Despite the OSR-styled name, I guess this is more of a Delta Green blog, though I do have some D&D-adjacent things planned. This post is an account of the most recent session of the DG campaign I've been running. The players are two of my friends from High School and one of their brothers, who I guess is my friend too, now. I'm writing this mostly to keep track of what happens but also in case anyone is interested.
The group consists of three Agents, all FBI employees.
- Sadie, a federal agent who specialized in crime scene analysis. (blue98)
- Ren, part of the FBI's counterintelligence division, an intelligence case officer with a psych degree. (Winkdeath)
- Hopps, former Intel & Ops Support Section, now graduated to fieldwork, also the group's senior Agent and designated "wizard character." (Matiopia)
I lack the memory and time to cover all of their previous adventures, but I'll summarize anything relevant that happened previously. Hopps grew from a "grad student tagging along with two experienced delta green agents" to "middling sorcerer and sole survivor of her former cell." Sadie's player retired her previous character after a nasty Adaptation death-spiral broke her during a Home Scene and Ren's predecessor died after being shoved down a flight of stairs by a Cthulhu cultist. I say "middling sorcerer" because while Hopps boasts an impressive 23% Unnatural, she only knows two spells: one that calls out to the Children of Dagon and another that provokes an acute stress response in its victims. Both of them were learned from relentlessly poking the weird shit in Dreams in the Fish House. Her voluminous amount of Unnatural is owed to a house rule I've been playtesting.
We spent a fair bit of time chatting and catching up, as we hadn't spoken in a while and no one could remember every part of every opera. After refreshing each other's memories, the three FBI agents were summoned to a very boring third-floor conference room where they met their Case Officer in person for the very first time. They'd only gotten a few brief written correspondences from A-Cell and knew their Case Officer as a mysterious man at the other end of a phone. I decided to retroactively assign them agent GERARD, as none of them could provide any evidence to the contrary and a few traits I'd established previously lined up with that specific character.
Archimedes "GERARD" Brabrand explained that a Canadian contact had informed Delta Green that "something terrible is going to happen" in the town of Meteor, Maine. She lacked the jurisdiction and manpower to deal with it herself and wasn't returning Delta Green's calls. The Agents were given her name, Gita O'Doolittle, the federal organization she worked for, the Environmental Protection Impact Commission, and the address of the town.
The Agents flew into Maine, rented a car, and drove off to visit Meteor. Starving from the drive and lacking any better ideas, they shuffled into The Diner. As they walked into the expansive yet mostly empty restaurant, they were greeted by Rupert who invited them to take a seat. They ignored the impossible grace of the corpulent manager, instead hyperfocusing on the fact that there were nine waitresses, yet only five patrons: a group of three men in hazmat suits, a large and heavily scarred Russian woman, and a bushy-bearded biker with a stalhelm and aviators.
After watching the three men doff their headgear and shovel their food into their mouths while holding their breath before sealing themselves up again for a minute, Hopps left her compatriots to engage the strange fellows in conversation. A short conversation established that they were all clearly practitioners of the "invisible arts." They refused to tell Hopps exactly what their deal was, but recognizing her as some sort of fellow sorcerer, they explained the basic premise of the town. "Most of the year, there's nothin' here but that stupid church. But come wintertime, this whole place just springs up! We've been coming for a few years now, though we usually leave after the winter solstice." They also warned her that if she was ferried here unknowingly, her friend must know a lot more about the invisible arts than she does. Hopps tried to explain that Sadie was no sorceress but they wouldn't buy it.
Meanwhile, Sadie attempted to flirt with one of the waitresses while trying to get some more information about the diner, the town, and her boss. The rapid alternation between friendliness and questioning confused the waitress and she ran off to the kitchen. However, the player correctly surmised that Rupert abused his staff and the waitresses were hiding their injuries behind their sleeves and skirts. Ren eavesdropped on the Russian woman's phone call and learned she was a chef of some kind who dealt in more exotic dishes. He also decided to spend one of his two languages on Russian. Hopps returned from her social interlude and whispered what she'd learned to her compatriots. After the three of them finished their meals, they left the diner.
I called the session there. We were closing in on one of the players' out-of-game time limits and it seemed like a natural stopping place.
Notes for Top Hat: I plan on incorporating the Russian woman and her dining club later in the campaign (assuming the players don't blow her up or something) and possibly Agent Renko, just to make that Russian language spend mean a bit more.
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