Supers vs. Cthulu

[vorpalvolta]

I want to run a campaign using Fate that puts super powered heroes up against cthulu mythos threats. I've never run a CoC game and I don't know much about the mythos. Do you guys have any advice for how I could do this? Should I make supers immune to sanity loss while the world around them slowly god insane? Or make them susceptible like anyone else?

Any advice or ideas would be great! Even just generic advice for using cosmic horror in my game would help. Thanks guys!

[Red Fel]

I want to run a campaign using Fate that puts super powered heroes up against cthulu mythos threats. I've never run a CoC game and I don't know much about the mythos. Do you guys have any advice for how I could do this? Should I make supers immune to sanity loss while the world around them slowly god insane? Or make them susceptible like anyone else?

Any advice or ideas would be great! Even just generic advice for using cosmic horror in my game would help. Thanks guys!

Short answer? If you don't know the Cthulhu Mythos, you probably shouldn't run a Cthulhu Mythos game.

I know it's harsh, but there's a reason. Lovecraft's work was all about how there are beings in the cosmos, beings against whom we, when compared, seem so utterly worthless and insignificant as to cause one's mind to fracture in despair and futility.

There are therefore two elements to a Cthulhu-style game. First: There are beings against whom we, when compared, seem utterly worthless and insignificant. For the most part, these beings are not willfully malicious; they are simply so far beyond our understanding, and we beneath theirs, that any destruction or chaos they cause to us is completely incidental; they give us no more thought than we give to the fine layer of microbes constantly wriggling about on our skin. They simply don't appreciate that we exist, or at the very least, that we are capable of awareness.

Second: The realization of our own cosmic insignificance drives us to madness. It's not that Lovecraftian horrors have some sort of "insanity field," but rather that madness is our reaction to recognizing what they represent. We are the ants, they are the people. They live a million of our lifetimes in one day of theirs, they see galaxies rise and fall the way we see suns, and they will be here long after we have made absolutely no impact on the universe as a whole. That, and how they seem to completely ignore the rules of reality - physics, geometry, everything, they are simply beyond it, to a degree which, when we see them, we cannot process.

Now, apply that to your concepts. Supers vs. Cthulhu. Here are the problems.

First: Lovecraftian horrors are not merely kaiju. They are otherworldly, cosmic beings beyond comprehension. A supers game does not generally involve deep, complex examination of our own insignificant nature, but punching bad guys in the face until it stops being funny. There are two outcomes. One, you can punch out Cthulhu. At that point, you're not running a Cthulhu game, you're running a supers game where the enemies are slimy tentacle monsters. Two, you cannot punch out Cthulhu. At that point, you're not running a supers game, you're running a Cthulhu game where the Inspectors can fly and fire lasers, but ultimately this makes no difference before the cruel and unyielding eye of the cosmos.

Second: Supers don't get a madness pass. Let's look at our two outcomes (can/cannot punch out Cthulhu). Where supers can go toe-to-tentacle with the Great Old Ones, they won't go insane, because you're just fighting giant monsters. It's Godzilla writ large, and nobody went mad staring at Godzilla. Where supers can't touch the horrors from between the stars, they can't be immune, because the madness comes from the utter ineffectuality of mankind, and having superpowers doesn't change the fact that you are smaller than a speck before such monstrosities. In other words, there's no context in which the madness can be selectively avoided by the heroes; either your monsters are just monsters, be-crazying nobody, or they're true horrors, in which case madness is pervasive.

Are you hep to my jive?

[vorpalvolta]

Yeah that makes sense. I picked up a Lovecraft anthology that I plan on reading before I run the game, but I came here first for a basic understanding and some tips which you've definitely helped with.

My thinking is that somebody who is a true hero with all these powers to use, they'll be inherently optimistic, even in the face of insane odds, even to the point that they'll lie to themselves to believe there is actually a point in taking on these horrors, because they have to, because they're the only ones who CAN if anyone could. Even though their doom is ultimately inevitable, could they maybe put it off for as long as possible, to the point where they'd go to any means to live longer just to try to keep it at bay?

