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ProfessorProf posted:Giant Allege Please, please tell me that there's a way for us godless Americans to get a hold of this. It's rough enough with Meikyuu Kingdom being stuck in limbo.
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Apr 3, 2013 06:20
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ProfessorProf posted:Also I'm really sorry for bailing out on the Meikyuu translation I just really don't have the time for a project that intensive Oh geez, I forgot that was actually you. Sorry, I didn't mean to accuse you specifically. Really, my hope is that someone buys the rights so I can get a badass hardcover someday.
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Apr 3, 2013 06:29
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So! I started doing a writeup of Delta Green ages and ages ago, but ended up having to drop it due to a mix of burnout and lack of time. I'd like to pick it up again, but I wanted to check first: is there still interest in this? And would it bother anyone if I just picked up where I left off?
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May 27, 2013 12:31
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 Countdown, Chapter 1 - PISCES (part 2) Sorry for vanishing! For the newbies, the old DG posts are collected here, with the first part of this book specifically here (thanks to Syrg for his tireless archival work, as always). Without further ado, let's talk about England's answer to Delta Green, PISCES! PISCES' origins can be traced all the way back to 1893, when the Admiralty first tried hiring seers and psychics for Project Delphi, an attempt to use 'unconventional' means to detect the position of enemy ships. The experiment was a near-total failure, with the notable exception of one Arthur Colby, who showed some impressive accuracy, and had worked with Scotland Yard on unsolved cases in the past. However, one success wasn't enough to justify the resources, and the project was shut down. Still seeing some value to be gained, a young Lt. Commander Fredrick Ramsey, a Mason and a spiritualist, continued the project on his own. His refusal to abandon the ideas from Delphi ended up ruining his career and set him off on a 7 year long journey around the world in search of others with extraordinary mental abilities. This ended with the founding of the Ramsey Institute for Psychical Education, a place where people could have their psychic potential tested, though Ramsey only ever found a handful of people with abilities worth noting. In 1916, during the worst days of WWI, Ramsey was approached by Captain Mansfield Cumming, the father of MI-6. He was interested in resurrecting Delphi to help combat the threat of German U-boats. To that end, he gave Ramsey his own division, dubbed MI-13, where he gathered up the exceptional talents he'd found, along with the world's foremost neurologists and alienists, some scholars of eastern medicine, and a few from the budding science of psychology. From their temporary headquarters in Hampden Castle on the Scottish border, they quickly began to produce some surprising results, sometimes even predicting German troop movements before they'd happened. However, the information gleaned wasn't always actionable; the psychic's visions were often subjective and couched in metaphor, so the military was forced to get independent confirmation before they could act on anything. By the end of the war, Ramsey had been promoted to Commander, while Cummings (who was eventually knighted) continued to be MI-13's biggest supporter until his death in 1923. Cummings' death resulted in an almost immediate gutting of MI-13's budget, forcing Ramsey to cut his staff of 70 down to just 20 of the strongest potentials, which he eventually had to demote to part-time contractors. Things went from bad to worse in late February 1925, when the potentials all reported having disturbing recurring dreams involving strange undersea imagery. These continued to ramp up in intensity until March, when they became so powerful that 7 of the potentials killed themselves. The survivors all made miraculous recoveries shortly after, and reported no more odd dreams. Ramsey was haunted by what'd happened, and his quest for answers led him to believe his worldview was missing a key piece of the puzzle. This was also what put him in touch with a Major David Cornwall in 1926. Cornwall had become a student of the preternatural after his time with the British Expeditionary Force, where his troop had been sent into No Man's Land in 1916 to clear out a nest of ghouls (officially identified as "shell-shocked cannibalistic deserters"). Cornwall knew full well the things he saw weren't human, but never spoke up publicly for fear of losing his position. When in 1926 Cornwall denounced several high-ranking Turkish officials as being members of an occult group called the Brotherhood of the Skin, he was forced into early retirement, where Ramsey found him. Together they spend the next 6 years searching for answers, a search that ended in 1932 with Ramsey's death by heart attack. While attributed to overwork, Cornwall always believed that it had been shock from finding out too much (indeed, Ramsey had in fact deduced what the potentials saw). World War II At this point, MI-13 was on the verge of closure, consisting of little more than Cornwall and a few research assistants. This all changed with the outbreak of WWII, as MI-13's occult contacts made the invaluable for investigating the Nazi's mystical research. They were in fact the first to discover the existance and activities of the Karotechia. What really brought them to prominence was a vision by a former MI-13 psychic in May 1940 predicting an elaborate feint by the German army to allow them passage through the "impassable" Ardennes Forest. Since this seemed like an odd course of action, and since MI-13 had yet to produce any usable intel in the war thus far, this was dismissed outright. Cornwall realized that MI-13 was going to be needed again, so he came up with a plan: he put the prediction in a sealed envelope and left it in the office of Winston Churchill, with instructions to be opened on June 5th. When Churchill opened the envelope and saw that everything that had been predicted has come to pass, he immediately realized the potential MI-13 had. MI-13 was reorganized into an inter-agency task force working with MI-5, MI-6, and the SOE. They were also given a new name: the Paranormal Intelligence Section for Counterintelligence, Espionage, and Sabotage, or PISCES. They were also given their independence: PISCES reported directly to the Prime Minister, and had complete discretion over their funding and resources, meaning more often than not it was MI-5 and MI-6 getting tasked to work on PISCES projects rather than the other way around. PISCES had a variety of resources to provide during the war. Their telepaths and empathics made excellent interrogators. Their clairvoyants could predict troop movements. At SOE's request, they even provided several psychics to act as communicators that couldn't be jammed. Needless to say, PISCES didn't have an abundance of personnel to provide, but those that they could proved to be immensely useful. PISCES also ended up running into several supernatural enemies during the war, most notably Karotechia; PISCES ended up being instrumental in discovering and stopping a number of Karotechia's more apocalyptic plans during this period. Other groups they tangled with included the Black Ocean Society (an ultra-nationalist group in Japan with ties to the Yakuza), the Thuggee (a revolutionary secret society in India), and SMERSH (a Russian counter-intelligence group with occult aspirations). Regarding Delta Green, PISCES wasn't introduced immediately, as neither side was eager to broadcast a belief in the paranormal (they did, however, notice each other's agents by way of their interest in certain obscure files). It wasn't til 1942 that the groups were formally introduced, but their shared findings quickly inspired a working partnership. Their first joint operation was against a Deep One colony off the south of France; they used a spell to summon the Deep Ones, then obliterated them en masse with depth charges to great success. The partnership was broken after the war with the disbandment of Delta Green. Though DG was later reformed, PISCES worried that another breakup could cause the leak of sensitive information, and the US government saw England as a haven for soviet spies. The only relationship going forward was informal and under the table, though to this day the old guard from both groups continue to share the occasional piece of intel. In order to keep relevant during the Cold War (and to allow him to continue with his off-the-books investigations into the Mythos), Cornwall was up front with PISCES' findings and activities during WWII to incoming Prime Minister Clement Attlee. PISCES presently believed that the breakup and unofficial reformation of SMERSH was a sign that they'd found something big, and would need to be kept under watch. The British government were indeed worried about the Soviets, but wanted Cornwall to go further: they insisted that PISCES begin officially studying the 'alien' sciences that SMERSH and Karotechia had been experimenting with. Cornwall was not at all pleased with this (knowing what that power could do), but had