- Location
- Singapore
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Makes sense. A land route to Iceland and the UK is nothing to be sneezed at. A Tibet that has ancient magic will make for very interesting times with East/South Asian Politics.
WORLD OF PULP
- Thread starter ScottishMongol
- Start date
- Timeline Sci-Fi Supernatural
King Washington
Semi-Depressed Lurker
- Location
- Indiana
Sadly no completely Hollow Earth with a central sun in the middle 
I would assume Burroughs' tenancy to have all his female characters wear next to no clothes has been somewhat toned down here. I mean on Venus it kinda would make sense, but why the hell would someone wear only a bikini on goddamn Mars?a matriarchy of blue- and green-skinned space babes.
I wonder what a Gothic Horror world would look like.
- Location
- Somewhere
Watched. I love pulp tropes and wanted a setting to use for a tabletop
What bikini? The people of barsoom wore no clothing at all, just jewelry and weapon harnesses. Male and female alike. Barsoom was pretty equal opportunity in terms of eye candy as a setting.Sadly no completely Hollow Earth with a central sun in the middle
I would assume Burroughs' tenancy to have all his female characters wear next to no clothes has been somewhat toned down here. I mean on Venus it kinda would make sense, but why the hell would someone wear only a bikini on goddamn Mars?
I wonder what a Gothic Horror world would look like.
Africa
- Location
- Great Khanate of Scotland
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Africa
Most of Africa remains uncolonized by European outsiders, due to a number of factors. The greatest is the inhospitable nature of the continent, with its vast tropical jungles filled with diseases Europeans have no natural immunity to. The native Africans, however, have the advantage of not only familiarity with their homeland, but an array of native magics which they have used to great effect against potential European conquerors, whether they be curses levied against invaders, the folk medicine of witch doctors bolstering their warriors, or strange forms of divination which allow native troops to outmaneuver colonial ones. Another factor is the rise of powerful native states, using modern technology and state-building. Several cities, including Mbanza-Kongo, Benin City, Kumasi, Zanzibar, and Addis Ababa, have become centers of trade and industry rivalling those of Europe, North America, or Asia. Africa is home to some massive, sophisticated empires, some advanced kingdoms, and dozens of petty statelets, chiefdoms, and tribal confederations.
Only some bits and pieces are under the thumb of the European empires – settler colonies like South Africa, a scattering of coastal ports, and a few vassalized natives, but African kingdoms which have achieved some level of modernization can now punch back at colonial invaders. European attempts to penetrate the interior of the continent, whether for exploration or colonization, have usually resulted in failure at the hands of native states or environmental factors, but efforts persist.
To briefly run through the more important nations of Africa:
North Africa is mostly turned towards the Ottoman Empire and the Mediterranean, with overland trade facilitated by railways and riverboats carrying wealth north, largely along the Nile, as the vast Sahara Desert is the domain of the largely-independent Berber and Tuareg nomads; several powers, from the Ottomans to the French, have attempted to bring the nomads to heel, but such efforts usually end with colonial forces swallowed up by the desert. The Sudanese Madhiyya – the state founded by the followers of Muhammed al-Mahdi. Following a form of Islam considered heretical by outsiders, nevertheless through martial prowess and the mystic powers of their dervish orders they have maintained control of the middle reaches of the Nile (and control a fair stretch of the great International Cape-Cairo Line). The Kingdom of Morocco is of note, as the oldest friend and ally of the United States, they serve as a bulwark against European interests in North Africa. The Kanem-Bornu Empire and the Murjebi Sultanate are the other two powers in north-central Africa. The Murjebi Sultanate was founded by the heirs of the Arab adventurer and slave trader Hamad bin Muhammed bin Juma bin Rajab el Murjebi – better known as Tippu Tip. The Murjebi Sultanate has an Arab ruling class, and modernization has been marred by continued internal conflicts. Finally, the Kingdom of Ethiopia and the Emirate of Somalia dominate the Horn of Africa, both having battled the British Raj and Ottoman Empire for control of their coastal trade routes. Ethiopia attributes their success to their possession of the Ark of the Covenant, although whether they actually have it is a question for archaeologists (and adventurers).
West Africa has dozens of petty kingdoms and tribal confederations, but a handful have managed to industrialize and participate in international trade and diplomacy. The Ashanti Empire, the Kingdom of Benin, and Igboland are all powerful coastal empires with industrial capacity on par with some smaller European nations, while the Fulani Sultanate extends across the interior of the region. Liberia is the United States' other ally in Africa; a republic founded by former slaves, the nation is now a (fairly corrupt) social democracy and serves as a base for American interests in the region.
