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View Full Version : Gamer Tales I think I broke history, guys



Milodiah
2014-10-27, 01:34 PM
My usual D&D campaign has been on bricks lately, since for the last three or four weeks I've always had at least one member of the four-person party not be able to make it and that's not really acceptable in the middle of a dungeon (which is where we stopped last time).

Since Call of Cthulhu is probably my favorite RPG, I decided I'd go ahead and start up a backup campaign where characters could reasonably drop in and out. It's leading up to the '20s, but I decided to use some of Scott Glancy's WWI scenarios as prequels to introduce the characters to the Mythos, instead of the "uncle you never heard of left you a creepy-ass house in his will" or other hackneyed plot hooks like those.

One game was a U-boat scenario, in which they first machine gunned Deep ones (as they were supposed to) and then looting a bunch of sanity-blasting Mythos tomes and artifacts for careful study (as they were never supposed to do). Most PCs smash this kind of stuff as a matter of course; not my guys. "Guys, we'd better take all this back and research it, it clearly works."

I couldn't remember the submarine Glancy had set his game on, so I picked one that was in the same area at the same time, the U-39. As I was idly checking the Internet to find the captain's name, I found the executive officer's name as well: Karl Dönitz.

Karl Dönitz. Future Grand Admiral of the Kriegsmarine, and the final leader of Nazi Germany.

Looks like that guy's now a cultist. History is already hating me.


But then the other scenario, also by Glancy, is a British tunneling unit that rescues some British and German captives from horrible sacrifice during the battle of Passchendaele. One of the German lieutenants I decided would become a police captain, and provide the bridge between WWI and Jazz Age settings when he calls up the other Mythos-aware folks to deal with a similar threat in Munich.

So the game advances to Munich, summer 1919. The player characters become undercover policemen. Guess who else is a Munich undercover police officer in the summer of 1919?

Yup, Adolf ****ing Hitler.

Judging by what the PCs did to Dönitz, as well as world history, last game, I'm going to keep his identity a secret both IC for operational security and OOC so they don't deliberately break history again, but I have a feeling he's gonna come out of this next session being an immortal cannibal regardless.

...so, who's looking forward to hearing this upcoming saga of crazy Nazi sorcerers riding Panzershoggoths across the Polish border and calling up the Mi-Go to join the Fallschirmjäegers, while Deep Ones hunt down U-boats and Hitler eats the brains of captured Soviet commanders to discover their plans?

The Grue
2014-10-27, 02:14 PM
I legit almost choked on my coffee reading this. :smallbiggrin:

Sounds like your Call of Cthulu game has transitioned into a wacky alternate history setting!

Aedilred
2014-10-27, 02:50 PM
I couldn't remember the submarine Glancy had set his game on, so I picked one that was in the same area at the same time, the U-39. As I was idly checking the Internet to find the captain's name, I found the executive officer's name as well: Karl Dönitz.

Karl Dönitz. Future Grand Admiral of the Kriegsmarine, and the final leader of Nazi Germany.

Looks like that guy's now a cultist. History is already hating me.
I must admit, I can't think of Doenitz any more without this coming to mind:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHnyQXyuTGY

Lord Torath
2014-10-27, 03:23 PM
...so, who's looking forward to hearing this upcoming saga of crazy Nazi sorcerers riding Panzershoggoths across the Polish border and calling up the Mi-Go to join the Fallschirmjäegers, while Deep Ones hunt down U-boats and Hitler eats the brains of captured Soviet commanders to discover their plans?<raises hand> I'd be interested in hearing more.

Jay R
2014-10-27, 04:24 PM
"No, you can't have another history. You're not responsible enough to take care of it."

Milodiah
2014-10-27, 04:26 PM
"No, you can't have another history. You're not responsible enough to take care of it."

"But...but...Joey's parents let him have a new history, with dinosaurs in it! He's got cool parents!"

Mono Vertigo
2014-10-27, 05:40 PM
You know, you might probably get even more mileage out of it if you play with some Inglourious Basterds material as well. (Like, I don't know, remember the parts with the movies? Well, they feature What Man Should Not Know on top of what they already contain! Or maybe the Nazis that get caught are marked with some eldritch sign instead of the swatiska on the forehead.)
... that's all supposing your players don't do something of that variety first, of course.

Sith_Happens
2014-10-27, 09:49 PM
TL;DR: You tried to run Call of Cthulhu but accidentally set up Wolfenstein instead.

Roxxy
2014-10-27, 10:23 PM
...so, who's looking forward to hearing this upcoming saga of crazy Nazi sorcerers riding Panzershoggoths across the Polish border and calling up the Mi-Go to join the Fallschirmjäegers, while Deep Ones hunt down U-boats and Hitler eats the brains of captured Soviet commanders to discover their plans?http://awesomegifs.com/wp-content/uploads/tina-fey-liz-lemon-i-want-to-go-to-there.gif

Ninjaxenomorph
2014-10-27, 11:07 PM
This campaign sounds unbelievably amazing. I need to hear more. You had me at 'Panzershoggoths'.

Fable Wright
2014-10-28, 01:34 AM
Panzershoggoths
I have never heard a more beautiful word. I may need to sig parts of the OP, there.

And throw Panzershoggoths at some PCs. Or my DM, when I next play a summoner. That is also something I need to do.