little choice. He did, however, insist on relocating to an island in the St. Kilda archipelago, where hopefully any research disasters could be contained. PISCES vs the Mythos PISCES' operations against Karotechia in WWII had only cemented what they'd already known about the greater supernatural threats lurking on the fringes of the world, and it didn't end with the close of the war. In 1948, they discovered a splinter group of the IRA worshipping a fertility god known as The Green Man. During the 1954 Malaysian Emergency, PISCES found themselves tracking a tiny ethnic minority group called the "Chau-chau" that exhibited a flair for cannibalism. Cornwall continued to lead the group through this period up til his retirement in 1955, and he continued to act as a consultant up til his death in 1961. His insistance that PISCES always focus on the 'other war' regardless of whatever else they were tasked with was an enduring legacy which eventually led to what became known as the Severn Valley Campaign. Brigadier Charles Balfour had been investigating the paranormal in England for almost 2 decades, and when he became director of PISCES, he was eager to go after what appeared to be a hotspot for anomalous activity: the tiny village of Goatswood. Taking cues from the US raid of Innsmouth, PISCES raided Goatswood and burned it to the ground, later claiming the entire area under a Ministry of Defense issues Compulsory Purchase Order. Surviving members of the tower were initially housed on an abandoned WWII era carrier scheduled for demolition. Despite calls to let the demolition happen on schedule, Balfour ordered the prisoners moved to their research island, which continues to hold hundreds of Goatswood prisoners to this day. PISCES would return to Goatswood several more times over the years, including investigation of an avatar of Y'golonac in 1974, and the draining of Brichester Lake to research an alleged meteor impact in 1987. PISCES continues to operate today, though few have heard of them outside of the offices of the Prime Minister and the chiefs of MI-5 and MI-6. Many of the lowest ranks of PISCES are even under the impression they work for a super-secret branch of MI-5 nicknamed "the Section". Though they continue to fight the paranormal, they've greatly reigned in their operations and now work almost exclusively within the borders of the UK. However, they've become quite effective at stopping cult activity; the GCHQ gives them access to wiretaps, and the SAS and SBS can be deployed for 'extralegal rendition' of any cultists that are found. England may not know it, but they have a protector in PISCES. A final note But forget all that. PISCES is hosed. During the raid on Goatswood in 1968, several PISCES agents became host to the Shan, who began slowly spreading their influence and working their way up the chain of command. By 1988, a Shan was inside the PISCES director. They found it easy! As with many intelligence agencies, agents were hesitant to place suspicion on their own members; surely these people, who they've known for years, would have no reason to turn, right? Additionally, the Shan used their knowledge of the mythos to ensure their hosts' fieldwork was superb and highly successful, allowing them to easily move up the ranks. At present, the Shans control about 10% of PISCES, but it's the 10% that counts. They have a controlling share of the top executives, they run the Internal Investigations Division, and they handle recruitment and training of new hires. PISCES' prime directive now is to keep the Severn Valley hive safe. Perhaps fortunately, the Shan are religious bigots, hence why they continue to root out and destroy other cults across the UK (this of course helps maintain their cover, as well). They've been slowly working to lower the profile of PISCES, all while reaching out to place more Shan into different government agencies. And you thought Delta Green had it bad. Next time: the terrorist cult The Army of the Third Eye
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May 28, 2013 06:07
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House Louse posted:SMERSH was a real Soviet agency. PISCES, I think, is taken from Gravity's Rainbow; did it mention them having a HQ called "The White Visitation" or anything? Not that I'm seeing. The only base they built themselves is the one on the island, which they named Magonia. And yes, SMERSH is totally a real thing. The name is an acronym for a Russian phrase meaning "death to spies", which is pretty badass.
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May 28, 2013 11:38
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Countdown, Chapter 1 - The Army of the Third Eye The Army of the Third Eye is a religious cult with a terrorist bent. Founded in 1989 by a young American tourist named Lee Coleman who suffered a severe psychotic break while on holiday in England, which caused him to drill a hole in his head to 'destroy the demon possessing him'. Afterwards, he went on a spree, kidnapping numerous people and attempting to remove their 'demons' as well. Botched surgeries resulted in a high number of casualties, but strangely, the survivors appeared to fall in line with his beliefs. Luckily, in 1996, Coleman and 5 of his followers were captured, and Coleman is serving 4 consecutive life sentences in prison. You're not buying any of this, I hope, are you? Good. The truth is, Coleman's backpacking trip through England had the bad fortune of taking him to the Severn Valley, right into the middle of a PISCES operation to unearth the Shan templeship. PISCES took him into captivity and held him until eventually making him a Shan host. Coleman then woke up at the edge of Goatswood Forest, seemly unharmed, with PISCES nowhere to be seen. He attempted to move on with his life, but immediately found himself experiencing missing time and sleepwalking episodes. He was even more confused when a voice in his head revealed itself to be his new puppetmaster, and threatened to drive him insane with blasphemous images if he tried to fight back. For a time, he yielded. Two months later, he was at his wit's end, and with an insane burst of willpower, broke into a machine shop and drove a drill press into the center of his forehead. The light that entered the hole terrified Coleman's Shan driver, and it fled. The police eventually found him in a coma, which he stayed in for six weeks. Upon waking, he made the horrible mistake of trying to explain everything that'd happen, earning him a trip to a psychiatric hospital. However, he escaped, and he had a plan. He still remembered things from when the Shan had been controlling him, in particular the names and faces of other Shan hosts. He quickly tracked down Richard Rowland, a contractor for the Ministry of Defense, and attempted to drill into his head too. Rowland survived, and the Shan fled, giving Coleman his very first recruit. Coleman's plan was one of caution. He'd track down a Shan host and begin observing them. If they appeared to have been possessed for too long, or if they appeared to have been willingly infested, they would be assassinated quietly. If, however, there seemed to be internal conflict, the victim would be kidnapped and trepanned. But, as stated in the public story, Coleman's lack of medical knowledge was a huge barrier: of the first 6 kidnappings, only 1 survived without severe nerve damage (4 of them didn't survive at all). Coleman decided to change tactics a bit by kidnapping a neurosurgeon named Karen Carter, who he forced to perform the next trepanning at gunpoint. She had no choice, but watching a basketball-sized insect fly out of the victim's head made her an instant believer. Carter brought about several changes in the budding Army: first, her skill allowed the next 13 procedures to go off without a hitch. Secondly, she begin making the incision in the back of the skull, where the hole could be made bigger, but could later be covered up easier with hair. Thirdly, she began teaching the technique to other recruits, so that hopefully they could take over should anything happen to her. And finally, she laid down an ultimatum: regardless of her belief, she would no longer help if Coleman continued to assassinate any hosts. Coleman conceded the point, but reserved the right to change his mind should circumstances change. With membership mounting, the Army started taking more direct action by harassing PISCES personnel in the Severn Valley region by leaving road spikes on trails, making threatening calls to workers at all hours, and committing minor acts of vandalism against their camps, always spraypainting "THE ARMY IS COMING" as they went. While obviously not fatal blows, they were too afraid to attempt an assault on the templeship, reasoning that if they were captured, the Shans would figure out what they were up to and launch a massive campaign to hunt them down. They even started carrying vials of potassium cyanide around their neck to ingest in case of capture by the enemy. While this was going on, they also launched a completely unsuccessful publicity campaign. Scotland Yard wouldn't take their calls, footage of the trepannings was dismissed as bogus by news stations, and the Shan's nasty habit of evaporating on death made real evidence impossible. By 1995, the Shans had figured out something was going on, and were starting to panic. Over 20 hosts had been captured or killed. PISCES