Lovecraftian-style Magic

[AlHazred]

Okay, so I have Deep Ones in my High Fantasy campaign. I call them the Deep-Folk, and there's no Sanity rules (I figure, if the PCs can meet and fight an Umber Hulk or Demons, then they shouldn't necessarily get more freaked out from freaky fish-frog people). They worship the Titans -- the beings that ruled the world (Cosmos?) before the "good" gods outsmarted/outfought/outmaneuvered them (according to the Old Faith, the most common religion). They have lain quiescent for millennia, waiting for the power of their gods to rise again.

 

The PCs are delving into one of their old frontier temples in the deep underground. I worked up the Call of Cthulhu spells that were least Lovecraftian as High Fantasy style Invocations (priestly "magic") for them, but now I have some doubts. Would it make more sense to give them mostly summonings and good combatants? On the one hand, my campaign needn't get too Lovecraftian, as I have some friends in it who dislike a game where the PCs are guaranteed to lose in the end. On the other hand, I'd like to make them flavorful and mysterious.

[Curufea]

Re: Lovecraftian-style Magic

 

Lovecraftian magic to me was always clerical/summoning/channelling in nature - it all involved drawing on alien powers to help out mortals.

However - it's mostly in the Call of Cthulhu RPG that the trope of magic causing insanity appears - it's a fairly big assumption on the part of the RPG creators that magic does that and isn't substantiated in the Mythos stories.

 

I'd tend to go for magic as summoning or VPPs with limitations of various sorts.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Lovecraftian-style Magic

 

The Ultimate Mystic author Dean Shomshak recommends eschewing Character Points for buying spells entirely when simulating the magic in H.P. Lovecraft's stories: "In this sort of setting, spells don't cost Character Points. Lovecraftian magic should be entirely Skill-based. If a character has the right lorebooks and makes the right Skill Rolls, he can learn and perform a spell. It's not so different from conventional science or technology: a character could make a truck bomb using Demolitions and SS: Chemistry without needing a special Create Bomb power." (TUM p. 155)

[Teflon Billy]

Re: Lovecraftian-style Magic

 

Lovecraftian Beings lead to insanity NOT because your average everyday investigator is too absorbed in the mundane aspects of the every day world to understand such Beings. It has nothing to do with shock, Lovecraftian beings are quite literally NOT SUPPOSED TO EXIST in our reality.

 

A demon, umber hulk, orc, angel, fire elemental, these are all (as far as most fantasy worlds are concerned) quite normal, they are supposed to exist within the fantasy world's reality. (Whether they are supernatural or not.)

 

But Lovecraftian entities are something wholly outside of the Universe (or maybe even Multiverse), and to actually comprehend them damages the minds of Sentient Beings. That is what makes up the genre.

 

Without this, Lovecraftian Beings might as well be blobs of Hentei Naughty Tentacles.

 

TB

[AlHazred]

Re: Lovecraftian-style Magic

 

Absolutely. Which is why they are not in the game. It's not a Lovecraftian horror game -- I am using Lovecraftian elements in a fantasy game. I'm just debating how much Lovecraftian-horror sprinkles to put on my Heroic Fantasy ice cream, FOr instance, the full force of Lovecraftian horror and insanity has no place in Conan stories, but the elements show up there from time to time.

 

Hmmm... maybe posting the spells will help. Here's what I've got so far.

 

EDIT = Well, that didn't work. I uploaded it here.

[Shadowsoul]

Re: Lovecraftian-style Magic

 

Actually these creatures only come from another reality because the reality we know and love is an illusion. As Lovecraft conceived it the horrible monsters and alien beings were the truth of reality, (he was a nihilist after all). Basically the Lovecraftian universe is an extremely dark, random and horrific place and we have no place in it. Don't forget that all native terrestrial live is supposedly the spawn of a single captive god of unimaginable foulness and that the Elder Things, who were made from terrestrial matter, inhabited Earth long before humans did. It is only through sheer luck and the indifference of greater powers that the fragile delusions of human sanity, morality and benevolent religion have been allowed to survive.

 

The insanity comes when humans begin to peel back the veil which shields them from the 'real' reality and so learn that everything they love and believe in is as nothing amongst the mad screaming void of existence.

 

This only emphasises the fact that you don't want to go too far down the Lovecraftian route, of course. And I would agree that if characters live in a world filled with monsters of every kind and ruled over by beings of unimaginable, yet visible, power then they would be far less likely to worry over meeting an inhuman race of fish creatures. Beholders, Abholeths and other nasties are supposed to be from alien planes anyway, aren't they? Another day another abomination.

 

So the Deep Folk are just survivors from an ancient and evil age. Their magic would be primitive, brutal but powerful.

 

Anyway, to the point.

 

The Turakian age has a few spells for the Thun, a race of humans who worship Lovecraftian gods. They are, a spell which can cause the target to die of fright (NND RKA), a continuous attack that burns the target with invisible flames, a magical golden ball that need only be brushed over the target's body to inflict dagger like wounds, (armour piercing HKA) and a chain which can hold just about anything, (Entangle which Affects Desolidified).

