D&D 5E Cthulhu'ing up D&D

[tardigrade]

I'm currently running Storm King's Thunder and it occurs to me that the Kraken Society could be replaced with (effectively) a Cthulhu cult, with the serial numbers filed off, without changing much (an ancient and terrible evil lurks beneath the waves but psychically manipulates the surface dwellers, etc etc). We were likely to visit the Purple Rocks (= Innsmouth) anyway as well. I've run CoC in the past but have always been wary of attempting anything Lovecraftian in D&D because I felt so much of what gives it impact would be lost, due to both the high-magic setting and the game system itself, but I'd like to give it a go.

Is anyone willing to share any experiences (successful or otherwise) running Lovecraftian-style D&D?

("Slarkrethel fhtagn!")

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I've been adding in Lovecraftian stuff when running OotA. The madness checks are part of that, plus I just throw in Shoggoths, star spawn of Cthulhu, and other foulness. But its a module about the demons getting out of the Abyss so its easy and fits.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

When I ran my big 5E campaign, there was a big cthulhu-style monster which was basically a herald for the big bad super-demon. Over the course of the entire campaign, about a third of the sessions involved the sahuagin cultists and their attempts to kill the party, in order to fulfill the prophecy. When the thing eventually woke up, it signaled about a month until the end of the world.

And in accordance with the original mythos, the monster was wrecked almost immediately, by crashing a boat into it.

 

[Nagol]

I often include Lovecraftian elements in different game systems just because. Who doesn't like the odd encounter with a shoggoth?

In many ways, you are correct, the terror effect is lost somewhat in D&D (and most other game systems) because the base expectation is the PCs are capable of confronting and vanquishing pretty much anything and the characters are given the tools to do so unlike the source material and games more closely aligned with its premise. The primary response from most player groups is "Attack!",

I tend to play up the strangeness -- both of the creatures themselves and their motivations. The adventures typically start off as mysteries as the PCs need to figure out who/what is committing heinous acts. The atrocities committed are odd and seem to be without rationale (though typically have one that can be divined after the fact if the players bother looking for the appropriate lens).

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

My pre 5e game, an OSR mashup, was just getting good when the players found an old ancient tomb/prison that had the big C himself imprisoned in it. They broke the seals and opened the tomb and let him free unknowingly. The chaos was just ramping up when we started up a test 5e game and we never got back to it. Kind of a bummer.

 

[Moraine]

One of warlock's otherworldy patron is the Great Old One. I looks pretty Lovecraftian.

 

[Ath-kethin]

A huge part of Lovecraftian flavor is an atmosphere of slowly increasing terror. You can write and run a perfectly Lovecraftian adventure using nothing but goblins, or hell - nothing but humans.

The campaign I run is set in Primeval Thule, which is even designed around Lovecraftian ideas such as hidden cults, lost secrets, and terrors just beyond sight. A party of characters going to to toe with a shoggoth is less Lovecraftian than a group of commoners descending into madness through the manipulations of a charismatic gnome who plans to use their life essences to create healing potions.

It does take a slightly different approach to running the game, and not all groups will dig it. Wolfgang Baur wrote an excellent article in Dragon Magazine back in the day in which he laid out a Lovecraftian horror interpretation of an Al-Qadim campaign, and that article is the foundation of my approach to D&D campaigns. If you can pull a Lovecraftian feel out of a setting based on flying carpets, genies, and high adventure, you can pull it out of anything.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Back when 5e was announced and we saw the first playtest, I wrote a superdungeon with a heavy Lovecraftian feel: Felk Mor (I mean, just look at the cover lol). It worked quite well, but actual play experience was more AD&D 1e than CoC (because the aesthetics and core design was meant to pay homage to TSR era D&D).

The only thing now is that since it was originally written for the playtest, and has been updated with current 5e rules, there are parts that still feel more like the playtest versions and not the current 5e offerings (like all the extra classes and stuff that has come out since). It was also written for OGL rather than DMs Guild (because it wasn't a thing yet), so it's more generic that way rather than 5e specific.

 

[SkidAce]

A huge part of Lovecraftian flavor is an atmosphere of slowly increasing terror. You can write and run a perfectly Lovecraftian adventure using nothing but goblins, or hell - nothing but humans.

The campaign I run is set in Primeval Thule, which is even designed around Lovecraftian ideas such as hidden cults, lost secrets, and terrors just beyond sight. A party of characters going to to toe with a shoggoth is less Lovecraftian than a group of commoners descending into madness through the manipulations of a charismatic gnome who plans to use their life essences to create healing potions.

It does take a slightly different approach to running the game, and not all groups will dig it. Wolfgang Baur wrote an excellent article in Dragon Magazine back in the day in which he laid out a Lovecraftian horror interpretation of an Al-Qadim campaign, and that article is the foundation of my approach to D&D campaigns. If you can pull a Lovecraftian feel out of a setting based on flying carpets, genies, and high adventure, you can pull it out of anything.

Any remembrance of which issue?

 

[Ath-kethin]

Any remembrance of which issue?

I guess I should have mentioned that, huh?

"Scimitars Against the Dark," Issue #198. May 1993.