#tcho tcho

[virovac]

my take on the tcho-tcho, to avoid the pygmy cannibal or orientalist of later authors, is to have them be an extinct culture being culturally appropriated

they were a strange other species of hominid or offshoot of humanity

perhaps they had a rich culture, but now the creeps imitating them and violating time and space to learn more about their cannibalistic rites and occult secrets (or an irresponsible Yithian left notes that were later copied) don’t care about that

some things in the Cthulhu Mythos should just be dead but that doesn’t mean the story ends with death

[avarchillionpaints]

Well, as my players move through India, they will reach into Nepal. There they will eventually come to the Kali Gandaki valley and reach the dreaded Drakmar. There in a hidden cave live the Tcho Tcho that worship their sleeping God Chaugnar Faugen.

And thats why I needed a mini for the big guy (I am going to use Nightgoblins as Tcho Tchos^^). First I thought about buying a cheap Ganesh figurine and „cthulhufying“ it but than I saw that „Cthulhu Wars“ had a Chaugnar mini. As I really liked the way it was sculpted I bought it and now have a pretty cool looking Chaugnar.

All I can hope for now, is that my players survive the encounter. :-)

[virovac]

Am I the only one that doesn’t like the Tcho-Tcho at all?

They’re basically the most racist concept in the expanded Cthulhu Mythos (actually made even worse by roleplaying games trying to update them), have  uncomfortable anti-dwarf prejudice in their conception, and  overall really hard to work with. 

If I did use them, they would just be an extinct culture who managed to get copy cats continuing some of their practices in modern times (perhaps using various magics to preserve bits of their culture in the “whispers below the earth.” )

Like they were better when they were some vague historic cannibal cult and not given a “face” that’s basically “peril of the orient” and “long pig” jokes. 

[chronivore]

New Genders just dropped.

[tumbleyond-blog-blog]

TCHO-TCHO Of earthly minds there were some from the winged, star-headed, half-vegetable race of palaeogean Antarctica; one from the reptile people of fabled Valusia; three from the furry pre-human Hyperborean worshippers of Tsathoggua; one from the wholly abominable Tcho-Tchos; two from the arachnid denizens of earth’s last age; five from the hardy coleopterous species immediately following mankind, to which the Great Race was some day to transfer its keenest minds en masse in the face of horrible peril; and several from different branches of humanity. H.P. Lovecraft, The Shadow Out Of Time "On the contrary, they were a horde of little men, the tallest of them no more than four feet, with singularly small eyes set deep in dome-like, hairless heads. These queer attackers fell upon the party and had killed men and animals with their bright swords almost before our men could extract their weapons." "It is true that strange legends had reached us even before we had left Ho-Nan province of a weird race of little people, to whom the natives applied the odd name, "Tcho-Tcho."' August Derleth & Mark Schorer, The Lair Of the Star Spawn