Luna Uber Alles

NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University

I am a big fan of the modern Cthulhu investigative game Delta Green. In fact, that is why I made this blog. 

For some years now, I have been researching an idea for a game where Delta Green and other Mythos investigation agencies encounter each other on the Moon and decide to unite against the Unnatural or battle it out for national interests.  I call this near future setting Luna Uber Alles. 

This ‘hard’ science fiction setting would ask several questions.  How would the other Mythos fighting agencies like GRU-SV8, M-EPIC, PISCES and others, compromise their agenda and agents if national interests were on the line in a space-land rush scenario? In the Great Dark of Space when we are competing with orbital mechanics, confronted with the choice of cybernetic augmentation, assisted by some form of artificial intelligence, and dealing with a national mandate to exploit space before our competitors do; would we still be human?  What will individuals be willing to sacrifice to stave off humanity’s eventual apocalypse by mind warping forces we will never be able to understand?  Will we even want to? 

Above all, hangs our grey satellite as a harbinger of our uncertain future. Luna Uber Alles. 

Image by congerdesign from Pixabay

News Reports and Papers

I’ve been fired up with these questions for some time. Over a few years I’ve been researching a few selected sources to create a background for this setting.  I’ll detail a few of these sources here, mostly news reports and scientific papers, with a summary of my thoughts under them. 

1) Demand Drivers of the Lunar and Cislunar Economy by T.J. Colvin et al. April 2020. From the Institute of Defense Analyses (IDA). 

In order for the USA and other nations to go to the moon and want to establish bases there, there should be more of an incentive than colonizing the moon purely for defense or scientific reasons.  Colvin et al., have created an interesting paper describing possible commercial interests that could drive people to invest in lunar and cislunar projects in the near future. 

Specifically, they mention that they have “identified goods and services that might generate sufficient non-government revenue [so that lunar investment could] to be commercially viable.”

Apart from space tourism, which I personally don’t think is economically sustainable to consistently fund long term lunar settlements, the paper describes that households on Earth may want moon rocks or lunar memorials (ie sending ashes of the deceased to the moon) from the lunar economy.  I think those economic drivers are a little anemic. However lunar advertising, mining precious metals from the Moon, extracting Helium-3 for sale on the Earth, disposing of hazardous Earth waste on the Moon, manufacturing in the lunar vacuum, and supercomputing and data storage as driven by corporations might be more feasible.  I’m taking this data from Table 1, page 8 of the pdf. 

Anyway, there are a lot of ideas to mine in this reference that would be useful for the Luna Uber Alles setting. 

2) Manufacturing In Space: An Inside Look At A Seemingly Crazy Idea by Ethan Karp. September 2024. From Forbes.com.

So, are space factories true and feasible? 

Pharmaceutical companies are interested in the lunar space for manufacturing chemicals in a no-gravity or microgravity environment.  Specifically, this relates to slowing the kinetics of crystal formation which is a useful method for identifying the mechanism of pharmaceutical function. Merck is doing this right now evidently. 

Heavy industry and polluting industries might also be considering operations in the lunar and cislunar space. 

3) In exchange for a lunar rover, Japan will get seats on Moon-landing missions by Stephen Clark. April 2024. From arstechnica.com.

Japan is partnering with the USA to have a Japanese astronaut join a USA team under the NASA-led Artemis program. Also, UAE, Canada and the European Space Agency are involved as well. 

In Luna Uber Alles, Mythos exploiting and Mythos suppressing organizations could have a presence on the Moon in future.  In the case of Canda, Delta Green lore already describes M-EPIC as a counter-Mythos agency. 

What Mythos organization should I look at including in Luna Uber Alles that could have an interest in Japanese lunar operations? In Delta Green (pages 34-37 of the Delta Green Handler’s Guide) the Black Ocean Society is directly described as being in Japan and other countries. That may have potential. 

4) Mining helium-3 on the Moon has been talked about forever—now a company will try by Eric Berger. March 2024. From arstechnica.com.

News report describing interest in and feasibility of harvesting helium-3 from the lunar regolith and selling it on Earth. Helium-3 does not occur naturally on Earth and “it exists in only very limited quantities from nuclear weapons tests, nuclear reactors, and radioactive decay”.  May be an important component in the quantum computing and medical imaging sectors. 

The news article specifically describes the company Interlune. 

5) Soldiers, Spies and the Moon: Secret US and Soviet Plans from the 1950s and 1960s edited by Jeffrey T. Richelson. Posted July 2014. From The National Security Archive. 

A series of declassified USA documents about potential miliary applications of lunar occupation. Deals with the Cold War, and US and Soviet interests in the Moon. Project Horizon is mentioned, which includes technical details from the US Airforce and Army about building a military Moon base. 

There is a section in the article A Study of Lunar Research Flights that talks about the feasibility of detonating a nuclear device on the Moon. 

