Lovecraftian type campaign - ideas please

[Figleaf23]

Hi Folks, it's like the title says. Here's what I've got so far --

Chronology

1900s - from fringe archaeology, new directions in occultism, and advances in general knowledge emerges a (slightly) wider and more active attention to "Things Man Was Not Meant to Know" (TMWNMTK) in various quadrants world-wide.

1923 - the first scientifically observed summoning and dismissal of a TMWNMTK was carried out at Miskatonic University.

1927 - institute for the study of TMWNMTK established at Miskatonic.

1930s - research continues, proliferation of amateurs seeking mythos knowledge and artifacts in obscure places all over the world.

1940 - government program launched to weaponize TMWNMTK. Miskatonic refuses to participate on grounds of "basic self-preservational sanity, let alone human decency".

1943 - researchers aboard a USAF bomber deploy a TMWNMTK 'solar worm' in Operation Gomorrah during the bombing of Hamburg.

1947 - human meddling with TMWNMTK draws REALLY REALLY unwanted attention to the Earth. A government research installation is destroyed horribly. Incursions are reported in scattered locations.

1948 - Today for the campaign. The government halts all research into using TMWNMTK and commits itself to destroying them.



Campaign Concept:

Kick Cthulhu's Can.*

PCs are involved in the government program to clobber TMWNMTK. It would be good if this could support a series of shorts, but using the same characters.



Comments sought:

Any, really, happily accepted. Any views on:

-a good mid-range entity from the mythos to be a target for the first takedown project. (I'd like someone a bit more obscure that Cthulhu himself.)*

-requirements and strategy for humanity to try to actually take on TMWNMTK rather than be merely helpless victims

-where the PCs should fit it

-any sub-genre ideas

are particularly welcome.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by Figleaf23

-requirements and strategy for humanity to try to actually take on TMWNMTK rather than be merely helpless victims

Most Lovecraftian Things were never portrayed as being all that tough or physically dangerous. Most proved to be entirely vulnerable to gunfire, dynamite, and other human weapons; Cthulhu himself was taken out (for the time being) when he was run over by a tramp steamer. The strategy is pretty simple: find them and blow them up.

The real danger of TMWNMTK is moral or psychological rather than physical. The Lovecraftian conceit is that man was not meant to know things because knowing them would inevitably destroy the vague tissue of self-importance which shields people from the realization that they're utterly significant in the grand scheme of things and essentially everything they know or believe is important is wrong. CoC does a pretty good job of modeling the descent into madness caused by working with TMWNMTK, where the scars people get are on the inside.

[Figleaf23]

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

Most Lovecraftian Things were never portrayed as being all that tough or physically dangerous. Most proved to be entirely vulnerable to gunfire, dynamite, and other human weapons; Cthulhu himself was taken out (for the time being) when he was run over by a tramp steamer. The strategy is pretty simple: find them and blow them up.

The real danger of TMWNMTK is moral or psychological rather than physical. The Lovecraftian conceit is that man was not meant to know things because knowing them would inevitably destroy the vague tissue of self-importance which shields people from the realization that they're utterly significant in the grand scheme of things and essentially everything they know or believe is important is wrong. CoC does a pretty good job of modeling the descent into madness caused by working with TMWNMTK, where the scars people get are on the inside.

Yes, Lovecraft's approach was to highligt the phychological, but I don't think it's safe to minimize the potential physical threat of the big baddies.

That said, if Chthulhu can get taken out by a bump from a ship, I'll need to go higher up the food chain for campaign prey.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Figleaf23

That said, if Chthulhu can get taken out by a bump from a ship, I'll need to go higher up the food chain for campaign prey.

Cthulu was still feeling under the weather, only barely conscious so a slight bop of only a few thousand points of damage was enough take it below 0.

[aesir23]

Originally Posted by Figleaf23

Yes, Lovecraft's approach was to highligt the phychological, but I don't think it's safe to minimize the potential physical threat of the big baddies.

That said, if Chthulhu can get taken out by a bump from a ship, I'll need to go higher up the food chain for campaign prey.

IIRC, Shoggoth are pretty invulnerable :)

[aesir23]

Have you read "A Colder War" by Charles Stross? It follows an alternate history where Lovecraft's TMWNMTK were used as weapons by both sides during the cold war. Hilarity does notensue.

IMHO the best non-canonical Mythos story ever (counting only Lovecraft as canon), and one of my all time favorite short stories ever.

I'd definitely mine it for ideas, along with Stross's much lighter mythos fiction (particularly the Bob Howard books: The Atrocity Archives, et al. which has a government agency vs. TMWNMTK premise.)

[Figleaf23]

Originally Posted by aesir23

Have you read "A Colder War" by Charles Stross? It follows an alternate history where Lovecraft's TMWNMTK were used as weapons by both sides during the cold war. Hilarity does notensue.

IMHO the best non-canonical Mythos story ever (counting only Lovecraft as canon), and one of my all time favorite short stories ever.

I'd definitely mine it for ideas, along with Stross's much lighter mythos fiction (particularly the Bob Howard books: The Atrocity Archives, et al. which has a government agency vs. TMWNMTK premise.)

Those sound great, thanks, I'll get them.

[Flyndaran]

The "Hellboy" movie dealt with such stuff. I don't know if the comic did as well.

[aesir23]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

The "Hellboy" movie dealt with such stuff. I don't know if the comic did as well.

It did, more so than the movie.

[aesir23]

Originally Posted by Figleaf23

Those sound great, thanks, I'll get them.

Last I checked, he (the author) had a link to a free electronic version of "A Colder War" on his website. A fairly well done reading is available at audible.com, but that one's not free.

[EDIT] Here is it., free and legal. Such a rare and lovely combination.