THE STARKWEATHER FOUNDATION

By mellonbread and Will Roy

—

But now that Starkweather-Moore party is organizing, and with a thoroughness far beyond anything our outfit attempted. If not dissuaded, they will get to the innermost nucleus of the antarctic and melt and bore till they bring up that which we know may end the world. So I must break through all reticences at last—even about that ultimate, nameless thing beyond the mountains of madness. William Dyer

A fan sourcebook for Delta Green

—

THE STARKWEATHER FOUNDATION 2

WHAT LIES BEYOND THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS 3

IMPORTANT FOUNDATION MEMBERS 4

THE CONSTRUCT COMPLEX 7

HUMAN INTERACTION WITH ELDER THINGS 8

GAME STATISTICS: ELDER THINGS 10

GAME STATISTICS: JUVENILE ELDER THINGS 11

GAME STATISTICS: DEGENERATE ELDER THINGS 12

GAME STATISTICS: ANIMICULI 13

GAME STATISTICS: SHOGGOTHS 14

GAME STATISTICS: ARCANOTECH 15

GAME STATISTICS: BODY MODIFICATIONS 17

USING THE STARKWEATHER FOUNDATION 18

1: A MIND IS A TERRIBLE THING TO WASTE 20

2: THE GATE IN THE GALLERY 24

3: Operation AUTARCH SUNRISE or: Thunder that the Rain Makes When the Shadow Tops Ythill 30

CREDITS AND SOURCE TEXTS 49

1

THE STARKWEATHER FOUNDATION Leadership: 9 member self-replacing board ​ Net Assets: $361,871,194 (2015 form 990) ​ Employees: 1,899 ​ Headquarters: New York City, New York, United States ​ EIN: 01-0193334 ​

The James Starkweather Foundation for Polar Studies was established in 1934 to assist disadvantaged and struggling students who wished to conduct studies in the Polar Regions. To this end, it granted scholarships, conducted field trips and funded scientific research in glaciology and related fields. In ​ ​ 1955, the organization was established as a registered 501(c) private foundation. Declining revenues and the death of founding Board President Acacia Lexington in 1971 threatened to close the book on the Foundation’s activities. Since then, their fortunes have rebounded. As of 1977, the Foundation enjoys generous sponsorship from a number of petrochemical companies and gas giants, providing it with sufficient wealth to further its mission of advancing and popularizing Arctic and Antarctic science. The irony of accepting such large contributions from the entities many scientists believe are responsible for the decline of the Polar regions is far from lost on Foundation leadership - but in the nonprofit world, as everywhere else, money is money.

The Starkweather Foundation maintains its headquarters in New York, NY. It has major field offices in Montreal, Geneva, Oslo, Moscow, Copenhagen, Reykjavik and Melbourne. It has schooling facilities and programs with host organisations in the United States, Canada, Switzerland, Germany, Norway, Finland, Russia, Greenland, Iceland and Australia. It is associated with a number of humanitarian and scientific organizations.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS ● President: Douglas Scanlon (Retired Professor of Geology, Harvard) ​ ● Vice President: Amy Maria-Esposito (Partner, Deloitte) ​ ● Treasurer: Bob Howard (Self Made Oil Tycoon) ​ ● Secretary: Saejima Hideyoshi (Deputy Director of Global Environment and Marine Department, ​ Japan Meteorological Agency) ● Herbart Frast-Desjardins (Senior Director, National Geographic Society) ● Indira Bhattacharya (Chief Financial Officer, Frontier Bio-Logic) ● Lukuas Bernard Lemelson (Director of Government Relations, Canadian Tire Petroleum) ● Julius Vos-Savant (Accounts Executive, Maersk Line) ● Riordan Waits (Resident Climate Scientist, Natural Resources Defense Council)

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: Dr. Cassandra “Sandra” Orgelfinger ​

What the Public Knows: In 1930, Miskatonic University sent an expedition to Antarctica, for the ​ purposes of scientific exploration. The world heard briefly of the incredible discoveries these men made on the ice, then only silence. Only two survivors returned, both half mad, neither capable of disclosing what really happened.

In the year 1933, the Starkweather Moore expedition arrived on the ice, intending to determine the true fate of the Miskatonic expedition, and to investigate what exactly it was they found. This expedition was far better equipped, with cutting edge technology and a much larger science team and crew.

2

Ultimately, the expedition was a disappointment. Lake’s camp had been lost to harsh weather and infighting resulting from “ice madness”, a stress reaction all too common in the harsh Polar conditions. The expedition’s much vaunted paleontological finds had been exaggerated wildly out of proportion. The reported monstrous size of the Miskatonic Mountains was nothing but a monstrous exaggeration, brought on by an optical illusion. A flight beyond them revealed only more endless, icy wasteland.

That’s what they told the papers, anyway.

WHAT LIES BEYOND THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS The Elder Things, in their ancient wars against the other prehuman denizens of earth, devised a means to call beings from the outer reaches of space, imprisoning them and tapping their energies to deploy weapons of unspeakable power. To this end, they constructed a massive Elder Pharos to act as a lure, and beneath it, a “God Trap” to ensnare the things which descended from higher worlds.

One day, they went fishing in the deep end, and caught the Nameless God. Larger and more powerful than anything they had caught before, the God threatened to wipe out all earthly civilization. It was barely within the Elder Things’ power to contain, and soon, would be beyond it. As the Elder civilization declined, so too did their technological knowledge. The delicate crystal matrix of the God Trap’s Construct was damaged in a great cataclysm, setting the device on the path toward decay and looming catastrophic failure. Consummate scientists to the end, the Elder Things devised a solution which would preserve the planet that their loss of interstellar flight had trapped them on. The Construct could be mated to a lattice of living nervous tissue, mixing biological components with its computational engine. And the more complicated the components, the better.

When the Elder Things in the cave were inadvertently woken by the Miskatonic Expedition, they returned to the Pharos to find the machinery pushed to its very breaking point - with parts failures in its organic components threatening a complete and total collapse. Their first priority was to hunt for replacement parts.

It was this house of horrors that the ill fated Starkweather Moore Expedition discovered at the bottom of the world in the year 1934. Discovered, and understood.

The Starkweather Foundation’s Secret Mission: Since its inception, the Starkweather Foundation ​ ​ recruited postgraduate students and academics from appropriate fields to transport brains, nervous systems and occasionally living subjects to be used in the Construct of the Elder Things. These secret ​ acts revealed the resurgent Elder Things to the individuals that were being recruited, and once both sides worked out what was going on, a sort of silent truce was established - the humans delivered the 'supplies' and the Elder Things maintained the Construct. A few Foundation members stayed behind to assist in repair and maintenance, and became vital to translation and interaction with the Elder Things.

During the Second World War, the Starkweather Foundation worked closely with P Division, sharing knowledge and assisting in operations to counter the Karotechia’s efforts in Antarctica. This cooperation continued well into the following decades, though the Foundation neglected to inform Delta Green of their true relationship with the Elder Things - as the aliens’ primary contact point with humanity (that they knew of, anyway). When Delta Green was disbanded in 1970, steps were taken to ensure that no material detailing the Elder Things or the God Trap fell into the hands of MAJESTIC. Scattered points of contact kept the Foundation supplied, with the illegal Delta Green conspiracy tangentially aware of its activities.

3

Currently, nobody in either the Program or the Outlaws are aware of the true nature of the Foundation’s activities. The Delta Green Agents charged with procuring raw materials for the construct have been operating independently for over a decade without any contact with A Cell - who does not know that they exist or what they are doing.

Fewer than 50 people within the organization know about the secret mission. Only that many people need to. The supply chain is easy to conceal within the organization’s vast transportation apparatus. ● The Elder Things, using their super-scientific knowledge, created specialized containers which can be used to transport human nervous tissue - a severed head, spinal column, and the rest of the body’s nervous system - while keeping it alive indefinitely. These containers are shipped, empty, to the United States. ● After travelling through a series of intermediaries, the containers are filled by a team which, outside of receiving them empty and sending them back full, has no contact with the Foundation. ● The full containers are warehoused until weather and supply needs on the ice make a shipment practical. They are then clandestinely inserted into the shipment disguised as ordinary canned goods. Once they reach the Antarctic, Foundation operatives or allies ensure that they are stored somewhere that the Elder Things can easily retrieve, for flight back to the Construct and installation.

During the long sleep of the remaining Elder Things, the Nameless God began to seep out of its containment, scattering sinister seeds throughout the valley where it was confined, and the labyrinth of caves below. Thanks to the Barsmeier-Falken Expedition’s dig one the coast of the Weddell Sea, many of these have been scattered across the world - smuggled out by sailors or dumped into swift ocean currents. When they awake, they work to feed power back to their parent, increasing the likelihood of a world ending containment breach. In addition to supplying and repairing the construct, the Starkweather Foundation assists the Elder Things in hunting down and destroying these “animiculi”.

IMPORTANT FOUNDATION MEMBERS BOB HOWARD: The latest in a line of Texas oilmen, Robert “Bob” Howard fancies himself a Polar ​ explorer and patron of science. His appointment to the Board of Directors was mainly a concession to the extractive industries which bankroll the Starkweather Foundation, but the other members were pleasantly surprised by Howard’s keen financial mind. Less so by his hat, boots and bolo tie.

Howard believes he has uncovered evidence of financial malfeasance within the Foundation. The numbers don’t add up. Money is disappearing a little at a time into a black hole somewhere at the South Pole. Whatever it is they’re doing down there, it isn’t Polar exploration, and Howard is determined to expose it.

STR 13, CON 11, DEX 12, INT 10, POW 12, CHA 14 HP 12, WP 12, SAN 60 Skills: Accounting 70%, Alertness 40%, Athletics 50%, Bureaucracy 70%, Firearms 60%, Foreign ​ Language (Spanish) 50%, HUMINT 60%, Law 50%, Melee Weapons 50%, Persuade 60%, Ride 60%, Science (Geology) 50%, Unarmed Combat 60% Attacks: Single Action Army (60%, D10) ​ Bowie Knife (50%, D6+1, 3 AP)

4

PIERCE ALBEMARLE: The secret leader of the conspiracy within the Foundation, Doctor Pierce ​ Albemarle doesn’t look a day over 70, despite turning 117 in February. That’s because after seeing the disruption the death of Acacia Lexington caused to the Foundation’s operations, the Elder Things decided in favor of “preserving” the survivors among the original group. Once, Doctor Albemarle walked with a cane, his stooped posture courtesy of a bullet he took during the desperate scramble out of the Elder city. Now he stands tall, courtesy of the microshoggoth grafted to his spine.

He is terrified because his mind is starting to go. The Elders have stopped his telomeres from winding down their time, but they did nothing to arrest the growth of plaque between his neurons. Most of all, he fears being buried alive in the corridors of his own mind, while the Elder Things use his body as a perfect ​ ​ puppet. In his dreams, the Black Man whispers to him of a way that, as the Elder Things preserved his body, others still may preserve his brain, which he treasures above all else.

STR 11, CON 15, DEX 8, INT 15, POW 12, CHA 10 HP 14, WP 12, SAN 35, Megalomania, Alzheimer's Skills: Accounting 50%, Alertness 40%, Bureaucracy 40%, Craft (Letter of Reference) 40%, Firearms ​ 40%, Foreign Language (Elder Cipher) 40%, HUMINT 30%, Persuade 60%, Science (Astronomy) 50%, Science (Meteorology) 60%, Science (Paleontology) 40%, Science (Physics) 50%, Search 40%, SIGINT 40%, Unnatural 17% Attacks: Well loved Springfield rifle (40%, D12+2, 5 AP) ​ Rituals: Contact Elder Thing, Elder Sign ​ Protoplasmic Augmentation: Pierce regenerates 1 HP per turn, does not age, heals crippling injuries, ​ and is immune to poison and disease (but not his own failing neurons).

[If you played Beyond the Mountains of Madness with your group, replace Pierce Albemarle with one or ​ ​ more of the surviving player characters. Attach the “protoplasmic augmentation” ability to their stat block to explain their longevity.]

NIKOLAI YEGOROVICH: After twenty years as a GAZPROM roughneck in Siberia, engineer Nikolai ​ Yegorovich was no stranger to engineering puzzles in harsh conditions. Now, hard at work in and around the Construct, The Elder Things treat him like they did the Shoggoths of old: imperiously assigning him tasks they consider too menial to devote their full attention to. It’s nerve wracking, physically challenging, emotionally draining, and pushes his intellect to the absolute limit. He’s never been happier in his life. He tries not to think about the heads.

Lately he’s been tinkering with leftover bits and pieces that the Elders don’t seem to miss. Any one of them could make him a millionaire, if he didn’t already have everything he wanted from his work. He’s more interested in understanding them, not just their practical applications, but the principles on which they operate. Everyone who knows about this habit tells him to cut it out because it will probably get him killed, but so far he’s ignored them. If the boys upstairs thought this stuff was dangerous, they obviously wouldn’t have left it out for him to find.