Both of these articles would be useful for developing the setting Luna Uber Alles, particularly on the US side, and Project Horizon has details for military personnel on a theoretical militarized Moon base. One of the questions I must address in future is, “Are all nationally and corporate funded moon bases in Luna Uber Alles built with the military in mind, or instead do they consist of quasi-militarized or dual-use architectures?”

Books

I have several additional news references for Luna Uber Alles, but that’s enough for now. 

In terms of books that may have information I want for the setting, I’m looking at On the Future: Prospects for Humanity by Martin Rees. Specifically, Chapters 2.1-2.2, biotech and cybernetics, and Chapter 3, which deals with the solar system/space exploration, may be of use.

For historical reference I picked up Moon Shot: The Inside Story of America's Race to the Moon by the Mercury Seven astronauts Alan Shepard and Deke Slayton. I wanted a rough timeline of lunar exploration and mission objectives. 

Games

Now the question is, has anyone published a ttrpg similar to the setting I’m working on? There are a few Cthulhu in Space games, but one of the more recent ones that is closest to my ideas for Luna Uber Alles is Eldritch Horizon. 

Eldritch Horizon is a game set in the “early star-faring future of the human race” where humans are exploiting the outer horizon of Earth’s Solar System to support civilization back on Earth.  Add to this the alien and ancient things that already occupied the Solar System from the Cthulhu Mythos, and you have Eldritch Horizon.  

The setting is somewhere between the scope of Eclipse Phase (without the transhuman tech and themes of that setting) and Orbital Cold War (which I discuss below).

I skimmed Eldritch Horizon and found some elements that could be interesting in a Luna Uber Alles setting. Specifically, I like how Eldritch Horizon deals with Artificial Intelligence, and how AI would react to exposure to the madness of the Cthulhu Mythos. 

There are Sanity rules for Artificial Intelligences.  AIs are treated as being based on AIs of the modern day, just refined and moderately competent.  At least for mundane jobs. AIs are also prone to hallucinations when they encounter data or situations that are outside their training data baseline.  Also, the United Nations has mandated a kill-switch for higher level AI functions (like mining or attacking or so forth) while maintaining life-support and power generations.  This kill-switch is called the Skynet Protocol.  

So how and when do AIs take Sanity Damage? AIs are rather mentally fragile. If they encounter an observation or data outside of their training data, they accumulate Sanity Damage that cannot be removed. Eldritch Horizon calls AI Sanity Damage “Paradox.”  Whenever an AI would take a Sanity Check from the Unnatural/Cthulhu Mythos, they take maximum Sanity Damage equal to “the maximum human loss from a successful SAN test” or 1 Sanity Damage, whichever is higher. AI’s do not take San Damage from Helplessness or Violence sources, unless the GM decides the AI has an empathy prototype and wants to make that call.  

AI Sanity Damage (Paradox) matters because that value subtracts from the AI’s ability to make skill checks.  So, if you have 20 Paradox and your AI’s Mining skill is 65%, it’s effective Mining skill becomes 45%.  Essentially, exposure to the Unnatural/Mythos will degrade an AI’s ability to carry out actions until it is destroyed.  However, if an AI attempts to use a skill where the modified success score is zero or below, roll d100.  On a failure it just shuts down. On a roll of doubles, it develops an aggressive psychotic response.  

I like the AI rules from Eldritch Horizon because they are appropriate for Artificial Intelligences (AI) that are marginally better than we have today. I think these rules work well for the Luna Uber Alles setting.

I am not going to include Artificial General Intelligences (AGI) in Luna Uber Alles because frankly I don’t think AGI will be developed in the timeline I foresee Luna Uber Alles taking place in.  So, AGI is out in my setting, and I don’t have to worry about rules for it. 

Eldritch Horizon is currently available as a 73-page free quickstart pdf.  They advertise that the full game will come out in 2026 sometime. 

The other question I had was, is there any near future space game that I could use as a backbone to build Luna Uber Alles on? The answer is “yes” and that game is Orbital Cold War.

Orbital Cold War is an alternate timeline near-future setting where the Space Race between the USA and the Soviet Union never stopped and continued through the early 1990s.  Player characters are astronauts, scientists or possibly soldiers, with the objective to maintain or have adventures in space stations in orbit or on the Moon. 

The geopolitical tensions in this setting between the USA-European alliance and the Soviet Union is exactly the type of drama I want to replicate in Luna Uber Alles.  However, in my setting I want more factions vying for space and the Moon. I am envisioning the following nations/agencies as having stakes in the lunar surface: USA, Canada, UAE, Russia, UK, European Space Agency, Japan, China, and the corporation Intuitive Machines (USA). 

