Rethinking Cthulhu Mythos
When reading Lovecraft I am constantly reminded of how fearful and reluctant to act the protagonists in his stories are. They tend to spend months writing letters and sending telegrams before doing anything more practical.
This would be perfect for a play-by-email scenario, but in general players tend to want to act on things that they find. They don't share that same fearful and inactive disposition found in most of Lovecraft's characters.
It also seems to me that they scare very easily. They hear a rumour and it's so terrifying that they hardly are able to put it into words. They receive a letter and they dare not reproduce it because of the nature of it's contents being so horrific. And I can't help think to myself "It's just a letter!".
It is clear that HP Lovecraft believe in the power of the written word with books that drive you mad and letters that scare you beyond your senses. But how do I make this into a good roleplaying experience? It takes a special breed of player to enjoy reading and writing letters for five sessions before they actually do anything.
Rethinking Cthulhu Mythos
What if we rethink Cthulhu Mythos and instead of being a list of monsters and incomprehensible entities, it is a primal and ancient power that exists beyond our ken?
This power lives beyond our perception of the space-time continuum, beyond Newtonian physics and Euclidean mathematics. It simply can't be described in any human language.
The Outer Gods and Great Old Ones are just manifestations of this power created by our own primitive minds since it is the only way we can understand its nature.
Azatoth, Nyarlathotep and even Great Cthulhu himself are our own creations. When we are exposed to this power it whispers in the language we understand and gives life to our misinterpretations of its true meaning.
Rituals and magic are just our feeble attempts at channeling this immense force. It is our own destructive nature that turns it upon ourselves. Just like any other natural force this power does not have a purpose in itself.
Player Character and the Cthulhu Mythos
Most people go through their entire lives without ever seeing, hearing or living anything that is remotely related to the Mythos. The player characters are different. They are, for some reason, attuned to this force. It has somehow affected and influenced their lives and they are now obsessed with it.
The people it affects tend to be students of esoteric subjects. Scholars that pour over ancient tomes, reading between the lines to uncover the real truth beyond the pages. Whatever their mundane occupation is their true obsession in life is Cthulhu Mythos.
I will cover more about this in an upcoming post where I will attempt to formalize Mythos Connections taking the inspiration from Dark Secrets in Kult:Divinity Lost.
The Power of Words
When someone writes a letter or a book, particularly on an esoteric subject, this channels this power. It allows the power to seep through into our existence, wreaking havoc on our minds and our reality. Equally, when reading the words whose writing made manifest this power, it draws its attention, allowing it to manifest whether in the psyche of the reader or physically in our world.
So, when a protagonist in a Lovecraft story writes a letter he is, in fact, summoning this power into his mind and, eventually, into our world. What he writes becomes true. A rumour or an ancient story is the seed, likely placed there by this timeless power itself, and the seed grows when it gets investigated and attempts are made at explaining it.
Looking at Lovecrafts protagonists' letters, telegrams and journal entries as spells and invocations gives them another dimension. What if what they tell us in the story is just the official account of the events, but what they do experience is as terrifying as they say it is? Maybe the letters from Henry Akeley in the Vermont hills does summon these beings into existence when the written and when Albert Wilmarth reads them they are brought fourth in Arkham as well. His fears are then justified and the fact that he is absolutely terrified seems less strange.
This would also explain why reading the dreaded Necronomicon causes insanity. The passages in there bring to life this ancient power and it's manifestations haunt the reader of the book. Of course, once they have been brought fourth, it's not so easy to get rid of them.
In Conclusion
To experience the Cthulhu Mythos you don't always have to go places and delve deep into caves or catacombs, they are right there on your doorstep. Your curiosity and fear brings them forth and your investigations do too.
Hope these thoughts resonate with you.
My next planned post is about how to actually use this in a game through Mythos Connections.
And as always 1D100 SAN loss for reading a post on this blog.
This would be perfect for a play-by-email scenario, but in general players tend to want to act on things that they find. They don't share that same fearful and inactive disposition found in most of Lovecraft's characters.
It also seems to me that they scare very easily. They hear a rumour and it's so terrifying that they hardly are able to put it into words. They receive a letter and they dare not reproduce it because of the nature of it's contents being so horrific. And I can't help think to myself "It's just a letter!".
It is clear that HP Lovecraft believe in the power of the written word with books that drive you mad and letters that scare you beyond your senses. But how do I make this into a good roleplaying experience? It takes a special breed of player to enjoy reading and writing letters for five sessions before they actually do anything.
Rethinking Cthulhu Mythos
What if we rethink Cthulhu Mythos and instead of being a list of monsters and incomprehensible entities, it is a primal and ancient power that exists beyond our ken?
This power lives beyond our perception of the space-time continuum, beyond Newtonian physics and Euclidean mathematics. It simply can't be described in any human language.
The Outer Gods and Great Old Ones are just manifestations of this power created by our own primitive minds since it is the only way we can understand its nature.
Azatoth, Nyarlathotep and even Great Cthulhu himself are our own creations. When we are exposed to this power it whispers in the language we understand and gives life to our misinterpretations of its true meaning.
Rituals and magic are just our feeble attempts at channeling this immense force. It is our own destructive nature that turns it upon ourselves. Just like any other natural force this power does not have a purpose in itself.
Player Character and the Cthulhu Mythos
Most people go through their entire lives without ever seeing, hearing or living anything that is remotely related to the Mythos. The player characters are different. They are, for some reason, attuned to this force. It has somehow affected and influenced their lives and they are now obsessed with it.
The people it affects tend to be students of esoteric subjects. Scholars that pour over ancient tomes, reading between the lines to uncover the real truth beyond the pages. Whatever their mundane occupation is their true obsession in life is Cthulhu Mythos.
I will cover more about this in an upcoming post where I will attempt to formalize Mythos Connections taking the inspiration from Dark Secrets in Kult:Divinity Lost.
The Power of Words
When someone writes a letter or a book, particularly on an esoteric subject, this channels this power. It allows the power to seep through into our existence, wreaking havoc on our minds and our reality. Equally, when reading the words whose writing made manifest this power, it draws its attention, allowing it to manifest whether in the psyche of the reader or physically in our world.
So, when a protagonist in a Lovecraft story writes a letter he is, in fact, summoning this power into his mind and, eventually, into our world. What he writes becomes true. A rumour or an ancient story is the seed, likely placed there by this timeless power itself, and the seed grows when it gets investigated and attempts are made at explaining it.
Looking at Lovecrafts protagonists' letters, telegrams and journal entries as spells and invocations gives them another dimension. What if what they tell us in the story is just the official account of the events, but what they do experience is as terrifying as they say it is? Maybe the letters from Henry Akeley in the Vermont hills does summon these beings into existence when the written and when Albert Wilmarth reads them they are brought fourth in Arkham as well. His fears are then justified and the fact that he is absolutely terrified seems less strange.
This would also explain why reading the dreaded Necronomicon causes insanity. The passages in there bring to life this ancient power and it's manifestations haunt the reader of the book. Of course, once they have been brought fourth, it's not so easy to get rid of them.
In Conclusion
To experience the Cthulhu Mythos you don't always have to go places and delve deep into caves or catacombs, they are right there on your doorstep. Your curiosity and fear brings them forth and your investigations do too.
Hope these thoughts resonate with you.
My next planned post is about how to actually use this in a game through Mythos Connections.
And as always 1D100 SAN loss for reading a post on this blog.
Comments
Post a Comment