>Out of Darkness >Being accurate for anything Neolithic
Watch the Iceman, which follows Ötzi. It deliberately takes accuracy over theatrics, unlike that trash.
I’ve never played CoC so I can’t go into specific details, but I like the idea a lot. Have you seen the Ice Man movie about Ötzi? I imagine something like that but with a small party of early men investigating the, even for the time, very unusual actions of a rival tribe, leading them to discover something darker
Check out basic roleplaying system, it's sorta generic version of system CoC works on, you can take that, take mechanics from CoC you want and then split it in stone age as it's got bits of stuff for running world with stone age weapons.
Also read up on Conan and Khul stuff since those are set in the deep past for more ideas.
Yes. You'd have to ask someone on Ganker for the specific issues, but there is a bit during the Hellboy comic where one of the characters inherits the memories of a hyberborean chief fighting eldritch shit in the distant past. Seems to have the exact vibe you are looking for.
I don't see the point. Stone Age humans would be OK with witnessing paranormal stuff because they already believe such things exist. To them the world is already full of mystery and danger. CoC characters need a certain degree of cynicism that only advanced urban societies can achieve.
While the shamen may say there are ghosts and spirits, it doesn't mean you want to meet one; in fact, it's better to avoid such things entirely, lest you become possessed or have your soul eaten.
If I recall correctly, Call of Cthulhu does have some versions/splats that focus on the medieval era, though still with a focus on investigation of being monks, scholars, and alchemists dealing with esoteric forces.
I'm really not sure if you could dial that all the way back to the stone age though. Like said, Call of Cthulhu does seem to rely on at least a degree of diminishing the supernatural.
For the average caveman, it feels like if they came across a cult whose leader had magical powers from some eldritch source that came at the cost of blood sacrifice, they might just be tempted to join. That seemed like the premise of quite a few Call of Cthulhu adventures and modules, that random bronze age and earlier cultures sometimes tapped into something eldritch thinking it was something that was already within their framework of gods/spirits.
The investigation aspects might also be diminished. Maybe if it was a focus on hunting/tracking eldritch creatures, or if the cultists are shapeshifters and so it's a matter of spotting unusual behavior in the other members of your tribe.
Lost ancient civilizations/cities ala mountains of madness could also be a good option. Finding a tribe who has settled down in some massive stone structure and claimed it as their own, using the eldritch knowledge they translated within at the world's first attempt at an empire?
There's potentially enough there to make it work, though it'll definitely lean more pulp-Cthulhu.
He means it's taking place during the earth's prehistory.
I don't see the point. Stone Age humans would be OK with witnessing paranormal stuff because they already believe such things exist. To them the world is already full of mystery and danger. CoC characters need a certain degree of cynicism that only advanced urban societies can achieve.
>I don't see the point. Stone Age humans would be OK with witnessing paranormal
As per Trail of Cthulhu, loss of sanity doesn't come from seeing freaky stuff, but from the mind-breaking comprehension you may gain from learning about the mythos.
Imagine living the life as hunter gatherer and suddenly learning about the industrial revolution and its consequences and how it's inexorably going to turn your descendants ten thousand years in the future into caged rats.
>from the mind-breaking comprehension you may gain from learning about the mythos.
The comprehension is the key part there though. If a caveman gets a vision of some big metal cave where humans wearing weird clothes are moving boxes, he's not gonna grasp any of the finer details. It's just going to be another freaky thing that he doesn't know the purpose of.
I'd also argue that Trail of Cthulhu would be worse than Call of Cthulu for this sort of game, since it's even more heavily focused on investigation.
The whole concept reminds me of that C-tier video game BC Kings where aliens invaded cartoony stone-age earth with dinosaurs and stuff RTS, BC Kings.
Really though, I think this is one of those settings where the danger can be as overt as possible instead of lurking in the shadows as the human civilization wouldn't even be able/barely able to scrape together enough resources to even fight it off even if they all band together.
Oh also pretty sure one of the Hellboy comics did this whole premise already.
Call of Cthulhu itself is not particularly well-suited to it, but could you do a stone age game set in Yog-Sothery? Yes. Without even leaving the Lovecraft circle, there's a lot of weird shit going on in Earth's 'deep time,' to include when men were rearing their first antediluvian civilizations.