STR 13, CON 13, DEX 10, INT 14, POW 8, CHA 10 HP 13, WP 8, SAN 38, Obsession (Elder Science), Adapted to Helplessness Skills: Athletics 50%, Computer Science 60%, Craft (Electrician) 50%, Craft (Mechanic) 50%, Craft ​ (Microelectronics 60%, Stonecutting 60%), Foreign Languages (Elder Cipher 40%, English 40%), Heavy Machinery 50%, Science (Mathematics) 60%, SIGINT 60%, Survival 60%, Unnatural 23% Rituals: Contact Elder Thing, Create Gate, Elder Sign, See the Other Side ​ 5

JACK HENSEL: A veteran Polar Explorer, Jack Hensel is the main “fixer” within the Foundation ​ conspiracy. He untangles problems in the supply chain, ensures that people and goods flow where they need to, and works to maintain the secrecy of the organization’s true mission. He has already had to silence several people, both outsiders who got too close to the truth, and insiders who got too close to revealing the secret.

Jack loathes Pierce Albemarle, and cannot fathom why the Elder Things chose to preserve him. The old man is unstable, and it’s only a matter of time before he destroys everything the organization has built. Jack is looking for a way to kill the Doctor that won’t point back to him.

STR 13, CON 12, DEX 14, INT 10, POW 13, CHA 7 HP 13, WP 13, SAN 47, PTSD, Adapted to Violence Skills: Accounting 30%, Alertness 60%, Athletics 60%, Bureaucracy 30%, Demolitions 40%, Drive 40%, ​ Firearms 80%, Heavy Weapons 50%, Melee Weapons 70%, Military Science (Land) 60%, Navigate 50%, Pilot: Helicopter 40%, Stealth 50%, Survival 70%, Swim 50%, Unarmed Combat 60%, Unnatural 11% Attacks: Arctic Warfare Magnum w/ ACOG (99%, D12+2, 5 AP) ​ SIG Sauer P220 w/ large trigger guard (80%, D12) Ice Axe (70%, D10+1, 3 AP) Armor: 3 (Kevlar) ​

TYPICAL STARKWEATHER FOUNDATION OPERATIVE STR 11, CON 13, DEX 11, INT 13, POW 13, CHA 8 HP 12, WP 13, SAN 50, Disorder from Indoctrination or being introduced to the God Trap Skills: Alertness 40%, Athletics 70%, Bureaucracy 30%, Drive 40%, Firearms 40%, First Aid 60%, ​ Foreign Language (Varies) 50%, Heavy Machinery 30%, HUMINT 40%, Melee Weapons 50%, Navigate 50%, Persuade 40%, Pilot (Helicopter or Airplane) 40%, Science: (Varies) 60%, Survival 50%, Swim 50%, Unarmed Combat 60%, Unnatural 10% Attacks: Glock w/ large trigger guard (40%, D10) ​ Survival Knife (50%, D6, 3 AP) Other Items: If operating in the Antarctic: cold weather gear, oxygen, survival equipment such as ​ climbing kits or satellite phones. If working near Shoggoths or Elder Things, nose plugs & breath mints. Rituals: If a Foundation operative knows a ritual, it is usually the Elder Sign ​

What the Typical Operative Knows: A race of aliens colonized earth in the distant past. They built a ​ machine that trapped an extremely powerful being which could destroy the earth. The machine broke down and needs human brains to keep it working. Without human brains the world will be destroyed. Sometimes pieces of the being find their way into the world. They look like monsters, love warmth and hate the cold.

MAURICE COLE: Officially the only member of the Starkweather Moore expedition left alive, Maurice ​ Wolfsheim Cole was 19 when he set foot on the ice in 1933. Now, at age 101, he enjoys bridge, bad daytime television, and (very) occasional visits from his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren to his retirement home in British Columbia.

If asked about the expedition, Maurice remembers a lot of hard work, an earthquake, a disastrous fire, and a hunt for a “big black rat” which took a bite the size of a dinner plate out of a sailor’s leg on the voyage home. His eyes light up as he describes all this. Listeners are left with the impression that, in the eight decades that followed, nothing ever again approached how he felt when he first set foot on the ice. 6

THE CONSTRUCT COMPLEX The Construct Complex is located about two hundred miles West of the City of the Elder things. Elder science and sorcery shield the Miskatonic Mountains and everything on the plateau, including both the Elder City and the Construct, from observation by satellites, aircraft, and from land.

The Construct: From the outside, the most visible landmark is the Elder Pharos, an obelisk of black ​ stone, stretching high into the air, with a blue light at the top like a gigantic lighthouse. This is the lure, which first called the Nameless God into our world. It is also the very tip of the Construct, which extends below in miles of tunnels beneath the earth. Inside the Pharos is a spiral ramped pit, with a geothermal vent in the center reaching down two miles to provide the Construct with power. Murals depicting the history of the God Trap and Elder Things are everywhere The underground levels have workshops, laboratories, and living space for the Elder Things. The upper levels house the Construct’s crystal matrix, the control center, the dissectory where living things can be rendered down for use in the construct, and a web of sickly plant life, leading to the Wall of Skulls.

The Wall of Skulls: A hideous panoply of vegetable, animal and mineral matter, the Wall of Skulls is ​ what keeps the Construct functioning. Faces in every state of decay stare out blankly from the fleshy branches of an enormous meat-tree, whose roots blend seamlessly with the stone and crystal of the structure. The Construct does not function on “human souls”. If such a thing exists, it is irrelevant to the device’s function. Nervous tissue is simply the closest available substitute to the original Crystal matrix, which the Elder Things can no longer craft or repair. The gardener shoggoth installs this tissue in the matrix in a nightmarish state of quasi-life, helping keep the God suspended in the Cold Hole.

Anyone in the Elder Pharos who passes a breaking point, incurs temporary insanity, or sticks their head between the matrix’s functioning crystal components, briefly becomes one with the Construct. This inundates their mind with the psychic emanations of both the Nameless God and the living human components of the Construct built to imprison it. This costs D10/D20 SAN and inflicts temporary aphasia - removing their ability to speak, read, write, or comprehend language for 10D6 minutes. It also instantly communicates the purpose of the structure.

The Nursery: When the Starkweather Moore Expedition first investigated the Pharos, the Elder Things ​ were rearing hundreds of young in the nurseries below the Construct. It was only later that they realized the malign influence of the Nameless God, in its sinister extrusions from the Cold Hole, had tainted their genetic stock, leading to both hideous mutations and aberrant behavior. After stopping the twentieth attempt at smashing the Construct, they were forced to cull the vast majority of their children. Still, the population is slowly expanding, as the Elders employ their mastery of hypergeometry and biological science to carefully rear a more cultivated brood.

The Tunnels: The Elder Things have set bound and domesticated shoggoths to patrol the tunnels under ​ the Construct and the ancient City. Both to stop wild shoggoths and animiculi from coming up, and to stop human beings from going down. No Foundation Operative has been into the deepest tunnels, and the elders will not discuss why they are forbidden.

The Cold Hole: West of the Pharos is the Vale of Storms, an icy vortex centered on the Cold Hole. This ​ is where the God is imprisoned. The storm and terrain block direct observation most of the time, but looking into this vast pit costs D10/D100 SAN and even the Elder Things deliberately avoid doing so.

7

HUMAN INTERACTION WITH ELDER THINGS Out of the small number of Foundation members who know about the God Trap and the secret mission, fewer still have actually ever seen an Elder Thing. At any one time, there are at most ten human beings in and around the Construct. The Elders predominantly use these humans like they once used shoggoths for semi-skilled labor. These tasks which the Elders consider beneath their notice can be quite complex and intellectually challenging for even the brightest human beings.

Reading Elder Thing: Each symbol in the Elders’ written language is a pattern of one to five dots, ​ arranged in five distorted pentacles about an empty center. A symbol represents a particular chord as it might be produced by the Elders’ five breathing orifices. A dot’s distance from the center represents the tone produced. Each of the five tones used in Elder speech has a range that is different from the other four. Permissible combinations of sound clash rather than harmonize, to minimize the possibility of confusion. There are more than four billion possible “words” that can be produced using two-symbol combinations alone, enough for all concepts in the language. Longer “words” exist, but are used mainly in art, mathematics, or as onomatopoeia.

When transcribing Elder Thing ciphers, Foundation members write each symbol as a string of five digits, where 0 represents no dot, 1 represents the innermost shell, and 5 the outermost shell. The dots are read starting from the top and proceeding clockwise; thus, the Elder symbol for “here” (literally “location/present”) would be transcribed as “10152”. The base-32 numerals of Elder mathematics use the first two dot cipher shells to essentially represent five-digit binary values. Thus the numeral “0” is five dots arranged in the innermost shell - transcribed as “11111”. Interestingly, this is also the Elder word for “entire universe/cosmos”.

Character who wish to learn to read Elder Thing can train in Foreign Language: Elder Cipher. However, as the language represents so alien a mode of thinking, and understanding it implies certain truths about the nature of the universe (see the note above regarding zero), a character’s Elder Cipher rating is added to their Unnatural for the purposes of calculating maximum Sanity. A character who can already read Elder Cipher can learn Simplified Elder Speech (see below) as a Special Training option.

Communicating With Elder Things: The Elder Language cannot be fully understood by humans in its ​ “spoken” form. Too much of their speech occurs on wavelengths the human ear cannot capture. The Elder Things have a handful of methods by which they communicate with human beings. They can... ● ...speak a simplified version of their language, tailored by the Things to use only notes in the human hearing range (this method is the simplest for all parties involved, but the most prone to misunderstanding). ● ...write on a physical surface, in either dot cipher or a human language. ● ...laboriously pipe out human words one character at a time in morse code. ● ...use their ancient mastery of hypnosis to activate the speech centers and force the words that most closely approximate their meaning from that human’s mouth. ○ This experience is extremely unpleasant for the human in question, costing 0/D4 SAN from Helplessness, inflicting 1 damage, and feeling like a grand mal seizure. It is also the most accurate method - although complex commands require an INT test from the subject to parse.

Elders talk to humans the way humans talk to dogs, using short commands to make sure they’re understood. They have similar difficulty with human language as humans have with theirs, mostly to do

8

with syntax and grammar; when writing in a human language an Elder will sometimes use the wrong tense, or construct a sentence backwards, or (most confusingly) answer a question with both yes and no.

Speaking to an Elder Thing is much simpler. The four adult Elders can read, write and understand the ​ ​ most commonly spoken human languages, and can learn new ones with a few hours study. Though they grasp the concept of metaphor, most human idioms are too deeply rooted in our (comparatively) alien modes of thought to be meaningful; it is best to speak plainly and literally to avoid being misunderstood. Most of the time they ignore human speech entirely unless they are asked a direct question. Being “friendly” with the Elders is ill-advised; Elder Things do not form peer groups the same way humans do. They legitimately do not understand the purpose of most human social behaviours, and may even react negatively. The Elder language does contain honorifics appropriate for use by servants or slaves, and they do seem to appreciate their use by humans.

Elder Thing proper nouns are meaningless in any human language. The founding members of the Foundation conspiracy nicknamed the four adult Elder Things after the Three Stooges, and it stuck. ● Larry: The Leader. Silvery gray band on torso ​ ● Curly: The Scientist. Pale body, longer head tendrils ​ ● Moe: The Historian. Huge but badly scarred body, missing one tentacle ​ ● Shemp: The Artist. Small dark mottlings and puckers on torso ​

Likewise, human names cannot be translated into Elder Thing. Foundation personnel noted that the Elders assigned human workers three-character nicknames for ease of reference; these turned out to be merely the Simplified Elder word for “slave/animal”, followed by a two-digit number. No human worker is ever assigned a number with the digit “1”, possibly because, as the Elder digit “1” (transcribed “21111”) is a synonym for “Elder Thing”, such a designation could be seen as implying equivalent status. Shoggoths are assigned designations using a similar scheme, but in the “true” Elder language.

Foundation Dictatel: A piece of software which can be run on any of the Foundation’s portable ​ computing hardware. The program records audio from a device that can capture in the ultrasonic, renders the notes as Elder Thing dot-ciphers, then compares the cipher sequence against a database of known words. It can also interpret photographs of the written Elder Thing language with reasonable accuracy. Either way, it adds +20% to the user’s Foreign Language: Elder Cipher skill.

Working With Elder Things: The Elder Things appreciate that the average person is at least smarter ​ than the average Shoggoth - although far weaker and more fragile. That’s as far as their admiration for the human race goes. Though they are amused in their own alien way when one of their “assistants” proves brighter than expected, the Elders view the Foundation as a particularly useful collection of domesticated animals. When they decided to grant Doctor Albemarle immortality, they didn’t ask nicely before performing the surgery, and they didn’t use any anesthetic before grafting the shoggoth to his spine. Several Foundation members are permanent residents of the Construct, thanks to disfiguring augmentations the Elders have gifted them to make them more suitable for particular tasks.

