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SunlessNick

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Everything posted by SunlessNick

  1. Also if Lovecraft's real in the setting, that implies his first-person-narrator characters are not real (there's no reason any of them - let alone all of them - would go to someone like him to publish their accounts), and you have to figure out what that means for the events of those stories.
  2. Don't do it - any secret society that becomes synonymous with secret societites is a rubbish secret society!
  3. Do you mean your players want to read Lovecraft's stories, or your players want to have their Investigators read them? If you're concerned about the former, don't be - it'll stoke enthusiasm for the game, and it won't take any impact away from your scenarios. If you're concerned about the latter, then Lovecraft may not even exist (his stories are canonically written by other people in the setting).
  4. I think Weird Science would be a tonal clash with the campaign's big set pieces. The Investigators will have no access to the kind of resources a weird scientist would need to have access to, and long periods of travel through difficult terriain will make carrying them around unfeasible. I'd very much recommend not including it. Psychic powers could work, especially if interpreted though a Buddhist lens (which they will get plenty of opportunity to do, via Tenzin Kalsang. This could either be a way to tie the Investigators into the metaphysics they're dealng with, or:
  5. There's been a positive storm of them showing up on drivethru the last couple of days.
  6. Sacraments of Evil for me. It's never been released in pdf that I've seen.
  7. Oh, sorry, I meant Dagon's promise in the original might have been a metaphor. Your post made it clear the Hittites meant that kind of thing literally.
  8. It might also have been a metaphor - it's one we still use now after all (it wouldn't be remarkable to hear a sports team say they're going to eat their opponents alive or something like that, and we wouldn't take it literally if we did).
  9. That sounds great. Is there an ETA for general release?
  10. IIIUC Rivers of London is about relatively low-key magic that the protagonist has to incorporate with their other talents and strategies (obviously con-artistry in John's case), and features a protagonist with a foot or hand in several different worlds - occult, mundane, police/criminal - which sometimes requires them to stretch their metaphorical limbs to an uncomfortable degree. If the game captures that, it will work well for the real Hellblazer or its adaptations. (I don't actually think Constantine is as bad an adaptation as it's often made out to be, though that might be because of the cataclysmically low expectations I had for it. It did amuse me that All His Engines came out at much the same time as the film, where John is in Los Angeles and part of the pressure is that it's not his town the way London is. I will give the film credit for the best vision of Hell ever set to screen)
  11. The Mesopotamian Dagon - along with the legend of Oannes - is the reason I headcanon that there are deep ones who worship Shub Niggurath, Yidhra, or Nyarlathotep rather than Cthulhu.
  12. I agree with what @Ferretz said about the setting seeming like a character. Regarding disturning content, a lot of th story revolves around tantric practices, some of which are pretty antinomian. This can be toned up or down, but some encounters are very visceral. The middle stages can feel like the Investigators are sidekicks of the NPC Ferretz mentioned. That feeling is deceptive, but may persist for some time before the players realise that, so it remains a weakness. The NPC in question believes the Investigators have been prophecied to help him, and has some pretty compelling evidence of it. One thing that I was to be a huge weak point as I was reading it turned out not to be, although to reveal what would be an enormous spoiler. Seriously do not read the spoiler text if you intend to play: The campaign is mostly drawn from the folklore of Western China, Central Asia, Northern India, and Tibet, and seems (to me) to be very grounded and well researched in those contexts. Ancient history plays a big part in the atmosphere. There's little Mythos content - some suggestions are made on how to tie the central aspects of the story to Mythos forces, but I think it would be easier to strip the remaining Mythos elements out and run it as a fully folkloric campaign. (My preference tends to be that the Cthulhu Mythos should be the only mythos in a setting, rather than bolted onto something else, so at some point I would like to try both options). The focus on geography is intense. There's enough setting material to run other games set in the same places. Also, it's not just white people tramping around Asia. The pregen Investigators include three white (one British, one American, and one Russian) and three Asian (two Chinese and one Indian, Kashmiri IIRC), and most opportunities for replacements will come from the peoples of India. I recommend it wholeheartedly.
  13. I have been, though it's been stalled for several weeks because of the absence of a player. I've been using my own scenarios rather than the published ones, but a couple of maxims I think are good advice: 1. Shamelessly namedrop. The early chapters give you a lot of places and names important to the Renaissance - incorporate them, even if only fleetingly. Relatedly, be generous with giving the Investigators contacts. 2. Let the Investigators see the after effects of their victories. If they save someone, have an encounter later on where they see that person doing well. The Harlem Renaissance was about black people building themselves a community on their own terms - let the Investigators contribute to that. 3. On the flip side, have the occasional scenario with the evils of this world - racism, crime, and so on.
  14. The upcoming Rivers of London game sounds like it would be ideal for this.
  15. I haven't seen anything of it, but the reviews and ratings on the drivethru page are pretty glowing.
  16. This is related to something I was about to say, which is that a modern day Masks-level campaign should devote its effort to using modern tools and circumstancs rather than negating them. Travel is an obvious one - it's comparatively easy to globetrot these days, which means it's much easier to make a globetrotting campaign urgently time sensitive - so do that. On the other hand, it's harder to travel covertly, which means Investigators can't so easily skip out on one location to avoid their pursuers. Communications likewise - rather than contort the plot to disable cellphone (or at least rather than do it very often), design the plot so that Investigators need them - or have good reasons to ditch them, such as not being tracked. And then remember that the cultists have them too - which can let them communicate, or maybe let them be tracked if the Investigators have the resources for that. The internet gives you vast amounts of both information and misinformation. And in the end, the Mythos is about superior science at least as much as magic - monsters and gods are ahead of humanity's curve when it comes to technology. "Why don't they call the authorities" is the constant question of modern horror scenarios - partly the answer is that it's the players' job to come up with Investigators who will dig into strange situations - but maybe sometimes let doing so help - in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, Dr Willet managed some investigation that might have got him killed if Joseph Curwen hadn't been locked up. Or a campaign could be set somewhere where the authorities aren't associated with safety (if you're black or homeless, that can be America). If the cultists aren't technically committing crimes, that can make the authorities redundant too.
  17. It'll be a few days before I can get it, but I will be getting it.
  18. You could always interpret it as "Two elder signs? You're gonna need them now."
  19. I'd certainly be wary of using my laptop if the Colour out of Space started showing up in the font colour palette.
  20. This is a great idea. Make it contemporary to when Ramsey Campbell wrote most of his mythos fiction.
  21. How does Arkham now compare to other modern products? I wouldn't expect Lovecraft's core setting vs a modern extrapolation of it to be very telling when it came to Twenties vs modern in general.
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