That sounds like either a Vilani or Solomani regional thing, because to be truly Gothic I'd want it to be human. And for "places haunted by the past" there's nothing like millennia of "past"...
Lovecraft & Traveller?
- Thread starter Enoff
- Start date
That sounds like either a Vilani or Solomani regional thing, because to be truly Gothic I'd want it to be human. And for "places haunted by the past" there's nothing like millennia of "past"...
Ooh, archaeo-gothic. Or maybe cthonic, depending on how you deal with it. Ancient misjumped Zhodani behind the world-manipulating Illuminated societies of old.
Yeah, I think it would work best with humans.
Ditto the long timeline and its usefulness.
Off the top of my head...
Patrons for Gothic adventures/adventure seeds
I don't claim any of these as brilliant new ideas. They aren't supposed to be new, but rather ways to make use of familiar Gothic tropes in Traveller.
Anybody care to add more?
Patrons for Gothic adventures/adventure seeds
- A young governess in service to an aristocratic family in diminished financial conditions needs help investigating something that she believes menaces the children in her care.
- A romantic --some might say sinister-- off-world noble has decided to relocate to (insert planet), and has hired the PCs to ship (or guard in transit and oversee setting-up on site, if they don't have a spaceship) his household for him.
- A lawyer hires the PCs to escort the heir of a fortune to his ancestral mansion after the disappearance/deaths of the heir's relatives.
I don't claim any of these as brilliant new ideas. They aren't supposed to be new, but rather ways to make use of familiar Gothic tropes in Traveller.
Anybody care to add more?
Off the top of my head...
Patrons for Gothic adventures/adventure seeds
- A young governess in service to an aristocratic family in diminished financial conditions needs help investigating something that she believes menaces the children in her care.
- A romantic --some might say sinister-- off-world noble has decided to relocate to (insert planet), and has hired the PCs to ship (or guard in transit and oversee setting-up on site, if they don't have a spaceship) his household for him.
- A lawyer hires the PCs to escort the heir of a fortune to his ancestral mansion after the disappearance/deaths of the heir's relatives.
I don't claim any of these as brilliant new ideas. They aren't supposed to be new, but rather ways to make use of familiar Gothic tropes in Traveller.
Anybody care to add more?
No, but I can only identify the second one...
salochin999
SOC-13
Ctulhu works great with Traveller imo especially as a lot of the Old Ones are psionic aliens and the Droyne are almost Mi-Go already.
Highorbit_drifter
SOC-12
The whole Droyne/Ancients trope is great for a Lovecraftian twist. The idea that Grandfather spread humaniti across the universe, and tinkered with many of the races, means he very likely gave whatever boost humaniti needed to become a technological species. You have ancient ruins, pre-humans to worship and/or slave for alien beings, psionics and practically magical technology. All the elements of a great horror campaign.
One standard Lovecraftian theme is "the more you know the worst off you are", or that study leads to madness. Books that can drive a person mad, or alien "gods" whose very presence on a world can drive humans insane - these sound like psionics to me. The knowledge in a book can't really drive a person insane, not in a reasonably standard SF setting, but some sort of psionic artifact can. I can picture an archeological expedition to Ancient ruins that can ultimately activate such a device, maybe even some sort of android, that is tuned to droyne mental frequencies that drive humans insane.
From a player point of view the more successful the dig is, the worse off the players are. They can be tasked with investigating and trying to stop the disturbances, or be part of the team on the dig, challenged with figuring out they have to stop their boss from completing the research.
Another Lovecraftian trope is fear of what you will find in your family tree, and inbreeding. This brings to mind lost colonies, probably with genetic engineering, that have horrifically failed, or just some sort of genetic lab with questionable experiments. Related, and more "cosmic" could be research into Vilani and Solomani genetics that end up revealing what could be viewed as horrible things - like hidden shortcuts to ensure hominid control and the like that the Ancients implanted.
The Droyne, and especially Chirpers, as the degenerate offspring of the vastly superior Ancients is a great Lovecraft call-out.
Any number of classic movies and books could be mined for Lovecraftian influences on SF, and therefore translatable to Traveller. The Alien movies, The Thing (either the old 50s version or the John Carpenter remake). One of my favorites is Larry Niven's World of Ptavvs. It has everything Lovecraftian - ancient statues, research, madness, a tentacle faced monster, cosmic horror of human origins, exploding planets - OK, that last isn't so much Lovecraft. Its pretty famous, at least for someone my age, so a GM might have a hard time passing it off on his players. Then again just replace Kansas City with a Zhodani world, Kzanol with an Ancient and you're on your way.
For one take on this there is the Chthonian Stars campaign for Mongoose Traveller. Complete with write ups (if it has stats, it can be killed, well maybe) of many of our favorite Lovecratian creatures.
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/91255/Chthonian-Stars-Core-Setting?manufacturers_id=3225
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/91255/Chthonian-Stars-Core-Setting?manufacturers_id=3225
BlackBat242
SOC-14 1K
Or an attempt by insane geneticists to merge human and alien DNA to "improve" humans for whatever environment or purpose you choose.
Mr. Spock and TOS Klingons are the "good" end of the spectrum of possible results - think the various Ripley/Alien clones in Alien: Resurrection for something on the "bad" side of the neutral point.
salochin999
SOC-13
Cool ideas.
I treat the books as a kind of GPS so if you have one of the books then Cthulhu knows where you are
So they are a focus for external psionic influence - almost a trap - or in fact a trap.
Jason M Durkish
SOC-10
I was thinking of the Reavers from out of Fire Fly or even the Augments from out of Enterprise of the bad side of neutral for results of gentic engineering
Highorbit_drifter
SOC-12
Perfectly Lovecraftian - if the drug used to "make" Reavers was still active and exposed the players.
Jason M Durkish
SOC-10
I did not think about that but its a good idea .
Thank you for the great idea .
Also my version of the Zhodani the Cthuhi (Illithid) are based on
HP Lovecraft's work and so is the Cthulhi religion .
In fact the Cthulhi religion is the largest of all the abhorrent religions in my gaming universe .
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