#321

The Halls of Arden Vul

A pretty action-packed session this week, the party took out a powerful undead (definitely a boss monster) at relatively low cost: one retainer got level-drained, which dropped their HP, saves, and to-hit modifier (and then the following round they missed an attack which would have hit with the previous modifier; that’s the scary part of level drain), and the party’s heavy-hitter nearly died but scraped through. If he’d gone down that would have been a pretty major blow; but that player has said their next character will probably be a Paladin of Thoth, which would be cool to see.

Amongst the loot they found a scroll of Stone To Flesh which they used to un-petrify a thousand-year-old priest of Thoth and questioned him a bit about the old days. He was only a junior cleric, so he didn’t really know any secrets of the cult (and what secrets he does know he wouldn’t share with laymen), but he’s potentially a valuable source of historical intel. They palmed him off to some NPC in town to teach him the modern language. He’ll probably become a sage the players can draw upon.

It feels pretty crazy that we’ve just played session 70. Nearly one session a week of the same campaign for a year and a half, and still so much more to do!

The next campaign?

When we eventually move on from Arden Vul (not that I’m in any hurry to) I’ll next run Delta Green.

I’ve wanted to do this for a long time—indeed, I was going to run Delta Green (specifically Impossible Landscapes) before Arden Vul, but the group was down to only 2 players at that point so we decided to do something more friendly to new players dropping in and out—but I’ve been thinking about it more than usual this week after reading The Conspiracy and Iconoclasts and finally have a rough outline for a campaign.

The campaign will begin in the mid ‘90s and will focus on the Delta Green / MAJESTIC struggle. The characters will start as unaffiliated federal agents with a strong interest in UFOs (perhaps even strong enough to try to access restricted records) who figure out a pattern in some recent crop circles and, at 3am hiding in a bush next to an isolated corn field, see something they shouldn’t have. They might get noticed by MAJESTIC during this initial investigation, which could up the stakes very quickly. A few weeks after the inciting incident Delta Green will reach out. After recruitment we’ll have several operations, each revealing a bit of the truth, and the climax will be the agents stopping a world-ending threat (or perhaps dying in the attempt, along with everyone and everything else). Along the way we’ll have plenty of home scenes showing the agents’ slow descent into isolation and madness.

In-game, maybe 5 or 6 years will pass. I’m not sure if I’ll incorporate the end of MAJESTIC (which in-universe happens in 2001), it could be fun to have the final operation being the MAJESTIC decapitation strike.

I’m very keen to play out the Delta Green recruitment process, which sounds really fun. There are 6 steps:

1. The Incident. This will be the first half of my largely scripted first session, where the players see something they shouldn’t have, and perhaps have to flee for their lives. It’s closely followed by…

2. The Interview. Delta Green somehow learn that something happened and have looked into the prospective agents, and approach them to try to get at the real truth. This will be the second half of the first session.

3. Trial Run. The prospective agents are called up for a Delta Green operation with the same agents who interviewed them. The interviewers want to see how they perform in the field. This will be a short (1 or 2 session) self-contained scenario that might not have anything to do with MAJESTIC.

4. Smoke Test. Several months later, the prospective agents are sent on an operation by themelves. The twist is that there’s nothing unnatural about this operation, and Delta Green know it. They want to see if the recruits jump at shadows and attribute everything to supernatural causes. This will be another short scenario, but I need it to be one that with the benefit of hindsight was of course mundane all along: I don’t want it to feel like a gotcha, I want the discovery of the final clues to make everything fall into place and the players realise what’s going on. Whereas just about any Delta Green or Call of Cthulhu scenario would work for the trial run, the smoke test will take some thought.

5. Introductions. The prospective agents are pulled into a meeting. They see a lot of other high-ranking Delta Green agents there from all branches of the federal government, the intent being to dazzle the recruits. They’re given a highly-edited version of Delta Green’s history and an explanation of the mission, and asked if they would like to join. They are not told that Delta Green is an unsanctioned conspiracy at this point.

6. In Too Deep. At some point, the agents realise that Delta Green has no official sanction. But at this point they’ve committed federal crimes and are kind of stuck with the job. Whoops! I’ll slip this revelation into either the second or third mission after they officially join Delta Green.

I don’t need to plan out the entire campaign in advance of course, but I do have a rough idea:

1. Session 1. They predict a crop circle and witness a stand-off between a man in black and the Greys and hear mention of “the accord”, they see the Grey effortlessly kill a soldier as a show of force. So they learn very quickly that the Greys are the bad guys, and that there is a shadowy government organisation working with / for them. Roleplay out home scenes (if they projected any sanity damage) and the interview.

2. Sessions 2 & 3. Some short unrelated scenario, perhaps Music from a Darkened Room (or maybe not, I’m tempted to save that for a future haunted house themed campaign).

3. Sessions 4 & 5. Another short unrelated (but mundane) scenario, not sure which yet.

4. Session 6. The agents have joined Delta Green! PX Poker Night, with them using cover identities and instructions to get the hell out of there if anyone starts probing too deeply into their cover identities. A second encounter with the Greys and MAJESTIC, and a first encounter with the Mi-Go.

5. Sessions 7 to ?? A mixture of other scenarios and investigations, mostly related to MAJESTIC and gradually revealing more truth, some unrelated. I want some sort of alien disease scenario (perhaps Viscid or Extremophilia), a Mi-Go scenario (perhaps A Night on Owlshead Mountain), and to interrupt another scenario with something totally weird (perhaps The Child) just to keep them on their toes. This middle part of the campaign can really go on as long as we like.

6. Wrap-up. Observer Effect, reskinned to be in 1999 or 2001. The agents save the world or everything ends.

7. If we want to go out with a bang. The agents play a pivotal role in the decapitation strike against MAJESTIC leadership and the overthrow of the Accord: ending Grey activity on Earth.

I only need to have one or two operations planned ahead of where the players are, and to adjust things based on their goals and actions: e.g. if they get caught by MAJESTIC in PX Poker Night the rest of the campaign will take on a much more covert-action / spy thriller feel, as they have to cut all ties with their previous lives and adopt cover identities to escape the MAJESTIC assassins!

No idea when I’ll get to run this, but it’ll be awesome.

Roleplaying games

• Interview with Richard Barton, Author of Arden Vul