“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

Said Arthur C. Clarke.

In Call of Cthulhu, where aliens use spells and their machines are centuries above ours — this rings especially true!

Come with me! I will show you the most jaw-dropping examples contained in the 7th Edition Keeper’s Guide.

Each artifact segment will contain three parts:

• Where yours truly will entertain you and present you with a more narrative-driven take.
• I will propose how you can use each artifact as a plot device in your stories.
• More dry and number based description straight from the manual.

Let’s get started!
 

5. Bio-Web Armor

Need good armor but mere kevlar is not cool enough? I have an amazing solution for you! This “semi-luminous green slime” will protect your body from nasty stuff, even nastier than itself.

Besides melee and firearms it guards your precious flesh from things like raging fire, jolts of electricity, and who knows what else!

Downsides? It was made for the kind of dashing gentleman above, not for humans, so wearing it comes with complications.

Normally it forms symbiosis, but people do not discharge proper nutrients, so it gets weaker every time.
Also, trying to get it off may cause you to lose chunks of flesh and hair. Ouch!

There may also be other long-term effects. Who knows!

They can be used as plot devices by crafty GMs, forcing players to choose between two risks — using unknown technology or being unprotected.

“Bio-Web Armor

Used by: Mi-go

In dangerous situations, mi-go typically don these webs of semi-luminous green slime. The harnesses provides 8 points of armor against blows, flame, electricity, etc. Humans may wear these bio-webs, but take 1 point of damage as hair and flesh is ripped away each time the armor is removed. A bio-web will slowly degrade because humans do not exude the proper nutrient solutions to care for it.

Each time it is worn by a human, a bio-web decreases in protection by one point. When no armor points remain, the armor disintegrates into a steaming, sticky pool of viscous matter. Whether there are significant side effects to wearing this armor is unknown.”
 

4. Tabula Rasa Device

Have you ever thought how nice it would be to make a fresh start? Free of your past traumas and memories of failures?

The Great Race of Yith (the authors of this amazing gadget) totally agree! And removing your knowledge about their secrets is just an extra, right?

Attaching it to the brain takes some time and requires knowledge of Yithian technology or amazing intelligence. Doing it wrong will surely cause random brain damage!

Once it is attached, depending on settings, it either dulls the mind or downloads memories.

Memories are not entirely removed. They can manifest in bizarre dreams, especially in intelligent people.

The process can be reversed too! The device has to be attached again with different settings.

What is quite bizarre is that downloading is not restricted to th original owner. Having memories of two different childhoods & stuff would surely be confusing as hell!

Both adding and removing memories create fertile ground for many plots. These tropes are being widely exploited, but when used with taste — they can still brew amazing stories!

“Tabula Rasa Device

Used by: Yithians
A device invented by the Yithians to erase the memories of those entities they displace through time. It is a small, slim, rectangular copper box covered with tiny indentations.

From one side of the box, five flexible metal tubes extend, ending in inch-long metal needles. The needles are inserted into the victim’s head, which takes five rounds. Once the device is activated, the victim is paralyzed unless he or she makes a successful POW roll each round that the device is connected.
 

Each round the machine erases up to a year’s worth of memories or removes 5 points of INT, at the operator’s discretion. These memories and thoughts are stored in the copper box. The erasure of memories is not always totally complete. Every year there is an INT chance that some memory returns in the form of dreams. The function of this device may also be reversed, feeding the stored memories to the original victim or alternatively to another entity entirely.
 

The tabula rasa device is very complex, and can only be used by those familiar with Yithian technology. Humans ignorant of Yithian technology would require an Extreme INT roll to successful operate the device—failure would indicate that the person connected to the machine has suffered brain damage and the loss of 1D100 INT.”
 

3. Plutonian Drug

Speaking of brewing, this potent substance traced to Chinese philosopher Lao Tze can take the user's mind on a journey… in the past, before birth, before Earth, back to the very beginnings of the universe.

This trip can be maddening even in itself, but seeing aliens, dark gods, and the truth about the true origins of everything may be like a trebuchet of lunacy bombarding your walls of sanity with giant rocks of blasphemous truth… Look what it did to me!

Regarding plot devices, seeing far into the past may provide justification for seemingly crazy actions of the NPC and for PCs, this may be a desperate measure to discover a way to stop a Big Bad!

“Plutonian Drug

I have here five pellets of the drug Liao. It was used by the Chinese philosopher Lao Tze, and while under its influence he visioned Tao. Tao is the most mysterious force in the world; it surrounds and pervades all things
—Frank Belknap Long, The Hounds of Tindalos.

Used by: Anyone

This drug can send the user’s mind back in time, sometimes so far back that the user may even encounter the hounds of Tindalos —entities capable of traveling up and down time via its ‘corners’.

Those taking the drug must make a Sanity roll or lose 1D8 sanity points; however if they come across Mythos entities on their journey back in time they are subject to the standard sanity losses for viewing those entities. Taking the plutonian drug and witnessing the true history of the universe and planet Earth provides the user with 1D6

Cthulhu Mythos points. The drug can appear in liquid or tablet form and its manufacture is hinted at within certain Mythos tomes, including the Book of Eibon.”