And also, say we take the option of cosmic horrors who can't be killed, is an cthululoid game with investigators who can punch holes in mountains and fire lasers a bad idea? Maybe they could put them to sleep for a time, at great cost to themselves and the public, and their families, fearing the day that they'd once return and being shunned for their behavior that may seem insane to the outside world but to them seems perfectly logical given that they know the threats. I dunno it just seems like there is potential but maybe the whole thing would come off corny but I'm also not against the slimy tentacles kaiju idea either haha

[Whyrocknodie]

What Red Fel said.

If it's supers in Call of Cthulhu mythos, it's nihilistic descent into madness, despair and being eaten.

If on the other hand it's Cthulhu in a supers comic - they're just like a regular Godzilla or suitable supernatural 'big bad' like Darkseid or Loki or something.

[Comet]

To be fair, there's a lot more to Lovecraft's universe than Big Cosmic Things That Make your Brain Go Snap.

Some of his evils are destroyed by a dedicated group with guns and spells, some are defeated by an ordinary, if on the larger side, watchdog.

Sure, there should be some element of discomfort and a degree of impotency on the grand scale, but despair and powerlessnes is not all there is when it comes to the Mythos. Especially if you count in things that came after Lovecraft's own work. Doubly so if you count the plushies.

[Khatoblepas]

I think the best way to handle a Mythos-themed supers game is to have the superpowers themselves come from a Mythos source. It's all right to have a pulpy "punch the monster" game, but there's also the angle that Abberant takes, which is that gaining power as a superhero will drive you slowly mad. Sure, let the players fly and shoot lasers, and slowly become immune to the sanity blasting effects of Cthulhuoid monsters. But as they gain strength to fight these monsters, they become less and less human, and start to provoke sanity checks from seeing them.

It's Shadow over Innsmouth, played out at a cosmic level. The heroes ARE the monsters, destined to slip into something that humanity has no place in. If the players want to punch out Cthulhu, they'll have to lose some of their humanity. If the players want to drive Yog Sothoth back from whence he came and lock him out of reality, they will have to leave behind all vestiges of their former lives, lest they become as big a threat as what they fought.

Let the players start out as shining beacons of humanity, but always behind the scenes, they should have that humanity slowly slip away from them.

[pasko77]

How can I not quote Red Fel?

I would add something to that, tho:
not all stories deal with the "big ones", and the third element that would be "lost in translation" in a supers game, is the "orange and blue morality" (no, I WON'T link tvtropes), that is the fact that all aliens critters are not understandable by our mentality, and so some of their behaviours appear erratic to us. In Lovecraft's universe, there are whole populations which live in different dimensions/timeframes/dreamland, and this background does not really fit in a game where the characters themselves are semi aliens.

[Anonymouswizard]

I agree that supers and the Lovecraft Mythos are basically incompatible. They both work on completely different assumptions. Your choices are:

Punch the tentacles back to space. Here the supers are as strong as the god's, and can just drop kick Cthulhu to sleep.

I hope Cthulhu doesn't wake up. I have a setting I plan to run based on this, where a near-future earth with basic bio-augmentation and exosuits (with severe battery problems) act as 'street level' supers fighting cults and minor Mythos creatures hoping the big guys aren't awoken before they arrive. Notably it is possible to buy immunity to Mythos insanity (it's a GURPS setting not a CoC one), but you take a massive penalty to interacting with normal people because of realising how insignificant they are.

[Nerd-o-rama]

What you probably want is supers fighting Lovecraft-inspired Godzilla clones. This is a very, very fun game, since it lets you be creative with the nature and origins of your giant monsters.

"This one is from an anti-matter dimension, so it's constantly sheathed in a wave of exploding particle interactions from which it constantly heals/shields itself. This one has starfish-like regeneration and its brain is distributed throughout its entire nervous system, and also it grows eyes on its body wherever it needs. This one is a two-dimensional being that casts a three-dimensional shadow. This one's a sapient color," that sort of thing.

Basically, use Lovecraft for weirdness without emphasizing the themes of madness and hopelessness - it's not like people haven't done it before.

[vorpalvolta]

I agree that supers and the Lovecraft Mythos are basically incompatible. They both work on completely different assumptions. Your choices are:

Punch the tentacles back to space. Here the supers are as strong as the god's, and can just drop kick Cthulhu to sleep.