had been doing its best to cover these up (fearing that Scotland Yard would look for a connection between the victims and connect the dots back to Goatswood Forest), but they couldn't stop every case from leaking to the press. PISCES decided it was time to find out who was behind all of this, and so they set up a trap for the Army. They infested a Milton Parsons, an employee at Severn Aerospace (PISCES' front shell company), who then began acting strangely in a very open manner, drawing the attention of his friend and family, then doctors and eventually the media. This was too temping for Coleman; he knew something was going on in Goatswood, and an employee of Severn Aerospace could finally get him the access he needed. When the Army showed up, PISCES was waiting, with a full squad of SAS. In the ensuing firefight, Coleman, Parson, and another Army member were killed, and the two other members present killed themselves with their cyanide vials. The Army had lost their leader, but PISCES had lost their only lead on the Army. Humiliated, PISCES covered up the event by abducting several vagrants and framing them as the Army. They still sit rotting in jail, catatonic from heavy, constant doses of sedatives. Today, the Army has stopped trying to rescue Shan hosts (they simply can't risk walking into another trap). The new Army, led by Carter and consisting over a little over a dozen members (supported by around 80 'friendlies' who are not former Shan hosts), is currently focused on mapping out the Shan's influence across England. The investigation is extremely slow moving and focused mostly on publicly available information to protect the members. What to do with this information is the subject of great debate: some want to go to the press (though in England this would likely result in a D Notice at best). Others want to take their evidence to the government (but who can be trusted?). Regardless, they continue their underground work, as the only hope PISCES (and England) has of salvation. Next time: Russia's answer to Delta Green, GRU-SV8! InShaneee fucked around with this message at 06:13 on Jun 5, 2013 |
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Jun 3, 2013 10:56
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Countdown, Chapter 2 - GRU-SV8 GRU-SV8 is Russia's counterpart to Delta Green, except where Delta Green exists, but unofficially, GRU-SV8 is officially sanctioned, but barely exists. But I'm getting ahead of myself. GRU stands for Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoye Upravlenie ("Chief Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff"). It was originally created in 1918 by Lenin at the urging of his head Commisar for War Leon Trotsky, and was originally known as the Registered Directorate of the Workers and Peasents' Red Army. GRU acted as the intelligence service for the Red Army, acting as a central storehouse for all front-line intelligence. Unlike most of the other Soviet intelligence services at the time (such as the Cheka), GRU had no mandate to police the citizens of the USSR, and in fact looked down on the spies that did as spineless lackeys of the Communist Party. This led to some tension between the groups, though GRU always remained subordinate to the others (due to political maneuvering). SV8 specifically has its roots in 1921, when fighting the Czech Legion in Siberia. A young Red Army lieutenant named Gregor Studnikov was assigned to put down an outbreak of cannibalism, ostensibly caused by the Great Famine. This proved to be problematic, as the cannibals didn't appear human, and those that began subsisting on human flesh appeared to turn into something less than human with surprising speed. Studnikov and his men wiped out all the creatures they found as well any who may have been partially 'changed', then burned all the bodies in a communal pit and set up guards around the local graveyard, apparently stopping the threat (though in reality doing nothing to the actual ghoul colony living under the town). Studnikov then wrote a report that left out anything out of the ordinary, and tried to move on with his life. Life had other plans, as he found himself tangled up with a pagan cult while assisting with disaster relief following the Blizzard of 1927. His work here brought him to the attention of the GRU and got him hired on. In 1928, engineers excavating under the Kremlin and Red Square broke into a previously unknown set of catacombs with contained, among other things, the lost library of Ivan the Terrible, rumored to contain a treasure trove of books of occult significance. Stalin immediately made moves to cover up the discovery, ordering all maps of the area redrawn, and having all workers at the site rounded up and shot. The library materials were then handed over to the NKVD for study, with predictably disastrous results (detailed in the long out of print Call of Cthulhu adventure "Secrets of the Kremlin". Seriously.) However, the program did manage to net Stalin a Greek version of the Necronomicon, along with a partial translation and enough curiosity to be dangerous. During this time, the disastrous experiments brought the attention of the GRU, who decided to create a unit with the (incredibly dangerous) task of keeping tabs on Stalin's occult explorations; the unit was off-the-books, but internally designated Spetsialni Viedotstvo 8 (Special Department 8). From 1931 to 1937, SV8 carefully watched NKVD's work with the Necronomicon, and were relieved to find they were getting nowhere. While they were prepared to wipe out the research team should the safety of the motherland fall into question, they were more than willing to bide their time, knowing that this would be suicide not just for SV8, but for the entire GRU. While the GRU did a commendable job of laying low during this period, they were eventually caught up in the Stalinist Purges in 1937. Every GRU officer above the rank of Colonel was killed, and 34 of the original 40 members of SV8 were purged (not because Stalin discovered their activities, but simply because they weren't his lackeys), including Studnikov. SV8 was abandoned, and the GRU would spend the next several years rebuilding. With the outbreak of WWII, GRU found themselves back in business. Through the Red Orchestra, GRU became aware of the Nazi's burgeoning interest in the occult, which led to the decision to reactivate SV8. No one left in the GRU truly knew what SV8 had been before, so they set it up as a think tank to produce propaganda and psychological warfare against the Nazi. However, during the restaffing the surviving members of the original SV8 were brought back, and they fully intended to use SV8's resources to fight the horrors they suspected were growing within Nazi Germany. Sure enough, it wasn't long before they discovered Sonderkommando H, and the fact that they may be toying with real power. In 1942, Germany invaded the Soviet Union, and SV8 struggled to stay active through the horrors of the Nazi advance. During the Siege of Leningrad, reports came in of cannibalism, along with isolated sightings of subhuman beings. SV8 recognized this from Studnikov's encounters in 1921, and were able to send in a team to destroy the creatures and cut off the ready supply of corpses. In 1943, the Soviet spy agency SMERSH broke off from the NKVD to become an independent organization reporting directly to Stalin and tasked with investigating the nation's own citizens for signs of spies, traitors, and deserters. However, they had a second, top-secret agenda: continue the NKVD's research into the occult. During this period SMERSH issued orders to capture any ghouls (classified as 'necrophagists') and hand them directly to SMERSH. SV8, knowing SMERSH's origins, was suspicious to say the least. They were unable to determine SMERSH's motives, but decided regardless to execute an assassination policy against the ghouls for fear of anything mythos-tained falling in to the wrong hands. Also in 1943, SV8 became aware of the newly rechristened Karotechia, through the odd rerouting of 'undesirables' to camps simply designated for 'test subjects'. From a Soviet POW, they heard an unbelievable story of prisoners that were herded into a cave and attacked by 'fish-men', only to be saved by French freedom fighters working together with a team of men who appeared to be American. They had trouble believing the tale, but knew if it were true, the Germans were close to something big. By 1945, the Soviets were pushing almost uninterruptedly into Germany, and more and more SV8 started to encounter Karotechia's use of dark magics on the front line. Several commanding officers fell to unexplained bouts of insanity. A squadron of Sturmovik attack fighters were nearly wiped out by 'bat-winged creatures'. But worst of all were what were termed 'resuscitated casualties'. First sighted in 1945, these walking corpses provided a huge hit to Soviet morale. SV8 was eventually able to locate and destroy the factories where Karotechia produced the chemicals used to make these, but they estimated in total 100,000 abominations were set loose, and there was likely more of the formula still in the wild. After the end of the war, SMERSH was ordered to find and capture any remaining abominations for study; Stalin was intrigued by the idea of a weapon that could create fearless inhuman monsters wherever he chose. It was around this time that Delta Green launched operation SUMMER BREEZE to make sure none of the Nazi's occult research survived. When they penetrated into the USSR chasing Nazi ex-pats, SV8 used the opportunity to launch their own attacks against SMERSH, using Delta Green as the cover story. Next time: the Cold War, the fall of the USSR, and modern day GRU-SV8
