A new source book I'd like to see

[Franz]

Hi everyone!

I've done a bit of digging, but I don't seem to be able to find any module, let alone a source book, about ancient Sumer and the fertile crescent in the CoC setting. I'm fascinated by the culture and time period, and believe it's rich in potential source material for Cthulhu and its mythos. Also, plenty of modern circular references: Ghostbusters and The Exorcist to name just two. Is there anything out there touching on the subject?

[AlHazred]

Frankly, I think part of it comes from the Simon Necronomicon, which attempted to link the Cthulhu Mythos and ancient Middle Eastern elements in kind of a ham-fisted way. I know it left a sour taste in my mouth at the time, and bringing up Mesopotamian or Sumerian Mythos sources always brings it back to mind; it was that bad.

[rsanford]

There is this for BRP but I don’t read French so it might not be a match.

 

[Agentorange]

On 12/19/2022 at 1:55 PM, Franz said:

Hi everyone!

I've done a bit of digging, but I don't seem to be able to find any module, let alone a source book, about ancient Sumer and the fertile crescent in the CoC setting. I'm fascinated by the culture and time period, and believe it's rich in potential source material for Cthulhu and its mythos. Also, plenty of modern circular references: Ghostbusters and The Exorcist to name just two. Is there anything out there touching on the subject?

In terms of general background The Design Mechanism have this for Mythras. easily adaptable I'd have thought.

https://the-design-mechanism.mybigcommerce.com/mythic-babylon-paperback/

[Zit]

1 hour ago, rsanford said:

There is this for BRP but I don’t read French so it might not be a match.

 

That's historical, not CoC, but you could use it for background and find inspiration in the deities and demons.

You may also have a look at the Revolution D100 Sumer package I wrote based on Uruk. That's about 10 pages lomg and in English. :

 

[SunlessNick]

On 12/20/2022 at 9:04 PM, Agentorange said:

In terms of general background The Design Mechanism have this for Mythras. easily adaptable I'd have thought.

The Design Mechanism's most recent product in this line (Mythic Polynesia) is getting criticism for innacurate and racist portrayals.  This doesn't go at all for Mythic Babylon, which is excellently researched.

[10baseT]

I'd like to see something on Sumer and/or just that era and area in general. I did the Kickstarter for the Adventurers Guide to the Bible.. going to use that for CoC. Great info there. (Their Silk Road looks to be good too and more info to use.) Use all the Mythras stuff too and love it. I've been reading thru their Babylon and the old Testament RPG from Green Ronin (I'm really liking the Hittite supplement). I think there's great info to harvest there.
 

But yeah, I really like what Chaosium is putting out and would love to see more settings.

(My want list, some Kievan Rus; Antioch/Acre; Arabian Nights; Slovakia-actually Eastern Europe in general and am glad to see the Ukrainian QS; Mission Era California - Fort Ross/Russians - the Spanish - First People - Settlers trickling in (maybe this is a late colonial or early western setting; more of India/COF; more IndoChina - i'm liking Journal d'Indochine... there's just so much. I just love reading it all.)

[EricW]

There is evidence of a Tunguska scale impact event in 1650BCE in the Fertile Crescent, which may have devastated the city of Tall el-Hammam in the late Bronze Age. An interesting event to incorporate into any regional Cthulhu narratives. 

 

[Qizilbashwoman]

1 hour ago, EricW said:

There is evidence of a Tunguska scale impact event in 1650BCE in the Fertile Crescent, which may have devastated the city of Tall el-Hammam in the late Bronze Age. An interesting event to incorporate into any regional Cthulhu narratives. 

 

the authors of that are Young Earth creationists whose and not actual archaeologists and admitted to manipulating the photographs. They wished to identify the site as Sodom. Their "dig" was by an uncredited Evangelical Christian diploma mill, Trinity Southwest.

But you can still have Lovecraftian horror happen!

[EricW]

5 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

the authors of that are Young Earth creationists whose and not actual archaeologists and admitted to manipulating the photographs. They wished to identify the site as Sodom. Their "dig" was by an uncredited Evangelical Christian diploma mill, Trinity Southwest.

But you can still have Lovecraftian horror happen!

Thanks for setting me straight Qizilbashwoman.

[Bill the barbarian]

4 hours ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

the authors of that are Young Earth creationists whose and not actual archaeologists and admitted to manipulating the photographs. They wished to identify the site as Sodom. Their "dig" was by an uncredited Evangelical Christian diploma mill, Trinity Southwest.

 

Nice digging Q.

