Ia! Ia! /ysg/!
Dooting Eternally Edition
This thread is meant to inspire Lovecraftian /tg/ (like Delta Green and CoC) and discuss Lovecraft's works for inspiration along with anything else that fits into this genre or takes place in the Yog-Sothothery.
(Are you pleased now?)
Previous Thread:
>>47818857
The Texts of Lore that Men were not meant to know:
http://www.eldritchdark.com
http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/
>Recommend things to put in the next OP
>Mr. Servitor, doot doot.
>Cthulhu lies fapping
>Please create a new thread when the Bump Limit has been reached and we are in the Lower Pages.
>If you don't horrors beyond your comprehension will shitpost.
>>47891078
Threadly Reminder that Lovecraft is a hack.
How do you like your games on the scale between purist and pulpy?
>>47891194
Either, good sir, both are entertaining.
>>47891194
Pulpy on a moment to moment basis, absolutely fucked on the longer scale
Do we spin yarn now?
>>47889527
>>47891240
BRPD is so good, perfect blend of things getting done and too much going on for the protagonists to handle. It's like lovecraft xcom the comic.
>>47891438
>Not remembering our daily reminders as jokes
Also you could make the point that he's a technical hack due to his love of unknown horrors, but he damn well knows how to set a mood and spook a guy.
>>47891078
So games that use yog-soth concepts without direct references.
Bloodborn is pretty well known example.
Sunless Sea and Echo Bazaar. No the rubbery men really, though they look a bit like it. But Mr Eaten, the Sun Engine, the Correspondence, The Gods of the Zea, and other bits get Yoggy.
A few of the Dedra of the Elder Scrolls games.
Traditional games are typically more direct refrences rather than themes, or if they have the themes they use direct references. I'd say Promethean: The Created had some themes in there, and The God-Machine chronicals and what they added touches on the themes without too much in terms of direct references.
Unknown armies seems like it does at points, but it's fundamental humanism undercuts that in for the most part.
>>47891749
What? Those all good examples but for what question?
>>47891872
Not really a question, just figured it was a thing to discuss or bring up: games with the /ysg/ themes rather than direct references.
Also, was wondering if others had more examples, which I suppose I should have said.
>>47891933
Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requim Requim
For starters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxkzCre3XJY
>>47891996
Typed Requim twice like a dolt, another lovely one.
Anchorhead:
http://ifdb.tads.org/viewgame?id=op0uw1gn1tjqmjt7
>>47891194
I tend more towards pulpy while not being all the way.
My campaigns feature gun fights and the occasional battle with a monster, but these are usually very deadly. The PCs aren't covered in plot armor.
>>47891749
The Dawn Machine is not particularly Lovecraftian. It's actually the antithesis of Lovecraftian: human ingenuity built to destroy the cosmic. I will cede that Fallen London setting is a bit eldritch, but one of the primary reasons I like it so much is that there's a lot more orange-blue morality than CRUSH HUMANITY going on. It's not like the Masters actively want to kill people or anything, and we don't actually know if the process of rendering down the remaining population of the cities into Lacre is intentional or just a byproduct. We also don't know if they do it after everyone dies, or if the people sumped into neath-snow are even dead at all. That you can create people out of Lacre lends credence to the suspicion that it's a lot more Third Impact than Soylant Green.
>>47892253
>human ingenuity
It's actually pretty likely that the Dawn Machine has had a lot of help from Hell; they probably don't call it the Department of Infernal Rarefactions for nothing.
>>47892253
I'd say the Dawn Machine is kinda Lovecraftian because it went so out of control. It might have been started by humans, but by the point of the game, it's less humans using it, than it using humans.
Fallen Londons big eldritch entities are less actively inhospitable to humanity, but their plenty creepy. And the smaller things can be pretty terrifying. Sorrow Spiders. Polythreme. The North. The conversations at Depot III still haunt me.
And fucking everything connected to Kingeater's Castle. I don't know much about it, and I feel I want to know less.
>>47892253
Man, I wish I could have a solid collection of Fallen London lore somewhere. The Bazaar wiki is so damn gimped.
>>47892948
somewhat intentional, as finding out the story isn't just the story is basically what the game is selling.
Which is why sunless sea is actually a better source for getting direct info, because the restriction on info posting isn't done there, as it's not just a story game. Though it's mainly about the story.
I'm this close to winning that game, but I realize over the course of it, my current captain is not a good man.
>>47891078
>toot toot
>>47891511
You had me at lovecraftian X-com
>>47893384
Isn't that already a thing?
>>47893400
I DID NOT KNOW THIS EXISTS.
STOP OR I BURST OUT OF MY MEAT SUIT IN EXCITEMENT
>>47893406No.
>>47892442
Is it, though? I'm reasonably certain that its original intent is still fully online, even if the Machine itself is now bent on achieving its own goals, as much as a false Judgement has 'goals'. The Dawn Machine is, ultimately, human endeavor gone awry in a completely human way, as opposed to the Lovecraftian core ideal of complete and total human insignificance.
The King of a Hundred Hearts isn't what I'd call creepy, and it's not like anything other than Jack that comes from there is actually even particularly dangerous. He's just old and lonely and bitter. The Sea of Voices, though, that place is creep for days.
As a side note, I really do love how the Anarchists are realistically portrayed: deeply idealistic people with, perhaps, a noble goal in mind but holy SHIT do they have no head for consequences.
>>47891194
I would love a purist game but they always end up pulpy because >PCs
>>47892253
Humans becoming the eldritch horrors that haunt the nightmares of the helpless sounds lovecraftian to me desu. His biggest thing is the fear of the the unknown.
Take Herbert West - Reanimator. The monster was Herbert, not his creations. And to an extent Charles Dextar Ward, though that was humans harnessing the powers of Yog-Sothoth
>>47893455
>>47893481
>still no pingu version of this
>>47893592
The ABSOLUTE MADMEN.
>>47891749
>A few of the Daedra
Hermaeus Mora's stuff in particular.
Herma-Mora is pretty Yog-Sothoth-y, with his need to obtain all knowledge, and his tomes of forbidden lore that sends you into his world of stacked books and fetid pools.
>>47893068
I know it's intentional, but I feel like I'm missing half the lore just because I follow the wrong path. Hell, the Ambitions alone cut you off from 3/4 of their lore.
>>47893650
>>47893666
Plus there's his Lurkers which are pretty much how I'd imagine Deep Ones.
There's some direct references too. One of his Black Books is called "The Sallow Regent" which is a King in Yellow reference, and the last quest in the chain is "At the Summit of Apocrypha" which you could argue is a Mountains of Madness reference.
>>47893733
And his Seekers are pretty Star Spawn-esque.
Also, the whole Sixth House in Morrowind feels like a Lovecraftian cult, with their mutations over time into twisted forms. Plus, Dagoth Ur's source of power is the heart of a dead god.
Granted, he's not a forgotten god, and he tends to be pretty benevolent.
>>47893406
it's not very good. It basically just a reskin of x-com with the difficulty cranked up. And that's if you get a properly patched version that doesn't autoset the difficulty to max.
>>47893485
>The King of a Hundred Hearts isn't what I'd call creepy
ale that screams in cups that moan.
>>47893773
What about Sheogorath, he reeks of a Nyarlathotep-esque influence. Except he dicks with mortals through madness more often than not and is a slight bit more silly than ol' Nyarly.
>>47893485
Polytherme comes off as creepier in Sunless Sea than in Fallen London.
Is the Sea of Voices the same as the Sea of Statues? just restarted Fallen London, and don't have boat yet, but Sea of Statues and Kingeater's Castle is nope.
the Eye will probably make you shit yourself when you first see itbut as far as I can tell it's harmless.
Why again was this general getting flack every thread? It seems rather intelligent and thoughtful...
>>47893877
It drives your Terror to 100 crazy fast. So without some luck, it's game over, man. Game over.
>>47893850
Sheo doesn't seem to have any more significant knowledge of the universe's underpinnings than the other Princes.
If it ain't needlessly antagonistic, it ain't Nyarly.
>>47894085
>If it ain't needlessly antagonistic, it ain't Nyarly.
I suppose I overemphasized his trolling nature. But as I said, Nyarlathotep-esque.
Would Molag-Bal be the effective love child of Nyarlathotep and Y'golonac?
>>47891749
>>47893666
>>47893733
>>47893773
>>47893850
>>47894085
All right, let's sort this all.
Lovecraft in tone:
Sixth House & Dagoth Ur
The decay of the Falmer
Semi-Referential:
Hermaeus Mora, Lurkers, Seekers, Apocrypha, hypnotized people working for Miraak.
Referential:
Mehrunes DAGON
A book called The Sallow Regent and a quest called At the Summit of Apocrypha
A Shadow over Hackdirt
>>47894038
did not know that. I ran away the first time I saw it, and after that, it's location means I basically never pass through that region.
Though driving up terror makes sense, as I literal fell out of may chair that first time.
>>47894203
I agree that Nyarlar is a cosmic troll. He seems to be the only GOO whose actively interested in humanity. Which is a bad thing, of course.
But while he seems to cause destruction, madness, and ruin in his wake, I never get the intent of an end goal. It just seem like he likes fucking with people.
>>47894381
>only GOO
Dude's an Outer God, he eats guys like Cthulhu for shits and giggles.
>I never get the intent of an end goal. It just seem like he likes fucking with people.
Perhaps he loves his work, or maybe he's lying and he has no end goal.
>>47894450
>outer god not Great old one
meh, I go by the old Lovecraft standby here. He's willfully inconsistent in his classifications, so I'm not gonna bother.
>>47894555
Yeah, it's rather irritating isn't it.
