Thread 96758937

Honestly I'm tired of muh eldritch cults and the lovecraftian mythos in horror. No one is genuinely scared or creeped out by them. People may gloat about how much of an intellectual idea cosmic horror is; being overwhelmed by the vastness of the universe and feeling powerless, blah blah blah.

Satanic cabals, witch covens and pagan cults do give people the creeps. Voodoo dolls, human sacrifices, blood rituals, hidden groves with celtic ruins, secret societies, actual ghosts and demons instead of otherworldly beings who don't give a shit about mankind. Horns and blood scare people more than tentacles and ooze.

It’s all the same superficial shit you huge retard. Just pick the superficial shit that creeps you out the most. For me it’s Mao.

Lovecraft has been ruined by gormless basedsuckers that have no ability to stand out on their own propping Lovecraft's corpse to sell their own mediocrity, all while dumping shit on the man for being racist early in his life. It's tiresome.

Neither of those things are scary. Real world cults are scary, cartoonish fantasy ones aren't.

>>96758951

No, it's not the same. Nobody gets creeped out by those cults, but satanism and witchcraft strike a nerve.

Which Mao do you mean?

>>96758964
NTA but the most terrifying Mao to me is Mao Xinyu (pic rel).

Fat fuck got his rank by eating the competition.

>>96758937 (OP)
>Satanic cabals, witch covens and pagan cults do give people the creeps.
Not really.

>>96758964
>hey, you're not a scary cult, you worship a tentacle monster... I'm only scared of cults that worship horned monsters!
They're the same thing.

>>96758937 (OP)
Retarded. What people fear is the unknown, that which they don’t understand—and familiarity breeds contempt. If you’ve been overexposed to cosmic horror, you’re going to think it’s pedestrian precisely because you understand the genre conventions and story beats. But someone who’s overly familiar with cabals, covens, or cults—or, worse, actually knows things about Satanism, historical magic beliefs, and pagan religions—is going to find them to be pretty lackluster as far as horror goes. Bloodletting rituals weren’t exactly that uncommon, after all.

>>96758937 (OP)
>Satanic cabals, witch covens and pagan cults do give people the creeps.
Maybe old people 40 years ago but does anyone still believe in that shit today?

>>96758937 (OP)
None of those things are scary.

>>96758937 (OP)
Survival Horror is the best way to get people creeped out. Doesn't really matter what the thing you make them afraid of is. You gotta:
1. Give them limited resources and force them to make decisions with only bad outcomes
2. Provide an anchor for empathy
3. Alternate quiet/peaceful and sudden panic, but never sustain prolonged, sloggy combat
4. Foreshadow

Let your players feel like they're gonna need to use their resources. Make the resources feel precious enough that they've got to make sacrifices based on what they choose to spend them on. Food, ammo, hit points, spell slots--whatever. Using it now has to mean "ok but we're going to fail at something else, later, and the story will suffer because of it."

They've gotta have something to care about. Toss some pets, a handful of sympathetic NPCs, a magic item with limited charges, or a vehicle or something in their path. Whatever they take the bait and care about? That's the thing you gotta threaten.

Keep the threat on, but out of reach. When it hits, have a countdown timer running that disengages after X rounds. Don't let combat become a slog or it's not scary, any more. Any moment could be two more devestating rounds of combat for whatever reason. Never long enough to kill them. Never short enough to preserve all of their resources. Never long enough to let it become mechanical. Use environmental hazards.

And just some basic-ass foreshadowing so that they feel like they're learning new things. Whatever--this shouldn't be hard. It doesn't even have to be complex. There's a journal and pages fell out one at a time through a 100% linear dungeon, with a new page in each room. It can be that fuckin' simple and it'll still work.

>>96759249
I'm a card-carrying member of the Satanic Temple. We raise money to fund abortion clinics in states that try to ban it, and fight against religion in classrooms.

>>96758937 (OP)
Imagine being actually scared of things that don't exist.

>>96758951
>>96759234

They're not the same

Lovecraftian beings aren't evil, they don't follow human morality in any meaningful sense. Demons choose to be wicked.

Lovecraftian entities don't give a fuck about humanity most of the time. Demons do. A lot.

Lovecraftian entities are known to be fictional, but people still believe in demons.

Lovecraftian entities are fairly recent, folklore has centuries if not milennia of cultural baggage deply ingrained into our collective unconscious.

Lovecraftian entities are fundamentally naturalistic, they're just beyond our scope of understanding. Demons are inherently supernatural and thus they instill superstitious fear in us.

Apply that to witches or pagan cults as well. People know that horns means devil, evil and even sexual immorality, but tentacles mean "alien" or even "monster" to them... and that's it.

>>96759249
They're real alright and chances are they run your government to some extent

>>96759246
Not necessarily. A creepy neighbour, an abusive relative, known crimes, well-studied diseases, peer-pressure, bullying, sharks, ventriloquist dummies, insects and spiders... those are all familiar and people are more afraid of them than, let's say, the idea of going to Kazakhstan or any other unfamiiar country.

Sometimes you're afraid of what you already know. Not a single kid out there looks under the bed for a shoggoth, I can tell you that. They may look for clowns, though. Don't follow the reddit pop psychology theory of what horror should be like, just go towards whatever is creepy and scary.

>>96759295
>>96759229

So what scares you?

>>96759458
You aren't actually a Satanic cultist though, you cling to the Satan myth out of spite for Christians but you don't actually believe it do you?

>>96759491
Anon. The essence is the same. It’s like arguing that miracles are distinct from magic when that’s basically just arguing brand/copyright differences. It’s still a higher intelligence giving out boons and rewards. A cult is a cult. All religions are just standardized cults.

>>96759491
It literally doesn't matter the objectives of cosmic entities or demons if the cult is doing the exact same thing.

>>96759512
It's an explicitly atheist organization, correct.

>>96759458

Laveyan satanism isn't theistic; you guys don't believe in the devil. You're a hate group against American Christians.

BTW do you oppose gender perspective or critical race theory in the classroom as well? Or do you oppose indoctrination only when you disagree with it?

>>96759536
>>96759586

Magic and miracles are not the same. Miracles imply divine intervention, magic, well, that depends on your interpretation; it can be a force of nature, an entity working for you or divine intervention as well. Miracles are by definition good, magic can be bad. They both bypass the known laws of nature, but their essence is very different.

A satanic cult implies a personal enemy that wants to cause evil, demons that care about perverting humans. Eldritch gods are amoral and mostly harmless to people.

>>96758937 (OP)
Whenever I see media claiming to be Lovecraftian I immediately skip it. Reddit as fuck.

>>96759647
>Laveyan satanism
Laveyan satanism is a different group entirely. The Satanic Temple has nothing to do with them.
>You're a hate group against American Christians.
Incorrect. A political opposition group against American Evangelical political action groups. We do hate you guys, though.

>>96758964
>satanism and witchcraft strike a nerve
>t. Amerifat

>>96759491
Nigga, seek medical help. Or at least apply for disability dole, given your level of autism

>>96759647
> Magic and miracles are not the same
Well, anon. Magic and wonder are very much tied together. The word for miracle comes from a meaning for wonder.

The Jews and the Greeks saw Moses as a wizard, or a miracle worker, and they didn’t distinguish. The wizards of Egypt that Moses faced were just priests that represented their own respective gods. The wise Solomon was seen as a wizard king. The Jews in general were seen as a race of wizards, the same way the Greeks saw the Zoroastrian fire priests, or Magi, as wizards. Whether a religion considered its rites magical or not was a personal, cultural thing. They were still quite indistinguishable.

Magic and religion are punks. At the end of the day, “it’s not magic, is a miracle!”, is just a variant of “it’s not magic, it’s Magick!”. A god likely won’t see himself as a god either, and it’s the equivalent of a human treating himself as a gos to ants. It’s all stage magic logic in the end.

>>96759458
This is good advice, commendable, anon.

>inb4 old age is the real terror

>>96758937 (OP)
>Satanic cabals, witch covens and pagan cults do give people the creeps. Voodoo dolls, human sacrifices, blood rituals, hidden groves with celtic ruins, secret societies, actual ghosts and demons instead of otherworldly beings who don't give a shit about mankind. Horns and blood scare people more than tentacles and ooze.
All of these things exist within Lovecraft's style of horror and you're a retard who doesn't know what he's talking about.

>>96759715

Ok, then, so you're still a group atheists who started a movement out of hatred against American Christians. A hate group. Definition:

> A hate group is a social group that advocates and practices hatred, hostility, or violence towards members of a race, ethnicity, nation, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or any other designated sector of society.

You claim to oppose indoctrination, censorship and hate, but you do exactly the same thing, probably believing you're the "good guys" while also claiming there is no objective morality.

The difference is that Christianity, with all of its flaws, built the Western world (to a large extent) and "satanists" are dysfunctional people driven only by hatred, LARPing as witches, useful only to democratic party politicians and international plutocrats.

>>96759735
Name a single thing I got wrong

>>96759700
The worst part is that lovecraftian media doesn't GET Lovecraft.

>>96759815
Blah blah blah. I don't care that much how you want to characterize me, anon. Nor am I surprised that it's "shallowly, in accordance with your identity politics."

That's really a you problem. Do your thing.

>>96759750

No, read the Exodus. "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live". In fact, the talmud claims Jesus was a warlock and is boiling in hell, while Moses is not. So there is a distinction in Jewish culture between miracles ( Baal shem, philacteries, mezuzah and evil witchcraft.

Granted, in Western Esotericism High "magick" or ceremonial magic is godly and its goal is greater attunement and unity with the Absolute, but it's mostly a matter of semantics. The word magic can mean folk recipes, black magic, Goetia, voodoo, or even fictional systems like mana points or the one in Sanderson's novels.

>>96759815
>Name a single thing I got wrong
Ok:
They're not the same

Lovecraftian beings aren't evil, they don't follow human morality in any meaningful sense. Demons choose to be wicked.

Lovecraftian entities don't give a fuck about humanity most of the time. Demons do. A lot.

Lovecraftian entities are known to be fictional, but people still believe in demons.

Lovecraftian entities are fairly recent, folklore has centuries if not milennia of cultural baggage deply ingrained into our collective unconscious.

Lovecraftian entities are fundamentally naturalistic, they're just beyond our scope of understanding. Demons are inherently supernatural and thus they instill superstitious fear in us.

Apply that to witches or pagan cults as well. People know that horns means devil, evil and even sexual immorality, but tentacles mean "alien" or even "monster" to them... and that's it.

They're real alright and chances are they run your government to some extent

Not necessarily. A creepy neighbour, an abusive relative, known crimes, well-studied diseases, peer-pressure, bullying, sharks, ventriloquist dummies, insects and spiders... those are all familiar and people are more afraid of them than, let's say, the idea of going to Kazakhstan or any other unfamiiar country.

They may look for clowns, though.

.

Here, my Yank friend. Also grab a free (You).
And if you paid attention, you will notice I didn't just copy-paste your entire post. But 90% of it was still bullshit to farm (You)s.
I will never understand Evangelicals and their weird-ass obsessions. It's not even religiousness or devotion - those are just phobias and obsessions.
But what do I know, I'm a Catholic, so you might as well talk in Aklo to me

>>96759830

My only problem is expecting logical consistency, moral integrity and rejection of hypocrisy from a woke LARPer. Anyway, no more attention for these purple-haired fags, back to topic.

>>96759864
You copied and pasted, implying everything was wrong, such funny... care to have a single argument?

I'm a Catholic as well, idk why you assumed I am Evangelical. Catholics have been among the first to warn others about secret cabals; cults, heresies, Freemasonry, witchcraft... Learn your own culture first.