[NurgleHH]

Ich would like to see a book of unknown mysteries for the gaslight era. There were a lot of white parts in Africa. E.G. the german zoo founder in Hamburg made a expedition to africa at the end of the 19th century to look for Dinosauriers. This showed how far away the people knowledge was from our knowledge, but it is a great source for adventures. And I think there is a lot of local ideas we should collect and bring in a book.

For later times we should collect information about our local mysteries. 

[EricW]

I don't think you have to look far. I know of at least two isolated communities, separate groups in my local region who are following someone they believe is the second coming of Christ. There are strange rumblings in the sea, leading to the occasional minor Earthquake, aboriginals practicing their ancient magic, private airstrips, swamps, boats calling by on the way to who knows where, and the occasional disappearance at sea attributed to a deadly jellyfish. 

Just as well Cthulhu is fiction, right?

[Qizilbashwoman]

5 hours ago, EricW said:

I don't think you have to look far. I know of at least two isolated communities, separate groups in my local region who are following someone they believe is the second coming of Christ. There are strange rumblings in the sea, leading to the occasional minor Earthquake, aboriginals practicing their ancient magic, private airstrips, swamps, boats calling by on the way to who knows where, and the occasional disappearance at sea attributed to a deadly jellyfish. 

Just as well Cthulhu is fiction, right?

if it wasn't, a recent reread of Genesis (a translation into Yiddish by the secularist poet Yehoyesh, d. 1927, for my Yiddish class) has reminded me that even the most familiar of scriptures is full of Lovecraftian monsters and even more monstrous actions. We just finished reading about Dinah (TW: SA) and the massacre that eliminated Shkhem's patrilineages.

Genesis is an incredibly bizarre document. No offense meant: I was raised Episcopalian and we critically read the Christian Bible ("Old and New"), but rereading it in another language reminds me of how confusing and inexplicable the events and actors' actions really are. God appears and shatters a man's hip in a wrestling match. People set up baetyls (if you don't know what a baetyl is, the Kaaba in Mecca is one; the name is a latinisation of BETHEL). Nothing at all is explained anywhere and without context, even with Rabbinical commentary and scholarly discussion, things are weird as a snake's suspenders.

The substitution of the ram for a child in the Isaac/Ishmael narrative is literally like the most coherent and well-understood event in the entire Tanakh in the modern era (it was part of a cultural shift in ancient Southwest Asia - it's also the reason Carthage was settled!) and that is certainly saying something.

Edited January 4, 2023 by Qizilbashwoman

[Ali the Helering]

4 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

if it wasn't, a recent reread of Genesis (a translation into Yiddish by the secularist poet Yehoyesh, d. 1927, for my Yiddish class) has reminded me that even the most familiar of scriptures is full of Lovecraftian monsters and even more monstrous actions. We just finished reading about Dinah (TW: SA) and the massacre that eliminated Shkhem's patrilineages.

Old time religion wasn't good for many! 

The Jerusalem Temple, for all its gold finery, will have stunk of a blend of the abattoir and the barbecue, mixed with the urine and faeces of frightened animals, all overlaid by massive amounts of incense.  Read without faith-glazed eyes and there are several mentions of human sacrifice within the worship of YHWH.  The enormities of mass slaughter run throughout much of the Tanakh.

[Qizilbashwoman]

52 minutes ago, Ali the Helering said:

Old time religion wasn't good for many! 

The Jerusalem Temple, for all its gold finery, will have stunk of a blend of the abattoir and the barbecue, mixed with the urine and faeces of frightened animals, all overlaid by massive amounts of incense.

to be fair, this was not unlike the general atmosphere of life in the ancient world, except nobody had incense. just look at our meatpacking plants - and no, i'm not a vegetarian (although I'm actually ALLERGIC to mammal protein, so birds it is). we just sequester it now.

[Ali the Helering]

36 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

to be fair, this was not unlike the general atmosphere of life in the ancient world, except nobody had incense. just look at our meatpacking plants - and no, i'm not a vegetarian (although I'm actually ALLERGIC to mammal protein, so birds it is). we just sequester it now.

Yup, it just annoys me when people attempt to sanitise the past.

[SunlessNick]

On 12/30/2022 at 8:26 PM, 10baseT said:

I did the Kickstarter for the Adventurers Guide to the Bible.. going to use that for CoC. Great info there. (Their Silk Road looks to be good too and more info to use.)

Do you mean a Silk Road book by Red Panda Publishing?  I've not heard of that - is it another kickstarter?

[Qizilbashwoman]

2 hours ago, SunlessNick said:

Do you mean a Silk Road book by Red Panda Publishing?  I've not heard of that - is it another kickstarter?

Yes, it's a kickstarter by that Christian group