H.P. Lovecraft

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H. P. Lovecraft

Howard Phillips Lovecraft (August 20, 1890 – March 15, 1937) was an American writer of weird, science, fantasy, and horror fiction born in Providence, Rhode Island. He is best known for his creation of the Cthulhu Mythos and the fantasy and science fiction elements that it incorporated, which in turn led to the codification of the cosmic horror genre.

Lovecraft began writing speculative fiction in pulp magazines in 1913, and would begin writing stories for what became known as the Cthulhu Mythos as early as 1920; much of his work was published by Weird Tales. Though he was virtually unknown and unable to support himself from his literary work during his lifetime, he is now regarded as one of the most significant 20th-century authors of supernatural horror fiction. This is owed to a scholarly revival of Lovecraft's work in the 1970s that led to more widespread discovery of his work, as well as criticism of political views he held until after the Great Depression. The many direct adaptations and spiritual successors of Lovecraft's work, combined with the later contributions of other authors, formed the Mythos as we currently know it - major themes include xenophobia, the nature of knowledge, and the idea that humanity is an fragile part of cosmic existence that could be swept away at any moment.

While vanilla NetHack has not drawn from any of Lovecraft's works and/or the Cthulhu Mythos, several NetHack variants contain monsters and themes derived from them; dNetHack is a variant with arguably the most direct Lovecraftian influence present.