Call of Cthulhu characters in a video game

Despite never having played Call of Cthulhu (I'm too self-conscious for role-playing), I do like the concept and possibilities, and often think of ways it could be translated into the realm of video games. One of the key aspects I would love to see is the character creation system. There are many games where you can create your character, but in most cases, you can still do anything any other character can do. Where I see potential in the Call of Cthulhu system is that it is random, for one, but also that one character might not be able to do something due to a trait of their's, and would hence have to find another way. As an example, say the player needed to get into a sewer. If their character has high strength (STR), they might be able to just lift up a manhole cover, whereas if their character had low strength, they would instead have to find another way in. This variation in play, based solely on character statistics fascinates me, as it's something I have never seen. I'm guessing this might exist in an RPG game somewhere, but the games I'd like to see it in are first- or third-person action/adventure games. If such a system was put in place, nearly every playthrough would be different, and would greatly increase replay value. Not only that, the multitude of necessary options would add to the interest and creativity applied to level creation.

As a demonstration of how this could effect play, I'm going to run through some possible character stat combinations...

Strength and Constitution

Strength (STR) is pretty self-explanatory and can easily be transferred to the video game medium. It's basically muscle-power, and would effect such activities as lifting, pushing, pulling, throwing, as well as hand-to-hand combat. Constitution (CON) is analogous to fitness, or stamina, from what I've read. As many games already implement, stamina determines how far you can run before becoming puffed. In Call of Cthulhu, however, it also determines a character's resistance to drowning or suffocation, as well as poisons or diseases. If a single attack takes more than half their hit points (HP), a CON roll is used to determine whether they fall unconscious from shock. CON also factors into maximum HP (averaged with Size). Imagine starting a game with a third of the hit points you had the last time you played it! It's this variability that I think computer games are sorely lacking.

As a guide of sorts, I created this little table to show the different types of characters such variation can create (as well as the chances of getting said combination):

	STR	Low	Average	High
CON		3-7	8-13	14-18
Low		Bookworm	Couch Potato	Bear
3-7		2.6%	11.0%	2.6%
Average		Lean	Average	Weekend Warrior
8-13		11.0%	45.7%	11.0%
High		Health Nut	Athlete	Gym Junkie
14-18		2.6%	11.0%	2.6%

I think each type is pretty self-explanatory, but if there's any that leave you scratching your head, just hit me up in the comments. As you can see, however, each character type would play a little differently to the others. For instance, imagine there was a door, barricaded from the other side, with only a gap of about a foot. A "Bear" might not be able to squeeze through, whereas a "Bookworm" would. To add even more variety, there is the next major trait...

Size

Size (SIZ) is said to be an average of height and weight. The manual says it determines whether a character can see over something, or how easily they can hide, but I think it would be more complicated than that. In my mind, a short, obese character could be the same size as a taller, thin one. Hence, the taller character would see over objects easier, but would probably have more trouble hiding. This disparity lead me to create another table to help me wrap my head around the concept. I listed the 95% range of real-world height and weight figures against the 8 to 18 range of the game and then averaged where they intersected. To help decipher the numbers even further, I overlaid colours representing the Body Mass Index (BMI) of each intersection. In the end, I think it came out as a pretty useful little graphic that might even be helpful to players of the RPG:

Click to enlarge

I use this table in combination with the STR and CON one. Say your character has low CON and STR. This means they would be scrawny and unfit, so probably underweight. You then find their SIZ line on this table and head to the "underweight" end (upper orange or red). Conversely, if your character is a "bear", they're going to be obese, so you would head to the dark red end of their SIZ line. Where you land then determines your character's height and weight. Make sense? If height and weight were actually realised in a game context, it would open up even more game possibilities. Imagine that a floorboard is weakened, breaking under the weight of a heavier character, dropping them into a secret room that a lighter one wouldn't have found, or a tall character being able to reach a ledge that a short one couldn't.

