Old Man Henerson

Time to send in X-COM. We will have no shoggoth beach parties on our planet!

That is a cool way of looking at mythology. It would also suggest that humanity is a bit stronger than H.P.L give sus credit for as some of these heroes even manage to best the gods themselves. I actually think that plots where "the stars are right" are way more cool than the standard setting of fighting cultists and monsters in the 1920s. Once the mythos has descended upon the world, you can make up any cool apocalyptic setting you desire. Whether it be tribes of humans scrounging to survive in the shadow of the gods, rebuilding the human race with magic and ancient super science while Connan the Barbarian defends civilization, or in my case, human warriors with mech suits from Mars fighting to liberate the Eath from Evil.

Don't worry, I am way ahead of you. I have seen through the lies of Google and embraced the Duckside of the net. Combined with free add blockers and vpns from Opera and the anonymous Swiss Email accounts of Protonmail, the Duck side of the net is a pathway to many searches that some consider to be untraceable.

I read The Night Land a while ago and was Immediately hooked on it. On the spot I began to plan a campaign using the Big Golden Book as a base. The vibro axe in the book is practically a discos already. There was a website some where that had monster stats in D&D5thE and CoC terms somewhere, just look up gaming in The Night Land. As for Cthulhu never invading, both the book and the campaign I am working on run on a premise like that. The game being more of a post apocalypse world where the mythos rules and the players have to use their mech suits to help the resistance fight back, while the book is about near future superheros fighting against the return of the mythos.

First off, Who or what is Camazotz? I have only ever heard that name come from A Winkle in Time, and that was a planet's name. Anyways, that was a good lovecraftian description of the justice league. Second off, you are right. It really does take away from the mythos when you try to rationalize it or adapt it to other settings. In the end, Lovecraft is just not my sort of thing, although I do enjoy his weird monsters and I do try to emulate some of the cosmic fear they produce in my books and games, just not to the extent that the heroes drop dead upon seeing them. To each his own however!

An ACME sales representative will be with you shortly... In the meantime, can we interest you in some classic red rockets and anvils?

A quick search on the internet shows that warp drive als Star Trek is theoretically possible. You just have to make sure that you don't fall for the confusion like the rest of the internet has by calling the impossible drive warp drive, they are two completely different things. It has also been theorized that the quantum entertainment principle like Einstein was talking about could be used to make a communications system that would allow you to talk to some one on the other side of the universe, without any delays or garbleing. Cool stuff really.

Yeah. I think the whole sanity thing has been blown out of proportion since the entire genre has been based on how an already unstable H.P. Lovecraft viewed things that most of us would quickly get over like aliens, quantum physics, or even a neighbor from a foreign country as cosmically horrifying.

It would either be really interesting or mind shatteringly ugly. Anyways, I think that seeing a deep one in any circumstance would be scary or terrifying but not enough to break your mind. It would be like seeing bigfoot, and no matter how scary big foot is, no one lost their minds over it.

To paraphrase Jeff Boldblum, "The market finds a way." Basically, if the need arises for such an organization, someone will see a business opportunity and step in, regardless of legality. It could be black market types, pirates offering "protection," concerned citizens forming a militia, or ,dare I say it, rebel scum wishing to speed up the end of the kleptocracy. As for how the Empire should react, that would depend on how much control the have over a planet. If The PCs start out on some backwater or lawless planet, the Empire would likely not care, (either due to corruption or seeing the PCs and their organization as irrelevant) or they would be unable to do anything about them since their influence over this world is so weak. The closer you get to the capital world, however, the more the Empire will begin to take notice of the PCs and their organization. At this point, they would either have no tolerance for the PCs attempt to userp their power and try to exterminate them, or demand they pay a high B&O tax, have a government official work closely with them, and make constant reports on their activities to ensure they are following government mandates. For good real life examples of a corrupt kleptocracy that likes to get into everyone's business and is now starting to decline from internal corruption, go check out the Chinese Communist Party or the Soviet Union during the latter years. Hope this helps.

Glad I could help. Tom has always been one of my favorite characters in the book. It is a shame he never made it into the movies. I need to fully read through the books my self, last time I only made it through the battle of Helm's Deep. Hope you enjoy your read through.

Oof, that is some heavy SAN loss right there. Well, at least it is good to see Mat Pat discussing something worthwhile again instead of bashing Mario.

Times must truely be desperate for Tom Bombadil to be out freight hopping.

That sounds like a good way to run it. I have not read the book in a while, but it does sound sort of like the fate point system included in the book. A mechanic where you can build up and use luck sounds like a neet way to play the game. You are also right, you would need to increase the luck score, though since luck is derived to the POW score, you might need to make two different rolls.

