Are Werewolves really Cthulhu related?

[Irishrover13]

Hello all,

I recently painted up a werewolf to use in strange Aeons but well we have werewolves in SA are they really Cthulhu? I want to enter it into the painting circle but I have yet to find real proof it is a Cthulhu creature and should be there.

Cheers,

Irish.

[Plynkes]

Werewolves are for sure allowed...although a trifle common I'd have said.  Old Lovie himself wrote a poem about one...Psychopompus? Something like that...

The man from Del Monte he say "Yes!"

[styx]

Strange Aeons not only covers HP Lovecraft but various other classic horror writers also, so the werewolf fits....Uncle Mike mentioned some time back that he didn't include vampires for various reasons....don't recall them all now, maybe he will chime in on that....

As for references about Werewolves and Lovecraft

http://chrisperridas.blogspot.com/2008/07/few-comments-about-lovecraft-and.html

http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/essays/shil.aspx

http://www.gwthomas.org/werewolfinliterature.htm

[Bob Murch]

Hi, I'm putting on my little square hat with the tassel and in my best impression of John Houseman as Professor Kingsfield from the 'Paper Chase':

The Cthulhu Mythos isn't so much a dogmatic canon of 'what is and isn't Lovecraftian' but more a philosophic interpretation of the supernatural. It is a framework that gives literary logic to concepts like witchcraft and monsters. As a total atheist, H.P. Lovecraft needed to reconcile his love of an occult aesthetic and Dunsanian fantasy with his completely materialistic view of the universe. The Mythos represents a philosophy in that what we perceive as the occult in our universe is in fact a manifestation of an encroaching reality belonging to another universe.

In this interpretation, werewolves, vampires and other traditional folklore entities could most certainly be included in the Lovecraftian Mythology even if he himself did not include them in his stories.

I'll expect your essays on my desk Monday morning before 9 am.

[krieghund]

Well said Mr Murch.

[Irishrover13]

I'll expect your essays on my desk Monday morning before 9 am.

I would love to write that essay. Well I am doing that will you make up report cards for my 29 grade four students?

Cheers,

Daniel

[Damien]

Will the best essay get a miniature? 


Glad you are here Mr.Murch
 
 Damien

[Mr. Peabody]

Damn, Bob, you nailed it.

[Bob Murch]

I did a little tracking of werewolves within the Mythos and arrived at the following conclusion:

As Clark Ashton Smith was one of the primary contributors to the creation of what would become known as the Cthulhu Mythos, his Averogne stories should be considered part of the canon. One of his unfinished stories was titled 'The Werewolf of Averogne'. As H.P. Lovecraft also set a story in Averogne, 'Out of the Aeons', we can comfortably accept the presence of the werewolf within the Mythos.

Regarding your 4th grade students Mr. Irish, I am unable to finish their report cards for you but perhaps I could give each of them a double espresso and a whistle.

[tnjrp]

[A]re [werewolves] really Cthulhu?

No, tho Cthulhu Mythos has in truth been so stretched and diluted that a lot of folks think everything goes as long as you someone shouts "Iä! Iä!" at some point. Not really Lovecraftean either, although his ghouls are somewhat close to werewolves. One of strengths of the Mythos stories is that in them, HPL did away with traditional, anthropocentric horrors and replaced them with something alien and ultimately totally uncaring.

[Plynkes]

As I said in a thread when this was asked just the other day, Lovecraft didn't create a mythos, that was Derleth and others. Lovecraft simply wrote unsettling stories, some of which are not remotely "Cthulhu."

The painting club uses the title "Lovecraftian", not mythos or Cthulhu club. Whether or not a Werewolf story would be Lovecraftian or not would totally depend on how it was told. Given his obsession with the mixing of blood and the horror of being "tainted" (a not very thinly-veiled expression of his own views on race and fear of miscegenation), a werewolf story where the protagonist discovers to his horror that he is descended from an ancient noble line with a taint, and then either succumbs to the appetites of that taint or is driven mad by them, would be very Lovecraftian.

[Legion1963]

If i were you....i would not be too anal about it. The stories Lovecraft wrote leave plenty of room for your own fantasies. Hell, i believe he did on purpose. So go ahead....and have fun. Cheers.

[Klener Zorn]

wasnt there a story with a ghost werewolf ?

[Connectamabob]

While I don't think werewolves fit the Lovecraft style (I essentially agree with what tnjrp said in this regard: HPL preferred to invent his own monsters rather than use existing folklore/pop-culture ones), HPL did set out to create a kind of open source cosmology with his writings, and encouraged other writers to use his creations in their stories. A werewolf might not be at home in a Lovecraft story, but it would be very at home in a Robert Howard story, or a Doctor Who story (the latter at least already has had them), both of which are examples of other works that took HPL up on his offer. Thus the mythos can be seen as a basket of ingredients in the pantry rather than a baked pie, so to speak.

So while a werewolf might not be something HPL himself would write, anyone is totally sanctioned to create universes in which werewolves and HPL beasties both roam. Since none of us are HPL, this is de-facto the same as saying "yes" to the thread's question.

[Oldben1]

I use grey aliens in my Cthulhu games too!  I think a couple of people nailed it on the head - have fun!  If you can suspend your belief for giant sleeping space creatures than a werewolf sounds actually plausible.