Gencon Online - Delta Green - Who Killed the Case Officer

My final Gencon Online game was a run of Who Killed the Case Officer. The Agents were summoned to investigate the ritual murder of a Delta Green Case Officer: Norbert Hammerstroem, former AFSOC. Hammerstroem was found dead in his home by police after failing to respond to several communications sent to his Delta Green smartphone.

Briefing thus issued, I opened up character selection. I had four players (my only full house during Gencon Online) and they selected the following characters:

• Agent STUART, USPIS, forger, accountant and computer scientist
• Agent SHALIMAR, FBI, master of disguise
• Agent EASTER, National Parks Service, archaeologist and occultist
• Agent EISENHOWER, Green Berets, killing machine with a talent for languages

According to Delta Green's dossier, Colonel Hammerstroem was a real hardass - active duty AFSOC before DG moved him to a desk job at the DIA. He had no family outside a sister, who’s in Berlin and won’t arrive to identify the body for at least a day.

Norbert took an ultraconservative approach to casework. Wiping out anyone who knew even a single spell, ordering just-in-case killings of witnesses, turning agents over to the Security Director or Research wing if they behaved strangely or cracked under pressure.

Norbert’s main working group was RAIN WHISPER - comprised of agents RENE, RICARDO and ROBERTA.

• RICARDO: Deputy Lon Fujimoto, US Marshal.
• ROBERTA: Elaine Eck, nurse practitioner
• RENE: Lieutenant Tam “Grit” Robinson, MARSOC. Recently dead of heroin overdose (presumed unrelated to current case)

The house in Portsmouth, Maine where Hammerstroem's body was found had been cordoned off by local police, who handed the scene over to the Agents. The players stepped through the door and entered the crime scene.

Gencon Online - Delta Green - Blood, Pus and Vinegar

This was my second Gencon Online game. A run of Blood, Pus and Vinegar. The original scenario is a meatgrinder of tactical combat, whereby the Nationalists hold off a Republican assault on a mysterious nunnery where all is not as it seems. I ran the fast play version, which flips the script and gives the players the role of Republican fighters headed to purge the church of Fascist resistance.

I gave the group a little context on the Spanish Civil War, the makeup of the popular forces (who they'd be playing as), and the mission they'd be undertaking. Then I gave them the list of pregens. We had three players, and they selected the following characters for the mission:

• Pvt Tommy O’Connelly, International Brigades (Northern Ireland)
• Miguel Zapata, Photojournalist for Spain and the World.
• Jose Esquella, Confederación Nacional del Trabajo

The squad (all of three men in size) had a vague idea of what to expect at their destination: The Chapterhouse of the Zelatrices of the Algedonic Devotion, a nunnery famed for its delicious wine, rumored to now be a staging ground for Nationalist fifth columnists.

The popular forces had a vague idea of what to expect.

With their objective clear, they shouldered their rifles and headed into the mountains.

Gencon Online - Delta Green - Home Fires

The first of my three games for Gencon Online was Home Fires, a Delta Green scenario about kidnapping a traitorous Office of Naval Intelligence Colonel from a cruise ship off the coast of Venezuela.

I had four players sign up. One had to leave shortly before the game began, one never showed up, and two arrived ready to play. Both had enough experience with Delta Green that we were able to jump right into the briefing and character selection.

• Agent SHALIMAR, FBI, master of disguise
• Agent SELLERS, mob doctor and grifter

The Agents settled on a preliminary plan to locate Colonel Valentine Robard, inject him with chemicals to incapacitate him, then fake a medical emergency and call in a helicopter disguised as a medivac from the nearby U.S.S. Frobisher, a USN Littoral Combat Ship loaned to Delta Green for the operation. They boarded the cruise ship at Port of Spain in Trinidad, and the adventure was afoot.

After depositing their luggage (filled with guns and other trinkets) in their berth, the pair of Agents went looking for Valentine.

My Characters

Inspired by a post on Throne of Salt, here are (most of) the characters I've played as over the last eight years in RPGs.

• 3.5
• Hildegrin the Human Fighter - absolutely vanilla bastard sword and shield guy for a 3.5 game I guested in for one session.

