Magic is probably my weakest subject when it comes to shadowrun but I've got a character concept
im interested in playing, so im reading up on the rules and was looking to see if anyone had already
made a Cthulhu Mythos / Elder Gods based magical tradition or if there was one in the books that
could be easily changed.

Toxic. Very toxic.

Or the start of The Horrors, which aren't due out yet for another millennium or two. (Hopefully.).

Did you have a specific Elder One in mind? Dagonites would be very different than worshippers of Nyarlothotep...

CanRay--I'm thinking more Twisted than Toxic.

I think it depends which author's outlook & work you follow more,

Ive been reading up on the Cthulhu Mythos in the last few minutes and it seems that Lovecraft's original ideas for the Cthulhu Mythos leaned more toward "cosmic indifferentism", whereas August Derleth's ideas run toward the whole "good vs evil".



Cthulhu himself for the concept i've got floating around in my head

I could potentially see chaos being worked to fit some niches of the mythos, but I'm no expert.

Very interested to see what people come up w/ for this.

Well, the Esoteric Order of Dagon could go with mentor spirits for Dragon (renamed Deep One), Adversary (Cthulhu Dreaming), Sea (Mother Hydra), or Shark.

As a tradition, it really depends on where you want to go with it. I could see either Chaos, Black Magic, or Hermetic working. Though, in keeping with some of the writing, I really like the use of Calling instead of Summoning.

(Side note: The CthulhuTech setting plays really well with this, and if you do an Arcane Underground or NEG level game--no tagers or mechs--it fits the grit of SR well)

Reading through the Traditions in SR4A & Street magic I was thinking something of a cross between
Black Magic / Christian Theurgy for the concept

Great Old Ones
Concept: You believe in one of the Great Old Ones, ancient, powerful deities from space who once
ruled the Earth and who have since fallen into a death-like sleep. You are dedicated to seeing your
god awaken and take their rightful place upon the earth once again. As a dedicated and loyal follower
of your god you have been given gifts of power for your use to change the world as you see fit to gain
power for yourself and your master and to prepare the world for its awakening.

Combat: Guardian
Detection: Beasts
Health: Plant
Illusion: Water
Manipulation: Task
Drain: Willpower + Charisma

First attempt at creating a Tradition so input/suggestions would be appreciated.

That's pretty close to what I developed when I played a Priest of the Old Gods. I went with Guidance instead of Plant (Plant seemed more Mi-Go, less Old One to me), and put Water in Healing and Guidance in Illusion.

I recommend Intuition as a Drain stat, and I played it as an *Inhabitation* Tradition

From what I know, Lovecraft never abandoned the cosmic indifferent in his novel. August Derleth also introduced elemental system to each god, with Cthulhu being water element.

Now if you want to go with August's system then toxic (poisoner tradition) would be good as it fits pretty well to the evil-water based theme and this is assuming you are corrupted. Otherwise, stick to what you have.

Acid, Sludge, Smog, nuclear Water, and Abomination fits pretty well to the theme. Throw in some blood magic and use toxic spirit as your summon.

Now if you want to go with Lovecraft version, you can mix and match since there's no good or evil tradition, but keep Abomination. Shadow spirit summon probably fit this one better, so are blood magic.

Nuclear fit extremely well with Nyarlothotep cult...

Insect tradition would works well for a certain buggy dark god that should not be named...

For staying true to the insanity of the lore, I suggest willpower is the only drain stat so you are force to use all soft of occult fetish and especially blood magic (Sacrifice) to tank the drain. It should works wonderfully painful too when you summon a spirit because you suppose to goes insane from seeing whatever you summoned, and the rule for summoning Blood spirit would become your best friend.

Edit: To balance and staying true to the "horror" part of the mytho, maybe double the force of the spirit AFTER you took the pre-double drain. That would make it crazy and scary... especially if you fail to control it.

Only reason I'm thinking Charisma is because of the whole "sanity" issue and charisma seems to deal with "self-image & ego" along with other cahracteristics.
I may make some changes to the assigned spirits though.

I think Willpower itself represent sanity well enough.

I would normally agree but RAW says
"All magicians use Willpower plus another mental attribute appropriate to their traditionto resist Drain" SR4A pg 178,
and I wouldn't as interpert this to allow the use of Will + Will

It depends on what kind of approach the character takes to the Cthulhu mythos. In Lovecraft's writings, it seemed that some people were the worshipers and cultists, which I would use Charisma for, and others took a more rational, hermetic approach - the difference being that they were so careful, because they knew they were messing with things that could blast their sanity. For them, I would use Logic.

I don't know if there was a sanity stat in the Cthulhu mythos. It seemed that the main horror was the realization of mankind's cosmic insignificance, and the less intelligent (or at least, introspective) people were the ones who were more likely to escape with their sanity intact.

Although that's possible by house rule, what I meant is Will + (nothing). Just will.

It is a possibility.

It strikes me that this would be appropriate as an Intuition tradition - it's all about knowing Secrets Man Was Not Meant To Know, and so forth. Ho well you can see past the veil of sanity, to the Terrible Truth beyond. That sort of thing.

I agree w/ Glyph. I could see compelling arguments for all three and ultimately any of them could work. I think it would wind up coming down to the disposition/approach of the individual cult/order/tradition.

Willpower definitely seems the most natural, but like you said, I dunno if you can double down on it.

A thing to consider is despite Derleth (whose vision of the mythos I am not a fan of) making Cthulhu a water elemental, Cthulhu's powers are hindered by water and is trapped at the bottom of the ocean.

Honestly, I agree with CanRay: Toxic. Extremly Toxic. Not because they're bad, just because they are different. Completely different. If you let one of them into your head, you stop being a rational human. But ok, honestly, I never liked Derleths version of the mythos, the original Lovecraft one was way cooler.