2. Stasis Cube

Coming in all kind of shapes* and sizes, these cosmic oddities have just one function.

No! Not cooling fancy alien drinks!

To bend spacetime to your needs!

Even the dated, phased out devices slow time inside to 1 second per 10 000 of years outside!

The most advanced ones can have a ratio of 1:1,000,000 :O

They can serve a multitude of purposes, such as storing perishables, being vehicles to the future, and functioning as prisons. One thing is for sure, whatever comes inside will encounter a drastically different world when they come out!

Depending on the model, some require advanced knowledge in Yithian technology to use, while others are super simple and very likely to be used by accident!

This artifact can be used as a time capsule for an item to be used in specific circumstances - such as ritual dagger.

For a very ambitious group, this is an amazing heavy refreshment of the campaign, by transferring them for example, from Cthulhu Dark Ages to Cthulhu 2320. Adapting will be difficult for sure!

*Quietly smothering someone who tries to correct me that there is only one shape of a cubewith a pillow.

“Stasis Cube

Used by: Yithians

These devices appear in a number of different shapes and sizes, however they all have a single purpose: to slow the flow of time. Older cubes give ratios of 1-second internal time per thousand years external time, but in the future the Yithians will advance this to 1-second internal time per million years external time.

The smallest stasis cubes were used to store books in Pnakotus. Larger stasis cubes have been used to fling Yithians into the future. Almost all stasis cubes are simple in design, made from metal or plastic with no sign of external circuitry. Pushing a button or opening up the stasis cube deactivates most stasis cubes, but some have complicated panels allowing the programming of set periods of stasis.

These more complicated devices would likely be incomprehensible to someone who did not  understand Yithian technology, but anyone could use the simpler ones, perhaps even by accident.”

1. Brain Cylinder

What the hell is that?

Well, that is Jimmy, at least what was left from him.

You see, I mentioned Mi-Go before. Their technology and knowledge of medicine is so amazing that they can extract the brain and keep it alive outside of the body.

But wait! There’s more!

Normally, the brains rest in a state of senseless, semi-insane dreams, but they can be attached to three accessory machines, each responsible for other abilities - speech, vision, and hearing.

Mi-go do not possess human senses, so they have a lot of difficulties in representing them faithfully.

Vision is grainy and low resolution, sound is flat and speech is monotone and completely devoid of emotion.

Of course, people placed in such micro-apartments are slowly becoming insane, but there is an alternative.

The brain can be put back in any living body!

Yup, you guessed it. It ain’t charity.

Mi-Go persuade or brainwash their spongy prisoners to create human agents fulfilling their goals. Ones rarely benefiting humanity.

Either due to limited possibilities or aliens’ ignorance, agents may feel reeeeally out of place. 9th century man in the 18th century woman’s body, Indian as Native American, or even a pizza enjoyer swapped with a pineapple blasphemer!

The Brain Cylinder can create many amazing stories. Such as:

• Interacting with brains, trying to determine if they are sane and if they are motivated by self-interest, helping humanity, or Mi-go.
• Trying to identify Mi-Go agents and intercept their plan.
• Being an ex-cylinder person can create an amazing backstory!

“Brain Cylinder

Used by: Mi-go
These shiny cylinders are used to preserve extracted brains. Lovecraft described them as, “a foot high and somewhat less in diameter, with three curious sockets set in an isosceles
triangle over the front convex surface.”

Each cylinder is filled with a nutrient solution that sustains the brain within. Three accessory machines—a tall rig with twin lenses mounted on front, a box with vacuum tubes and a sounding board, and a small box with a metal disc on top comprise the mi-go sensing apparatus.

These machines, when connected to the proper sockets, provide the brain with the faculties of sight, speech, and hearing. The mi-go, not possessed of human senses, have done their best; however it is but an approximation of sound and vision. All visual input is grainy, of low general resolution and the audio is flat, like that of a monaural phonograph.

Speech, with all its nuances of inflection and emotion, is utterly lost on the fungi. The speech machine talks with a mechanical, monotone voice, devoid of emotion. When the sensory machines are disconnected or deactivated, the encased brain falls into a semi-insane sleep state filled with strange dreams and hallucinations.

Every month a human brain is enclosed within a cylinder, the brain must roll under or equal to its INT. If successful, the brain remembers it is stuck inside a tin can and loses 1D3 Sanity points.”

You may also be interested in:

• Call of Cthulhu TTRPG Guide For Beginners [25 Useful Tips Every Beginner Should Know]

• [Top 10] Call of Cthulhu TTRPG Best Occupations That Are Excellent

• [Top 10] Call of Cthulhu TTRPG Best Skills That Are Excellent

• 7 Most Horrifying Spells in Call of Cthulhu TTRPG

• Top 5 Bizarre Artifacts in Call of Cthulhu TTRPG