Lovecrafting Atlantis.

[HoneyBadger]

(A trubutary of Poopsi's excellent "Lovecrafting Pangaea" mod/thread, created with his consent.)

To anyone who's ever read "The Shadow Over Innsmouth"-and there has to be a few, I know we have some Lovecraft fans here, including the Devs-it ought to be pretty obvious that Atlantis is based on the Deep Ones. And yet, there's very little of Lovecraft's influence on the nation itself, other than the "Innsmouth Look". The most noticable element is their access to the 'Dagon' Pretender-but they gain few national spells, if any, other than 'Monster Fish'.

That's a shame, because although R'lyeh is probably the most "Lovecraftian" of all the nations in the game, they're also based in large part on Mind Flayers. Aboleths, although extremely "C'thulian" in flavor, are again, a product of Dungeons and Dragons. Some claim could be made for Agartha, or Pangaea (obvious to anyone who read Poopsi's thread) being "C'thulhu Mythos" related, but any such flavor is clearly heavily mixed with real world myths which have been around for thousands of years.

Atlantis-of all the nations in the game-is the most pure, unadulterated, Mythos-based nation. Yes, there's a mythical Atlantis, and there are other influences, but they serve more to illuminate the "Lovecraft connection", rather than to disguise or dilute it. Dominions style Atlantis has the look, it has the weirdness, the evil nature and otherworldliness, even the sense of the unknown and unknowable.

They've even got Lovecraft's geography down-moving from the depths of the ocean, to jungle blood cults, to Antarctica/Alaska. If New England ever existed on a Dominions map, you can be sure it bordered on Atlantis's home province.

I realize that some of you don't care for the Lovecraftian themes running through the game already, and would just as soon they were taken out, but setting aside any personal feelings about the "purity of the game" that might get in the way, this could be a lot of fun. Lovecraft may not be everyone's cup of tea, and may not have a place among the hallowed halls of mythology-as-fact, and I understand that, but there's a lot that can be taken from his imagination and ideas and harnessed to fuel our *own* imaginations and ideas.

I don't know about you, but I like ghost stories, and horror stories, and weird/frightening things in general, and this is a chance for us to add a little bit more creepiness, a little bit more interdimensional horror, a little bit more darkness and despair and gibbering/giggling formlessless and general madness to a set of nations that-while already very interesting and well done-are intriguing enough to want more, and weirder, options, to better enjoy playing them.

If you have any constructive thoughts or ideas, please feel free to post them here.

EDIT: PLEASE READ! Any ideas contributed here, with the exception of the first two posts, since they were posted before this statement was made, will be free to use/modify/use in part/etc. for any interested parties, unless the contributor explicitely requests that they not be. So please, if you post an idea, let us know that you want to use it yourself, or it will become community property.

If somebody takes an idea from this thread, however, please give credit for it where credit is due. Thank you!

Also, you're welcome to post any ideas you want, but ideally-for the purpose of this thread-they'll be ideas that modders can use without the involvement of the Devs-sorry if I didn't make this clear before. Thanks again!