From: owner-deltagreen-digest@nocturne.org (deltagreen-digest) To: deltagreen-digest@nocturne.org Subject: deltagreen-digest V1 #69 Reply-To: Delta Green List Sender: owner-deltagreen-digest@nocturne.org Errors-To: owner-deltagreen-digest@nocturne.org Precedence: bulk deltagreen-digest Thursday, July 16 1998 Volume 01 : Number 069 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 15 Jul 1998 15:51:10 -0500 From: William Timmins Subject: DG: Salut Nothing meaningful to add at this point other than a big 'hello' to the list. I'm the guy who runs private-sector ally page: http://data.club.cc.cmu.edu/~pooh/campaign/ Good day... - -Will ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Jul 1998 13:32:22 -0700 From: paposehn@juno.com (Phil A Posehn) Subject: Re: DG: Delta Green, WW2-style (Skorzini) On Wed, 15 Jul 1998 08:52:30 -0400 "Eric Brennan" writes: > I'd just like to take a moment to post a counter-idea on the WWII >"DG >versus the Thule" thread. If you want to try and _really_ mess with >the >player's heads, have 'em play "bad" guys. > I've been reading up on Otto Skorzini, who was "Hitler's >Commando." >He'd been called the "Most Dangerous Man in Europe" by the Allies. Wasn't he the guy who masterminded the rescue mission into Italy that impressed everyone? _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Jul 1998 13:29:24 -0700 From: paposehn@juno.com (Phil A Posehn) Subject: Re: DG: Delta Green, WW2-style On Wed, 15 Jul 1998 12:53:56 Davide Mana writes: >Greetings. > > >One of the best works ever about the Thulegesellshaft (sp?) and its >influence on Nazi Party politics and folklore was written by an >Italian, >Giorgio Galli, in 1989, and is called "Hitler ed il Nazismo Magico" >(Hitler >and Magic Nazism). >The book caused quite a stir here in Italy, as many historians did not >like >the picture of Hitler and his staff that emerges from the text. >Reprinted as a paperback in 1992, the italian edition is currently out >of >print. I do not know if an English language translation exists, but >it's >well worth checking out. > >Another source that sounds promising (but I did never check it out >myself), >is "The Occult Roots of Nazism. The Ariosophist of Austria and >Germany, >1890-1935", by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, published in 1985. Thanks. I'll see if any of them were printed in Eng. Phil _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Jul 1998 13:43:39 -0700 From: paposehn@juno.com (Phil A Posehn) Subject: DG: Re: Fiction Anyone looking for a really dark conspiricy for a DG campaign ought to read "The Night Church" by Whitley Streiber brief plot description follows spoilers spoiler For thousands of years an anti church has been existing in the shadow of the Catholic Church holding their own midnight masses. Their aim is through eugenics, magic, andgenetic manipulation to create a race of beast men that are stronger and more intelligent than man and then to wipe out humanity by a mutated variation of Septicemic Plague. The book is very Lovecraftian in feel. Phil. "Dice,n. Small ivory polka dotted cubes which, like a lawyer, can lie upon any side--but generally the wrong one." "The Devil's Dictionary" by Ambrose Bierce _____________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com Or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Jul 1998 19:49:08 EDT From: CroakerJr@aol.com Subject: Re: DG: Salut In a message dated 98-07-15 15:54:46 EDT, you write: << I'm the guy who runs private-sector ally page: http://data.club.cc.cmu.edu/~pooh/campaign/ >> Welcome aboard, Will! Love your grimoire! (If anyone hasn't read his grimoire, go to his site and read it!) Shane Ivey ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Jul 1998 20:02:25 -0400 (EDT) From: The Man in Black Subject: Re: DG: DG Concentration Camps. On Wed, 15 Jul 1998, Randall L. Orndorff plugged a comic book: > MiB revealed his pyschosis: > > > > >I am feeling extra sadistic today as a result of intense preparation for a > > >game convention tomorrow. Thus here's a Shotgun Scenario (TM) for you > > >deranged keepers to use: > > > > > >Agents investigating missing persons turn up a KKK/Militia/Karotechia > > >backed Concentration Camp operating on US Soil. > > Have you ever read any of The Invisibles (published by Vertigo > Comics). I only mention it because there is some really dark stuff in > it about government sponsored concentration camps. Also, anyone looking > for exceptionally dark conspiracies which are vaguely Lovecraftian could > do a hell of a lot worse than looking towards the Outer Church for some > ideas, > Robert Oppenheimer: Priest of Azathoth, need I say more? Nope, read sandman and some early vertigo GN's, but haven't caught invisibiles yet. There are