“And if you gaze long enough into the abyss, the abyss will gaze back at you.”  ~ Nietzsche, “Beyond Good and Evil”

“Not just pretty words.”  ~ Morticia Adams, “The Adams Family”

Last week I reviewed two great supplements with very Lovecraftian themes – Critter Cache 6: Lovecraftian Bestiary and the Book of Distant Stars.  As I was working on the review for both these works, I could not help but think to myself – “Muahaha, they’re all doomed… dooooomed!”

And by “they”, I meant the Players in my 4e campaigns – not the Authors of the supplements.

As I read through the blasphemous horrors lurking between the virtual pages of these PDFs, I literally found myself jotting down a dozen or more adventure hooks and story arcs.  The Lovecraftian Mythos monsters mesh so very well with the concept of what creatures from the “Far Realms” would be (see Manual of the Planes), there is no reason that a DM can’t include them in any D&D 4e campaign.  Whether it be a single one-shot delve into horror, or a full on multi-adventure mini-campaign, there’s a lot you can do with these source books.

So here are a few choice adventure themes and hooks I came up with, inspired by Critter Cache 6: Lovecraftian Bestiary by Aeryn Rudel and the Book of Distant Stars by Mesh Hong:

• Cultists
  From the degenerate Worshippers of Cthulhu and the misguided Lackeys of Mi-Go (CC6:LB) to the Believers of the Arri’Vastril and Followers of Yog’Dol’Urn (BoDS), insane cultists make wonderful adventure arcs and simple one-shot quests.  The missions could range from a simple “search and destroy” adventure to eliminate a threat to the local population, to a more subtle “infiltrate and rescue” to recover (and hopefully de-program) an important person, such as a Duke’s son or a Princess, getting in with the wrong crowd. 

  Of course, Cultists tend to be able to call upon help from those strange beings they worship, so would-be heroes might suddenly find themselves facing not merely crazy humans (or elves or dwarves) but Deep Ones or Far Realm Warp creatures.

• Portals
  Some very powerful Wizards and Warlocks have this funny habit of playing with forces they don’t quite comprehend, like from the fragment of some ancient scroll or tome they discovered in their travels.  And being annihilated by something you accidentally summoned by opening a portal to, say, some part of the Far Realms or to some ancient past, could really ruin your plans for world domination!

  An entire “dungeon” could be based upon creatures that have blundered through the portal to set up residence in our mundane realm.  Perhaps an Elder Thing (CC6:LB) from the distant past fled the battle between the gods and primordials, and after dispatching the pathetic pink-skinned wimp it found screaming-like-a-little-girl near the Portal, has set up its own idea of a “wizard’s laboratory”.  Or you could select a whole variety of Far Realms species to populate a warlock’s tower with:  from Far Touched Vermin that were once normal critters but have been warped by the influence of the nearby Portal, to Graknik Brain Eaters and Metallic Ooze (BoDS) creeping around and looking for their next tasty meal. 

  Obviously, defeating the entities and closing the Portal would be highly recommended outcomes for your Heroes, and the warping nature of the energies coming through from either the ultra-ancient past or the Far Realms could add all kinds of interesting terrain hazards to try and fight around.

 

• Crash Landing
  If I could pick one theme that is an absolute staple of horror and science fiction it has got to be “The Thing That Came from the Crashed Ship-Meteor-Spacejunk-thingee”!  Whether you want to take a look at the old D&D adventure “Expedition to the Barrier Peaks” to any number of movies like “Critters” or “The Blob”, if something falls out of the sky, the local population had better be prepared to run screaming.

  So maybe the adventurers are sent to harvest the meteoric iron from a nearby crash, only to find that meteor was really an egg of something truly horrible, like a Color from Space or a Flying Polyp (CC6:LB).  Or perhaps the crashed remains of a ether ship (spelljammer-ish) is found, and had been piloted out to some rift to a Far Realm out in the depths, only to return filled with all manner of horrors like Temporal Polyps and Feeding Fingers (BoDS).  Of course, if these terrible entities get loose from the crash site, who knows what will happen back at the town?

• Tainted Primordials
  From a certain point of view, it can be said there is a link between some of the creatures in the Cthulhu Mythos and from the Far Realms, and elemental beings residing in The Elemental Chaos (see Manual of the Planes).  In fact, the monsters created by the post-Lovecraftian writers tended to take the Mythos in that direction.  While sadly the works of writers like August Derleth and Brian Lumley were not used in the CC6:Lovecraftian Bestiary,  they can still be inspiring reading to examine how elemental forces could be linked to the Mythos and to creatures from “The Outside”.

  So what if some of the Primordials fled the conflict against the gods to the Far Realms, or were even banished there as punishment by their own kind?  More importantly, what if they found a way to come back?

  Creatures like the Star Spawn of Cthulhu and Dagon (CC6:LB) or Shat’mar Crystallines and Fire and Lightning Polyps (BoDS) could be used to represent an incursion of elemental forces “tainted” by the Far Realms.  During such an incursion, elemental powers and items could suddenly have a small chance of bringing forth a terrible elemental monster, endangering any who were nearby, friend and foe alike.  And this incursion could merely be a precursor to an even more terrifying event – a Primordial that has found a possible way to return from the “Outside” to have its revenge upon the universe – like Cthulhu itself!

• A Shadow from the Past
  If you’ve never read H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Shadow Out of Time”, then I strongly recommend that you do so.  The basic premise is that the Great Race of Yith (CC6:LB) use mental time travel to project themselves forward into the future, and swap minds with a person.  That person will have their mind thrown back in the ancient past to dwell in a Yith body, while the Yith mind will explore the future.

  Just imagine what terrible things might happen if one of the Great Race of Yith swapped minds with a someone really important  – like maybe a local Baron or a Count.  Or even a King?

  In the original short story, the possessed man’s body was taken all over the world, meeting strange cult leaders, sifting through ancient ruins, and creating all manner of bizarre devices.  A ruler, like a baron or count, could begin acting strangely, experimenting with contraptions, running off on “quests”, perhaps even starting a war, all because his mind was now some alien creature from the distant past, who had little concern for the world it was currently in. Returning the mind of the ruler would be paramount – and of course your Heroes would have to do so without causing physical harm to the body housing the alien consciousness!

So I hope you’ll feel free to use these ideas along with the Critter Cache: Lovecraftian Bestiary and the Book of Distant Stars supplements to add some stark raving terror to your 4e Campaign.  Because nothing quite gets the attention of your Players like having their favorite Character grabbed by a big tentavle and dragged off screaming in the darkness.

So until next blog… I wish you Happy Gaming!

Tags: books novels inspirational, D&D 4e, horror, Lovecraft, variant

This entry was posted by Editor-in-Chief on Thursday, November 12th, 2009 at 9:19 am and is filed under Dungeonmasters' Insider, Tricks of the Trade. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.