I hope Cthulhu doesn't wake up. I have a setting I plan to run based on this, where a near-future earth with basic bio-augmentation and exosuits (with severe battery problems) act as 'street level' supers fighting cults and minor Mythos creatures hoping the big guys aren't awoken before they arrive. Notably it is possible to buy immunity to Mythos insanity (it's a GURPS setting not a CoC one), but you take a massive penalty to interacting with normal people because of realising how insignificant they are.

What you probably want is supers fighting Lovecraft-inspired Godzilla clones. This is a very, very fun game, since it lets you be creative with the nature and origins of your giant monsters.

"This one is from an anti-matter dimension, so it's constantly sheathed in a wave of exploding particle interactions from which it constantly heals/shields itself. This one has starfish-like regeneration and its brain is distributed throughout its entire nervous system, and also it grows eyes on its body wherever it needs. This one is a two-dimensional being that casts a three-dimensional shadow. This one's a sapient color," that sort of thing.

Basically, use Lovecraft for weirdness without emphasizing the themes of madness and hopelessness - it's not like people haven't done it before.

This is more what I'm going for and thanks for these responses!

I think the plan is to start then as low level supers, investigating weird insane cults. The plan is to not tell them I'm running a mythos game until they become extremely powerful. With supers I think the point is that they won't necessarily be afraid for their own lives, but fear for the damage that will be done to the normal people if these things are left unchecked for even a small amount of time.

Victory won't be final. Even if I were to have Cthulu wake up and run rampant through Victorian London, the best they'll be able to hope for is to put him to sleep again and that will probably end the campaign, with them fearing his imminent reawakening (and even worse horrors that they've only heard about at that point) but knowing they at least did what they could to protect people in the meantime.

After all if Cthulu could be put down for a time by a steamship ploughing into him, why not by having a train thrown at him or a PC chucking Big Ben through his chest?

[Nerd-o-rama]

Yeah, a big thing with Mythos threats, both in the original stories and even more in the Call of Cthulhu RPG, is that you can delay or mitigate the awfulness that a big gribbly is going to cause, but you can't get rid of it entirely. You can get Cthulhu to roll over and go back to bed, but you can't kill him, precisely. You can shut the gate they're going to use to bring in Yog-Sothoth, but the big thing itself is just a fact of reality and can't be gotten rid of any more than "time" can.

[awa]

id suggest taking a look at para human worm its a free web book https://parahumans.wordpress.com/
that deals in some of the ideas of humanity facing a slow inevitable extinction and while you can drive off the threat for a while only at great cost.

Spoiler: spoiler

Show

basically these unkillable monsters attack some were in the world every couple months trying to cause large amounts of damge including secondary damge and while heroes can drive them off they kill so many heroes in the process and cause so much secondary damge that its not something that can be sustained becuase the monsters cant be killed.

I would warn you while the story is excellent it is not what you could call short.

As a generally statement i second those who suggested have the pcs fight around the elder evil.
You punch the cultist trying to wake Cthulhu you don't punch Cthulhu (unless you want to play a love-craft lite game)

ive run a super powered games with lovecraftian aspects one of the biggest thing is to make sure the pc understand this is something that cannot be fought i did so with scale the monster was as big as the moon and the final battle was fought inside a tear duct.

also make sure to emphasize they are alien not just evil otherwise there just demons with tentacles

[Telok]

Focus on the squishy, mortal-like monsters that people can whop and leave the trans-cosmic entities as background. I'd suggest looking into either the Delta Green or Dreamlands supplements if you want to be particularly true to the Mythos lore. Those both focus on rather more human-level conflicts and human level opponents.

The problem with staying true to Mythos lore and playing supers is fighting things like Yog-Sothoth, Zig, or Shub-Nigurath. Olg Yog is part of the intersections between time and space, or perhaps he's in there and a different critter is the intersections, or maybe they're just different parts of the same critter (I'm away from my books at the moment). So how do you punch out the intersection of time and space? How do you even go to the intersection of time and space to start the punching? Those punches will probably just end up somewhere else in time and space. If Yog even notices you it might decide to have your punches warp through time and space to hit yourself. It's worse if you have some way to manipulate the time space interface, because there's some time and pace where you aren't using it and Yog can decide to just not be present when you use it. Which is unfortunate because it means you're in a space with no time during a time which lacks your bit of space.

