Review: Stealing Cthulhu

 

WALMSLEY, Graham, with Kenneth Hite, Gareth Hanrahan & Jason Morningstar (Jennifer Rodgers & Olli Hihnala, illus.; Harriet Evans, ed.), Stealing Cthulhu, the author, Chippenham Wilts. UK, 2011

Octavo; hardcover, with illustrated boards; 178pp. with monochrome illustrations. Minor wear; spine extremities softened; marginal notations in ink throughout. No dustwrapper as issued. Very good.

I don’t do a lot of roleplaying anymore. In other lives it was all I did, weekends, after hours, holidays. I had a regular gaming crowd and other groups available for one-offs and scratch games. Then there was the convention circuit. I wrote a bunch of adventures for all kinds of systems and genres and I learnt a lot about narrative and refereeing techniques and styles along the way. Nowadays, I don’t have a roleplaying crowd, because life has intruded far too much: what free time I have is used up by other demands and – co-ordinating with other like-minded people and finding say, three hours spare to do stuff in? – forget it. It ain’t happening. I was talking with a friend about this situation the other day and we spoke of ways in which ‘fast and dirty’ games could be generated, allowing time – if time could be allocated – to be used efficiently and with less waste. To this end he loaned me this book.

Graham Walmsley has written a textbook that attempts to tell Keepers of all levels of competency how to prepare and conduct horror games based on Lovecraft’s oeuvre. He wades through some of HPL’s best-known works and drags out the essential qualities that makes these narratives work, demonstrating how they can be re-engineered for a roleplaying format. He breaks down the construction of narrative through-put logically and systematically, covering topics such as Beginnings and Endings, Creating Narrative “Distance” (essential for building dread), and The Investigator. As he proceeds, marginal comments by Kenneth Hite et.al. are inserted into the page edges, commenting on – and sometimes forcefully disagreeing with – Walmsley’s material (where these are legible – handwriting styles vary). With this particular copy, there’s an extra bonus: Walmsley has hand-written further marginal material on the pages, addressed to my friend, a long-time correspondent and contributor to the Kickstarter campaign behind this book.

The word “stealing” in the title is a bit annoying. The author’s stated aim is that all sorts of things in Lovecraft’s works can be “stolen” for the purpose of adapting them into a roleplaying context. That’s fine, but the word gets hammered like a brand name throughout the book and it gets old very quickly. Especially when you consider that Lovecraft himself was more than open to other writers taking his concepts and having a play with them: can you steal from someone who’s giving away their stuff for free? What he’s talking about here is borrowing and adaptation, appropriation at some level. Is the loaded word “stealing” meant to imply some kind of cowboy mentality? Some sort of devil-may-care attitude, perhaps? I mean, come on, it’s roleplaying for God’s sake – we’re not getting down with the cool kids here. It was off-putting for me frankly, and I had to consciously steel myself against it before continuing.

Regardless, there’s lots to like in this book, especially if you’re interested in the narrative techniques of HPL. Walmsley breaks down many of the major works in terms of their narrative structures, highlighting what works best and what occasionally operates against the author’s intent, and giving plenty of advice about how to use these techniques in a roleplaying scenario. He discusses plot structure, word use - how to construct descriptions so that they fall into the rhythm of Lovecraft’s material - and, most of all how to turn a story from one of straight horror to one of Cosmic Horror. There are plenty of useful insights to be found here.

Conversely, there’s a somewhat formulaic approach to Lovecraft’s work taking place. Walmsley insists that Keepers not be “afraid” of HPL’s narratives and urges us to simply replay those stories where possible, recycling them for our gaming crowds much as a movie reproduces a print story, putting a personal “spin” on things. He urges us to not treat the canon as something holy, but to take those sacred cows and make hamburgers out of them. I’m afraid this is where Mr. Walmsley and I part company.

I spend a lot – a lot! – of time trying to preserve the canon and to work with it, such that nothing is lost and that all of it makes sense, even when it’s inherently contradictory. It’s a high wire act. Accordingly, when someone pairs Shoggoths with the MiGo, for example, for me they had better make a compelling case for something not supported by the published material. Walmsley doesn’t do this, by the way, but his approach to writing Mythos material certainly has the potential to let it happen. Again, this is a personal gripe which others won’t be bothered by.

