Re: [DSII] Aeons of the Stranger Sort

On 21 Jul 2004 at 12:44, The GZG Digest wrote:

> (DISCLAIMER: The works of H.P. Lovecraft are, at least nominally,
science
> fiction.  Not that this matters to me in any way, shape, or form, but
for
> those pedants in the audience, there you go.)

I'd say that they're not even just _nominally_ science fiction. *S*
 
> It's an unspecified number of years in the future.  The Stars have
come
> right, and the Elder Gods have risen and are busily taking over the
world.
>  Humanity, plucky as always, is fighting back with every weapon at
their
> command.

Okay, I'll go with your premise, though the semi-official "stars are 
right" supplement for _Call of Cthulhu_ (sold as the _End Times_ 
monograph from Chaosium but available for free on yog-sothoth.com) has 
humanity on Earth pretty much reduced to gibbering psychopaths,
trembling 
survivors, and Cthulhusnacks in pretty short order. But, hey, if you're 
going to give Humanity an actual _shot_ at surviving, who am I to 
complain? Or maybe your scenario is just a hopeful dream of one of the 
folks surviving on the Mars colony...

At any rate...

> 
> So I'm looking for ideas as to Battlefield Magic that fits the
following
> criteria:

<<snippage>>

> I've a few ideas, involving Strange Angles and various manipulations
of
> the time-space continuum, but I wanted to get some entirely different
ones
> as well.

The first thing that hit me was along the lines you mentioned about the 
time-space continuum. The Grey spaceships created by the Mi-Go are 
actually just mobile platforms for a Type II gate (I think it's Type
II). 
So you'd want reinforcements handy with your own mobile gate. Think of a

Stargate gate mounted on a vehicle.

Also with Mi-Go technology, their ships use glyphs to affect gravity. 
That makes for a pretty nasty weapon (which is, of course, what MJ-12
was 
hoping to get out of their pact with the Greys). Assuming these glyphs 
are just too hard, or dangerous, for humans to use as projectile
weapons, 
I could see someone burying a glyph and using it as a very nasty 
minefield. Stand on the glyph and, whoosh, you're in orbit!

There are a number of powerful sigils that keep Mythos critters at bay. 
They would be very useful as defense fields. You can have some 
interesting tactical situations if the fields are only keyed to one, or 
several, monster types.

Most Lovecraftian spells are ritualistic in nature, calling things
forth. 
You've already got that covered. Some are attack spells, like Dread
Curse 
of Azathoth. I don't see how they'd be any different than your typical 
close assault attack, except much more effective. 

There are spells that allow flight, so I can see magic being used to
give 
a unit the temporary ability to fly. The "spell" Brew Space Mead allows 
the creation of space mead, which itself allows someone to survive in a 
vacuum. I can't see why that couldn't be used against poisonous gas or
to 
travel underwater. There are other spells that make someone virtually 
impervious to modern weapons, at the risk of driving them nuts.

For the bad guys (the Corrupted, as it were), there is more scope to 
maneuver. Troops can be the cocoons for all sorts of nastiness. Kill a 
guy and out creeps a spawn of Yog-sothoth. A group of 10 unarmed,
average 
looking soldiers dissolve into a massive carpet of little bug-like brood

of Eihort. Speaking of bugs, it would be a real bummer to have Shan take

over some of your tank commanders and then blast away at you with your 
own vehicles. There are all sorts of magic in the Mythos involving 
control of human beings, from Shan to Great Race of Yith. Lots of room 
for units to switch allegiances in mid battle.

I think your best bet is to think of a bunch of effects and then PSB the

Lovecraftian flavour over top of that. Another option is to look at the 
spells that affect individuals and then assume that you can train a
bunch 
of guys to do that as a unit. Pretty much anything is possible; you just

have to give it Mythos-based special effects.

I> That said, if anyone can think of a good source of 1/300 scale Deep
Ones,
> I'd be in your debt.	25mm figures will work fine as Mother Hydra and
> Father Dagon, but for the rank-and-file batrachians I'll need
something
> much smaller.

I suggest you go onto The Miniatures Page and ask folks in the Fantasy 
area if they know of anyone who does 6mm fantasy "fishmen" (Deep Ones), 
"lizard men" (Serpent men), "wolf men" (ghouls), or swarms of insects 
(Shan, Mi-Go, Byakhee, etc.)

Hope this helps.

---

Allan Goodall	    http://www.hyperbear.com
agoodall@att.net   agoodall@hyperbear.com

"At long last, the earthy soil of the typical, unimaginable mortician
was revealed!" - from the Random H.P. Lovecraft Story Generator:
http://www.darkicon.com/Library/randsent.htm