Zig is never encountered, some poor lady just kills a snake. Late she wakes up next to the putrescent corpse of her husband, dead from hundreds of snake bites, and she gives birth to a deformed, insane, snake-person thing. How does a Hulk or Iron Man type character even confront that?

Focus on the squishy, mortal-like monsters that people can whop and leave the trans-cosmic entities as

[DontEatRawHagis]

My advice would just run with the theme of The Cthulhu Mythos as opposed to going full tilt with the shoggoths and dimensional shamblers.

Good themes to go on:
1. Creature from beyond reality. Either space, time, dimensional.
2. Creature was a person or summoned by a person who didn't fully understand what they were doing.
3. The physicality of the creature and what it does causes people to go insane.
4. The creature may have heightened strength. But it may also have some level of psychic abilities.

[Chauncymancer]

It might be interesting, in the defense of chocolate in peanut butter, to play a game that is about learning whether it's a supers game or a mythos game. You have the heroes, an inherently optimistic perspective on life, the universe, and everything, and you have the cold, razor embrace of the mythos. Let's see if hope really beats anti-life, or something to that effect. Everyone has to be okay with a game of retroactive premise of course.

[Fri]

This is more what I'm going for and thanks for these responses!

I think the plan is to start then as low level supers, investigating weird insane cults. The plan is to not tell them I'm running a mythos game until they become extremely powerful. With supers I think the point is that they won't necessarily be afraid for their own lives, but fear for the damage that will be done to the normal people if these things are left unchecked for even a small amount of time.

Victory won't be final. Even if I were to have Cthulu wake up and run rampant through Victorian London, the best they'll be able to hope for is to put him to sleep again and that will probably end the campaign, with them fearing his imminent reawakening (and even worse horrors that they've only heard about at that point) but knowing they at least did what they could to protect people in the meantime.

After all if Cthulu could be put down for a time by a steamship ploughing into him, why not by having a train thrown at him or a PC chucking Big Ben through his chest?

That's the thing. If you're not planning to run a pacific rim or gurren lagann style game where the theme is "**** logic, we'll punch a hurricane", to run a mythos game you don't fight off the cosmic horrors themselves by punching them. You stop the cultist from summoning them, the cultist might have summoned lesser monsters or have mutated that now they act as the boss for the campaign or something, but you don't shoot cthulhu or yog sothoth themself.

And even if the heroes are too late and they've been summoned (because of course they do), here's a trick. Make it that the heroes don't wrestle cthulhu himself. Have cthulhu rampage on london or whatever, and what the heroes are doing are trying to power up some mystical signs scattered around the city that can banish him for a time.

Also the "cthulhu got put down by steamship" thing is actually a meme. I think people conflated that scene with the scene from War of the Word where a steamship actually ploughed into one of the tripods and took it down. In Call of Cthulhu, the steamship didn't do anything to the Big C, the narrator notices that Big C doesn't feel anything and his matter reform instantly as if it's not earthly matter or something, and everyone in the ship are dead without Big C even lifting a finger, just from seeing him (except for the narrator of course). Big C just got back to sleep on his own because it's not time to wake up yet.

Basically from his PoV I think it's more like, he wake up in the middle of the night because he need to pee, a cockroach bumped on him and he stepped on it, then, realizing that it's not time to wake up for his office job yet, he yawned and got back to sleep.

Strangely though, if you do actually want to have a "**** logic, we'll punch a hurricane" game, Cthulhu is a perfect adversary to be actually punched. Because he's not actually one of the great god or what it's called, he's just a high priest of them. So I think he can still be punched with high enough logicjiggery and willpower, but your super's power level should be in the level where they can spinkick the fifth dimension or something. Unlike say, Nyarly or Yoggy, which are a concept of the universe (can you spinkick the concept of entropy?)

[Hyper-Man]

You should watch this episode of Justice League Animated featuring The Defenders.

dailymotion.com/video/xp8hde_the-terror-beyond-1-of-4_shortfilms

[LibraryOgre]

I would suggest reading "Leaving Megalopolis", by Gail Simone and Jim Califiore.

