A Soft White Damn
By Will Schar
Rain is no respecter of persons
the snow doesn't give a soft white
damn Whom it touches
--i will cultivate within by e.e. cummings
A Friendly has emailed one of our encrypted servers photos containing a flagged symbol. They show the symbol carved on the trunk of a car parked on a frozen lake in a small northern Minnesota town. We have reason to believe this is linked to an actual threat. Rendez-vous with the Friendly at a lakeside cabin for further details. Your objectives: determine the nature of the symbol, eliminate any threats, and cover up our involvement.
Also, for God’s sake don’t freeze to death.
Advice to Handlers
This scenario as written is meant to be a guidebook. Not an instruction manual. Events are not laid out chronologically, there is no timeline of events. This scenario is a dark dream of our collective unconscious our players have unknowingly stepped into. The Handler is the artist painting horrors with every word.
You control reality. Do not be “sheepish” about it. Dreams are a literary (in this case game) mechanic the Handler gets to use to drive the plot forward. Use dreams and visions to tantalize clues that eat away at their sanity. Toy with their emotions, perceptions of reality, and attack their bonds and motivations. Hopefully, in the end, the agents will “Trust no one. Not even their own minds.”
Thematically I chose the notion of “Counting Sheep” to symbolize dream states in this scenario. As you read you will uncover, as your players should, that the Uncounted Sheep are both a real and figurative threat.
There is advice on creating dream sequences and several examples later in this text. You do not have to use any of them. You could exclude them entirely, or develop your own horrifying sequences. Play to the way the dice land on sanity rolls. Be flexible and like i said, don’t be “sheepish.”
The cabin is situated on the snowy shores of Ember Wake Lake in Elcor, MN. The agents arrive at the cabin first. It should have rooms for the agents to stay in, and a lower level den with large floor to ceiling windows. It has a great view of the lake. They can clearly see a shabby car parked across the lake.
The friendly is John Weyerbacher, private detective from St. Paul, MN. Portray him as paranoid, hurried and very tired. He mutters numbers under his breath. He’s counting something they can’t see. Repeatedly, he stares out the window at a car parked on the lake. The friendly will want to make sure they are who they are, and that this isn’t a dream. I recommend using the poem excerpt at the beginning as your code phrase.
Once he’s determined they are with Delta Green, he will want to determine they are real. Contrive any strange arcane behavior that can easily serve as proof that this is not a dream. Perhaps, he asks them to read aloud from a book (Shakespeare is a great one), he spins a top or he asks them to recount the steps of their day in reverse order.
As he starts to go over the case, he realizes he’s missing something. He doesn’t have his camera, his netbook or his bag. He will begin to look around erratically obsessing over where it is. At some point he realizes the truth, “It’s… It’s in the car! I’m not going back there, just get it! In the Car it’s all there, everything you need!”
Suddenly, John trails off, his gaze focused on something unseen. His eyes go wide with terror. Unless stopped by agents, he will pull his gun and begin shooting at the window. This won’t save him though. His number is up. He will scream, go unconscious and ultimately die in front of them. As soon as his death sinks in, brilliant flowers bloom from his body in a myriad of colors, some colors they’ve never even seen. Gold glowing pollen asperates into the room, coming into contact with the agents. (1/1d6 SAN) Those who succeed pass out or experience lost time, as everything goes black. Those who fail their check suffer and share The First Dream effect and gain 1d10 Unnatural.
The agent(s) wake to the bleating of sheep and howling winds. They look around and see a vast empty snow swept plateau. Sheep drunkenly meander past, drawn towards some distant place. The stars in the sky are a not our stars. There is an aurora borealis like you’ve never seen. And moons. So many moons. Suddenly they see huge pillars, like black trees in the distance. One moves, upwards vanishing. Then reappears larger, thundering down from the sky. Then more. Many more ascending into the sky where a vast shape, like a glacier blots out the sky. A man in a gas mask carrying a shepherd’s crook walks past, following the sheep. Where he steps, there is a blood in the snow. You suddenly notice silvery strands of silk caught on you rising into the sky. You feel a sudden jerk, then...
When the agents come to, whether they have seen the dream or not, they have lost several minutes to an hour of time. They have a body to hide, and a car to find.
John Weyerbacher was hired by an elder of the Grand Portage Chippewa Reservation to find a missing teenage girl named Tammy Hayskar. They’ve paid Weyerbacher in cash. He came here looking for her. He found a waking nightmare instead.
