The Terrifying Progeny of Ebla RestoredA Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game Spotlight by Guest Writer Marius Hartland
In the spring after Wilbur’s birth Lavinia resumed her customary rambles in the hills, bearing in her misproportioned arms the swarthy child. Public interest in the Whateleys subsided after most of the country folk had seen the baby, and no one bothered to comment on the swift development which that newcomer seemed every day to exhibit. Wilbur's growth was indeed phenomenal, for within three months of his birth he had attained a size and muscular power not usually found in infants under a full year of age.
–H.P. Lovecraft, The Dunwich Horror
In Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game, humanity has always tread a narrow and difficult path with madness at all sides. On one side, humanity risks success. Advancing our investigations, connecting the dots, and deciphering forbidden lore and arcane superscience may prove maddening enough to be our undoing. On the other side, we risk failure. Should our investigations falter, we may find our thin layer of civilization being washed away and our primitive nature revealed. In this way, humanity may regress into a pit of biological madness like some forgotten experiment left in the fridge for a couple of eons too long.
Nature, Nurture, and Mutant Spawn
The raw power of nature can be frightening, and its mindlessness is personified by Shub-Niggurath, who does nothing more than spit out thousands of young, curiously spewing them forward into a Darwinian hell of trial and error, where the only chance of survival is the ability to adapt. Accordingly, those who follow the Black Goat of the Woods have come to value flexibility.
Whenever the Mythos is involved, strange things happen. Sometimes humanity gains an eerie flexibility from the mixture of strange heritages. Some children may be sired by creatures from the deep, or even by the Ancient Ones. While the resulting spawn may trouble those who encounter them, they nonetheless serve a greater biodiversity. And those who follow the cult of Shub-Niggurath often venerate such beings and find ways to help them enter our world, and sometimes even to reenter the world, if their hybrid lives are cut tragically short.
Corrupted Midwife (Ebla Restored, 51) is one of those who help bring forth these novel blessings of the All-Mother and then keep the world filled with such hybrid souls. Sometimes helping bring them into the world for more than just a single visit. This is good news, then, if your cult needs more sacrifices. It opens up a path of reincarnation for characters like Performance Artist (Core Set, 87), letting you can reuse their valuable abilities over and over.
The Corrupted Midwife can help introduce even greater flexibility into the world when Lavinia Whateley (Dunwich Denizens, 75) rears her sickly head. Her sacrifice allows you the flexibility to search your deck for the character that can best help you adapt to the current situation, plugging holes in your strategy or exploiting your opponent’s weaknesses. The Corrupted Midwife can pull Lavinia back into the world, and with her each subsequent rebirth, Lavinia can help you rise to the top of the food chain. An extra push from the Evolving Shoggoth (Initiations of the Favored, 6) makes it even easier to adapt and thrive.
Polytheism
Meanwhile, if you’re a cultist seeking to curry the favor of unfathomable entities, why limit yourself to just one deity? If you’re willing to divide your attentions between the All-Mother and another elder god, you can find several potential paths to power. Cthulhu, The Great Old One (Core Set, 41) is quite fond of repeated sacrifices, and the Midwife can keep your ranks filled, providing you a steady supply. In addition to that, Tulzscha, The Green Flame (Kingsport Dreams, 37) makes your Midwives even more terrifying, as they keep busy transmigrating your followers.
The Corrupted Midwife’s powers may seem shocking at first, but, hey, what else would one expect of a midwife from the Shub-Niggurath faction, after birthing those thousand young?
Thanks, Marius!
Look for the Corrupted Midwife to add terrifying flexibility to Shub-Niggurath and threaten all of humanity when Ebla Restored arrives in stores to further our series of frightening Revelations!
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Source:
The Terrifying Progeny of Ebla Restored