Central Africa is perhaps the least explored region by outsiders. While the Kingdom of Kongo is one of the great powers of the continent, able to compete with the Murjebi Sultanate for control of the region, their hinterlands include vast undeveloped areas home to Dinosaurs, tribes of pygmies, and states like the Luba and Lunda who remain stubbornly independent. And then there are rumors of the Kingdom of Opar – tales speak of a lost kingdom, psychics, ape-men, a matriarchy possibly ruled by white-skinned queens..these tales have piqued the interest of Europeans, but few have successfully penetrated the Heart of Darkness to learn the truth of them. On the East Coast of Africa, trade is dominated by the Swahili Coast Federation (capital Zanzibar), but their influence does not extend far into the lake country, which is the home of kingdoms both small and large, such as Unyamwezi. As for Madagascar, the Merina Kingdom remains closed off to the outside world.
South Africa is a patchwork of Bantu kingdoms, with the most powerful being the mighty empire of the Zulu, which now includes half the southern tip of the continent, the other half being either the homeland of the Khoisan people, or the tiny South African colony, an outpost of the British Raj and one of the few successful European colonial efforts. The only other notable state is the Kingdom of Kukuanaland, which with its natural defenses and vast natural gold deposits has managed to stave off the conquering armies of the Zulu.
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bookwyrm
Doom of Public Libraries
- Location
- Wichita, Kansas
Aw, no Ranavalona the Cruel turning herself from one of the twelve wives of the old king's pro-European son into warrior-queen and sorceror-empress of all Madagascar and leading the Merina into gloriously pulpy victory over the Franco-Libertalian adventurers and corsairs and keeping then as a pet trading post to beat firearms out of?
- Location
- Great Khanate of Scotland
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Oh no, that actually happened in the past! The French just aren't in the picture anymore and the Madagascarenes don't want to get caught up in the trade wars between the Raj and the Swahili Coast. So, not a naval power but they're not to be trifled with.
Incidentally the Dodo bird still exists ITTL.
American-Moroccan Treaty of Friendship (1798) hooooo!
Alien Intelligences
- Location
- Great Khanate of Scotland
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Alien Intelligences
Humans are not the only intelligent lifeforms on the planet Earth. This is true even if one includes the various intelligent, upright apes who exist in various parts of the world – the Challenger Men of the Amazon, the Gnophkehs of the Arctic, and the giants of the Lidenbrock are those that have been identified by science, though the cryptic White Apes of the Congo and the supposed "Hairy Men" of Australia have also been described.
In addition, scientists have observed several populations of "degenerated" Humans who, under the influence of strange energies or a particularly rapid form of evolution, seem to have adapted to a subterranean lifestyle, in the process losing much of their intelligence but gaining ferocity, bestial cunning, and the ability to live in total darkness. Such instances have been observed in North America and in the case of the "Morlocks" living in the deep tunnels beneath London. These tribes and their origins are mysterious, and it remains unclear whether they are subspecies of humanity or even new species entirely.
Humanity was not the first intelligence to evolve on Earth, of course. Predating the Ice Age and the first civilizations of the lost continents (those being Mu, Lemuria, and Atlantis), there is significant evidence that the world was dominated by a number of reptilian or amphibian races, the most prominent of which were the Serpent-men. Evidence of the Serpent-men comes primarily from Africa and the Americas, where their ruins and artifacts (among…other things) are sometimes unearthed.
(Another intelligent race, the telepathic Mahars of the subterranean realm beneath Africa, are reptilian in nature, but their connection to the Great Old Ones is merely supposition, and the race has not been thoroughly described by science.)
These pre-human races seem to have worshiped a number of gods referred to as the Great Old Ones. Yig the Father of Serpents, Bokrug the Water Lizard, Tsathoggua, Dagon, and Cthulhu are but the most notable of these, but there are believed to be several more. According to several ancient texts (such as the Necronomicon, the collection of research notes composed by the Arab scholar Abdul Alhazred, or the Pnakotic Manuscripts said to date back to the ancient civilization of Lomar), the Great Old Ones came to Earth by flying through space and may have created these races as servitors.
One compelling theory among students of "Exotic Science" (as some researchers of psychic and "magical" phenomena choose to call themselves) is that these Great Old Ones were not gods, but a race of psychically-powerful aliens. The implications this has on the existence or non-existence of Human deities is controversial, to say the least – although hints by the people of K'n-yan seem to support the idea that at least some of the so-called "gods of man" are merely ancient and powerful Human psychics.
Regardless, of all the Great Old Ones, Cthulhu is the most prominent, if only because he is the one most widely worshiped by Humans (although not the only one – the Indigenous people of the American Southwest seem to have venerated Yig since before the last Ice Age, and Bokrug was worshiped in Mnar as late as the 5th Century BC). The Cthulhu Cult has existed for much of Human history and is most popular in North America, the Empire of Haiti, the Levant, Africa, India, Tibet, and Maritime Southeast Asia, although in this age of global travel the Cult has spread to Europe and China through major ports. Cthulhu Cultists venerate Cthulhu, the greatest prophet of the Great Old Ones, and dwells in the sunken city of R'lyeh, where he speaks to his followers in their dreams (a potential sign of psychic phenomena, according to some researchers). Cthulhu Cultists believe that Cthulhu and his spawn will awaken one day and remake the world in their image, an apocalyptic transformation in which only his followers will be spared (so they claim, though this doctrinal point has been argued over in the past). The Cult has been persecuted in some places for much of its history, and as a result religious violence between the Cult and practitioners of other faiths is not unheard of, but where the Cult is tolerated its adherents are happy to participate in civil society.
