Delta Green and the 1970s Part 2: Analysis of the Testimony of James Jesus Angleton (1975) and Delta Green Ideas

Testimony Analysis

So what have we learned? 

According to page 11 of the testimony (which I did not quote last blog post) something called the “Colorado Case”, referred to by Angleton, resulted in the “rupture” in the relationship between the CIA and the FBI, to the point where the CIA could no longer rely on a supply of domestic intelligence from the FBI.  It is my understanding that Mr. Hoover on behalf of the White House (Nixon) “in May of 1970 terminated the official liaison” (page 10).  I believe the Mr. Hoover referred to on page 10 is one J. Edgar Hoover. 

Pages 13, 20, and 21-22 paint a picture of a great deal of domestic unrest in the summer of 1970.  Also, individuals in counterintelligence, at least at the CIA, that suspected foreign involvement in domestic unrest appeared unable to verify these potential domestic-foreign connections because they were working with limited intelligence or just fully in the dark thanks to the rift with the FBI. I suspect this may be an overexaggeration of the situation by Angleton, since we are dealing with a spy and a bureaucrat talking, but I digress.

Excerpts from pages 26-27 describe the military’s actions to gather intelligence, specifically from citizens.  Mr. Johnson (Loch Johnson, special assistant to the chair of the Senate Select Committee House Subcommittee on Intelligence from 1975 to 1976) says specifically, “But isn’t it true that during this period the military was under sever criticism for earlier civilian surveillance programs?” and “To some degree the military was under public criticism for being in the domestic intelligence gathering field.”

On pages 33 and 34 the NSA is discussed, specifically who or what organizations could be on an NSA watch list in the early 1970s. Mr Angleton’s comment, “Every participant [intelligence agency] is a consumer of NSA product [intelligence]. And therefore they all have a an equal interest, they all had a departmental interest in enhancing the coverage by NSA,” suggests to me that thanks to the rift between the FBI and CIA, the CIA was relying more on the NSA and it’s sources for intelligence, possibly to cover the gaps that the loss of the FBI’s liaison caused.

The Delta Green Connection

So in the summer of 1970 and before, the alphabet agencies were scrambling to regain their domestic surveillance capabilities after the White House blinded them (for good reason)

In the Delta Green universe, this is very interesting. Most Mythos cults in the US (ghouls, Deep Ones, etc..) operate domestic criminal organizations of one shade or another.  Removing the FBI from domestic surveillance cripples counterintelligence.

Angleton (page 21) “And more important, -- and I think this is axiomatic -- that counter intelligence is about only as good as the relations between the FBI and the CIA are.”

One can assume that Delta Green assets in 1970 in the CIA and FBI are working with one hand behind their back, figuratively. Unless of course, DG agents take circumspect action to illegally liaise with their counterparts in other intelligence agencies. Or simply carry out illegal domestic surveillance themselves and hope they do not get caught. Likely their FBI/CIA case officer could not cover for those actions given the pressure Hoover was under from the White House.

The tighter the noose around Delta Green’s operational neck, the freer cults are to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves. 

Delta Green USA Operational History (1968 - 1975)

What are Delta Green and US Mythos antagonists up to in the years prior to and including 1975? I am going to highlight some of the major points in the Delta Green Handlers Guide (2023) from pages 64 through 68.

·         22 APR 1968: MAJESTIC recruits CIA officer Justin Kroft, its future director.

·         19 JAN 1969: In Operation LOOKING GLASS, Delta Green airdrops 68 men into southeast Colombia. Only the commander, Maj. Walter J. Greyman, escapes a cult of genital-sacrificing Shub-Niggurath worshippers.

·         19 JAN 1969: Dr. Abner Ringwood, cryptographic studies chief at the NSA, is recruited by MAJESTIC to break the still indecipherable alien signals intercepted by Project AQUARIUS 15 years earlier.  Project AQUARIUS is MAJESTIC’s UFO investigations carried out by the NSA which was initiated on 18 DEC 1952.

·         30 OCT 1969: Club Apocalypse opens in New York City.

·         23 NOV 1969, Operation OBSIDIAN: The death of 300 Marines in a temple complex behind the Cambodian border, potentially could expose Delta Green operations to the world.

·         24 JUL 1970: the Delta Green classification was officially deactivated.

·         25 DEC 1971, Operation BINGO: the disbanded Delta Green used US air strikes to hit every known Tcho-Tcho village and religious site. 

·         30 NOV 1972: “The Bucket”, the spacecraft recovered at Roswell, is briefly reactivated at Groom Lake by Project REDLIGHT. It explodes, killing four MAJESTIC personnel. Justin Kroft’s opposition to Project REDLIGHT earns him a MAJESTIC steering committee position not long after.

·         29 JUL 1975: Future MAJESTIC steering committee member, Gavin Ross is recruited from the CIA as a member of MAJESTIC’s enforcement arm, NRO DELTA.

Potential Adventure 1: Over the Moon or Mi-Go vs Moon-beast 

 Attempting to synthesize the previous information into a whole that I could work with as a scenario, I had the following ideas:

MAJESTIC’s Project AQUARIUS functionally became relevant in 1953 when it detected “odd signal noise originating from deep space.”  On July 14, 1954, “MAJESTIC’s Project AQUARIUS briefs President Eisenhower on the odd signals it has detected, having determined that they are indecipherable fragments of intelligent and systematic communications originating from the moon and aimed at sites on the Earth and in high orbit. Eisenhower increases MAJESTIC’s budget, allowing a complete reorganization,” (Handler’s Guide, page 56).

Let us fast forwards in time for a moment and focus on the ideas of the intelligent signals originating from the moon and these signals being aimed at sites on Earth.  We know in March 23, 1978 that “NSA’s Project AQUARIUS makes contact with the Greys through deep-space monitoring surveillance antennas, thanks to cryptographer Dr. Abner Ringwood,” (Handler’s Guide, page 68).  We also know that Mi-Go use the Greys as their puppets and the Mi-Go have bases on the moon as well as Yuggoth (Pluto).  Thus, let us assume that the Mi-Go are sending Earth these intelligent signals from the moon, possibly by using the moon as an amplifier for their signals from Pluto via moon bounce, or directly sending the signals from the moon to the Earth from a Mi-Go moon base.

The Mi-Go objective is to interface and control Earth governments (MAJESTIC) that are sufficiently intelligent to interpret their signal so that they can carry out alien activities on Earth with relative ease. This will culminate in Mi-Go sending Greys to meet and negotiate with MAJESTIC on October 31^st 1980 and the signing of the “Accord” treaty, where MAJESTIC sells out the USA and the human race for alien technology, (Handler’s Guide, page 68).

My idea is that the Mi-Go desire to colonize and operate on the moon will not be unopposed.  Time moves differently in the Dreamlands, but the moon is already occupied. Moon-beasts and the Men from Leng, their enslaved servants who once worshiped them, live on the Dark Side of the moon in the Dreamlands.  The Moon-beasts hunger for more slaves, tribute and worship. 

