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In Steam sci-fi colony-building hit RimWorld, sanity is precious. Colonists have to deal with a lot of shit—from deceased loved ones to rampaging space turkeys—and they sometimes snap. H.P. Lovecraft also knows a thing or two about driving people to madness.




Modder Jecrell added one of the more influential storytellers of the past century to RimWorld. AI Lovecraft’s goal? To whittle away at your colonists’ sanity—and also your colonists—until there’s nothing left.

At the start of each RimWorld game, you pick an AI storyteller to guide the events that unfold as your colonists struggle to carve out a home on an untamed world. Cassandra Classic steadily turns up the heat, with animal attacks and pirate raids gradually getting tougher. Phoebe Chillax gives you tons of time to recover between disasters. Randy Random throws whatever he damn well feels like at you.


Here’s Lovecraft’s description:

“In Lovecraft’s stories, it is clear that the protagonists are doomed to die. In this mod, Lovecraft will be added to your list of storytellers. Threats to your colony and its sanity will be constant. Can your colony survive a cosmic horror tale?”

Naturally, things get nasty very, very quickly. Oh, and you can make things even more unpleasant with complementary mods that add Cthulhu-themed cosmic horror monsters and neutral factions from Lovecraft’s works.

It’s a pretty brilliant idea, and I hope to see people add other famous (albeit perhaps less diabolical) authors and creators to RimWorld. Maybe put Shakespeare in there for tragic twists born of fatal character flaws (and dialogue spoken largely in iambic pentameter), or toss in Kafka for single-colonist runs that slowly burble and eventually burst into something truly twisted. Which authors do you think would make for good storytellers in RimWorld?


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