Some of these nations/agencies have organizations aware of the Mythos according to the Delta Green lore; namely: USA (Delta Green), Canada (M-EPIC), Russia (GRU-SV8), and UK (PISCES).  In addition, Japan is mentioned as having the Black Ocean Society embedded in their territory, and that organization may have Lunar ambitions.  

So, what does Orbital Cold War provide as a backbone for my setting? It has a great deal of excellent information about spaceflight with historical examples of space vehicles, information for human survival in space stations and on space walks, and detailed diagrams on Moon bases and space stations.  I’ll be using all of that information to inform the development of Luna Uber Alles. 

Conclusion

Looking back on the past few pages, I think I have a decent rough sketch of some of my ideas for the Luna Uber Alles setting.  The idea of mankind colonizing the Moon, and the Mythos’ response to our first halting steps to get off our singular planet, is very exciting to me.  I have at least 15 news sources or scientific papers that are relevant for research for the setting, and I have broadly detailed five here.  I’ve found two books and two ttrpgs that would be relevant for Luna Uber Alles; and I think that is a solid enough foundation to build upon to move forwards with this Delta Green-spinoff without succumbing to research inflation. 

Additional Delta Green Scenario Thoughts

Found two relatively new science articles that inspired some Delta Green ideas.  I am also including a declassified article from the Department of Defense from October 1966 on the subject of hypnosis, along with my thoughts on a recent review (2024) on the possible mechanisms of hypnosis, because why not.

A mind-reading brain implant that comes with password protection

The subheading reads, “A brain–computer interface decodes in near-real time the imagined speech of people who have difficulty enunciating words.”  

But is that really what the research news shows?  What defines “imagined speech” and how is it measured? Is it really thoughts that are being read by the Brain-Computer Interface (BCI)?

To drill down and answer some of these questions I investigated the original research paper in Cell that the science news story is based off of. The title of the research paper is Inner speech in motor cortex and implications for speech neuroprostheses by Kunz et al.

In the paper, four people with specific BCIs called "BrainGate2" who also had trouble speaking, one because of a stroke and three because of motor neuron disease, had microelectrodes placed in their brain's motor cortex. The BrainGate2 implant was able to pick up words and numbers thought, by the patients, during "inner speech", as well as during perceived speech and silent reading.

In addition, the researchers used AI "...to recognize phonemes, the smallest units of speech, in the neural recordings. The team used language models to stitch these phonemes together to form words and sentences in real time, drawn from a vocabulary of 125,000 words." 

The researchers stated the following about decoding sentences thought by participants with the real-time inner-speech decoder when describing data in Figure S5:

“To further investigate scenarios in which decoding private inner speech may be possible, participants were prompted to reflect on verbal or autobiographical details (e.g., “think about your favorite quote from a movie” versus “think about your favorite food”) or to “clear your mind.” Neural activity during thinking was decoded offline using the real-time inner-speech decoder from the same day. Significantly more words were decoded during verbal thought prompt responses than when prompted to “clear your mind” (Figure S5). Although most decoded sentences were largely gibberish with occasional plausible phrases, we refrain from reporting the specific outputs given the uncertainty about their representativeness of the participants’ actual thoughts.”

So, if the AI is trained correctly and the implant is in the right place (motor cortex) then inner speech of the subject can be translated into sentences in real time. Mind reading. At least of surface thoughts.

In the Delta Green world, one can imagine this technology, or its next iteration, would be great when paired with enhanced interrogation techniques on a recalcitrant human subject. 

I can imagine two Delta Green scenarios featuring the mind-reading BrainGate 2 implant.  In the first scenario, some shadowy DoD project is being implemented overseas in a warzone or black site, using terrorists or enemy combatants as test subjects for improving the device by forcible implantation.   Perhaps the researchers unwittingly unleash the undiscovered Pineal gland in one of the unwilling subjects and he makes a deal with the Entities he can now perceive. Blood and chaos ensue in the overseas black site and Delta Green needs to clean up the area now haunted by extradimensional invisible creatures (see the HPL short story From Beyond) and figure out what happened.

In the second scenario, I am taking a page from Cyberpunk Red or Shadowrun corporate wars. One could imagine March Tech already has competing brain-to-speech technology from Mi-go braincase physical examples and research. Perhaps March Tech was waiting to introduce mind reading implants to secure lucrative DoD government contracts but the researchers behind the BrainGate 2 implant formed a corporation and just gained first mover advantage. Perhaps March Tech taps Delta Green agents in The Program to go investigate the BrainGate 2 implant research corporation.  

Or perhaps on the other side of the equation, March Tech sent out security from the paramilitary group the Breckenridge Corporation (see Handler’s Guide page 98) to suppress or destroy their mundane competitor's research. In this case Delta Green could be brought in to investigate the mundane competitor’s mind-reading research to see if there is any Mythos taint, and then backtrack on the Breckenridge raid to find March Tech is up to the real Mythos research. 