There are several other characteristics used in the game, but I just wanted to mention two more of them here as they are ones I don't think I've seen used in a game before:

Appearance

Appearance (APP) is obviously how attractive a character is, or whether they present themselves well. This is useful for social encounters in Call of Cthulhu, and I can imagine it would be the same in a video game. Very low APP might result in stares from NPCs, or even audible judgement from rude ones. Alternatively, high APP might result in smiles or wolf-whistles. Not only this, APP might play a part in conversation trees. If a pretty character asks for information, an NPC might be more forthcoming with information than if the character is ugly.

Education

In Call of Cthulhu, Education (EDU) is the number of years of schooling the character has, and as such, signifies the knowledge they possess. In a video game context, I imagine this as affecting the dialogue of the character more than anything. As an example, say the player discovers a book written in Russian. If their character has high EDU, they might say, "Look's like Russian," whereas a character of low EDU might respond with, "It's in some other language." Or if they find a map displaying Africa, a low EDU character might say, "Is that South America?" As with APP, it could also play into NPC conversations. A character of higher EDU might have more options, knowing different tangents to enquire about. EDU also determines the number of points a player has to distribute to Occupation Skills, which is something I'll discuss next time.

If you're still reading this, I'd just like to say thank you, and feel free to comment about anything discussed here :)

Thoughtballooning

Lately, I’ve been writing for a website called Thoughtballoons, where they pick a different comic book character every week, and anyone can write a single-page comic script for that character. I’ve been finding this very fun, and so thought I would just take a quick look back at my own pieces, to see what made them work… or not:

Spider-Man…

A favourite of mine, Spider-Man, was the first character off the blocks, which was a good place for me to start. It should be noted that the site had already featured Iron Man, Molecule Man, Mephisto, Doctor Doom, Superman, and Blonde Phantom by the time I started playing along.

Anyway, in thinking of an idea, the first thing that came to mind was his costume. Now Spider-Man’s not exactly the think-and-ponder type, so what I ended up with was a script called, “Idle Hands”, about Spidey pondering the idea of the super-hero costume… but overlaid upon a bit of trademark mischievousness.

Because I was new to the game, and thinking about it frequently, I also wrote a second script that was a cross-over with the Lovecraft Mythos, specifically, “A Shadow out of Time”. In reality, it was more the Lovecraft part I wanted to show, so the character could have been any super-hero. It just happened to be Spidey seeing as he was the star of the week.

Aquaman…

This was a hard one for me to have as only my second character because I’ve never really been much of a DC Comics fan, so I knew very little about the character. All I really knew was that he lived in the sea, so I started tossing up any ocean-related ideas I could think of.

My first instinct was to go with Lovecraft’s Deep Ones, but I didn’t want to go with just a straight-up cross-over seeing as I had already done so in my last script, so I thought I’d add in a little reality and include The Bloop… though still ended up with Cthulhu and the Deep Ones.

I wasn’t entirely happy with that effort, so I tried to come up with another idea as well. It occurred to me that Aquaman’s “jurisdiction” was actually quite big—70% of the planet in fact—so I decided to run with that. Another writer had written of in-fighting within the Justice League of America (JLA), so I also took that on board as well and wrote I piece where an angry Aquaman makes a deal with the devil so that his colleagues can “understand” his efforts. I liked it more than my first one, but only wished I knew more of the DC universe so that I could have picked a character other than Lucifer.

The Penguin…

Another DC character had me out of my element again, and I started tossing up any idea I could think of to do with penguins or umbrellas… and then my girlfriend jokingly suggested having him fight with Catwoman over a fish… so I did! I wrote a page where Catwoman brings a “fish” to the Penguin’s house and it is only revealed on the last panel that they’re referring to Aquaman. This may have been subconscious payback for being such a terrible character the week before, I’m not sure, but no matter, I was quite happy with this one.

Again, I wrote a second piece, and again it was more the gag I wanted to show than the character. It was called, “I Couldn’t Draw To Save My Life”, but as one commenter suggested, it would have suited The Joker better. I wonder if he’ll ever pop up as a character of the week?

The Punisher…

I know of the Punisher, and I do like him more than the last two characters, but I still don’t know that much about him. I know his family was killed and he’s taking it out on… well, everyone… and he has a thing for guns, but that’s about it. My first instinct when dealing with unfamiliar characters is to turn to humour—as the Penguin’s week shows—because people don’t expect continuity when they’re getting a laugh out of it.