conspiracy theories about alien/consortium concentration camps, so the idea isn't original to the Invisibles. A Majestic-12 facility where abductees are taken (for organlegging) was already done in some previous posts. Similar stuff can be found in Conspiracy-X, X-files, and probably a lot more sources. The Karotechia camp I'm working on would be more of an experimental one, as 24/7 operation would likely be logistically impossible. I'm thinkin' of each building or room as another method of genocide. Here's a list of rather sick things investigators can uncover: 1) The Slaughterhouse - built for people instead of cattle. Stun Hammers, Cattle Prods, Chainsaws, Kosher preparation (cut throat and hang upside down till the blood drains out), Meat Grinders, and the Butcher shop in the nearest town. Reinhard Galt would be so proud! LOSE 1/1d10 SAN for discovering this horror or 1d6/1d20 SAN if you go through this process and survive. 2) Please be seated - a room lined with rows of electric chairs. This would probably work better as narrow metal lined corridors with floors that opened above cremation kilns/ovens. Love the smell of Ozone in the morning :) LOSE 1/1d3 SAN or 1/1d10 if you survive it. 3) The Gas Chamber - An old reliable. Building airtight rooms is harder than you'd think if you buy into Holocaust Denial. What industrial activity (delousing?) could be used as a cover for buying large amounts of HydroCyanic Acid? LOSE 0/1d3 SAN or 1/1d8. 4) The Oven - My personal favorite. Dress victims in tinfoil suits and march them into a large round room. Powerful Blower fans activate, the floor begins to rotate, and the room becomes a Giant Microwave Oven (TM). It has two settings, Zap and Cremate. LOSE 1/1d8 SAN or 1d4/1d20. Actually I think tinfoil suits would provide protection in addition to sparking the hell out of the victims, but hey, it would look kewl, and that's what's really important. The Man in Black is : Kenneth Scroggins Novus Ordo Seclorum : Annuit Coeptus : E Pluribus Unum ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 09:19:17 +0900 From: "David Farnell" Subject: DG: RE: Mental Balance + Reality - -----Original Message----- 差出人 : CroakerJr@aol.com 宛先 : deltagreen@nocturne.org 日時 : 1998年7月15日 8:14 件名 : DG: Mental Balance + Shameless Plug Shane Ivey (Lord of Croaking) wrote (re: Time/Space Distortions, etc): >It's worth bearing in mind the context of the Kult material. In Kult, humans >aren't quite what we (or the CoC game) know as human; they are the physical >manifestation of gods, weakened and blind to reality so that they see only the >"real world" that we are all used to. Hence the funky effects of the Mental >balance rules: characters who undergo grave trauma and mental unbalancing >come closer and closer to perceiving reality and realizing their true nature >and powers. That's true, and a serious problem with the Mental Balance thing. See, I myself don't much like playing in a world that posits a totally subjective universe. I got kinda sick of that with playing Vampire/Werewolf/Mage/etc. And I thought about this issue, but decided not to include it in the post as it was already long enough. But I'll tackle the problem here (thanks for providing a good leaping-off point, Shane). The key to this, and to so many things in the CoC universe, is the Dreamlands. If we posit that the world is real (the game world, I mean, and "real" from the perspective of the game), then it should be impossible to physically affect the world through psychic force (let's leave spoon benders out of it for the moment), although we seem to be able to do so through magic (or hypergeometric science, if you prefer). But in the Dreamlands, anyone with the skill and mental strength can warp the dream "reality" at will. Now, we know of instances when the dreaming world has invaded the waking world--creatures crossing over, physical injuries incurred while dreaming that show up on the real body, etc. And dreaming and madness seem to be related in some ways, perhaps even two sides of the same psychic coin. So, I think it's certainly possible that, in moments of extreme madness, one can get warping of the real world, through the same sort of "physics" as one warps the dream world. (And don't forget that even positive Mental Balance is still a sort of madness.) It may also be related to magic. In any case, all the effects except the more extreme physical distortions are temporary, so you can say they were only an illusion. And it's very easy to, say, ignore all the stuff beyond positive/negative 100 on the MB charts. (I actually thought about not including it, but I figured it might annoy someone to get only half the rules.) I certainly wouldn't be allowing any of my players to advance beyond that level