There is also evidence for an even older civilization which predated the coming of the Great Old Ones. This "Elder Race" (as they are named in the Pnakotic Manuscripts) are insinuated to be the originators of life on Earth and may have inhabited Earth for millions of years. The ruins discovered buried in the Antarctic ice by an expedition from Miskatonic University may date back to the Mesozoic, which would be evidence in favor of this theory, but the controversial results of that expedition have led some in the scientific establishment to cast doubts.
One relic from the time of the Great Old Ones that survives to this day is the undersea civilization of the Deep Ones. The Deep Ones are a race of fishlike or froglike humanoids who dwell in undersea cities scattered across the world's continental shelves. They apparently do not age, and can only die through violence or accident, and despite the technological limitations of life underwater, they number in the billions and command the powerful amorphous creatures known as Shoggoths. In many coastal regions from New England to Polynesia, they have been known to trade with Humans who also worship their god, the Great Old One named Dagon, and, it is rumored, even to interbreed with them. Deep One Hybrids are a mystery to science, but certain reports suggest that they start out looking like Humans before slowly becoming more fishlike, eventually transforming into Deep Ones themselves. This transformation and subsequent eternal life features heavily in the beliefs of Human cultists of Dagon.
Human-Deep One relations have been strained for most of history. Pacts between Deep Ones and Humans are sometimes exploitative on the part of the Deep Ones, Human Dagon cultists tend to make enemies of their neighbors easily, Deep Ones retaliate violently when their Human coreligionists are harmed, and so on, meaning cycles of violence and the regional extinction and reemergence of Dagon Cults are common. However, things are changing rapidly. The Deep Ones and humanity are now at rough parity in numbers, the Human population of Earth being some four billion. Humanity's increased oceanic exploration has led to rising tensions and awareness of the Deep Ones' habits, and improving technology has allowed them to stand up to the Deep Ones on their home turf. The Innsmouth Incident and the subsequent torpedo strikes against a Deep One city off the coast of New England nearly sparked war with the Deep Ones, one only prevented by the Americans' choice to release the captured Deep One Hybrids from their internment camps. Many submarines and their crews have gone missing in Deep One territorial waters, the Esoteric Order of Dagon has been banned as a terrorist organization, and the Kingdom of Hawaii is battling Dagon-worshiping cults in the South Pacific as part of its ongoing campaign for influence in the region. Tensions are only rising, but the chance for permanent open diplomacy with the Deep Ones is in reach.
Another race that seems to be linked to humanity supernaturally (if not genetically) are the Ghouls. Ghouls are roughly canine in appearance, with jagged fangs, leathery grey skin, and cloven hooves. Reports of Ghouls with wings capable of flight have been unsubstantiated. Ghouls have apparently been around as long as humanity if not longer, and are found across the world. Some of their largest settlements are beneath major cities, with the oldest and most expansive warrens being in the Middle East, with the unofficial "capital" of the Ghoul race being located beneath the Pyramids of Giza. Ghouls are scavengers who feed on the refuse of human civilization; not only spoiled food and more unmentionable substances, but also corpses, and are frequent grave robbers and tomb despoilers; in many places their dwellings are located beneath or inside expansive tombs.
As a result, Ghouls have been feared and hated, and innumerable times throughout history Humans have attempted to exterminate Ghouls wherever they are found, always without success. Some of this is due to the fact that Ghoul warrens are made of cramped, labyrinthine passages which are difficult to fight in, and Ghouls can be fierce when defending their homes; sealing up entrances will only result in Ghouls creating a new opening elsewhere. However, even when successfully driven off, Ghouls will be drawn back to their warrens eventually, tempted by the promise of a steady supply of refuse. How Ghouls travel between their warrens is a mystery; some fevered rumors persist of extensive tunnel networks that connect every part of the globe, while other theorize that Ghouls can "tunnel" through dimensions, as suggested by reports of their existence in the so-called Dreamlands.
As urban Human populations have grown, so have Ghoul warrens beneath them, and traditionally informal agreements have popped up in which Ghouls are provided with spoiled and rotten foodstuffs in order to prevent them from graverobbing. In the modern day, increased scrutiny has been placed on Ghouls, and while some governments have turned to hunting them, others have engaged in diplomacy in an attempt to integrate them into society.
