Scenario I am Working On...

[Nephanor]

This idea came to me after watching Hellsing Ultimate Abridged again (absolutely hilarious, I highly recommend) and thinking about the original Hellboy movie.  I did a little little research into the Achtung! Cthulhu setting and I was thinking, what kind of fun could we have if the Thule Society from the Third Reich actually survived and got away with a nasty tome or two, and was still active, using the mythos to enact their plans and decided modern times was when they were going to make their move.  Perhaps the stars were just right, or maybe something else was needed.  And instead of the usual grand and huge schemes taking place in some major capital city, of some major player in the geopolitical world, what if it was a small town somewhere.  Of course, most people might think somewhere in "Lovecraft country" New England, but I was thinking somewhere else, like a small town in say northern Canada.  The last kind of place you would expect Nazis to show up.

Now, I have a lot of ideas for this, but I am curious to see what other people would expect to see, and maybe farm out some ideas to flesh out the adventure a little more.  The biggest issue I am running into is I just can't decide whether it's Mi-Go feeding the Nazis information to see what they will do, and experimenting on those they use, or if the Nazis have actually contacted some ancient god and have gone mad from what they have seen, and are part of that god's greater design, or if they just are dealing with smaller monsters, and controlling them to bring about a fourth reich.

[Darius West]

I am assuming the setting is straight-up Pulp C'thulhu?

If so, what about Serpent Folk?  Go full David Icke 😄

 

[EricW]

I’m not sure human beliefs would survive prolonged successful contact with the mythos, though they might keep fragments of their original ideas, like a desire to breed a race of superhumans.

There is a book, Macroscope, where the main character has 2 personalities. The good person has been in charge most of his life, the bad, submerged personality is the greatest genius the Earth ever produced, but his reawakening would be a global catastrophe. The genius was the product of a breeding program who decided he didn’t want to serve, so he hid behind the second personality.

However they are dealing with a second catastrophe, an alien signal from space which seems wholly malign, so some people want the evil genius to be awoken to solve their alien problem, regardless of the other consequences.

My point is you could have all sorts of fun. Some fractional human alien mythos hybrids maintain their human appearance, are not even aware they aren’t human - like the main character out of The Shadow Over Insmouth. 

You could have Thule factions fighting each other, escaped products of breeding programs running around, people who don’t know who they are, or who precariously struggle to maintain their humanity, all sorts of fun.

[klecser]

20 hours ago, Nephanor said:

Now, I have a lot of ideas for this, but I am curious to see what other people would expect to see, and maybe farm out some ideas to flesh out the adventure a little more.  The biggest issue I am running into is I just can't decide whether it's Mi-Go feeding the Nazis information to see what they will do, and experimenting on those they use, or if the Nazis have actually contacted some ancient god and have gone mad from what they have seen, and are part of that god's greater design, or if they just are dealing with smaller monsters, and controlling them to bring about a fourth reich.

Whether intended or not, I would personally avoid risking sending the message that Nazi decisions were controlled by the Mythos. It risks implying that Nazis lacked choice and/or responsibility, and can be interpreted as "excusing" their actual historical actions.

But the other stuff sounds great. I think the human threat of Nazism pairs well with the Mi-go.

[Nephanor]

4 hours ago, Darius West said:

I am assuming the setting is straight-up Pulp C'thulhu?

If so, what about Serpent Folk?  Go full David Icke 😄

 

I had toyed with the idea Serpent folks were involved, that maybe the nazis discovered them and that they had once ruled the Earth, and that the Atlantis they thought existed and that Aryan's were descendants of, was actually the Serpent People's home, and not the home of "superior humans"  But maybe they want to steal some of the power of these serpent people, or maybe they are being manipulated by the serpent people to go after something themselves.  Of course, as mentioned, the nazi ideology probably would be less intact from contact with the mythos...

4 hours ago, EricW said:

I’m not sure human beliefs would survive prolonged successful contact with the mythos, though they might keep fragments of their original ideas, like a desire to breed a race of superhumans.

There is a book, Macroscope, where the main character has 2 personalities. The good person has been in charge most of his life, the bad, submerged personality is the greatest genius the Earth ever produced, but his reawakening would be a global catastrophe. The genius was the product of a breeding program who decided he didn’t want to serve, so he hid behind the second personality.

However they are dealing with a second catastrophe, an alien signal from space which seems wholly malign, so some people want the evil genius to be awoken to solve their alien problem, regardless of the other consequences.

My point is you could have all sorts of fun. Some fractional human alien mythos hybrids maintain their human appearance, are not even aware they aren’t human - like the main character out of The Shadow Over Insmouth. 

You could have Thule factions fighting each other, escaped products of breeding programs running around, people who don’t know who they are, or who precariously struggle to maintain their humanity, all sorts of fun.

Yeah, that had crossed my mind, going along the idea of how Red Skull stopped caring about the nazi ideals and just wanted power once he found the extent of what was really out there.  And that's kinda what I was thinking that they decided to focus on gaining power, and using that to push their agenda.  And I kinda wanna avoid dual factions when dealing with serpent people issues again, as I really don't want to get too close to the Two Headed Serpent.  Although I do like the idea of some kind of hybrid, it does seem to be against the nazi ideal of the ubermensch.  I can see them doing more to steal from them than trying to breed better.  Maybe use hybrids as foot soldiers, but not for the ruling class.

