The Cthulhu Mythos and D&D homebrews
Skade
Explorer
I have never officially enterred the Cthullu Mythos into my games, instead simply adding the presence of Powers from Beyond, or Creatures of the Outer Darkness, or, of course, the Old Ones. It is rare that my players ever directly encounter their efforts, and when they do no name is ever learned.
I think the trick for using them properly is to never tell any of the players that they exist. Sure, some of them have read the books, or seen one of the horrible Lovecraft movies, but when they don't know what it is they face, its much scarier.
From a mechanical perspective, those clerics who worship evil in its truest sense, but do not give their loyalty to a god serve the mythos, though the selection of spells in my games does include converted spells from CoC. Also wizards have found manuscripts with appropriate summoning spells, and other spells from the CoC book, often in an attempt to lure the characters to a soulless doom. I do not use Sanity, though in a few cases I have used Ravenloft's fear checks.
Also, Spheres of Annhilation are Chtullu artifacts, as are a few other nast devices. Using them draws the attention of the old ones, and often brings the players their doom.
I think the trick for using them properly is to never tell any of the players that they exist. Sure, some of them have read the books, or seen one of the horrible Lovecraft movies, but when they don't know what it is they face, its much scarier.
From a mechanical perspective, those clerics who worship evil in its truest sense, but do not give their loyalty to a god serve the mythos, though the selection of spells in my games does include converted spells from CoC. Also wizards have found manuscripts with appropriate summoning spells, and other spells from the CoC book, often in an attempt to lure the characters to a soulless doom. I do not use Sanity, though in a few cases I have used Ravenloft's fear checks.
Also, Spheres of Annhilation are Chtullu artifacts, as are a few other nast devices. Using them draws the attention of the old ones, and often brings the players their doom.
dave_o
Explorer
My cosmology's a strange one, but I'll try to summarize a little here. First off, the universe is sort of the "canvas" for all of this. The universe is divided into thirteen spheres, one inside the other, with Eldram (the world) in the center of them all. Coincidentally, Eldram is the only planet in this universe.
Eldram, itself, makes up the first sphere. The second and third are the space around Eldram, but between Eldram and the moon. The fourth contains the moon, home of Igigi, Bitch Queen of the Moon, and Nanna, The Broken King. I swiped both of those nasties from the Cthulhu Mythos.
Spheres five through twelve are just space, with your typical debris, stars, etc. Make note of the fact that Igigi and Nanna are limited to sphers four through twelve, and are kept out of spheres one through three by the Benevolence (a diety of sorts, the embodiment of good, similar to the Tao; Eldram is monotheistic, though not aware that all worship aspects of the same). Herein lies the concept of "horrors between the stars", and the like.
Sphere thirteen. This is where Cthulhu himself sleeps. He's grown decadent and slothful with the birth of the Benevolence (a cosmic blink ago), and while Igigi and Nanna actively try to retake Eldram (though are kept at bay, for the most part, by the Benevolence, barring efforts by the various demon cults), Cthulhu just dreams. Sphere thirteen lies outside of the known universe, and is simply a vast, unimaginable ocean, briny and deep.
An organization, called The Seekers, is based around the search/destruction of Cthulhu (Ahahahahahahahaha.). Once, several hundred years ago, legend is he surfaced in a whirlpool for a split second, and the sole witness deemed this the greatest evil man would ever face - forming The Seekers.
So, there are a few aspects in it, though my games aren't so much Lovecraftian - though, at times....
...TENTACLED DOOM!
Note: These sphere boundries are invisible, and intangible. Igigi, Nanna, and various other outsider nasties can't move through them, but mortals can. Thus, the lure of exploring those nether regions - should magic and technology allow. The only contact, yet, is via Chronomancy. Basically, a time traveller is placed outside of the known universe for the duration of time he wishes to travel. So, five years into the future means waiting five years outside of the known universe. Most time travellers arrive insane, as the outside of the known universe would be good old sphere thirteen...
Eldram, itself, makes up the first sphere. The second and third are the space around Eldram, but between Eldram and the moon. The fourth contains the moon, home of Igigi, Bitch Queen of the Moon, and Nanna, The Broken King. I swiped both of those nasties from the Cthulhu Mythos.
Spheres five through twelve are just space, with your typical debris, stars, etc. Make note of the fact that Igigi and Nanna are limited to sphers four through twelve, and are kept out of spheres one through three by the Benevolence (a diety of sorts, the embodiment of good, similar to the Tao; Eldram is monotheistic, though not aware that all worship aspects of the same). Herein lies the concept of "horrors between the stars", and the like.
Sphere thirteen. This is where Cthulhu himself sleeps. He's grown decadent and slothful with the birth of the Benevolence (a cosmic blink ago), and while Igigi and Nanna actively try to retake Eldram (though are kept at bay, for the most part, by the Benevolence, barring efforts by the various demon cults), Cthulhu just dreams. Sphere thirteen lies outside of the known universe, and is simply a vast, unimaginable ocean, briny and deep.
An organization, called The Seekers, is based around the search/destruction of Cthulhu (Ahahahahahahahaha.). Once, several hundred years ago, legend is he surfaced in a whirlpool for a split second, and the sole witness deemed this the greatest evil man would ever face - forming The Seekers.
So, there are a few aspects in it, though my games aren't so much Lovecraftian - though, at times....
...TENTACLED DOOM!
Note: These sphere boundries are invisible, and intangible. Igigi, Nanna, and various other outsider nasties can't move through them, but mortals can. Thus, the lure of exploring those nether regions - should magic and technology allow. The only contact, yet, is via Chronomancy. Basically, a time traveller is placed outside of the known universe for the duration of time he wishes to travel. So, five years into the future means waiting five years outside of the known universe. Most time travellers arrive insane, as the outside of the known universe would be good old sphere thirteen...