Ghouls sometimes attack living humans, but most communities have learned not to do so unless they cannot help it, as preying on the living will force the hand of those who would have otherwise turned a blind eye to grave robbing. In fact, Ghouls can be quite sociable, and those who have lived among them and studied them report that they are clever, artistic, and humorous, although their tastes often tend towards the macabre and intentionally provocative; in many places, Ghoul art and architecture incorporates Human remains, and Ghouls love to bedeck themselves with the goods interred with the dead. Male and female Ghouls are apparently impossible for Humans to tell apart, a fact that Ghouls find hilarious.
There are numerous folk tales regarding "changelings", Ghoul offspring which are disguised as Human infants and swapped, until the child grows up and, by adulthood, reverts to their Ghoul form. Whether this is true has not been confirmed; however, it has been recorded that Humans who live amongst the Ghouls may be "adopted" by them, and after undergoing certain rituals which are rumored to involve the consumption of Human flesh, will transform into Ghouls themselves.
Humanity has thus far had contact with two spacefaring, technologically-advanced alien races. In one case, the Martian Invasions, they were hostile, but relations with the Mi-Go have been friendly and show promise of becoming mutually beneficial.
The Mi-Go are a curious race, of a totally alien biology and perhaps even a chemistry foreign to our dimension; they can apparently survive in the vacuum of space and propel themselves through the air with some sort of biological propulsion organ – to Humans, they appear to "fly" through space with their batlike wings, apparently a trait shared by multiple spacefaring creatures. Mi-Go are highly telepathic, have highly-advanced technology, and their only interest in Earth is the harvesting of rare-earth minerals. To this end, they have established mining colonies in New England and the Himalayas, and according to various sources they may have been established during the time of the Great Old Ones, if not earlier.
The government of the United States and the British Raj have both recognized these operations by granting the Mi-Go mining rights for "only" a million years, but relations are cool due to the fact that humanity does not seem to have anything the Mi-Go particularly want, while they have a wealth of advanced technology Earth scientists are keen to get their hands on. The only other thing they request are occasional volunteers from among the ranks of Earth's scientists. In a process that they claim is irreversible, the Mi-Go can remove a Human brain and place it in a device which supports and sustains it, with sensors allowing the brain some means of monitoring and communicating with the outside world; the Mi-Go then transport these brains to their nearest outpost on Yuggoth, the ninth planet in the Solar System. While some fears of "alien brain snatchers" persist, the Mi-Go only take volunteers, and occasionally one of the brave pioneers of science will return to Earth with reports of Yuggoth, which it seems is only a distant outpost of the Mi-Go's great interdimensional empire. The Mi-Go claim to have had a presence on Earth for some tens of millions of years, but they have been rather tight-lipped (so to speak) about the history of Earth. At the very least their mining claims in Earth's northern hemisphere seem to have been established "by agreement" with at least one other race then-present on Earth, possibly the Elder Race or Great Old Ones.
As for the Martians, their invasion at the end of the 19th Century was one of the most momentous events in Human history. Their invasion laid waste to a large chunk of southern England, forcing the evacuation of London and the removal of the British Royal Family to India, and introduced the fast-growing and choking "Red Weed" which still grows wild in much of south England today. The Martians, who traveled to Earth in canisters fired by giant space cannons, and who fought with their terrible tripods, heat rays, and the horrible black smoke, only saw a brief victory over a small part of the globe; Earth's microbial inhabitants eventually caused them all to die within the year, and much of their technology was recovered and studied by a coalition of Earth governments. More than that, the British Monarchy found their return to England forestalled by the declaration of the British Commonwealth, which has since then ruled the British Isles, forcing the monarchy to reform their holdings in India into the modern-day British Raj. There are fears that the Martians, much of whose culture and society remains a mystery, will return with a second, greater invasion, and many telescopes are fixed on the Red Planet, while various governments build their own space cannons and increase humanity's presence in space.
Humanity has been able to make contact with one other alien race on their home planet, and although initial contact with the Selenites was rather bungled, subsequent diplomacy has shown progress. The Selenites are a eusocial species, their entire race being organized into a single hive with hundreds of castes. The "Grand Lunar" is not quite their ruler as conceived of by Humans, but he is certainly their greatest thinker, the only Selenite with the brainpower to coordinate all their species' affairs. The Selenites live beneath the surface of the Moon, although they tend to large herds of "moon calves" on the surface which provide them with some of their food supply. They appear to be capable of scientific advancement, although they have not yet found reason to journey to another planet. Humans, on the other hand, have made the journey to the Moon, although the first journey, shortly before the Red War, led to a diplomatic incident and the British Empire was only barely able to secure the return of their citizens. Since then, the British Raj has established a permanent outpost on the surface of the Moon, and though the so-called "Viceroyalty of the Moon" is home to only a few dozen inhabitants, the race by other Earth powers to establish their own space programs and the discovery of gold deposits in the Lunar rock herald a new age of expansion on Earth's satellite.
