Keeper help: need a good god

Where new Keepers can ask "stupid" questions without fear of hazing.
monkey prime
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Keeper help: need a good god

Post by monkey prime » Fri Feb 21, 2014 3:06 pm

So I'm putting together a story for next week which goes a little something like this: Toymaker Kurtis Von Smitt's reputation for clockwork toys is second to none. His toys are intricate and the range of movements are limited only by his imagination. His brilliance makes him sought after, but not just in this world. *insert deity here* wants Kurtis to construct a house, an automated sacrifice machine that will run by itself and make sacrifices for it. It visits Kurtis in his dreams, corrupting his genius to it's twisted way. Kurtis inspired by evil takes his earnings and builds a house, filled with traps and creatures to ensure blood is spilled. Kurtis is then instructed to purchase books and artifacts that will bring people to search the house and become sacrifices. Kurtis sends invites and starts rumours about what can be found in his house.

So that's the background but my issue is who would make a good entity? I know there's the Tick Tock Man avatar of Narly but I almost want to avoid some of the more obvious ones. I like the idea of it being a lesser known god maybe one that doesn't have a big fan base and needs constant sacrifices for more power. Also maybe obsessed with technology or creativity. Any suggestions gratefully received!

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Re: Keeper help: need a good god

Post by Keeper Jon » Fri Feb 21, 2014 4:25 pm

As I was reading your post, I was automatically thinking of Nyarlathotep, but then I got to your second paragraph. So, how about Yog-Sothoth, specifically how about an avatar of Yoggie's called Tawil at'Umr?

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Re: Keeper help: need a good god

Post by monkey prime » Sat Feb 22, 2014 11:21 am

Hmmm maybe should rethink not using Narly if it was your first thought as well. My players are new enough that he will still be an unknown quantity. Just they've come out of Return of the Hound, and I was tempted to use someone different but the Tick Tock Man fits in really quite well.

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Re: Keeper help: need a good god

Post by Thomas R. Knutsson » Sat Feb 22, 2014 6:56 pm

How about Chaugnar Faugn, the vampiric demonic elephant-man?

I love the images you get when you do a Google-search on him:
https://www.google.com/search?q=Chaugna ... 66&bih=615
In the morning, mist comes up from the sea by the cliffs beyond Kingsport. White and feathery it comes from the deep to its brothers the clouds, full of dreams of dank pastures and caves of leviathan.
-"The Strange High House in the Mist" by HPL

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Re: Keeper help: need a good god

Post by hastur » Sat Feb 22, 2014 9:07 pm

spinning traps is the domain of Atlach-Nacha. forebodingly, the house is filled with cobwebs despite all the recent construction.

the trap-house of Daoloth would not be one of comprehensible clockworks and geared mechanisms, but of metal spheres and plastic rods, of twisting rooms and shapes, of mysteriously vanishing people and bludgeoning damage.
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Re: Keeper help: need a good god

Post by Eibon » Mon Feb 24, 2014 4:42 pm

My advice is don't worry about who the god is: my feeling, reading it, was an avatar of Hastur, but who is to say that one of Shub-Niggurath's children doesn't like clockwork, or that there is a figure, an immortal sorcerer, like the Celestial Toymaker from Doctor Who, who passes the millenia by playing deadly games. Or even that something made a trap millions of years ago and the humans discover it, but the original maker has no interest in humanity, so the harm it does is just one of those things...

What you've got is a background. You want to start thinking about how the players interact with this. You might want to look at something like the Sixities The Avengers TV series episode "The House That Jack Built" which was very much about a killer house, and a later New Avengers episode "Complex" about a computer controlled building which turns killer. Sending out invitations is fine, but what criteria is he using? Is the plan to destroy other Occultists? Or is the plan to attract robbers to the house?

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Re: Keeper help: need a good god

Post by monkey prime » Mon Feb 24, 2014 6:40 pm

Funny you should say "The House that Jack Built", that was bouncing round my head while I was doing it.

