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Lovecraftian Superpower: Difference between revisions
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* ''[[GURPS]]'' lists the Battle Jaw, Tentacle Transplant and Ripsnake as potential body modifications, which can come as quite a shock to the unsuspecting.
** ''[[GURPS]] [[Celtic Mythology]]'' also includes the above mentioned warp-spasm. All Fomorians [[Half Human Hybrids|and their descendants]] also receive a [[Red Right Hand]] that gives them the ability to horrify opponents.
* ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]''
** The core rules have the Phantasmal Killer spell
*** And then ''[[Planescape]]'' got a story of some wizard who had a bright idea to cast ''this'' on Ethereal plane, where any vision generated via illusion/phantasm has a small chance of becoming quite real - sometimes under the caster's command, sometimes not. The point is, a critter with powers resembling this spell is still around... unlike that wizard.
** The Alienist is very explicitly Lovecraftian, as it involves abandoning their sanity, summoning [[Eldritch Abomination|outsider beings]], and modifying their bodies with otherworldly effects. Appeared in ''Player's Option: Spells&Magic''
*** 3e version in ''Tome and Blood'' turned from "mad stuff from beyond" toward "excessive tentacle fetish" interpretation of "Lovecraftian", but still.
** ''Book of Vile Darkness'' There's also the Vermin Lord (who gets covered in bugs) and the Cancer Mage (how does "Sentient Tumour" sound as a superpower?).
** ''Lords of Madness'' adds the Fleshwarper (grafts for all!). You can also take Abberant feats, which improve your body while making you look really messed up.
** There are also TWO versions of the Pseudonatural Creature template. As well as a Half-Farspawn template. Both of which add tentacles to an existing creature(although, the first is more of a template for creatures native to Lovecraftian dimensions that happen to bear some resemblance to their Material Plane equivalents, rather than a modification).
** Special mention should be made of the 3.0 ''Song and Silence'' Prestige Class "Fang of Lolth", who slowly gives over the body to an image preferred by the above-mentioned Spider-Queen. Unhinged jaws, bug-eyes, hairy limbs, EXTRA limbs. This starts when someone uses in an unintended way one of magical items produced by her priestesses.
** Another notable one is called the Warshaper, which basically involves taking a character that can change shape in some way, and going nuts with it. Sprouting claws, horns, mouths and spikes at will, being able to double the length of limbs for better reach. Growing more limbs, all of the above at once...
** The ''Expanded Psionics Handbook'' doesn't have anything explicitly aberrant (besides illithids), but many of the powers available to the psychic warrior involve sprouting claws and spitting acid. One of the higher-level abilities, Form of Doom, makes the psychic warrior's body stronger and faster, "complete with an ooze-sleek skin coating, [[Combat Tentacles|lashing tentacles]], and a [[Primal Fear|fright-inducing countenance]]".
**
** The ''[[Pathfinder]]'' campaign setting offers sorcerers different bloodlines. One of them, the Aberrant bloodline, gives the practitioner slightly 'wiggy' anatomy (which gets progressively more so as he gets higher in level). Starts out with the ability to spit acid, ends with Abberant Physiology, in which your characters so messed up, he's immune to critical hits.
*** The Vivisection Alchemist's recommended Discoveries are things like tentacles, parasitic twins, Tumor Familliars, and vestigial arms. And their base skillset [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|is focused on making]] [[Petting Zoo People|furries]] from animals who piss them off.
** A ''[[Forgotten Realms]]'' 4e special is the spellscarred multiclass feature, which has all kinds of nasty [[Body Horror]] powers. Including unhinging your jaw to take a bite out of your enemies, bleeding on your sword to make it blister with plague, and creating a rope of flesh that binds you to your target so they can't escape you.
** ''[[Dragon (magazine)|Dragon]]''
* In ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade]]'' is the Obtenebration discipline, which at a certain level allows the user to make tentacles out of shadows.
** Don't forget what Tzimisce can do with their Vicissitude, which allows them to sculpt themselves or others into [[The Blob|slimy pus-heaps]] or powerful [[Mutants|mutant monsters]], as they see fit. One sourcebook played up the Lovecraftian connections by making it a parasitic virus from the Umbra. [[Canon Discontinuity|This was not well-received and eventually struck out]], but the idea remained that Vicissitude wasn't so much a proper Discipline as a virus devised by the clan's antediluvian for some foul purpose.
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* ''[[Exalted]]'' has a fair number of horrors with these abilities. Chimera Knacks for Lunars, some of the freakier Yozi charms for Infernals, the Abyssals and their freaky undeath powers...and let's not even get into a discussion of the Wyld. (With the Broken-Winged Crane expansion, Infernals can even literally turn into a [[Cthulhu Mythos|shoggoth]].)
* You can learn the Celtic "warp-spasm" in ''[[Scion]]''. The picture that accompanies it shows someone in the middle stages of transformation, and it isn't pretty (he's effectively turning into a mutant crow).
* One of the many consequences of taking high levels of Taint in White Wolf's ''[[Aberrant]]''. Low-level aberrations might include glowing eyes or bulging muscles, while the higher levels of aberration include becoming too hideous to view or having an entire vestigial body. Made worse by the fact that the game's sister series, ''[[Trinity]]'', implies that all super-humans in the setting will eventually fall prey to the higher-level aberrations.
== Video Games ==
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