He saw the car on the ice one day while taking a break to do some ice fishing. That’s when he saw the symbol. After sending the photos to Delta Green, he had to check out the former owners himself. He snuck into The Odegard Salvage Yards. While poking around he was exposed to an Unnatural Vector cultivated inside a mine now converted to a barn.
He ran for his life, and nearly froze to death. He survived a nasty car crash along a forest road. In his haste to flee he unwittingly left his camera, netbook and the whole casefile behind, ripe for characters to find along the side of the road near the Salvage Yard, or even inside it.
Afterwards, he started seeing sheep everywhere. Following him. They’d attack him, but he discovered by accident while lying in bed they would stop if he counted them. He’s been awake for 2 days, always on the move, waiting for the agents to arrive. He was counting sheep when he sees them. They attacked him when he lost count. The trauma to his mind killed him, and triggered the flowers to bloom.
As the opera begins, the agents must must deal with the dead, while navigating dreamlike landscapes that haunt them at every turn as they follow the trail of breadcrumbs. The Friendly told them, “It’s in the car.” The only car they know about is the one on the lake. That will be the next step.
Friendly locals are a good source of information about the Raffle Car. They can eschew this, as it draws attention, especially if poking around the car, for a digital search of the car’s VIN.
While Dreams haunt and tantalize, locals poke their noses in, and unnatural sheep dog them at every turn the clues will point in two directions: the Odegard Salvage Yard outside of town and two locals, Ken Hanson and Oli Knutson, hereafter referred to as the Norwegians. The first are a clan of dangerous, meth-head cultists, and ones responsible for the unnatural contagion. By Contrast, the Norwegians seem quaint and benign. Present them as an innocent Red Herring. But like the Odegards they too seek a connection to the Great Old Ones. One in blood sacrifice.
The previous owner of the car was the Ember Wake Lake Preservation Center. The signary is Assistant Treasurer Oli Knutson. It was donated to the society by Ken Hanson. Hanson bought the car from Odegard Salvage for a sum much larger than its actual worth.
Research on these names gives the addresses and places of work. Odegard Salvage is several miles outside town. Knutson and Hanson are listed at the same address. A large house on the north shore of Ember Wake Lake not far from where the agents are staying. It has a perfect line of site to the car. They have pretty benign social media presence except for a lot of political activity during the election campaign to recognize same-sex marriages.
Creating situations where the characters hallucinate or dream is paramount to the GM’s narrative. While they explore this innocuous seeming town, there is a layer of dreams that expose it’s dark underbelly and provide allusions and clues to the ultimate mystery.
If they bring up the Odegards to anyone in town they immediately disown them. They have few friends in the community. The exact opposite of Ken and Oli. They may say,
Oli is usually found at home or at his clinic.[2] He is stoic and uses few words. Ken is much more talkative, a bit more neurotic. He is a lawyer, but works from home most of the time. They have two large dogs.
They might settle in for a night’s rest. They can do further research on the town, county and the lake:
On the lake rests the car. You can see it from the cabin or from the drydock just off the highway. It's a rusted husk, resting on bald tires. The symbol is carved onto the back trunk, crudely cut, probably by some kind of knife. The symbol was Billy Odegard’s graffitti, a little prank to mess with the town and the Norwegians. Inside the trunk are numerous small stones with scraps of paper tied to them with string. Untying and unfolding papers reveal ancient nordic script.
If they are translated, or they ask a local, they’ll learn they are peoples hopes and dreams for the coming spring. Simple things like, “I want to find a man.” “I want my new business to be successful.” “I hope the fishing’s good this year.” Oli did the translation into Norse.
There are animal tracks of a hooved animal all around the car.[3]
If you ask about the car, any local will tell you about the Annual Ice Out Raffle. Money from the sale of tickets go to this annual fundraiser for the Preservation Society. Each raffle ticket is sold for a particular date and time, predicting when the ice will go out, and when the car will fall through crack ice.
Odegard Salvage begins as a repair shop, garage and salvage yard, but it the junk sprawls deep into a dense forest that leads deep to a car yard, an old farm house and a decommissioned mine with a tall smokestack tower that can be seen peeking up from the wood. Dreamcatchers can be seen hanging from every window. Sometimes hanging in trees. From the outside it’s mundane if not ruinous to look at. Most visitors don’t venture passed rod-iron gate.
