D&D General Cthulhu by Torchlight Brings Mythos To D&D

Dungeons & Dragons 5E lead designer Mike Mearls' latest project combines his current and former employers--on D&D Beyond you can now access a digital exclusive product from Chaosium which brings the Cthulhu Mythos to D&D 5th Edition.

The supplement is called Cthulhu by Torchlight and includes subclasses, feats, and spells designed for 5E.

Cthulhu by Torchlight adds a new subclass to each of the character classes in the new Player’s Handbook, along with over two dozen Mythos-themed spells, a new background, and new Origin feats. For DMs, it holds over 20 horrid monsters of the Cthulhu Mythos. Rules for Passions and Dreadful Insights amplify roleplaying by putting mechanics behind your characters’ personality, while the skill challenge rules provide a framework for investigation, interaction, and other non-combat encounters.

 

[Weiley31]

It's a polymorph effect that you gain at 3rd level. You can still cast warlock pact spells while in the form. At higher levels, you can do classic cat stuff like distract people by being adorable or vex them by... just being a cat, really. I write that as someone who lives with four of them.

The idea is to make a stealthy warlock who can sneak into places or wander around town unnoticed. I see the character as someone who might take down cults in secret, gathering information on them and doing just enough to disrupt their plans.

Head Cultist: And thus, we call upon thee, the Crawling Chaos, oh Wearer of a Thousand Masks, our Dark Wanderer. Exalted Black Pharaoh; Come forth oh glorious Nytharl-
The Warlock interrupting at the last sec

Head Cultist: *SKEEEEED ITS SO

Warlock proceeds to slowly push Summoning Stone off the table

Head Cultist:

Warlock staring vexingly at the Head Cultist: Yippiee-kai yay-unintelligable cat meow-

An absolute catastrophe happens as the Summoning Stone falls off, smashes on the ground, and all the Eldritch energy goes chaotic as the cultists are being consumed by the backlash. During all this, the Warlock just cat strolls out of the exploding Cultist hideout , with the main chorus part of "Tragedy" by the Bee Gees playing in the background.


Oh yeah....I can see the vision.

 

[Weiley31]

Im not gonna lie: I may just do DND beyond for once just to gain access to it. Can ya download this or purchase it and it's yours? I don't beyond much.

 

[Dire Bare]

Im not gonna lie: I may just do DND beyond for once just to gain access to it. Can ya download this or purchase it and it's yours? I don't beyond much.

The digital format on D&D Beyond is a web format, you cannot download a copy. You can, of course, jump through some hoops to convert the webpages into another file type, but DDB doesn't support that natively.

Like all digital purchases, you are purchasing a license to the content, you do not "own" it. If DDB gets canceled in the future, so do all of your purchases.

Personally, I'm cool with the way DDB is set up, use it a lot, and plan to purchase this book. Others are not fans of how digital books like this work, at least not on DDB.

 

[Nathaniel Lee]

I dont mind it being on Beyond - but its literally sorted directly with the 1st party stuff, sandwiched between the Bigby and Eberron books in the list. Its confusing to casual players to differentiate.

I've had players show up with random crap because "It's on DNDbeyond" in the past, and the more they add the more of a problem that will become.

Where do you see this? In the character creation workflow? When I look at the Sources page, it's clearly in the Partnered Content section.

 

[wicked cool]

I like it

 

[MGibster]

Man, I have very strong opinions on the d20 Call of Cthulhu. Strong enough that I'll probably keep them to myself. But it was both one of my favorite gaming books of all time, and yet also really disappointing in its inability in many ways to live up to its promise. I just re-read it again for the first time in quite a while earlier this year.

I have strong opinions on d20 Call of Cthulhu as well. It was a surprisingly good adaptation of CoC to the d20 system and a fantastic introduction to Cthulhu for a lot of people who otherwise might never had given the game a chance. And I'm someone who largely looks back at the d20 era as having containing a whole lot of bad adaptations and garbage (though there were some gems).

This announcement brought to mind d20 Cthulhu, partly because it included some ideas for incorporating the big tentacled one into D&D. I think there's a place in the Mythos for a Barbarian to pull Nyarlaythotep's tongue out and wrap it around his head.

 

[Selas]

Just swiped. I love Sandy Petersen Cthulhu Mythos, so more Cthulhu is always welcome. Here's hoping it does well so we can have more. Now let's see what I can incorporate in my current campaign...

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Im not gonna lie: I may just do DND beyond for once just to gain access to it. Can ya download this or purchase it and it's yours? I don't beyond much.

All the content lives on the D&D Beyond website, but you have access to content you've purchased forever*, with or without a subscription.

* Well, until the site goes away or ownership changes or there's an edition change or something (see: 3E, 4E digital content).

 

[Chais Lord]

I’m reminded of this old gem:
View attachment 412255
d20 was probably a bad system for Call of Cthulhu, but the introductory adventures that came in this book were excellent, and playing through them remains among my fondest gaming memories.

This product does seem like kind of the inverse, though.

This is the best and still used to this day !

 

[EthanSental]

Purchased, thanks Mike as I have some new reading for the night!