian horrors--the piece has stood out since its original publication as an imaginative and well liked example of modern Yog-Sothery. Stross ruminates briefly on Stanley Kubrick's infamous "Dr. Strangelove" as well, a curious cocktail of fear and humor, not unlike Stross' own Cold War work.
One might wonder if Stross' tale represents a natural outgrowth of political Lovecraftiana not commonly touched on. While blatant political opinions were usually absent in the stories of HPL (aside from aberrations like "The Street," which explored radical anarcho-Marxist subversion from within using a rather conservative perspective), his forward-looking concepts in science readily yield themselves to political fiction. The god-like Azathoth was always described as a swirling chaos of nuclear power--presumably the most powerful and menacing "consciousness" in the universe, however "blind" and "idiotic." With the explosion of controversy around the arms race long after Lovecraft's death, political stories focusing on nuclear issues were inevitable.
In a geopolitical realm laced with its own strung out terrors beginning in the Cold War era, and even renewed clashes between the US and Russia, Stross' work may gain further interest from Cthulhu Mythos fans. It may even inspire new Cthulhu Mythos tales from the Terror War, or perhaps a future reality based Colder War between East and West. Stross' expanded novella can be read here at Infinity Plus.
With the recent Presidential election behind us, I thought I would post some relevant creepy images with the charged particles of partisan bickering still lingering in the atmosphere. This first one could easily fit into the minds of those affected by the banking crisis as a symbol of greed and hostility on Wall Street. As a piece of horror art, it functions very effectively by drawing on old socialist motifs of the greedy, toxic, and inhuman capitalist. Gas masks continue to frighten us for several identifiable reasons. They hearken back to that first global war, and in an age of possible bio-terrorism and worldwide pollution, they could easily herald the descent of the Four Horsemen. In fact, art works of political horror are almost impossible to degrade with the addition of the gas mask, as this artist clearly realizes.
This picture takes inspiration from John Carpenter's cult classic "They Live." Here, the threat of alien creatures hidden from the brainwashed masses is transferred from make believe sources to real individuals. The popular demonization of George W. Bush and the policies and power he continues to represent make him an obvious target. This work easily functions as political satire and horror. Indeed, the American mind will readily draw on historical anxiety over invasions by "outsider" forces. Fear of subversion from witches, communists, and other alien powers has long taunted American ideals. So, this image strikes out at a contemporary figure while reaching much deeper historical fears as well.
The Denver Airport was haunted by a series of murals and other unusual symbols in the late 1990s to the early 2000s. This is a detail from one such artwork that hung on the airport's walls. Some conspiracy theorists even believe the Denver Airport is some sort of command center for the "New World Order." In this theory, the mural pictured above is a symbolic representation of what the "NWO elites" plan to inflict on the wider population. Whatever the truth, these murals were powerful and very public displays of terror art, successfully prompting so many questions about their meaning that the airport took them down in recent years.
The Soviet Union, especially from Stalin's reign, has long served as a symbol of the terrifying "other." This photo from life captures this theme rather well. We see students and their instructor drilling with gas masks on, while a prominent symbol of the state (Vladimir Lenin) hangs on the wall behind him. The creepiness of such images isn't really weird in origin, but Orwellian. That doesn't mean it doesn't scare the hell out of us--perhaps better than most other sources, because a tyrannical government cropping up one day is all too plausible. While the USSR wasn't always the monster it was made out to be, pictures like this carry all the envisioned monstrousness in the Western mind and beyond during the Cold War.
Eric M. Smith's recent blog post quoting H.P. Lovecraft on American politics gets right to the heart of a subject many readers probably wonder about in the back of their minds this fall. Where did Lovecraft really stand politically? Anyone who has read S.T. Joshi's excellent biography of the writer, H.P. Lovecraft: A Life(or his recently revised mega-biography, I am Providence: The Life and Times of H.P. Lovecraft) has some idea of the strange political transition of Lovecraft from arch-conservative to pseudo-socialist. But do most of us really grasp just how dramatic HPL's shifting views and party allegiances really were?
Observe Lovecraft the conservative, who directly embedded his deeply reactionary and rather racist views into his early fiction. Perhaps the best example of this is not a quote lifted from his letters, but his story published in 1920, "The Street." This short tale recounts the history and living spirit of a nameless street in an early American town (presumably Providence), which is bursting with supernaturally patriotic (and conservative) energy. From the proud days of the founders and the early American Republic, signs of trouble appear on the Street in the 19th century in the form of immigrants, which Lovecraft presents as a corrosive and alien force. This "poison" comes to its fruition in HPL's own day, when immigrant families bring the seeds of anarchistic and Marxist radicalism to the Street. The tale ends when the Street's nostalgic consciousness seemingly comes alive and thwarts a radical revolution about to burst out onto the scene.
This is Lovecraft the conservative at his most obvious. The Street, like the United States, like civilization in general, begins as a heroic and proud place that falls into dereliction through the introduction of "lesser" primitive elements. This story was written in the same period when Lovecraft made his political views obvious in letters to correspondents. From 1914 to the late 1920s, he routinely praised the might of Britannia in World War I (and advocated for a US entry into the war on the side of the Allies well before it actually came), only half-jokingly boasted of his support for monarchism and fascism, and occasionally rained scorn on Marxism and other radical ideas becoming popular among certain segments of American society. Like most upper class families of the day in Rhode Island, Lovecraft was presumably a solid Republican. The party held tight control over the small state in every major election of H.P. Lovecraft's era until 1928.
