Cthulhu Mythos tabletop RPG Game Hall

"No luck again."

Liu Xing looked at the text message on his phone and sighed helplessly. He then put down his phone, lay on his back on the bed, and lamented, "Studying medicine really ruins a life."

Liu Xing, male, 22 years old, a graduate of Rongcheng University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, currently unemployed and living at home.

Half a month ago, Liu Xing had a falling out with the department director. Being young, Liu Xing impulsively resigned.

For the past half month, Liu Xing had been applying for jobs at various hospitals. However, as he had just graduated and lacked connections, the result of every job application was always "Please wait for our call at home."

"Do I really have to go home?" Liu Xing found his father's number in his contacts.

Liu Xing's family had been practicing medicine for three generations, owning three clinics. When Liu Xing graduated, his father had wanted him to help out at home, but Liu Xing refused. He didn't want to be stuck in one position at such a young age; he wanted to go out and experience more.

"Alright, but I'll give you five thousand for living expenses. From now on, you'll have to earn your own money to support yourself," Liu's Father had said at the time. "If you can't make it, come back and be obedient. You can take over whichever clinic you want."

"Forget it, going back after just over two months would be too embarrassing." Liu Xing thought about this and turned off his phone. He knew his father's personality, and returning now would lead to a lifetime of ridicule.

"I have one thousand left, which means I'll run out of money in at most another month." Liu Xing took out his remaining assets from his wallet and gazed wistfully at the ceiling.

"Sigh, why think so much? Let's play LOL. Time to crush some kids and change my mood."

As he decided, Liu Xing pushed himself up and turned on his computer.

An hour later, Liu Xing angrily put down his mouse, staring blankly at the computer.

"It's only Monday, and there are already so many kids?!"

Speechless, Liu Xing closed LOL and decided to watch new anime on the largest website in the country—bilibili.

"Grandpa is drawing more Madoka Magica doujinshi." Liu Xing stroked his chin, reaching a correct conclusion.

"Never mind, I'll go tease girls in the group chat." Liu Xing clicked on QQ.

"Di Di Di."

As soon as he logged in, a pop-up window occupied more than half of Liu Xing's screen.

"What the heck, is Xun this shameless? The ads have been this big for a while now." Liu Xing was startled by the massive pop-up.

"Play now and get 100,000 Renminbi!" Liu Xing looked at the bright red characters in the pop-up and felt speechless.

Liu Xing wasn't unfamiliar with these web game ads. As a middle-aged person born in the 90s, he had seen all sorts of online game advertisements. But this was the first time he had seen an ad that boldly promised a hundred thousand yuan.

Thinking of this, Liu Xing couldn't help but mutter to himself, "This is kinda awesome. One hundred thousand Renminbi. Fine, just for this ad, I'll click it and try it out. It won't cost me anything to click."

Thus, Liu Xing clicked "Join Game" under the slogan.

"Ding."

After a soft click, Liu Xing's computer screen went black.

"Damn it!" Liu Xing couldn't help but roar.

Just as Liu Xing, heartbroken over the seeds planted on his computer, was about to restart it, the computer automatically restored itself. However, Liu Xing noticed a new game icon on his desktop.

"That was close." Liu Xing quickly opened a hidden folder. The files inside were all intact.

"Was that the game's automatic installation?" Liu Xing looked at the strange game icon on his desktop. The icon seemed somewhat familiar; it was Cthulhu's avatar.

Cthulhu is an evil entity from the Cthulhu Mythos created by the American novelist Howard Phillips Lovecraft (hereinafter referred to as Lovecraft). It has a head like an octopus, with countless tentacles on its face, huge hook claws on its hands and feet, and leathery bat-like wings on its back. For World of Warcraft players, it might remind them of a boss in the game, C'Thun, which is a tribute to the Cthulhu Mythos.

Liu Xing's first encounter with the Cthulhu Mythos was when a good friend dragged him to a board game room to observe a Cthulhu tabletop RPG.

Thinking of this, Liu Xing's brow twitched. He took a closer look at the title beneath the game icon, and it was exactly as he had imagined.

"Cthulhu Mythos tabletop RPG Game Hall?"

Simply put, Cthulhu Mythos tabletop RPG is a board game very popular in Europe and America. However, unlike domestic popular board games like Werewolf Game and Three Kingdoms Kill, Cthulhu Mythos tabletop RPG is a role-playing game. Its characteristic is that players can immerse themselves in playing their characters and, within the rules, develop various open-ended stories based on their actions. For example, in other games, if you encounter an enemy, you can only choose to defeat them to advance the plot. But in a Cthulhu Mythos tabletop RPG, you can choose to directly evade the enemy, bribe them, persuade them, or even join them. All of these are possible.