I thought the title was a good idea. I imagine running a campaign around this guy, or even the exploits of the Dos Equis man himself, would be quite the hilarious adventure.

Ha Ha! I can just see it now, a cult full of Shaggies "Hey dude, you want to, like, summon Cthulhu man?" Granted, if Dread Lord Shaggy wants to summon Cthulhu, it can mean nothing good for the beloved Old One. That is a cool idea though. it would be very fun to go toe to toe with this group. Imagine if you were some kind of tactical anti-mythos force and you almost lost the world to a bunch of stoners. What a "creative" idea for a cult, ha ha. That is one of the more interesting cults I have actually heard of for this game. The only down side for the game would be that it might be fairly easy for the PCs to defeat since tactics usually requires a bit of creative thinking. Thanks for the ideas. The game I am working on now is a mostly science fiction/post apocalypse Campaign, so some of it might make in to the game in weird and unusual ways.

How do they handle luck in CoC? The only experience I have with it is from the Big Golden Book. Yeah. What draws my interest is the cool science fiction and cosmic monster aspect of the mythos, horror and nihilism is just not my thing. Terrible Writing Advice on YouTube, sums up my thoughts about the mythos quite well. When dealing with Cosmic Horror entities, both in my book and the game I am working on, I much prefer the tone set by the Lord of The Rings movies. The world is coming to an end, yet the characters still have hope, and will march out to meet the unending hoards of evil regardless of the cosmic odds stacked against them. As for my cultists, there are three, or technically four, groups that the PCs will be dealing with. The first group is The Golden Order, based in the Golden Empire in what once was Eastern Asia. They are followers of Malgud, The Golden Emperor, (my version of the King in Yellow) and are a very strict and ritualistic cult. They are often very bureaucratic, and must follow all a dizzying array of formal codes and laws set up by the Emperor when they do their work. When they are not being tied down by their own red tape, they are quite brutal to any who oppose them or their god. If you can outmaneuver them in their laws and codes however, you can easily send them into confusion and weakness. Next is The Black Star, who live in The Land of the Black Sun and serve Dux, The Black Pharaoh. (My version of Nyarlathotep) They are an order of very cunning and cruel, much like their god, they prefer to taunt their enemies and subjects by letting them think they are succeeding only to crush them with overwhelming force at the right moment. Their rites and rituals to get in are brutal and terrifying, only the strongest are able to make it through. Once they do however, they get to live with unimaginable wealth, power, and decadence, making them a little too haughty and overconfident in their power. tricking them or doing the unexpected can cause them to start acting rashly and erratically, giving enemies the perfect opportunity to rout them. Finally, there is The Sea Devils. The vile and insane followers of Gorgalor, Dark Lord of The Green Seas. (My version of Cthulhu) Like their god, they hate all beautiful things, and do everything in their power to spread their master's dark spell of corruption to the world. Through dark and cosmic powers, they turn the sees into slimy green waters and the islands into swampy and moldy wastes. Their greatest power given to them however, is to transform and mutate people into human-fish hybrids known as the Culga. They greatly enjoy tormenting their enemies and subjects, and fight with reckless abandon when the go to war with humans tribes who resist them from their island fortresses. What they fear the most however, much like their lord, is those who do not fear them. Anyone who's will proves too strong for their magics, even if they are a child, fills them with terror, and should that person use the powers of light, they they can easily be routed. The technical fourth cultist group is the grey aliens. Who have followed the mother of these gods, Dalmd-Ka the eldritch planet eating abomination, from planet to planet to worship her. For eons, the greys have served as servitors and scouts for the planet eater, finding suitable planets to devour. it was their scouts who found the Earth in the ancient past and set up a satellite to watch over the Earth until it's life force was ripe. They are fanatically devoted to Dalmd-Ka and consider any affront or resistance to her utter blasphemy. They view all other beings as potential food for their god, and have no qualms with dissecting and killing these "lesser beings." Their technology and psychic powers are quite advanced and they use them always with deadly proficiency, but they are quite fearful due to their fragile nature and any aggressive shows of force or power are enough to send them fleeing. That is it for my cultist groups. This actually inspired me more than I though, I had actually not put much effort into the cults yet. So all this new material will help me a lot. Thank you. I hope you enjoyed the ideas, most of the low levels members of these groups are medieval in their tech level, but the higher up members posses wired alien technologies from the greys and the beings known as The Artificers. They also posses mobile tripod walkers and eldritch versions of Symbeotes like Venom which act like a kind of mech for them to fight the players with, who will also be armed with mechs. I have a little more info on the story of my game over in this thread here.