PDA

View Full Version : American Revolution Eldritch Apocalypse Ideas Wanted



adso
2021-04-24, 01:02 PM
In order to celebrate being vaccinated and the ability to reconvene in person, I will be running a one shot for my gaming group over the 4th of July for the first time in a year. In order to keep with the theme, we've decided to do some pseudo historical CoC-type one shot set during the American Revolution. My initial premise is some revisionist history (based somewhat on Neil Gaiman's Study in Emerald) that the Revolution was a rejection of the Great Old Ones who control the European monarchies, etc.

I think I would have the players play actual historical figures and us 5e with the Darker Dungeons horror rules. I know 5e is not the system for this and I would prefer to use CoC directly, but many of my players have only played 5e and it would be more trouble than it's worth for a one shot to teach them a new system. But basically, any idea either mechanical or story suggestions would be appreciated. For all of my players this will be their first time doing any roleplaying farther from generic fantasy than Eberron, so tips on how to set the scenes and things to watch out for for first-time horror game players would also be handy! Obviously, the game will also have comedic elements so advice on combining that with the horror and historical stuff would be great as well.

Basically just looking for any thoughts related to this at all since this is going to be a big change of pace for me and I want to do everything I can to make it work for my group!

Yanagi
2021-04-24, 04:53 PM
Right off the top of my head...

Some variant of the Boston Tea Party, except the players are tasked with preventing a ship from offloading its cargo of (insert eldritch horror here) that symbolically demonstrates the hegemony of the (eldritch horrors) over North America.

Depending on exact scale of the campaign, this can be infiltrating just a harbor, or a whole city, and the scale can be slid back and forth between stealthily evading a small number of opponents and having to confront fortified positions. An extreme version of this includes confronting a flotilla out at sea.

The ship itself is a prodigy--too big and the wrong color and feeling wrong to look at --and bigger on the inside than the outside. If you're looking specifically for something mind-bending, the ship interior is not just non-Euclidean, but disorienting because it's bent space connects to far-off locations related (eldritch horrors and their monarchy) so the inside isn't just wooden rooms. This also creates an opportunity to narrative-ize the exploration: the spaces explored tell a story just with the environments.

Other than that...consider fundamentally flipping a core premise of North American colonization and having the Europeans settlers allying with the natives against all colonizers (which makes sense, because Bourbon France would also be a Lovecraftian monarchy and thus not available to fund and supply the rebellion).

Yora
2021-04-25, 03:37 AM
Having the governments of Europe being pawns of ancient alien monster gods, and the landowners in the colonies knowing about it and starting an open rebellion doesn't feel very eldritch horror to me. That doesn't sound very occult or causing dread.

How about some British colonial officials being cultists instead? They encountered something ancient and alien in the Appalachians while surveying and now they are spreading its influence in the coastal cities. The colonists can't contact the government in Britain directly, and who would believe them anyway? So they have to take out the colonial officers themselves, even knowing how it will look in
England.


Some variant of the Boston Tea Party, except the players are tasked with preventing a ship from offloading its cargo of (insert eldritch horror here) that symbolically demonstrates the hegemony of the (eldritch horrors) over North America.

Or burning the ships to prevent something from being taken to England.

gijoemike
2021-04-26, 10:04 PM
The show Sleepy Hollow dealt with a lot of weird demonic magical nonsense in the Revolution. Or the 1st few seasons did anyway. You could use some of the plotlines and snippets from that show. Only a handful of the revolutionaries knew about the occult, and only a very small handful of the British were summon the 4 horsemen cultists. In fact the main revolutionary character didn't know about the occult until after he was resurrected.

The one occult plot I liked the best was "Don't shoot until you can see the whites of their eyes" was actually a code to certain revolutionary soldiers on how to kill a demon that was only able to be wounded when it attempted to feed. Its eyes would turn solid white. So everything from top brass was coded in one way for general soldiers, and could be read a different way for those tuned into the occult.

Another was the 1 lantern by land 2 if by Sea. The lantern was actually a magical device that could reveal the true form of what the light shown upon. And it revealed a demon. One lantern meant there was a demon possession amongst the British command.

Witches were a known element and were used in the defense of the new world. The witch trials around Salem were an attempt by the cultists to weaken the growing defenses and those took place in the 1690 as the cultists were preparing for war decades prior to the actual event.

Perhaps there is a demonic prison setup by the Viking explorers. The bloodshed of a full war could be used as a ritual to release a dozen demons on Philadelphia (largest city in the colonies).

Who fired the first shot at Lexington and Concord? It was a British cultist.



Just a few ideas and references to get the game going. Have fun with it.

Batcathat
2021-04-27, 01:45 AM
I don't really have anything to contribute with (I'm Swedish so my knowledge of American history is spotty at best), I'm just posting to say that it's a cool idea and I might steal it. :smallamused: I love Gaiman's Study in Emerald and playing a game in that world seems like it would be interesting.

Democratus
2021-04-27, 04:16 PM
A British loyalist discovers the secret to immortality and is conducting his rite at the full moon.

Title: "The Neverending Torry" :cool: