Nick Offerman is many things. A sitcom star. A master craftsman. A man with a giant (foam) penis. He is also a big fan of Call of Cthulhu. For everyone who has a life and doesn’t know what that is, Call of Cthulhu is a role-playing game based on a character created by H. P. Lovecraft, the author of At the Mountains of Madness, The Dunwich Horror, and about a million other science fiction-tinged horror stories. But his most famous creation was the Cthulhu, which Lovecraft described as “an octopus, a dragon, and a human caricature.”

Anyway, that’s a long-winded way of saying we received a tip from @DeadMeatComic, who wrote, “thought you’d appreciate this: I learned this weekend that Nick Offerman was super into Call of Cthulhu LARPing in college.” A few Google searches later, we found this amazing bio from the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society:

Nick worked with Joe Foust to create complete pandemonium in his early games of Cthulhu Lives, but quickly became one of the best players and an indispensible NPC. He won three Black Tentacle awards during his career, playing in seven games and co-Keeping one. He was one of several people to play NPC General Bart Brookstone. Two of his notable Investigator characters were gravedigger Wilbur Morlock from The Ninth Talisman and archeologist Hannibal Callahan from The Epic. (Via)

Ron Swanson, Black Tentacle award winner. (I don’t know what that means, either.) Also, this flattering photo:

The man known as Swanson even received a “Special Thanks” credit in The Call of Cthulhu: The Celebrated Story of H.P. Lovecraft, a 47-minute long movie that “follows the story’s three-part narrative construction, and it moves from the 1920s to 1908 to the1870s and back, as the story does. The story embodies HPL’s nihilistic world view, his cosmic perspective, and his sense that mankind is doomed by its own insignificance. And it’s a pretty good globe-trotting adventure story.” So, yeah, Nick Offerman: a true inspiration for nerds everywhere.

(Bio via) (Twitter tip via)