I cant help but feel like they’ve lost their appeal over the years though. When you can point at a monster and say “oh thats a Shoggoth! it has x stats and y HP and has z special ability” on sight, the fear of unknown that’s so essential to lovecraft is gone and its just a funky slime.
Many games can turn into Surprise, It’s Call Of Cthulu.
Which seems appropriate. Few of Lovecraft’s protagonists set out to discover untold horrors. They’re investigating a murder, or searching for a missing person, or seeking magical power. They don’t know what genre of story they’re in.
Yeah that only works well when your players don’t know them… Or you modify them.
Players: “What does it look like?”
DM: “It’s entirely unimaginable. I couldn’t possibly describe it.”
"It’s different every time you look straight at it, but the details are always viscerally repulsive. Fractal insect limbs and cracked teeth and spores all co-mingling in wet, stretching flesh. Its outline is sharp and fluid but your left and right eye can’t agree on the details. The edges of it feel too far away, and the middle won’t focus unless you look at your own nose. When you do, all its eyes glance there as well. "
