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alternate history and 'call of cthulhu.'


littlewitchmaus

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so! pretty much the entirety of 'call of cthulhu' is grounded, willfully or incidentally, in notions of alternate history and i was wondering how much people tend to lean into the idea.
(i'm currently working on a campaign set in an alternate 1985 where a lot of horror literature and film has actually happened leading to a sort of weird dystopia.)

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Secret history, rather than alternate history, in terms of genre for the Cthulhu Mythos. The latter revolves around points of divergence from “our” timeline down different paths, while in the former, clandestine plots and happenings lurk undetected behind the familiar march of events.  Contrast, for instance, Chambers’s “The Repairer of Reputations”, in which the play “The King in Yellow” turns up in an alternate future USA that diverged some time after 1895*, and HPL’s “The Call of Cthulhu”, in which the atavistic Cthulhu cult has existed through human history while the Great Old Ones covertly influence humanity’s dreams.

In any case, your campaign sounds interesting—a postmodern cut-up of the horror genre (c.f. the Anno Dracula series, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and Tales of the Shadowmen).

 

* edit: Although TRoR reads like alternate history, it’s technically regular speculative fiction.  Neil Gaiman's A Study in Emerald may be better a Mythos-related example.

Edited by Travern
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i see the innsmouth raid as the moment where the notion of 'secret history' switches to 'alternate history' (as it's something VERY public) and then extrapolated what changes that would result in re: the government and law enforcement response to cults and their activities.
from there, it was a quick jump to WHAT IF GODZILLA (but not actually godzilla) ACTUALLY HAPPENED IN 1954? and how the governments of the world would collude to cover it up (the end result being that the destruction of tokyo was blamed on an accidental detonation of the third atomic bomb after recovering it from the ocean floor.)
the final piece of the puzzle was, funny enough, 'ghostbusters' and thinking about how the government would explain/cover it up (a terrorist group poisoning the water supply with hardcore psychedelics and detonationg a small weapon of mass destruction in manhattan.)
from there it was all stepping backwards to figure out how other historical events would be effected by these changes.)

the end result is something that echoes 'dark conspiracy' in ways that i didn't expect and i'm hoping to start running it, next month.

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35 minutes ago, littlewitchmaus said:

i see the innsmouth raid as the moment where the notion of 'secret history' switches to 'alternate history' (as it's something VERY public) and then extrapolated what changes that would result in re: the government and law enforcement response to cults and their activities.

If real history tells us anything, it’s that the most awful incidents can be covered up and disappear from public consciousness all too easily.  Consider how long it took for the Tulsa race massacre of 1921 to be formally acknowledged—and that was in the state’s second-largest city rather than a decaying and isolated fishing town with a dwindling population.  Starting with a plausible cover-up of the Innsmouth Raid, the Lovecraftian conspiracy RPG Delta Green has constructed a secret history of the 20th century around keeping it and other incidents from HPL’s stories away from both the public and the government.

You’re spot on that it can take a major, unignorable Godzilla-scale event to trigger enough historical waves for an alternate history (unless you’re going for the flapping butterfly version, in which case it’s tricky finding exactly the right butterfly).  For instance, after the apocalypse-adjacent, very public shifts toward the imminent arrival of the Great Old Ones, Charles Stross’s Mythos-espionage The Laundry Files series switches over from secret history to alternate history territory.  The series used to be contemporary satire, but Stross says current events won’t stay plausible long enough for him to satirize them.

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One persistent theme in CoC is if an entire region comes under the sway of the mythos it kind of decays and is forgotten. So with The Shadow over Innsmouth, the townsfolk deliberately cut ties with other towns, to preserve their secret, and because other towns no longer offered anything they cared about, except maybe a few trade goods. The Innsmouth folk became totally obsessed with joining their relatives in the sea.

Or if there is a catastrophe, it is simply written off. Consider the Tunguska Event (a 12 megaton explosion in Siberia in 1908), the East Mediterranean  Event (a multi-kiloton explosion over the Mediterranean Sea in 2002), even the Chelyabinsk meteor in 2013, most people have never heard of these events, forgotten about them, or only think of them when someone mentions them.

Or the Tsar Bomba in 1961, a Russian arctic nuclear test so large it shattered windows a thousand miles away.