"You think you know the man of granite? You must have rocks in your head!"

[Fearan]

(can you spinkick the concept of entropy?)

Sure, no problem. That's called Exalted. Seriously, why not put Cthulhu on the recieving end of the "Cosmic horror"

[Fri]

Sure, no problem. That's called Exalted. Seriously, why not put Cthulhu on the recieving end of the "Cosmic horror"

There's a charm for that

[Anonymouswizard]

Unlike say, Nyarly or Yoggy, which are a concept of the universe (can you spinkick the concept of entropy?)

You just need spiral power. Not got enough? Don't worry, just use spiral power.

You know, can I use spiral power to punch the horribleness out of the NEG, or Cthulhutech in general?

There's a charm for that

Spiral Powered Demon Punch?

[noob]

A hero in M&M can at pl 1 in three seconds create from nothing an universe more massive than the real life universe.
I do not know if it is insignificant compared to an ancient or not.
It is possible to make that power a reaction power and then put as a trigger: "when I feel that I am insignificant" for not becoming mad.
Creating an universe so fast and so huge Cthulu feels so much insignificant he/she becomes mad is an exercise left to those nice GITP optimizer.

[Red Fel]

You just need spiral power. Not got enough? Don't worry, just use spiral power.

Pretty much this, and what Nerd-O-Rama said. The fact is, you can run a supers game with cosmic horrors. They won't truly be Mythos monsters, but they will be awesome and colossal and terrible and outrageous fun. Play up the camp, build cities out of gunpowder and blood, and have a madcap stampede over Tokyo every other week with a new unspeakable entity with explodey bits. If that's what you're gunning for, it can play fantastically.

And consider that there are some super settings where the Very Big Bad doesn't get beaten. Galactus is the classic example; a cosmic force, a literal manifestation of the universe, a being that destroys planets, for whom the billions upon billions of lives lost are like ants. He never gets killed (with one or two exceptions that generally get retconned), but he does get pushed back. This time it's a treaty, next time it's a diversion, whatever the case, he comes, there's a fight, he gets repulsed.

And if you really want, you can take that to some very dark places. Just very gently pull the corners back and reveal the futility underneath. Yes, there are weird monsters and beating them up is awesome and BAYSPLOSIONS! and all, but then there are these dark, cosmic forces that the good guys can never truly beat. It's kind of a Mumm-Ra moment, when the good guys realize they can never permanently win, but they can keep fighting.

[Rakaydos]

Pretty much this, and what Nerd-O-Rama said. The fact is, you can run a supers game with cosmic horrors. They won't truly be Mythos monsters, but they will be awesome and colossal and terrible and outrageous fun. Play up the camp, build cities out of gunpowder and blood, and have a madcap stampede over Tokyo every other week with a new unspeakable entity with explodey bits. If that's what you're gunning for, it can play fantastically.

And consider that there are some super settings where the Very Big Bad doesn't get beaten. Galactus is the classic example; a cosmic force, a literal manifestation of the universe, a being that destroys planets, for whom the billions upon billions of lives lost are like ants. He never gets killed (with one or two exceptions that generally get retconned), but he does get pushed back. This time it's a treaty, next time it's a diversion, whatever the case, he comes, there's a fight, he gets repulsed.

And if you really want, you can take that to some very dark places. Just very gently pull the corners back and reveal the futility underneath. Yes, there are weird monsters and beating them up is awesome and BAYSPLOSIONS! and all, but then there are these dark, cosmic forces that the good guys can never truly beat. It's kind of a Mumm-Ra moment, when the good guys realize they can never permanently win, but they can keep fighting.

Reminds me of Worm, in a way, a superhero story where the "Endbringers" are a regular world-devastating threat only supers can really handle- and even then, even with superhealers and Alexandria and Edielon, they can expect a 25% FATALITY rate. And they arnt even the big bad of the setting... that's the SOURCE of superpowers, who has been intentionally crippling the powers he hands out so they never become a threat to him.

