RogerDee

For Cthulhu Mythos done Moorcock style, a lot of the groundwork is already there. Most CoC books, including the latest Malleus Monstrorum tends to depict the Mythos more as advanced aliens or gods of one cosmos - this is a generalisation obviously. And also looking at a multiverse cosmology map, for CoC / Moorcock I found the Doctor Who the most useful. https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/doctor-who-feats-and-source-thread.298198/ Click on the spoiler. For the higher beings (other gods) I would be more inclined to imagine them like the Q Continuum from Star trek, take on any form, possess vast cosmic (magic powers) etc. As to Great Old Ones & Elder gods I would look more to Secrets of the Void here to be honest. That way it has a more cosmic aspect, instead of the we're treading on the ant humans because they are in our way; it is now more a case of them sending lesser avatars when summoned which can be dealt with by humanity. Pyrary - Perhaps it is a cousin to Cthulhu, just not such a A-Hole.

Use the 7e rules that allow players to get used to certain things. Seen a few Deep Ones? Seen one, seen them all. Encountering them costs no more sanity.

Glad I mentioned this then, I will snag this today methinks 😀😀

Hi all, i was looking on drivethru today and came across this. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/324775/APOCTHULHU-RPG-Core-Rules Has anyone got this yet? What were your thoughts etc?

I will only agree to that if we include Mythos Lore: Evil Bastards Honey Badgers

That is why I prefer Pulp Cthulhu, far more fun. Lol

Never saw the point in that to be honest. Playing the victim gets really old, real fast. It is okay now, and again, but long term boring AF.

Just have a Mythos: Lore (General) skill, then have another one: Mythos: Lore (Old Ones), Mythos: Lore (Aliens) etc. Is that what you had in mind? So if someone read a book on Mythos Lore (Abhumans) they would only get mythos knowledge related to them, and whatever may have been detailed without dealings without outside agencies, e.g. skirmishes with Migo, or whatever. But it would be very limited knowledge.

This bit is easy to get around, use Pulp Cthulhu, players are essentially Indiana Jones - punching Deep Ones in the face then running them over. Plus if you want a multiverse spanning CoC / Million Spheres type adventure - and I did mention this years ago. But Cthulhu does not need to be same beast in every universe. In some he would be a space alien, in others more akin to a god (Into the Void), but when all is said and done, in a full Million spheres adventure, he is from a higher dimension, and could easily be Pyray's brother. For each different set of timelines, have magic work in a particular way - so in CoC use Grand Grimoire, they could into Runequest then use their magic. But if players ever learn sorcery - the ability to control the energies of the multiverse that trumps everything. But you may need to devise some caveats on that. Edit: In fact you could have a set on timelines for each D100 product, each time the Mythos is reflected through a different lens. It would allow you to present both the Mythos, and the Higher beings in a different light every single time.

Thanks for that, it is brilliant. To be honest, there doesn't need to be Great Old Ones, but as we're looking at Lovecraft through an Aquelarre lens, so we're kind of looking at utterly inhuman angels like we see in the OT.

Before I start this, as this is Aqurlarre inspired we are technically talking active religions, so to anyone who is actively worshipping this is not meant to offend. With that said (in the words of Khan), Let us begin. I am currently reading through this and not only am I pleasantly surprised, but also how easily you could run a Lovecraft type rpg through the Aquelarre lens. There are so many angels statted up, many of whom would be Earth's feeble gods. Plus it has exactly the right feel to run a Robin of Sherwood campaign too. The setting is perfect, and so too is the magic. The angels in Aquelarre also bear a lot of power similarities to the angels seen in the BGB, certainly power wise. Plus many OT angels were extremely Lovecraftian anyway, something the Hellboy films certainly picked up on. It would be so easy to incorporate the Elohim from Val Du Loup, and make them the incorporeal 'angels', then any of those on Earth are now corporeal with lesser powers. Seeking to influence the world for various reasons. Or make Jehovah a Great One - it does state in Horrors how many if them look Olympian / Roman. Then have said Great One create a bunch of lesser beings to serve it. Thoughts?