It must be mentioned at this point that the dark side of the Moon is home to another intelligence altogether, the so-called "Moon Beasts". In appearance they resemble large, fleshy, pale toads with masses of tentacles in place of their heads, hands, and feet. What they want is another matter altogether, although they are certainly hostile. Some psychonauts in fact believe them to be the secret masters of the Men of Leng, the not-entirely Human denizens of the Plateau of Leng, and suggest that the Moon Beasts have some method of travel between planetary bodies, and perhaps even dimensions, that is not entirely natural. More research into the Moon Beasts, the Men of Leng, and their connection to the wholly mysterious Dreamlands is ongoing, and is in any case a field fraught with controversy and lacking in hard evidence, and so we will speak no more of it for now.
King Washington
Semi-Depressed Lurker
- Location
- Indiana
I love how you turned the Cthulhu cultists into a more or less functional and sane religion. Even the apocalyptic stuff some believe in isn't really different then, say, the Book of Revelations
- Location
- Great Khanate of Scotland
- Pronouns
- She/Her
My personal take on the Mythos is that it isn't so bleak as many make it out to be. Whether due to unreliable narrators or my own reading between the lines, many of the challenges presented by the Mythos are quite surmountable.
The existence of the Mi-Go and Elder Race are proof that intelligent species can survive the cosmic fuckery and establish interstellar civilizations, and both are familiar enough that establishing regular contact with them is possible.
Ironically Cthulhu and the Mi-Go are both the result of me getting flexible due to the original stories those entities appear in being uh, frankly on the lower end of quality for Lovecraft.
Cthulhu, for all that he is hyped up by some readers as an insurmountable god, is at the end of the day a big psychic squid boi who had to go halvsies on Earth because the Elder Race fought him to a standstill - while him rising up could be devastating, it's actually possible that he could be put down with enough firepower.
As to the Cult, the Call of Cthulhu is not one of the better works (ironic considering Cthulhu's status as Mythos poster boy) and a big part of that is the Cult; racism aside, the idea that Cthulhu cares a whit for some hairless apes that picked up on his psychic emanations, or indeed that they could in anyway effect his plans or the time of his awakening, don't really square in my mind with the general themes of the Mythos. Indeed, maybe "being eaten last" is the best they could hope for.
Finally as to the Mi-Go, the whole plot is kind of silly so it's hard to tell what's really going on, but Akeley('s brain-in-a-jar) seems pretty jazzed about Yuggoth. As to what the Mi-Go want, if my interpretation is correct then Yuggoth's status as a mere isolated colony with some mining outposts makes the ones we've been dealing with the equivalent of backwoods space hicks.
Perhaps they want human scientists to make up for the dearth of their own technical or administrative class; maybe they value the input of a species with a genuinely alien outlook; maybe it's a weird hobby.
In any case, it takes a very particular type to have their brain removed and put in a jar, (although one gets the idea that Lovecraft, with his general horror for squishy biology, may have secretly favored the idea), so only a few have gone out and aside from a few visits home it's not clear what, if anything, they are learning that could help us.
Still - if we can survive Cthulhu, and not start a world war with the Deep Ones, and nobody opens a portal to Yog-Sothoth, and we don't ruin our own civilization, then we can probably establish proper relations with an Elder Race colony or the Mi-Go or maybe even the Yithians, and from there it's just trying to keep our eggs in many baskets.
Should be a snap
- Location
- Somewhere
The Yithians are already essentially body-jacking *space tourists*, you can play that up in a more positive way, making them overly inquisitive, and/or obsessed with trying out all sorts of different earthly foods, drinks, and other experiences.My personal take on the Mythos is that it isn't so bleak as many make it out to be. Whether due to unreliable narrators or my own reading between the lines, many of the challenges presented by the Mythos are quite surmountable.
The existence of the Mi-Go and Elder Race are proof that intelligent species can survive the cosmic fuckery and establish interstellar civilizations, and both are familiar enough that establishing regular contact with them is possible.
Ironically Cthulhu and the Mi-Go are both the result of me getting flexible due to the original stories those entities appear in being uh, frankly on the lower end of quality for Lovecraft.
Cthulhu, for all that he is hyped up by some readers as an insurmountable god, is at the end of the day a big psychic squid boi who had to go halvsies on Earth because the Elder Race fought him to a standstill - while him rising up could be devastating, it's actually possible that he could be put down with enough firepower.
As to the Cult, the Call of Cthulhu is not one of the better works (ironic considering Cthulhu's status as Mythos poster boy) and a big part of that is the Cult; racism aside, the idea that Cthulhu cares a whit for some hairless apes that picked up on his psychic emanations, or indeed that they could in anyway effect his plans or the time of his awakening, don't really square in my mind with the general themes of the Mythos. Indeed, maybe "being eaten last" is the best they could hope for.