 Why or how would the Mi-Go and the Moon-beasts come into conflict? The first possibility is that it is a religious conflict. The Mi-Go worship Nyarlathotep and Shub-Niggurath, which we know from The Whisperer in Darkness.  Moon-beasts worship Nyarlathotep. Perhaps it is a religious war between Mi-Go Shub-Niggurath worshipers and Moon-beast Nyarlathotep worshipers.  Or, an alternative I like better, Nyarlathotep pits his worshipers against each other for His own amusement.

The second possibility that occurred to me starts with the information that the Mi-Go bodies consist of a form of matter that does not occur naturally on Earth. Maybe the Mi-Go bodies are multi-dimensional and their bases on the moon partially overlap with the Dreamlands (another dimension) and thus bother the Moon-beasts.  Alternatively, we are talking about aliens, so there is no urgent reason for the Game Master to define this interaction; they can just leave it a tantalizing mystery.

At any rate, on the Earth, I was thinking that the Moon-beasts would use Men from Leng as catspaws while the Mi-Go would use human cultists or biological constructs. For biological constructs I was considering using Men In Black from ufology fame as the Mi-Go’s shadowy agents in the 1970s.

Currently, my idea for the skeleton of the adventure plot is as follows. Initially, Delta Green Agents must secure microfilm from an NSA dead drop to prevent it from falling into MAJESTIC’s hands.   They find that the location of the dead drop is in New York City’s City Hall on the roof.  This all just happens to occur on May 8^th of 1970s right in the middle of an event called the Hard Hat Riot. 

The Hard Hat Riot was a domestic upheaval in which “when around 400 construction workers and around 800 office workers attacked around 1,000 demonstrators affiliated with the student strike of 1970. The students were protesting the May 4 Kent State shootings and the Vietnam War, following the April 30 announcement by President Richard Nixon of the U.S. invasion of neutral Cambodia,” (Wikipedia). 

The key points here are that New York City becomes a madhouse with 20,000 people on the streets and City Hall surrounded. There is a conflict on the roof of City Hall, in that the NY mayor ordered all City Hall flags to be flown at half-staff to honor the Kent State University student’s deaths which occurred on May 4, 1970. The counter-protestors (construction workers and office workers) who held American flags, wanted the American flag over the roof of City Hall to be flown at full mast. This resulted in a violent conflict between anti-war students and counter-protestors. 

I thought this would be an interesting environment to set a Delta Green operation in. Get in and get out; just don’t die. Into this environment will be Men from Leng Moon-beast agents who wear hard hats to hide their horns and who target the Delta Green agents because they do not want the Mi-Go signals on the NSA microfilm to be obtained by government officials, Delta Green or MAJESTIC.  Thank you Dragoleaf for the hard hat idea! 

Now what is on the NSA microfilm? As a reminder, the Mi-Go sent “indecipherable fragments of intelligent and systematic communications originating from the moon and aimed at sites on the Earth and in high orbit.”  Since the Mi-Go wanted to open communications with an official Earth government (or likely multiple governments), I think that the Earth sites that are being targeted from the moon are areas of concentrated civilization with political rivalries.  These would be Washington DC, Moscow, London, Beijing, New Delhi, Berlin, and Tokyo.

That is about as far as I have gotten with this scenario idea, but I also possibly wanted to include foreign agents, difficulties between the FBI and the other intelligence agencies, and some kinetic conflict with MAJESTIC, but we will see.

 Potential Adventure 2: Gyre and Gimble or The Great Race vs the Lloigor

The US military has used Alice and Wonderland references to discuss nuclear subjects, and I will be no different.  In October 1962, the US came very close to a nuclear war with the Soviets during the Cuban Missile Crisis.  But what if there was a way for the US to be protected from nuclear weapons and fallout completely?

In the realm of science fiction, Issac Asimov needs no introduction.  He wrote a short story published in 1951 called “Breeds There a Man...?" about the possibility of development of an anti-nuclear force field generator. I will not completely spoil the story for you, but for my purposes I will say that Asimov floats the idea that aliens may not want humanity to have a counter for nuclear war.  This idea fits in perfectly to Delta Green.

In the Delta Green Mythos, The Great Race and the entities known as the Lloigor are at vicious odds.  Allow me to quote my own summary from a previous blog post. 

“In the Delta Green Handlers Guide on page 149 there is described a temporal war between The Great Race and the Lloigor.  To summarize the war, these two Mythos factions want either a radioactive future earth where a species of giant beetles dominate the planet, the Great Race’s desired outcome; or a sinister future human empire called “Tsan-Chan” to rise on Earth in approximately 5000 CE, the Lloigor’s objective.   The Lloigor’s objective is seemingly in direct conflict with the Great Race’s plans for a massive human nuclear war, as the Handler’s Guide says.”

If there was a possibility for humanity to gain a preventative measure against global nuclear war then The Great Race would be against it, and immediately deploy their cultists, The Motion, to interdict it.

What is sinister Tsan-Chan? In Lovecraft’s Beyond the Wall of Sleep, there is a conversation with an undefined cosmic star-like creature and the narrator. The cosmic entity says, “we are all roamers of vast spaces and travellers in many ages. Next year I may be dwelling in the dark Egypt which you call ancient, or in the cruel empire of Tsan-Chan which is to come three thousand years hence”. 

This simple line from HPL has stimulated a great deal of imagination.  There is a Chaosium supplement for Call of Cthulhu called The Cruel Empire of Tsan Chan (2010) where Tsan-Chan is detailed in terrible and desperate terms. On the old Delta Green website, David Tormsen created the fan faction “the Collectors of the Long Vaults” about time-traveling agents from Tsan-Chan that show up to capture human psychics from the past (our modern age), kill them, turn them into essential salts, and reanimate them in the future in Tsan-Chan where they are needed in the fight against Mythos creatures that threaten the cruel empire.

Dovetailing with this, author Fee Fi Fo Fin further detailed these Tsan-Chan time-traveling agents (calling them Men in Black and Grey Men) and expanded on the other resources the cruel empire has in the modern day.  Notably, Fee proposes the idea that there is a sliver of the future timeline where Tsan-Chan exists without The Great Race’s interference. This timeline sliver is called The Narrow Way Through. 

If there was a technology to fully protect a civilization from nuclear weapons then the servants of the Lloigor, the cruel empire of Tsan-Chan, would strongly support it by changing the timeline to preserve or bolster the anti-nuclear technology.

My scenario idea is that there is a US mathematician, code named Gyre, who has been working on equations to generate an anti-nuclear radiation force field. These valuable equations are code named Gimble.  Delta Green (for some reason I have not figured out yet) is deployed to protect Gyre and Gimble as they move from one place to an elite mathematics conference.  At this conference the Delta Green agents will be made aware of the anti-nuclear significance of Gyre and Gimble, and the importance of this work to the USA and humanity as a whole.  Then they have to protect Gyre and Gimble (or perhaps make a decision between protecting Gyre or Gimble) from the deadly cultists of The Great Race, known as The Motion, who will stop at nothing to eliminate Gyre and Gimble from the timestream.  Time-traveling agents from Tsan-Chan will assist Delta Green, at first subtly then kinetically, with battling The Motion’s assassins.  Where this ends or how I fit in the alphabet intelligence agencies or events from the 1970s I have not identified yet.    