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Desdichado
Hero
Y'know, I've been meaning to ask for a long time -- what's the deal with gamers and Lovecraft anyway? I don't think I've ever heard that horror fans, or fantasy fans or sci-fi fans, or other "geeks" particularly think anything at all about Lovecraft -- unless they're also gamers. Gamers, for some reason, seem to love Lovecraft.
Me -- I read Lovecraft long before I was seriously gaming regularly. I like some of his stuff well enough, but I don't think he's a particularly good author, and many of his ideas of what is horrific were just too strange to be horrifying to me; they left me scratching my head rather than feeling disturbed.
Me -- I read Lovecraft long before I was seriously gaming regularly. I like some of his stuff well enough, but I don't think he's a particularly good author, and many of his ideas of what is horrific were just too strange to be horrifying to me; they left me scratching my head rather than feeling disturbed.
I think that's because Call of Cthulhu (the game) consolidated all the ideas into a sort of bible. Read individually, the stories are just sorta average, and unless you read a lot of them, you don't really grok much of what he's driving at - it's just a weird story with some flowery writing.
But the ideas (when presented as a set, and grokked) are quite cool, in synergy. It appeals to gamers because it was only consolidated and presented as a whole in their media. I reckon that if the mythos was presented as a Hollywood movie, it could probably go mainstream, but since it's currently grokkable from a single source only through a game, only gamers really "get it".
At least, that's my theory...
Skade
Explorer
Joshua Dyal said:
That last sentence would be the reason.
As a man who takes his literature seriously, I have some real issues with Lovecraft's writing. It was not very good. I think what makes his works memorable is that sometimes, I could almost belive that he meant it. I can imagine that he was enough off his rocker to truly belive half of what he wrote, or perhaps that he dreamed those things that his, and our conscious minds could not grasp.
Note that I do not belive any of it is real, or even that he did belive these things. Rather, I say that the writing is sometimes reminiscent of the fevered ravings, and cool analysis of a madman. Characteristics quite common among his protagonists.
The half formed ideas pervalent in his stories, and the sudden, creeping strangeness of his horrors fit well into my games. They are a fertile inspiration of the weird, and unstoppable fears crouching behind our rational minds. They do not always work in a game, or in fiction, but their presence, just a hint of the mania they can cause adds much to the fabric of my games.
WayneLigon
Adventurer
Some of the 'punch' of Lovecraft's work came from the idea that all we think we know is wrong, that we're just happenstance, that the universe doesn't care about us at all: there is no God and no Hell and everything supernatural is just a form of science that we'll always be too stupid to understand. In our modern day some of that has just been lost.
I've run several campaigns that incorporated the Mythos in whole or in part, especially in the more generic Lovecraft/Robert E Howard 'terrible things in the earth it's best not to know about'
sense. I've run several CoC campaigns, and used elements of the Mythos in everything from Vampire to Superworld to Champions to Traveller. I've always wanted to run a Dreamlands adventure.
That might be one of the best things about the Mythos: it can be used with almost everything. Kind of like the tofu of gaming Just off the cuff, I can't think of a genre that could not in some way incorporate it.
I've run several campaigns that incorporated the Mythos in whole or in part, especially in the more generic Lovecraft/Robert E Howard 'terrible things in the earth it's best not to know about'
sense. I've run several CoC campaigns, and used elements of the Mythos in everything from Vampire to Superworld to Champions to Traveller. I've always wanted to run a Dreamlands adventure.
That might be one of the best things about the Mythos: it can be used with almost everything. Kind of like the tofu of gaming
Just off the cuff, I can't think of a genre that could not in some way incorporate it.
Aaron L
Hero
I currently use the Outer Gods in my game, and the world of my homebrew has it's very own resident Great Old One, called Abomination by the natives. There are also several other Lovecraftian beasts scattered across the planet.
My personal reason for loving Lovecraft is the unique blend of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. I know that everyone realizes his stories are a blend of the three, but I absolutely love the idea of gods and demons biengs aliens, magic bieng advanced alien science, and that the basic principles of the universe being so...well, alien to us, that they could drive us bonkers.
My personal reason for loving Lovecraft is the unique blend of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. I know that everyone realizes his stories are a blend of the three, but I absolutely love the idea of gods and demons biengs aliens, magic bieng advanced alien science, and that the basic principles of the universe being so...well, alien to us, that they could drive us bonkers.
I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
I did once-upon-a-time incorporate the Mythos. I had a 'cleric' serving them rescue the PC's from slavery and lead them on a world-spanning mission to repay him by releasing ancient Heroes to challenge the world's Great Evil.
Of course, the cleric was really just sending them through a ceremony that would release them.
It *was* going to culminate in a big battle with something tentacled, but the campaign ended before that.
And they'll next be making an appearance when I run my "Forgotten Realms, Forgotten Gods" campaign, wherein typical D&D magic is suddenly maddening, and those effects on one of the most magical worlds of all, FR. One day, Elminster was your average omnipotent wizard. The next day, he's curled in the fetal position, going "Ia! Ia!", and Mystra is unreachable.
MWahaha.
Of course, the cleric was really just sending them through a ceremony that would release them.
It *was* going to culminate in a big battle with something tentacled, but the campaign ended before that.
And they'll next be making an appearance when I run my "Forgotten Realms, Forgotten Gods" campaign, wherein typical D&D magic is suddenly maddening, and those effects on one of the most magical worlds of all, FR. One day, Elminster was your average omnipotent wizard. The next day, he's curled in the fetal position, going "Ia! Ia!", and Mystra is unreachable.
MWahaha.
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