When the Corsica Mine shut down, Odegard’s grandfather bought out the land for cheap under a toxic clean-up provision. The Preservation Society helped front the money. There is no outside evidence the Odegard’s ever cleaned it up, but they’ve somehow passed every review.
The land has become a winding junkyard trail through a brambled forest where old cars, storage containers, farming equipment and semi-trailers go to die. It is a jagged tetanus shot waiting to happen. The whole property (acres and acres of it) is lined with a fence made of wood palettes and barbed wire. The swinging iron gate on the dirt road says “Keep Out.”
Sheep wander the property. They’ve converted the mine into a barn for the animals. It is also where the Cultivated are stored. They will also find a chest with veterinary supplies of IV’s, animal tranquilizers. The place smells like sheep wool and human feces.
The Odegards are The Cultivators, a mythos cult comprised of little more than unnatural drug addicts. They discovered the ultimate drug, a drug they call Nectar, as in the "Nectar of the Gods." It is the Promethean fruit of knowledge, which grants greater awareness, but also plants the seed of knowledge inside you. Using connects the consciousness to the Great Old Ones, and share in the mad revelry of their dark alien dreams. The Cult spends their days getting high, playing video games and having orgies. They often mix the The Fruit with other drugs, to mask them from the uninitiated.
The way this drug is cultivated is macabre. It must be grown inside a living body. The user becomes the drug they are using. It blooms violently upon their death, but a persistent supply can be made by planting it in victims and keeping them alive. They keep these victims in the barn, where they are kept alive and in vegetative states. Cultists take turns tending the garden. These victims are beyond help. They can be abandoned to die on their own, or put out of their misery.
The leader of the cult is Billy Odegard. Billy is charismatic and violent. A regular Charlie Manson. He has used this to great advantage in controlling and recruiting subjects to be “cultivated.” Most of the victims are purchased from Human/Sex trafficking. Some more of them are undocumented migrants who got into trouble in town, now lost forever. This is how he hides his misdeeds and how they have gone unnoticed for so long. They buy them and bring them onto the farm in a box truck, a wood palette for every victim.[4]
Should the agents corner Billy, he will love to talk. He will claim he cannot be killed by mortal means. This shit world is but one nightmare, he will move onto the next dream, joining The Great Old Ones. He will regale them with the whole enterprise, hoping to sway them. He’s proud of his work. He takes no pleasure or distaste in the killing. He views himself as a farmer who must grow his crop. He knows they are seeing visions, dreaming the dreams of the old gods. He can offer to be their guide. Everything about him should be unsettling.
The only other cultist of note is his right hand man, Nic Georgescu. Nic is Billy’s muscle and he’s the man seen in the gas mask and biohazard suit. He has connections to Russian human traffickers and is usually the one to get his hands dirty. If you need to throw in a surprise combatant, he’d be perfect. He is usually the one ferrying and “cultivating” the crop. If they catch wind of the agents investigating them in town, he may call in a favor from his “Russian Contacts”[5]
The rest of the cult are stoned and strung out groupies. Dangerous when cornered, or when their leader is threatened.
The Cultivators grow their crop inside the old mine. They lie on cots in closed pens, usually reserved for animals. These poor souls are the Cultivated. They are still alive, I.V. drips for nutrition, tranquilizers for pain, bedpans emptied each day. To see this level of willful neglect and abuse should test your agents’ sanity. Their bodies are so compromised by the foreign organism growing inside them that there is no hope for them. Abandonment may be easier than giving them merciful deaths. That is if the hungry sheep don’t attack the agents first.
The sheep roam around the converted mine. They nibble at the succulent Fruit growing from victims’ toes. They have become addicts just like the Odegards. In their primitive brains they too experience these powerful dreams, flocking across impossible landscapes, shepherded by Great Old Ones. They follow an insatiable grazing instinct, seeking out any soul that has tasted, or pollinated by the forbidden fruit. When they get a whiff of the agents, they will act on this same instinct to devour them. Of course, they have readily available meals lying there inside the stalls.
“The Snow doesn’t give a soft white damn whom it touches”
Ken Hanson and Oli Knutson are so quaint they seem like characters out of Fargo, Prairie Home Companion, or a Sven and Oli joke. They are plain spoken salt of the earth men who like to go deer and pheasant hunting in the fall, ice-fishing in the winter, and would love to tell you about the last visit to the North Shore or the time they went Kayaking the Boundary Waters.
