Some time ago, author Michael O. Varhola acquired a comprehensive edition of H.P. Lovecraft’s works of fiction and set out to re-read everything he had previously, see what had slipped through the cracks for him, and gain a different perspective on the stories by reading them in the order in which they had been written. As part of this pursuit, he began selecting one element from each of his stories and putting them into game terms.

This title contains 10 select items from this endeavor, including six monsters, the Cave Beast, Bird of Heaven, Child of Dagon, Ghost Pirate Cluster, Gnophkeh, and Ultharian Cat Swarm; one skill, Forbidden Knowledge; a feat, Great House; and two spells, Doom of Bokrug and Phantasmal Encounter. Each item is also accompanied by design notes about why the author selected a particular item and any special considerations associated with its development. 

"Identifying something fresh or interesting from each story to put into game terms was more of a challenge than one might have thought, especially as I wanted to capture the feel of the author’s stories, not just create more things that players could roll initiative against and then have their characters either hack up be devoured by," Varhola said of this project.

“10 Reflections on Lovecraft” has been specifically designed for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game but can be used with any OGL-based game pretty much as-is and easily adapted to any related or successor systems.