Clean Living - a Resident Evil Adventure

Resident Evil! It's not my favorite series - in fact the only one I've ever played is 4. The setting is kind of bloated with too many prequels and spinoffs and retcons that create a ridiculous Metal Gear style pileup of conspiracies.

But I saw a thread on the traditional games board that captured my imagination: what would it be like living in a world where anyone with a grudge could turn over a rock and find thirty new bio-organic weapons. And it reminded me of one of my favorite settings of all time: the B.P.R.D.

By Guy Davis, the best of the B.P.R.D. artists

So I wrote up a rules hack for Delta Green, along with an adventure and some pregens to play with it. You can read them here.

Here's a play report of how the playtest went.

THE UNITED STATES IN 2021

Since President Adams’ assassination in 2013, the United States has been in a permanent state of emergency - a police state in an endless struggle against yearly bioterror attacks. Wild mutants breeding in the woods for decades, filtering out into population centers. Cults and militias brewing new strains of viruses bought on the black market. Zombies staggering into crowded malls. Secret military tribunals. Bodies in sealed bags, tipped into an autoclave.

That’s been the new normal for almost a decade. And it’s not all bad. The biological revolution that unleashed neverending horror on the world also opened a treasure trove of medical and pharmaceutical discoveries. When’s the last time you heard of someone dying of heart disease, or cancer? So people live around the shortages and empty shelves, the long lines, the endless checkpoints manned by guards in full MOPP gear, pointing flamethrowers and rocket launchers at families in sedans. You shop for groceries, pick up the kids from school, spray your groceries down with bleach, and hope to God the thing on the back of your hand is just a rash.

THE DIVISION OF SECURITY OPERATIONS
Empowered by the 2001 PROTECT America Federal Bioterrorism Commission Act, refreshed every year by Congress during the usual appropriation cycle, the Division of Security Operations is the cabinet level agency which assumed the duties of both the FBC and the National Counterterrorism Center. Unlike its predecessors, the DSO has broad authority to assemble Joint Terrorism Task Forces on a permanent basis, in effect skimming personnel from other law enforcement, military and intelligence three letter agencies.

BRIEFING
Yesterday, local police in Lubbock, Texas making a routine traffic stop found a hermetically sealed container filled with plagas spores. Thankfully the driver was apprehended without incident, and the container secured without releasing its contents.

We’ve got people checking out the trucking operation, and the source of the package. We need you to investigate the destination. According to the shipping records, the box hiding the spores was destined for a community in Central Washington called Squiddler’s Patch, up in the Okanogan National Forest. We’re sending you in undercover to sniff out the operation, with the option to go loud and neutralize any threat that can’t wait for a followup team.

THE WAKING MANDALAS

The WAKING MANDALAS are a squad of DSO special operations agents, skilled in both clandestine and kinetic operations. They can all handle themselves in combat and investigative situations, but each Agent specializes in a particular skillset.

The unit’s insignia is a “wound man” - a renaissance anatomical drawing of a man pierced by numerous sharp objects and other weapons.

The following Agents deployed on the Squiddler's Patch mission:

• HELMET - Technology Specialist
• JOKER - Disguise and Infiltration
• KROGER - Physician and Scientist
• ROBBER - Scout and Sniper

The team did some preliminary investigation before deploying.

• They figured the smuggling operation was probably a Connection cutout, and the buyer probably ex-Umbrella or TRICELL.
• They looked at satellite photos and noticed a big ranch about three miles outside the town. The ranch had some unusual heat signatures in a patch of forest at the edge, which the team identified as an old Vietcong trick: lots of small vents scattered across an area, to disguise the heat signature of a single large bunker.
• The team also looked at traffic from the one internet connection in town, at the Squiddler's Patch library. Once a week, someone logged in using their own VPN and privacy controls. HELMET couldn't see what sites the mystery user had browsed, but the privacy obsession was a good fit for illegal online BOW trading.
• Finally, they called in a favor at Field Operations Support to get intel on the town. It was a dried up tourist watering hole, the only group of interest was a health food ranch called Clean Living, which sometimes came into town to run a farmer's market and preach the evils of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies.

The team had two vehicles: a black pickup truck of the kind everyone in Central Washington owns, and a Doug Fuchs Plumbing van they could use as a disguise, and which could act as a mobile command center and carry the gear that wouldn't fit in the truck.

With the preliminary investigation complete, the team drove into the forest to Squiddler's Patch.

SQUIDDLER'S PATCH

The team split up before reaching the town. Kroger and Helmet would take the plumbing van and investigate the local library, while Joker and Robber took the pickup to check out the Clean Living ranch.

The library team dressed in plainclothes rather than their plumbing coveralls. They pretended to be tourists, stopping in Squiddler's Patch before going on a hike. The librarian subjected them to a drawn out story about the town's decline. They asked her about Clean Living and she told them about the weekly farmer's market, and how Dr Karloff and a large man came to use the computer every week - on dates matching the ones someone accessed the darknet. Helmet covertly planted a bug by the front door, and the duo left.