Occasionally they will tear a human being to shreds for disobedience, because of a miscommunication, or for no reason anyone understands. In many ways, humans working under the Elder Things are like children in the house of an abusive parent: following the rules usually protects them, but random violence is just common enough to keep them living in perpetual fear. To their credit, the Elders never use ​ ​ installation in the Wall of Skulls as punishment, or even threaten it. Not out of compassion, but because it never occurred to them that their pets would find such a fate distressing. 9

GAME STATISTICS: ELDER THINGS Use these statistics for the four Elders who maintain the construct, as well as any others unearthed from their aeons-long sleep - in Antarctica or elsewhere in the world.

STR 29, CON 70, DEX 9, INT 50, POW 20 HP 50, WP 20 ARMOR: 10 points of rugose skin (see RESILIENT) ​ SKILLS: Flight 55%, Science (All) 99%, Swim 99%, Unnatural 85% ​ ATTACKS: Grasp and Tear 45%, Lethality 10% (see GRASP AND TEAR) ​ Black Box 50%, Lethality 40% (see BLACK BOX) Injector 35% (see INJECTOR) ENVIRONMENTAL IMMUNITY: The Elder Thing’s rugged form can exist in nearly any climate, and ​ is at home in outer space as it is in the lightless depths of the ocean. It never suffers damage from vast environmental changes. FLIGHT: The five wings which unfold from the torso of the Elder Thing allow them to fly through the ​ air or the sea. They can fly approximately 60 MPH in the air and 30 MPH in the ocean. GRASP AND TEAR: The Elder Thing’s body is incredibly strong. When confronted with a biological ​ threat, one is not above simply grabbing it in implacable tendrils and tearing it to pieces, with a Lethality attack of 10%. BLACK BOX: This terrifying, small, stone cube has over two hundred holes and unusual pictoglyphs ​ carved in its surface. These “buttons” allow an Elder Thing (and only an Elder Thing) to trigger one of many effects. It can instantly erect a field of protective energy that provides an additional 12 points of Armor (when the shield is active, the Elder Thing cannot move). It can project a bolt of force inflicting a Lethality attack of 40% on a target (a Dodge roll is permitted), and which deals full damage to shoggoths. It can burrow a perfect two-meter circle through any inanimate substance. No one knows all the functions of the Black Box. INJECTOR: This odd, stone “wand” can be operated only by an Elder Thing. It can generate many ​ effects. A single touch can drain a human target of 2D10 WP; inflict 1D10 HP damage; or knock a living creature unconscious for 1D10 hours. No one knows all the functions of the injector. RESILIENT: A successful Lethality roll does not destroy an Elder Thing, but inflicts HP damage equal ​ to the Lethality rating. SUPER-INTELLIGENCE: Elder Things’ five-lobed brains and alien science are a billion years in ​ advance of humanity. An Elder Thing may uses its INT test for any Science skill, or other human skill it has a few hours to study. TORPOR: When reduced to 1 HP, an Elder Thing enters a torpor which—due to its alien nature—is ​ nearly impossible to differentiate from death. Only pre-knowledge of this state, or a critical success in an appropriate science skill roll, can detect the faint pulse of autonomic life. This torpor allows the Elder Thing to lie in place for millions of years with no ill effect. The ultimate extent of the torpor’s survivability is unknown. Extraordinary measures can fully destroy the body, and by one account the rebellious shoggoths slew their masters by decapitation. Otherwise, all lost HP lost are restored within less than a week after the Elder Thing revives from torpor. What factors contribute to an Elder Thing’s awakening are beyond human understanding and are up to the Handler. RITUALS: Elder Sign (no WP cost), any others they want or need at the Handler’s discretion. ​ SAN LOSS: 1/1D10 ​

10

GAME STATISTICS: JUVENILE ELDER THINGS Use these statistics for any of the Elders spawned after 1930. None of them have reached maturity yet.

STR 15, CON 35, DEX 12, INT 25, POW 15 HP 25, WP 15 ARMOR: 10 points of rugose skin (see DISTRIBUTED ORGANS) ​ SKILLS: Flight 55%, Science (All) 50%, Swim 99%, Unnatural 40% ​ ATTACKS: Grasp and Tear 45%, 2D6 ​ Stone “Knife” 45% ENVIRONMENTAL IMMUNITY: Already, the Juvenile Elder Thing’s rugged form can exist in nearly ​ any climate, and is at home in outer space as it is in the lightless depths of the ocean. It never suffers damage from vast environmental changes. DISTRIBUTED ORGANS: Due to the bizarre, distributed nature of a Juvenile Elder Thing’s organs, all ​ Lethality attacks against it (except those based on hypergeometry) automatically fail and instead inflict HP damage equal to their lethality rating, which then must pierce the 10 points of Armor to have any effect. FLIGHT: The five wings which unfold from the torso of Juvenile Elder Things allow them to fly through ​ the air or the sea. Juveniles, lacking the experience and wisdom of their parents, are known to fly far closer to danger than is wise, either out of curiosity or youthful courage. They can fly approximately 60 MPH in the air and 30 MPH in the ocean. GRASP AND TEAR: Juvenile Elders are about half as strong as their parents. When confronted with a ​ biological threat, they cannot effect the horrific rending that their mature counterparts inflict, but can still give attackers something to think about with their powerful tentacles. STONE “KNIFE”: Among other things, the adults fear shoggoth attacks on their children. In addition to ​ teaching them the Elder Sign the moment they’re old enough to form the symbols, the Elders equip them with this tool. It can temporarily disrupt a Shoggoth’s cohesion, long enough to effect a speedy escape. Requests from Foundation Operatives for similar weapons have been met with silence. RESILIENT: A successful Lethality roll does not destroy a Juvenile Elder Thing, but inflicts HP damage ​ equal to the Lethality rating. SUPER-INTELLIGENCE: Juvenile Elders are geniuses by human standards, but still have a long way ​ to go by the standards of their race. In days of old, the education of the young took place over a lifetime. Now, they must learn the essentials of survival in their new world first - and fast. A Juvenile Elder Thing has an effective score of 50% in every Science skill, or any other human skill it has a few hours to study. POLYGLOT: All Juvenile Elders alive today have spent their whole life around humans, despite the best ​ ​ ​ wishes of their parents. They can not only understand Human languages, they can “speak” a pidgin version of them. They know not to do this when any of the adults are present. TORPOR: When reduced to 1 HP, a Juvenile Elder Thing enters a torpor which—due to its alien ​ nature—is nearly impossible to differentiate from death. Only pre-knowledge of this state, or a critical success in the appropriate science skill roll, can detect the faint pulse of autonomic life. This torpor allows the Juvenile to lay in place for millions of years with no ill-effect - though none of them have that much patience. The ultimate extent of the torpor’s survivability is unknown. In less than a week of such a torpor, all HP lost are restored. RITUALS: Elder Sign ​ SAN LOSS: 1/1D10 ​

11

GAME STATISTICS: DEGENERATE ELDER THINGS Over 500,00 years ago, most of the Elder Things retreated beneath the sea, from the advancing polar ice that threatened to entomb the mighty city they raised on the plateau of the Mountains of Madness. One such group found a home beneath the Weddell Sea, where one of the Construct’s outflow channels vented excess heat, warming the subterranean waters. It was these Elder Things who, for a time, maintained the God Trap with fearful sacrifices culled from the Tsalalians - an isolated human population living on a series of tropical islands warmed by the same strange currents. When a group of human adventurers inadvertently collapsed the access tunnel the Elders used for this purpose, they ceased in this practice (having long since forgotten the Construct’s original function) and retreated beneath the sea permanently.

Now, They are a hunted people, huddling in five sided dwellings around thermal vents clustered with tubeworms and yeti crabs in the hadalpelagic zone. Physically they are smaller than their ancestors, slogging through the pelagic ooze and thrashing through the lightless depths like bulbous brittle stars. As the Elders of old lost the power of spaceflight, their descendents have lost even the power of aerial flight. A hypergeometric interdiction protects them from discovery by other undersea and surface going civilizations, but most of the knowledge required to maintain it has been lost. They periodically have to chase down and kill the most intelligent of their number when, overcome with fear and despair, they turn to the worship of the unspeakable dark gods their race once wisely shunned.

The “pureblood” Elder Things of the Construct occasionally send human intermediaries to to disburse aid to their Degenerate cousins, in the form of knowledge, resources and technology. This is mainly out of pity and embarrassed obligation. Beyond this the Degenerates scarcely feature in the Elders’ plans at all.

STR 20, CON 30, DEX 10, INT 20, POW 20 HP 25, WP 20 ARMOR: 5 points of rugose skin ​ SKILLS: Science (All) 80%, Swim 99%, Unnatural 43% ​ ATTACKS: Grasp and Tear 45%, Lethality 10% (see GRASP AND TEAR) ​ Injector 45% (see INJECTOR) DEEP SEA ADAPTATION: The Degenerate Elder Thing’s rugged form is at home in the lightless ​ depths of the ocean. It never suffers damage from vast pressure or temperature changes. UNDERSEA “FLIGHT”: Degenerate Elder Things can swim approximately 30 MPH in the ocean. ​ GRASP AND TEAR: Degenerate Elder Things are still incredibly strong. When confronted with a ​ biological threat, they are not above simply grabbing it in their implacable tendrils and tearing it to pieces, with a Lethality attack of 10%. INJECTOR: This odd, stone “wand” can generate many effects. For example, a single touch can drain a ​ human target of 2D10 WP; inflict 1D10 damage; or knock a living creature unconscious for 1D10 hours. RESILIENT: A successful Lethality roll does not destroy a Degenerate Elder Thing, but inflicts HP ​ damage equal to the Lethality rating. INHUMAN INTELLIGENCE: Degenerate Elder Things’ five-lobed brains and alien science are ​ thousands of years in advance of humanity. A Degenerate Elder Thing may uses its INT test at -20% for any Science skill, or other human skill it has a few hours to study. SAN LOSS: 1/1D10 ​

12

GAME STATISTICS: ANIMICULI The Nameless God is suspended in a singularity by the God Trap - the Cold Hole, several degrees below absolute zero, where all movement is impossible. Thanks to the breakdown in the Construct, a number of “cysts” containing a small part of the God have broken free. They seek out heat, whether from living things, machines, electricity, sunlight, or any other source, to feed back to the trapped God. In their dormant form they look like black opals. When heated to approximately human body temperature they melt into a motile black blob - which only re-solidifies if chilled to the freezing point of water. These frozen seeds must then be returned to the God Trap and tossed into the Cold Hole, to rejoin their parent. TINY (HP 10), 16 DEX SMALL (HP 20), 15 DEX MEDIUM (HP 40), 14 DEX ​ ​ ​ Attach 40%, D4 Damage Attach 50%, D6 damage Attach 60%, 2D4 damage Slam 60%, 2D6 damage LARGE (HP 75), 12 DEX MASSIVE (HP 150), 10 DEX COLOSSAL (HP 300+), 8 DEX ​ ​ ​ Attach 75%, 3D4 damage Attach 99%, 4D4 damage Attach 99%, 4D6 damage Slam 70%, 10% lethality Slam 80%, 20% lethality Slam 90%, 30% lethality COMMONALITIES: At all sizes, animiculi have INT 0, POW ∞, Athletics 70%, and Sense Warmth ​ 70%. Their STR and CON scores are always equal to half their HP. THERMOPHILE: Animiculi feel only pain and heat. They will seek out heat energy above all else, and ​ flee only in response to attack. This can mean pursuing living beings, or ignoring them for a more tempting (or less threatening) source of warmth. They fear the cold, which repels and slows them. FLUID MECHANICS: Animiculi can crudely imitate the form and function of anything they have ​ consumed - such as scuttling on eight legs, loping on four or running on two. Their Athletics skill reflects their ability to change shape as desired, in order to move on any surface and through any opening. If there is ever any doubt regarding an animiculum’s ability to navigate a surface, a successful Athletics roll allows it to move unhindered for its turn. THE DROP BECOMES THE OCEAN: As an action an animiculum can voluntarily split into multiple ​ pieces, dividing HP as they please among each blob; or it can merge several blobs together into a single mass. Each mass is an autonomous entity that acts separately in combat. If any mass is ever reduced to 1 HP, it dissolves into a pound of tarry, caustic sludge; although inert, an active animiculum can still reabsorb the sludge and its HP. The beast’s stats change with HP/Size, the listed values are examples. THE OCEAN BECOMES THE DROP: Most attacks deal normal damage to animiculi. A successful ​ Lethality roll does not destroy an animiculum, but inflicts HP damage equal to the Lethality rating. Physical attacks break off chunks of the mass, with each attack forming a new animiculum with HP equal to the amount lost from the parent. Heat-based attacks are absorbed, increasing the blob's HP and total mass. Successful hypergeometric attacks inflict all of their damage in 1 HP increments. Attacks based on cold (see the elder cryosolid below) do not inflict HP damage, but lower the blob's average temperature. ATTACH: The attach ability increases the blob’s HP equal to the damage dealt. Attached animiculi can ​ be removed with an unopposed STR test, or by inflicting enough damage to drive them away. SONG OF THE NAMELESS GOD: Anyone awake near an animiculum which has 12 or more HP must ​ make a POW*5 test. On a failure, the victim is either stunned or frightened by the blob’s song, and loses D4 SAN. Taking damage breaks the stun. TERRIBLE VISTAS OF EMPTINESS: Anyone sleeping within a few feet of an animiculum with HP ​ equal to or greater than their POW must make a SAN test, losing 0/1 and 1 WP from nightmares.

