"You enter a 10 ft. x 10 ft. room. You see Cthulhu. Roll for Initiative."

Mouseferatu · Jun 1, 2005

Okay, the thread title is, obviously, a bit tongue in cheeck. What I'm wondering, though, is how many of you have actually used Cthulhu (and/or other aspects of the Mythos) in an otherwise "normal" D&D setting? Note that I'm not talking about Lovecraft-inspired concepts like the Far Realm or the Queen of Chaos. I'm talking about actually using and naming old favorites like Nyarlathotep, nightguants, the Necronomicon, and Big C himself.

How did you go about it? Did you tell your players ahead of time? Did you spring it on them during game-play? And if the latter, how did they react? Were there groans and complaints, or were they able to take it completely seriously?

It's something I've considered doing, but--with the exception of one particular campaign idea, which reveals the involvement of the Great Old Ones from the very beginning--I've always been a little afraid of it ruining the mood by destroying the players' suspension of disbelief.

atom crash · Jun 1, 2005

I played in a longterm campaign in high school and through college with Cthulhu and the rest of the mythos mixed in with the standard Greyhawk pantheon, so I guess I've always considered it a normal part of D&D. Whenever we mentioned any of the elder beings -- in-character or OOC -- the DM would roll percentiles to see if we summoned up the named god (02% chance). Once we got into such a big mess we all started shouting "Cthulhu!" figuring that summoning him out of R'lyeh couldn't make things any worse.

In my current campaign, the PCs are battling an evil cult that worships He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named (it's an incarnation of the Brotherhood of the Yellow Sign; I'm running Green Ronin's Freeport setting). We also play a Delta Green campaign, so the player's got the connection immediately. The PCs, however, are still in the dark.

Inconsequenti-AL · Jun 1, 2005

I've had mixed experiences with this...

Had an old GM who used to use his collection of Cthullu monsters for every single game he ran. Be it Deadlands, Shadowrun, Elric - you name it, there were brain warping horrors in it: chicken legged cottages, glowy eyed demons and man eating tentacle trees. Not sure what the names were - my Cthulu Mythos is too low.

Initially this was cool, but got rather tired... as whatever system they went in, they'd tear you limb from limb without trying very hard. Though that was more of a bad reaction to all systems = survival horror than anything else.

Anyway, figure how they're handled is the key. If they're beatable, then it becomes a.n.other monster to kill. On the flip side, carefully used, they could be a lot of fun. Think the big guys would make great protagonists for a 'stop the summoning' type of plot. I normally found their cultists to be more interesting than the beasts and they'd work in any system.

My reaction to seeing them in a game I was playing would entirely depend on the DM.

If you're going to use them, I'd just slowly introduce them. Drop a few hints here and there. Perhaps put in some evidence of a 'new power' into some NPCs motivations. Make it weird and scary! Build it up to a full reveal.

I'd be strongly inclined to file the serial numbers off - use the same creatures and setup... rename them all and base them out of the far realms. Think that'd make it slot into DnD much better. YMMV.

/My 2 cp.

MonsterMash · Jun 1, 2005

Inconsequenti-AL said:
I've had mixed experiences with this...

Had an old GM who used to use his collection of Cthullu monsters for every single game he ran. Be it Deadlands, Shadowrun, Elric - you name it, there were brain warping horrors in it: chicken legged cottages, glowy eyed demons and man eating tentacle trees. Not sure what the names were - my Cthulu Mythos is too low.

Does that mean your Sanity score is still high then?

Personally I've used stuff from the Dreamlands more than the Cthulhu mythos for D&D as I fnd that the approach for the mythos and CoC is too different to fit in with how I like to play D&D.If you start making it a situation where the PCs have a chance of beating Cthulhu it loses that flavour and challenge that I associate with the mythos. So personally it'd be no these days, even though I still play CoC.

Keeper of Secrets · Jun 1, 2005

I was running a non-combat, political campaign for a year. Each character played a wicked or aggressive member of an incompetant king's staff. Think Diplomacy but with RPG characters. In any event, the evil high priest (pretending to be a good priest) eventually cursed the king's daughter's wedding by summoning Hastur as his own dying breath.

Hand of Evil · Jun 1, 2005

I think it has been a standard of my mythos for some time, something about the older/elder beings that even gods fear appeals to me. I guess it started out dealing with forgotten/forbidden lore, explaining ruins and such, also being a lazy DM (take from other sources), you envoke the name Cthulhu and the player's mindset change, they have some concept that does relate to the way they play, I don't have to do any special work either.

Driddle · Jun 1, 2005

After a single rodent wiped out the entire party -- a cute little bugger, mind you, not the slavering, red-eyed, dire monster you'd expect -- the players went slightly insane and decided there could be only one explanation: Squirrelthulu.

glass · Jun 1, 2005

IMC, I don't use the Mythos per se, but do daemons* have certain cthulhuesque characteristics (and are generally a lot more otherworldly than in core D&D).

* there is no demon/devil/daemon/etc distinction IMC, and I like the ae spelling best.

glass.

Henry · Jun 1, 2005

Not D&D, but I've used Mythos elements in d20 Modern games before. I have one mini-setting I call Arkham Squad that I've run at home and at ENWorld Gamedays before which uses Cthulhoid elements in a setting that's inspired by Hellboy, Ghostbusters, SPecial Unit 2, and every other "kill the monster" genre.