Campaign Info for Novices

Here’s some information on the campaign, edited down from an introduction to the campaign which was specifically aimed at new players who knew very little of HPL.

The Period

The campaign is set beginning in 1921. Although Lovecraft wrote what was, at the time, contemporary fiction and it might, therefore be missing the point a bit to set a campaign in the 1920s. - What can I say? Odds are I don’t need to justify it because a lot of Call of Cthulhu is played in this period setting. And I have a particular interest in San Francisco history which I hope will contribute to everybody’s enjoyment.

The Mythos

  So – It’s 1921. This Call of Cthulhu world is intended to be a generally realistic period setting. What sets it apart from the real world is that there really are otherworldly beings who are the original inhabitants of earth, although they came to the planet from somewhere else... These beings, can be assumed to be at the root of all mankind's mythologies. The gods and demons of every corner of the world are mere echoes of these real figures. Magic and witchcraft of every sort contains some trace of a very real system of ancient methods by which reality may be influenced through what may be a sort of arcane mathematics - using a level of trans-dimensional physics unknown to mankind...

  It is in the nature of the setting that these beings existed, continue to exist and are going to return in all their power - to the ultimate destruction of mankind... not that they would care for a moment if we existed or ceased to exist.  And, dead or sleeping, these ancient beings do have influence in the world and followers whose secret cults are as old as mankind.

   God is not a factor in this world. Neither is Satan.

   Most people will never know about, let alone believe, any of this.

   In the campaign, a few brave investigators discover the truth and must do their best to cope with it and, probably, shield the rest of mankind from the knowledge.

  You might imagine that learning the "magic" of the ancient "Mythos" beings will provide a means of fighting them... There is some truth in this, but that sort of advanced metaphysical knowledge seems to have a corrosive effect on any who study it. Still, any who hope to get in the way of the ancient "gods" or their minions will have to learn something of their magic from the rarest of occult books and scrolls which actually contain usable information, not reinterpreted and meaningless as the bulk of supposedly occult tomes are.

It’s also possible that these ancient beings or their minions or other entities might oppose one another for some reason… Perhaps this will be useful.

  In game practice, you really can't know what to expect. Maybe there are such things as ghosts and vampires or even werewolves, but if there are it's highly likely that traditional explanations of them are inaccurate and probably misleading.

  A quote from Professor Bernard Quatermass (Well outside the setting but profoundly appropriate):

"I suppose it's possible for... ghosts, let’s use the word, to be phenomena which were badly observed and wrongly explained."