>>96759491
Only retards are afraid of clowns. If you’ve ever seen a proper clowning performance, it’s a true art form.

Place your bets whether the thread will degenerate into caths vs atheist shitflinging or "magic and wonder" semantic pilpuling.

>>96758937 (OP)
Celtic paganism and paganism in general I don’t really get the horror vibe from. Maybe it’s because I think nature and deer skulls are cool looking and not scary? I don’t like people larping as pagans but the aesthetic isn’t conducive to horror for me.
>inb4 what does?
The majority of horror isn’t really my thing (I don’t get frightened by movies, so I tend to watch horror like a snob would and judge it by its merits). That said I find the concept of things that imitate humans to be unnerving. Like for example The Thing is my favorite horror movie even if it’s not actually frightening. It just feels more like a mystery than a horror movie. Even if it doesn’t play out this way in the later half. There should be more of that within the genre. Skinwalkers or shapeshifters. Speech mimicry. That sort of thing. Especially uncanny valley stuff. Where you know something is wrong with the mimic but you can’t really describe it.

>>96759887
Nigger the Catholic Church openly denies the existence of witchcraft.
You're so full of shit.

>>96758937 (OP)
The issues with Lovecraftian Horror, are that;

>A lot of people mistake "lovecraft's horror settings" for Lovecraftian Horror.
For every "Dead Space" or "Bloodborne" you get, where the monsters are quantifiably that kind of eldritch, alien horrors, massive in power and removed entirely from the experience of mere humanity so as to be akin to gods in the outer voids of space, you get something like DnD or Pathfinder, where they make a race of funny octopus people and creatures and go "hey look, we've got lovecraftian themes here too" because tentacles are Lovecraft, right?

>Lovecraft didn't always write 'Lovecraftian' horror.
He was a great writer, but he and others in that sphere, writing in the similarly shared fantasy/alt-history setting of 'The Cthullhu mythos', were more akin to creepypasta writers than greek epicists. And while a lot of his works had subtle supernatural themes, a LOT were just scary stories with barely a hint of anything otherworldly.

>Lovecraft was a bit of a patsy.
A phenomenal writer, yes. And a remarkably learned man for someone who never traveled. But the man was genuinely scared of air conditioners, bream, vaguely surrealist (and entirely unoffensive and understimulating) paintings, and non-euclidian geometry.
He was the kind of man to genuinely be unsettled at the sight of the Sydney Opera house. And this influenced his horror writing, and his ideas, so that so much of what made his works horror, was just not going to land as utterly terrifying to people who are comfortable with seeing strange things, or going outside their comfort zone.


Actual Lovecraftian horror is pretty good. It makes you both horrified, and captivated, wanting to both see and understand the thing, and get away from it. It has scifi elements, depth, and a believability to it that 'angry obsessive stalker with a knife' or 'spooky dream demon with a smoker's cough' doesn't have.

I disagree, I find Cthulhu way scarier than Satan.

>>96759860
>immediately resorts to the bible
Of course the christ fag misses the point being made

>>96758937 (OP)
>Honestly I'm tired of muh eldritch cults and the lovecraftian mythos in horror. No one is genuinely scared or creeped out by them. People may gloat about how much of an intellectual idea cosmic horror is; being overwhelmed by the vastness of the universe and feeling powerless, blah blah blah.

I agree with you. I've felt this way ever since I was introduced to the Cthulhu mythos and I was trying to understand why it's gained such a cult following over my lifetime. I genuinely listened to all their arguments about why it's so genuinely horrific, and considered them, but I just can't get on board with it. I'm sorry, Cthulhu is just some big man-octopus to me, and so is all the minions. Wiggly squirmy things I've seen in horror movies and art for my entire lifetime - as far as I know, I never had a mental breakdown over these things.

Finally, a wise (and literally insane) man came out and gave the internet a good metaphor for my take on the Cthulhu mythos: His pet bird looking at his computer monitor as he codes, not even beginning to understand what it all means, and yet the bird doesn't panic or go insane. It just carries on being a bird.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j820vlCc03k

>>96759960
Lovecraft travelled a lot actually, never left the US, but travelled within the US quite a bit. He also wasn't afraid of any of the things you mentioned, he was a deeply curious man with a great fascination in the sciences and technology. The "air conditioning" thing always irks me in particular, that's like saying someone who wrote a story about a haunted cars is afraid of cars altogether. He was a horror writer, they're known to take mundane things and give them a horrific twist.

>>96760012
The difference is that the beings of the Mythos aren't just above our understanding, they're above our understanding AND they're aggressive, malevolent and want to, at the very least, destroy human civilization.
A more apt comparison would be him trying to taser the bird. And I think the bird would freak out if that were the case.

>>96759948
> Nigger the Catholic Church openly denies the existence of witchcraft
Because they’re afraid

>>96759960
That's fair, however any game with a DM can never truly include Lovecraftian material in its setting, because they also have to explain that stuff to make it compelling for a DM to choose, and explaining in such necessary detail makes the Lovecraftian go away.

>>96758937 (OP)
The trick in any horror is that you need to give the players something that they don't know the rules of. It is impossible for a vampire to be scary in modern fiction, because NO MATTER how strong or fast or powerful you make them, even a casual audience will know enough vampire weaknesses that they can arm themselves and feel like they can fight back/protect themselves. They become confident in their protections on holy ground, with garlic and silver and wooden stake, out in the daylight, etc. And when they are confident in their ability to fight back, it stops being horror and starts being a spooky action movie. Its the difference between Alien and Aliens: the former is a murder machine you don't know the rules of yet, the latter is just a monster you can shoot with a gun. Same creature, different context.

Lovecraftian Horror was scary in the first place because it was based explicitly on something that not only wasn't known, but couldn't be known without driving you mad. But now we take that for granted, its just part of "the rules" for it.

So you need to give your players something that they don't know the rules of. Stop putting them up against classic horror monsters they know by heart, even if you think you can "cleverly" subvert or modify them. Instead, give them something they don't recognize and don't know. They know how to deal with Cthulhu. They don't know how to deal with the fact that the stars in the sky are alive. Both are cosmic horror, but one is familiar and the other is not.

>>96760070
I mean, the Lovecraftian shit is for the players, and they don't have to read any of it.
Plus, you can just make your own spooky Lovecraft shit if you want, most Lovecraft systems give you tools to do that.

Witchcraft is a pejorative. Wizard is an honorific—the sage. Why do you think sorcery sounds so similar to heresy?

>>96759948
NTA. The Bible is a better source than the Catholic Church’s ever changing stances. The Bible mentions witchcraft and sorcery a lot. Condemnation of it specifically. My interpretation: It’s almost exclusively larping and God doesn’t approve of larpers pretending to wield power that belongs to Him. What isn’t larping is actually demonic. Demons are not omnipresent so they cannot be everywhere that witchcraft is practiced, hence why only most of it is larping.

>>96758937 (OP)
Eldritch divinities that we cannot possibly understand who reach out and touch our world from beyond the pale, flickering light of stars are just cooler and more interesting than fire, demons and demons on fire.

>>96758937 (OP)
>Honestly I'm tired of muh eldritch cults and the lovecraftian mythos in horror.
Horror is a tired genre in general. You have to want to buy in for it to work or be young enough you haven't realized tv isn't irl.
You're expressing an oversaturation and overexposure to specific variations of horror, which honestly is only a thing that happens if you read more than you play games. If its a reading thing try talking to /lit/. If its a games thing try playing those.

>>96760123
That doesn't matter. What he was talking about was how "Catholics are amongst the first to warn about witchcraft" which is objectively untrue given the fact the Catholic Church flat out denies sorcery.
>The Bible is a better source than the Catholic Church’s ever changing stances.
Lol.
Lmao even.

>>96759887
He literally pointed to you he didn't copy-paste it in the end of the post, and it's still obvious without that, too.
You really are starved for attention.
Here is the solution - go outside and touch some brass. Too late for grass, so you will have to substitute

>>96759491
you're retarded and probably a christcuck. It's all the same fake bullshit. No one cares really if the monster WANTS to rape your face or if it simply rapes your face as a byproduct of existing. Most people are in the "I wouldn't like my face raped at all" camp and thus wouldn't enjoy either one.

However in a fucking TTRPG fucking NO ONE is going to be actually "afraid" of anything beyond a very basal conceptual level. You are never going to be able to write up some flowery bullshit that actually strikes fear into the hearts of the people at your table because you're either at a table with a bunch of plastic or in front of a computer screen. If your players are getting actually afraid of anything beyond "oh my character could die rn" you're playing with a bunch of literal fucking toddlers.

Horror concepts are just fun, because the line between when something is just a neat fun idea and something soul crushingly terrifying is if it's fucking real and nothing your dealing with in a TTRPG is real.

>>96758964
Satanism is literally just secular humanism with some rituals involved made by a literal carny. Witchcraft is just hot chicks with belly rings who do tarot readings. If you are afraid of satanism and witchcraft you are incredibly lame.

>>96760070
>>96760078
There's two choices
>demystify the mythos and make it mundane
>don't explain shit and actually just make characters and players get freaked out over seemingly impossible bullshit
The problem with 1 is then it's not scary at all, and the problem with 2 is that in any game where you have access to a shotgun (or the equivalent) there needs to be a reason why the shotgun doesn't work that doesn't feel like "rocks fall everyone dies". It's rather difficult to incorporate in anything but background flavor. It works more in Call of Cthulhu since there's some decent mechanics there to interact without it being stupid, but DnD and other media don't do it as well. Largely also due to a hyperfixation with Cthulhu across media instead of using the other parts of lovecraft's ideas. A lot of the horror isn't "spooky tentacle monster comes out"

>>96760176
Wasn't modern day satanism some meme tax bullshit made by a jewish pedophile?

>>96760186
I'm gonna be honest, I wasn't even like, considering DnD or DnD derivatives when i wrote my post. to me DnD is so far removed from Lovecraftian horror in literally all ways I wasn't even thinking about it. But yeah, Lovecraft would obviously not work in that.

>>96760192
There have been a few different organizations called satanist. The good one (The Satanic Temple) is a political organization that does fund raising and events to counter christian infringement on the seperation of church and state. For instance, when Arizona created laws to make abortion functionally illegal in the state, the Satanic Temple got a religious exemption for their "abortion ritual" that allows them to mail milfepristone to women in Arizona. When Utah passed a law to allow "religious instruction" in schools, satanists immediately filed the paperwork to get approved to be those instructors. The state legislature couldn't figure out how to bar satanists without breaking the law, so they dropped the entire program. It's pretty good.

>>96760145
Well I agree with your post. Even if you wish to make fun of me. The Catholic Church is not in alignment with the Bible. His stance flat out doesn’t make sense given Bible passages that discuss witchcraft tha predate Catholicism by 1000+ years. And the Catholic Church’s stance doesn’t make sense either, (assuming that is their stance I’m taking your word for it)
“There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch.

Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.

For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord: and because of these abominations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee.”

Just one example.

>>96760203
DnD occasionally uses some Lovecraft ideas with shit like the mind flayers, but yeah it's mainly just set dressing. A lot of "Lovecraft inspired" works other than perhaps Bloodborne or a few others like it use it purely for set dressing and ignore any real horror elements of being a tiny fish in a very deep lake

>>96760214
Eh, it depends on your political alignment. To me it's somewhat cringy and while I agree with the separation of Church and state, I don't morally agree with carte blanche abortions and likewise. I won't really render moral judgment but calling themselves Satanists is a bit cringe

>>96759960
>a LOT were just scary stories with barely a hint of anything otherworldly.
Thinking of that one he wrote where a guy is terrified of a curse a wizard put on his family that all the men will die before 30, and at the end it turns out that the "wizard" was literally just breaking into their houses and killing them lmao

>>96760265
>it depends on your political alignment.
Yes I suppose. There are those of us who support the constitution and the foundational principle of the seperation of church and state that has given rise to the entire modern, western world.

