Brand New Call of Cthulhu: A Cosmic Horror Anthology

October is upon us. Horror season! Of all the horror genres—slasher, psychological, scary kids—cosmic horror is my favorite. So, here on my little corner of Royal Road, I’m going to upload ten cosmic horror stories over the next month. This is a quick side-quest away from my main LitRPG, Semester’s Fall, which is a mix of dungeon crawling and university life. Cosmic horror is the glue that holds the satire and the adventure together, as a looming threat that shapes the action. Fully integrating cosmic horror into the LitRPG is one of the final bosses for Royal Road . . . For each volume of Semester’s Fall, I’m trying to write at least one tribute to a cosmic horror writer: H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Ramsey Campbell, Brian Lumley. I figure some people might be interested in those even if they don’t want to read my whole LitRPG, so I’m sticking them here. We’ll start with a tribute that’s slated for Volume 4 of Semester’s Fall, “Brand New Call of Cthulhu.” This is a rewrite . . . translation . . . desecration of Lovecraft’s “Call of Cthulhu,” the most famous cosmic horror story of all time. On the plus side, it's also well out of copyright, so no pesky ownership questions. In Semester’s Fall, my main character (a hapless professor named Brian Kelvin) is teaching a class on horror literature. His students hate Lovecraft, so, in a fit of madness, he redrafts the classic, simplifying the prose and leaping the story forward by 100 years. Is this a good idea? Probably not. In my LitRPG, this gets him into major trouble: angry students, mad faculty, internet outrage. More broadly, the idea of whether we should rewrite—or translate—or refresh—classic stories is a challenging one. Do you leave the past alone, with all its flaws, or take up arms and try to modernize things? This summer, we saw how well The Odyssey did. Homer’s epic gets a new translation or adaptation about every decade. This keeps him fresh and relevant. Should the same thing happen with texts already in English? It’s easier to read Dostoevsky in 2026 than Melville because the Dostoevsky books have been translated into contemporary English. Is that fair? See what you think as Brian rewrites Lovecraft. New stories appear on M, W, and F. One month of stories only, until Halloween ends. Check out my full LitRPG here:  https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/185971/semesters-fall