Finally as to the Mi-Go, the whole plot is kind of silly so it's hard to tell what's really going on, but Akeley('s brain-in-a-jar) seems pretty jazzed about Yuggoth. As to what the Mi-Go want, if my interpretation is correct then Yuggoth's status as a mere isolated colony with some mining outposts makes the ones we've been dealing with the equivalent of backwoods space hicks.
Perhaps they want human scientists to make up for the dearth of their own technical or administrative class; maybe they value the input of a species with a genuinely alien outlook; maybe it's a weird hobby.
In any case, it takes a very particular type to have their brain removed and put in a jar, (although one gets the idea that Lovecraft, with his general horror for squishy biology, may have secretly favored the idea), so only a few have gone out and aside from a few visits home it's not clear what, if anything, they are learning that could help us.
Still - if we can survive Cthulhu, and not start a world war with the Deep Ones, and nobody opens a portal to Yog-Sothoth, and we don't ruin our own civilization, then we can probably establish proper relations with an Elder Race colony or the Mi-Go or maybe even the Yithians, and from there it's just trying to keep our eggs in many baskets.
Should be a snap
tankdrop24
Tread First into Hell
- Location
- The Center of the Universe: Toronto, Canada
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I mean, a lot of this supposed horror just comes from Lovecraft's turboxenophobia and existential dread at not being the center of the universe.
The horrors of the mythos would be a lot less inherently terrifying to someone who is familiar with today's view of Earth being of no particular significance, as well as general post-modernism.
The horrors of the mythos would be a lot less inherently terrifying to someone who is familiar with today's view of Earth being of no particular significance, as well as general post-modernism.
- Location
- Great Khanate of Scotland
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Agreed, I mean, sure we may be an insignificant rock tumbling through the cosmos and our existence is a mere blink of an eye, but that doesn't change the price of fish.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
They existed. They were a thing. The fetishization is problematic, but... they existed. they were a thing.
On the other hand, they generally went after soft targets when they could, and there aren't a lot of soft targets around them anymore. They'd kind of have to mellow, or someone would blow them the hellangone up, as happened historically. Only the people doing the blowing-up would be more sympathetic and less imperialistic in the aftermath when the rubble stopped bouncing.
Up to a point. The psychic demigods that casually eat civilizations and planets are pretty freakin' horrifying- but most of the other Mythos stuff just wouldn't seem that weird if it weren't being explicitly played up as horrifying.
One of Lovecraft's literary talents was taking his own frankly irrational, verging on insane, fear of the Other, and somehow putting it into words in a sufficiently fantastic context that the resulting stories could be horror stories, and not just pure unadulterated exercises in "holy shit what a racist."
John Carter is still attempting to overthrow their tyranny in a one-man facepunching campaign, isn't he... and Dejah Thoris still keeps getting kidnapped over and over...
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Asia
- Location
- Great Khanate of Scotland
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Asia
Increasingly, the balance of power in the world is turning towards Asia. With the European empires engaged in their delicate game of empire and with the United States' advance west of the Mississippi stalled by the Ghost Dance, the great powers of India, China, and the Soviet Union are coming to dominate world affairs, which they do through intrigue, espionage, and influence both formal and informal.
India is still ruled by the British, but following the relocation of the monarchy after the Martian War, the Raj has also received a large British ruling class who have partially assimilated. The English aristocracy now speak and dress more like Indians than Europeans, and have welcomed the Indian vassal princes and aristocrats into their ranks. The dominant branch of the Anglican Church in India now considers Jesus an incarnation of Vishnu, although the Raj is still plagued by Thugees and the Cthulhu Cult. Though efforts to expand into Central Asia have been met with military disaster in Afghanistan, the British Raj still encompasses Burma, Yemen, South Africa, and a constellation of other ports and islands, the greatest of which are Singapore, Macau, and Hong Kong.
Central Asia, mostly under the control of the Russians, is also the home to the hideous Plateau of Leng. Neighboring the truly ancient lands of Ulthar and Mnar, Soviet expeditions which have returned from Leng alive have brought back reports of Ghouls, Leng Spiders, the not-entirely-Human Men of Leng, and monsters like the Shantaks and Nightgaunts. In the center of the Grey Waste is the city of Kadath, said to be the home of the Great Ones, the ancient gods of Leng, and their priest, the immortal Tcho Tcho Lama Leng - the High Priest Not to Be Described.
China is divided. The Taiping Rebellion had learned from the earlier devastating Boxer Rebellion – masters of the Righteous and Harmonious Fist Arts, the Boxers had used traditional magics and martial arts techniques (including the ability to become magically bulletproof, much like the Ghost Dancers or similar abilities among African anticolonial forces) to drive European influences from China. The Taiping, a syncretic Christian religious movement led by Hong Xiuquan (who claimed to be Jesus' brother), adopted these techniques and rose up to overthrow the Qing and establish the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.
