Back in February of 2006, James came forward with the
idea of someone making an RPG to be used as the poster child for the
OHRRPGCE to show off its capabilities, and also provide graphics and
music for newcomers to use (so their own games wouldn't be horrible
eyesores). Since my only serious (?) competition at the time
was AdrianX, I figured that making a short and simple game wouldn't be
such a hard task after all. But it was moreso from the
thought that unless someone took action, every newbie OHR game would be
using AdrianX's graphics, and I had played enough games with
"Anime" style plotlines and heroes with strange hairstyles
already.
I wanted to call his bluff.
I quickly set about making enemy sprites as fast as I could - maptiles
would come later, and I had honestly hoped I could have recruited
Lucier or Orchard-L into doing them. After a week of rushing
to get these sprites up onto Castle Paradox to display them, AdrianX
backed out of the competition. By this point I was already
committed, having recruited Moogle1 and Artimus Bena to compose a few
songs, and already planning for the game to go above and beyond James's
simple request for a short demo to show what newbies can do with the
engine. At this time I had already created a preliminary
sprite for what would eventually become Cthulhu, but I shelved it,
thinking the main enemy would be better off as an evil wizard hoping to
strip the world of life. Cthulhu would be his bumbling,
cowardly servant with a speech impediment, and wouldn't even be the
main focus, as far as I was concerned.
I had come up with an epic story about Vikings, and had already started
work on the game's central villain, who at the time would simply be
known as the "Dark One". At the time, any Lovecraft
references being made by the community were being kept as
tongue-in-cheek comments on the art style, and not on the enemies
themselves.
As time went by though, the idea of using the various monsters of the
Lovecraft Mythos (Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth, Tulzcha, Dagon, Shub-Niggurath,
et. al.) as antagonists to the Viking Gods seemed to be a very
appropriate choice, and I made the decision to surprise the community
by actually using them as a central element in the game itself.
A quick rewrite to the script arranged for several Lovecraftian
monsters to show up as the game's bosses, so it was only a natural step
to turn the principal villain into Cthulhu himself. It was a
simple enough call - the previous villain's aspects were simply merged
into Cthulhu's, resulting in a sinister, if cowardly avatar of misery
and woe. The villan would be a faceless servent of true
darkness - wearing a dark hood and cloak with sinister red glowing eyes
the only features seen for the face. The cloak would be a deep purple
coloration, and what skin he'd have would be green with sharp, yellowed
claws. Wings and tentacles for his mouth completed the "Dark
One"'s transformation from a faceless evil into a true
horror. I at first thought this sufficient enough, but then I
realized I had seen this villain somewhere else before.
Nelvana Animation had beaten me to the punch several years earlier by
having created a dark god to oppose a bunch of good natured stuffed
bears. Undeterred, I set about trying to write a personality
for him - he'd have to be comical, and more importantly be able to
engage in insult contests. The game's spirit comes moreso
from the Norse tradition of "Flyting", which is essentially the dark
ages equivalent of "Freestyle Battles", or Insult
Swordfighting. As a result, I chose to have Cthulhu gleefully
taunt the heroes at every available turn, and this aspect stuck with
his character. Critics have noted that because of this trait,
he's like a diabolic older brother of Ultros.
To prevent him from turning into yet another two-dimensional villain,
and instead transform him into an immediately recognizable figure, I
gave him his catchphrase "SP*CKT". For the record, it's
pronounced "Spick-it". The only REAL rule to follow when
integrating the OHR Cthulhu into a game has been to have him
occasionally make that noise, and for the most part other game authors
have more or less stuck by this unsaid rule.
Cthulhu very shortly began to make camero appearances in other OHR
games, starting with OHR House Heroes,
where he would (at first)
secretly try and force the heroes from their house by sending various
monsters to try and defeat them. From there, he's spread to
other OHRRPGCE games as well...
Halloween Quest 3
Space InvadeOHRs
Vampire's Curse
Timestream Saga: Arcadia Incident Report
Sleepover
...and probably others as well. As for what the future holds
for Cthulhu, only time (and other games) will tell.
