Throwing Ideas at the Wall: Lovecraftian Horror (new campaign)

[RavynsLand]

Hey everyone! Been a bit since I was on this site, or even playing D&D at all, but I've finally gotten the core rulebooks for 5th edition and a group to play with. My idea, which I've been talking up for a while now, is a dark, dismal, horrific, psychotic setting based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft and some other things, with a few ideas of my own in place.

Now, my experience DMing is fairly low and I've never done a horror campaign before, certainly not one this ambitious. As such, I'd love to get as much advice on this matter as possible so that I can start more intensely preparing for the first session (which should take place in a little less than a month).

The party will be of 3-4 players, and possibly an NPC (for reasons I will mention later). One is a very serious thespian story-driven roleplayer who will go with anything, no matter how horrific, as long as it's awesome -- he'll be playing a half-elf Paladin of the Ancients. One is a bit of a goof, who might end up being a wild card if I can't control him -- he'll be playing an elemental Monk. The third is easygoing and smart, but might get grumpy if I "defile" his character too badly -- he will likely be playing a Bard. The possible fourth I have not played with, so I don't really know.

The main idea for this is to have everything start off hunky-dory, in a familiar fantasy world, letting us all get familiar with 5E and get the characters up to level 3-5. Then, an event will take place that I am tentatively referring to as the "Oblivion Blink" -- the literal blink of the eye of an entity so massive and so powerful that, should it arise from its slumber, it could spin the planar wheel like a child's top.

Even something so small as a blink will send the world crumbling into madness and chaos. This brings me to a pile of ideas that still need to be stitched together.

IDEA: A creature, or creatures, that change the rules of the game. Whether inverting rolls, flipping stats, or changing the dice of various rolls (maybe switching to a Shadowrun-esque "hit"-based system) these are designed to break the fourth wall with their alien-ness. Something so strange that it makes the players as uncomfortable and confused as it makes the characters.

IDEA: Inspired by Majora's Mask, something that is in sight at all times and constantly impending. This could be a planet hanging dangerously close to the one the PC's live on, or something similar. Something that, while not immediately threatening, is mysterious and cannot be avoided.

QUERY: Should I even mention the Far Realm? Or just go with my own stuff?

IDEA: "Heralds." New creatures that are either unimaginably large or otherwise terrifyingly powerful (and hopefully, very scary). These can be defeated by the PC's if they get high enough level or devote enough time to coming up with a plan, but these can present the "defeatable bosses" that the actual "boss" cannot.

IDEA: An "Exposure" score. This will be a static modifier that cannot be reduced but can accumulate due to being exposed to certain unspeakable things. This should start at 0 and increase to 1 when the Oblivion Blink occurs. Certain failed saves, or major events, can raise this further, creating an impending threat that can only be held off, but never fully avoided. It'd be a flat modifier that is added or subtracted from rolls it is relevant to (an Exposure of 5 gives you a -5 to saves against possession, but a +5 against having your mind read, etc.), while also having passive effects. 5+ would grant some PTSD and hallucinations, 10+ would grant minor transformations and heightened paranoia, and getting into 15+ would be full insanity. This, to me, seems a bit smoother and more malleable than a standard "sanity" score.

IDEA: Most humans have had their Exposure go through the roof once the Blink occurs, turning them into soulless, psychotic, sadomasochistic semi-zombies reminiscent of Garth Ennis's Crossed comic. Changing it from a virus to Exposure makes this non-contagious and therefore not as immediately lethal, but nonetheless scary. This should also allow me to use "human" villains without going the cult route, which is a bit tired when it comes to Lovecraftian stuff. Having the aforementioned friendly NPC become twisted in this way as soon as the Blink occurs should be a fun way of showing the PC's just how much darker things are about to get.

IDEA: Planar bleeding. Due to every plane being shattered, everything from demons, to shadows, to mad angels can arrive on the Prime Material Plane. In addition, the constant planar shifting has left a malleable world -- with constant storms and onslaughts from minor creatures, not to mention refugees from other planes trying to make their way in this new, shattered universe. The PC's can find safe refuge for a short time, enough to catch their breath or find new quests, but ultimately even these havens will shift like sand, setting them on the run once more.

