What is Cthulhu in Call Of Cthulhu

[Xbust]

I just heard about this game but actually don’t know what Cthulhu is. Well not certain how successful this thread will be but oh well. We all know Cthulhu is a demon from Hell but what is its story? Where did this start? I know I must seem like the most clueless person on earth but I not at all grew up with these sorts of stories. Anyone have any idea or any information on this? Please let me know if anyone here fined any more idea on this.

[AZUL]

How much I know or how much I heard about this, Cthulhu is a fictional monster invented by Howard Phillips Lovecraft, a famous horror writer in the mid-late 1800's. It's said that any man who would look upon the creature would instantly go insane since one can't comprehend it. IIRC all of Lovecraft's stuff has become public domain and as such widely available around the web. I wish this information helpful for you to know this.

[RockOn]

I have not at all heard him called a demon or explicitly linked to hell; Cthulhu is a cosmic being, not an infernal one. It's possible he or the Old Ones inspired hellish mythologies, I don't know the Cthulhu mythos well sufficient to say either way, but if that is the case it is secondary to the fact that he comes from the fringes of space rather than a fiery underworld. This is Cthulhu. He is not a demon. He is from Vhoorl, a planet in the twenty-third nebula. He is an ancient being nearly as old as time itself who sleeps on the bottom of the sea.

[Squibbit]

Cthulhu is the herald of the Great Old Ones, the ancient cosmic gods that human minds cannot even conceive of, such as Yog Sothoth, and Narlythotep. When Great Cthulhu rises at last from his ancient city of R'lyeh beneath the sea, it will mark the return of the Great Old Ones to the Earth. "In his home at R'lyeh lifeless Cthulhu waits dreaming." Nyarlathotep is not going to like having his name spelled incorrectly. Then again, Gnarly Hotep might make for a good addition to the mythos.

[Wyvern]

Lovecraft as "an oneiric writer, discovering his dreams a source of dissonance, may go to decrease the discord by transforming his dreams into art, refuting them objective connotation." Lovecraft's refutation of the objective significance of dreams, counting his own, has recommended to the first group of thinkers which there is no base in the exotic claims made by the second school of thinkers - and to be pale, Lovecraft definitely denied faith in the irrationalist policies with which he associated occultists and mystics.