fuck you

The adventure 'Clutching at Ignorance' is a good place to start.

how to properly use him/her/it?
everyone dies.

>>9597084

Everyone goes -mad- is more likely, I'd think.

>>9597074

Thank you. I'll see if I can't scrounge up a copy. It doesn't seem to be on /rs/. Anywhere else that would probably work?

>>9597084

Well, yes, that's true, but Nyarlathotep has the most interesting personality out of all of them (of course, many of his peers don't even have personalities, so it's not entirely too difficult to be the most interesting), and he's also the sort of fellow who might, actually, deal with the characters on a more personal level, whether in a recognizable guise or in cognito, and it'd be a pity to waste that.

Nyarlahotep is the giver of great and terrible secrets. He is the Black Man of witches, the oone who reveals to them the workings of their spells, the proxy of the devil. He is the scientist who offers up a great discovery which should not be true, and yet stands revealed for the terrible fact that it does exist. He brings gifts of ancient wonder to the antiquarian and the historian, and watches asthe gifts consume those who have recieved them and slaying those with the temerity to try and prevent him from reclaiming his gifts.

Those who speak with him say much of his grace, decorum, and education even as they remark on the feverish intensity of his gaze. He comes in dreams as a beast whose howls draw the dreamer far astray. He comes in darkness as a thing of air with buurning eyes lobed three times, which sees the light as shadow and all in shadow revealed as by the sun. He speaks softly, and is known to many, but friend to none.

When the end is come, he will walk the world, and all will fall in his footsteps, driven mad by the mind and soul of the Other Gods, the Outer Gods.

>>9597461
eh, he's a pretty cool dude when he's not all madding people up for the outergods

>>9597461

Keep him at the peripheral, with scant clues about his presence. Odd smells in areas of his worshippers', recordings of otherworldly noises left behind, witnesses too traumatized to stop shitting themselves and gibbering uncontrollably, ministers of bizarre faiths having religious episodes ending in stupendously dramatic overtures of power and control ... books blazing in library basements, fed into boilers by weeping librarians and laughing children; dozens of dancing figures in robes, rushing into industrial equipment (threshers, plastic shredders, etc.) and singing the song of their people.

Subtlety is for things which you can name aloud without your neck vomiting your skull out.

When he shows up, make sure the phrase "mind-shattering, awe-inspiring and horrifying" are used.

It is not of our world. It is not of any world we could survive in.

....or, you could have him be a guy in a white linen suit, smiling and listening to Hannah Montana.

Your game, your call.

Ambiguously, and on the edges.

>>9597750

> ....or, you could have him be a guy in a white linen suit, smiling and listening to Hannah Montana.

Why does this strike me as being scarily appropriate?

>>9597927
That image causes 1d6 investigators to change their pants per round.

>>9598006
Unfortunately, It's not Nyarly's fault.

I run Nyarly in my CTech game as a well-spoken Jamaican fellow; imagine Dr. Facilier crossed with James Bond. He's the classic 'Satan' figure, offering players all the deus ex machinae they need, and for no price at all- the outcome is payment enough...

Considering that he has the potential to be anything, sane, insane, a charming guy in a suit or a giant gibbering horror etc.
Maybe after millions of years he's gotten bored of just driving people insane and only bringing devastation. So, out of curiosity instead of anything resembling morals, the Crawling Chaos decides that he wants to try to be a good person. For the novelty of it. The PCs must try to convince him that this is a good idea.

>>9598032

Step one: Play HL2

Step two: Take notes on Gman

Step three: Profit

>>9598102
It's >>9598099 here; that's exactly how Nyarly's been acting in my game; he's helping humanity, and the players are going crazy trying to figure out why.

Masks of Nyarly - found on 4shared

Black Pharoah for desert fun
The patron of the Salem witches for Bostonian games

Have him show up and help the PCs against some cultists or Yiths, and do it for no charge....

>>9598102

This. Is. Brilliant.

This is more excellent than Mr. Burns.

A coupla more ideas of this caliber, and I am ARCHIVING this.

Ideas...

He's hiding as a friendly neighborhood beat cop, always handy with advice; from the local hookers to the ex-war criminal, he's got something for everybody...

He lives in an abandoned hospital, running scams on other investigators than the PCs, getting cash to get a pediatric burn ward re-opened.

He just donated bone marrow through a human host. And a kidney. Sperm.

He's collected the names and documentation on every "Unknown Soldier" in the world, poised to act on the upcoming peace accord between Terroristan and Blowyouupistan.

Just a few bad ideas.

>>9598243
Thank you. I've always felt that having everything in the Lovecraft universe only be interested in corruption, madness, and death actually limited things.

Is Nyarlathotep capable of Mxyzptlk scale shenanigans where he so inclined?

>>9598532

Thing is they usually are so busy doing other shit, don't care about our shit, or simply are so weird that anything not of our world just fucks it up.

Nyarly has the capability to understand and act on what he wants.

Just remember he will have NOTHING in terms of human morality, hes either curious, bored, or it helps his masters in some way

>>9598552
No. He always acts through intermediary items or strange Other Gods when he is doing those sorts of things.