Any suggestions, feedback, or advice on how to use the rules to my advantage (or more concrete ways to make these ideas fun and scary) would be very much appreciated. I'm hoping to make this campaign one that the players will be talking about for years to come.

[DontEatRawHagis]

Just organizing my response. Wall of Text was hard to read

IDEA: A creature, or creatures, that change the rules of the game. Whether inverting rolls, flipping stats, or changing the dice of various rolls (maybe switching to a Shadowrun-esque "hit"-based system) these are designed to break the fourth wall with their alien-ness. Something so strange that it makes the players as uncomfortable and confused as it makes the characters.
Keep an eye on that. Switching stats might be interesting to see especially if you can do it to the players. For instance swapping temporarily their dump stat with their highest stat will cause a lot of problems, but doing it too often might cause some issues. Seeing a Fighter turn into a weakling intellectual might be awesome.

Rule #1 of weird creatures, do not decide on a name. Have the other players give it a name or refer to it in a very obscure way. For instance the Loch Ness monster loses its mysteriousness when you call it Nessy or if you say oh its a dinosaur.

Mystery keeps the suspense up.


IDEA: Inspired by Majora's Mask, something that is in sight at all times and constantly impending. This could be a planet hanging dangerously close to the one the PC's live on, or something similar. Something that, while not immediately threatening, is mysterious and cannot be avoided.

It'll be foreboding, but make sure to mention it every game in some normal way. I once had the moon in my game turn blood red. After 3 or 4 sessions my players ignored it because it wasn't talked about.


QUERY: Should I even mention the Far Realm? Or just go with my own stuff?
Nope... Have them come up with theories on their own. Giving them answers makes them think everything has a pattern or plan. There is no pattern, there is no safety net, this has never happened before and the world is crumbling around them. Mwhahahah!!!!

Sorry... got a bit carried away. But yes telling them that this creature is from a parallel world will be less horror and more fantasy. Having them discover ruins on the other hand with conflicting accounts of what this thing is, horror/mystery.


IDEA: "Heralds." New creatures that are either unimaginably large or otherwise terrifyingly powerful (and hopefully, very scary). These can be defeated by the PC's if they get high enough level or devote enough time to coming up with a plan, but these can present the "defeatable bosses" that the actual "boss" cannot.
There needs to be a reason to confront these creatures and there needs to be a pay off when they die. For instance, in shadow of the Colossus the Colossi are pointed to the protagonist by a mystic voice who says essentially(and forgive me on this its been a long time if I'm off a bit) killing the Colossi will bring his girlfriend back to life. Every time one of the Colossi is killed black ribbons of energy rip through him and he is one step closer to his goal.

Imagine if you will that the great entity that you have called forth has servants that enact his will upon the plane. Each time a creature is destroyed part of you gets sucked back into whatever dimension you are from. This weakens you until your are sucked back into the hellscape.

Also what if some of the entities created are actually benevolent. In my own campaign there is a creature known as the No Name. So far my PCs have come across a few of his "servents"; a Cultist Leader who has proclaimed dominion over the Owlbears, a creature made entirely of rats who sells magic items, and a priest that travels the multi-verse to stop Mind Flayers from stepping on his lord's turf.


IDEA: An "Exposure" score. This will be a static modifier that cannot be reduced but can accumulate due to being exposed to certain unspeakable things. This should start at 0 and increase to 1 when the Oblivion Blink occurs. Certain failed saves, or major events, can raise this further, creating an impending threat that can only be held off, but never fully avoided. It'd be a flat modifier that is added or subtracted from rolls it is relevant to (an Exposure of 5 gives you a -5 to saves against possession, but a +5 against having your mind read, etc.), while also having passive effects. 5+ would grant some PTSD and hallucinations, 10+ would grant minor transformations and heightened paranoia, and getting into 15+ would be full insanity. This, to me, seems a bit smoother and more malleable than a standard "sanity" score.

Good idea. My current alt method having my insane character roll a d20. Depending on the roll he either is sane, has hallucinations, or is treated to a visit from a creature that no one else can see who can help/kill him in some way.


