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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8359928" data-attributes="member: 82106">I think it would be perfectly acceptable to write a story in which the Deep Ones have a complex, albeit extremely alien, culture. Its fine that they are malevolent in their outlook towards humans, or at least look at us as somewhat of a "sub-Deep One-race." In fact you could definitely PLAY WITH THAT, drawing an analogy between them and historical colonizers and racists IRL (it need not be explicit either). You could then approach the hybrids as a group which suffers bias from both sides (and again there could be interesting parallels here with real history). Now, what the hybrids attitudes towards humans is, etc. could go a few ways, but I would expect there are redeeming features and potentially sympathetic characters there.Well, I have not read that LR, but I HAVE read (in case my handle leaves much doubt) everything ever written by HPL which is still extant, including the published letters and other material, as well as everything written by the people whom he corresponded with (again subject to it having been in print any time since the mid 20th Century at least). That would include REH, Clark Ashton Smith, etc. I've read, I believe, the vast majority of what HPL ghost wrote, though it is actually hard to know the full scope of that for sure. I have not read McNaughton nor Emrys AFAIK, though I have read quite a few modern Cthulhu story type collections, so its possible I just don't remember them.I am really not saying that you cannot have a Deep One or Hybrid in a game without confronting everything racist that might be taken for. I would just say that you would want to signal that such tropes are not to be relied upon as the basis of all the facts in play. I'm no genius on what everyone out there is going to find acceptable. I just think when you decide to use HPL-based material at all, you have to reckon with the fact that he was an amazingly, appallingly racist person, and it taints all his work. Honestly, one option would be to simply not bring Mythos material into it at all. HPL doesn't have a lock on Cosmic Horror.</blockquote>

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