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Call of Cthulhu: How insane would people living in the Cthulhupocalypse be?

Started by Neoplatonist1, March 14, 2023, 08:36:32 PM

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Thornhammer

#15
March 17, 2023, 11:44:52 PM Last Edit: March 17, 2023, 11:48:07 PM by Thornhammer
I think the special sauce for the Elder Things is having a truly vast amount of time (they've been here for a billion years, and had who knows how much experience before that), and perhaps not having quite as fragile a mind as humanity.

Might require a bit of outside assistance to harden mankind's mind in any reasonable timeframe. Bargains. Sacrifices. Willing or not.

Hell. Elder Things help out. Mankind(?) barely makes it. A great many years later, someone asks - "why did you help us?"

"Well. It's a laff, innit?"

Rhymer88

#16
March 18, 2023, 05:14:44 AM
Quote from: S'mon on March 15, 2023, 03:59:02 AM
Quote from: Neoplatonist1 on March 14, 2023, 08:36:32 PM
I have a futuristic scenario for CoC, where the last human empire thousands of years in the future is fighting a losing battle against the Yithian beetle-men for control of the planet, or at least survival. Various Lovecraftian monsters roam the Earth, but Cthulhu himself has yet to return. Would these future human be SAN 0 because of their proximity to the Mythos, or would they be able to maintain their sanity in the face of their coming doom?

So AFAICT HPL's view is that modern, rational, Enlightenment humans go insane in the face of the incomprehensible truth of reality. But ignorant un-Enlightened Dark Ages humans would be fine. So I'd think the humans in your example would be fine, they'd simply frame the world something like the worldview of the humans in Warhammer 40K. The Emperor Protects!

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."

Yes, and that view was probably even more strongly expressed by Robert E. Howard. Someone like Conan knows how to deal with Lovecraftian horrors: Hew them with an axe!

Neoplatonist1

#17
March 18, 2023, 05:10:05 PM
Quote from: Thornhammer on March 17, 2023, 11:44:52 PM
I think the special sauce for the Elder Things is having a truly vast amount of time (they've been here for a billion years, and had who knows how much experience before that), and perhaps not having quite as fragile a mind as humanity.

Might require a bit of outside assistance to harden mankind's mind in any reasonable timeframe. Bargains. Sacrifices. Willing or not.

Hell. Elder Things help out. Mankind(?) barely makes it. A great many years later, someone asks - "why did you help us?"

"Well. It's a laff, innit?"

In other words, mankind needs a patron?!

Omega

#18
March 19, 2023, 05:01:28 AM
End Times which I playtested way the hell back plays around with these scenarios.

Earth is totally overrun and all thats left of nominally sane humanity is stuck on a hastily made colony on Mars and people are cracking for various reasons. Just looking at earth in a telescope can induce madness.

Garry G

#19
March 30, 2023, 02:50:47 PM
Cthulhu City for Trail of Cthulhu is sort of about this but not quite. It's weird and unsettling.
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