Creepiest Cthulhu Mythos Monsters in TTRPG and 5e Dungeons & Dragons - Web DM 

Thanks for watching! Want more Web DM in your life? Check out our Patreon for our podcast, bonus vids, and more! Patreon.com/webdm Or our Twitch channel for live streamed ttrpgs every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday! Twitch.tv/webdm Or our live play archive on RU-vid: RU-vid.com/webdmplays

"Human beings are mere insects compared to the eldritch gods, much like how humans are to ants. By the way, did you know that 20 to 50 humans are killed every year by ants? Isn't that an interesting statistic, Cthulhu?"

That introduction. THAT INTRODUCTION!! Citizen Kane-like epic clapping!

That scream from pruitt 😂 top notch acting right there

Fun fact: In Germany the Movie "Tremors" was called "Im Land der Raketenwürmer" which translates to "In the country of the rocket worms".

Absolutely best intro for any TTRPG video ever!!! Happy halloween guys!

Intro game, always improving, always evolving, never static, truly an old god in and of itself

I never pictured a leather sofa off-camera to Pruitt's left. This changes everything.

That squid is so big my brain don't work no more- Lovecraft, summerized

8:44 I think the term you’re looking for is “convergent evolution”. Essentially, it’s when organisms develop similar traits in response to similar selection pressures, i.e. lighter bones to allow for flight in both birds and bats. In terms of humanoid aliens, they’d probably have to be descended from simian analogies to have a similar body shape. Even then, depending on the exact conditions on the plant, their anatomy could be wildly different.

I personally always enjoyed the stories of ancient, hidden histories and civilizations that Lovecraft did much more. Rats in the walls, the Temple, those sorts of stories. The ones where you are made to question if what you know of humanity is accurate in the least as you begin discovering these hidden secrets. Stories like Colors out of Space are fine. unfathomable cosmic horror that makes humanity look like little more than bacteria, but I LOVE the stories that involve humanity, because the idea of the things in our history just being plain wrong and hiding some nightmare from the ancient past is just too perfect. I think it works really well when there is that element of the outer god mythos stuff, like in Shadow over Innsmouth. I'm always much more affected by those stories over the distant writhing chaos on the other side of the universe.

I backed that Sandy Petersen's Cthuhlu Mythos Text for 5e. Excited is an understatement.

I am displeased you did not mention the King in Yellow. Mayhap you have yet to see it. So i ask you friends, Have you seen the yellow sign?

The community mentioned is Purple Rocks, it’s similar in tone to Lovecraft’s story “Shadow over Innsmouth.” Volo’s Guide p.189

Can you do a video on the Seelie and Unseelie courts and there Queens because I have two NPCs in a campaign I'm running that are warlocks one is a warlock of Queen of Air and Darkness and the other us a warlock of Queen Titania and I can't find anything about them that I can use to RP them I would really appreciate it. Also you guys are my favorite RU-vid channel ever.

Oh wow just working through this backlog and I discover one of the best intros ever.

My favorite Mythos creatures have always been the Hounds of Tindalos, extradimensional entities that exist within "angles" of time, as opposed to humans and other Earth organisms that live in "curves" of time, and who are able to break through reality using angles and corners as doorways into our universe.

One of things I want to recommend to anyone who is going to use Lovecraftian elements to their campaign is don't skimp on the adjectives. Do precisely what Lovecraft did and use ridiculous words en masse. Eldritch, undulating, pulsating, throbbing. All of those words that make you shiver and feel uncomfortable. I described the creature my party last week fighting as "vaguely humanoid, with multiple limbs stretching and reaching out from its emaciated body of writhing faces sunken into its flesh. Their mouths and eyes constantly shifting in silent screams of agony." One of my players genuinely looked grossed out. Use that on your players. Use the uncanny valley and creepy descriptions to really set the tone. I''m running a campaign set on a magitech/steampunk Earth that I am putting multiple Lovecraft story references into. Primarily, the big story arc is that the Gith and Illithid are going to descend on the Earth like a massive alien invasion. There are rumours and stories about the creation of the dinosaurs, and how "The Old Ones" created the Dinosaurs as a precursor to all of the mortal races. The Old Ones are, mistakenly, thoughts to be far gone, but also different from the Illithid. The big reveal is going to be that the Illithid and the Old Ones are in this case, one and the same. Last week I used The Colour out of Space as a template for the party. This is a morally ambiguous campaign (leaning towards evil) where the party was contacted by the thieves' guild of Amazon City to investigate a meteor that crashed into a large farm out to the east.

