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Do you Cthulhu much!?

mike

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,000
Location
HOME - NYC
what do you think of this - a player's guide...? I've yet to figure out what the game is these players actually play.... it's probably too horrible for words if I ever found out :eek: But the cultural resource is pretty great regardless, hmmmmmm?!?!
 

Edward

Bartender
Messages
25,078
Location
London, UK
Have to admit, as a former teenage Dungeons and Dragons fan (sorry for those of you now suffering from the nerd alerts I just set off), until recently I was only aware of Call of Cthulu the RPG. I'm dimly aware th HP Lovecraft might be worth my while checking out...... anyone light my ignorance with a little guidance?
 

rebelgtp

One of the Regulars
Messages
203
Location
Prairie City, OR
hehe when i was at my last job (tech support in an office) i had a little cthulhu sitting on my desk. i gave him to my friend before i left figured it was the right environment for him to be in.
 

Story

I'll Lock Up
Messages
4,056
Location
Home

Dr Doran

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Messages
3,854
Location
Los Angeles
I LOVE CTHULHU.

I used to play Call of Cthulhu in the early 1980s. It's a Dungeons and Dragons type game, but unlike the latter, no dorky pseudo-medievalisms (cannot stand that sort of thing), elves, or dragons, and the only wizards are truly frightening, insane freaks. It is a horror game rather than an "adventure" game. It was set in the 1920s, so it was very fun to include historical figures and events from the Golden Era. Each character had a finite number of "sanity points" and you lost some each time you saw something horrible (such as your friend get tortured by cultists) and eventually you simply ran out and had to be institutionalized or else killed yourself (your character did, that is, not the player).

In the small group I was in (only myself and two old friends from elementary school) I was the referee of the game and they were the players. I had an adventure in the late 1920s worked out in which the (obviously) not-yet-in-power Nazi party were secretly bankrolled by worshippers of Cthulhu (which is not too off, considering the interest in the occult that many of their leaders had). I was about 14 when I was playing it.

I cannot play those sorts of games any longer because there are too many geeks who play them and I don't get along well with geeks -- it is almost like a racial prejudice.

I have read a great deal of Lovecraft, and still read him and his epigoni on occasion; I find his worldview very fascinating for its time, influenced as it was by the discovery of geologic time, by the extent of space, and by the conviction that an anthropocentric universe was a fairy-tale. I bought the very recent Call of Cthulhu film which is done as a 1920s silent. I have also seen many other film adaptations. The best, in my mind, was the film DAGON. My interest in Lovecraft is great, but I would fear going to a convention because of the doofus factor.

The English punk band Rudimentary Peni, after a couple of leftist political albums, did a Cthulhu record -- all Lovecraft-inspired songs including one called "Nightgaunts." I liked it. This was about 1987.
 

Josephine

One Too Many
Messages
1,634
Location
Northern Virginia
We have two Cthulhu t shirts:

Littlest Elder God
baby.jpg
(mine)

Buddy Cthulhu
buddy.jpg
(hubby's)
 

Story

I'll Lock Up
Messages
4,056
Location
Home
Josephine,
Considering that next year is a Presidential election, you guys need to whip up an appropriate version of the classic:

CTHULHU 2008
Why Vote For The Lesser Of Two Evils?


Meanwhile, Dagon rises from the Deep.

Song of the Sea, a Cappella and Unanswered

December 21, 2004
By ANDREW C. REVKIN

A solitary "whale", species unknown, has been tracked since
1992, calling out with the regularity of a metronome, and
hearing no response.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/21/science/21whal.html?ex=1198658816&ei=1&en=cf70a6e2d0cc5b08
 

carebear

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Messages
3,220
Location
Anchorage, AK
A buddy of mine was waaay more into CofC than I ever got, but had some good gaming stories.

His favorite character was a Revenuer who absolutely refused to believe there was ever anything odd or eldritch going on, no matter if he was directly involved in dealing with it. His nickname was "The Pump" due to the shotgun he always carried and his tagline was "Monsters? There's no such thing. It's bootleggers!"
 

M Tatterscratch

A-List Customer
Messages
358
Location
Near Chicago, America, 1920s
You Lose 1d8 Points of Sanity From Reading This Thread...

CofC! Hurrah!

I've been a DM for years now, and one of my players' favourite games was Call of Cthulhu. We played strictly by candlelight. Man, the roads between Arkham and Innsmouth were hot in those days!

