Killing the Lovecraft Pantheon: A Gunslinger's Pipe Dream

[Thealtruistorc]

So just tonight I had a rather interesting session where one of my players (a LG gunslinger) had a tragic and horrifying revelation: the woman he loves has been conspiring with at least one very powerful entity from the dark tapestry. This isn't like a fling or fair-weather conversion; the lass has been aiding and abetting an eldritch horror for the majority of her life, and wields a great deal of power and influence in regards to this specific entity's church. The feelings of the woman and the gunslinger are well-reciprocated, and they actually lived together as a married couple for many years before the dark secret came to the surface. Seeing the woman as being redeemable, the gunslinger has decided that he will try everything in his power to remove all traces of this association from her, and has decided that the best way to do that would be to spend the entire campaign exterminating every member of the dark tapestry until his former wife has no more horrific eldritch abominations she can turn to.

Now, I don't know how he got the idea that any of these things can be killed by an 11th-level gunslinger, but he seems dead-set on "burning the tapestry" (as he calls it) in order to redeem his wife (who frankly doesn't want any of this and feels that her cooperation with a certain unnamed outer god is necessitated for various reasons). Given that he has access to an NPC with a fair amount of lore knowledge, his plan is to milk the poor guy for every artifact, connection, or spell that he can acquire and then exterminate the entire Lovecraftian pantheon (did I mention the player is only passingly familiar with the Lovecraft Mythos and doesn't seem to get the kind of power gap he is dealing with?). He's planned out ridiculous ideas that range from recruiting a Runelord to hijacking the Starstone to Gating in a few minor gods and building an immortal army.

Now, I see three potential options for advancing this story: talking him out of it, teaching him a lesson by having his low-tier @$$ handed to him by the next cult he encounters, or going along with it and pulling off a feat that would out-Henderson Old Man Henderson. For all three of these, I'm not sure what the best way to present it would be. The whole dysfunctional relationship this is causing with the wife will only make things worse, and given how the player seems to be going whole-hog on roleplaying I thought I should seek outside help before I go any further. Where would you guys go as a GM if a player thought up something like this, and how would you break it to them that trying to take on even a weak Elder God would be an idiotic suicide mission?

[legomaster00156]

Go for it. My GM philosophy is that players and characters may attempt anything. If he's smart and lucky, hey, maybe he has a fighting chance. If he isn't, he will die.

[Sheogoroth]

Well, judging by a cursory memory of the evil prophet stats from Elder Evils, the leader of a world-wide global apocalypse cult might swing in at CR 17 max. If your player is trying to kill Nyarlothep, he's an ant trying to kill an elephant.

If he's trying to wipe out the cult itself, it would actually be very doable.
One of my gripes with Pathfinder is that they have Elder Evils and Outer Deities actually grant spells. In 3.5 they couldn't care less about the mortal planes 99.99% of the time and so granted no spells, but their cultists could get free feats by serving them.

Now Pathfinder does state that Elder Evils, outer deities, etc. generally don't care about their worshipers or the inner planes, so wiping out their cultists wouldn't bother them too much, plus lore states that these cults are few and far between without much adherents. So as I see it, exterminating the cult of the Dark Tapestry, though still a decently sizeable task, is far from impossible.

[Cirrylius]

If you're going after Mythos entities and/or Outer Gods, and you don't mind Derleth and/or Lumley, my advice would be to get an Elder God in your corner first; Nodens, Kthanid, Daoloth, etc.

Weirdly, I actually ran a post-apocalyptic Delta Green gunslinger who tried to get the patronage of Vorvadoss when it became clear how gruesomely our characters were outgunned.

[Sayt]

A few of the outer gods have been stated up, and they are all over CR 20. Further they are all explicitly immortal and cannot be killed, reducing them to 0 merely banishes them, for a time. (I presume we a re e taking pathfinder, here, as you've refe re enced th e gunslinger and dark tapestry.)

Hastur, Bokrug and Dread Cthulhu can be found in bestiary 5. Th ey can't be killed but they can be driven off beyond your characers lifetime.

Due to the scale and CR of these cults, I think you'd do better persecuting their cults to gather information/level up, rather than just dice for R'lyeh .

[Swaoeaeieu]

i agree with previous posters, going after the cults can be a fun and cool adventure. but the outer gods themself might be a tad bit... brainkilling? end of the campaign level at the very least :P

also, be carefull with invocing the allmighty name of the Old man Henderson. I once named a character Henderson as a tribute and i kid you not: i blew up a planet. By accident...
Dont bring that crazyness on yourself as a DM. Or do if you are up for the challenge and are able to make it work. No one wants to fight a half-***ed tentacle bodied brainkilling godcreature of inthinkable magnitude.