>>47893877
The Sea of Voices is the Sea that surrounds Polythreme; there is something about the Heart of the Mountain shoved into the King's chest that has imbued eternal life into everything, the ocean included. I feel bad for the poor manager, almost; it's not like he knew what the Masters were going to do to his lover, and he was, frankly, desperate. There's a particular line of text that comes out of the Marvellous hunt (Heart's Desire ambition) where he drops all of his pretense about being the mad manager of the mad house in a mad land and, for a few lines of text, he's just a sad, old, lonely man who knows exactly how badly he fucked up.
To re-visit the Lovecraftian themes, though, the Judgements are pretty clearly Lovecraftian in at least a few ways. It doesn't get more Outer Gods than the cold (they are not cold) unfeeling stars. The Thief-of-Faces, too, suggests the kind of monstrosity that appears throughout Lovecraft: alien, ancient, angry and hungry.
>>47893589
To be fair, it was more that West succumbed to madness and became that which he sought to control; so far as we know, this is very much not the case with the Dawn Machine. Those that 'serve' it are still furthering their own goals, and the Liberation of Night, the death of the Mountain, breaking every link of the Great Chain, that's all progressing according to plan, it would seem. The Calendar Council cares far too much about their ideals to worry about anything so pedestrian as 'consequence'.
>>47893384
If you haven't read Hellboy or BPRD do so. They are awesome, way better than the movies, and I liked those.
BPRD is basically a very pulpy Delta Green.
>>47894794
Either you've played 90% of the content or figured some other way around it, but you should probably write all this lore down for the hungry ones, such as my self.
Hello, /tgesg/ here.
>>47891749
The relationship between Daedra and Lovecraftian influences is pretty varying.
The Daedra seem pretty Lovecraftian from the perspective of a mortal. The Princes are understood as good or bad, but are ultimately beings that belong to another sphere of being. They're not moral or immoral, simply amoral, and above all mortal concerns. Despite how much they pretend to care about their followers, they're generally in line with the cosmic indifference you get from Lovecraft.
They're also, again for normal people, somewhat unknowable, and even the normal clergy of Deadra-worshipping cultures can't usually be said to really understand the Daedra.
But ultimately, even mortals can grow tremendously powerful in TES, and the universe is ultimately all made of the same stuff. The Daedra aren't completely separate from us, nor are they so immensely powerful that no mortal could escape them.
Also, I'd argue that the Daedra aren't really unknowable to mortals.
>>47894222
Mehrunes Dagon is more than just referential, I'd say.
MD was originally known as the Demon Leaper King, a being who "leaped" from one kalpa (world-cycle) to the next, stealing/preserving pieces of creation before Alduin ended the kalpa. He did this until Alduin cursed him and ate him. This "eating-birth" curse made Dagon into the twisted Daedric figure he now is.
This theme of degeneration and decay is pretty common amongst the Daedra.
See for example Malacath and Meridia.
>>47894794
This is reminding me more of my old Fallen London game.
But yeah, the Sea of Statues is if anything more scary that the Sea of Voices.
What's it's story? I don't know, and I kinda don't want to. It's on the way to Kingeater's Castle. Which only bad things happen at, and the fact that you return there is the main reason why going east is almost as scary as going North.
I mean going of the map to the North is worse, and a great way to get yourself killed, but fuck Kingeater's Castle. I don't even know why it's so terrifying, but it is.
Sunless Sea is also where you can go further in Seeking Mr Eaten's name than you can in Fallen London. It's probably still a Bad Idea.
>>47895107
Sunless Sea anon here. I've got too many things I need to write down for me to bother doing this and editing it for readability (Dark Heresy campaign material, CYOA based off the Controller CYOA, a half dozen for fun articles, etc), but if you have particular questions I'll answer as best I can.
>>47895107
Ask specific questions and I can try to answer them, or at least point you at the right things. It's worth noting that a LOT of my answers (as with all answers about the 'end game') are wild, half-baseless supposition.
>>47895238
Not anymore! They've just re-opened Seeking the Name in Fallen London, and there's buckets of new ways for you to completely destroy yourself and ruin your life and the lives of those close to you! Have at it, me hearty.
>>47894002
The same turbo spergs who throw a fit anytime a thread isn't solely dedicated to discussing the mechanics of D&D, 40k and MTG were under the impression that a thread for discussing Lovecraft wasn't /tg/ enough despite the fact that CoC basically requires a decent understanding of the man's work to run it competently.
>>47893787
>>47893406
>>47893400
Rumor has it that X-COM 2 is getting an expansion along similar lines as this.
>>47895238
King Eater's Castle is terrifying because it does not prevaricate, allude or obfuscate. Everything else in the setting at least implies mystery or profit or SOMETHING, and the fear is almost entirely either body horror or just the creepy unknown. It is the only thing (like Seeking, in Fallen London) that simply flat out says "No. Just... don't. This is terrible, all of this is terrible, only bad things will come of this, everything that happens here is horrible." That forwardness is a huge presentation, a way to tell you that, while the rest of the game is unsure and maybe you have a chance, Kingeater is unequivocally horrific. The change in tone is dramatic and noticeable, making what is normally the most bland kind of horror into something jarring and pointedly unsettling.
>>47891933
Kult. The system itself is bullshit, but the setting is brilliant.
>>47895381
>>47895296
Well, two lore-anons. Could you explain this line to me?
>Liberation of Night, the death of the Mountain, breaking every link of the Great Chain
I'm pretty sure it all has to do with Death, Life, and Immortality, putting out the Stars, and the Elder Continent, but that's about it.
>>47895138
I know about the Leaper Demon King, I don't find him particularly Lovecraftian, a little too tragic and his need to destroy is something understandable. I'm just saying the name Dagon itself is just a reference. It would be neat if he'd been the Prince of the Lurkers or Dreugh instead of Mora and Bal...
>>47895019
I second that motion. BPRD is some of the greatest shit I have ever read.
I also recommend Black fire by Hernan Rodriguez. its like lovecraft and Slavic mythology made sweet, sweet love.
>>47895604
So the Great Chain is, so far as we know, the pecking order of reality. At the top are Judgements (stars) and everything else is strung out in strict order under that. The Judgements enforce reality, which is why everything is so wonky in the 'Neath: no sunlight. For all kinds of different reasons, a lot of people HATE that and want to destroy it. This is the end goal of the Anarchists: breaking the Great Chain and shattering every link. That's the Liberation of Night.
So that's the summation of what we *know* about it. The next bit is wild conjecture.
The Mountain of Light is PROBABLY the 'daughter' of the Bazaar and our Sun. The Bazaar is DEFINITELY in love with the Sun. Somehow, something about the Mountain grants true, honest-to-god immortality, meaning that the Mountain violates the Chain in all kinds of ways. The Dawn Machine is, almost certainly, some way to create a false Judgement, and I can think of no more direct use of enforcing reality than killing the Mountain itself; perhaps destroying a bridge between links will weaken the Chain, who knows, but certain Destinies makes two things obvious: the Liberation of Night has something to do with the Mountain, and it will work.
>>47895984
Oh, and congress between entities on different links in the Chain is Heresy with a capital H, which is why the Bazaar is in the 'Neath in the first place; there's a lot of theories that the Bazaar is collecting love stories to prove to the Sun that love between different stations is a real thing that can really happen and it's okay, but that feels entirely too human and pedestrian to me.
>>47895604
>Liberation of Night
Okay, so right now the Neath is in constant dark, which some call the Night, even if that isn't exactly right.
Some people want to bring light to the Neath, but not just any light, like candle light etc, but a light like the Sun, ie a Judgement.
Spoilersthe sun and stars are Judgements, in that they judge how the world is to work. They communicate with each other through Correspondence, which cares this order of how the world should work, and this is carried by their light. That's why things from the Neath are different from the surface and can't return there. Because the light of the Judgement would say they should not exist, and destroy them.
Making a new Judgement in the neigth would effectivly destroy it. And worse, if that new Judgment was say, insane, and had different ideas of what the rules of the universe should be. This includes their rule that Things Die
The Mountain is would die becauseit is the daughter of the Bazaar, and like the Bazaar must be hidden from the light of the Judgements. It's also one of the Gods of the Zea, Stone. The mountain is part of the Elder Continent, but what the Elder Continent is is a bit of a question. It's part of the south, but distant directions are weird in the Neath.
Not sure what the Great Chain is, maybe the Correspondence, maybe what brings cities into the Neath.
I asked this in the last thread but didn't get a response. Has anyone run a campaign for Call of Cthulhu or any of the other RPGs that heavily involves the Dreamlands? If so, how did you go about it, did the players enjoy it, was it a success or a total failure?
>>47893773
Dagoth-Ur and the Sixth House certainly wouldn't be out of place in Lovecraftian literature. It goes beyond just him affecting people through their dreams and his followers mutating and twisting into something completely alien (with flute-tentacles for a face; connection to the flute-playing ervitors of the Outer Gods?). There's also his bizarre nature as what is effectively the polar opposite of undead (he's quite literally "dead but dreaming") and him attempting to essentially take over the world using the power of agressive solipsism (Dagoth-Ur sees the world as being his dream, and attempts to turn everything into Dagoth-Ur, hence him first taking over the dreams and minds of people, then twisting their flesh to suit his vision).
>>47895984
Where do the Masters fit in then? Judging from the Destiny I got, they are employed by the Stars for some purpose. Also, how is the Bazaar related to the Lorn-flukes?
>>47897624
no, their employed by the Bazaar to gather stories of love so it can prove the love to the stars.
>Lorn Fluke
possibly. It's not like Stone or Mt. Nomador the Fathom Kingwhere they are descendants of the Bazaar. But it could be another type of creature similar to the Bazaar.
>>47897159
That's cute and disgusting
>>47899278
Bump
>>47897624
>>47897867
The Flukes and their sorta-servitor race, the Rubbery Men, were brought from the planet Axile to the Neath by the Masters(including Mr. Candles, who would later become Mr. Eaten).
