Cthulhu-Shaped People

Complementary to Kent Beck’s paint-drip people, I also like the notion of “Cthulhu-shaped people”.

Cthulhu (normally pronounced ke-TOO-loo or ka-THOO-loo) is a fictional god-like monstrosity invented by 20th-century horror writer H.P. Lovecraft. First appearing in Lovecraft’s short story “The Call of Cthulhu”, this creature is a cosmic being of terrifying power.

The most defining feature of Cthulhu is its head, which closely resembles an octopus. The head is mostly a large, bulbous, pulsating sac, and numerous writhing tentacles sprout from where one would expect a mouth to be. Cthulhu’s height reaches hundreds of metres tall, but it is capable of altering its size and shape at will, being anywhere between the size of a man to the size of a continent and capable of spawning any number of limbs as it chooses.

Translating this to people and their skills/capabilities, for me the Cthulhu-shaped person has multiple powerful skills, which sprout, writhe and grow (and sometimes shrink) in mysterious and unpredictable ways.

Plus, I like Lovecraft.

– Bob