In Lovecraft's Shadow

In the Vault

One blog every couple of days, thats what I promised myself.  I would only update the blog once every couple of days.  Apparently not.

Today, I'm going to look at Mythos again, because erm ma gawd look at all the lovely stuff that is going to be coming out with this game.  I've already put this on my Kickstarters to look at this week, and without any real shock I have put some money on the table and made sure I'm going to claim two of the faction boxes when the game gets funded (because it will, after only a couple of days its over 75% of the way there).  So with that in mind, its off to Paranoid Miniature website to see what they plan to make.  In general you can get most of this from the Kickstarter page, but without too much surprise they have only put the first couple of factions onto the Kickstarter, and I would assume the others will open up the more the funding increases.  So lets start with the two "factions" that are in the Kick Starter, and then work our way onwards from there

The Priory faction

Outwardly these are the good guys, humanity's last defence from the darkness that is ever present, and ever hungry for those sweet sweet humanoid shaped snacks.

This is the one faction, so far, that they have released 3d renders for, and I have to say the models look pretty sweet.  The Leader, Professor Zarchary Lazarus, looks like a really nice model, but the star of the box is definitely going to be the Egyptian Golem Marahal.  Now from what I can tell, which isn't much, these guys basically tread the line between using whatever means they can to stop evil in its tracks, while constantly trying to maintain their own humanity.  A lot of the insanities for these models are based around initially working as a team, and then when they snap they start thinking their own side is out to get them and they become solo nightmares.  The prime example of that appears to be Abigail, who when sane gets a bonus for being near the Professor, but when she loses her grasp on reality will start getting a negative instead.  Bertie gets to be a bit of a nutter with a flame thrower, obviously that doesn't go well if his sanity goes, and the Cat has the ghost of a dead Egyptian priest in it.. obviously.

It looks to me like this is more of a ranged/casting team, though it does have the odd obvious beat stick in there.  There is plenty of casting, and as I said before, quite a few mechanisms for the models working well together until they lose their marbles.

Hidden Ones faction

So for all the good the Priory do, the Hidden Ones are pretty much trying to do the opposite.  Now, unlike the usual approach where these are just bad people doing bad things, with Mythos we get to see something new.  These aren't "people", these are actual sea monsters and in the vast majority of cases they have come up on dry land and hijacked some poor persons body so that they can go and run riot.  Well, not the giant crab, obviously the giant crab is just doing his own thing minding his own business.  You know, the kind of guy who just wants to do a days work, have a few beers and have the respect he deserves.  I mean can't you just see it in his eyes, its all he wants.

Ahem.  So we have here a leader in the Dockland Queen, who goes a bit mental if the Crab or her fish/person hybrid gets stomped on.  Basically if you kill either of them she gets to mark the killer and then just open up on them.  The fish/person steals mythos from your opponent, which is a resource to allow people to get extra actions at the cost of sanity.  Then there is Molly, who is possessed by something, but I can't see what it is in the artwork.  Either way she basically seems to be a melee monster, who can heal people, and cast spells.  I mean I say she is a melee monster, but that's purely based on one ability which means anything she is touching at the end of her activation has to make a combat roll or take damage.  And finally there is the poor sailor who has an octopus on his neck.  Doesn't go insane anymore, but you can flip between the sailor having control or the octopus, and you get different abilities from each.

These do look a little bit more like a beater faction, getting up close and personal, and not really caring as much about what their mates are doing and where they are.  I have a feeling Molly might well be a bit of a star in this pack, so long as she can stay upright for long enough.  There are some aspects which make the Dockland Queen react when her "children" are killed, but it is a solo puncher faction from the outside perspective.

And there is more..

