I would like to see how they present the NPCs. If they go with the isolated town of Innsmouth having a family with the last name Mankambe, that’s some woke shit. If it’s like a passing journalist for a New York City African American paper, then it makes sense in context.
I have no reason to believe that the changes and new NPCs will be 100% positive this time around. I'm expecting the same stupid swaps their updated Arkham did. Listing a handful of examples: a WW1 fighter ace and his mechanic were turned into women who come off as lesbians on my gaydar, a mystic Chinaman tattooist into a Dago masquerading as one and a German spiritist into a Magic Negress stereotype assumed to counterbalance Abigail LaRue the evil Louisianan Voodooist stereotype in Keziah Mason's (the antagonist from the short story The Dreams in the Witch House) witch cult. Christ, even Dante Helcimer the NPC who was originally the first character of the late Keith Herber's son couldn't escape DEI and is now a woman named Gisele. To quote Herber: "[Helcimer] was my son's first Call of Cthulhu character. Erik was about nine years old at the time he rolled up Dante. I remember Dante was supposed to be Belgian, survived many an adventure, and eventually semi-retired after suffering crippling sanity losses." I find this to be a very disrespectful decision.
I already see several potential ally NPCs perfect for race swapping in my Innsmouth book and I bet that some of the Coast Guardsmen and maybe even one of the Marine units participating in the raid will be Black. It's the logical step to a liberal since the original story is anti-miscenegation as it led to a proud, Anglo-Saxon New England town's horrific downfall.
Going that route does require an understanding of these mystical traditions. Because they are real to many people and it does a disservice to just relegate all spiritual practices to being associated with the eldritch.
You wouldn’t present the Eucharist as an apocalyptic cult cannibalizing their god every time you encounter a Christian group. You do that when you want to show that this an actual Lovecraftian cult.
Same goes for a ritual in Voodoo or Santeria or any other African-derived syncretic tradition. Draining the blood of chicken to summon the power of Ogun is occult, but not unnatural. Draining the blood of an orphan to strengthen a Lloigor masquerading as Ogun is unnatural.
I always treat the Lovecraftian versions of IRL religions as corrupted offshots. The fedora atheist Delta Green designers turned all of the self-castrating Russian Skoptsy into evil cultists because they're not around anymore to protest so I just rolled up a normal Skoptsy investigator for myself who hails from a tiny group that managed to come to the US.
Poland is just out of the way. Most people would think to start in the UK or Paris or something because post apocalyptic media relies on recognizable landmarks to fill in some of the background. But Poland? For most Americans except for the Polacks, Poland was interchangeable with Bulgaria or Yugoslavia or wherever, just some communist country that the Pope happened to be from. GDW really did an outstanding job of making it a real place with lots of sites for different kinds of adventures.
Free League had a chance to do that with Sweden, by the way, but instead they made the bizarre decision to reskin Poland, give referees advice on how to convert 1e modules, and call it a day. They're obviously afraid of callouts and are woke fags who became extra paranoid about this stuff after Russia invaded Ukraine, but grow the fuck up
It's one thing to change a character in a way that can make sense. For example, if you wanted a Coloured Regiment or unit to do the shit work in cleansing Innsmouth, that could work if you actually handle it like it would be. They're given bitch work like cordoning off. But forcibly changing characters is almost always a fucking terrible approach. Especially if you aren't aware of where that character came from.
If you really want to go diverse, then you have to do what that retard idpol count with no talent did. Do a different area. Tulsa in the 20s, Los Angeles in the 30s, and Texas in the last outlaw years of the 30s are all good periods. I doubt anyone assigned would be competent though.
As for Twilight, I found out it leaned too much into rogue like for me to fully enjoy. Shame that.