My first idea tied with the character’s gun obsession, and I was going to write something about him having a Customer Loyalty Card at the local gun shop, but as I sat down to write it, another idea came to me which I believe was the funnier option. It was called, “Hunting Season”, and featured a scene that was clearly—subconsciously—inspired by the film, Predator.

I only wrote one script this week—probably to everyone’s relief—because I drew some art for the site.

Gamora…

Unlike the previous “unfamiliar” characters, this was one I’d straight-up never even heard of, which made things quite hard. I did a bit of research, and found out that she’s a green-skinned, barbarian-like, alien woman… and that was about it. No powers, no nothing—even harder!

Again, being well out of my comfort zone, I went for the comedy route, and wrote a piece about the only interesting feature of this character: her green skin.

Where Now?...

Hopefully we’ll get back to some characters I know of—or have at least heard of—so that I can break away from these comedy sketches I’ve been falling back on lately. Only time till tell. For now, it’s all in the hands of the Tenures…

The Horror in Clay

—Part II—

As part of an on-going effort to find an artistic medium I feel comfortable in, I have recently started sculpting, and I'm writing this series to track my progress...

And A Shape Takes Form...

So the next step from the wire armature seen in Part I was to simply encase the frame in clay. As you can see below, doing this makes it much easier to visual the end product:

From here it's time to start adding some details. I decided to start at the torso and work my way out. I don't have a very good understanding of anatomy, but I figured that working on a fantasy creature such as this, it would not matter too much if the physique was slightly off. So in this picture you can see that I've added back, neck, and shoulder muscles, as well as a spine:

I also detailed the under-side with pectoralis muscles (a.k.a. "pecs") and a rib-cage. You can also faintly see abdominals as well:

Once I was satisfied with the torso, I moved out to the arms. These turned out to be quite difficult as the clay kept twisting around the smooth wire inside it, so I'll have to find a way to counter this in the future. After the arms were as good as I could get them, I started on the head...

Because the creature is simply called The Three-Lobed Burning Eye, I wanted to make sure that I put as much detail into the head as I could, so I started with the Lovecraft-obligatory tentacles:

As you can see, I also whipped up some claws just so I had them made in advance.

And Time Goes On By...

All of the above happened in the space of 4 days back in June, but due to my re-found love of comics and writing (thanks, in part, to Thoughtballoons), my sculpting activities were put on hold...

So here I am, 6 weeks later, on holidays, and I've just decided to start back on it. I felt I at least needed to get the head finished, so in the time it took for Muse's Absolution to once again play through, I had finished off the beast's head, which now includes the titular three-lobed eye:

So now all that's left are the wings and tail...

See you in Part 3!

The Horror in Clay

—Part I—

As part of an on-going effort to find an artistic medium I feel comfortable in, I have recently started sculpting, and it occurred to me tonight that it would make a good blog topic to show my progression as I go.

Beginnings...

As a frequent browser of DeviantArt, I had come across various sculptures before, and so looking back on some I found that the most common medium was a product called Super Sculpey. My first instinct was to buy some off Amazon, but as it turned out, they cannot ship it to Australia. I'm not sure why, but nevertheless, I had to find another supplier. I found it at my local art supply, though it was $39 ($33US) for 454g (1 lb)—much more than the $25US it would have cost from Amazon!

Anyway, one night after work, with Muse's Absolution playing on my iPhone, I sat down and just started playing with a piece. By the time the album had finished (roughly an hour), I had created this:

Though obviously no masterpiece, I was quite happy with the result of this first ever sculpting attempt, and was inspired to continue.

The Next Step...

Due to my Lovecraftian proclivities, it did not take a mind-reader to know that I would be wanting to create one of his beasties as soon as possible. As shown in my previous post, I have seen many renditions before, yet one I found very few images of was the Haunter of the Dark (aka the Three-lobed Burning Eye). Coincidentally, there had been talk of this very creature on the H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast forums only recently, which only fuelled my desire to create its image. So I set about drawing a few sketches...

