An explorer is hired to find out the fates of David Livingstone and Henry M. Stanley after no word has been heard from Henry after a couple of years. The explorer must live through the unknown dangers of Africa, but instead of lions or elephants creatures of horror are throughout the land. Tribes worship and fear great beings.
Is there anything like this? Would it even make a fun setting?
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And Lovecraft wrote that the fragility of the human mind is realized by eldritch beings beyond the stars, knowledge that the gods forbade man to know, and niggers.
Could be cool. There would probably be some immortal cannibals running around and that's always fun.
Plus, if I recall correctly I think one writer put a Great Old One in Lake Victoria or something.
>Lovecraftian Africa in the 1970s
You mean 1870s? It would be awesome. Lost cities, forgotten cults, inhuman beasts lurking in the depths of the dark continent.
There is a a game that has this is at least partially about this.
It's called Dark Continent: Adventure & Exploration in Darkest Africa.
Yeah, 1870s. Typo
Some kind of two-fisted pulp adventure, I assume?
You know, searching in the 1970s for David Livingstone and Henry M. Stanley who were lost in the time loop or became undead hundred years ago would still work.
But will there be KANGZ in flying pyramids?
To be fair, there wouldn't be that much of a difference. If anything, generally speaking, things have gotten even less civilized in africa in the last century.
You could have all of the stuff of 1870s in 1970s, but with just AKs, RPGs and Warlords.
Fuck yeah. Give me some Rhodesian Light Infantry tearing into Shuma-Gorath with FALs while in the bush.
Yes, but in the 1870s not much of Africa is known. It was a mysterious place that little knew what was to be found there. There was rumours that whoever dared to explore the "Dark Continent" would die a horrible death, whether at the hands of beasts, disease, or people.
Hmm, you got a point there.
WW's Mummy: the Curse had an interesting mashup of egyptian myth and lite lovecraft, if that's your bag. Then again, that sort of archeology pulp is a somewhat different genre than "ooga booga heart of darkness."
Is it time for Rhodesiaposting?
Of course user. After all, Rhodesians never die.
/k/ pls.
Well, considering that Lovecraft's whole deal was the inferiority of nonwhite people, I'm sure it'd go pretty well
Why yes it would.
But I'm suspect to say.
>AFRICAN FANTASY: tips, ideas and hooks
pastebin.com
>A whole harem made of dahomey virgin amazons:
>"Dahomey is renowned as a 'Black Sparta'... The sound told every male to get out of their path, retire a certain distance, and look the other way... The scaling of vicious thorn hedges was intended to foster the stoical acceptance of pain... She then squeezed the blood off her weapon and swallowed it."
>smithsonianmag.com
>Mmoatia are "dwarves " or "fairies". All over west africa we have these cognate hairy dwarves. They like caves and mountains in Mali, but in Ghana they love forests. The black dwarves are cool and might kidnap you to teach you magic sometimes.
>Red dwarves and white dwarves are sociopathic little fuckers who love stealing and tormenting people. Their master is the evil forest god Sasanbosam. As far as I know, they're like a mix of dwarves and elves/fairies.
>Follow very specific rules, and you can get great magic/power out of them.
>Fuck up the specific rules about how to deal with them, and you're fucked. Except instead of "OOOH YOU BROKE ELF LAWS NOW YOU'RE STUCK IN ELFLAND FOREVER!" they just eat you.
>Africa has a lot of monsters that devour people whole, like the Ugungqu-kubantwana, which is pretty much a living island walking on land.
abookofcreatures.com
>Another thing, there are a lot of spirits that seemed to focus on killing you in your sleep. I think one day I came across like a dozen creatures who were all some variation of "this thing comes into your house at night and feeds on/chokes out the life of children and the sickly. You usually have to keep them away with wards and such.
>African vampires have iron teeth and hooks instead of feet
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>african witches
warosu.org
>I actually forgot that one. I've read accounts of african witches creating a wide variety of zombies and other monsters as minions. There's also stories where killing a witch just creates a powerful evil spirit. I read a Hausa legend about how witches have small mouths of razor sharp teeth all over their backs. They can cause blight, storms, and plagues. And almost all of them shapeshift into creatures of the night or ride on them. The reference I've got here shows them with talking owls, baboons, and hyenas to deliver messages. And just about all of them are cannibals. There's an account of witches using nightmare demons to kill their enemies in their sleep through sheer terror.
TOTEMISM
>Most African clans at some point thought their ancestor was some sort of animal, or was saved by an animal, or their ancestor saved the animal. This created an affinity with the creature.
>The Bush soul is usually a bigger, stronger, and more powerful version of the real thing with sometimes a noticeable peculiarly like albinism. Most typically have wild animals for bush souls, bust women often have domestic animals for bush souls.
>People have the ability to project their "bush soul" into the totem of their clan.
>Killing a bush soul will kill the person attached to it, but killing a person's body while they're projecting their bush soul causes the bush spirit to run wild and even become a malevolent spirit.