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Jun 5, 2013 09:12
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Lemon Curdistan posted:Did I miss something about how SMERSH came to be in Delta Green? The real-life SMERSH was just a pooling of resources between different intelligence agencies for counter-intelligence purposes outside mainland Russia. Sorry, that part's a little clumsily written. I was just referencing the previous sentence: in DG, SMERSH breaking off from the NKVD to become their own entity coincides with them being tasked to continue Stalin's research into the occult, a fact that GRU-SV8 was aware of. InShaneee fucked around with this message at 12:06 on Jun 5, 2013 |
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Jun 5, 2013 11:45
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Countdown, Chapter 2 - GRU-SV8 (Part 2) In 1947, news circled the globe of a downed 'flying saucer' allegedly recovered in Roswell, NM, USA (but of course, you've heard this one before). Just one day later, the US Army issued a retraction, and the story was quickly forgotten by most. Most, but not Josef Stalin. Stalin was currently throwing every resource available to him at finding out US nuclear secrets, and to that end he had spies all over the US, including near the nuclear-armed Roswell AFB. The story caught his interest immediately, and his agents were ordered to investigate. They were able to get little in the way of concrete information, but what little they did learn deepened the mystery: the craft was definitely not American, and the army had no idea what it was. Stalin needed to know more, but currently was losing trust in Lavrentiy Beria, current head of the NKVD (and also head of Stalin's occult research projects at SMERSH). Consequently, the operation fell to GRU, currently headed by General Sergei Shtemenko. Shtemenko loved his country, but distrusted Beria and hated Stalin. With Roswell, he saw an opportunity to create real change for the good of the country. He suggested the creation of a new unit to study the crash, answerable only to Shtemenko and Stalin, and 'disguised' as the unit Shtemenko ran from 1946-1948: SV8. Stalin agreed, and SV8 was given complete discretion to run clandestine operations. While SV8 never learned much more about the crash, their new compartmentalized system allowed them to hide their budget and operations from the NKVD and SMERSH, as well as allowing them to keep running in total secret following Stalin's death. In late 1952, Delta Green launched Operation SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS, a strategic op to send a ten-man team (six agents and four guides) deep into the USSR to locate the SMERSH lab that was using Karotechia's 'resuscitated casualties' technology for Stalin's life-extension research, and to destroy the lab along with all their work. The insertion went off flawlessly, but some 200 miles north of Novosibirsk, the team encountered a Spetsnaz unit on maneuvers, and a firefight ensued. Two guides were killed, one soldier was wounded, and the survivors were handed over to the GRU. At the time, inter-agency competition was at an all-time high, so the GRU decided to keep their prisoners a secret until they were able to learn more. One week of brutal interrogations later, and the GRU learned all the details of DG's plans. At the time, the GRU was being headed by General Mikhail Shalin, who had served with SV8 during WWII and had witnessed the 'resuscitated casualties' firsthand (and thus took the idea of an undying Stalin very, very seriously). He came up with a plan: the DG survivors would be re-equipped, smuggled into Novosibirsk, and allowed to complete their mission. Shalin assumed that the SMERSH agents guarding the research facility would kill most of the team, but SV8 would position snipers outside should any DG agents attempt to escape upon completing their mission. Two months later, the DG team was successful in penetrating the facility, killing the lead scientists, and destroying all of the chemical-producing equipment. SV8 shot and killed two DG agents as they fled the facility, but after sifting through the rubble, one was left unaccounted for (a US Army colonel who successfully fled the country and later filed a report concerning the strange behavior of his captors). Deprived of the facility's life-extending chemicals, Stalin died in 1953. While this was a relief to Shalin, during the subsequent confusing at the Kremlin, Lavrentiy was able to search Stalin's personal effects and take possession of his partially-translated Necronomicon. The reshuffling of departments following Stalin's death offered an opportunity for SV8. Using repurposed Spetsnaz units and personnel lists stolen from Stalin's personal effects, SV8 launched a highly successful campaign to wipe out SMERSH for good. All told 282 agents were executed, 740 were captured, and only 7 were never accounted for. SV8's first priority was 'justice': the 656 captured SMERSH field agents were herded to an open field, marched into mass graves, and summarily shot (the SMERSH agents, having come up with this procedure, put up little resistance). What was left was 84 researchers, which SV8 was interested in re-purposing to their own ends, a concept which quickly proved problematic. Surveying the team, they found again and again that anyone who spent any time working with the Necronomicon ended up insane or dead. In the end, Shalin made the call to execute the remaining researchers and banned further study of the alien sciences known as 'magick' to ensure SV8 was never corrupted as SMERSH and Karotechia were. Through the 1950s and 1960s, SV8 turned back to their 'holy grail': Roswll NM. A decade later, they'd learned almost nothing new, and lost 16 agents in the process. This was because MJ-12 had become aware of the Soviet's interest and used their counterintelligence arm (Project GARNET) to brutally deal with any agents that got too close. However, MJ-12 saw a possibility for a more permanent solution in 1972, when Project REDLIGHT's attempt to reactivate the craft nearly destroyed the facility in a catastrophic explosion. MJ-12 correctly guessed that the Soviets would have noticed the explosion, as well as the large-scale cleanup effort that followed. The final piece of the puzzle was Henry Watts, an aerospace engineer at nearby Nellis AFB. Over the course of the next two years, Watts was 'allowed' to learn a variety of false information about Roswell, then fired with a black mark on his record and a ruined credit rating. SV8 had no trouble finding Watts who, now disgrunted and drinking heavily, was eager to 'get back' at his former employers. Watts told SV8 that the only craft MJ-12 possessed had been destroyed in the explosion, and lacking a research project, MJ-12 had been disbanded. Watts had no proof to offer, but two days later, he turned up dead in an apparent CIA hit; SV8 was convinced. To this day, SV8 believes that the US has ceased its extraterrestrial research, and that MJ-12 is no more (ironically, SV8 also never learned of the official dissolution of Delta Green, and still believes them to be a legitimate government organization). The end of the Cold War and the breakup of the USSR meant hard times for SV8. Decreasing international tensions meant a dramtic slashing of GRU's budget, crippling SV8. It's been 8 years since SV8 hired on any new members; most of the existing members were let go due to budget cuts, and the few remainders often go months at a time without seeing a paycheck. SV8's modern intelligence and field capabilities are pitiful, with most of what they're able to successfully accomplish owing to favors from retired officers that still hold some political clout. About the only thing SV8 does have going for it is its vast Mythos-related library, seized from Stalin, SMERSH, and later the vaults of the KGB. This does NOT include Stalin's Necronomicon; while SV8 successfully retrieved it during SMERSH's liquidation, it was lost in 1944 when it was naively used as bait to trap a group of Russian mobsters who were looking to purchase it. Retrieving the Necronomicon remains SV8's largest standing operation. Aside from that, their mission remains as it always was: protect Russia from the paranormal threats they don't even know exist. ...And that's about it. No dark secret at the heart of the organization this time, just a bunch of actual do-gooders who are now on the verge of vanishing due to budget cutbacks and the continued need for secrecy. Next time: Russia's own occult threat, Skoptsi InShaneee fucked around with this message at 04:20 on Jun 10, 2013 |
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Jun 10, 2013 04:12
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Lemon Curdistan posted:Russia: the last bastion of the resistance. They still get to play with the trope, though. SV8 has done such a fantastic job of flying under the radar that they're virtually unknown, even in the intelligence world. As such, Russia's reputation in DG's spy world leans more towards SMERSH and their horrific necromantic experiments.
