See America Right: Two Point Perspective
What it is.
See America Right is my ongoing Delta Green Campaign. It uses the Delta Green rules (with one major house rule) and is set in a homebrew setting. We play for one hour weekly. The player characters are Hector Michaels (truck driver, former cultist, vessel of inhumanity), Ajax (PMC, insensitive soul, patient killer), Heather Clarke (prospective witch, British photographer, crumbling sanity), and Phyllis Hart (conspiracy journalist, recent addition, stalwart truth-seeker).
Because the players occasionally read my blog there will perforce be some REDACTIONS to the text. Feels quite appropriate for Delta Green.
Because the players occasionally read my blog there will perforce be some REDACTIONS to the text. Feels quite appropriate for Delta Green.
The story thus far is long and complicated, but goes something like this:
Cultists of the Burning King identify a strange disease in Athens, Texas and are sent to recover the cause. Their leader gives them a prophecy, which is fulfilled in time and they recover a set of notes taken from golden tablets. The notes were provided by an agent of a shadowy government organization named Edgar. One of their number (Dale) is killed by an enchanted bull.
They start to follow on Edgar's trail, moving to Wilkesboro, North Carolina. There they meet the one handed David Andrew Tito, his enchanted undead daughter Lavinia, the Gott-Silver family and a wizard* of an eldritch entity. That wizard enchants one of their members to "remove fear from him" (Tom, now Cool Tom) and they bail. The undead daughter is killed and a gunfight between the Tito and Gott-Silver family kills many of their number and less than a half-dozen bystanders.
Cultists of the Burning King identify a strange disease in Athens, Texas and are sent to recover the cause. Their leader gives them a prophecy, which is fulfilled in time and they recover a set of notes taken from golden tablets. The notes were provided by an agent of a shadowy government organization named Edgar. One of their number (Dale) is killed by an enchanted bull.
They start to follow on Edgar's trail, moving to Wilkesboro, North Carolina. There they meet the one handed David Andrew Tito, his enchanted undead daughter Lavinia, the Gott-Silver family and a wizard* of an eldritch entity. That wizard enchants one of their members to "remove fear from him" (Tom, now Cool Tom) and they bail. The undead daughter is killed and a gunfight between the Tito and Gott-Silver family kills many of their number and less than a half-dozen bystanders.
They are separated in the aftermath and have not yet reunited. Two members of the group (Ajax and Hector) travel through a strange other world (PEI, Canada) to an even stranger other world where they meet a faded old man named Prosper John, an eldritch servant of his named Callum, and are pursued by lions that do not exist in the present moment. They do so in order to travel back in time and succeed, landing in 1941s Minnesota. Their plan is to destroy the tablets before they can be discovered by the people who started this whole mess and lead to the Agent Edgar situation.
They discover that Edgar has already tried this himself, and that the tablets are more grown than written, emerging from the stone in a chamber off the Niagara caves outside Harmony, Minnesota. They are told this by members of an organization called "The Pond", a pair of agents who seem happy to help once interviews establish that the duo of Ajax and Hector are not Nazi, Japanese or Communist spies.
Elsewhere and when, Phyllis and Heather investigate the Colorado Zoo in 2026. There they find there is a guest exhibit involving an immortal tiger named Greymalkin. They are told this by Heather's girlfriend, who Heather introduced to the supernatural and just so happened to be in town. They are unable to find Greymalkin's exhibit except as a group of three, and at first interview Agent Elizabeth, once a collaborator of Agent Edgar's, now occupant of a government rehabilitation facility for the supernaturally disturbed.
Elizabeth gave them some intel and then bailed. The duo found a civilian through Phyllis' conspiratorial website and went to meet Greymalkin the tiger. They are told repeatedly not to do this, including by the three people who maybe made Greymalkin? Duncan and his sons Malcolm and Donalbain. They are told by the fast talking young Donalbain that Greymalkin entails choosing between The Lady and The Tiger. The Lady being everything in the universe. Heather blindfolds herself and enters anyway, and Donalbain tears her blindfold off as she crosses the threshold. Heather sees the tiger. She experiences a moment of singular thought and experience. Nothing exists but the tiger. Then she emerges, due to Phyllis fucking up the tent for a moment.
