Descripción del Dummy

It is not necessary to keep the same central character in every ses-sion of a Lovecraftesque campaign. Even if you do, you’ll want the horror to have some consistency from session to session. Imagine you are writing an anthology of stories set in the same universe (just as Lovecraft did). Over time, you will build of a corpus of ideas, monsters, secret tomes and so forth. And you will leave a trail of ruined lives in your wake.

There are some further changes to reinforce this:

☉ At the end of a session, don’t share your Conclusions with each other. Instead, do a separate campaign-level Leap to Conclusions phase. Write down what the bigger picture is. Say you encoun-tered a monster. Where did it come from? Does it have breth-ren, amongst the stars or beneath the waves or buried deep in the earth? Was it part of a great empire? As usual, Leap to Conclusions that are consistent with the evidence but go beyond it. And as usual, every time you Leap to Conclusions, revise or discard the earlier Conclusions as required by the evidence.

☉ When you Leap to Conclusions at the end of a scene, consider whether the current story might relate in some way to previous horrors encountered. More often than not, it won’t; but keep this possibility in mind. The horror might be the same, new creatures could be the servitors of the earlier horror (or vice versa, the master of that horror), a rival of the earlier horror, and so on. You should use your campaign-level Conclusions to help with this.

☉ If/when you get a new Witness, in the set-up phase of each new session, ask yourselves whether they have heard anything of the horror. They might have read about previous Witnesses in the newspaper, or received letters from them. They may start with a greater knowledge of the horror than their predecessors although they will likely dismiss these as meaningless ram-blings, until it is too late.

I hesitate to record in writing the view from the plane of cyclopean urban landscape. Must assuredly be a mirage, reminiscent of Scoresby, yet disturbingly compelling. All feeling uneasy.

I hesitate to record in writing the view from the plane of cyclopean urban landscape. Must assuredly be a mirage, reminiscent of Scoresby, yet disturbingly compelling. All feeling uneasy.

Mountains here extraordinarily sheer, and with curiously regular rock formations, like a Great Wall hewn by giants.

Mountains here extraordinarily sheer, and with curiously regular rock formations, like a Great Wall hewn by giants.

inspire awe and dread. And the long wait to discover what has become of Lake.

inspire awe and dread. And the long wait to discover what has become of Lake.

Lovecraft

The horrific state of affairs at Lake's camp has left us all shaken and distressed. I can hardly bear to think of it - but I must record what we saw while it is fresh in my mind.

The horrific state of affairs at Lake's camp has left us all shaken and distressed. I can hardly bear to think of it - but I must record what we saw while it is fresh in my mind.

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Lovecraft stories have a very distinctive style. Aim to make that style pervade your every word and phrase. Do this especially if you’re the Facilitator – others will follow your lead.

1. There is a world beyond our current experience. A world populated with intelligent monstrous aliens, terrifying, incom-prehensible, tentacled Elder Gods, and science so strange and advanced that it appears as blasphemous and unnatural magic.

2. Horrors have uncomfortably intimate relationships with humans: e.g. Mi-Go are insect-like but perform successful surgery on humans far in advance of our own.

3. The horror often invades the Witness’s own space; filling their sleep with dreams of dark things, mutilating or horrifically changing their loved ones.

4. Protagonists see only glimpses of the horror until the end of the story. There is never enough evidence to convince others.

Those who know the truth are treated as liars or unreliable, and are unable to convey the danger they have discovered.

5. Monstrous aliens or Elder Gods harm humans in the way we might step accidentally on an ant, or experiment on a rat.

6. There is a feeling of total isolation and powerlessness in the aftermath of experiencing something horrific and revolting.

For example, a theme of At the Mountains of Madness is powerlessness.

In that story the first horror is how the alien creatures dissect us like lab rats: we are nothing to them. The second horror is that the terrifying creature which assails the protagonist is merely a servitor of the real horror.

The chapters in this section are not rules. They provide ideas and guidance on how to make your game’s atmosphere as Lovecraftian as possible, while avoiding some of the unpleasant bigotry present in Lovecraft’s own writing.

The camp is smashed to pieces. Tents flattened, equipment broken and unusable, most written material blown away. Lake’s anatomical instruments absent.

The camp is smashed to pieces. Tents flattened, equipment broken and unusable, most written material blown away. Lake’s anatomical instruments absent.

Introduce evocative, arcane details to reinforce the theme. Here are some of the things Lovecraft and other writers in the genre used; let them inspire your own inventions.

Ancient Tomes and Magical Paraphernalia: The Necronomicon, the Liber Ivonis, Cultes Des Goules, The Pnakotic Manuscripts, the Pow-der of Ibn Ghazi, the Shining Trapezohedron.

Horrible sensory experiences: buzzing noises, smell of decay, items covered in a greasy film, a strange miasma.

Miscellaneous: A terrible play which obsesses all those who en-counter it, a mystical order with three monstrous oaths, furtive and unfriendly locals.

Alien landscapes: Unknown Kadath, Lost Carcosa, the Plateau of Leng, Rl’yeh.

Indulge yourself in elaborate and archaic language. H.P. Love-craft had favourite words that he used frequently. Don’t hold back from layering detail on every scene, using Lovecraftian language to set the tone.

Horrors are: Blasphemous, Abominations, Alien, Daemoniac, Nameless, Unknowable, Eldritch, Star-Spawned, Star-Born, Half-Seen or Unseen, Numberless, Unnatural, Gigantic, Interstellar, Mis-shapen, Hidden, Membranous, Convoluted, Web-Winged, Fleshless.

Locations are: Decaying, Degenerate, Crumbling, Blackened, Gothic, Mildewed, Disintegrating, Blighted, Forest-Threatened, Anomalous, Outcast, Pitiful, Abandoned, Blasted, Brittle, Greying, Disintegrating, Encrusted, Carrion, Dimly-Lit, Unpleasant.

Architecture and miscellaneous things are: Cyclopean, Vast, Half-Unknown, Labyrinthine, Interplanetary, Intangible, Irregu-lar, Strangely Angled, Limitless, A Piece of Bizarrerie, Horrible, Strange, Malign, Star-Wind, Night-Black, Antiquarian.

ey and one dog - all dead. All slashed or strangled, and then bu

tchered, or in two cases dissected, with cold precision

. Salt scattered around.

ey and one dog - all dead. All slashed or strangled, and then bu

tchered, or in two cases dissected, with cold precision

. Salt scattered around.

Eight of the specimens absent, but six remain, buried upright in five-pointed heaps of snow. All badly damaged, but clearly match Lake's description.

Eight of the specimens absent, but six remain, buried upright in five-pointed heaps of snow. All badly damaged, but clearly match Lake's description.