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View Full Version : Monsters are Returning: Ideas for a subtle, Cthulhu-esque setting?



Mr. Mask
2015-01-08, 06:38 AM
Was thinking about settings where monsters are returning. The government assures everyone everything is OK, but more people are disappearing on deserted roads, and the police are starting to refuse calls for help. Distrust is heavy in the air, and society is coming apart as madness takes hold of the vulnerable. And things look like they're only going to get worse.

So, the majority of the setting is mostly normal, but with their eerie, unsettling nature of things being off. You can probably fight certain monsters as a last resort, but the main point of the setting would be investigating the phenomena then getting out alive and sane.


Does this write a clear enough picture of the setting? I was recently taking inspiration from such things as The Consuming Shadow, and The Last Halloween, though both could be considered a bit more overt than what I'm suggesting (you kill a lot of monsters in the former). Any ideas for plot lines, monsters, setting elements?

hamishspence
2015-01-08, 07:57 AM
Sounds a lot like some D20 Modern variants (Urban Arcana, Shadow Chasers). Might be a good place to look.

Mr. Mask
2015-01-08, 09:45 AM
Any favourite elements from those?

Xaotiq1
2015-01-10, 01:54 AM
Deadlands by Pinnacle Entertainment. The classic material specifically centers around a slow bleed of arcane power and fear into an alternate history earth. It is EXCELLENT!

Arbane
2015-01-10, 01:59 AM
Deadlands by Pinnacle Entertainment. The classic material specifically centers around a slow bleed of arcane power and fear into an alternate history earth. It is EXCELLENT!

Yeah, but Deadlands is more Cowboys and Zombies than modern day.

There's also
Delta Green
World of Darkness (Old or New)
Dread
Dark Conspiracy
And about a million other horror games I don't know - it's not my favorite genre.

Honest Tiefling
2015-01-11, 01:37 AM
I'd use elves from 3.5. They look...Off, at best. And no one is going to suspect that the elves are the monsters. But if you dig into the old stories, they just loved stealing children and causing all sorts of torment and suffering. It would make sense that they would feed upon fear and madness, and hey, people are already disappearing. Having some people gradually shift into one would be feasible at first, and what might initially be a boon could quickly become a curse.

Kami2awa
2015-01-11, 06:03 AM
What you propose sounds like Lovecraft's Innsmouth on a grand scale :) which is really quite cool.

I'd take a look at an excellent video game called The Last Door, which is an in browser point-and-click game designed with a very retro look. It's storyline is very Lovecraftian indeed but in the chapters released so far everything has been very subtle, surreal and dream-like in places.

Overall, I'd say that Call of Cthulhu works well with subtle horror just as with unsubtle survival horror - just keep the "monsters" human (i.e. mundane villains, cultists and sorcerers), and resist the temptation to introduce too many monsters and supernatural elements.

Mr. Mask
2015-01-11, 07:49 AM
The Last Door is good, have been meaning to catch up to the latest episode.

These are good examples. It gives me a lot of material to skim through (I might get nightmares).


One thing I was wondering about recently, was good locations or themes for adventures in the settings. 7-11 in deserted locations struck me as particularly good (you sometimes need to visit them, especially if you're mysteriously short of petrol).

Another idea that comes to mind is what seems like a busy office, filled with the clattering of keyboards. When you look around though... no one there. When you look in a cubicle, you see and hear nothing inside of it. Just a computer turned on... with half-done work on the screen. Looking in again might show something different on the screen, probably something less mundane (so rather than the same work which has progressed, it's a googled news article about some murder). Interacting with the computers might be a good way to progress the scene... but there would need to be a suitable sense of hostility to make it an easy response. Either way, just before you learn what you need to: The power turns off. ...I guess you'll just have to go to the basement, and turn on the back-up generator :smallamused: (too cliché?).

EnglishKitsune
2015-01-16, 05:26 AM
My immediate thought is watch the film PULSE. It deals with this idea of a slow invasion very well, and really provokes some amazing psychological stuff. I can't really comment on a good system, but thematically I'd say this would actually be a rather major breakdown. People know things are wrong, but there is literally nothing you can do about it.

