I’ve been living in Aotearoa New Zealand for about two and half years now. It’s an amazing place. I’ve been learning about the country, the people, and its history. It’s a complex place, filled with contradictions. Much like the US, it was colonized by the British, its indigenous peoples subjugated and their rich cultural and mythological heritage abused. It started to come into its own around the 1920s, after a huge percentage of their population decimated in World War I. In short, what I’m saying is that Aotearoa is ripe as a setting for Call of Cthulhu games.
My rudimentary search of the webs hasn’t turned up any existing settings for CoC in New Zealand, which of course isn’t conclusive. There is the Terror Australis: Cthulhu Down Under guidebook, but Australia is a very different place than Aotearoa (the similarities in accent and flag notwithstanding). But here’s a quick pitch list for the setting:
- Edge-of-the-world environment
- Only accessible by long sea voyage in pre-1950s
- 1920s through present day
- Complex and deep indigenous mythologies and beliefs
- Taniwha and Whiro, rivers and forests with personhood
- Colonial presence, carrying ancient evils into a new land
- Politics dominated by a treaty, with possible eldritch overtones
- Last stop on the way to Antartica and R’lyeh
- Crazy goldmines, dark fjords, and insane geological formations
So I guess the question is: should I write the damn guidebook?