H. P. Lovecraft
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Howard Phillips Lovecraft (also known as H. P. Lovecraft) was an American writer of the early 20th century whose stories were a combination of science fiction, horror, and fantasy. He was an antiquarian who loved the 18th century. Giles described him as "one of the most influential figures in science fiction literature of the last century".
According to one account, he had partially non-human origins, and his work was subconsciously inspired by real visions, making him a prophetic "Guardian of the Gate" whose role was to warn humanity through his writing about genuine alien and eldritch threats. (AUDIO: Guardian At The Gate) Indeed, many accounts showed that such beings as Cthulhu genuinely existed in the Doctor's universe. (PROSE: All-Consuming Fire) However, other accounts depicted creatures from Lovecraft's writings as fictional, at least within the Doctor's reality. (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5, AUDIO: The Confession of Brother Signet)
Biography[[edit] | edit source]
Early life[[edit] | edit source]
From an early age, H. P. Lovecraft had visions of "terrifying" underwater beings calling out to him in his dreams. His mother told him that he had "come from them", and that he was a Guardian of the Gates, tasked with mediating between humanity and beings outside its comprehension. She encouraged his imagination, and as he became a science fiction writer, Lovecraft gradually realised that he was channeling true, subconscious insights through his fiction, in order to warn humanity. (AUDIO: Guardian At The Gate)
Encounter with P.R.O.B.E.[[edit] | edit source]
While working on a manuscript for The Shadow Out of Time in his study, an adult Lovecraft found himself engulfed with a mysterious purple orb which seemed to rise up from around or within him, and flung him through time and space. He had vision of many "terrible things", from "creatures from eldritch times" slavering for human corpses to tentacled maws calling out Lovecraft's own name, and most importantly "the whispering of an approaching darkness", an "evil" from an other world coming for "men's souls". These things were the very creatures he had written about in The Shadow Out of Time, an "eternal", parasitic "race" who could fling their minds through time to possess the bodies of other species. Emerging through a rift on Tower Bridge in 2023 London, Lovecraft found himself with Giles, the director of P.R.O.B.E., who had been summoned to investigate the rift and orb.
Feeling one of his instinctive, supernatural compulsions and recognising him as a fellow "Guardian of the Gate", Lovecraft handed Giles the manuscript for Shadow Out of Time and told him what he'd seen. He then begged him for assistance in returning to his own time. With the help of Sir Simon, Giles was able to procure a device allowing a human being to travel safely through an unstable rift, allowing Lovecraft to return to his own time. Fearful of altering history, Giles instructed a bemused Lovecraft to destroy the device once he was safely home, and throw its remains into the sea. (AUDIO: Guardian At The Gate)
Encounters with the Doctor[[edit] | edit source]
In 1937, Lovecraft's mind was infiltrated by a sentient weapon called the Somnifax when the Sixth Doctor, Flip Ramon and Constance Clarke arrived to stop it from making Lovecraft's demented creations manifesting in the real world. Lovecraft's strongly xenophobic views also earned him the ire of Calypso Jonze, to whom he was repeatedly disrespectful.
The Doctor was abjectly disgusted by his racist views, telling his companions that Lovecraft was someone he never particularly wanted to meet and directly told him, when the allusion arose, that he found any insinuation that they were even slightly alike to be highly insulting and departed forthwith. (AUDIO: The Lovecraft Invasion)
However, the Eighth Doctor later spoke much more fondly of Lovecraft, mentioning- having corresponded with Lovecraft and their shared love of ice cream. The Doctor had even considered taking him on a trip to the 18th century but decided that it would have just disillusioned the writer. (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5)
Later life[[edit] | edit source]
Lovecraft died on 11 March 1937. (AUDIO: The Lovecraft Invasion)
Legacy[[edit] | edit source]
Fitz Kreiner never read anything by Lovecraft. As a child, he had once picked up a book by the author but his mother had seen the book and assumed that "lovecraft" was the subject. (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5)
During the War in Heaven, multiple parties who treated Lovecraft's works as prima facie fictional attempted to bring his creations to life for use in the War. Brother Signet of Faction Paradox collected many beings from his works from an alternate Earth, but was forced to put them all back by Azathoth, who did not take kindly to his interference, before he could put them to use. (AUDIO: The Confession of Brother Signet) Elsewhere, a Celestis fictional generator brought to life the Elder Things and Shoggoths of his 1936 novella At the Mountains of Madness. (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5)
Meta-Historian Olivia Kagg Waldermein said that the Auld Ones mentioned by Susit in Dionus' diaries were "not to be confused with the Lovecraft-Mcintee Great Old Ones", which were first documented by Lovecraft in 1923, "or the Hinton-Lane Great Old Ones". (PROSE: Love & War [+]Loading...["Love & War (short story)"])
Physical appearance[[edit] | edit source]
Lovecraft was a tall man with a "strangely elongated face". (AUDIO: Guardian At The Gate)
Behind the scenes[[edit] | edit source]
- Various fictional arcane tomes created by Lovecraft and his circle of writer friends are real in the Doctor Who universe, such as the Necronomicon, the Book of Eibon, the Eltdown Shards and the Pnakotic Manuscripts.
- Another of Lovecraft's creations, the Great Old Ones, are real in some select Who stories.
- Use of the term "Old One" was rarely consistent and was used both for the Great Old Ones and Elder Things in both Lovecraft's writings and in Doctor Who.
- C.P. Doveday from Lurkers At Sunlight's Edge is an obvious reference to H.P. Lovecraft, also being a writer of strange fiction, as well as the story itself sharing many similarities with Lovecraft's works.
- Vitas Varnas appears as a recurring character in role-playing games set in the Cthulhu Mythos based off the works of H.P. Lovecraft.[1][2]
- The in-universe Lovecraft's non-human origins in Guardian At The Gate identify him with the unnamed narrator of his novella The Shadow over Innsmouth, often understood to be something of an author avatar by critics.