IDEA: Most humans have had their Exposure go through the roof once the Blink occurs, turning them into soulless, psychotic, sadomasochistic semi-zombies reminiscent of Garth Ennis's Crossed comic. Changing it from a virus to Exposure makes this non-contagious and therefore not as immediately lethal, but nonetheless scary. This should also allow me to use "human" villains without going the cult route, which is a bit tired when it comes to Lovecraftian stuff. Having the aforementioned friendly NPC become twisted in this way as soon as the Blink occurs should be a fun way of showing the PC's just how much darker things are about to get.
Check out Dead Rising franchise for Non-Cult Psychos. They are all really good and can help as a jumping off point. Sounds good. And remember some people will always take advantage of a Good Apocalypse



IDEA: Planar bleeding. Due to every plane being shattered, everything from demons, to shadows, to mad angels can arrive on the Prime Material Plane. In addition, the constant planar shifting has left a malleable world -- with constant storms and onslaughts from minor creatures, not to mention refugees from other planes trying to make their way in this new, shattered universe. The PC's can find safe refuge for a short time, enough to catch their breath or find new quests, but ultimately even these havens will shift like sand, setting them on the run once more.

Any suggestions, feedback, or advice on how to use the rules to my advantage (or more concrete ways to make these ideas fun and scary) would be very much appreciated. I'm hoping to make this campaign one that the players will be talking about for years to come.
Reality always changing is a good idea. Keep the PCs in the dark about this. Angels and Demons should be cut off from their respective deities in some way. Seeing an Angel lose faith as it has lost connection to its Deity is a disturbing idea. More so in that it makes the entire event feel as though there is no hope to be gained from deities.

Here is a list I made for a Lovecraft forum for Call of Cthulhu about not showing creatures:

In my game I stuck to a few rules:

Never mention the creature's name as the DM. For instance if its a werewolf by telling the players what it is will immediately give them information on how to kill it.
Exception to the Rule - Very obscure naming that only a few NPCs know. For instance there was a creature in my game known as the Derryfield Monster. This gave the mystique of it being kind of like the Loch Ness Monster or Jersey Devil. Or the Cult that worshiped it only referred to it as the Harbinger. Another obscure name that didn't give any information to the players.

Keep the monster out of sight as much as you can. This can start with the creature only being heard of, but never seen. Suspense builds when the players see a person the monster killed, it lets them know what it is capable of.
Example, my players were investigating the murder of an actor in the area. The actor's body was ripped to shreds with only the bones remaining and a bit of his clothes. Later on they encountered animals that were similarly killed. And in the final encounter they found an NPC who was being eaten by the creature that killed the actor and the animal, witnessing the killing first hand.

When the monster does appear obscure it in some way. This is not as important, but if your players only see the creature in shadow it adds to the suspense. What is this creature? What does it look like?
Example. The creature first appeared in the last session and it was obscured in a dark room with no lighting. The smell was the first thing they noticed, a part of the witness testimony that had come up on multiple occasions. And then they saw the creature they only saw its outline and the glow of its eyes.

Describe what the PCs would pay attention to. Take for example little Red Riding Hood, she did not notice that her grandmother was the Wolf until she saw the big eyes, teeth, and ears.
Example, I needed to carry over two pieces of info. First that the creature was definitely going to eat them, so I described its blood covered teeth that glinted a metallic glint. Second, that the creature's main weapons were its claws.

Lastly, if your creature can rack up a body count before it attacks the players do it.
Example:My players were already to kill it until it knocked down(Not Kill) an NPC that was with them. They then took the opportunity to runaway as it spent its next action to finish off the NPC.
These aren't defined rules, but these worked for my game. And I could see adding tips with different creatures.

The best thing I found is not to use creatures that can be google searched, or to modify a creature so its harder to recognize(think tv show Buffy's Vampires vs Dracula vs Nosferatu they are all different, but the same creature). Coming up with new creatures might be difficult, but nothing is better than seeing players having to work to figure out what a monster is.

[FlourescentKing]

Oh, man. This looks awesome.