Man I love that premise that Jim detailed. The mass of tentacles coming out of the ground is terrifying!

The bits at the beginning keep getting better!

I love the idea how H.P. Lovecraft made his creatures and alien species! :)

Oh also we fought a shoggoth for our Halloween special and holy shit XD. This is my first d&d campaign and wow that was one hell of a fight.

That intro has to be one of the best. 10/10 smash that like

at 5:53 when you realize Chrono Trigger was Cthulhu game

Totally appropriate use of an aberration like in “The Thing”, especially the John Carpenter version!

Convergent evolution was what you were trying to remember, Pruitt. Thanks for including us in on the chat, this one was intriguing.

As I watched the latest episode of WebDM I couldn't shake the dreadful feeling that I was being watched. Not from outside my window but from a deep unknown between two dead stars. I fear as though this video has unlocked a forbidden eldritch knowledge

Pruitt brought up comparisons between the Deep Ones and D&D's Sahuagin but I believe the Kuo-Toa are the D&D fishrace that is more inspired by the Deep Ones.

Was literally listening to Call of Cthulhu at work today when Emma put this in the discord haha!

The Innsmouth-esque community you mentioned is in Purple Rocks, off the coast to the west of Icewind Dale. It got mentioned in Volo's Guide but is also brought up in Storm King's Thunder (even if it's brought up in a completely random and poorly described way).

I ran campaigns based on Cthulhhoid mythos using the modules, The Lost City, Hidden Shrine of Tomoachan, and Isle of Dread. Each of the pyramids had in their iddle a stonhenge like thing that allowed you to transport from one module to another. If the Resurrect Cthulhu spell was cast in all three at the same time that would could the Great Cthulhu to rise one again.

I love how Travis just went mad. Great open Ya'll

So with that Necronomicon story, the investigators used their friend as a sanity tank? Radical.

That’s the kind of intro that’ll keep me coming back to you guys. Every time, haha

The purple rocks, they gave us more Info about it in mordenkainen's sea spawns and krakens

I believe the island in the Forgotten Realms that Jim mentioned is Purple Rocks. Rather than worshipping deep ones they worship a Kraken but it’s very very similar

