Call of Cthulhu Reviewed at d20Gurus.com

[ruleslawyer]

Momentary rant

I must affirm that at no time did Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, or REH ever write a story (aside from the spuriously-attributed "pastiches" ghost-written in collaboration with later writers) involving a struggle between evil Old Ones and neutral-to-uncaring Elder Gods. That's pretty much a total invention of August Derleth's. There are independent races that wage war with Cthulhu's spawn, and entities out there that are less malevolent than the G.O.O. and their ilk, but the idea of an intergalactic/interdimensional slugfest between opposing sides is not HPL by any means, even when taking into account the often contradictory nature of his works. IMHO, this was the view of the Mythos adopted by the CoC d20 authors, who include only Nodens as an anthropomorphic, somewhat more human-friendly deity.

 

[d20Gurus.com]

Piratecat:

Thank you for the kind words on the site. It's been alot of hard work for all of us Gurus, and as I am sure you know, criticism comes far more than praise. Coming from you, I am glad to see it

 

[Piratecat]

My pleasure; it's true, too! Although you misspelled "ingterview" on the front page.

 

[d20Gurus.com]

::feels stupid::

Wow, that's unnacceptable, that spelling error on the front page. I should go talk to the Chief Editor and have that taken care of immediately. By the way, ignore my .sig if you don't mind....

 

[Illrein]

I'm considering buying CoC, but I have some questions about it:

1) Is there any mention of the Necromonicon in it?

2) Can the monsters be used in D&D without much difficulty?

3) How precisely modern does the book get?

4) What can I expect to be attracted to when reading the book?

 

[Nyarlathotep]

How much of the Kaiju good godzilla/bad godzilla monster bash non-HPL stuff crept into the book? Also, where did that testicle/vagina stuff come from? It's not HPL and doesn't really seem necessary to the book. I don't mind that kind of stuff but it seems gratuitous and of little to no value to have that in there - especially since I can only assume that it must come from an HPL derived work rather than the man himself.

Check out Delta-Green: Alien Intelligence, an anthology of short stories from Pagan Publishing. There is a story at the end by J. Tynnes devoted to this... It's brutal

All in all I think it's a good idea, it gives Shubby an extra-high horror factor for all male players/investigators.

 

[PenguinKing]

Re: Momentary rant

I must affirm that at no time did Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, or REH ever write a story ... involving a struggle between evil Old Ones and neutral-to-uncaring Elder Gods ... the idea of an intergalactic/interdimensional slugfest between opposing sides is not HPL by any means.

I didn't say it was. However, Lovecraft's work very much did include the concept of entities that when pressed would rather side with humanity than the Outer Gods - if for no other reason than that the machinations of the Outer Gods inteferred with their own priorities, and human opposition, limited though it may be, represented a convenient means of tipping a scale or two.

(And does this mean Bast and Hypnos are out? If I recall correctly, they did figure into some of Lovecraft's own work - the dreamlands stuff.)

- Sir Bob.

 

[Kristof]

I'm considering buying CoC, but I have some questions about it:

1) Is there any mention of the Necromonicon in it?

2) Can the monsters be used in D&D without much difficulty?

3) How precisely modern does the book get?

4) What can I expect to be attracted to when reading the book?

1) Yes. Many. It would be hard to write the book without doing so, IMO... Included are the stats for the assorted versions of the book (The original, the latin, the two english, and one other translation. (German? offhand I don't know))

2) Yes

3) Um. It covers up to around 2000-ish. Some of the prices in the equipment chart seems a little old, though (CD Burners havn't cost $600 in several years, for example).

4) Depends on what you are after, really.

 

[Horacio]

4) What can I expect to be attracted to when reading the book?

It depends of how many SAN points you still have. The less, the more attracted you will be...

 

[kenjib]

All in all I think it's a good idea, it gives Shubby an extra-high horror factor for all male players/investigators.

Why is this worse for male investigators? I really don't understand, unless you are referring to some form of homophobia but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you aren't because I honestly don't think that you are - especially since the passage refers to a willing cultists as the participant. I just don't see where you're getting at. I think the idea of a woman willingly impregnating herself with demonic spawn is more horrifying to women and I don't really see where men come into the picture.

Hey, shorn of our characteristic Puritan outrage, is tentacle-rape really worse than slow multilation, insidious possession of the mind, soul-shattering psychosis, or any of a dozen other horrible fates that Lovecraft's characters regularly suffered, albeit often "off-camera"?

- Sir Bob.

P.S. Nih!

I've thought about this a bit more and realized what it really is that bothers me. It certainly has nothing to do with puritan outrage and I agree that it's not worse than other fates. To me it represents a fundamental misunderstanding of what the mythos are all about - a fear of the unknown. To say that Shub Niggurath is an amorphous mass that has been known to violate it's cult worshippers in unthinkable and unimaginable ways, sometimes impregnating victims in the process is fine with me. In fact, this has a clear origin in HPL's own writing. I believe the Dunwich Horror is the story I'm thinking of but I'd have to check my books tonight to make sure. This is -very- different, however, from saying that Shub Niggurath is a large amorphous mass with a bunch of protruding testicles and vaginas. To me it really reflects of level of adolescent immaturity as well as a fundamental lack of understanding that the true horror of the mythos comes from what is left unexplained. Frankly, my mind can fill in far more horrific images of alien impregnation than being assaulted by a big mound of genitals. This sounds like nothing more than an adolescent attempt at shock value rather than handling the matter in a mature and literary fashion. However, in today's age of sexploitation there's really nothing shocking about it at all, so why do they bother?