ORACLE

SWORD-AND-SANITY DEFINED

In my lifetime, I have read a great number of fantasy stories and books, but I must admit that my favorite genre of fantasy is sword-and-sorcery. The furious action, high adventure, exotic locations, lurid sexual overtones, dark supernatural elements, and grim heroes in these stories have always satisfied me like no other form of literature. I would say this statement is only challenged by my love of the cosmic horror genre. Specifically, the school inspired by the Mythos of H. P. Lovecraft, or what the "Old Gent of Providence" would have called "Yog-Sothothery". There are a great many writers who have written both sword-and-sorcery and cosmic horror stories, and some have even blended the two. Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, Richard L. Tierney, Brian McNaughton, and Brian Lumley are names that readily come to mind of writers who have successfully merged the two genres.

Interestingly enough, these genres have also intersected in another area I am most interested in – roleplaying games. I began playing 
Dungeons & Dragons in 1980, and a few years later I branched off to play Call of Cthulhu. I have gone on to play many other RPGs over the years, but it seems like I keep coming back to the “big two”. Both games bring such a sense of nostalgia. I imagine I will always have a special place in my heart for both of them.

I have been doing a lot of thinking about the sword-and-sorcery genre, and how it can relate to the Cthulhu Mythos. In essence, these two types of fiction are diametrically opposed. The heroes you find in sword-and-sorcery fiction are individuals that test their mettle against whatever foe steps across their path, and they always live to fight another day. This is why the genre also goes by the name "heroic fantasy". In the stories of H.P. Lovecraft there really are no heroes in the truest sense of the word. In these eldritch tales, men are but the buzzing of flies to the creatures they face, and have no chance of surviving these encounters. The world views presented in each type of yarn could not be more different. The challenge then becomes presenting a story (or in this case a game) that has both elements of sword-and-sorcery, as well as a good dose of Yog-Sothothery, without compromising either genre.

So what do we call this bastard child of sword-and-sorcery and the cosmic horror? "Dark fantasy" seems adequate enough, but is too general to fit the bill. "Eldritch fantasy" seems to fit better, but still seems a bit off the mark. Two subgenres of sword-and-sorcery are sword-and-planet and sword-and-sandal. Just hearing these genre names instantly alerts the reader as to what kind of story is being told. In keeping with the obvious pattern, I propose "
sword-and-sanity" for this fusion of sword-and-sorcery and Yog-Sothothery.