Nephanor

Want to add some flavor to your "Idea Rolls" when adventurers are stuck? Why not try, THE MAD PROPHET! What is the Mad Prophet? The Mad Prophet is a person in your world who has a decent level in Cthulhu Mythos skill, but has a low sanity in which to express it. They tend to get the IDEA of what is going on right, but mess up the details. What do you mean? Well, let's take an example. Deep Ones. One of the most well known creatures, and most of us understand them from an ecological standpoint. They are fish people, most of which who came from transforming from people. But the Mad Prophet may get it all mixed up and rant about them dumping garbage in the fishing waters that turns the fish human. "I don't like 'em putting chemicals in the water that turn the freaking fish human!" Or how about Mi-go? They could think the government is making monster mosquitos that make your brain melt. Okay, but how can this improve idea rolls? Well, simple. If they are in a tough spot, have the Mad Prophet say something about the current situation cryptically so as to give them a hint, without actually telling them the answer. A way to nudge them in the right direction. When they make the idea roll, (but call it something else, maybe even use a listen roll) they hear the prophet saying something. Maybe they are on a street corner ranting or maybe telling conspiracies on a radio show. How will the players even know of this Mad Prophet? Simple, have some flavor some time where after an adventure, the Mad Prophet can be heard describing their last adventure's resolution, but in their usual garbled way. This way the PCs will learn of this character, and know that they know something is going on, but may not know everything. But can't the players abuse this? That's why it is very important to come up with other things for the Mad Prophet to talk about. Maybe some local politician is into something shady, but not actually related to the adventure. Maybe they are talking trade deals, or businesses. This way you have some other things that the Mad Prophet can rant about that won't give the players any information. Make it clear this way to the players that while this character DOES know things, they ARE lacking on sanity, so it's harder to get the knowledge out of them. And if the character isn't always present (they are on different street corners, or their radio show is not on 24/7 obviously) they know they can't rely on them. Just have this character as an OPTION so that if you need to, and the players do get stuck, they can be there to nudge them. What Other uses can the Mad Prophet have? Well, besides giving hints, and possibly acting as SOME recognition of what the players do, they could also act as fore shadowing. Maybe you are getting geared up to take your players through The Two Headed Serpent, so he could start talking about lizard people controlling our government to sacrifice us all for an endless supply of rats, or how that snake medical company is actually experimenting on poor people and turning them into monsters. Also, the Mad Prophet is good for adding a little color to your world, making it seem more alive. Sample Mad Prophet Alexei Jonovich STR 60 DEX 40 INT 60 CON 50 APP 40 POW 70 SIZ 70 EDU 75 Sanity: 35 HP: 12 MP: 14 Move Rate: 7 Damage Bonus +1d4 Skills: Cthulhu Mythos: 40 Dodge: 30 Drive Auto: 20 History: 30 Languages: Russian: 70 Languages: English: 30 Fighting: Brawl: 40 Library Use: 35 Intimidate: 25 Listen: 45 Occult: 20 Persuade: 50 Spot Hidden: 30 Stealth: 40 Art/Craft: Orator: 60 Firearms: Rifle: 30 Alexei is a poor immigrant from Russia, having l come to America when he was a child, it is all he knows. His parents still taught him Russian, but he picked up a small amount of English as he was growing up from the area, but still isn't perfect in it. He has been exposed to much in the Mythos from eavesdropping on his family, who were investigators, but didn't quite understand what he was hearing. When he grew up, he ran into a few things of his own, and never quite recovered from it mentally. He will drop into rants about how monsters are trying to destroy this country he so loves, but will sometimes slip into speaking in Russian and be hard to understand. A family friend who works at a local radio station heard this and offered him a job to go into these rants to entertain people, as he found the crazy conspiracy theories quite amusing, and Alexei was always good at public speaking and persuading people. It soon became a very popular show, and he regularly rants about government plots and monsters to the delight of the audience who doesn't realize just how much of what he talks about is actually real...

Not looking at global weather change, but local. They are JUST looking to change the island of the Serpent People, Mu. This way the cold can disable any serpent people there long enough for the Nazis to get in and steal what they can. After all, being cold blooded, the icy winds Ithaqua will bring will put them into hibernation. I haven't, don't have any of the stuff yet, as they never made a print version of their 7e conversion. Asked them to make a POD version available, so maybe they will. And will check out that review, thanks!

Inspiration hit me while in the shower. So my idea is Nazis are in Canada because they know that the serpent people will not follow them there. The cold keeps them at bay. They are coming here to summon some sort of ice creature so they can use it to invade the serpent people's Island and steal their technology. Is there such creature in the Mythos? (EdIt: Duh, Ithaqua and Wendigo. Glad I got Cold Warning already. RESEARCH TIME!) If not, maybe they are developing an ice ray based on something stolen from some site like is Antarctica. The fun with this idea is that you have two evil groups, and if you stop one, the other may win.

I had toyed with the idea Serpent folks were involved, that maybe the nazis discovered them and that they had once ruled the Earth, and that the Atlantis they thought existed and that Aryan's were descendants of, was actually the Serpent People's home, and not the home of "superior humans" But maybe they want to steal some of the power of these serpent people, or maybe they are being manipulated by the serpent people to go after something themselves. Of course, as mentioned, the nazi ideology probably would be less intact from contact with the mythos... Yeah, that had crossed my mind, going along the idea of how Red Skull stopped caring about the nazi ideals and just wanted power once he found the extent of what was really out there. And that's kinda what I was thinking that they decided to focus on gaining power, and using that to push their agenda. And I kinda wanna avoid dual factions when dealing with serpent people issues again, as I really don't want to get too close to the Two Headed Serpent. Although I do like the idea of some kind of hybrid, it does seem to be against the nazi ideal of the ubermensch. I can see them doing more to steal from them than trying to breed better. Maybe use hybrids as foot soldiers, but not for the ruling class. Part of the reason I chose northern Canada as a place for this was that I wanted something a serpent person would never go to, being cold. But what would be there in terms of monsters? Why would they be going there? Is it some ancient serpent person outpost that has become inaccessible due to changing climate? An outpost of one of their enemies? That's what I am stuck at now.

This idea came to me after watching Hellsing Ultimate Abridged again (absolutely hilarious, I highly recommend) and thinking about the original Hellboy movie. I did a little little research into the Achtung! Cthulhu setting and I was thinking, what kind of fun could we have if the Thule Society from the Third Reich actually survived and got away with a nasty tome or two, and was still active, using the mythos to enact their plans and decided modern times was when they were going to make their move. Perhaps the stars were just right, or maybe something else was needed. And instead of the usual grand and huge schemes taking place in some major capital city, of some major player in the geopolitical world, what if it was a small town somewhere. Of course, most people might think somewhere in "Lovecraft country" New England, but I was thinking somewhere else, like a small town in say northern Canada. The last kind of place you would expect Nazis to show up. Now, I have a lot of ideas for this, but I am curious to see what other people would expect to see, and maybe farm out some ideas to flesh out the adventure a little more. The biggest issue I am running into is I just can't decide whether it's Mi-Go feeding the Nazis information to see what they will do, and experimenting on those they use, or if the Nazis have actually contacted some ancient god and have gone mad from what they have seen, and are part of that god's greater design, or if they just are dealing with smaller monsters, and controlling them to bring about a fourth reich.