Cthulhu Wars. The third goddess

Bubastis: Alex Isabelle
Great Cthulhu: Luca Giannini
Black Goat: Matteo Bursi
Windwalker: Andrea Giberti

We find ourselves once again in a space-time in which the good have failed: around the world the most unspeakable cults flourish, whose followers go around making human sacrifices, creating inter-dimensional portals and... meowing.

In Polynesia the adoration for the dead Cthulhu flourishes again, who in his home in R'lyeh waits dreaming. That which can wait eternally is not dead, and with the passing of strange eons even death can die, it is said, and strange eons are undoubtedly involved in this case: even in the ice of the arctic portal circle in fact the grim servants of Ithaqua, "the thing that walks in the wind", are starting to come to life, undead evoked by frightened peoples, related to the Inuit, insensitive to the cold. And then even the pagan cults of West Africa are activated, preparing to summon "The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young", the earthly manifestation of the goddess Shub-Niggurath. Seeing the Earth taking a turn for the worse, the cat people themselves begin the operations to draw the attention of the ancient deity Bubastis, also known as Bastet, the Queen of Cats, by going to her court on the Moon.

Rhan-Tegoth awakens in the Arctic.

Someone has to give the go-ahead to this ugly story, and so the servants of Ithaqua break the deadlock by managing to give life to a Wendigo in the depths of the Arctic. Almost at the same time, two cosmic cats from Mars also appear on the Moon. The faithful followers of Cthulhu send one of their cultists to the coasts of Japan and a second to the people of the Comoros, imitated by those of Shub-Niggurath who send numerous delegations to the Indian Ocean, Southern Africa and Asia. All forces are set in motion, then, but it is always in the Arctic that things are done in a big way: after the first wendigo, Ithaqua's most faithful summon a second one, and then move directly on to awaken Rhan-Tegoth from his hibernation, a great ancient who came from Yuggoth millions of years ago. Also from Yuggoth comes the mushroom that the cultists of Shub-Niggurath manage to make emerge from the land of Africa; they also create a ghoul, who is then sent to recover a book of black magic in today's Angola. In the meantime, the cultist of the sleeping Cthulhu who had gone to the Comoros opens a portal there, followed shortly after by a colleague of his who opens another one on the islands in Japan. The cats, in all this, show no sign of coming down from the Moon, where however they continue to multiply: in fact, another big cat, now coming from Uranus, swoops down on the satellite, ready to serve Bubastis.

The big cat of Venus looks just like a nice little house cat.

This first phase of the war has seen the cults expand and grow stronger. The cult of the dead Cthulhu, however, decides to spend itself in an unheard-of way: by summoning a cat, from Venus! The appearance of this unwanted, ungrateful and filthy son of Bubastis, now bent to the will of the cultists of Cthulhu, is not good news, and so the cats of the Moon also recruit a (powerful?) ally: a giant and blind penguin, from the Mountains of Madness, who is brought to the Moon to serve purposes known only to the goddess Bubastis. Wondering how this cumbersome bird will ever be able to serve their cause, the cats on the Moon let themselves go with disconsolate meows.

In his house, physically fit Cthulhu of R'lyeh
waits doing crossfit.

The fact is that the cultists of the great Cthulhu have clear ideas: they gather and awaken their great ancient, Cthulhu of course, from the depths of the South Pacific. The proliferation of the horrid creatures of this cult worries the faithful of Shub Niggurath, who at this point decide to attack its fringe based in the Comoros, without significant results. Shortly after, the cultists of Ithaqua also try; they manage to kill the cat of Venus and rework its flesh so as to produce a new wendigo. A second clash in this region between the cultists of Ithaqua and Shub-Niggurath sees the former prevail once again, and definitively: the damaged Yuggoth mushroom flies away towards the American coasts while a wendigo escapes to Australia. The first clashes do not stop the appearance of creatures from other worlds: the cats summon two more cats, this time from Saturn, definitively transforming the Moon into a cattery, while the goat cult manages to evoke a tentacled horror, a progeny of their goddess, in the darkest Africa, to then open a portal in China. Meanwhile, after having imposed itself in the Indian Ocean, the cult of Ithaqua also does not want to stop its impetus: the great ancient Rhan-Tegoth, accompanied by a wendigo and a cultist, goes to Japan, where he is joined shortly after by the other wendigo who had fled shortly before to Australia. Having arrived at these latitudes, he is tired and hibernates, coherently with the local literature concerning kaijus, containing his forces in view of the next round.