The part about changing the rules looks cool - make it so alien, so foreign, (and don't explain it!) that your players have to take a minute and rethink their lives. This is an excellent way to blow people's minds; establish some rules for the universe, then introduce something that breaks them. I played a 1-shot at epic level where we were all minor deities (all our characters were horrendously broken, I was the "God of Consumption" moon druid and I could turn into anything I ate/that had a mouth, including smaller dragons, a hydra, and even a Balor :smallbiggrin:). Our characters ended up fighting an ancient white dragon that, when killed, turned into a massive purple dragon. We soon figured out (very, very painfully) that any spells or abilities we used got reversed. My druid's antilife shell ended up embedded in his chest, and I had to stop the spell instantly. Basically, the DM took anything that we used in the dragon's presence and warped or twisted it so that it would only detriment us. We only finally took it down because the monk and fighter beat it to death with fists and scythe. It's mind-boggling, playing against something like that - if you can pull it off, it's amazing.

I kinda like the Herald idea, it seems like it has potential. Remember not to just multiply the numbers to get something big and scary - what really scares players is something that makes something happen, and we have no idea why or how. Make it weird, interesting, creative. From the same campaign earlier, we infiltrated a demilich's dungeon that was coated with hyper-intelligent ooze (that the demilich controlled). Harmless ooze on the floor concealing traps leading to deadly oozes, flaming ooze dropping from the ceiling, a bridge made of cubes of ooze that dropped into a bottomless pit when touched....When introducing something to produce the desired effect of terror, awe, and mind-blowingness, give the players just enough so they can speculate. Usually, what they come up with is just as terrifying (or even more so) than the real thing. Question: Are the Heralds actually "heralds," or precursors to something greater? Do they signal the arrival of a more dangerous foe? How were they made: pure energy twisted into malevolent form by the shattering of the universe? Servants to some anti-god set free by the collision of the planes? Dark shadows of the gods, reflections of their faults and downfalls, manifested as tears in the fabric of reality?

As for exposure, I think something like that was done in one of the other pre-made campaigns....don't cite me on that :smallwink: Cool idea, but make sure the players are up for roleplaying accordingly.

Planar bleeding looks awesome - how would the extraplanar beings react, though? I would think lawful beings (cough cough ANGELS cough) would go insane at the rending of reality and blindly lash out at anything they could, whilst chaotic beings would run rampant and pillage/burn everything. Perhaps areas where spellcasting is wild, random - spells don't always go where you want them too, sometimes they're magnified, sometimes their effects are....different. Places where the walls between different planes grow thin, and a misstep can land you in the elemental plane of Fire - or 60 feet in the air, or inside solid rock.

Just some ideas/speculation/suggestions. Hope it helps!

[RavynsLand]

Awesome feedback and advice, guys! :O Thanks so much!

I'll come back with some better comments/answers/questions tomorrow afternoon, when I have some more time to type. This is great stuff!

[Infernalis]

IDEA: Inspired by Majora's Mask, something that is in sight at all times and constantly impending. This could be a planet hanging dangerously close to the one the PC's live on, or something similar. Something that, while not immediately threatening, is mysterious and cannot be avoided.


Perhaps one of the heralds has taken a liking to the sun and is "nesting" around it. This would allow you to periodically make the world go dark in the middle of the day, have odd silouettes appear, and other shenanigans. This way it's persistant, world impacting, and provides a gameplay element so that the players don't just ignore it as background noise.

If the campaign takes place over a long period of time you could also have the sun dim slowly over time. The impact could start small, maybe winter seems to come early, the solstice passes and yet the days dont get longer, and perhaps eventually the days are just perpetually in low light. This would affect crops in the long run and provide more fuel to people's crazy.

[RavynsLand]

Rule #1 of weird creatures, do not decide on a name. Have the other players give it a name or refer to it in a very obscure way. For instance the Loch Ness monster loses its mysteriousness when you call it Nessy or if you say oh its a dinosaur.

Ooh, I love this. Taking this to heart for sure.