They are pillars of their rural community. They were the first gay couple to be married in their county after same-sex marriage became legal in the state. They run charities and make friends easily. For all outside appearances, they are upstanding citizens.
Hanson works for a local law firm. Knutson is a Veterinarian at a local clinic, as well as the county Historian on the board of County History Center. A search brings up a photo gallery of taxidermy, native American artifacts and farm life paintings.[6] Neighbors will defend and vouch for the Norwegians. They are blissfully unaware of their dark deeds. A few have noticed some odd things now and then, but it’s none of their business. They are buddies with the county sheriff. If they get too aggressive the department may give the agents hell.[7]
All of this is merely the outer shell. Inside the Norwegians bloom dark fruit of their own, nurtured by fear and unquestioning tradition. They are preparing to sacrifice Tammy in an annual ritual as an offering to something they know only as The Drowning Spirit. She has been held prisoner in their basement, being prepared for the offering. They will take her out onto the ice, place her in the car and watch as the ice cracks and the car sinks into the lake, satiating the dark spirits hunger for another year.
Ken and Oli were not the first to prepare this ritual. Someone did it before them. He entrusted this grim duty to Oli. Oli originally kept this from Ken for years, but Ken eventually found out. Instead of turning away he chose to stay and help with the sacrifice. Love is an amazing thing. It opens you up to accepting even the darkest parts of the ones you love.
They have never seen the The Drowning Spirit, but they believe someone must be sacrificed to keep the town alive. If not then the prosperity of their town will end, and like so many rural American towns, it too will die. They will stop at nothing to prevent that. By contrast, Billy has seen the “spirit” in dreams. He describes it as one of the “Old Ones,” older than the earth itself. It too dreams. “It lives beneath the lake. And beneath the lake, there is a whole ocean down there full of ancient things.”
I recommend setting up the rescue of the girl in the car as part of the big finale. Agents will have to race to the rescue, risking the cold and drowning to snatch a victory from a very bleak scenario.
Tying together the two groups can seem arbitrary, but their relationship is very straightforward. The Cultivators always have a supply of bodies and occasionally get more than they need. The Norwegians became aware of the Billy’s dalliances with human trafficking years ago and saw an opportunity to get a steady and risk free supply of human sacrifices. Every year they launder money into the fundraiser and use “expenses” for buying a new sacrifice. They were unaware that anyone was looking for the latest victim.
If the Norwegians are confronted first, they have a paper trail leading to Odegards. Meanwhile veterinarian supplies from Knutson’s clinic are found in the mine. If interrogated or captured, either group will rat the other out in hopes of saving their own skin or bringing the other down with them.
Should they find John Weyerbacher’s car crashed into a tree somewhere along the road (either in the Salvage Yards or along a snowy road), it can provide the needed connection between the two points of interest. His evidence is thorough and lays out his long casefile connecting the dots.
On Creating Dream Sequences
Dreams remain an ever present complication. They can impede, but they also carry a perverse truth to them. The presence of dream visions should be nods to the agents being on the right track. But following them carries danger, and brings them closer to the Great Old Ones.
A lot of this scenario hinges on creating effective and evocative dream sequences to horrify your players. It is paramount you think on your feet for when to place them. Be creative with your dreams and try to tailor them to the players. As dreams are an important element, blending what is a dream and what is reality can be used to great effect.
Creating evocative and effective dreams and waking nightmares is a key skill to running this opera. Described herein are elements that can combined to create dreamings that should terrify your Agents, and create a memorable opera.
As described earlier, the Fruit of the Cultivated opens up the mind's eye to the dreams of the Great Old Ones. This is the first element. Use the great old ones as thematic elements of the dreams. The agents are wading through the dreams of the GOO’s afterall. Why not give them a fun tour of the mythos. Here are thoughts on including themes for Great Old Ones.
The webs of the Great Spider is said to connect all dimensions. This makes Tleche-Naka adjacent to the altered states of dream. In the section, The First Dream, the agents see visions of the Plateau of Leng, the icy waste of the dreamlands. This is Tleche-Naka’s domain. The great many legged form and the golden strings described are an interpretation of the Entity.
