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I am starting to plan a new game for my Pathfinder group, and hope to set in in Golarion. The basic premise is that Nyarlathotep, the Outer God most associated with magic, will be seeking to corrupt Nethys, his followers, and all manner of magical items to allow the Outer Gods to more directly influence the Material Plane. I was wondering if there was a list of all the official Paizo monsters or other bad guys associated with the Cthulu mythos. Also, I am just now starting to read up on this stuff, so any advice or thoughts would be great.
The basic plot would be that Nyarlathotep or his agents have somehow subdued Nethys, and are trying to break his mind and force him to serve the Outer Gods. The resulting wild changes in magic and influx of cult activity quickly become noticeable, and the party must try and rescue a god. Thanks.
Nethys, ... trying to break his mindBut, joking aside, good luck, and sounds neat! I'm afraid I can't help at the current time.
Thanks everyone for the great advice. General Villain, you have really made this so much easier. I plan on using Nyarlathotep as both the Black Pharaoh and the Haunter in the dark, since those are the aspects specifically listed in Faiths of Corruption. I settled on him since he was the Outer God who actually has magic as one of his domains. Thanks for all the help. Great community here.
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Call of Cthulhu d20 was a solid book and does a good job of letting people play CoC using the d20 rules set. Personally, I enjoyed it much more than the basic rules used by CoC. Cook has a small appendix about mixing CoC and D&D but that is by far not the thrust of the book. It has some great monster stats if you don't mind doing the conversion to Pathfinder, though most have already been released in PFRPG books.
FFG released a campaign for CoC d20 called Nocturnum that was a lot of fun to play. I've run it twice, once in CoC d20 and once in a custom conversion to Hunter the Vigil. As far as I am aware, with the exception of some Delta Green books that used both sets of rules, this campaign was the only supplement for CoC d20.
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As far as I know, the only supplements for Call of Cthuhu d20 were:
By Chaosium:
d20 Gamemaster's Pack
Arkham Sourcebook (dual-statted)
Dunwich Sourcebook (dual-statted)
Kingsport Sourcebook (dual-statted)
3PP:
Nocturnum d20
Delta Green (dual-statted)
There were also a few web enhancement adventures and an expansion to the bestiary.
As you can see, the d20 edition didn't really offer anything that wasn't already available for the (much superior) BRP edition. Even Nocturnum was simply a conversion of previously released campaign.
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Break Nethys and use him as a pawn? I don't understand. Why would Nyarlathotep want to do all that to one of his own thousand forms? Seems like a lot of work to no gain. ^.^
what if Nethys is Nyarlathotep already?
or rather what if he's been slowly co-opting the church of Nethys for himself and nobody noticed. Using it to slowly introduce more dangerous, sanity breaking spells into the world little by little. The real church of Nethys could already be officially condemned as a Heresy.
There are a lot of fictions that have the power of a god tied to how many worshiper they have. By siphoning off worship to himself, he weakness Nethys's.
Heck you could start things off by sending the PCs to hunt down a "heretic" cult of Nethys
By now most of the cthulhu stuff is converted to pathfinder. If you want more info, the Dreamlands book is pretty good, the monster book is also good for monster reading. And the old adventure, The Dreaming Stone would convert pretty easy.
what if Nethys is Nyarlathotep already?
or rather what if he's been slowly co-opting the church of Nethys for himself and nobody noticed. Using it to slowly introduce more dangerous, sanity breaking spells into the world little by little. The real church of Nethys could already be officially condemned as a Heresy.
There are a lot of fictions that have the power of a god tied to how many worshiper they have. By siphoning off worship to himself, he weakness Nethys's.
Heck you could start things off by sending the PCs to hunt down a "heretic" cult of Nethys
Isn't Nethys already nuts? I mean he's called the mad god after all. Maybe instead he's an extension of Azothoth, much like Thoth, also credited as a source of magic.
By now most of the cthulhu stuff is converted to pathfinder.Wow, really? REALY?
You seriously think that?
I don't get your meaning.
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I don't get your meaning.