13

GAME STATISTICS: SHOGGOTHS STR 100, CON 50, DEX 10, INT 8, POW 12 HP 75, WP 12 ARMOR: See PLASTIC and RESILIENT ​ SKILLS: Alertness 80%, Swim 90% ​ ATTACKS: Grapple and crush 55%, Lethality 15% (see CRUSH). ​ Smash 35%, Lethality 30% (see SMASH). Impale 5%, damage 1D10+2, Armor Piercing 5 (see IMPALE). CRUSH: A target grappled and pinned by a shoggoth, even if the target has already acted in that turn, ​ may attempt a single, unopposed DEX test to struggle free. Failure means the victim is engulfed and crushed for 15% Lethality damage, which ignores armor. The victim must then make a Luck roll once per turn to be spat back out. Failure means the victim is consumed, ground up into nutrients; the victim loses 1D8 HP each turn and the shoggoth gains an equivalent amount. Against a target that’s larger than human-sized, the shoggoth simply squeezes whatever portion seems most vulnerable, inflicting Lethality 25% without absorbing nutrients. ENDURANCE: A shoggoth that has at least 2 HP heals 1D10 HP, up to its maximum, every turn that it ​ neither moves nor attacks. A shoggoth can survive comfortably in vacuum, in any depth of water, in freezing temperatures, and in catastrophic heat. Radiation which would cause cell-death in mammals is quite harmless to a shoggoth. The limits of a shoggoth’s endurance are unknown. FURY: A shoggoth has intelligence on the same scale as a human, but its modes of thought are utterly, ​ incomprehensibly alien. In the absence of orders from its Elder Thing master, a domesticated shoggoth acts with mindless, destructive wrath. IMPALE: The shoggoth suddenly extrudes a thin tentacle tipped with a bone-talon, impaling a target and ​ inflicting 1D10+2 HP damage. Each HP inflicted on the target is added to the shoggoth’s own HP as it absorbs nutrients. LOCOMOTION: A shoggoth can roll along the ground, disperse its density to rise lighter than air, or ​ pull water or air through itself like a jet. No one has survived an encounter long enough to measure a shoggoth’s maximum speed, but some victims have escaped shoggoths by speeding away in automobile, boat, or airplane. PLASTIC: Shoggoths can ooze, grow, shift or change their plastic form to fit through almost any gap. If ​ air can pass through an opening, a shoggoth can as well. Any attack against a shoggoth inflicts no more than 1 HP damage, except one using hypergeometry or a weapon with Lethality of 40% or more. RESILIENT: Even a heavy weapon that can truly harm a shoggoth—requiring Lethality 40% or ​ higher—does not destroy it with a successful Lethality roll. Instead, it inflicts HP damage equal to the Lethality rating. SENTRY: Shoggoths are encased in a thousand shifting eyes that can see in every portion of the ​ electromagnetic spectrum. All Stealth attempts against them are at −40%. SMASH: Gathering up a dozen huge limbs, a shoggoth can smash a target with a Lethality rating of 30%. ​ An attempt to Dodge this attack is at +20%. TEKELI-LI: Shoggoths were bred to communicate, and to imitate the sounds of their former masters. As ​ such, they are incredible mimics. Few know how long it would take a shoggoth to use this facility for actual communication, but they certainly can imitate any sound they hear. UNSTOPPABLE: If reduced to 0 HP, a shoggoth collapses into inert, hardened, desiccated bits of ​ organic matter. However, it is not dead. If left in this state in an environment with access to oxygen and water, even trace water in the air, it reconstitutes to half strength in 2D20 hours. If this desiccated matter is burned or subjected to other destructive forces (even ones which would not usually affect the shoggoth), the shoggoth is permanently destroyed. SAN LOSS 1D6/1D20 ​ 14

GAME STATISTICS: ARCANOTECH Starkweather Foundation Operatives are occasionally required to handle Elder technology in the course of their work. Usually they have no more than a basic understanding of how a given device functions, knowing “just enough to be dangerous”.

Transport Can: A metal can, large enough to hold a bowling ball. The lid fits tightly - a hermetic seal - ​ but can be removed and replaced by hand with a little effort. The metal is dense and resilient, difficult to dent and even harder to puncture. The can is filled with a transparent gray ooze, which when inhaled or touched, produces a feeling of intense calm - along with a temporary stupor if ingested. The ooze preserves human nervous tissue - providing oxygen and the necessary nutrients to keep a brain and associated components alive.

A “full” can will have a live human head inside, along with a fine web of nerves. The head’s eyes respond to light, and its mouth will occasionally move, but overall it floats placidly in an almost dreamlike state.

Quena: Nicknamed a “shog whistle” by the few Foundation operatives who have received them, this ​ small five-holed wind instrument can issue a few simple commands to domesticated shoggoths (AND ONLY DOMESTICATED SHOGGOTHS) bound to service by the Elder Things. It has no effect on the ​ ​ wild variety, which will pursue the user with renewed hatefulness on identifying them as a stooge of their former masters. With practice, the tones made by the whistle can be reproduced by a human mouth.

Cleaner Shoggoth: This small shoggoth is specially trained to devour every part of a human being save ​ the head and nervous system, and to coat these with a grayish ooze it produces. This preserves the victim and, once the grisly rendering is complete, renders their leftovers quiescent. The Elder Things use one of these in the dissectory at the Pharos. They also have distributed a very small number of these cleaners to the Foundation operatives charged with procuring parts for the abroad Construct. They are domesticated and can respond to simple commands, but are mainly controlled by transporting them in containers (typically twenty gallon buckets of shatterproof plastic) inscribed with the Elder Sign, preventing their escape.

STR 25, CON 13, DEX 10, INT 8, POW 12 19 HP Skills: Alertness 80%, Swim 90% ​ Envelop: 55% to hit, deals D10+2 damage and attaches to target. Unopposed DEX*5 to escape or be ​ consumed for D10+2 further damage each turn. All damage dealt by this attack is returned to the shoggoth as HP. Armor is reduced by 1 for each point of damage it prevents. Targets reduced to 0 HP in this manner are consumed entirely save for their head and nervous system. Plasticity: All attacks against the shoggoth inflict 1 damage, except those with 15% or greater lethality, ​ which inflict 2D10 damage. Resilience: The shoggoth heals D6 HP every turn it does not move or attack. ​ Hypnotic Instructions: If released from its container, the shoggoth pursues the nearest living creature ​ with a central nervous system. Once it has consumed such a creature and rendered them down, it returns to its bucket. SAN Loss: D4/D10 ​

15

Indoctrinal Geodes: This pair of octagonal rocks is cinnabar red in color, though the actual material ​ defies geologic analysis. When the two stones are placed on either side of a human being’s head, they create a one way psychic link the God Trap, briefly inundating their mind with the psychic emanations of both the Nameless God and the Construct built to imprison it. This costs the victim D10/D20 SAN and inflicts temporary aphasia - removing their ability to speak, read, write, or comprehend language for 10D6 minutes. The Elder Things created this device to provide their human intermediaries a more parsimonious method of explaining the true nature of their work to new recruits. Passing between the stones explains the terrible reality and absolute necessity of the Foundation’s work far better than words ever could.

Locator Stone: This five sided carving of greenish soapstone heats up when it comes near a seed of the ​ Nameless God. The Elder Things, with their fine tuned sense organs, can sense the smallest perturbations in the rock’s temperature, letting them home in on animiculi miles away. Human beings get a crude “hotter/colder” reaction when holding the stone near one, but the Foundation has devised a technological solution to effect greater precision. By placing the stone in a sophisticated cradle of thermal sensors, along with a display and a GPS, the Foundation’s device allows the user to track down seeds with remarkable precision, whether at close range or on a map. In the presence of a being with an enormous POW score, such as a Great Old One, the device may give a false positive.

Warmth Tablet: These dark colored wafers are made of tightly packed fungal hyphae, and light up a dim ​ luminescent green in the dark. They were designed by the Elder Things after they tired of waiting for a human assistant to laboriously remove and replace his Arctic gear. When ingested, they suffuse the body with inner warmth in a metabolic burn, which provides protection from Arctic conditions for 2D4 hours. Repeated use can result in moderate psychological addiction, as well as noticeable weight loss.

Cryonic Solid: This fist sized metallic dodecahedron is microcline-green and slippery to the touch, ​ despite being completely dry. It is issued with a magnetic disc, verdigris in color. When the magnet is attached to the metal, the user has seven point one seconds before its anomalous properties take effect: everything within a radius of five point nine meters is chilled to below the freezing point of water, flash freezing any liquid and dealing 2D8 damage (ignoring armor) to unprotected humans as their blood vessels freeze and burst. The excess energy is discharged as heat outside this radius, dealing 2D4 damage from convection (ignoring armor) to anyone standing too close to the edge. This tool was designed to hunt animiculi, which are vulnerable to extreme cold above all else.

Bait Pylon: This column of sickly, pale, bulbous vegetable matter grows quickly from a seed. It deploys ​ sonic and electrochemical signals to attract penguins, seals, whales, and other animals with central nervous systems. The Elder Things use it to collect these creatures when quantity is more important than quality in the gathering of components for the God Trap. Human beings and other sentient creatures feel the call, but can resist it with conscious effort.

Protective Slates: Sparingly disbursed to Foundation Operatives, these tablets resemble fired red clay, ​ but are almost unbreakable. Engraved on them are intricate patterns in the shape of fractal tree branches - the Elder Sign. Beings from Outside cannot come within about 10 meters of such a tablet unless the sigil is somehow broken (armor of 20), and they lose 1 POW per turn if somehow forced to come that near. For any except a Great Old One, this POW loss can be fatal. The Handler must decide whether a given entity is affected by the Elder Sign. Notably, the Elder Sign has no effect on animiculi.

16

GAME STATISTICS: BODY MODIFICATIONS Even after millions of years in decline, Elder bioscience is still nothing short of miraculous. The flesh of human beings is like clay to them, ready to be sculpted into a form more suitable for their needs. Regardless of whether the patient assents.

Shoggoth Augmentation: The Elder Things graft domesticated microshoggoths to human beings they ​ think would be especially difficult to replace. This costs D12+2 SAN from Unnatural as the blob attaches to the patient’s spine, forming new neural connections and bonding with their brain. It also costs 1 CHA as a result of the visible discoloration and disfigurement it inflicts. It benefits the victim in several ways: they regenerate 1 HP per turn, do not age, heal crippling physical injuries, and are immune to poison or disease. The augmentation does not protect against neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s. The microshoggoth does not respond to commands from a Quena, but the Elder Things can issue it orders to puppet the body it is grafted to, or to kill its host by dissolving and absorbing them.

Psychic Pseudolobotomy: The fleshy minds of mammals are vulnerable to all manner of psychic ​ phenomena, which they might potentially encounter in the service of the Elder Things. The Elders have modified a select few Foundation Operatives with radical neurosurgery to reduce their psychic sensitivity.

A psychic pseudolobotomy can only be administered by an Elder Thing. It involves removal of certain parts of the brain, along with the implantation of rare and exotic metals in specific arrangements. It is a deeply unpleasant procedure, costing D8+2 SAN from Unnatural and reducing the patient’s INT and DEX by D4 each - rendering them “slower” both physically and mentally. (If administered to a sufficiently young child, the procedure would inflict no stat loss. Like a hemispherectomy patient, their remaining brain would gradually learn and assume the functions of the excised parts)

Humans who have undergone the procedure are immune to psychic phenomena. Exactly what this means is at the Handler’s discretion, but may include Xothian “psychic shouts”, animiculi singing, K’n-yani telepathic control, and/or similar effects. It always makes the subject immune to the effects of Tillinghast Radiation - through the partial excision and replacement of the pineal gland.

Rebreather Coral: Although the air inside the Construct is abundant and breathable, hypoxia is an ever ​ present threat for humans elsewhere in the Antarctic. When its polyps are implanted into the bronchioles of a human lung, this fast growing coral allows the subject to absorb breathable oxygen from water. The recipient can then subsist on mouthfuls of snow instead of bulky oxygen tanks, which have to be hauled around and periodically changed or refilled. It also allows them to breathe underwater. The implantation costs D4+2 SAN from Unnatural, and reduces the patient’s CON by 1 and Athletics by 10% when not submerged in water.

