The whole idea of cosmic horrors is retarded.

rapa-nui · Post by **rapa-nui** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 11:28 pm

The best analysis of Lovecraft and his work is from ST Joshi (who also studied HL Mencken). Basically, you have to see cosmic horror as an early 20th century reaction to the rapid cultural and social change brought about by scientific knowledge. Lovecraft himself tried his hand at science, and was even published once or twice... but often he felt that the revelations of science were too troubling and unsettling to continue to delve.

So, yeah. Cosmic horror works. From The Colour Out of Space to Mass Effect, it continues to stir our emotions because we don't know what kind of crazy shit science will uncover next.

traverse · Post by **traverse** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 2:53 am

Prak_Anima wrote:I know, but I'm actually teaching my girlfriend's sister to play and she's playing a cthulhu cultist, so I actually need an answer for this question if nothing else than for my own game.

I'd vote no, as I think no dark one would grant any sort of abilities to such low things as humans, if they could even understand that thing's need for power. The realities between them and us are likely too different to even acknowledge us as living creatures.

However, the madness of a cultist character or a collective of cultists could easily lend supernatural powers, under the Chaos domain if a character is divine.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 2:57 am

I like the idea that her spells come from some other god entirely that has it's own reasons for doing so.

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 3:04 am

Surgo wrote:On the other hand, roleplaying games do have a great tradition of stabbing gods / cosmic whatevers in the face. I find it quite unsatisfying if that can't be accomplished.

Of course, these kind of tropes also go along with the other tropes of pregnant baby-mamas of the gods, gods in disguise and such.

See these don't really go with the cosmic horrors.

I don't really see Shub-Niggurath stepping down to become a rain cloud and going to town on the next woman or man he sees.

The other dumb planet god ain't going to find time away from his reverie to appear to the chants of a woman wanting children.

This sort of shiite doesn't happen from the Cosmic horror angle.

Quantumboost · Post by **Quantumboost** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 3:22 am

To Prak's issue, you could choose to use a modification of the "Ur Priest" approach to spellcasting.

The cultists worship the entity or something, and that in itself siphons off a trivial (to it) amount of its power, which they can use to cast spells. The entity doesn't know they are doing this unless they do something really big or a ritual specifically designed to get its attention, but they use it all the same.

It's not like the characters of Eternal Darkness are saying "Hey Xel'lotath, your zombies hurt my brains a lot there, can I borrow some of your power to fix that? Thanks!"

Talisman · Post by **Talisman** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 3:38 am

A_Cynic wrote:Of course, these kind of tropes also go along with the other tropes of pregnant baby-mamas of the gods, gods in disguise and such.

See these don't really go with the cosmic horrors.

I don't really see Shub-Niggurath stepping down to become a rain cloud and going to town on the next woman or man he sees.

Read The Dunwich Horror.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 3:42 am

Prak_Anima wrote:I know, but I'm actually teaching my girlfriend's sister to play and she's playing a cthulhu cultist, so I actually need an answer for this question if nothing else than for my own game.

Nyarlathotep is known to deal with humans, and grant various boons. Yog Sothoth somehow had children with a cultist, although it was probably some kind of 'immaculate conception'. Cthulhu causes individuals to dream, and likely lends some of his power (or knowledge--and knowledge is power) to favored cultists. The allies of the mi-go get alien tech.

Take a look at the version of the Esoterrorists system adapted to the Mythos (It's something like 'Path of Cthulhu'). That might have some good ideas.

Surgo · Post by **Surgo** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 5:17 am

To those who so kindly replied to me: ah, I see. Tthe only experience I really have with this genre is Munchkin Cthulhu anyway.

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 8:00 pm

Surgo wrote:To those who so kindly replied to me: ah, I see. Tthe only experience I really have with this genre is Munchkin Cthulhu anyway.

Munchkin Cthulhu is a grand experience in itself but it really it's a very indirect parody of CoC. It parodies CoC through the ruby lens of munchkin which in turns parodies D&D and other equivalents of Hack n' slashers.

But, I do love munchkin Cthulhu and using it's rules to be a grognard because it encourages it.

K · Post by K » Wed Jul 30, 2008 1:11 am

virgileso wrote:
Surgo wrote:To those who so kindly replied to me: ah, I see. Tthe only experience I really have with this genre is Munchkin Cthulhu anyway.
Munchkin Cthulhu is a grand experience in itself but it really it's a very indirect parody of CoC. It parodies CoC through the ruby lens of munchkin which in turns parodies D&D and other equivalents of Hack n' slashers.

But, I do love munchkin Cthulhu and using it's rules to be a grognard because it encourages it.

Two great Cthulhu boardgames:

Arkham Horror: A cooperative game where all the players try to get powerful enough to beat a Cthulhu monster. Awesome game.

Cults across America: Think Risk with demon summoning and shared territories. Like Risk, it's fun a few times.

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Wed Jul 30, 2008 1:21 am

Talisman wrote:
A_Cynic wrote:Of course, these kind of tropes also go along with the other tropes of pregnant baby-mamas of the gods, gods in disguise and such.

See these don't really go with the cosmic horrors.

I don't really see Shub-Niggurath stepping down to become a rain cloud and going to town on the next woman or man he sees.
Read The Dunwich Horror.

My guess is that at the time Lovecraft didn't quite have the Mythos roles (portfolios?) set and entrenched. Yog Sothoth was at least 4 different things in various stories from what I remember.

Talisman · Post by **Talisman** » Wed Jul 30, 2008 2:11 am

sigma999 wrote:Yog Sothoth was at least 4 different things in various stories from what I remember.

See what happens when you try to explain ultra-dimensional entities in pathetic human terms?