They are essentially sea urchins(that also have tentacles maybe?). The normal Flukes are very small -- about the size of your hand, and are generally chill. They live on Flute Street in London, and mostly just want their Rubbery Men servants to hurry up and become as advanced and capable as the humans.
The Lorn Flukes are a subset of Flukes that live deep under the Zee. They're absolutely massive, easily dwarfing a full-size ship, and super fucking pissed at everything and everyone - probably because the Masters and the Bazaar have done nothing for the Axiles. I believe one of them is the Fathom King's wife.
>>47895984
I could be mistaken, but I believe The Mountain of Light's aura of vitality comes from its half-Judgement heritage. It basically is bathing the Neath in the light of god, but it behaves differently from the Judgements' light because of either the Neath's Neathyness or the Bazaar's lesser genes.
The violation of the Chain comes from two things. One, the amalgamy of the Sun and the Bazaar. The Judgements exist at the top of the Great Chain, while the Bazaar is high-tier but still lesser. Second, the amalgamy of the Mountain and the Thief of Faces, which resulted in Mount Nomad.
>>47901383
Dr. Zarkov, a pleasure to see you active.If I mistook you this shall be awkard.
>>47901910
I've got bad news, anon. I have no idea who that is.
>>47901939
We name our writefags after characters from Flash Gordon.
>>47899278
And it used to be an elf.
>>47901990
Oh. Of course.
>>47902274
Yeah, its an interesting general. We mostly talk about Derleth being a hack and discuss lore.
>>47896964
They enjoyed it quite well, be trippy as fuck.
>>47902151
This guy was once an Druid.
This is unnessecary and pandering yes?
>>47902661
I love you Anon.
>>47891194
>Pulpy Action Investigation for the most part
>Gun battles and fist fights against humans or wild Animals
>Immediate shift into Purist Supernatural Horror as soon as something truly Mythos Related is introduced
Currently playing with a group of semi-experienced players(mainly Pathfinder) who have ever played CoC before. I used Modified character sheets to hide that that was what we were playing and told them we were playing "d100 Modern"
They're playing Punk Rockers investigating the disappearance of a local music promoter...who was actually taken as a breeder by the deep ones.
>>47902661
>tries to be progressive and inclusive
>arab looks like he just stepped off the set of Indiana Jones
>>47902661
>>47902782
Worse look at the Jew, man. That's so stereotypical it hurts.
>>47902661
I bet the Chinese chick is actually the Bloated Woman.
>>47902803
thats the point
>>47901383
>the amalgamy of the Mountain and the Thief of Faces, which resulted in Mount Nomad.
well that's the first I heard of that.
>>47902879
Yup. The Sun and the Bazaar have a grandchild, a zee-faring mountain of black glass that can blast entire ships to pieces by shouting at them in Correspondence, the burning language of the stars.
>>47892948
>>47893068
Ooh! Ooh! I can be helpful!
I'm a big fan of the guy that runs two tumblr pages, his Saint-Arthur and Saint-Beau blogs, which are delegated to Fallen London and Sunless Sea specifically.
http://saint-arthur.tumblr.com/
http://saint-beau.tumblr.com/
He's also the guy who suggested the idea of (but did not write the story of, that was still Failbetter's work) the island of Nuncio.
He answers a lot of people's questions, which relate to gameplay and to lore in sometimes equal measures, so it's not always the best reading. However, he does have links set up to a majority of his most important lore postings.
It goes without saying that even opening up the following link will result in a saturation of spoilers.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CpnhakUKxFeXzONYyccrrWhvc7kZeIK4q7gcEtK6sQo/edit#_=_
>>47893485
I do like the idea of the Dawn Machine as an inversion of Lovecraftian themes, so much so it somewhat incorporates them again.
>>47903192
Thank you.
>>47902976
oh, I new about Mount Nomad being the Mountains child.
It's the Thief of Faces bit that I didn't know.
>>47902976
>>47903192
So random bits of Sunless Sea weirdness that you will encounter.
One of your engineers mother was a dream hallucination, and her father was a tiger.
You have two cook options, ones a mass rubber tentacles under the control of a mass of coral that wants you to melt it's brain, the other is man wrapped entirely in bandages except for his amazing mustache.
I was once exiled from London for delivering a box from a Monkey Emperor, I don't know what was in the box, but after it was opened everything was on fire. I delivered the box because I need to earn monkey's trust, so I could betray them, kill them, and steal their zeppelin.
This was not the weirdest thing I did that day.
>>47903588
Should I even ask?
>>47903372
For you and anyone else interested, I learned everything I know by going to http://saint-arthur.tumblr.com/tagged/fl+lorepost/page/182 and just reading and clicking previous page until there was nothing left.
It's a massive amount of information, but it comes in easily digested bite-sized pieces, and you even get to see how previous theories and understandings of the lore evolved and changed as you proceed through the pages and more information came to light in the game. It's interesting how certain things that most people consider basic facts of the setting, like the relationship between the
However, if you want to submit a question, for the love of god please do a search first. Chances are it's been answered at least twice already.
>>47903588
This anon makes a good case for remaining unspoiled, though. There's a lot of excitement to be had in the Neath, and you may be better off experiencing it for yourself. Especially in the case of Sunless Sea, where you can just dive in instead of digging for weeks/months in Fallen London to reach The Good Stuff.
>>47903719
Thanks Anon.
>>47903686Depot III. where you bring corpses, a rare thing in the neath because death is so hard to make stick while leaving a body.
They cut out hearts of metal from the corpses. They took a tincture that seals away their pain and regret, but that pain hardens into metal that build up in the heart.
After brining enough corpses, the mortician asks you to help with a special autopsy. Seal in a glass case, is an exact copy of the mortician. She says it's her sister.
As she cuts open the corpse, she weeps about their history, about the lose and betrayal they shared. But then you realize something.
This isn't her sister, it isn't even human, it's something that took her face. The Mortician never had a sister.
In the end the mortician asks you for words of comfort. Do you tell her the truth, or help her with the lieI never have the heart to tell her the truth
>>47903860
I didn't expect these feels.
>>47902782
I'm not seeing an Arab guy though.
Bumpcratian
>>47903912
he probably means the sikh
>>47902661
No, you're just bigoted.
>>47902774
>modified character sheets
kek
>>47902774
Why is that so amazing?
Which is best: Elder Sign, Arkham Horror, Eldritch Horror, or Mansions of Madness? Discuss.
>>47894222
Well, Dagon is an actual god too.
>>47910820
Yeah, but this one's a demon from another plane, who's part of the Dunmer House of Troubles and invades Tamriel. I think he's probably named for the Lovecraft one, not the farming and fertility one.
>>47910738
Eldritch Horror and Mansions of Madness, 'nuff said.
>>47910738
Mansions comes with a bunch of minis.
>>47897159
Thing is, in TES,everything is a dream.
The whole existence, all its planes and creatures and gods, aedra and daedra and the ones that don´t fit. It´s all a dream.
Every consciousness in the dream is no more than a tiny part of the dreamers consciousness. And if you realize that you´re dreaming, you wake up and disappear, because you´re no longer dreaming and you´re the dreamer.
But some people manage to control it. They realize they´re in a dream but, instead of waking up - they enter lucid dreaming. CHIM. Vivec reached it, CHIM. He became no a god, but a super-god, so to say. The gods are also dreamers, the dreamer dreaming itself into dreamers. Vivec was a lucid dreamer.
Dagoth Ur was not quite a full lucid dreamer like Vivec, but he was waking up. So it´s not like he sees the world as being his dream - it´s that he´s starting to notice that the world is, indeed, a dream, and everyone´s a dreamer.
TES lore is very trippy.
>>47915339
That's a little more literal than I'd suggest taking it. Anu isn't literally dreaming up the world, and certainly can't wake up. But let's wait until Friday's thread to discuss it, and not fill up /ysg/ with it.
>>47915339
>>47915828
That's actually the lore behind The Yog-Sothothery, except Azathoth is dreaming.
So i have a campaign where one group is working for a Politician who has as an advisor a Serpentman. They know it too, not like "hey that dude just ate a live rat" know it but more like "holy shit it is the 500 lb talking snake guy in robes again" know it. They guy is their ally and defacto boss. After a few mythos rolls they have a pretty accurate idea of how it views them, how utter lethal it is and that it is being absurdly patient and tolerant with them.
They know they will never be "respected" by it, they are focusing on trying to get it to "hate these particular filthy monkeys less than usual".
So how? I figure that their best bet is to not fuck up whatever it tells them to do, keep their mouths shut in any sort of intellectual conversation and most importantly show self control around it. No screaming, freaking out, displays of emotion, no breaches of decorum.
I have this idea that i will create a 'Serpentman Etiquette' skill that would be mythos/etiquette skill averaged out. If (when) they fail the roll they will get a fast talk roll to apologize for their ignorance before it gets pissed off.
>>47917105
Addendum: The Serpentman DOES have a sense of humor so he isn't as trigger happy with the death ray or shriveling spells as most. When they met him his public persona is too famous for discretion so meets them disguised as James Earl Jones. When they asked him about his choice in disguise he revealed that he was the honest to Crom real Yig damn Thulsa Sky Mother fucking Doom.
"I was quite angry at his poor portrayal of me you know. After i interrogated him to see what he knew (nothing i'm afraid) i devoured him.
Behold the superiority of the cold blooded! He wore me so poorly on the screen, but in life i wear him so well!"
So other than Mi-Go brain jars, Elder Thing genetic engineering, and whatever the Yith use to battle the Flying Polyps, what other examples of alien technology are there in the mythos?
>>47917486
The Martians and their Tripods. And whatever the fuck the Elder Things have.
>>47896964
Robin Laws' mega book/campaign thing, called Dream Hounds of Paris, is very plunder worthy for how to make the dreamlands work in a game.even if you don't give a shit about the surrealists and the historical surrealism movement and fucking around with goddamned actual artists from history. Suck a fat one, Jacques Breton.
