Making less-terrible Cthulhutech-esque RPG

[Lokathor]

Purple Arcanotech / Magic should of course be able to eat things for power, emit force fields, emit counter-force fields, shoot deadly beams, and regenerate lost limbs/armor.

[Username17]

There are humans in a lot of the galactic and terrestrial non-Union areas.

For starters, let's consider some of the extraterrestrial locations:

• There are the Borean humans. They are the descendants of humans captured as slaves and food by the Wendigos, but this being Borea I'm sure some of them have risen to positions of authority through barbarous chest beating.
• Some of the Shan Temple Ships prsumably have humans on them, and they have been hauled off to whatever planets those Shan are dominating at the moment. The Insects from Shaggai are basically the Goa'uld, so it would be weird if they didn't have human servants on distant worlds pushing giant blocks of stone around.
• The Abyssians specifically kidnaped humans for off-world breeding programs. That's where Goat Spawn originally come from. So there should probably be some people who are pure or nearly pure humans in Abyssian territory.
• The Lemurians are of course Humans exclusively (or so they believe).

And then on top of that, there are non-Union nations in the Earth-Moon system that mostly have humans in them.

• N'kai has decadent humans who are basically Melnibonians. They are cruel and on drugs most of the time, but they are definitely lower on the totem pole than the Cthonians. I think we haven't actually decided whether they are higher or lower caste than the Bolgani or Serpentfolk inhabitants.
• Leng has Tcho Tcho and Yetis. But it probably also has the Men of Leng, who are (or were) human and just happen to be Chuweros.
• R'lyeh is a nation of Deep Ones and Star Spawn. But they almost certainly also have humans and human-deep one hybrids in them.
• Sarkomand is an Underworld city that used to belong to the Tcho Tcho but is now the last holdout of the Moon Beast resistance. It still has Lengians in it, some of whom are presumably human.
• Valusia is a nation of Serpentfolk and humans. And while Serpentfolk are definitely higher class than humans, there are certainly a lot of humans there.

That's a lot of foreign realms where you could plausibly meet humans as slaves or even leaders. The Mi-Go don't have the same biochemical chirality as Earth-life, so they almost certainly don't have any humans in their cities. Humans can't eat Mi-Go food and Mi-Go can't eat human food. It's not that their tastes are different, it's that they use different proteins than Earth life and literally can't eat the stuff.

-Username17

[Ancient History]

Well, they have human brains in a nutrient solution, so the Mi-Go have to have some capability to produce human-edible glop.

[Username17]

What to do about the Mi-Go Brain Cylinders is certainly an open question. They definitely vivisect people and leave them as sentient goo inside a portable device. My thought is that they do not actually surgically remove your brain and keep it alive in a nutrient suspension, but actually tear your brain to pieces and use quantum fuckery to imprint an emulation of your brain onto a liquid state chemical computer. That way we can keep the whole "You can't eat the food on Yuggoth" and the brain cylinders at the same time.

Also, I think it's rather more horrible if the brain cylinder system kills you and creates an almost perfect copy of you. The fact that the consciousness in the brain cylinder is merely very similar to the person rather than being directly continuous really puts the identity philosophy onto shaky ground and would make the players get the heebies over it.

-Username17

[name_here]

It strikes me as unlikely the Mi-Go would be unable to synthesize human-chirality proteins if they cared to do so.

[Red_Rob]

Also, I think it's rather more horrible if the brain cylinder system kills you and creates an almost perfect copy of you. The fact that the consciousness in the brain cylinder is merely very similar to the person rather than being directly continuous really puts the identity philosophy onto shaky ground and would make the players get the heebies over it.

Sounds good. That way when the PC's get tasked with obtaining the brain cylinder of a famous scientist to help the war effort you can drop subtle hints they aren't quite the same person any more. Get the players wondering whether bringing this thing back to Union Intelligence is really such a great idea.

[icyshadowlord]

Friendly aliens, including I suppose the Elder Things, some Star Spawn of Cthulhu, the Mi-go ambassadors residence perhaps, should be into having humans as low-caste personal servants. That way, you have humans who are trained in how to be butlers to freaky aliens, and in how to cook for them:

http://www.dorkly.com/post/72502/dammit ... ng-bonkers

which, in the fashion of offices like the seneschal and chamberlain who were originally personal servants, is also a good way for humans to get their hands on some of that eldritch power.

...wait what? I thought all the Star Spawn were "evil" and such.

[DrPraetor]

They can be fairly characterized as evil. This doesn't mean they are hostile, especially as individuals.

There are deep ones in the union, who may at-the-least have cousins who cohabitate with Star Spawn. Or not? It would make sense but it might also be that anyone remotely associated with Star Spawn is automatically and fanatically dedicated to your death - I suspect they won't go that route, however.

[Username17]

Y'ha-nthlei has been in the Union for a couple hundred years in this timeline. There are of course Deep Ones who are older than that, and they remember when they were at basically perpetual secret war with the surface worlders much like R'lyeh is today. Hell, US President Coolidge order Y'ha-nthlei depth charged, and at that point in time there were shrines to Cthulhu all over the city. There are Deep Ones who remember this period, who remember training with and fighting along side Star Spawn. While relations between R'lyeh and Y'ha-nthlei have been quite strained since the Earth-Moon war (when the Moon Beasts set off a nuclear device in Y'ha-nthlei after R'lyeh declined to share dream shield technology with them, and then R'lyeh took part in the ensuing war effectively on the other side by opportunistically attacking proto-Union human nations that had made common cause with Y'ha-nthlei to fight the Moon), there are Deep Ones alive today who have family in both places or who went to school in one and live in the other. There definitely isn't a "Kill on Sight" type deal, but it's pretty close to a North Korea / South Korea type deal.

There are Union Deep Ones who are on first name basis with some Star Spawn. But the Star Spawn are still dicks.

-Username17

[SubversionArts]

Hey, here's a AnyDice script for showing the swingy distribution of dice rolls in CthulhuTech.

http://anydice.com/program/6177