If you choose to explore this, consider using the “threads” or “silken-strings” woven through the fabric of dimensions as a guide and trap for agents. They could be pulled by them, as if fate had other plans for them, or find themselves trapped like a fly caught in the webs. The strings connect to all things and can allow you to illustrate connections the agents have not quite been able to accomplish.
The Black Goat is ideal, especially when mixed with the sheep and the flowers. Her dreams would be prominent. Use her to undermine religious imagery, feature perverse depictions of Adam and Eve. Dreams related to this Great Old One make excellent body horror. Agents with familial Bonds may see loved one’s wearing sheep heads. Female agents may experience phantom birth pains and nightmarish newborns feasting at the teats of a black sheep, or devouring the body of the dead friendly, fellow agent or bond.
The underwater element may seem odd placed in Minnesota, far from any ocean. Geologists have discovered evidence of a vast, precambrian freshwater ocean beneath Minnesota. What long lost ancient things may dwell here? There is also a connection to the Drowning Spirit. In truth it is an immortal Deep One that has used hyper geometry to shift the town’s fortunes in exchange for the sacrifices.
Others
There are many other applicable themes. Hastur’s connection to pure Madness lends itself to strange dreams and landscapes full of non-euclidean logic. Itla-Shua is synonymous with cold weather climes. Dreams haunted by legless beings flying on the winds, and giants wearing sheep skulls would evoke the nordic bloodlines of Minnesota.
Whatever Great Old Ones you choose as themes, be careful not to use too many. Don’t overdo it. Keep them tangential, vast and impossible to fully comprehend as to instill cosmic terror Delta in your players. Remember, they are not the real threat, nor the real evil in this game. They vastly large things, they are the landscape in which the evil of men operates.
Using a bond or motivation in a dream can be devastating to an agent. It makes the impersonal of cosmic horror and makes it personal. Sure a man eating sheep that move through impossible geometries is great, but seeing your loved being eaten by one or turned into one is far more unsettling.
A player with a Motivation to get married and start a family could see that undermined using marital imagery. They might enter a church approach their loved one only to see a sheep’s head where a face should be, turn to see pews filled with bleating sheep.
These dream sequences are far more effective than grand cosmic nightmares.
The Agent finds themself standing at the shore of the frozen lake. They see the car. They see movement by the car. As they approach they see one of their Bonds inside, trying to get out. Then there is a yawning sound, then a thunderous crack. The car begins to sink back with their bond inside. The doors are frozen shut. The glass unbreakable. They cannot free them. They make a SAN check as they watch helplessly as their bond sinks into black of the lake.
Agents find themselves working late, researching, when they notice a sloshing noise coming from the bathroom. When they approach andnotice the floor is wet, water is seeping into the room from the bathroom. Suddenly, the door creaks open and water cascades in, flooding the room. They are tossed about. Their only escape is the door. If they succeed on a swim check, they are carried out of the hotel room and into a watery graveyard of cars, skeletal husks sunk to the bottom of the lake, filled with smiling skeletons waving for the dreaming agent to join them. If the swim up they run into a wall of ice, feebly beating at it in a vain hope of survival. When hope is lost they wake up, dry as a bone.
While shaving an agent hears a noise in their room. When he checks, there is nothing. Once the agent looks away he hears the baa of a sheep. This time there is one of their bonds, naked, on all fours on the bed just staring dumbly. It does not respond to anything they say. It makes a noise that sounds neither like a bleat nor a human scream. Something else. SAN 1/1d4
Meanwhile in the room next door the manifestation finds the agent waking from a restless sleep. A flock surrounds their bed. They are just staring dumbly. Hungrily. After seeing how the player has the agent react, all the sheep in the room bleat the exact same note. The sound is deafening and maddening. They start to climb up onto the bed, mouths foaming hungrily.
They can be gotten rid of by counting them--though this may not be apparent. They will stare dumbly, until all are counted. But if they lose count or grab their gun and shoot them, they will swarm. (See The Uncounted Flock)
The other agents will hear sheep in the agents room. They will see the unfolding horror, whatever it may be.
Further complications include the Cold, The “Nice” locals, and local authorities. The cold is unfriendly, and makes certain tasks harder. The term Minnesota Nice isn’t as nice as it sounds. The locals may seem friendly, but there is a veneer of menace behind it all. Authorities would be suspicious and dog the agents’ every step, which risks exposing the conspiracy, or the unnatural to the uninitiated.