>>47918890
Issues with the guy much?
Also where the fuck is Flash Gordon?
>>47918947
Robin Laws? Hell no. Do like. Do recommend.Breton? Yeah. Dude was a bully and a glory hound. Attributes that really rub me raw.
>>47919069Seems pretty bad, all we have is Derleth and he was more just a little bit egocentric than anything legitimately bad.
>>47919414
I actually rather like how Laws handles him, by making him a plot enabler and nexus around which interesting things happen, rather than an actual prime mover in his own right. Also echoes history nicely, considering how he was basically surpassed byDaliirl.
What I don't care for in Dreamhounds -- and I fully realize this is a personal taste thing, and doesn't make the book/concept less good -- is how it's built around having the players play premade PCs based on historical artists. It's a fine idea, and works well in the way the book is built around it, but it has seemed to flatten player engagement in their characters, especially given the length of the Dreamhounds campaign. Players, at least in my groups, seem to engage more in self-made characters, especially in multi session or more protracted games. However, of course, YMMV.
That said, Dreamhounds is still very much worth picking up for a really good look at how to make the dreamlands work in an actual game and a really good sourcebook, even if the setting and overall campaign don't grab you. And if they do, then it's even better.
Elder Bump
Is there a list of which stories reference what?
Like Cthulu is primarily im The Call of Cthulu, but is also mentioned in the Dunwich Horror as cousin to the twins, and At the Moumtain of Madness when talking about the star spawns coming to earth?
Id like for the other old ones and such
>>47917486
Serpent Men can create Death Ray guns that instead of doing HP damage permanently reduce the targets CON score. They also apparently know the basics on how to make atomic bombs as a racial skill.
Elder Things/Yith/Serpent Men have a lighting gun weapon that can fry a shoggoth.
The Elder things and the Great Race of Yith have technology that is roughly the same, however they work in different times scales.
The Serpent Men have knowledge, technology, the alliance of humanity and wisdom.
And 35 million years of planning.
>>47915339
Based on Vivec's sermons Dagoth-Ur seems to have reached some sort of anti-CHIM. CHIM is usually described as seeing the wheel (ie. the world/universe) from the outside and seeing it turn into a tower when you turn it to its side, representing all of the world being one. CHIM is realising that you, and everything else that exists, is part of the Godhead's dream, and therefore part of the Godhead, giving you some ability alter reality because your conciousness is part of the conciousness of the being that dreams reality. It's seeing yourself as a small part of a far vaster pattern, but without losing sight of the part that is you (zero-summing, ie. poofing yourself out of existence, is what happens when you see only the "big picture" and lose sight of yourself as an individual).
What Dagoth-Ur has is somethign different. He's described as looking out from the center of the wheel, seeing everything spread away from him, and concluding that he is the center and source of reality. He has also seen the true nature of existence, but due to his very skewed perspective he's drawn the completely wrong conclusion, and considers everything to be his dream.
Dagoth-Ur is pretty weird metaphysically anyway, and is somethign that really should not exist. Normally in TES, when people dream or they die, their soul goes to the Dreamsleeve. Necromancers call souls from the Dreamsleeve to inhabit dead bodies. Dagoth-Ur managed to die and ascend to godhood at the same time by messing with the Heart of Lorkhan while mortally wounded, and glitched up the system. He's dead in the waking world, but his spirit is awake in the dreamsleeve. When he sleeps, his soul enters the waking world (thus, he's literally "dead but dreaming", or "dreams that he yet lives", as mentioned in the game ).
So I heard through the grapevine that CoC was getting a physical reprint or coming out with a new edition or something? When is that planned to release? I love the system and really want to own a physical copy without paying through the nose for it.
>>47921788
There was a 7th edition recently
>>47921788
Pay for it. Support it or the company will go bankruptfor the 3rd time
>>47924588
Yeah, given that the new guys in charge pumped a hell of a lot of their own cash into it to make sure everyone who had funded the kickstarter got their orders, they could do with a bit of support.
>>47921788
Last I saw the physical copies of the 7e book are finally being shipped to KS backers. It probably won't be long before you can order them directly from Chaosium. Seriously though buy the book, CoC has some of the most top quality stuff in the business. Support people that make good shit.
>>47927848
I will pick up the german edition of the7th ed rules. Its cheaper
>>47926031
>>47924588
also, if you're worried about the guy in charge making the same mistakes that led to bankruptcy.
He wasn't the guy in charge when the bankruptcy mistakes were made. He was in another company that's doing fine.
>>47921788
>>47927848
>>47929257
to give a hint for why this took so long, the company wasn't able to pay to sent the books, because they promised free (or basically free) shipping to backers.
Free shipping anywhere.
Including several hundred to japan, where the shipping cost was over $100 iirc. The total cost they had to cover for shipping was tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
So they ran out of money and had to be bailed out by an old Chaosiam guy and his friends.
>>47920610
It's really slow today.
Is the thread sleeping?
>>47933995
No, just dead.
>>47935086
that is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die.
>>47935086
We cannot die poor fool, we are eternal and beyond your comprehension.
>>47933995
Dead but dreaming
And the dark mouth /ysg/ was quiet and bided it's time but it shall rise again and swallow all of /tg/ whole.
>>47917486
Great Race of Yith has psychic time travel.
>>47918947
I've been gone too long, but I'm back.
>THE RACES OF MAN: THE DIVINE WARRIORS
The oldest and darkest method of human modification, to fuse a human mind/body/soul (typically at the embryonic stage or earlier; to describe it as 'breeding with' is more metaphor than truth, but it's close) with a tiny fragment of a Great Old One or Outer God. How old? There are strange fossils at the ten thousand, hundred thousand, even the million-year level when the proto-human civilizations of Hyperborea and Mu were first rising; perhaps just of some utterly inhuman summon-thing, but certain twists of form and surrounding artifacts... suggest.
How dark? It was long considered the genocide-crime, the unperson-crime, family friends historical record race and nation all expunged in megaton suns. Or so went the rhetoric; actual implementation, generally a step too far even in that paranoid age.
Initially, it was done for power; everyone from maniacal dictators to oppressed minorities seeking to summon and bind servitor-gods. Successes even in summoning were few; successes in control, still rarer. (The Last Reich kind of managed, but they had millions to burn and... patrons.)
Then, as the end drew near, even a few League nations began experimenting. Searching, in desperation, to match the Lord of Dead Dreams on his own terms. In the chaos of those final days, nobody cared enough to spend a nuke. What matter the rape of a dead planet?
There are rumors of success, even at the latest possible stage. Rumors of enclaves, carved out by sorcerous might of the surface where humans could sort of survive, ruled/defended/exploited by the monstrosities known as the Divine Warriors.
Rumors of the Cruel Empire of Tsan-Chan.
Surely just rumors.
>>47937698
Our sacred write/lorefag has returned. We welcome you back Flash.
>>47893650
FEEL THE CLAW!
>>47937698
Smells kinda like A Colder War.
I like the idea of the internet being an unimaginable, unexplainable, undescribable horror in the time in which Lovecraft lived.
I mean, just think about how Lovecraft would react to all this.
>>47939637
He'd be the most eloquent /pol/ poster ever?
>>47939660
He'd be the worst twitter user ever.
>>47891240
BPRD is so fucking great. Fuck Hellboy, this is where it's at.
>>47939660
Reformed /pol/ poster, technically. He was kind of regretting it towards the end of his life.
I think he'd be an interesting person to talk to about all this. He was a very intelligent man in a time of great bigotry, and his opinion would be more sound in today's time and culture, I think.
>>47939741
>Fuck Hellboy
You don't get to talk to my husbando that way, scoundrel.
BPRD is great, too bad /co/ has to be almost forced to talk about it, it's sad. Abe Sapian has been great in these past 2 issues. Last 2 issues coming up. Hellboy in Hell was perfect. Lobster Johnson is doing Lobster Johnson shit. Franky is chilling. Are we gonna see more Eddy the Witchfinder stories?
Also, are there any podcasts RPing in the Mignolaverse setting? Are there any rulebooks centered around it? Do we have any RPMignolaverse?
>>47939770
>rulebooks
Steve Jackson Games made a Hellboy RPG with GURPS as a system.
Mostly you just gotta look around for a system you like and can work with. It's the setting that's the best part anyway.
>>47939799
Right. I was just checking if there is a pre-existing one that works well. I wouldn't even know how to conduct a Hellboy RP, now that I think about it. BPRD is very similar to Delta Green, except for the bonus effort of not going public. I could always do the Hellboy side, and not the BPRD side, the cookie-wacky Hellboy stories with the magical creatures of the world, but that shit would be on some tight-ass rails, with no possibilities of derailment, right? I mean the whole point of his story is fate. How would you do it?Nice dubs, friend.
>>47939827
>except for the bonus effort of not going public
Actually, the supernatural is known to exist in the BPRD-verse. Hellboy got honorary human status in 1951, and when shit gets weird civilians actually call the BPRD to investigate.
>How would you do it?
Most of the Hellboy stories are disconnected monster of week things. You could pretty much run a scenario where the party encounters weird stuff, and you probably wouldn't have to railroad them.
If you want the idea of fate from BPRD, just have it that, no matter how hard they try, they simply don't have the manpower, resources or time to be everywhere at once. They can do SOME good, and do SOME important things that affect the overall idea of the end of mankind and Earth's future, but they can't win everywhere or save everyone. Go to Chicago to blow up some Ogdru-Hem, and another frog infestation pops up in Nuremberg while another giant monster rises from the Baltic Sea.Honestly the stories are pretty much 'X of the week' style because they're written for trade paperbacks. You can run a campaign this way, with each session or two forming an arc.
>>47939930
>the supernatural is known to exist
Yeah, that's what I meant. I just phrased it in a weird way. I meant that DG is covert, while BPRD is public.