>>9598651

Actually to be honest I don't really like the idea of a "good" crawling chaos. Unhorroring horror kind of defeats the point.

Unless of course this is just building up for "The Big Reveal" at the end where he goes "you know what? This isn't fun anymore, or even mildly entertaining. FUCK SHIT UP TIME"

>>9598384
>He's hiding as a friendly neighborhood beat cop, always handy with advice; from the local hookers to the ex-war criminal, he's got something for everybody...
Everybody who takes his advice ends up dead through completely unrelated circumstances, sometimes years after the fact.

>He lives in an abandoned hospital, running scams on other investigators than the PCs, getting cash to get a pediatric burn ward re-opened.
Which is actually an excuse to show pictures of burned children on the news, as well as an attempt to make him seem Friendlier to the PCs.

>He just donated bone marrow through a human host. And a kidney. Sperm.
Which are all tainted horrifically in ways that won't be clear until years after the fact. And the hosts? Didn't want to donate any of it.

>He's collected the names and documentation on every "Unknown Soldier" in the world,
Specifically to keep them hidden as part of an experiment to see whether or not the uncertainty can drive any one person over the edge and produce the circumstances for a bona fide Knight Templar who wipes out a country in his attempts to secure peace.

>poised to act on the upcoming peace accord between Terroristan and Blowyouupistan.
...too easy.

>>9598102
Hello Mr. Myxysptlk. He spent 10 000 years being good, he's currently spending 10 000 years being neither, and eventually he'll probably get bored and spend a few thousand years being evil.

Also, Stephen Alzis is best Nyarlathotep!

Oh, and read up on Randall Flagg from the Stand. That's another great Nyarlathotep archetype right there. Especially about his history

>>9598651
'Masters'? For some reason I always thought of Nyarlathotep as being the one who was really running the show, manipulating the Outer Gods to dance to his tune, and making sure Azathoth never awakens, because if Azathoth does awaken and wants its soul back, no more fun time for Nyarlathotep.

Why does everyone love Nyarl..? No love for Yog-Sothoth or Azathoth..?

>>9598950
Well, Azathoth is completely mindless and Yog-Sothoth is so far removed that you can't really do much with it. Nyarlathotep is the only one with something close to a personality, and pretty much the only Outer God that you can have show up in a story without it being an apocalyptic event. I mean, it COULD be an apocalyptic event if Nyarlathotep wanted it to be, but usually he just wants to fuck around.

>>9598854
I love you in the most platonic sense of the word.

>>9598854
See that's exactly what I'm fucking talking about.
Not only is him doing those things not surprising, it's downright boring and predictable. That doesn't fill me with terror, that just makes me thing 'that guy is an omnipotent douchebag'
If anyone would hate to be typecast in one role, it would be Nyarlathotep (And ideally the Joker, but I've always thought of the two being all but one and the same)

>>9598980

Also, he's Nikola Tesla.

Unless Edison turns out to be an Outer God or something, too, I'm afraid that Nyarlathotep has got everyone beat.

>>9599070
Edison was an investigator; Tesla was his target. Edison had a crew of lackeys working around the clock, developing the best tools to fight his nemesis.

...or, the other way around, except replace "crew of lackeys" with "a few trusted friends". Either way, I think my steampunk game just got real interesting.

Clearly, Teddy Roosevelt is the only one who can stop The Crawling Chaos.

Teddy Roosevelt: Old One Hunter.

>>9599148

Edison is screwed.

>>9599218

But... We can't have that. It's not Lovecraft if there's HOPE.

>>9599307
Hope is the garnish on the plate of Cthulu.

It only adds flavor and color to its daily balanced diet.

>>9599307

Hope gets you out of the situation at hand. And hope is what you do when the unmentionables don't proceed to fuck up everything when you do get out.

Hope, however won't save you, and it won't change the fact that you ain't stoppin shit by yourself son

>>9599042
I agree. The thing about outer gods is they dont have to TRY to be chaotic. Its what they are, much like water is clear and wet.

I would find the idea of Nyarlathotep being the unassuming hobo that visits your players once in a while for some old food horrifying.

People go insane because they are not ready for truths, or they do the wrong thing. Nyarlathotep is just a creature that watches in mild amusement as he sprinkles tiny flecks of knowledge around.

>>9599514
Hope: what you're left with when you find Deep Ones still squirming in the stool of whatever it is that threw your truck into a grain silo and played lawn darts with a cast-iron Civil War cannon statue.

>>9599565
From the bottom of a well of "wat", I cry out for an explanation.

Here's an idea: what if Nyarlathotep isn't a douchebag at all?

What if he's a benevolent being who wants to help lesser beings evolve to Great Old One status? He appears around the universe, granting cosmic knowledge and understanding to those who are receptive to it. The problem is that this knowledge is often destructive to lesser beings, and causes insanity and death and so forth. However, if even one pitiful ant colony becomes Great and Old due to Nyarly's efforts, it justifies the accidental extinction of a hundred others.

Nyarlathotep doesn't LIKE the disappointing outcomes of his gifts, but he sees them as a necessary sacrifice for bringing new Great Races into existence.

bump