Heather passes out, Phyllis drags her to the zoo, then to the parking lot, then to the hotel. Heather wakes up and everything is wrong. She can't read English, every texture and flavor and single thing is just...wrong. She convinces Phyllis to take her to get drunk.
They discover that Edgar has already tried this himself, and that the tablets are more grown than written, emerging from the stone in a chamber off the Niagara caves outside Harmony, Minnesota. They are told this by members of an organization called "The Pond", a pair of agents who seem happy to help once interviews establish that the duo of Ajax and Hector are not Nazi, Japanese or Communist spies.
Elsewhere and when, Phyllis and Heather investigate the Colorado Zoo in 2026. There they find there is a guest exhibit involving an immortal tiger named Greymalkin. They are told this by Heather's girlfriend, who Heather introduced to the supernatural and just so happened to be in town. They are unable to find Greymalkin's exhibit except as a group of three, and at first interview Agent Elizabeth, once a collaborator of Agent Edgar's, now occupant of a government rehabilitation facility for the supernaturally disturbed.
Elizabeth gave them some intel and then bailed. The duo found a civilian through Phyllis' conspiratorial website and went to meet Greymalkin the tiger. They are told repeatedly not to do this, including by the three people who maybe made Greymalkin? Duncan and his sons Malcolm and Donalbain. They are told by the fast talking young Donalbain that Greymalkin entails choosing between The Lady and The Tiger. The Lady being everything in the universe. Heather blindfolds herself and enters anyway, and Donalbain tears her blindfold off as she crosses the threshold. Heather sees the tiger. She experiences a moment of singular thought and experience. Nothing exists but the tiger. Then she emerges, due to Phyllis fucking up the tent for a moment.
Heather passes out, Phyllis drags her to the zoo, then to the parking lot, then to the hotel. Heather wakes up and everything is wrong. She can't read English, every texture and flavor and single thing is just...wrong. She convinces Phyllis to take her to get drunk.
Whoof. That's the backstory. So what happened today?
What happened.
With the party split we bounce back and forth.
1941: Ajax examines the tablets growing from the walls of the cave chamber and identified they've previously been chipped, burnt, lightly blown up and appear to have regrown. The chamber is unstable and could be collapsed. Hector looks closer and sees the tablets have a number of languages including English. He sees repeated references of the phrase "when is the duel" as well as stilted conversations between Henry Lanz and Richard Stork. They talk about needing to unite to fight "The Frenchman", who Hector identifies as himself just before he hears distant gunshots.
2026: Heather and Phyllis are at a bar, where everything remains wrong to Heather. Phyllis perceives everything about Heather as subtly wrong as well. They drink, they talk, they decide to return to the hotel and hunt up "Thersites" wizard of Un, and get his help. He would know for wrong, in any case.
1941: Emerging from the cave Ajax and Hector find the agent who sheltered them gunned down in the parking lot. They take his wallet and pistol and hop in the truck, racing back to the house the agents lived in. There they identify his "wife", another agent of The Pond, dead in the kitchen with a shotgun in her hands. Files are missing and the house is in disarray. They gather their stuff and seek out Henry Lanz, who supposedly lives in a castle outside Prosper, MI.
2026: Heather performs a ritual to identify where the attention of the so-called Harmony Entity has gathered. It shows all the previously identified locations of Edgar's prior investigation as well as an accretion in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, near Precipice Peak. The other particular oddity is that the ritual identifies several gaps - and one place where the attention is fighting against something. Athens, Maine. They call up Thersites who validates that he is in Athens, Maine "Looking into a Fairy Queen". He expresses his willingness to help in return for a favor and Phyllis and Heather pile into the van and start their drive.
