HM - Yes. Properly spelt Cthulu, The Call of Cthulu was an excellent short story by H. P. Lovecraft, and he developed his alternative fantasy pantheon through many short stories, although if some other writer later appropriated the name for his own story (who was not authorised, see later) it would not surprise me, for Cthulu is a classic and imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
H.P.L created Cthulu, the warped ancient God who was imprisoned beneath the sea by the Gods that man created to replace him, since Cthulu and his fellow Gods were evil and mankind wanted no part of them, but Cthulu was able to control people through their dreams from his prison and drive them insane. As an interesting subnote, at the time Lovecraft wrote the stories, unknown to him, there was an increase of people who reported having shared dreams or similar dreams - that a great power entered their heads while asleep and its power of suggestion was too strong to resist - true or not H.P.L came up with the idea independently, as a recluse with no interest in society or its expectations of him, living in New England where he based his work but almost entirely oblivious of his surroundings.
In many ways Lovecraft is similar to Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan, in that they both produced an immense amount of published work in a very short lifetime - Lovecraft died at 33 and Howard committed suicide at 30 after the death of his mother (although it is unfair to call the creator of Conan a mummy's boy). Both men had well over 100 short stories published in that time and both men worked with writers who carried on the stories after their death.
I love Lovecraft - If anyone has seen the movie Reanimator, that was another of his original stories. Along with Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker and Egdar Allen Poe, Lovecraft is recognised as one of the original writers of "Gothic Horror".
DA:
For me Manowar went downhill after Hail to England (their mispronunciation of 'England' didn't help) but until then they rocked. But I agree on one thing - those albums are very valuable to collectors now, so hang on to them.
TNT are, well I dunno how to tell you really, if I said Europe without the girlie rock chick crap, like let the guitar rule instead of the haircut, like Bon Jovi could have been if they'd ever decided to be a band rather than a pussy magnet, would that help?
You say about medieval / folk music, yeah some of that can boost the atmosphere of AoE / RoR (a massive part of the game for me BTW). I also find some classical is good - play 'The Ride of the Valkeries' or '1812 Overture' when you are on the attack in force - you'll see what I mean.
On the attack with Iron Maiden, play 'The Mercenary'.
Stay happy.