Finally, at this point, the cats on the Moon manage to meow loudly enough and with enough concern to awaken Bastet, their sovereign and goddess already known to the Egyptians. They still do not descend from the satellite, and so in the meantime Rhan-Tegoth awakens from his hibernation, heading south, towards Antarctica, with the rest of his group. Since a female deity has appeared, then those of Shub-Niggurath also decide that it is time to make themselves heard, and they call to Earth an aspect of their divinity, the black goat with a thousand cubs. All the warring parties have a great ancient at stake, but the cultists of Cthulhu surprise everyone for a second time, calling to Earth yet another great ancient, who was expected to remain neutral, and who instead enters the game in all respects: it is Hagarg Ryonis, "she who lies waiting", a third goddes, a deity of murder and evil, who appears in the islands of Polynesia, where the cult of the patient Cthulhu had flourished.

The Cat Death Squad moves to the North Pacific.

Faced with the arrival of this foul being, the cats finally act and descend en masse from the Moon, starting a noble project, on paper at least, but with a confusing execution: the cosmic cats appear in fact in the islands of the South Pacific and kidnap all the units present there, namely Cthulhu himself, Hagarg Ryonis, two cultists, a frogman and a cat of Venus, dematerializing them and making them end up on the Moon, which is "defended" only by the penguin, who is annihilated. The idea would be to force the forces of the Cthulhu cult to pay a large amount of power to leave the satellite, but the operation is actually a shitty idea: since the Cthulhu faction has two great ancients in play, it is already passively producing more victory points than all the others, and putting its units on the Moon is in fact equivalent to protecting them. It will take me a while to realize this.

The perplexed Cthulhu tries to figure out
how to exploit the "lunar" situation to his advantage.

The story is the backdrop to other, much more earthly events: the cult of Ithaqua lands in Antarctica, actually finding a Yuggoth mushroom sent there by those of Shub-Niggurath. The mushroom is kidnapped to become an object of study, after which a portal is opened. This gives the cultists of Ithaqua access to an important manual of black magic, hidden in the Mountains of Madness, a fact that accelerates the terrible developments of the game. An acceleration that worries the cosmic cats, who, after having sent most of the cultists of Cthulhu to the Moon, want to do the same with those of Shub-Niggurath, in the hope that they will massacre each other. The faithful of the black goat intuit their plans and face them first at a time when their forces are divided, killing several cats and clipping their wings at birth in this regard. Even the cult of Cthulhu understands that it is time to divide its forces, so it pays a small price to bring Cthulhu and one of its cultists back to Earth, who appear in the Comoros, but are joined by numerous monstrosities loyal to the windwalker, from Antarctica, including the narcoleptic Rhan-Tegoth, who manages, at the end of a clash between titans that sees the sacrifice of numerous wendigos, to kill Cthulhu. The celebrations are brief, as the latter's body dissolves and then reappears in R'lyeh, in the South Pacific, from where it will re-emerge a few turns later amidst the cheers of its cultists and the bitterness of the player of the cult of Ithaqua. The latter, meanwhile, is joined in India by Bastet and the cosmic cats who survived the clash with the followers of Shub-Niggurath in Africa: the clash is balanced, but fortune favors Rhan-Tegoth and the cult of Ithaqua, who, despite failing to kill Bastet, manages to repel her attack. The turn is coming to an end, and so the cats decide to try a wild card: they kidnap a new giant penguin and take it to the Moon, where it is immediately preyed upon by the big cat of Venus, who, together with Hagarg Ryonis, is, in general silence, still controlling the satellite.

I have a fever, and the only prescription
is more tentacles.

The cult of Shub-Niggurath, while the other religious cliques fight, opts for a more down-to-earth approach: it expands to Europe, where it opens a portal, and then to Asia, where it was already present and where a new progeny of the black goat is summoned. The various factions spend some time preparing for the final battle, recruiting new followers and obtaining the last magical texts yet to be found. The submersible Cthulhu, which had emerged from the depths of the Pacific, goes back to hide underwater for safety. The cult of Ithaqua puts the recently discovered magical texts to work and severely alters the world's climate, starting a new ice age, which will protect its creatures in the Arctic, from which it then descends towards North America, controlled by the cosmic cats. Bastet and her cats barely defend a portal in Canada from the coming of the Ithaqua cultists and at the same time attempt an advance towards Europe against Shub-Niggurath, without success.

With the Moon firmly in the hands of a nightmarish Great Old One, with Cthulhu coming and going at will around the Earth, with a new ice age in full swing, the fate of humanity is sealed, and it is time to go to the calculation of the final score. We discover that the cult of the fugitive Cthulhu is doing considerably better than the other three forces, mostly because having constantly had two Great Old Ones in play it has accumulated more power than all the other factions. It is only at this point that the cats, strong of a hard-fought second place, realize with horror how much of a failure the plan to send Hagarg Ryonis and his people to the Moon was. A bitter ending that also anticipates the outcome of a fight that could have continued, perhaps, for another round... but that's how it went.

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