anyway. Certainly you don't have to allow Awakening at all, if it doesn't fit your cosmology, and you can easily toss out the Time/Space Distortions and the Projections, even the Body Distortions, if you like, and still use the MB system, if you like the basic mechanics. But frankly, all those distortions are so COOL. I remember how freaked out I was after watching the movie Jacob's Ladder. Bringing that feel into a CoC adventure--esp. a DG adventure, with it's suffocating paranoia--is just too keen to pass up. Be seeing you, David ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 15 Jul 1998 18:31:28 -0700 From: Gil Trevizo Subject: Re: DG: Delta Green, WW2-style At 05:15 PM 7/14/98 -0700, you wrote: >I'm looking for a good book mon the Thulegeselscheft myself. Any >suggestions? I believe that "The Spear of Destiny" was published by >Llewellyn a couple of years ago. I don't know if it is still in print >offhand. I haven't done much on the Thulegeselscheft, if for no other reason because it seems to be outside the Nazi power circle and more an affectation of powerful Nazis than part of their structure. For a Nazi occult group that was in the power loop, I have been trying to find out more on the Ahnenerbe and have found some sources. The best I've run across is a book by Peter Levenda called "Unholy Alliance: A History of Nazi Involvement with the Occult". The book only has a handful of pages actually on the Ahnenerbe (and less than that on the Thule Group), but it makes enough cryptic remarks about the unit to create a bunch of scenarios. The whole book is very much in the DG vein. I picked it up at Barnes & Noble, and would recommend it - the bibliography alone is worth the cost. Another book I'm trying to track down is by Ken Anderson called "Hitler and the Occult". This is actually a more reputable study of Nazism and the occult, coming up with evidence that it was only Himmler and a few others that were really into occultism and the rest of the Nazi bigwigs, especially Hitler, only gave it all lip service and often ridiculed it. There is also a sequel to The Spear of Destiny that I found in that same Barnes & Noble. But other than all that, there really isn't much else out there, certainly not a true English-language study of the Ahnenerbe (there is one written in German though). I've gone through most of the Himmler biographies, and even those don't have much on his fascination with the occult, much less the Ahnenerbe. One book that is chockful of Nazi occult tidbits is The Big Book of Conspiracies. I definitely recommend that every DG Keeper get their hands on that, if for anything just the last few pages alone where all the conspiracy threads, ranging from the JFK assassination to Masonic rituals, are tied together into an ancient ritualistic plot to bring about "The End-Times"... sounds hair-raisingly familiar... Gil P.S. Phil, I think you're in the Bay Area, right? If so, I know that San Francisco Public Library has that "Hitler and the Occult" book in one of their branch libraries. Also the SF Public Library is *supposed* to have that "The Occult Roots of Nazism" book that David mentioned. Might want to check it out. I found all the other books at my local Barnes & Noble in Pleasant Hill. furrylogic@mindspring.com http://www.mindspring.com/~furrylogic ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 14:14:08 +0900 From: "David Farnell" Subject: RE: DG: GM: When Magnetic Fields Flip (fwd) - -----Original Message----- 差出人 : Don Juneau 宛先 : Delta Green List 日時 : 1998年7月15日 12:59 件名 : Re: DG: GM: When Magnetic Fields Flip (fwd) Don Juneau wrote: >I rather liked the "depopulating New York" part, which could be of use if >you allow time-travel. "Avatars of Y'golonac stalk the streets in... OMEGA >MAN 2: A NEW BEGINNING." Or just Nyarlathotep screwing with the characters >by making NYC into an imitation Carcosa... Heheheheheh. Hey, I've been toying with the "creating Carcosa on Earth" angle in a future game. I know DG:Countdown is supposed to have something on that, so I'm slavering for that. If anybody has any good ideas about Carcosa, please post! I read War Day when I was in high school, and I wanted to send it to Pres. Reagan as soon as I'd finished. That was one of the scariest, saddest books I'd ever read. When the date of "War Day" as posited in the book came, I had a real spooky feeling. An excellent book. Re: Omega Man--A few months ago I received some videos from back home, which included the most recent Simpsons Halloween Special. So I got together with some Japanese friends and watched it. The second story on it was "The Homega Man," about Homer being the only human left after Springfield gets nuked by France. I thought it was hilarious, but...well, humor about nuclear