However, in Cthulhu Mythos tabletop RPG, combat is never the main focus, because generally, combat equals a total party kill. The enemies that players, as investigators, have to face are all Mythical Creatures!

Cthulhu Mythos tabletop RPG naturally draws its material from a series of novels by Lovecraft, which are collectively known as the Cthulhu Mythos. After Lovecraft's death, many authors wrote fan-fiction style Cthulhu Mythos stories, eventually shaping the Cthulhu Mythos into a brand new mythological system – the Cthulhu Mythos System.

As the "face" of this mythological system, Cthulhu is an important deity among the Great Old Ones, a major faction within the Cthulhu Mythos System. In the "Fire, Wind, Earth, Water" faction, it represents "Water." Currently, it is sealed by another powerful, antagonistic force – the Elder Gods – and slumbers in the underwater city of R'lyeh in the South Pacific Ocean. When influenced by cosmic alignments or other external factors, Cthulhu's seal automatically loosens, and it appears on the sea. However, because the seal is not completely broken, Cthulhu cannot stray far from R'lyeh. When the stars change again and the seal's power is restored, Cthulhu will return to R'lyeh to continue its slumber. When Cthulhu truly breaks free from its seal, it will inevitably destroy the world.

From Cthulhu's setting, it can be seen that Cthulhu has the power to destroy the world. Moreover, Cthulhu is not the strongest entity in the Cthulhu Mythos System. In the setting of Cthulhu Mythos tabletop RPG, Cthulhu can unconditionally kill a random number of players, and Cthulhu's attack speed far surpasses that of the players. Therefore, when players encounter Cthulhu, they can basically prepare for death.

Of course, Cthulhu is definitely a boss-level existence and won't appear casually. But below Cthulhu, there are all sorts of Mythical Creatures. The weakest are Ghouls and Deep Ones (essentially merfolk, though there are some differences in details). But even if Ghouls and Deep Ones are weak, their combat capabilities are equivalent to the Boxing Champions and Fighting Masters of the world.

Of course, Liu Xing, who was still a novice at the time, once asked the friend who introduced him to the game, "Even a Fighting Master or a Boxing Champion can be taken down with a single shot, right?"

Liu Xing's friend chuckled and told him, "You're overthinking it. In Cthulhu Mythos tabletop RPG, the characters players portray are mostly ordinary people, or special roles like police officers or detectives. At most, they might have a handgun. Although Cthulhu Mythos tabletop RPG has high freedom, all actions must be within the rules. For example, as an ordinary person, you can't obtain weapons like a Submachine Gun, nor can you casually carry weapons around. And Ghouls and Deep Ones have overwhelming advantages in all aspects compared to ordinary humans."

Therefore, under normal circumstances, humans have no chance of defeating these Mythical Creatures. Of course, there are some exceptions. Because Cthulhu Mythos tabletop RPG is very freeform, some groups choose to set their own rules, such as adding some bizarre skills...

The specific forms of Cthulhu Mythos tabletop RPG are divided into face-to-face games and online games. Face-to-face games naturally refer to players gathering in real life to play, while online games refer to playing online through communication applications like QQ and related tools. Moreover, Cthulhu Mythos tabletop RPG requires a lot of time and energy. A single session can range from a short one or two hours to several years, unlike Werewolf Game and Three Kingdoms Kill, which can be played in about ten minutes. This leads to a relatively small number of players participating in Cthulhu Mythos tabletop RPG in China.

And most importantly, Cthulhu Mythos tabletop RPG does not have dedicated online platforms and mobile applications like Werewolf Game and Three Kingdoms Kill. This causes many Cthulhu Mythos tabletop RPG enthusiasts, after successfully introducing friends to the game, to find themselves without a suitable place to play with them. Liu Xing was like that back then. Although he really wanted to try Cthulhu Mythos tabletop RPG, he never had the opportunity to truly participate in a session. After all, organizing a face-to-face game is not easy, as all participants need to find several hours of free time simultaneously. As for online games, there's the awkwardness of lacking professional platforms.

And now, looking at the "Cthulhu Mythos tabletop RPG Game Hall" on his computer desktop, Liu Xing couldn't help but smile. He never expected to encounter a platform specifically for Cthulhu Mythos tabletop RPG. This was truly beyond his expectations.