The cold is omnipresent. If you have been in MInnesota during what is called a “Polar Vortex,” you know cold. When one of these hits the state it gets colder than Antarctica. It is oppressive, and it doesn’t care about you.
When trying to solve a mystery in this environment it is also a hindrance. Being outside is unpleasant. Fingers and feet go numb very quickly. You find actions that are normally easy become harder, even painful in the blistering cold. Cold factors into this scenarios two major set-pieces. The car on the ice and confrontations at Odegard’s farm. Keep in mind that travel can be tricky or treacherous on these snowy, icy roads.
The game is set in a small mostly fictional town of Elcor, MN. Elcor is real life ghost town, with only a mine and a few overgrown foundations as any evidence a boomtown once stood there. I’ve chosen to use the name, and approximate geography as this game’s setting. The town should serve as a type of character.
Elcor sits on the shores of Lake Wankwakembes, a surprisingly deep kettle lake with no rivers flowing into or out of it. A large-ish lake, with moderate tourism and fisherman. It is a tight-knit, insular community. Polite but not welcoming to outsiders. You might think that's just Minnesota Nice, but this is a tad more extreme.
Locals will respond to agents questions in the following ways:
This is a completely optional complication. If you are running a one-shot, it may be tricky to fit this one in. Really depends on how focused and fast your group moves through the investigation. The author recommends this for longer play.
If they look too closely into the Norwegians, agents may draw the unwanted attention of the sheriff or his deputies. At first the sheriff will politely interfere and antagonize. He should be disarmingly pleasant, but menacing. They can waste agents’ time, forcing them to end the investigation for a night, allowing you to run more dream sequences.
Possible times for the Sheriff to show up:
Interactions should be tense. They will want to see their FBI credentials. They were not informed of any investigation. The Program will have their back, but this will still arise suspicion. They will insist they keep the Sheriff updated and warn them to stay away from Ken and Oli. A deputy may start following them. They will have to figure out how to shake them, before things go pear shaped.
The sheriff may push them towards the Odegards. They never cause a too much trouble, but folks don’t like them. They are also into the occult. If the sheriff or deputies learn of the symbol, they’ll mention the Odegards were probably the cause of it, as they are “into that satanic occult stuff.”
If they are arrested or detained this scene that might give them vital information, and speed up the investigation.
A junky shares their cell, or sits in the main office. He’s spouting lots of crazy gibberish. If anyone takes note and engages with him, he’ll say things like:
The junky is a regular guest of the Odegards, which is where he was when he got his high. He has no idea what the stuff is he’s taking, but he loves it. He just doesn’t like seeing the damn sheep all the time. He really wants a dreamcatcher. He like, the detective is trying to count them to keep them away. Only this time, the agent is seeing them himself. If he becomes agitated he loses count and the agent watches in abject horror as the sheep devour him. SAN 1/1d6.
This is designed to be a difficult scenario, one that could break an Agent’s spirit, or send him to an early grave. They must contend with not one but two cults and of course the ever intruding dreams. By the end they may question if this was real or a dream the whole time.
Agents may find some solace at the end of this case if they slayed The Uncounted Sheep, put down the Cultivated mercifully, or successfully rescued Tammy Hayskar from a cold watery grave. None of that is assured. If the sheep are never destroyed they will haunt their dreams until they finally driven mad or take the 9mm retirement plan.
If they have slain the sheep and eradicated the drugs, the dreams will eventually fade, the sheep will stop grazing for dream stuff. If you want to run this as part of series, then agents could be permanently afflicted. Anyone killed who has been affected by the Fruit might have the same reaction to dying as John Weyerbacher’s body. Does further exposure afflict the victim even more? Or does it dull with each trip? Will they lose touch with reality, or is reality just another dream?
Does any of it matter?
The snow, after all, doesn’t give a soft white damn whom it touches.
Thanks for Playing.
Ken Hanson and Oli Knutson
Hapless Town Cultists
STR 10, CON 10, DEX 10, INT 10, POW 12, CHA 12
HP 10, WP 12
SKILLS: Alertness 40%, Athletics 40%, Drive 40%, Firearms 40%, Melee 40%, Stealth 40%
ATTACKS: Light Pistol 40% 1d8 (ammo 6), Baseball Bat 40% 1d8
Billy Odegard
Strung out cult leader
STR 10, CON 10, DEX 10, INT 10, POW 14, CHA 14
HP 10, WP 14
SKILLS: Alertness 20%, Dodge 60% Firearms 60%, Melee 30% Stealth 40% Unarmed Combat 40%, Unnatural 60%
ATTACKS: Light Pistol 60% 1d8 (ammo 6), Ritual Dagger 30% 1d8
HYPERGEOMETRY:
Nic Georgescu
Gas mask Shepherd
STR 12, CON 12, DEX 10, INT 8, POW 10, CHA 8
HP 14, WP 10
Armor: 2, heavy hide coat and work pants.