In essence, Walmsley turns the bulk of the stories by Lovecraft (and Colin Wilson and Ramsey Campbell) into pared-back frames, into which a bunch of ‘plug-and-play’ tropes and other concepts can be inserted, supporting a number of thematic styles. Thus, if you want to play with concepts of ‘Time’ you run the “Shadow Out of Time” framework inserting the Great Race of Yith as antagonists; if ‘Possession’ is your theme, then your framework is the “Insects from Shaggai” and you stick in the Shan (obviously) or Yithians once more. And the MiGo apparently are our ‘go to’ guys for doing pretty much anything else. Each antagonist has its own array of features: the Lloigor have Minions; the MiGo have Technology; Flying Polyps have Elemental Control. All of these addenda are thrashed out in individual chapters but there are glaring omissions – no Ghouls, for example – although, to be fair, Walmsley clearly states that creatures not covered in the text can be built using similar critters as templates. (There are some that I found odd – my reading of the Colour out of Space is that it’s an effect, a contagion; Walmsley ascribes sentience and will to it – as a species of alien - which doesn’t seem at all appropriate to me, or supported by the text.)

The processes discussed in this book reminded me a lot of an article I read in “Dragon Magazine” way back in the 80s. In that text, the writer stated that he had no advance warning about a gaming session which he was expected to referee. The game was “Gamma World” and in desperation he turned to things that he had in his workspace: a book of old castles provided a working map and a quirky miniature of a carrot-headed creature (possibly a Flaming Carrot gaming piece?) suggested the mutants du jour. In short order – explained step-by-step - he had a game involving the penetration of the secret underground base – an ex-nuclear missile silo – of the Karit tribe (or something like that – it was a while ago!). Walmsley’s treatment of Mythos gaming here is very like this – pick one from column A, take two from Column B. It’s quite formulaic.

Walmsley also encourages Keepers to flip environments and settings, with no regard for the rationales for these things in the original stories. Thus, since “At the Mountains of Madness” is set in Antarctica, he suggests re-locating the story elsewhere – the Amazon, for example – and, accordingly, “Shadow Over Innsmouth” can be dropped easily into the heart of some desert. Now, this may be true, and as a means of brainstorming ideas for a roleplaying game it’s well-travelled ground. But it all seems a bit haphazard here: any story can be pared back to its essentials until it loses all connexion to the original version so there comes a point when you’re not really running a Lovecraft narrative, and swapping in-and-out antagonistic monsters willy-nilly smacks of computer gaming and random “Boss” generation, rather than any kind of considered roleplaying gaming structure. At its most fundamental, this system advocates stuff that is the roleplaying equivalent of the “Howard Lovecraft” animations.

(Pinning down the monsters in this way kind of robs them of their mystery too. Running an “If Deep One (or whatever) then X” protocol for each beastie in question, seems a bit overly simple. Too much like August Derleth trying to ‘explain’ everything with a single (elemental) theory. On top of this, the author states that if your various combinations don’t make sense, then just run with it – the Mythos defies rational explanation. Can you say, “cop out”? Nice try.)

Now, I get it: taking on the role of referee in any roleplaying game is daunting, especially for those who’ve never done it before, so any guide that shows you how the techniques work and makes it seem less forbidding is a good thing. This book is a valuable resource in that regard. However, in terms of narrative construction, it oversimplifies the process unnecessarily, taking a structural and mathematical approach to something that is essentially not able to be – completely – reduced to these terms. Roleplaying cannot be reduced to a bunch of computer game algorithms. I mean, it can, but who wants that? Further, the material reveals the personal peccadilloes of the author which might not have been so obvious except that the commentators have been allowed to scribble in the margins highlighting these biases. Walmsley clearly likes the MiGo, Lloigors and the Colour out of Space and there is an inordinate amount of text provided for them; comments asking where overlooked creatures – and the stories which highlighted them – have gone, only serve to underscore the shortcomings of the text. And, in a post-Trump era, I’ll bet he regrets that snide jab about Obama being a mask of Nyarlathotep too.

This is horses for courses. If you find yourself needing to come up with a “Call of Cthulhu” scenario in no time at all, then this is your first port of call. It’s incredibly useful in that regard. But wouldn’t you rather present a carefully constructed, considered story to your group, rather than just “The Whisperer in Darkness” on ice? Or “Call of Cthulhu” with Azathoth standing-in for the Big C? I know what I’d prefer.

