On the Menu at the Mountains of Madness

This white, waddling thing was fully six feet high, yet we seemed to realize at once that it was not one of those others. They were larger and dark, and according to the sculptures their motion over land surfaces was a swift, assured matter despite the queerness of their sea-born tentacle equipment. But to say that the white thing did not profoundly frighten us would be vain. We were indeed clutched for an instant by a primitive dread almost sharper than the worst of our reasoned fears regarding those others. Then came a flash of anticlimax as the white shape sidled into a lateral archway to our left to join two others of its kind which had summoned it in raucous tones. For it was only a penguin—albeit of a huge, unknown species larger than the greatest of the known king penguins, and monstrous in its combined albinism and virtual eyelessness.

One of the defining features of H.P. Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness" are the huge, misshapen penguins discovered in the ruins of the ancient Elder Thing city.  Ironically, they could be the one thing that makes long-term exploration of the high plateau structures by the Miskatonic expedition possible.  Charles Dickinson was kind enough to send over this article from the Guardian about the use of raw penguin meat to prevent scurvy during one of the earliest polar expeditions.

Thirteen years before he became the first person ever to reach the south pole in 1911, the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen experienced his first merciless taste of winter in the Antarctic. Stuck onboard the Belgian expedition ship Belgica, which was grounded in pack ice, he and the rest of the crew contracted scurvy and faced certain death.

That is when, according to a new book published later this month, Amundsen started eating raw penguin meat – and discovered a secret that would later give him a huge advantage over Captain Robert Falcon Scott in the race to the south pole.

It's a fascinating story.  Amundsen was a huge influence on Lovecraft's story, in particular his use of the Dornier Wal seaplane for polar exploration.  Given that resource management is a large part of Chaosium's classic "Beyond the Mountains of Madness" adventure, his use of penguin meat opens up some interesting story options .  Having gigantic, eyeless albino penguins on the menu would be a wonderfully icky option for the final act.