Point of View

The stories in the setting feature several points of view, as typical for a collection of this sort. There are several common elements, however. Usually, stories of the Cthulhu Mythos are told from the first-person point of view where the narrator is also typically purported to be the author of the story. Stories are almost always told in the past tense; e.g., 'I went and I did.' This allows for the complex chronological construction featured in several stories and allows the horrific details to be presented as seen through the narrator's perspective. In this way, rather than detailing explicit horrific acts the narrator frequently appeals to their own inability to convey the horror of the experience. This 'overwhelmed by irrational horror' theme recurs in most of the stories in the collection; indeed, Lovecraft's introductory tale The Call of Cthulhu begins with "The most merciful...