bombings just doesn't go over very well in Japan. Talk about your uncomfortable silences. Ouch. David ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 14:30:19 +0900 From: "David Farnell" Subject: RE: DG: Delta Green, WW2-style (Skorzini) - -----Original Message----- 差出人 : Eric Brennan 宛先 : Delta Green List 日時 : 1998年7月15日 22:09 件名 : Re: DG: Delta Green, WW2-style (Skorzini) Have you read Harry Turtledove's _Worldwar_ series? Skorzini is a supporting character in it. Comes across as a charming, dashing, utterly amoral, genocidal bastard. I love the idea of a WW2 campaign--there's a supplement in that idea. I'd buy it. The whole bit about playing Nazis makes me a bit queasy, but it certainly has potential, if handled right (which would be VERY difficult). You'd really have to have the right players for it. Quite easy for it to go off into the realm of exceedingly bad taste. But to have the chance to gun down top Nazi sickos--heeeheee. David ------------------------------ Date: 16 Jul 1998 09:02:31 BST From: ITDCJB@hantsnet.hants.gov.uk Subject: DG: Grafiti >I also have a short scenario idea (more of a hook, really) that I hope to >turn into prose sometime real soon now. I hope this is an urban phenomenon >common outside Brisbane, Queensland, Australia: I noticed this particularly >in my wild, misbegotten youth when I imbibed far too many psychedelics than >were good for me. On lamp posts, traffic lights, telephone poles, all around >the city I'd find these little stickers. Every sticker I saw was different. >I never saw the same design twice. Occasionally they were similar but never >the same. Oh yeah, the stickers all depicted something weird. The one that >stays with me the most was a small one, about 3 inches high and 2 across, >depicting a field of writhing tentacles and naked human brains. In the >foreground of this vista was a magnified image of a pin. On the head of the >pin was a crowd of men in business suits. Floating above all of this were >angels possessed of a disturbing aspect. The artist had contrived to give >them an expression of horror and cruelty I can only still marvel at to this >day. > >None of these stickers ever had any contact details or names/title of >groups, people or organisations. I had the impression at times that whoever >was making them was doing so with the intent of breaking down the reality >structure of whoever saw them. Whoever did them really knew their business. On a similar vein anyone ever thought of a DG/CoC adventure involving grafiti atists who use the Yellow Sign as their "tag" You could start with the PC's finding a body which has been strangled/mutilated/etc in a run-down part of Stress the burnt out cars, the social deprivation, smashed windows and boarded up houses and let the PC's make a few more enquiries. Up the body count by a couple of times then (Spot Hidden roll) one of them notices that all three victims died in close proximity to grafito murals. Turns out the murals form some sort of gate at The PC's have to use underworld/cop contacts to find the grafiti artist and stop them painting any more walls. Also after a bit of interrogation the artist admits he got his tag from some "old book" that his mate owned and thought it was rather cool. The artists mate is a loser who carries out petty crime and stole the book from some cultists without knowing what it was. The cultists murder the artists mate before the PC's arrive but don't realise that the burglar keeps records of where he has been so that he doesn't "overdo" any one area. Hence the PC's get to find out where the cultists operate from and close down the operation. Fill in blanks to fit with your campaign. _________ Animation, Bar Conversation, /__ __/ /__ Anticipation, Disinclination. __/ / / . / /___/ /____/ "Soho (Needless to say)", Al Stewart ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 12:02:48 From: Davide Mana Subject: DG: Playing nazis (and other unsavory chaps) Greetings. On the subject of setting a DG-like campaign in Nazi Germany, I'd like to follow up on David Farnell's comment and offer a very personal but circumstantiated caveat. David wrote >I love the idea of a WW2 campaign--there's a supplement in that idea. I'd >buy it. The whole bit about playing Nazis makes me a bit queasy, but it >certainly has potential, if handled right (which would be VERY difficult). Very difficult indeed, and it's not just a matter of good taste and offended sensibilities. It's the gaming balance that is at risk. A character attached to a totally ruthless power structure like the SS in Nazi Germany is virtually unstoppable: there are no laws, natural or man-made, that such a character will not feel free of breaching if so he likes; he has no moral restraints. He has no natural