Using IH/Grim Tales for medieval fantasy games using the Cthulhu Mythos and styles

[HeapThaumaturgist]

HOW to do Cthulhu with Grim Tales?

It's pretty much already there, in the book. There's horror save mechanics, which scale up and down depending on how horrible you want horrible to be, with different "settings" so to speak. A complete section on what happens when and how you fail those saves, including a reasonably (for a game) complete section of real-world psychological complications and their in-game effects, and some suggestions for not-so-real psychological complications if that is your flavor as well.

The monsters are not included, of course, but there's a huge section on BUILDING monsters and balancing them as well as how to put together encounters, which would let you take, say, pre-generated monsters from 3rd party sources and change them up cthulhu style: "We'll take a troll, give it a confusion gaze, some tentacles ..."

Rules for medieval style characters are presented in the book, as well as rules for weapon stat creation, though I'd just as much suggest using the SRD for things like that.

The Talent and Feat selections for characters range all over the place. The magic system is simple, but costly, and easy enough to tie the sanity mechanic of the game into if that's what you'd like.

Grim Tales is very much about opening the hood of d20 gaming and doing what you want. Ben was very good, I think, about providing suggestions on how to tune things to do different styles and genres. You're neither left blowing in the wind, nor tied to a specific style of play with no help in bringing the rules to another genre.

As to IH, I don't have that book, but I would assume you'll have to find other sources for things like sanity, if you want to use it, and the like. So there might be more work there, along with more books to purchase and the like, to get things where you want them.

--fje

 

[Turanil]

I am asking how you think it can be done with IH or GT.

I don't know IH, but I do know Grim Tales. I think that the main problem would be as pertains to spellcasting. You would have to adjust a few things. Now, I would do GT + d20CoC; I would see the D&D level equivalents given to these spells, and would use that for spell-burn damage. I would forget about sanity loss for spellcasting, as it would become a headache to have this fit with GT's horror system.

 

[rowport]

If you do decide to use both IH and GT as part of your game, just be careful to keep your sources for classes consistent. While the rules should be reasonably portable one-to-another (e.g. sanity rules, etc.) the classes are *not* balanced to each other- the IH classes are *much* more powerful.

As other posters have suggested, if you want a 'classic' Call of Cthulu game where the characters are pawns of the Old Ones, using the GT classes will work better; if you want a Conan-esque game where your broadsword hits a tentacle-head as well as a tavern merchant, go with the IH classes.

The game idea sounds fun to me either way!

 

[Odhanan]

If you do decide to use both IH and GT as part of your game, just be careful to keep your sources for classes consistent. While the rules should be reasonably portable one-to-another (e.g. sanity rules, etc.) the classes are *not* balanced to each other- the IH classes are *much* more powerful.

It isn't my intention to be frank, even though I could see something similar to my tabletop campaign at the moment. See, I run a D&D/AE campaign, and plan on introducing IH parts in this campaign by using flashbacks into a period of the setting in which magical things were rare and the exercise of arcane arts was punishable by death. Which would allow me to use IH and AE in the same campaign but kept apart of each other for representing different time frames.

What about this kind of twist for IH and GT? A Grim Tales game with all the grim and gritty approach to medieval fantasy, dark cult investigation and so on, and then flashbacks to a more mythological era of the world where players would use IH characters and rules?

 

[JohnSnow]

There's already a fantasy model (2 actually) for campaigns in the Iron Heroes meets Call of Cthulu model. See, H.P. Lovecraft used to correspond with a couple of sword and sorcery writers. Both of them contributed to the "Cthulu Mythos" that Lovecraft was the genesis of. They involved swordsmen confronting eldritch horrors with nothing but steel and their amazing abilities.

One of them was a pseudo-historical fiction writer from Texas who used his correspondence with Lovecraft to morph into a sword & sorcery writer. His name was Robert E. Howard, and his Lovecraftian Hero...was Conan.

The other was a pulp magazine writer who decided that good things come in pairs. And so his hero(es) were a couple of aspiring thieves who just happened to be "the greatest swordsmen in the universe." That writer was Fritz Leiber and his creations were Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.

Cthulian Sword & Sorcery.

And very few people would claim that Iron Heroes is a bad fit for modelling tales about either Conan or Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. Some would, of course.

With Grim Tales, you're going to be closer to the Chaosium Call of Cthulu style. But there's nothing that says you have to be an ordinary schmoe to confront the horrors of the Elder Gods. Just bear in mind that even Conan can't take them on directly.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

Here's an idea for doing both at the same time... could do even Modern and Fantasy ...

The Dreamlands.

They came up in one or ... two times in Lovecraft's fiction. The lands some of the creatures retreated to, where the people of Leng are, and the spiders, etc.

I'm honestly drawing a blank, it's been a while since I read any of the stories, but the dreamlands seem to be permanently stuck in the age of swords and SERIOUSLY odd magic (I.E. not human controlled, for the most part).

You could do a dual-layer campaign with GT characters investigating things who then get alter dream-egos thrust into the dreamlands who have to perform certain things in pre-history.

--fje

 

[Turanil]

You could do a dual-layer campaign with GT characters investigating things who then get alter dream-egos thrust into the dreamlands who have to perform certain things in pre-history.

That sounds great IMO.

 

[Odhanan]

Actually, references about the Dreamlands are numerous in Lovecraft's work and his circle of correspondants. Here's a list of the materials where references are found within Lovecraft's body of work:

"Polaris" (1918)
"Beyond the Wall of Sleep" (1919)
"The Doom That Came to Sarnath" (1919)
"The White Ship" (1919)
"The Cats of Ulthar" (1920)
"Celephaïs" (1920)
"The Other Gods" (1921)
"Hypnos" (1922)
"The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath" (1926)
"The Silver Key" (1926)
"The Strange High House in the Mist" (1926)
"Through the Gates of the Silver Key" (1932)

The whole dreamlands idea is excellent. "You could do a dual-layer campaign with GT characters investigating things who then get alter dream-egos thrust into the dreamlands who have to perform certain things in pre-history." ~ I particularly like this. Did I say that my actual D&D campaign right now is Arcana Evolved based? Think of the implications Akashic Memory - Dreamlands - dual-layer campaign. That would be really neat!