19 May, 2009

Today’s Tabbloid
PERSONAL NEWS FOR riorio2@rogue-games.net

ROGUE FEED — the year both Castle Amber and the first edition of Call of Cthulhu
were released) and the two authors have always exerted equal amounts
Southeast Ruins Completed of influence over my adventures and campaigns.
MAY 18, 2009 03:37P.M.
Yet, for whatever reason, Smith seems to be the least well known of the
The Southeast Ruins are now online. Big Three of Weird Tales. It can’t be because his writings weren’t widely
available. Arkham House, August Derleth’s publishing house, which he
founded in 1939 specifically to bring HPL’s writings to a wider audience,
produced a Smith anthology in 1942, before even a second volume of
ROGUE FEED Lovecraft. Entitled Out of Space and Time, its contents were personally
selected by Smith as his best and included some of his most famous short
Pulp Fantasy Library: Out of stories, most of which are set in his signature settings of Averoigne,
Hyperborea, Poseidonis, and Zothique.
Space and Time
MAY 18, 2009 01:10P.M. Averoigne and Zothique are by far and away my favorite of Smith’s
settings. Both have a decaying, decadent air to them that I find strangely
attractive in its repulsiveness. Far moreso than Lovecraft, whose writings
simply state that the history of the Earth is long, far longer than mere
men can comprehend, Smith’s writings allow us to feel that longevity.
The result is not despair at mankind’s insignificance in the cosmic scene
so much as a crushing sense of intellectual boredom, an overpowering
ennui that reminds us that there is nothing new under the sun — it’s all
been done before and probably better.

These are feelings I have in my darker moments and that certainly

explains my fondness for Smith and the influence he’s had over my
worlds of the imagination. I often wonder what D&D might have been
like had Gygax been more familiar with Smith’s writings than he was.
Along with the better known, Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft, I
feel each of these authors offers a unique but complementary perspective
on the broad genre of “pulp fantasy.” There’s plenty of both Howard and
Lovecraft in D&D, but barely any Smith at all — a pity.

As others have noted, the writings of Clark Ashton Smith were not in fact
included in Gygax’s Appendix N. Indeed, as I recall, Gary never read a
word of Smith until Rob Kuntz suggested he do so and this was after the
publication of OD&D (Someone like Allan Grohe can correct me if I’m
wrong about this). I personally find this odd, because, in my case, I
discovered CAS at about the same time I discovered H.P. Lovecraft (1981