How you breathe is like a fingerprint that can identify you

Great. From the Department of New and Interesting Ways to Surveil Everyone comes this science article about how your breath can also convey your physical and mental state. Like anxiety or depression.  The Nature news article was based on the paper in the journal Current Biology titled Humans have nasal respiratory fingerprints.

97 participants wore a nasal respiratory device and researchers tracked their breathing over 24 hours. After a machine-learning algorithm was trained on the breathing data, and a second measurement was taken and analyzed, the algorithm could identify people from their breath patterns with 96.8% accuracy.

Now how could this information be useful in the covert world of Delta Green?  Imagine a subsection of March Tech that functions like Q Division in the James Bond world and gives Delta Green agents of The Program experimental devices for surveillance/counter-surveillance.  Spy-tech if you will.  

Now imagine a contact lens generated by this Q Division that automatically calculates breathing patterns of people you focus on and provides a digital readout to the wearer. It could identify people the agent has already seen before, cutting through disguises, or perhaps give the agent a mechanical bonus to social checks because the agent is informed if the subject is depressed or anxious based on their nasal breathing patterns. I could see such a device being used by the CIA or cutting-edge Delta Green agents in good standing with the Program. 

When I bounced this science news story off of members of the Sci-Fi RPG Collective discord, a short scenario idea was suggested by Sammy J. 

Scenario Idea: Breathprint

What if, in the race to find the most secure biometrics to replace password logins, nasal respiratory breathprints were used by a startup company as the method to replace personal data identifiers.  The idea being that the raw data for these breathprints could be stored in such a way that it would be very difficult to match a breathprint with an individual without specific proprietary analytic software.  The startup company acquires investors and establishes itself in a US small city because they claim if there is a data breech of the breathprint data it would be almost impossible to doxx their users. 

Now what if the startup founders had found an ancient Mythos manuscript that described cultivation of the human soul through the study of breath.  The manuscript mentions Qigong and other breathing techniques and capturing the soul through knowing how someone breathes. 

The Mythos-minded startup company, with their breathprint data, develops or implements a ritual to steal soul energy (POW in Delta Green mechanics) subtly and gently from those members who use their own breathprint as a biometric password. Think of this as a penny rounding scheme done en mass to all individuals enrolled in the company’s breathprint database.  A penny rounding scheme is a popular urban legend (for example seen in the movies Office Space and Superman 3) in which a programmer alters a program at a bank so it diverts fractions of a cent from every transaction to another account so he can collect it later. 

Where the Mythos-minded company is storing the soul-energy or for what ends is left as an exercise for the reader.  However, Delta Green could detect something nefarious is going on in the city where the breathprints are being stored by the company by identifying a measured uptick in suicides and insanity incidents caused by the massive POW fractional drain on the population.  Enter your favorite group of Delta Green agents.  Perhaps the agents could diagnose the source of the widespread Mythos malaise by interviewing afflicted people and uncovering common images in dreams about maze-like office corridors, incense filled server rooms, a humming radio tower on top of the Mythos corporate building or other evocative images that point to the epicenter. 

Thanks to Sammy J, Mangoes and MobiusTrobius on the Sci-Fi RPG Collective discord for discussion and feedback for these ideas. 

Hypnosis in Intelligence

A declassified confidential report from October 1966 indicates that the Department of Defense (DoD), was researching hypnosis and how to use it to control human behavior in the context of warfare and intelligence work.  Their exploration had two goals: to identify if hypnosis could be used to strengthen the will of captives and if it could be used to “gain compliance from otherwise uncooperative persons.”

The document starts out with an exploration of the history of hypnosis that references Anton Mesmer’s work as “mesmerism” (Mesmer first explored animal magnetism in 1774), goes into the methods of inducing trance including waking hypnosis and a focus on the “Sensorimotor Method” attributed to the psychiatrist Harold Rosen, discusses posthypnotic suggestion, and autosuggestion. 

The document is 33 pages and I will leave mining all the details of hypnosis as an operational aide to readers in the audience.  I will mention, there is an interesting section on hypnosis and drugs as well as a few paragraphs on the “defensive uses of hypnosis” and one section on hypnosis to enhance recall. 

What’s important for the next paper I will discuss is that as early as 1966, it was recognized that a hypnotized subject under trance (called somnambulism in the DoD report) could respond positively to the following suggestions: catalepsy and rigidity, a positive hallucination (subject sees persons or objects who are not there), negative hallucinations (subject fails to see persons or objects present), analgesia (inability to feel pain), and amnesia for events in hypnosis. 

Since hypnosis is pretty outside my field, and I was curious as to what hypnosis researchers thought, I did some digging on pubmed as to the current mechanism theorized for how hypnosis functions. I found a free, recent (2024) review article on the subject with references back to 1959. It is titled How hypnotic suggestions work – A systematic review of prominent theories of hypnosis and it is quite fascinating. 