Part of the reason I chose northern Canada as a place for this was that I wanted something a serpent person would never go to, being cold.  But what would be there in terms of monsters?  Why would they be going there?  Is it some ancient serpent person outpost that has become inaccessible due to changing climate?  An outpost of one of their enemies?  That's what I am stuck at now.

[Nephanor]

Inspiration hit me while in the shower. So my idea is Nazis are in Canada because they know that the serpent people will not follow them there. The cold keeps them at bay. They are coming here to summon some sort of ice creature so they can use it to invade the serpent people's Island and steal their technology. Is there such creature in the Mythos? (EdIt: Duh, Ithaqua and Wendigo. Glad I got Cold Warning already. RESEARCH TIME!) If not, maybe they are developing an ice ray based on something stolen from some site like is Antarctica. The fun with this idea is that you have two evil groups, and if you stop one, the other may win.

Edited May 20, 2021 by Nephanor

[Lloyd Dupont]

43 minutes ago, Nephanor said:

Inspiration hit me while in the shower. So my idea is Nazis are in Canada because they know that the serpent people will not follow them there. The cold keeps them at bay. They are coming here to summon some sort of ice creature so they can use it to invade the serpent people's Island and steal their technology. Is there such creature in the Mythos? (EdIt: Duh, Ithaqua and Wendigo. Glad I got Cold Warning already. RESEARCH TIME!) If not, maybe they are developing an ice ray based on something stolen from some site like is Antarctica. The fun with this idea is that you have two evil groups, and if you stop one, the other may win.

This was inspired by true events! 😄

[EricW]

3 hours ago, Nephanor said:

Inspiration hit me while in the shower. So my idea is Nazis are in Canada because they know that the serpent people will not follow them there. The cold keeps them at bay. They are coming here to summon some sort of ice creature so they can use it to invade the serpent people's Island and steal their technology. Is there such creature in the Mythos? (EdIt: Duh, Ithaqua and Wendigo. Glad I got Cold Warning already. RESEARCH TIME!) If not, maybe they are developing an ice ray based on something stolen from some site like is Antarctica. The fun with this idea is that you have two evil groups, and if you stop one, the other may win.

A plot to tamper with the climate - I love it. But it might be risky territory, some people might see a climate scenario as a mockery of their real world concerns.

Something which substantially increased cloud cover worldwide for a sustained period would cause global temperatures to plummet, or a series of major volcanic eruptions. Increasing cloud cover is almost something current human technology can achieve, so mythos monsters should have no problem, other than opposition from other mythos beings.

See Toba Catastrophe Theory.

 

 

[TwiceBorn]

Have you checked out Assault on the Mountains of Madness from the Achtung! Cthulhu line for potential inspiration?

Here's a review of the scenario.

 

Edited May 20, 2021 by TwiceBorn

[Nephanor]

7 hours ago, EricW said:

A plot to tamper with the climate - I love it. But it might be risky territory, some people might see a climate scenario as a mockery of their real world concerns.

Not looking at global weather change, but local. They are JUST looking to change the island of the Serpent People, Mu. This way the cold can disable any serpent people there long enough for the Nazis to get in and steal what they can. After all, being cold blooded, the icy winds Ithaqua will bring will put them into hibernation.

 

6 hours ago, TwiceBorn said:

Have you checked out Assault on the Mountains of Madness from the Achtung! Cthulhu line for potential inspiration?

Here's a review of the scenario.

 

I haven't, don't have any of the stuff yet, as they never made a print version of their 7e conversion. Asked them to make a POD version available, so maybe they will. And will check out that review, thanks!

[TwiceBorn]

I think Modiphius still plans to release a CoC 7e version of the updated (2d20) Achtung! Cthulhu player and GM guides, sometime after the physical release of the 2d20 books. A survey they released a few months ago asked people what rule set they intended to play A!C with, and CoC 7e as well as Pulp Cthulhu were two of the options, along with Savage Worlds. Modiphius were trying to determine what conversions would be worth their effort... I believe that CoC 7e was in the lead by a fairly wide margin, but I can also see why they might try to adapt for Pulp Cthulhu instead).

I suspect that they will release an updated version of Assault on the Mountains of Madness for 2d20 someday, but not sure if they will bother updating CoC 7e stats for it. There's very little difference between CoC 6e and 7e anyway, so if you got the PDF of the original AotMoM, you'd be fine. 

[glassneedles]

2 hours ago, TwiceBorn said:

I think Modiphius still plans to release a CoC 7e version of the updated (2d20) Achtung! Cthulhu player and GM guides, sometime after the physical release of the 2d20 books. A survey they released a few months ago asked people what rule set they intended to play A!C with, and CoC 7e as well as Pulp Cthulhu were two of the options, along with Savage Worlds. Modiphius were trying to determine what conversions would be worth their effort... I believe that CoC 7e was in the lead by a fairly wide margin, but I can also see why they might try to adapt for Pulp Cthulhu instead).

I suspect that they will release an updated version of Assault on the Mountains of Madness for 2d20 someday, but not sure if they will bother updating CoC 7e stats for it. There's very little difference between CoC 6e and 7e anyway, so if you got the PDF of the original AotMoM, you'd be fine. 

That is great news for me. I only started playing CoC in 2019 and managed to miss all of the Achtung Cthulhu line, I've been patiently waiting for them to release the 7e PDFs physically for a while now. Unfortunately I'm in the same situation with Adventures in Middle Earth for D&D 5e, Free League say they plan to continue the line but I don't know if that involves reprinting older books that have shot up in price now.