By now most of the cthulhu stuff is converted to pathfinder.Wow, really? REALY?
You seriously think that?
You seriously think that a handful of articles and maybe a dozen and a half monsters is the equivalent of "most" of the stuff put out for Call of Cthulhu over the past 33 years?
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Writers have been adding stuff to the mythos for far longer than 33 years, in fact...we're coming up on 100 years of inspiration. And that's not even touching the fact that some of the mythos stuff we've added to Golarion (and some we will invariably add in the future) are brand new additions to the mythos, like Mhar or Xhamen-Dor.
There is a LOT left to explore in the mythos in Pathfinder.
You seriously think that a handful of articles and maybe a dozen and a half monsters is the equivalent of "most" of the stuff put out for Call of Cthulhu over the past 33 years?I don't get your meaning.
By now most of the cthulhu stuff is converted to pathfinder.Wow, really? REALY?
You seriously think that?
I assume by most he was referring to the actual public domain stuff. Copyright is a bit more tricky for the obvious stuff that hasn't been written up.
I was thinking about the CoC books, there were some dual stat books but the stats are such a minor part of the books. There are a lot of things not integrated in Pathfinder directly or officially, but that isn't a big deal.
Taking my example of the Dreamlands book, there are some monsters therein as well as a few spells. both of these things are rules under BRP and not PF so you'd have to do the work or just turn emerald dart into magic missile. However, the book itself is more or less easily turned into a PF book just by saying so. If a game starts with the PCs walking up thousands of stairs into a magical forest, well, that's pretty Pathfinder sounding, even more so when they get to the village of cats.
Though Glakki is indeed untranslated until it becomes public domain, so I guess we don't have an evil puffer fish and his zombie minions yet. Though he'd be a great boss for a mid-level party.
You seriously think that a handful of articles and maybe a dozen and a half monsters is the equivalent of "most" of the stuff put out for Call of Cthulhu over the past 33 years?
Let alone all the stuff written about in Mythos literature. Goes a lot deeper than Lovecraft. August Derlith, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, and many many more just scratch the surface of the original Mythos channelers back ~100 years ago.
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You seriously think that a handful of articles and maybe a dozen and a half monsters is the equivalent of "most" of the stuff put out for Call of Cthulhu over the past 33 years?Let alone all the stuff written about in Mythos literature. Goes a lot deeper than Lovecraft. August Derlith, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, and many many more just scratch the surface of the original Mythos channelers back ~100 years ago.
And a lot further back. The way Lovecraft took his inspiration from older writers like Ambrose Bierce, William Hope Hodgeson, Edgar Allen Poe, Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, and more means that a lot of those writings contain elements of the mythos, even though those authors were writing before Lovecraft was born in some cases. Things like Hastur and the "tekili-li" of the shoggoths and the Aklo language predate the Mythos as an example... and are all in the public domain as well.
But even more recent stuff isn't necessarily off limits. We can arrange licenses to use the content of newer elements as needed; that's how we were able to print stats for things like the dark young of Shub-Niggurath in Pathfinder #46. We weren't able to make them open content, but that only matters for other publishers (who would have to secure their own licenses to use the content); it lets us use that content and lets you use it in your home game as you wish.
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Ambrose Bierce's stuff was totally rad and sadly goes unread by most of the people I've met.
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One glaring hole is the lack of the Pathfinder byakhee. Although Legendary Games kinda beat you guys to the punch by releasing a mythic byakhee. Now you just have to reverse-engineer the standard byakhee.
That's an intentional "glaring hole," since the byakhee isn't technically in the public domain. It wasn't invented by Lovecraft, in other words. It is, I believe, a creation of Chaosium for their Call of Cthulhu RPG, based partially on a vague description of a nameless monster from Lovecraft's story "The Festival" and the byakhee itself, which was invented in a story by August Derleth... and I don't believe that story is in the public domain. Even if it were, one should talk to Chaosium about getting the license to do a byakhee since the version most gamers are familiar with is their version.
I'm not sure if Legendary Games went through all those legal hoops, but if we do a byakhee in the future, we'll have to go through those hoops and what results will be a fresh build from the ground up that won't "reverse engineer" theirs.
