Sorry for the mess. But…trying to visualize what an extra-dimensional being from beyond reason would look like unwinding and relaxing was kinda hard to begin with, and the, let’s say, predominant underlying vibe of the Cthulhu myth kinda dictated that the result should look traumatizing rather than appetizing.

At least I didn’t add any extra eyes. Just some extra voices. And why not? You don’t have to imagine them in a disturbing way, if you don’t like, perhaps they’re more like a melodious chorus? Up to you.

But the key take-away is not how Latho looks when it’s unwinding – it’s the fact that Latho is relaxing at exactly the wrong moment. Really, from somebody as genre-savvy as it, even leaving aside the eons upon eons Latho has had time to pick up a clue or two thousand, I would have expected better. Not assuring yourself that the heroes are actually deceased, just because it can be plausibly assumed they would be, is one of the classic blunders committed by fictional villains (and some real-life ones). It is, of course, also one of the classic B-movie plot mechanisms/scriptwriter’s ass-pulls, so on some level there is a reason that Latho goes down that route in spite of its millennia of experience.

And then…I guess nobody is at their most rational when they’re in desperate need of some relaxation, and a comforting bath or bed beckons. That applies mostly to people, of course, but could plausibly be some cosmic constant also applying to unspeakable things spawned by elemental chaos. Especially, probably, if they have a rotund, plushy body. Latho probably subjected itself to at least some of the slings and arrows of physical existence when choosing that huggable kind of vessel.

And of course the plot needs to give the heroes some wiggling room, anyway…

More on Monday.