Cthulhu as an Anti-Archetype (Qlippoth) (see Mordiggian for a discussion of the theology). Part of an Unknown Armies/Call of Cthulhu crossover.
“In his house at R’lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming”
All of us came from the sea. Whether in the very base of our brains from a billion years ago, floating in salty amniotic fluid within our mothers, or feeling the pound of our salt-blooded pulse, we feel the call of the salt, the urge to regress, sink beneath the waves, become the aquatic ape and indulge our simplest and deepest desires.
If the sea symbolises the unconscious, then the city is its opposite. The city is rationality, nature squared and walled away. In its rationality, artificiality and alienation it is connected to the labyrinth, reminding us that in the heart of the maze, the Minotaur of the unconscious still lurked, bounded and baffled by the structures of civilisation.
What then do we make of the city that sinks beneath the waves? Rationality is overwhelmed, flooded by the conquering tide of instinct. Tidal waves of desire crash across the feeble structures by which mankind seeks to rule itself. Feed. Revel in the weightlessness of the womb-like depths. Sport and enjoy ourselves. Kill.
When the labyrinth sinks beneath the waves, what becomes of the monster at its heart? He is free to permeate the waters, to send his great tendrils floating, bringing the message of the depths to all who heed his call. One day, when the stars are right, He will ascend above the surface, and then he will flood the world.
Masks in human cultures: The Kraken. Tangaroa. Dagon. Tiamat. The Minotaur. Cyclops, son of Poseidon. Atlantis, Lemuria and Mu. Moby Dick.
Taboos: Those who seek to channel Great Cthulhu should not dwell more than (100-rating) miles from the sea. They should value passion and instinct above the feeble stirrings of petty human intellect.
Avatar Channels
1-50%: Stirring the Depths.
“He spoke of the dreams in a manner none could mistake. They and their subconscious residuum had influenced his art profoundly, and he shewed me a morbid statue whose contours almost made me shake with the potency of its black suggestion.” The Call of Cthulhu
With a successful roll, the Avatar can express the call of Cthulhu and the sea in art, poetry, prose, etc, and cause his audience to feel the archetypal resonance. They can flip-flop any roll connected with creating such art. Viewing or otherwise experiencing the artwork is a disturbing experience, but the fact of causing such deep emotional response in all viewers guarantees a steady income. Most who channel the archetype do so un- or sub-consciously and never advance beyond this level.
51-70%: Smell of the Sea.
The Avatar seems to exude the primal smell of the sea; while this may seem objectively disgusting, it has a profoundly hypnotic and suggestive effect as the inhaler subconsciously regresses. With a successful roll, the avatar can place a person who inhales their scent in a hypnotised state. The hypnotised person gets a Soul roll to resist suggestions or commands that go against their instincts. A critical failure means that the person is actively repulsed and is instinctively hostile and even violent towards the avatar.
71-90%: Revel
“Mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy.”
Given a group of people, the Avatar can inspire them to throw aside their inhibitions and conscious thoughts, indulging in a mad, gluttonous orgy as they answer the Call. The Revel will last until sunrise of the next day. Unwilling participants may make Soul rolls, with success meaning that they are able to flee the scene – though this may result in them becoming targets of the Revel’s bacchanalian bloodlust. Appropriate modifiers should be applied given the nature of the targets: a group of Mormon theologians might incur a penalty, while a group of college students in Spring Break hardly needs a roll
At this level, those who consciously heed the Call and seek to channel the Archetype find that they physically adapt to the sea. Every time Great Cthulhu is successfully channelled, the Avatar further develops “the Innsmouth Look”: Fat layers below the skin, hair sloughs away or becomes scales, eyes enlarge, fingers and toes become webbed and gills form upon the sides of the neck, concealed beneath flaps of skin. An avatar roll must be failed for the person to be mistaken for a regular human, though they can pass as a sufferer of some strange skin disease.
The Avatar can substitute his Avatar: Cthulhu skill for his swimming skill, or any other skill performed in the water. He can stay submerged for a time equivalent to his Avatar skill in minutes without needing to breathe. As long as he stays beneath the surface of the waves, he does not age.
91-98%: Deep One
The Innsmouth look fully matures, and the Avatar becomes a Deep One, a fish- or frog-like humanoid of great strength, whose natural habitat is the deep ocean. The Avatar can stay submerged for a time equal to their Avatar rating in hours, and does not age while beneath the waves. He or she no longer bears any resemblance in mind or body to a human, and can only interact with humanity through use of the Smell of the Sea, Revels or other such powers.