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Stat me up!
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I'll just hit up the older editions for a Cat and say "kills 1d4-1 people a round."
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I'll just hit up the older editions for a Cat and say "kills 1d4-1 people a round."
There is also the ability to teleport to and from the moon.
Well, since you guys added the Dark Young, I don't see why you couldn't add Byakhee, as well. I just love having evil cultist wizards riding byakhee through space... :)
The creature which Chaosium made stats for as "The Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath" first appeared in the short story "Notebook Found in a Deserted House" by Robert Bloch, where it was actually one of the amorphous shoggoths taking on a vaguely tree-like form, living in the forest and hiding amongst the trees, where it was fed sacrifices by a cult of Shub-Niggurath worshiping druids.
Sandy Peterson took the creature from the story, but I guess he either missed or just disregarded the multiple times it was specifically identified as a shoggoth, and so he turned it into a Shub-Niggurath themed tree monster for CoC.
I'm not complaining, as I think the Dark Young are GREAT monsters, and the name is an especially great way to tie them to Shubby by way of her epithet "The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young." Before that, the Black Goat didn't actually have any Young, so Peterson created some for her! :)
As for Nyarlathotep and Magic, well, Narly is really only tied to magic in his role as a patron of witches, to whom he would appear as the "Black Man" of the New England Witch Cults and have them sign their names in blood in his black book in exchange for magical power.
Yog-Sothoth, on the other hand, was the Outer God most likely to be worshiped by crazed Wizards in exchange for dribblings of magical knowledge and power. But those are mostly lone whackos obsessed with power and don't tend to form cults.
So, while both Nyarlathotep AND Yog-Sothoh are patrons of magic, Nyarly is a patron of Witches and Yoggy is a patron of Wizards. And Narly is much more likely to have cults dedicated to him. So, for the story you want to set up, Dukal, Nyarlathotep is the best way to go, especially since Nyarlathotep has had such a strong influence on Osiriani culture already and may actually already be tied to Nethys in some way (and since Narly takes such especial delight in causing insanity and chaos for humans; Yog-Sothoth is apparently more inerested in breeding with us and using his spawn to enter our worlds.)
Although, in my personal opinion, the Outer Gods already have more influence over the Material Plane than the other, "normal" Outer Planar gods, seeing as how the Outer Gods inhabit the Material Plane and can influence it direcly, while the "normal" gods are out on the Outer Planes and mostly have to influence the Material Plane indirectly and through proxies and intermediaries and religions. The "normal" gods all seem to want and need worshipers, but the Outer Gods seem to just accumulate them without trying and don't need them or even care about them at all (with the exception of Nyarlathotep, of course, but he's odd.) But that's just my opinion.
I'll just hit up the older editions for a Cat and say "kills 1d4-1 people a round."There is also the ability to teleport to and from the moon.
Just stay away from the Cats from Saturn!
Just stay away from the Cats from Saturn!I'll just hit up the older editions for a Cat and say "kills 1d4-1 people a round."There is also the ability to teleport to and from the moon.
Hisssssssss. Merrrrroughhh. Wirrrrh. Hissssss.
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I've been away from Pathfinder/Paizo for nearly 2 years (I know, I'm ashamed of myself).. and it was Bestiary 4 that has ignited my interest again being a HUGE Lovecraft fan.... didn't the WoTC (chokes on own words) Heroes of Horror sourcebook have insanity rules... and Yes, I got the d20 Cthulhu knocking around somewhere in the loft/attic.. but I don't go into lofts/attics anymore... I stay by the get-away car with my revolver ready ;)
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I was sort of under the impression that (with a few exceptions like Brian Lumley's creations -- which most people don't like anyway*) most of the Mythos stuff was available to be used by anyone because of the nature of the Mythos as a shared universe, even if the stories themselves are not out of copyright.
Is that not true (or no longer true) or is it just that modern copyright law is so tricky/harsh that a company as high-profile as Paizo can't rely on it?
*Though I do.