predators, he is at the top of the food chain. And some players (expecially the power-/munchkin kind) might take this in the game, twisting it completely, just to play "strongest bastard". The classical line "What?! Hey, he's a Nazi, right?!" will be used to justify any kind of idiocy. And even a good keeper would have a hard time stalling them constantly without seriously damaging the campaign. [Maybe that's why we're small-scale Delta Green and not the much more powerfull-pervasive MJ12 - this way it's more fun] And of course, now I've a very recent and on-topic example (longish, I fear): This past week-end I playtested a short CoC scenario set in Torino, 1925 (the dawn of Mussolini's fascist Regime), that a friend of mine has put together using a collection of historical data I've been working on. The scenario is completely non-linear in presentation, with five different intertwined plots, only one of them Mythos-related (and deadly); it requires two keepers, as the players are working on separate facets of the mistery and do not know at the outset of each other's activity, and it has a very definite in-built time-limit. I say all of the above not to show off how good we are (well, maybe a bit :>), but to give you an idea of the sort of work the thing required researching, writing, and setting up. It was a great gaming experience for the first six hours of play. Fun, challenging, with the right amount of weirdness and thrills. Then, it all went to hell in a bucket. One of the pre-rolled characters was a police investigator with a strong fascist background; the kind of "reliable" character that in true life the Regime would place in a sensitive position more to spy on his colleagues than to actually do some good work. The skills and connections of such a character are invaluable in an "off the record" investigations, and playing a weasel can sometimes be fun. But.... After six hours of gaming, the adventure had come to the great big moral twist of the story: the players _know_ that the wrong guy has been arrested for murder (they arrested him themselves), know that something bigger and nastier is going on and have to make decisions. And here the fascist creep got out of hand: while the other characters were planning further actions, the guy simply called on the Fascist Militia (a paramilitary structure akin to Hitler's Brown Shirts) and started wreaking havok to the scene of the crime "to force the bastards out of the woodwork". Witnesses were arrested, beaten and tortured, some even being publicly dosed with castor oil (a classical humiliation used by the Fascists), the premises were ransackled (destroying almost all of the clues and scaring off the real bad guys), the other _players' characters_ were harassed and forced to drop their lines of investigation on pain of deportation... All true to historically documented attitudes of the time, and hard to stop without further derailing the adventure. Our game ended there. The cultists got away undisturbed, a dozen innocents were killed and finally an innocent man was hanged for a murder he did not commit. And the guy responsible still defended his choiches, as perfectly logical ad totalli in-character. With this I rest my case. Granted it would be good to play some kind of DG-group in Nazi Germany, but I'd make it some kind of private cabal, with just the slightest connection to the Party. And here I better stop. Take care. Davide Mana Torino, Italy doctor.dee@iol.it ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 07:03:25 EDT From: CroakerJr@aol.com Subject: Re: DG: GM: When Magnetic Fields Flip (fwd) In a message dated 98-07-16 01:35:15 EDT, you write: << Heheheheheh. Hey, I've been toying with the "creating Carcosa on Earth" angle in a future game. I know DG:Countdown is supposed to have something on that, so I'm slavering for that. If anybody has any good ideas about Carcosa, please post! >> I'm doing a short story now that touches on Carcosa and its relation to our reality. I have no idea if it will mesh with or duplicate what's coming in Countdown; if not, then I'll probably slap it onto the web somewhere when it's done and I'm willing to let others see it. ;-) Shane Ivey ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 07:20:02 EDT From: CroakerJr@aol.com Subject: Re: DG: Playing nazis (and other unsavory chaps) In a message dated 98-07-16 06:13:10 EDT, you write: << >I love the idea of a WW2 campaign--there's a supplement in that idea. I'd >buy it. The whole bit about playing Nazis makes me a bit queasy, but it >certainly has potential, if handled right (which would be VERY difficult). Very difficult indeed, and it's not just a matter of good taste and offended sensibilities. It's the gaming balance that is at risk. A character