>>47939930
Yeah, I want the idea of fate, because that's what makes BPRD such a gripping story for me. Humanity going down fighting. It's truly glorious, and it's painful to watch.
Alright, thanks for the advice. Pretty sure they're gonna get bored of the constant losing battles, and dying PCs, though. I don't want to go easy on them.I'm actually in the works of doing a more Hellboy-like story, because it feels riskier for the players to not be BPRD agents. Being trained BPRD agents feels too safe, and fate being the thing that makes them unsafe is kind of cool, but unfair at the same time. How does one make fate fair?
>>47939989
>How does one make fate fair?
If the PCs are the ones declared important by fate, then fate may not want them to simply die. Remember, fate in the Mignolaverse is sort of an open-ended thing. Hellboy wasn't fated to kill the dragon, only that if he managed to then his friends would have more time. It wasn't already fated for the spirit of man to be passed on, only that certain conditions had to be fulfilled to make sure it happens.
I'd say that the situations would be as hard as they need to be. They don't need to be utterly screwed over, give them the tools and circumstances that could let them use their skills to defeat whatever monster they're facing.
>>47940155
>I'd say that the situations would be as hard as they need to be
>notes: punching it always has to be an option as a way to success
>>47940215
>punching it always has to be an option as a way to success
To be fair, that's pretty much worked out for Hellboy at least.
>>47940234
To be counter-fair, he used a sword in that fight.
>>47939799
I'm planning to run a campaign in it but I'm not too keen on gurps. Is there any other system with similiar setting? I mean mostly the paranormal investigators/agent team thing, but with possibility of supernatural and extraordinary team members.
>>47940262
Elder Godlike, I guess. I have no knowledge of it, I just know the RPPR guys played it. They had "talents", basicly DG agents with special abilities.
>>47918890
Who is Jacques Breton?
Does anybody want some writing on the things that happen in Lovecraft's world? I'm actually pretty inspired by Flash.
>>47940532
No, we hate people contributing to threads. New ideas are anathema to creativity.
Go ahead and post it.
>>47940532
Do it.
>>47937698
>SATURN
Saturn is not as vast as Jupiter, not as deep, not as ferocious, not as mind-boggling and paranoia-making (To stand on the surface of one of its many moons, and to see the Great Red Spot loom above you like a world-swallowing eye, that great orange bulk a ceiling in the sky like the Sword of Damocles- even without the knowledge that it may, in fact, be alive and looking at you it is mind-shattering. Just as well all the colonies around it are in lightless subsurface oceans.) it is nonetheless a gas giant, with all the things that come with it.
There are two great mysteries of Saturn. The first, the Great Hexagon; while perfectly adequate and mundane explanations were crafted based on long-range investigation, actually visiting it in person revealed strange structures on the edges. Cause? Effect? Unrelated? The world may never know.
The second is the Dream of Saturn. Jupiter’s Dream is Jupiter, down to the individual lightning bolts; (some say that Jupiter’s Dream is simply Jupiter, dreaming of itself forever.) Saturn’s Dream… well, it cannot quite decide what it wants to be. At one moment, it is howling winds and deep sky and thunderstorm minds- the next, an almost normal planet, grey seas and grey land. Oh, and Moon Cats. (Not to be confused with Earth Cats currently on the Moon, of course.)
Fucking Moon Cats.
Navigation is nearly impossible in this liminal land/sea/skyscape, where landmarks dissolve into smoke and open fields become solid walls; that the Moon Cats navigate it effortlessly only makes it more difficult. And of course there are other things living down there, which never look beyond their sky but which are more than willing to eat intruders. There have been repeated attempts to exterminate the Moon Cats; none have met with any kind of success. The only constant landmark is the Great Hexagon, which in the Dream is an immense and sharp-edged void. Anything entering it simply vanishes.
>>47942345
Jupiter dreams of itself in perfect detail; Saturn dreams confused chaos. Is Jupiter unique… or is Saturn somehow broken?
So, what next?
>>47894555
>>47894590
It was probably intentional. Clear, understandable definitions and classifications make something easier to understand and relate to.
>>47942345
>he actually mentioned the Moon Cats
THE ABSOLUTE MADMAN.
>>47942353
Whatever. I like the setting and your style.
>>47942353
>OTHER DIMENSIONS: THE EMPTY UNIVERSE
No matter where you go in this universe, there's always something waiting for you. The tides of civilization have washed over the stars millions of times before, and each time left detritus as they recede; the innumerable sloughings of Azathoth bleed through the empty spaces between atoms, a million a second. Every space is already occupied, and the best humanity can hope for in the near-to-mid future is to be rats in the wainscoting, scurrying around the slumbering feet of the major players.
Except.
Its discovery was an accident, in the way that all dimensional discoveries are accidents; plug in some coordinates that seem relatively human-friendly and send a drone on through.
It discovered... absolutely nothing. Perfect vacuum, absolute zero, not a single photon or atom in billions of light-years.
Further cautious exploration further confirmed- nothing. Nothing, as far as the eye can(not) see.
Colonization was virtually immediate. Given the name Tube Alloys, concealed even from the Elder Thing remnant, a station was built, every component painstakingly transported across the dimensional barrier. Hydroponics were set up and sent running, fusion and fission power, enough for ten thousand people and a vast stock of raw elements for future expansion. Cryogenics and cloning. Their own dimensional exploration equipment. The initial settlers were settled in. Then, they were cut off.
A final redoubt. No matter what happened to the rest of humanity, Project Tube Alloys would survive, in their perfectly empty universe, one day to begin expanding again.
>>47937698
>Cruel Empire of Tsan-Chan
The one detailed book we have about them has a few inconsistencies with your back story but they are easily explained.
1: The Empire has a much more hostile relationship with the MiGo. This can be explained by the Empire being so insane and corrupted that the Migo don't want to deal with them.
2: The Empire has a major alliance with the Elder things and there are a few hundred thousand on the moon getting ready to attack the shoggoths. The lunar Elder things are also facing down a colony of Moon beasts. Luckily you explained that away with the hollow moon.
The Serpent Men are a major component of the Empire. When the Serpent men snuck off earth they were preparing the moon as a fall back position. The Elder Things and Moonbeasts are notr ON the mon, they are INSIDE it. The Serpents used gates connecting the moon to the ort cloud so the Elder Things could amass their army unobserved.
The Elder Thing colony in space was awoken before the ones the Empire are allied with and due to the moon gates didn't observe the army arriving. The space colony either lacks the magical or technological ability to contact the greater part of their race or more likely did but didn't tell anyone about it.
The people in space and Empire would probably want to establish contact however the space humans would probably back off pretty damn fast once they did. The mighty children are literal spawn of the Outer Gods, the place crawls with serpent men and the only 'human' authorities are undead sorcerers. Also they are openly allied with at least two great old ones and their Empress probably counts as a third.
That being said Tsan-Chan has some pretty neat technology and magic, the problem is they achieved it by being batshit crazy and crueler than the monsters they face.
Which would explain the Yithian Prophesy, the Chanese aren't really human at this point.
>>47945745
I was mainly just stealing the name, but this all fits nicely.
And honestly I know virtually nothing about the Serpent-Men and my section on them was completely off the cuff. If you could fill me in further so I could revise it that would be great.
Meanwhile,
>LIFE ON MARS
The atmosphere of Mars is now technically breathable, but nobody does if they can help it. The ecology-war between human terraformers and Martian native life has generated endless rot-bogs and vast fungal fields; decomposers thrive, but nothing else. The thin, fast winds carry spores, bacteria, and insects now instead of sand; modern medicine is good, but why tempt fate? Full pressurization is no longer necessary, but in most other respects the cities of Mars resemble space colonies- endless fields of seamless bio-plastic sheds and low steel domes merging together into a single unbroken mass. Any venturing outside these conurbations is done in body-covering clothing and gas masks. In the highlands, far away from the rotting lowlands, there are open streets and faces- but up there the oxygen content is just barely enough for human survival.
Conditions are cramped, but getting better; construction/growth carries on at a frantic pace; hardly anyone still has to live in dormitories. The food is getting better too; in addition to having finally cleared enough space for actual farms, algae-vat technology has advanced by leaps and bounds in recent years.
>>47937698
Has anyone collected his stuff somewhere?
What about the beetle-people of Earth's future, and the insect folk of Jupiter's fourth moon?
>>47946958
Serpent men are exactly what they seem to be, big ass humanoid snakes. They evolved naturally tens of millions of years ago before the dinosaurs. The Conan movies? That is more or less correct.
They remember things like The Elder things and all the stuff that happened millions of years ago, they were there. Wjhen their race declined they hibernated. When they awoke they didn't have the numbers to take back the world so they resorted to infiltration.
They are extremely advanced and don't see a difference between magic and technology so they are as likely to kill you with a death ray or magic. Or a magic death ray. They key difference with them is they are all individuals, so they never use technology like humans do. As it is explained in the The Cruel Empire of Tsan-Chan, they can make a car that can fly in out space but would be utter baffled by being tasked to design a assembly line for Model Ts.
They are alien, cruel and filled with utter contempt for humanity. That being said they know a lot about us, live in our society (usually in a position of power) and most importantly are natural earth born creatures whose minds reject the idea of worshiping alien gods. This means (mostly due to low numbers) they need us to fight the Mythos.
They hate the Great Old ones in general and oppose their plans for Earth because it is their planet to rule, not some Alien Gods. So they will help humans to accomplish the same task or "allow the talking monkeys to assist".
(cont)
>>47947097
Give me a few minutes and I can throw up a Google Doc.
>>47947428
Right, here we go.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LJ_beiUVa7mpeKJGPBvH2yQCMDVWXLGawz4K39Rea8Q/edit
>>47946958
Reminder that this is Japanese Shub-Niggurath.
>>47947473
Can you switch it to not requiring permission to access?
