A murder and theft at Washington State University was flagged by automated monitoring systems set up by Delta Green. A team of agents is hastily assembled and sent to the murder scene as quickly as possible. The victim was a geologist and several samples of an unusual nature were stolen from the lab. Unfortunately, the true nature of these samples is unknown, only that they refer to an earlier Delta Green case. The team must not only find the killer but learn the true nature of the samples and recover them if possible. The investigation will lead them to dark places, facing even darker opponents.
This episode guest stars Faust from the Thrilling Intent podcast!
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NICE TRY, GIANT WORMS. I was imagining that whole final sequence was Night Vale Community College’s open house.
while the railroad car bridge down to the bottom was a great if underused setpiece, my favorite part of this session was Bill and Ross debating for three minutes whether a West Coast mega-earthquake would wipe out Microsoft
so I’ve listened to three Falls Without End in the past two days and Ross still managed to have the second-most-fatal climbing scene I can think of just shimmying down a rope
around the 60-minute mark when the investigation was still focused on the geologist I found myself kinda feeling for the guy and wishing he was a PC or NPC from an earlier game, and we were discovering his ignominious fate
the Call of Catthulhu idea was possibly the most brilliant thing I’ve ever heard but please never do that, oh my god, that game is so dumb
you should write more original monsters in your CoC oneshots, Ross! there’s a time and place for “let’s shuffle the canon in an interesting way,” but there’s also a time and place for Amante and the Vertiginous Horror and Yithian vampires. fun fact: there is never a time and place for that fucking night club Nyarlathotep runs in Delta Green, it’s the 90sest dumbshit rule of cool idea ever
I seriously would’ve loved for the whole final confrontation to happen on the traincars, what an awesome image
this concludes our broadcast day
Crawlkill speaks the truth!
Agent Trent lived boooo!!!! and I mean that in the nicest way possible…but wow.
I agree with Crawlkill in most things, but I think that you should either do the Catthulhu, or just have it as a recurring character in normal CoC. I love the idea of this particular cat that hates everyone (as some cats are wont to do) is actually a monster.
That nightclub does have a time and place, in a “rifts reborn” style actual play.
As a life long Inland Northwest resident (I attended the University of Idaho, which is a few miles from Pullman), I was thrilled about the setting of this adventure. Not gonna nitpick any of the geography, except that despite the spelling, the city is pronounced Spo-Can (as in can of soup) and not Spo-Cane.
Great episode guys!
Also, if you ever do this scenario again, you should work in the mysterious Giant Palouse Earthworm (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Palouse_earthworm).
Only recently rediscovered, the worms can grow 1m long, spit for defense, and smell of lilies. Definitely spawn of some ancient deep earth monster.
Love the geology puns. They have so many layers.
…
*is ashamed*
@Urielfallen
I know the first few were lacking, but my idea was to stratify enough detritus to hide the gems that were coming later. Glad you liked them!
References for this scenario
The New Yorker article on the Cascadia Fault Line: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-one
The Wellington Avalanche site: http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/wellington-avalanche-site
The Evil Cat/Crystal spirit was a citizen of K’nyan, first described in the Mound by HP Lovecraft.
The truth behind PISCES is described in Delta Green Countdown.
For the record, I knew that Spokane was inland, but for some reason I thought Microsoft was headquartered there and not Redmond.
@David Gneiss work!
Long time listener, first time etc.
While it wasn’t as dramatic as many others, I’d say eating the flare gun would probably be up there in terms of gruesomeness on the list of Aaron char deaths.
Also, Faust is a lot of fun, he had the right mix of energy, interest and restraint. Will we be hearing more of him in the future, or was this a one-off thing?
I think you need to run this scenario again…on site in Pullman. 😉
Oh, man, flare gun suicide is just the nastiest. I’m not even sure a flare gun would kill you right away. I don’t think most of them have enough muzzle velocity to penetrate into the brain, even if you ate it. But the fire would certainly mess you up pretty badly.
We will try to include Faust in future games since he is local to us. Also, I wondered about whether a flare gun could be used to commit suicide and normally I require SAN checks to actually go through a suicide attempt, but it was way too gruesome not to allow.
@Ross Payton
So, after some short research, I have concluded the following re: flare gun suicide.
1) Do not press against temple. It won’t do the job unless it’s some ridiculous navy cannon flare thing or something. It will also hurt like a son of a bitch.
2) It will take effort. It does not kill if removed prematurely. People have tried. We live in a strange world.
3) It will take time. The burning is not a fast way to go.
4) It is likely that you will spend much of your remaining time running around screaming because your face is literally on fire.
In summary, the 9mm retirement plan is still a more elegant and expedient way to go.
Also yay more Faust! That ought to be fun. I have a hunch he’d be a good addition to further CoC or maybe even EP games.
oh man thanks TRNSHMN those were things I really needed to know and don’t regret reading at all
I also liked Faust much, thought he got good and absurd without being disruptive, which is all you can ask for
Yeah, Faust was great! Sounds like he really had a blast with Call of Cthulhu.
Iä Topanga! Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Topanga “Underground Cavern” wgah’nagl fhtagn!
Also, I think I missed something – was the Cthonian threatening the Cascasia faultline, or *was* the cthonian the Cascadia faultline?
The earthquake was inevitable. The Cthonians offered to delay or minimize its effects in exchange for performing the ritual.
Gavin was actually trying to do the right thing, at least in his point of view. Kill a few people to save thousands? Who wouldn’t accept that logic?
Wow. Whenever I am asked “how do I as a gamemaster manage too many players in a session and try to move the plot forward” I will immediately point the questioner to this podcast.
Very impressive Ross for handling that many people and the distracting personalities. Only a pro could keep it together. I found the first half to be a bit annoying for the aforementioned reasons, but everyone sank into the mystery during the second half and it was a very good listen.
Did anyone notice that the accidental creation of the Catthulhu fully explains the parrot in the cage with the Elder Sign described earlier in the scenario? It is as if another Delta Green team will capture the Catthulhu and in process unleash a different entity into a poodle or something. And the Green Box grows ever more crowded. For truly The Box is the Eldritch Entity known as the Collector with humans as pawns to gather all the Ancient Ones in the forms of furry animals for its zoo collection of all Time!!!!
One of my favorite things about this game is that the Aaron moment was actually foreshadowed. During one of the Glancy games (I think it was the Iron Devil, but I’m not positive) there’s a brief aside that goes something like:
Glancy: If you have a flaregun and you’re up against Azathoth, you don’t use the flare on Azathoth. You use it on yourself.
Aaron: … noted.
Anyways! Fun scenario and props to Ross for navigating a very full, chatty table. I love the image of the train cars smashed into place years ago to serve a purpose now.
This episode also makes it clear how easily the Shan could get a start in PISCES. That was a fun way to handle them, Ross, with the invader not instantly removing the PC but imposing sanity costs for things it didn’t want to do.