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View Full Version : DM Help I'm a relatively new DM and I am starting an Elder Mythos campaign.



GuestEleven
2017-07-27, 06:02 AM
I have decided to start and Elder Mythos (Lovecraftian themed for those who don't know what that is) campaign and I would really like pointers from experienced DM/players on what to expect, neat ideas to work into the campaign and any other advice that could be given. Fortunately I have a decent amount of time to prepare for the campaign before I launch it. The first thing to address is that this won't be a typical Elder Mythos campaign involving adventurers rooting up ancient secrets and forbidden lore or stumbling upon elder cults that worship ancient beings. This campaign will be from the prospective of cultists, the players will all be cultists that worship one of the Outer Gods or Great Old Ones. Thus far the party consists of a Druid Serpent Shaman that worships Yig and will be focusing on Wild Shape, a Swamp Druid that worships Nhimbaloth(I'm not pleased with this. Nhimbaloth has very little information about her, seems to have little in the way of motivations, and in my opinion is the least interesting of the whole pantheon.) and will be focusing on plants and swamp aspects, a Bard that worships Hastur, and a Dimensional Occultist Witch that worships Yog-Sothoth and will be focusing on heavily on Conjuration and the Teleportation sub-school of Conjuration. There are three other players that don't have any character direction yet and I will update this if necessary.

I think now would be a good time to point out that my group and I play Pathfinder and allow all 3.5 content as well. I intend for the setting to be Galorian though I likely will not focus on too many of the Galorian themes because I do not have the books to really bring Galorian alive. I have picked Galorian because some of the gods already seem to have ties to the world and what little Galorian history I do know involves Aboleth and Serpentfolk which fit the theme well. I think I will just study one continent or area of Galorian to learn what I need to know about it and set most of the campaign there. My primary concern is that nearly all Elder Mythos cultists are insane, violent, and evil. Members of the same cult are likely to kill fellow worshipers of their deity, so what will keep the players from constantly ritualistically sacrificing one another? My group is fairly diverse but it led to them not all being able to agree on the same god to worship so I said for everyone to just pick who they want, but there is little to no information of how the Elder Mythos cults interact with one another. I suppose if I can't find any info of how they interact I could just make the final decision that the cults treat each other as they would another member of their own cabal.

The next issue is how will I bring these cultists that are normally parts of secret societies or lone mad heretics together and keep them together. Perhaps some event that is foreseen to bring about the reawakening of the Great Old Ones or perhaps the secret worship of heretical gods was discovered and now the cults are being weeded out by some organization? Why not both? Sorry if this post seems long winded, I have never made a forum thread like this before. Thanks in advance for any advice or ideas.

Firest Kathon
2017-07-27, 07:26 AM
For some inspiration you may want to grab the (free) player's guide for the Strange Aeons (http://paizo.com/pathfinder/adventurePath/strangeAeons) adventure path, which has a lovecraftian background. I have not read it myself, but it may give you some ideas.
For more background on Golarion issues, you can look at the Pathfinder Wiki (https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Golarion) (in case you don't know it already), especially the History (https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Portal:History) and Religion (https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Great_Old_One) sections.

Geddy2112
2017-07-27, 10:35 AM
I know you play pathfinder/3.5, but you might want to consider looking into running Call of Cthulu instead, as it is a game designed more for this. Even if you don't run the system, you can get a lot of inspiration for monsters, cults, and other fluff for your world.

The great old ones are deities from the dark tapestry in pathfinder, so there is canon support for their existence in Golarion. I would read up on their roles in golarion. There are a lot of lovecraftian monsters in pathfinder as well, such as Mi Go and The Colour out of Space.

While the cults probably won't get along, great old ones are opposed by basically every other deity and person, so you can turn the entire world against your players. Maybe they all need a McGuffin to awaken or port their deity to Golarion, so they are all looking for it and everyone else is trying to stop them(a good final battle could be the rival adventuring party) and once they get it, there can only be one. So the survivors of the battle with the rival guild now fight each other and the winner brings their Great old one of choice into the world.

If you don't want a PvP ending, the perhaps the great ones replace current deities in the pantheon, or gain more power and influence.

Airk
2017-07-27, 10:48 AM
I feel like you are setting yourself up for disappointment by running a "Mythos" campaign about things that are supposed to be horrific in Pathfinder - a game system where things tend to be VERY quantifiable, and which has badass PCs as a pretty central concept. At the very least, it's going to be difficult as your PCs figure out how everything works and tend to just kill stuff because that's what the game does.

GuestEleven
2017-07-27, 05:11 PM
For some inspiration you may want to grab the (free) player's guide for the Strange Aeons adventure path, which has a lovecraftian background. I have not read it myself, but it may give you some ideas.
For more background on Golarion issues, you can look at the Pathfinder Wiki (in case you don't know it already), especially the History and Religion sections.