After accidentally watching Cthulhu and Aboleth episodes back to back I realized these two are like missing pieces to the puzzle of the other, and that gives a high level path of understanding and unlocking the power behind the hardest challenge in my Campaign of over 35 years, the coven of true dragons that run 1/2 the world that are really a company of pit fiends imprisoned in the planet with the patron demon of mankind (and Cthulu, unbeknownst). Even the Gods do not know the history of this planet, it is a feature of their cosmos that predates them, but the aboleth do. They actually worship Cthulhu, and are his only window to the universe. Their pantheon of celestials is just a screen. They'll have to be more powerful than the outer planes to defeat Cthulhu, but at least I finally have my end game, lol. Many thanks for this happy coincidence, I saw it coming only 1/2 way thru the first vid ;) The future of Batugrond, aka Batagren, the center of the heavens, where the Gods resolve their differences only remotely, if it has one, thanks to you immensely. It really is the most awesome place for any sylvan, fey, elf, half elf, oriental , or wood elf, be they wild or civilized. The sylvan cultures from around the galaxy come here in their afterlives, for the object lesson of how life could have been if they were all united as one and free, as in the world and in the heavens. On Bategron, there is no other survival strategy, it's all, or none. The Heavens intervene on this magic thick planet as often as they can to build advantage. Very large portals to the 8 main outer planes each form satellites of Battaegrun, the innermost is called Sun. Heaven and Hell are in the sky where one can see them during half their orbits. You can see them clearly against the background stars moving slowly to the North, especially when they turn in the sky and the astrologers all go crazy arguing about where they will stop. This is why Earthlings think the Earth is flat and the Sun goes around Earth. An almost flat horizon and the Baeteugroon centered universe is a deep racial memory. I'm finally sure I'm not joking when I say Cthulhu is driving this monstrosity. And the aboleth are the only key to even knowing he's there, or where this regime in the heavens, or on Bategrun itself, even came from? or what makes it all tick? much less why we wander the galaxy visiting other planes? Not even Mordenkainen nor even the Thendar know. Yuck, I don't want to play aboleth nor Cthulhu, but they have to be the keys :( Thank you immensely, I probably just forgot, but w/out you it would have stayed that way. Sure hope I can find a way to save the players from ever finding the aboleth, cuz I hates me some mind flayers and psionics pretty fierce. But what has got to be done, must be done. re: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ywkRYjgb5R8.html ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-qYBMHMc3ywg.html

Best web dm intro to date, and that's saying something, your intros are always awsome.

One of my favorite Mythos monsters is Robert Bloch's "Star Vampire". These creatures travel the stars to drink blood. They are invisible, but the blood they drink isn't. So, if you were to see someone get attacked, here's what you'd see. First, there would be the sound of giggling that seems to come from all directions. Then, the victim is raised into the air, screaming and flailing against an unknown assailant. Suddenly, fountains of blood erupt all over the victim's body, twisting into crimson ribbons that eventually meet at a fixed point that slowly takes the shape of a gaping maw. As the blood flows out of the victim, he shrivels into a twisted, mummified husk, which is carelessly tossed by tentacles seemingly formed from his own fluids into the central chasm. As the mouth closes around him, teeth crunch into his disfigured corpse, with bits of him sticking to what appear to be an endless array of fangs. Finally, its meal complete, the creature launches itself into the sky, filling the space around it with gleeful laughter.

the only way to make that intro better would be to add the Baywatch Nights theme XD

Thanks for this video, I've been imagining a campaign where the Old Ones finally invade and this has given me some good ideas of what could be happening around the planet.

Caleb: You see that spec way up there? That’s another planet! Nott: No no, THIS is the planet!

Amazing scream from Pruitt in the intro. xD

This show is great. It’s full of so much info and presented is a way that’s easy for me to understand...but let’s be honest. I only watch for the amazing intros.

If you want "Lovecraftian" style stuff the the tee in DnD books. The Star Spawn from Mordekainens are amazing. The text boxes with the lore, followers of "Kyuss, the worm that walks. Tharizun, the chained god" And many more amazing creepy tilted old 'gods'. Their theme is insanely on point. I made a cool Eldritch one shot about them and a Kyuss reskin along with some re-skins of the sorrowsworn into undead creatures. Easily the best addition in terms of horror/thriller in 5e DnD..

I know this is a deep and existential episode but i'm so distracted by those awesome troll/giant toys in the background. Where can I get them?

There is a really neat comic called 'Weird Detective'. In this story a Fungi changes bodies with a Human Detective because a Shogoth has hidden itself on earth and the fungi has to hunt it down, whilest also keeping up his cover.

Speaking of Midgard, an episode on that setting would be amazing!

The Phaerimm that destroyed the Netheril society in old forgotten realms lore always struck me as a good example of lovecraftian monsters in d&d.

Really, really good episode, guys. It garners my highest praise: It inspired me to think of games I might run.

