World of Lovecraft (Not That Kind of Lovecraft)

So I was strolling through Icecrown, fighting the good fight. During one of my forays into a tunnel I happened to blow myself up. The kersplosion blasted me into an extremely conveniently placed deep pit of glowing green abyss, with an even more convenient pool at the bottom. After a nice swim, I surface to find myself surrounded by the most curious beasts. The faceless ones. Weren't they stuff of legend? A nighttime tale? Oh wait... there was that one guy in Ahn'kahet, and another in some other cave in Icecrown... ah whatever. So they're real. Spooky.

If you played Warcraft III (which you should have) these guys may be vaguely familiar. There were a couple missions as Arthas who, along with Anub'arak ran into these baddies on their way to the Frozen Throne and ultimately fought a Forgotten One. Remember C'thun? He's one of them... well sorta, not really. C'thun's an Old God, so the Forgotten Ones are kinda avatars, or maybe C'thun was an avatar of an Old God... it's really all confusing. But these have popped up elsewhere too. You may remember back in Shadowmoon Valley, the Arakkoa were summoning another, either a forgotten one or Old God.

But I'm rambling... either way this is probably showing portents of a true Old God. I believe back when WotLK was recently announced, they said that there would be the first Old God in the game. Maybe when they bring Arthas in. Hopefully they flesh out this bit of lore a good amount, I find it quite interesting.

Of course all of this is based on some of the stories of H.P. Lovecraft. Hopefully you've read him, you better have at least heard of him. I certainly recommend reading all of his short stories. They aren't easy reads; many are pretty long and his writing style was considered very old fashioned for his time, back around the turn of the century (that other turn of the century, the older one).

A whole lot has been influenced by Lovecraft in World of Warcraft. Everyone's favorite frog-thing, Murlocs are based on one of his stories. Many old world quests, at least Alliance ones are based on his not so supernatural stories, many dealing in undeath and lots of death. It's all good stuff. You can probably find a volume of most, if not all of his short stories at any library, so go do that.

That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons, even death may die.