• ECLIPSE PHASE 1E
• Esme Parkreiner, the Async Janissary - My first Eclipse Phase character. An indentured mercenary, kept obedient with psychosurgery and drug addiction. Straightforward combat monster with psychic buffs. Esme later became the "test character" I would make in other systems to learn character creation.
• Piter Ataturk, the Psychic Psychosurgeon - An often forked Lost Generation psychic who loved editing people's minds. Different versions of him worked for Cognite, Nine Lives, Firewall, and probably every other faction in the Solar System. Focus on social engineering and hacking via spoofing identities and editing memories.
• Josef "Hairy Jo" McCoy, the Uplift Weaponsmith - A sentient orangutan who shot people with dual wielded pistols, and was obsessed with weapons of mass destruction.
• Pelagius Rawlin Brueghel, the Swashbuckling Merchant - Son of an ultrawealthy Lunar banking family. Left home to start his own shipping company aboard the Summer of George, his high speed courier ship. Fought with a laser rapier, which was cool but not very effective in the Eclipse Phase rules.

Eclipse Phase was the first RPG I really sank deep into. I even got to run and play it a few times!

• PATHFINDER 1E
• Edmund Skinner, Cleric of Abadar - my first Pathfinder Society character. Built entirely using the corebook. Poorly optimized but lots of fun, and occasionally even helpful at a table of min/maxed badasses. Law and Travel domains gave him good movement options and some helpful buffs.
• Broca, Dwarven Barbarian of Cayden Cailean - my second Pathfinder Society character. More straightforward than Skinner.

I didn't love the Pathfinder system, but I had a great time with Pathfinder Society anyways. The guys at the store where I played were super patient and helpful, and always a joy to play with.

• DUNGEONS & DRAGONS 5E
• Typhon, Dwarven Cleric of Umberlee - evil aligned pirate in a Temple of Elemental Evil campaign for 5E. Knew how to play nice with all the other factions, and take what he wanted when nobody was looking. Storm domain let him cast cool lightning spells in addition to healing.

Our 5E Campaign fell apart when the couple whose house we played at got divorced.

• DELTA GREEN
• Special Agent Esme Parkreiner, ATF - Recycled Eclipse Phase character in Delta Green. Dirty cop with pre-existing cultist killing, gun planting experience. Fun, but one dimensional. Retired and converted to an NPC.
• Bo "Robert" Bextiyar, RAND Corporation - Turkic-Chinese computer scientist. The reason I don't play computer scientists (or any other "defenseless characters") in Delta Green. Absorbed by an Azathoth blob after falling asleep due to low WP.
• Special Agent Douglas Thurmond, DEA - Hotshot pilot with an itty bitty DEA prop plane. Saw too much during an operation and had to be inducted as an Agent. Eventually killed by teleportation into another dimension.
• Henry Columbus, Self Employed - A criminal. Killed by another player misusing explosives.
• Reagan the Raider - A gun shooting guy with the Marine Raider Regiment. Retired after he was instantly reduced to 4 SAN by looking at a fucked up statue.
• Erebus the Firefighter - A bomb throwing, axe wielding beefcake. Built to explore options for "combat characters" who had useful investigative skills and fought with something other than guns. Found a magic ritual to make his axe ignore supernatural forms of damage resistance, spent most of his SAN to cast it, then hacked through many supernatural beings he wasn't supposed to kill.
• Special Agent Matt Gomez, FBI - Undercover expert. Backstory vaguely inspired by what happened to the private investigator from An Evil Guest. Retired after he accumulated so many disorders that he became unplayable.
• Dr James Geller, Private Practice - Doctor with a high Psychotherapy score. Not a very interesting character, only played a couple sessions. Recycled as an NPC later.
• Josef McCoy - Recycled Eclipse Phase character. Scientist with RAND corporation during the Vietnam War. Joined MAJESTIC after Delta Green was dismantled, became an NPC working on secret bioweapons.
• Francis Derosier - Former RCMP officer, now M EPIC, Canada's anti mythos agency. Got stuck in a parallel universe after a trip to the Magdalene Islands
• Major Sin - Intelligence Case Officer with Office 44, a secret North Korean operation to harness and weaponize mythos magic. The most evil character I ever created for Delta Green, and also the most fun.
• Corporal Jung-hak - A North Korean special forces guy from an alternate dimension where North Korea was invaded by the United States. Rescued from certain death by Major Sin during a whirlwind tour of several parallel earths. Kind of a boring character to actually play, though.
• Moses Micombero - A Burundian police officer. Part of Ikigongwe, a secret conspiracy dedicated to combating satanism, demons and witches. Partners with a Hutu officer. Together they solved mysteries.
• Moses Landsmen - Jewish Gangster from the 1940s. Operation Underworld collaborator during WW2, inducted into wartime Delta Green organization to combat Karotechia sabotage.
• Lem Landsmen, RN - Moses' grandson. Gunslinging registered nurse with assorted medical and social skills. The Nurse/Paramedic background provides a more interesting skill base than the Physician.
• Steven - Created for 1990s era Delta Green games. A violent shootman who became so disruptive I had to stop playing him.
• Special Agent Archimedes "Arch" Brabrand, JD, DOJ OIG - A Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General Special Agent. The Federal Agents who police the Federal Agents. A lawyer with a gun, skilled at getting away with things. Later became an NPC at the center of a web of conspiracies.
• Sellers, Self Employed - A mob doctor. Built using the the Criminal profession with some medical skills slapped on. Another attempt to make a more interesting version of the Physician.