You are right about film Highlander, unless you make it some alternate universe, kind of why, as we all know, the series continued and called the film a Mini-Gathering or something. Then we have contradiction between book, film and series. In the former immortals were covered in scars Oliver Queen style; film was implied to heal from all wounds, and in the series we know that body parts do not grow back. But yeah, millennia old immortals would outclass all other swordsman, which is okay, and I guess this was shown in H4 with both Macleods soundly trashing half a dozen others without effort. In fact there was a reasonable Highlander rpg called Legacy or something. I personally love crossovers, but there needs to be internal consistency, and make sense. For instance in Man from Earth, it makes a convert dig at highlander, when he states that they cannot sense each other or know if someone else is immortal (had to lol when i heard it). On the Amber front, I re-wrote a lot of the powers and currently working on a combined setting of Lords of Gossamer, Amber and Lords of Olympus. But then I looked upon Amberites as being similar to Lords of Order and Chaos from DC or Moorcock. Shapeshifting to take on different forms (Q-style), Shadow to manipulate reality shadows. Then I kind of crossed this over with Torg - Reality Raiders / Stormers start with Gossamer Manipulation Matter, Creatures, then Reality. As to historical characters, yeah, there has to be some caveats - no mass murderers, so no playing a reformed Hitler, or stupid shit like that. Even someone like Alexander the Great would be off limits (or so far in the past), unless you know the group will not mind or be offended and the character can role play some of the experiences in the correct way. Shifting to current time, e.g. Rome, might not be a bad shout - but you would have to assume they manage to learn Latin reasonably quickly. As to powerful beings, that is why i am thinking B5 - in Trek they can be too powerful or overbearing, but in B5 that is less the case. When you look at Lorien he could easily have been one of the Buddhas, and it is hinted, that one of the First Ones may be been Jesus - he mentions that love being eternal is one of the greatest illusions mankind has ever received. So from a Call of Cthulhu standpoint it works quite well, but they cannot appear too often. Encountering a First One should be a finale for rp in any time period such that the characters could even say that they haven't seen anything like Big boss in nearly five hundred years. It adds context, and gives them cause for reflection on where they want to advance in future.

Highlander is just problematical to be honest, like we agree and makes it difficult. Working together, various mechanics is too much headache. On a side note, I did start writing a story, it would have been a crossover (B5, Highlander and Trek) where an immortal was on Vulca chopping wood, only to encounter a Vorlon where they had a rather heated conversation. Never did finish it. It was why I wanted to go Man of Earth type idea, players have no reason to kill one another, and the fact that historical figures could be alive today is super cool. In Holocene Man John actually says that Buddha was not actually vegetarian, but hated the idea of animals suffering. But yeah some bits, maths especially would carry over, but a lot of the science would not. But the tech level modifier is a good idea though. I'll have to think on how to apply to it....... I will leave it open for players to choose whether to be historical figures or not - but hey, who would refuse lol On the Atlantis survivors, i did think of that, but it is too much like Armageddon from Classic Unisystem, and to be honest I would be tempted to use that instead of D100, but something I have to create from the ground up invests me in what I am doing. As to flashy magic, and not being known in modern day. Same reason to keep their immortality secret - who wants to be locked in a lab, or have their physical body bolted to a chair that they cannot escape from? Plus I could include Delta Green to ensure they get sufficient warning on that score. On the McGuffin front, honestly I did consider stealing something from Hawkmoon, as i am sure there was a device for it. So not a bad idea, certainly do not want players travelling willy-nilly, that would be a pain. Plus having others attempt to steal it, and perhaps it end up destroyed would be a good way I guess. On the monsters, I am just itching to try out the new Malleus Monstrorum to be honest, and that all the deities only have avatars statted up. Leaving it open for others to be lesser or greater powers. Plus I look at in the same way no human in B5 could fight a Vorlon unleashed (except maybe Jason Ironheart after changing). Kosh was literally capable to destroying B5 all by his lonesome. But i could easily use the Elohim from Val-Du-Loup as a species of elder gods, that created the Nephilim (Engineers from Aliens), which would allow me to mix stuff in, if i wanted. Usually the best thing i have found, is to hint at inclusion, but leave it open.

