Whispers of the Dead (Azathoth)

 

The Ritual

It must be conducted under the sky on a starry night. Attempting it on a rooftop in a city clogged with light pollution imposes a -10% penalty to the activation roll. The operator plays an atonal melody on a wind instrument, though no Art skill is needed. It's like a musical form of automatic writing. Most versions of the ritual include sheet music or instructions for writing your own. Part of learning the ritual is understanding that while great skill is required manipulate Azathoth's dreams, it is also completely irrelevant, as everything is destroyed as it comes in contact with His maelstrom of creation.

Whispers of the Dead (Masterpost)

The Premise

The Whispers of the Dead ritual can be used to contact an unnatural creature, but also a Great Old One or similar. However, there’s not much reason to do so. It’s a serviceable ‘contact spell,’ but the text tells the Handler outright that using it to commune with a god is basically useless. Additionally, the spell costs a point of permanent POW when used that way. Ordinarily, I'd rule the spell is more useful than the Handler's Guide suggests, like I do for a lot of other lackluster rituals. But it doesn’t feel right here. Gods should still maintain that air of mystery. 

My Proposal

Successfully activating a Whispers of the Dead (Great Old One) ritual leaves the operator with a vague sense of the Old One’s will and desires, but also marks them with a supernatural ability or characteristic as a fraction of the god’s power, a Boon. 

Crits and Fumbles for Rituals

The Premise

Magic, excuse me, hypergeometry, is supposed to be weird and scary. These rules exist to add a bit of mystery and tension to the existing mechanics of Ritual Activation rolls.

Basic Overview

Ritual Activation rolls critically succeed on a success with matching dice or a roll of 01. The operator loses the maximum amount of SAN listed for the ritual and the effect is stronger. Activation rolls fumble whenever they fail with matching dice or roll a 100 (00). This carries negative consequences dependent on the specific ritual activated. If a character spends a point of POW to force a connection to the unnatural, fumbles become critical successes. Assistants are partially insulated from the raw power of critical Ritual Activation rolls. They only roll for normal SAN loss and can roll INTx5 to avoid the negative effects of fumbles.

Ankhs but no Thanks - A Play Report

 

a plaster cast of the titular ankh

I ran Ankhs but no Thanks, a Delta Green scenario by mellonbread. The party consisted of:

Karina Lask, AKA 'Rowan,' a woman in her mid forties who still looked twenty-five thanks to a vampire bite that so far has had no other effects.

Sophie Walley, an actual twenty-something who worked for the CIA's Covert Influence Group who would look more at home on someone's Instagram feed.

They were told a coroner friendly in New Jersey had found something weird and wanted Delta Green to check it out. The coroner's office was a converted bungalow with a climate-controlled shipping container shoved through a hole in the wall. It served as a relatively more secure lockup and after sealing the gaps between the metal and the bungalow's drywall with insulation, it kept the office cold too. Despite the ramshackle nature of his workplace, Dr. Goldberg was a real doctor and kept his certificates framed on a wall. He showed the Agents over to his find.