attached to a totally ruthless power structure like the SS in Nazi Germany is virtually unstoppable: there are no laws, natural or man-made, that such a character will not feel free of breaching if so he likes; he has no moral restraints. He has no natural predators, he is at the top of the food chain. And some players (expecially the power-/munchkin kind) might take this in the game, twisting it completely, just to play "strongest bastard". >> This is worth discussing. The same thing could easily occur in a Delta Green game, under the right circumstances. Generally the players are limited by the desire to keep things secret, for a lot of reasons: exposure of the true investigation would bring in distractions like the press, or it would bring on retribution from the villains before the players have all the facts, or it would bring attention from another power like MJ12 or simply legitimate law enforcement. Of course, the players can always take actions that would stall the investigation altogether and/or expose their activities. It sounds like that's what happened in this ill-fated scenario. The trick is to try to arrange it so that both player and character want to keep things under wraps; but how to do that when the character has no vested interest in keeping it all secret or in really solving the mystery? Any suggestions? Shane Ivey ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 12:44:57 GMT0BST From: Robert Thomas Subject: RE: DG: When Magnetic Fields Flip Hello All, Going back to original post here, (managed to loose it so excuse me if this is off topic). The idea of the magnetic fields flipping has also been covered in of all things a Dr. Who book. Its called Iceberg by I think David A Macintee I'll check if anyone wants. Bsically its set at the South Pole in an American / UN research station (tie this in to anything in DG?) where the Flipback project is located. It covers the effects of reversal of the magnetic field quite well especially the effects on organic/machine life which could be usefull. anyway I'm off to lunch. Rob. J.R.E.Thomas. Science Library PC Room Advisor ext 6135 / 5128. MScII City and Regional Planning Student. ThomasR@cardiff.ac.uk ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 04:46:34 -0700 (PDT) From: Illuminatus Primus Subject: Re: DG: Grafiti - -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On 16 Jul 1998 ITDCJB@hantsnet.hants.gov.uk wrote: > On a similar vein anyone ever thought of a DG/CoC adventure involving grafiti > atists who use the Yellow Sign as their "tag"... Ah, this brings to mind a particular game run by a friend of mine, who's also on the list. I'm sure he'll remember the campaign where a cult was murdering folks, and their calling card was branding the Yellow Sign into the skin of the victim. Sufficive to say, the party quickly learned to handle dead bodies *extremely* carefully. >:> - -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBNa3oDMVnIkW8IEjpAQHozQQAmusK/rcrdGePHCLYklyXu37K8po2RFNO GfZI2ndNiH2PiUOgECGZV5f7U/t8uE4cgYwl2ekqQlncaxBH2pGs3JmN+RPES2YO YsvfFfIpBD3VZZlwdZfUacRUqBuSirMKxML99n9xgINeqp6kl6yu12vjppw0Qzz2 SE4Tkybvgdw= =Q4M1 - -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 13:28:20 -0000 From: "Crossingham, Adam" Subject: Re: DG: Delta Green, WW2-style [Long and pro-Brit] Gil Trevizo writes about Delta Green, WW2-style <<< ... the "paranormal bouquet" I've found is overwhelming. I'm really surprised Delta Green just stopped at the Karotechia, as the sheer amount of occult/paranormal weirdness cooked up by the Third Reich could fill a book all on its own. There is simply so many scenario-making material here that...>>> But remember that the weirdness isn't just on the Nazi side. The Brits were there too - in 1940/41 when our back was to the wall, ALL avenues of resistance were investigated including the supernatural and witchcraft. For instance, I think some effort was put into investigating whether Hitler could be influenced by nobbling his astrologer, there were covens attempting to protect the UK, and in May 1944 a British witch was prosecuted under obsolete witchcraft laws (which were only actually abolished in 1951) as a threat to national security [if fellow Brits on the are interested, this trial is the subject of 'Secret History' on Channel 4 next Monday]. And it is strongly hinted that Nyarlathotep was involved in the US atom bomb project. <<<... there are simply gobs upon gobs of possible scenarios for some kind of Delta Green espionage/commando unit, not too mention the possibility of bringing in their non-American counterparts in the British SOE or the Russian NKVD. >>> I'd agree wholeheartedly. Some British offshoot must be involved. I believe that OSS was structured after a lengthy