Deep ones are powerfully driven to mate with untainted humanity, and use their powers for this purpose. The offspring of a Deep One mating is born with an automatic 25% rating in Avatar: Cthulhu.
At 99%, the Godwalker of Cthulhu undergoes a further growth and metamorphosis, becoming a titanic, Godzilla-like horror referred to as The Star Spawn. The Star Spawn is constrained by ancient enchantments to remain in the city of R’lyeh, deep below the Pacific, and can only leave the city if summoned by powerful magic.
This is one of the most thoroughly thought-out avatars I’ve seen on the site. It’s intelliently written and designed, and I especially appreciate the thought that’s gone into the symbolic background. I’m glad to see that the concepts born in that Mordiggian entry are being developed. I just hope that no player sees this before it comes up in-game!
– FAR out
An addition to the first channel, to better express the seductive call of Cthulhu: The first time a person experiences artwork created with the first channel, they must make a soul roll or themselves acquire Avatar: Cthulhu at 1%. This effect can occur repeatedly with initial exposure to the work of different Cthulhu-influenced artists (but not different works by the same artist) as the afflicted viewer starts obsessively seeking out the common thread, to a maximum of 10% by this method. Only those who already have avatar ratings are immune.
A similar “taint” mechanism could be applied the first time one takes part in a Revel, has sex with a Deep One, etc. The further you swim out to sea, the harder it is to resist the current.
This is great stuff, I will be very interested in other Mythos you have ideas for. Shatterfreak was saying in your previous post on Ghouls that they were going to move the rules references into Mods, any word when that will show up yet?
I was thinking about these posts and the idea that the Great Old Ones are previous avatars from older incarnations of the Universe.
This is just a suggestion but would it be interesting if they only way the Great Old Ones can access the modern human mind is through madness. Madness triggers the base layers mentioned if you Ghoul post comments.
I think finding a way to weave this into the madness rules could make madness much more frightening. As is stated in the rule book (page 73):
“Going mad is the worst that can
happen to you short of death…”
What would a player do if they found out they were responsible for summoning a horror of the Mythos and releasing it to the world.
Just some thoughts keep up the great work, I am really enjoying them.
Hmmm – madness rules (OK?)
How about a correction to the correction above – seeing the art is a Rank 1 unnatural check. Failure doesn’t get you a failed notch, it gets you Avatar: Cthulhu 1% instead. Indulging in the revel, etc would be higher ranking checks.
I’m only a novice at the mechanics of Unknown Armies, so suggestions on how to integrate the sanity mechanisms are greatly appreciated.
I don’t know when/if shatterfreak will flesh that out. Up to him/her/it.
GOO Avatars I am making notes towards are Tsathoggua/Yig, Ithaqua and Nyarlathotep.
Ithaqua should be easy; check out native tribes in the northeast of North America. Their “wendigo psychosis” ought to fit nicely. There are also some terrific books on the subject, and there’s always wikipedia. Since that story inspired Ithaqua, and since a horrific transformation is already part of the wendigo mythos, you should be able to dig up some good dirt.
I have a question about channeling this anti-archetype. How does it start? Do all of the avatars have to be infected by someone who’s already on the path? If the only taboo is that one must live by the ocean, I would think we’d have more Deep Ones running around.
The real reason I’m asking this is that I have a more fundamental issue in mind. How does an archetype that’s slipped under the radar and manifested in a reborn universe get back into the minds of humanity? Before the Compte was born and humanity proper existed, are the Old Ones free to set up for when we arrive (which seems like the version implied by Lovecraft’s prehuman histories), or are they at a remove from us, unable to manifest until some human serves as a channel (which seems more in keeping with the human-era Lovecraft, like “The Dunwich Horror”)? I’ve been doing some work of my own since I saw that Mordiggian conversation, so I’m curious to know more about how you’re structuring the cosmology.
– F.A.R. out
“But at that time, some force from outside must serve to liberate Their bodies. The spells that preserved Them intact likewise prevented Them from making an initial move, and They could only lie awake in the dark and think whilst uncounted millions of years rolled by…
When, after infinities of chaos, the first men came, the Great Old Ones spoke to the sensitive among them by moulding their dreams; for only thus could Their language reach the fleshy minds of mammals.” The Call of Cthulhu
Seems pretty clear. They can manifest or intrude into the new universe, but are not free to act in it; for that They have to wait for intelligences to evolve, which they can psychically mold to begin channeling Them. In the UA cosmology, They would be free to walk the earth when someone achieved the equivalent of ascension.
