Lovecraftian Horror - How to use it?

[Rock of the Fraternity]

I wonder ... is it impossible to prevent the rise of the Great Old Ones? If we read 'the stars must come right' very literally, then ... what's to stop someone of a self-sacrificing nature to make a pact with Cthugha to drain key suns, leaving them lightless, and thus removing key components from the celestial lock that would otherwise release Cthulhu and sundry other critters from sleep?
Not all that madness-inducing info in the Necronomicon is about summoning the tentacular extradimensional spawn of Azatoth, there should be plenty about putting them down, too. It's just no one seems to have been making a concerted effort to do so ... Combine the dire knowledge of the Mad Arab with modern science, and you could possibly do some real harm to some of the less evanescent old ones.

[DocBeard]

I think that the greatest power the Old Ones have is their perceived invulnerability. When all sources describe the ancient ones as being so powerful as to be maddening and as unstoppable as fate itself, well.

Thing is, fate isn't exactly unstoppable, is it? It wouldn't need agents and enforcers if it was really inevitable. In the same way, if the Old Ones were truly inevitable, they wouldn't bother to plot and scheme against each other. I remember Rowling having Dumbledore describe a prophecy as, "Simply a very good judge of character.", which I feel is probably the best description of prophecy I've read.

[Ail]

This is 2e D&D, where a PC can find a magical violin that will summon an Italian gangster

Hey hey hey... I don't recall that, but the image is so funny and alluring!!! What did you mean, how can I summon an Italian gangster?

[Mouseferatu]

Hey hey hey... I don't recall that, but the image is so funny and alluring!!! What did you mean, how can I summon an Italian gangster?

Well, they do say that "Violins begets violins."

[Isabella]

Heh heh.

More "seriously", there was a magical violin and violin case that, when triggered, would summon an Italian gangster. He would then (according to the magic item description), wave a tommy gun threateningly at the PC, take the violin case, and vanish.

This is also the D&D edition that brought you the magic airline styrofoam lunch box, which would provide you with food every day but you had to save vs. poison or throw up.

[Ail]

Heh heh.

More "seriously", there was a magical violin and violin case that, when triggered, would summon an Italian gangster. He would then (according to the magic item description), wave a tommy gun threateningly at the PC, take the violin case, and vanish.

This is also the D&D edition that brought you the magic airline styrofoam lunch box, which would provide you with food every day but you had to save vs. poison or throw up.

Really?!!!

What supplement was that in?

That shouldn't surprise me, though, given the tongue-in-cheek history of D&D from its earlier days, but it's still so off the usual flavour that it is kind of a surprise and dare I say highly heretic to me
So, what was the point of that violin, after all? No discernible use, is there?

Feels like an April's fool joke, or simply an easter egg

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

You sure it wasn't from an April Fools issue of Dragon? I have fond memories of the magic mouth/burning hands hybrid: burning mouth (the material component was a jalapeno pepper).

[Isabella]

They were from the one of the Encyclopedia Magica volumes, a series of books about the size of a Bible each and coming in a four volume set. They featured more serious items like pearls of power and magic armor and also things like aforementioned lunchbox and "Goerl's Portable Tackle Box and Canoe".

[kintire]

To be fair, some of Lovecraft's tales do involve victory. Dunwich Horror, for example. And tales of the inevitable victory of the Great Old Ones does tend to come from their cultists. Shadow Out Of Time implies that the Human race has a reasonably long run.

As far as Ravenloft goes, it has struck me before that the Dark Powers are a reasonable fit for Yog Sothoth. He has that level of ambiguity, as well as some interest in humanity while being nicely seperate. For specific plots, Lovecraft's concepts of the weight of history can be used very well. Inherited curses, ancestral misdeeds returning... along with the ancestor. I think some of them can fit really well.

Also, I think Cthulhu would make an excellent Darklord. He is, after all, driven by the desire to recover his ancient power, and to awake...

[ScS of the Fraternity]

I'm glad you brought that up, Kintire.
More than a few of Lovecraft's stories involve some badassery.

In Whisperers in the Dark, one man single handedly holds off the Mi-go and their human allies for weeks; in The Shunned House, the protagonist takes out an eldritch horror with a vat of acid. The Feds managed to wipe Innsmouth off the map, despite the presence of full Deep Ones and even Shoggoths. Cthulhu himself ended up going ethreal to avoid getting a face full of boat. That's basically the equivelent of getting knocked over while trying to swat a bee. That's right: Cthulhu is that friend you threaten to punch - and then hit twice for flinching.

Lovecraftian horror seems to center, not on the fall of humanity, but rather, the possibility that it will eventually collapse. In He, and Nyarlathrotep, the big scare comes from showing that our civilization is finite. Lovecraft envisions countless ancient civilizations, almost all of which have collapsed. Mankind is just one entry in a long histoy.