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Jun 10, 2013 10:38
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Countdown, Chapter 3 - Skoptsi This sacred texts of the Skoptsi say their history begins with a man named Semyon, a christian monk spreading the faith in what would later be Kiev sometime around 1200 AD. Semyon had the bad fortune to run into a Mongol expeditionary force, who torched and pillaged the village Semyon was staying in, and crucified him as a 'joke' on his faith. Semyon hung on the cross in the ruins of the village for two days before being visited by a monk in black robes. The monk started a religious debate with Semyon, arguing the village massacre disproved God's love, and after a day Semyon relented and accepted the monk's offer to accept a new faith. The monk taught Semyon to summon the Magna Mater (who you might know better as Shub Niggurath), who devoured Semyon and rebirthed him, completely insane and reborn as one of her chosen. After seeking out and taking revenge on the Mongols who nearly killed him, Semyon ventured into the Caucasus Mountains, where he established a temple to the Magna Mater. For the next four centuries, the Caucasus Mountains would be the center of a number of kidnappings from christian and muslim enclaves in the surrounding areas. The Persians and Ottomans sent various expeditions into the mountains to root out the supposed cult there, but all either returned empty handed, or didn't return at all. By 1650, there was enough outrage over this to form an unprecedented alliance between the Cossacks, Ottomans, and Persians, who sent a combined 10,000 warriors into the mountains to end the threat permanently. They burned every building, tree, and living creature they found, even salting the earth behind them. They found the temple and (at the cost of more than half their number) killed nearly all the cultists, put down a Dark Young they'd summoned, and captured the insane 450 year old Semyon. Semyon was sentenced to be drawn and quartered...and when that failed to kill him, he was burned along with the bodies of the other cultists. Unfortunatly, the few cultists that escaped took the Black Icons, their religious text, with them, and went into hiding, disguising themselves as an esoteric, reclusive christian sect known as the Skoptsi ("the castrated"). The apparent beliefs of the Skoptsi revolved around the belief that all sex (yes, all of it) was a sin in the eyes of god. Thus, members participated in a "baptism of fire" (read: self-castration) to purge themselves of their sin (women could also participate; I'll leave you to guess how). Actual worship of the Magna Mater was contained in the group's inner circle, with new members only being brought into the true faith seconds before the Baptism. In 1779, the cult's then high priest Kondratji Selivanov journeyed to Moscow, where he was introduced to Czar Alexander I via a German baroness who worshiped another manifestation of Shub Niggurath. Czar Alexander I had an interest in mysticism and found Skoptsi's apparent extreme christian piety inspiring. He forbade their persecution, patronized the cult with money, set Selivanov up with an extravagant mansion in Moscow, and inadvertently turned several influential members of the royal court to the cult. The cult enjoyed a place of luxury and power until Selivanov had the bad luck (possibly encouraged by enemies) to die in 1832 while out and about; when he was to be washed prior to burial, the hideous deformities from his rebirth were discovered, and his body was burned straightaway. Starting in 1840, Czar Nicholas began a pogrom against Skoptsi, arresting and deporting their members by the hundreds. However, this only served to spread the cult to new regions as members fled to various locations in eastern europe. During this period, Czar Nicholas' secret police were able to seize the Black Icons, a fact that frustrated the cult until 1901, when they were successfully able to bribe their way to their return. The October Revolution in 1917 was nearly the end for the cult. There was a crackdown on all religious sects at the time, but the Skoptsi, with their secretiveness and perceived association with Czar Peter III, were treated particularly harshly, with the Bolsheviks maintaining a "shoot on sight" policy towards them. The purge was extremely effective, and outlying Skoptsi communities realized they'd need to flee if they wanted to survive. They made their way to Vladivostok, where they were able to convince the American occupying trooops there to smuggle them back to the US as "oppressed christians fleeing godless communism". A casualty of this period was the Black Icons, which ended up in private hands and have been scattered and passed from auction house to auction house ever since. Skoptsi first arrived in Los Angeles, where they were able to remain concealed for some time. At least, that is, until they attempted to send emissaries back to the USSR. The emissaries never returned, and the group's high priest was killed by vigilantes who discovered their true worship. The group scattered once again and remained fragmented until 1935, when they rejoined and settled down in an unincorporated district on the eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay. Today, Skoptsi is about 360 members strong, all of whom have been indoctrinated into the worship of the Magna Mater, and all of whom do their best to project the image of a hardworking immigrant community.  Subtlety is a lost art Skoptsi as an organization always faced one major issue: recruitment. Castrated members didn't tend to have many children, after all. Where in the past they had turned to kidnapping, the Land of Opportunity offered a new route: adoption. In 1948, the group founded Families without Frontiers, and orphanage with the stated intention of rescuing orphan children from behind the Iron Curtain. Set on a 200 acre farm, the property both gives the image of pastoral peace to outsiders, and affords the privacy the group needs to conduct their business. There are typically about 20 orphans on the farm at any given time. Conversion of the children is done by physically and mentally abusing the children constantly, with the group's matron (and fanatical worshiper) Yalena Kalamatiano acting as their 'savior', while teaching them of the Magna Matron. Those who follow her teachings are rewarded with treats and reprieves, and eventually, should they choose to take the Baptism of Fire, they are placed with a family within the cult. Those that refuse are sacrificed to a Dark Young the group keeps bound. More recently, the cult has been forced to face the consequences of losing the Black Icons. Their loss meant the loss of the incantation for the Ritual of Rebirth, which summoned Shub Niggurath and provided the old guard their immortality. Without it, they have begun to wither and die in their extremely advanced age. The cult is presently working with the Russian Mafia in the hopes they will be able to locate the Icons and rejuvenate the cult. Next time: The OUTLOOK Group, MJ-12's secret testing facilities.
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Jul 26, 2013 06:47
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Countdown, Chapter 4 - The Outlook Group Dr. Albert Yrjo isn't a well known name, though there's a few within the field of behavioral sciences that would recognize it. In the early 60's, he began a series of behavioral experiments patterned after the now-famous Millgram experiment: in Yrjo's, he simulated high-stress situations (including building fires, elevator failures, news of presidential assassination, and news of an impending nuclear strike) to see if there were any patterns that could be determined. This was brought to a halt when, in 1964, amidst a simulated alien first contact, a subject suffered a psychotic break and murdered two other test subjects before he could be restrained. NYU immediately withdrew his tenure and halted all his funding. He spent the next several years writing manuscripts about his theories and experiments, but his inability to find a publisher drove him deep into debt. He did, however, begin work on what he considered his greatest work: SRT (Stress Reaction Testing), a set of testing protocols that would determine just how much stress an individual could withstand before cracking. It was just theoretical, and again, he had difficulty finding a publisher...until the Air Force heard about his work. Yrjo spent the 70's working with the Air Force to refine his experiments (now classified under codename SOMA), refining them into a set of 'personality models', which could, to some degree, predict the actions and reactions of subjects with similar personalities. In 1978, Yrjo was introduced to Dr. Albert Ringwood. Ringwood was the director of MJ-12's PLATO project, and was currently attempting to prepare for the first face-to-face with the Greys. Ringwood told Yrjo that if he worked with him, he'd have unlimited funding and zero ethical oversight (though Yrjo wasn't actually told the nature of the work he was to do). Yrjo eagerly accepted, and was relocated to a re-purposed think tank in Maryland called the OUTLOOK Group. There, he was given a narrow, specific mandate to continue his tests, but with scenarios focusing on themes of alien incursion and first contact situations. With unlimited funding, Yrjo's simulations grew more and more realistic, though he grew suspicious as to what end he was working towards. In reality, all his test subjects were actually MJ-12 personnel, who Ringwood was testing for the mission with the Greys. Ringwood found his testing to be extremely accurate, with his personality models