1941: Ajax and Hector attack the "castle" actually a turreted wooden house, Ajax in the back of the truck with an assault rifle. In their initial approach they gun down a small group and Hector leverages his intrinsic inhumanity to let out a monstrous roar that frightens others. Ajax gets hit by a rifle shot a glance that is largely absorbed by his vest. He ducks down into additional cover as Hector pulls a bootlegger turn. More men pour out of the castle with a tommy gun and Ajax attempts to grenade them, sending the frag wide. They pepper the truck with shots and ajax catches a little shrapnel where he is hunkered down in cover. Three trucks pursue them and Ajax hits them with a grenade, fucking up two of the trucks as a bullet hits a tire and puts them in a spin. Hector tries to recover with another bootleggers turn on an icy country road and sends the truck into a ditch. Ajax is flung from the bed into the snow and hits 0 HP, falling unconscious. Hector kills the two men who approach one after another, unbothered by the violence and limps to Ajax, patching him up before they limp to their assailants truck.
2026: Heather and Phyllis are at a bar, where everything remains wrong to Heather. Phyllis perceives everything about Heather as subtly wrong as well. They drink, they talk, they decide to return to the hotel and hunt up "Thersites" wizard of Un, and get his help. He would know for wrong, in any case.
1941: Emerging from the cave Ajax and Hector find the agent who sheltered them gunned down in the parking lot. They take his wallet and pistol and hop in the truck, racing back to the house the agents lived in. There they identify his "wife", another agent of The Pond, dead in the kitchen with a shotgun in her hands. Files are missing and the house is in disarray. They gather their stuff and seek out Henry Lanz, who supposedly lives in a castle outside Prosper, MI.
2026: Heather performs a ritual to identify where the attention of the so-called Harmony Entity has gathered. It shows all the previously identified locations of Edgar's prior investigation as well as an accretion in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, near Precipice Peak. The other particular oddity is that the ritual identifies several gaps - and one place where the attention is fighting against something. Athens, Maine. They call up Thersites who validates that he is in Athens, Maine "Looking into a Fairy Queen". He expresses his willingness to help in return for a favor and Phyllis and Heather pile into the van and start their drive.
1941: Ajax and Hector attack the "castle" actually a turreted wooden house, Ajax in the back of the truck with an assault rifle. In their initial approach they gun down a small group and Hector leverages his intrinsic inhumanity to let out a monstrous roar that frightens others. Ajax gets hit by a rifle shot a glance that is largely absorbed by his vest. He ducks down into additional cover as Hector pulls a bootlegger turn. More men pour out of the castle with a tommy gun and Ajax attempts to grenade them, sending the frag wide. They pepper the truck with shots and ajax catches a little shrapnel where he is hunkered down in cover. Three trucks pursue them and Ajax hits them with a grenade, fucking up two of the trucks as a bullet hits a tire and puts them in a spin. Hector tries to recover with another bootleggers turn on an icy country road and sends the truck into a ditch. Ajax is flung from the bed into the snow and hits 0 HP, falling unconscious. Hector kills the two men who approach one after another, unbothered by the violence and limps to Ajax, patching him up before they limp to their assailants truck.
What I learned.
- Running a split party is tough but rewarding for me. Flipping back and forth more quickly kept folks engaged, as well as making sure what they are doing is fucked up and has stakes.
- It's easy to do elide combat in Delta Green, reducing the full rules down to handfuls of firearms and drive and dodge checks. It's okay to do it and it can be as lethal or not as you desire.
- The question of whether or not any of the shit they are doing back in time matters is a powerful and animating one for the players.
- I know what's going on with Heather and the players have not gotten close to it. I am excited to see it happen.
- I could pull less punches. It would have been totally appropriate to absolutely kill Ajax rather than making it a 2-in-6 chance after a luck roll. But just threatening him and making it a solid chance (66% chance to die, basically, already after a few lucky low rolls from enemy damage) still made it feel real enough. Risky enough. So while I could pull less punches, this layer feels good.
- The pace of an hour session combined with any kind of investigation continues to work just fine. The one consequence is that players seem a little more likely to forget small details but that's actually great in terms of making it about their note-taking skill and introducing a tragic comedy and irony into many scenes.
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