Magic in Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos Stories

[haiiro]

Lovecraft obviously made very little use of magic in his Cthulhu Mythos stories. If any CoC gamemasters want to model their games' magic system after pure Lovecraftian Cthulhu Mythos, I suggest using only the above spells, and even then only rarely.

I can appreciate where you're coming from, but I find your underlying approach too restrictive. One of my favorite aspects of Lovecraft's fiction is that many stories have more subtle ties to the Mythos -- and narrowing it down to only those stories that are chock full of core Mythos references doesn't make a whole let of sense to me.

VorpalBunny mentions Pickman's Model, and I think that's a perfect example of a story that falls outside your definition but well within the Mythos. It brings forward elements that are central to the theme and tone of HPL's body of work, as well as planting the seed for an important recurring group (the ghouls). It doesn't contain many Mythos elements, but it's still firmly a part of the same world -- and particularly from a CoC GM's standpoint, it's full of good ideas.

 

[BryonD]

I'd also recommend only allowing spells written by Gary Gygax in your D&D games if you really want to get the feel down right.

 

[Desdichado]

There's no such thing as a HPL Cthulhu Mythos -- it's an artifact created after the fact. HPL played in other peoples' playgrounds, just as folks like August Derleth played in his. Restricting all this to just him is artificial and arbitrary.

 

[Aaron2]

There's no such thing as a HPL Cthulhu Mythos -- it's an artifact created after the fact. HPL played in other peoples' playgrounds, just as folks like August Derleth played in his. Restricting all this to just him is artificial and arbitrary.

I have to second this notion. I've never seen anything to indicate that HPL deliberately segregated his Cthulhu stories from all his others, or that he considered his world distinct from those used by REH et. al.

Only using that list of spells is like playing a Star Wars game but only letting the players visit the nine (or so) planets that were actually mentioned in the movies.


Aaron

 

[Geoffrey]

Lovecraft obviously made very little use of magic in his Cthulhu Mythos stories. If any CoC gamemasters want to model their games' magic system after pure Lovecraftian Cthulhu Mythos, I suggest using only the above spells, and even then only rarely.

I want to emphasize the above words. I'm only saying that IF you want to model your game's magic after pure Lovecraft Mythos, THEN restrict yourself to the spells I have listed. If not, fine by me.

I personally like a minimum of magic spells in my games. Here are three things that illustrate my preference:

1. The older editions of the Call of Cthulhu RPG had two spell listings. The first was a very short list (called "The Greater Grimoire") based only on those spells in Lovecraft and his major disciples. The second was a much longer list (called "The Lesser Grimoire") of spells created by gamers. The CoC rulebook itself suggested using mostly Greater Grimoire spells and not too many Lesser Grimoire spells. I like that suggestion.

2. http://www.visi.com/~thornley/david/rpg/dndimpact.html

3. On page 99 of Dragon Magazine #307, George R. R. Martin said these wise words: "I have strong feelings about magic; I feel it's misused in most fantasy. To a certain extent I went back to Tolkien and looked at what he did, because I still think he's done it better than anyone...The bad fantasy treats wizards and other supernatural creatures almost like super heroes. They're flying around, they have powers, they have magic this and magic that. Gandalf and Saruman, their power is knowledge. They know things. They know history. They know lore. They know ancient truth that other people have forgotten, but you don't see them doing a lot of on-stage magic. By keeping magic subtle, by keeping it off-stage, by not telling you a lot about it, I think it becomes more powerful."

In short, I like my Mythos wizards to be long on blasphemous lore and short on spells. I like my Mythos wizards to have powerful, monstrous allies, rather than the wizards being powerful in and of themselves.

YMMV.

 

[Wombat]

Lovecraft himself always maintained that all his stories, no matter how loosely so, were connected and related to each other, forming a common mythological thread. It was based in this and similar statements that we ended up with the August Derleth lunacy of assigning Cthulhu as a Water-god (even though it is imprisoned underwater...).

More importantly for this discussion, however, this means that all of Lovecrafts stories, including the Dream stories, would have to be included in such a discussion if we were to follow Lovecraft's intent.

OTOH, as stated before, I believe that CoC does a very poor job of modelling Lovecraftian literature as a game.

 

[Desdichado]

3. On page 99 of Dragon Magazine #307, George R. R. Martin said these wise words: "I have strong feelings about magic; I feel it's misused in most fantasy. To a certain extent I went back to Tolkien and looked at what he did, because I still think he's done it better than anyone...The bad fantasy treats wizards and other supernatural creatures almost like super heroes. They're flying around, they have powers, they have magic this and magic that. Gandalf and Saruman, their power is knowledge. They know things. They know history. They know lore. They know ancient truth that other people have forgotten, but you don't see them doing a lot of on-stage magic. By keeping magic subtle, by keeping it off-stage, by not telling you a lot about it, I think it becomes more powerful."

In short, I like my Mythos wizards to be long on blasphemous lore and short on spells. I like my Mythos wizards to have powerful, monstrous allies, rather than the wizards being powerful in and of themselves.

YMMV.

Good advice, and I agree completely with everything he said. However, even without your limitations, you still get that anyway in this game. Learning spells is a sanity cracking task. You don't go around learning and casting spells at the drop of a hat, even if you make spells available that don't necessarily happen to resemble something Lovecraft wrote in one of the half dozen or so stories that you picked as "acceptable."

I know you're not saying I should play this way, I just really don't understand why you think you should. I'm not trying to argue, just figure out where you're coming from.

 

[Geoffrey]

Joshua, it all started when I stumbled upon this great resource:

http://www.kreative.net/smith/pages/dru/hpl/hpl_list.html

If you scroll almost all the way down that page, you will find a listing of the rites/spells occuring in Lovecraft's work. I was amazed at how short the list was, especially when comparing it with the list of spells in the CoC game. After doing some sifting, I came to the conclusions reached in my opening post. I think pondering the list of spells given in Dru Smith's website might open up new ways of experiencing/exploring the CoC game.

 

[Mangrum]

Lovecraft himself always maintained that all his stories, no matter how loosely so, were connected and related to each other, forming a common mythological thread. It was based in this and similar statements that we ended up with the August Derleth lunacy of assigning Cthulhu as a Water-god (even though it is imprisoned underwater...).

Do you happen to have a source for that? I ask because it's very nearly the opposite of everything else I've ever read about him. Namely that, other than a few mentions of an "Arkham cycle" in his correspondance, it was Derleth who created the notion of a cohesive "Cthulhu Muthos," after the fact.

 

[Mangrum]

Lovecraft himself always maintained that all his stories, no matter how loosely so, were connected and related to each other, forming a common mythological thread. It was based in this and similar statements that we ended up with the August Derleth lunacy of assigning Cthulhu as a Water-god (even though it is imprisoned underwater...).

Do you happen to have a source for that? I ask because it's very nearly the opposite of everything else I've ever read about him. Namely that, other than a few mentions of an "Arkham cycle" in HPL's correspondence, it was Derleth who created the notion of a cohesive "Cthulhu Muthos," after the fact.