sometimes being able to predict unstable members without the need for testing at all. The facility itself covers nine acres of land, and appears to be a lightly secured office building (in reality, the 'rent-a-cops' outside are all former NRO DELTA, and some of the most highly trained killers in the world). The apparent building actually hides a series of sub-basements where the elaborate experimental scenarios are carried out, and all Yrjo's records are kept under heavy security. The facility has a regular staff of about 66 people, around 40% of whom are the doctors and nurses who oversee the testing (though almost none know the real purpose of the tests, and those that get suspicious tend to get their own 'treatments'). As a nod to the project's success, a secondary OUTLOOK facility was set up in Puerto Rico in the early 90's, where Yrjo relocated as his health began failing. This site is a storehouse for the most highly-classified of documents (pertaining to the actual Greys themselves), as well as housing Yrjo's new experiments. After relocating, Yrjo was finally inducted into MJ-12 and given full top-secret clearance. With access to the Grey's Cookbook, he's now started a new line of inquiry, codenamed RICOCHET, into mind-altering drugs that can help manipulate and control subjects. These include: "Red" - Ramps up the body's threat responsive, throwing the subject into an uncontrollable, violent rage. "Orange" - Causes timed blackouts of up to 12 hours wherein the subject is fully aware of events, but will not be able to recall them later "Yellow" - Causes full paralysis while the subject remains completely conscious and aware. "Green" - A powerful hallucinogen that typically causes a violent reaction in subjects. Untraceable. "Blue" - Causes cardiac arrest, even in strong, healthy subjects. Untraceable. "Indigo" - Continuous usage causes slow, but irreversible (and eventually fatal) brain damage. "Violet" - Causes a cascade of failures among the body's normal funtions; food isn't properly digested, waste isn't normally filtered and excreted, ect. Death is inevitable and agonizing. Yrjo's prior research into stress has been completely standardized into a series of general scenarios, rated from 1.0 to 10.0 correlated to increasing stress put on the subject. To name just a few: 1.0 - Subject informed of the death of a beloved relative and given doctored photos and documents as proof. Subject is cut off from outside communication to prevent verification. 2.0 - Subject is accused of treason and told he'll be tried in a military tribunal (the exact crimes are never specified). Subject is provided with a defense lawyer who is outwardly hostile and clearly believes the subject's guilt. 3.0 - The subject is awoken, given a full breakfast, then led by military officers to a courtyard. Subject is tied to a post and faced with a firing line (soldier's guns are loaded with blanks). 4.0 - Subject is given a paralyzing agent and told he is being recruited for a 'special mission'. Subject is shown a series of photos featuring places the subject has never visited and people the subject has never met while the administrator goes on at length about the subject's exemplary assassination record. At the conclusion, the administrator shows the subject a photo of the president, his 'next target'. 5.0 - Subject is given a paralyzing agent and moved by fake Greys to a fake alien ship, where he is given an intrusive medical examination. He is then returned, unconscious, to his quarters. 6.0 - Subject is given a paralyzing agent while he sleeps. Upon waking, he watches as a team of doctors appears to give him a full autopsy. 7.0 - Subject is rushed into surgery, given a local anesthetic, heavily restrained, and then watches as doctors appear to amputate both of his legs. 8.0 - Subject is drugged while sleeping and transported and subsequently abandoned naked on an uninhabited island in the Bikini Atoll. 9.0 - Subject is shown a doctored video showing the violent execution of a loved one. No explanation is given. 10.0 - Subject awakens in a holding cell with no knowledge of the prior 24 hours. Subject is told they are responsible for a car accident that has killed a loved one, and shown explicit (doctored) photos as proof. 10.1 - Subject is forced at gunpoint to hold a gun to the head of a loved one. Sujbect is given a 3 count and told that if they do not fire, they will be killed. Both guns carry live rounds. The chapter concludes with a wide variety of ways to work OUTLOOK into a Delta Green campaign. I think my favorite is the PCs being captured (and compromised) but released with no idea they were ever held, only realizing later by odd changes in their behavior and flashbacks they can't explain. Next time:  Phenomen-X
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Aug 5, 2013 05:26
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Countdown, Chapter 5 - Phenomen-X Remember Sightings? That's Phenomen-X; a trashy, little watched, late night broadcast show about ghosts, aliens, demons, Elvis sightings, black helicopters, and whatever else they think might grab the attention of whoever's still up (the book actually calls Sightings a "knock-off", which I found cute). The show was first started in 1990, intended to have the seriousness of 20/20 mixed with the unbelievably of the Weekly World News. Despite shabby research and a pitiful budget, the show did well (for it's 1am slot, anyway) and became something of a fixture, running for a total of 130 episodes before things went off the rails. In 1997, the show aired the story "Take Me To Your Cracker", about UFO sightings in Groversville, Texas. It was the same garbage they usually aired: blurry lights in the night sky, dumb rednecks talking about alien abduction, ect. Yet in the week that followed the show's airing, nearly every member of the crew that shot the story came down with flu-like symptoms, then died inexplicably. The only survivor was field producer Frank Carincola, who left a cocky, arrogant hollywood type, and came back a haunted man, having seen many things in Groversville that didn't make it to air. After that, Frank was more motivated than ever to find out what was out there, but was forced to watch as the show fell apart over the next several months. One by one, all of the key members of the production staff left for better paying jobs (often without looking for them), and the production company considered just shutting the whole thing down. However, they allowed Frank to take over the show, and he's been trying to hold things together ever since. Today, the show is staffed by a skeleton crew (compared to its former glory). Everyone working there is either fanatically dedicated to Frank's quest, or completely unqualified to be working anywhere else. Frank manages to keep things moving, though, mostly due to a series of recent anonymous tips that have taken him to some very promising leads. The Phenomen-X studio, located just outside of Los Angeles, used to be a storehouse for movie props, and now, after a shoestring renovation, is little more than a tin shack with bad A/C and worse toilets. Very little work actually goes on in the studio, though, as most of the work is done on the road by crews on-location hunting for stories and footage. At present, they have a staff of approximately 26, though many of those are just researchers or unpaid interns. Of these, only Carincola and a very few people have actually had real encounters with the paranormal, but they've all been changed by it, and are careful who they send out to some investigations. So what happened at Groversville, you might be wondering? That's actually a callback to "Convergence", the starter campaign scenario from the Delta Green corebook. I'll try to write it up sometime, but the short version is the Mi-Go were using the entire town as a testing grounds into the human psyche. When Delta Green busted up their operation, they attempted to cover their tracks by activating a virus they'd been dumping into the town's water, which the Phenomen-X crew had all drank during their week-long shoot (save Frank, a health nut who brought his own bottled). While an entire town dying of the flu should have been national news, MJ-12 did a very neat job of keeping it under wraps. And those annonymous tips? Oh, those are the best part. Half of them come from none other than Delta Green themselves. After bumping into Phenomen-X in Groversville, DG has been using them as a litmus test to see if an incident is worth their time. If Phenomen-X starts investigating, and camera crew start dying, they'll send in a team to neutralize the threat. Otherwise, hey, they'll get some footage out of it either way. And the rest of the tips? Why, those are from MJ-12! Yes, they're also using Phenomen-X. In their case, if MJ-12 suspects DG is nosing around somewhere, they'll tip of Phenomen-X in the hopes that their cameras and inquisitive reporters will hamper, harass, or possibly even expose the DG agents, all while keeping a healthy level of separation from MJ-12 themselves. And no one at Pheonmen-X has any idea about this, except Frank, who feels pretty sure his sources are coming from "deep within the government". Poor thing. The chapter ends with the incredibly rad idea of running a campaign as a Phenomen-X crew, and even includes new rules for Videography and Video Production skills. Next time:  TIGER TRANSIT
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Aug 7, 2013 05:36
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Count Chocula posted:Why does this sound like the most fun way to play Delta Green? I'm tempted to say it is. You're basically playing a series of found footage movies.