The review discusses hypnotic suggestions and presents current theories (at least 10 distinct theories including multicomponent theories) by which researchers hypothesize hypnosis works.

  

Several elements of hypnotic suggestion that have been researched in the literature since 2024 are discussed. I will describe just a few. The authors state that a hypnotic suggestion can be induced in a relaxed environment or during strenuous physical activity.  I was not aware of the idea that hypnosis could be carried out through strenuous physical activity. It made me wonder, if one is on a triathlon, or even leading a group of military men on an extreme march, could hypnotic suggestions be implanted?  

The review goes on to explain that there are three broad phases of hypnosis: an induction phase (orienting or disorienting), an intermediary phase consisting of suggestions (hypnotic or post-hypnotic suggestions), and a termination phase (de-induction). 

It was then discussed that the changes that the hypnosis procedure can induce in subjects are generally only well-learned or well-known responses. This is regardless of whether the suggestion is implanted in the hypnotic or posthypnotic manner. A classical example of this from research published in the 1940s suggest that when participants think of a movement or a well-known stimulus and its effects, then the result is participants usually execute that movement thought of. 

In the hypnosis nomenclature, changes in perception are commonly called “hallucinations.” Now, by examining the 1966 DoD report on hypnosis we went over the concept of positive and negative hallucinations.  So that is old news to hypnosis researchers. What is new in the review, however were documented examples of positive and negative hallucinations.  For example, a typical positive hallucination that can be induced is a color hallucination where subjects report seeing a grayscale in different colors when suggested to do so.  An example of a negative hallucination is “the hypnosis-induced elimination or reduction of pain inflicted by noxious stimuli.” 

In addition to positive and negative hallucinations, the review reports “hypnotic and posthypnotic suggestions can affect long-term memory.” Specifically posthypnotic suggestions can induce amnesia. This induced amnesia is very specific; about when, where, and how knowledge has been acquired.  To me this just codifies the classical example that hypnosis could be used to implant a suggestion in the subject and then wipe or muddle the hypnotist and the hypnotic situation from the subject’s memory. At least for a time. 

Hypnosis in the world of Delta Green

So, there is a lot here on hypnosis to use operationally for intelligence work or warfare in Delta Green or modern-day focused RPGs. 

One of the more immediate thoughts I had for the use of hypnotism in a Delta Green game is the inclusion of inducing positive or negative hallucinations or amnesia in NPCs.  A Delta Green trained hypnotist might be crucial for ensuring coverups of indemnifying evidence (that could lead back to the conspiracy) or attempting to have subjects ignore memories of traumatic supernatural events. DG hypnotists could achieve these goals by inducing negative hallucinations, in say police investigators, to coerce the subject to ignore an important name on a bit of paperwork or to suggest positive hallucinations where the subject is sure they saw a video tape even though DG teams absconded with it.

Now personally I do not think that mechanically any Sanity roll in Delta Green should be mitigated by hypnosis, or exposure to the unnatural Mythos can be “healed” by methods devised by humans, including hypnosis.  The Mythos by its fundamental nature is corrosive, and humans are biologically not equipped to deal with entities from other dimensions, other parts of space, or other times.  I think the Mythos impacts humanity on a genetic, atomic, or even deeper level currently unknown to science, in a way that unravels or erodes the fundamental essence of what is humanity in a person.

Regaining points of Sanity in a meager manner by a Delta Green agent going to therapy and being honest in Downtime, I see as humans telling each other lies about themselves so they can function for a little bit longer in society; not as “healing” a psychic wound with human invented psychological tricks.   After all, the more in the Unnatural skill the player has mechanically, the less maximum Sanity they have; indicating that understanding the Mythos is utterly antithetical to human mental stability. 

Having said all that I would find it interesting if mechanically a DG Game Master ruled that, pre-hypnotized Delta Green (or Majestic-12) agents could delay the onset of Sanity damage taken by an encounter with the Mythos, because the agents were implanted with reinforced positive and/or negative hallucinations.  Your game, your rules.

In terms of using hypnosis antagonistically against a Delta Green team, I can think of two interesting examples from media.  The first is the X-files episode Pusher. Incidentally Vince Gilligan of Breaking Bad fame wrote this episode and it aired in 1996. In Pusher (spoilers follow), the antagonist is arrested by the police at the beginning of the show. Mysteriously, the antagonist repeatedly chants that “cerulean blue is a gentle breeze.”  This subsequently causes the police car to collide with the truck which allows the antagonist to escape.  The implication here is that the antagonist hypnotized the driver of the police car and his captor into a negative hallucination of not seeing a semi-trailer truck the color of “cerulean blue.” 