So these are the two factions on the Kickstarter right now, but looking over at Paranoid Miniatures Website we can see that there are actually another 3 lined up by the looks of things.  No idea what they do, but lets have a little look anyway

Wildborne faction

These are the witches of old come back to save the world, and teach humanity a bit of humility in the process.  It looks like it is going to be a faction based on leaders with spell casting abilities and then half-human beat sticks.  There is also a mix of animals in there as well.  The first thing I would note is that the leaders image looks quite gothic/vampiric rather than pointy hats or druidic, and I do like that for a Cthulhu style game.  The half-human beaters are also a lot of fun, especially when you read the back story and find out that they used to be people, who were tested to see if they could be part of the "coven" and failed, getting turned into monsters instead so they are still useful.  There is also a hint that the people who get tested don't always volunteer to join in the first place.

Going just off the pictures, the Wildborne are going to be a very impressive looking force.  The Goat is just brilliant.  I'm not sure I would put all the eyes all over him, I would be tempted to just go with the half-human half giant ram, and avoid making him look anything other than the sort of Monster mother nature would come up with.  The centaur type monster is really cool, and probably where my idea of how they play comes from.

Complete and utter guess here, but I would probably guess these will be the hit and run faction, building up conditions on enemies, and then diving in and running away before they get hit back.

The Brotherhood faction

I hope that Mythos gets enough funding to include these in the game otherwise we will never hear the end of it from Straw.  They are Werewolves Wendigo, or at least some of them are.  The rest are cops, and not all of them are good.  The Leader is a Wendigo who can control his shifting, and on the sly has been the chief of the police force in the game's urban centre.  No one seems to mind when some of the local crooks go missing after all, and the Wendigo can keep themselves fed in the meantime.  The mascot is some sort of Wolf Hound super dog, while the cop that looks after the dog is a serial killer (which, as hobbies go, is generally not viewed as kosher) and wants to become a Wendigo after "accidently" seeing his boss turn and get all gore faced.  There is also the police chief's half brother who is stuck in Wendigo form and is pretty much mad to begin with because of that.  Then finally the Brotherhood rounds out with the rookie cop sniper who hasn't got a clue that he is surrounded buy all these skin shifting psychopaths, and you need to read his story on the site to realise just how messed up that really is.  Don't worry son, you'll find the bear that did it one day...

Picture wise, I'm not sure they jump out of the page at me yet.  I have a feeling these will be best shown off by the models that come out rather than the concept art.  I will say I prefer the drawing of the leader where the remain of his human hand aren't sticking out.  Personally if they are skin shifters then the hand would change rather than the Wendigo sort of slicing his way out, but again, as with the Goat that is my opinion rather than a criticism.  I think the fluff for these guys makes them cool through and through though, so thats enough for me.

Looks to me like these are going to be mental melee beasts, with a long ranged support, and a leader who can swap between supporting at range and then jumping into melee in Wendigo form to really lay in some hurt.  My guess is, to make them different from The Hidden Ones, these guys will either be a little slower and take time to get in, or need to work as a pack to get the best out of them.

The Travellers faction

There is only artwork for these guys at the moment, but if these guys end up on the KS and are fully funded I will definitely be looking at picking them up.  Just from a guess, we have a circus Ring Master, who has a bad case of needing to eat a burger or two (he'd be right at home with the Morticians), a rather hefty looking Strong Man, and then quite possibly a few demons.  You know, the lighthearted sort of things you would expect with a circus.  Fun for the whole family, so long as you can stop little Jonny getting eaten along the way.

No back story so far means I can't even begin to guess what they do, but part of me hope they are the complicated, messing about with Mythos, or activation orders, or some such.  I'd love to have a group who are basically all mad already, and the flip side is like the blaze of glory side, very low down on the track, but when they are about to die they really go bonkers.

And is there more?

Yes, yes there is.  I'm not going to include them here though.  All I will say is it looks like there are a further 3 boxes of miniature somewhere down the line as well.  However, they don't look like they are factions, now that I look at them in more detail.  So I'm going to split them off into a separate blog (hmm, do I do that later or tomorrow?).  I have a feeling they fit more into the Campaign/Roleplay settings that Paranoid are going to set up, with a special set of scenarios that call for one player to have the "team" of heroes and a GM running the special monsters for each game.  I'll try and explain that another time.