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.
“Uuuugh… been holdin’ that one in for DAYS! Thrice-accursed broccoli and rice!”
Which would raise interesting questions of how a plushie body stuffed with filling is even able to digest food…or whether it’s actually advisable to take a dip if you have that sort of soggable body… XD
One of the downsides to being chaotic is that you can never take-10 or take-20. You always have to roll the dice for checks. Which also means you always have a chance at a critical fumble, no matter how improbable the odds.
Yeah, it must be really complicated to do any sort of reasonable planning with such parameters – that’s why it was clever from Lovecraft to simply put his chaotic entities ‘beyond reason’ by default. On its face, their planning wasn’t any less reasonable than an average fictional villain’s, but they did have a much better excuse for it! XD