Mythos Plots
June 7th, 2011
Hello everyone and welcome back to another great edition of Grave Plots, where we bring you new plot hooks and adventure ideas each and every week to help you to improve your game. As you may have already heard, this week is Mythos Week here at Necromancers of the Northwest, devoted to the terrifying imagined mythology known today as the Cthulhu Mythos.
The Mythos got their origins as a sort of loose cosmic backdrop for the science fiction horror stories of H.P Lovecraft. This backdrop would soon come to be utilized by many of Lovecraft’s correspondents while pioneering the genre we now refer to as weird fiction. During this early time the Mythos constantly evolved, shifting to take on the needs of the individual story without any regard for continuity or clear hierarchy. In these tales the Mythos consists of vastly powerful entities extraterrestrial in origin, which serve to show the reader a cosmic, morally nihilistic universe. In these stories, humankind is unable to come to grips with the sheer meaninglessness of their existence and perceives these beings as gods or demons. Those few who survive a brush with this fundamental truth are often driven insane, spending the rest of their days in an asylum or joining the ranks of perverted cults to beings of immense power.
The single greatest change to the Mythos as we know it today came at the hands of writer, anthologist, and publisher August Derleth, a friend and correspondent of H.P. Lovecraft and co-founder of the publishing house Arkham House. Among Derleth’s credits (which are many and very much not limited to the horror genre) is the coining of the term “Cthulhu Mythos,” replacing Lovecraft’s more humorous “Yog-shothery,” to which he contributed significantly. It should also be acknowledged that if it were not for Derleth’s efforts, H.P. Lovecraft and his works would likely have been lost to obscurity long ago. Derleth did a lot to bring the Mythos to where it is today; perhaps most importantly, Derleth was the first to really attempt to codify the Mythos into a clear, categorized model. This basic establishment has lead us to interpret the Mythos in a new way, flushing out the details and allowing us to categorize, learn about, and ultimately come to gain some kind of understanding of the Mythos. Ironically, gleaning some understanding into the Mythos directly led to the downfall and subsequent madness of many of the characters in Mythos stories. Secondly, and perhaps most controversially, Derleth abandoned the moral nihilism and cosmism that so defined the early Mythos, replacing it with a good vs. evil dichotomy. The entities which were previously so indifferent to the humanity that could not comprehend them became either cruel or benevolent, and the struggles of these entities were often depicted as determining the fate of humanity by will rather than chance. Finally, because of the methods he used to compile the Mythos, a broad canon was created, expanding the world of the Mythos immensely.
Since that time, numerous storytellers, screen writers, authors, adventure writers, and GMs of various titles have drawn upon the fantastically fatalistic themes and the vast lore that embodies the Mythos. If you haven’t already, it’s high time for you to join those esteemed ranks. Some of you may be aware that there’s a game system designed for such games; in fact, if memory serves I believe that in this week’s Dark Designs Alex gives a fairly solid rundown of the pluses and minuses. But creating a solid Mythos experience really isn’t about what game system you use, but what your adventure is like. Whether your game features mighty heroes accustomed to fighting demons and worse, or focuses on ordinary people just trying to get through the day, you can create a powerful and memorable experience by including a Mythos adventure. So to that end, let me give you a few quick pieces of advice about running your own Mythos adventure!
When creating your own Mythos adventure, there are a few things to bear in mind. To start with, it’s important to consider your overall game: is this adventure going to be a one-night-only kind of thing, the only Mythos adventure in a campaign (or one of a handful of such adventures if this one goes well), or the start of a campaign devoted to exploring the Mythos? This is a key piece of information that you should keep in mind when making any further decisions about your adventure.
Next, it’s time to decide on how much of the Mythos you’re putting into the adventure. Personally, I would limit the Mythos to a pervasive background element in almost every case where I would run a Mythos adventure. Frankly, this is almost all upside: you still get to reap all the benefits of all the excitement and mystery of the Mythos, and you still get to create the adventure you want, and focus the action on the PCs and what they are doing. Now, you might be thinking that focusing on the PCs runs contrary to the point of the Mythos (demonstrating the insignificance of humanity); however, this doesn’t have to be the case. Even if the action focuses on the PCs and their heroics, the detailed, Mythos-oriented background will serve to highlight the inevitability of those great forces and their vast and undeniable power, which so exceeds even the might of great heroes, and can really bring into focus the sheer pointlessness of humanity on a cosmic scale. The only time I might consider making the Mythos the focus of my story, rather than a backdrop, is if my audience was really craving a night of absolute nihilistic melancholy, wherein the point of the evening was to demonstrate that the actions of men and women were completely without merit or point in the face of beings incomprehensibly greater than themselves, and then simply to revel in the woe that naturally follows in such circumstances. Even then, I would probably want to make the evening focus more on the sense of dread and yearning of the protagonists and their very human last moments, as that will be the more likely to produce a compelling night of entertainment.
Your next major decision is to determine whether or not to use the traditional Mythos, or to invent your own Mythos elements. While this mostly a matter of personal opinion, unless your audience is familiar enough with the canonical Mythos, I wouldn’t really bother to stick to the traditional Mythos; it’s simple enough to create Mythos-style beings, and as long as no one’s missing the “authenticity,” you might as well use material that more perfectly fits your adventure. The last thing you really need to think about is the adventure itself: will your PCs be fighting cultists trying to resurrect dark powers, or will they be searching for forbidden lore (for good or ill)? Or perhaps they are called in to examine a sacred object, or they may simply encounter the awe-inspiring psuedonatural by accident. Whatever the case, be sure to keep the simple advice above in mind and I’m sure that you will enjoy an entertaining night of gaming in a Mythos environment.