Quote from: jhkim;630148On the subject of Mythos figures as good guys, I was just re-reading Shadow Over Innsmouth, and I was struck by how the Innsmouth residents mostly seemed to want to keep to themselves and follow their own ways, and keep their secrets - and it sounds like the entire town was assaulted with genocidal fury once their secret got out.  

I'm pondering now if I could run a game of Deep Ones trying to keep their secret and hold off the genocidal threat to them.  How far would they go to keep a stranger from leaking their secrets?

Well the thing about Deep Ones is that it is a genocidal threat, but on both sides.  Sooner or later one race MUST exterminate the other to survive.

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Quote from: RPGPundit;630636Well the thing about Deep Ones is that it is a genocidal threat, but on both sides.  Sooner or later one race MUST exterminate the other to survive.

What makes you say that?  I didn't see anything in the original story to indicate that.  

That's not to say that the Innsmouth people are particularly good, but for the most part both they and the Kanakys before them just tried to be isolationist.  They didn't attack their neighbors or otherwise cause harm except to protect their secret.  At the end of Zadok's story he raves something they're going to do, that involves bringing things up from the sea including a shoggoth - but he never says what.

Quote from: RPGPundit;630636Well the thing about Deep Ones is that it is a genocidal threat, but on both sides.  Sooner or later one race MUST exterminate the other to survive.

Charlie Stross's The Jennifer Morgue provides an interesting alternative view (one of the protagonists is a human/Deep One).

Quote from: jhkim;630652What makes you say that?  I didn't see anything in the original story to indicate that.  

That's not to say that the Innsmouth people are particularly good, but for the most part both they and the Kanakys before them just tried to be isolationist.  They didn't attack their neighbors or otherwise cause harm except to protect their secret.  At the end of Zadok's story he raves something they're going to do, that involves bringing things up from the sea including a shoggoth - but he never says what.

I say it because in the bigger picture of the Cthulhu mythos, all the mythos entities (including the deep ones) are utterly inimical to mankind, and many are trying to immanetize the eschaton.  

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Quote from: RPGPundit;631167I say it because in the bigger picture of the Cthulhu mythos, all the mythos entities (including the deep ones) are utterly inimical to mankind, and many are trying to immanetize the eschaton.

The Deep Ones themselves don't seem that antagonistic; the problem is that the forces they worship probably are.

The Innsmouth ones seem to be suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder. They were originally brought from the South Pacific, to dark, less sunny New England - no beautiful beaches, coconut trees or mai tais. No wonder they got all shut in....

Quote from: jhkim;630652What makes you say that?  I didn't see anything in the original story to indicate that.  

At least in the original Shadow over Innsmouth, the "fish-men" have a serious taste for human sacrifice, and the populace of Innsmouth have to provide it, in addition to racial intermingling and some material concerns, or the Deep Ones will rise and take those sacrifices.

Part of that is directly tied to the concerns of pagan human sacrifice that characterize blood libel, and you could certainly argue that the folk claiming it may be untrustworthy (indeed, the main source doesn't actually know what happens to the 'disappeared' or 'fallen off' folk, and Dagon was a Canaanite fertility deity not tied to human sacrifice).  At least with the text taken as accurate, however, long-term peace is not likely to be realistic, barring drastic changes to one group or the other's moral codes.

Quote from: RPGPundit;631167I say it because in the bigger picture of the Cthulhu mythos, all the mythos entities (including the deep ones) are utterly inimical to mankind, and many are trying to immanetize the eschaton.  

Damn you, Pundit!  That's just racist talk, judging the poor Deep Ones based on things they haven't done.  "All Mythos creatures are alike" ... Indeed!   :-)

But seriously, I sort of agree - although the idea of a unified mythos is really more an invention of later writers and not Lovecraft.  However, I think my take is a valid reading of the story itself - and could be a fun basis for a game.  

Quote from: gattsuru;631185At least with the text taken as accurate, however, long-term peace is not likely to be realistic, barring drastic changes to one group or the other's moral codes.