It'll be foreboding, but make sure to mention it every game in some normal way. I once had the moon in my game turn blood red. After 3 or 4 sessions my players ignored it because it wasn't talked about.


Perhaps one of the heralds has taken a liking to the sun and is "nesting" around it. This would allow you to periodically make the world go dark in the middle of the day, have odd silouettes appear, and other shenanigans. This way it's persistant, world impacting, and provides a gameplay element so that the players don't just ignore it as background noise.

I think this is what I'm going with. I love this idea. Maybe not the sun, but perhaps a planet that is hanging very close to "Earth," off of which the sun reflects and creates a constant, eerie glow, or sometimes the absence of light altogether. Have one of the Heralds in constant sight, mostly dormant but occasionally active, squirming or being threatening but having the PC's stay beneath its notice (even if they can't tell that right away).


There needs to be a reason to confront these creatures and there needs to be a pay off when they die. For instance, in shadow of the Colossus the Colossi are pointed to the protagonist by a mystic voice who says essentially(and forgive me on this its been a long time if I'm off a bit) killing the Colossi will bring his girlfriend back to life. Every time one of the Colossi is killed black ribbons of energy rip through him and he is one step closer to his goal.

Imagine if you will that the great entity that you have called forth has servants that enact his will upon the plane. Each time a creature is destroyed part of you gets sucked back into whatever dimension you are from. This weakens you until your are sucked back into the hellscape.

Also what if some of the entities created are actually benevolent. In my own campaign there is a creature known as the No Name. So far my PCs have come across a few of his "servants"; a Cultist Leader who has proclaimed dominion over the Owlbears, a creature made entirely of rats who sells magic items, and a priest that travels the multi-verse to stop Mind Flayers from stepping on his lord's turf.

I love the idea of a "mad god" doing weird stuff that's so incomprehensible it borders on comedic. Maybe something like Sheogorath, blending the line between goofy and menacing.

As for coming up with a reason to attack the Heralds, it's a good idea, but one I'm stuck on. I don't want there to really be much hope for escape or bettering their situation, so killing them to make forward progress seems counterproductive. Maybe each one is on a "timer," which they can find out in some ruins or old book? If they aren't stopped in a certain amount of time, something really bad happens? Unsure. Putting a pin in this.


Check out Dead Rising franchise for Non-Cult Psychos. They are all really good and can help as a jumping off point. Sounds good. And remember some people will always take advantage of a Good Apocalypse

Oh yes! That is smart! I will look into them again, yes.


Reality always changing is a good idea. Keep the PCs in the dark about this. Angels and Demons should be cut off from their respective deities in some way. Seeing an Angel lose faith as it has lost connection to its Deity is a disturbing idea. More so in that it makes the entire event feel as though there is no hope to be gained from deities.

I really like the angel idea. Sounds like something that should be kept to a minimum but could make for a really intense scene.


Oh, man. This looks awesome.

Thanks!!


I kinda like the Herald idea, it seems like it has potential. Remember not to just multiply the numbers to get something big and scary - what really scares players is something that makes something happen, and we have no idea why or how. Make it weird, interesting, creative. From the same campaign earlier, we infiltrated a demilich's dungeon that was coated with hyper-intelligent ooze (that the demilich controlled). Harmless ooze on the floor concealing traps leading to deadly oozes, flaming ooze dropping from the ceiling, a bridge made of cubes of ooze that dropped into a bottomless pit when touched....When introducing something to produce the desired effect of terror, awe, and mind-blowingness, give the players just enough so they can speculate. Usually, what they come up with is just as terrifying (or even more so) than the real thing. Question: Are the Heralds actually "heralds," or precursors to something greater? Do they signal the arrival of a more dangerous foe? How were they made: pure energy twisted into malevolent form by the shattering of the universe? Servants to some anti-god set free by the collision of the planes? Dark shadows of the gods, reflections of their faults and downfalls, manifested as tears in the fabric of reality?

All this sounds stupendous and I'm going to definitely keep it all in mind. The only thing I'm a little afraid of is making things too identifiable, bringing the world from "eerie, alien horror" to "all-out hellscape," which might tarnish the atmosphere a little. I may need to keep certain segments of the game indoors so that the horror of the situation can sink in without the aggression of the terrain outside.