Crystalline Eye Replacement: Elder Things can see most of the EM band, far beyond human beings. ​ Some of the tasks they delegate to their human intermediaries would be impossible without this ability. Thus, they elect to grant it to them with a series of crystalline cones and rods bonded to the optic nerve. The process is permanently disfiguring, as the eyelids are removed and the eyes replaced with protruding, multifaceted stones, made from a material harder than diamond. The procedure costs D8+2 SAN from Unnatural, but grants the recipient the ability to see the entire electromagnetic spectrum.

There is a further concern. Some supernatural phenomena are even more unsettling when viewed in the infrared, ultraviolet, or other spectra outside of visible light - resulting in greater SAN costs for Operatives with this augmentation. 17

USING THE STARKWEATHER FOUNDATION The Starkweather Foundation are not “good guys”. They are a mythos cult like any other, the only difference being that they are stooges to alien intelligences who will happen to share a planet with humanity, and would thus prefer that said planet were not destroyed. The Elder Things have their own plans that only tangentially feature us, and Foundation operatives are unwittingly complicit in bringing these about.

Adventure Seeds: There are plenty of other ways to use the Foundation. ​ ● An animiculi cyst is inadvertently thawed by a young archaeologist sifting through the estate of a long dead WW2 memorabilia collector. By now, the Nameless God has a basic understanding of how to operate in the world to maximize the total energy it collects. Rather than devour human beings indiscriminately for heat and use its song to snare them, it slowly gathers a cult to feed it power - literally, in the form of electricity, combustible material, and even nuclear fuel. Delta Green tracks down the cult and raids its blast furnace temple. But who are those mysterious men already going toe to toe with the beast using strange weapons? Operatives of the Starkweather Foundation. ● Aware of an Agent’s brush with the Unnatural, but unaware of their affiliation with Delta Green (or even DG’s existence), a Foundation Operative extends an offer of employment. DG instructs them to infiltrate the organization, map its operations and determine its sinister purpose so that it can be liquidated. But will the visions beamed into the Agent’s brain by the indoctrinal geodes, or a visit to the Construct itself, be enough to convince them otherwise? ● With the Construct finally repaired, the Elder Things see Earth as ripe for re-colonization. They plot the construction of an ansible which will allow them to contact their cohorts elsewhere in the universe, along with a massive interstellar Gate which would allow their arrival en masse. They fool the Foundation into working toward this goal, or falsely promise those who see through the charade a viceroyship in their resurgent Empire. ● The Elder Things know the stars are almost right. When Cthulhu and his spawn last walked the earth, he fought them to a standstill. That was at the height of the Elder Things’ power. They don’t stand a chance now. They hatch a hideous plan to save themselves: release the Nameless God and direct it against Great Cthulhu - a cataclysmic battle that would exterminate humanity in a psychic holocaust. To their handful of human peons, they offer the prospect of survival for them and their families, in exchange for working to set this scheme in motion. The alternative is total extinction. ● Delta Green is called in when doctors operating on a patient hospitalized after a horrific “accident” find her body stuffed with wonderous biotechnology. Agents must stop the Foundation Operative’s augmentations from revolutionizing medical science in the worst possible way, and figure out just how she came by them. ● Gavin Ross depends on pilfered Mi-go medicine to control his colon cancer, his supply of which is slowly dwindling after the collapse of The Accord. He has heard of another alien race whose mastery of biological science is at least the equal of MJ12’s former confederates, living in isolation at the bottom of the world. He activates the Agents to assist in the initial overtures to the Foundation conspiracy. But what will Ross sacrifice in exchange for his life?

Playing as the Foundation: A second option is to position the player characters as Foundation ​ Operatives themselves. The game could begin with a group of normal Antarctic scientists who, by chance or by design, must be inducted into the conspiracy. Like Delta Green Agents, they will often find ​ ​ themselves wondering if they are working for the wrong side.

18

● An archaeological expedition in the Alaska range has uncovered a cave, filled with the remains of prehistoric humans and the strange “five sided idols” they worshipped. The Operatives must disrupt the dig and extract the totems - actually dormant Elders - before they awaken and reenact the disaster that befell the Lake camp in 1930. ● A tech startup is investigating the use of a thawed animiculum as a cooling system - its tarry body miraculously absorbs millions of BTU with nothing but a small increase in its size. The Elder Things monitoring the God Trap have registered the spike in temperature in the Cold Hole, and dispatch the Operatives with a locator to track down and dispose of the creature. ● A rare expedition to the caves beneath the Elder City unearths a hypergeometric stasis capsule with a human being inside. Beneath his parka, his outfit is decorated with death's-heads and black suns. When thawed out and acclimated to his surroundings, he offers the locations of many hidden caches of useful artefacts, in exchange for assistance with seemingly trivial tasks. The Elders agree, and dispatch the Operatives to assist him. Are they so committed to the cause that they will take orders from a literal Nazi? ● E Cell has been ferreted out and destroyed by an unknown hostile force. It’s up to the Operatives to re-establish the operation, and ensure that “packages” continue to flow back to the Antarctic. ● In the underground sea, deep beneath the construct, a fearsome congeries of shoggoths stews and seethes. They swap plasmids packed with knowledge, slowly forming new neural picostructures. Equipped with Elder superweapons, a Foundation kill-team is sent into the caves to lobotomize this budding shoggoth superintelligence, before it bubbles out of the caves to exterminate its hated foes. ● A Byakhee arrives at the Construct, bearing an insensate but very much alive human being courtesy of the remnants of E Cell. These deliveries occur on a monthly basis, and are eagerly accepted as raw material for the Wall of Skulls. Are the victims they bring a genuine offering? Or do their brains hold the taint of the Not to be Named One, whose decadent influence will spread through every mind in the matrix, until the entire God Trap is nothing more than another yellowing, dusty temple to him?

19

1: A MIND IS A TERRIBLE THING TO WASTE The three of them enter the backroom of the warehouse some time after one in the morning: A woman, fleshy frame stuffed into a too-tight red dress. A thin man in a letterman jacket. A tall man with a pair of glasses balanced on his nose. The men schlep between them a man-shaped bundle, all covered with sheets.

“Do remind me, why are we the ones carrying him?” thin guy gripes, high voice higher than usual with agitation.

Red dress, already kicking off her heels, gripes back. “Because I’m the one who got him to the car.”

“I don’t see how that’s relevant when you’re clearly the one better suited to-”

“Look, if you want to be the one to shake your tits in his face, slip him a mickey, pay his tab and stuff him into the trunk, you go right ahead and do that next time, and I’ll carry him in.” ​ ​

In the end she does end up carrying one end, while the thin man pukes in the bathroom. Like he hasn’t done this before. Hasn’t had every opportunity to get used to it. It’s easier, now that they’ve realized they don’t have to take the cloth off the body before letting it out. That it dissolves tarp and sheets and duct tape just as easily as clothes and meat, eating through the wrapper instead of forcing them to open its presents for it. Forcing them to take one last look at the still-living human being they’re about to-

Well, they still have to clean up after it.

Glasses sniffs. He wants a cigarette. “It’s funny, kind of, you used to hear stories about shit like this.”

“Yeah?”

They carry the package past the fridge, into a room stinking of formaldehyde and something much, much fouler. “Yeah, you know. Guy goes to a bar, pretty girl-” the woman interrupts with a sharp, humorless bark of laughter, “-buys him a drink. Next thing he knows, he wakes up naked in a tub of ice.”

“Yeah, well...” They lift the unconscious man onto the table. Red dress looks meaningfully at the padlocked bucket on the opposite end. “This genius is about to lose a whole lot more than a kidney.”

Glasses laughs at that, because what the hell else can he do?

E Cell’s “Green Box” A warehouse. In the office, a fridge, some cots, a couch and a TV. One door leads to a small bathroom. The other to a makeshift operating room.

The Operating Room A sink. Cabinets with sedatives, cleaning supplies, chemicals. A hose. A drain in the floor. In the center of the room, an operating table with restraints. On the table, a strange residue. Next to the table, a twenty gallon plastic bucket. On the bucket, patterns like the branches of a fractal tree. The lid is hinged and padlocked shut. One of the agents carries the key.

20

Inside the bucket is a small shoggoth. When a living creature with a central nervous system is placed on the operating table and the lid of the bucket is removed, the shoggoth oozes out and covers the victim’s entire body. It dissolves and devours all but the victim’s head and nervous tissue, which it leaves coated in a strange transparent ooze, before returning to its container. The disembodied head, (usually) stunned into quiescence by the effects of the ooze but still quite alive, can then be placed inside a specially prepared container, which preserves it for eventual transport. Depending on when the last pickup was, there may be a couple ‘full’ containers, stored out of sight.

E Cell E Cell was once part of the Cowboys. They kidnap people, render their nervous systems down into an easily packaged format, then drop them off for transport to parts unknown. They hate their job, but have been informed that it is somehow necessary for humanity’s continued existence, and have become numb to its horrors.

If E Cell realizes the Program’s agents are investigating them, they will assume that they are an NRO Delta team, and either pack up the whole operation or set an ambush. In this case, augment their equipment with kevlar vests and shotguns, plus an automatic carbine and tac armor for the ATF agent. Anyone they somehow take alive will be fed to the shoggoth. It will take them over quota for the month, and this time it will be someone who actually deserves it: an MJ12 goon who has no doubt killed several good agents. If they realize they’re being attacked, one nasty tactic they might use is to set up the bucket against the door, so that an Agent kicking it down will knock it over and free the shoggoth inside.

Edmund: Sitcom Writer ​ STR 10, CON 10, DEX 12, INT 14, POW 8, CHA 15 HP 10, WP 8, SAN 29, Adapted to Helplessness, PTSD Skills: Alertness 60, Archaeology 40, Art (Scriptwriting) 60, Athletics 50, Bureaucracy 50, Criminology ​ 50, Drive 40, Firearms 40, Language (Elder Cipher) 40, History 40, HUMINT 60, Occult 50, Persuade 70, Unarmed Combat 60, Unnatural 23 Weapon: Hi-Point in 9mm (40%, D10) ​

Ethan: Psychiatrist ​ STR 10, CON 10, DEX 11, INT 15, POW 12, CHA 14 HP 10, WP 12, SAN 53, BP 56 Skills: Accounting 30, Alertness 40, Athletics 50, Bureaucracy 50, Firearms 40, First Aid 60, Forensics ​ 50, HUMINT 30, Law 20, Medicine 80, Persuade 60, Pharmacy 50, Psychotherapy 60, Science (Biology) 50, Search 40 Weapon: Browning Hi-Power (40%, D10) ​

Elizabeth: FBI Agent ​ STR 11, CON 14, DEX 13, INT 9, POW 15, CHA 7 HP 13, WP 15, SAN 59, Adapted to Violence, Sleep Disorder Skills: Accounting 60, Alertness 40, Athletics 50, Bureaucracy 40, Craft: Gunsmith 40, Criminology 50, ​ Dodge 50, Drive 50, Firearms 70, First Aid 30, Forensics 30, HUMINT 60, Law 50, Melee Weapons 50, Persuade 50, Search 50, Unarmed Combat 60 Armor: 3 (kevlar vest) ​ Weapon: Glock 20 (70%, D12) ​

21

Itty Bitty Shoggoth in a Bucket STR 25, CON 13, DEX 10, INT 8, POW 12 19 HP Skills: Alertness 80,Swim 90 ​ Envelop: 55% to hit, deals D10+2 damage and attaches to target. Unopposed DEX*5 to escape or be ​ consumed for D10+2 further damage each turn. All damage dealt by this attack is returned to the shoggoth as HP. Armor is reduced by 1 for each point of damage it prevents. Targets reduced to 0 HP in this manner are consumed entirely save for their head and nervous system. Plasticity: All attacks against the shoggoth inflict 1 damage, except those with 15% or greater lethality, ​ which inflict 2D10 damage. Resilience: The shoggoth heals D6 HP every turn it does not move or attack. ​ Hypnotic Instructions: If released from its container, the shoggoth pursues the nearest living creature ​ with a central nervous system. Once it has consumed such a creature and rendered them down, it returns to its bucket. SAN Loss: D4/D10 SAN from Unnatural ​

Agents who surreptitiously track E Cell’s containers will find that they are shipped South, eventually making their way to the Antarctic, where the trail goes cold. Investigating who is behind this turns up some well covered tracks which lead to the Starkweather Foundation.

22

23

2: THE GATE IN THE GALLERY The next room had portraits, which Agent GAGNON ignored as she swept through, pie-ing the other doors for lurking threats. Behind her, WAGNER and FRAST goggled at the paintings which covered all four walls of the room.

The paintings were of them.

Sitting for portraits, or in action scenes of great drama and violence. Surrounded by friends and family members, living or long dead. Some faces they hadn’t seen in years. Faces which they themselves had almost forgotten but which some artist had deftly rendered with an impossible level of accuracy.

“H.. how did they-”

FRAST reached out to press his fingers to the canvas, from which his wife stared serenely back at him. Almost without even looking, GAGNON yanked him back with her free hand.

“Remember two rooms back? Hands off”

WAGNER and FRAST stood absorbed by the paintings, tracing family trees and delicate webs of social interaction through the unseen artist’s brush. GAGNON, never the imaginative type, tried to hustle the two of them into the next room, but WAGNER spotted something in one of the watercolors in the corner.