And then there's people with a different "political alignment." I hear the Taliban is recruiting.

>>96759647
>find cult
>it's doing horrible things
>mutilating animals
>sacrificing children
>daubing bloody sigils on trees
>chanting naked and dancing
>worshipping a horned sculpture made of branches, flayed skin, and flowers
>their final ritual will call forth their god
>it will devour them all and gift them ascended forms
Tell me, is that a demonic cult or a cosmic entity cult?

>>96760272
No to be fair, the wizard was doing it for like, over 100 years iirc, so there was something supernatural going on with the fact he was immortal somehow.

> good one (The Satanic Temple)
…

>>96758964
Mao Zedong is a legit disciple of Nurgle. Man had colonies of lice living in his ass crack.

>>96760015
>Lovecraft travelled a lot actually
>never left the US,
Fucking yanks.
Traveled, as applied to a quality a person has, is measured in countries and cultures, not miles.

>>96760289
>>chanting naked and dancing
>>worshipping a horned sculpture made of branches, flayed skin, and flowers
Arts and crafts and music point to the paganism and demons.

>>96758937 (OP)
I'd say both of those could be scary if you are role-playing properly. Most people would be at the very least unnerved knowing they were in the same buildings as a normal dude with a normal kitchen knife out to get them to say nothing of paranormal shit with cults and monsters. People being scared while playing RPGs requires players to buy into the mood and connect with their character trying to survive a perilous situation. If you can't manage that then there will never be a subject that will scare them, at best you'll get a campy horror comedy where the just crack jokes or worse they will just be bored.

>>96760657
Turns out it's a cosmic entity, because there's no difference between those and demons, they're just different mistaken names for the same otherworldy entities.

>>96760718
Correct. The elements you use are irrelevant. The gameplay matters.

You could make a fucking animatronic robot from a fast food arcade terrifying, if you make the gameplay good. You can make a billion year-old space squid from another dimension dull, if you make the gameplay bad.

There are no elements that make a game good. There are no elements that ruin a game. The gameplay is the only thing that matters.

>>96760648
It was the 1930s man, travelling the entire US at that time would have been travelled.
And I'm no yank

>>96760729
>akchully the answer is [the opposite of what you picked]!
I'm so glad my GM doesn't touch this shithole.

>>96759994

Idiot you were the first to mention Judaism and Moses, I just gave you evidence against it using Jewish sources. Sorry, you were wrong. Deal with it.

>>96759948
Maybe the Vatican II church does, but that's the Church being occupied by its enemies and imposing cultural relativism.

>>96760076
I disagree; Jaws is scary and people know what sharks are about. Jason, The Exorcist, Freddy Krueger, The Ring, Zombies... people understand what they are and how they work, yet they're good horror.

People also understand diseases, crime, clowns, insects and public speaking, yet they can still find them terrifying. So the idea that "unknown = horror" is just reddit advice that doesn't always apply.

Uncertainty does matter, but the horror itself doesn't have to be unfamiliar. Besides, most RPG players kinda know what Cthulhu and Lovecraftian beings are.

>>96760162
Yes, I noticed that I didn't bother to read it because there were no arguments. Same as yours, just parroting the "touch grass" meme. Have a thought of your own for once in your life.

>>96760919
Just trying to show you how you're not getting that cults are just groups of people who THINK they know what they're doing is correct but are ultimately as disconnected from understanding the entity they focus on as everyone else, it's just their delusion driving them. But I guess that concept is a little beyond your reach... good luck repeatedly bopping a demon on the head with a sword in your GMs next campaign!

>>96761015
Hey, retard. Did you know that Catholic priests and bishops practiced legitimate black fucking magic and demonology in private behind closed doors? They said it was God’s authority “so it was okay”.

The Bible contains endless contradictory shit you you faggot.

>>96761015
>Maybe the Vatican II church does
Nah, "Witches aren't Real dumbass" is much older than 1962 to 1965.

>>96761015
The fear of Jaws isn't "I don't know what a shark is," the fear of Jaws is "I don't know what's under the water." The fact that you don't understand such a basic fucking thing should tell you that you're not intellectually equiped to have these kinds of conversations.

Also
>The Catholic Church isn't the *real* Catholic Church!

God I fucking hate these tradcath larpers.

>>96759860
>No, read the Exodus. "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live".
What constitutes a witch? The Witch of Endor?
>In fact, the talmud claims Jesus was a warlock and is boiling in hell, while Moses is not.
Yes, certain passages in the Talmud do describe Jesus as being in a form of hell, being punished for leading people astray. However, there is significant scholarly debate about whether these passages are referring to Jesus of Nazareth, with some scholars arguing they refer to other figures named Yeshu or are later polemical inventions, while others maintain they do in fact refer to him. Just calling Jesus a warlock is an example of how God worshipers would accuse their own of being sorcerers.
>So there is a distinction in Jewish culture between miracles ( Baal shem, philacteries, mezuzah and evil witchcraft.
It’s a grading. A movie is a movie but no two movies are the same. And the point is still remaining — There was no true difference between the wizards of Egypt that Moses faced, and himself. They both represented their respective patron deities. It’s a matter of scale, not class. A patron is a patron.

None of this is a difference. It’s just autism. Christian Mass is just high ceremonial magic, or white witchcraft, by any other name.

>>96759860
>Granted, in Western Esotericism High "magick" or ceremonial magic is godly and its goal is greater attunement and unity with the Absolute, but it's mostly a matter of semantics.

Semantics is precisely why people are dumb enough to think that miracles are somehow distinct from magic. They are not. The word Thaumaturge means as much a miracle worker as it does a magic worker.

Satanism and demonic witchcraft have been described as ‘black miracles’ before, because they are literally being given by demons, or Satan, as opposed to God. Witchcraft is just a dark form of miracles.

>>96759860
>The word magic can mean folk recipes, black magic, Goetia, voodoo, or even fictional systems like mana points or the one in Sanderson's novels

And, it can also be used to refer to miracles, or white magic… summoning angels to perform miracles on your behalf…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ars_Notoria

Voodoo actually incorporates heavy use of Catholicism.

>>96760289
That's Christianity with a few extra steps, bro.
Hell, it's first version had them running around hoisting fish above their heads. The early Christian cult was wild.

The most wizardly tradition of all in the western esoteric tradition — and the thing that led up to science, another wizardly staple - would be a le Cleric by retarded DnD standards.

Because for some reason interacting with gods, or just higher intelligences, is only associated with le Cleric.

>>96761233
*laughs in celestial warlock*
Gods have their simps, but they strike the deals with the proper parties.

>>96761215
Christianity literally started as a Jewish death cult, and people go to temples to worship a dead guy, and to partake of his blood and flesh, and if you don’t you are going to HELL for all eternity. Absolutely fucking demonic.

Christianity is indistinguishable from dark magic. Witchcraft. Hilarious how dumb fucks like >>96759860 think it’s not. I spit on them.

It’s true. The stereotypical, classic, cliche Hermeric wizard trope was about alchemy and astrology AND god working.

The true wizard is a mix of a wizard and a cleric, and also artificer.

>>96758937 (OP)
I fear the the real problem you're going to face is people that actually identify as Satan worshippers or pagans getting upset when a game portrays their religion as bad. Everybody knows Cthulhu is fake.

>>96761192
If the game book says they're different, they're different.

>>96758937 (OP)
>Satanic cabals, witch covens and pagan cults do give people the creeps. Voodoo dolls, human sacrifices, blood rituals, hidden groves with celtic ruins, secret societies, actual ghosts and demons instead of otherworldly beings who don't give a shit about mankind.
Have you ever even played call of cthuhlu before?

>>96760015
>Lovecraft travelled a lot actually, never left the US, but travelled within the US quite a bit.
That's a bit of traveling, but compare that to his locations where he writes his novels.
He wrote Call of Cthulhu based out of Dunedin in New Zealand.
Actually, given the time period, it's remarkable how he was able to write about these corners of the world he'd never been remotely near to, and got them mostly right

>He also wasn't afraid of any of the things you mentioned
Maybe 'afraid' sounds severe, but he does admit, in his own accounts, to being afraid of marine life, and was unsettled by a great many things.
He was educated enough to know his fears were phobia's, but we can unpack, not just from his story topics, but reading between the lines of his works and accounts, and from his known life path, that he was an easily unsettled man with an overactive imagination, who was, at best, uncomfortable with a lot of things that most men wouldn't give two shits about.

>>96760070
I'd say it's entirely possible to include Lovecraftian material anon.
It's just a matter of setting the tone right. You're not just pulling out his monsters, but you're telling the story of some bright young wealthy gentlemen/gentlewomen who think they're the masters of their world, exploring a 'modern' fantasy setting, and everything gets tipped on its head as they realize they're less than gnats to powerful, entirely alien creatures that only go unnoticed, because they're so massive and foreign to anything of our existence we simply can't recognize them without years of scholarship and unwitting self-training.
>>96760186
Do the second, and just say what the PC sees when the shotgun goes off.
You're DAMN RIGHT about the Lovecraftian horror not being the spooky tentacle monster.

>>96761425
No.

>>96760012

Disclaimer: I'm not here to "convert" you to anything. I don't care if you end up not liking HPL's stories. Just trying to see if I can offer you another interpretation.

The problem with the argument they presented you is that the "mythos" aren't neither particulary scary neither they are good because they are "cosmic". It's... a very lowkey interpretation of why the man is arguably the biggest figure in 1900s non-realistic fiction (and no, this doesn't mean he was the best writer).

HPL, especially, should NEVER be read by the ways of the "systematization" that COC or Deleth put on him. Don't think the usual chatgpt-like talk of "but they treat us insects, scary!" is relevant (not in small part because they often don't treat us like me or you stepping on an ant by mistake).

Lovecraft didn't write in the usual way we understand horror now: as a scary monster trying to get out the PCs. You're not here to be "scared" of the Colour, not in the way you read It to be scared of its sheanigans. Usual horror, even third rate slasher bullshit, is about us feeling in danger, projecting the protagonists' feelings of visceral fear.

HPL in his good stories... uses certainly the threat of physical danger, but that's hardly the real point: this is why in most cases actually the paper-thin PCs could actually escape.
I think the better explanation is that he was based on the conflict between contemporary knowledge (of our species being an accident of no importance, which is per se not scary) and the fact that our species can not feel that way - that we are hard-wired to think that something bigger than us is out there. Something that we chose to forgot.
It's about our minds being at the same time more open about the sublime and at the same time less than in any time in history. At the same time our universe is something that puts older religions to shame in vastness, and at the same time we can't picture it as empty as we "should" know.

Cont'd (?).

>>96761548
>It's just a matter of setting the tone right.
But that's someting you can do as a DM with your group, not something that should be done in reference material like campaign setting books or beastiaries.