Understood.  I wasn't picturing humans and Deep Ones holding hands and singing kum-ba-yah, though.  If we go just by the story, then it seems like while the Deep Ones might have some nasty internal practices, they are capable of living in peace with their human neighbors for hundreds of years.  If they hadn't been found at that time, it is quite possible that Innsmouth's next hundred years would be much like its previous hundred years.  Not exactly hunky-dory, but not like a WWII or even a Soudan.

Quote from: jhkim;631218Understood.  I wasn't picturing humans and Deep Ones holding hands and singing kum-ba-yah, though.  If we go just by the story, then it seems like while the Deep Ones might have some nasty internal practices, they are capable of living in peace with their human neighbors for hundreds of years.  If they hadn't been found at that time, it is quite possible that Innsmouth's next hundred years would be much like its previous hundred years.  Not exactly hunky-dory, but not like a WWII or even a Soudan.

They were living in peace thanks to a large and regular tribute of young living humans, even in the days of the original natives, and otherwise culturally and genetically assimilating the above-ground populace.  The Deep Ones are isolationist enough that they'd not go to war as long as the human sacrifice continues, but they're still reliant on expansion and doing ultimately unacceptable things to those outside of their culture.

  If they hadn't been discovered at that time, they might have been found in ten, when someone they sacrificed had outside connections that cared -- it's not just long-term followers of Dagon they were taking, after all.  It'd nearly failed before, for that reason, with other Native American tribes decided the original fish-folk collaborators had stolen too many of their people.

It needn't necessarily end in war, but it would have to end in at least one society radically changing its values.

Quote from: gattsuru;631470They were living in peace thanks to a large and regular tribute of young living humans, even in the days of the original natives, and otherwise culturally and genetically assimilating the above-ground populace.  The Deep Ones are isolationist enough that they'd not go to war as long as the human sacrifice continues, but they're still reliant on expansion and doing ultimately unacceptable things to those outside of their culture.

  If they hadn't been discovered at that time, they might have been found in ten, when someone they sacrificed had outside connections that cared -- it's not just long-term followers of Dagon they were taking, after all.  It'd nearly failed before, for that reason, with other Native American tribes decided the original fish-folk collaborators had stolen too many of their people.

It needn't necessarily end in war, but it would have to end in at least one society radically changing its values.

Consider this situation then:
"Not all fishmen want sacrifices".
I'll elaborate:
In addition to the bad (fish)eggs that demands human sacrifices, there may be dozens of communities of them that dislike bullying, and that lives in peaceful coexistance with neighboring human settlements.

That kind of situation would lead to much the situation that jhkim has suggested, and even the odd situation of Deep ones against Deep ones.

Quote from: Catelf;631484Consider this situation then:
"Not all fishmen want sacrifices".
I'll elaborate:
In addition to the bad (fish)eggs that demands human sacrifices, there may be dozens of communities of them that dislike bullying, and that lives in peaceful coexistance with neighboring human settlements.

Oh, you can certainly do that.  The millions-strong Deep One army doesn't particularly make sense as a monocultural thing, and it makes even less sense that a millions-strong Deep One army cares about a handful of human sacrifices.

You can even do more, and not deviate too much from the written text.  Again, we don't actually know that they're killing the folk they take away -- the author tells us Deep Ones are murderous and obviously evil, and a couple crazy old people inform us that young humans keep disappearing or being taken away, but that sacrifice isn't shown 'on-screen' or from any reliable sources.  The Kanakys and Innsmouth peoples don't necessarily have to be a genocidal threat.  There's a lot of interesting takes on this story where the Deep Ones aren't fundamentally evil (whether or not they remain expansionist and alien).  I agree with jhkim that this is an interesting place to bring stories.

The author wants us to believe those unreliable sources we hear, however, so the original text does mean that they're genocidal threats (or at least culture-reshaping ones), and it does require so deviation to change that.

Quote from: gattsuru;631470They were living in peace thanks to a large and regular tribute of young living humans, even in the days of the original natives, and otherwise culturally and genetically assimilating the above-ground populace.  The Deep Ones are isolationist enough that they'd not go to war as long as the human sacrifice continues, but they're still reliant on expansion and doing ultimately unacceptable things to those outside of their culture.

