DnD Demigods: Cthulhu

Grab your Elder Sign, because Sean and Jess are diving into the sleeping god at the bottom of the ocean: Cthulhu. This one goes way past the tentacle face. Sean breaks down what a Great Old One actually is (older, weirder, and far more indifferent than any demon), why the Elder Gods sealed these things away instead of killing them, and how Cthulhu ended up dreaming in the drowned city of R'lyeh.

Then it's on to the man himself, H.P. Lovecraft: the sickly Providence recluse who fired off a hundred thousand letters, ghostwrote Houdini's autobiography, and died broke and unknown in 1937 with no clue he'd become the backbone of modern horror. From there Sean traces fifty years of Cthulhu creeping through Dungeons & Dragons, from a throwaway line in the 1975 gate spell, to Rob Kuntz statting him up in Dragon #12, to the infamous Deities & Demigods printing that caught a cease and desist, all the way to his 2026 turn as a full Darklord in Ravenloft: The Horrors Within.

Plus the conversation nobody skips: Lovecraft's racism, and how you reckon with art that grew way bigger than the person who made it. Come for the squid god, stay for Jess deciding whether Cthulhu even belongs in D&D at all.

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Cthulhu, Cthulhu D&D, Dungeons and Dragons, D&D lore, H.P. Lovecraft, Great Old Ones, Cthulhu Mythos, Call of Cthulhu, Deities and Demigods, Erol Otis, Rob Kuntz, Ravenloft, The Horrors Within, Darklord, Great Old One warlock, Elder Gods, R'lyeh, Arkham House, Gary Gygax, D&D history, tabletop RPG, TTRPG podcast

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