EricW

22 hours ago, Richard S. said:

If they're strong in harmony then I doubt they'd be drawn to Eurmal in the first place. Donadar is the choice for harmonious illusionists already. A strong Harmony affinity in a trickster would have to be something that emerged during play imo.

Not true, my personal contribution to trickster lore is Eurmal’s harmony.

When cast, everyone in the meeting talks over everyone else and eventually leaves happy, utterly convinced all the other participants are in complete agreement with whatever they said.

There is no rune the trickster cannot mock ;-).

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Then, whispered Castro, those first men formed the cult around small idols which the Great Ones shewed them; idols brought in dim aeras from dark stars. That cult would never die till the stars came right again, and the secret priests would take great Cthulhu from His tomb to revive His subjects and resume His rule of earth. The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom. Meanwhile the cult, by appropriate rites, must keep alive the memory of those ancient ways and shadow forth the prophecy of their return.

I don't think the mythos beings care in the slightest about human politics, and most mythos sorcerers probably don't care that much either, they simply take what they want. When humans are ready to be an easy meal mythos entities might show more of an interest, but meanwhile there are plenty of other corners of the universe to party. Cthulhu found early 1900s Earth so uninteresting he simply went back to sleep, unless you believe the protagonist's theory that a god who once ruled the entire Earth was silly enough to be accidentally trapped by his own chamber.

Don’t assume when you pay you get what you paid for. Hiring people, making sure they do what they are supposed to, is demanding. Even well intentioned people sometimes go off track.

Cthulhu cultists not only have bad intentions, they have magic which can cloud people’s judgement. The money is useful to their conspiracy. Your PC would be a primary target for their malice.

That Arkham asylum is about to become a writhing chamber of horrors, plenty of people try to warn your PC, but every time your PC visits, everything is in perfect order. That wall decoration and lobby statue are actually something else. But your PC sees what the cultists want them to see. But maybe if they reach out and touch the disguised items, they need to roll a SAN check.

I don't think there is any need to follow a rigid set of rule if you are a trickster! Eurmal worshippers get into plenty of trouble, and draw plenty of money down on the party, just by being themselves - and by abusing all that interesting magic their god provides.

For example, an Eurmali would never consider working hard to earn money, they'd rob someone, or defraud some passing lunar, perhaps using trickster's fabulous lie spell. What happens next? Does the victim notice this scruffy nobody suddenly has a lot of money? What happens when the fabulous magic crystal turns out to be a lump of riverstone? Will the party help their friend, when the lunar guards come to arrest them? How about if the trickster suddenly turns cornered rat brave, and abruptly kills a couple of lunars using trickster's strike spell. Now the party is really in trouble. 

Makes you wonder why someone would want a trickster in their party - except they're also fabulously useful, because they've got access to lie spells, strike spells, and other interesting magic.

On 3/2/2020 at 6:04 PM, Trotyl said:

Hi Eric,

My first question is a bit more strait-forward, when fully following the Rulebook, but not using the Multiple Sanity rolls optional rule, should the SAN check points be (1/1d10 only) or (1/1d10 + 0/1d6) when seeing both the Dagon as well as other deep ones at the same scene?

I'd suggest just rolling for the worst horror on display. Adding up all the san loss for all the different horrors implies seeing a few 10s of different minor horrors is worse than seeing Azathoth, which seems unlikely. Perhaps seeing an infestation is worse than just seeing one horror, but you could also argue the thought "maybe there's more than one of them!" is part of the "see single horror" san loss. Even a single san roll can be brutal, I don't think there is a need to make it worse.

God learners surely mostly were illuminates after Arkat’s empire was destroyed, they would have seen illumination as a useful tool to manage spirits of reprisal.

I think the main effect of illumination is liberation from conscience. An illuminate believes all their choices are justified, no matter how horrible the consequences, they never wonder if what they did was wrong, except with regard to whether their action achieved the desired outcome.

Seems pretty monstrous to me.

The Soviets did an experiment with foxes, to see how many generations it would take to produce a domestic fox from wild stock. Happened very quickly.

In Africa hunters frequently bring home young animals as toys, after the mothers are slaughtered for food. The young animals are usually killed or driven off if they live long enough to become vicious. But given how quickly the Soviet experiment produced results, a tribe would not have to do this for very long before they acquired a group of semi-tame animals which could tolerate humans enough not to have to be driven away or killed.

Dogs and cats are absolutely vital if you don’t want to be overrun by vermin - a constant risk here in the tropics. Forget hunting, I think the first job humans ever gave dogs was stopping rats and other scavengers from invading the campsite.

My understanding is this curse needs an item which belongs to the caster which is "consumed" by the casting. But you could extend this a little and say the item is consumed slowly over the course of the curse. Then breaking the curse becomes obvious - you need to locate and retrieve the personal item to break the spell.