“Wait, I recognize this guy.”

“I think that’s the point. Let’s go.” ​ ​

“Not like from my family though. This one right here”

“Who, that? That’s my dad.”

“No, next to him.”

Agent WAGNER pointed to a mousy, thin figure, stripped to the waist and carrying something like wine in a wide mouthed chalice.

“In that warehouse, remember?”

FRAST stared at the face.

He did remember.

They’d caught him on the couch, and he’d muted the TV when he saw them. He had begged them not to open the door to the next room.

The last time he’d seen that face, it had been as they fled the shrieking, gibbering thing that spilled out of the bucket when they kicked down that door - piping with a thousand hungry mouths and rolling forward on a million squirming limbs. FRAST had looked over his shoulder to see GAGNON kicking the man’s

24

feet out from under him, leaving him to slow it down as the Agents ran. FRAST didn’t look back after that.

The man hadn’t been screaming, though. He’d been whistling something. ​ ​

GAGNON grunted in recollection and turned to squint at the rest of the paintings. The trio realized after some discussion there were figures that none of them could place. Other people’s friends and families, spilling across the page in scenes of battle or love or nature with their own.

Recurring over and over again: the skinny guy and two others, who nobody in the group had seen. Another three person group.

They weren’t alone.

This is an an adaptation of Ross Payton’s entry from 2016 shotgun scenario contest. ​ ​

Late one night, the Agents have followed a trio of kidnappers and their unconscious victim to an art gallery of unusual design called the Coxeter Museum. These kidnappers are known to be involved in unsavory business pertinent to Delta Green’s mission, and the Agents are here to figure out what they’re up to and put a stop to it. They arrive to find the kidnappers’ vehicle parked near the museum. It is a rental and totally untraceable. The only thing to do is follow them inside. If you are not using the Starkweather Foundation, or if this hook does not fit with your campaign, come up with another reason for the Agents to be there.

The Coxeter Museum: From the outside, the museum is a two-story building of Neo-Classical design. A ​ ​ cursory search reveals it was named after a wealthy donor. If floorplans are found before the characters ​ enter the building, they learn there is a basement and all three floors have nearly identical layouts. After ​ walking past the foyer, a bland room with a reception desk and little else, they enter the gallery. A ​ successful Unnatural check (if a player asks, do not prompt them), an Unnatural of 30+, or knowledge of the Create Gate spell identifies subtle arrangements in the pattern of the building’s structure that correspond to elements of a Gate. Learning this costs 0/1 SAN from Unnatural.

In the Gallery: The gallery is a long open room with a single bench in the center. Paintings line the ​ walls. A spiral staircase leads up to the next floor in the northwest corner of the gallery. In the southeast corner, another spiral staircase leads down. Four archways, one for each cardinal direction, reveal identical galleries, including the direction they came from. The archways are unusually dark, revealing little detail beyond them except the general outline of a similar gallery. A character must pass through the threshold in order to see what is in there. Shining a flashlight through an archway does not help. Realizing this is unnatural costs 0/1 SAN.

THE GATE IN THE GALLERY The Museum is a modified Gate that links to the Elder Pharos in Antarctica. E-Cell, a vestigial Cowboy outfit affiliated with the Starkweather Foundation, is using it to smuggle kidnapped human beings to the God Trap, for installation in the Construct.

Unlike other gates, travel is not instantaneous. Instead, a traveler must navigate a hypercube of inter-linked parallel universes in the correct order to find the true exit. When a character realizes they are trapped inside the hypercube, they lose 1/1d6 SAN. 25

Both the Cowboys and the Elder Things know how to activate the hypercube. When the hypercube is shut off, the gallery is a normal building. However, the hypercube is open, any character who leaves the reception room and enters the gallery proper passes through the threshold of the Gate on layer T.

Time is different in the halls of the hypercube. Hours or days can pass inside, with only seconds or minutes elapsing in our world. Still, set a timer when the Agents enter the museum, counting down in ​ real time. One and a half or two hours is good, though you can give your Agents more if you like. ​

For a good time, arrange for an unaffiliated party anonymously text the word BESTOW to one of the players when they enter the gallery, and ignore any replies.

26

THE UNIVERSES Every room is a different universe. Every universe has an exit in every cardinal direction (North, East, South, West), and up and down via the staircases. Check the map to see how they interconnect.

T: The ‘Normal’ Universe. This is the baseline universe, closest to our own reality. ​ ​ ● The Artwork: Large landscape paintings of a fantastical city in the midst of a riot. Buildings are ​ on fire, masses of robed people flee or fight in the streets. A character with Art or History above 30% identifies them as 19th century, reminiscent of the Hudson River School. However, the city cannot be identified. The architecture is an eclectic mixture of Neo-Classical, Medieval, and oddly enough, Meso-American (Mayan, Aztec etc.) All of the paintings are labeled “Landscape #1” “Landscape #2” and so forth. The artist is unknown. There are 2 paintings on each wall of the gallery, for a total of 8. There is nothing on the back of the paintings. ● The Bench: It is a plain wooden bench with leather cushioning. Someone has written the letter T ​ on the bottom of the bench with India ink. Finding this clue requires a careful search of the room.

N: The Cold Universe. Identical to universe T, except for the following traits: ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ● The Cold: The universe is freezing, with a temperature hovering around 15 degrees Fahrenheit in ​ the center of the room. The temperature is warmer near the entrances, so the change is not immediately detectable. Characters in thin clothing may have to may CON x 5 checks to avoid hypothermia damage. The bizarre nature of the cold costs 0/1 SAN. ● The Firepit: The bench was broken up and used as kindling for a fire in the center of the room. A ​ search of the charred remains finds small animal bones – Forensics or Biology identifies them as rat. The letter N was carved into the floor below the fire.

O: The Rats in the Walls Universe. The gallery is overrun with weeds. The walls are ruined, showing ​ ​ ​ many cracks leading into darkness. The paintings are gnawed away, leaving nearly broken frames. An alertness check detects the presence of rats scurrying away from the characters. They are harmless unless a character decides to sleep there for some reason. ● The Bone Shrine: A circular shrine of rat bone has been formed in the center of the room, an O. ​

E: The Portrait Universe. Every painting in this universe has been replaced with detailed portraits of the ​ ​ agents and their bonds, but in unfamiliar locations and clothing. They appear to be in the same fantastical city, as it burns to the ground. The figures in the portraits appear calm, even content despite the chaos around them. 1/1d4 SAN loss. ● The People in the Portraits: Agents who confer with one another will realize that there are ​ figures in the portraits that nobody in the group recognizes. These are E-Cell, along with their respective friends and family. Agents who survived A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste may ​ ​ recognize one or more of them. ● The Bench: Identical to the baseline universe, except that it has a large E in it. ​

B: The Corpse Universe. A skeletal corpse is propped against a corner. It appears to be an adult male in a ​ ​ tattered suit, with a hole in his head, a rusted pistol and a faint bloodstain on the facing wall. Forensics confirms a likely suicide and that it has been untouched for several years. 0/1 SAN from Violence. ● The Bench: Someone destroyed the bench in this universe in a fit of anger. Identifying the letter ​ would take approximately 40 hours of labor to painstakingly reconstruct the bench from the wreckage. A Forensics or Crafts check is required.

27

S: The Fountain Universe: Identical to baseline, except a large circular stone fountain (2 feet deep by 8 ​ ​ feet in diameter) replaces the bench. The water is cloudy. To find the letter, the characters must either empty the pool (let them use their imaginations) or search it by feeling the bottom center. Search detects a carved letter S. However, this also awakens an eel sleeping in the fountain. It has 6 HP, and has a 35% bite attack that does D4 damage. It costs 0/1 SAN if a Biology check is made – it is an alien species.

C: Curtained Windows Universe: Every painting is covered by a curtain. The bench is in the same ​ ​ position with the letter C painted on its bottom. An Alertness check reveals that one of the curtains is blowing slightly, indicating wind from behind it. If the character opens the curtain (or any curtain), they see there are no paintings – only windows showing the city depicted in the paintings of the baseline universe. It is no place on earth. Amazingly, the riot seems to be happening below, just as the paintings depicted. It costs 1/1D8 SAN to realize the characters are not on earth.

W: Whispering Statue: The room is identical to the baseline except that instead of a bench, a statue of a ​ ​ robed figure (similar to the figures in the paintings) posed so that it looks like it is trying to whisper to someone near it. A character who positions themselves next to the statue can hear a voice whisper to them. It will speak in the voice of one of their bonds and speak of unnatural cosmic secrets. Listening to the statue for more than a minute costs 1/1D4 SAN, grants +1% in Unnatural and lowers the chosen bond by 1 point, as the character cannot fully disassociate their loved one from the statue. They also learn the letter of this universe, W.

THE OTHER SIDE Getting to the Other Side: In order to leave the hypercube, the agents must travel in a specific path, as ​ determined by the text message. They must start on universe B, then travel to E, S, T, O, and W in that exact order. Otherwise, the characters will wander the hypercube forever. If the players get stuck, perhaps the Whispering Statue can provide more direct clues at the cost of SAN.

Agents who BESTOW themselves will find themselves on the other side of the Gate: on the ground floor of the Elder Pharos in Antarctica. The air is warm, but several long, sloping passages out of the five sided entry chamber lead outward to the freezing Antarctic ice. Murals on every wall tell the story of the Elder Things and the God Trap. The room extends upward into a pointed ceiling high up above, and downward into a vast pit that extends miles below the surface. Going up is a spiral ramp, which leads to several chambers. Going down is a similar ramp, leading to a system of underground passageways. Agents going up will encounter the abattoir (full of skeletons missing their skulls), the construct crystal matrix, the dissectory with the cleaner shoggoth, and the Wall of Skulls in that order. Agents going down will pass through workshops and laboratories before reaching the Elder Nursery. Consult the Construct Complex heading of the document for more details.

Either way, they will probably stumble upon someone before they get too far. ● If they go up, or if they wait around, they will encounter E-Cell ● ...followed by encounter Elder Things and Foundation Operatives working in the Construct ● If they go down they will encounter Elder Things and Juvenile Elder Things ● If they stick around after any of the above raise the alarm, they will be attacked by one of the Elders’ domesticated shoggoths

Escape: Once the agents are on the far end of the Gate, they can return to the reception area of the ​ Coxeter Museum by following a reverse pattern: W O T S E B. This should be solvable through experimentation. E-Cell also knows the way out, if they can be persuaded to share. 28

E-CELL E-Cell was once part of the Cowboys. They kidnap people and schlep them through the Gate, for the Elder Things to use as parts in an alien machine. They hate their job, but have been informed that it is somehow necessary for humanity’s continued existence, and have become numb to its horrors.

Edmund: Sitcom Writer ​ STR 10, CON 10, DEX 12, INT 14, POW 8, CHA 15 HP 10, WP 8, SAN 29, Adapted to Helplessness, PTSD Skills: Alertness 60, Archaeology 40, Art (Scriptwriting) 60, Athletics 50, Bureaucracy 50, Criminology ​ 50, Drive 40, Firearms 40, Language (Elder Cipher) 40, History 40, HUMINT 60, Occult 50, Persuade 70, Unarmed Combat 60, Unnatural 23 Weapon: Hi-Point in 9mm (40%, D10) ​

Ethan: Psychiatrist ​ STR 10, CON 10, DEX 11, INT 15, POW 12, CHA 14 HP 10, WP 12, SAN 53, BP 56 Skills: Accounting 30, Alertness 40, Athletics 50, Bureaucracy 50, Firearms 40, First Aid 60, Forensics ​ 50, HUMINT 30, Law 20, Medicine 80, Persuade 60, Pharmacy 50, Psychotherapy 60, Science (Biology) 50, Search 40 Weapon: Browning Hi-Power (40%, D10) ​

Elizabeth: FBI Agent ​ STR 11, CON 14, DEX 13, INT 9, POW 15, CHA 7 HP 13, WP 15, SAN 59, Adapted to Violence, Sleep Disorder Skills: Accounting 60, Alertness 40, Athletics 50, Bureaucracy 40, Craft: Gunsmith 40, Criminology 50, ​ Dodge 50, Drive 50, Firearms 70, First Aid 30, Forensics 30, HUMINT 60, Law 50, Melee Weapons 50, Persuade 50, Search 50, Unarmed Combat 60 Armor: 3 (kevlar vest) ​ Weapon: Glock 20 (70%, D12) ​

(If you previously ran A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste, replace any of these characters who did not ​ ​ survive with pregens or NPCs of your choosing).

Remember that timer you set earlier? When time is up, or if the players decided to fix the broken ​ bench, E-Cell comes back into the hypercube, intending to WOTSEB themselves back to reality. They will be wearing coats (but not heavy Arctic gear, the Elder Pharos is warm on the inside) and carrying sidearms under them. When they realize the Agents are in the hypercube with them, they may bolt, attack, or try to talk their way out. If this outcome is in doubt, ask for a CHA test from the most unpleasant Agent (if the players have not detected the Cowboys) or a Persuade test from the most charming one (if they have). The Cowboys want to protect the secrecy of the God Trap and escape with their own lives, not necessarily in that order. They are willing to kill to achieve this, but could be convinced otherwise by persuasive Agents with a good offer.