Any of these events could have been say a summons of Azathoth which got out of control, in the CoC Universe - but people simply dismissed them.

An event which attracted attention would have to be insanely impactful. One of my favourite examples is Thor Meets Captain America, which despite the cheesy title is a brilliant short story by famous Sci Fi author David Brin. Brin's editor pestered him to write a story where the NAZIs won, so Brin wrote a story in which the NAZIs crushed the D-Day landing by somehow summing the Norse Gods to fight on their behalf. 

Loki of course betrays his fellow gods and helps the allies, but refuses to explain how the NAZIs managed to work the ancient magic. Only at the very end of the story does the main character understand the awful secret Loki is concealing, and why he couldn't tell anyone.

Edited by EricW
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I've never been a fan of "secret history", as in "This thing happened, BUT it was actually Cthulhu!!1" It comes off as silly to me and it makes me think of Assassin's Creed where the writers have to keep coming up with increasingly contrived reasons to make every historical event relate to a Templar-Assassin war. To me, going full alternate history is better and more satisfying if you give it some thought and do it well, or at least doing historical-adjacent events that are their own thing as opposed to changing things that actually happened.

Edited by TheEnclave
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  • 2 weeks later...

agreed, and i'm mostly avoiding that by having the vast bulk of historical tragedies remain as they were (with the differences generally having nothing to do with the mythos/supernatural but definitely influencing things like the government's awareness of nonhuman threats.)

the major historical differences i'm going with are:
1) the raid on innsmouth happened and was a matter of public record (with the true nature of the residents being covered up but not that they belonged to a hideous dangerous cult and this sets in motion a pubic plan to stamp out new religious movements that the government deems 'unsavoury' in a manner that echoes the growing anticommunist fears.)
2) the devastation of tokyo in 1954 (the official story is that the third atomic bomb was recovered and accidentally detonated while the truth is that some massive organism came from the ocean and wreaked havoc before returning, with conspiracy theories abounding.)
3) the watergate break in was never exposed but nixon was assassinated on august 8, 1974 by a conspiracy traced back to a cult related terrorist cell (and this leads to congress enacting a number of 'social reform laws' including the introduction of the hays code as law and strict controls over both the presentation of news in the media and violence in entertainment.)
4) ronald reagan is assassinated on march 30, 1981 by a member of another cult, the leadership of which publicly takes credit (this leads to the new president bush greatly expanding the power and authority of the fbi and putting them in control of a greatly expanded u.s. marshal service that becomes a de facto federal police force.  and curfews a social restrictions are enacted in several major metropolitan areas, overseen by the national guard under the auspices of the fbi.)
5) the manhattan 'event' where a supernatural being of great power is summoned and then destroyed with the government claiming that it was a terrorist attack from a cult using chemical weapons (the reports of 'ghost' activity leading up to it are officially said to be the results of a poisoning of the water supply with a powerful psychedelic that left many residents of manhattan susceptible to suggestion and hallucination and the group that the government claims is responsible for all of it is declared terrorists and manhattan remains under martial law.)
6) since the early 70s there have been a growing number of antisocial terror attacks (serial and spree killings) and it's become common for even small towns to enact strict curfews.

which brings us to 1985, when the game will be set.

 

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On 9/21/2021 at 5:38 PM, littlewitchmaus said:

so! pretty much the entirety of 'call of cthulhu' is grounded, willfully or incidentally, in notions of alternate history and i was wondering how much people tend to lean into the idea.
(i'm currently working on a campaign set in an alternate 1985 where a lot of horror literature and film has actually happened leading to a sort of weird dystopia.)

My own 80's campaign (based on "At Your Door") was like our world, but darker. Example: the '87 San Francisco quake still occurs, but it's caused by mythos activity (and it feels even more dramatic to those caught in it). Other news items often have similar mythos causes (that regular people do not know about).

Edited by mvincent
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On 10/7/2021 at 1:08 PM, littlewitchmaus said:

...

2) the devastation of tokyo in 1954 (the official story is that the third atomic bomb was recovered and accidentally detonated while the truth is that some massive organism came from the ocean and wreaked havoc before returning, with conspiracy theories abounding.)

...

