Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Adrez Nesnsid 07-02-07, 12:04 AM	A while ago it occured to me that playing a game of Call of Cthulhu set in modern times changes things significantly from a game set in Lovecraft's time. A good deal of Lovecraft's writing focuses on mythos texts being rare and hard to find; compare this with the less than five minutes that it took me to, on a whim, find an online copy (with english translation) of the comparably rare Lost Gospel of Judas (http://www.nationalgeographic.com/lostgospel/document.html). The Gospel of Judas is not an isolated case either, I can relatively easily find pretty much any weird or obscure or crackpot mythic text that you can name, from The Emereld Tablet of Hermes Trismajestus (http://www.sacred-texts.com/alc/emerald.htm), to The Apocrypha Discordia (http://www.coyote.org/wp-content/uploads/E/apocrypha2.pdf), to Subgenius Pamphlet #1 (http://www.subgenius.com/pam1/pamphlet_p1.html), to The Gospel of Nicodemus/Acts of Pilate (http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/actspilate.html) (click the links under "online texts"), to The Book of Coming Forth By Day From Neter-Khert (http://www.sacred-texts.com/egy/ebod/index.htm) (The "Egyptian Book of the Dead"), to even a brief Summary of the Xenu Manuscripts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenu). What I'm getting at here is that the texts of rare religious manuscripts are no longer hard to come by, and even those that are being actively suppressed (such as the Xemu Manuscripts) generally at least have publicly available summaries. There are even large databases out there specifically geared toward helping people find this sort of stuff, most notably The internet Sacred Text Archive (http://www.sacred-texts.com/index.htm), but also things like High Weirdness by E-Mail (http://www.subgenius.com/bigfist/bulldada/X0020_High_Weird_by_E-Mail.html) (A subsidiary of The Church of the Subgenius (http://www.subgenius.com/)). Additionally, websites like Godchecker Dotcom (http://www.godchecker.com/), and even the old standby Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page), can be of great use in looking up the basic principles of an obscure belief system. Furthermore, in-game, it stands to reason that if Miskatonic University consistently keeps getting weirdoes coming in asking to flip through their copy of The Necronomicon/Al Azif, eventually they're going to start printing copies up to sell in the university bookstore. (And, by the way, I already know what a lot of you are going to say about my first point, regarding the internet, and I would like to preemptively state that if the computers owned by the people running these databases were to start spontaneously displaying or printing out threatening messages or entreaties to the operators to sacrifice their families to dark gods or whatnot, they would be more likely to ascribe it to a computer virus or an office prankster than to the Necronomicon (or the Book of Eibon, or the Pnakotonic Manuscripts, or whatever) (or at least they would probably maintain such beliefs for long enough for another database to upload their own copy of the Necronomicon (or the Book of Eibon, or the Pnakotonic Manuscripts, or whatever). Similarly, if their computer were to suddenly, and without warning, explode, their first thought would most likely be to blame the manufacturer). So what do you think? How should this affect the setting of the game?........
Raymond_Luxury_Yacht 07-02-07, 12:04 AM	Someone actually wrote a story about this. I'll see if I can dig the name and author up.
cat_god 07-02-07, 01:09 PM	Oh! Yeah! In the collection 'Children of Cthulhu!' I loved that story. 'A Fatal Exception has Occured At...' Great story.
DebiHuman 07-02-07, 05:28 PM	Somehow getting a summary of the "Necronomicon" online wouldn't be particularly useful (most would believe it to be the mad ramblings of the "Mad Arab" anyway). I'm not even sure that it could be scanned properly. Just think of all the insanity checks that would have to make by looking at each page.... Also, any translation would be completely ineffective for summoning a Greal Old One. I imagine an intrepid investigator could dig up a lot of information (and a lot of wrong information as well) on the book. If there is only 1 true original of the book, it is quite possible that all the copies would contain errors and would not be at all useful. And who knows what crazy collector has the book in his possession-- or what he plans to do with it. I am clearly chanelling the movie The Ninth Gate but the book it was based on, The Club Dumas, by Arturo Perez-Reverte was much better. Here's a synopsis of the book from Wikipedia if anyone is interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Club_Dumas Debby
Raymond_Luxury_Yacht 07-03-07, 09:06 PM	Oh! Yeah! In the collection 'Children of Cthulhu!' I loved that story. 'A Fatal Exception has Occured At...' Great story. That's it. Long story short, Miskatonic U doesn't let people look at it any longer.
