Lovecraftian Aquelarre

[RogerDee]

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?

 

Edited August 9, 2020 by RogerDee

[Alabak2002]

Even when the Core book is a mastodontic book, there are lots of things that had to be left for later

Among the other books already published in Spanish, one (Daemonolatreia) expands the lore of Aquelarre, greatly detailing the angelic and demonic ranks, their inner works, hierarchy and how humans relate to them, adding a new skill, Demonology.

Other book (Ars Malefica) covers the "old ways" that run apart of judeochristian tradition, like preroman beliefs. There you have pagan gods, mythic creatures, witchcraft and sorcery that rival the powers of Hell

And then, there is Bestiarium Hispaniae, a 280 pages book with 120 new creatures from spanish tradition, more than able to fill any empty space remaining

Perhaps there's not such a thing as an Old One in Aquelarre, but since we are tralking about a game where an ill-treated dog bite could get you to the grave, all these monsters and ancient powers should suffice to get you entertained

[RogerDee]

On 8/13/2020 at 11:09 AM, Alabak2002 said:

Perhaps there's not such a thing as an Old One in Aquelarre, but since we are tralking about a game where an ill-treated dog bite could get you to the grave, all these monsters and ancient powers should suffice to get you entertained

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.

 

Edited August 14, 2020 by RogerDee

[ThornPlutonius]

On 8/13/2020 at 5:09 AM, Alabak2002 said:

Even when the Core book is a mastodontic book, there are lots of things that had to be left for later

Among the other books already published in Spanish, one (Daemonolatreia) expands the lore of Aquelarre, greatly detailing the angelic and demonic ranks, their inner works, hierarchy and how humans relate to them, adding a new skill, Demonology.

Other book (Ars Malefica) covers the "old ways" that run apart of judeochristian tradition, like preroman beliefs. There you have pagan gods, mythic creatures, witchcraft and sorcery that rival the powers of Hell

And then, there is Bestiarium Hispaniae, a 280 pages book with 120 new creatures from spanish tradition, more than able to fill any empty space remaining

Perhaps there's not such a thing as an Old One in Aquelarre, but since we are tralking about a game where an ill-treated dog bite could get you to the grave, all these monsters and ancient powers should suffice to get you entertained

I hope those books make it into English some day.  I know about Google Translate.  I just want to read them in my native language without the "on the fly" translation that will then require editing and translating into actual English.  Oh!  What might have been had not one particular man passed away.

[rsanford]

We might get English translations... A read through Aquelarra shows it’s clearly a gem and close enough to BRP to be in the same family. I will be promoting it and hope to write some stuff for it too (not professional grade unfortunately).

[ThornPlutonius]

5 hours ago, Gattamelata said:

I think the background in Aquelarre have its own flavour, and would not try mixing Cthulhu mythos into it (besides there is already CoC DA). 

Indeed.  Cthulhu has been done to death.  Leave it out of Aquelarre.  One should be able to do much with the Christian mythology, especially as it saturated the minds and lives of those who existed in the covered era.

Edited September 22, 2020 by ThornPlutonius

[RogerDee]

On 9/22/2020 at 4:32 PM, ThornPlutonius said:

Indeed.  Cthulhu has been done to death.  Leave it out of Aquelarre.  One should be able to do much with the Christian mythology, especially as it saturated the minds and lives of those who existed in the covered era.

My point was doing the Mythos through lens of Aquelarre, so Cthulhu does not need to stroll around, but more a case of making the Aquelarre beasties more alien or horrible - which when you look at the some of OT angels - they're particularly terrifying.

Or just making some angels look a bit different, and more well alien, and inhuman.

https://www.artstation.com/bugmeyer

This is the kind of thing I mean. Now these are Peter Mohrbacher's angels, none of which look particularly angelic. What do they look is Lovecraftian, and utterly alien.

Hence a way to make Aquelarre more Lovecraftian.

 

Edited September 24, 2020 by RogerDee

[Alabak2002]

9 hours ago, RogerDee said:

Hence a way to make Aquelarre more Lovecraftian

Some time ago, looking for some details for my current campaign (TLDR), I had a look at existing "Middle Ages mythos". There you have DEUS VULT for RQ and "Cthulhu Dark Ages".