Since Potential Adventure 1 involved MAJESTIC, I did not want Potential Adventure 2 to involve that organization.  Variety being the spice of life and all. However, if I wanted to have an easter-egg link to MAJESTIC I could reference The Courtis Papers (Handler’s Guide, page 157) being a basis for the Gimble, the anti-nuclear radiation force field equations.  Dr Courtis wrote The Courtis Papers in 1949, derived from working on the alien craft, codenamed the Bucket (Handler’s Guide, pages 52-53).

Conclusion

So those are the ideas that have been bouncing in my head regarding the scenario contest and my three chosen themes: “Set between 1970-1989”, “Conflict between mythos monsters, DG in the middle”, and “Hook does not involve a murder or a dead body”.  I am pretty happy that both potential adventures 1 and 2 do not depend on ho-hum boring murders.  So, I am in the clear there. The second potential adventure would need more thought to place it somewhen interesting in the 1970s, and I want to add more 1970s flavor, for example relevant plot points and important encounters, to both potential adventures.  “Conflict between mythos monsters, DG in the middle” I think is represented well in both possible adventures, but I want to make sure I just don’t make one side the “good” aliens and the other the “bad” aliens. That is boring. Both sides are aliens and thus do not have humanity’s best interest in mind.  Actions and themes of both alien factions should reflect that.  Next blog posts on this subject I expect I will be sharpening hooks, building up plot skeletons and possibly be detailing NPCs. 

Delta Green and the 1970s Part 1: Testimony of James Jesus Angleton (1975) and discussion of the Church Committee (1975)

James Jesus Angleton

The Night at the Opera, Delta Green discord is hosting the 8th Annual N@TO Scenario Contest. 

 In this contest, scenarios written must choose at least three themes out of eleven. I have chosen the themes “Set between 1970-1989”, “Conflict between mythos monsters, DG in the middle”, and “Hook does not involve a murder or a dead body”.

The scenario hook should definitely not involve a murder/dead body because I strongly feel that the community should have more DG games without a starting corpse.  This was one of my heavy critiques with Call of Cthulhu adventures when I was playing in the 1990s. You couldn’t turn around in Call of Cthulhu without running into a corpse as the inciting incident.   Also, there are plenty of good fanmade DG adventures that do not start with a corpse, and I wanted to join those ranks.  So here we go. 

“Set between 1970-1989” was an interesting theme since I really did not know details about the actions of the intelligence agencies at that time, and this intrigued me. Naturally, I turned to primary sources for research.  Since the historical research community is all abuzz about declassification of JFK assassination files (originally, I was thinking of having the mother of all conspiracy theories have something to do with historical Delta Green activities, but I abandoned that idea), I stumbled into a mostly declassified secret Senate testimony of the CIA counterintelligence head, James Jesus Angleton, that was held in 1975.

It is 152 scanned pages and I have only breeched the first 40 or so of the testimony. It is a fascinating look at how the CIA, FBI, NSA and other organizations were acting in the early 1970s, before that date, and the troubles they were having. 

The Church Committee

When I posted this on the Night at the Opera discord, I was alerted by a fellow aficionado Agent Obtuse about the Church Committee which also occurred in 1975.  The Church Committee was a Senate select committee which was a blockbuster clearinghouse of information about investigations into intelligence abuses by the CIA, NSA, FBI and IRS. It revealed at least five programs, including Operation MKULTRA, COINTELPRO, Family Jewels, Operation Mockingbird and Project SHAMROCK. 

I will just talk about three programs mentioned. MKULTRA was a CIA program to attempt to develop and refine protocols and drugs that could be used to force confessions through brainwashing and psychological torture.  Famously, LSD was used in this program. 

 Family Jewels was a group of reports on CIA programs. Among these programs discussed were funding of behavior modification research on unwitting U.S. citizens, and assassination plots against Fidel Castro and various other foreign targets, all said to be failures. 

Project SHAMROCK revealed the concrete existence of the NSA to the American public, and described its inception through an Armed Forces Security Agency (precursor to the NSA) espionage project to obtain all telegraphic information that entered the US called Project MINARET (1945). 

There is a lot here. Needless to say, in 1975 one could gently suggest that the intelligence services were on fire about what was being revealed. However, I am more interested in the early turn of the decade.  After all, in 1969 the US had the Apollo 11 moon landing, Woodstock, and the Manson Family murders.

So what state are the intelligence agencies in, during 1970? Enter the James Jesus Angleton secret Senate testimony from 1975. It is record number 157-10014-10004 from the National Archives.

Angleton (right)

Testimony of James Jesus Angleton to the Senate (1975)

Without further ado, here are excerpts from the testimony and my commentary. Brackets contain my inserts. Bolding is also mine.  

Page 6

“Mr. Johnson:  As the leading counter intelligence expert in the CIA, did you have any concrete evidence yourself that there was a foreign connection to this domestic unrest [Summer 1970]?

Mr. Angleton: The way I would comment on that is simply that the intelligence that we had gathered, fundamentally from December '61 on through, that the counter intelligence effort in the government was very important.”

Fucking amazing. Way to dodge a question and double down that your job is important.

Page 13

“Mr. Johnson: In the summer of 1970 it seems to me, then, the country and the intelligence community faced these facts of life: pronounced domestic unrest; inability to completely understand the degree of foreign connections over domestic unrest; and a severing of relationships between the FBI and the rest of the intelligence community.

Mr. Angleton: With the exception of the White House.

Mr. Johnson: With the exception of the White House.”

This establishes the milieu that the US intelligence agencies were finding themselves in during 1970. Almost sounds like a house of cards collapsed. 

Page 20

“Mr. Johnson: Is it true that Mr. Hoover underwent a kind of transportation in his attitudes toward what intelligence collection methods were feasible and acceptable in this country, and that he refused to conduct certain activities that he had conducted in the forties and fifties?

Mr. Angleton: Well, during the Johnson Administration and my facts by way of time may not be accurate -- he was being attacked in the Congress over many operational techniques. It is my understanding that he looked to the White House for some relief or approbation, and he received none.  I think his attitude was that if he was not going to have the support of the Executive, he was not going to subject the Bureau to a losing battle with politicians. Therefore he began systematically to cut back on all activities.”

Page 21-22 

“Mr. Johnson: So the upshot was for Mr. Hoover to eliminate certain collection methods he had used before?

Mr. Angleton: Gradually eliminate them.

Mr. Johnson: Now, what impact did this elimination of previous collection techniques have upon the CIA from your perspective?

Mr. Angleton: I think the basic thing was that it gradually closed sources of information and quality of information. And more important, -- and I think this is axiomatic -- that counter intelligence is about only as good as the relations between the FBI and the CIA are.

In other words, any activities we took up with the Bureau the Bureau always had constructive operational judgment to make. And I think by the same token we had a lot to say on the matter. As your data base disappeared, then your whole perceptions became cloudy, you didn't have the information. And you could not levy on the Bureau as we had prior to this requirement, targets, and other matters where we had coverage abroad. And this interplay between the external and internal is the heart of the operational task.

In other words, to us, if the Bureau is operating one part of the spectrum and we are operating the other, then we would have total coverage. But when you don't have this kind of relationship, and they can't follow up, and they are thwarted from doing many things, I would say the operational value diminishes, and eventually the final blow, banning, doing away with liaison.”

