Lovecraftian Horror?

[Kurshok 59]

Would Lovecraftian horror themed missions fit into the aesthetic of The Dark Mod, seeing as to how the First City in the original Thief worshipped a Cthulhu-lookalike with the name N'lahotep?

[Dragofer 1268]

TDM is quite well suited to capturing a Lovecraftian theme, owed to its light & shadows, cautious gameplay and relative ease of implementing custom effects and scripts. My Down by the Riverside was consciously inspired by a Lovecraft story, and there are most likely a few other missions too that share this theme.

Where I'd like to make a distinction, though, is between recreating the theme and actually putting his tentacle monsters into a mission. Those monsters belong to a different universe, and to me would feel as out of place in a TDM mission as i.e. a Catholic priest or an Alien.

The approach I'd endorse, therefore, would be to take the unique atmosphere of his settings and come up with something original and suited for TDM with which to populate the mission. That 'something' doesn't necessarily need to be a monster, it can also be a certain kind of human or a malevolent ghost, for instance.

 

[Kurshok 59]

I feel as if it would be okay to have SOME Lovecraftian enemies, or evidence of something Lovecraftian having been there, at least. Something to really amp up the horror aspect. Nyalathotep in Thief The Dark Mproject appeared as a statue, at least. Perhaps something like oozing green slime leading to a well, an evil looking spellbook bound in human flesh, or inbred backwoods folk doing strange rituals at ancient stone hedges that even the pagans kept away from.

[The Black Arrow 18]

I'd love to see Kurshok-alikes in The Dark Mod myself.

[Destined 581]

On 1/2/2020 at 6:59 AM, Kurshok said:

I feel as if it would be okay to have SOME Lovecraftian enemies, or evidence of something Lovecraftian having been there, at least. Something to really amp up the horror aspect. Nyalathotep in Thief The Dark Mproject appeared as a statue, at least. Perhaps something like oozing green slime leading to a well, an evil looking spellbook bound in human flesh, or inbred backwoods folk doing strange rituals at ancient stone hedges that even the pagans kept away from.

I am not sure, which statue you refer to, but I doubt that it was really meant to be a depiction of Nyalathotep, as Thief has no other examples of Lovecraftian horrors. So I think this is only coincidental. I agree with Dragofer that TDM is very well suited for glum creeping horrors and the scenarios you mentioned in the quoted post are very good examples on how to implement it wihtout having to resort to show (and as a consequence model and animate) the actual monstrosities.

I also always liked the madness/horror themes of Edgar Allen Poe. I think his stories are also quite suitable for the TDM setting.

[gokudo 8]

This sounds just like what you're after:

https://wiki.thedarkmod.com/index.php?title=Fan_Mission_Series#Thomas_Porter_series

I'm sure that I've played more with a definite Lovecraftian theme but this series of missions stands out. I'm hoping Sotha's working on the next best thing as we speak!