Great Cthulhu and Co. in the Hyborian Age?

[Anonymous]

I know the links are tenuous at best, but is there any indication of Old One activity in the Hyborian Age?

Undoubtedly Nyarlathotep is running around as something, but since the Stars are far from being "right," would any other CM entity make an appearance during Conan's time?

 

[XcomSquaddie]

Howard was one of Lovecraft's peers and partly responsible for the creation of the Cthuhlu mythos. Many of his stories feature "lovecraftian" themes. Dr. Skull's "Lost Garrison" adventure is based on one of those stories.

I'm sure the Cthuhlu D20 book has stats for the monsters and dieties and converting them should not be difficult.

The only problem with mixing Conan and Cthuhlu is the basic difference of theme. Cthuhlu-style entities are sanity shattering, soul-sucking, life ending monstrosities whose very appearance can doom an entire civilization, if not the whole world.

Conan monsters, while horrifying, alien and deadly, can still be slain by mortal men.

But, I'd say go for it. They're only player characters and player characters are meant to be abused.

 

[Anonymous]

there are several 'cthulhu mythos' style wierd mutant + tentacled monsters in REH conan stories - :shock:

SCARLETT CITADEL - deep in the hellish tunnels, conan flees from a big demon /octopus thing!

SLITHERING SHADOW - is a big nasty amorphous thing.

POOL OF THE BLACK ONES - is a very wierd liquid-thing which chases conan far down an island hill + out to sea! massive being!
-
+ some appear in the pastiches -
CONAN THE VALOROUS - a vast 'minion of cthulhu' is summoned at sea by wizard!
+ conan flees from huge tentacled cosmic demon inside crom s mountain temple! brilliant book!

CONAN THE RENEGADE - an awesome gigantic mountain sized thing awakes + eats half an army! conan + men wait till it calms + then flee! but rest of book is poor +boring.

conan THE GUARDIAN - only good things in book are the huge amorphous things at end!

CONAN + THE EMERALD LOTUS - an evil temple of a 'faceless black sphinx' contains an awesome mutant-plant thing which conan has to flee from - -
EXCELLENT book!
-
so u see even conan knows when to flee + when to hack! there are some things even he cannot slay.

have i missed any, please? i aint read all the pastiches yet.

the new conan rpg book does not even cover all the best REH monsters properly.
so run your game how u want to.
surprise + entertain your players in your own style. but if u slay em too much u will lose em!
have fun
---

 

[Anonymous]

Yog god of the Cannibals of Dafar is the same being as the Cthulhu Mythos's Yog-Sothoth and the temple on the Nameless Isle belonged to Tsathoggua the toad-god. Another Elder god who is active in the Hyborian age is Dagoth who was mentioned in the second Conan movie.

 

[Anonymous]

Some ideas:

-One member of the Great Race of Yith sort of "abducts " a Cimmerian chieftain mind during the short Lovecraft novel The Shadow out of Time. You can bet it was not the only person during that age to suffer a mind exchange :wink:

-Players may be so greedy/foolish to enter one of the underground complexes where Flying Polips were imprisoned eons ago.

-The Shoggoth still lies at the Mountains of Madness, and it is always hungry...

-Elder Things are also available at Hyborean Age.

-What about some Serpent Men sorcerers?

-Ghouls rule at least one cursed city and are depicted in the Conan d20 rulebook!

-While weird, an encounter with Mi-Go would be deadly -just avoid overusing Mi-Go tech, or show it as magic without explaining anything. They may even have human worshippers who think of them as demons.

-Ithaqua is not as restricted in his movements as most Great Old Ones and could be summoned by some mad Vanir cult, or by Hyperborean sorcerers.

-Tsathoggua (sorry about the spelling, but I'm not certain it is right) was worshipped by the Hyperborean sorcerer Eibon, so there might be some old tome (the Book of Eibon, for example) where the details of Its summoning are revealed. I think It even appears in one of the Conan pastiches.

-Yig could be worshipped under the guise of Set, and there's no reason for not having him in the game.

-Yog Sothoth can be trapped, but he could be called for limited stays in our dimension by powerful sorcerers. Even if it would be better for the game that it never comes to our world, Yog could be a nice way to motivate players against some cult or sorcerer.

-Nyarlathothep would be most cool! Yes, I know It has been mentioned, but, N. rules!

Hope it helps

 

[Faraer]

The Howard stories that mention Lovecraft's names make it clear enough that those entities exist in his cosmology. (Of course, what makes Lovecraft worth reading is not his menagerie.)

In the round-robin story "The Challenge from Beyond", available in Nameless Cults, we see Lovecraft's and Howard's take on Lovecraftian monsters -- in the same story -- as well as C. L. Moore's, A. Merritt's, and Frank Belknap Long's.

 

[slowalrus]

The best info on how to link the themes (actually not very hard, they were peers, and much like Clark Ashton Smith and friends, Howard borrowed and gave ideas freely) would be at Chaosium (www.chaosium.com). The Hyborian age is listed in Lovecraft's History of the earth.

Those of you who have asked about Serpent People, there are some very crunchy bits about their history, specifcally during the Hyborian Age.

A good adventure hook would be the novelette "At the Mountains of Madness" and the campaign "Beyond the Mountains of Madness". What were the elder things doing during the Hyborian age? Was the Antarctic a little more friendly ... enough so that a group of PC's could get there and survive without modern technology?

How about the deep ones? They were around. One could easily supplant one of the south sea islands into Hyboria.

Where was the Plateau of Leng during the Hyborian Age?

So many Crunchy bits, I can hardly contain myself.

 

[Thoth-Amuk]

SLITHERING SHADOW - is a big nasty amorphous thing.

The Buxom Princess has that right. Look at the thing.

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/hosted/adilbrand/conan/conan_images/slitheringshadow6.jpg

Definitely Lovecraftian.

 

[cornelius]

Tsathoggua's spawn are formless pools of liquid until they attack , and if T. is mentioned in the pastiches , there's one potential link . And if you want overt cross-overs , take a look at the Night - Weird from " The Vale of Lost Women " and its corresponding entry in Scrolls of Skelos , if that's not a Lovecraftian Nightgaunt I dont know what is ! Also I've just finished " The Scarlet Citadel " and the bat/bird thing that Conan rides towards the end seems very like a Byakhee to me .