The call of cthulhu

The Call of Cthulhu (The Call of Cthulhu in English) is a short story in the structure of a novelette written by H. P. Lovecraft in 1926. The work was first published in February 1928 by the pulp publisher Weird Tales. Cthulhu makes his first appearance in this tale, becoming a central figure of the literary cycle of the Cthulhu Mythos.

Plot

Cover Weird Tales, February 1928 issue in which he first appeared The Call of Cthulhu.

The sect of Cthulhu in the Louisiana swamp,
Gwabryel illustration.

Inspector Legrasse submits the statuette of Cthulhu to the examination of wise scholars,
illustration of Korkut Öztekin for the story.

The story is made up of two main narratives linked by a third, the voice of the "author." Only the author is capable of correctly interpreting what happened and is aware of the importance of the information that he has in his possession, and he narrates it following the order in which he himself discovered the truth.

It begins with the death of an eminent professor at Brown University, Providence, and the study of the documents he was working with. These include a report on an attack carried out by a cult. An investigation into the cult's members uncovers clues to the horrifying creature they revere, Cthulhu. This being, who supposedly arrived with his extraterrestrial followers from the stars millions of years before the appearance of Man, now rests in a deep sleep in his submerged city, R'lyeh.

The second part of the story begins with the logbook of a ship's first mate who discovers the sunken city, as it has risen to the surface in the Pacific Ocean. The city arose because "the stars were propitious" and the time for the awakening of Cthulhu and his spawn had arrived.

Legacy

The story fueled the so-called Cthulhu Mythos, stories and novels based on the idea that certain creatures from other worlds, who lived on our planet in ancient times, wish to reconquer Earth. These stories were a collective work of the so-called Lovecraft Circle, made up of Lovecraft himself and other writers such as Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, Robert Bloch, August Derleth and Frank Belknap Long, among others, most of them friends or acquaintances of Lovecraft.

This tale also gave its name to a popular role-playing game based on the tales of the so-called Cthulhu Mythos Cycle. The game, titled Call of Cthulhu (Call of Cthulhu in English), was originally published in the United States by Chaosium in 1981 and translated into Spanish by Joc Internacional in 1988.

There are many musical references to Cthulhu and the mythos, especially in thrash metal:

• Nile. There are countless references in their multiple albums, set with Egyptian mythology and submers.
• Metallica, The Call of Ktulu of the album Ride the Lightning, The Thing That Should Not Be of the album Master of Puppets and Dream No More of the album Hardwired... To Self-Destruct.
• Gigatron, Cthulhu Album Pools The Aluminium Paper Album.
• Morbid Angel, many references on his CDs.
• Dark MooR, The Call, from the album Shadowland.
• Fields of the Nephilim, multiple references in the album of the same name.
• Samael, The Rite of Cthulhu of the album Worship Him.
• Cradle of Filth, Cthulhu Dawn of the album Midianand other references throughout their work.
• Tom Smith, Cthulhu Child Care.
• The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets, multiple references.
• Therion, Cthulhu, from the album Beyond Sanctorum.
• Draconian, Cthulu Rising from the album Dark Oceans We Cry.
• Poema Arcanus, R'lyeh, from the album Arcane XIII.
• Mercyful Fate, The Arab of the album Time and Kutulu (The Mad Arab Part Two), from the album Into The Unknown.
• Aarni The Black Keyes (of R'lyeh) of its first demo released in 2001.
• Cthulhu appears several times as a character in the comic The young Lovecraft.
• Ktulu, Spanish group of thrash metal.
• Vader, 'R'lyeh' from the Sothis album.
• Ossadogva, Black Metal from Ukrania, Gates To the Yog-Sothoth.
• Deadmau5, Cthulhu Sleeps.
• Unaussprechlichen Kulten, Chilean death metal band, throughout his entire work.
• The Beast Remade, Mexican band of Wicked Death Metal in his album 'Worship The Beast', has as a cover, an illustration of Cthulhu. Besides a song with the same name.
• Iron Maiden, on the cover of the album Live After DeathIn the tomb of "Eddie" is read a verse of this book.

The writings of H.P. Lovecraft also served as a source of inspiration for the game for P.C. called Call of Cthulhu: Dark corners of the Earth from 2005. In this game, the spirit of his stories was fully respected, immersing the player in a dark and macabre world, to discover the truth about Dagon.

Also, the massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft bases one of its characters (the Old God C'Thun) on Cthulhu.

The Lovecraft Historical Society made a film adaptation of the story, which was released in mid-2005: The Call of Cthulhu.

Video game developer Cyanide adapted the tabletop role-playing game "Call of Cthulhu" from 1981, developing a single-player video game in the role-playing and survival horror genre, launching it on October 30, 2018 under the name of Call of Cthulhu.