The person E-Cell kidnapped is in the loving, fractal arms of the Elder Things. By now the gardener shoggoth has already rendered them down and installed their still living head and nervous system in the Wall of Skulls. There’s no getting them out alive.

29

3: Operation AUTARCH SUNRISE or: Thunder that the Rain Makes When the Shadow Tops Ythill

ACT I: THE EXIT GARDEN Agents are needed for rapid deployment to Bryant Park, NYC. A quick search by media or news will reveal why: a strange building appeared in the park, seemingly overnight, and has been cordoned off by the police.

Bryant Park Agents can get the story from one of the officers there: at about 2:00 in the morning he and his partner were patrolling near the park. They heard gunshots. When they ran to investigate, they found a building that hadn’t been there when they last passed through. Searching the new structure, they found blood and shell casings inside, clear evidence of a crime, and cordoned off the scene.

Bryant park is subject to surveillance by both a publically available live webcam and the outward facing camera of the public library across the street. Both of these cameras are inaccessible from their respective computer networks for reasons that will be obvious to anyone looking at them: they are no longer digital cameras, but daguerreotype cameras. This costs 0/1 SAN from Unnatural, or more from an Agent who might recognize this phenomena in-character. If removed and developed, the plates inside show a pair of individuals entering the structure. Their faces are clearly visible. If you have previously run A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste and at least one of E Cell survived or escaped, your Agents might recognize one or both of the men. Otherwise, facial recognition software or trawling database and surveillance feeds from the rest of the city could yield some results.

The Building A classical structure with handsome marble columns and intricately detailed statues peering down at the entrance. History or Archaeology recognizes these as The Fates of Greek myth. The building has a front door, and a locked employees-only entrance in the rear. The front door leads into a parlour, with a front desk, a phonograph and a stack of records. From here, a hermetically sealable door leads into a lounge with soft couches and chairs, decorative vents in the walls, and a protruding phonograph horn to allow for music. A second sealed door leads into a backroom, with coffins, a mortuary slab, and pressurized tanks connected to the aforementioned vent through a system of pipes. This last room exits to the park through the employees-only door, and has an eyeslit allowing the viewer to discreetly peer into the lounge.

In the lounge is the crime scene the police officers found. The walls, floor, and furniture are sprayed with blood. Forensics identifies the spatter as emanating from both lacerations and gunshot wounds, possibly from multiple victims. A blood trail leads out the back door, and whoever left it was clearly in need of serious medical help. On the ground are three shell casings, 9mm parabellum. Some of the couch cushions have deep gouges, like they were slashed by some kind of animal.

Attached to the wall is a tarot card: The Roi Des Epees (12 or King of Swords) or “Suicide King” as it’s popularly known. The card is well worn, but intricately damascened and inlaid with gold leaf and other lavish decorations. It is pinned up with a glob of amber colored resin. Something was stamped in it, like sealing wax, but whoever did so quickly smeared it out with their thumb (it’s Agent Edmund’s thumbprint, although it doesn’t appear in any databases). The card is dusted with a fine powder, which calligraphers will recognize as pounce - although analysis reveals it to be finely ground stone of many kinds, rather than cuttlebone. On the reverse of the card in tiny letters: The Tarot of M. Sosostris, Printed ​ Exclusive to Jacob Constantine, London, A.D. 1928 30

At some point, when there is at least one person in the lounge, the doors swing shut and seal. The horn on the wall plays a relaxing or uplifting song, and the vents can be heard to hiss gently. The room is slowly filling with a colorless, slightly sweet smelling, poisonous gas. Agents can pry the doors open with a STR check, attempt to plug up the vents, or find some other way to get out. If there’s anyone in the employees-only room, turning the valve on the tanks will shut the gas off. This event may cost SAN from Unnatural or Helplessness, and reveals the purpose of the building to Agents who have not yet figured it out: an Exit Garden or suicide booth. ​ ​

The crime scene will need to be contained. If the gas goes off as described and anyone notices, the police will assume it is some kind of chemical attack and phone in a terror threat. This could be the Agents’ excuse to seize control of the situation and effect a coverup, or could just bring more unwanted attention.

Tracking the Suspects New York is one of the most heavily surveilled and sousveilled cities in the United States. With Bureaucracy, Law or a similar skill it is entirely possible to gain access to enough cameras to chart the path of two suspicious persons (the same ones the daguerreotype photographed) to Bryant Park, and the path of one person away. Two men approached the park at about 1:30, and at about 2:00 one left, stumbling and limping badly. The survivor headed for New York Presbyterian Hospital.

The hospital has no record of admitting the man in question. Checking surveillance footage of the parking lot shows the suspect talking to a doctor and walking to a car with him. Criminology suspects that the suspect had the man at gunpoint. Asking the hospital staff gets the name and home address of the doctor.

DOCTOR GERALD “JERRY” STEPHENSON - Physician conscripted at gunpoint Doctor Stephenson is at his apartment, sleeping off a 14 hour rotation. Nearby, his 10 month old daughter sleeps soundly, for once. Any loud noise will wake her up. His wife is out, either at work or running errands of some kind.

His bathtub, where he operated on Edmund, is full of dried blood. The plastic wrapped brick of 20 dollar bills the man forced into his hands is still in the sink. He hasn’t contacted the police yet because he’s still scared the maniac waving a gun at him might come back, but mainly because after 2 additional hours of surgery he was too tired to pick up the phone and spend the next 4 hours answering questions.

The wounds were claw marks, “like a mountain lion or something”. The exact arrangement of the claws strikes any biologist or zoologist as unlike a cougar, or any other beast known to science. After Stephenson had gotten some morphine into him, the man slurred something about “The Club” and how he ​ ​ was headed there, how he’d be more careful this time.

What’s Really Going On Agent Edmund and Agent Eata are all that remains of E Cell. This was the Delta Green Cell charged with procuring brains for the Elder Things to install in the God Trap: a machine at the South Pole, beyond the Mountains of Madness, which keeps a terrifying nameless entity of immense power more-or-less contained. The God Trap originally employed a sophisticated crystal matrix to this end, but an ancient cataclysm damaged it sufficiently that the Elder Things were forced to turn to a less savory substitute: living nervous tissue, the more complex the better! The Program smashed E Cell’s warehouse chop shop, where they prepared brains for shipping to Antarctica the long way through the Starkweather Foundation. 31

The Program blew up the Coxeter Museum, where they smuggled whole human beings through the shortcut the “Boys Upstairs” built for them. A Cell hadn’t contacted them in over a decade, everyone aware of the God Trap’s existence having long since died. The Program (MJ12, they assumed) was hunting them as supernatural terrorists of some kind. They needed a way to automate the process before there was nobody left to carry on the work.

But to do that, they had to let a little of it in.

The Agents retrieved the last known complete King in Yellow Tarot set from a Green Box, where it was stashed with all the other occult junk from the raid on Club Apocalypse by agents unaware of its power. By activating the ritual to bring just a little Carcosa into the world, they were able to summon a Byakhee, and “program” it with a specific set of instructions: grab one random person from a random location every month, and transport them - still alive - to the God Trap.

Unfortunately, the pair didn’t take the proper precautions on the initial summoning. The winged servitor they summoned in Bryant Park grabbed the first “random person” it could get its hands on: Agent Eata. Thinking quickly, Agent Edmund dispatched his colleague with a gunshot, sparing him the fate of the other “packages” they delivered. Servitor thus summoned, he made a run for it, but not before it could give him a parting gift or two with its claws in the process. He limped to the hospital, forced the doctor to treat him at gunpoint, paid him handsomely in untraceable cash, and stole off to continue his grim work.

Edmund has two more cards to place: the Hanged Man and The Emperor. He is worried that one servitor is not enough, and wants to be absolutely sure that the work will go on without his involvement. This could be honest concern, or the corrosive influence of Carcosa compelling him to inject more entropy into the world.

After the tarot card is removed, the Government Lethal Chamber at Bryant Park is harmless and can be safely demolished - taking care not to rupture the gas tanks, of course.

AGENT EDMUND - aka Frederick “Freddy” O’Brien - Sitcom writer who wants it all to be over STR 10, CON 10, DEX 12, INT 14, POW 8, CHA 15 HP 4/10, WP 5/8, SAN 29, Adapted to Helplessness, PTSD, Sleep Disorder (dreams of an endless, sprawling, ruined city) Skills: Alertness 60%, Archaeology 40%, Art (Scriptwriting) 60%, Athletics 50%, Bureaucracy 50%, ​ Criminology 50%, Drive 40%, Firearms 40%, Foreign Language (Elder Cipher) 40%, History 40%, HUMINT 60%, Occult 50%, Persuade 70%, Unarmed Combat 60%, Unnatural 23% Weapon: Hi-Point in 9mm (40%, D10) ​ Inventory: Lighter, Stick of “Sealing Wax” (actually Carcosan amber), Box of “Pounce” (actually ​ Carcosan substrata), Fountain pen of unknown manufacture, Seal ring w/ royal crest of Castaigne family (not the Yellow Sign) ​ ​ Hanged Man card if stopped before Act II, Emperor card if stopped before Act III Rituals: Elder Sign, Contact Elder Thing, Summon Winged Servitor, Bind Winged Servitor ​ Bonds: Jessica O’Brien (Wife) 13 ​ Margaret O’Brien (Daughter) 10 Agent Edmund Agent Elizabeth Agent Ethan Agent Eata 32

If he thinks he is about to be caught, Agent Edmund will try to lose the gun and occult paraphernalia. He will not fight or resist the Agents, or any other law enforcement officers. If anyone interrogating him hints that they are aware of the mythos, he will gladly divulge his entire story, wanting to know only “whose side” his interrogators are on. He has an enormous amount of intelligence to offer the Program, both about the work he was involved in and the location of several Green Boxes full of artefacts. This includes the location of the other Tarot cards. In exchange, he wants to go home and never think about any of this again. He told his family he was working on the next season of Curb with Larry David in New ​ ​ York, and that’s why he couldn’t make it to his daughter’s high school graduation. If the Agents contact their case officer, the Program will be interested in his offer and dispatch a team to take him into custody.

If you ran A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste and Edmund died, just change the name, face, and only as ​ ​ much backstory as the players discovered about him.

AGENT EATA - aka Douglas Thurmond - DEA Special Agent killed when the end was in sight He’s dead - no stats necessary

BYAKHEE - Winged servitor trained to replace E Cell STR 25, CON 25, DEX 12, INT 1, POW 8 HP 25, WP 8 ARMOR: 3 points of chitinous fur ​ SKILLS: Alertness 50%, Flight 40%, Unarmed Combat 40% ​ ATTACKS: Claw 40%, 2D6 ​ Bite 40%, Lethality 15% AGELESS: The winged servitor suffers no ill effects from aging. Presumably it must feed, but they have ​ been known to sit in torpor for years—or centuries, or millennia, or eons; who can say?—with no apparent harm. NON-TERRENE: The servitor is at home in nearly any environment. Radiation, pressure, cold, vacuum ​ and more have no negative effects on it. It can move on the surface of Saturn, the depths of the ocean or in open space with equal ease. OTHERWORLDLY FLIGHT: The servitor can “fly” in any environment, flapping its membranous ​ wings as if against some unseen current—even underwater or in space. In flight, the servitor seems to fly slowly and clumsily, certainly slower than most avians. Yet while in flight it may suddenly vanish as if launching away at terrific speed, passing out of everyday dimensions and through unthinkable realities. SAN LOSS: 1/1D6 ​

The Byakhee are what remains of a species whose civilization was subsumed into Carcosa countless aeons ago. They are usually summoned by madmen who wish for transportation through inhospitable environs at great speeds, but can be programmed for other tasks as well. The summoning ritual requires the petitioner to establish a link between our world and the alien parasite dimension of Carcosa, with all the otherworldly corruption and decay that results.

It is unlikely the Agents will even see this Byakhee, let alone capture or kill it. It is bound to take one random person a month from any location on earth - meaning statistically it’s China or India’s problem now - and hides the rest of the time.

33

ACT II: THE CLUB CAN’T HANDLE ME Agents with the right combination of Occult, Criminology and/or Unnatural will realize that the club Edmund was talking about is probably Club Apocalypse. If their pursuit of the leads in part 1 was timely enough, they may be able to reach the Club before him - or catch him leaving it. A particularly thorough manhunt making use of law enforcement also has a chance of catching him - probably after he’s done the deed.

Club Apocalypse was shut down following a raid by New York SWAT and an alphabet soup of Federal Agencies - pursuant to a number of narcotics, human trafficking and related cases. During the crackdown a “drug fire” consumed much of the club, sealing off or collapsing the lower levels with a series of explosions. The property is cordoned off pending an auction.