So, when the CIA and FBI had a rift as described at the time, then counterintelligence operations from the CIA just did not have as good information or any information at all. 

They were in the dark.

Rife with exploitation for Delta Green scenarios.

P26-P27

“Mr. Johnson: But isn't it true that during this period the military was under severe criticism for earlier civilian surveillance programs? 

Mr. Angleton: From where? 

Mr. Johnson: I believe the military was preparing for hearings before Sam Ervin's Committee on the subject of military surveillance over civilians. To some degree the military was under public criticism for being in the domestic intelligence gathering field.

Mr. Angleton: But I think the military took the position that they were responsible for their own security in conjunction with all other investigative agencies. 

In other words, there has always been a cardinal rule government that the head of every agency is responsible for his own security, that when the FBI develops information on any subversion, within any branch of the government, they send copies of those reports to the heads of the agency concerned for their action.

And, therefore, as far as I know no one had turned over the military prerogatives.

Mr. Johnson: Do these prerogatives extend beyond the military base itself?

Mr. Angleton: I don't know. I don't think it has anything to do with what directly affects the security of the armed forces.”

This discusses the Military gathering intelligence on civilians. Was this in the 1970’s specifically or earlier? 

P33

“Mr. Johnson: That just outlines for the NSA its mandate in monitoring the communications facilities, international communications facilities, used by American citizens. You might want to briefly glance over this section which explains it. 

[There is a white section here. Is it a redacted section?]

Communications intelligence is an activity of the NSA, as I understand it. And from reading the text it seems like NSA had primary interest here. But I wonder if the CIA was also interested in relaxing restraints in this area. 

Mr. Angleton: Every participant is a consumer of NSA product. And therefore they all have a an equal interest, they all had a departmental interest in enhancing the coverage by NSA.”

Discussion of the NSA and it’s “product” (intelligence) by Angleton. 

P34 

“Mr. Angleton. Normally [when gathering foreign intelligence] all customers [intelligence services], to my knowledge; would levy requirements on NSA.

Mr. Johnson. In the case of the CIA, what would be an example of a name that might be sent to the NSA to be placed on a watch list? You say a terrorist.

Would that be an example?

Mr. Angleton: A terrorist, an organization, intelligence individuals, political individuals, travel control.

Mr. Johnson: Would any of these names include the names of American citizens?

Mr. Angleton: As of that time I don't know. …”

Sure, Mr Angleton. Sure

Discussion of the Angleton testimony and the Delta Green angle on all of this will be included in Part 2.

Mystic Space Playtest 01 After Action Report

 About a month ago I had the opportunity to playtest, in person, the alpha version of the rules for a new wargame called Mystic Space.

Mystic Space is a scifi heroic space fantasy wargame produced and written by Ivan Sorensen, aka Nordic Weasel.  Ivan has created a plethora of solo, coop and verses wargames including 5 Parsecs from Home and 5 Leagues from the Borderlands that are both published by Modiphius Entertainment.  

With Mystic Space, think of colorfully armored armies of humans, and exalted Heroes, along with looming mecha-like Walkers, thundering across the battlefield, heeding the rallying cry and bark of their commanders to rapidly seize objectives and defend them to the last; all for the glory and expansion of their Faction.  In my view, it is a very heroic noble-bright tone with a dash of anime and giant robots, that is missing from most wargames that are focused on the gritty and grimdark.  

Full disclosure, I am on the Nordic Weasel discord and correspond with Ivan, along with playtesting some of his wargames.

I was very lucky in that my playtesting partner, Skeaze, brought two Mystic Space armies (15mm scale) that were sculpted in Blender, 3D printed and even painted, all by his own hand.  Now, how could I refuse?

If you are interested in the digital sculpts that Skeaze has made for Mystic Space, you can check out his Cults3D page, which is here.

Anyway, each side had two Infantry squads and three Heroes.  Mystic Space is a Victory Point accumulation game, and securing the Objectives in the battlespace is one way to accrue Victory Points.  

Infantry is important in Mystic Space because only Infantry squads can claim Objectives. Heroes (at the time of playtesting) could not claim Objectives, but they could contest them.  So, I viewed Heroes as support units for my Infantry.

Claiming an Objective involves an Infantry unit being within two inches of the Objective, and no opposing force being within two inches of that same Objective.

In addition to claiming Objectives, there were rules for obtaining Victory Points by wiping out opposing units.  However, since this was our very first game, and first engagement with the alpha ruleset, we decided to simplify these. 

We decided that reducing an Infantry squad to half strength would result in a gain of two Victory Points, and subsequent annihilation of the same squad would give the opponent one more Victory Point.  Thus, reducing an Infantry squad from full strength to zero members would result in a total of 3 Victory Points gained.

Similarly, the death of a Hero would result in the opponent gaining a total of 3 Victory Points. Thus, if one side was fully wiped out, the opponent would gain a total of 15 Victory Points; 9 from three Heroes and 6 from two Infantry squads.

In the particular scenario we were testing, we decided that we would have four Objectives on the board and that each Objective successfully claimed would give the claimant 1 Victory Point at the end of each turn.

Now onto the forces description.  I mentioned that each side had two Infantry squads and three Heroes.  However, each side was not identical in terms of the type of Infantry and Heroes.  My side was the Terra Hold faction and my forces consisted of 1 Light Infantry Section (eight figures), 1 Assault Infantry Section (six figures), a Leader Hero, Champion Hero, and an Ironclad Hero.  My colors were green. My opponent’s side was the Eden’s Path faction and his army contained 1 Light Infantry Section (again, eight figures), 1 Armored Infantry Section (eight figures), a Leader Hero, Rapid Hero, and Ironclad Hero.

It was not exactly a mirror match but it was close. Light Infantry Sections were sort of your basic army unit. The Assault Infantry Section had decent pistols and more importantly were all armed with melee weapons.  In contrast the Armored Infantry Section fielded by my opponent were a slower moving, but more armored than usual group of eight soldiers armed with rifles and two heavy weapons. 

Both my fellow combatant and I each had a Leader and Ironclad Hero. All Heroes, once activated in a turn, can also activate an Infantry Section within Command Range (6 inches typically).  Leader Heroes have a Command Range of 9 inches, a ranged weapon, a melee weapon, and spells; the latter of which had yet to be fleshed out in the rules so we skipped that entirely.   Ironclad Heroes were a little slower but had the most armor of any unit in the game (4), a ranged weapon that fired twice per shooting action, and a melee weapon.  Ironclad Heroes were very resistant to damage, a factor that we learned throughout the battle.

To differentiate our near identical army loadouts, I had a Champion Hero and my opponent had a Rapid Hero.  A Champion Hero was a melee specialist of sorts; armed with a pistol and a powerful melee weapon.  A Rapid Hero was the fastest Hero in the game; and I expected it to be contesting my Objectives fairly regularly.

Now, there was one additional thing my opponent and I had to consider with each of our force's loadouts. Which units were going to field Trace pistols or Trace guns? Normally in Mystic Space, when a unit shoots another unit, the shooter rolls 1d10 and adds their weapon's accuracy, then adds or subtracts additional factors and compares the result to the value of 10. A result of 10 or higher is a hit, and misses do nothing. Trace firearms function differently. They are essentially railguns and the shooter draws a straight line from the shooting unit to their target. All units that intersect that line are hit, even if friendly. No 1d10 to hit roll is required. A large piece of terrain (like a cliff face) will interrupt the line however.