We learn later that a brain tumor may be responsible for enhancing the antagonists’ hypnosis ability to supernatural levels, which allows him to earn a living as a hit-man by inducing people to commit suicide or homicide through suggestion.   Granted this speculative use of hypnosis is not backed up by the real-life literature at all, but in the Delta Green world, fighting an antagonistic hypnotist may be an interesting change of pace for the agents. 

Secondly, there is the example of the use of hypnosis in Jeff VanderMeer’s book Annihilation.  Spoilers for that book follow.  I cannot say if the following discussion applies to the movie Annihilation (2018), because I have not seen it.  In the book, the main character the biologist increasingly becomes suspicious of her regimen of training under hypnosis that the mysterious Southern Reach organization has been subjecting her to before she started her mission into Area X.  After learning she is now resistant to hypnotic suggestion, she finds evidence that her perceptions were thoroughly compromised by hypnosis (i.e. not seeing the real truth of what a tower is made out of) and she finds that her psychologist “minder” had a series of post-hypnotic suggestion keywords on her to induce paralysis, induce acceptance, compel obedience or attempt to induce immediate suicidal actions in the biologists or any other member of the team.  Again, like the X-files show Pusher, we leave the world of real hypnosis research and jump into the realm of fantasy, but said fantasy is perfect for inspiration and fodder for Delta Green conspiracy-horror games. 

N@tO's Need to Know Part 2, Onboarding d20 Fantasy players to Call of Cthulhu/Delta Green

Dire d20 - Mythica DarkIron

One of the questions I see from time to time on the subreddit for Call of Cthulhu and the general roleplaying board, is how can you transition a group from playing a fantasy d20 game like Dungeons and Dragons to a horror/mystery/investigation game like Call of Cthulhu (CoC) or Delta Green (DG)?

Since this has also come up on the Night at the Opera discord, I decided to ask several regular members of the Delta Green community on how to untangle this Gordian knot. They provided the following advice.

The Mechanical Differences

Delta Green was originally an offshoot of Call of Cthulhu, which in turn was based on the Basic Roleplaying (BRP) system.  Explain to your players that this (Delta Green or Call of Cthulhu) is a 1d100 system, where your skills are each a percent value. Player Statistics reflect six core abilities: Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Intelligence, Power, and Charisma. For normal humans (what players will be playing as), average Statistics fall within the range of 9 to 12. In the case where a player needs to make a test for a Statistic, say for example a Strength test to break a door open, multiply the Statistic score times 5 (in the example, STR x5) to get a numerical value the player must roll under on percentile dice in order to succeed.

In addition to Statistics, there are four Derived Attributes: Hit Points, Willpower Points, Sanity Points, and the Breaking Point.  As implied, these Derived Attributes are dependent on the Statistics of the character.  Hit Points are representation of a character’s physical integrity, a concept all roleplayers already understand. Willpower Points are a mix of a character’s ability to resist mental overexertion and essentially their magic points. 

Sanity Points are different from Willpower Points. Since your players are experienced with d20 fantasy, they may be familiar with the concept of taking psychic damage.  Sanity damage is like psychic damage in D&D, except in CoC/DG a player’s Sanity value ranges from 0 to 99 and it is tracked with its own “health bar”, independent of Hit Points. 

The Unnatural skill, also called the Cthulhu Mythos skill in CoC, acts as a malus to character’s maximum Sanity. The idea is the more a character understands about the true nature of the cosmos (reflected by an increase in Unnatural/Cthulhu Mythos skill), the less maximum Sanity they can have.

A Breaking Point is related to Sanity Points, in that when a character’s Sanity Points reaches the Breaking Point, they gain a mental disorder.  The Breaking Point is then recalculated at that time, to generate a new Breaking Point of a smaller Sanity number.

Rust Cohle, HBO True Detective Season 1

In Delta Green, Bonds are relationships that the character actually cares about and that anchor them into normal human society. Mechanically, Bonds serve as ablative Sanity armor and will mitigate the Sanity damage that players take. They serve as buffers against reaching a Breaking Point.

However, anytime a player burns Bond points to mitigate Sanity damage, they are literally injuring a personal relationship with someone else (usually an NPC) later to save their own mental health now and carry on being rational in order to conclude some mission.

In Delta Green your characters are all doomed, and the slow degradation of their humanity is reflected by their worsening Sanity and Bond scores.

Here are some examples to consider when explaining what Bonds and Sanity damage are to a new group of players:

1. Your character has a shitty and difficult job. They just had a truly unspeakable and awful day. Do they really want to hang out with their family, or ignore their responsibilities and just curl up and go to sleep? 

2. Your character is confronted with some aggressively difficult parenting decisions. But what if they just did not bother? 

3. In True Detective Season 1, Rust and Marty eventually lose all family and friends and then live on their own as they progress through the story. Mechanically this is simulated by the DG bonds system. Bonds give this a simulated number to determine where you are with whom relationship wise. Story wise, characters just get worn down by this job.