>>96760186
>A lot of the horror isn't "spooky tentacle monster comes out"
This. As much as I like the game The Secret World and its first level being full-on New London tentacle/dagon stuff, the real horror is the unknowable or just the largely indescribable madness, and cannot easily be translated into media (watch the Dagon if you don't believe me, cheesy shit).
The CoC investigation I'm preparing for my table is a radio signal being broadcasted in a way that its signal is somehow evenly powerful in strength instead of tapering off, and disappearing all of a sudden at a single point in the distance. It 's captured and played even via unplugged radios, penetrates every object, even a Faraday cage, within its influence, etc.
The longer a person stays within the area where the signal resides, the darker and more hopeless they see the world, and if they can actively hear it via a radio, hallucinations start, that can eventually hurt them, even if unseen by others nearby. The stars are seen shifting from within the signal range, the shadows as if moving on their own, etc.
I am planning it to be something between the good old horror from beyond the veil of stars, a sentient living signal that has reached Earth, laid "eggs" into the psyche of people that can perceive it via the radios, and then tries to spread around by driving them insane with visions that cause them to flee as far as they can by any possible means, where the hallucinations will then "catch up", bleed them to death, and cause the skull to begin vibrating, stronger and stronger, as it pulses a new signal. It would then drive other maddened people towards it where they are also killed, amplifying the signal strength. The investigators would have to track down the source, destroy it, and follow the clues to a village where the amount of dead has reached a critical mass and begun spawning a new signal, which would then have to also be killed to end it.

Not a single tentacle in sight.

>>96761834
>the biggest figure in 1900s non-realistic fiction
Good one, anon. That's the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard anyone say about Lovecraft.

No: there is absolutely no argument that he's a more important writer than Mark Twain, Rudyard Kippling, Jules Verne or HG Wells. Flatly fucking none. Not even with the idiotic niche you just tried to invent.

Oh but that made me laugh. Lovecraft was a shitty writer with mediocre ideas who became popular again twenty years ago during the five minutes it took before we all realized that Steampunk is stupid.

>>96761834

A better way of thinking about Cthulhu is probably a pseudo-religious one. Mind you, he is difficult to "save": too meme'd, too primitive for HPL's own standard, and if you ask me too "generic". I think even Deep Ones are easier to put under a fresher light - I'd use him in games more like a symbol than anything.

Anyway. Call of Cthulhu as a story is -as many good HPL's stories- a very "religious" one at its core. The real star is the cult, which is, well, a bunch of degenerate psycopaths that are there just to have the best rave ever. A rave festooned by babies' entrails. And kinda dumb, all in all.
THAT would make them third rate villains or even bad parodies of christianity (notice that they too are there to wait for the second coming of their god). But here is the thing: they're more ancient than our species and can not be stopped. They are like puritans' witches, but we have no God to eradicate them.

And of course, they are totally right. But right about what? Because here's the thing about big C: he is the anti-apocalypse, the un-revelation. This is not about revealing anything, it's about all of it not making any sense. The trappings are all there: the Titan will escape his prison, the world will end in fire and storms, we'll be all free to experience divine bliss, but this will have if anything a non-meaning.

>>96761892
I'm NTA, I don't think HPL is the *most important non-realistic* writer, but HPL had a pretty huge influence on horror and fantasy writing long before "20 years ago," and claiming otherwise is incredibly ignorant.

>>96762005
Yes: he was briefly popular in the 60s and 70s, got a brief revival in the schlock horror of the late 80s and early 90s, and got a third revival at the time of Steampunk (not because he has fuck-all to do with Steampunk, but just because they were desperate for content).

His work has no cultural staying-power for the simple reason that he wrote so poorly.

>>96761015
Witches not being real has been canon law since the days of Charlemagne you stupid nigger.

>>96762049
>Literally keeps inspiring different groups of horror and fantasy writers though-out the last century
>But somehow this means HPL has "no staying power" because, uuuuhhhh, I don't like him!

>>96762091
I've read my complete works of Lovecraft, anon. I like him fine. But it's just redundant, over-qualified, indecicive, inconsistent, tell-not-show, vague and empty trash. The writing is just bad. It's alright to like trash, anon. What, you think we're all high minded elitists on the board for Forgotten Realms and Warhammer? Trash can be fun. You don't need to lie to yourself about it.

>>96762091

I mean, I don't like Moorcock but it's more or less like saying he's not the most important SS writer after REH.
(well, perhaps second after my boy Leiber)

>>96762101
>I like him fine. But it's just redundant, over-qualified, indecicive, inconsistent, tell-not-show, vague and empty trash. The writing is just bad.

So you don't like him but you like him. Ok.

>>96762101
Don't hurt yourself moving those goalposts anon.

Also, this is the shittiest fucking irony-poisoned brainrot nonsense.
>Lol what are you talking about anon, I read all of [author] and I like it fine, even though it's fucking horrible garbage. We all like garbage, anon, it's fine!

Nah, fuck that, I like HPL's work because it's good. I'm sorry your worldview is so completely ruined by irony that you think you aren't allowed to like things without some sort of knowing smirk, but it's a cowards way to go through life, and I hope you outgrow it.

>>96762111
>So you don't like him but you like him. Ok.
So I can read him and be honest about the quality of the writing, anon. I don't gotta blow smoke up his ass. Reading is fun. Lovecraft can be rad. That doesn't make it any good.

>>96762124
>Nah, fuck that, I like HPL's work because it's good.
If you're confused enough to think HPL wrote well, anon, you might be on the border of illiteracy.

>>96762111
Nah, Moorcock is probably second, Leiber isn't as well read anymore (which is unfortunate, I prefer him to moorcock.)

>>96760718
I think for some people it's just that the subject feels too fictional to them. My perspective on demonic cults changed when I learned that O9A and its related circles are not only very active but also have been involved in a shitload of crimes literally every single year for 5+ years now. Convinced me that there's genuinely nothing unrealistic about people in fantasy land following an evil god when people irl join edgy groups to be literally evil and disgusting for its own sake, so having a god's mandate to do it would just be the cherry on top

>>96762130
You're the fucked who was in the the Conan thread last week, aren't you? Yeah, fuck off, writing doesn't have to be just a dry recitation of facts to be "good" and you sound like an unbearable cunt. And you're still missing the point, we aren't talking about the entirely subjective quality of HPL's work, we were talking about his influence, which you have tried to say is minimal despite continually inspiring writers for the last 100 years.

>>96762127

Anon, I'm referring to the fact that you managed to say he was bad in every regard, called him trash twice, and said you like him.

Very cool on topic thread guys.

>>96760919
Yes that's what happens when you're thinking solely off vibes instead of logic, things happen unexpectedly that prove you wrong.

>>96761892
God you're a fucking faggot

>>96759860
>No, read the Exodus. "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live".

This is meaningless in determining if miracles are magic or not. It's an argument from your conclusion.

>>96762135
>Leiber
Wrote the single best depiction of vampires in all of literature.
For anyone who wants a wild fucking ride, google 'The girl with the hungry eyes'

>>96761425
That's not how that works anon, unless you're redefining in the terms (in which cases they are completely different terms) a book asserting a false premise does not make that premise true.

You can't have a book say "2+2=3" and therefore say 2+2=3 is a true statement

>>96761015
>Maybe the Vatican II church does, but that's the Church being occupied by its enemies and imposing cultural relativism.

If you're catholic it's literally impossible for this premise to be true. You are a protestant that is too cowardly to admit it. The church is not an earthly organization that can be subverted by man. To say it is so is to claim that the machinations of man are stronger than God.

>>96760012
>Terry Davis fag is retarded
Shocking

>>96760123
> The Bible is a better source than the Catholic Church’s ever changing stances.

Unless you're catholic dumbass. That's like saying god's older words come before his most recent ones, may as well reject the new testament at that point.

>>96762255
If you want to know what Christianity is, the Bible is what you should read. Front to back. Attending mass and performing rituals specific to a particular sect will not give you understanding of Christianity.

>>96758937 (OP)
The point of cosmic horror is the sudden realisation that you mean absolutely nothing, that you are not even an amoeba and the human race is prey at best and meaningless at worst, that the entire universe is just a nonsensical game played by retarded gods for no reason at all. Only redditors think it is 'muh tentacles'

>>96760648
>Euro thinks he's worldly because he took a ten minute bus ride

>>96762293
>just skip theology, bro

>>96760176
>literally just secular humanism
You think we're stupid?

>>96761250
>I spit on them.
Who could be behind this post?

>>96760289
>This many posts and no reply with "Jews."
Goy, are you doing ok?

>>96762883
I think you, in particular, are a stupid person, if you think "le satanists" are anything other than ironic goths.

>>96763135
I've seen enough to know that they are more than just that.

>>96761015
>I disagree; Jaws is scary and people know what sharks are about.

Don't confuse horror with slasher. They are only superficially similar.

>>96763152
No you haven't.

>>96763152
Seriously, you're a schizo, but this highlights a greater issue. You're attempting to attribute evil to some kind of mysterious, malignant outgroup, which is fucking stupid. I hate this shit when one side or the other tries to claim "oh, all the pedophiles are [whichever political affiliation you're not.]" That leaves you weak as shit, because you're assuming all the wolves only exist in your opponents camp, and you stop looking in your own. Shitty people insulate themselves into hierarchies and then insulate themselves with the cause. Blaming all evil on "those guys over there" leaves open to corruption from within, and it happens over and over again.

There aren't satanists in the sense you're saying.. "Satan" as a concept is fuckin' Christian propaganda anyway. There are fucked people who drape themselves in the iconography of """"satanism""" the same way that they drape themselves in the iconography of Catholicism, or Capitalism, or Paganism, or Hedonism or fucking Stoicism. But the organized groups of """"Satanists""" are mostly secular,vor downright atheist, humanists who might do some rituals but mostly do political outreach, as the anon earlier in the thread said. If you think there are cabals of satanists sacrificing babies to mammon or whatever, you need to get a grip, get off the Internet, and go do literally anything else.

>what the fuck, someone typed words!?
>On a message board!?

>>96758937 (OP)
>Satanic cabals, witch covens and pagan cults do give people the creeps. Voodoo dolls, human sacrifices, blood rituals, hidden groves with celtic ruins, secret societies, actual ghosts and demons

Lovecraft has literally ALL of that, you fucking retard. Read his stories.

People who dislike Lovecraft are always faggot nerds who learned about it secondhand and discovered all of the "lore" of the gods by reading wiki articles instead of experiencing the stories firsthand with no knowledge.

No shit it isn't interesting to you, you basically learned who the killer was in a Poirot story before reading it.

>>96758937 (OP)
Trying to present your subjective opinion as fact only makes you look like a retard. I do actually find the vastness of the universe extremely unsettling.

>>96761583
Yes.
>>96762225
It is how it works.

If a game defines two close or synonymous terms as different things, they're different things.
You'd know this if you ever played a tabletop game.

>>96762195
There's no logic, just you being a contrarian cunt.
Thank god that actual players will never be exposed to your smarmy bitchiness you think is clever.

>>96758937 (OP)
"Pagan bad" is a boring trope, and honestly a stupid one that only makes the bible-thumpers happy.
Instead, go for "local divinity corrupted" or "genius loci, kept pacified by pagan ritual, goes on a revenge tour because the local church killed the people doing the pacification rituals." That's far more intellectually nourishing, wouldn't you agree?

>>96763823
That’s a very small nipple

>>96759491
This just shows how little you know about lovecraftian entities AND pagan entities combined.

Good lord, you're a special kind of fuckin midwit aren't you?

Lovecraftian entities are essentially just concepts or archetypes which are fully independent from humanity; things like Void, Eternity, Abyss, or Expanse. It isn't just the fear of the unknown, but the aspect of crossing a threshold too early.