Hmm... I have much to think on. More suggestions and feedback still welcome!

[RavynsLand]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM9Nr0H-Ggg

[Vwrt]

I love Lovecraftian themes, and keep returning to them. It sounds like you have a bunch of good ideas to start with, so run with them. A few things that have worked well for me:

Slow build. I think you'll enjoy the reactions from your players more if you don't telegraph all the ways you've changed the world all at once; let it emerge slowly. If the characters know there's a shadowy group of cultists working in the background, when they show up the players will say "I was wondering when they were going to show up." If the first hint they get of them is when someone at the Duke's bachelor party stabs a knife into his own breast as a sacrifice and it summons forth some eldritch thing to ruin everyone's day, the sudden shift in tone will be enormously satisfying.

Those cultists. A sinister cabal of cultists can be a fun staple for these kinds of campaigns, whether it's a handful of them that turn up at the culmination of the campaign to finally confront at last while they are trying to complete their horrific plans or they're eagerly recruiting and you see crowds of them on every street corner giving the local constabulary what for. It always works for me to give them a bit of backstory. One set, the last geriatric few loyal to a dark god increasingly starved of followers, found a high level sacrificial victim because the wrong major player got unlucky and they stumbled across him at the right time to snatch him up. Much more powerful than everything else they'd been able to offer for decades, when they conducted their ritual instead of the sacrifice's soul winging away into a dark abyss to feed their master, a tiny shard of their master came through to this plane and inhabited the body: presto! A new messiah for them with a few supernatural abilities, and the old priests are cackling with glee that rather than watching their order die out, they get their fanaticism fuelled up like never before. In another campaign the cultists were members of a servitor race, slaves and outcasts, who finally cracked up and decided that death was better than further slavery as long as they could take their hated masters with them. Having some motivation gives you a lot of story hook to build on and gives you a better idea how they'll respond to PC actions. Also: give them some sort of hook or calling card, like a unique spell (doesn't have to be anything too fancy) that only they cast, or a method of identifying their victims. "This guy's throat's been slit all the way around! Those cultists did this!"

Assaults on willpower and sanity. Oh, the will saves. I still know players that cringe when they hear the words "Make a will save." A common theme to Lovecraftian goodies is the loss of sanity, the things too alien for us to wrap our puny minds around, and so on, so giving your players lots of will saves to make will add to the paranoid flavour of it, particularly for party members expecting to go toe to toe with the big bads. Try adding a "will save or shaken" to the more alien version of some monster. Try flavour effects that don't necessarily have giant game play impacts at first. Characters who fail their will save when they see P'Tyll'th for the first time smell a foul rot for the next 24 hours, ruining use of the scent ability and the taste of any food they try to eat. After meeting Tythawn the characters' sleep is restless and it takes them 12 hours instead of eight hours of down time to feel fully rested for a week. Not giant game changers, but flavour enhancers. When Ngorr^m is slain, the character delivering the deathblow saves, and if they fail then they hear Ngorr^m's voice whispering in their ear until later they can get the curse removed (normally or via mcguffin). Impacts zero dice rolls, but whisper horrific suggestions at the player while they go through normal social interactions for a while and see what happens. Once or twice in the campaign only, as one offs, consider stronger, scarier, even rule busting versions. One eldritch thing in a campaign I ran made divine spellcasters doubt their faith in its presence: failing to make a will save when using a divine spell or granted power came with an overwhelming sense of doubt, and the effects of the spell or ability were delayed by one round, before taking place normally. There could have been dozens of worse impacts, but it totally freaked the party out, that one round delay (actually, I think I had them roll a d4, now that I think of it, but actually halved it and rounded down, to spook them without it actually being quite as bad as they feared at the time). Or what if arcane spellcasters failing a save got their thinking muddled and accidentally cast a different spell of the same level as the one they intended to, randomly from the list of others they had available? Do that sort of thing more than once and the players won't take it well at all, for obvious reasons, but as a one off they really punch up the "holy crap" level for your big event encounter, if they can handle it. Remember that those sorts of circumstances might require you to adjust encounter toughness to compensate, because a balanced CR encounter where suddenly one character's magic doesn't work right can be catastrophic; get it right and it'll keep them on their toes. If you want to try stuff like that, also be sure to mix it up so that it doesn't feel like you are picking on one player and instead everybody gets their own turn at the "What the hell? This sucks for me!" moment and teamwork to get through it can pull those players together. Also don't shy away from weirdness for weirdness' sake. One monster had blood that fell up rather than down, so as the party hacked away at it and the archer peppered it with arrows it bled vertical lines, like a fountain of gore that just went up and up until it faded into the sky while it slouched around the battlefield stomping things, and with zero impact on the mechanics of the combat the characters remembered that bit and still talk about it. When you kill it, the monster falls apart into a gigantic pile of tiny spiders with bloodshot eyeballs for abdomens, and they scatter in all directions. Oh look, there's dozens of them in your clothes, in your hair. You think you squished them all. Sure, you maybe nearly almost totally squished them all. Do the tiny spiders have a game effect or do anything? Up to you, but even if they do absolutely nothing other than make the players say "eurgh!" they're probably worth it.

