Lovecraftian horror in Pathfinder (or 3.x)

[EisenKreutzer]

It seems like Paizo love their Lovecraft. Every Bestiary has had atleass a couple of Mythos monsters in them, and Bestiary 4 has a whole host, in addition to info and stats (as if you'll ever need them) for the Great Old Ones themselves. Now I am naturally opposed to giving Cthulhu and friends stats, as that implies they can actually be fought in any meaningful way, but I love seeing this stuff in one of my favourite fantasy RPGs.

Has anyone had any experience with running Lovecraftian themed stories or whole campaigns in Pathfinder (or 3.x)?
What worked? What didn't?

Share your tales of madness, insanity and the cold, dark emptiness of the Outer Void and the dreadful monstrosities that lay claim to those terrible dimensions.

[Geddy2112]

I once played a game where the DM threw a shoggoth at us. We were way under level to fight such a CR; basically it was planned that after 2 characters died we got a deus ex machina out. The dice gods saw this and we killed the thing in about 6 turns. Not a single PC died or even went unconcious- we got natural 20's left and right and it had 2 turns where it rolled 4 natural 1's on attacks.

It was a great fit to the story though; the quest was to stop a great god of destruction from consuming and destroying the world(Basically Azoth) and in an attempt to seal him away we accidentally opened a portal and a shoggoth came out. We were horrified as players and characters, as we had never actually seen or known any physical presence of this god or their realm. Having almost a year of buildup made a shoggoth even scarier than it was.

I always liked the Colour out of space: both the story and the pathfinder monster. The aura of lassitude is a cool effect to add in a sense of "this is all fubar and nothing you can do might as well not care". Put it in a field where the plants are big but inedible, just like the story. Just throwing in a lovecraft monster is not doing it justice: it needs a buildup of a session or two to make sure the fear and strange eldritch nature sinks in. Saying there is a strange incoroporeal and alien glow sucking the life out of the earth is boring. Tales of a cursed land(but not an evil curse) where things turn to ash over time after a short burst in productivity. Perhaps the party encounters a survivor of this now ghost town, little more than a babbling lunatic. Some speak of unnameable evil, others pass it off as myth...


http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/oozes/colour-out-of-space

[Afgncaap5]

I actually find that Lovecraftian stuff works better as side-plots and weird environmental touches. A hallway, building, or creature that just shouldn't be, that the party comes dangerously close to failing against, with strong implications of how badly, and uncalculatingly quickly, things would be ruined for the rest of the world had they not succeeded, followed with a dash of "We should... never talk about that again..." sprinkled in.

Having said that, I think the only time to give stats to things like Cthulhu is when you're expressing that what the players face is merely a single facet or worldly manifestation of something that won't be able to get into reality fully, at least not yet. To do otherwise sort of gives a lot of hope and capability to players that's at odds with Lovecraftian stories (at least, modern interpretations of them. Lovecraft himself had implications that some of the tamer elder forces were teaming up with humanity to fight back against the allegedly inevitable destruction, but modern audiences are less familiar with some of those stories. Lovecraft also wasn't big on continuity, either, so it's hard to say which Lovecraftian stories are "definitively" his versions in some cases.) Now, I've got nothing against giving hope to players... we tell stories about dragons so that we will know they can be beaten, after all... but at that point it's a different kind of story (which is why I prefer the approach from the first paragraph.)

Oddly, this is sort of what I do to actual deity stats in my games as well, though being able to defeat deities seems to be less about "hope" and more about... I dunno, perseverance? Something like that.

As for actual examples... I once wrote a weird, free-verse poem to go along with some writings and carvings on a wall in a ruin. There was a bas relief of a scimitar, and any player who read Sylvan and got a Decipher Script check of 5 (or anyone else who got a Decipher Script check of 20) would be able to read the following...