Or, to steal the plotline of Stross' "The Apocalypse Codex", deluded. Severely deluded.

I was thinking more batfrag insane, myself.

Just to frag with fans of the cthulhu mythos, i'll leave this bit of strange information here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiyore!_Nyaruko-san

WHAT?!? Why had i not heard of this??

Anyway, I have been considering the same idea, but more of worshiping Nyarlathotep. Something based around the searching of truths in the world.

I believe it needs to be a high-risk, high-reward tradition. Yes, by looking into the horrible truths you are depleting your own sanity, but when you know these secrets, you are much more powerful because of it. Maybe something that emulates initiation to a degree.

I would agree that what you use for drain really depends(not only on the"deity" but on your character's outlook as well). For Cthulhu i would personally use Charisma.

But remember to keep your perception at 0 so that you don't have to make as many SAN checks...

Nyarlathotep was always my favorite.

One of the biggest things that turned me on to the Cthulhu mythos is exactly the semi sci-fi roots. I had a pretty decent GURPS Space campaign setting going in the mid 90's that tied in pretty closely to the Elder Gods as progenitors (and manipulators) of sentient species in the galaxy that I thought worked pretty well and never really crossed the line into pure horror. Gave me a bit of a chub following some of the core elements of the Mass Effect storyline ~15 years later.

I agree w/ the risk/reward assessment. I'm not sure that one should be able to know things that man was not meant to know w/o becoming alien and/or totally insane from the perspective of those who don't have that knowledge.

And intuition 1, so you can't even reasonably default on it

never actually read the manga, but the anime was good fun ^^

Probably heavy on foci and/or fetishes. Lots of astral quests. Perhaps even involuntary astral vision(what would you do if the astral plane suddenly began overlaying your vision much like AR?).

I am not convinced on the toxic idea. From Street Magic: "Toxic magicians are Awakened characters whose sanity, outlook, and magic have become tainted by environmental blight or human desolation" This does not seem to fit a lovecraftian mage.

After re-reading the Threats section of Street Magic, I believe what you should be looking at are the Twisted Paths. I can see it as a form of almost any of those, but specifically the Zealot, Faustian Mage, or Path of Demons.

The concept that I posted this for definetly falls into the former category, How can he not being a Changeling with Cephalapoid Skull, Extravagent Eyes (Red), Striking Skin pigmentation (Green) and a homebrewed quality of Vestigial Wings... oh and of course the street name kid Cthulhu taken from the Nightside novels which is where I got the idea from.

Those are the areas I first looked at thinking there may have been something there concerning the cthulhu Mythos but since I didnt find anything specific there I posted here. Zealot seems the most suited.

Either for use as NPC's or PC's the Tradition is something I wanted to work on, though I'd love to play it one day with the character concept mention in the previous post.

for additional research into variations of the mythos I suggest reading some of the Brian Lumley stuff. he did his own spin on it which I am very fond of.

I'll agree with Lansdren that Lumley is a good resource -- his take is not quite Lovecraft-faithful, but it is far 'better' than what Derleth did (trying to bring order and purpose and epic conflict to something that was intended to be incomprehensible from human perspective).

As for a magical tradition, I'd see it as a mix of Shadow and Toxic -- to me, a Mythos-based tradition would be spot on for Horrors.

Using Wilpower and only Willpower as a drain stat is an interesting idea; it could balance things out if you allow the tradition to use spirits that aren't normally available (using Calling). For example:

Dagon-based tradition
Combat: Abomination
Detection: Harbringer
Health: Water
Illusion: Muse
Manipulation: Cicak
Drain: Willpower

Hastur-based tradition (Possession tradition)
Combat: Carnage
Detection: Nightmare
Health: Muse
Illusion: Harrow
Manipulation: Tangleweb
Drain: Willpower

Access to Metamagic like Taint, Leeching and Sacrifice. Calling spirits through Offering required; can't use Binding except possibly to take control of spirits summoned by others.

As for mentor spirits, I can see many working:

Adversary, Cat, Dark Goddess, Dark King, Doom, Dragon, Horned Man, Lion, Rat, Sea, Seductress, Shark, Snake, Spider, Trickster -- plus darker versions of Moon Maiden, Mountain, Phoenix, Sun...

Logic based tradition. All of the mysteries of the Great Old Ones are found in books and discovery. Think about the fact that the Necronomicon is one of the focal points of the Old Ones, not to mention other important tomes such as The King in Yellow.

You might want to check out a Steve Jackson Games book for G.U.R.P.S. called "Cthulhupunk". Its cyberpunk mixed with Mythos. Could have some useful ideas in there.

I made a Nyarlathotep worshiping mage once. Only in flavor though. I loved finding subtle ways to cause chaos wherever he could. Needless to say, he focused on manipulation spells. I think a (slightly)darker version of Raven would fit Nyarlathotep very well.

The topic is about a crazed cultist to Cthulhu though. I would say using logic is prudent because of the research needed. I also like the idea of only using willpower in exchange for access to things like calling. However, I think that maybe should be reserved for NPCs as at the point where a cultist can summon something that powerful, even with an offering, they are a bit too far gone to continue with running. But that is just my opinion.

You could allow the player to trade the reduced drain resistance for a level or two of initiation. Hmmm, isn't the study inherent in learning the truths effectively the same as initiation? You are doing something incredibly involved in order to uncover secrets and strengthen your connection to the awakened world. Maybe make it a guided form of initiation. Only allow certain metamagics, access to certain metaplanes(maybe ones that normal initiates cant access), or other privileges/restrictions.