This. PCs are basic cavemen and their areas get raided by more advanced men. Tie in some offshoot of humanity(cro-mag, neanderthal) and the scenario is prepared.
Pic related, though it's technically post apocalyptic there is zero modern tech or even traces, it's pretty much neolithic humans going up against a Lovecraftian monster
>Pic related, though it's technically post apocalyptic there is zero modern tech or even traces, it's pretty much neolithic humans going up against a Lovecraftian monster
mind you the original Robert E Howard short story it's based on "The Valley of The Worm" is explicitly prehistoric in nature(it probably technically links up with his Conan and Kull stories since some of the race stuff for his Hyborian Age stories crops up here as well)
I don't see how it can't work.
Though I'll admit my first thought was Genndy Tartakovsky's Primal series.
Maybe some inspiration from that series can help you, anon. Even if the show's time period is going too far back.
Well yeah, especially given that by Lovecraft (adjacent..) canon, human prehistory involves multiple rise and fall of civilizations reverting to barbarism or even animalism.
A story taking place in that context would be pulp as hell, with antediluvian ruins haunted by ape-men descending from the slaves of the original builders who may or may not be human to begin with
Is open with a stone age plot where players are being led by a shaman on a spirit journey that goes horribly wrong or investigate why so many animals are sick in such strange ways or why there are other tribes desperately escaping through their territory from far, far away, put some REALLY freaky physics and description defying stuf in, then after they all go mad or get killed, open on a modern day setting.
bonus points of you incorporate the original parties encounters as an extremely ancient myth that starts and warns of the old ones at the same time.
Isn't CoC set in the stone age with all those goblins and imps running around?
Call of Cthulhu, not Clash of Clans
>Isn't CoC set in the stone age with all those goblins and imps running around?
>Corruption of champions doesn't sound too era specific imo
Yeah!
>Call of Cthulhu, not Clash of Clans
Oh...
>Out of Darkness
>Being accurate for anything Neolithic
Watch the Iceman, which follows Ötzi. It deliberately takes accuracy over theatrics, unlike that trash.
But I don't care about accuracy, I care about theatrics
May I suggest a compromise between the two
I’ve never played CoC so I can’t go into specific details, but I like the idea a lot. Have you seen the Ice Man movie about Ötzi? I imagine something like that but with a small party of early men investigating the, even for the time, very unusual actions of a rival tribe, leading them to discover something darker
Check out basic roleplaying system, it's sorta generic version of system CoC works on, you can take that, take mechanics from CoC you want and then split it in stone age as it's got bits of stuff for running world with stone age weapons.
Also read up on Conan and Khul stuff since those are set in the deep past for more ideas.
Sounds like Moss Covered Arrowhead
Yes. You'd have to ask someone on Ganker for the specific issues, but there is a bit during the Hellboy comic where one of the characters inherits the memories of a hyberborean chief fighting eldritch shit in the distant past. Seems to have the exact vibe you are looking for.
I don't see the point. Stone Age humans would be OK with witnessing paranormal stuff because they already believe such things exist. To them the world is already full of mystery and danger. CoC characters need a certain degree of cynicism that only advanced urban societies can achieve.
While the shamen may say there are ghosts and spirits, it doesn't mean you want to meet one; in fact, it's better to avoid such things entirely, lest you become possessed or have your soul eaten.
If I recall correctly, Call of Cthulhu does have some versions/splats that focus on the medieval era, though still with a focus on investigation of being monks, scholars, and alchemists dealing with esoteric forces.
I'm really not sure if you could dial that all the way back to the stone age though. Like said, Call of Cthulhu does seem to rely on at least a degree of diminishing the supernatural.
For the average caveman, it feels like if they came across a cult whose leader had magical powers from some eldritch source that came at the cost of blood sacrifice, they might just be tempted to join. That seemed like the premise of quite a few Call of Cthulhu adventures and modules, that random bronze age and earlier cultures sometimes tapped into something eldritch thinking it was something that was already within their framework of gods/spirits.
The investigation aspects might also be diminished. Maybe if it was a focus on hunting/tracking eldritch creatures, or if the cultists are shapeshifters and so it's a matter of spotting unusual behavior in the other members of your tribe.
