or religious quandaries Learning more about these story culminates in an awful conclusion, where the entities should never become humdrum heroes meet not the elder things preserved in the ice, An adventure centered on the Mythos should be put but the dread things (shoggoths) that wiped out their together in a style I call “layers of the onion.” The idea species This is the end of the story, but clearly it would is that as the players uncover one layer of dark secrets, be possible to extend it further they expose another This goes on and on: just as when an onion is peeled, successive strata appear investigate the shoggoth “civilization”, and find out At first, the players may think that a scenario that these amoeboid horrors are up to something (the involves an evil cult-worshiping nobleman or a haunted fourth layer of the onion) Since shoggoths are not castle But as they probe more deeply, you, the game really movers and shakers, no doubt something even master, can gradually show them the significance of worse than shoggoths is directing their efforts And for this particular nobleman or haunted castle As the what purpose? The destruction of all surface life? The players decide to find out more information, this leads return of the star spawn? The formation of a gigantic to other adventures device designed to break the continent free from the In Lovecraft’s epic “At the Mountains of Madness,” world’s surface and form a new moon? Who knows? the characters uncover some odd fossils, excellently The wheels within wheels keep turning, and the players preserved and reminiscent of the ancient tales of the can continue following the tale forever Old Ones The hero and his companion go scouting Alternatively, they could progress a certain way down and find what seems to be a huge and complex rock the stories, and then you, the game master, can switch formation inside a glacier When they return to the to another storyline: a new civilization of nightmare camp, everyone has been killed, and the “fossils” are creatures; an ancient tome with unspeakable secrets; missing The heroes are horrified and decide to follow something else altogether String together Mythos the trail which leaves camp, headed toward the ice- concepts and bury the heroes deep in the darkness bound rocks This all occurs in the first layer of the onion The reason for this system of episodic revelation is because horror, by its nature, is difficult to maintain They probe deep into the rocks and find tunnels for a prolonged period of time This is why horror under the ice which lead lower and lower As they chase movies typically have only short moments of terror, after the tracks of whoever (or whatever) killed their interspersed with sections (possibly ominous) in which companions, they gradually come to realize that it is a non-horror-based scenes take place It is also why true city, not just an unusual formation Furthermore, horror novels are never as consistently terrifying as nonhumanoid entities, whose history is found in short stories carvings on the walls, built the city millions of years ago This is the second layer of the onion Thus, each time a new layer of the onion is revealed to your players, there is an opportunity for a new As the heroes penetrate deeper, and come upon shock, a new understanding The players may wish more and more horrors, they realize that the “fossils” time to discuss the ramifications (you may or may not are actual, living (albeit cryogenically-preserved) elder allow this time, depending on the adventure’s needs), things The heroes follow the path anyway, and the For instance, a gamemaster could have the heroes