They were only partially successful; while they managed to conquer most of southern China, the Qing would ultimately be overthrown by the mad scientist and Chinese nationalist, "the Nefarious Doctor" Zheng Zu, who took control of northern China, including Korea, Manchuria, and Mongolia, establishing the "Restored Liang Empire" - better known as the Chinese Science Dictatorship. Since then, the two empires have each held half of former China, and aside from a few bloody border clashes early on and some minor skirmishes afterwards, the two have sought to compete through espionage, sabotage, and the game of foreign influence.
The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is an absolutist theocracy, ruled by the descendants of Hong Xiuquan and adhering to the "God-Worshiping Society" – Hong Xiuquan's syncretic version of Christianity. All land and industry are held by the state, men and women are considered equal (if rigorously separated – the Taiping military has female generals leading all-female battalions), and a number of new policies meant to promote modernization and proper morals have been advanced. They have blended Chinese traditional medicine with a modern health care system, all children learn martial arts as part of their public education, and their military is augmented with some of the best techniques that Chinese folk mysticism and "Exotic Science" can produce.
Meanwhile the Chinese Science Dictatorship is a technocratic monarchy, and after industrializing has increasingly devoted more of its resources towards super-science projects. The Nefarious Doctor has been kept alive for over a century through advanced science, and while he shuns Exotic Science in favor of more "applicable" fields, he has his own research projects into psychic phenomena. The Science Dictatorship has built up a massive stockpile of weapons including chemical and biological weapons, has an industrial Moreau production program, and is making advances into engineering and computers that few other nations can match. The Science Dictatorship has its own space program (in the form of craft delivered by space cannon, assisted by Cavorite alloys) and a fleet of submarines. There are even stranger reports, only hints of vast underground bunkers, programs to augment humanity using melded technology and biological engineering, and secret labs where discoveries are made in fields Man Was Not Meant to Know.
Only "internationalized" Shanghai, a minor concession won by European powers long ago, remains independent, but along with Hong Kong and Macau is one of the busiest port cities in the world. All three ports are hotspots of black-market trade and espionage, superpowered martial arts battles, mystic folk practices, and some truly strange artifacts being smuggled out of the interior of the country.
As for the rest of South and East Asia, they are in the sphere of one China or the other. Using a combination of local folk magic and foreign support, native forces were able to drive Europeans from Indonesia and the Philippines. Now the Philippines is a Christian state, aligned with the Taiping and following a form of Christianity heavily influenced by folk traditions, while Indonesia has fractured. The two largest states - the Sultanate of Gowa based out of Sulawesi and the United States of Indonesia based out of Sumatra look - towards the Science Dictatorship, although they, like many smaller Indonesian states, would welcome the influence of the Soviets or even the Raj.
The Kingdom of Siam and Dai Viet are aligned with the Chinese Science Dictatorship, while Japan, previously closed-off and aligned with the Taiping, is industrializing. They have adopted a Taiping-style martial arts program, are modernizing their military, and are experimenting with local forms of magical phenomena. The government employs a lot of ninjas, of course. They have, however, abolished the samurai class, and now out-of-work samurai may be found from India to Mexico. Tibet remains independent with the help of the Ancient Masters, martial arts practitioners whose, well, mastery has given them immortality, nigh-invulnerability, and a wide array of unthinkable mystic powers.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Hm. Sounds like the Raj is going full Peshawar Lancers (but on a higher technological base), and the Chinese Science Dictatorship actually sounds like the logical endpoint of something I came up with once. Clearly the autocrat of northern China is modeled after "Fu Manchu, but take out the racist characterization and just make him a very badass mad scientist who happens to be Chinese."
I like it.
...
Also I have some fairly specific and detailed thoughts about John Carter of Mars and the logic that motivates his background, but that might actually be something to bat back and forth with @ScottishMongol . I've read the first half of Burroughs' Barsoom novels myself and, again, I have some thoughts.
I like it.
...
Also I have some fairly specific and detailed thoughts about John Carter of Mars and the logic that motivates his background, but that might actually be something to bat back and forth with @ScottishMongol . I've read the first half of Burroughs' Barsoom novels myself and, again, I have some thoughts.
- Location
- Great Khanate of Scotland
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Yeah the Chinese Science Dictatorship is less "the Yellow Peril Incarnate" and more "Sun Yat-Sen as a Mad Scientist".
And I'd love to hear your thoughts!
- Location
- Watchung,New Jersey
When the Red Church is more orthodox than you, you are most certainly doing something very very wrong.... Would i be right to say that every other Christian denomination in the world is yelling Heresy at the top of their lungs.