First was a rough isometric:

Then I did some slightly more detailed plans:

As can (hopefully) be seen, I had the creature simply "perched" on the ground. However, after a few days to stew over the idea, I realised that this pose was really very boring, and even though this is to be my first ever full sculpt, so should be fairly simple, I still felt it needed a bit more... character.

Through most of the related story, the narrator only knows of the creature due to its motions in a small room above his head, so it came to me that I should try and make it kind of low, as if stalking or listening through the floor-boards, and so I came up with this modified front-on sketch:

From this, I then drew the armature "skeleton" pose design:

It might appear slightly confusing, but they are actually the isometric, side, and top-down views of how I wanted the armature wire to look.

Which then brings me to tonight, when I got home from work and actually made the armature:

You can see in this photo that I have made one wing out in front, low to the ground, while the other is upright, supporting the weight. At the back is the arch of the body/tail, that will continue to snake along the ground (the foil is there to bulk out the body a bit as well as hold the wire together a bit tighter).

And so there you have the lead up to what will eventually become a clay sculpture of Nyarlathotep/The Haunter of the Dark/The Three-lobed Burning Eye. I hope someone out there has found this interesting and that you will keep an eye on my progress and the sculpture takes form.

See you in Part 2!

Mythos Art

As I've mentioned before, the thing that keeps me hooked on Lovecraft is actually not his stories (as I've read them all now), but their potential for being used in various other media. There are not many Lovecraftian films being made, so when they do sprout up, they are fairly easy to get a hold of and watch. This infrequency means that they do little to quench my thirst. One outlet I've discovered, however, has the regularity to make up for this: Art!

With tools such as Google Images, and sites such as DeviantArt, you can find all sorts of Mythos-related imagery. Every once and a while I do just that, and thought I would share some of my favourites with everyone. In alphabetical order, here they are:

—Beings of Ib—

Though I do like "The Doom That Came To Sarnath", I wouldn't say it was one of my favourite stories. However, this picture is particularly well-made, so won me over.

—Cthonian—

These creatures are pretty simplistic—worms with tentacles—but again, the quality of the artwork was enough for me to be impressed.

—Cthulhu—

As you can imagine, being Lovecraft's most famous creation, there are endless pictures of the ol' Cthulhu. Here are a few that I think are particularly noteworthy.

And a few scupltures:

—Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath—

These creatures, although not actually Lovecraft's creation, are probably one of my favourites. With their 3 legs, multiple mouths, and mass of tentacles, just are just so creepily cool. I have a few pics of these guys, but only one is of a decent standard. If you're a fan of the Mythos, you've more than likely seen it around.

—Dhole—

Much like the Cthonian, there is not much to this beast, but I just think this image really sells it.

—Dimensional Shambler—

This is another of my favourite creatures, not so much for how they look—wrinkled ape—but what they do. They are described in the Mythos as appearing from another dimension, abducting someone, and then returning back to their dimension, with no known reasons or motives. Creepy!

—Flying Polyp—

These creatures, from "The Shadow Out of Time", are just plain weird, and I've found that the majority of renditions look much like this one from a well-known book.

—Gug—

The Gugs are from Lovecraft's "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath" and are particularly interesting due to their split arms and vertical mouth. I've seen many pictures of them, but most are rather poorly done. This is probably the best of the lot.

There was also a cool 3D model I found I liked due to the pose and thought of it being in a computer game of some sort:

—The Haunter of the Dark—

Though not an image of the actual "haunter", I believe this image captures the essence of the story more than any I've seen.

—Mi-Go—

The Mi-Go are another favourite, again, due to their strangeness. This is probably the best (and goriest) rendition of one I've found.

—Yog-Sothoth—

One of the "Gods" of the Mythos, Yog-Sothoth is described as "only a congeries of iridescent globes, yet stupendous in its malign suggestiveness", so is pretty-much open to creative license, but these 2 images are the closest I've found to how I, personally, imagine it.

And so there you have some of my personal favourite Mythos imagery. If anyone has any of their own favourites to share, please feel free to leave a comment!

Tainted...

Early in 2008 I had the idea to create a screenplay based on H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos that wasn't like the rest. Most simply adapt Lovecraft's stories or are just horror films using various elements from them. I wanted to leave the cosmic horror behind and create a story that was more of a personal and character-based drama, though still having its roots in the Mythos. And so was born, Tainted...

