Cthulu: Tonight the Stars Fall

So this one had kind of an interesting background and became something of a short-term obsession for me.

It all began on the way to work, one day, while listening to Metallica's "Call of Cthulu" and it got me thinking.... I've got a very light knowledge of the subject matter but what IS Cthulu, exactly?

Well, after some digging, I discovered that the HIGHLY influential (yet, not so often read) sci-fi/horror writer H.P. Lovecraft created the entity, Cthulu as early as 1926 and it is probably one of his best-known creations.

At this point, I was intrigued, as I have heard Lovecraft's name thrown about before in other books and stories...

...and upon checking wikipedia ( [link] ) I discovered a small verbal description of the beast but could find no pictures (hooray for Internet Browsers on an LG Xenon)... but it didn't matter. The description went like this:

"When the creature finally appears, the story says that the "thing cannot be described", but it is called "the green, sticky spawn of the stars", with "flabby claws" and an "awful squid-head with writhing feelers". The phrase "a mountain walked or stumbled" gives a sense of the creature's scale."

Immediately, I envisioned a creature of immense proportions rising from the earth as if it had crashed to earth eons before and was now waking from it's slumber to finally take it's place as the one true destructor....

...but one other spot in the article intrigued me:

"Cthulhu has also been spelled as Tulu, Clulu, Clooloo, Cthulu, C'thulhu, Cighulu, Cathulu, Kathulu, Kutulu, Kthulhu, Q’thulu, K'tulu, Kthulhut, Kulhu, Kutunluu, Cuitiliú, Thu Thu,[2] and in many other ways. It is often preceded by the epithet Great, Dead, or Dread."

The Great? The Dead? The Dread?

Well, this opened up a whole new can of worms... no longer, in my mind, would Cthulu be some fat gelatenous blob with wings, but an emaciated corpse of unimaginable terror with long, spindly arms and great claws... open, festering wounds, and rows upon rows of razor sharp teeth. I wanted to create something worthy of a creature what is designed to be the very epitomy of mind-shattering horror and destruction... something truly fearsome and I do hope I didn't disappoint.