Call of cthulhu is easily my favorite RPG and I'm always excited when I see you guys exploring lovecraftian content either on the show or on the patreon podcast? Just wondering do you have anything else in the work for us Lovecraft fans?

I’d love to rub a lovecraftian game in the D&D forgotten realms... like, set it in a small farming town where something’s coming up from under the world... or in Waterdeep as a cult attempts to summon a great old one, or on the purple rocks and just shadow over innsmouth it lol. So many options!

Don't think i didn't notice your lovely groomed beards!!!! :-D and hair too i think.... your goblin underling or unseen servants are getting more adept!

If you're going to run a DnD 5e campaign that heavily features Lovecraftian monsters and themes, you would not be ill-served by including the optional Sanity ability score, from the DMG. So you can actually go making Sanity checks (or more likely Sanity saving throws) whenever you encounter a cosmic horror, or something that was never meant to be. I guarantee, the players are more likely to approach such things with more trepidation, if even seeing something like an undead creature, or a gibbering mouther, or a mind flayer, caused them to roll to keep from losing their composure or even from going temporarily insane.

I haven't been this early to a web dm video in a while

Great Episode guys, entertaining and Informative as per your usual. A question though that occurred to me as you guys have done videos on call of Cthulhu, have you guys played any of the World of Darkness games?

Personally, I love Monster of the Week's handling of these kinds of creatures. You can't even damage them unless you do it how the narrative says. Maybe it's fire or poison or a very specific ancient ritual, but it's always something.

I like Ghathanathoa. Petrification but it leaves the brain intact so you go mad for eternity? Awesome. (I'm sure I butchered the spelling but I'm too lazy to double-check)

If you want a 5E campaign setting that features Mythos monsters via the Sword & Sorcery/Conan vector, check out Primeval Thule! It's an excellent product and includes stats for mi-go, serpent folk, moon calfs and a bunch of others, even a couple of Great Old Ones.

a great video. killer intro, and thank you for addressing the horrific colonial aspect. I feel like most people ignore that when trying to make sense of the creatures to most people

Your intros just keep getting better ❤️

Yithians switched bodies with beetle-folk from earth's future.

Always wanted to play a character in a lovecraftian setting, sounds awesome

This is my all time favorite type of monster and the hardest to make work in a game like D&D where characters hunt monsters for a living.

6:18 multiple cythonians can cause earthquakes. If the number if high enough, it can destroy anything on the surface.

Loved this intro. Another wonderful video folks, thank you.

Oh so much to talk about in the realm of Lovecraft and oh so little time us ants have to do so with...

When I think of making a Warlock of the Old ones Thoth is the first one I consider... Knowledge being his thing means I the player understand a little of why that could be interesting... all the others I have no clue what they associate with.

You guys deserve waaaaay more subs.

My next campaign will involve vampires trying to connect their homeworld to the PC'S world to create a hunting preserve, and a cult trying to get Hastur, the yellow king, out of carcosa.

Looks like Pruitt forgot to buy those comfy chairs to sit in whilst recording shows.

Stopped by to double check this video as i was double checking what others have covered about the Cthulhu Mythos .

You know what flies, stings, and can go invisible? Imps. Imps do that. haha but great video as always

Imagine trying to Blink away from a Chtonian or Flying Polyp and finding out it exists simultaneously on the Ethereal Plane.

I just wanted to let you guys know that I love what you guys do.

That hellboy thumbnail is priceless

The Deep Ones are also my favorite Lovecraftian horror.

Good old Hp “Hates the welsh” Lovecraft

I like how the camera man seems to lose his sanity on sight of the creature.

I've been secretly tweaking my Curse of Strahd campaign to include Lovecraftian mythos, so even Strahd himself may be revealed to be nothing more than a mosquito on the arm of much stranger, more powerful beings.

