Lovecraft Chapters-Survivors, Killers, and Maps

Garvak

So we all know DbD has some Lovecraftian elements, mostly manifesting with regards to The Entity. Last night I was looking up killer concepts on YouTube and stumbled on the “Amnesia Killer Concept” by UniverseCorn. I saw that in their power, they included the “insanity” mechanic and this immediately brought Lovecraft to mind, which has led to this post today. I’ve seen BHVR talk about how they try to bring back features from old chapters to new ones (avoiding the practice of parasitic design which is a good idea on their part) so maybe the Doctor’s “madness” mechanic could be rolled into the whole Lovecraftian insanity theme? With the addition of boon totems to the game, we can also take into account the fact that there's definitely a survivor or killer here that'd have a perk tying into boon totems that'd canonically make sense.

Of course, some killer ideas wouldn’t work. Azathoth, C’thulhu, and similar entities wouldn’t make sense to bring into the trials. But there are aliens, monsters, and survivors which could work. Most of my ideas aren’t really fleshed out yet. I slapped this together in a couple of hours and just had to share it on impulse. After I finish up my exams in a couple of days I’ll come back and add to it. Hopefully in the meantime, other people can offer their input and suggestions for the killers, survivors, their own ideas related to the mythos. If we can get even one character from Lovecraft's works into the game as a killer, survivor, or even a skin I'd be ecstatic and I know others would be too.

KILLERS

First killer idea is the Shoggoth from "At the Mountains of Madness." Makes sense that survivors would be running from this instead of confronting it because there’s not much you can do against it. At this point, a Shoggoth has become almost a staple of many genres, occupying other gamespaces such as D&D. This mess of protoplasm can reform itself/regrow, learn, and add onto itself so perhaps it has a mutation ability like with Nemesis (using the stage system). Add-ons: penguin head, expedition sled, bloody dog collar, soapstone? I would say that their mori would be them slipping a sucker/tentacle over the victim's head and popping it off, but we can’t have gore in DbD. So perhaps it’s similar to Demogorgon’s mori where the sucker tentacle appendage thing pops over the survivor's head and violently snaps their neck or something like that. The map tied to this killer would be an Antarctic cavern of sorts.

The second killer idea is the Mi-Go (or Fungi from Yuggoth) from "The Whisperer in Darkness." A flying ability has been debated between players and it’s a complicated one to work with since it seems OP outright. But it would make canonical sense for such a power to be nerfed with the Mi-Go since it’s mentioned that while they do have wings, they were meant to traverse the “ether” and that they actually have trouble navigating in our own air with them. So perhaps it’s a power like the Nurse’s where it has a high skill ceiling and can be sort of messy until you get some proper practice in. The cooldown on using it is up to discussion here so we can combat that OP factor but also ensure it’s not too weak. The Mi-Go have advanced experience with biology, so perhaps there’s a perk related to that. They also don’t show up on cameras/photographs, so one of their perks can be about that. A final perk idea might tie into their worship of Shub-Niggurath, the Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young. Add-ons: braincase apparatus, phonograph record, black stone, cut telephone line, Henry Akeley’s letters, imprint photographs. The mori could be them fluttering and leaping onto their prey and tearing them apart with their clawed appendages. The map tied to the Mi-Go would be a dark New England forest (but we already have plenty of dark forests so perhaps a map for Mi-Go isn’t necessary).

Third killer concept is the Flying Polyp from “The Shadow out of Time.” The Polyps could notoriously manipulate air currents with their demoniac whistling so this could be their power (and sound creepy to boot.) It would need a reasonable recharge time to prevent it from being OP but they could activate this power every so often to slow down a survivor they’re chasing or even pull them back a little. This seems strong so maybe not exactly that. But I feel like implementing their whistling shrieks that control the wind as a power somehow would be good. Add-ons: metal case, ancient stone block…? The map tied to this killer would be an Australian outback map at night amongst the desert sands and ruins of a lost civilization.

My final killer idea could just be a skin. Keziah Mason from “Dreams in the Witch House” and her familiar Brown Jenkin. Just make them a skin for The Twins. If she can be her own unique killer, since she’s tied to general witchery like our latest survivor, perhaps she has a perk interacting with boon totems and another interacting with hex totems. If there is a new map for the introduction of this killer, it could be a dreary/rainy new England town with rickety cobblestone streets and shuttered brick homes.

Others? Hound of Tindalos? Nyarlathotep, but that may be a stretch just as C'thulhu would be.

SURVIVORS

Professor Albert Wilmarth from “The Whisperer in Darkness.” He’s a professor of folklore at Miskatonic so he can have perks related to that-maybe one about boon totems. Another perk tied to combatting insanity/madness (scientific mind parsing out this space-faring species?). After all, he hasn’t gone totally insane by the end of the story.

Walter Gilman, student of non-Euclidean calculus and quantum physics at Miskatonic from “The Dreams in the Witch House."

Randolph Carter from “The Statement of Randolph Carter”, “Out of the Aeons”, and Lovecraft’s “Dream Cycle” stories.

Charles Dexter Ward from “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward”

Inspector Legrasse from “Call of Cthulhu” or Thomas Malone from “The Horror at Red Hook” (we already have a couple of police/investigator-type characters so maybe not this.)

Richard Upton Pickman from “Pickman’s Model.”

Erich Zann from “The Music of Erich Zann.” He does disappear in the story, not to be seen again.

Professor Henry Armitage from “The Dunwich Horror.”

Edward Pickman Derby from “The Thing on the Doorstep."

Don’t think there’s much licensing that needs to be done here? Unless maybe you want to tie in Richard Stanley’s planned trilogy of Lovecraft adaptations. Stanley mentioned he wanted to use “Ward Phillips” played by Elliot Knight as a protagonist in the other two movies he’ll be making (one of them being another Dunwich Horror in addition to 2019’s “Color Out of Space”). You could snag him as a survivor; having a hydrologist survivor would certainly be unique.

foulmouthlady

I love this! Lots of different killers/survivors to choose from. Plus an Antarctic cavern would be a cool/interesting map from the rest that we have. Nyarlathotep seems to be another great option that you briefly mentioned.