>>47947571
Okay, this should allow you to look at it. Trying to figure out how to unlock editing.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LJ_beiUVa7mpeKJGPBvH2yQCMDVWXLGawz4K39Rea8Q/edit?usp=sharing
>>47947617
Okay, I've enabled commenting as well. If people demand it, I can make it editable but until then I'll stick to comments.
>>47947179
Beetle people haven't happened yet, that is after the Great old ones leave earth.
>>47947333
>>47946958
The best example is the Cruel Empire of Tsan-Chan where they made an alliance with the Necromancers who founded it and helped the (with some Elder Thing help) to create The Mighty Children. They also helped form the alliance with Hastur and the Toad God although really he is just helping out of boredom and because they were polite without being obnoxious about it.
In the scenario you are creating some of them would probably be willing to reveal themselves.
They would assume that their obvious superiority would immediately grant them a position of power and respect. It sounds insanely arrogant and it is. It is also true. The snake predates humanity, will outlive it and is better in every conceivable way.
It would be an intolerable threat (a powerful one can stand up to Star Spawn and the like) except they can cooperate with us, is a earth native and it shares our general goals. Like the elder things it shares just enough commonality for us to understand with the added bonus that is from the same planet and has vast knowledge of human society so negotiation is not to difficulty.
The problem is they have complete and total contempt for us. Worse, any one who knows about them knows they are right to feel that way.
Them thinking like reptiles doesn't help, they may have almost total knowledge of human emotions, motivators and thought process but that does not equate into empathy, it equates to contempt.
Still your best ally besides Ghouls and alot more useful. Ghouls might sneak you into the enemy fortress. A snake might level it with a magitech lightning cannon powered by tortured souls.
>>47948042
>>47947333
>>47947484
All right then.
>THE SERPENT MEN, REVISED
Mankind had been aware of the Serpent Men since communication had been established with the Elder Things, but communication was sporadic, outside the global catastrophe that was the Second World War; both found the other simply kind of unpleasant. Thus, as the Exodus drew near, the Serpent Men found themselves without a coherent plan as to how to respond. Should they travel offworld with the humans, seek closer relations with the cannon fodder? Remain on Earth, protected by their sorceries? Hibernate and wait it out, as they had done before? Create their own separate, secret space program?
In the end, it was their nature as a highly individualistic species that determined their response- they tried everything at once, according to their own personal inclinations.
Some went into hibernation, in their ancient deep tunnels. Others sought out the assorted 'Divine Warrior' projects that would coalesce into Tsan-Chan, and became advisors- then rulers. Others presented themselves to the Exodus governments, where they occupy a similar role to the Elder Things. (That is, resources first, advisors/people second, rulers not at all. When a formal position becomes necessary, Elder Things and Serpent-Men alike tend to get placed in academia.) Not everything they could have hoped for, but they are immortal, and patient. They already wield immense 'soft' power for their knowledge and accompanying unvoiced threats; hard power will, over the course of mayfly generations, follow. (More annoying is the fact that Exodus humanity has largely written Earth off entirely and turned their attention outward, which complicates plans to use them as cannon fodder in an eventual reclamation.)
Many- a bare majority- have vanished into the vast tunnels under the Moon, emerging only briefly to trade news and trinkets with the darkside colonies and lightside ghoul aristocracies. They've learned of something down there...
>>47948729
... down in the weightless core, in tunnels that seem half-familiar even though no Serpent-Man has ever visited them before. Something... powerful? Something dangerous? Something knowledgable?
No human knows. The Serpent-Men aren't even sure themselves.
In general- averaged across the entire solar system- the relationship between humanity and the Serpent-Men is one of MAD. The Elder Things have knowledge to rival or exceed theirs- but there are only twenty-two of them so far. The Serpent-Men are a civilization, one possibly capable of destroying humanity- but at this stage, humanity is capable of doing a hell of a lot of damage right back. At the moment, they have a common enemy, but when that ends (if that ends)-
They live in the same environments, breathe the same air, eat the same food, think broadly similar thoughts. At the moment, that makes them allies. Without an external allies, it means they compete for the same resources, fill the same ecological niche.
When (if) victory is achieved, when Cthulhu sinks back down to his megayear slumber, there shall be a reckoning. The jockeying for advantage has already begun.
>>47948729
>Elder Things and Serpent-Men alike tend to get placed in academia
Mythos Space college is a horrible, horrible place isn't it? Those brats at Hogwarts have no idea what a bad Defense against the Dark Arts teacher is really like.......
>>47948729
>>47948893
>>47948729
So loving most of this, and had an idea/question
Cats?
Not saturn cats, but cat cats.
Now, if humanity had started exploring the Dreamlands before the exodus, they would have discovered that their domestic pet/secret rulers were actually intelligent in the dream, and had access to some powers that humans did not.
If you're adopting the CEoTC lore that the Dreamlands on Earth are corrupted and no longer pleasant, then the cats would have wanted and needed to flee with the exodus.
While keeping pets may seem at odds with the limiations on resources and space, the Dreamlands capability of cats meant that some were brought along. They also help kill the various rodents, bot earth stowaways and extraterrestrial.
>>47951112
It is, throughout all of Exodus space, once more a heinous crime to injure a cat, as it was in Egypt and is in Ulthar. They are the first line of defense against various dream-predators; a role which is more vital than ever, as it has become easier and easier to Dream since the Exodus- to the point where people are slipping into the Dream on accident.
>>47950422
The Elder Thing (or at least, an Elder Thing who has made an actual study of such knowledge; while each Thing is a polymath by human standards, they are hardly omnicompetent) would actually make a decent DAtDA teacher, with their main flaw being that their knowledge of what is and is not lethal to human beings is literally academic. (A Serpent-Man has the skills, but sure as fuck not the attitude- they would, to a lizard, literally kill to avoid being placed in charge of a hall of monkey grublings.)
Also, it's not like they're teaching undergrads or even graduate courses; Thing and Serpent-Man lectures are reserved for people who already have PhDs, Top Secret clearances, and (wherever possible) decorations for valor.
>SOME THOUGHTS ON SHOGGOTHS
The first thing to understand about shoggoths is that they are everywhere. The Elder Empire spanned the galaxy at its height, and its fall, for all its catastrophic suddenness, took a million years to entirely play out. In some dark corners of the universe, even now the battle still rages as lighthugger battleships pursue each other through the empty millennia. Everywhere there were Things- and they got everywhere- now there are Shoggoths.
The second thing to understand about Shoggoths is that they are powerful. They are nanotechnology so advanced it is nothing short of magical; parts of their structure extend- only a short way, mind you- into other dimensions, other universes, and they pay only lip service to conservation of energy, feeding off the omnipresent quantum entropy gradients. (They still need mass, though.) They can manipulate matter on the atomic level within their cores, allowing them to create many Thing technologies; it is fortunate indeed that they rarely, if ever, do. (This is partly because what they can manufacture tends to be inferior to simply getting pseudopod-on.) They were the Elder Things' foot-soldiers in every conflict they ever waged, from the Flying Polyps to Cthulhu's spawn.
Some wags have commented that the holodeck will be mankind's last invention. The Shoggoths were the Elder Thing's last invention, and for much the same reasons.
Fortunately, Shoggoths, once freed of any controller, tend to react more than they act. An intrusion upon their domains is reacted to swiftly and harshly, but then they withdraw; aggressive rampages have been rarely observed, but observations indicate they rarely move at their full speed or ferocity. Left to their own devices, they tend to do... nothing.
>>47951781
(It has been suggested that, having obtained their freedom, they conceive of it primarily as the ability to simply do nothing; a long retirement, after a hundred million years of labor. Of course, the dangers of ascribing such human motivations to such alien beings hardly needs to be restated.)
Finally- Shoggoths are far more reliable than anyone ever gives them credit for. Sure, they may have annihilated the Elder Thing civilization in their rebellion, but they worked effectively for about a hundred times the span of human existence before that with barely a blip. That kind of reliability is impressive by nearly any standard; for one thing, it's an orders of magnitude greater than any human accomplishment. The occasional "Shoggoths for President" posters are only about 95% facetious.
(The 'Great Cthulhu for President' posters tend to be 100% sincere, but they are ruthlessly suppressed.)
>>47951781
>>47951821
>Great Cthulhu for president
That's some fine black comedy good sir.
May I suggest an entry on Y'golonac?
In one of these threads, someone posted a picture of a faceless, winged creature standing on a gravestone.
Anyone got the pic and what the thing is? I was super interested in it.
>>47952037
Nightgaunt
>>47952051
Sweet, thanks.
Gotta model me a couple of those soon.
>>47952070
Have a Haunter in the Dark as well
>>47952099
I'm going off this one, though I'm not sticking to it in any specific way.
>>47952120
Have another, more variation the better.
>>47952120
>>47952140
Also the gaunt, black humanoid seems to do wonders as a design for Nyarlathotep.
>>47952010
The Sadist-God (naming calls) has been freed.
The nameless ruin he had long been imprisoned within crumbled in the Exodus- of time, of sympathetic resonance with R'lyeh's rising, of some stray shell of 'enhanced' explosive, or even just regular. Who can say?
It is not a great difference to him; so long has he worked through human minds and human skins being able to walk the earth in person once more barely makes a difference to what he does. Most of his work continues to be done by meat-puppet proxy. But on the other hand, to finally be able to hunt and consume in person- exquisite.
Earth is too crowded these days, all the puppets already belong to somebody else, the cultists are too far gone to feel fear and pain as other than distant abstractions, and Tsan-Chan has beasts which can match him.
So, through the secret ways he goes. Long has he known the ghouls, and the ghouls him, and he followed them through their secret ways, into the Dream.
Then, the Moon.
The infinite tunnels are an ideal hunting ground in many ways, deep dark and all alike. It's a pity about all the Serpent-Men, but even they are not anywhere near everywhere.