Personally, I would give this element a LOT of extra thought & attention...  I don't think a Kaiju-event *could* be kept secret, if a major event happened in Tokyo.  The city was a major metropolis; you'd have *millions* of witnesses.  Japan had already become a bit "camera crazy" -- it was a far more ubiquitous hobby in Japan than the USA; so you'd have witnesses WITH CAMERAS; this does not bode well for secrecy!

The USA was still a *huge* military presence in Japan; this was less than a decade after the end of WWII, and US forces were everywhere.

1952 was the end of the formal "occupation" of Japan (although the US kept Okinawa & Iwo Jima) with the US abandoning their posture of an army having conquered a foreign enemy, dictating to the government, etc.  The USA drew down their main forces to a "mere" quarter-million troops(!) at that point (with additional troops in Iwo Jima & Okinawa, short plane-flight away).

1953 was the end of the Korean War, and Japan had served as a main "forward support" base; it was also being built-up into a new posture ofa majoranti-communist (vs China/Russia) bulwark.

1954 was the year the JDSF/Jieitai was first established (an expansion of the police forces, and *VERY* strictly limted to defense-only); the USA *was* the "standing army" of Japan, and hadn't really divested from that role for many years after.

So in addition to the Japanese civilian witnesses and their cameras, *and* the newborn JDSF... you'll have the US military involved by the tens of thousands, possibly even hundreds of thousands.

To reiterate:  I don't think a Kaiju-Event in Tokyo *can* be kept secret.

(I didn't personally visit Japan until the late 1960's, and I was just a young kid.  But I was struck by how much Tokyo looked like the big American cities I knew... freeways, overpasses, skyscrapers, department stores, etc (except for the taxi-drivers, who were insane, and managed to actually fit their cars into spaces only a delusional driver would think could physically fit; and do it at freeway speeds.)


+++

Rather than a big ol' rampaging Kaiju, maybe something with better "plausible deniabilty" -- some monstrous multi-megaton ooze-monster, for example; budding off separate multi-ton oozes in all directions as the main body heads for... somewhere.  Officials will claim it to be a fast-moving / fast-growing / fast-regenerating "mutant" sponge or coral...  But photos will only "document" inert-looking lumps sitting on streets, etc.

Alternatively (for a Kaiju event) hit a smaller city; that might be something where the news could plausibly be suppressed.  Pick a smaller island, less connected-to-everywhere-else, where the gov't and military might reasonably hope to seize all the cameras, film, etc; take control of all radio-transmissions, telegraph stations, etc.

+++

But that's ME, and my own preferences.

FWIW, however, it'd break my own suspension-of-disbelief, for a "something-akin-to-real-world" game-world to have kept that event secret...

Edited by g33k

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On 9/25/2021 at 1:19 PM, TheEnclave said:

I've never been a fan of "secret history", as in "This thing happened, BUT it was actually Cthulhu!!1" It comes off as silly to me

My preference runs the opposite: I like learning about real events as the historical knowledge seems useful. CoC is one way for me to interact with history in an entertaining way, and aids my simulationist desire for verisimilitude. Conversely, I have less desire to gain more knowledge of fictional settings and events; my Arkham knowledge has been less fulfilling (and felt silly) compared to say, my Venice knowledge. Similarly, reading up on the '87 San Francisco quake felt far more compelling than reading up on a quake in a similar, but fictional city in "At Your Door".

Edited by mvincent
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On 10/8/2021 at 5:08 AM, littlewitchmaus said:

agreed, and i'm mostly avoiding that by having the vast bulk of historical tragedies remain as they were (with the differences generally having nothing to do with the mythos/supernatural but definitely influencing things like the government's awareness of nonhuman threats.)