The format of the book leaves a little to be desired also. I get it that someone thought it would be cute to have other notable roleplaying scribes doodle in the margins and make their own comments, but it’s also distracting and some of the comments don’t make a lot of sense – they’re minute and constrained by being marginal, and so some relevance gets lost. But Walmsley also works like this in the main text: there are a lot of throwaway one liners and footnotes that confuse otherwise salient points. An instance of note is how often he whacks out a footnote, or a tangential sentence, stating “this is a General rule…”; I would have preferred a list of these rules and their explication at some point in the main text, rather than having to scrabble through various afterthought insertions looking for them.

I am, frankly, in two minds about this book. It’s a solid resource for anyone who wants to write their own Call of Cthulhu roleplaying material, but it feels a bit reductionist to me and a slave to its cute design concept. If you’re interested in HPL’s writing technique, there’s a lot here to inform about his process. If you’re trying to write a computer game featuring the Mythos, then this is a solidly number-crunchy architectural overview for that project. And if you’re running or writing a roleplaying scenario, it’s a good foundation to work from, although – in terms of writing one - it’s incredibly simplified and you’ll need to finesse your stories in order to make them convincing. That being said, there’s a lot of good material here about improvisational technique, narrative engineering, refereeing tips, and the addition of colour which can be applied to any campaign, new or ongoing.

Roleplaying is many things to many people. For some it’s about mathematical probability and modelling; for others it’s about improvisational theatre; for most, it’s somewhere between these extremes. The main issue that this book has is that it assumes gaming, and the process of writing scenarios, follows a single format when it absolutely does not. Read this book: it has lots of good advice and some great insights. At some point though, your ideas of what a Mythos-based roleplaying game is, and those of the author, will diverge dramatically. Be prepared for that and you’ll still get some value from it.

Three Tentacled Horrors. And "catacomb".

Who Goes There?

CAMPBELL Jr., John W., The Thing From Another World – Cherry Tree Book no.408, Fantasy Books/Cherry Tree Novels/Kemsley Newspapers Ltd., London, nd. (c.1950s).

Octavo; paperback; 192pp. Mild wear; covers rubbed and edgeworn with some light creasing text block edges lightly toned with some spotting; light foxing to the preliminaries; original printed price on the front cover scribbled out and a new price added in ink. Very good.

In 1938, writing under a pseudonym, John W. Campbell Jr. wrote a short story which was destined to become a touchstone of 1950s Cold War drama. “Who Goes There?” (later re-published as “The Thing from Another World” or just “The Thing”) was a tale about research scientists trapped in Antarctica who discover a frozen alien creature, one that can shift its form to replicate virtually any living organism. Once it escapes confinement, the story becomes less about the discovery of an unmentionable horror, and transforms into one of infiltration, hidden danger and paranoia. It’s a very effective format and informed much of horror cinema in the years after its publication, including such films as “Invaders from Mars”, “The Bodysnatchers” and “The Blob”, all the while feeding off the real-world paranoia that tensions between Russia and the US were brewing. Inevitably it was turned into a movie itself which we will investigate below.

The print version is an interesting read. It eschews any attempt at grand guignol, in your face horror, relying instead on inference and suggestion to unfold its drama. In this way it heightens the notion that, even in a close-knit community, it’s impossible to keep track of everyone all of the time. The action tends to glide over the attacks by the monster and jump to a narrative moment afterwards when some attempt at re-grouping and evaluation takes place. Most descriptions of the creature are quite oblique. In this way it’s quite a confusing read too, and you have to work to keep track of who’s who (which is quite likely the point!).

The locale and all of the characters are established in this version: McReady our hero, biologist Blair and Copper the medic, and Commander Garry the team leader, among others. Later film iterations dispense with some of this detail, even the location at times. McReady – like many science fiction heroes of the day – is described as mythical in proportion, and there’s a clear debt to the Doc Savage novels going on with him:

“Moving from the smoke-blued background, McReady was a figure from some forgotten myth, a looming, bronze statue that held life, and walked. Six-feet-four inches he stood… And he was bronze – his great red-bronze beard, the heavy hair that matched it. The gnarled, corded hands gripping, relaxing, gripping, relaxing, on the table planks were bronze. Even the deep-sunken eyes beneath heavy brows were bronzed.”

It’s evident that they had this description firmly in mind when casting Kurt Russell as McReady in the John Carpenter film.

The decision to base the story in Antarctica is likely a derivation from Lovecraft’s “At the Mountains of Madness”, although the story is in no way a copycat version of that other narrative – it is clearly its own beast. The sense of isolation, claustrophobia and the threat of the unknown are definite hallmarks of both tales, however. The decision to use the name ‘Copper’ for one of the characters is also interesting – perhaps an homage to Basil Copper, the author of the Lovecraftian novel “The Great White Space”? All of these works begin with the idea of entering the unknown and discovering strange realities; it is only in Campbell’s story where we see the strangeness exploring as well and entering our – from its perspective - unknown reality.