Lord_Madrigan 07-04-07, 04:12 PM	If your using Cthulhu rules for the necronomicon does that mean that when you put the book in the scanner that your PC has to make a Madness Save. I remember a episode of Buffy the Vampiere slayer that pointed out a possable consequence of scaning these old books. it's rather Funny Attack of Satins PC :D
MegaWombat 07-30-07, 10:38 AM	Mmmh, the point here is that ther is a lot of stuff available that may not be right or at least has some errors in it. As a Character you can never be sure that the downloaded txt file holdes the correct formula for dispelling a Dole or some other unspeakable horror. The file was downloaded from the internet ... maybe from a guy who thought this stuff is cool and wanted to distribute something. At least my Cthulhupunk gamers never botherd to belive in such files ... Bye, Wombat
Adrez Nesnsid 07-30-07, 03:52 PM	If your using Cthulhu rules for the necronomicon does that mean that when you put the book in the scanner that your PC has to make a Madness Save. Is that meant to be a pun?:confused:
Adrez Nesnsid 07-30-07, 04:02 PM	If your using Cthulhu rules for the necronomicon does that mean that when you put the book in the scanner that your PC has to make a Madness Save. I remember a episode of Buffy the Vampiere slayer that pointed out a possable consequence of scaning these old books. it's rather Funny Attack of Satins PC :D Anyway, as I said before, even if this did happen, the programmer would be more likely to attribute this to a computer virus (if the computer starts swearing at them or printing things in foreign tongues or something) or microsoft (if it just plain doesn't work) then to demonic and/or extraterrestrial posession. Also, what if they (having succeeded on their sanity check or had enough sanity to begin with that it didn't matter) retyped it by hand.
ScS 07-31-07, 09:15 AM	There's been a whole bunch of stories as to what the Necronmicon actually contains. I think that would have a huge impact on what it does in an electronic form. For example, in Mountains of Madness, the main character has read from the Necronomion and can recognize Antarctica as the land described therin. So, under that version, the Necronomicon would just be a pdf with many weird things in it. On the other hand, the non-Lovecraft story Adder, has the necronomicon as a cannibalistic book that actually eats whatever book it is stored with, and by eating actually erases the book from history and memory. Thus, a computer version of the Necromicon would be a super-virus.
Adrez Nesnsid 07-31-07, 04:31 PM	That sounds sort of like the second false Necronomicon from Evil Dead III: Army of Darkness. (Although that one didn't actually change history, it just contained some kind of black hole or something)
Adrez Nesnsid 08-21-07, 04:44 PM	If your using Cthulhu rules for the necronomicon does that mean that when you put the book in the scanner that your PC has to make a Madness Save. I remember a episode of Buffy the Vampiere slayer that pointed out a possable consequence of scaning these old books. it's rather Funny Attack of Satan's PC :D I wonder if that was how Gleemax got started???
Prak, the Mad 08-26-07, 12:04 AM	the best way to deal with this, I think, is to decide whether the game takes place in "our world+Elder Gods" or in "the cthulhu mythos world". In "Our World+Elder Gods" Lovecraft existed and wrote the Cthulhu mythos, he was either retelling old myths and such, creating new myths inspired by the old ones, or channeling the Cthulhu Pantheon. His books exist, and the numerous hoax and "inspired-by" books also exist so if the characters search the internet for the necronomicon they're more likely to find the "Simon Necronomicon" than the actual necronomicon by Alhazred. If they go to a random library to look for it, then they're very likely to find an actual card for it saying that it is checked out to one "A. Alhazred" because some prankster that works or worked at the library thought it was funny. If they do find the actual necronomicon online, then they're incredibly lucky. Far more likely is the idea that the online residence of the necronomicon is incredibly hidden and protected, possibly it's even protected by virtual elder races that pop out of the circuits and either kill you or destroy your computer. For example, you won't find the real necronomicon with a google search. You find it by making the right online connections and being invited to peruse it. In the "Cthulhu Mythos World", I don't know. the necronomicon can really be whatever the gm wants. If he wants to make it easily accessible, it'll be the first result on a google search, but then there are consequences for that, such as the fact that random kids who have a tendancy to read out loud for comprehension accidently summon elder gods.
yellowdingo 08-28-07, 10:38 AM	www.thepotteryclub.org/necronomicon Jake Lane pulled down the firewall on the monastary server with all the skill of a premier hacker...he dodged the ICE and made for the single file...it opened. Glyps began to flash to the screen one after the other...faster and faster. Lane suddenly realized that only his dominant eye could see the images. The other now showed him a single point of light on the screen as the electron gun of his cathode ray tube monitor burned the data directly onto the back of his Retina. Lane jerked away and the searing pain burned its way across his frontal lobes. Jake staggered away from the computer as the ICE finally crashed it. He could see it now...the beginning and the end...he looked out the window at the cityscape. it was different to what he remembered. The great black aura of an elder god rippled in the sky above the city and all manor of fiend soared in it's shadow. They were all ready doomed.