Delta Green: Terra Obscura

[wilzuma]

This is a post for a Delta Green game idea I'm developing. The premise is it would be a "monster of the week" style game, united only by the same group of agents, with maybe a subtle plot line running in the background.

Here's the pitch. Each scenario is inspired by one of the terms from the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDetdM5XDZD1xrQHDPgEg5w

Thus far i have two stories.

Sonder: n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkoML0_FiV4

A high profile glamour cult similar to say the one started by a guy named Hubbard is secretly serving the whim of (enter mythos deity here) have figured out how to temporarily trigger psychic-telepathic powers in people in a very toxic and destructive way. They use it primarily as a recruitment tool. The idea of it is that it opens your third eye and you experience the vivid memories of others by simply touching or bumping into them. Mechanically it's an unnatural attack that causes sanity loss, BUT with the caveat that as you lose sanity, you gain bonds to people in the lives of those you bump into, and it reduces your bonds with the people in your life. This obviously makes conversion really easy, as they can wipe away the connections to your loved ones and replace them with a bond to the cult.

DG gets wind of this when after several kids newly inducted, murders his family for trying to take him away from the cult. While investigating I have the idea that an agent or agents will be urged to do one of the cult's wierd rituals similar to say e-reading. During this e-reading is when they use their mythos sorcery to activate this affect. While this is jarring, it's just as jarring as when they meet up with their DG buddies and suddenly find the effect still active and they experience one of their "Home" scenes and BOND to their family member. Ideally after all the madness I spread with this crazy effect, they decide to-hell with investigating and go into the compound to wipe the cult and destroy their dark tomes.

Onism: n. the frustration of being stuck in just one body, that inhabits only one place at a time, which is like standing in front of the departures screen at an airport, flickering over with strange place names like other people's passwords, each representing one more thing you'll never get to see before you die-and all because, as the arrow on the map helpfully points out, you are here.

I posted this idea and pooled some people for ideas on it on the facebook group, so some of you may remember this. A new drug has hit the streets in some city in the American Southwest. The investigation starts when two identical bodies have showed up. Essentially the drug Liao is being laced into drugs and is sending all the addicts of the region on magical time trips forward and backward in time. The long game of the drug-pin who is dealing the Liao is trying to get out of the life and liao is his ticket, to start a whole new life. He's just feeding as many people to the Hounds of Tindalos to cover his tracks, and so he can learn to control and master his travels. He's become very good at it, and rival cartels have come to call him El Muerto because they have killed him at least 2 times. The hounds are more of an obstacle to avoid. They will be stalking suspects and victims of the cartel, and those exposed to the time bending mythos. The bodies are also emitting x-rays. Which means they lit up like a christmas tree on the x-rays (san check). So those handling and examining the bodies now have residual radiation exposure that now attracts the Hounds to them as well. I enjoy the idea of the Hounds leaping from corner to corner of the hospital chasing someone down while an agent shoots it to little effect and makes several san checks. It's a setpiece i'm looking forward to.

At some point i hope to have the agents fall into a trap. He knows they're coming (cuz TIME TRAVEL yo) and lays a trap that totally gets them all to inhale or ingest liao and they all go on various terrifying, existentially disturbing trips forward and back in time. So many sanity rolls.
Tell me what you think folks.

I have a friend really into the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, and I think this may just convince him and some others to play some Delta Green one shots. I also don't think either of these make good starter games. I'm still trying to figure out that one.

In any event, is this a story theme worth exploring further? Is there one scenario you like more than the other? Feel free to look through the video links and see if you get any ideas for yourelf.

[wilzuma]

Just put together a fine Opera i've decided is my opening scenario for my Campaign.

Opera 1: Alazia
n. The fear that you are no longer able to change
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBoZzArmtNA

Home: The agents are dealing with how their lives have become static and they are unable to change course. You just got passed up for that promotion. You and your wife have failed, yet again to conceive. They can't give up drinking, or lose those few extra pounds. Their friend groups drift away, changed as they've moved onto bigger and better things. They are stuck in a proverbial rut, not knowing their life is about to change very dramatically.

That soon changes when this team, a mix of friendlies and veterans are assembled to investigate a ritual murder case.

The Hook: A party yacht is found adrift in the Massachusetts bay near Boston. No one is aboard, except for two bodies, killed ritualistically. Is this the work of a serial killer or is something far darker at work?

The investigation leads not only to the Poseidon Club, a cult of Dagon and Mother Hydra for the cities wealthy elite, but to a dark chapter in Delta Green's long forgotten past. The forgotten story of Raid on Innsmouth and it's long lost survivors.

Background: There are stories, but never confirmed of Innsmouth citizens escaping during the Raid. Of marines who would not shoot women and young children in the back as they fled. Records were shoddy in those first days.

Fast forward decades later to The Fraternal Order of Poseidon. A secret society of rich young men born and bred from Boston’s elite. They are known for their strange customs, social status and their notoriously hedonistic yacht and beach parties. But within it’s ranks are a secret cult of Father Dagon and Mother Hydra. They have have lost their connection the the Deep Ones, no longer able to change. But this has kept them secret, all the while their fortunes originating from the alien jewelry their ancestors once made and traded, have grown. They give tribute to the Old Ones, but for some, there is no devotion. For some this is merely a bunch of silly traditions. Not so for our killers

It's youth have grown weary. They are not content as their parents are to maintain the charade. Instead they seek to not only change themselves, but all the survivors. The murders are but one in a series of ritualistic killings that meant to summon forth Mother Hydra to call her children, and awaken those with the Blood. They will at last, Change and be changed forever.

The Case
The case grows from the initial sacrifice. Tracing the yacht to the owners leads them to their first suspects. The victims are “escorts”, prostitutes chosen because they thought no one would miss them. They aren’t the only ones who went missing this time. All of them, hired for the same John, rumored to be party to a secretive drug fueled party scene. Both trails lead to the Poseidon Club which on the outside seems just like any other shallow social club, an embodiment of privilege and misogyny.

It all comes to a head as the cultists leave again on a yacht into the middle of Boston Harbor to enact the final rites summon Mother Hydra whose siren call can awaken the blood within all her wayward children. They must sail into the harbor after in a daring and dangerous raid on the cult aboard the yacht. But they may not be ready for the Deep Ones waiting for them, beneath the waves.