You're right, Strange Aeons is fantastic. I have all six parts to the Module and it's going to be a great help. I had actually intended to use it for my next campaign but an influx of extra players brings our group to three players above what's suggested for the adventure path.


I know you play pathfinder/3.5, but you might want to consider looking into running Call of Cthulu instead, as it is a game designed more for this. Even if you don't run the system, you can get a lot of inspiration for monsters, cults, and other fluff for your world.

The great old ones are deities from the dark tapestry in pathfinder, so there is canon support for their existence in Golarion. I would read up on their roles in golarion. There are a lot of lovecraftian monsters in pathfinder as well, such as Mi Go and The Colour out of Space.

While the cults probably won't get along, great old ones are opposed by basically every other deity and person, so you can turn the entire world against your players. Maybe they all need a McGuffin to awaken or port their deity to Golarion, so they are all looking for it and everyone else is trying to stop them(a good final battle could be the rival adventuring party) and once they get it, there can only be one. So the survivors of the battle with the rival guild now fight each other and the winner brings their Great old one of choice into the world.

If you don't want a PvP ending, the perhaps the great ones replace current deities in the pantheon, or gain more power and influence.

I really really want to play Call of Cthulhu one day, but at the moment I don't have the content and I really love Pathfinder/D&D and Lovecraftian themed things so having two things I love at the same time sounds great to me. I'm quite knowledgeable to the Outer Gods and the Great Old Ones and how they interact with Galorian, it's the substance of the cults themselves that I'm concerned with. Only cults with ties to Great Old Ones that have a place in the Bestiaries have any semi-flushed out descriptor. For example: "Yig’s Cult
Yig is primarily worshiped by nomadic societies and those who live with a close connection to the land; veneration of him is all but unknown in urban areas. Although Yig often makes his presence known through the actions of serpents, serpentfolk rarely worship him, preferring their own, more sinister deity. Yig’s cult is associated with cycles (the cycle of seasons, the cycle of birth and death, and other manifestations of repetition in the natural world), procreation, and serpents, and his sacred symbol is a coiled rattlesnake with a crescent-shaped mark upon its head. His temples rarely take the form of constructed buildings and are often nothing more than a forest clearing, a ring of standing stones, or the mouth of a large cave. Unlike most of the Great-Old-Ones, Yig tends to take notice of those who worship him. This is, however, as much a bane as it is a boon for those who offer the Father of Serpents worship, for just as he may protect his flock when they are endangered, his retribution for slights is swift, and communities that fail to properly worship him often find their crops failing, their livestock sickened, and their children born with crippling deformities. You can model such unfortunate creatures by applying the mutant creature template. In addition to the normal changes wrought by this template, such mutants invariably bear a unique birthmark somewhere on their body—the crescent moon shape that all of those touched by Yig bear.

Yig’s clerics have access to the domains of Chaos, Community, Protection, and Scalykind, and to the subdomains of Defense, Dragon, Revelry, and Venom. His favored weapon is the punching dagger." That is a fairly decent descriptor, but these only exist for the five or so that exist in the bestiaries and there isn't one for the other 10 or so gods. I also feel as if they were pretty lazy or inattentive while making some of the Gods and Old Ones. Yig, the Father of Serpents doesn't have a sacred animal. The Father of Serpents doesn't have a sacred animal?! It's safe to say that will be retconned in my campaign. Fortunately I have all the Bestiaries and Strange Aeons AP so I will have plenty of monsters and madness to play with. I was toying with the idea of an anti-party or two and I love the idea, and the PvP ending sounds fitting and fantastic.


I feel like you are setting yourself up for disappointment by running a "Mythos" campaign about things that are supposed to be horrific in Pathfinder - a game system where things tend to be VERY quantifiable, and which has badass PCs as a pretty central concept. At the very least, it's going to be difficult as your PCs figure out how everything works and tend to just kill stuff because that's what the game does.

You're not wrong, but I'm going to have this problem regardless. I have only been playing for maybe two years and that's with quite a few long breaks, most of the friends I play with have been playing tabletop games for 13+ years and they enjoy combat efficiency over interesting characters most of the time. It's safe to say I typically have a hard time dealing with their character and tend to get frustrated when ever encounter I throw at them just gets swatted immediately to the ground. But that gives me a new idea. It is typical for at least one PC if not more to die in a single campaign so I can subtly find ways to work tension and conflicted interests into the party at every turn so that they will be the threats to each other and I won't have to concern myself so heavily with being able to deal with them.

Laserlight
2017-07-29, 07:24 PM
I feel like you are setting yourself up for disappointment by running a "Mythos" campaign about things that are supposed to be horrific in Pathfinder - a game system where things tend to be VERY quantifiable, and which has badass PCs as a pretty central concept. At the very least, it's going to be difficult as your PCs figure out how everything works and tend to just kill stuff because that's what the game does.