Even with all his nutty, stilted dialogue, Lovecraft is swell. Edward, old man, go and read, "The Outsider", one of my favourites by the man, and possibly inspired by Oscar Wilde's, "The Birthday of the Infanta". Any of the classic Arkham stories will do nicely, too. "The Dunwich Horror" is classic...

Ooh! Almost forgot "Nyarlathotep" - I based a storyline around that tale which dropped my players into the roles of German soldiers at the end of the Great War who heard of a man who commanded powers that could save the failing cause...

http://www.mythostomes.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=23&Itemid=99999999&limit=1&limitstart=0

Love this yarn. Love Lovecraft.

T.
 

Story

I'll Lock Up
Messages
4,056
Location
Home
Please assume the seated position under your office desk, wrap your arms around your heads and begin the mantra "It's only a story..it's not real.. it's only a story..it's not real.. it's only a story". Thank you.


!¬°!¬°! Whiskered sea monster prowls Lake Superior !¬°!?
By Rick McGee
SooToday.com
Saturday, December 15, 2007
http://www.sootoday.com/content/news/full_story.asp?StoryNumber=29085

What has two humps on its back, a head like a horse, and lives in Lake Superior?

Darned if we know, but there's been a lot of Internet chatter in recent days about a 30-year-old report of a bewhiskered Loch Ness monster-type creature at the lake's west end.


Prehistoric 'Sea Monster' Found on Arctic Island
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,314964,00.html

OSLO, Norway — Remains of a bus-sized prehistoric "monster" reptile found on a remote Arctic island may be a new species never before recorded by science, researchers said Tuesday.
 

Dr Doran

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Messages
3,854
Location
Los Angeles
RondoHatton said:
As did I - and thought it very well done.

Marvelous, considering the budget.

I'm delighted there is a Cthulhu thread on the Lounge. It is so very "Golden Era." As I love horror and I (obviously, or else I would not be here) love the "Golden Era," it is wonderful to see this thread combining the two.
 

Badluck Brody

Practically Family
Messages
577
Location
Whitewater WI
OK I admit...

Growing up as a kid, I remember all the original D&D sh-tuff (along with punk and metal and anything other than mainstream music) was considered shady and religiously questionable...So being the good alterboy that I was, I started checking it out because it wasn't approved!!!

Heck it actually got me to read as a kid and with all the detentions I inquired as a result, I had plenty of time....Then things started to go mainstream and everyone was playing it...

However in the mid 80's someone tripped over HP Lovecraft books and then the game... Good sh-tuff!

Looking all those years back, that's probably where I got some of my sinister... I mean creative ideas. RBG as a kid probably lead to my reenacting the different eras now.

I even have plans for an HP/ living dead/ kinda event for next year...Just for fun of coarse!

sorry just had to add my 2 bits!!
 

Dr Doran

My Mail is Forwarded Here
Messages
3,854
Location
Los Angeles
If there is a way to play CofC by email, or on the net, I'm game. I don't want to spend more than 3 hours once a week on it, but sounds good. I like the most descriptive sort of referees who know how to write and don't misspell words.
 

M Tatterscratch

A-List Customer
Messages
358
Location
Near Chicago, America, 1920s
Badluck Brody said:
Growing up as a kid, I remember all the original D&D sh-tuff (along with punk and metal and anything other than mainstream music) was considered shady and religiously questionable...So being the good alterboy that I was, I started checking it out because it wasn't approved!!!

Heck it actually got me to read as a kid and with all the detentions I inquired as a result, I had plenty of time....Then things started to go mainstream and everyone was playing it...

However in the mid 80's someone tripped over HP Lovecraft books and then the game... Good sh-tuff!

Looking all those years back, that's probably where I got some of my sinister... I mean creative ideas. RBG as a kid probably lead to my reenacting the different eras now.

I even have plans for an HP/ living dead/ kinda event for next year...Just for fun of coarse!

sorry just had to add my 2 bits!!

Don't be sorry, Mr. B.... Thanks! Sounds like we had similar experiences! One of my best friends, with whom I've played AD&D for nearly 30 years now (I started playing at age 10), was actually called out by his priest in church because he played D&D. Man, if they'd known about CofC, they would have had an Auto-de-Fe! lol

We got no end of guff - They disbanded our school gaming society, had parent-teachers conferences, and so on, but it was all over D&D. They never distinguished one from the other, thank heavens!

If I'm in the country and you want help for an HPL event, count me in! You're just up the road from me in WI. I know some other folks with the vintage and goth genes who would love it!

Gibbering and Necrophagous,

T.
 

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