Sunday, October 29, 2017

Call of Cthulhu - Thoughts on Verbal Spell Casting / Rituals


How does a Call of Cthulhu ritual really work? If for instance an Investigator finds an old tome with a spell in it, how does he correctly pronounce the words? And if correct pronunciation is required for the spell to be correctly cast, how do you know the correct pronunciation? Trial and error?

For instance here's some varied readings of: "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn."

So how in the heck would you know how to pronounce this if you just pick up a tome with this phrase? And if this book is written in Latin, Ancient Greek, Phoenician, or Aramaic, is the phrase written phonetically? Do you use that language's intonation?

If you're trying to summon Cthulhu, I assume calling him by the right name is important. Can you imagine calling some powerful godlike being by the wrong name? "Hello, I'm trying to reach Cat-hoo-loo, I mean, Ka-hu-hu, um, KhlĂ»l'-hloo?" Can you imagine how pissed Cthulhu would be?

Does the creature just show up out of curiosity? Not because the ritual worked, but because there's a disturbance in the time-space continuum and he's curious or pissed off at being called the wrong name?

In one game, I thought it would be a cool to have a spell book written by the Serpent Men of Valusia, but the spell caster would have to have a bifurcated tongue in order to pronounce the spells properly. So, a cultist or Investigator would have to bifurcate their tongue in order to cast a spell from the book. Imagine if you had to do body modifications in order to cast spells.

But if correct pronunciation is required for casting spells, Investigators will never cast a spell successfully. And if saving the world hinges on the successful first cast of ritual, the Investigators will always fail. So, is intention only required? Is positive thinking only required? Positive thinking, mispronunciation, and a sacrifice of POW or Magic Points only needed? If mispronunciation is ok, then can a cultist just chant some nonsense or a sing pop song and it would work? Then why even write these unpronounceable words down in the spell book?

Anyway, some food for thought.

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