So a few things always did kind of bug me about the Lovecraft mythos in these sorts of modern games. Though granted, I'm not quite as immersed and knowledgeable in them as things like D&D lore. In no particular order... - A lot of the alien creatures honestly seem pretty similar. You guys mentioned that these aren't just "rubber forehead" aliens with human anatomy save for a few funny extra features. But instead of two arms, two legs, etc. you just have some wings, a bunch of tentacles, multiple eyes/mouths, etc. Truly *alien* aliens are great! Though it's annoying when they all look horrifically inhuman in more or less the same sorts of ways. - The aliens are *ALWAYS* malevolent and hostile. Which really seems like a very... "human" perspective. "This thing is mysterious and unfamiliar, so it must have hostile intent". Which, sure, makes sense if you take into consideration the perspective Lovecraft had, where anyone or anything that wasn't a white upper class person of 'good English breeding' was wicked and degenerate, or any sort of progress even as simple as indoor air conditioning was clearly sinister (yes, there is literally a Lovecraft story about that), but now just seems boring and simplistic. The comparison is often made of them being to us what we are to animals, seemingly with the assumption that every human is the sort of psychopath who gleefully tortures squirrels and other critters and is completely indifferent at best or at worst relishes in their suffering. Honestly I would find it far more fascinating if there was more variation, like our relationship with the animal kingdom. What if there were incomprehensible Lovecraftian aliens... who were the equivalent to Jains or Buddhists or other groups that actively go out of their way to try to avoid harming """lesser""" (big quotes there) beings? Or even entities who are the equivalent to militant eco-activists, actively seeking to defend """lesser""" species against the more malevolent forces of the universe, but who just do so in ways that we tiny humans can't always understand. - Almost all of these incomprehensible alien civilizations... turn out to be pretty simplistically monolithic. This kind of ties back into the above issue. Like with the mind-swapping aliens you talked about. Are there none of them who have different (if perhaps still bizarre) ethics and philosophies then their kin, who think maliciously stealing bodies fits into their (perhaps still alien) ideas of 'wrong'? Are there no Deep Ones who reject Dagon and Cthulhu and perhaps help humans (without some 'double edged sword' situation) in exchange for shelter or maybe even companionship (since they do seem to like interbreeding with humans). Again, it all comes back to seeming like a very limited and human perspective of "this other group of people are very different, which means they must all be different from us in the same degenerate way".

I’ve always thought that the mythos is weird for making it seem that earth and humans are utterly irrelevant in the grand scope of the universe but then focuses dozens of stories on the earth and humans. We can’t be irrelevant but have literally everything very heavily interact with us and our planet in various ways all the time. I also have a problem with the fact that half of the things in the mythos are just shapeless masses of flesh. It gets a little boring when you can expect exactly what the thing is that you encounter.

syncretic evolution is the term you were looking for :)

That intro was so damn good

Good video, the last one was too short. Keep it at 30 minutes is perfect!

You should check out the primeval thule campaign book for pathfinder easily covert to 5e from Sasquatch Games might be worth a look as well for some D&D Cthuhlu

I'm enjoying the new table or I haven't noticed it before blinded I was by the beard

Please advertise your Web DM plays channel more. ive been watching Web DM for forever and this is the first time ive heard of it =/ MORE PPL NEED TO KNOW

I always knew something lived behind that door!!!!!!!

Well this was a good way to start my morning.

Another great topic. Another great video.

Best intro so far!

We have seen what many cannot fathom and some will not comprehend. The truth of it all! The Other Side! *We have seen the other side of the studio/garage/place/thing/beans* .

I think our world is either on the other side of the Far Realm or was at one time the universe that the Obyrith come from.

Best intro so far

nice way to change up the intro :D

Awesome intro !!!

I love Tremors. Bert Gummer is the man all men should strive to be.

How does the psychological effect happen, I can understand being horrified about a 15 foot spaghetti meatball monster but if you are an adventurer why would that break your mind? Is it magic?

XD that intro was hilarious