Is Cthulhu Shy?

[drayle88]

I mean, I've read a lot of CoC stories, listened to a lot of games, and looked at a lot of posts...

and I've never seen/heard of a RP that the characters ran into old squid face himself. I mean, it's always some OTHER unspeakable horror or abomination of time/space/reality.
So, is Cthulhu shy? I mean I've seen the Slenderman games, and you actually SEE (Not for very long) Slenderman himself. You CAN at some point meet Tiamat, Bahamut, and any other God in DnD, why can't you meet the Namesake of the game itself?

[Tadanori Oyama]

Because he'd kill the whole party. That's more or less the point of any of the Old Ones if you encounter them in the flesh.

Cthulhu itself is also less common in alot of stories due to his cults having become predictable to many. Most Cthulhu cults are actually fairly passive compared to those with specific goals in mind and rituals to bring about horrible things. It's been established that to call out Cthulhu R'lyeh must rise and that's a biggest scope than alot of groups get to.

One can easily step outside of that mind set to make the process different or make R'lyeh a state of being and not a specific city, but writers doesn't seem to have done so recently.

[drayle88]

Hm....

I get the idea that encountering Cthulhu means 99.99999% chance of death, but still...

Hm... Perhaps there is another way to do it...

[Tadanori Oyama]

There are plenty of ways to encounter his cults. It would also be possible to witness the entity itself from a distance or through a viewing device (gate spell, scry spell). There's also Star Spawn for the flavor and shape without the 1d100 SAN loss risk.

[drayle88]

I just want to have the epic scene where people who've read Lovecraft end up in the middle of the summoning, and the escape from Cthulhu involving running out of a temple, getting to a ship, then getting to the helicopter in the process.

Idk, it sounds like fun to me.

[Tadanori Oyama]

You can do that as long as you accept the likelyhood that some, most, or all of the party will be killed or driven incurabily insane.

[drayle88]

Honestly, that'd almost be the point of it. but I see what you mean.

[Moose Fisher]

There was a free scenario I found somewhere where an artist ends up making a replica of Cthulhu out of special material and uses a ritual to bring it to life.  As far as rules went, the replica was treated as Cthulhu itself.  Reaching that point is kind of the "Bad End" but the players did have the ability to reverse the magic or destroy the replica.

I think it's buried somewhere in Yog-Sothoth.com.

[Discomonkey]

I just want to have the epic scene where people who've read Lovecraft end up in the middle of the summoning, and the escape from Cthulhu involving running out of a temple, getting to a ship, then getting to the helicopter in the process.

Idk, it sounds like fun to me.

If I remember correctly, the final adventure for the Shadows of Yog-Sothoth game is exactly this, players get to R'lyeh, do some stuff, witness the rise of Cthulhu from a distance and have to dash back to the boats.

[Teapot]

In Cthulhu Now, one of the scenarios had a Cthulhu made of electricity show up.

One of the TOME books had some paintings that you could enter if you were brave (stupid) that would take you to Cthulhu the paintings were cool but otherwise everyone is right not to have been impressed with TOME.