1d8+DB

You might find some inspiration in the discussion of 'The Occult in Colonial America': https://youtu.be/MRK66pRXr44. This 'Esoterica' channel is a great source for CoC Keepers.

How did it go? Can't offer any advice for managing a table that large, I can't even get two players to a game anymore. Logistically it sounds difficult, especially in a modern setting, with the group splitting, and then the sub-groups sub-splitting; yet still 'linked' by their smart-phones.

So one thing that occurs to me, is that Humakti are probably very specific in what oaths they give for this reason. It's probably a bad thing if a Humakt is forced to return to the Mundane plane, as a spirit, to simply protect some individual, for an indefinite period of time; they might return to enact a select act of vengeance against a personal foe, or to avenge a friend or leader's death, but I think the cult would frown upon the idea of long-term 'ghost' body-guards. Delekti on the other hand...

So in the 'Duel At Dangerford' scenario there's something called an Arkati Shadow Guardian, which is the ghost of a Humakt hero who acts as a kind of incorporeal referee at a sacred dueling ground; making sure that the fights there are kept strictly mano-a-mano. So yeah, there's an established precedent for Humakt ghosts; probably attached to sacred tests, trials, and ordeals; as judges and arbiters, I would imagine.

So I'm about 50% of the way through reading the classic 'Beyond the Mountains of Madness', and there's a geographical detail that 's threatening me with a SAN test. Now, I do realize that the whole idea of a titanic mountain range (two in parallel actually) through the center of the Antarctic continent is a physical impossibility; and is obviously an intrusion of some other reality. It's also quite possible I've misread what the campaign is actually trying to layout, which I've done before. It's also been a few years since I read the original source novelette, so I'm not sure how much of this is actually present in the original source. And 'mild' spoiler alert, I don't believe this has much to do with how the campaign plays out, and is more of background detail than anything else, but I'll include spoiler tags.

So 'Manifest Destiny' vs. 'Imperialism' vs. 'Corporation' vs. 'Pod People'. Sounds like a lot of conflict. Dare I say ' there is-- Only Conflict'. Want to be careful I don't incur the wrath of the IP lawyers of a certain other gaming franchise.

I kinda like the idea of some eccentric inventor trying to baby some balky and temperamental piece of equipment across the Gobi desert and the Himalayas. "Sand! This blasted sand! No matter what I do I always keep finding sand in the valves of the thaumic relays!" Mystic/psychics, from some suitably 'Eastern' theosophical school or movement would thematically work as well, as been pointed out above.

RPG maestro Seth Skorkowsky discusses 0ne-on-one gaming: One-On-One TTRPG. There's also a variant of Trail of Cthulhu, 'Cthulhu Confidential', that's designed exclusively for 0ne-on-one play.

I pretty much like the idea used in Delta Green/The Laundry Files that 'magic' is just math, or 'hyper-geometry'. Cannonically HPL kinda hints at this in 'The Dreams in the Witch-House'. Ritual and incantation are just a kind of debased equation that manipulates space and time in some fundamental fashion. Outside of CoC I suppose we could see a parallel with 'sorcery' in Elric/Stormbringer and RQ.

I seem to recall an episode in the ToC campaign 'Eternal Lies' that takes place in Mexico City. Just checked my tome, and I remembered correctly.

"It was inhuman...blasphemous...aberrant...it was...communist!"

I would say that's mainly a story/plot point than anything that's going to have a lot of mechanical effect within a typical session. I guess it could come into play during character creation; if your starting character is 200+ years old, she's going to have a helluva lot of points to distribute among skills.

So has anyone tried porting some OSR games (Old School Renaissance)(though I prefer to think of them as minimalist RPGs), like Mork Borg, Neverland, or Ultraviolet Grassland to BRP or a BRP derived system? I love the idiosnycratic settings and the simple, parsed down systems; though I think over time the fact that the systems are so simple that game-play might start to get monotonous.

Perhaps this is an issue that should be addressed by how the GM runs the campaign and encounters; if you have a noble among some peasants, make sure to have a good part of the game take place out in a desolate rural region, where the noble would be completely helpless and dependent upon the peasants for his/her every need. The idea being that every character gets, at least at one point, a stage suited to their profession/career to 'strut their stuff'. Otherwise I guess you could handle out extra 'Free Points' to players who take 'Disadvantaged' professions/careers.

So there's a Latvian movie, '(The) Baltic Tribes' that's available on Prime that might be of interest to anyone looking for inspiration/setting guidance for either CoC 'Dark Ages' or 'RuneQuest' (or the 'Crusaders of the Amber Coast' for BRP). It's a kind of 'cinematic documentary' that follows a Danish trader through the pagan lands of the Prussians and Balts during the early 13th century. There's no dialogue per see, just someone reading the trader's first-person account, interspersed with with a narrator providing a kind of historical back-ground overview: and its not likely that anyone is going to get too invested in the narrative. But you might pick up a few details that you could use in your own games (such as the the trader's guide, after he saves the traders party from hostile tribes-people by leading them through sacred woods, atoning for his violation of taboo by cutting off his hair, short hair indicating someone who occupies servile status).

It was an interesting game. Modern settings, particularly militaristic ones, are difficult to do properly. Typically they bog down under massive layers of crunch (and this is from someone who tried to tried to run a 'Living Steel' game once). 'The Company' might have been a little too 'light'; though I started writing a scenario for it (a kind of mash-up with the basic premise meeting sword and sorcery), I never actually got around to running a game so I'm not sure how things would've come out on the table.

And now that I possess Da Vinci's genius I can figure what the deal is with my microphone pickup.

As I've got the CoC (7th ed.) PDF up; a Natural World skill test for both avoiding, and escaping, quicksand, and other boggy perils? In the latter instance, the skill informs your actions so you 'don't' do the wrong thing; struggling and flailing in the quick mud. Its almost more of a intellectual than a physical trap; you have to overcome your natural instincts.

Regrettably the only physical copies of 'The Eleven Lights' are in Australia.

I'm onboard.

That would be a cool scene, if done with decent CGI; Cthulhu coalescing his body from sea-water, raising from the sea-foam like one of those 'black snake' fireworks.

Yeah, just twenty feet out from where the guy with the flare is standing there must be one hell of a drop-off.

Hmm. The GenCon website has a start time of of 2:00 PM.

Way back in the day there was a 'Nocturnals' supplement for 1E Mutants and Masterminds. There's also of course a 'Hellboy' source-book for GURPS. I had some ideas for some Lovecraft inspired superheroes: 'Kid Shoggoth', 'The Color', and 'Richie Pickman and his pet Tomb-Hound'. 'From their secret vaults beneath the Mikastonic University Library come 'The Cosmic Outsiders', to do battle with with unspeakable evil!'

I'm playing with the idea of attending.