The scimitar succeeded in the binding
The Void With A Mind will stay sealed
While Its Name stays Lost to History
The scimitar that saved the world
May be yours if you don't let go
Strike Fast and Stay Strong
The scimitar of starsilver awaits
But so does the maw of the void
Stand on the darkness
Reach with both hands
Be ready, and forget the name
If you succeed, take it and be blessed, but
Forget The Name
If you fail, then farewell
Our prayers go with you to the void


For the day's travel before reaching that place, I had any spellcasters in the party have dreams filled with unsettling images of a sword trapped in seaweed or tentacles, or in a jungle and being entangled in growing roots and fungi. The next day, they found a camp of Kobolds, beat them, and discovered that the Kobold's magician had been studying some runes on the wall (the poem written above.) It was set up so that anyone who tried to grab the scimitar while standing on the obsidian stones right in front of the inscription would have the weapon (a Masterwork Scimitar made of an unusual, purplish silver ("starsilver") and with the word Forgetfulness in Sylvan written on it) melt from the bas relief and into their hands... but from the ground, a series of mushroom-like shoots or tentacles or something strange and made out of smoke and shadow would rise and instantly ensnare them (I used the stats for a Squid, took away its dependence on air and Ink abilities, made its creature type simultaneously Aberration and Outsider with Chaos and Evil as subtypes, and made it impossible to lose its last hit point unless the blow came from the starsilver scimitar.) The players weren't sure what to make of it (especially since it was the first game for most of them), but it wasn't bad for a CR 1 challenge. (And a masterwork silver scimitar isn't *too* much more than standard CR 1 treasures, so I felt good about it.) (Oh, and I did something I can't remember with Will Saves, where the one ensnared by the tentacles would make them every round and, on failures, start to hear whispers and feel like he or she was on the verge of "remembering" something. I think if prolonged it would've led to a loss of Wisdom points or a Confusion effect, but it never lasted very long.)

I tried the same scenario on a different group of players. They couldn't read Sylvan, though, and didn't have Decipher Script, and an intelligence check to try and read it anyway didn't work. They left, promising to come back to it and try again. Plot happened, though, so they forgot, and in their campaign the Starsilver Scimitar remains buried with the Void With A Mind instead of being reclaimed.

[atemu1234]

I once saw a group of PCs fight Cthulhu, for no reason other than they could. It went... entertainingly.

[Hypername]

I once saw a group of PCs fight Cthulhu, for no reason other than they could. It went... entertainingly.

Damn I got to try it. 4-5 level 20 PCs min-maxed against Cthulu from the bestiary.

[atemu1234]

Damn I got to try it. 4-5 level 20 PCs min-maxed against Cthulu from the bestiary.

Note I backported him for 3.5.

[Hypername]

Note I backported him for 3.5.

I have no idea about 3.5 but the PF version looks pretty strong. I think that a well organized group could take him out though.

[Necroticplague]

I have no idea about 3.5 but the PF version looks pretty strong. I think that a well organized group could take him out though.

Meh, I've seen his stats. No way to attack incorporeal creatures, and all his SLA's are mind-effecting (except for the summons, who also have this problem). A ghost wouldn't even break a sweat fighting him.

[Hypername]

Meh, I've seen his stats. No way to attack incorporeal creatures, and all his SLA's are mind-effecting (except for the summons, who also have this problem). A ghost wouldn't even break a sweat fighting him.

How is a PC party going to find a ghost?

EDIT: Oh wait, wizards.

[Necroticplague]

How is a PC party going to find a ghost?

Because ghosts are a valid option for PCs?

[Hypername]

Because ghosts are a valid option for PCs?

Really? I honestly didn't know that.

[Necroticplague]

Really? I honestly didn't know that.

Here's the entry in pathfinder (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/ghost).

Here it is in 3.5 (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/ghost.htm).

[Hypername]

Here's the entry in pathfinder (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/ghost).

Here it is in 3.5 (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/ghost.htm).

Wow thanks!

[Sayt]

Mi-go with levels in Alchemist (Vivisectionist) and the improved grapple feats are terrifically fun monsters to run. Emergency exploratory surgery ahoy~! Ohhh, is it finally a usable spleen?!