Twisting the start of Strange Aeons

[ckobbe]

I've been a long time fan of Call of Cthulhu and even though I have slacked off Pathfinder in the last couple of years, hearing about this AP drew me back in.

I have actually only read through the 1st installment so far and looked ahead a little at the spoilers for the amnesiac players and what that is all about.

So, I am thinking about twisting the start even further and think it would give my players a real kick.

I'm thinking of going with 1 of 2 ideas, both predicated on the links the Lovecraftian mythos provide and the known links between Golarion and Earth.

The basic idea is that whatever Lowls did doesn't just erase the pc's memories, it leaves them soulless. A servitor of Desna senses the massive disturbance of the dream realm at the asylum and in searching for a solution realizes there are these soulless hosts that can be occupied and serve to work to right the wrong.

Searching for suitable candidates, it finds souls from Earth on their way to the afterlife and soulnaps them for a second round at life in a new world and in new bodies. Unfortunately the servitor underestimate the influence of the Tatterman and before he can brief the souls they are sucked into the into dream.

After the pc's dream deaths they briefly wake up around a dream campfire where the servitor has moments to have them choose icons of their new lives before they awake. The icons chosen will serve as character creation guides and the players create their body swapped Earthlings pcs. Story wise they gain the abilities of the former Lowls associates and fragmented memories just as written, but get to play the additional drama from having unerase Earth memories/lives.

Here is where I am trying to decide between two courses of actions. Have a prequel game of Call of Cthulhu with the express purpose of killing the PCs (likely in CoC anyways). This options has some great advantages. Easy to line up the canon dates of Earth and Golarion, able to design the CoC adventure to foreshadow Strange Aeons. The thrill of the players when their PCs are suddenly alive again. Con, the PCs will know each other which will dull some of the who are we/you roleplaying.

The second option I was thinking of is simple having everyone sit down at the table, tell me the age they were before they knew everyone at the table and them have them play themselves. First they go through the dream sequence with no explanation, then get to discover their new selves through character creation. By regressing them back before we knew each other they get awake with all the unknowns, but can build on their real world relations in interesting ways. Big con, this method expressly has me "fake" killing all my players on earth.

Either way, I think I'll throw in an extra trait and a couple of skill points to represent their Earth knowledge.

Pros/Cons I'm not seeing, fill free to let me know. Other ways to twist the opening idea, fill free to contribute.

[Spatula]

Part 2 has the PCs confronting those that knew their former selves (and want revenge against them in some cases), and part 3 has them getting their memories back at the end. Also the whole initial arc is dependent on the PCs wanting to get revenge on Lowls for what he did to them. So you'd have to figure out what to do with all of that, and determine why the PCs are after Lowls.

[GM Lamplighter]

I love this. Like you, I'm a big CoC fan, and this AP's concept definitely drew me back to the line. I'm also thinking about how to start things as well, since I think the mystery is deepened if you don't know what you're trying to recover memory-wise. That's hard to do with a prequel game - I think the surprise of waking up in the asylum is a great start to a campaign.

I think one issue with having "earth" souls in this AP is, they will have grown up in a low-magic, high-tech world. They're going to gravitate towards guns - to me this is a big issue since I personally dislike the firearms implementation in Pathfinder. Unless of course you're running Cthulhu Invictus or Dark Ages or something, which might be a better fit for a prequel.

[ckobbe]

Spatula wrote:

Part 2 has the PCs confronting those that knew their former selves (and want revenge against them in some cases), and part 3 has them getting their memories back at the end. Also the whole initial arc is dependent on the PCs wanting to get revenge on Lowls for what he did to them. So you'd have to figure out what to do with all of that, and determine why the PCs are after Lowls.

As far as the previous host's memories, I'm comfortable playing it off as residual memories, with the PC's having memory flashes of the previous host's life, while retaining their own. This should allow them to still have some investment, especially if once we get started we agree that the memory bleed is confusing and as more of them happen that become more invested in the previous life. It will take player buy-in, but I doubt that would be a problem with my group.

Full memory recovery however could be a problem, especially if it is required for the adventure. I'll have to see if I need to modify things further as I absorb more of the AP.

I'm part way through AP 2's read at this point, and you are right, without a strong hook, it could easily be a case of pc's heading off in a different direction. I'm already not a huge fan of how AP 2 is structured, since the motivations for hitting the town/fort/manor in progressive order are rather poorly laid out IMHO. Even with standard golarion pc's I'd rework part of the adventure to provide better progression sign posts for my group.

I haven't finished the read yet, so I don't know yet how I will change things, but I've never been shy about reworking a setting/adventure to match the themes/goals I want to address.

[ckobbe]

GM Lamplighter wrote:

I love this. Like you, I'm a big CoC fan, and this AP's concept definitely drew me back to the line. I'm also thinking about how to start things as well, since I think the mystery is deepened if you don't know what you're trying to recover memory-wise. That's hard to do with a prequel game - I think the surprise of waking up in the asylum is a great start to a campaign.

I think one issue with having "earth" souls in this AP is, they will have grown up in a low-magic, high-tech world. They're going to gravitate towards guns - to me this is a big issue since I personally dislike the firearms implementation in Pathfinder. Unless of course you're running Cthulhu Invictus or Dark Ages or something, which might be a better fit for a prequel.

There should be plenty of motivation to determine who they were/resolve the previous host's issues. When you wake up in a new world with a previously used body you inherit all of the previous host's social baggage. A lot of opportunities for both comedic and tragic story telling there.

Ugh, guns and fantasy. Its like peanut butter and banana sandwiches. Love or Hate. I think later in the AP you end up on Garund, closer to Alkenstar, so I'll probably say no guns until that point in the adventure. Then I'll probably play up the difference between modern firearms and the primitive firearms tech present in Golarion. By that point some of the PC's should be decent spell users, so black powder weaponry should be a lot less appealing.

Having said that, there is still a ways to go before the AP finishes publishing and I have a chance to run this (I hate running these things until I have the full picture). The Cthulhu Invictus or Dark Ages idea is interesting, but would loose some of the contrast set up by using modern day earth. I'll have to ponder on it, along with many other things.