So Cthulhu gets started by attempting to shape dreams, visions, etc; eventually, someone takes their dreams seriously enough to begin making art, founding cults, etc and from then on it’s a self-sustaining mental disease, and a pretty attractive one. After all, They can offer you eternal life; all you have to do is become something other than human. Plenty of people (eg, the entire extropian movement) would make that trade.
I think a taboo of “always act on instinct rather than rational thought” is pretty harsh, actually, especially when the instincts you’re trying to act upon are those of a malevolent deity. Most of the time it would lead to you getting shot before you advanced far.
Ok – “always act on instinct rather than rational thought” is more strict than “value passion and instinct”, but I see your point on the taboo. I also like your interpretation of the degree to which They can intrude; and their goal, of course, would be to somehow ascend an avatar so that their concept could properly re-enter the Clergy.
Or would it? If that happened, would the original anti-archetype would be unseated from its position? Or would it survive, being outside the Clergy and thus having no seat to lose? Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, in a way. But I guess that’s something we’ll see your take on when the crossover shows up in the Mods section. (I hope it is!)
On that note, here’s another thought. These beings aren’t real Clergy members; would their powers still function the way an archetype normally does? I could imagine something more involved; perhaps ritual action is required to weaken the barrier between Them and their servants before a human vessel can use these powers. (I imagine it would involve a lot of “Ia! Ia!”) It would be a branch of avatar magic, but the function would be more like ritual magic.
One supplicant might even be able to evoke different anti-archetypes on separate occasions: one ritual action would give him one-time access to a power sponsored by Cthulhu, and another unlock some blessing from Nyarlathotep. It looks like you’re already committed to the traditional method, but if you’re interested in this variant, I have considered it in some detail. I think it fits the position of the anti-archetypes outside of the Clergy and also stresses their “otherness”.
Now, here’s another question. In what manner does an intelligence survive a past universe? We know that UA has a few kinds of post-mortem human entities (demons, revenants etc.); what form does a deceased Archetype take? I see Nyarlathotep as an ego figure, like a demon, where Azathoth seems more like a revenant mindlessly acting his part. It’s a vastly powerful role, but it’s still a mindless, aimless one. Perhaps they have states analogous to the human Dead.
Let me know if you guys have been thinking about these details. I’m waiting on the edge of my seat for your next Old One entry!
– FAR out
You don’t want much left to the imagination, do you? 🙂
OK, my take on “how do they survive universes”
The whole cosmology of Unknown Armies suggests that the universe is shaped by thought, imagination and information. Now information is very hard to get rid of (in fact, according to some versions of quantum mechanics, there is a law of conservation of information). Still less so if the information pattern constitutes a self-aware being trying to ensure its survival.
An analogy: truly wiping a hard drive is almost impossible. You can overwrite it 7 times with random data, subject it to a magnetic pulse and set fire to it, and some geek from the NSA can probably still recover something readable. This is analogous to the problem that faces the Comte every time the universe is restarted. Some elements of the previous universe refuse to be rewritten. They are however probably damaged, stripped down to a sort of raw survival instinct like a virus might have, with only parts of their original significance left.
You will note that I have linked each archetype to a Mythos race (ghouls, deep ones). I suggest that each of these dates from a previous universe in which, eg, the line between life and death was much more blurry, or humanity never left the oceans. Cthulhu and Mordiggian were archetypes in those universes. Now, they are trying to reassemble themselves and regain their “rightful” place.
I would say that it’s impossible to truly ascend as a GOO, YET. To regain a place in the clergy demands a critical mass of believers – ie lots of deep ones or ghouls. Say 1/333 of the total human population eg 10 million people with an avatar rating of 50% or above. Not easy to get. Especially with the Comte actively trying to get rid of them, since, whatever they might have represented in their previous universe, they definitely muck up this one.
Exciting! As for leaving things to the imagination, I just love getting up to my elbows in theories: each person might have a different take on things, but I want to hear all of them. Thanks for telling yours.
– FAR out
Your mention of the nature of the sea versus the city intrigues me- an opening for He Who Must Not Be Named? Perhaps the big H is a bit different, crawling backwards in time from a future incarnation of man, one as twisted and unrecognizable as those that came before, trying to ensure that it does eventually come to be. Not only do you end up with your PCs on the run to help humanity evolve away from its murky past, but you also then bear them with the responsibility of sending man in the right direction.
This could be why Carcosa is so maddeningly fluid- it doesn’t actually exist yet, it’s a realm of pure possibility. That possibility’s probabilities change with every little thing that happens, as per the Butterfly effect.
Just tossing that out. Great stuff!
Cthulhu has been known to appear where least expected.
http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20040208.html