Cthonic Depths

Cthonic Depths is a puzzle game about rousing the incomprehensible might of the Cthonic Masters from the Depths below to overtake the realm of men and submerge it into insanity.

You are playng as a Cthonian servant, a fishman being capable of assuming different forms, such as humanoid disguise, foul-preaching cultist or your trueborn form. You may change that at any Depth Sanctum.

Gameplay:

You win the game by getting every location under the Depths' control. This is accomplished either by finding locations under your human cultists' control while being in cultist form yourself or by Activating the Sanctum. The other, more rare occasion is if you manage to convert the Cults of the Sun to your loathsome faith.

You lose the game if you are slain. When you move to a human-controlled or contested location without your Human Appearance form, the local suspicion rises. If it rises above "High", you are slain and lose the scenario.

You can equip one equipment at a time, but you can swap them.

- Dark Truth: You can use this at any contested location. You promise salvation from the invading Cthonians, turning the location under your (still) human cultists' control.

- Ritual Dagger: At Elder Circle, you can blot out the sun. Border patrols and city watches cannot catch you (no effect on suspicion), but the Sun Cult goes into hiding. Can be reverted by you.

- Amulet of Breathing: You can move through coastlines even without a Cthonian Trueborn body.

- Fake Papers: You can pass patrolled main roads with these documents (no matter what your form is).

- Orb of the Depths: While in Cultist form, you can use this to turn any place from human control into contested. This is only consumable equipment; it is removed after use. It also increases suspicion by one when used, so be careful to not lose.

You always have one of the three forms:

- Human Appearance: You can enter human-controlled or contested locations without raising suspicion, and you can neutralize suspicion in locations.

- Cthonian Trueborn: You can swim through coastlines. You can turn any aquatic location from human control to contested by calling your brethren. If two adjacent areas are Cultist or Depths controlled, you can call the Cthonias to shift the current location from human control to contested.

- Cultist of the Depths: You can Activate Sanctums and turn your cultist controlled locations into Depth Sanctums. You can use the Orb of the Depths, and you may read Cthonic Scriptures in the library, which causes the location and all nearby to become Enthralled.

Game States:

Locations have two attributes, control and suspicion:

Control in general goes: Human, Contested, Cultist, and Depths.

Suspicion in general goes: Enthralled, Low, Medium, High and Agent Slain (defeat).

Once suspicion hits Enthralled, it can never go up. The location will never be harmful to you again.