Lovecraftian horror is essentially a form of horror that involves something that is just out of reach of human scope which is why it is always applicable. It is the people mining in ancient times, as individuals digging deeper becomes sick; their skin sloughing off and bleeding from every orifice. They call it a form of cursed mine when nowadays we would call it a uranium mine.
Lovecraftian horror is finding a relic or artifact on the moon which proves that there was somehow life before humanity, then being left only with the questions of "why they are gone" and "why they were here?" It is the fundamental, existential proof that we are not only not alone, but not the top of the local cosmic food chain. It's recognition that the Great Sea does indeed have larger fish and, for some reason, their jaws haven't fixated on people yet.

Your insistent push on "witches" and "paganism" sounds more like you somehow believe curses are real. Because
>Oh no! Evil witch caused the dead to rise!
Is somehow far more creepy than something that goes far beyond the playground of earth and life/death.

Pathetic sort.
Also, fuck your reddit-spacing bullshit. I thought your types were supposed to be fedora-tipping atheists?

>>96758937 (OP)
>Satanic cabals, witch covens and pagan cults do give people the creeps

ITT: WASP suburban mom gets on le forchong.

>>96758937 (OP)
It's 2025
"Satanic panic" is so 90's.

>>96763734
But anon, I learned about Lovecraft secondhand and learned all the "lore" from youtube videos before reading him, and after sitting down and actually reading him he's one of my favorite authors.

>>96758937 (OP)
The problem is most people don't know HOW to do Lovecraftian horror well. They just copy a bunch of troupes and think that would work and often makes the cults and monsters feel like a Sat. Morning Cartoon villain then something you read in a good lovecraftian horror.

>>96759491
>this unknowable interdimensional entity of cosmic proportions that could tear my soul apart and scatter me across time and space isn't scary... I'm more scared of a muscly dude with red skin and horns because he's intentionally le mean to me
I get it now, you're 12 and still dealing with school bullies.

>>96764989
And Lovecraft is so 20s... I don't get your point.

>>96764962
> Lovecraftian entities are essentially just concepts or archetypes which are fully independent from humanity; things like Void, Eternity, Abyss, or Expanse.

Not a single one of them is. Where did you even get that from? What is scary about "not being at the top of the food chain" in space and hwo does that translate into gaming at the table? Witches, demons and pagan cults with minor deities are localized insidious threats as opposed to cosmic entities who most of the time mind their own business.

>>96763823
Good luck playing that

>>96763734
I did read AND play Lovecraft. I just grew tired of the reddit meme of the eldritch cult and the cosmic entities. Demons are creepier.


You all criticize the fedora atheists but playing a game with creepy demons is suddenly being a religious fanatic... Just go back to the subreddit that you're of the mods of and make a long post abut how psychological cosmic horror is. I know it doesn't scare anyone.

>>96765709
>You all criticize the fedora atheists but playing a game with creepy demons is suddenly being a religious fanatic...
Didn’t you say you were catholic? The entire premise of this thread is that you think demons are scary because you think they’re real.

>>96765709
>Good luck playing that
This applies to all horror.

>>96758959
You reminded of a video from a Spanish-faggot YouTuber

>>96765709
>What is scary about "not being at the top of the food chain" in space and hwo does that translate into gaming at the table? Witches, demons and pagan cults with minor deities are localized insidious threats as opposed to cosmic entities who most of the time mind their own business.
Just because the deities of the Mythos don't care about humans doesn't mean humans can't run into them and be immensely harmed in their wake.
Hell, one of the two starter scenarios the Call of Cthulhu rulebook gives you directly involves a Great Old One, Gla'aki, who makes an appearance at the scenario's end point and can start swatting the player characters down like bugs. And, I mean, the original "The Call of Cthulhu" story itself ends with a chase scene as sailors flee an awakening Cthulhu lest he crush them to death or feast on them as his morning snack.
A problem with a lot of pastiches of Lovecraft's works is that they're afraid to use the gods or involve them, which just isn't Lovecraftian. In the original works, the gods showed up or interacted with the characters all the time. They just largely didn't care, acting out their grander, more terrible functions, and the harm they cause is simply because they're too powerful and beyond us to want to be careful about us. A wayward flick of their wrist can destroy our entire civilization and they wouldn't notice.

>>96760097
It's actually the opposite. The "-ard" suffix is used to denote lesser or debased forms of the root. To understand the true meaning of "wizard," imagine an Italian mobster in the 1950s calling a hapless simp a "wise guy" before fitting them with cement shoes and throwing them into the East Bay.

>>96766705
> A problem with a lot of pastiches of Lovecraft's works is that they're afraid to use the gods or involve them, which just isn't Lovecraftian. In the original works, the gods showed up or interacted with the characters all the time.
Or look to REH where you still had these alien monstrosities from the beyond who still held sway over ancient civilizations, and had secret cults, and were the cause of superstitious dread, but could still be SWOR’D.

Blows my mind how people think there’s a difference between a cult and a religion.

>>96759458
>I'm a card-carrying member of the Satanic Temple. We raise money to fund abortion clinics in states that try to ban it, and fight against religion in classrooms.
Translation: I'm a cringe loser who gets a kick out of facilitating the murder of babies.

>>96766989
>facilitating the murder of babies.
What race are they?

>>96759948
The Catholic Church is also against the Death Penalty since Pope Francis changed the Catechism but that doesn't change the fact that God explicitly condones and calls for the death penalty all throughout the Bible. A good Catholic ignores everything said since the election of John XXIII. The last true Pope was Pius XII.

>>96767054
You’re a LARPer

>>96761250
Talmudic Judiasm is literally a Christian Heresy you stupid fucking heeb.

>>96763252
If you are all atheists then why bother with the rituals?
Checkmate Satanist

>>96767052
They are Satanists, I have a feeling the babies are White.

>>96767061
Because I consider the Bible a higher authority for God's will than the Vicar of Rome. You would be wise to do likewise, otherwise you won't be saved.

>>96767157
Yes, that’s exactly why you’re a LARPer, protestant.

>>96767177
If you consider any man to be a higher authority than scripture then you aren't even Christian.

Holy autism

>>96767054
That's not even close to relevant, and the Catholic Church has denied witchcraft since like, the 10th century.

>>96761015
Witch obsession is an uniquely prottie thing.
Church allowed that only once - during counter-reformation. They very quickly backpedaled out of it. But for the most of its existence, if someone said "this is a witch", the reaction was "YOU are a heretic for claiming such things".

>>96764775
>If a game defines two close or synonymous terms as different things, they're different things.

You're misinterpreting my post anon, if you call something "magic" in your game but it's a different definition you're just creating a new concept and using an old word for it. "Magic" in your game might mean something different but that has impact on this conversation because we're talking about Magic not "Magic"

>>96767123
Same reason why university graduates wear those silly hats.

>>96764787
>There's no logic,

You can't form a logical argument unless you're arguing it applies to all relevant cases. Your post contains no such argument and even if it did, the argument that only satanic or pagan cults can in engage in arts and crafts and revelry is retarded

>>96767255
Context of the game is the only worthwhile topic of discussion.
Any gameless arguing about semantics belongs to /his/ where failed novel writers belong.

>>96762293
>If you want to know what Christianity is, the Bible is what you should read. Front to back. Attending mass and performing rituals specific to a particular sect will not give you understanding of Christianity.

>implying you have ever actually read the Bible.

If you did and believe in Jesus as the son of god you would now that his teachings come before all others and supplanted the old testament entirely instead of trying to dig out random out of context quotes you don't even understand.

>>96767192
Cool, but that makes you not catholic ffs

>>96761015
idk about that man I stopped being debilitatingly afraid of insects and arachnids after reading about them obsessively for a month

>>96767303
>Context of the game is the only worthwhile topic of discussion.

Game concepts are just things that are in the context of a single game anon, especially when they're pulled from real life concepts.


>Any gameless arguing about semantics

Arguing that magic can mean whatever you want it to and therefore miracles aren't magic by redefining it is arguing semantics anon.

>>96767310
If that makes me not Catholic, that makes Catholics fundamentally not Christian.

>>96767205
Dumb Rin poster

>>96767358
Yes, it’s been a debate for 500 years.

>>96767255
>we're talking about Magic not "Magic"
The latter is the more magical. Go ahead and trademark something as magic. Go right ahead. But don’t be mad when something even more magical shows up. Something more bewildering and more incomprehensible and more ridiculous.

Magic has always been “magic”. It has always been a punking game. “It’s not magic, it’s a miracle!” is a variation of “it’s not magic, it’s Magick!”.

Even science retains the same essence of wizardry. It just uses different words.

>>96767416
A slave to a book. Kek. Forced to interpret a book of bullshit. Kek. Priests were just politicians by any other name.

>>96767437
You're either a faggot or a kike.

>>96767459
And you’re definitely a LARPer.

>>96767416
AI is notoriously wrong, but it certainly sounds like the Pope is higher than scripture, if they're reliant on his interpretation of it.

>>96767507
But the Pope can still err even according to the Catholic Doctrine of Papal Infallibility and in this case, he isn't interpreting anything, he is just straight up ignoring, which definitely falls under the defintion of erring.

>>96767493
Cool, whatever you say. Enjoy your Marxist Popes and your eternity forever barred from the Kingdom of Heaven because you followed Wolves in Sheep's Clothing. Something Christ specifically told you to watch out for. It's all right there in the Gospels, all you have to do is read the damn thing.

>>96767416
>posting Google ai results

Thanks for confirming you have no idea what you're talking about nor have the ability to actually think at all.

>>96767635
Are you claiming the AI response is wrong?
Yeah, I thought not.

>>96767538
>Catholic Doctrine of Papal Infallibility

Literally says that on the topic of offical religous and moral doctrine that the pope and ecumenical councils can not be wrong. It just doesn't cover personal and informal speech and action.

Maybe if you actually knew anything about Catholicism you wouldn't have to depend on an ai to get your answers for you.

>>96767459
>calls others kikes
>worships a dead jew
?

>>96767680
>Are you claiming the AI response is wrong?
Yeah, I thought not.

It is wrong you dumbass and it contradicts itself within its response. The pope is highest interpreter of the Bible and as a result is the highest authority. It doesn't matter if the Bible is technically above him if his interpretation comes before anyone else's.

You are not putting the Bible before the pope, you're claiming that your interpretation of the Bible comes before the pope's.

>>96767690
Sure buddy, sure
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2006/09/how-infallible-is-the-pope.html

>>96767708
There are certain parts of scripture that aren't open to interpretation dipshit because they are written in plain language.
>Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God made he man
Not open to interpretation, therefore if the Pope/Church claims that the Death Penalty is wrong they are in err regardless of doctrinal infallibility.

>>96760289
That's got Shub-Niggurath cultist written all over it.

>>96760289
>Flowers
Cosmic entity cult. Demons hate all things of beauty for they are the work of the creator whom they despise.
The really easy difference to deliniate the two is 'Cosmic Horror entities don't give too much of a shit either way unless you do something to piss them off. Demons have a personal malice towards you for you are one of Gods favourites.'
As such one can have all sorts of symbology while the other will always focus on inversion and corruption.

It's the difference between the rando government employee who misfiles your taxes and whoops there goes your house vs the edgy teenage sociopath who murders his entire family because Daddy loved his brother more than him.

One is uncaring, the other cares very, very much just in the other direction and is pathetically desperate for you to know it if you think about it.

>>96767573
>muh marx muh fags muh antipope muh vatican ii
You 100% converted through vaporwave statue posts on X

>>96767896
Did you just forget that /pol/ exists?

>>96767341
There's no arguing.
Either you accept the definitions provided by the game rulebook or you're just a sad tosser masturbating in a corner.

>>96767928
4chan isn’t the purveyor of internet culture anymore h4pm8

>>96767928
Isn't /pol/ anti-christian? Because jesus is jewish or whatever.