There's no point on arguing; If you really want to put the Mythos into Aquelarre, go on with it. Take what you like from Aquelarre and mash it up with your Cthulhu game of choice.

I've already done it in a way, but I don't see the point of replacing christian angels with "more alien" forms. I just considered BOTH mythos creatures and christian creatures could coexist (and also, the pagan gods and creatures do) to some degree. Angelical nature and appearance has changed through the centuries; they probably match the viewer's preferences. Perhaps some individual could see beyond that "magic"

 

TLDR ...The plot of my campaign...

I've said it before; I don't like to use much magic and creatures in my way of playing Aquelarre. I'm more "medieval" than demonic, and I make more use of politics, and human evil ways. But, just for this time, I decided to write something different, and came up with an idea of intertwining plots. One of them is the existence of a muslim necromancer that has found an incomplete copy of "a book" (2) that he wants to use to raise an army of undead to use it against the christian kings

(2) If you look at wikipedia entry for the Battle of Simancas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Simancas you will find a "miracle" that a RPG gamer (and more, a Lovecraftian one) can easily interpret in a different angle. A friend of mine did some years ago, and wrote a "fanfiction" about that. I used his idea as starting point for my campaign,

But the english wikipedia lacks an interesting detail about the battle aftermath. The christian army raided the muslim emir tent and seized his treasure and belongings, being one of them a luxuriosus Koran. The king split the book in parts and distributed it among his knights as reward. Emir Abderramán paid a fairly handsome reward for the parts. Some time ago I read a book that mentioned (take this with a grain of salt) that the first translation of the Necronomicon was made in Leon (the city I live in, capital of the Kingdom at the time) in the XIV century: So I distorted the non-story and made up a hidden copy of some mythos book among the pages of the split Koran. And some pages remain hidden somewhere, two centuries later (3). So, the necromancer ritual fails, and lots of dead people are roaming the lands, "half-undead". And a few of them are fallen christians, that ask the PCs for help

(3) I'm using 1174 as the date of my campaign. That means a lot of things are different from the standard setting of Aquelarre

(4) A second plotline runs around the Lesmes family. Two brothers and a younger sister (5) that have been suffering a series of misfortunes lately. The brothers are, in secret, members of a secret society, an older, cruder branch of the "Fraternitas Vera Lucis" mentioned in the Aquelarre Core. Some of the later adventure are related to that "King Ramiro's Sword Guild" hunting down pagan believers, witches and sorcerers. There's little known about King Ramiro of Asturias, "the Stick of Justice" (790-850 AD) but he scared off viking invasions, fought against thieves and "mages", that is, non-christian believers, getting rid of them in his kingdom and repopulated some land south of the mountains. So this guy's name fits well in Aquelarre. 

(5) Overlooked by them, moved by resentment against the men of her family and guided in dreams by a misterious power, his own sister has been playing with black magic and causing tragic disgraces. That power is luring her, and ultimately he will flee his home and look for his own destiny. The PCs will have to track down the fugitive and, like in the TV series, she will slip between their fingers once and again

All those plots would converge in the southern edge of the realm, in the no-man's land of the Frontier. And there, some of the mentioned Mythos traits will be used, when the PCs, that have joined the King's army on the siege and assault of the city of Coria and its roman walls, try to rescue the girl from the muslim sorcerer, that has got the missing part of the book from her.

Just she is not there against her will, has learnt lots in the mean time, and become powerful enough to sucessfully run the ritual on some ancient pagan temple in the wastelands and invoke all sorts of non-euclidyan shit on the Land

 

In my mind, it looks really good but at the pace we're playing it, it can take months to develop...

Edited September 24, 2020 by Alabak2002

[ThornPlutonius]

9 hours ago, RogerDee said:

My point was doing the Mythos through lens of Aquelarre, so Cthulhu does not need to stroll around, but more a case of making the Aquelarre beasties more alien or horrible - which when you look at the some of OT angels - they're particularly terrifying.

Or just making some angels look a bit different, and more well alien, and inhuman.

https://www.artstation.com/bugmeyer

This is the kind of thing I mean. Now these are Peter Mohrbacher's angels, none of which look particularly angelic. What do they look is Lovecraftian, and utterly alien.

Hence a way to make Aquelarre more Lovecraftian.

 

Or as they look in Kult: Divnity Lost.