Stacy

Suppose you believe you’ll fail.

Caelwyn

Cheerful beginning.

Stacy

You hesitate.

You notice obstacles before opportunities.

You stop trying sooner.

Eventually, you fail.

Caelwyn

And tell everyone you were right.

Stacy

Precisely.

Caelwyn

So the thought became reality.

Stacy

No.

The thought changed behaviour.

Behaviour changed circumstances.

Circumstances changed the outcome.

Caelwyn

That’s a remarkably elaborate way of saying the thought changed reality.

Stacy

It’s an accurate way.

Caelwyn

Then reverse it.

Someone imagines an aeroplane.

Stacy

A thought.

Caelwyn

A hospital.

Stacy

A thought.

Caelwyn

A better society.

Stacy

A thought.

Caelwyn

A bomb.

(Silence.)

Stacy

A thought.

Caelwyn

A concentration camp.

(A longer silence.)

Stacy

A thought.

Caelwyn

So thoughts are things.

Stacy

Eventually.

That’s the important word.

Caelwyn

Because thoughts need people.

Stacy

People. Action. Resources. Institutions. Repetition.

Caelwyn

Belief.

Stacy

Sometimes.

Caelwyn

We’ve been treating the Inner Fire as though it were good.

Stacy

The sparrow was good.

The bumblebee was good.

Caelwyn

No.

What we fed the fire was good.

(Stacy looks at him.)

Caelwyn

Fire can warm a house.

Stacy

Or burn it down.

Caelwyn

Exactly.

Love can feed the Inner Fire.

Hope can feed it.

Curiosity can feed it.

Stacy

And fear.

Caelwyn

Yes.

Stacy

Hatred.

Caelwyn

Yes.

Stacy

Resentment.

Humiliation.

The need for an enemy.

Caelwyn

All of them burn.

(Silence.)

Stacy

A million people believing a lie doesn’t make it true.

Caelwyn

No.

Stacy

That’s important.

Caelwyn

Very.

But a million people believing a lie can turn it into a law.

Stacy

A uniform.

Caelwyn

A prison.

Stacy

A grave.

(Silence.)

Stacy

We don’t need the Mythos for any of that.

Caelwyn

No.

Human beings are perfectly capable of doing that themselves.

Stacy

Then where does Cthulhu enter the story?

(Caelwyn pushes three newspapers towards her.)

Caelwyn

When the lie doesn’t merely change people.

Stacy

What do you mean?

Caelwyn

When reality begins agreeing with them.

(Stacy looks at the newspapers.)

Stacy

Same date.

Same city.

Caelwyn

First edition?

Stacy

A political meeting ended in violence.

One man died.

Caelwyn

Second?

Stacy

Same meeting.

Nobody died.

Caelwyn

Third?

(She stops.)

Stacy

There was no meeting.

Caelwyn

And the dead man?

Stacy

His wife remembers him.

Nobody else does.

There is no birth certificate.

No employment record.

Nothing.

Caelwyn

Except?

Stacy

She has photographs.

Caelwyn

Of him?

Stacy

Not anymore.

(Silence.)

Caelwyn

What happened before the meeting changed?

Stacy

Four hundred people began chanting the same sentence.

Caelwyn

Which was?

Stacy

“We remember the world as it should be.”

(Silence.)

Caelwyn

Perhaps thoughts don’t create reality.

Stacy

Good.

Caelwyn

Perhaps they put weight on possibility.

Stacy

One person?

Caelwyn

Barely.

Stacy

Four hundred?

Caelwyn

Perhaps.

Stacy

Millions?

(Neither speaks.)

Stacy

Caelwyn…

Europe is full of millions of people being taught the same fears.

The same enemies.

The same imagined past.

The same promised future.

Again.

And again.

And again.

Caelwyn

That’s already dangerous without the supernatural.

Stacy

But if you’re right—

Caelwyn

I desperately hope I’m not.

Stacy

Then propaganda might not merely teach people what reality is.

Caelwyn

No.

Stacy

It might begin teaching reality what to become.

(Caelwyn looks towards the dying fire.)

Caelwyn

Then perhaps we’ve asked the wrong question about the Inner Fire.

Stacy

“How brightly does it burn?”

Caelwyn

Yes.

Stacy

And the right question?

(She looks at the impossible newspapers.)

Stacy

What are you feeding it?

🎲 CTA

PLAY EPIC. FEEL THE STORY.

Game: Pulp Cthulhu
Campaign: Mythveil Chronicles
Theme: Inner Fire · Thoughts Are Things

Every human creation begins somewhere inside a human mind.

A bridge.

A movement.

A dream.

A weapon.

A nightmare.

History already shows us that shared beliefs can change societies, laws and lives. We need no supernatural explanation for fascism, hatred or persecution. Human beings remain responsible for what human beings create.

But Pulp Cthulhu allows us to ask one additional, disturbing question:

What if consciousness can sometimes reach a little further?

What if enough minds concentrating upon the same hope, fear, enemy or imagined future can do more than change human behaviour?

What if reality begins to listen?

Inner Fire is not automatically good.

Fire has never cared what it burns.

Perhaps the important question isn’t how fiercely yours burns.

It’s what you feed it.

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