Next they visited the local police station. There was one cop on duty: Officer Earl Fudderman. He didn't have much to tell them about Clean Living - he mostly left them alone. They could get awfully upset at people who came too close to them, especially if they were wearing deodorant or something. The only other interesting thing that happened is a zombie that showed up at the edge of town. Probably someone up in the hills who got bit by a Cerberus (wild zombie dog) and wasn't up on his shots. Funny thing was, the body was singed, like someone else had tried to burn it already. Earl put it down with a cylinder of revolver fire, then got it bagged and burned properly before anyone else could touch it. That's all he had to say to the Agents.

The ranch team parked the truck off the road and snuck up to observe the ranch. There were lots of people with slung rifles, doing various agricultural tasks at an assortment of greenhouses, cattle pens and farm buildings. They had weird bug-eyes, which neither Agent had the medical skills to diagnose. They decided a plan of attack: Joker would dress as a hiker and approach the perimeter fence, while Robber provided concealed overwatch from the treeline.

Joker got a trio of the Clean Living members' attention when he approached the fence. They bought his story about being a lost hiker, and told him to go around the perimeter and wait outside the front gate. There, they set out food and water for him, maintaining a comfortable distance. He asked who they were, and they explained their belief system: pharmaceutical companies were engaged in a conspiracy against ordinary people, poisoning the world with products that secretly spread viruses and unleashed biological horrors. Clean Living was an autonomous community that used Dr Karloff's natural supplements to boost their immune systems, so they could lead a chemical and disease free lifestyle. Joker pretended to be interested in joining, but said he had to get back to town first. As he hiked down the forest service road back to the Patch, Robber peered through his rifle scope and noticed a set of power lines leading away from the ranch, up a trail into the mountains. It matched the location on the satellite images where the hidden bunker was probably located.

THE HOT LABS

The team regrouped and decided to check out those power poles. They left the pickup truck at a turnoff on the forest service road and hiked up past the Clean Living ranch, into the hills beyond. The power poles led to a set of plastic biohazard tunnels with a decontamination station. The tunnels were camouflaged from aerial photography, but clearly led down into a concrete bunker - probably an old Air Force radar outpost.

The team watched from the treeline as a trio of scientists emerged from the decon at the tunnel entrance and walked down the trail, back toward the Clean Living ranch. Now was their chance to investigate. Helmet, Joker and Kroger pulled on their MOPP gear and went into the plastic tunnel, while Robber provided overwatch.

There were four HAZMAT suits in the tunnel, three of them obviously used. The team decided to trust the suits over their own masks and gloves, and pulled them on. The plastic tunnel split into two passages. One led to a hatch over a septic tank, the other down into a bunker. The squad opened the septic tank, weapons ready. They found a morass of charred corpses. Kroger was about to drop inside and get a sample, but Joker noticed an eye peering our of the mass, tracking her movement. Something in the tank was alive. Kroger fired a toxic dart from his crossbow into the blackened slurry, but whatever it was didn't take the bait. They decided to close the hatch rather than risk the thing escaping.

The stairs down into the bunker terminated in a locked door. Helmet easily bypassed the electronic lock, and they were in. Inside, they found a lab, a testing area and a room sized autoclave.

The testing area had samples of the G virus, modified G virus cultures, T virus cultures clearly bought off the BOW black market, an empty storage freezer labeled for plagas spores, a station for packaging herbal supplements, and a computer full of notes. Helmet easily broke into the computer, which had details of Dr Karloff's plan: by modifying the G virus and feeding it to people, she could boost their immune systems and make them immune to all viruses and parasites. The plagas and t virus purchases were for testing purposes, to see if it actually worked. The main problem was that immune boosted patients who died would resurrect as G virus zombies. Something to iron out in the next release.

(I forgot about this side effect the one time it would have been relevant)

The testing room was basically empty. The autoclave was a heavy duty incinerator, room sized, for reducing biowaste to blackened smears of its component atoms. Which worried them, since it meant whatever was in the septic tank could survive incineration.

Outside, Robber spotted one of the researchers returning to the biohazard tunnel. He snuck up behind the man and apprehended him, announcing over comms to the rest of the group that he had caught someone and they needed to come out right away. The team exfiled, dragged the guy into the forest and interrogated him.

He was one of Dr Karloff's assistants, working on her immune booster project. It was a good idea because it protected people from the endless stream of novel bioweapons being created every year. Plus it was work. Not like anyone else was hiring ex-TRICELL lab techs. He told them about the large man who went to the library with Dr Karloff every week: Abe, a leftover T-103 TYRANT that acted as her bodyguard. The Agents asked him about the thing in the septic tank, and he freaked out. If it was alive, that meant the thing was a combination G and T mutant. They needed to not open the tank under any circumstances. The Agents agreed, and hauled the prisoner back through the woods to the truck.