examination of the SOE. There must be some contact, at least on a personal level, and if SOE aren't connected to Pisces in someway I'd be very surprised. The Russians will also be aware of something strange going on; they did after all, face the 'Resuscitated Casualties' on the Eastern Front. However I must note that the DG sourcebook seems to imply that DG saved the world from the Nazis and the Karotechia during the war, which is perhaps a little too far fetched. Hopefully DG:Countdown will fill in some more details, because: * The secret war blowing up mythos archaeological sites in the Middle East must have been going before the US entered the war in 1941, and before they got to North Africa in 1942. The British could and should have been aware of something going on, at least in the areas that they controlled (Egypt, Sudan, Transjordania, Mesopotamia etc). Germany was giving enough signals pre-war that it was interested in weird stuff (i.e. archaeological excavations overseas). DG could have been operating in the region when the US was neutral, and would have then had access to Italian Libya, Vichy Tunisia and Syria, pro-fascist Spanish Morocco, and Turkey. These areas would have been difficult for the British to access and operate in during wartime. Equally though US neutrality would have made operations tricky for DG in these area. If we take published scenario as game world 'history' at least one major incident would have alerted the British (see my penultimate paragraph for details) to the threat. * The Commando raid on the Deep One summoning ceremony in France, 1943 would have probably been a combined strike of British, Canadian and American forces rather than a solely US venture. The Royal Navy had the assets in the area to put the forces ashore, and Royal Marine Commandos already had two years worth of raiding experience. Canadian commandos would also be viable. I'm not sure what experience that US Rangers or USMC had of raiding in 1943. If the raid was an American affair only, was it due to the fact that Deep Ones involved were from British waters? Perhaps DG didn't trust the Brits back then as well? * The deadly last battle fought in Germany in 1945 between DG and Karotechia must have also involved other allied forces. The number of casualties inflicted on DG or friendlies indicates outside help - because nobody puts their men into a mincer without good reason or an order. The larger part of Germany was occupied by the Soviets, and the US didn't occupy the entire allied front. Co-operation between DG, Pisces and the GRU must have occurred, or the Nazis would have won. * Senior DG sources (name escapes me at this point) is quoted in the source book that DG was heavily involved in the Far East. Given later involvement in SE Asia it seems to indicate that DG's favoured theatre of speciality is the Far East and the Pacific, rather than Europe or the Middle east. <<< What I'm wondering is, has anyone tried something like this before? >>> Yeah sort of, in a Twilight 2000/horror crossover set in a WW3 Persian Gulf. The players especially loved the scenario when they found the desiccated remains of their 1920s CoC PCs in the wreckage of their flying boat, somewhere in the Arabian Desert whilst hunting down biological weapons. <<< It just seems too good - like a cross between Where Eagles Dare and The Dirty Dozen and the Cthulhu Mythos - that someone must've tried this before. >>> Definitely but how about these movies as well as inspiration (in no order of importance): * The Keep - evil but human Waffen SS men find out that real Evil is older than Nazi ideology in a strange tower somewhere in deepest Eastern Europe. * Raiders of the Lost Ark - you know the plot, Nazis are strip mining the Middle East for occult artefacts to help them win. Cool Afrika Korps uniforms too.... * Indiana Jones of the Last Crusade - see above, but now the Nazis want Hitler to be immortal as well. * Play Dirty - Michael Caine is behind the line blowing up Germans and taking casualties. Absolutely classic 'black' ending: British Officer "...don't do that again". British soldier: " Yes. Sir." * The English Patient - for the North African section and how the count sells out the British in North Africa. The book is even more detailed. * The Guns of Navarrone - for _really_ large explosions! * Sahara - Bogart and a band of Brits keep a German division at bay defending an ancient well. The well could be anything you like, Mythos or mundane. * Heroes of Telemark - Plucky Allied agents and Norwegian resistance fighters stop Nazi atom bomb program by destroying heavy water facility. Yawn. * The Philadelphia Experiment - in a DG game there no reason why the unfortunate sailors who survive the accident should be sent to the future. Why not another dimension, why not Yuggoth? and given the macho factor of most DG agents: * Kelly's Heroes - for the scene where Clint takes on a Tiger tank. And then splits the bullion with the Jerries, oh yeah. <<< I came across one CoC scenario set in a rather generic battlefield, but nothing specific to WW2. >>> Is the scenario 'Armoured Angels' [found in the 'Fearless Passages' supplement]? This is a mid-1920s-set adventure in Mesopotamia about a ziggurat and Mi-Go experimentation. It could be easily transplanted to the 1940s as Iraq was still dominated by the British at that point. <<< I'd appreciate any help that could be given.