Hello Cthulhu

[ffutures]

angusabranson made a post which reminded me of the awesome SAN-draining properties of Hello Cthulhu. If you too wish to feel your brains dribble out of your ears follow that link...

On a related thought - wouldn't Doctor Who make a lot more sense if the Doctor was a Mythos entity? Not one of the "suck your brains" variety, at least directly, but wherever he goes chaos and death soon follow. Probably not Nyarlathotep, but maybe one of the other gods that can assume human form. Anyone got any suggestions as to which one?

Comments

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

I started writing a Doctor Who story that started to turn into a novella, that set the Doctor into the Mythos universe. Not as an actual mythos entity himself, but folding in elements of the Great Old Ones.

But with regards your point, would be interesting if, on Gallifray, there stood an ancient temple to Nodens somewhere, dusty and long forgotten by all but a few.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I ran several Dr. Who sessions using CoC rules, but that's not exactly a crossover. Come to think of it, I always ran Paranoia using CoC rules. And Space 1889 until I wrote Forgotten Futures...

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

I ran paranoia with CoC rules too. And a fantasy campaign, and Cyberpunk too. It remains my favourite rule system, the CoC rules.

God the cyberpunk rule system was virtually unworkable.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Virtually?

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Nope, tabletop. Well, no actual table. Across the expanse of the living room.

Me and my group of friends started roleplaying back when the Fighting Fantasy books first came out, (With a homemade system based on the FF system at first) and it because our preferred leisure activity all through high school, and even university, when we all lived close enough to be getting back together for holidays and such.

I did the GM-ing most of the time. I ran mostly CoC based things (we must have done pretty much every CoC campaign there was. Although we never quite finished Mountains Of Madness.) and my friend Scott sometimes ran AD&D campaigns, which were always very funny. A nice counterpoint to the horror of Cthulhu.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Actually, I just meant "virtually" as opposed to "totally", which is the impression I had of the game.

Meanwhile, in the Wet Blanket department...

[smallship1.livejournal.com]

Um...well, in my view, no. For one thing, the Mythos entities are indifferent to humanity except as either food or a means to get back into this universe. That view only works if you ignore everything the Doctor does, says, thinks or feels.

It's only since the revamp that chaos and death are perceived as "following" the Doctor. For most of the life of the series he went where chaos and death were about to happen in order to prevent or limit their effects. It's kind of like saying policemen cause crime, which I suppose if you're some sort of a libertarian might seem like a tenable view, till you try it without them.

This "blame the Doctor for the monsters" idea (alternatively and subversively given in one episode as "the Doctor is worth the monsters") runs all through RTD's reimagining of the story, along with the "real life is much more fun" trope that I've grumped about elsewhere. Frankly, it's getting hard work watching through it, even when it's quite clear (as in "Bride") that he had nothing to do with the onset of the chaos at all.

Re: Meanwhile, in the Wet Blanket department...

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I'm not wholly serious about this, but I see what you mean. It does seem to be a reinvention of the character, to an extent.

[jackwalker.livejournal.com]

Well, my knowledge of the Doctor Who mythos is nil. But I am reminded of a bit from Tolkien - the way the Rohirrim sometimes called Gandalf the "Stormcrow," because he always seemed to turn up just when disaster was about to strike.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

So that's where Dr. Who nicked that one from - in the last series they had him saying that he was sometimes called "the gathering storm."

[doctor-toc.livejournal.com]

It originally comes from the novelisation of "Remembrance of the Daleks", where it's revealed that Dalek mythology refers to the Doctor as the Ka Faraq Gatri - "The Oncoming Storm". Later books also gave it additional translations of the "Bringer of Darkness/Destroyer of Worlds" sort. If you haven't read it, it's a really great adaptation of the TV story, and adds a whole bunch of information about dalek history, language, culture (such as it is), even the way they think.

[adrian-middle.livejournal.com]

Oddly, during the Virgin Books era of seventh Doctor novels, they pretty much implied that the Doctor was indeed an ancient and powerful being from before time.

The Mythos was introduced by Andy Lane, Craig Hinton and David McIntee, and over time it was revealed that the Great Old Ones and the Elder Gods were, in fact, the equivalent of Time Lords from a previous universe.

While the Great Old Ones became forces of darkness and chaos, the Elder Gods became the Guardians and the Eternals. One of these Guardians - the Red Guardian of Justice - was implicitly meant to be the true form of the Doctor and others who come before and after him (such as "the Other", one of the founders of Gallifrey). The latter comes from a short story called Aspect of Evil and the novel Divided Loyalties.

In his notes to the e-book Lungbarrow, author Marc Platt states:

"The New Adventures suggest that between the Black and White Guardians, there is a Red Guardian of Justice to balance the scales and referee the perpetual battle. And on Gallifrey, between the imagination of Omega and the rationality of Rassilon, sits the balance of that other one, the one in the shadows, what's he called, you know... the one no-one ever remembers the name of. Somebody to blame. This archetypal figure, by turns mocking clown or judgmental whistle-blower, turns up in all manner of myths and legends, and here he is in the creation sagas of the Tharils too. It does suggest that on the flowing river of time, there's one person who can never resist sticking his oar in..."

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Now, that's the Doctor. Like it!

[doctor-toc.livejournal.com]

If I had to pick one of the classic ones, I'd have picked Nodens.

Quite a way back, I wrote a fan-fic in which it was revealed that Rassilon was an avatar of Nyarlathotep, who had deliberately created the Time Lords because they would eventually give rise to the Rani, who would in turn would create an entity that, when placed at the center of the Big bang, would become Azathoth. It was very silly, but a lot of fun.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Nodens makes sense, I suppose - didn't he have some sort of weird vehicle?

[doctor-toc.livejournal.com]

A great sea shell on dolphins backs, apparently.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Well, the current TARDIS is sort of urchin shaped, I suppose.