The Temple of Dagon

Somoene suggested discussing more stories in the forums, so I present the first of a wave of threads.

Read the story here.

Discussion?

hmm.. the writing is pretty good (i wish you would break up the paragraphs more), but some of the underlying ideas kind of bothered me.
i liked your descriptions of the great old ones' architecture, but can those ancient hieroglyphics really translate to such vivid prose?
for me, there's a sort of conceptual dissonance between the anthropomorphic egyptian gods and the usually unfathomable designs of the mythos deities. this story suggests that cthulhu, or some great old one with an octopus face, presided over beings like anubis, horus, etc. - using them as trade representatives to the earthlings?
but it doesn't really matter in the end, because the fate of anubis seems unrelated to the great old ones.. apparently he was imprisoned by osiris after their superiors left them to their own devices.
anyway, it's not a bad story.. without my preconceived notions of the mythos, there's not much for me to criticize. i'll have to make sure i've read all your stuff.
thanks for trying to get this part of the forum going..

No, not trade representatives - the idea is that the gods of Egypt, and of the ancient world in general, are the deformed bastard children of the Old Ones, abberations who displayed strange mutations and were cast out to the desert wastes of Asia and such.
And the narrator has merely taken the liberty of interpreting the meaning of the glyphs, not to translate them exactly. No language analogues directly into another.
But thanks, it's one of my favourite ideas, and possibly one of the few blatantly Mythos stories I've done.

They sent emissaries to the fledgling races of the earth - man, beast, and other things better left undiscovered and extinct - and traded their carven idols and their incredibly rare inferior spawn for gold and jewels and minerals which they could extract in their homeland.

this is the part that threw me off..

Fuck, I forgot about that bit. The intent was to portray things I described in my post. Maybe I should fix it. Al - take that passage out, will you?

that's the kind of thing i hope people will help me iron out in my story. i have a big chunk of it left to write, but i'm posting 'finished' sections in this other thread.

I've seen it, but I'm waiting til it's done before I start reading it.

that's a reasonable policy. the impact of the story would be ruined for anyone who gets involved before it's done. but if anyone else is inclined to give their opinions while i'm still working on it, we might end up with a better finished product.

I'll give it a good looking at when you've finished, if you want any help redrafting it or anything.

it's a deal

Okays. Let me know when it's done.

you may be off the hook now, according to the statute of limitations

To quote myself... "Fuck, I forgot about that."

I liked much the history. The Egyptian culture is interesting and mixed with the mythos, much better. Excellent!