4. What does burn out look like to you? 

The Tone: Mystery, Horror, and Investigation

Tone is setting.  Most d20 fantasy settings encourage superheroic characters and story arcs where characters continually improve. 

The mystery, horror and investigation tone of Delta Green is radically different. In Delta Green all the characters are doomed by the narrative. In other games your characters are going to get better over time. In DG they degrade as they get more experienced.

When coming from a heroic fantasy game, change your player’s expectations as to what they should experience in play.  In a Delta Green game player characters will not always win, and if they do not die, they may get worse physically or mentally.

Characters are likely to die based on the design of some of the core mechanics. Combat in DG is not only lethal, but fast and lethal. At any given turn there is a chance that some other character can kill you.  Let us put some numbers on that subject so that you will have an example to point out to players.  The average hit points for a human character range from 10 to 12. A medium pistol that most Law Enforcement Agents carry (and that are easy to acquire in the US for most cultists) does 1d10 damage.  If you are unlucky, one shot from that pistol can kill your character outright.  Also keep in mind that a well-aimed car in Delta Green will absolutely erase your character from existence.

“Treasure” from AD&D Player’s Handbook by David A. Trampier

Having discussed the lethality of the setting, a word about the murderhobo mentality that is sometimes observed among players of d20 fantasy games.  I will define murderhobo behavior as a player attempting to use combat, violence or intimidation on every situation or NPC they are presented with to advance the plot. This activity breaks believability in modern games and damages the tone of mystery, horror, and investigation games.

To deal with this problem, the Night at the Opera hivemind suggested the following points:

1. Remind the player that Delta Green is set in the present day. The setting is the real world and there are real world consequences to actions. As a corollary, if the player shoots an NPC in public, remind them that everyone has a phone. 

2. Most importantly, gently remind the player that the purpose of the game is for the group to have fun, and actions taken by all players (and the Game Master is a player too!) should enhance the fun of the group.  Do not take actions to have fun at expense of other people.

Another consideration about the tone is that players in a horror game should be ready to be vulnerable. Since Delta Green characters are at risk of severe physical and psychological harm, the players need to be open to experiencing and roleplaying those situations and communicate their limits with their fellow players and the Game Master.

One last piece of advice was, since Delta Green usually has elements of mystery and investigation in the tone, players should take notes to keep track of information.  A good idea is to share a Google Doc of notes with all the other players. Whomever is the least-active in the current scene should write down the clues found.

We hope these suggestions help Game Masters smoothly introduce new players to Delta Green and Call of Cthulhu, and help everyone at the table have more fun.

Acknowledgements

I want to thank the following people from the Night at the Opera discord for ideas and review of this post: Bird Bailey, Sammy J, Fee Fi Fo Fin, Frahnk, and magnificentophat.

Update: 6/14/25

Session Zero

5th Edition Dungeon Master's Screen by Hydro74, image by AugusteBlanqui

A Session Zero is a precursor session for a roleplaying group where ground rules are discussed and the GM introduces the tone and objectives of the game or campaign. Generally, this is the session that characters are made with whatever prerequisites are required for the initial adventures.  For example, you might need a healer in the party if you are running a dungeon crawl, or a detective type character if you are running a police procedural investigation.

The Session Zero is not a new concept. As I recall, I was first exposed to the term when I was reading the Dresden Files Fate game around 2010, and some internet research on rpg.net suggests the term was in use as early as 2003.  Back in the AD&D era, an informal version of Session Zero was just called a conversation with the DM. 

In either case, communication of player and GM expectations is the point of the matter. 

In a Delta Green game, a Session Zero is the perfect opportunity to discuss the tone and Game Master expectations with players. Since this is likely their first time with a new system, the GM can introduce the idea of horror and mystery in a game, and what the GM expects of the players; whether it be certain skills needed to not fail at the mechanics of the adventure, or character behavior during the investigation.  This meeting should start everyone on board with a clean slate, with the understanding that they will be playing something different than d20 Fantasy. 

Recommended Beginning Scenarios, Delta Green

Since this blogpost is focused on players and Game Masters new to Delta Green, here are some suggestions for free adventures that are focused on introducing the game to a new group.  The question of “what beginner adventures are right for my group” comes up quite often on the Night at the Opera discord, and everyone has their favorites; these are just some of mine. I will explain the utility of each adventure as I see it after they are introduced. As such some adventure spoilers will be discussed to players, please avert your eyes from this section. 

First and most venerable, I must start by introducing the official scenario Last Things Last.  Much has been written about this adventure around the internet, so I will just say that it is short, introduces investigative work at the beginning in one contained location, gives the players room to breathe and roleplay, and usually introduces combat at the end. Last Things Last is in the free starter rulebook Delta Green: Need to Know.