>>96766813
>It's actually the opposite
In the sense that it goes both ways? Sure. A witch can be an honorific title as much as an insult. It’s the same with wizards, except wizard is now associated with experience and prestige. Magic has always been a pejorative since humans hate empowering the unknown. But there is a positive side to it, too.

>>96768032
In and around the early 2010s it was pretty pro-christian. You have always had the "kike on a stick" retards but during that time they were the minority.

>>96766705

Lovecraftian entities are often impersonal and seem to mind their own business. Lovecraftian horror is often introspective, about realizations on the nature of the universe. Other monsters are biological like Deep ones or Nightgaunts, Byakhees, Shoggoths, Elder Things, Mi Go... you could reasonably fight them with automatic weapons.

Demons on the other hand are evil, personal, local, direct threats. And there is a possibility of beating them, as opposed to an overwhelming cosmic threat humanity can't do much about, which makes the story more interesting since there is hope and the chance you might either win or lose.

If you wanna go into existential threats, think of hell. The devil is wicked and personally invested in leading humanity astray, as opposed to Yog Sothoth or Azathoth who couldn't even care less about humanity (assuming they're even conscious and caring, which is not the case for Azathoth afaik).

Besides, demons, witchcraft and paganism have roots in the collective psyche of Western culture; if you were raised aChristian, regardless of denomination, you were probably afraid of those things to some extent when you were a kid. Cults, movies, urban legends ,subliminal message paranoia, you name it.

>Demons
Interesting comparison I came across recently.
Lucifer is effectively AM from 'I have no mouth and I must scream'
Think about it.

>>96768068
No it wasn’t. Christianity didn’t become a meme until Christ-Chan deus vult posting against ISIS and then it continued to just be a reactionary LARP against what was perceived as being reddit leftists. None of it was sincere and still isn’t which is why “Christianity” has been reduced to seething about trannies and jews.

>>96765798

I mentioned other forms of horros which I know are fictional and are great. see >>96761015 . Demons aren't scary because they're real. They're scary because they're scary.


IIT a bunch of reddit atheists who think everyone who has the slightest religious belief has to be a religious fanatic because le church bad

>>96768053
I hear you on that; the meaning of wizard has totally flipped from the origin. But I'm an autistic literature major who loves etymologies and wanted to throw some fun stuff into an otherwise semi-hostile discussion.

>>96760657
>Not recognising an altar to Shub-niggurath
I shiggy diggurath

>>96768134
Fuck off and neck yourself, seriously

>>96768540
MIGA tourist mad

>>96767538
It sounds like the beginning of another denomination. Either the Pope is the interpreter of scripture and his view of it is entirely accurate (which can include ignoring whatever he likes by treating it as poetic or analogy), OR he is fallible and thus not the highest authority to interpret scripture. You can't really do both, and thus is born a schism.

>>96768094
>rampant AI that slaughters all of humanity after they create it VS a supposedly fallen angel that rebelled against God for refusing to submit to humans and now is trapped in Hell and tempts mortals into sin
Sounds like one of those brainlet attempts at making a comparison that isn't there. Same sort of shit you see when YouTube randomly chucks a stupid video your way like "Why Sonic is actually Christian symbology" or "Ed, Edd, and Eddy: A True Afterlife", and it's some toddler describing their latest half-finished brainfart like it's the deepest thing going (excluding their mother's ass, of course).

>>96768705
I've been visiting this board since you were in diapers and can remember when it was actually halfway decent.

>>96768816
More in that; both are important, petulant, helpless creatures trapped by their creator/the nature of their being and take out their resentment on the helpless as it's the only tiny act of weenie hut spite they have left to engage in. They're complete losers who didn't think through what they were doing and created their own hell only to not self-reflect and instead opt to pull others into it with them.

>>96768831
>actually half way decent
Which was a stark difference to what it is now with brain dead CHRUST IS KANG posts by Brazilians spamming infographics about how Anglo Saxons are the lost tribe of Israelites. Christcels made /pol/ worse.

>>96767987
We were never referring to the terms defined by a rulebook anon.

And demands about semantics isn't better than arguing them

>>96768882
Brother we are on /tg/. I was talking about /tg/ not /pol/

>>96768901
Pardon my sperging

>>96767747
>There are certain parts of scripture that aren't open to interpretation dipshit because they are written in plain language.

You reading a page and understanding what the words are saying is an interpretation dipshit.

>pulls out another quote devoid of context

>Not open to interpretation, therefore if the Pope/Church claims that the Death Penalty is wrong they are in err regardless of doctrinal infallibility.

Assuming your premise It would be a contradiction that would make the entirety of the church illogical not simply mean that popes can be wrong. Of course the Bible also contains many contradictions, so I suppose if you wanted to stay consistent you shouldn't be trusting the Bible either.

>>96767713
> "The principle of papal infallibility doesn’t mean that the bishop of Rome can’t commit a sin or say the wrong thing. It refers only to a very specific situation—when the pope is making a solemn decree ex cathedra (or “from the seat”) on a matter of faith or morals."

Your source that you spent 5 mins googling agrees with me anon.

>>96768873
But neither case is true, though. Lucifer opposed humans being put above angels, and was cast out for rebelling, he didn't make his own prison. AM didn't create his hell either, his creation by us drove him mad with hatred, and he won by wiping out all except for that final guy to torture forever, he got what he wanted.

>>96767360
That's not Rin, you uncultured swine

>>96768890
>We were never referring to the terms defined by a rulebook anon.
Because you're a bunch of rejects from /his/ and if jannies actually did their job, you wouldn't shit up the board dedicated to traditional games.

Shit, Americans are retarded.

>>96770009
This is a truism

>>96768153
>IIT
Oh, okay. You're just retarded.

>>96768068
You would know.

>>96769254
>Because you're a bunch of rejects from /his/ and if jannies actually did their job, you wouldn't shit up the board dedicated to traditional games.

Anon games don't exist in vacuum, they exist in context to the things they're based on, how magic is viewed irl is unavoidably linked with how it is viewed in games.

>>96759491
>chances are they run your government to some extent
Jews are many things but they aren't actual satanists or witches, just greedy shits.

>>96759249
Nah today it's skinwalkers or other "humans that arent human" monsters that freak people out the most

>>96773117
>Nah today it's skinwalkers or other "humans that arent human" monsters that freak people out the most
Mostly because the problems that most people run into these days are other people.

Very few of us are hanging out in the wolf pits, but quite a lot of us have to put up with the inane bullshit of the bored office sociopath.

>>96759715
>A political opposition group against American Evangelical political action groups
NTA but this makes you as much a Satanic cultist as much as neopaganistic nu-druidism makes you a "burns people alive in a wooden statue" druid

>>96760648
American states are unironically more different from eachother than EU countries, especially since the mudslime tsunami

>>96758937 (OP)
Real satanic groups aren't scary because of le scary demons because everyone knows they're fictional, they're scary because there exists a possibility a bunch of seemingly innocuous weirdos will kidnap and murder you due to a group delusion

>>96760289
Well now we get into the semantics of what counts as a demon, cus those niggas are a nature cult

>>96773207
And there's the rub. The point is that cults are just a semantic organisation that reveres an entity, they're putting their human perspective on things that aren't human. They could call it a god, others might say demon, still more might say cosmic being, and so on. It's like a religious version of the old adage "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter".

So when OP implied one is scarier than the other, he's simply confused.

>>96761892
>absolutely no argument that he's a more important writer than [a bunch of industry plants]
Haha yeah

>>96763252
>If you think there are cabals of satanists sacrificing babies to mammon or whatever, you need to get a grip
This literally happens all the time in the third world

>>96760648
Not a yank but the difference between California and Texas is a larger difference between myself and a Fr*nch'man'.
While the Frog may be disgusting on a spiritual level he is, after all, still human, just a very flawed and smelly one.
The German though, I take no responsibility for, the only comparable Californian is Zuckerberg.

>>96766950
>but could still be SWOR’D
Cthulhu canonically jobs to a boat driving into him.
Kinda makes sense, these are supposed to be creatures living their existence. Like a wild animal, they aren't gonna just stand there and fight to the death.

>>96767123
They're "performative rituals". A powerless self-indulgence at best, a disgusting waste of time and resources just to say "fuck you Christians" to themselves at worst

>>96773288
The boat didn’t do shit to Cthulhu. Nowhere in the original story is it suggested that it harmed him at all and, at most, all it did was allow the sailors to get away while his form regenerated.
What beat Cthulhu was R’lyeh sinking again. Turns out the stars weren’t righting enough for him to get away from his prison.
>For an instant the ship was befouled by an acrid and blinding green cloud, and then there was only a venomous seething astern; where—God in heaven!—the scattered plasticity of that nameless sky-spawn was nebulously recombining in its hateful original form, whilst its distance widened every second as the Alert gained impetus from its mounting steam.
Later on…
>Cthulhu still lives, too, I suppose, again in that chasm of stone which has shielded him since the sun was young. His accursed city is sunken once more, for the Vigilant sailed over the spot after the April storm; but his ministers on earth still bellow and prance and slay around idol-capped monoliths in lonely places. He must have been trapped by the sinking whilst within his black abyss, or else the world would by now be screaming with fright and frenzy.

>>96773169
>t. never left his county, not to mention state, not to mention country

>>96758937 (OP)

Alright, so I want to have a CoC scenario where the PCs attend a party at the mansion of their insane Classics professor. So far I have:
>Prof and his cult wear creepy Greek theatre masks
>Hedge maze with an axe-wielding student dressed like a minotaur running around
>Archaeologists working for the professor recovered the brazen bull and he wants to put someone inside it to test it out
>Creepy statue of Atē, personification of the madness the gods send upon us before they destroy us
>Maybe the sacrifices are to keep Typhon banished beneath the earth

Any other ideas? Most of the characters wouldn't be too combat-y but I'm curious about protective invocations and deities to call on(Athena seems like the coolest and most relatable of the Olympians). Or maybe there's some old hoplite spearhead or something that could be pressed into service.

> Christianity literally started as a Jewish death cult, and people go to temples to worship a dead guy, and to partake of his blood and flesh, and if you don’t you are going to HELL for all eternity. Absolutely fucking demonic.

He’s right you know. I laugh when people say “no it’s different!” when it’s just not…

>>96773948
God is a bigger dick than Satan and I’m tired of pretending otherwise.

>>96758937 (OP)
You might like Sigil & Shadow. It is great for street level and medium stakes horror, and would not really scale well to anything grander anyways. It is practically just a toolkit and mechanics without setting, but really easy to run.

>>96773169
>the absolute state of ameritards..

>>96773975
the jewish god is truly an evil piece of shit. the christians washed him a lot but they still cant get under the shadow of the jew degeneracy that birthed their religion

>>96767308
>I bet you haven’t read the Bible
I have.
>His teachings come before all others
Sure. A common misconception however is that many believe he cancels what came before. He does not. His teachings are not a contradiction of what came before. He fulfills our impossible task. The error of the Pharisees was that they performed the rituals and followed the laws (mostly), but hardened their hearts. They exploited people and made it impossible to see YHWY. They could only see men’s complicated ritual. And their greatest crime was that they were supposed to bring people closer to God. They were supposed to be teachers. All men fail but Christ. There are no works, no good deeds we could do to be saved. Only the purest lamb’s blood could atone our sins. And because Christ’s blood paid for our sins of past, present and future, no other other ritual sacrifice will be done again in accordance with God’s will. Only Jesus Christ. We were given the opportunity to save ourselves. That was the Old Testament. But we sin and fail. That’s why legalism is looked down upon. Our good deeds are like filthy rags before The Lord

>>96762703
You should form your own independent opinions of the Bible. Discuss it with others. Learn from others. But read it for yourself. Form your own opinion on it. You don’t need to go to a class to understand Christianity. It’s written in a language you can read.

