Lovecraft "crossovers"

[Anonymous]

Okay, I'm looking at a few Lovecraft/Call of Cthulhu story ideas and considering porting them over for use with Conan. Any comments/suggestions appreciated.

Dreamlands: I want to use Xuthal and black lotus to get characters into Lovecraft's Dreamlands, if only for a session or two. This seems to dovetail nicely. Not sure what I'm going to do once I get them there, but...

Shadow Over Innsmouth: I want to run Lovecraft's story with the serial numbers filed off. I'm thinking of maybe an island or isolated peninsula, change the name of the fishing village, have the characters wash up there in a shipwreck. I'm not sure where to place the village, though.

 

[Anonymous]

-Dreamlands+Xuthal: Cool. The demon that Conan fought during the events in The Slithering Shadow may live still in Xuthal's Dreamlands...

-Innsmouth Hyborian version: I would place it in a little known island in the Western Ocean, then as you say I would sink their ship and give them no choice but to go there. Deep One Hybrids could be more eager to worship Cthulhu in public during Hyborean Age, since even for foreigners this would just seem other weird religion like that of Yog.

 

[Prof.Dogg]

BTW if any of you feel like you don't have the experience to tweak a CoC critter from CoC d20, let me know directly (ridd8191@chartertn.net) & I'll happily convert it for you as best as I can. I'm currently running an adventure involving a degenerate tribe of Yueshti who worship Deep Ones & Lovecraft's Mother Hydra.

Here's the Deep One's stats:

Name: Deep One
Size/Type: Medium Aberration (Lesser Servitor Race)
Hit Dice: 2d8+4 ( 13 hp)
Initiative: +2 (+2 Dex)
Speed: 20 ft.; swim 40’ ( 4 squares; 8 squares swim)
DV:
DR: 11 (+1 Dex)
4
Base Attack/Grapple: +1 / +6
Attack: claw +5 (1d4+4)
Full Attack: 2 claws +5 (1d4+4), bite +0 (2d4+2) (on land); 2 claws +5 (1d4+4), 2 rakes +5 (2d4+4), bite +0 (2d4+2) (in water); longspear +5 (2d4+6, AP 6)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./ 5 ft. (10’ with spear)
Special Attacks:
Special Qualities: Low-light vision
Saves: Fort +2, Ref +2, Will +3
Abilities: Str 19, Dex 15, Con 14, Int 11, Wis 10, Cha 6
Skills: Climb +10, Hide +7*, Listen +7*, Move Silently +5, Spot +7*
Feats: Alertness
Environment: Temperate & warm aquatic
Organization:
Advancement: 3-6 HD (Medium); 7-13 HD (Large); 14-26 HD (Huge)
Special Attacks/Qualities: *+4 racial bonus underwater


Name: Deep One, Advanced
Size/Type: Large Aberration (Lesser Servitor Race)
Hit Dice: 7d8+28 (57 hp)
Initiative: +2 (+1 Dex, +1 Reflex)
Speed: 20 ft.; swim 40’ ( 4 squares; 8 squares swim)
DV:
DR: 12 (+1 Dex, +2 class, -1 size)
6
Base Attack/Grapple: +5 / +15
Attack: claw +12 (1d4+8)
Full Attack: 2 claws +12 (1d4+8), bite +7 (2d4+4) (on land); 2 claws +12 (1d4+8), 2 rakes +12 (2d4+8), bite +7 (2d4+4) (in water); longspear +12 (2d4+12, AP 10)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./ 10 ft. (15’ with spear)
Special Attacks:
Special Qualities: Low-light vision
Saves: Fort +5, Ref +2, Will +6
Abilities: Str 27, Dex 13, Con 18, Int 11, Wis 10, Cha 7
Skills: Climb +16, Hide +4*, Listen +9*, Move Silently +6, Spot +9*
Feats: Alertness, Power Attack, Cleave
Environment: Temperate & warm aquatic
Organization:
Advancement: 3-6 HD (Medium); 7-13 HD (Large); 14-26 HD (Huge)
Special Attacks/Qualities: *+4 racial bonus underwater

 

[Prof.Dogg]

Sorry, here it is with Smilies disabled:

BTW if any of you feel like you don't have the experience to tweak a CoC critter from CoC d20, let me know directly (ridd8191@chartertn.net) & I'll happily convert it for you as best as I can. I'm currently running an adventure involving a degenerate tribe of Yueshti who worship Deep Ones & Lovecraft's Mother Hydra.