However, like many other intellectual Americans, the onset of the Great Depression impacted Lovecraft's politics immensely. By the mid 1930s, HPL was highly supportive of Roosevelt and considered himself a New Deal Democrat. Moreover, Lovecraft exhibited rather feisty dismissal of the party he formerly aligned himself with, as shown in the letter 1936 letter to C.L. Moore the blogger linked above selected:
As for the Republicans—how can one regard seriously a frightened, greedy, nostalgic huddle of tradesmen and lucky idlers who shut their eyes to history and science, steel their emotions against decent human sympathy, cling to sordid and provincial ideals exalting sheer acquisitiveness and condoning artificial hardship for the non-materially-shrewd, dwell smugly and sentimentally in a distorted dream-cosmos of outmoded phrases and principles and attitudes based on the bygone agricultural-handicraft world, and revel in (consciously or unconsciously) mendacious assumptions (such as the notion that real liberty is synonymous with the single detail of unrestricted economic license or that a rational planning of resource-distribution would contravene some vague and mystical ‘American heritage’…) utterly contrary to fact and without the slightest foundation in human experience? Intellectually, the Republican idea deserves the tolerance and respect one gives to the dead.
This is a remarkable transition for Lovecraft, especially considering his lifelong antiquarianism and gentlemanly manner. Of course, given the tragic shortening of HPL's life in 1937, there's no way of knowing how his relatively new political liberalism would have played out. For the mere sake of H.P. Lovecraft fanatics, though, we can reasonably speculate. For one thing, Lovecraft's shift to the left appears to have been motivated by economics more than anything else. He maintained highly traditional views on race, civilization, and authority. Although a firm materialist, it's difficult to imagine Lovecraft accepting with open arms the vast pluralistic social changes that occurred in society in religion, race, and genders in the 1960s.
So, how might Lovecraft's politics have evolved if he had enjoyed a prolonged lifespan? Like many American intellectuals who flirted with various strains of Marxism, Lovecraft likely would have dropped it like a hot potato as the Cold War descended and a wider knowledge of Stalin's atrocities were known. H.P. Lovecraft never really eased in his distaste for Soviet communism anyway. At the same time, it's hard to imagine Lovecraft readily joining in with the McCarthyist witch hunts for Reds among us, since he was a very intelligent man. If he maintained his support for Keynesian economics and certain government programs, he may well have remained a lesser Democrat through the '60s, and surely would have supported Kennedy's plan for space exploration. Thus, a longer lived H.P. Lovecraft probably would have rode the same winds many Americans of the same time did--a tenuous balance between Republican and Democratic Congresses and Presidents, influenced most by Cold War fears and domestic troubles.
What actually did happen to HPL's political views ought to be looked at as intensely interesting in of itself. Though the shifting preferences of Lovecraft for one party or another shouldn't be taken seriously in one's own ideological considerations. It's bad enough when activists try to take in extra votes by displaying endorsements from living celebrities. It's worse yet if they try to do the same with dead ones. Any Lovecraft fan should rightly cringe at the thought of the political blogosphere displaying images of Lovecraft alongside current candidates.
-Grim Blogger
The Political Transition of Howard Philips Lovecraft
One candidate you won't hear mentioned in the media is Cthulhu, who looks dead set for at least several thousand write-in votes again this year. We won't know for sure, of course, since the slumbering Priest of Azathoth is not an officially registered write-in, and thus won't have his votes counted. That doesn't mean there aren't loyal disciples hard at work trying to win him as many votes as possible. These three images are just some added examples of the Cthulhu factor lurking behind John McCain and Barrack Obama.
This cephalopod dons classic images of Americana to make his point unmistakable. No mere "lipstick on a pig," Cthulhu looks strangely classy in an Uncle Sam outfit. The Elder Party mentioned in the logo attached to the picture is also a fine name for a third, fourth, fifth, or sixth party. Forget the claims of some third parties who say they'll return to the Constitution, Cthulhu will bring us back much much further than that document.
Bumper stickers remain in hot demand for voters intent on displaying their Presidential preference. Leave it to the Cthulhu campaign to come up with something representative of their man (or thing). Although this one is from last time around, some designs are just meant to be re-used. In fact, given Cthulhu's likely immortality, He is the perennial candidate. Alan Keyes and Ralph Nader, eat your hearts out.
Is there any clearer representation of what might happen with cultists in government?
-Grim Blogger
October Round Up: On the Campaign Trail with Cthulhu
Many have participated in the humorous Cthulhu Presidential campaigns the last few election cycles. But have any ever gone so far to imagine what a Cthulhu administration would actually look like? The answer is yes. An online search turns up a few excellent depictions of how President Cthulhu would likely run things. For everyone but Cthulhu and other select Great Old Ones, it would not be pretty. Perhaps the poster above, colorfully playing off Barrack Obama's popular campaign art, says it best. A Cthulhu administration would deliver the elitism, special interests, and bizarre scandals other politicians try to disguise.
However, as the latter two images reveal, a Cthulhu Presidency wouldn't be all bad. We might finally see the worst of the lobbyists mopped up as an appetizer for Azathoth's High Priest. And there can be no doubt about the shock and awe President Cthulhu would inject into Washington. The deadlocked, unpopular Congress would surely be overturned. Nor would President Cthulhu hesitate to use the Veto--with the pen or his massive trans-dimensional tentacles.
Somehow, though, I suspect the American Presidency isn't enough for Cthulhu. When your only handicap to inconceivable power is the alignment of the heavens, then you ought to aspire to nothing less than a good segment of the universe, even if it's all for the Glory of Azathoth in the end.
Whatever the election cycle, you can pick up your Cthulhu for President T-shirt here. Wear it to the gatherings of the opposition parties, and let them know who can truly bridge the partisan divide. More eldritch news from the 2008 campaign is available here: On the Campaign Trail with Cthulhu.
