Briefing
In an Internet video, already viral, a middle-aged, dark-haired, harried-looking woman stands on a park bench in a small-town park. She is crying and shouting at a handful of befuddled people. She says they live with a place that does awful things. They accept it into their community. They take its money. And it takes women and children. “It takes them and it—it—”
Suddenly she vanishes, screaming in agony. The handful of people in the crowd scream in fright and recoil. The young man holding the phone shouts, “Whoa!” He turns the camera toward himself, a white teenager, and says to the camera, “You see that shit? What the fuck!” The camera jostles and the video stops.
The Agents are in a secure meeting room in the FBI offices in Portland, Oregon. Their case officer turns off the video screen and gives the rest of their briefing. It is 10:00 A.M. on a Thursday.
The Video
The video was recorded Sunday—four days ago—at 1:13 P.M. The Intelligence section cannot find signs that the video was produced with special effects. The Program’s security section is already suppressing that fact, uploading doctored versions that show subtle signs of having been generated with special effects, establishing a narrative that it was produced by clever hoaxers, and backing up that narrative by posing as low-credibility viewers who insist it is genuine.
The video went online Sunday night, 86 hours ago. It began to go viral 37 hours ago. It came to the Program’s attention 33 hours ago. It was posted by the boy who held the phone, a 17-year-old would-be Internet star using the pseudonym “Rawdog.” The Program identified him as Hourglass high schooler Herbert Roderick Salsbury. The case officer gives the Agents Salsbury’s address. See WITNESSES for details.
The Victim
The woman in the video is Terri Santos, née Terri Harding, then Terri Wilkins, a resident of a religious compound outside Hourglass, Oregon. She has worked off and on for 25 years as a retail sales clerk. Terri moved to Hourglass about ten years ago when then-husband Edward Wilkins got a sawmill job. Five years ago, Edward Wilkins died in a bar fight. Four years ago, her son Lawrence Wilkins died of leukemia at age eight. Two years ago, Terri Wilkins moved to the property of a religious commune called the Church of the Twelve Martyrs. One year ago, she married another resident of the Church compound, Robert Santos.
Terri Santos has had minimal presence on social media, and none whatsoever for the past two years.
The case officer gives the Agents a dossier with Terri Santos’ known relatives and associates. See INVESTIGATING THE VICTIM for details.
Objectives
Find out what happened in the video. Stop the incursion. Save lives. Establish a mundane narrative to explain it all away. Protect Delta Green.
Playtest Notes
“Great story btw! Like, incredible story!”
“Well, it’s going into it’s third week right now, people are very excited about it, non players are curious and there’s interest in starting a regular Delta Green group.”
“The setting felt well fleshed out, rich with backstory information. It was also nice to see the old cults in a different setting, and to see a different take on ‘dark’ from other Delta Green scenarios we’ve played.”
Delta Green: Hourglass is a new scenario for Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game. We expect it to come out in October or November 2019 in PDF and paperback.
I’m enjoying the play-through of this on the Into The Unknown podcast! 🙂