Here's the Deep One's stats:

Name: Deep One
Size/Type: Medium Aberration (Lesser Servitor Race)
Hit Dice: 2d8+4 ( 13 hp)
Initiative: +2 (+2 Dex)
Speed: 20 ft.; swim 40’ ( 4 squares; 8 squares swim)
DV:
DR: 11 (+1 Dex)
4
Base Attack/Grapple: +1 / +6
Attack: claw +5 (1d4+4)
Full Attack: 2 claws +5 (1d4+4), bite +0 (2d4+2) (on land); 2 claws +5 (1d4+4), 2 rakes +5 (2d4+4), bite +0 (2d4+2) (in water); longspear +5 (2d4+6, AP 6)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./ 5 ft. (10’ with spear)
Special Attacks:
Special Qualities: Low-light vision
Saves: Fort +2, Ref +2, Will +3
Abilities: Str 19, Dex 15, Con 14, Int 11, Wis 10, Cha 6
Skills: Climb +10, Hide +7*, Listen +7*, Move Silently +5, Spot +7*
Feats: Alertness
Environment: Temperate & warm aquatic
Organization:
Advancement: 3-6 HD (Medium); 7-13 HD (Large); 14-26 HD (Huge)
Special Attacks/Qualities: *+4 racial bonus underwater


Name: Deep One, Advanced
Size/Type: Large Aberration (Lesser Servitor Race)
Hit Dice: 7d8+28 (57 hp)
Initiative: +2 (+1 Dex, +1 Reflex)
Speed: 20 ft.; swim 40’ ( 4 squares; 8 squares swim)
DV:
DR: 12 (+1 Dex, +2 class, -1 size)
6
Base Attack/Grapple: +5 / +15
Attack: claw +12 (1d4+8)
Full Attack: 2 claws +12 (1d4+8), bite +7 (2d4+4) (on land); 2 claws +12 (1d4+8), 2 rakes +12 (2d4+8), bite +7 (2d4+4) (in water); longspear +12 (2d4+12, AP 10)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./ 10 ft. (15’ with spear)
Special Attacks:
Special Qualities: Low-light vision
Saves: Fort +5, Ref +2, Will +6
Abilities: Str 27, Dex 13, Con 18, Int 11, Wis 10, Cha 7
Skills: Climb +16, Hide +4*, Listen +9*, Move Silently +6, Spot +9*
Feats: Alertness, Power Attack, Cleave
Environment: Temperate & warm aquatic
Organization:
Advancement: 3-6 HD (Medium); 7-13 HD (Large); 14-26 HD (Huge)
Special Attacks/Qualities: *+4 racial bonus underwater

 

[Anonymous]

What is the general gist of "innsmouth"? I've seen it at my local hobby store, but I don't play CoC (though I like the books). Just would like to know what the adventure is about, etc.

 

[crash_beedo]

There's two Innsmouths he could be talking about - the original story and then the CoC adventure adapted from it.

In the story, a canvas is painted regarding a mist-cloaked New England town where the insular fisher-folk don't take kindly to outsiders... particularly because they're the inbred descendants of Deep Ones and Humans and they worship inhuman deep sea gods. The protagonist basically gets stranded in the town and has to survive the night. (There was a horror film called 'Dagon' from a year or two ago loosely based on the story).

In the CoC adventure, the town is faithfully recreated, major characters are statted out, and various plot hooks are introduced to get the player characters to go there.

Innsmouth is a great idea for a Conan cross-over, and the motif could be used over and over again (ie, isolated communities of people who have become corrupt/degenerate because of supernatural inbreeding or some other releated reason...)

 

[argo]

What is the general gist of "innsmouth"? I've seen it at my local hobby store, but I don't play CoC (though I like the books). Just would like to know what the adventure is about, etc.

Shadow over Innsmouth was a HPL story (one of his more famous ones actually) and I woud presume that the module you speak of is a CoC retelling of the tale. The basic plot of the story is as follows

Warning: spoilers aboud





Innsmouth (AKA "shadowed Innsmouth") is a small seaport/fishing town in Massachusetts not far from Arkham but isolated by salt marshes such that it almost sits out on a penisula by itself, the town and its residents have a bad reputation and for decades have been shuned by their neighbors. The town itself is half-depopulated and run down and its residents display strange traits (known as the "Innsmouth look") that generally creep out any visitors, there are presistent rumors that they have mixed blood with foreign savages from the south sea islands but more on that later. Their fishing grounds are unnaturally active and that bounty is the main source of their wealth, the entire town constantly reeks of fish. The other maijor source of income is a gold refinery owned by the wealthy Marsh family who basically run the town. There is no known local gold mine and sometimes rather than refined gold some pieces of gold jewerly leak out of the town, these pieces freak out anybody who sees them as although they are captivating their craftsmanship is unlike anything known and they seem oddly designed as though to be worn by something inhuman, they also display aquatic themes prominently. There are constant rumors of secret pirate treasure/treasure brought back from the south seas a half century ago by Captain Obed Marsh who built the refinery. There are also persistent rumors of strange rituals carried out in the dead of night out on Devil's Reef which is just off the coast of town where the deep water begins.