>Sorcerers can capture other people's bush souls and use them to do their bidding, or sell them.
>According to legend, the Grootslang is a primordial creature as old as the world itself. Tales state that gods, new to the crafting of things, made a terrible mistake in the Grootslang's creation, and gave it tremendous strength, cunning, and intellect. Realizing their mistake, the gods split the Grootslang into separate creatures and thus created the first elephants and the first snakes. But one of the original Grootslangs escaped, and from this first sire all other Grootslangs were born. It is claimed to devour elephants by luring them into its cave. The cave is known as the "Wonder Hole" or the "Bottomless Pit". Supposedly, it connects to the sea which is 40 miles away. According to local legend, the cave is filled with diamonds. It is also said to live in warm rivers and lakes. In Benin, it is said to be a huge elephant-like creature with a serpent's tail. Also according to the tale, Grootslangs covet gems, particularly diamonds, and despite the creatures' lust for cruelty, victims can often bargain for their freedom by offering a Grootslang enough precious gems. While searching for treasure in the richtersveld of South Africa in 1917, English businessman Peter Grayson disappeared after members of his party were attacked and injured by lions, prompting legends that the Grootslang had killed him.
The European experience in places like 1870s Africa is a massive source for what Lovecraft is drawing on so yeah, it's a pretty fucking natural fit. Basically it's just going to be Heart Of Darkness with Cthulhu.
I would actually say that 1970s Africa would be more interesting just because it hasn't been done as much.
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>Rhodesia with shoggoths
fund it
...
See: Michael Chricton's Congo
;_;
WE GOTTA SAW THE MONKEYS IN HALF WITH A LASER
liberiapastandpresent.org
>There, on a mat in a house, I found the horribly mutilated body of a fifteen-year-old girl. The neck was torn to ribbons by the teeth and claws of the animal, the intestines were torn out, the pelvis shattered, and one thigh was missing. A part of the thigh, gnawed to the bone, and a piece of the shin-bone lay near the body.
>Some time before Chief Dapaba died, many people had disappeared from that area. While they crossed the river in a canoe, "leopard people" grabbed them, pulled them under the water, cut their heart out (for a sacrifice to their gods) and left the corpses.
>An eight-year-old boy, with his mouth gagged, was brought that night. They cut his throat and spilled all his blood on the brass ring, and from that time on, all the activities of the village revolved around the 'brass god': sacrifices, worship and all.
>Reportedly, also in Swaziland the number of ritual murders increases at election time.
>Cannibalism is not the right word. I prefer to call it ritual killing," Mr. Bleasdale says with the calm assertion of someone who has encountered it. "The consumption of the flesh is empowerment. You destroy your enemy's spirits and you take them on, you take on his power."
I want Rhodesia to come back ;_;
Movie was fun but I don't think it's related to these two gentlemen
well, maybe not the movie :(
>Selous Scouts vs Cosmic Horrors
That sounds like a /k/ wet dream
Kind of perfect then isn't it? You can go wild. My main issue with historic games (traditional or not) is that you need to stick to the setting to at least some extent.
Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.
Man, that's actually a good idea for a t-shirt.
>Would it even make a fun setting?
Hell yeah it would. Africa is full of undocumented tribes and old mythology that most people haven't heard of. It would be super easy to take some obscure African deity, throw in some pictures of weird looking sculptures like the ones in this thread and say the tribe is actually worshipping an aspect of Nyarlathotep or something.
And then there's all of the potential mundane conflicts and political drama that comes with colonialism, the backdrop of extreme poverty, desperation, and disease, and a shitload of uncharted territory full of deadly animals.
Fuck it, let's go 1970s.
You still have western researchers going in, businessmen looking to open markets/exploit resources, and the glory days of the Ivory Trade. Add in the two superpowers arming every warlord in sight, and you have a good campaign setting. Even better when the diamond mine in Uganda that you're supposed to be supervising uncovers something that should have stayed buried
>ywn fight the horrors beyond with nothing but a beat up AK, rusty machete, a dozen mentally scarred children, and a sack full of amphetamines
...
It gets better. Imagine apartheid South Africa. Imagine instead of a nuclear program, they went into research into weaponize things that should not see the light of day.
Essentially district 9, but instead of aliens its lots of magical horror, weaponized. Did I mention all the apartheid resistance groups want to get in on the fun and use these methods to try to end apartheid as well?
>You get hired to find out why an entire team of people are MIA
>Find out they found a giant hole filled with diamonds
>Investigate hole
>tfw its the Wonder Hole
>tfw Grootslang
Christ, imagine what would be dumped in the water supply in a Lovecraftian Africa. Existing companies drop horrible shit, and they aren't even trying to destroy the world
One could mix "A Colder War", Osprey's Cthulhu Wars and african folklore with bits of the African Exclusion Zone from the Vivere Militare Est alternative timeline, where one finds things like this:
>Occult Watch – Fourth Reich
>Founded: 1953
>Years Active: 1953-Present
>Territory: Middle Africa Exclusion Zone, Katanga, Angola, Zaire, Rhodesia
>Cult Activities: Human sacrifice, gastplasm trafficking
>Patron God(s): Adolf Hitler
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Is it really fair to call it an "alternative timeline" when it's clearly historical fantasy?