The Light Infantry Sections and the Champion could field a Trace gun and Trace pistol, respectively. Although, those units that were hit by a Trace weapon will have the chance for an armor save; the way the trace weapons could target multiple figures in a squad made us both pause and consider the arrangement of the figures in our squads when they were deployed on the battlefield and when they had to squeeze into smaller corridors on the map. After all, we didn't want to give the opposing player any advantage of automatically scoring a hit on multiple figures in a single shooting action!

With these thoughts in mind, it was time for deployment of the troops. The battlemap had five major pieces of terrain on it. One piece was close to each corner and a group of ruins was present in the middle. Four Objectives were placed on the table. One Objective each, were placed near me and my opponent's deployment corners. The other two Objectives were in the middle of the map. These were the toxic barrels in the ruins you can see in the first picture (below), and a group of crates tucked away in the crook of the green-topped plateau. These middle Objectives would be the most contested areas during the conflict. 

Deployment was interesting. We used the following rules that may not reflect the final Mystic Space product. Each player placed a number of deployment markers on the battlefield equal to the number of forces they had. We numbered the deployment markers 1-5 (we each had 5 units to deploy) and took turns rolling 1d6. Depending on the number that came up on the 1d6, we would remove the deployment token with that number and place a unit of our choosing on that location on the board. If someone rolled a 6, we rerolled of course, given that we only had 5 units each.

Another note about deployment. The robot miniatures that you will see in the pictures we used as proxies to represent our Ironclad Heroes. There are giant robots in Mystic Space. They are tentatively called Walkers. At the time of the playtest, however, rules for Walkers had not been fully developed.

The first turn proceeded as expected given the layout of terrain and Objectives in the battlespace. I was lucky enough to will the initiative roll, so I went first and immediately had my Assault Infantry Section secure the Objective that was in my corner on top of a plateau. Claiming that Objective would result in production of one Victory Point per turn at the end of the turn. The rules do not require devoting a unit of Infantry to guard the Objective in order to generate Victory Points. This is great because it encourages players to advance all of their forces into the fray. My opponent executed the same plan with his units, claiming the Objective (a satellite dish) that was in the middle of a crater, in his corner of the field. 

In addition, during the first turn, I also rushed my Light Infantry Section into the ruins in the middle of the map to claim the Objective there. The Objective in the ruins was a pile of leaking toxic barrels. Perhaps that was an ill omen for what would happen to my Light Infantry in the ruins! Anyway, at the end of turn one and I was sitting pretty on two Victory Points.

Turn two arose and the shooting began in earnest. My opponent jockeyed for position, arranging his Leader and Ironclad Heroes as well as his Light Infantry within the visual arc of my Infantry squad that had holed up in the ruins, guarding the toxic barrels Objective. I suffered a withering hail of fire. The result was that five of my Infantry, out of eight soldiers, had been penetrated by lasers or burnt to a crisp by plasma fire.

Things were not looking good. However, my much-diminished Infantry squad rallied, successfully removed the panic markers caused by the decimating firefight, and were able to return fire. Shocked that my Light Infantry force was so close to destruction so soon, I moved my Champion Hero into the ruins to support them.

Another flash point was erupting. Due south of the ruins and in a narrow corridor bordered by crumbling stone and two grassy plateaus, my Assault Infantry had spied and were in range of my opponent's colorful Armored Infantry. Accompanied by an Ironclad and Leader Heroes, my Assault troopers fired enfilade into the mass of enemy troops, inflicting three casualties (denoted by the smoke tokens in the below picture). The opposing Hero, the Rapid, stood and delivered; making all of his armor saves against the firearms of my Ironclad Hero and shooting back with impunity.

Meanwhile, in the ruins, the remainder of my Light Infantry screamed and fell under the combine arms of my opponent's Light Infantry Section and Ironclad Hero. Brimming with confidence, the opposing Leader (figure with a red pistol and blue sword) engaged my Champion (pants painted in green) in close combat. He also proceeded to engage his remaining Light Infantry Section with my Champion as well, hoping to gain advantage and dominate my Champion by obtaining bonuses to hit by surrounding him.

Satisfied that his forces would wipe out my Champion, my opponent moved his Ironclad from the ruins combat to the southern narrow corridor flash point. Things looked far from great for me.

However, that is when we came face to face with how dominant a Champion's melee skills were. My Champion weathered a storm of blows from Hero and Infantry alike, and then returned blow for blow with force and honor. When the butcher's bill came due, my opponent's Leader lay dead on the ruined ground and two men of the plucky but foolish opposing Infantry squad were smashed to a pulp.

The conflict in the southern corridor was claiming lives and becoming tense. As soon as my counterpart's Ironclad came to support his diminishing number of Armored Infantry, the armor save luck of his Rapid Hero ran out. My Ironclad finally finished off the Rapid in a barrage of Injector rifle fire.

The close quarters firefight quickly turned into a muddy, bloody melee where no side was spared. My Assault Infantry engaged his Armored Infantry and slowly, painfully, the slightly superior armaments of the Assault squad ground the superior numbers of the Armored Infantry to dust. Two lone Assault squaddies stood triumphant atop of a mound of bodies, heaving with labored breaths and brandishing their Honor Blades in victory. 

In the central ruins, my Champion valiantly parried strikes and withstood blows that would crumple a lesser human, but quantity has a quality all of its own, and my Champion disappeared under the tide of the opposing Infantry's pummeling rifle-butts and thrashing fists.

All told, we tallied up the casualties and Objectives that accrued Victory Points and came to a conclusion. My opponent stood tall with pride, having claimed victory from the jaws of defeat by a single point! 

Mystic Space is shaping up to be a great game with lots of action, drama and tactical decisions on display. More current editions include rules for the giant robots called Walkers, special bonuses for Factions, and lore about the conflict and the major players within it. Even more is to come including a Spell list and rules for Faction Artifacts. I'm very excited about the developments and I can't wait to play it again. 

Delta Green and the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability investigation on UAPs

 

The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability had an investigation on UAPs on Wednesday 11/13/24. UAPs are Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, which is what we are calling UFOs now.  The whole session is about 2.5 hours. It is here.

Several interesting topics were discussed with respect to with respect to what parts of the US government knew about UAPs and what are affectionately called NHIs or Non-Human Intelligences. Some of these claims are absolutely wild, but all of this discussion is absolute gold for Game Masters of conspiracy and occult roleplaying games like Delta Green.  I will be highlighting some of the more interesting real-life tidbits discussed or reported in the committee meeting with an eye to how these can be used in a fictional Delta Green roleplaying setting.  Significant spoilers for the Delta Green setting will follow.

The Witnesses

First let us discuss the four witnesses at the House Committee Meeting on UAPs and their fields of expertise.  Dr. Tim Gallaudet is a Retired US Navy Rear Admiral, and CEO of the Ocean STL Consulting company. He described what is known as the “Go Fast” video (declassified), in which a UAP was observed during naval exercises off the US East Coast in which the USS Theodore Roosevelt CSG (Carrier Strike Group) was present.  His testimony seems to reveal a silencing of UAP discussion in military ranks and describes UAPs observed in the ocean as well, specifically describing these UAPs as “exhibit[ing] transmedium travel through the air-sea interface.” 

