Daniel (@dungeondive) reads a recently-donated 1980 first-print of Deities & Demigods — the AD&D supplement co-written by the late James M. Ward — and singles out the section he genuinely loves: the Cthulhu Mythos chapter.
The thing that makes the chapter remarkable is the time it sits in. In 1980, Lovecraft scholarship was hard. There was no Wikipedia. No Cthulhu Pedia. The original stories were only available through Arkham House mail-order. A teenage gamer who wanted Mythos for their D&D game had almost nowhere to find consolidated lore. This book put it all in one place — entity by entity, with stats. Cthulhu as a greater god, AC -2, 400 HP, 30 attacks, regenerating 10 HP per round, teleporting half a mile at will, totally immune to the effects of water. Azathoth at the centre of the universe. Hastur, Cthugga, the Mi-Go, Nyarlathotep with his many masks, the shoggoths created and abandoned by the primordial ones, Yog-Sothoth as the key and the guardian of the gate. Ithaqua gets pride of place in Daniel’s reading, on the strength of Brian Lumley’s Born of the Winds.
Daniel adds a personal aside: he wasn’t allowed to play D&D as a child, his household swept up in the early-1980s satanic panic. The donation of this book to the channel is, in a quiet way, a restored permission slip. He also flags the famous TSR / Arkham House / Chaosium copyright kerfuffle that left this first printing un-attributed.
Daniel reads Deities & Demigods now partly as a historical document — a 1980 attempt to put Mythos lore in one place before the internet existed. Do you read old RPG supplements differently knowing they were once the only source for their material?