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Aug 7, 2013 11:43
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Countdown, Chapter 6 - Tiger Transit Tiger Transit is a smallish international shipping company. But of course, you've watched TV, so you know anyone in the 'import/export business' is likely up to no good. Boy howdy, you have no idea. Alright, let's start with the CIA. The CIA has always been a fan of creating front companies to operate under the guise of civilian business, and when they formed Tiger Transit in 1965, it was no exception. Tiger was operated and (legally) owned by two ex-CIA agents, Vincent Bisagne and Ronald Toddhunter. The company was used to move goods of questionable legality, from aid supplies to embargoed countries to weapons and ammunition to foreign warzones. Following the fall of the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua, the CIA needed to scale back it's budget, and sold off Tiger Transit to then-CEO Joseph Berg, who continued operating as a private shipping company. The CIA would still occasionally ask Berg to run operations off-the-books, and in return, they looked the other way for whatever Tiger happened to be shipping privately (which, at the time, included mountains of drugs from South American Contras). Today, Tiger has offices in 6 major cities across the US, with Chicago's Midway Airport being used as it's primary hub. About 94% of their present business is legal, but Tiger keeps kickbacks flowing to the US Customs Service to cover the rest. Tiger has become a trusted name in the (secret) black books of the government, private corporations, and organized crime, all of whom rely on Tiger when they absolutely need something unique shipped behind the backs of officials. The CIA, though, hasn't used Tiger for almost a decade. This is likely because the CIA doesn't want to be associated with the kinds of people Tiger now regularly does business with. Of course, it might also be because of the Tcho-Tchos.  AAGH I should probably back up a bit. The Tcho-Tcho are a nationless race, tainted through-and-through by a history of cannibalism and Mythos worship. Their precise origins are unknown, though records of them exists from as far back as 128 BC; the Greeks called them the Tochoa, and Chinese knew them as the Yueh-chih. While the greatest concentration of Tcho-Tcho today can be found in Communist Asia, the Red Cultural Revolution forced many to relocate. A large group of them fled to the US under the cover of "fleeing communist oppression" and set up shop in Chicago, where the current population is mostly second generation. The INS lists them as "Chauchas", an obscure Malaysian tribe. The few older residents of various Asian communities that know who they really are tend to keep that to themselves. The Tcho-Tchos community is currently centered around the worship of Shogoran, an avatar of Nyarlathotep, and lives in the shadows of New Chinatown. In the late 1980s, the Tcho-Tcho made a play to wipe out all those that remembered who they were (or found out that they still practiced cannibalism) by summoning hideous creatures known as the Children of Shugoran. This eventually brought the attention of Delta Green, who dropped the hammer on their entire cult. Nearly every adult Tcho-Tcho was either killed or 'deported' to Malaysia, while the naturalized children were placed in orphanages. But of course, they missed one: an ancient shaman named Huong Xan. Xan had used cannibalistic rituals to keep himself alive for centuries, but had been mortally wounded in a DG attack, and knew that going to a hospital would merely draw a DG cleanup crew straight to him. Instead, he arranged for one of his direct descendants, Cho Chu-tsao, to perform the permanent version of the Consume Memories spell on him, devouring his brain and gaining his knowledge. Xan's plan was for Chu-tsao to find a Tcho-Tcho man of great will and devotion to the Elder Gods, teach him the Consume Memories spell, have him devour HER brains, and use Xan's knowledge to lead the Tcho-Tcho to a new beginning. Chu-tsao decided that sounded like bullshit, and set about using Xan's wisdom to reunited and rebuild the Tcho-Tcho in Chicago on her own. Chu-tsao imagined a future where the Tcho-Tcho ruled the American Triads and Tongs with their own occult power, and to that end, reorganized the Tcho-Tcho as a sort of occult mafia under the name Tong Shugoran. But she knew she'd need help. Which led her to Joseph Berg. Berg's connection to the Tcho-Tcho came from the Vietnam war. While working with Air America in Cambodia, his plane was shot down, and he ended up living with a Tcho-Tcho tribe for several months (where he was also tainted by their exotic drugs). Upon his return, Berg told the CIA that the Tcho-Tcho were fighting back against the communists (which was true; the communist regime had destroyed one of their holy sites near Ho Chi Minh city, and they were pissed about it), and suggested the CIA provide them weapons and aide, a suggestion they eagerly took. They also sent Green Berets to train them, though that didn't go as well after the troops found the Tcho-Tcho using the CIA's arms to slaughter neighboring tribes (the CIA ignored their reports). Delta Green became aware of the situation and tried to stop it, though in the end, they had to result in forging a set of orders, resulting in the 'accidental' carpet bombing of the Tcho-Tcho village. After the war, Berg became and obsessive collector of all things Tcho-Tcho, but didn't think he'd ever be able to experience what they'd shown him again until Chu-tsao found him. When Chu-tsao showed him that she knew how to make the drugs he'd experienced in Vietnam, he was all hers. Berg began hiring all the Tcho-Tcho he could, even sending them to trade school to learn to fly and service aircraft, eventually pushing out nearly all non-Tcho-Tcho workers. Then, Berg handed power of attorney over to Chu-tsao, and drifted off into a drug-addled haze somewhere. With Berg's assets, Chu-tsao was able to track down some more 'native' Tcho-Tchos and get the raw materials to start making their traditional drug in bulk. Why? To dilute the hell out of it and sell it on the streets as a new drug, Reverb. Reverb has the effect of distorting the user's perception of time and also, in higher doses, sending the user's conciousness back through time (though not nearly to the degree the original product would). It's also, of course, accompanied by a general feeling of euphoria, and is already making inroads in the club scene. Tiger Transit gave Chu-tsao the clout she needed, so she started moving upwards. By making the company available for use to the Chicago mafia, she gained both their protection and their muscle (particularly important since some in the Tong have found out about the Tcho-Tcho's less savory habits and wouldn't mind doing the world a favor if they found one). With Tiger Transit being primarily used to build alliances, Reverb has become the cult's main source of income (though again, they find themselves primarily selling to whites in the suburbs, since anyone in town who knows of the Tcho-Tcho stay the hell away). And, as with any good gang, they've started opening up a series of 'legitimate businesses' all over Chinatown to help launder all their newfound riches. The party ground to a halt in 1996, when Chu-tsao recieved word that the Malaysian Tcho-Tchos were cutting off her supply of Black Lotus, the primary ingredient in Reverb (they found out their sacred drug was being used to get teenagers stoned, and were pissed). Chu-tsao needed a plan, and she needed one before her supplies ran out. Unfortunately for her, the Black Lotus was a very finicky plant, and would be difficult to impossible to cultivate stateside. Wracking Xan's memories for ideas, she hit upon something involving Shub-Niggurath. She would draw forth the 'milk' of Shub-Niggurath and use it to nurture the plants, which she believed would make them grow hardier, faster, and far more potent than before. But Chu-tsao would still need someone to cultivate the plant. For that, she prayed to Nyarlathotep to show her the path. What she saw was one of Tiger Transit's clients: Genetic Agricultural Products, Incorporated. GAP was formed in the late 1980's to market GM crops; a swiftly growing field, but one they could never quite get in front of. The company struggled until it crossed paths with one Cynthia Dexter. Dexter was a higher up in a hippy new age self-actualization program called the Brotherhood of New Potential, which, of course, secretly worshiped Shub-Niggurath. The Brotherhood was, in fact, the new, friendlier face of a pagan free-love sect from the 60's called the True Love Study Group. The TLSG inducted dozens with their human-sacrificing rituals until half their leadership was locked up for murder in 1977. Twelve years later, several former memebers reformed the group as the Brotherhood, using the front of new-age medicine (this was California we're talking about) to hide their more unsavory activities (and to fund them). It was through these fronts that Dexter found Matthew Lewis, then CEO of GAP. Lewis was deeply depressed over GAP's financial woes, and was thus easy for Dexter to manipulate. Dexter saw similarities between the gene modifying work GAP did and the horrendous mutations caused by Shug-Niggurath's milk, and saw a way to help them both. In return for a share of the company, Dexter provided Lewis with a sample of the milk. GAP was confounded (and somewhat terrified) of what they found. It was a mutagen that was also a growth hormone, and while its effects were measurable, the mechanism it worked on was inexplicable. The staff took every precaution, but against the literal mana of an Elder God, that meant absolutely poo poo, and before long, the whole lab was seeing things the Brotherhood's way. And what did they eventually come up with? A new strain of tobacco they called Fumo Loco. GAP had been looking for a way to make low-tar cigarettes without lowering the nicotine content, but for that, they needed a strain of tobacco