Van Richten's guide to Eldritch horror.

Discussing all things Ravenloft
User avatar
GreenWood
Agent of the Fraternity
Agent of the Fraternity
Posts: 96
Joined: Thu May 28, 2015 10:01 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Alabama

Van Richten's guide to Eldritch horror.

Post by GreenWood »

So......please tell me that this is something that could still come to pass. I keep reading about the projects that were in development, and I know they should see the light of day.
I, the Lord of the Midnight Green, now give rise to my final dream.
nothri
Arch-villain
Arch-villain
Posts: 193
Joined: Sun Dec 14, 2003 8:20 pm

Re: Van Richten's guide to Eldritch horror.

Post by nothri »

I would expect that to be the next Van Richten Project to be tackled after the Sea Creatures Guide.....but it has been some time since THAT project was announced, so who can say? It might be more advantageous to start thinking what you could produce yourself for the next Quoth the Raven.
I'm just a ghost in this house.
User avatar
Jester of the FoS
Jester of the Dark Comedy
Jester of the Dark Comedy
Posts: 4536
Joined: Wed Dec 03, 2003 12:19 am
Location: A Canadian from Canadia

Re: Van Richten's guide to Eldritch horror.

Post by Jester of the FoS »

This is one of those books that wouldn't have been easy for the Fraternity four or five years back.

As ArtHaus/ Swords & Sorcery Ravenloft books were done under license with Wizards of the Coast, they could easily bring in all the creepy Lovecraftian monsters, like Mind Flayers, nothics, koa-toa (who are basically the Deep Ones from Shadow over Innsmouth), and others.
We can't really do such a product under the OGL.

It's certainly something that could be done on the DMs Guild, though. But there's pretty much no chance it'd be done by the original authors or the writers who planned the book. They're all long gone from the industry.
User avatar
GreenWood
Agent of the Fraternity
Agent of the Fraternity
Posts: 96
Joined: Thu May 28, 2015 10:01 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Alabama

Re: Van Richten's guide to Eldritch horror.

Post by GreenWood »

Such a shame, I believe it would have been marvelous.
I, the Lord of the Midnight Green, now give rise to my final dream.
nothri
Arch-villain
Arch-villain
Posts: 193
Joined: Sun Dec 14, 2003 8:20 pm

Re: Van Richten's guide to Eldritch horror.

Post by nothri »

Perhaps appropo of nothing, but if one were to insert a Miskatonic University like agency into Ravenloft (to wit, an institute of learning that just so happens to have a large collection of mythos lore in its faculty and libraries) might I suggest the Academie d'Richemulot? They are a university that studies psychology, theology, and philosophy. Its a cinch they would have collected rare and macabre texts on the mind or warped manuscripts akin to the Necronomicon. Also, Richemulot by its very nature is basically one huge domain begging for a Rats in the Walls kind of scenario.
I'm just a ghost in this house.
User avatar
GreenWood
Agent of the Fraternity
Agent of the Fraternity
Posts: 96
Joined: Thu May 28, 2015 10:01 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Alabama

Re: Van Richten's guide to Eldritch horror.

Post by GreenWood »

It's funny that you should mention that. My PCs are in Richemulot now. For an extended stay...
I, the Lord of the Midnight Green, now give rise to my final dream.
User avatar
Rock of the Fraternity
Evil Genius
Evil Genius
Posts: 6056
Joined: Wed Nov 21, 2007 1:16 pm

Re: Van Richten's guide to Eldritch horror.

Post by Rock of the Fraternity »

Brown Jenkin vs. Jacqueline Renier.
Any bets? ;)
User avatar
GreenWood
Agent of the Fraternity
Agent of the Fraternity
Posts: 96
Joined: Thu May 28, 2015 10:01 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Alabama

Re: Van Richten's guide to Eldritch horror.

Post by GreenWood »

Normally, I would never bet against a Lovecraft villian. The absolute viciousness that Jacqueline displayed when dispatching her Grandfather, however, leads me to believe that she would come out ahead.
I, the Lord of the Midnight Green, now give rise to my final dream.
nothri
Arch-villain
Arch-villain
Posts: 193
Joined: Sun Dec 14, 2003 8:20 pm

Re: Van Richten's guide to Eldritch horror.

Post by nothri »

Depends on what the "villain" actually is in a Lovecraft story. The actual elder things aren't beaten so much as survived. But many stories involve "lesser" horrors that CAN be killed or overcome, often by knowing the proper lore (not unlike many Gothic monsters, really). And if the villain happens to be a person, then their life expectancy is basically nill. Either they fail to achieve their goals, usually meaning their death at the hands of some learned yet hapless scholar or author (H.P. didn't like his heroes to have careers diverging far from his own) or they SUCCEED and go completely insane or get eaten by some unknowable thing.
I'm just a ghost in this house.
nothri
Arch-villain
Arch-villain
Posts: 193
Joined: Sun Dec 14, 2003 8:20 pm

Re: Van Richten's guide to Eldritch horror.

Post by nothri »

To shift the conversation around a bit, I was wondering: if YOU were in charge of writing the Van Richten Guide to Eldritch Horror what would you put into the guide?
I'm just a ghost in this house.
User avatar
GreenWood
Agent of the Fraternity
Agent of the Fraternity
Posts: 96
Joined: Thu May 28, 2015 10:01 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Alabama

Re: Van Richten's guide to Eldritch horror.