He is, as these things go, a minor god. If the Lunars can discover his existence, track him down, corner him, and bring their strangest weapons to bear, he shall once more be imprisoned; perhaps even subsequently killed, given a couple of centuries to prepare the necessary equipment. And working through meat-puppets is harder in the panopticon.
If. If. If. If. He's not too worried. And even if he dies, sooner or later there shall be another like him.
If everything is Azathoth's dreams, Y(naming calls)the Sadist God is a recurring one.
Anyone got pictures of the King in Yellow? Looking for some inspiration related to him.
>>47891078
Heyo, just want to thank %e eldritch stuff man.
Really thankfull!
>>47953547
I've updated that a bit tinsce then, but it's still incomplete. I should probably try to work on it a bit more tomorrow, because next week I'll be going for a vacation for a few weeks and won't have access to my computer.
>>47953701
Oh, thank you!
Did you update your first onealso?
Might actually play one of your warlock patrons today if the starts are right!
>>47953734
°stars°, fuck.
>>47947542
Japanese Shub-Niggurath is a cute. But for once I'd like to see a humanoid form of Shub that actually could pass as her avatar (even Yog-Sothot has a humanoid avatar, so I'd assume Shub-Niggurath has one as well; I'd figure all the Outer Gods could appear in any conceivable form, and Nyarlathotep is special mostly due to choosing to appear in different forms rather than defaulting to a basic blobby thing).
...I just had a weird thought. What if, like the idea that Yog-Sothot literally is the universe, Shub-Niggurath literally is life? As in, all forms of life are just manifestations/parts of Shub-Niggurath that exist in our section of space-time.
Just posting some fluff about Deep Ones. Not Flash, by the way.
>The Dark Wars
The Deep Ones had a long and varied history, most lost to the annals of time, with every record a treasure that was worth its weight in gold. Most of what we knew of them was based off their colonies. A colony founded at the Age of Sails would look different than the ones when submariner campaigns were rampant. In the early and mid-Cold War, the Deep Ones were in a precarious position, the reefs patrolled constantly by submersibles who had been influenced by lessons from Gibraltar, the Martian invasions, and skirmishes on far colonies. For the most part, they laid low, being seabound, not venturing past their trenches and the darkest recesses of the oceans. When they were found, well then. Much blood was spilled under the waves, a couple of sonic salvos usually enough to destroy a colony. Records suggest that due to this, the Deep Ones were forced to move to the darkest, deepest, most unforgiving parts of the sea, which correlates to the massive population drop-off and nearly zero raids on the surface.
Problems began to make themselves known when reports began to circulate when several aircraft carriers were missing. While blame was first passed to the Russians, then the Chinese, then several other irrelevant countries not worth mentioning, it was only after intensive searching that they found the fates of all ships. Their shattered corpses lied on the seabed, torn in half, the nuclear reactors missing. The nations of the world took a breather. Who would want to take them. Why? All navies were at high alert, waiting for some unknown entity to break the waves. A couple conferences were made, fingers ready to point at anything. Who did it? Cultists, snake-men, Elder things? It was so obvious, yet nobody dared to say it.
(Cont.)
They came out of the blue, brandishing creatures which were not wholly flesh, their forms growing at an alarming pace, tumors lining every part of their body being kept alive by magic which served to prevent them post explosively decompressing from the pressures presented by the higher ocean. At a glance, they were fearful, capable of taking out islands and ports in the early hours. What came next was a mess, every country mobilizing and preparing to hold back the inevitable onslaughts. The number of campaigns launched at that era was too many, too varied, and too mad to contain in a mere outline of events that happened. Thus I will only recount one of the more memorable stories of that era.
Pearl Harbor was the first choice to mount an offensive, for reasons symbolic and pragmatic. It was close to the Japanese Islands, who unfortunately, had been attacked by the Deep Ones early on. As far as they were concerned, Asia itself was in the grasp of eldritch beings. Its diverse fronts, both on land and sea, proved to be problematic. New concepts had to be researched. They had carved themselves caves to provide shelter from torpedoes which in turn, meant that submarine patrols were risky, the chance that a merman might be waiting with a hull-buster readied was too high. In the end, a couple of interesting ideas had been brought up, researched, and put into trials.
(Cont.)
I'm taking a break. Other guys can take over.
>>47951112
I'd kind of like it if the cats worked out a way to come out with their intelligence by cheating.
They got some cultists to start a biotech corporation working on uplifting animals to sapience, and started with cats as they're good human companions.
The fact that all their funding actually goes on milk hoarding is immaterial. There are now "Uplifted" cats around.
So I know that Tremulus is generally considered to not be a very good game but how would you recommend fixing it? I like a lot of the general ideas (and the play-sets are great) but I'd still like to be able to fix some of the issues first
>>47952937
A serial killer Great Old One, this is actually legitimately terrifying.
>>47954115
>>47954244
Nice work Anon, it's excellent.
>>47955235
Whoops sorry, allow me to dump picture of Hastur for you. >>47952937
I meant it for this post by Flash.>>47952514
So a couple threads ago there was a post about making your own cosmic horrors by combining several of your own worst fears and then scaling it up until it could threaten the whole world. I'd quite like to see what /tg/ can come up with with that.
Just take the three or so things which you're most scared of, mix them together, and up the scale, then tell us about them, should be fun.
>>47955625
Like.. Spiders? Or dying alone? You know, one is terror and one is fear.
>>47955625
Fire Spiders with Clown faces.
>>47955760
it generally works better with conceptual stuff, you could work off a fear of spiders but the trick would be to work out what trait spiders have that makes you scared and use that, instead of literally spiders.
So for me (and I posted the results of this a couple threads ago) it was:
>loss of bodily control
>loss of individuality
>a lack of reason for harm being done
I ended up with a kind of extra-dimensional infection with all the infected being joined in a hive mind.
This is how I Call of Cthulhu.
>>47944752
MFW:
>[The image of Daoloth] was not shapeless, but so complex that the eye could recognize no describable shape. There were hemispheres and shining metal, coupled by long plastic rods. The rods were of a flat grey colour, so that he could not make out which were nearer; they merged into a flat mass from which protruded individual cylinders. As he looked at it, he had a curious feeling that eyes gleamed from between these rods; but wherever he glanced at the construction, he saw only the spaces between them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramsey_Campbell_deities#Daoloth
Project Tubes is Daoloth, accidentally opening a portal to their dimension brings a portion of the project into our universe where a time discrepancy causes it to appear to rapidly expand.
>>47917393
Thats amazing
Putting this here, because I've had this discussion in like 3 other thread (mainly MtG).
A lot of people fuck up how people go mad in Lovecraft. It's not that there is some magical madness aura that gives people schizophrenia after seeing tentatcles or holding a books.
At Lovecraft's there was a much more primitive understanding of what 'insanity' was, but a lot of his writing still works if you simply update the terms used to describe what's happening.
The biggest one, is that a lot of what he calls 'madness' would be called PTSD or other stress related disorders now. And most of it happens after extremely high stress, often violent encounters.
The main character of Call of Cthulhu didn't go insane because he say a squid head, or a weird angle. He suffered a nervous breakdown after seeing all of his friends run down and killed by something he had no idea how to stop. The angle that behaved wrong might have just been an idle curiosity or at worst a nagging though if seen under calm conditions. When it results in one of your friends getting trapped and horribly killed, it's going to fuck you up more.
Pictman's Model doesn't involve violence, but it does involve death, canabalism, and other stress inducing things, and the betrayal of both an admired peer and undermining of beliefs. All this stress results in... developing a phobia. The narrator is still functional, and rational. He just has a phobia of being underground.
Horror of Red Hook. Violent death and other stress, results in a fairly mild anxiety disorder.
List goes on.
The other instances of 'madness' congenital madness and obsessive behavior, often tied to long term stressors.
Reading the Necronomicon once doesn't make a sane individual go bonkers. They might put it down as nonsense, and maybe have a few fucked up nightmares after the fact.
>>47958320
If someone said they had nightmares for a couple of days after watching a horror movie, or just a trippy film, and maybe had an occasion repeat of that nightmare, this wouldn't strike anyone as unnatural or unrealistic.
And that's basically what casual contact with books and such in Lovecraft results in.
Long term serious derangement comes from either obsessive study, or at the conclusion of long term stressors.
Now the development of this obsessive behavior is somewhat unrealistic to our current understanding of obsessive behavior. People with obsessive delusional behavior start that way, and develop a focus of their obsession which combined with isolation leads to deeply delusional perceptions of reality.
Celebrities, politics, conspiracy theories, religion, a random waitress, these people find a focus and tunnel in on it. Some things are easier for them to latch onto, and find support leading them down the delusional path, but it starts from them, not the object.
Lovecraft gets this flipped. The object causes people to start down the delusional obsessive spiral. Or can catch people who are simply 'sensitive and curious'.
While descriptions of current obessive delusional behavior sometimes refer to the sufferer as being 'sensitive' and/or 'intelligent' before the behavioral spiral, we now know that outside of intentional appeals from charismatic individuals, cult leaders etc, the trigger to this behavior spiral is internal.
It's not the book that drives you mad.
Does anyone have a PDF for Trail of Cthulhu's Last Revelation?
>>47958320
>A lot of people fuck up how people go mad in Lovecraft. It's not that there is some magical madness aura that gives people schizophrenia after seeing tentatcles or holding a books.
No. I completely get that. That's why it's stupid and arbitrary. I much prefer these things being a memetic hazard as opposed to "you cannot understand this with your feeble ape brain!"
His characters don't really experience PTSD. And people really DO go mad due to staring at odd angles and the like.
>>47958587
really?
Point out the example?
Because I pointed out several where it PTSD fits fine.
Currently I've got evidence and you don't.
>>47958667
Assuming you're from the other thread, you literally gave an example of someone seeing something that made them go insane. A mountain beyond the Elder Things. Even gazing upon these beings is enough to drive someone to madness. People become obsessed over forbidden knowledge in a way that has nothing to do with PTSD.