The Signal Smugglers by mellonbread. A perennial favorite, this scenario does the brilliant thing of having the players smash cut to roleplay police (who are not their characters) outside of an apartment. Combat is introduced and chaos ensues. However, since this combat is an introductory scene not related to the players’ actual characters, the GM can introduce the fast and lethal combat of Delta Green without consequences for the player characters. After the initial sequence, an investigation is introduced with antagonists that can actually be negotiated with.  

Enemy of the Tribes by David Tormsen.  This was the first adventure I played in, in my current DG campaign.  I have written a partial after-action report about the experience here. The adventure starts out with a crime scene and then blossoms out to a more general investigation and tracking down of other potential victims.  The monstrous antagonists can be used as combat or eerie encounters at any point during the investigation, and likely make an appearance during the finale.  Some work is required to create combat encounters appropriate for your party of players.

The Button by Will Roy. This adventure is primarily a roleplaying event with some investigation around an enigma that is like intellectual quicksand.  It is a great way to introduce the Mythos as not just unspeakable alien gods and rabid cultists.  There is an option to include a Mythos gribbly at the end if the Game Master desires. 

The Midnight Sun by Will Roy.  This adventure was my first reintroduction to Delta Green after a years long hiatus. It works really well with two players with complementary skill sets. Though in the Delta Green world, this is actually an M-EPIC scenario. M-EPIC is the Canadian mirror to the US Delta Green anti-Unnatural program. For more details about M-EPIC check the Delta Green Handler’s Guide, specifically page 271. 

To make this a Delta Green beginning scenario, simply change the location from the Yukon to somewhere in Alaska.  A Game Master may also need to change the origin of the NPC McBee from an “American” to someone who simply is not familiar with the freezing wilderness far from civilization.  The Mythos gribbly presents an interesting roleplaying experience, sort of similar to the end of Last Things Last (above).   I wrote up a semi-novelized after-action report of my experience with The Midnight Sun,here.  

Take the A-Train by Bird Baliey. A great introductory scenario that can be dropped into a campaign to interrupt a chase scene (the player characters need to take the subway) or played by itself.  Think of this game as a stage play.  It is in one location with a fixed number of characters and a common problem. Great opportunity for roleplaying under increasing tension.

The (Un)Natural Man by Bird Baliey.  A domestic disturbance that leans heavily on investigation, roleplaying and interpersonal skills to deal with adversarial NPCs.  The finale may involve conflict with a Mythos gribbly or may be very dark. If the Game Master has a streak of dark humor, this is the scenario to play to exercise that inclination.  

Five Alarm Firefight by Bird Baliey. A Delta Green adventure designed to introduce new players to the nuances, dangers, and mechanics of combat as well as rules like exhaustion. Puts the players into civilian law enforcement or rescue roles with no prior knowledge of the occult needed. They will get plenty of that if they survive. This scenario is most analogous to a dungeon crawl because the player characters will investigate an apartment building room by room with investigative skills to attempt to find clues, and interpersonal skills to deal with NPCs. Ultimately both tactics will be fruitful for unraveling the mystery.

Having said that, the structure of the adventure is not a linear railroad. There are multiple instances where there are alternate routes to take, even if they all end in a central fixed climactic scene. The danger from humans with firearms will be on display.  Pregenerated characters are included for the adventure.

My understanding is that Five Alarm Firefight will be updated soon, so check the link on occasion!

Recommended Beginning Scenarios, Call of Cthulhu

I was originally the always-GM for my Call of Cthulhu group in the late 90s. I have not kept up with the plethora of adventures for the system, but I do remember the classic adventure The Haunting. And I remember it fondly because one of my investigator players never made it up the basement stairs under his own power. Thanks to a Series of Unfortunate Events (just read The Haunting, seriously), his companion had to drag his physically knocked out ass upstairs twice to save his life.  Good times were had by all. 

The Haunting provides a series of floating encounters that can be plugged into the adventure at the GM’s discretion.  It is a classic for a reason and many others have opined far better than myself all over the internet. 

The Author by MrNightmares. I would be remiss if I did not shill my own Call of Cthulhu adventure.  Made for one or two players at maximum, the adventure features a mysterious disappearance and a timeline of events that ratchets up the tension as things get worse until there is a potentially fatal endgame if the players do not put the clues together in time. The weakness in this adventure is that it can hinge on the players finding and reciting a certain incantation to get the antagonist’s attention, so Game Masters may need to work on that.   Features one antagonist that may not be all that terrifying to confront depending on how the players proceed.  Could link this adventure into further adventures against a Cthulhu cult. 

Afterword

Want more adventure recommendations or just more advice on how to start playing Delta Green? Check out Sammy J’s Beginner’s Guide here.  It is worth your time.

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.