Beginnings...

The screenplay began small. I wanted to write something that could be made on a shoe-string budget because I thought that some independent film-maker would be more likely to pick it up if they saw it was affordable. It had just two main cast, and only one or two supporting, and was set in only a handful of easily-found locations. There were no effects shots at all, though it did require some minor make-up effects. Everything seemed OK until I gave it to a few people to read and they had no idea why certain things were happening. It was only then that I realised I'd written it solely for Mythos-familiar Lovecraft fans. It made no sense to the rest of the world. So I decided to add a prologue.

Prologue...

I wrote a whole introductory scene for the screenplay that explained the necessary missing details, but in doing so, had added a handful of extra cast and the need for a boat, which I'm sure would pump up the budget considerably. Regardless, I handed it back out and everyone loved it... except me. I didn't like the intro. It seemed clunky and hammy. However, despite my dislike for it, I had no better ideas, so just left it. All 30 pages.

Coming Back...

It wasn't until over a year later that I came up with a new and improved intro. I'd given up on the idea of anyone ever wanting to make it, so just thought I'd create it with no considerations of budget. I was still sticking with my initial concept of a character-based drama, but I now thought I'd spice it up a little. I scrapped the whole intro and re-wrote a new one, which now included a life-sized Deep One costume! The budget was now most certainly out the door. However, I finally had an intro I was happy with. I had to make a few other minor changes for this new intro to tie-in, and in doing so, ended up changing a few scenes I also wasn't that happy with, and eventually ended up with the resulting 44-pages. Now this in itself proved a problem because short films are generally less than 30 pages and feature-length films are at least 80... so mine, with its 44 pages, was in film limbo. Despite this, I handed it back out to a few people and they all came back with very positive comments. So not only was I now happy with the new story, but it seemed everyone else was too.

Note: If you're interested in reading the screenplay at this stage of writing, it can be found here, on Google Docs.

The Director's Cut...

Despite the fact that I had resigned myself to the fact that this screenplay would never be made, it irked me that it didn't fit into a specific length category. I knew I wouldn't be able to trim it down, so I decided to aim for a feature. I didn't want to re-write the whole thing, so I drew up a timeline of events to see what I could see. It turned out that there were three rather large gaps in time that I had not included. They were alluded to in other scenes, but the "viewer" would never see them. I decided that these would be my best shot at extending the screenplay so I jotted down what would have been happening during the missing time. I've currently written in the middle gap, but have yet to finish off the other two. I'm hoping I can scrape in 80 pages once I'm through.

Synopsis...

In case anyone is reading this and is curious what the screenplay is about, I'll give a brief run-down...

16 YEARS AGO - Two men walking along a beach on their way back from a night's fishing when they stumble upon an apparently dead Deep One. They debate what to do with the creature and decide to take it home and figure it out in the morning. As you expect, the creature wakes up, killing the two men, but leaving the wife of one of the men unconscious. She wakes up in a hospital and is later informed that she in pregnant. She is elated as her and her husband had been trying to a child for some time.

CURRENT DAY - A teenage girl meets up with a boy and they walk down to a nearby abandoned church. They ring its bell for fun and then head home. On the way they discover a black goo in the water. The next day the girl is having her birthday party when she falls ill. I escalates the next night and she is rushed to hospital. She escapes the hospital however and returns to her friend who looks after her. She quickly starts changing - skin turning bluish, eyes un-blinking, teeth falling out - and runs away. The boy tracks her down to the beach where it is revealed that she has turned into a Deep One herself!

Appendix...

The teenage boy and girl in the story are the main characters and their personal tragedy provides the framework for the whole story so I just thought I'd provide a little appendix, as it were, to describe and show you how I envision these two characters if you choose to (or have already) read the linked screenplay:

Marina:

She is one of the "popular" girls at school and despite her and Charlie's differences, the fact that she has known Charlie most of her life means that they are still best of friends.

Charlie:

Charlie is a bit of a loner and knows that if he hadn't known Marina for so long, they would otherwise have not have been friends.