The taboo is compellingly nasty, but the last two channels seem somewhat over-powered. I'd imagine these guys would have to be a top priority for the Sleepers as soon as they found out about the cult. (and they would find out, as the Invisible Clergy would presumably see to it that hints reached them).

I'd like it if an example of how someone starts down this path was included. I understand the idea, but it sounds like the low-level unwitting avatars are only "Slutty Mean Mothers That Push Their Children Too Hard" and maybe a few "Vengeful AIDS-Infected Mothers That Slut Around"

Thanks for the comments!

High level channels being over-powered: In general it's quite hard to get to a high rating of any avatar. Great Old Ones even more so as your behaviour is so extreme that you will be targeted by a large number of people and groups. This means that there will only be a small number of people who survive to reach that level. The GOO will invest power accordingly to protect their powerful servants (and you are a servant - your power is given to you to serve their ends, not to do your own thing).

In general I have also decided that all GOO avatars suffer a 10% penalty on their rolls, reflecting the fact that they need to channel archetypal forces through the shell of the universe.

How to get started: In general, Shub-Niggurath spreads through corruption of existing fertility god/dess cults (chiefly new age and deep green ecology fringe groups in the west) and direct reproduction. Application of the first channel by a priest/ess is usually enough to convince the dupes that the Avatar has real power - and they don't find out the nasty side until they're infected, one way or another.

I think it's more of a cult than something you unwittingly channel, though I think your examples are great - and remember, could be aids-infected, child abusing dads as well.

I've been looking forward to this post.

I like this take on Shub-Niggurath. It's something almost like the devouring mother, but much more physical, and almost like a closed loop: the self-fertilizing, self-devouring, living womb. The avatar is freakishly powerful, but I imagine that channelling She/Him/Them is hard to do. One question: when does the Body from the first channel wear off? Is that warrior going to be getting cancer in the field or a month from then?

I'd also say that the pill would break taboo. It denies fertility, and Shub-Niggurath's fertility cannot be denied or circumscribed in any way. I could even imagine that an avatar's using contraceptives would break taboo but still fail to prevent pregnancy or disease.

Thanks for keeping this crossover going!
- FAR out

I see the first channel as having the same sort of effect as powerful stimulants (amphetamines, steroids, etc) - the high is instant, the come-down is gradual, but you're eventually far worse off than you were before. Maybe over a few days, a week, a month - what form the damage took would probably depend on the characteristics of the cult's particular interpretation of the Dark Mother.

A nice link for Shubby: a discussion of Vagina Dentata. Eeek. http://www.goddesscafe.com/yoni/dentata.html

Thinking about limiting the third channel which is probably over powered:
1) You can only take on the victim's form until the next time you have sex.
2) You can only take on the victim's form until the next time you bathe; the victim's sexual and bodily fluids (including any bloodstains) must remain on/in you for the taking of their form to work.

In general, though, I don't see the channel as that overpowered. I mean, you can do the same damage just by pulling a gun from under the pillow and shooting your partner.

For the third channel, I'd say that it's not overpowered if taking on the person's form is permanent. Once you choose to take it on, you're stuck. After all, this path isn't about illusion; it's more about creation and consumption.

OOH! RE: The "Creation and Consumption" plus "Horrible Abominations", the form of the person you take is permanent until you take another form, but there're always bits left. Extra bits, not just unchanged bits. So the first time, it's not a big deal, maybe you have a barely better padded ass. But the second time, there's a hairy-spot on your back from the time you were an Italian man. And by the fifth you're a non-functioning hermaphrodite. By the twentieth, sure the FACE looks human (and perfectly identical to whomever you're copying), but the rest of your body has become a compounded nightmare of unmatched extras, strange tumors, and muscles which move without smooth coordination.

To not keep leftovers from a previous form, you have to roll ABOVE your Avatar score (and no flip-flopping, that's disrespectful and a denial of the archetype). If you succeed, you still keep some memento of the last form, but it is ignorably minor, such as a small mole, a tiny patch of freckles, a few hair on one digit of one finger. Once acquired, mementos never depart, no matter how often the avatar changes into new shapes until they turn into a Dark Young, which already take on a huge variety of shapes, but if they're particularly deformed by that point they will be an even MORE notably deformed abomination, though the exact details might change i.e. not just a translation of the existing mementos, but a more a general level of mismatch to work from. So if they'd turned into a Dark Young after only having turned into a few people, they'd be a "Typical" Dark Young. If, on the other hand, they became one after having been a hundred other people (not uncommon, as many avatars seek to "fix" the parts that are stuck by desperately taking new form after form), they will be such a horrible cancerous mish-mash of parts as to make those DY that are just twisted fauns and fat-men with crab arms and panther legs look comparatively normal.

That's brilliant!

And by the end, you're FAT. Well, technically, "More Massive". I like that it entails that you're also going to have loose flaps of skin, like little flippers of flesh, hanging at random. That it means you're going to maybe have overlapping fingernails, an oversized (but branching) penis, and extra rows of teeth (usually in the mouth, at least)

hmmm... man falls victim to an STD which infects his entire skin and transforms it, due to a "rare genetic abnormality", into something resembling a tree...
http://tinyurl.com/3b5cec

Poor guy. Glad to see there might be a cure. Still, victim of a non-fatal 3rd channel attack?

Oh sure, make him look like the victim. No, though he's "repented" now and plays well to the camera, he was actually a high-level avatar but he botched the roll to transform into a Dark Young. It was lucky, too, because if he had succeeded the cult he was a part of would never have run out of steam and his village would have been overrun by weeds and trash-eating fast-breeding inedible fish. And human sacrifices. Overrun with human sacrifices.

It's a funny story actually: a member of a competing cult accidentally happened on the ritual meeting where the transformation was going to take place and, when it looked like something big was going to happen, threw first a fish and then an old piece of fruit at the tree man. That distracted him enough that his transformation went horribly awry. Of course, they ate the interloper after horribly sexually abusing him, but sometimes that's just how things work out.

Funny thing is, the official root cause is Human Papilloma Virus, the single most widespread STD in existence.

I wonder who's really backing Gardasil, and what it really does. I mean, did you know that stuff had a 100% success rate in clinical trials? No normal drug works that well.

A new challenger has appeared!

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,351608,00.html

And, again, wussed out before taking the final plunge.