Luis Elizondo is a former Department of Defense official who has managed SAPs (Special Access Programs) during his tenure. His answers to most of the questions from the House involved requesting a closed session (non-public) in order to describe an answer. I’ll just quote from his written testimony here:

“Let me be clear: UAP are real. Advanced technologies not made by our Government – or any other government – are monitoring sensitive military installations around the globe. Furthermore, the U.S. is in possession of UAP technologies, as are some of our adversaries. I believe we are in the midst of a multi-decade, secretive arms race— one funded by misallocated taxpayer dollars and hidden from our elected representatives and oversight bodies.”

True or not, this statement is chock full of inspiration for Delta Green. 

Michael Gold is a scientist. He is the former NASA Associate Administrator of Space Policy and Partnerships and member of NASA UAP Independent Study Team.  His interest in UAPs mostly comes from a “they display unknown physics and thus we should study them” perspective, and he believes NASA should be the departmental clearing house for UAP data.  Also, he advocates for additional NASA funding. Shocking.  Here is a quote from his written testimony:

“Moreover, science is driven by anomalies. Anomalies are the foundation upon which scientific breakthroughs are built. The Theory of General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, virtually all of our scientific progress has been based on discovering and studying anomalies.  This is why the study of UAPs should be embraced since, whatever is occurring, the chance to garner new knowledge should never be shunned.”

Now in real life this is a laudable and admirable stance. Not so, in the fictional Delta Green universe! In fact, the progress of science into understanding the true nature of the universe is dangerous to human minds. As Lovecraft said:

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.” From the Call of Cthulhu.  

Michael Shellenberger is a journalist.  He brought an 11-page document to the House Oversight Committee that described the Special Access Program IMMACULATE CONSTELLATION. IMMACULATE CONSTELLATION’s objective was to collect imagery and other intelligence on UAPs, thus serving as a clearinghouse for the activities, capabilities and locations of UAP activity.  Shellenberger also included, in his written testimony, almost 200 pages of references and public domain information about UAPs.  Some of these UAP references go back to 1947, making Shellenberger’s written testimony a nice timeline for UFO/UAP history for Delta Green Game Masters and interested parties.

Excerpts from the Document that Describes IMMACULATE CONSTELLATION

The document provided to the House Oversight Committee by Michael Shellenberger regarding IMMACULATE CONSTELLATION does not have a title. I will refer to it as the IMMACULATE CONSTELLATION document or the IC document for brevity. 

According to Shellenberger’s written testimony, a UAP whistleblower (current or former US government official) has claimed that “the Executive Branch has been managing UAP/NHI issues without Congressional knowledge, oversight, or authorization for some time, quite possibly decades.” NHI is the acronym for “Non-Human Intelligences.”  This unnamed whistleblower (or another, it is not clear to me) claims that the Department of Defense created IMMACULATE CONSTELLATION in 2017 and denied it’s existence. That is the history. 

In the IC document’s introduction, the document claims that parts of the U.S. Executive Branch conspired to block Congress from becoming aware of and doing anything about UAP and NHI issues in a so-called criminal conspiracy. In fact, it also “strongly suggests” that the Executive Branch has been managing UAP/NHI issues possibly for decades. 

Now, how does this apply to the fictional setting of Delta Green?  Ironically (or not) this fits in perfectly with the idea that Majestic 12 has been managing contact with the Mi-go and read in every Executive Branch member about this interaction through President George H.W. Bush (Bush 41) (see the Handlers’ Guide p.94).  This is not the only bit of UFO lore that supports the fictional argument that the U.S. Executive Branch has been aware of UFOs/aliens, but I think it is one of the most recent. 

The IC document goes on to claim several documented encounters of the US military with UAPs.  One of the more interesting reports is of “CENTCOM Cuboid Formation of Metallic Orbs” in which approximately 12 “white-hot” metallic orbs flew in a “tight ‘cuboid’ formation” then broke formation as pairs at speed. The cuboid was observed over the ocean in this case.

So, what could this be in the Delta Green universe? Generally, UFOs sightings are considered the domain of the Mi-go so let’s go with that idea.  Any civilization advanced enough is going to have drones, evidently, so let’s say these metallic orbs are drones from a Mi-go source; be it a technological Grey spaceship or released by a Mi-go practitioner of hypergeometry.

Why would Mi-go drones be in the area? I have two proposals. First the Mi-go are tracking another Mythos agency and they don’t care if the hapless hairless apes see their drones because the mission is that important. I could see perhaps the Mi-go drones going after shoggoth activity beneath the waves or collecting data on some undersea Elder Thing base that they have just become aware of.

Alternatively, since the white-hot metallic orbs were captured in daytime infrared footage, we may assume there was some sort of military platform nearby that was observing the event.  Let’s imagine that this sensory platform was accompanied by a ship owned by March Tech in which hypergeometically aware March Tech researchers (i.e. wizards-in-training) were trying to restart some piece of now dead Grey tech, and the Mi-go wanted to monitor the situation.  When the Mi-go finished, their drones broke formation and went to observe some other sites for other inscrutable purposes. 

In Section 5: Restricted USG Historical Records section of the IC document, it was reported that there was an NSA report published in 1978 on the topics of parapsychology, 'psi' and biological effects of UAPs on human beings being researched in the Soviet Union.

This little tidbit would be fantastic to drop into a Delta Green game, a GRU SV-8 game or a game that featured a conflict between cells of the two organizations.  In addition, if a Delta Green Game Master wanted details on what biological effects of UAPs have on human beings, just consult the tables on page 6-9 of the IC document or examine the Defense HUMINT Reports on UAPs on page 9. 

One of the interesting Defense HUMINT Reports on UAPs is the Perimeter of Sensitive Facility Breached by UAP report where somewhere on the Eastern Seaboard a "dark sphere" was observed approaching a sensitive building for 10-15 minutes. Humans observing the phenomena "reported eyestrain, headaches, and a feeling of unease or dread".

What if those UAP biological effects, namely "eyestrain, headaches, and a feeling of unease or dread" were somehow researched and then weaponized by March Tech or GRU-SV8?  Imagine an invisible "dread wave" that could be targeted and the device that deploys it is the size of a suitcase.  Such a device could be utilized to clear an area or building of humans (or maybe animals as well) quickly without say shooting up the place or causing unnecessary panic. This would be a wonderful tool for a Coral Nomad (Delta Green’s Mythos artifact retrieval agency) team to have to secure Mythos remnants and or artifacts from a hot site.  

And you could connect the "dark sphere" UAP’s effects on biologicals with the Music From a Darkened Room adventure.  You could say the sentient house emits a waveform of energy that matches the one "dread wave" studied from the "dark sphere" UAP and thus Delta Green is aware of this and interested in the site as a result. Or you could pull the reverse, have the Agents investigate the haunted house first, and then drop on them that something in the house produces a "dread wave" that is similar to those emitted by certain UAP phenomena. That could pull the Agents into investigating UAP phenomena (maybe Convergence?) and your next adventure. 