The hero of the tale is a young student who is playing turist in New England when he hears the Innsmouth rumors. He is captivated and against all advice decides to have a look for himself. Through some library research, peeking in a few windows he shouldn't, and finally confronting one of the few remaning normal residents of Innsmouth (a great character, a bum and a drunk who is emotionally scarred by the horrors of his home town, the hero buys his tale with cheap whiskey) he mannages to deduce the horrible truth... Innsmouth is run by Deep One colaborators! :shock:

The Deep Ones are an aquatic race who live on the ocean floor. They are an acient race who look like DnD Shugain (gee, I wonder at the similarity :roll: ) and worship their god: Dagon. They live in great cyclopean (that's such a great word isn't it ) cities on the bottom of the ocean and plot to one day overthrow the surface world. But they are in no rush as they are more or less immortal unless killed by violence. Their modius operandi is to make contact with depraved individauals in remote costal communities and offer them this bargain: the Deep Ones will drive fish to the fishing grounds of the colaborators and also give them gold jewelry, in return the colaborators will convert to Dagon worship (in the tale Innsmouth converted its Masonic hall into a temple for the Esoteric Order of Dagon, a very nice touch I think) and offer up their community as a staging area for the Deep Ones. Fruthermore the colaborators will provide human sacrifices for Dagon worship and, get this, they will breed with the Deep Ones! The product of a human/Deep One union appears at first to be human but eventually they begin to undergo a change (gainning the "Innsmouth look") until they eventually become Deep Ones themselves (inmortality included) and return to the sea. Deep One hybrids also seem to have a talent for the occult (see the excelent HPL tale "The Thing on the Doorstep"). The Deep Ones are also breeding Shoogoths for their eventual war.

Captain Obed Marsh discovered all this when he encountered a tribe of south sea islanders who were themselves Deep One colaborators. At first he simply traded with them for the gold but as time went on he became more and more obsessed with their occult lore. Finally he makes a return voyage only to discover that the tribes island neighbors rose up against them and slaughtered them. However, Obed Marsh manages to recover a stone tablet which the colaborators use to summon the Deep Ones by throwing it into the deep water. He returns with it to Innsmouth and uses it to summon Deep One representitives and make a pact with them himself. He takes a Deep One wife and slowly begins converting key figures in the town (he himself is already tremendously wealthy from having built the gold refinery). He and his hybrid daughters are also poweful occultists in their own rights (I recall something about them controling the weather). In time more and more of the town falls under their sway and the normal townsfolk start to suspect something is up as people disapear (human sacrifices) too frequently and all the churches are driven out of town. Finally one night the remaning normals band toghether and attempt to fight back against the colaborators but it is too late. They are mostly wiped out and those who aren't are forced to swear oaths to the Order of Dagon (remember the old drunk? He was just a boy when that happened and one of the best bits of the story is his account of how his father made him hide in the attic before loading a gun and going out with some neighbors to fight.... never to be seen agian. ) The colaborators tell the rest of the world that about half of the town's population died in a sudden plague and from then on the town remained a rotting, half deserted, foul place that everyone else in the state avoids.

Anyway, our hero learns too much and the colaborators come for him in the night but he was paranoid enough to see them comming and he makes a break for it. In a tnse nightime game of cat and mouse he evades search parties in town and in the countryside, he sees fully formed Deep Ones and (horror!) a Shoggoth and the expierence nearly unnerves him but he manages to get away and tell his tales to the US gov who, after a brief investigation of their own, raze the town, fire torpedoes into the deep water off Devil's Reef and quietly cover the whole thing up.

There is also, of course, a twist ending but I think you will have to read the story for that bit :wink:

The story, like much of Lovecraft's work, lags quite a bit in the middle. But all the looooooong setup is rewarded with a tense payoff at the end. And it is defenaetly very converrtable for use in a game. :twisted:

Good luck.

 

[argo]

As for what other HPL stories could make good Conan adventures: "The Lurking Fear" could do the trick with the difference that at the end the party does battle with the undergound demon-things instead of running (or not :wink: ). "The Rats in the Walls" has a great setting though you might want to add more to the final encounter than a cave full of old bones and a terrible realization about one's family history. The secret society from "The Festival" could be used for villans in an urban adventure as could the ghouls from "Pickman's Model".

I think the best thing for using HPL in a Hyborian game is to lift his settings, situations and creatures but not to try to run a HPL story play by play. Conan is supposed to be adventure with elements of horror, Lovecraft was just plain horror.

 

[slaughterj]

(There was a horror film called 'Dagon' from a year or two ago loosely based on the story).

It comes on from time to time on Sci-Fi channel, it was quite good I thought!

 

[Mythos]

The Sci fi Channel edits the life out of that movie! :evil:
Head down to your local video rental place and watch it with out cuts and voice overs.

Btw, I think the female lead of the film would make an excellent Belit.