SANITY IN NUNA

In vanilla BRP (Call of Cthulhu), the Sanity mechanic is invoked with typical gothic horror elements. When you see a body, a ghost, or a monster, you throw dice. It is also extended to cosmic horror, which has a greater chance of driving you crazy.

Nuna will be different because Labrador is different.

In Labrador, as in Inuit communities all over the north, kids are brought into the hunt and its experience of death for life from a young age. I remember sitting with my nan when she peeled a rabbit my uncle had snared right in front of my eyes. I was holding a toy rabbit, and I cried and ran away at first.

A day of two later we would chat as she scaled fish, skinned hares, or chopped up caribou meat and bones. Within weeks I was doing it myself. It was all part of life, and I was brought into seeing how food (life) was produced out of hunting (death) with no holds barred.

(I consider this part of the reason I acclimated so well to Japan, which has a similar ethic)

The further you go up north, the closer people are to this aspect of life, and when eating things like frozen Arctic char or raw whale, expect kids as well as adults to get blood on their hands and faces.

So in this context seeing something dead loses its shock value.

Instead, Sanity in NUNA is tied to a great existential dread of the North - the fear of being left alone. As a youth, I heard so many story of locals as well as people from outsider going strange when they were lost. The wandering members of the American Hubbard expedition saw ghostly members of their family in their delirium, and many times I heard the story of local people stranded who saw will o the wisps or such other phenomenon when cut off.

But although getting lost may prey on the minds of Outsiders, it is less of a fear for Inuit. For them, I would consider the loss of Community to be a greater tragedy. In Labrador, fully 1/3 of the Inuit died due to the Spanish Flu pandemic, and the villages of Okak and Hebron were destroyed by the Spanish Flu, Hebron losing 86 or 100 residents and Okak losing 204 of 263 souls.

Can we imagine what a horror this must have been to live through? Only sole survivors of great tragedies like Titanic or a plane crash in wilderness could know the horror and trauma. Coincidentally, north Europeans a millenia ago knew this pain, and the Old English poem fragment The Wanderer retells this trauma in relatable terms.

“Often, every daybreak, alone I must
bewail my cares. There’s now no one living
to whom I dare mumble my mind’s understanding.
I know as truth that it’s seen suitable
for anyone to bind fast their spirit’s closet,
hold onto the hoards, think whatever — (8–14)

“Can a weary mind weather the shitstorm?
I think not.
Can a roiling heart set itself free?
I don’t think so.

Although we are playing a game, it is also a panoply of different worldviews. Call of Cthulhu is American gothic with a slice of Victorian prudishness, so death and ghosts are the drivers of fear. In Nuna as in Labrador, what could be scarier than being lost and alone in the endless woods, or losing one’s entire social support network in a single blow of fate?

Reference

Heritage NF. The 1918 Spanish Flu Epidemic.

https://www.heritage.nf.ca/articles/politics/1918-spanish-flu.php

Old English Poetry. The Wanderer.

https://oldenglishpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/the-wanderer/