[satorian]

I think there is a misunderstanding here of what powers superheroes have. they don't just punch real hard. the problem is a gamemaster can't have the PCs be punchers. But make them Dr Strange, Spectre, Silver Surfer, let alone some of the even more cosmic entities.

Of course, in Lovecraft lore, nothing, definitionally, has a shot against Nyarlathotep. But there is no Sorcerer Supreme, who battles the intersections of time and space every Wednesday, in the mythos. A supers game might be against the pure Lovecraftian spirit, but once you allow it to exist, it's totally doable. Just not with street-level heroes.

[Fri]

I think most of us use the term "punch" as shorthand of whatever power level the supers have. At least when I said "the supers can punch the 5th dimension" I don't literally mean that's only supers that can literally punch the fifth dimension. It's a silly shorthand/joke. It can be magic power, giant mecha that harness the willpower of mankind, the ultimate equation whatever.

[satorian]

I got the joke, but my point is that some supers can very well spinkick the concept of entropy. Dr Strange, Dream from Sandman (arguably not a super), and a few others do such for breakfast.

[Telok]

I think most of us use the term "punch" as shorthand of whatever power level the supers have. At least when I said "the supers can punch the 5th dimension" I don't literally mean that's only supers that can literally punch the fifth dimension. It's a silly shorthand/joke. It can be magic power, giant mecha that harness the willpower of mankind, the ultimate equation whatever.

Well considering some of the supers stuff written actually punching time isn't completely out of the real of possibility.

The biggest issue I think is that most people won't be very familiar with the very few supers materials that deals with the power levels required to fight anything more than cultists and minor monsters. Your Fantastic Four, Batman, Superman, and 90% of the X-men just don't have the sorts of powers that matter in high powered Mythos conflicts.


Well, maybe Superman. The Great Old Ones use the stars at a sort of celestial alarm clock. Move enough stars and you can hit the snooze button. But directly affecting multiple things that are older than time, are time, are in a different kind of time, so on and so forth, is like trying to save the Titanic by chipping the iceberg into little ice cubes for the drinks. After it hit the ship.

Hmm... Supes isn't immune to magic or psionic abilities is he? The Great Race could totally snag him for a decade and get some really good history on things that the human hosts can't normally survuve encountering. That could make for an interesting scenario.

[TeChameleon]

Heh. Fighting Mythos-esque dealies is actually well within the Fantastic Four's purview; while they can't simply have the Thing punch them into submission, they can and have dealt with stuff that would have Cthulhu checking for a spot in R'lyeh to plug in a nightlight. There's the aforementioned 'fighting off Galactus' bit... speaking of which, although Galactus isn't entropy per se, he is the (more-or-less) physical embodiment of some kind of cosmic constant- the balance between Eternity and Death, apparently... the Impossible Man, Annihilus, Hyperstorm, the Celestials, the Beyonder... oh, and breaking into Hell itself to yank Doctor Doom out of there... to imprison him someplace more secure. And then breaking into Heaven as an encore to convince the Thing (who had died during the shenanigans with Doom) that it wasn't his time yet, and having the One Above All (who bore a striking resemblance to Jack Kirby ) agree. It's honestly a bit ridiculous- a lot of their 'rogue's gallery' wouldn't look that far out of place in the Mythos, at least if they had a few more tentacles.

And while Superman isn't any more immune to magic than a normal person, he does have significantly more psionic resistance, to the point that it's apparently a martial art (somehow). Yes, this means that Superman can punch you with his brain.

And yeah, I love that Justice League episode... Aquaman's reaction to an invasion by the Mythos (albeit the Mythos with the serial numbers filed off) is basically "Get the **** out of my ocean." And then kicking them out Aquaman, people! While I've always had a bit of a soft spot for good old King Arthur (Curry), he doesn't tend to get a lot of traction in popular culture. So that was a doubly fun episode for me.

[JBPuffin]

What I took from this:

1. My idea of a scenario where the adults are taken away by eldritch horrors and the kids are given superpowers to fight the small horrors that came over? A fantastic idea.
2. Worm parallels this situation in broad strokes - the main thing being that, in the end, there's always HUGE costs to saving the world from such things.
3. Cthulu isn't the be-all, end-all, like I always thought - and that's a scary thought.