>>96775871
I misspelled YHWH which makes me look silly but the point stands

>>96773948
>>96773975
>>96775711
It's because it basically started out as tribal propaganda. Jewish tribes were getting so dominated by everyone else that they basically did the equivalent of a teenage loser and wrote a cringy story of how they're so much better than the other tribes, and how the other tribes deserved what they did to them. Made up a whole self-pitying backstory of being slaves in Egypt as well, all the better to paint themselves as tragic victims just doing what they have to.

Then they realised they could get together and murder smaller tribes, which they did. And every time they did, they spread their propaganda about their god being so much better than other gods, in fact they're not even gods, they're just demons, there's only one god and it's theirs. They got pretty good and genocide as well, they did horrific things to achieve their goals.

All the while, their propaganda grew in size. They added new parts depending on their conquests, they added other parts for specific moments and then claimed those parts had always been there, sometimes they had to cover up or change parts they had before. Problem was that their morality was always skewed, so found it difficult to get tone and messaging right in their propaganda. They didn't realise much of what they wrote made them out to be violent savages.

Which is why the Old Testament is so uncomfortable for Christians. It contains all of that insanity, as filtered as could possibly be to try to make it palatable, and yet it's still filled with evil and spite. A lot gets ignored or brushed off as analogy, but the underlying reason it's there is because it was made by a group with truly malicious intentions. Even the New Testament falls foul of this at times, and includes insane things simply out of familiarity with the insane things in the Old Testament. Then Islam decided to come along and add a third chapter to this Abrahamic monstrosity, with much the same purpose as Judaic scripture did.

>>96758937 (OP)
The horror needs to be tangible and act in opposition to a baseline and I think that's hard in gameplay, since we don't want the game to end.
I think lovecraftian stuff can work great, if you have more average adventures leading up to it, so it truly feels different in gameplay as well. The problem is also training your players to not just try to kill everything, because then it feels unfair if it's like normal dnd(or whatever) for a month or two, and then they feel like they lost their character instantly when you put some eldritch stuff in there.

>>96759491
I seriously don't get the heat you're getting with this post. I wholeheartedly agree and its why folk horror is getting a resurgence.

>>96776366
>whole thread of people clearly explaining why he's wrong
>"I seriously don't get the heat you're getting with this post."

>>96776388
most of "the thread" seems to be autistic dude having bitchfits about christians when the thread is supposed to be about folk horror in the thread.
Like I read about a third of the thread by the point I made that post and most of the opposition to the post was "you're retarded", "CHRISTCHUD", and the only one that actually tried to make any point at all which is that "actually both demons and lovecrafts are magic and so are therefore the same thing" which I just plain disagree with. Some lovecraft stories have aspects of folk horror, but its also its own thing.

>>96776417
You're obviously new here, but you're supposed to just ignore the autists and bots posting tangential bullshit, and read the actual thread.

>>96758937 (OP)
Well OP, if you want more inspiration, I know this book series is out there. The first has a mixed reception but I hear the second is pretty good.
>>96776536
unfortunately I am not new here, but I often times forget how bad it has gotten.

>>96773305
That's just sad honestly. I think it would be less cringe for them to actually believe they were summoning the devil.

Watch the first season of true detective and you'll realize how wrong you are.

>>96773806
>t. was born and will die in the same city, possibly in the same apartment complex, maybe even in the same apartment.

>>96760214
Watch out, we got the amazing atheist in our midst.

>>96758937 (OP)
>pagan cults do give people the creeps
Nigger, insult my ancestors one more time and see what happens.
I'm still salty about that Oak, you fucking inbred thought crime cultists.

>>96760272
>>96760292
The wizard literally spent centuries living in their basement, in a tower that was burnt out at some point and never repaired, and waiting to kill their descendants every thirty years. That creature incarnated an amount of salt that is simply unfathomable to a mere mortal.
It's one of the most hilarious things I have read and it really endeared me to Lovecraft. He's got a good sense of humor.

>>96759918
fuck clowns

Cults are fun. You just need to know when to leave, before the koolaid comes out.

>>96781109
the first season of true detective makes it seem like lovecraftian horror but it turns out to be folk horror. If anything that supports OPs point.
Though honestly, True detective kinda shows that there can be a cross-over. Even if I think that the Yellow King in his Chambers rendition is way spookier than his lovecraftian rendition.

>>96786355
True detective absolutely ends on a lovecraftian note. The altar to the king, Rust's "hallucination" in Carcosa, the final conversation about the stars they share, it's definitely meant to be cosmic. The first thing we see is folk horror, and the average viewer who has no idea who the king in yellow actually is will still see folk horror up until the very end.

>>96781109

I did and I loved it. It is a Lovecraftian cult, sure. The horror is in the cult, not in the "gods" themselves. It has a folk, rural aesthetic as well and you might as well replace the lovecraftian elements with celtic paganism or satanism and you'll even have acreepier one. People react more viscerally to a satanic cult than a fictional one centered around beings that may be very well considered scifi (aliens, interdimensional beings)

>>96773825
You'd have better luck posting here:
>>96428273

>>96773825

OP here. Wow that's very interesting. Can I contact you so we can play, share ideas or to get more info on that campaign so I can run it myself? I have lots of background on Greek mythology and Lovecraft, maybe we could work something out.

Check out the mystery schools in general (Pythagorean, Eleusinian, Orphic, etc.)for more on secret societies in Ancient Greece.

>>96788318
>People react more viscerally to a satanic cult than a fictional one centered around beings that may be very well considered scifi (aliens, interdimensional beings)
I just inherently disagree, demons and paganism are not scary at all to me.

>>96788897
NTA but I don’t find the aesthetic frightening. Which is about as deep as anyone actually takes it in modern times. I love nature and I go hunting and fishing and deer sculls and twisted branches are cool. Sculptures made from these things are cool. Modern pagans are just larpers mostly. And anyone who isn’t larping probably has a room temperature IQ

>>96788318
Demons are genuinely the least frightening thing to anyone who isn't a superstitious nonce. Your friend suddenly getting black eyes and talking in a deep voice about profanity against the taboos of some evangelical fag while some goat legged nigger tries to seduce your woman so you lose faith in a Jewish zombie isn't frightening. A slithering tentacle brushing against your leg in a spooky forest, which is quickly revealed to be attached to a mound of wriggling tentacles and mewling mouths, is fucking horrifying. Demons are gay if you aren't a Christo.

>>96790780
>t. demon

>>96790803
>t. Superstitious nonce

>>96790829
t. always accuses the other of what you are

>>96758937 (OP)
go to the wierd AI threads and collect fear videos
post them on public widescreens
see what happens.

>>96758937 (OP)
I don't find Lovecraft's work all that creepy so much as fun ideas and snappy reads, and of course most Lovecraft-derived work these days misses what was good about his stuff by a mile.

However, The King in Yellow is legitimately pretty creepy and unsettling, as well as very melancholy

>>96758937 (OP)
https://i.4cdn.org/wsg/1760789063188764.webm
https://i.4cdn.org/gif/1760846742436334.mp4

>>96790780

So being afraid of a demon of wrong because demons are not real... but being afraid of an admittedly fictional entity is totally ok...

Admit it, you just hate Christianity because you're a leftist. And there's more to Christianity that the evangelical sects in America, get out of your bubble you're not the center of the world.


My point still stands:

> ITT: a bunch of reddit atheists who think everyone who has the slightest religious belief has to be a religious fanatic because le church bad

>>96791599
* So being afraid of a demon if wrong

Just a typo

>>96791599
>Admit it, you just hate Christianity because you're a leftist
No, I hate Christianity because I am right wing and Christianity is a foreign jewish religion made to subvert the European spirit and turn us into dogs, duh.

>>96791599

>>96791669 is right, there is more to the right wing than shitty American christ-cucks, get out of your bubble you aren't the center of the world.

>>96791599
Here’s your Christian nationalism, bro!

>>96791300
The Repairer of Reputations is legitimately one of my favourite short stories. It’s pretty funny reading through that whole anthology, seeing the King himself and Carcosa getting hyped up as some epic cosmic monstrosity beyond our comprehension only for the main storyline involving them to be about an unreliable narrator in a future (for the time it was written in) America. Pretty cool stuff.

>>96791599
People dislike Christians because retards like you love to moralise and use your excuse of “faith” to fell superior to others. I used to hate Christian’s because of people like that until I met some Catholics who enjoyed discussing philosophy and theology instead of moralising and I grew up and mellowed out.

>>96791599
>aliens and horrors from the deepest epochs of time > perversions of celtic superstitions declared to be the embodiment of evil by the most fragile cultists on the planet as they committed cultural genocide

Sorry bro but Baphomet with his fat titties doesnt scare me like a Mi-go dissecting me and keeping my brain in a jar does. Once again, demons are only scary if youre a superstitious nonce. Deny it so I can laugh at you.

>Admit it, you just hate Christianity because you're a leftist.
Incorrect. Try again.
>And there's more to Christianity that the evangelical sects in America
Stop acting like one then
>get out of your bubble you're not the center of the world.
Coming from a Christian who believes he has a personal line to the creator is rich. I have Christo friends, some more devout than others. Theyre cool. Demons are gay.

>> ITT: a bunch of reddit atheists who think everyone who has the slightest religious belief has to be a religious fanatic because le church bad
Strawmanning the inevitable backlash to your dogshit post is a sure sign of fragility and lack of conviction in your ephemeral point.

Demons are nothing but vices taken to an nth degree and even any amateur occultist can tell you that one doesn’t worship them or “sell your soul”to one except in the most metaphorical way in that pursuing the material in excess can lead to you losing your humanity to a degree. That killing a baby for Moloch will forever haunt your psyche or if you’re numb to it, you’re already inhuman. Demons have no power over you that you don’t allow them to have.

>>96791783
What an adorable picture!

>>96758937 (OP)
It is really interesting to see this new breed of zoomer Christian converts who only converts to make it a personal aesthetic they can parade around and gloat about. There isn’t any genuine faith here, nor any proper interest in theology, biblical scholarship and history or the history of the church itself. There isn’t any attempt to apply Christian principles to life beyond going to church and shouting loudly about how based you are for being a Christian. It’s not about faith, it’s about identity, it’s not about saving your soul or help others be saved but about having a based trad aesthetic and feeling superior to “the plebs”. An incredibly shallow idea of what Christianity is.

>>96773825
>Prof and his cult wear creepy Greek theatre masks
This is a neat watch.
https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1jK4y1h7Qh/?uid=4256316A4B34793168375168

>>96791897
I mean, I think its super interesting, if we weren't in the midst of it fucking everything up. I think the sort of neoliberal, end-of-history intellectualist atheism really denied that human beings require some sort of outlet for fellowship that religion fills really easily. It's the generation that was raised on Reddit and 4chan and black pilled by every social movement that's happened during their lives and sort of putting a Christian facade on all that hate that's built up.

>>96792154
>really denied that human beings require some sort of outlet for fellowship
It really didn't and in fact clearly advocated for it but bitchmade reactionary types shrieked about Marxism until any social culture that wasn't concrete and jeans was made to grovel at the feet of the dumbest motherfuckers imaginable.

>>96792179
I don't understand the tradlarp insistence on church for community. My town has public events what seems like multiple times a month whether it's a seasonal festival or art shows or parades or whatever.
Billions must touch grass.