SKILLS: Athletics 60%, 45% Dodge, Firearms 20% Melee, 60%, Stealth 50% Unarmed Combat 60%.
ATTACKS: Shotgun 20% (2d10 10 meters, 1d10 20 meters, 1d6 further), Shovel 60% 1d8
(Cultists) Ophelia, Mike, Vi
Drug Addict Cultists
STR 10, CON 12, DEX 12, INT 10, POW 10, CHA 10
HP 11, WP 10
SKILLS: Alertness 40%, Athletics 40%, Firearms 40%, Stealth 40%
ATTACKS: Hunting Rifle 40% 1d12 Lethality 10%, Light Pistol 40% 1d8 (ammo 6), Knife 40% 1d4 AP3
Nic’s Russian Contacts
Human Traffickers and Thugs
STR 12, CON 13, DEX 12, INT 10, POW 8, CHA 11
HP 13, WP 8
SKILLS: Athletics 40%, 35% Dodge, Firearms 50%, Melee 50%, Stealth 40% Unarmed Combat 60%.
ATTACKS: Med. Pistol 50% 1d10, Sub-machine Gun 50% (Lethality 10%), Brass Knuckles 50% 1d4, Knife 50% 1d4 (3 AP)
The Uncounted Flock
Mythos Drug-crazed sheep
STR 10 CON 10 DEX 7 POW 7
HP 10 (each hp represents 1 sheep) WP 7
ATTACKS: Frenzy 50%, damage 1d4, special (see KNOCK DOWN).
KNOCK DOWN: If this attack hits, the dog attempts an opposed STR×5 test against the target. If the Flock succeeds, the target is knocked prone.
FLOCK: There are many of them and they are easy to hit. +20% to hit. However, only one sheep can be killed per attack. If a crit success is rolled then 2 sheep are killed. Explosives and weapons with Lethality ratings kill 1+ 1d6 sheep.
Being attacked by The Flock insights a 1/1d8 SAN check.
SENSE: They can instantly smell The Fruit on anyone exposed, this sends them into a feeding frenzy. You cannot hide from it unless you are in a hazmat suit, or are protected by the Elder Sign or charm such as a Dreamcatcher.
Glancy Notes:
Traffickers (eliminate). Illegal Immigrants come every season. They arrive, but some disappear every year. Kidnapped every year by the cult. Community allows-brings in workers for the farms, and turkey farms.
Ken is an immigration lawyer.
Gets whole community involved. Sheriff complicit and motivated to drive them out.
Corn King
Rework the opening clue/inciting incident
The cultivators are the cause, the norwegians point the finger.
Vector to the contact, get in a team. The contact explodes mid scenario? Behaves weird. Clean up exposes them. Get rid of the photo/symbol
Immigrant who escaped, exposed. He blooms! INS/ICE agents.
Sheep = victims ?
Chemotherapy to kill the plant.
If you put something in the car… you’ll be fine… if you participate… in the offering… it will heal you. Connect it to the drowning spirit.
[1] Those who experience the dream are touched by the Unnatural. They gain 1d10 Unnatural.
[2] This is a good opportunity to put the Gas mask guy in the waiting room with a sheep. He disappears in a blink of the agent’s eye.
[3] Possible Dream Sequence: As they examine the car, one agent sees a sheep running across the ice. It darts into a thicket nearby on the shore. If they follow, it disappears. There is a small walking trail.
[4] Author’s Note: While not necessary during the game, I highly recommend working in this revelation if you can. If they decide to, they could observe the trafficked victims arrive on the box truck during a stakeout. If they don’t do that use your creativity to imply it.
Or like so many things in Delta Green, the details, simply remain a mystery.
[5] See appendix A: Russian Contacts
[6] If they visit the History Center, throw in a taxidermied sheep, that appears to move when they look away, or seem to multiply in number.
[7] See section “Complications” below.