New Chapter: Creating a Mythos Story

Good evening. I've added a chapter to the PBTA hack about creating mythos stories.

The link to the full PDF is here, but I've also reproduced the chapter below for ease of reference.

Hope you enjoy it. It's a theme I will certainly return to as I think it's one of the most challenging ones when trying to capture the magic of the stories from HP Lovecraft.

CREATING A MYTHOS STORY

Creating a roleplaying story about the Cthulhu Mythos is like creating any story. It has to be exciting, filled with interesting characters and memorable locations. 

CHOOSE MYTHOS ENTITY

All mythos stories should pertain to only one single mythos entity and it’s servants. Whether it’s Nyarlathotep, Azatoth or The Colour Out of Space will make a huge difference to the story.

Nyarlathotep can be described as malevolent, whereas Azatoth is blind and insane and doesn’t even recognise the existence of human beings. The Colour out of Space is almost like a force of nature.

It’s not necessary that the player characters encounter the entity through your story, but it will set the general tone of what types of horrors they will encounter.

CHOOSE ITS SERVANTS

Once you have selected the main entity (if any) that your story will center around, you need to pick its servants. Are they deep one half-breeds, Mi-Go, crazed cultists or even collective dreamers who unintentionally are bringing the entity into our world?

Consider how the servants are organised, how they will react to meeting with the player characters, how they are dressed and what equipment they wear. Decide where their headquarters are located, what influence they have in the mundane world and what their single main motivation is.

ROOT THE CHARACTERS IN REALITY

One of the things missing from HP Lovecraft's stories are interesting protagonists. This is where you need to deviate from what he does. Make a large part of the game about their day to day life. The research of the old professor or the murder case investigated by the police officer. 

The hard part here is to make it interesting for all player characters. It is unlikely that they will share the same profession, but they may very well do so. They could be business partners or part of the same military unit.

Make them friends. Have them go out for drinks and have fun. Have them go on trips together. In other words, make them real. It’s only in contrast to the mundane that the horrific and fantastic has any effect.

BUILD THE HORROR LADDER

Each Mythos story is based on escalating horror. It normally ends in a direct or indirect encounter with the mythos entity you chose earlier.

The important thing is that the horror doesn’t always have to be strictly increasing. Feel free to intersperse each step up on the ladder with more mundane episodes from each player characters life. Does he get married, does he buy a new house or does he go on an expedition into the Amazon rainforest, returning with Dengue fever?

EXAMPLE

At the bottom of the ladder is a letter from a distant cousin telling you he will come to visit and he has something amazing to show you.

On the second rung of the ladder the police comes to your house telling you that they found a man dead in a motel room, the only thing they could find on him was a note with your address on it. 

One step further up you go to the morgue to see your dead cousin and realise the horrific fashion in which he was murdered. 

Still on the same step of the horror ladder you start backtracking his steps through the country and not until you discover that you are being followed have you moved yet another step up on the ladder. 

The first direct encounter with the strange men from the local church in your cousins town is the next rung. 

Witnessing their strange rituals of worship when they uncover a terrifying statue brings you yet one step closer to the top.

When you infiltrate the church to find out more you take another step on the ladder. Through your investigation you find out that they are planning something out of the ordinary come next full-moon.

You reach the end of the ladder when you follow the congregation members down into the tunnels underneath their church and they bring forth their god. 

Realize that each player character probably only has one complete horror ladder in him. Once they have seen what’s at the top they fall down and simply are unable to get back up again. 

Of course, not each story needs to end that dramatically. It could just as likely just end with a less horrifying event to be brought back up again 6 months later when the player character reads a newspaper article.