EDIT: Specifically, I'd seen it said several places that Brian Lumley wants people to ask him for permission before using his Mythos creations (chthonians, Shudde M'ell, Kthanid etc.) in their own stories etc. - but this was treated as kind of unusual/unique to him.
The Mythos grew out of a massive shared universe - it was in fact one of the first (outside medieval creations like Arthurian legend and oral traditions anywhere). This was in part an in-joke and a precursor to fan fiction, and Lovecraft encouraged it (as did Bloch, Smith, etc.). But after these folks died, copyright law took hold.
In part this was a result of August Derleth's efforts to keep Lovecraft et al. in print, and copyright things for his publishing co (Arkham House). Chaosium was licensed by AH (when Chaosium used Lumley's creations in an adventure, they got in trouble because the AH license didn't bestow separate licenses from works that were copyrighted by their authors in person). Today, anything published before 1923 (including some important Lovecraft works) are now public domain.
The simple answer is that the idea of the Mythos and many but not all of its denizens are now public domain. However, copyright is very complex, because it varies by country, and because of a certain copyright extension that keeps happening regarding an animated rodent (see here), it may be that the public domain has stopped growing.
Hence, the public aspect of the Mythos is limited to its early days. Some important innovations remain under active copyright: the writings of August Derleth, including the byakhee, anything by Ramsay Campbell (who is still alive: that is: Y'golonac, Glaaki, the Shan), "More Light" by Blish, etc.
Chaosium is the only publisher with permission to work with these concepts. They do have a fan-publishing outlet called Miskatonic University Monographs, so it is possible to write BRP/d100 materials and have it published with these themes. I do not know if a d20 spinoff published through that would be accepted, but I see no legal reason why it could not be done.
Hope this helps.
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Well, since you guys added the Dark Young, I don't see why you couldn't add Byakhee, as well. I just love having evil cultist wizards riding byakhee through space... :)
We could, we'd just need to negotiate again with Chaosium to do so, and they're not super fond of letting those stats out as open content, so they're not all that appropriate for a hardcover bestiary. Maybe someday we'll do them in Pathfinder AP or the like. We did a double sized bestiary for #46 as it was, and as THAT was we had to cut 3 monsters (the bhole, the nightgaunt, and the flying polyp) for space; they showed up later, but we wouldn't have had room for the byakhee anyway in that one.
As for why we did the dark young instead? We (Wes and I) like it better, and the Robert Blochstory that inspired it is one of my favorite mythos stories. In fact, it's the FIRST mythos story I ever read, and in a way, it's responsible for my tracking down more by Lovecraft... without that story, I would have been a very different person.
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I was sort of under the impression that (with a few exceptions like Brian Lumley's creations -- which most people don't like anyway*) most of the Mythos stuff was available to be used by anyone because of the nature of the Mythos as a shared universe, even if the stories themselves are not out of copyright.
Is that not true (or no longer true) or is it just that modern copyright law is so tricky/harsh that a company as high-profile as Paizo can't rely on it?
*Though I do.
EDIT: Specifically, I'd seen it said several places that Brian Lumley wants people to ask him for permission before using his Mythos creations (chthonians, Shudde M'ell, Kthanid etc.) in their own stories etc. - but this was treated as kind of unusual/unique to him.
It depends on who created it. Most of the creators are VERY generous and all you really have to do is ask permission and they give it... but you still need to secure that permission.
Have Robert W. Chambers' works been added to PF? The Pallid Mask, The King in Yellow, Carcosa, The Phantom of Truth, The Maker of Moons and Yian?
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Have Robert W. Chambers' works been added to PF? The Pallid Mask, The King in Yellow, Carcosa, The Phantom of Truth, The Maker of Moons and Yian?
Some of them, yes. Check the entry for Hastur in Bestiary 4. Or heck, the entry for yeth hounds in the first Bestiary!
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Have Robert W. Chambers' works been added to PF? The Pallid Mask, The King in Yellow, Carcosa, The Phantom of Truth, The Maker of Moons and Yian?Some of them, yes. Check the entry for Hastur in Bestiary 4. Or heck, the entry for yeth hounds in the first Bestiary!