I am actually quite looking froward to doing this over the next few months, or so. If I did do Highlander, it would be closer to the series. Those seen in the film are too powerful. But it would be with a twist, the elder gods obliterated an Old One, body, and soul - the latter of which shattered, spread across the Earth, in space and time. The shards are embedded in humans, creating immortals. Now the reason they seek to battle, is to unite and form the old one again. Trouble is it would require some form of beheading quickening mechanic, and I cannot be overly bothered. So as to immortality, I was thinking more Man of Earth (and the sequel Holocene man), both are utterly amazing films and well worth a watch. Man of Earth was written by Bixby on his deathbed, this was the same guy who wrote TOS Methuseleh episode, and would work quite well here I think. In fact a big selling point to my players will be that they can take on the roles of characters from history, in the same way that Flint did in Star Trek, Alexander the Great, Brahms, Mozart, Da Vinci etc. Anything to do with religious characters / individuals would be verboten, naturally - as in Man from Earth, John had literally studied with Buddha, and also then become Jesus. But he did 'forget' thinks in the sense, that the knowledge was still there, it was not until he talked about it that it came to the fore. Thing is, the players must fulfil the prerequisites to be said character. So a player cannot suddenly decide in the 15th Century to start tinkering - it must be thing they have been doing centuries prior to that. So they would need Mechanics around 90%, Gadgeteer at 90%+, as well as having Art at at least 99%. Tough prerequisites, but fair. In the same that Flint had science beyond the Federation when Kirk met him. EDIT: However, science skills will have to repurchased once we reach the 19th Century (unless they have been pushing the forefront inbetween), in the same way that we have learned more, and that spirits no longer carry infection etc. Most secondary school children would know more science, or chemistry than a lot in the 16th century with their rather outdated knowledge. To a greater or lesser extent, I want the players to excel in various ways. So a tinkerer that becomes Da Vinci might be experimenting with small rockets in the 17th Century, and by 19th century might be landing rockets on the Moon, or Mars, and by the 21st century may well have invented warp drive, or some other superluminal method. I am okay with that. In the same way that if a player wanted to go the martial route, they could be a cross between Pai Mei and Iron Fist (MCU tv), both are powerful but can be dealt with in sufficient numbers or weaponry (kind of why Danny Rand hid behind cover when guns were used). Sure immortality would kind of prevent perma-death through gunfire, most of the time. In a similar way, if a player wanted to go a Doctor Strange route, that is fine. I would be removing the sanity mechanic for most spells, and same too for any kind of permanent attribute loss. They can be diminished over time, but will fully recover. To quote Qui-Gonn, there is always a bigger fish. On a side note, and world building tangent, it is also my idea that the feeble Earth gods, are also immortals from a bygone Era - likely from Atlantis or Mu. In the same way I'll be making the people of K'n-yan some kind of humans seeking enlightenment, and yes they will living in Shambhala. In all cases they have likely found various kinds of magic over the years, but can only advance so far, or not want to attract the notice of various extra-terrestrial incorporeal intelligences. On the magic front, although using Grand Grimoire, I also want players, even those without magical inclinations, to be able to learn snippets. So in this regard i will stealing from Lords of Gossamer, and also Classic Fantasy here with regard to this. Cantrips: Simple, can only do limited stuff, like Light, Repair, that kind of thing. Spells: Can be from any arcana. Arcana: Fire, Water, etc. But it is subject to shaping mechanics, which can result in costly expenditure. I may also split magic up, in the sense that D100 has published multiple different casting methods over it's lifetime, something i will be incorporating. It will keep things interesting. On top of this, is also the Grand Grimoire for more mythos related spells. On another fun side note, what i may well do is move the players backwards or even forward in time too. So for example, a player may well find themselves by in Hyperborea, encountering Conan. I may steal from some of the rpg's, but will, not be beholden to canon (too many people have read the books). So there will be some semblances, but a lot of differences. Maybe even have their character get drunk in a 1920's bar, and accidentally spill some of their tale to a Rob E Howard who will then go on to write the books. As to the Old Ones and their ilk, for this I will likely go a Babylon 5 / Star Trek type approach, in that they are hyper advanced aliens. But like any other mythos adventure, they cannot encounter it all the time. In fact humans can just as evil, if not more so, in that they know what they are doing but do it anyway. Whereas a hyper advanced alien may not even view us as being sentient, under their criteria.

Are there any updates on this yet?

I was just thinking about Pendragon, then another idea occurred to me, I could also run an arc in Robin of Sherwood too. To be honest this is very much inspired by the Old Guard film (& Highlander to some extent), if anyone has seen it on Netflix?

I have 7e Invictus, and the updated Dark ages.

Darn it, that is one game I do not have. Any others?

They will be travelling through time sequentially, although there will be time skips - obviously. The eras are only important in that there is stuff written for them, and have material that I can use to create a story arc for the players to use. And yeah it will be used to illustrate immortality and they have lived in different times and places. The players are just human immortals - although the mechanics, or rather the template, is still work-in-progress. To be honest my only worry was insanity-, but then being immortal would involve a certain of insanity by default - whether it is losing lovers, children (whether they can have them or not is undecided, or adopted), and their children's children will all die of age, illness or mishap. But then even insanity is relative to someone like an immortal - they could literally be a basking weaving nutcase for a decade or two, but will eventually get better. There could even be a certain amount of immunity to the mythos, just through exposure - something hinted at in the 7e rules.

Thanks, but that is not what I am after. I am after Str X can lift weight A etc. I know it was in one of the books, but now I am looking for it I cannot find the darn thing. lol

Okay so essentially my idea is that the characters are immortals travelling through the ages. The first time period would be obviously be Rome, likely followed by the Dark Ages.

Is there a lifting chart anywhere in one of the books somewhere? If so, what page?

What kind of archetypes would work do you think?

I have both of the above actually. But would you create new Cinematic / Pulp templates or just use the ones from Pulp?

Hi Folks, If you were to run one in Rome using Pulp Cthulhu as a base - would you just use the Archetypes etc in there or make your own for an RP set in Rome? Just cannot decide how much work to put in at the moment, so your thoughts and ideas would be appreciated.