Brother Oni
2014-10-28, 03:10 AM
This campaign sounds unbelievably amazing. I need to hear more. You had me at 'Panzershoggoths'.

Indeed. Imagine how much worse the Siege of Lennigrad would have been if the Cthulhlu mythos added into the mix. From Panzershoggoths going up against KV1s with Elder Signs painted onto them for protection, to Vassili Zaitsev's sniper duel with the now cultist Major Erwin König... please let us hear more! :smallbiggrin:

Storm_Of_Snow
2014-10-28, 06:55 AM
In the interests of keeping history a little more on track, you could say that while Dörnitz was the U-boat's XO, he wasn't a cultist and knew nothing about what was going on.

Alternatively, the political group that came into existance in Germany in the 20's and 30's were supposedly after items of occult significance, and the events of 1919 in Munich may have provided the impetus into that.

Sith_Happens
2014-10-28, 01:32 PM
Alternatively, the political group that came into existance in Germany in the 20's and 30's were supposedly after items of occult significance, and the events of 1919 in Munich may have provided the impetus into that.

Yeah, it's pretty widely known that many elements of the Nazi leadership were occultists.

Milodiah
2014-10-28, 02:45 PM
In the interests of keeping history a little more on track, you could say that while Dörnitz was the U-boat's XO, he wasn't a cultist and knew nothing about what was going on.

Alternatively, the political group that came into existance in Germany in the 20's and 30's were supposedly after items of occult significance, and the events of 1919 in Munich may have provided the impetus into that.

Of course he wasn't a cultist at the time...but when you end up being handed a tome of eldritch power and told about the Outer God the crew found manifesting in that cave over there...

Admiral Squish
2014-10-28, 03:11 PM
Yeah, I have definitely got to hear all about this campaign.

Slipperychicken
2014-10-28, 06:04 PM
I think there was actually an RPG about mythos stuff being used in WW2. Someone was asking about it on here a few months ago, I think.


looting a bunch of sanity-blasting Mythos tomes and artifacts for careful study (as they were never supposed to do). Most PCs smash this kind of stuff as a matter of course; not my guys. "Guys, we'd better take all this back and research it, it clearly works."


There are a number of Lovecraft's stories where someone recovers tomes and artifacts for someone else to go nuts over. Maybe the scientists who examine it will go crazy and destroy it.

razorfloss
2014-10-28, 07:39 PM
i would love to hear more im already laughing at this
http://i.imgur.com/QA72May.gif

Arbane
2014-10-29, 02:31 AM
I think there was actually an RPG about mythos stuff being used in WW2. Someone was asking about it on here a few months ago, I think.

Achtung! Cthulhu (http://www.modiphius.com/achtung-cthulhu.html). It's also part of the backstory of Delta Green.

Dire Moose
2014-11-01, 09:39 PM
Relevant TV Tropes page (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Ghostapo).

Admiral Squish
2014-11-01, 10:11 PM
Relevant TV Tropes page (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Ghostapo).

*drags self into thread, clothes tattered* Oh god... what year is it? I barely managed to escape while the jetpacks page was loading...

razorfloss
2014-11-01, 10:17 PM
Relevant TV Tropes page (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Ghostapo).

oh no its sucking me back in *no* *no* *nooooooooooooo*

Telok
2014-11-02, 02:25 PM
Oh man, you have got to read Delta Green. That sounds almost exactly like the background except with which side of the Atlantic getting into the Mythos being switched.

Really basic run down of DG: Start with Shadow Over Innsmouth in the early 1920's, elements of the US federal government now knows about the Mythos. Most do the sane thing and chalk it up to mass hysteria, exaggeration, etc. and bury or ignore it. But the US Navy, especially the Office of Naval Intelligence, is flippin ticked. There's hostile things in the seas that they have no defense against.

The ONI set up a secret section to fight/investigate the Mythos, and it worked. The Nazi high command interest in the occult was real and towards the end of the war was working on a ritual to summon Azzy. The end of WWII saw interesting stuff with the ONI agents racing around trying to grab Mythos stuff and stop the ritual. At least one researcher went insane in the archives and destroyed rather a lot of information and proof.

There's more stuff for after the war leading up to a major disaster during the Korean War that saw the Mythos fighting teams disbanded. Then the Roswell crash happened.

Milodiah
2014-11-02, 04:07 PM
Luckily for you I adore Delta Green.


Delta Green happens to be my favorite RPG of all time

Way ahead of ya mate :smallwink:

And yes, this may pan out to set up a Karotechia/Church of a Thousand Tomorrows campaign in a modern DG setting which I've had on the backburner for months.

The real fun would be running the entire history of this one Mythos cult through Invictus, then Dark Ages, then Brittania, then 1917/Jazz Age, then World War Cthulhu (from what I hear it's less pulpy and more gritty than Achtung! Cthulhu) then Delta Green on different unsuspecting player groups, then reveal at the end of each that the facets of what they dealt with were in fact shaped by the actions of the player characters before them. Sorta like Divine Fire, but over two thousand years.

After all, U-boat Heraus!, if linked up with the three incarnations of Divine Fire, have written backstory that portray the Mythos resources in question being built by the Carthaginians, besieged by the Romans, traded with by medieval cults, shelled by Wellington-era redcoats, broken up and looted by Imperial Germany, studied by the Nazis, imprisoned by the Soviets, busted out by the West Germans, kidnapped by the Libyans, then recovered by the Americans.