The "Reaper of Reputations," one of the aspects of Norgorber, is clearly a reference to Chambers' "Repairer of Reputations."
Well, since you guys added the Dark Young, I don't see why you couldn't add Byakhee, as well. I just love having evil cultist wizards riding byakhee through space... :)We could, we'd just need to negotiate again with Chaosium to do so, and they're not super fond of letting those stats out as open content, so they're not all that appropriate for a hardcover bestiary. Maybe someday we'll do them in Pathfinder AP or the like. We did a double sized bestiary for #46 as it was, and as THAT was we had to cut 3 monsters (the bhole, the nightgaunt, and the flying polyp) for space; they showed up later, but we wouldn't have had room for the byakhee anyway in that one.
As for why we did the dark young instead? We (Wes and I) like it better, and the Robert Blochstory that inspired it is one of my favorite mythos stories. In fact, it's the FIRST mythos story I ever read, and in a way, it's responsible for my tracking down more by Lovecraft... without that story, I would have been a very different person.
I love that story too. And I hope you didn't think I was complaining about the inclusion of the Dark Young, I absolutely love them. :)
As it is, I use a kludge for Byakhee; Fiendish Griffon with a few tweaks like the Starflight ability of Mi-Go.
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The "Reaper of Reputations," one of the aspects of Norgorber, is clearly a reference to Chambers' "Repairer of Reputations."Have Robert W. Chambers' works been added to PF? The Pallid Mask, The King in Yellow, Carcosa, The Phantom of Truth, The Maker of Moons and Yian?Some of them, yes. Check the entry for Hastur in Bestiary 4. Or heck, the entry for yeth hounds in the first Bestiary!
Absolutely.
Dot. Some of those non-public domain Mythos monsters were statted up in the Cthulhu d20 book written by Monte Cook & wouldn't be too hard to convert. Byakhee are some of my favorites. For reasons I cannot and must not recall.
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There are some Lovecraftian creatures in the free product HERE, by forum regular and Superstar contender Demiurge 1138.
Some may have been given an official Paizo statblock since this came out, but there's an enlarged, advanced Mi-go variant in there, which I have a soft spot for, having given feedback that made it into the finished product.
Plus, brain canisters!
I love brain canisters; I once had a player in a CoC game, playing one.
In my defence, he was a chronic rubber-necker, always butting in on the action, so I let him join in, and the brain in a can was the only NPC ally that could be justifiably available.
He interrupted the game a lot less as a PC, since the other players had control of his voice-pipe.
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Dot. Some of those non-public domain Mythos monsters were statted up in the Cthulhu d20 book written by Monte Cook & wouldn't be too hard to convert. Byakhee are some of my favorites. For reasons I cannot and must not recall.
True... although the Cthulhu D20 book wasn't open content, so that doesn't really help us in providing official stats.
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If space in the Carrion Crown bestiary was tight, I'd rather the byhakee was dropped than the others.
Just reskin a gargoyle, and give it a handwaved ability to hibernate in space.
I don't recall how much description they get in August Derleth's stories, where they are used by Laban Shrewsbury as an on-call taxi service, but it hasn't got more than a vague description, in 'The Festival'. In fact, the narrator spends his time telling us exactly what it is not.
"Neither a vole, nor a buzzard, not a beaver, nor an isopod, nor a platypus, nor an anemone, nor a panda...."
Yes, yes, we get what it's not, but can you tell us what it is?
If space in the Carrion Crown bestiary was tight, I'd rather the byhakee was dropped than the others.
Just reskin a gargoyle, and give it a handwaved ability to hibernate in space.
I don't recall how much description they get in August Derleth's stories, where they are used by Laban Shrewsbury as an on-call taxi service, but it hasn't got more than a vague description, in 'The Festival'. In fact, the narrator spends his time telling us exactly what it is not.
"Neither a vole, nor a buzzard, not a beaver, nor an isopod, nor a platypus, nor an anemone, nor a panda...."
Yes, yes, we get what it's not, but can you tell us what it is?