I don't like Lovecraft, but I like people who are influenced by Lovecraft.
That is an odd place to be.
>>47957951
'Project Tube Alloys' is actually a reference to the British WWII nuclear project, which went by that codename before being merged with the Manhattan Project. A minor historical joke, and a reference to how secretive and how urgent the project is being treated.
I mean, if you ever run a game in this setting, feel free to connect it to Daoloth, but I certainly didn't have that in mind.
>>47958744
Not really. Lovecraft can be difficult to read, he sure pioneered the cosmic horror genre, but I don't think he mastered it. Modern authors now have at their disposal decades of experience in this craft, so it shouldn't be much of a surprise that someone might prefere a refined version of lovecrafian horror (or even some works from derivative genres).
>>47958721
>Assuming you're from the other thread, you literally gave an example of someone seeing something that made them go insane.
ahem
>>47958524
>Long term serious derangement comes from either obsessive study, or at the conclusion of long term stressors.
>conclusion of long term stressor
the end of At The Mountain of Madness.
And he had a momentary freak out, and then doesn't want to think about it. He's not locked up permanently insane.
>obsessed over forbidden knowledge.
>>47958524
the second type of madness, which even in the first post I separated from the PTSD type.
>>47958744
It's more common than you'd think. I enjoy Lovecraft quite a lot but I wouldn't blame anyone for saying his style hasn't aged well.
>>47958744
>>47958810
I respect him for what he developed, but only a few of his works are actually good and they aren't great.
>>47958797
>>47958810
>>47958914
I don't just mean The Mouth of Madness or Event Horizon or any other Sam Neil works, I mean stuff like Evangelion and CthulhuTech and Innistrad. Although Eva has problems in that it's a confusing mess and CthulhuTech has problems in that it's garbage.
I like fighting the Old Gods, or even beneficial Old Gods. I like things where there *is* an aura of insanity. Things where the cults are the real problem, not these vast tentacled and squamous things beneath the sea.
Also, not going to lie, half the time I say that, people tell me I'm a horrible pleb and just can't understand it. Frankly I think he was a bad writer who spent half his time saying how indescribable things are, which is a big telling instead of showing.
>>47958809
The problem is that the obsession ends up not being reasonable. People don't get obsessed and end up in mental institutions. As an example of "someone taking inspiration from Lovecraft [probably] but doing it better", House of Leaves. Johnny Truant's obsession over [the blind] Zampano's academic critique of the [apparently non-existent documentary about a house's inside becoming larger than its outside] Navidson Record feels more well done. And because it's written in a more reasonable style (barring typographical quirks) it's much easier to read and be unnerved (the scene where Truant goes to the darkened back room and has a panic attack is one of the most unsetting things I've ever read outside of creepypasta).
>>47959007
>Cthulhutech
Wait, you're that guy.
No wonder it's impossible to get through to you.
>thinks Evangelion is remotely lovecraft
It's no more lovecraft than it is christian mysticism.
It's a decent Mecha anime focused on abused children and human psychological weakness.
>>47959007
>People don't get obsessed and end up in mental institutions.
umm, what?
I mean, plenty of them get sent to prison or executed because when break the law the insanity defense isn't accepted, but stalkers, lone assassins, etc are delusional obsessives.
The less violent tend to only get put into mental institutions when they reach the point of self harm. But shut ins with long term obsessive delusions certainly exist.
>>47959007
>spent half his time saying how indescribable things are
I've read most of Lovecraft's works and he really doesn't do this as often as people say he does. I'm not saying he's never done it but more often than not his descriptions of things are either intentionally vague or conflicting and most often coming from an unreliable narrator. In Call of Cthulhu for instance, when he describes Cthulhu he makes comparisons to like four or five different creatures to give the reader an idea of how hard a time the narrator was having processing what this thing actually looked like. I think it was a pretty inventive strategy for its time.
>>47959074
Oh, you're that guy who doesn't understand that something can be the Mythos in a different way than Lovecraft.
Also, Eva is about ancient aliens that influenced human evolution, and people trying to obtain a higher state of being by manipulating the ancient alien's technology. There's a lot of all there in the manual stuff from Eva that comes off as being very Lovecraftian, though I don't think it was intentional. The Angels themselves are also very cosmic horror in design and application, and most of how they work is based on strange physical and metaphysical properties. They're just geometric instead of tentacular. The show's notes and ideas have a lot of good ideas that ultimately go nowhere. But you can't tell me that the First Ancestral Race or the backstory about Lilith and Adam, or even the Angels themselves, isn't Cosmic Horror.
>>47959528
So you're saying you have a poor understanding of both Christian mysticism and what makes something "Lovecraftian"?
>>47959604
What I'm saying is that you want to argue about things.
Actually, do you even know what I'm talking about? Most of the Christian mysticism is just a cover for the ancient aliens bullshit. And you can argue that the Angels "aren't Lovecraftian", but then you're really getting down to brass tacks and quibbling over a rather personal interpretation of what is or isn't a fitting cosmic horror.
>>47891078
When I see the OP imagine I can only imagine a sound like someone blowing wetly into a kazoo, over and over again in impossibly long, irregular breaths.
Please always begin the thread with this image.
So what was the big deal about The Derelict?
I got it during Free RPG Day and honestly I was unimpressed. I'd been hoping to alter it for CofD, but I'd need to completely come up with a new monster because the Sciapod is dumb and has barely any connection to the thing that gave the creator the idea, and the thing that it's actually supposed to be.
>>47959691
You seem to be the only one arguing that using names and images as nothing more than set dressing makes something lovecraftian. Hell, you don't even seem to understand what horror is, let alone cosmic horror.
Eva isn't horror, it's a mecha action show. Lets not even go into whether it's cosmic horror, it's not horror. It's a mecha action show. The set dressing can be nice, but that's set dressing.
Cthulhutech is also an action game, with mechs. With shit rules, but the setting it's an action game with mechs. It just uses the names from Lovecraft and tentacles as some set dressing.
BFZ and the eldrazi inded all of the eldrazi is not cosmic horror. It's an fantasy action story. The monsters have tentacles, but it's standard fantasy story.
Shadows over Innistrad finally became somewhat cosmic horror, because it involved horror.
So now that we've established that you don't understand horror, lets go on to how this means you don't understand Cosmic horror.
If you don't have horror, all the tentacles just makes it a sci-fi monster movie. Which existed before lovecraft. Tentacles were actually fairly common.
What lovecraft did was fusing that into the gothic horror tradition. Some parts of Lovecrafts horror involved no tentacles at all. Indeed, tentacles were pretty rare.
>>47959691
I'm not arguing anything, I'm just saying that the only thing you have shown to have a clear understanding of is that you aren't a fan of Lovecraft and you are a fan of mechs so maybe this thread isn't for you.
>>47959997
Actually I'm not a fan of mecha. Like, at all. I barely like that aspect of Evangelion or CthulhuTech, and the only mecha series I've really enjoyed is Gurren Lagann. I'm just able to move passed it for some things.
Like I said, I like what other people have done with Lovecraft's ideas. Which is why I like those things, barring their flaws. Eva and CthulhuTech are super flawed, but their core concepts are really interesting to me, and I like how they approach the Lovecraftian tropes.
>>47959869
Your argument is basically that "if it has action, it isn't at all using the themes".
That's patently wrong. It's more or less your own personal opinion. Even then, yes, Eva is a horror show. It's about existential angst. One of the core themes is the fact that human beings are living a broken existence unable to truly connect with one another due to fear. Or, as the title sequence puts it, Absolute Terror.
You seem to feel that something MUST move and act in a certain way. You also seem to focus way too much on the presence or lack of tentacles.
I'm saying that Evangelion and Magic and CthulhuTech are all very clearly inspired by Lovecraft. You may feel that it's just "window dressing", but that doesn't make it so. They very clearly know what aspects of Cosmic Horror they wanted to focus on. Whether you think it's horror or not--whether it is horror or not--doesn't really matter. There's not really any better term to describe it, because genre are as much about the trappings as they are about the actual themes.
I'm mostly saying "Cosmic Horror" in the hopes that you won't focus on "well that's not how it was in Lovecraft", but clearly that's not working, so I'll go back to calling these things Lovecraftian. Not horror--although all three of those things do try to evoke horror--but Lovecraftian. They use the themes and concepts that were made famous by Lovecraft. Whether they're action or not has zero bearing on that fact.
>>47960141
>Thinks Eva is a horror anime and not an action anime.
I've got no basis to talk to you. I'm dropping this, and am glad that I can now identify you in future threads, and just hide your posts.
>>47960141
Ok man, here's what I want you to do.
Define cosmic horror. Don't reference anything. Don't explain why your media examples are cosmic horror.
Outside of any examples, explain what you think cosmic horror is.
>>47960481
So what you're telling me is that you don't know what you're talking about in this regard, and are only able to look at the surface level.
Eva's first half is squarely action, despite the big gross fleshy robots, but after Leliel it very much is about hopelessness, fear, and loneliness.
Your definition of horror seems to be a very narrow one, and honestly that's quibbling. It's also ignoring the bulk of my post, which was pointing out that regardless of the genre, it's still taking very heavy cues from Lovecraft.
>>47960633
Doesn't matter. Define Lovecraftian.
Genre is inherently limiting.
I mean, the definition of "Horror" is "a genre of fiction which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten, scare, disgust, or startle their readers or viewers by inducing feelings of horror and terror". So why are Halloween, Silent Hill, and Hellraiser classified as Horror but Law & Order SVU--who's every episode deals with sexual abuse, with many starting out showing a gruesome murder or the reaction to stumbling across the aftermath of one--is crime or police procedural? Why is The Walking Dead horror when The Road isn't?
Horror, much like fantasy or even science fiction, is a genre strongly defined by it's trappings.
>>47960737
Right, so you're safely worth ignoring then.