The team debated what to do next. They called up headquarters and reported the presence of G Virus - an automatic Code Blue for the DSO. The Handler told them to contain the situation while he mobilized resources to seal the area. The Agents debated how to do that. Two pickup trucks roared past, headed down the road toward the town. The trucks were full of armed cultists, and the Agents spotted Dr Karloff and a very large man in the bed of the second one. By this point, it was night. By staying far back, keeping their headlights off and using their night vision goggles to see the road, the Agents were able to follow them back to town without being spotted.

THE FIGHT FOR THE TOWN

The Agents left the truck at the edge of the forest and watched as the Clean Living gang piled out of their vehicles. The cultists had clearly realized something was up, probably after checking on the missing scientist and finding their biowar lab burglarized. Dr Karloff sent the big guy, obviously the Tyrant Abe, to break into the hotel, thinking the mysterious intruders were hiding there. The rest of the cultists gathered around the Doug Fuchs Plumbing van, broke into it and began pulling stuff out. The team had left a lot of their gear in there, including weapons and armor. The cultists pulled out one of Helmet's drones and dropped it on the ground, along with an attache case full of C4 that they didn't identify as explosives.

The team had watched long enough. Robber and Kroger took overwatch positions with their sniper rifle and crossbow respectively. Joker walked up to one of the cultists he recognized from the earlier ranch visit and asked what was going on. The cultist warned him to leave, the forces of biotechnology were trying to kill them and nobody wanted to see him get hurt. He asked if he could help, and the cultist told him to be careful and stay out of the line of fire.

Helmet activated the drone remotely, had it grab the C4 with it's manipulators and fly away. The Cleanies took potshots at it, but missed it against the backdrop of the night sky. The gunshots alerted Officer Fudderman, who promptly turned out the lights in the police station and pretended not to be home.

Helmet sent his other drone in (the one he took in the pickup) to hide under the eaves of the town bar and make angry dog sounds, so the cultists would think the town was under attack by a pack of Cerberuses (which the Agents knew were terrorizing the countryside). The diversion split the Clean Living gunmen into two groups, leaving a skeleton crew to guard the van. Kroger knocked out Dr Karloff with a sleep dart from his crossbow, while Robber decapitated one of the gunmen with his silenced Mk14. The cultists around the van fled into the library and hid. 

(I forgot that the dead cultist was supposed to resurrect as a G Zombie. It would have been cool, but the players would probably just have focused it down with gunfire and burned it before it could do any damage)

Kroger tossed a flashbang into the library for good measure. The bomb kept the gunmen stunned for the rest of the fight, but also alerted Abe. The Tyrant came stomping back from the hotel, ready to put the hurt on the Agents. Robber swapped to his Barrett and put a .50 BMG round into Abe's head, stunning him. Kroger rushed forward and got in the plumbing van, while Helmet activated the drone carrying the C4. Joker kept the remaining cultists from intervening by shouting that the Cerberuses were about to attack them.

Kroger reversed the van and smashed Abe into the side of the hotel. Helmet used the drone bomb as an improvised shaped charge, blowing up the Tyrant by ramming him with the drone. The wheel arch of the van was wrecked, but the vehicle survived. Meanwhile, Joker hid in the shadows and shot one of the remaining Cleanies in the knee with his silenced .45. Unable to see where the shot had come from, the rest of the cultists ran into the bar, dragging their wounded comrade.

With one group of cultists stunned and the other trapped in a building, all the players equipped with body armor, radios and night vision goggles while the cultists had none, and Clean Living's sensitivity to alcohol and other environmental pollutants impairing the ones hiding in the bar, I declared the fight a foregone conclusion. Dr Karloff was incapacitated and in custody, the Tyrant was destroyed, the nasty G and T creature was still bottled up in the septic tank, and the cultists were leaderless and outgunned.

POST GAME THOUGHTS

I forgot a couple things from the document during the playtest. In addition to the aforementioned G Zombie, I also forgot to use the shock rules for the players, where they had to make POW saves to avoid freezing up or running the first time they saw a new BOW in action. Besides this save, all POW does in this version of the game (which lacks the Delta Green sanity system) is grant WP and resistance to telepathic attacks. Not exactly useful. Then CHA isn't that useful either, since this version of the game has no Bond scores. And INT was never that useful in Delta Green to begin with, except for acquisitions and rolls to see if your character remembered an item. With three of the six stats doing very little, it might be a good idea to rework the primary statistics for this Resident Evil hack of Delta Green.

Besides the thing in the septic tank, nothing in the scenario poses that much danger to a group of players who are paying attention. The Clean Living cultists, Abe and the G Zombies can deal serious damage if they actually hit the Agents, but the Agents have a huge toolbelt of skills and items to let them run circles around the enemies if they play their cards right. It's more Resident Evil 4 than 2, which makes sense since I've only played 4. I might ratchet up the challenge in a future scenario - it's more fun to make the enemies more dangerous than the players weaker. But I'm still happy with how this one turned out. In both its goofiest and most serious moments, it really felt like Resident Evil.