With the whole monsters are returning aspect, I'd keep that vague until late game. All this chaos? These ripples, events, horrors? They are merely the monsters stirring. It is not a deliberate act. They are just so mind bending that they are warping our reality before they are even aware that our reality exists. Most of the evil/monsters should come from humans driven mad, except they see it as awakened. Nothing could break the mind like a sense of perspective. Paranoia brings out the worst in people. The police are trying to help, but just as much as they don't trust the people, the people no longer trust them. All the worst of humanity comes to the fore.

Depending on how doom and gloom you want it, and as you cited survival over winning, near the mid-game bring in the worst of humanity: Nuclear War. With paranoia, and distrust and sheer mind bending insanity, it was only a matter of time before someone fired the first shot. Billions are wiped out, screaming, and this is what finally causes the old ones to awaken. Monsters finally flood the land, what's left of it, and the survivors now find themselves fighting on three fronts: One, nuclear wasteland and pure survival, the other, the "awakened" The insane survivors who now worship the old ones, and C) The Monsters themselves, now free and roaming.

Below is a brief text, written mainly because it wanted to be (Curse my muses for liking misery.), based a bit off of Pulse, this guy could be someone the PC's go to, or find while fleeing, just another survivor. Broken, scarred, alone.


I can't be sure when it started, or even where, all I know is it came up from the south. Rumors from Argentina, Chile, spreading north, none of them seemed to make sense. Whole Town's disappearing, government crackdowns, the lack of any official statement merely added to people's fears. Maybe that's how they got in. Our fear.

My friend, Steph, she was always smart, always digging into things. She found a video, said she'd pulled it from the cloud. Whatever it showed... it spooked her. I got a call from her, asking me to come over to see it, she sounded... numb, distant.

I got there to find the door unlocked, and Steph... dead. She'd hung herself. In her room. I remember puking. The acrid smell of my vomit. I remember following her eyes, the way they almost bugged out of her head. Locked on the screen of her laptop. It was a man, he was laughing, and then there was something else. Looking at me, through me, I felt like my skin was on fire, my brain was crawling. I fainted, came to to find myself strapped into an ambulance. The guy leaning over me said I'd been in a fit, speaking in tongues and screaming.

Since then, I can't go near the dark, or computers, I moved out of the city, going to my parents cabin. I sleep next to the fire, preferring it's warm glow to the artificial light. I keep the radio off, the signals are bad nowadays anyway, NASA claims solar activity, but I don't believe it. I've heard it, in the static, the mans laughter. They are online, they are in the wold. They are in me.

God Help Us All.

Jay R
2015-01-16, 09:13 PM
Is anyone else having difficulty processing the adjective string "subtle, Cthulhu-esque"?

YossarianLives
2015-01-16, 10:47 PM
I like the idea of a normal modern world with classic high fantasy things leaking into the world rather than horrible insanity inducing eldritch horrors. Something like Shadowrun but without the elements of sci-fi and evil corporations taking over.

Someday I would love to see an orc as a lawyer.

Mr. Mask
2015-01-17, 11:59 AM
Kitsune: Cool ideas! I'll try to get Pulse.


Jay: It's probably the wrong example. There was certain elements in that story about the coastal village. Not sure what setting would be a better example. A Silent Hill with little combat might be good example.


Master: That could be interesting. Might be hard to do for a setting intended to be highly creepy,as people often have such strong notions and familiarity with fantasy creatures. Using the correct ones, and the correct amount of expectation and subversion might do it, or making it unclear they are the familiar fantasy creatures till the last.

Fable Wright
2015-01-17, 09:55 PM
I like the idea of a normal modern world with classic high fantasy things leaking into the world rather than horrible insanity inducing eldritch horrors. Something like Shadowrun but without the elements of sci-fi and evil corporations taking over.

Someday I would love to see an orc as a lawyer.

Isn't that basically just d20 modern?

Kami2awa
2015-01-19, 08:39 AM
One thing I was wondering about recently, was good locations or themes for adventures in the settings. 7-11 in deserted locations struck me as particularly good (you sometimes need to visit them, especially if you're mysteriously short of petrol).


Sorry to recommend more point-and-click games, but Barrow Hill is exactly this premise - you're stuck at a service station in the middle of nowhere with all manner of stone-circle-related weirdness happening.

Qwertystop
2015-01-20, 12:49 AM
Sounds interesting, as does the less-horror version a few posts up (magic is coming back. It's not inherently hostile, but people will be people...)