Lovecraftian Writing Challenge!

[Dat Oni]

Or, how I turned a joke into a potential brainstorm.

 

 

[align=center]Prologue: How it Came to Be

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A week back, before I had an injury and had to be treated (which I find ironic, considering the material we are about to discuss is linked to cosmic misfortune), I brought up in a linkshell with Tiergan and Askier the name of my main character's, Edgar's, most unusual book:

 

[align=center]The Precautioned Pocketbook of Wicked Portend Regarding Manners of Voidly Manifest[/align]

 

Or as Edgar refers to it, "The Spook-Book." 

 

Essentially, the Grimoire contains a bestiary of Voidal beasts, information on Voidal ecology, and the overall link between the Void and our realm (and why you should not f*ck with said link). When asked ICly how that information could possibly be gathered, Edgar mentioned that the Grimoire was the end result of 70 author's combined efforts, 68 of which went batshit insane during/because of the research and writing process, with the last 2 vanishing off the face of Hydaelyn, never to be found again.

 

The first thing that came to the minds of everyone involved was, of course, Lovecraft's famous book of cosmological horror, the Necronomicon.

 

Then Tiergan came up with an idea. A wonderful idea. A wonderful, magnificent idea. And then I came up with the same thing and we both agreed it was good.

 

[align=center]The Purpose of This Thread

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So, what we're doing is creating a thread for Lovecraft-esque stories within the FFXIV universe, based on things that happened to the writers of the Spook-Book, what is mentioned in the Spook-Book, and so on, in the same manner that the Necronomicon was used in famous Lovecraftian stories like The Hound. Much how H.P. Lovecraft has his Old Gods and Elder Things and Yog-Sothothery and a personal mythos, we shall be making our tales of Cosmic horrors, except, instead of a lost city below the waves, we shall have our locations in FFXIV (or FF in general) to work with, such as the horror of the Void. Think about it. Does Amdapor have a Cthulhu analogue? Write a story about it in a reply to this thread!

 

If you need inspiration, here's a bullet list of potential topics to get you all started. If I feel the urge to, I shall contribute as well.

 

• Contents of the PPWPRMVM, or "Spook-Book."
  
  
• Experiences of any of the 70 Authors who went nuts writing this thing.
  
  
• Stories of Voidal/FF Analogues for Entities in Lovecraft's Mythos, mentioned in the Spook Book, or responsible for the creation of it.
  
  
• Typical Lovecraft-style stories taking place in the FFXIV universe.
  
  
• Actual information on the Void as it is represented in the Spook-Book.
  
  
• The way this Grimoire gets around.
  
  
• Why such a horrible, terrible book has such a silly title.
  
  

 

I am so looking forward to what you come up with!

 

And for the record, before the PPWPRMVM, I was considering the "Black Mage's Cookbook" for the title, but found it in poor taste.