Nope.
"Neither a vole, nor a buzzard, not a beaver, nor an isopod, nor a platypus, nor an anemone, nor a panda...."
Yes, yes, we get what it's not, but can you tell us what it is?
Right, that's one of the things about Lovecraft's works that I actually singularly dislike--the occasional outright refusal to describe something. We end up stuck with people saying, "Meh, graft some more tentacles to it."
That, and the fact that the theme of Lovecraft's stories was that we shouldn't explore, really sticks in my craw.
The stuff is classic and evocative and innovative for its time, though, I'll give him that.
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"Of organic specimens, eight apparently perfect, with all appendages. Have brought all to surface, leading off dogs to distance. They cannot stand the things. Give close attention to description and repeat back for accuracy Papers must get this right.
"Objects are eight feet long all over. Six-foot, five-ridged barrel torso three and five-tenths feet central diameter, one foot end diameters. Dark gray, flexible, and infinitely tough. Seven-foot membranous wings of same color, found folded, spread out of furrows between ridges. Wing framework tubular or glandular, of lighter gray, with orifices at wing tips. Spread wings have serrated edge. Around equator, one at central apex of each of the five vertical, stave-like ridges are five systems of light gray flexible arms or tentacles found tightly folded to torso but expansible to maximum length of over three feet. Like arms of primitive crinoid. Single stalks three inches diameter branch after six inches into five substalks, each of which branches after eight inches into small, tapering tentacles or tendrils, giving each stalk a total of twenty-five tentacles.
"At top of torso blunt, bulbous neck of lighter gray, with gill-like suggestions, holds yellowish five-pointed starfish-shaped apparent head covered with three-inch wiry cilia of various prismatic colors.
"Head thick and puffy, about two feet point to point, with three-inch flexible yellowish tubes projecting from each point. Slit in exact center of top probably breathing aperture. At end of each tube is spherical expansion where yellowish membrane rolls back on handling to reveal glassy, red-irised globe, evidently an eye.
"Five slightly longer reddish tubes start from inner angles of starfish-shaped head and end in saclike swellings of same color which, upon pressure, open to bell-shaped orifices two inches maximum diameter and lined with sharp, white tooth like projections - probably mouths. All these tubes, cilia, and points of starfish head, found folded tightly down; tubes and points clinging to bulbous neck and torso. Flexibility surprising despite vast toughness.
"At bottom of torso, rough but dissimilarly functioning counterparts of head arrangements exist. Bulbous light-gray pseudo-neck, without gill suggestions, holds greenish five-pointed starfish arrangement.
"Tough, muscular arms four feet long and tapering from seven inches diameter at base to about two and five-tenths at point. To each point is attached small end of a greenish five-veined membranous triangle eight inches long and six wide at farther end. This is the paddle, fin, or pseudofoot which has made prints in rocks from a thousand million to fifty or sixty million years old.
"From inner angles of starfish arrangement project two-foot reddish tubes tapering from three inches diameter at base to one at tip. Orifices at tips. All these parts infinitely tough and leathery, but extremely flexible. Four-foot arms with paddles undoubtedly used for locomotion of some sort, marine or otherwise. When moved, display suggestions of exaggerated muscularity. As found, all these projections tightly folded over pseudoneck and end of torso, corresponding to projections at other end.
"Cannot yet assign positively to animal or vegetable kingdom, but odds now favor animal. Probably represents incredibly advanced evolution of radiata without loss of certain primitive features. Echinoderm resemblances unmistakable despite local contradictory evidences.
"Wing structure puzzles in view of probable marine habitat, but may have use in water navigation. Symmetry is curiously vegetablelike, suggesting vegetable 's essential up-and-down structure rather than animal’s fore-and-aft structure. Fabulously early date of evolution, preceding even simplest Archaean protozoa hitherto known, baffles all conjecture as to origin."
Yeah, he never described anything.
Yeah, he never described anything.
Well, he did describe plenty, which is where we get our themes from. Maybe it's just that The Festival was my very first Lovecraft story, and it left an awful lot to be desired.