My Borderlands go all Cthulhu!!!

[Le Noir Faineant]

Hi all,

I am planning to run two games this year, one being a rather conventional rerun of the old I6 module (albeit under the Warhammer 2e system, set in the Empire's Ostmark), and a Cthulhu: Dark Ages campaign, starting with the old Keep on the Borderlands module.

For this game, I want your advice:

I am completely new to the CoC rules, let alone the DA rules. All I got so so far is the basic DA rulebook. What more will I need to provide an interesting DA game?

I would also like to hear if some ofyou have tried this before, and how it worked out, what you changed etc.

Also, any other suggestions and ideas are very welcome!

As to the setting and the perspective of the game, I want to set it somewhere in the Wilderlands, maybe between the Council Lake and the CSIO.

As possible sequels to the campaign, I am thinking of using either The Redwood Scar or The Last Breaths of Ashenport, two d20 adventures with distinctly cthulhuable stories.

As I said, any input will be very welcome!

Yours,

Rafael

[Le Noir Faineant]

Oh, sorry, I wanted to put this under *Roleplaying Games*...

Please move, oh mighty mods...

[ScS of the Fraternity]

Move it we shall. For none can stop me.

Bwah ah ha ha ha ha ha!

[Le Noir Faineant]

Thank you very much!

Does thou have a comment on this matter as well, oh master of the talking sock?

[ewancummins]

I've run Dark Ages CoC [love it!] and am currently running KotB [using Basic D&D].

My suggestion is to have the Keep pretty much as is. I'd place it in a frontier region of Europe [probably the same general region used in the intro adventure in the book- it fits well enough]. Make the keep the stronghold of some warlord, and add some farms and maybe a small village beneath the Keep, down on the low ground.

The mad hermit can be used as is [although I'd say switching the mountain lion out is a good idea, since the don't live over there. Maybe a really big wolf or a trained bea, instead?].

The bandits can be used as is. Nice to have some mundane menaces, even if it's only to throw the PCs off [plus, it's nice to be able to fight something without losing SAN just from seeing it].

As for the meat of the module, the deadly CAVES OF CHAOS, I'd say the biggest adaptation will be in converting the monsters. The cultists of Chaos convert easily to a cult of whichever awful Mythos entity you like. Some of the inhuman monsters could be freakish creations of the cult, perhaps captured humans or animals warped horribly by fell rituals. This would fit nicely if the cultists serve Shub Niggurath [maybe their worship includes aspcets of an old pagan fertility cult].

[Le Noir Faineant]

Thanks, Ewan!

I worked on this a bit further, and now have the party going against "The King in Yellow".

I have decided on a different system though, using the Basic Fantasy RPG,
http://www.basicfantasy.org/, in connection with some excerpts from the RL rules for madness, fear, and horror, as well as with the Taint system as presented in Heroes of Horror. (Not as complicated as it sounds.)

As to the setting, I think I'll on fantasy, since a classic Cthulhu DA campaign always has that *one-way-no-return* feeling, and some of the players maybe won't know how to work with that.

A classic fantasy game that ends with a blood-covered she-elf running out the dungeon crying to inner voices might be something they totally won't expect.

That said, I think you're ideas are pretty good - if I ran a 100% Cthulhu game, I would do it exactly the way you suggested.

[ewancummins]

Rafael-
I have decided on a different system though, using the Basic Fantasy RPG,
http://www.basicfantasy.org/, in connection with some excerpts from the RL rules for madness, fear, and horror, as well as with the Taint system as presented in Heroes of Horror. (Not as complicated as it sounds.)

Sounds cool! Doesn't sound complicated, really. I've often thought of ditching alignment entirely and using Taint as a substitute. Works well for dark fantasy, IMO.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Arthur Machen's stories about relict proto-humans in rural Great Britain might offer good inspirational material for the Caves of Chaos, particularly The Novel of the Black Seal. It's not Lovecraft, but Machen was one of his biggest influences, so it splits the difference between Cthulhu and straight fantasy.

[Le Noir Faineant]

Sounds cool! Doesn't sound complicated, really. I've often thought of ditching alignment entirely and using Taint as a substitute. Works well for dark fantasy, IMO.

A very easy game for beginners, just like old Mentzerian D&D, but with positive AC. Just the right thing for my rules-lazy gaming group.

(Plus, we're currently playing HARNMASTER, which is a great game, but has very complicated and slow rules. BFRPG should be a totally different experience for them.)

Arthur Machen's stories about relict proto-humans in rural Great Britain might offer good inspirational material for the Caves of Chaos, particularly The Novel of the Black Seal. It's not Lovecraft, but Machen was one of his biggest influences, so it splits the difference between Cthulhu and straight fantasy.

Thank you!

If I only had time to read these days... I'll look if I can find an audiobook version of this stuff somewhere, though...

Thanks to librivox.org and consorts, that should be available somewhere...