The other clear debt to “Mountains” is the level of scientific exactitude that is on display here. Everything about the scientific base and the roles and duties of its occupants is laid out for the reader in almost excruciating detail. To be fair, these kinds of stories – where the location is the important ‘character X’ that finishes the cast list – do require this amount of exposition, otherwise the closed-in sense of being trapped, the limited amounts of resources and the high level of the stakes involved cannot be adequately conveyed. Lovecraft knew this; Campbell Jr. does too.

There is a lot of conversation that happens here as well. Once the nature of the Thing starts to be discerned, there’s quite a bit of theorizing and cogitation about its origins that takes place. Much of it – especially to people who generally know the deal as far as this story is concerned – is wildly off piste and fantastical but nevertheless is probably just the sort of discussion that would take place in the face of this nightmare. A thing I particularly like, and which I had overlooked on my first reading way back when, was that the creature has an active and telepathic sentience which expresses itself in the dreams of those sleeping nearby, even while it is frozen solid: this resonates highly with the sort of things Lovecraft discusses in his tales about the unbidden malevolence of the Mythos.

The reason that this tale had so great an impact is that it spoke directly to fears of Communist infiltration which were being wildly disseminated in the US at the time of its release. Communists were a real threat, it was assumed; they looked like us and they acted like us: there was no way to tell who was who. Replacing them with the symbol of the creature from an alien planet, these fears were crystallised and made manifest. The enemy was a “Red under the Bed”, as much as it was a Thing from Another World.

NYBY, Christian & Howard Hawks (Dirs.), “The Thing from Another World”, Winchester Pictures, 1951.

It was inevitable that someone would turn the story into a movie, such was its popularity. The bonus in this regard, is that it was possible to script the narrative such that it could dispense with any over-the-top special effects and boil the particulars down to an intense psychological study. Much of film noir had been taking this approach up until this time so the techniques were well-known and easily implemented. That being said however, the writer and directors decided to jettison all notions of a shapeshifting infiltrator from their script and reduced the story to a simple alien invasion premise.

In this version, the scene is set in Alaska, and the scientists are combined with some US Air Force flyboys. Tracking a magnetic anomaly in the district that’s throwing off compass readings, the group discovers what they initially think is a large meteor – it is in fact a UFO or flying saucer. They try to excavate it using thermite bombs but accidentally blow the whole thing to pieces: the only thing that they are able to recover is the body of a strange creature trapped nearby in the ice. This is entirely in line with what happens in the short story – the scientists, unable to identify the metal that the craft is made of, use too much thermite and set fire to the device, blowing it up and almost killing themselves at the same time.

Taking the ice-bound creature back to their base, they place a watch upon it whilst awaiting further instructions from military headquarters. Immediately the group fractures between the idealism of the science boffins led by Dr Carrington and the harsh practicalities of the military types. Inevitably the Thing defrosts and escapes, and it becomes a scenario of Communicate or Kill, with both sides of the equation seeking to outmanoeuvre each other in attaining their goals.

Given its 1950s roots, the ‘good guys’ in the tale inevitably turn out to be the military faction. They are all rough and ready, down-to-earth types while the scientists all come off as a bit fey and unconnected to reality. Dialogue, as is typical of this era, is quick-fire, dense and often muttered so it’s tricky to follow in places if you’re not used to the style. All the men are tough and bloke-y while the women – there are some in this version – are suitably compliant, according to the mores of the time.

The Thing’s motivation is a vampiric one – it wants blood in order to reproduce, which it does by budding like a plant. The scientists sneakily take some cuttings and propagate some seedlings but are quickly shut down by the flyboys. The group barricades itself inside, away from the horror, and devise a plan to kill it if it should enter. It does; they do; everyone cracks wry jokes and lights up their cigarettes: problem solved. For all the talk about aliens and their supposed “great wisdom” it’s all wrapped up with very little difficulty. There’s even time to foster a little romance along the way.

The film looks good and does what it sets out to do with little fanfare; it follows the plot of the story fairly didactically, although it dispenses entirely with what makes the original tale so thrilling – the paranoia and claustrophobia. There are many lingering shots of aeroplanes, and I can only assume that they were the contribution of producer/director Howard Hawks and are the main reason he gets a director credit. The movie was shot partly in Montana’s Glacier National Park and partly in a meat-packing plant in Los Angeles, so all of the scenes of ice and snow ring convincingly true.

