Dungeons and Tentacles

[JoeGKushner]

The generic answer is it depends.

Most of the 'heroes' of HPL were not adventurers. They were people at the wrong place and the wrong time. Good for horror, poor for D&D campaigns unless you cross the rubicon in your mind that this is D&D horror which isn't necessarily the same type of horror HPL was going for.

August Derileth on the other hand... or REH both had characters who were strong. Skull Face is a particular good yarn for that sort of thing.

1. Lots of ruins.

2. Lots of isolated communities.

3. Lots of secret factions.

4. Lots of implied alienness to the setting without being too much in the focus.

5. Characters who cannot fight against the horrors directly. If they can, it's not HPL and moved into a different faction.

6. Lots of tombs, elixirs, potions, braizers and other old world magics that work but are often cursed.

7. Transformation from characters into monsters. Taint from Heroes of Horror would be a good game mechanic for that.

 

[Sturtevant]

Lots of cool ideas! I've done some mods where I went with the horror theme. Some of the early mods with the tentacled elemental evil (the old GDQ series, not the ToEE) lend themselves to this. This all gets me interested in sprucing up a few of my upcoming sessions with some good-ol-fashioned horror.

Sturt

 

[painandgreed]

5. Characters who cannot fight against the horrors directly. If they can, it's not HPL and moved into a different faction.

Well, we are in a different faction, this is HPL inspired D&D. D&D heroes are not created to be victims and I don't think the intent is to play CoC with D&D rules (or you'd just play a medieval d20 CoC game). Even in the HPL stories, the monsters often get beat. Not by the main characters who stumble onto them and go running away screaming, but in many cases once the police or government get involved the cultists get cleaned up. The navy torpedoes the reef at the end of Shadow over Innsmouth. The police break up the cultists in the Call of Cuthulhu. In this instance, I suspect the PCs will be playing the part of the government. They aren't the hapless commoner or noble who stumbles across the evil, but rather the group sent in to deal with it. They have the job of uncovering what is going on, dealing with the monsters, and keeping the general populance from knowing.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Well, we are in a different faction, this is HPL inspired D&D. D&D heroes are not created to be victims and I don't think the intent is to play CoC with D&D rules (or you'd just play a medieval d20 CoC game). Even in the HPL stories, the monsters often get beat. Not by the main characters who stumble onto them and go running away screaming, but in many cases once the police or government get involved the cultists get cleaned up. The navy torpedoes the reef at the end of Shadow over Innsmouth. The police break up the cultists in the Call of Cuthulhu. In this instance, I suspect the PCs will be playing the part of the government. They aren't the hapless commoner or noble who stumbles across the evil, but rather the group sent in to deal with it. They have the job of uncovering what is going on, dealing with the monsters, and keeping the general populance from knowing.

You've pointed out a few stories where the characters are involved with cultists and humanoid style enemies. In most cases, when it's the big bad or even one of the big bad's main monsters, it's madness or death to face them.

About the only exception to that would probably be the Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath that I can recall off the top of my head.

 

[painandgreed]

You've pointed out a few stories where the characters are involved with cultists and humanoid style enemies. In most cases, when it's the big bad or even one of the big bad's main monsters, it's madness or death to face them.

In most stories, the protagonists are wizards and clerics of other gods, let alone dragon slayers.

 

[JoeGKushner]

In most stories, the protagonists are wizards and clerics of other gods, let alone dragon slayers.

Fair enough but it's not HPL. It cannot be even close. At best, it can be inspired from it. Kinda a similiar theme/arugement going on in Heroes of Horror vs Darkness and Dread bit.

 

[dcollins]

Actually, in "Call of Cthulhu" itself they did successfully ram the big C to pieces with a ship, and in "Dunwich Horror" the protagonists blasted the evil creature with an incantation, destroying it. First two that come to mind.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Actually, in "Call of Cthulhu" itself they did successfully ram the big C to pieces with a ship, and in "Dunwich Horror" the protagonists blasted the evil creature with an incantation, destroying it. First two that come to mind.

These are both good examples of situations occuring that pit the environment in a friendly pace for the characters. And for the CoC, the big C reforms. Heck, in the Chaosium version, if you nuke him he comes back radioactive.

Note, I'm talking about one the characters duking it out with the Mythos, not using the traditional elements of banishment/protection to survive. In D&D, it'd be much easier. How would you similuate the incantation? Dispel Magic? Banishment? It's a common spell and really donesn't capture the flavor of HPL.

REH on the other hand, often has his heroes going toe to toe with these things or finding their weakness and smashing it. HPL on the other hand... you ain't hacking down one of the entities unless it's something like a deep one.

 

[Voadam]

Well its real easy to do in D&D. Have Cthulhu on the world. Not a CR 8 dragon as the BBEG, but Cthulhu. Those who go after HIM directly, get eaten. Adapt CoC modules to fantasy as needed and ramp up the CR of the encounters to get the right power ratio. They can fight cultists and minor minions but monsters are horrifyingly tough and dangerous, which D&D can handle by simply throwing higher ELs, monsters can be advanced easily in D&D to scale up.

 

[dcollins]

How would you similuate the incantation? Dispel Magic? Banishment? It's a common spell and really donesn't capture the flavor of HPL.

Note sure how d20 Cthulhu stats out Yog-Sothoth or one of his children, that might give a good reflection. But just thinking out loud:
- Sure, dismissal or banishment could work. This could be hard to come by if you just run the campaign and all NPCs at low-levels (say, under 10th). Plus Spell Resistance and the need to determine the focus that is "hateful" to the target.
- Alternateively, you might define these monsters from outer space in the same dimension, so dismissal or banishment don't work, and you need to resort to a Unearthed Arcana-style Incantation.