Adam Scott Glancy

Classic campaign setting for the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game. Think of it as a kind of X-Files RPG, but with characters as coming from the military or any federal agency, not just the FBI. The overarching backstory and plot drivers come from the Cthulhu Mythos, rather than the less coherent fever dreams of Chris Carter.

Here is a brief rundown of the contents of the book and associated notes:

SPOILERS ABOUND. Read at your own peril.

1. The Big Picture: The basic rundown for the game. The big bad guys of the game are the Mi-Go (the Fungi from Yuggoth) and elements of the US government.

2. Delta Green: Framework for the game. DG is a secret organization of mostly government employees who hunt various Mythos critters and stop nefarious plots in their spare time. Good thing the feds give pretty generous leave time. It works well as a means of getting PCs involved.

3. Majestic-12: Deep black government organization working with the Greys to exploit the technology that they've passed along. In exchange, they work to hide the evidence of "Grey" operations. Here's the catch: the Greys are really just biomechanical puppets tele-operated by the Mi-Go, who pass humans crumbs so that their remaining operations on earth don't get interfered with too badly. It's a fun premise that works.

4. Karotechia: Evil old Nazis in South America who have found a couple ways to create types of immortality. Of course, they dabble in Cthuloid stuff. Fun foes, but ultimately just a minor threat.

5. Saucerwatch: UFOlogists. Not terribly interesting. They fit in the genre just fine, but they'rekind of boring and I doubt that they'd be very useful or fun in play.

6. The Fate: Magical criminal syndicate operating out of a Studio 54-like club in NYC. Their leader is almost certainly an avatar of Nyarlathotep. Fun, great potential as villains, but they're described in really terse terms. Needs much more elaboration (which is provided in the DG: Eyes Only book). This group should have been better fleshed out. As is, they're too vague.

7. Miscellaneous bits: This includes a bibliography, glossary of intelligence terms, security classifications and markings (several errors in this section), and some key documents. All in all, not bad. It should give players lacking a military or intelligence background an idea of where to begin.

8. Federal agencies, new skills, and notes on firearms: Gives brief rundowns on about three dozen federal agencies and what characters from those agencies should look like. These are all decent templates for player-characters. (But who would really want to play a postal inspector when you can play a SEAL?)

9. The Adventures: There are three, two short and one long. See below.

10. Puppet Shows and Shadow Plays: Short adventure, serves as a means to introduce some PCs to DG. I question the wisdom for including this adventure for two reasons: (1) it requires the PCs to all be FBI agents, which runs counter to the whole DG concept of an inter-agency task force; and (2) it deals with a lone alien serial killer that is creepy, but not part of the Cthulhu Mythos. Think of it as one of the X-Files monster-of-the-week episodes. Fun, but there's no tie-in to the metaplot here. [I have since discovered an interesting reference to another member of the alien's race in Delta Green: Countdown, which also mentions that the aliens have been detailed in Ye Booke of Monstres, which was then subsumed into The Creature Collection, and is currently in print as part of malleus Monstrorum, all from Chaosium.]

11. Convergence: Short adventure involving a plot by the Mi-Go to experiment on a whole town by introducing "proto-matter" into their bodies. Looks like a fun adventure, but basically, anyone who drinks the water in town -- which will almost certainly include all the PCs -- will die at the end of the adventure once a Mi-Go contraption is destroyed. I hate killer adventures like that.

12. The New Age: Long, two-part adventure involving a thinly veiled Scientology-like cult that is using and abusing Mi-Go technology. Has high potential to end in a major raid and bloodbath for all concerned. As written, the PCs should *not* raid the cult's headquarters because that plays right into the Mi-Gos' hands (er, pincers). Essentially, it's better to just let the Mi-Go's scheme run it's course and they will only achieve two of their four objectives. That's not a very fun way to end a long adventure like this.

All in all, I like the campaign framework for the DG a lot, though I would have liked to see some adventures that allow the PCs to make more of a difference and not necessarily end in doom.

This is a really good book and I'd heartily recommend it to anyone interested in updating the Cthulhu Mythos for the 1990s and (conceivably) beyond, along with fans of the X-Files and similar media. It's a campaign idea that screams for a post-9-11 update.

Review copyright 2008 J. Andrew Byers… (mehr)