I tend to agree with this. The two key elements in horror are fear of the unknown, and helplessness. You can get the Fear part down easily enough; I usually just show my players a pic that isn't a recognizable Monster Manual creature, tell them it's not something they recognize, and they get nervous. But the Helplessness is antithetical to the concept for most RPGs; the unspoken agreement is the characters can Find A Solution to pretty much anything--even death!

The way I would tackle a Mythos campaign is to have the PCs fighting against a cult, and occasionally getting a glimpse of the Horrors That Lurk. But when they do get a glimpse, be prepared for them to say "The Elder God isn't sufficiently enraged yet, so I poke it with a sharp stick. Do I measure range to the tentacle, or to the central body?" (That is an actual quote from one of my players, btw).

Verdac
2017-07-31, 12:03 PM
GuestEleven,

Sounds like you have a lot of interesting ideas floating around, however it doesn't seam like you have an intent for the players to accomplish. I suggest before you get to over whelmed with lore you figure out what over all goal it is that your players to do, what story is it you want to tell.

You want to run the story with the players as the cultist; Are they trying to manifest their own god? Stop another one from being summoned? Defend themselves from a group of heroes trying to stomp them out?

Also when doing specific/prebuilt class for a campaign it is good to give them backgrounds that link them all together.

What I like to do when linking all of my ideas together and flushing out what I'm missing. I like to do a brainstorm map, there is the traditional way with a peace of paper and drawing circles with lines connected, but lately my game design has been getting to complex so I have started using xmind. It is a free tool for that sort of thing.

Last bit advice I think I can offer is that for the first few games you make as a DM I suggest making them a one-shot. The thing about one-shots is that it lets you try new things, and if enough people like them you can always extend them, unless you, end the world or something.

Hope that helps.

GuestEleven
2017-08-02, 11:46 PM
GuestEleven,

Sounds like you have a lot of interesting ideas floating around, however it doesn't seam like you have an intent for the players to accomplish. I suggest before you get to over whelmed with lore you figure out what over all goal it is that your players to do, what story is it you want to tell.

You want to run the story with the players as the cultist; Are they trying to manifest their own god? Stop another one from being summoned? Defend themselves from a group of heroes trying to stomp them out?

I have actually decided all of that. My intro to the campaign will involve handing them all pre-made character sheets and putting them in a setting with one of the main campaign villains(A Daelkyr seeking power and to bring the madness to Galorian like a typical Daelkyr would seek to to). The PCs will be playing Elder Mythos cultists assisting the Daelkyr in opening a gate to the Court of Azathoth or somewhere else, but they will ultimately fail to open the gate and the Daelkyr will kill the pre-made characters and we will swap back to their self made characters. That will bring the villain to light and give them an idea of what he wants and why he is having trouble getting it.

Now what I intend to bring the PCs together is two things. One: Various Outer God and Great Old One cults have been discovered by some organization that I haven't made yet. Naturally it will be a good organization that seeks to wipe out or imprison the old cults. Two: Someone has had a mad vision that soon an event shall occur that can possibly summon/awaken/etc an Outer God or Great Old One or grant tremendous power to someone. Naturally there will be evidence to back such things up and the PCs and various other cultists would be interested. But in a twist at the end the event will only be able to trigger the awakening and summoning of one god or grant the power to only one person, and that's where the PCs split god interest will come into play. I intend to make it necessary for them to help the villain to obtain what ever relic will trigger the event so he and some other NPCs will likely be contenders for the relic and it's use.

I definitely expect that there shall be an anti-party or two for them to deal with and I look forward to that, I've never got to make a party for the purpose of fighting the PCs before. What I think I really need is a good organization that would be looking to put a stop to all the cultist shenanigans , either pre-existing or self made.

Aka-chan
2017-08-04, 02:22 PM
I definitely expect that there shall be an anti-party or two for them to deal with and I look forward to that, I've never got to make a party for the purpose of fighting the PCs before. What I think I really need is a good organization that would be looking to put a stop to all the cultist shenanigans , either pre-existing or self made.

The 3.5e book Lords of Madness has a couple of organizations that oppose the actions of aberrations like aboleths and mindflayers; in a setting with the Great Old Ones, such groups would certainly be opposed to them as well. The Circle of the True or Keepers of the Cerulean Sign could make good adversaries for your PCs.

GuestEleven
2017-08-14, 01:38 AM
The 3.5e book Lords of Madness has a couple of organizations that oppose the actions of aberrations like aboleths and mindflayers; in a setting with the Great Old Ones, such groups would certainly be opposed to them as well. The Circle of the True or Keepers of the Cerulean Sign could make good adversaries for your PCs.

Wow, they look great. Thanks a lot.