>>> HTH. - -- Adam Crossingham home: tigger@the-wolery.demon.co.uk work: adam.crossingham.octavian@mktmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 13:54:43 +0100 From: Nick Subject: Re: DG: DG Concentration Camps. > Have you ever read any of The Invisibles (published by Vertigo > Comics). I only mention it because there is some really dark stuff > in it about government sponsored concentration camps. Also, anyone > looking for exceptionally dark conspiracies which are vaguely > Lovecraftian could do a hell of a lot worse than looking towards the > Outer Church for some ideas, Robert Oppenheimer: Priest of > Azathoth, need I say more? Nope, read sandman and some early vertigo GN's, but haven't caught invisibiles yet. There are conspiracy theories about alien/consortium concentration camps, so the idea isn't original to the Invisibles. A Majestic-12 facility where abductees are taken (for organlegging) was already done in some previous posts. Similar stuff can be found in Conspiracy-X, X-files, and probably a lot more sources. >>>> If I recall correctly, the original Invisibles vol.1 made lots of Lovecraftian references eg. "a crucified toad; that's a symbol of Tsathoggua." Grant Morrison also made a lot of similiar references in his earlier series 'Zenith', including Azathoth the idiot God, Cthulu of the eyes and the many angled ones. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 14:04:28 +0100 From: Nick Subject: RE: DG: When Magnetic Fields Flip <<<>>> I'm pretty sure the book 'Iceberg' was by David Banks - according to one of my more obsessional players, he was the 'cyberleader' (whatever that is) in the programme. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 09:24:24 -0400 From: "Elliot A. Rushing" Subject: Re: DG: Delta Green, WW2-style [Long and pro-Brit] >But remember that the weirdness isn't just on the Nazi side. >The Brits were there too - in 1940/41 when our back was to the wall, ALL >avenues of resistance were investigated including the supernatural and >witchcraft. [snip] Um, Alphonse, are you getting all this? This is sourcebook material -- we need to alert Pagan to a publishing opportunity. While some folks (not necessarily on this list) have minimized the Karotechia and the whole Nazi angle to DG, I found the Karotechia section one of the more inspired and interesting parts of the DG sourcebook. Who didn't grow up shooting "Nazis" in backyard war games? Here you have arguably the greatest organized evil created by man joining forces with Lovecraft's horrors. It's two great tastes that taste great together!! ;) Add in a few grease-guns, commando outfits, and military rosters, and you've got an Indiana Jones-war movie-CoC crossover that, IMO, would be very popular and profitable. Further, it looks like you've got a good stable of freelance contributors for such a project right on this list. I'd be happy to help, certainly. Just my two cents. ;) Elliot. - ---- Elliot A. Rushing lex@trellis.net - -Who loved Where Eagles Dare as a child, and *still* enjoys it despite its utter implausibility... ;) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 16 Jul 1998 14:28:11 +0100 From: Nick Subject: Re: DG: Playing nazis (and other unsavory chaps) There's a really good book called 'Berlin Noir' by Phillip Kerr; it's basically an anthology of three novels 'the March Violets', 'A German Requiem' and something I can't quite remember the name of. They share a central character, an ex-cop (from the Kripo) living in Nazi Germany. The first involves an investigation into a murder he undertakes as a private eye, and touches upon the power play between prominent nazis like Goering and Himmler; the second has him getting black-mailed back into the Kripo to track down a serial killer (and ends up uncovering a wierd conspiracy involving Himmler and black magic), whilst the third is set in post-war Vienna; where he's backto being a private eye again. Lots of really good, well-researched background for the kind of scenarios you're envisioning. ------------------------------ End of deltagreen-digest V1 #69 *******************************