Lost ancient civilizations/cities ala mountains of madness could also be a good option. Finding a tribe who has settled down in some massive stone structure and claimed it as their own, using the eldritch knowledge they translated within at the world's first attempt at an empire?
There's potentially enough there to make it work, though it'll definitely lean more pulp-Cthulhu.
You mean Conan? That's literally just Conan. Literally. It's Conan.
I didn't realize Conan's sword was made of stone
That's pretty amazing
He means it's taking place during the earth's prehistory.
>I don't see the point. Stone Age humans would be OK with witnessing paranormal
As per Trail of Cthulhu, loss of sanity doesn't come from seeing freaky stuff, but from the mind-breaking comprehension you may gain from learning about the mythos.
Imagine living the life as hunter gatherer and suddenly learning about the industrial revolution and its consequences and how it's inexorably going to turn your descendants ten thousand years in the future into caged rats.
Sounds like a them problem.
>from the mind-breaking comprehension you may gain from learning about the mythos.
The comprehension is the key part there though. If a caveman gets a vision of some big metal cave where humans wearing weird clothes are moving boxes, he's not gonna grasp any of the finer details. It's just going to be another freaky thing that he doesn't know the purpose of.
I'd also argue that Trail of Cthulhu would be worse than Call of Cthulu for this sort of game, since it's even more heavily focused on investigation.
The whole concept reminds me of that C-tier video game BC Kings where aliens invaded cartoony stone-age earth with dinosaurs and stuff RTS, BC Kings.
Really though, I think this is one of those settings where the danger can be as overt as possible instead of lurking in the shadows as the human civilization wouldn't even be able/barely able to scrape together enough resources to even fight it off even if they all band together.
Oh also pretty sure one of the Hellboy comics did this whole premise already.
Call of Cthulhu itself is not particularly well-suited to it, but could you do a stone age game set in Yog-Sothery? Yes. Without even leaving the Lovecraft circle, there's a lot of weird shit going on in Earth's 'deep time,' to include when men were rearing their first antediluvian civilizations.
This. PCs are basic cavemen and their areas get raided by more advanced men. Tie in some offshoot of humanity(cro-mag, neanderthal) and the scenario is prepared.
Basically, Primal but with Yog-Sothoth.
Pic related, though it's technically post apocalyptic there is zero modern tech or even traces, it's pretty much neolithic humans going up against a Lovecraftian monster
>Pic related, though it's technically post apocalyptic there is zero modern tech or even traces, it's pretty much neolithic humans going up against a Lovecraftian monster
mind you the original Robert E Howard short story it's based on "The Valley of The Worm" is explicitly prehistoric in nature(it probably technically links up with his Conan and Kull stories since some of the race stuff for his Hyborian Age stories crops up here as well)
I don't see how it can't work.
Though I'll admit my first thought was Genndy Tartakovsky's Primal series.
Maybe some inspiration from that series can help you, anon. Even if the show's time period is going too far back.
For some reason I feel like this would be a series of Far Side comics.
"Og mind can't comprehend vast horrors of space and Og's insignificance against uncaring cosmos. So Og just smash Deep One with club now."
And of course, Og has a long coat and fedora, while wearing a leopard skin pelt, because Far Side.
Corruption of champions doesn't sound too era specific imo
The scenario is in Strange Aeons 2 for Call of Cthulhu 6E.
Took me too long to figure out the title jokes.
Well yeah, especially given that by Lovecraft (adjacent..) canon, human prehistory involves multiple rise and fall of civilizations reverting to barbarism or even animalism.
A story taking place in that context would be pulp as hell, with antediluvian ruins haunted by ape-men descending from the slaves of the original builders who may or may not be human to begin with
Is open with a stone age plot where players are being led by a shaman on a spirit journey that goes horribly wrong or investigate why so many animals are sick in such strange ways or why there are other tribes desperately escaping through their territory from far, far away, put some REALLY freaky physics and description defying stuf in, then after they all go mad or get killed, open on a modern day setting.
bonus points of you incorporate the original parties encounters as an extremely ancient myth that starts and warns of the old ones at the same time.
think it'd work best for delta green.
i'd*
some periods*
starts cults revolving around*
jesus sorry i'm tired
still think my idea is the best in the thread