Its almost like that scene at the end of Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. The strength of men will fail, but that day has not yet come.

Now let's go run Azathoth over with a horse!

[Nevermorrow]

That is one, to me, of the best summations of HPL's idea of cosmic horror: a profoundly alien, uncaring, inhuman reality that would blast our pathetic minds should we even begin to understand its true nature.

I think it's important to remember that for all of his deploring of the weakness of the civilized mind, Lovecraft was good friends with Robert H. Howard, to the point of considering the stories where Conan confronts elements of the Cthulhu Mythos practically canon. I say this because some people view a "proper" Lovecraftian reference as one where the protagonists inescapably go mad, are corrupted, or are destroyed, and otherwise the opposite of the Howardian pulp-fantastic world where one gritty man can endure massive suffering and triumph, or at least survive, in a corrupt world.

I think these themes are not as irreconcilable as one might think, is the point.

Hmm... I haven't explained this well. I'm not talking about swords and sorcery or heroism being incompatible with the Mythos, but about the moral nature of the two millieux[ Ravenloft and the Cthulhu Mythos].
IMO, Ravenloft is fundamentally different from the amoral, alien, uncaring universe of the Mythos because the Ravenloft milieu is built on human ideas of good and evil, sin, redemption, curses, and passions.
Combining the two is problematic for me. If you have a different take on it, that's cool. I'm not telling you that it cannot be done; I'm telling you why I don't like doing it.

Sorry to bump another old thread, but I was reading this and I had a thought on the matter. I agree that the Ravenloft paradigm is completely different from the Lovecraft paradigm, but Ravenloft is only a demiplane. (Or it could be just one world or a pocket dimension, etc., if you're using an alternative cosmology.) What if the rest of the universe is built on a Lovecraft paradigm? Obviously, this casts the Dark Powers in an even more sinister light, but it brings up the possibility that the rest of the universe is a hostile place, rather like Earth in Call of Cthulhu, and occasionally something leaks in...

Of course, keep in mind that in Lovecraft's stories some 95% of the population have no clue as to the true nature of the universe or the other things that inhabit it, so many worlds would still seem paradisaical to a lot of the natives of Ravenloft. A native RLer who learned more about the terrible secrets of the universe who escaped RL for one of these worlds would undoubtedly consider him- or herself better off.

If you are interested in putting some Lovecraft into your D&D, I'd definitely recommend getting your hands on some Call of Cthulhu monsters. Some aberrations, most notably the aboleth, work great but others come off as some kind of cheesy '50s B-movie critter. When anyone mentions illithids I always think ATOMIC BRAIN-EATERS FROM MARS!!! (I apologize to anyone who happens to be an illithid-fan.)

[ewancummins]

Funny that you mention the rest of the universe- much of Ravenloft looks a bit more hospitable to me than much of, say, Toril or Krynn.

You think the Dark Powers are jerks? Try the gods of Krynn on for size. When they aren't simply ignoring their worshipers, they are dropping mountains on them.

[Ail]

Funny that you mention the rest of the universe- much of Ravenloft looks a bit more hospitable to me than much of, say, Toril or Krynn.

You think the Dark Powers are jerks? Try the gods of Krynn on for size. When they aren't simply ignoring their worshipers, they are dropping mountains on them.

Oh come on, that's being a bit unfair. I'd rather have a neutral indifferent god than one working actively against me. And that mountain (that destroyed Ishtar, iirc?) was simply a cataclism akin to the Grand Conjunction. Let's say, an external device to justify a change of edition?

I like Krynn, I play there also, and although every wolrd will have its fair share of troubles, the general tone is lighter in Krynn. Something else entirely would be Athas, for example.

The problem with Krynn and Forgotten Realms, though, is that they sometimes are as much hospitable as Rome during its worst crises, with rampant violence, corruption and treason. The problem with living in the Core is that most of what threatens and menaces you is unknown and you do not how to deal with it (speaking from the point of view of a native) and that makes you afraid. Much more than someone who knows the mafia since childhood, that feels afraid of them but still understands a bit of how they are and how they reason to earn a certain self-sense of security.

[ewancummins]

Yes, but how many Ravenloftian folks ever actually encounter all those scary critters?

I would say Raveloft as a whole is no more monster-infested than Realms, and arguably a bit less so. Does it really matter if a werewolf eats you...or a troll or dragon or orc horde does it?

[cure]

Does it really matter if a werewolf eats you...or a troll or dragon or orc horde does it?

The question might rather be, does it really matter if a werewolf nips you . . . or a troll or dragaon or orc horde does it?