TheRPGSite

Hi Guys,

I'm coming back for some advices on a campaign I'm currently designing for CoC.

The basic idea is that the PCs will travel a lot through space and time during the campaign (which will though split by chapters).

The transition from and into each chapters will be based on a ritual that involve drug and a piece of Art (or an artist's performance). Players will use the same PCs but there will be changes in skills among the different time periods.

Chapter 1 : New York 1920 - A team of policemen and an assistant prosecutor , maybe a journalist and a physician. They will investigate the strange suicide of a well known finnish curator. The guy was found dead in front of the Gustave Doré painting "Dante & Virgil in the ninth circle of hell". Drug is found on the crime scene. Eventually they will find a dealer and activate their 1st travel.

Chapter 2 : Knight templars. The PCs are strangely on a farmer path in France and following a group of templars leading them in order to be initiated so as to join the organization. Their path will lead to La Rochelle and the Americas (theories exist on this topic, the Knight Templar may have found this new continent and bring back gold from there). They will investigate a pyramid of a lost civilization and come accross a tomb full of ... transportation spices and monumental statues.

Chapter 3 : Conquistadors - They come back to the pyramid site (or similar). In development. Thinking of Aguirre. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aguirre,_the_Wrath_of_God (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aguirre,_the_Wrath_of_God)

Chapter 4 : London 1890 during the 1st industrial revolution. In development.

Chapter 5 : back to New York.

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That's a summary of what I'm planning and I'm looking for advice from connaisseur of the mythos to beef up a little bit all of this with Cthulhu flavor.

I have a group of player in chapter 1 (which discuss essentially paintings):

http://www.palettemuseum.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Gustave_Dore_Dante_et_Vergil_dans_le_neuvieme_cercle_de_lenfer_w1280.jpg (http://www.palettemuseum.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Gustave_Dore_Dante_et_Vergil_dans_le_neuvieme_cercle_de_lenfer_w1280.jpg)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Misanthrope_(Bruegel) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Misanthrope_(Bruegel))

I'm thinking of chapters colored following the classification of Art in the XIXth century : acrhitecture (the pyramid), painting (chap. 1), sculpture, music and poetry (chap. 3, I see Aguirre claiming in the void as a snapshot during the ritual for a transition to chapter 4 :)).

Just to give you an overview.

The ritual will need drugs and a piece of art and for the Cthulhu mythos this should be based on The Dreamlands. I do not know by heart but I search the Cthulhu deity that can intervene in space transportation and art. Maybe not the most obvious or the most well known (Cthulhu & Nyarlathotep).

In my rulebook there is a spell "create a time loophole" which is never found written (a good point since it will be created by the artistic and drug conjunction event).

If you have ideas that come to mind.
Whos's the Great Elder found of arts ?
Any reference to published material for each time period ?
I have "An Mil" for the Knight Templars.

Thanks

Jeff Koons as an avatar of Nyarlathotep?

IIRC Yog Sothoth is sometimes associated with gates and keys... but I don't know any GOOs that are famed patrons of the arts... though I'm sure Nyarlathotep is running an art gallery out there somewhere.

This sounds pretty cool, but could probably become a bit railroady, especially if it MUST be the same characters in each period. If you establish that the characters cannot die or become incurably insane, you might drastically cut down tension and drama.

QuoteWhos's the Great Elder found of arts ?

Which of the Great Old One you use doesn't matter that much. They are basically omnipotent anyway and their actions, plans and motivations are beyond human understanding in any case. However, Hastur is best known for having his own theatre play The King in Yellow, which might work in the classic art context. Besides, Lake Hali and Carcosa could just as well be located within the Dreamlands.

QuoteAny reference to published material for each time period?

For the 1920s, you can use most of Lovecraft's tales themselves. Unfortunately, the story of him that actually is located in New York, The Horror at Red Hook is one of his worst, utterly poisoned by the author's racism. There is also an official CoC suplement for the city in the 1920s, but I don't know how good that is.
For conspiracies across centuries involving Templars, Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum is a very solid read. The first (and maybe the second) chapter though are written to discourage readers to continue; the book gets much better (and accessible) later on.