 

Standard Witchcraft and Black Magic powers would be appropriate as well I think. As would a curse which slowly transforms the target into a Deep-Folk, (now how's that for a way to inject a sense of urgency into a gaming session, find a cure before you turn). Powers to transform the Deep-Folk themselves would also be flavourful e.g. increase size, add limbs or claws. You mentioned Summonings and that sounds good, would you have creatures actually appear when summoned or would they rise from the fetid depths in all their horrible glory?

 

Ways to make their magic more distinctive and scary. Their magic could come directly from their masters and so normal counterspells do not affect them, (they can't dispel normal magic either). Give their magic consequences, drawing on the power of the Titans means drawing their attention and that can have catastrophic results to the summoner and/or the surrounding environment. Give them powers that others don't have e.g. the ability to twist time and space, (which is how they gain their power, they reach back to a time when the Titans were free). Let them perform mass rituals with incredible results.

[dmjalund]

Re: Lovecraftian-style Magic

 

Power Side-Effect: Watched

[AlHazred]

Re: Lovecraftian-style Magic

 

Power Side-Effect: Watched

Yeah, I did that in my Middle Earth conversions. Also appropriate here and in a strictly Medieval sorcery system.

[BlueCloud2k2]

Re: Lovecraftian-style Magic

 

In the DnD Eberron setting, all aberations (Beholders, Mind Flayers, Aboleths, etc) were living weapons magically bio-engineered by the Dalkyr. The reached Eberron when the Dalkyr invaded from Xoriat, the realm of Madness (the Far Realm). What you may think about is incorporating this into your campaign: The Aberations are the last children of the ancient ones. They still worship their "parents," but have lost much of their powers (and alien-ness) when the left the Far Realm and entered the campaign universe.

 

One of these factors lost was the ability to drive the denizens of the campaign universe insane just be being seen. But newer generations of the deep-folk have learned to access the powers of the Far Realm once more, and invoke the power of the Ancient Ones (Titans, whatever). They are slowly gaining their powers back, and as a result are becoming more alien once more. The deep-folk who call upon the power of their Gods emit an aura of pure horror (PRE Attack combined with INT Drain perhaps). They are able to blend the matter of the campaign universe with the taint of the Far Realm, creating Psuedo-natural horrors that cannot exist on their own outside of the Deep-folk conclaves (Dependence: Far-Realm Energies).

 

What's more... not only are the Deep-folk regaining access the chaotic energies of the Far-Realm, but some meer-mortals have glimpsed upon the Eldrich Horrors and been enthralled by the maddening lure of the Ancient Ones... chief among them is the Realm-Lord Cthulu... (Realm-Lords being the equivelent to the Demon Lords of the Abyss and the Arch-fiends of Hell - not true dieties but still incredibly powerful).

 

I recommend tracking down the last 12 issues of DUNGEON and DRAGON magazine and reading up on the Savage Tide... it had some very interesting stuff about the Chaotic energies of the Abyss deforming the people of Oerth. Might also want Lords of Madness and read up on the Far Realm a bit.

[AlHazred]

Re: Lovecraftian-style Magic

 

Sometime I need to publish my take on the Great Old Ones in my High Fantasy Game. I gave it a lot of thought, and think it'll work considering my above-mentioned player concerns. As far as the Savage Tide Adventure Path (STAP), I liked it quite a bit, though I thought it wasn't as fun as the Shackled City Adventure Path (SCAP); the latter was more loosely put together, but also showed a broader range of encounters and situations than the former, which is tightly plotted and more cohesive. STAP has many of the adventures taking place under similar terrain conditions; in SCAP, there are few straight dungeon crawls -- each situation has its own caveats. And "Foundation of Flame" is excellent.

 

I checked out Lords of Madness, but I'm not sure how much I'm going to borrow from that. They have an excessive dependence on fitting things into the Feat system that kind of put me off.

 

Here's what I've got so far, and I'm reasonably happy with them. They'll be trotted out tonight.

 

 

A word about spells: I initially started with the one element of Call of Cthulhu I've always disliked. In some of the books, the authors wrote up spells for their bad guys that were, to put it mildly, not Lovecraftian. I know some former D&D players had a hard time wrapping their brains around the Lovecraftian plot (just check out David Hargrave's regrettable "The Mound" dungeon crawl from (I believe) The Asylum and Other Tales). As a result, some elements were introduced (and then grandfathered in by later writers) that had no place in the genre. This included a set of combat-style almost D&Desque spells for the bad guys. When I was writing up tonight's adventure for my game, I realized I could finally use them.

 

I like Shadowsoul's idea that Deep-Folk magic should be more brutal, primitive, and potent than PC magic. The result is a set of attack spells that have most AVADs and high END costs. I use "Invocation" for those priests who use magic in my game; note, each Invocation Skill is completely different (completely!) from every other priest of a different god or pantheon (no resemblance at all), and the priests dislike wizards tarring all of their miraculous divine powers under one brush like that.

 

The high priest and his main combat ally is not completely done yet, but he has (in addition to the complement of the regular priests) one or two potent summoning spells which might come in handy if he has enough warning to get them off.

