It took no more than a single look at that monstrous and insidious cylinder to make me realise the dizzying gulfs that yawned between all men of the known earth and the primal mysteries it represented. Before that gulf Pánfilo de Zamacona and I stood side by side; just as Aristotle and I, or Cheops and I, might have stood.
– H.P. Lovecraft, The Mound
We wanted to share a few thoughts about the literary and philosophical approach that lies at the heart of The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu, and how it relates to Lovecraft’s work.
How The Mound inspired a new kind of descent
Our story starts with The Mound, a brilliant but lesser-known Lovecraft novella about an ancient underground civilization hidden beneath a burial mound in the American Midwest. It’s a strange, haunting tale of the slow decay into monstrousness of a civilization that has shut out the world, abandoning reason for an increasingly cruel hedonism. A fascinating story-within-a-story, with ambitious themes and science-fictional ideas. For our game, we’ve taken that story and transplanted it into a different time, not to lessen the game’s connection to Lovecraft’s vision, but to engage with that vision from a different angle, one rooted deeply in the themes he was exploring.
An age of transformation
The 17th century was a time of discovery, conquest, religious zeal, and intellectual foment - an era when ancient beliefs clashed with the rising spirit of the Enlightenment, which provided a new and often terrifying understanding of the cosmos and our place in it. A time when scientific curiosity often walked hand in hand with colonial brutality, and many were caught between the comforting stories of the past and the frightening vistas of the future. Nowhere is this more clear than in the explorers and conquistadors of the Age of Discovery. Our story follows a group of such explorers as they encounter a world that will challenge all of their beliefs, scientific as well as religious. 
Collaborate to survive
To handle the writing, we’ve brought in our old friend Jonas Kyratzes, who also worked with us on The Eternal Cylinder and Clash: Artifacts of Chaos. You may also know him from The Talos Principle I and II, both of which explore materialist philosophy. Unsurprisingly, Jonas counts Lovecraft as one of his biggest literary inspirations.
Lovecraft's Legacy
The Mound: Omen of Cthulhu isn’t a one-to-one adaptation of Lovecraft’s story. There are differences in characters, in the setting, and in the era itself, but every one of these changes was made to create a story that will stay true to our commitment of taking Lovecraft seriously as a writer and thinker, and to create a cosmic experience that we hope old HPL himself would’ve found thought-provoking and terrifying. (After he learned how to use a computer, of course.)
Some stories don’t need to be retold to stay alive. They just need to be reawakened.