CARPENTER, John (Dir.), “The Thing”, Universal Studios, 1982.

In this version, Carpenter puts back all of the essential elements of Campbell Jr.’s original work. The Thing is no longer just a rampaging monster to be casually electrocuted the moment it kicks down a door; here, it resumes its original conception as a shapeshifter and infiltrator. That being said though, Carpenter remains essentially faithful to the material created by Nyby and Hawks: there are constant callbacks to the first film – the title and its appearance melting into view on the screen; the explorers standing in a circle on the ice to plot the dimensions of the sunken alien craft; even the tough-guy attitude of the protagonists remains. For the most part however, he returns to the original story: we are in Antarctica once more and the familiar names – McReady, Blair, Copper, Garry - pepper the script.

The film begins with a long sequence of a helicopter chasing a dog across a wide expanse of snow. The dog runs into the Americans’ camp and the Norwegians aboard the chopper follow it, guns blazing, at which point the Yanks respond in kind, rescuing the animal and killing the Scandinavians. The dog of course is the Thing, on the loose having decimated the Norwegian settlement and its personnel. Once the dog has been welcomed inside, it’s all over bar the shouting (and screaming).

In this version, McReady is a pilot with a stupid hat, physically modelled on Campbell Jr.’s depiction, but free of the world-weariness and introspection of that prototype. He drinks heavily and takes risks and can’t tell the difference between Norwegians and Swedes. We are introduced to the other team members and their peccadilloes, and we see the tensions already in the group that will inevitably blossom forth once the Thing has had its way. Given its ‘80s roots, there’s some political incorrectness at play in the casting – the expedition cook here is black, in line with the fact that the cook was Chinese in the Nyby/Hawks film – but it’s not too egregious overall. There’s also the casual attitude to marijuana, which seems to be a hallmark of horror movies at this time (cf. Tobe Hooper’s “Poltergeist” in the same year). I was left wondering – in an environment where the largest wild creature you’d be likely to meet is either a penguin or a seal – why there were so many guns and so much alcohol lying around; but I figure, Yanks gotta Yank.

Of course, what this film is really known for is its special effects which were cutting edge at the time. There is no use of CGI here – everything is done practically and, even today, it stands up incredibly well. Much better than 2019’s “The Colour out of Space”, for instance. The scenes between the grotesque body-horror moments where everyone is trying to work out who has been affected by the creature and who hasn’t, are suitably tense and are a nice callback to the same moments in the original book. The ending is nicely equivocal too, which is quite classy.

VAN HEIJNINGEN, Matthijs (Dir.), “The Thing”, Morgan Creek Productions/Universal Pictures/Strike Entertainment, 2011.

This film, released in 2011, is posited as a prequel to the events depicted in Carpenter’s 1982 movie. It takes place almost entirely within the Norwegian camp that Kurt Russell and his cronies investigate in the earlier film and reveals where the creature came from – something that the 1951 movie shows but which Carpenter relegated to some found footage in his version. To this end, the makers of this movie spent a whole bunch of time making sure that what we see during this flick tracks more-or-less directly with what is seen in the Carpenter film. Thus, where McReady finds an axe stuck in a wall in the Norse camp, we get to see just how it came to be there. This is all fine, however it means that the film doesn’t really say anything new about the matter at hand.

Blokey-ness reigns supreme once more as we meet a bunch of slovenly Norwegian guys who drink and fart and tell filthy jokes to pass the time. Into this arrangement comes Mary Elisabeth Winstead’s character as a scientist, dropped off there by two American helicopter pilots, who are immediately forced to hang around due to the bad weather. The creature is found in the ice and taken indoors to be thawed out; it revives and goes on a rampage; yada, yada, yada. In an homage to the 1951 film, they also take the time to destroy the creature’s spacecraft with thermite charges, but deliberately this time: not by accident. With newer technologies – this time a blending of practical and CGI effects – the horror manifestations are less clunky and more seamless, but, as I said, there’s nothing really new to add to the mix. By the time the dog heads for the hills being pursued by two Norwegian guys in a helicopter, we know exactly what comes next.

This is a very well-made film and doesn’t really deserve the hate that seems to bubble up online every time it gets mentioned. It channels a bit of “Alien” and “The Predator” into its narrative mix but its only real weakness is that it doesn’t break any new ground. Fortunately, it doesn’t fall prey to the many tropes that Hollywood is prone to when it comes to sequels – ‘More is More’, or ‘The Maximising Card’, immediately spring to mind – and, in that it takes time to honour what has gone before, it stands up pretty well as far as I’m concerned. And it’s good to see some non-American actors strut their stuff for once.

