S. Petersen's Field Guide to Cthulhu Monsters and S. Petersen's Field Guide to Creatures of the Dreamlands are two books that contain lots of drawings and descriptions of various Lovecraftian beasts. The Field Guide was originally published in 1988, whilst the Dreamlands book was published in 1989. It seems that someone at Wolf Team got a copies of these books during El Viento's development, as they decided to "borrow" some of the monster designs for the game.

Unfortunately these books are quite expensive to buy now, and a newer edition of the Field Guide has been released, which has different drawings. Thankfully Ragey has his own copies of these books, and helped confirm a few things about them. And thanks to Bogleech for finding out about the Field Guide's connection to the game in the first place.

One note about these illustrations is that several of them feature some random bats nearby the main monster. El Viento features bats in level five and lots of bats in the final level.

When Restiana is beaten at the end of the second level, a creature arrives that she rides on to escape. This creature is actually a Byakhee, which in the Cthulhu Mythos are servants of Hastur. The Byakhee weren't created by H.P. Lovecraft, but by his friend August Derleth. The illustration above is from the Field Guide.

The first part of the fourth level features these massive jellyfish enemies, however on closer inspection of them it looks like they were partially based on the Field Guide's "Spawn of Cthulhu". The sprite in El Viento is one of the most memorable things in the game simply because of how Wolf Team handled it -they made a small sprite, then blew it up to an enormous size, making it look very pixilated. You only have to fight three of these things in the game.

The second part of the fourth level -which takes place inside a ship -features a new enemy type. These enemies are a single eyeball supported by several tentacles it uses to walk around on. They appear to be based on Cyäegha, the image above was taken from the Lovecraft wikia. Ragey says that there is no image of this monster in the Field Guide or the Dreamlands book, so if Wolf Team did take inspiration for their enemy, they got it from somewhere else. Cyäegha is a "Great Old One" in the mythos, and has utter contempt for all things. Despite this, in the game it's just a regular enemy, and not very difficult to destroy.

The boss of the fourth level is based on a drawing of a Minion of Karakal. These minions are made up of electricity, and continuously send out bolts of lightning from their bodies. The game version of this thankfully doesn't send out as much electricity, but it was made quite a bit larger than what's stated in the Dreamlands book -they're only around 3 feet tall!

The gargoyle statues featured in the game's fifth level seem to be based on the Nightgaunt. In the game, these creatures simply keep trying to crash into Annet, and several of them can attack you at once. In the mythos, the Nightgaunts will patrol areas that their masters want to protect. Should they encounter an intruder, they are able to attack in complete silence, and will tickle victims into submission before carrying them off. They will then either drop off the intruder from a great height, or drop them off in a place where they'll certainly be killed. The Nightgaunts appear in both books, although the above illustration is from the Field Guide.

The boss of the fifth level is a bunch of blue globes. This boss is possibly based on Yog-Sothoth, another Outer God which looks like several connected globes. Unlike in the game however, these globes are always attached to one another. This creature is featured in the Field Guide.

The boss of the sixth level is a Mi-go. In the Field Guide, these are listed under the name of "Fungi from Yuggoth", the name "Mi-go" is not used. They first appeared in the short story "The Whisper in Darkness". In the mythos the Mi-go are a scientifically advanced race, able to remove the brain from a human without killing them. However in the game there is just one, and it strangely just wants to hide in boxes.

The final level introduces a new enemy type: serpents who are armed with extending spears. These guys are based on the Serpent People, who are featured in the Dreamlands book. The Serpent People were an advanced race, said to be around before the dinosaurs, and some of them were able to obtain immortality. However the book also mentions that their numbers greatly dwindled later on, and the ones remaining are of a limited intelligence. Looks like the ones featured in El Viento are from the stupid age.

From what I can tell, the game version of Hastur seems to mostly be a Wolf Team original creation. However, when Hastur appears in the intro, it appears the design may have been influenced by a picture of the Formless Spawn, which is shown in the Field Guide. I'm not talking about the main illustration though -I'm talking about the spawn's height comparison picture. The main illustration looks nothing like the game's final boss. Go the top of this page if you want to see that -it's the blue monster featured on the front of the Field Guide.