12 hours ago, Darius West said:

I don't think it is a terrible game mechanic, but it does rather let the players off.  On the other hand, players don't get let off much, so maybe this isn't the worst rule, balance-wise.

I have always played that if you have creatures of the same class in a group, you take base SAN damage for the number of critters.  In the example above I would say that for seeing Deep Ones, the maximum SAN loss is 6, but there are 3 of them, hence the SAN loss for them is 3-6 (1d4+2) not 1d6 as it would be for seeing 1 critter.  If there were 6 deep ones, you would take a base 6 SAN, but no more for the next one.  You might raise it for seeing what appears to be endless deep ones to 1d6+6, for a huge crowded cave of them.  As Dagon is demonstrably a different order of magnitude, he requires a separate SAN check, even though he is basically just another deep one, albeit larger than the others, but he is a demigod, and his presence would be felt differently.

Given the fact that opening that door and seeing all this is likely to send the characters screaming off the deep end, you might want to give them a chance to hear the awful inhuman chanting, and find a different way to approach the problem.  You seldom lose more than 1d3 for even the worst sounds.  Blindness can be an advantage for keeping your SAN in CoC, but unless you are Zatoichi, you will be crap in a fight.

I understand the intent, my concern is if you apply the rule you are more likely to lose significant san looking at half a dozen deep ones than looking at Dagon.

Even you 2 + d4 the odds aren’t as bad as best of 3D6.

Probability is tricky, best of dice rolls tilt probability far more radically than most people appreciate. Even total chaos can take on an appearance of order if it is repeated often enough, in the right way.

“As Far as my Feet will Carry me”, about a German POW who escapes by walking all the way from East Cape to Turkey, provides a very different perspective on Soviet society which might be relevant to a CoC scenario.

The German protagonist has to stay on the fringes of society to survive - one serious identity check and he’s a dead man.

And those fringes, especially in tribal areas in the far north, where he spends a lot of time, are very thin indeed.

The historical veracity of the story has been challenged - but if you want some background material, the connection to Siberian shaman or whatever, well worth a read.

Note there is also a movie but I haven’t seen it.

The Red Emperor could probably commission such a suit. And who knows what Nysalor’s otherworldly cloak was made of.

I think the problem is the maker might be an illuminate, but the armour itself would not be illuminated, so you could expect a lot of “rust” where different pieces of metal were in contact. Making an inanimate object illuminated, so all the different metals played nicely with each other - maybe a god like Nysalor could do it.

I don’t like this rule, if you take the best of 3 1d6 you have a 43% chance of a 6, and a 70% chance of a 5 or 6.

Rolling a 1d10 once you only have a 60% chance of rolling 5 or above.

While there should be a penalty for seeing more than one horror at once, I think a high probability of max san loss from rolling multiple dice and taking the highest number is poor game mechanics.

Seeing half a dozen deep ones should not be worse than seeing Dagon.

8 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

Arkat was a once in all of History hero.  Arkat also left and joined a gazillion cults.  Doesn't mean that a typical PC can.

This is the exception that proves the rule.  If it requires an Arkat to bring Humakti and ZZ together, clearly, they very very rarely go together 

I think a pact not to kill each other until all the chaos worshipping vampires in the local nest have been staked and burned is plausible. 

Arkat had Humakti and ZZ in the same group. I think say a quest to clean out a major nest of vampires would unite Humakt and ZZ, though you would expect a fair bit of friction, unless the leader was powerful and determined enough to keep everyone in line.

Lawrence of Arabia, at least the film version, stopped strife between hostile clans by personally executing one of his best friends, after his friend committed a vendetta murder. He united people who hated each other by providing irrefutable proof that he cared more about the quest than his personal needs.

If you want to be especially cruel you could arrange for the PCs to encounter a harmless looking and friendly old Miskatonic professor who specialises in ancient witch lore, who offers help and encouragement with their esoteric studies, and who strongly suggests they read the book, to see if there are hidden clues which might lead to other conspiracies. A professor they might come to rely on in the future for advice.

Nyarlathotep always encourages humans to learn more about the mythos.

Argarath quite explicitly learned forbidden secrets from dead god learners, and "was more god than man" by the time he returned from his sea quest, so its no  surprise he had the power to incorporate draconic elements in his quest to defeat the Lunars.

4 hours ago, ColoradoCthulhu said:

Follow-up on what happened after showing the player the two above spells. The Investigator decided not to study either one as they are too risky.

 

Wise choice. I was about to suggest finding another grimoire full of terrifying spells, if you are going to have a couple of tempting yet terrifying overpowered spells, why not provide more temptation? 😉

58 minutes ago, Jon Hunter said:

to my mind the big issues isn't why the lunar would change sides, but why the Orlanthi would trust him.

Some ideas,

• he is a prisoner awaiting ransom, who is an Honorable man who has earned there trust and given some degree of freedom
• he is kin and therefore can't be slain out of hand
• he has a skill or knowledge they need that means they have to keep him a round

I think an Orlanthi party questing to find a way to heal their kin provides the best cover.

