Wednesday, June 22, 2011

My love/hate relationship with CthulhuTech





CthulhuTech

  The word conjures up all kinds of images in my mind & back when the book came out a couple of years ago. I was pretty much all over it & well really got into the setting looking into the ins & outs of the mythos creatures that they created & now its come to an end or will soon.  What exactly is book about?

From the back of the book:
The Last War

2085. Humanity faces extinction. Alien insects from the edge of our solar system, long hidden behind the façade of reality, descend to enslave us. Hordes of unspeakable horrors roll out from Central Asia, laying waste to anything in their path. The church of the fish-god scours the world for lost occult secrets to unleash terrible forces. Dead gods awaken and turn their dreadful eyes toward the Earth. And within hides a cancer, eating away at the very heart of the New Earth Government.

This is the Aeon War. This is the time of CthulhuTech.

Climb inside a thirty-foot tall war machine and rain down hell on the unwavering Migou. Fight tooth and nail on the front lines against the horrific beasts of the Rapine Storm. Seek out the disgusting corruption of the insidious Esoteric Order of Dagon. Explore the dark world of the malignant Chrysalis Corporation and their unseen monstrous agents. Sift through secrets long thought lost and bend the power of the cosmos to your will. Join in symbiosis with something beyond time and space and become a shape-shifting bringer of wrath.

Nowhere else will you find a setting like this.

Inside this book you will find:
• a complete history and detailed exploration of the world of the Aeon War, so that you can start a game right away.
• nine pieces of provocative short fiction to help portray the feel of the setting.
• the innovative Framewerk system. Not only cinematic, Framewerk puts control back where it belongs – in your hands.
• the option to play a hardy and resourceful 21st century Human or join the fight as a night-skinned genetically-engineered Nazzadi.
• the option to play as one of seven professions, including Arcanotechnicians, who meld technology and magic into a unique discipline, Engel Pilots, who join in communion with gigantic arcane cyborgs, Occult Scholars, who delve into the mysteries of the universe and harness its power for themselves, or the mysterious alien shape-shifting Tagers.
• a unique ritual-based magic system, simulating dark and painstaking universe channeling power, including two dozen mind-wrenching spells.
• more than 30 unique machines of death, including the bug-like Migou mecha, the rough and tumble mecha of the New Earth Government, and the monstrous bio-organic Engels.
• more than 20 unspeakable horrors, including the terrible hordes of the Rapine Storm and the monstrous servants of the Chrysalis Corporation.
• a secret history of the world for Storyguides, including an exploration of dead gods, lost races, and forgotten places.
• story starters and hooks, to get you into a game now.

CthulhuTech is a complete, self-contained storytelling game. All you need besides this book are five to ten 10-sided dice.

For Mature Audiences Only
This book is intended for mature readers. It contains dark and disturbing content and images. Reader discretion is advised.

It sounds & is sort of a blend of mechs, mythos, magic, & science fiction - the books were very well done & the world was incredibly detailed. There were 8 books with some really cool stuff in them. I read through the setting, devoured the books, & looked forward to the next ones.  Was I ever going to play these? 
Short answer is.... No 
I mined it & then some! 
I do mean minded! I ended up mining the hell out of them for some really cool ideas. The fact is that that Lovecraft horror & 
giant mecha Japanese animation, made popular by such series as RobotechNeon Genesis Evangelion, and Rahxephon.CthulhuTech in an innovative storytelling game that started out as a combination of two popular genres. The system was fine but the amount of detail left me cold.


 Here's What I Got Out Of It For My OSR game Each & everything presented in the Cthulhutech books is awesome & for a dungeon master who wants put together a mythos based space game this is the go to stuff to use. Here's what I got out of the books. 
  • Dhohanoid & Tager Characters- The concept was similiar to the Guyver & the Zoanoids. this stuff I could use.


  • The  Nazzadi looked like drow & felt like Zentraedi
  • The technology was very pretty & nice - Used most of that 
  • The psychic system was interesting 
  • The mechs were very pretty & disgusting
  • Lots & lots of hardware through out the books 
  •  a detailed exploration of the Aeon War, including the xenomixed offspring of Human-Nazzadi unions, the cult-hunting Federal Security Bureau, the questionably heroic Global Intelligence Agency, and the police of the arcane underground – the dreaded Office of Internal Security. This was useful
  •  Looked at the  Migou, & loved this but I could make the mechanics much simpler with Terminal Space 
  • Ghouls as player characters- I've got those rules from another blog. 
  • The Xenomix children born from a union between a human and a nazzadi. The social, cultural and even mystical implications of these unions are discussed at length, and the Xenomixes are all made playable races. Use The rules for Stars Without number character creation work just fine

  • The books are great sources of stuff for your science fiction campaign if you want to include another mythos option 
Now its coming to an end, sigh. Read about it Spirits of Eden Blog

4 comments:

  1. I was finally able to be a player in an investigative C-Tech game a couple of months ago, at JonCon in the Twin Cities, MN. The GM did a great job running the C-Tech system, which turned out to be pretty easy to play. The dice mechanics are fun. Tagers are creepy. Even as allies.

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  2. If you're looking for something a little harder, Wildfire will also publishes Chthonian Stars for Traveller. This setting, the setting will be transplanted into a new set of rules and re-titled "The Void."

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  3. Nice Tallgeese, I want to play but seldom get the chance. As a game master the sheer detail the writers & designers poured into the system was incredible.

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  4. Thanks School Master,the Chthonian Stars looks very cool & it seems to fill a need for a cross over product to get the The Void into folks hands. I'll be picking up Chthonian Stars in the near future. Right now I'm kind of exciting about getting an X plorers box set!

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