Tempt the characters, or encourage them to question themselves or their loyalty or their understanding of what's really happening or otherwise be paranoid. One party member, separated from the group, was bludgeoned to death's door by cultists. Rather than rolling up a new character, he was found in the gutter beside the inn they were staying at the next morning, bloody but alive, with a tattoo of a three eyed face on his sword hand. Was it watching them? It looks creepily like it's watching them. Should he be excluded from planning the assault on the temple lest the cult learn of your tactics? Does it seem to move when you're only seeing it in the corner of your eye? Maybe it provides some kind of useful benefit, and when you make use of it it grows stronger. It came in handy when those bandits got the drop on us, but the next morning it had moved to his chest, and now our rogue's got a smudge or something where a third eye might be that makes me nervous. Or what if the cleric has a dream that that mage's shadow is really a monster that is somehow controlling him. Could it be true and the mage himself doesn't even know? It is an omen of something that might happen? Maybe it's the cleric that's somehow compromised and that's why he's the one having the dreams telling him not to trust anybody? I find a little paranoia goes a long way towards growing the dark feel of the whole process, especially when the cult's inquisitor actually does disguise himself magically as the prince.

Psionics lend themselves well to a Lovecraftian kind of game, but I don't know how 5E handles psionics so I can't speak to that specifically.

Finally, if you take Lovecraftian themes all the way to their logical conclusion, you end up with brain shattered PCs getting eaten by things way beyond their CR, because part of the whole commonality among Lovecraft's stories is the overwhelming odds his protagonists mostly face; they are out of their depth. In a role playing game, that's poison to the fundamental premise that players are there to have fun, and winning is fun, and unavoidably getting mind flayed and eaten is less fun. I recommend playing a little close to the edge with the CR of encounters once in a while. All the time would just kill them, and that's no fun, but if the PCs have to flee once or twice and come back with help or seek the elder mcguffin they need to win it or what have you that's not necessarily a bad thing. Consider giving PCs clear standard goals that they can achieve - damn but I want that high priest dead so bad I can taste it - and some that are more in the nature of drawing boundaries or playing defence rather than all out megaboss battles. The elder signs that keep things from certain dimensions from passing through this particular gate next to our city feel a lot more like a win in that context, and give you a handy back door to a sequel or related theme later, rather than having your PCs kill Cthulhu and then dig through his nuneuclidean palace for loot that fits them. That should let you have a profound conclusion with just a hint of sword of Damocles to return to later if you want to.

And above all, have fun. Your players are there for a good time, and if they deal with it by cracking jokes, run with that, and if it's more fun to play it deadly serious, then do that, and don't sweat the small stuff. For one such story I made myself a long list of adjectives and had it handy as I was describing everything, to remind myself that an ominous miasma surrounding the squamous horror built more flavour than a big scaly thing with some sort of vague mist or cloud around it.

[Vwrt]

Also this, just for fun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pyd7U_p3mEc