And I have to just include this last part because it is lovely on so many different levels. The document ends with "Be not afraid." Isn't that the phrase that the Archangel Gabriel said when the angel appeared to Mary in the Bible? 

Really guys, really. It's too good.

Interesting Questions for the Witnesses

Congresswoman Lauren Boebert asked the following questions of the Witnesses in the House Oversight Committee. 

Congresswoman Lauren Boebert: "There are rumors that have come up to the Hill of a secretive project within the Department of Defense involving the manipulation of human genetics with what is described as non-human genetic material for the enhancement of human capabilities, hybrids. Are any of you familiar with that? Yes, or no?"

The unanimous answer by the witnesses was no. 

Also, Congresswoman Boebert: "Are there any accounts of UAPs emerging from or submerging into our waters which could indicate a base or presence beneath the ocean's surface. Are there any technological capabilities that have been observed in these oceanic UAPs to defy our current understanding of physics or human engineering capabilities?"

In the Delta Green world, let us assume that both of these statements reflect a literal reality.  Human-alien hybrids are real and there are alien bases under the water where the aliens that control the UAPs plot to over take the surface world.  This describes pretty well the world of X-COM: Terror from the Deep, the 1995 the video game and sequel to the original X-COM: UFO Defense. So why not crib from MicroProse’s legendary sequel to enhance your Delta Green game?  This works best if you want your Delta Green Agents to morph from an investigative team into a kinetic anti-alien squad armed with laser rifles and the like.  Much of the lore from X-COM, in particular Terror from the Deep, leans on Lovecraftian themes so a Delta Green campaign or one-shot could fit right in.

Yet Another Mythos Theory for UAPs

One issue about the UAPs described in the IMMACULATE CONSTELLATION document is that they vary widely in appearance. This begs the question, why? Allow me to supply a scifi/Mythos related answer. What if UAPs do not originate from a different place, but in fact a different time?  This is not a new theory in UFO lore but let’s go with it.  Let’s say humans eventually figure out time travel, but not in a singular location with a single researcher or group.  Let us say several nation states or corporations or whatever discover and develop time travel in the future simultaneously.  The UAPs are time traveling drones or observers from our future but the catch is they all use differently shaped craft because they all have different means of moving through time. 

Now, why are the time traveling humans here? And why are the UAPs seemingly increasingly focusing on military sites in our present? This is where the Mythos comes in.  In the Delta Green Handlers Guide on page 149 there is described a temporal war between The Great Race and the Lloigor.  To summarize the war, these two Mythos factions want either a radioactive future earth where a species of giant beetles dominate the planet, the Great Race’s desired outcome; or a sinister future human empire called “Tsan-Chan” to rise on Earth in approximately 5000 CE, the Lloigor’s objective.   The Lloigor’s objective is seemingly in direct conflict with the Great Race’s plans for a massive human nuclear war, as the Handler’s Guide says. Future human time-travelers could serve as agents of one of the two aforementioned factions, or they could be an independent third faction that has their own goal of a more human focused future.  

If the future human time-travelers are opposing the Great Race, you could say that the UAPs frequent nuclear arms sites and nuclear research locations and that these sightings are correlated with nuclear weapons mysteriously losing effectiveness or nuclear scientists reporting amnesia. If the future humans are opposing the Lloigor, then say the UAPs are congregating around Mythos sites, as the rise of Tsan-Chan is associated with the return of the Great Old Ones from their slumber. In this latter case UAPs may actually help Delta Green Agents, either as serving as markers for previously unknown Mythos hotspots or with some direct future-tech or hypergeometrical support.  

Whatever you do, there are plenty of inspirations for an occult conspiracy game in the documents from the UAP House Oversite Committee hearing.  Happy Gaming. 

Fear, Writing and Roleplaying Horror Games

 It’s that time again! The seasons have rolled over to orange and black and there is a chill in the air. That means it is almost time once again for the Delta Green Shotgun Scenario Contest, 2024 edition!  Yaaay. But what to write and how do you put together a Delta Green adventure, let alone a 1500-word-maximum banger as stipulated by the Shotgun Scenario Contest? 

Lots of people have difficulty writing horror and/or mystery scenarios, including myself. So, I wanted to share with you some of the most useful and inspiring books and essays that I have discovered that touch upon writing mysteries, the nature of fear, and tabletop adventure architecture.  Along our journey I’ll throw in references that help with Game Master advice as well.

Dance Macabre by Stephen King

First of all, to discuss what fear and the horror genre is, we should have a working framework; and Steven King’s book Dance Macabre provides this concretely as it makes a distinction between the gross out, horror and terror in horror media and fiction. Dance Macabre is a lovely book that goes over horror fiction in all sorts of media, but it goes into great depth on horror in film if you get the version republished after 2010.  The discussion on horror in film can be particularly of use to film students and Handlers who want to focus on cinematic descriptions in their game.

King’s breakdown of fear into the three facets of the gross out, horror and terror is well articulated in the book, and Handlers could keep in mind these three categories to figure out what emotion they want to evoke in their players with a given horror game description, plot point or set piece.  I read Dance Macabre a long time ago; the fact I still remember it is a testament to the clarity and impact of Stephen King’s analysis. 

Stealing Cthulhu by Grahm Walmsley

The second book that offers sterling advice is Stealing Cthulhu by Grahm Walmsley.  This book is amazing. Only $6 on DriveThruRPG, it is invaluable for Cthulhu Game Masters of any stripe.  What Grahm Walmsley has done is make an algorithm for remixing and permutating tropes and themes from a body of literature to come up with something new, yet firmly based upon the source literature.

 Applying this to Lovecraft’s work, Walmsley’s strategy generates new takes on Mythos monsters, interesting recombinations of HPL’s literary themes, and reworked scenarios that are fresh and new to even veteran Cthulhu players.  However, I call Walmsley’s strategy an algorithm because it could be applied to literature as diverse as Agatha Christie to Jim Butcher.  Just any author with a moderate to large body of work.

In addition to that, there are footnotes galore from leading Cthulhu adventure writers in the field (Kenneth Hite, Gareth Hanrahan and Jason Morningstar) giving invaluable gaming advice.  As if that were not enough, Walmsley also included a copy of his rules light game Cthulhu Dark in the appendices. I can’t recommend this book enough.

The Trajectory of Fear by Ash Law

The Trajectory of Fear by Ash Law is a 9-page essay that breaks down fear into four components and offers a roadmap for applying those components of fear in a roleplaying game using film as a model. Ash defines the components of fear as Unease (that spooky feeling), Dread (the uncertain possibility of certain danger), Terror (the immediate sense of danger, but the danger has yet to be exposed) and finally Horror (the primal fear that occurs when the danger is revealed).

Using the movie Alien and a couple other films as examples, Ash posits how those components of fear can be applied in the arc of a horror roleplaying game session to effectively scare your players.  He also gives examples of how horror games can be done poorly, specifically by referring to schlocky horror in film.  I think Ash’s advice is best applied by a cinematic focused horror Game Master.

The Trajectory of Fear is best found for free at the Internet Archive here.