with a high nicotine content to begin with. Shub-Niggurath's milk made that happen, as well as cutting growth time from five months to five weeks, and enabling it to grow in just about any climate. GAP partnered with the Manly-Heath tobacco company, who then used Tiger Transit to export tons of the Fumo Loco seed to Brazil for cultivation. There, the tobacco stalks grew over twice as high as regular plants; M-H stood to make a fortune. But after a scandal where the USDA took down a different tobacco firm for exporting seed, M-H got cold feet and backed out, leaving GAP holding the bag. GAP knew they had the next big thing, but they needed a partner less encumbered by the law. Right about here, coincidentally, was when Chu-tsao showed up. Lewis, growing desperate by now, was all too eager to trade cash for cultivated Lotuses. Chu-tsao was set...at least until demand for Reverb went into orbit. The new Reverb, nurished on Shub-Niggurath's milk, was, indeed, even more potent, with the side effect of being as addictive as crack cocaine. Come 1998, Chu-tsao was looking to move up to the bigtime by partnering with some of Tiger Transit's old drug cartel contacts south of the border. With the cartel cultivating the Lotus in huge fields and selling to eager South American markets, the Tong would be rolling in cash. What Chu-tsao brought to the cartels she called Coca Loco: a coca-Lotus hybrid that had double the cocaine content with only half the growing time required. The logistics were impressive: they'd be able to cut farming overhead down to a quarter, and smaller amounts with higher potency would be much easier to smuggle. The families were excited, but wanted one final test: a test field was planted, and if its potency is as advertised, they'll buy in in a big way. If this happens, it will be a matter of months before the US is drowning under cheap, high-potency, Mythos-tainted cocaine. This is the point where our old friend Berg tripped out on milk-fed purestrain Tcho-Tcho drug and royally pissed off a Hound of Tindalos.  SHAFT IN HARLEM! See, the pure drug (Liao) sends your conciousness back in time. When Berg mistakenly took some of the milk-fed Liao, he get thrown all the way back to the formation of the Earth, where he accidentally caught the attention of a Hound. Berg snapped back immediately, but he had an inkling the Hound would come for him, so he begged Chu-tsao for help. This was extremely inconvenient for Chu-tsao; Berg was still the majority stakeholder of Tiger Transit, and if he got himself eaten, his shares would be willed to his relatives. Changing his will to benefit Chu-tsao would just raise a lot of suspicion. Chu-tsao had no idea how to get permanent control of the company, but she would need it (desperately) to get Coca Loco across the border very soon. In the meantime, the Hound would need to be stalled. Using Xan's knowledge again, Chu-tsao discovered that Hounds manifested from angled surfaces. So, she put up Berg in a custom designed manor where every surface and furnishing was made into a smooth curve. Now, the Hound can't manifest in the house, and it's unwilling to do so in the open outside, so as long as Berg stays put, he should be safe. While the Hound is lying in wait, though, it's noticed the temporal shenanigans of the Reverb users around town, and has begun hunting them to bide its time. At this point, there's enough Reverb users that even killing Berg likely wouldn't cause the Hound to leave. This, however, isn't quite a perfect situation: Chu-tsao can't really have her customer base getting slaughtered, but she doesn't have powerful enough mojo to get the thing to leave. She's reached out to Stephen Alzis (you remember him) for help, but what he'll do, and at what cost, is anyone's guess. "But what does all this MEAN?", you cry out in desperation, drowning in words. Well, what we've got here is something pretty unique. It's a mythos cult, sure, but not nearly as old and powerful as most Delta Green might run into. It's a mythos organization, but one big and complex enough that it could support a full campaign as a team tries to unravel all the links and plots. It's got lots of ins, depending on how your group rolls, and hey, it's even easy to adapt for an alternate campaign (Phenomen-X: Live from Chicago!). Next time: the Keepers of the Faith, religious ghouls trying to keep it together in Manhattan.
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Aug 8, 2013 10:36
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Countdown, Chapter 8 - The Keepers of the Faith In 1636, the Dutch island of Manhattan became the unwilling host to a Mr. Morgens Dekker, along with twenty six of his followers and several chests of gold. Dekker was fleeing the Holy Roman Empire; apparently, they weren't too fond of people claiming they were messiahs. Dekker had managed to elude them long enough to get to the New World, where he used his wealth to set up an estate for himself and his followers before picking up where he left off (studying the occult, of course). Dekker's experiments required a large number of corpses, but he was loathe to sully his now-clean name, so his followers set out to build an elaborate system of tunnels, allowing him to move freely and unnoticed between his compound and several nearby graveyards. This worked swimmingly; the nearby people assumed they were some sort of religious scholars fleeing persecution (it was the 'in' thing to do at the time), and choose to leave them alone, referring to them as the Keepers of the Faith. In 1665, with the War of Independence on and the British occupying the island (having renamed it to New York), Dekker became increasingly paranoid, and repurposed nearly all his followers to dig more and more tunnels, with the entire operation relocating below ground in the increasingly elaborate tunnel system. This was assisted by Dekker's new found followers, which numbered around 200 by 1700. The group was so secretive at this point that almost no one outside the compound had any contact with them - which was fortunate, since they might have started asking why none of them appeared to be aging. In 1701, Dekker and a select few travelled back to Europe, and returned 3 years later with a trove of strange artifacts, and a few friends - ghouls. The ghouls and Dekker had a lot in common, really. Dekker needed the ghouls to further expand his tunnel systems. The ghouls wanted a steady supply of corpses to feed on. And both of them were all about worshipping the Great Old Ones. Hence, a business partnership. By 1740, the tunnel system ran under almost all of Manhattan, with some branches stretching as far as Brooklyn and New Jersey. The next 20 years were very productive for all involved, ending in 1766, when Dekker led the entire cult in a procession down the shore of New Jersey as the culmination of all their arcane research; no one knows what they were trying to accomplish, nor what actually occured, only that they were never heard from again. This left the tunnels to the ghouls, who were pretty much set by this point and simply continued on with the lifestyle they'd grown accustomed to underground. The start of the 20th century saw the ghouls living in their deepest tunnels. With the advent of sewers and subways, the ghouls were forced to collapse or flood several surface tunnels to avoid detection. Additionally, the bulk of the population had moved out to Long Island and New Jersey, as few people were still buried within New York city limits anymore. An...unfortunate incident at Red Hook nearly exposed them, but they were again able to cover up their tracks. However, Red Hook caused a schism in the community: the more moderate ghouls felt they should flee Manhattan as the others had to avoid further risk of discovery, while the religious zealots among them were certain that any time now the Great Old Ones would obliterate New York and they would rule the island. In the end, nearly all of them left, collapsing the tunnels out of the city behind them, with only a few devout (along with a handful of human followers of Dekker's teachings) left behind. Today, the ghoul cult (now also called the Keepers) are few, growing only from the occasional kidnapping and conversion of the homeless. With existing graveyards picked clean and no new graveyards being built, the ghouls are starving (albeit slowly and strangely, due to their supernatural nature), with only their devotion to their faith keeping them from seeking live prey. However, not all of the younger ghouls had so much fervor, and indeed, they did start attacking and eating subway travelers and homeless around the city. When this brought the attention of the police, the religious ghouls decided to expel the so-called Heretics. They now roam the back alleys of New York, hunting. At present, they can still mostly pass as humans, but it's only a matter of time before their heritage catches up to them. A note about the religious ghouls is that they are incredibly naive about the outside world. Many of them have never left the caves since they originally arrived in the 1700s, and they regard stories about things like cars, TV, and planes as either human superstition or strange magics unknown to them. As a last note, in more recent history (1941 specifically), a sinkhole at a New York construction site accidentally uncovered a major ghoul byway. The ghouls attempted to scare away the builders via sabotage, but accidentally caught the wrong kind of attention; specifically, our old friend Stephen Alzis. Alzis summoned the ghouls and told them he was going to build over the sinkhole, and they were going to give him full access to their tunnels, and in return, the highest-ranking in the cult would periodically be provided with fresh bodies. The ghouls refused, but after Alzis killed their leader, they figured out he was serious, and agreed to his terms. And thus, Club Apocalypse came to be. Next time: John Tynes rewrites the Hastur Mythos.
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Oct 8, 2013 10:28
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