I would agree with you that the story implies this, but it isn't definitely said even if you take Zadok's story as 100% reliable.  While the Deep Ones did expand, it was an extremely slow expansion that only happened after they were deliberately courted and invited in.  The Deep Ones did attack the town after Obed and 32 others were thrown in jail - but that could be interpreted as defending their own, not necessarily raging for sacrifices.  While Zadok mentioned a number of times that people went missing and he used the word "sacrifice", he has no idea what happened other than one being taken alive out to the reef.  And I think there is room in the story for Zadok's tale to not be 100% true.  

I think a reasonable case could be made that when Obed and the others were captured and their secret threatened, the Deep Ones attacked to protect their own and their secret.  Some of the people who disappeared might have been voluntary to try for the Deep Ones' eternal life, and others might have been imprisoned or taken hostage to keep the secret from getting out.  

While it comes off bad, first contact between a lot of human cultures was far far bloodier than this in terms of body count.  As a game premise, I might have humans and Deep Ones living in a tense stand-off - like the Iron Curtain between the West and Russia, or the standoff between North and South Korea.  Each side thinks badly of the other, but not to the point of war and/or genocide.

Quote from: gattsuru;631502The author wants us to believe those unreliable sources we hear, however, so the original text does mean that they're genocidal threats (or at least culture-reshaping ones), and it does require so deviation to change that.

Of course the author wants us to belive those unreliable sources, that is because it is the kind of thing that causes worrying, fear, and horror.
But.
That do not mean that the unreliable sources are true, possibly even the contrary.
And if looking at how ... at least some parts of ... humanity has treated "different cultures" throughout history .... there is really no reason for most of those unreliable sources to be even the slightest true.

In a way, it can become even far more horrifying if the fishmen of Innsmouth really mainly is completely harmless ...
Because .... who is the "monster" then?

Answer: The humans, who fear the different so much, it has passed into hatred, and false accusations that has been told so many times that the humans think they are true.

To address the OP, I don't know if there's anything new that can be "done with the Mythos", but mix 1 part Yog-Sothoth with two parts Dionaea House for a break in my regular AD&D game and I'll let you know...

The deep ones aren't "co-existing" or "living in relative peace", they're hiding out and biding their time for when they can destroy all of civilization.  

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;631860The deep ones aren't "co-existing" or "living in relative peace", they're hiding out and biding their time for when they can destroy all of civilization.  

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That is according to the regular scare tactics used for the mythos ....
But, really, considering the "fuel" used for the Mythos, namely rampant fear of the unknown + racism ....
A new take on the Mythos would be to see it for what it is ... a racism-driven nightmare that isn't really true.
Thing is, today, the tables have seemingly turned to instead pinpoint the racism as the bad thing.
,,, I say seemingly, because the heritage of fantasy and horror from tolkien and Lovecraft is still hard to shake off.

What do i mean?
Since Racism comes from the fear of the unknown, and a tendency to say "this one did this bad, then probably all do like that" ....

Ok, many blatantly ignore this origin and say "It is just Fiction".
Well, for the same reason one could then create a Fiction, where humans in a certain world were created by trolls in order to be servants, and that all humans that is disobedient, is also proven to eat their own children, when the trolls of course is the pinnacle of civilazation.....

What would people (humans) irl think of that kind of setting?
Several would think of proving to the trolls that the humans aren't child-eating murderers .... and that they aren't the slaves of the trolls.
Essentially, humans would not like to see humans in such a situation.
Some would agree on the premises, but say: That is not humans, it is human-looking aliens in a different world.
A notable few would use "it is just fiction" and stay with that.

However, other beings are fair game to be defined as cruel, murderous, child eaters, genocidal .... or even evil. ... and that is as a species, not as individuals.

So, my point is:
Racism and similar functions is the only thing that has defined the Deep Ones as genocidal as a species.
That do not mean that they are.
But, if you think that they must be in order for the Mythos to be "correct" .... then there is just no point in arguing this line of thought.

.... Perhaps i should just leave this thing here ....
http://jordangreywolf.deviantart.com/art/My-Little-Byakhee-297270473