My investigators are part of an investigation firm and had previously met an academic on their last adventure. He is worried as one of his colleagues has received an invite and was all guns ablazing for going. He however had heard of other academics going missing and he knows for a fact at least one of them had an invite. He's worried so calls in a favour. The Tick Tock man in my story needs the moment of death. He has had the house consecrated to him so it gives him power. I wanted the inventor separate so he can return at another point to annoy the investigators.

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Re: Keeper help: need a good god

Post by Thomas R. Knutsson » Mon Feb 24, 2014 6:54 pm

Metallica - The House Jack Built
http://youtu.be/Dtreoc1TLxo
In the morning, mist comes up from the sea by the cliffs beyond Kingsport. White and feathery it comes from the deep to its brothers the clouds, full of dreams of dank pastures and caves of leviathan.
-"The Strange High House in the Mist" by HPL

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Re: Keeper help: need a good god

Post by Eibon » Mon Mar 10, 2014 11:04 pm

I wasn't relly saying that the main villian had to be a god, rather that the source of the power need not be spelled out in clear cut terms. While you should have some idea what the being is, the players don't need to know they've just defeated Nyarlathotep (or whoever).

I like all the stuff you are doing, and have no problem with you keeping Kurtis Von Smitt as a reoccuring villain, but I think the players will interact with the story better if there is a human connection between the villian and his goals. "[deity] wants Kurtis to construct a house, an automated sacrifice machine", but what's in it for Smitt? Killing hobos is one thing, but people will miss academics, so why is he targetting them? And are the players targets, or just hired help? So, for example, you could adapt the plot of The Abominable Dr Phibes: Smitt made his toys for his beloved daughter. She fell ill and an experimental procedure was her only hope for survival. A team of academics worked to cure her, but the process failed and she died. Distraught, Smitt called on the dark powers of the universe for revenge. Enter the mythos deity (Tick-Tock Man?). Smitt now lures the academics he believes killed his daughter into the killing machine. You could even add creepiness by having a daughter automaton in the house. -- this gives Smitt a tragic motivation, there's more background to investigate beyond the disappearing professors, and both Smitt and the god are interestingly motivated.

You also need something to entice the academics into answering the inviation. A variety of "heart's desire" objects would be interesting, so a rare stamp for a stamp collecting professor, the offer of a portrait of the academic by a great artist for another, sittings at the house, and so on. If/when the players stop Smitt from exacting his revenge, they can then become targets themselves, to allow him to become a reoccuring villian. As an aside, does the god require an set number of victims to achive its goal, or is it "happy" with whatever it can get?

Yes, The Avengers TV series is a good model for a CoC adventure. There is often a bizzare mystery, several layers of investigation leading eventually to a showdown.

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Re: Keeper help: need a good god

Post by monkey prime » Wed Mar 12, 2014 12:37 pm

Hi thanks for the response.

Von Smitt to my mind, its the challenge, Tick Tock Man offers him new designs new ways to take his natural genius and to take it further. Its not just a matter of being the best its remaining the best. His dreams offered him insights for him to channel his ability but teased him to take him further. He starts off horrified that his inventions do this to people but at the same time he gets to push his boundaries and push the limit of what engineering can do. He suffers from greed but not for money, its greed of being superhuman. The Tick Tock man is a lesser avatar but wants to grow in power, he needs the sacrifice of those that come to gain power. The Tick Tock man sees that technology is the next big god and he wants to be that god. If he can inspire technology to be pushed and what technology can do then his presence and his hold grow. The academics he gets Von Smitt to attract were historians, people connected to the past. It was symbolic in that he wanted to kill off the link to the past and those that would live in the past and study it. If they survived the house they could get what they wanted but would know that there was a price to live in the past.

My investigators are part of a group called Saunderson Investigations. This is a link to my session report: http://www.yog-sothoth.com/blog/423/ent ... tick-tock/

Von Smitt didn't appear in the story, he had a presence but didn't appear and in an epilogue he gives a little sign that he's not finished with them.

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