Ludifying Lovecraft in Arkham Horror - Game Play: Paratextuality in Contemporary Board Games - page 12

Figure 1.1 “Azathoth” and “Nyarlathotep,” two Ancient Ones from Arkham Horror:
he Board Game © 2005 Fantasy Flight Publishing, Inc. Photo by the author.
Each Ancient One has diferent efects that change the game play—the biggest
and baddest of them all, Azathoth, has an ability to attack ininitely, and thus
the game is over if Azathoth awakens. In one of Lovecrat's descriptions of this
Ancient One, he describes this terrible power as an
amorphous blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at
the center of all ininity—the boundless daemon sultan Azathoth, whose name
no lips dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted
chambers beyond time and space amidst the muled, maddening beating of vile
drums and the thin monotonous whine of accursed lutes. 27
In contrast, the Ancient One Nyarlathotep controls diferent monsters, which
means more monsters can be engaged in the game, but has a relatively low
combat score itself (4), meaning it is not too diicult to defeat Nyarlathotep once
it awakens. his also matches Lovecrat's description of the demon:
swarthy, slender, and sinister, always buying strange instruments of glass and
metal and combining them into instruments yet stranger. He spoke much of the
sciences—of electricity and psychology—and gave exhibitions of power which
sent his spectators away speechless, yet which swelled his fame to exceeding
magnitude. Men advised one another to see Nyarlathotep, and shuddered. And
where Nyarlathotep went, rest vanished; for the small hours were rent with the
screams of a nightmare. 28