Post by GreenWood »

First and foremost, the illithids represent the greatest example of Eldritch horror found in the Land of Mists. So the most time should be spent on them. The island of Bluetspur specifically. Perhaps less on Mind Flayers in general and more on the hive in Bluetspur. Their influence on other realms, definitely a prestige class on combatting them. Expanded information on Cloakers, Backwards Men, Sea Spawn are aberrations as well if I'm not mistaken. As are Will O the Wisps. The older Monster manuals had several variants of them. A hunter's guide to Aberrations in Ravenloft, if you will. Perhaps a section on the possibility of a terrible Abeloth threat.
I, the Lord of the Midnight Green, now give rise to my final dream.
User avatar
GreenWood
Agent of the Fraternity
Agent of the Fraternity
Posts: 96
Joined: Thu May 28, 2015 10:01 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Alabama

Re: Van Richten's guide to Eldritch horror.

Post by GreenWood »

I think it would be great to have a big part of the information about Bluetspur come from Thanni survivors hiding in Immol
I, the Lord of the Midnight Green, now give rise to my final dream.
nothri
Arch-villain
Arch-villain
Posts: 193
Joined: Sun Dec 14, 2003 8:20 pm

Re: Van Richten's guide to Eldritch horror.

Post by nothri »

In getting a sense of what the original authors intended with the original concept, I found this quote from John W. Mangrum in these forums very helpful.

"As a note, had we been able to write Van Richten's Guide to Eldritch Horrors (which would have been about illithids and their fleshcrafted spawn), the "hook" would have been presenting this Lovecraftian horror in a Gothic context. (There was little to no point in doing a simple rehash of the Illithiad or Lords of Madness.) Because it's true, beyond the surface conventions Gothic and Lovecraftian horror as inherently thematically incompatible.

Each of Van Richten's foes presented a different thematic/moral threat -- a different take on evil. Werebeasts represented our darkest natures unleashed; Created was about the hubristic need to control our surroundings. Shadow Fey morality was skewed by their lack of mortality. Fiends were ultimate evil, interested in nothing more and nothing less than spiritual destruction for its own sake.

The underlying thematic threat of Bluetspur's inhabitants would be the threat of transforming the cosmos from Gothic Horror to Lovecraftian Horror. In other words, that the true threat of the illithids was the destruction of morality itself -- that, in a cosmos where the illithid way of life rules supreme, all that we know as Good and Evil would be stripped away, replaced by an utterly alien morality -- one into which mankind may not even figure. A cosmic paradigm shift, if you will.

In other words, better the devil you know than the thing you can never understand."
I'm just a ghost in this house.
nothri
Arch-villain
Arch-villain
Posts: 193
Joined: Sun Dec 14, 2003 8:20 pm

Re: Van Richten's guide to Eldritch horror.

Post by nothri »

For my part, I agree the book should focus on Illithids. But I have this opinion for entirely different reasons.

Have any of you ever read At the Mountains of Madness? Not Lovecraft's best, if I'm honest. The setting IS interesting, an expedition into Antarctica and the ascension of a previously unmapped mountain chain. But the characters are typical antiquarian fair that's a dime a dozen for Lovecraft, and while the ancient city of Elder Things has a lot of promise, the heavy amount of dry exposition about their history was not only bland but severed to "de-mystify" several portions of the Mythos that were good precisely because was knew so little about them. But I digress....

There were two things I took away from the story as interesting concepts. The "Elder Things" are very alien, a merging of animal and vegetable with starfish heads. However, the narrator quickly develops a "fondness" for this ancient race because it has several recognizable and human traits- it is made of terrestrial matter and has the decency to exist entirely in the normal 3 dimensions. Physiology aside, it isn't magical or fantastical outside of its superscience machines. And it has recognizable emotions, including the calm curiosity of the human race trying to study and understand the universe around it. In other words, it is the closest being to a human in a world where humanity has yet to come into existence.

The other thing about the story was the mention of a second mountain range further atop the antarctic plane, one beyond the alien city. According to the Elders, this range popped up one day for unknown reasons and something about it so disturbed the Elders that they refused to explore it or name whatever inhabited the mountain chain. In short, this race that tangled with Deep Ones and Cthulhu and all sorts of horrors was afraid. Even among alien lovecraft races there were things so terrible that it made them tremble.

Do you see where I'm going with this? What if the illithid are the closest to being "normal" of the eldritch horrors? What if the savage brain eating, sun blackening tendril faced nightmares beneath Mt Makab are the very tip of the ice berg? What if the rest of the book is about all that THEY fear, the things that sleep restlessly in the dark alien tombs of Bluetspur that the Mind Flayers fought long ago but never killed because they lacked the means.

Also, I think clearly the thing that kicks off the text should be the discovery of one of the 13 works of the Thaani they wrote when first entering Ravenloft. The ones they talk about in the Ildi-Thaan entry for Cryptic Alliances in the old Forbidden Lore boxed set. That, and maybe that order of psychic monks that pops up in Thoughts of Darkness.
I'm just a ghost in this house.
User avatar
GreenWood
Agent of the Fraternity
Agent of the Fraternity
Posts: 96
Joined: Thu May 28, 2015 10:01 pm
Gender: Male
Location: Alabama

Re: Van Richten's guide to Eldritch horror.

Post by GreenWood »

Absolutely wonderful!! I am a huge fan of Lovecraft, and have been for about 20 years. I can't decide on a favorite story of his. The Dunwich horror? Or The Case of Charles Dexter Ward? I'm not sure. Aberrations are fascinating to me. Illithids, Aboleths, Chuuls, all horrible monstrosities.
I, the Lord of the Midnight Green, now give rise to my final dream.
Post Reply