- Location
- The Middle of the Howling Wilderness
noooo you can't alter your fundamental dogma to assimilate with local customs that's heresy!!!!!!
vs
haha syncretism machine goes brrrrrr
bookwyrm
Doom of Public Libraries
- Location
- Wichita, Kansas
Honestly between the endless scholarly war on which translations really capture what the ancient Sanskrit/Hebrew/Greek/Prakit/Arabic meant into contemporary English/Hindustani/Dravidian, the endless scholarly war on which if any common ground Abrahamic and Dharmic theologies share and which elements could be considered conceptually similar, and the endless scholarly war on just plain esotericism and pedantry, Jesus must be the avatar of Vishnu and/or Vishnu being the Son of the Holy Trinity to pull off the miracle of getting any kind of concrete official line out of the Church and temples to that effect.
- Location
- Watchung,New Jersey
Pah! Who needs syncretcism when you can stick to the True Holy Faith and have SUPER SCIENCE!!!!! Jesuits Rock!
- Location
- Great Khanate of Scotland
- Pronouns
- She/Her
One of the (many, many) inspirations for TTL is the way magic has been viewed historically, as inseparable from religion.
This is an "Agimat" (Talisman) Vest worn by a Filipino Revolutionary during the Philippine Revolution ca. late 1890s-early 1900s. It contains Folk-Catholic prayers in a Filipino peasant's butchered Latin, and instructional diagrams on when or where the shirt would work.
This, if you'll permit me, is magic, and a magic not quite associated with Christian orthodoxy, but there are abundant examples of practitioners of folk magic the world over and throughout history who sincerely believed they were casting spells for Christian purposes; there's numerous examples of individuals in the Early Modern Period put on trial for witchcraft whose defense was "no, your honor, I'm a good Christian witch who serves God" (or, in one case "yes I'm a werewolf, but I'm a Hound of God who transforms into a werewolf to battle demons", which uh, fucking metal).
But I digress. You can clearly see how I drew the line from the Filipino talisman vest to a magic-augmented revolt backed by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's superpowered martial artists, but really just consider, in a world where magic is real and the agents of multiple world religions seem to exist (and that's a staple of the genre - Indy may have found the Ark of the Covenant, but he also saw Kali eat a dude's heart), then who's to say what orthodoxy even is?
This is an "Agimat" (Talisman) Vest worn by a Filipino Revolutionary during the Philippine Revolution ca. late 1890s-early 1900s. It contains Folk-Catholic prayers in a Filipino peasant's butchered Latin, and instructional diagrams on when or where the shirt would work.
This, if you'll permit me, is magic, and a magic not quite associated with Christian orthodoxy, but there are abundant examples of practitioners of folk magic the world over and throughout history who sincerely believed they were casting spells for Christian purposes; there's numerous examples of individuals in the Early Modern Period put on trial for witchcraft whose defense was "no, your honor, I'm a good Christian witch who serves God" (or, in one case "yes I'm a werewolf, but I'm a Hound of God who transforms into a werewolf to battle demons", which uh, fucking metal).
But I digress. You can clearly see how I drew the line from the Filipino talisman vest to a magic-augmented revolt backed by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's superpowered martial artists, but really just consider, in a world where magic is real and the agents of multiple world religions seem to exist (and that's a staple of the genre - Indy may have found the Ark of the Covenant, but he also saw Kali eat a dude's heart), then who's to say what orthodoxy even is?
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- Location
- Watchung,New Jersey
That is fair for the rules of this setting I guess... But by the same token Id argue that a world with Magic would need someone to arbitrate Orthodoxy and truth even more than in our world, Mainly because those who use their magic for dark purposes could disguise themselves in religon. For instance, Say Im a demon? What if I feel like Dammning someone by disguising myself as a Angel, give them powers, and tell people to go burn someone alive? Of course the pressing thing I think would be the issue would be getting a truely international Repesentation in the Church Higher ups, So we don't just have one culture saying what is and what not heretical for the Universal Faith. All in all, I am very curious to see how its actually ebing debated in the Church ITTL..One of the (many, many) inspirations for TTL is the way magic has been viewed historically, as inseparable from religion.
This is an "Agimat" (Talisman) Vest worn by a Filipino Revolutionary during the Philippine Revolution ca. late 1890s-early 1900s. It contains Folk-Catholic prayers in a Filipino peasant's butchered Latin, and instructional diagrams on when or where the shirt would work.
This, if you'll permit me, is magic, and a magic not quite associated with Christian orthodoxy, but there are abundant examples of practitioners of folk magic the world over and throughout history who sincerely believed they were casting spells for Christian purposes; there's numerous examples of individuals in the Early Modern Period put on trial for witchcraft whose defense was "no, your honor, I'm a good Christian witch who serves God" (or, in one case "yes I'm a werewolf, but I'm a Hound of God who transforms into a werewolf to battle demons", which uh, fucking metal).
But I digress. You can clearly see how I drew the line from the Filipino talisman vest to a magic-augmented revolt backed by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's superpowered martial artists, but really just consider, in a world where magic is real and the agents of multiple world religions seem to exist (and that's a staple of the genre - Indy may have found the Ark of the Covenant, but he also saw Kali eat a dude's heart), then who's to say what orthodoxy even is?