(It’s interesting to note the difference in pronunciation between cultures here as well. Americans all tend to say “Ant-arctica” or “Ant-artica”, while others pronounce it “An-tarctica”. Wandering through these films really highlights the disparity!)

NUTTER, David (Dir.), “The X-Files Season One: Ice”, Ten Thirteen Productions/Twentieth Century Fox, 1993.

This episode kind of demands an inclusion in this list simply because it riffs off all the notions of the films and stories that went before it. It’s clear that the writers were deliberately channeling the source material – one of the characters who dies in the pre-credit sequence is even called “Campbell”, a clear invocation of the original author.

The story revolves around the discovery, in the Alaskan ice, of a species of alien worm that parasitizes its host, making them behave erratically in order to achieves the worm’s ultimate survival aims. Pinned down in claustrophobic proximity, the science geeks split from the government goons in a critical face-off, while a time-intensive cure is developed, and no-one knows who is infected and who isn’t. There’s even a pilot character who looks like Kurt Russell. Ultimately, the fate of the planet is resolved, and humanity is saved.

Personally, I don’t like this episode because it’s too deliberately arch and contrived. The actors have all obviously been told to dial up the drama, becoming shrill and unbearable, and in doing so, break character quite badly. Still, it pays direct homage to the source fiction as well as both previous film versions, incorporating some of the better elements from both of those iterations.

*****

This story and the themes it riffs off – paranoia, mistrust, isolation – are all good things to hang a “Call of Cthulhu” story from. In fact, there is a write up of the monster in the rule book. It’s possible to just replay one of these cinematic versions with your own team, or to set up the scenario in some other way. There are some things to keep in mind however.

The first is that these creatures are deadly – not that any “CoC” beasties aren’t – but just one of them will take a hideous toll on your group of regular players. You might wish to treat such a scenario as a one-off, with everyone rolling up some new characters. You should probably only try this with a set of experienced players as well, or a group who are quite comfortable gaming together. Issues of trust can extend further than just the imaginary world in which the action takes place.

It’s possible, as well, to play a scenario of this nature in “Live Action Roleplaying” mode, if you have a team that’s willing to dress up and go for it. There are extant gaming styles – such as “Werewolf”, where one player is a secret monster that needs to co-opt as many of the other players as possible without the non-monsters finding out – that can be adapted to this kind of story.

The other thing that needs consideration is setting. In the canon tales, the events take place in isolated and cold environments. Isolation is key for generating the kind of paranoia that makes this type of narrative work: having limited supplies and resources definitely ramps up the stakes. The other thing is that it gives the party a goal. If the monster gets free of the locale and makes its way to inhabited territory, then the fate of the world hangs in the balance – this should be the primary driving motivation for your heroes. I said “should be” but this isn’t always necessarily the case. In the canon, the inaccessibility of the Antarctic (or Alaskan) wastes forms an ideal environment; however, there’s no reason why you can’t set the story in a remote jungle, or a deep mine, or even underwater.

Temperature comes to mind too. All of these stories are set in the cold, but we’re told that the Things come from a hot planet: perhaps if they were in a climate more like their home world, they might be even nastier than they appear in these stories?

Technology is something to consider also. At the end of Campbell Jr.’s story, the Thing manages to build a nuclear fusion reactor, an alien hand weapon, and an anti-gravity jet pack out of some old soup tins and other odds-and-ends in just under a week. Taking the weapons capabilities of the Mi-Go or the Great Race of Yith as a guide, you can outfit your baddies with all kinds of nasty surprises!

Finally, there’s that telepathy. In order to work properly and to give your players some kind of advantage, you will need to think about how exactly it functions. In the rulebook, it’s listed as a skill which means that the creature must actively use the ability in order to gain information, noting that the skill level is 99% which makes it almost a fait accompli. You might wish to work it as a contested roll based on Intelligence instead, just to stop the Things from becoming virtually omniscient. The creatures’ ambient ability to ‘seed’ dreams is also a good way to feed vital clues about the situation to the party members if they seem to lose track of the scenario.

And that’s it. From the pages of early science fiction writing and the vaults of classic cinema, a solid gaming mainstay that can be brought to almost any type of horror roleplaying. Don’t forget your mittens!