Games of Fear by Delapore Media

Delapore Media, authored by Dr. Stephen E. Wall, wrote a three part blog series called Games of Fear focusing on fear from a physiological and cultural perspective, and how to apply specific fears such as disaster, social hysteria and fear of strangers to your roleplaying game.  The last essay contains a discussion and analysis on the weird and the eerie with advice for the reader on how to include those elements into writing and roleplaying horror games.

If one is curious about taking a deeper dive into the study and definition of fear then Delapore Media includes interesting references throughout the series of essays, including Margee Kerr’s Scream: Chilling Adventures in the Science of Fear.  As a note, I disagree with Delapore Media on a few points, specifically that "Fear isn’t primal, its cultural." As an unresearched hypothesis I think that fear can have a definite genetic and evolutionary component; but does that affect writing to scare your players in games? No. I think the essays have useful elements, thoughts and techniques to help scare players at the table.

5 Node Mystery by The Alexandrian

Hand and glove with horror stories are mysteries.  Most Delta Green adventures, and that includes shotgun scenarios, will revolve around a mystery, at least in part. But writing a mystery seems daunting. How does one begin?

Many online roleplaying enthusiasts are familiar with The Alexandrian for his advice on game structure, but did you know that he also wrote an article titled the 5 Node Mystery?  Deriving his theory from the stripped-down essentials of a five-node dungeon crawl, the Alexandrian presents a framework for how to present a mystery scenario to player characters by asking five essential questions: what is the mystery about, what is the hook, what is the conclusion, what are the three locations/people linked to the mystery, and what clues are you using to connect the nodes in the mystery. 

When a Game Master decides to come up with clues to bind the mystery together, I would also argue that TheAlexandrian’s Three Clue Rule is also very useful.  Thanks to Lithobraker on the Night at the Opera discord for bringing the 5 Node Mystery blog post to my attention.

The Conspyramid by Ken Hite in Night’s Black Agents

You’ve run a successful horror game one shot. Great! But now the players are clamoring for more. What do you do?  How do you organize and manage a horror campaign? 

One framework I like a great deal is Night’s Black Agent’s Conspyramid. The Conspyramid is a portmanteau of “conspiracy” and “pyramid”.   Visualized as a six level step pyramid, the Conspyramid allows a Game Master to plan and organize their enemies resources, with the prime evil himself at the top, middle managers in the next few tiers and street/entry-level threats at the bottom.

The connections between the nodes of the pyramid allow for the Game Master to outline what methods of control exist between the nodes or what clues can lead the party from one node to another. It is a fantastic tool with many different applications outlined in the Pelgrane Press’ article here.  Constructing a narrative campaign from seemingly disconnected parts is easy to do when the Game Master can visualize the entire plot with a Conspyramid.

Want to know more about the vampires and spies’ horror game that birthed the Conspyramid, Night’s Black Agents? Take a look at the review of NBA by The Alexandrian, here. Night’s Black Agents, itself can be found here.   

Available here

Mythos Revelations by The Alexandrian

I’ve mentioned The Alexandrian’s blog above. This time I want to highlight The Alexandrian’s specific advice on how to handleMythos-style horror and forbidden tomes in game.  These advice blog posts came out relatively recently, August 25^th and 27^th of 2024.  The Alexandrian first tackles the problem of maintaining the horror and mystery of a supernatural being or Alien God by breaking information about that being into three levels of abstraction.  Then he suggests providing the abstracted and mythologically obscured information as scraps of revelation, namely clues, that can be found by players in accordance with the Three Clue Rule (discussed above).  This strategy is very cool, well described and makes intuitive sense to me.

Handling Mythos tomes is somewhat complementary to doling out clues to a Mythos being.  Specifically, The Alexandrian states that said tomes should be handled as a specific clue vector and/or research resource.   In addition, The Alexandrian continues with some musings on creating Mythos tomes for a campaign and gives examples that refer to his very excellent remix of the Trail of Cthulhu epic campaign Eternal Lies.

Creepiness, a How-To Guide and Delta Green: Making Horror Scenarios, both by Dennis Detwiller

Dennis Detwiller, along with John Scott Tynes and Adam Scott Glancy, created Delta Green. Needless to say, Dennis has some opinions on horror and how to apply it to roleplaying games.

The first of Dennis’ guide to horror is Creepiness, a How-To Guide which was published in 2013 and can be found on Delta Green’s official website. 

Short but useful, Dennis offers advice about five elements to maintain in a horror roleplaying scenario. These include: keeping the mundane as the background of the scenario, emphasizing uncertainty in the player’s mind, cementing the idea that Mythos horror is unable to be comprehended by humans, making death omnipresent, and introducing the idea that there are things much much worse than dying.

Dennis’s 2015 essay Delta Green: Making Horror Scenarios sort of springboards off of his 2013 guide but it is much more detailed and it focuses on how a Game Master can make a Delta Green specific horror game.  In this essay, he first presents his analysis on what horror games are about, then he moves on to describe the types of horror one can encounter in roleplaying games, and the structure of horror scenarios. The latter half of the essay is devoted to walking the reader through how he creates a horror scenario from first principles; including the Hook, how to make relevant and interesting horror NPCs, the connections of the mystery that Dennis calls Leads, creepy Moments or set pieces, Events that occur independently of the players, and finally Solutions for the problem introduced in the Hook.

Delta Green: Making Horror Scenarios can be found on Dennis Detwiller’s Patreon.

Write Delta Green Scenarios the mellonbread Way by mellonbread

mellonbread is the founder of the Night at the Opera, one of the largest Delta Green fan created discords, and a prolific writer.  His body of work includes over 100 Delta Green fan scenarios, which is hosted on his blog, The Rogue’s Wallet.

In May 2022, mellonbread published an essay for the free Delta Green fanzine Whispers of the Dead, detailing specific advice about his writing process, including how to link ideas together by layering a connective tissue of clues, adding reactivity, making interesting NPCs, and how to develop the hook of the scenario. mellonbread then goes on to discuss the philosophy he applies for running Delta Green games including his view that it is good to be generous with magic items, spells and the Unnatural skill points.  The latter opinion is derived from mellonbreads’s thesis that a Game Master should above all else make the scenario interesting, and push the interesting components to the fore. He ends the essay with a statement that I think rings true regarding writing scenarios. “Create the content you want that nobody else will write.”

Sources I Haven’t Read

In addition to the above references about fear in roleplaying games, there are additional veins of wisdom crystalized in various places on the internet.  Two of which I am aware of, but have not read yet as of the time of this writing are Call of Cthulhu d20 by Monty Cook and John Tynes and GURPS Horror (currently in 4^th edition) written by Ken Hite. ControllingCrowds from Night at the Opera discord brought Call of Cthulhu d20 to my attention and he recommends the Game Master advice in the book. I will point out that John Tynes is one of the co-founders of Delta Green and pretty much reshaped the Hastur Mythos with some of his ideas about the King in Yellow and Carcosa, and this was before Dennis Detwiller published Impossible Landscapes. So, I welcome, no am rabid for, any more advice I can find by John Tynes. The hitch is that Call of Cthulhu d20 was published in 2002 and is a bit difficult to get a hold of.

Another luminary of the field, Ken Hite, who I discussed when mentioning the Conspyramid (above), has written GURPS Horror and I understand the advice contained in there on fear in games is also very good. GURPS Horror is much more accessible because it can be found on DriveThruRPG.