• Registered: 2009-10-09
  • Posts: 77

Topic: What I imagine the future holds on Carcosa.

Click here for James's blog post about Carcosa: http://lotfp.blogspot.com/2011/09/this-is-carcosa.html

In it he writes: "Carcosa has a history, and a major difference between Carcosa and most settings is that humans aren't part of the setting's history. Humans were just lab animals (hence the color coding) who experiment on each other now (the rituals) because that's what the all-powerful Snake Men did and humans now want to be all-powerful! Now humanity is free as 13 separately breeding species, making their way in a very hostile world. Will humanity rise from this barbarism to create an Age of Humanity on Carcosa, or is the story of man just going to be one of extreme cruelty on the way to being eaten by radioactive dinosaurs?"

James is right as far as he goes. But he leaves the future as a question. Of course, each referee's Carcosa will have its own, unique future. Here's how I see the long-term future of humanity on my version of Carcosa:

The high-tech artifacts of the Space Aliens are mankind's ace in the sleeve. In what is perhaps mankind's only stroke of good luck on Carcosa, the Space Alien armada that made a hard landing on Carcosa had a lot of powerful high-tech stuff that humans can easily use. Humans out-number the Space Aliens, so eventually the humans will kill all the Space Aliens and own all their stuff.

Laser cannons. Tanks. Submarines. Aircraft. Robotics. All the way up to nuclear weapons. The Old Ones and their minions will, over a long period of time, get blown away by men armed to the teeth. Most importantly, sooner or later someone is going to nuke Shub-Niggurath, and then it will all be over save for the mopping-up. Since Shub-Niggurath is the source of the vast majority of monsters on Carcosa, taking it out will put an end to the generation of new monsters.

As a fringe benefit, as Old Ones are destroyed, sorcery will ipso facto also be destroyed. That ritual that summons Nyarlathotep won't do you any good after Nyarlathotep is destroyed.

So I think humans will end-up wiping-out all other sentient things on Carcosa. Then the humans will turn their weapons on each other. Remember that skin color differences are pronounced on Carcosa. Also remember that the 13 different colors of men on Carcosa are not fertile with each other. There will be no rapprochement. It will be wars of genocide. Either one color will wipe out all the rest and then continue on, or ultimately nobody will be left standing. My instinct is the latter. So after humanity wipes out everything else on Carcosa, men will finish the job by wiping themselves out.

Nihilism at its best.

  • From: Rehovot, Israel
  • Registered: 2011-04-07
  • Posts: 81

Re: What I imagine the future holds on Carcosa.

For some reason the very idea of nuking a Great Old One to radioactive dust just doesn't feel right to me. I mean, humans should be able to banish them, disrupt one or two of their plans, kill their minions, even ward them away for a while; but, at least the way I read Lovecraft, there is no way to get rid of them forever, especially for the highly temporary and limited human mortals. Sure, you can try dropping a nuke on Shub Niggurath, but the result would probably be it coming back, this time with mutations and radioactive attacks. Oh, and I completely agree with humanity wiping itself out in the end; after all, we exist only temporarily, and we are just a tiny footnote in the history of the universe; at least this is what i think Lovecraft meant.

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  • Registered: 2009-10-09
  • Posts: 77

Re: What I imagine the future holds on Carcosa.

golan2072 wrote:

For some reason the very idea of nuking a Great Old One to radioactive dust just doesn't feel right to me. I mean, humans should be able to banish them, disrupt one or two of their plans, kill their minions, even ward them away for a while; but, at least the way I read Lovecraft, there is no way to get rid of them forever, especially for the highly temporary and limited human mortals.

That is an entirely legitimate way of looking at it. There are as many Carcosas as there are referees using Carcosa in their games. There is no One Right Way. I beg everyone to never interpret anything I write as "official" Carcosa. What I write is my opinion only! big_smile

The Lovecraftian stuff in Carcosa isn't straight Lovecraft. Rather, it's Lovecraft as seen through Derleth (and others) as seen through Lin Carter as interpreted in the AD&D Deities & Demigods Cyclopedia as viewed through my eyes, then mutated to suit my whims. Lovecraft's stories are several places removed from Carcosa!

As for Lovecraft himself, consider his novella At the Mountains of Madness. Therein Cthulhu is demoted to an individual of a species of land octopi. This alien race made war with the other alien races mentioned in the novella. And they were all susceptible to high-tech weaponry. These alien races blew the hell out of each other. I think of Carcosa's Old Ones as big, bad aliens. Not unkillable gods. Shub-Niggurath has an AC worse than a suit of chainmail and "only" 59 hit dice. And it can't move. One nuke would eradicate Shub-Niggurath or any other Old One. Or look at a Death Machine from 1st edition Gamma World. One of those could cut its way through the Carcosan monster listing like warm butter.

I included stats for the Old Ones in Carcosa with the full expectation that PCs would sometimes fight against and even sometimes slay the Old Ones.

But, to reiterate, that's only how I see it. Other referees will have their own views, which are as valid as my own.

  • Registered: 2009-10-09
  • Posts: 77

Re: What I imagine the future holds on Carcosa.

Ed Dove wrote:

Geoffrey -- about your inability to post comments on Blogger...

Have you tried signing out, clearing your browser's cookies & cache, then signing back in again BUT leaving the "Stay signed in" box UNCHECKED?

That's what I have to do to post comments on Blogger.

Hey, that worked! Thanks a million! big_smile

  • From: Los Angeles, CA
  • Registered: 2011-10-05
  • Posts: 8

Re: What I imagine the future holds on Carcosa.

I am absolutely, 100% certain that the inscrutable Fungus-Men will end up on top.

Last edited by CrusssDaddy (2011-10-05 06:01:38)

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  • From: Brighton, UK
  • Registered: 2010-08-22
  • Posts: 21

Re: What I imagine the future holds on Carcosa.

Geoffrey wrote:

So I think humans will end-up wiping-out all other sentient things on Carcosa. Then the humans will turn their weapons on each other. Remember that skin color differences are pronounced on Carcosa. Also remember that the 13 different colors of men on Carcosa are not fertile with each other. There will be no rapprochement. It will be wars of genocide. Either one color will wipe out all the rest and then continue on, or ultimately nobody will be left standing. My instinct is the latter. So after humanity wipes out everything else on Carcosa, men will finish the job by wiping themselves out.

Nihilism at its best.

HP Lovecraft wrote:

The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy.

wink

Last edited by kelvingreen (2011-11-06 19:27:42)

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