I've played a lot of Delta Green, but I like running the game more.

• STAR WARS FANTASY FLIGHT 
• Loy Olrenshaw - Twilek con artist. Sold into slavery by his spice-addict parents, grew up to be a lowlife, and even do a little spice trading (and slave trading) of his own. Overall piece of garbage, lots of fun to play. Except that I built him using the Diplomat package because it had the best spread of social skills, when I really should have rolled scoundrel. I wanted to challenge myself to play something besides a killing machine by making a guy without combat skills, and boy does that not pay off in FFG Star Wars.
• Arlo Shive - Muun doctor, son of an insurance adjustor and a Confederate artillery fire coordinator. Went into medicine instead of choosing a good mathematical profession. Ended up having the same problems as Loy.

Despite the issues, I enjoyed both Edge of Empire campaigns I played in. The books are worth checking out, though you should definitely pirate them. No reason to give Disney your money, now that all the FFG RPG staff got laid off.

• WARHAMMER FANTASY
• Douglas the Herbalist - Randomly rolled character for a couple Warhammer Fantasy games. Surprisingly fun, despite lacking almost any useful skills for the situations he typically got into.

• WARHAMMER 40K
• Esme Parkreiner, AKA Woman From Volta - Recycled Eclipse Phase character in Rogue Trader. Enslaved when the Imperium conquered the feral world Volta (based on the Brigador planet of the same name). An uncomplicated Archmilitant (the firearms-rolling character class) who worshipped the Emperor as "The God of the Guns".

The 40K game is actually a lot of fun. Rogue Trader had the best concept of all the FFG Warhammer games, but some of the worst rules. The system is pretty janky but we've got several experts in the group who have made life much easier for the rest of us. And the setting is a lot more fun when you're a badass space pirate exploring the galaxy, rather than a peasant groveling before an idol of the Space Pope.

I like Clerics, even though they're not super effective (multi-ability score dependent, healing fails to keep up with damage once you get past the lowest levels).

But I also like characters that deal damage. In a heavily combat based game, dealing damage is a much easier way to judge whether I'm contributing than things like buffs, battlefield control, etc. Even if the classes that do that tend to be much more powerful in the long run. And in a gritty realism based game like Delta Green, being a combat character means I'm never defenseless if the other players turn on me. This is a very real concern in Delta Green, though I probably exaggerate how often it actually happens.

I don't like classes which require planning out synergies ahead of time. Any class in Pathfinder where you have to get prerequisites for Feats, Sorcerers in 5E, I don't like 'em.

I like evil aligned characters. Being a bastard is one of the reasons RPGs are fun.

I run a lot more games than I play. Running games is usually more fun. I get to share something I created and be constantly engaged, instead of spending 4/5 of the time listening to other people talk. It's hard to find people running the stuff I want to try, like Base Raiders or Unknown Armies.

Esoteric Enterprises - No Town Like Cow Town - Session Twelve, Part Two

(Continue from part one)

Having slain a wizardling and survived the curse, the players went back to the locked door guarded by the two apprentices. Sax decided to spend his entire necklace of fireballs to open the door - nothing else would do it. The blast melted it like a candle, opening a space to the room beyond. The next chamber had a statue of Cassie, making an obscene hand gesture. She decapitated it with a burst of gunfire, slicing through the pulpy material and dispelling its mesmerizing magic properties before it could ensorcell anyone.