the major historical differences i'm going with are:
1) the raid on innsmouth happened and was a matter of public record (with the true nature of the residents being covered up but not that they belonged to a hideous dangerous cult and this sets in motion a pubic plan to stamp out new religious movements that the government deems 'unsavoury' in a manner that echoes the growing anticommunist fears.)
2) the devastation of tokyo in 1954 (the official story is that the third atomic bomb was recovered and accidentally detonated while the truth is that some massive organism came from the ocean and wreaked havoc before returning, with conspiracy theories abounding.)
3) the watergate break in was never exposed but nixon was assassinated on august 8, 1974 by a conspiracy traced back to a cult related terrorist cell (and this leads to congress enacting a number of 'social reform laws' including the introduction of the hays code as law and strict controls over both the presentation of news in the media and violence in entertainment.)
4) ronald reagan is assassinated on march 30, 1981 by a member of another cult, the leadership of which publicly takes credit (this leads to the new president bush greatly expanding the power and authority of the fbi and putting them in control of a greatly expanded u.s. marshal service that becomes a de facto federal police force.  and curfews a social restrictions are enacted in several major metropolitan areas, overseen by the national guard under the auspices of the fbi.)
5) the manhattan 'event' where a supernatural being of great power is summoned and then destroyed with the government claiming that it was a terrorist attack from a cult using chemical weapons (the reports of 'ghost' activity leading up to it are officially said to be the results of a poisoning of the water supply with a powerful psychedelic that left many residents of manhattan susceptible to suggestion and hallucination and the group that the government claims is responsible for all of it is declared terrorists and manhattan remains under martial law.)
6) since the early 70s there have been a growing number of antisocial terror attacks (serial and spree killings) and it's become common for even small towns to enact strict curfews.

which brings us to 1985, when the game will be set.

 

This seems interesting. How does this impact the Civil Rights movement? In particular I think that number 6 could be exploited by the numerous Sundown Towns out there to continue the practice without it being "explicitly" about race. Could go in a very Lovecraft Country direction. 

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On 9/28/2021 at 10:49 PM, Kettlehelm said:

The number of scenario sin besides being bad, is taking a historical event or tragedy and saying "The Mythos Did it", or its was part of a greater Mythos event. That just cheapens it.

Sadly, this sin of leaning into "secret" history lies at the heart of a lot of gaming since the '90s (and television and movies and literature).  It's practically a foundation of the entertainment industry, and it's given rise to some genuinely uncomfortable real life consequences.

The sin is also baked into the thesis of Call of Cthulhu, from its literary source material to actual game play.  There's a long-standing tendency to view "Fortean" events, non-Western, non-contemporary, non-mainstream religion, spiritualism, and culture through the Mythos lens.

!i!

Edited by Ian Absentia

carbon copy logo smallest.jpg  ...developer of White Rabbit Green

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On 9/22/2021 at 10:38 AM, littlewitchmaus said:

so! pretty much the entirety of 'call of cthulhu' is grounded, willfully or incidentally, in notions of alternate history and i was wondering how much people tend to lean into the idea. (i'm currently working on a campaign set in an alternate 1985 where a lot of horror literature and film has actually happened leading to a sort of weird dystopia.)

I do this a lot in all my games, especially ones where the game world is known to players.  I recently had a character with genius level INT and prodigy level maths and physics who found a gate spell realize how to retro-engineer the spell to make it travel in time.  Letting players get time travel is something few GMs would feel comfortable about, I admit, but I work to the maxim that if you give a player enough rope they will almost always hang themselves.  In CoC, my best players treat their magic almost like a form of leprosy, where they are constantly second guessing their actions and checking themselves for negative side-effects these days.  The ones who were slipshod and careless with spells are all dead or insane now, and I as a GM didn't even have to be punitive; they did it to themselves.  My time travelling player was one of the clever, careful ones, and he used his time travel magic to completely defeat the Arkham Witch Cult back in Colonial times, while also setting up a bootlegging operation involving gate spells and very demented pigs (it's a long odd story that involves animal cruelty).  A side effect of this was that a character who had found herself in diabolical trouble with Nyarlathotep was effectively rescued in the past without her knowledge, and woke up "as if from a terrible and incredibly vivid nightmare" to discover her new Mandela effect reality.

The game of historical "What if" is potentially a lot of fun, but only if both the players and the GM are more-or-less aware of the history that has been altered.  A good example of this is the Fallout universe, where transistors weren't invented after the end of WW2.

On 10/11/2021 at 4:04 AM, g33k said:

 I don't think a Kaiju-event *could* be kept secret, if a major event happened in Tokyo. 

Oh nonsense 😄.  Nobody even remembers when the Shoggoth god rampaged through the North End of Boston. 😜

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