1870's:
>rumors that if you go into africa you die a horrible death by man or beast
1970's"
>rumors basically confirmed
good discussion from /k/ about how war works in africa
>trying a paradrop assualt on a bastion of Unspeakable Horrors, only to fall into a Wrong geometry and be cursed to plummet endlessly in a looping non-euclidian space
forgot the image
>ethnically aligned insurrectionists backed by a French secret Mythos society fighting a rebellion against a Soviet-backed regime bolstered by "next-stage science" advisers who officially don't exist that is also in conflict with a US-aligned nation that is being used by the USA as a plausibly deniable cover for testing recovered Elder Thing technology while the displaced former government of a neighboring country, armed by the Portuguese, attempts to regain power through large scale occult rituals/banditry
The Mythos Bush War sounds better and better.
But that continent is just there for diamonds and slaves? Why would you make a setting this boring?
>squad exploring a structure found deep in the wilderness
>getting lost because despite leaving markers behind, geometry is Strange and Wrong
>have to walk 720 degrees around a circular hallway to get back to the starting point, what kind of fuck is this
>see light and terrifying shadows coming from branch corridor up ahead
>squad point man peeks around the corner
>starts screaming and clawing at eyes, instantly driven mad by what he witnessed
>hear irregular footsteps rushing towards the squad
>try to reach into chest pouch to get your last grenade
>accidentally pull out your own heart
>it continues to beat in your hand as you look at it with horror
>it ain't me starts playing in the background
>be staff in a diamond mine (slave masters, security types, whatever)
>drive slaves hard, choppin hands for stealing, that sort of stuff. Naturally, they resent this but you supress slave uprisings brutally to keep them in line
>deep in the darkness, a bitter slave excavates something that should never have been unearthed
>now, you have to put down the slave mutiny and re-bury the before the Thing Under The Mountain wakes and cracks the continent like an egg hatching
The CoC scenario Digging for a Dead God is worth reading, with the players being Nazis who are charged with uncovering an ancient ruin in the African jungle.
Man, this Rhodesia lovecraft stuff sounds way better than OP's idea
>we went into the veldt to drive back the communist-terrorists
>but the enemy we fought was far darker than we could have ever imagined...
you answered me better than expected. have a great day.
>jungle.
Why Rhodesia over any other country?
>Lovecraftian Africa in the 1970s
Only the Rhodesian forces can defeat the black terrors from beyond the stars that are probably communists and funded by the Soviet Union.
Not really, it is about exploration of the continent that was going on in the 1870s and all the accompanying things(as in running into hostile tribes, not neccesarily hostile but still dangerous local rulers(a problem since you are a small expedition and have no direct support from the government) and local legends that may or may not be true such as witches, monsters etc. )
This pic gets an entirely new meaning
The beliefs of the Azande concerning witches are especially interesting. They believe EVERY death that we'd chalk up to disease or natural causes to be the work of witches, as well as any health issues, one way or the other. They also believe witchcraft itself to be a hereditary, biological function associated with a certain 'witch-organ' (Finding this organ during a big public 'autopsy' was the most foolproof way of proving someone a witch.), with witches not even having to necessarily be aware of the fact to still inflict misfortune and ill health on people subconsciously, in their sleep. Despite this, relatives and descendants of a proven witch aren't treated any differently, and accusing them of witchcraft right out of the gate is out of the question.
Then there's also the practice, in case the family doesn't have a suspect at hand, of paying hefty fees to the poison-oracles to counter-curse the unknown witch responsible - with only a few ever bringing up the fact that if this means the witch gets cursed as well, suffering the same ailments, won't his relatives think that he was, in fact, attacked by a witch also? And when they go to counter-curse a witch, are they discreetly told that their relative, in fact suffers the consequences of his witchcraft, then put on a show of going to all the effort of rooting out the witch to not give their shame away, or does the poison-oracle just pocket the fees and lead them on?
I highly recommend Evans-Pritchard's study on the topic, the Azande's whole culture surrounding witchcraft is just interesting as fuck
Maybe you want to explore the dark magic shithole that must be the Central African Empire if they had access to any lovecraft stuff? Bokassa I already did nasty stuff in real life, like cannibalism, imagine the consequences of that in a lovecraftian style setting.
Ganowicz in his memoir describes the ambush in which his unit got attacked in Congo by hundreds of rebel fighters shouting "Mulele Mai" believing that invoking name of Mulele will turn the bullets into water "Mai". They didn't even try to dive the bullets, just walk straight into them. Maybe Mulele didn't exactly got his ritual right this time?