The hallway beyond the statue room led to a chamber filled with eggs. The players could hear someone breathing heavily inside the vent on the opposite wall, watching them. They tried to communicate by shouting at it. The Wizard in the wall - who had once been Boney the Ancient Lich - responded that they had slain one of his children already, and they would not slay another and live. They offered to leave his kids alone if he told them where the power source holding the bridge to the abyss was. He gave them directions to a room on the fifth floor, past the unformed void of the fourth.

(The module text doesn't give the players any opportunity to speak to the Wizard. He's supposed to be a cosmic being so utterly beyond humanity that he can't even communicate except for horrible transformations and hastily scribbled notes. But the players had proven more dangerous than he anticipated, and this looked like a good opportunity to trick them. He gave them directions to the room of floating doors)

Esoteric Enterprises - No Town Like Cow Town - Session Twelve, Part One

The last Cow Town game. This scenario was a run of The Wizard by Donovan Caldwell. I don't usually run published modules, but this one was pretty good, though definitely flawed. I refluffed the Wizard's origin story to fit him into the campaign as an NPC the players had heard about several times previously, but never encountered.

In attendance:

• Cassiopeia Unseelie the Third Generation Red Cap (Spook Lvl 3)
• Seaxneat "Sax the Knife" Saint Sebastian (Mercenary Lvl 2)

Sax was accompanied by the mobster Silas the Sledgehammer, while Cassie was attended by Leon the Chthonicist.

It had been a few months, maybe more than a few months, since the Meat Cult's defeat. The town had changed, though not always for the better. Cassie and Sax met the Illusionists John and Jo at Saturn Gyros, one of the last few spots in town that still served beef. They sat down at a table in the back, under a painting of Kronos biting the head off a child, who was wrapped in an enormous pita. The wizards, disguised as the elderly Jewish couple from the coffee shop in the vault, explained the problem:

Boney the Lich traded something with the Meat Cult and the Vampires. We hoped it just got rid of him, by sending him to a higher plane of existence or something. But now there's a tower, out on the old ranchland. A grain silo, but it's something else now. All the plant life the Druids seeded within a mile is dead. It's covered in a carpet of blue... substance, and it's spreading. And people have gone missing.

So Jo and I, we did a little investigating. Got our notes here, maybe they'll help.

eyewitness accounts
locals preyed on by "wizard" - not one of ours
difficulty talking about/remembering incidents - fugue state suggests trauma or memory modification
cattle mutilation - animals "randomized" with cross sections removed

missing persons - disappeared from ranches/squatters
Thinus (Unknown Surname)
Sam (Unknown Surname)
Stephen Forge
Josh (Unknown Surname)
Collin (Unknown Surname)
Claus (Unknown Surname)

tower
converted grain silo
coated in blue organic material which blocks scanning
gravity distortion inside structure

working hypothesis
powerful magical being (probably boney) experimenting with newfound powers
rift to borderworld somewhere in tower - like black barn but worse(?)
strong possibility of spread/contamination

(The module includes a brief description of the town at the base of the Wizard's tower. Very atmospheric, but a little thin on detail that's actually useful to the players. I decided to elide the investigation phase, where the players ruthlessly interrogate NPCs about information they don't have and doesn't matter, and just skipped straight to the tower. Made it much easier to fit in a four hour slot)

Whatever Boney turned himself into, it wasn't good. The mission: enter the tower, disable whatever was holding the portal to the borderworld open, and re-kill the lich. Cassie and Sax still had some of Darla's antimagic stickers left over from the Occult Gallery raid, which would nullify whatever machine held the portal open. Beyond that, they had guns, grenades, a flamethrower, and the remaining fireballs on the necklace.

The illusionists warned that if the team was unsuccessful, they'd have two options:

1. Call up the Men in Black, who were still looking for an excuse to level the town, and tell them to erase the entire West Side
2. Tell the other Seekers of the Path there was a new source of unstable magic in town, and watch them all flock to the tower to experiment with its strange energies and disturbing biology.

Neither of which were good.

The team climbed into their surviving Toyota and drove into the wilderness. As promised, the old grain silo stood in a clearing of its own making, devoid of the tree cover and wild plant growth the Druids seeded in the former farmland. There was a thin carpet of tacky blue fibers on the ground around the spire, like a carpet of fungal hyphae. The growths were thicker on the tower itself, bulging out from the sides of the cylinder to form new wings and balustrades.

The front door slid open when they approached.