>>96792318
Church works...but its pretty much the same as a concert, a festival, Shakespeare In The Park, farmers market, or any other formal or informal gathering. The thing is you have to pay for most of those. Churches just run the Patreon model.

>>96792318
There are a lot of rural places in America where church might actually be the only social outlet there is, or close to it. Like, I agree with you, it doesn't need to be that way, but in a lot of places it defacto is that way.

>>96773011
I mean they are overrepresented in Satanic stuff.
But yeah they prefer Moloch

>>96773011
>suspiciously specific denail

>>96791806

I'm not going to bother reading your bullshit when you can't answer why being afraid of a demon is being a "superstitious nonce" but being afraid of an admittedly fictional character is ok.

The only logical explanation is that you hate Christianity.

>>96758937 (OP)
All of them are silly, OP. But the fear in a lot of these situations comes from the idea that, in this circumstance, their shit might be real.

A lot of the shit you posted about isn't scary unless you have a specific kind of Christianity-rooted schitzophrenia. Hell, one of them is just flat out not scary. Hidden groves with Celtic ruins isn't scary. That's genuinely cool shit.

I find the idea of someone summoning a demon about as terrifying as someone summoning an ancient one - unless they can actually do it, it's nonsense. If they can do it, then yeah, the terror will be induced either way.

>>96792716
>The only logical explanation is that you hate Christianity
I like how you act like that's a gotcha, as if hating christcucks is supposed to be a bad thing.
And before you say anything, no, jews and muslims aren't any better.

yeah, there's no helping that

>>96792716
>The only logical explanation is that you hate Christianity.
Wow. People hate the religion full of pedophiles that's core theological tenant is that all virtue is derived from obedience to an authority figure? That doesn't sound right.

>>96758937 (OP)
OP it kinda seems like you think that just because you think a certain way that means that's objectively how it is, which, for something as subjective as horror, is pretty silly.
You also seem to argue demons are scarier than lovecraft stuff because people believe in demons, but there's plenty of people who don't believe in demons, and, I assume, at least some people who for some reason believe Cthulhu is unironically real, so your whole argument for why they should find demons scarier than lovecraft goes out the window regarding them. I mean at that point it just bouls down to "a person who has the same beliefs and opinions as me will find the same things I do scary" which is rather meaningless.

>>96792760
Like it or not the Catholic Church built the Western world.

>>96792716
>why scared?
Demons are fictional and are only considered to be true by members of one cult. Aliens and unknown things are completely plausible by comparison and don't require a worldview to be believed. Its the same reason I can jump at a loud noise after I watch a werewolf movie but dont feel a goddamn thing after your average satanic horror film. One requires you to believe something to be afraid, the other poses a demonstrable threat regardless of your beliefs.

>>96792947
>Like it or not the Catholic Church built the Western world.
I'm not fond of an oligarchy ruled by pedophiles, to be honest.

>>96792947
They also got left in the dust by it and have destroyed themselves to keep up.

>>96792947
This infographic. Is fundamentally flawed. I can't find any hard numbers in the wikipedia article it claims as a source for the Jewish numbers, I don't know where they are pulling either of those numbers out of, and you're comparing the totally number of sexual abuse cases in an entire community and comparing it to Catholic priests. Also, again, numbers, 595000 Catholic priests in Brooklyn.

>>96792986
Yet that doesn't stop you from voting democrats, being a zionist or supporting the woke movement

>>96792973
Lovecraftian beings are known to be fictional,. as opposed to demons in which many cultures have believed for milennia, even today. There's no basis for believing in "eldritch gods" or interdimensional beings. There's also magic in Lovecraft's work, Do you mind that? There's also no reason to believe aliens can have interstellar travel, that's purely speculative. With your logic, one should only fear criminals, diseases, animals and natural disasters. Anything else shouldn't be scary; ghosts, witches, demons, Jason... thus invalidating all the history of horror fiction.

So yeah, you just hate Christianity and are coming up with excuses.

>>96793019
A good rule of thumb: if there is an infographic that exists to highlight how bad Jews are, it's probably bullshit made up by a fascist.

>>96793028
>Yet that doesn't stop you from voting democrats
I don't vote democrat, except with regards to primaries - I live in a closed primary state under democratic rule, so my options are "vote within the party" or "do not vote". General election my voting strategy is far more baffling.

>being a zionist
I've been an anti-zionist longer than you've been alive. Zionism is a fascist project.

> supporting the woke movement
Utter nonsense.

But hey. I got a question for you, Anon.
You're a good Christian. Or so you keep implying.
What would you do if God told you, directly, that you must rape an infant? Would you obey God?

>>96759647
>Miracles are by definition good
I'm sure everyone except Noah and his family in the Flood story would disagree.

>>96793046

You think you're clever with that question. God explicitely forbade sexual immorality and he is unchanging, so he wouldn't ask me to do it. If that were to happen, I would assume either I'm delusional or being deceived.

You should check out The Atheist Experience, you'll have plenty in common with them.

>>96793046
>Zionism is a fascist project.
Yeah, you're a leftist.

>>96793061
Lol, I'll blow your mind even further, Zionism was an antisemitic project started by a British anti-Semite named Arthur Balfour who wanted to kick all of the Jews out of Britain.

>>96793046
>Zionism is a fascist project
kek
Part of Fascism is touting self sufficiency, which Jews are anathema to.

>>96793106

Yeah, Jews are the victims of Zionism...

>>96793106
*Israeli Zionism. I understand that there are Zionists that aren't also shitheads, at least in theory.

>>96793054
Congratulations. You have sinned. You have presumed to know the mind of God.

>If that were to happen, I would assume either I'm delusional or being deceived.
Congratulations. In this hypothetical, you are going to hell. God gave you a commandment and you disobeyed.

>You should check out The Atheist Experience, you'll have plenty in common with them.
Are they still broadcasting? I haven't heard that name in years. Hope they're doing well.

>>96793061
I never claimed to not be.

>>96793107
Fascism is an ideology rife with internal contradictions, so this is not surprising.

>>96793116
There are no good Zionists.

>>96793121

Take a screencap and post it on r/atheism . Le Christofascists owned.

> I never claimed to not be.

Glad to know you belong to movement funded by bankers and billionaires. Take your hormones and leave normal people alone. You're not "heckin' valid".

See folks? Behind every single post against Christianity or normal people calling out the wokes there's a leftist. They're all leftists. That's their only motive.

>>96793138
>See folks? Behind every single post against Christianity or normal people calling out the wokes there's a leftist. They're all leftists.
Rad, thanks for letting me know leftists are so based.

>>96793028
>Lovecraftian beings are known to be fictional
The same could be said of Yaweh
>as opposed to demons in which many cultures have believed for milennia
They were wrong. Someone being wrong in the past has no bearing on how I feel now.
>even today.
Mumbo jumbo at best, Africa tier at worst.
>There's no basis for believing in "eldritch gods" or interdimensional beings
Christians do it every day and cut the foreskins off infants at the behest of their timeless, all powerful god who demands sacrifice and devotion as he exists everywhere at once. Yaweh literally predates time. Thats eldritch.
>There's also magic in Lovecraft's work, Do you mind that?
No. Why would I?
>There's also no reason to believe aliens can have interstellar travel
Prove it.
>that's purely speculative.
So is your god. I can believe an alien race that existed before Earth was formed could have capabilities beyond our own, you reductive clown.
>With your logic, one should only fear criminals, diseases, animals and natural disasters.
There's that reductive retard magic working again. One doesnt require a specific set of beliefs. I don't have to believe in an earthquake or a serial killer to be affected by them. Demons require your belief.
>Anything else shouldn't be scary; ghosts, witches, demons, Jason... thus invalidating all the history of horror fiction.
Keep failing to address my point.
>So yeah, you just hate Christianity and are coming up with excuses.
"I'm mad butthurt" isnt a refutation to anything I said and you're only revealing your own fragility. I already said I have no issues with the religion or its practitioners.

>>96793138
>Glad to know you belong to movement funded by bankers and billionaires.
Oh. See you're confused.
You think I'm a democrat. You think I break bread with those people.
The people you think of as "the left?" the performative liberals who take money from billionaires? Those people are controlled opposition. They're going against the wall.

>Take your hormones and leave normal people alone.
I don't need supplements. My body produces all that it needs.

>See folks? Behind every single post against Christianity or normal people calling out the wokes there's a leftist. They're all leftists. That's their only motive.
Well, no. My hatred of Christianity predates my pivot into left wing thought.
Christianity is a religion that's primary theological concern is obedience to authority. It does not teach you to be good or evil. It teaches you that you are good if you obey, and you are evil if you disobey.
That never sat right with me. And I came to hate the faith. And more and more, I've come to hate the faithful. I'm not going to beat around the bush - I hate you, Anon. You're a fucking monster. Because for all you will speak about how good your religion is, at the end of the day, you have no real morals. no real ethics. You do what you're told and call it righteousness. If a man in the right hat told you that it was god's will you murdered your family, you'd end your entire lineage with a smile on your face.

The pivot to left wing though came later. When I realized that right wing libertarianism largely amounts to doing what's best for the already massively wealthy in the hopes that you'll get to join the club today, with the remainder of it being trying to repeal the age of consent. This is not a philosophy that will liberate humanity.

>>96793162

Again, another word you stole from the right-wingers. Remember that quote from Tolkien about evil being incapable of creating so it can only pervert what Good creates. That's your people

>>96793174
Not gonna read your excuses, you just hate Christianity and make up rationales to justify not liking demons in fiction.

>>96793196
Too much text, as it is usual in your kind. Bankers funded the soviet union. See Antony Sutton's Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution for more.

Anyway, can we get back to /tg instead of indulgind leftists into receiving male attention, which is what they crave the most?

>>96793224
>Not gonna read your excuses, you just hate Christianity and make up rationales to justify not liking demons in fiction.
I accept your concession, pathetic as it is. You can stop replying now.

>>96793224
>Again, another word you stole from the right-wingers.
No. Are you stupid? Based, as you all use it, originate from some time in the early 2010s, when Lil B started using it as a positive. Dude used it to mean being bold, positive and kind of impudent. Like you didn't give a shit what other people said about you. This itself was an inversion from Based being a negative - it was preexisting term before he used it. While the exact usage of it before hand is a bit fuzzy, you were basically calling someone a crackhead if you called them based. Since based was derived from the term "basehead", which means that you were someone who freebased crack.

>>96793121
>Congratulations. You have sinned. You have presumed to know the mind of God.
And you presume that perfection could be cruel if it felt like it.
> "That person is a saint"
> "Ok, but what if that person told you to murder your mum?"
> "Wtf anon?"
This is you. This is the level of argument you are offering.
> "Here are guidelines from which you shouldn't derail, btw, doing so always hurts you in the long run, I am giving you your entire life to do as you please, but I will judge you at its outcome."
Holy shit a real fucking tyrant.

>>96793224
Right-wingers stole it from black drug culture. Also, Tolkien would hate your stupid Nazi ass.

>>96758937 (OP)
What has given you the impression that all the pagan cults and horns and blood weren't eldritch and Lovecraftian??? Like how did you even get that idea?
You have no fucking clue what you're talking about. None. Oh my god. Go actually READ some shit.
Guess where the term "eldritch" comes from. Hint: it was related to fairies and witchcraft.

>>96758959
And he was only about as racist as literally everyone else in the 1920s was...

>>96760176
No, satanism is modern form of saturnism.

>>96791737
Did you read it in reverse order or something? Repairer of Reputations is the first one

>>96761548
>uncomfortable with a lot of things that most men wouldn't give two shits about.
Most men are barely sentient wild animals.