From "Orlanth is Dead":

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A generation of noble hostages taken as children has re- turned from the Heartlands to resume their lives among the clans. They bring with them foreign gods and ways, and a heart-felt devotion to the Lunar Way. They are called dirt- shines by those who dislike them. Generous trade concessions and new lands have been granted to compliant clans, while the rebellious face heavy taxes and the loss of territory. The old bonds and loyalties between allies have been weakened, and it is sometimes difficult to tell friend from foe.

What if one of these damaged "dirt-shines", the only son of the village leader, decides they don't want to be an illuminated chaos worshipper anymore, and desperately wants to find their way back to their Orlanthi roots and the untroubled love of their kin? The high priest of the tribe has a vision - "Follow the path of Orlanth", so the illuminate is accepted for initiation into Orlanth - even though everyone knows they are an illuminate. Then tribe outfits a party of adventurers, and they all swear a solemn oath to liberate their kinsman from the corruption of the chaos moon, and in doing so discover a path to redemption for all the stolen kin who have been harmed by evil.

Not an easy quest, you could have a lot of fun with this - kind of like Logans Run set in Glorantha. There would be experimental heroquesting, grave peril for other party members as they learn more about the true nature of the moon and illumination, the constant risk of being discovered, Lunar agents who get wind of what is happening, and who see the quest as an opportunity to crush all hope for redemption, an encounter with Arkat, surreal encounters with wyrmsfriend magic, desperate revolutionaries willing to do anything to defeat the chaos moon, even embrace chaos, temptations to use the dark side to solve terrifying problems they encounter along the way, an unsettling discovery during "Orlanth is dead" that the illuminate still has access to the power of Orlanth, an encounter with an insane band of chaotic Uraini beserkers who used to be storm bulls, and who still think they follow the bull, but who now kill random innocents when triggered by their broken "sense chaos" skill, loads of strange encounters which force party members to question everything they believe, pretty much anything could happen.

Is sanity lost because the Deep Ones look like a horrible mockery of the human form? Or is the sanity loss due to the sudden understanding of the awful implications of the existence of such a species?

If say Deep ones turned up to a halloween party or fancy dress party, would everyone scream and take damage to their sanity, or would the other party guests compliment the Deep Ones on their awesome costumes?

5 hours ago, metcalph said:

The EWF did not act like a ponzi scheme.  A ponzi scheme collpases of its own accord.  The EWF took several knocks and still kept on fighting until internal enemies destroyed it from within.  The EWF was massively unequal (moreso than many bronze age civilizations) but that is not the definition of a ponzi or pyramid scheme.

 

Hmm. Maybe more like a chain letter then - give me power to sign up, and when you get enough converts you can become powerful as well, by sharing their power.

if people at the bottom were happy with their personal progress they probably would not have rebelled. The chain letter failed when the supply of new recruits faltered.

One thing I found fascinating about EWF is how it acted like a Ponzi scheme; early converts got the lions share of the magic, people on the ground floor got pain and suffering, with no real hope of advancement.

I wonder how this differs from dragonewts; maybe dragonewt nests they share the magic, rather than jealously guarding their gains.

Is it possible to heroquest, to contact and receive power from gods in forms which have not experienced some godtime events?

So could a heroquester bring the cult of Orlanth the murderer into time, premier owner of death?

Or Eurmal the destroyer, from before the LBQ, the chaos god who stole death again and again, to wreak his malice and destruction by giving this power to yet another god? 

Or the fertility goddess Malia, from before she joined the unholy trio?

4 hours ago, davecake said:

I agree. I like the idea from HQG that the Lunars can sometimes substitute their Moon Rune for another Rune, and I'd like to see the same power sometimes in RQG. This is only 'faking' the power, and it should always (for example) follow the Lunar cycle, but still useful because it lets them cast a Lunar version of magic usually associated with other powers. 

I don't think that this is at all easily or convenient for truly foreign magics (I don't think the Lunars can ever integrate Orlanth) but is something they might use to get access to the magic of the many and varied magic that has been integrated, such as all the previous incarnations of the goddess. 

 

Orlanth myths are vulnerable, Lokamayadon usurped a portion of Orlanth's power in the first age, which allowed him to simultaneously appear in all the Orlanth temples and demand they worship him instead. In the third age, the Lunars caused the windstop with a magical attack on Orlanth. 

Give them a point of mythos every time they use such powerful spells. The external manifestation of the spell says nothing about the internal mechanics. Maybe during "return thee to safety", Nyarlathotep appears and carries them personally through impossible dimensions, while whispering horrible advice in their ear. Maybe during the transformation into a crow they sense all the other possible forms they could transform into. Sanity loss for the people who see their friend suddenly vanish or transform. Cue hearing strange flute like notes in the night. A mythos point might even encourage them to use the spell.