I've posted here before about my game, Heretic, and after a couple of months of play testing I'm back again with new ideas.

In brief: Heretic is set in a dark fantasy world, after a magical apocalypse, with plenty of Lovecraftian elements.
Main characters are mages (Heretics) and play through structured stories. Story seeds are generated by the group and each is played by one or more Heretics. This means only a few players are their characters at any one time.
Overall I've got Narratist priorities for the game and it has no centralised GM (as you will see below).

By the end of the play test the rules basically said one of the remaining players is the Antagonist (nearly a GM), the others play extras with little control over the story.

I want to change that. In the setting the world is protected by a crystal sphere that keeps out the Blight. This was cracked to cause the apocalypse. Outside the Sphere is outside reality, where the Great Old Ones lurk (think Cthulhu etc).

So, at the start of each session each player draws one of the Maja Arcana from a Tarot deck (the Minor Arcana will be used for other mechanics) which represents one of the Great Old Ones. While they are not playing their Heretic they will be a Great Old One, acting as a joint antagonist in the story.

The Great Old Old will never turn up, but their influence is felt in different ways. Each will have a special rule and a 'style sheet' for the kind of things that would be appropriate for them. So one may be linked to water, suffocation & suffering while another has fire, nihilism and destruction (finished lists would probably be a bit longer and better thought out). When narrating in the player's opposition each Great Old One should keep this in mind, both for the kind of characters introduced and the kind of acts they perform to oppose the players.

The setup's the easy part though, I'm interested in how to get it working in play. The duties of the Great Old Ones include scene framing, describing most of the scenery, inventing and playing minor characters and inventing and playing antagonists.

My thought on getting it to work was:
During Free Roleplaying each 'GOO' keeps their Tarot card in front of them. They can narrate for about a paragraph worth of dialog, then they cover their card with their hand. They cannot join in again till all cards are covered. They can pass by saying nothing and covering the card.
In Conflicts each has a limited number of descriptions they can give (as do the players) so conflicting authority shouldn't be much of an issue.

My overall goal from all this is to try and create quite an oppressive atmosphere for the Heretics, giving the impression of a multitude of malevolent beings toying with them.

So my questions would be...
1. Generally, can you see any major flaws in the overall idea?
2. More specifically, about the section in italics at the end, can you see this working or do you have any better ideas or fixes for it?
3. Will you forgive the dreadful pun in the topic title?

Thanks in advance,

John,