Adventures in Fiction: H.P. Lovecraft by Jon Hook Today we celebrate the birthday of HP Lovecraft, one of the most influential authors of the 20th Century. In honor of this day, we re-present the Adventures in Fiction about his influence on D&D and, of course, Dungeon Crawl Classics. At Goodman Games we recognize the importance of Appendix N in the history of D&D and DCC. August 20 marks the 129th anniversary of the birth of Howard Phillips Lovecraft, a key contributor to Appendix N. Many Goodman Games products are based on the works of H. P. Lovecraft, including our Age of Cthulhu series and several of our horror-themed DCC modules. Here is some more information on this seminal writer. H. P. Lovecraft was born in his family home in Providence, Rhode Island. Lovecraft was an only child with few childhood friends. He lived a solitary life with his mother. His connection to the world was through books, pulp magazines, and the numerous correspondences he wrote to the authors and editors of those magazines. Lovecraft is recognized as one of the greatest letter writers of the twentieth century, and some of his regular correspondents were Robert Bloch, Robert E. Howard, and Clark Ashton Smith. Gary Gygax named H. P. Lovecraft as one of the immediate influences in the Dungeon Masters Guide’s Appendix N. Lovecraft is best known for the creation of the alien god, Cthulhu, from the short story “The Call of Cthulhu” published in Weird Tales in 1928 (and be sure to check out our collection of reprints featuring Lovecraft’s works). Cthulhu is but one of many alien creatures that are perceived as gods by men; some writers that followed in Lovecraft’s footsteps have even tried to organize the gods into a pantheon. The debate on whether it was Lovecraft’s intention for there to be a pantheon rages on to this day. After publishing the Players Handbook for Advanced D&D in 1978, Gary chose to relax by writing some adventure modules. The first was D-1: Descent into the Depths of the Earth. Along with drow, rust monsters, and molds, this module also featured two mind flyers, also known as illithids. These psionic creatures are cunning and manipulative. Gary said that his inspiration for the illithids came from the cover of Brian Lumley’s The Burrowers Beneath, a novel grounded in...