Why can't Yog-Sothoth be 4 different, discrete, unrelated things simultaneously? Because it violates the natural order of things? Ha!

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Wed Jul 30, 2008 2:19 am

Yeah yeah I know I know I know I know I know I know.

Avatars, right?

So, Ol' Yog can't keep track of his wilder parts down near Earth, is it?
Floatin' around, hootn' n' hollerin', miscegenatn'...

That would actually be an interesting campaign plot device.
Various gods must split their personalities to make embodied avatars, and sometimes they run so thin that a being composed of their pure Rage and No I Don't Want To Go To Bed breaks lose.
PCs must reign it back under control before it destroys everything... or ruins an evil deity's plans with empathy and flowers.

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Wed Jul 30, 2008 3:58 am

sigma999 wrote:Yeah yeah I know I know I know I know I know I know.

Avatars, right?

So, Ol' Yog can't keep track of his wilder parts down near Earth, is it?
Floatin' around, hootn' n' hollerin', miscegenatn'...

That would actually be an interesting campaign plot device.
Various gods must split their personalities to make embodied avatars, and sometimes they run so thin that a being composed of their pure Rage and No I Don't Want To Go To Bed breaks lose.
PCs must reign it back under control before it destroys everything... or ruins an evil deity's plans with empathy and flowers.

Or it's Yog is just that damn powerful.

You don't need to insert human qualities into the mix.

The avatar's main purpose is to bring a deific form to a more human form or at least to a more understandable state.

That is the thing with the cosmic horrors, we can't understand them. We don't need to understand them.

He can have 4 different forms and he doesn't need them to be avatars.

That just inserts human characteristics and psychosis to a persona that is distinctly not that. We have a persona that is not just partially alien but completely alien.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Wed Jul 30, 2008 5:04 am

K wrote:Cults across America: Think Risk with demon summoning and shared territories. Like Risk, it's fun a few times.

Unfortunately the production values are absolute shit.

Jacob_Orlove · Post by **Jacob_Orlove** » Wed Jul 30, 2008 5:12 am

It's not exactly a board game, but Cthulhu 500 is awesome nonetheless. The gameplay is good, and the puns in virtually every card name are unreal.

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Wed Jul 30, 2008 6:05 am

Keeping in the spirit of "not board games", Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem is a great example of how Lovecraftian horror should be done. They didn't get the entire cosmic horror thing right but it was good nonetheless.

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JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 1:34 am

A_Cynic wrote:Keeping in the spirit of "not board games", Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem is a great example of how Lovecraftian horror should be done. They didn't get the entire cosmic horror thing right but it was good nonetheless.

From what a friend showed me it was more like cosmic rock-paper-scissors in the way the characters could pit various beings against each other.
That's not Lovecraft, it's Lumley.

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 2:43 am

sigma999 wrote:
A_Cynic wrote:Keeping in the spirit of "not board games", Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem is a great example of how Lovecraftian horror should be done. They didn't get the entire cosmic horror thing right but it was good nonetheless.
From what a friend showed me it was more like cosmic rock-paper-scissors in the way the characters could pit various beings against each other.
That's not Lovecraft, it's Lumley.

More effect than substance of Lovecraft then?

I've seen many CoC video games that can't actually pull off the ambience and ED pulled off the Lovecraft ambience without a hitch.

yes, it's just another game where you summon on dark one against another but the ambience and the environment were kick ass.

That is what I actually meant with "a great example of how Lovecraftian horror should be done."

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 2:44 am

That aspect is indeed very RPS/Pokethulhu*, but that's just the... spellcasting/combat mechanic? I mean, you use rock-type magic to dispel scissors-type barriers/invisibility, and you use Mantarok for restoration spells, because HP+MP+SAN is better than just one. The rest is very classy, such as the monster descriptions and the cutscenes.

*find it, legally download it for free, maybe even play it. Laugh.

rapa-nui · Post by **rapa-nui** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 3:35 am

The best part about Eternal Darkness is the REAL ending. If you beat the game three times, with a different initial god, you get to see exactly how puny and pathetic humanity really is in the face of cosmic terror.

Cthurgha, the sleeping god, wants to awaken. He uses the Roivas (ironically, the inverse of "Savior") family in 3 separate dimensions to kill his foe gods. Once you win the game in each dimension, Cthrugha is released to bring an era of darkness upon the world.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 3:55 am

That's not what happens.

Mantorok, the Corpse God, has manipulated the Roivas family to kill the other Ancients. After you win the game in each of the dimensions, Mantorok binds the timelines together, destroying all his adversaries, and waits in his tomb, plotting.

JonSetanta · Post by **JonSetanta** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 6:00 pm

A_Cynic wrote: More effect than substance of Lovecraft then?

Well, I meant that it was more of a balance between forces rather than Extra-Dimensional Horrors > mortals.
Within the Boltzmann Brain theory, we are a minority of ordered beings.

Many CoC adaptations destroy that sense of overwhelming odds against humanity with other more benign or sometimes helpful beings.
That's not Mythos, that's D&D.

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 11:40 pm

Well.... you might both be right.

Did either of you walk into a room and see a monster, and nothing else?

And only after several minutes of trying to dodge the monster with a character that wasn't visible, did you realize that the monster was your character?

And you only realized what happened after the monster left the room?

rapa-nui · Post by **rapa-nui** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 3:43 am

Psychic Robot wrote:That's not what happens.

Mantorok, the Corpse God, has manipulated the Roivas family to kill the other Ancients. After you win the game in each of the dimensions, Mantorok binds the timelines together, destroying all his adversaries, and waits in his tomb, plotting.

Yes, you're right, I just got the name of the god wrong. It's been years since I last played it.