[AlHazred]

Re: Lovecraftian-style Magic

 

And apparently, if you put more than one character in the same post, all of the toggles open the last one added. So, here's the Deep-Folk Sentry.

 

[azrad]

Re: Lovecraftian-style Magic

 

make sure you have the fish people sleeping with humans of the local fishing village making hybrid babies

[AlHazred]

Re: Lovecraftian-style Magic

 

make sure you have the fish people sleeping with humans of the local fishing village making hybrid babies

Shhhh! You'll give away one of my Conspiracies!

 

I mean, they're fish-people living in the caves of the Underworld. How do you think they got there?

[BlueCloud2k2]

Re: Lovecraftian-style Magic

 

make sure you have the fish people sleeping with humans of the local fishing village making hybrid babies

 

Shhhh! You'll give away one of my Conspiracies!

 

I mean, they're fish-people living in the caves of the Underworld. How do you think they got there?

 

And I thought tentacle hentai was weird... which is in itself Lovecraftian if you think about it.

[AlHazred]

Re: Lovecraftian-style Magic

 

Since the PCs tumbled onto the secret, I don't mind posting it here.

 

The premade scenario I'm using had a Kuo-Toa outpost in the Underdark, where an insane dwarf is residing; the party's task is to get him and bring him home alive. In my game, I have replaced Kuo-Toa (and Sahuagin, and any other malevolent fish-people) with Deep-Folk (High Fantasy Deep Ones). So, the task became to explain how they got there, miles away from the sea.

 

I figure if the Deep Ones can infiltrate a fishing village in Massachusetts, then they can infiltrate a dwarven outpost the same way. Again, they offer corporeal immortality for the worshiper's descendants -- a powerful incentive to subscribe, even for relatively long-lived races such as dwarves. In addition, the Deep Ones seem prolific and dwarven society in most fantasy games suffers from a low birth rate. So, the Deep-Folk infiltrate over generations of time. Their religion, the Esoteric Order Of Dagon (I'm using the image and idea of Cthulhu, but calling him Dagon) slowly becomes a local benevolent society, grows to become a cult, and then takes over when it can and deems it necessary.

 

Then it becomes child's play to explain things about the captive dwarf. Since the Deep-Folk here are dwarf hybrids, they probably still retain some idea of what they used to be like (dwarves with the Innsmouth look...) They capture a bunch of dwarves raiding their Underworld stronghold, and imprison them to torture and sacrifice later. The dwarf the party is looking for has a fiendish taint to his bloodline; when they torture him, his sanity (shaky to begin with) snaps under the strain and he begins babbling; due to the fiendish taint, some of what he babbles is in the Elder Tongue spoken by otherworldly angels, devils, demons... and the Deep-Folk themselves.

 

They realize he's speaking in tongues, and bring him back to his cell. There, he continues to speak Elder Tongue from time to time. The Deep-Folk believe he speaks prophecy, and take some of his statements to mean that Dagon may be calling them to arise and begin the conquering of the surface races -- the Strange Aeons may be coming at last!

 

And that's where I've got it right now. We'll see how much of this actually comes out during play.

[azrad]

Re: Lovecraftian-style Magic

 

I have a relative with the Innsmouth look....

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: Lovecraftian-style Magic

 

Seeing Lovecraft magic in a fantasy campaign may not be too far off. Although they lived in distant parts of the country from each other, Lovecraft and Howard were frequent correspondents. Which makes me wonder where Howard got his attitude about sorcerers, who are almost always corrupt ion Conan's world and decidedly limited in power. Conan could wipe the floor with sorcerers, although they would offer him a challenge most of the time.

[dmjalund]

Re: Lovecraftian-style Magic

 

I have a relative with the Innsmouth look....

whatever you do - don't look innsmouth!

[DusterBoy]

Re: Lovecraftian-style Magic

 

whatever you do - don't look innsmouth!

 

Yeah. 'cos fangs in a human mouth never look right. . .

[Odraude]

Re: Lovecraftian-style Magic

 

Yeah. 'cos fangs in a human mouth never look right. . .

 

Then again....

 

[Michael Hopcroft]

Re: Lovecraftian-style Magic

 

How on earth does that outfit stay on? GLUE?

[AlHazred]

Re: Lovecraftian-style Magic

 

It's that old vampire magic. I'll tell you, vampires change with the times, but Vampirella's costume stays just as tiny as ever!

[Shadowsoul]

Re: Lovecraftian-style Magic

 

Not to be too crude but it looks as though she's scratching herself. And those nails look like they could slice straight through her costume if she's not careful. (Which raises the question of how she managed to dress herself with those things getting in the way). All in all I think she needs to expand her wardrobe, literally.

[Odraude]

Re: Lovecraftian-style Magic

 

Begs to ask... could she make a costume so tiny that even she can't keep it on?

 

I hope the answer is yes...

[DusterBoy]

Re: Lovecraftian-style Magic

 

Well, I was thinking of shark teeth, not vampire fangs, but then I've never seen vampire fangs that didn't look silly (and "True Blood" in no exception).