Starting a new THS game saturday...

[Dinofreak2000]

as the title implies i am beginning my THS campaign Saturday. after a very odd occurance (can you say campaign killing) in the GURPS Dragonstar game i was running i feel it opened the door for this campaign.

so the input i require is merely on the creative level... i will be starting with the Singapore sling from e23. Easy enough, i love the write up (no crutch dialog boxes for the GM...) and from there i have many ideas. But what i want to throw into the game is the Chuthulu Mythos. Now i am not interested in some game with squid beasties running around. i want the mythos to be very subtle. my problem is getting the mythos into the Singapore sling adventure. i was thinking about using MAlaysia as a corrupting source.

but how should i formulate it? i have ideas for the rest of the game, but like anything, the hardest part is starting it. how does one bring Chuthulu into polotics without the "Chuthulu for PResident" bumper stickers? i am using the Chuthulupunk book as some inspiration. Aswell as the uplifted octopods (i went out and bought every THS book, i am only waiting for the sea one to get to me).

as i see it i, these beasties don't seek world domination. that never really seemed like a goal to me (granted i haven't read all the H. P. Lovecraft works, still need to read at the mountains of madness). seasoning with the group finding things leading to the things man was not meant to know, sending them investigating corporations and countries, only to find their trails end were man hasn't tread. stuff like that. maybe a strange bust up of a VR cult spreading memes ment to bring food to the sleeping masters, or genemods in a strange local that appear to be fishy/reptile-like. Nanotech corporations getting a sudden boost in their tech, but unforseen consequences with minds/personalities vanishing, only to be replaced by very alien minds claiming schizophrenic histories older than man.

after that, back to my initial querry. How can i put some Mythos flavoring into Singapore Sling?

Later Days

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Dinofreak2000

after that, back to my initial querry. How can i put some Mythos flavoring into Singapore Sling?

I'm not familiar with Singapore Sling; I don't buy adventures. But if I wanted to mix the Mythos into THS, I would start out from Lovecraft's line about "the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents," and link it to the bit about an AI inventing memetics because it had a detached, nonhuman view of human behavior—and have AIs, or some AIs, have figured out that the Mythos entities were there. And then I would ask what the AIs would choose to do about that discovery.

Bill Stoddard

[MrTim]

Introduce an Octosap NPC and have him/her mention being a Cthulhu worshipper in casual conversation. (See Toxic Memes.) Play it off as a great big joke for a few sessions.

Then have a politico the PCs are investigating have connections to a New Agey manufactured religion. (If you're familiar with Shadowrun, I'm thinking Universal Brotherhood here.) Don't directly link it to Malaysia, and make it a background detail not directly related to the investigation. If they follow up on it, great: they're hooked. If not, they'll get more clues later.

Start having that group show up more and more. The meme is becoming popular among the upper crust, and the membership includes people of all political blocs and viewpoints.

The group's founder can be traced back to Malaysia, although his actual ancestry lies somewhere in Tibet, to the near-mythical Plateau of Leng . . .

[Turhan's Bey Company]

I don't suppose you could get your hands on a copy of Cthulhupunk? It's not THS, but it could get you a considerable distance towards integrating Mythos stuff into a cyberpunkish campaign.

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by MrTim

The group's founder can be traced back to Malaysia, although his actual ancestry lies somewhere in Tibet, to the near-mythical Plateau of Leng . . .

And the game collapses at that point.

You might be able to work subtle Lovecraftian themes into a TS game (though it's not to my taste), but the moment you mention an actual proper noun from the bloody Mythos in a room full of gamers - well, you might as well start up the Monty Python quotes. You've shifted the paradigm.

[Jürgen Hubert]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

And the game collapses at that point.

You might be able to work subtle Lovecraftian themes into a TS game (though it's not to my taste), but the moment you mention an actual proper noun from the bloody Mythos in a room full of gamers - well, you might as well start up the Monty Python quotes. You've shifted the paradigm.

Strange as it seems, not all gamers are versed in Mythos lore. There are role-players out there who might have played CoC only once, if that, and who haven't read any relevant books. Certainly, these people seem to be in the majority in both my former and my current gaming group.

This might work if his players belong into this category.

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by Jürgen Hubert

Strange as it seems, not all gamers are versed in Mythos lore. There are role-players out there who might have played CoC only once, if that, and who haven't read any relevant books.

True, but (a) the odds are that they'll have heard a few of the names, and (b) they may not have played CoC because they think that the whole idea is a bit goofy or something, in which case, bringing it into other settings is dangerous at best.

[sn0wball]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

You might be able to work subtle Lovecraftian themes into a TS game (though it's not to my taste), but the moment you mention an actual proper noun from the bloody Mythos in a room full of gamers - well, you might as well start up the Monty Python quotes. You've shifted the paradigm.

I agree with this. Using the actual names from the Mythos is likely to be unwise. Even if the players do stay serious, they probably know too much about the background. If they learn that their standard THS universe incorporates some elements from the Mythos, they´ll at once expect the whole of the Mythos there, whereas the characters themselves ought only realize slowly what they are up against. This would at least spoil them some of the fun.

Apart from that, there would be a weird paradox.

The Octosop - related reference in Toxic Memes clearly suggest that in the THS the works of H.P. Lovecraft obviously exist. Which means, in the gaming universe, every nerd in the and every public database will have more info about Great Cthuluhu than about many existing religion. So, as soon as the first Fungus creeps about, the players can have their characters as well start speculating about Mythos lore, since it is well known. You can only avoid that by declaring that H.P. Lovecraft never existed in the history of your THS universe (probably eaten by some Eldritch Horror), but that will also give too much away to the players.

This would also be a problem in a Cthulhu-Punk campaign started as a straight Cyberpunk game.

[carllarson]

Do the Scooby Trick.

There are so many possibilities for mindgames inherent, especially with the player tendency to spoof the Mythos (In my gaming experience, Great Chuck came second only to Monty).

However, using the above, its all men in masks, which is very easy and believable in THS. A black lab with Deep One bioroids, a rogue AI with strange graphic symbology, and more, but all of it simply normal people simply cashing in on a cult classic.

Later, after your players have decided its all fake, and you've weathered the innumerable punning and such, start adding in hints that maybe this time, its not a man in a mask, but something real. Maybe with a middle setup utilizing the meme from Toxic Memes.

After all, once they discover that the street gangs are simply posers, finding an octosap riding a headless humaniform shell (and linked in) will throw them for a loop.

Another thing is, preserve the mystery, as long as possible, after throwing your players off the track. Hopefully, let the actual revelation be the climax, because like above, once it becomes true, it may degenerate into a Mythos monsterfest.

[jSarek]

Originally Posted by sn0wball

The Octosop - related reference in Toxic Memes clearly suggest that in the THS the works of H.P. Lovecraft obviously exist. Which means, in the gaming universe, every nerd in the and every public database will have more info about Great Cthuluhu than about many existing religion. So, as soon as the first Fungus creeps about, the players can have their characters as well start speculating about Mythos lore, since it is well known. You can only avoid that by declaring that H.P. Lovecraft never existed in the history of your THS universe (probably eaten by some Eldritch Horror), but that will also give too much away to the players.

Toxic Memes is also pretty clear that Lovecraft has gone out of fashion, and though you can dig up his stuff on the Net, nobody gives it much of a thought. And for every Lovecraft story about a Fungus, there's surely a dozen derivative fictional works with wrong facts also floating around the Net in obscurity, waiting to give the characters red herrings and false leads.