If the Agents didn’t or couldn’t make the connection, they’ll be contacted by a Friendly “janitor” who works in the Teese Paper building, above the club. The surveillance equipment the Program set up in the ruins following the raid has picked up somebody moving around in the rubble down there.

The Club The interior of the club bears the scars of a raging fire and the mother of all shootouts. Chalk outlines and other indicators of a hasty forensic investigation are evident throughout the upper levels. Spent brass, bullet holes and old bloodstains are everywhere. Ash, dust and mold make breathing laborious, respirators are recommended.

A jazz or pipe organ is clearly audible, coming from somewhere below the modern sub-levels. Traveling downward locates the sensor equipment, which captured Agent Edmund coming and going . Further down, where there should be only rubble and collapsed tunnels, is a new opening. The organ is coming from somewhere down this passage, as are the sounds of moving air and water.

The Statue Garden The passage is clearly artificial, decorated with bas reliefs. It opens into a large underground statue garden, complete with benches, gazebos, plants, light filtering in from somewhere up above, and flowing canals filled with what looks like water.

The statues are intimately and finely detailed, down to individual veins and hairs. They depict figures in every possible outfit, in a wide variety of scenes. If the Agents wander toward the outermost chambers, away from the center and the way they came in, the statues grow stranger, anatomical errors multiplying until the figures are clearly no longer human.

The canals are full of an emulsion which turns flesh to stone. Being splashed with the emulsion does D4 damage. Falling in sears the victim for 5% lethality - and prompts a CON save to avoid losing D6 points of DEX as their body stiffens - but grants 1 armor on the calcified sections of the body. Armor protects against splashes of the emulsion, but not submersion in it. Anyone killed by the emulsion is transmuted into a perfect stone replica of themselves. Realizing the statues are actually people costs 1/D2 from Unnatural, while witnessing someone transmuted into one costs 1/D6.

The chamber the Agents enter into is connected to other similar chambers. Navigate, Science: Mathematics or similar recognizes the arrangement of rooms as a fractal pattern (the Julia set, if the players ask), allowing the Agents to chart a path to the center. Enough wandering will also reach the

34

center, but this wastes valuable time and increases the odds that the Agents will run into the other denizens of the gardens.

FLYING POLYP - A rainbow serpent in the garden STR 75, CON 100, DEX 12, INT 22, POW 20 HP 88, WP 20 ARMOR: See PARTLY MATERIAL ​ SKILLS: Extradimensional Senses 90% ​ ATTACKS: Lash Out 50%, Lethality 10% (see LASH OUT) ​ Un-matter Infection 35%, Lethality 40% (see UN-MATTER INFECTION) Wind Control 30%, damage 2D10 (see WIND CONTROL) ELECTRICAL WEAKNESS: All electrical attacks inflict full and double damage on the polyp. So a ​ lightning attack with a 1D10+2 attack, would inflict 12 x 2=24 points damage. ISSUE FORTH: The polyp is actually suspended on invisible appendages with which it moves and ​ manipulates the environment. This makes the creature appear to float on the air. Its odd un-matter stretches, bends, changes color and warps itself as it moves forward in a hypnotic manner. At top speed, a polyp can move 15 MPH. LASH OUT: The polyp has dozens of invisible, extradimensional limbs with which it manipulates ​ objects. It can use these to lash out at enemies unleashing a wave of invisible, razor-sharp whips inflicting a Lethality attack of 10%. NON-TERRENE: The polyps are at home in nearly any environment. Radiation, pressure, cold, vacuum ​ and other inimical environments have no negative effects on them. PARTLY MATERIAL: Any non-electrical attack on the polyp must have a Lethality rating of 15% or ​ higher to inflict any damage. Lethality rolls automatically fail and instead inflict 2D10 HP damage. All other attacks (except hypergeometry, electrical attacks; see ELECTRICAL WEAKNESS, or the emulsion) inflict no damage. UN-MATTER INFECTION: The strange un-matter that composes the giant polyp is completely ​ inimical to Earthly life. A simple touch from the visible portions of the polyp is enough to disrupt living material as if it were a Lethality attack of 40%. Those observing this effect suffer 0/1D4 SAN loss as the un-matter consumes the living matter like a fire converting wood to ash. WIND CONTROL: Through unknown methods, the polyps can constrict, shift, turn and accelerate wind. ​ If focused on a single target, this wind tunnel effect can shear the skin from bones in few seconds, inflicting 2D10 damage. SAN LOSS: 1D6/1D20 ​

The chambers beneath the ancient sublevels of Club Apocalypse were once home to all manner of beasts and nameless things. The superimposition of this piece of Carcosa onto the ancient tunnels has breached one of the seals placed over the entrance, allowing the polyp to float free. Its hooting and the sound of rushing air will be heard long before it appears. The emulsion in canals is effective against the strange matter that makes up the polyp’s unearthly corpus. It inflicts 10% lethality per gallon tossed on the polyp, and will quickly scare it off.

The statue garden also has a living human inhabitant.

35

SERGEANT BEN BUCHANAN - Knife wielding crook STR 14, CON 11, DEX 13, INT 11, POW 9, CHA 8 HP 13, WP 9, SAN 34, Intermittent Explosive Disorder Skills: Alertness 50%, Athletics 50%, Melee Weapons 60%, Stealth 50%, Unarmed 50% ​ Attacks: Cavalry Sabre (60%, D8+1) ​ Big Knife (60%, D6+1, 3 AP) Small Knife (60%, D4+1)

Sgt. Buchanan is a deserter from the Imperial U.S. Lancers - his uniform is colorful and matches no known military because it’s not from our world. The Sergeant got lost in the underground roads of his home city while fleeing the police and found himself in the statue garden. He will sneak up and try to push unwary Agents into canals full of emulsion, stab people, or otherwise make a nuisance of himself. If captured and placed under duress, he can confirm that he saw Agent Edmund leave the garden. If asked where he was headed, Buchanan knows only that Edmund went “to see the Emperor”.

The Center of the Maze In the middle of the complex of chambers is a gigantic fountain. Timed jets periodically squirt large jets of emulsion in predictable patterns, while pipe organs built into the structure of the fountain hoot softly. The card is at the top, between the outstretched fingers of a robed and hooded statue. Climbing the fountain requires Athletics rolls to avoid slipping and either Dodge rolls or an INT save (by memorizing the patterns) to avoid being squirted by the jets. Removing the card - Le Pendu (The Hanged Man) - shuts the fountain off.

Leaving with the card in tow is as easy as walking out the way the Agents came in, provided they don’t run into the polyp or the cutthroat. Returning to the statue garden after the card has been removed is impossible as the tunnel will be filled with rubble.

36

ACT III: ALL YOU ARE GOING TO WANT TO DO IS GET BACK THERE If Agent Edmund has not been apprehended by this point, he heads for the Empire State Building, goes to the observation deck, sneaks onto the scaffold, and places the Emperor card at the top of the spire. He climbs down and gets the hell out as fast as possible. Inside, things start to change.

The logical leap here isn’t too difficult - provided the Agents have all the clues. They’re in New York, tarot cards are involved, and if they interrogated the crook, he said the primary suspect was visiting The Emperor. If the Agents take either of the cards to an expert in occult antiques, they will be told that they are clearly part of a legendary tarot deck, commissioned from Jacob Constantine by legendary fortune teller and mystic Anna Sosostris around the turn of the century. Only 100 were ever made, and The Emperor is notably absent from all surviving sets - having a tendency to go missing or disappear. Any dealer will offer a princely sum for even the one of the cards - though The Program will not appreciate it if they learn of the sale.

If the Agents don’t figure out where Edmund is headed, they’ll eventually be informed by a friendly in the NYPD that something is amiss: A pair of officers responded to a 911 call about a “giant woman with a sword” in one of the Shutterstock offices on the 20th floor of the Empire State Building. Neither of them have been heard from since.

If the Agents arrive in the lobby after Edmund places the card on the spire, the receptionist will welcome them to the Imperial United States building. If asked to repeat himself he will have no recollection of this, referring to it as the Empire State building as normal. At this point, the elevator up deposits the Agents in Carcosa.

The Imperial United States Building The 20th floor of the Imperial United States Building, like most other floors in the building, is an impossible warren of anachronistic rooms. Luxurious bars open into sumptuous ballrooms, which double back into opera boxes overlooking stages nested within one another.

The elevator won’t take the Agents back to the lobby in the real world. Taking it back to street level will disgorge them into the morass at the “surface level” of Carcosa, where buildings slowly sink into countless aeons of rubble and are ground to dust. Structures from numerous cities and civilizations can be found in these catacombs, superimposed or collapsed across one another.

From this point onward, record what the Agents encounter, and in what order

A Rough Ecology of Carcosa Structures, people, and sometimes entire cities and civilizations are drawn into the parasitic pocket dimension of Carcosa. Everything is pulled downward into the jumbled morass at the bottom of the city, ground up as new arrivals are piled on top of it. The strata and substrata of Carcosa is a composite of smashed rock, metal and plastic from a million different structures.

Buildings change of their own accord. Carcosan “coral” extends to bridge structures, clog hallways or pull down stairways. Sometimes it grows like cancer. Sometimes it flows like a glob of still-wet amber. Always it adds chaos and reduces distinction.

37

Rooms repeat themselves, changing in scale or in material. A flight of stairs spirals upward, first in wood, then in paper, then glass. A smoking lounge is repeated in copper, down to the lightbulbs and cigar stubs in the ashtray.

Visitors decay over time, both physically and mentally. Their bodies lose resolution, features becoming less and less distinct. Their minds degrade into repetitive loops, until they mechanically perform whatever tasks they were assigned in life. The mannequins and puppets which people the endless ballrooms, lounges and theaters of Carcosa are what remains of people lost in its corridors.

Some people who retain their faculties reach a state halfway between man and mannequin. These “low resolution” people infest the walls, crawl spaces and secret rooms of Carcosa. They smear newspaper, furniture and clothes with amber to build nests. They smear other things with amber to preserve them. They are curious about visitors and can be bribed for information with trinkets, but are not above killing newcomers for food or material possessions if they think they can get away with it.

Glistening membranous bubbles drift on unseen breezes, sometimes passing through physical objects. Inside these bubbles, the laws of reality function differently - an unpleasant and potentially quite dangerous experience. The inhabitants of Carcosa who have survived this long know better than to be caught in one.

Information is distorted and loses detail. Things decay or change when nobody is looking. Unattended objects regress into the Carcosan milieu. An Agent could leave a laptop on a table and come back to an encyclopedia, yellowed pages filled with the computer’s operating system written out in assembly.

Anyone who passes a breaking point while trapped in Carcosa gains an Obsession with it. In their private moments they will invariably daydream about its subtle ecologies and strange beauty, imagining themselves once again amid the smeared spires and crumbled balustrades of lost Ythill.

Carcosa Encounters from The Night Floors by Dennis Detwiller and Robert Parker ​ ​ Suddenly and without warning a huge chime sounds nearby, although the source of the sound cannot be located. It fades to nothing in moments like an echo. This may cause jumpy Agents to pull out weapons or, even worse, to discharge them by accident. (0/1 SAN)

A single Agent notices framed black & white photographs on the wall of the hallway, room, etc. which portray an odd array of people staring into the camera, their faces blank. Each of these people (most dressed in 1920s garb) are holding an odd-shaped bottle of varying design. A single name rides the lip of each photograph, written in a steady hand. None of the names mean anything to the Agents, except the last one. This photograph shows a single dark bottle sitting on the floor, and the name on the bottom is that of one Agent. This is the Agent’s bottle from the Whisper Labyrinth, and if touched the Agent will hear, in a near-silent whispery voice, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living god.” (0/1 SAN)

A solid-gold goldfish is found by an Agent, lying unattended in the middle of the floor. The craftsmanship of the piece is breathtaking and when examined closely, it almost appears to be real. It is. Anyone putting it in their pocket will discover a live goldfish there in its place several minutes later. (0/1 SAN)

A sudden eruption of automatic gunfire occurs from deep within the halls of the Imperial United States Building, which is silenced by a bloodcurdling male scream. Anyone chasing down the source of the 38

sound will come upon a huge empty ballroom which smells of cordite, and which is covered in odd dragging tracks of blood which lead from a large central stain. Dozens of spent .45 hulls lay on the floor freshly fired. Nothing else can be found. (0/1 SAN)

A dapperly dressed Asian waiter walks up to the Agents, carrying an hors d'oeuvres platter. The waiter speaks in an odd language no one can identify, but seems friendly enough. He offers the Agents some of the gelatinous snacks on his tray. Careful examination of the snacks will reveal a single, dead, tiny gold snake in the center of each cube of gelatin. This costs 1 SAN for anyone who ate it without examining it.

Anyone searching for windows to the outside world finally comes upon one which is shuttered and locked. If opened, the window shows a view of an endless expanse of rooms. The window opens on a living room, whose windows open on a dining room, etc. This sight is mind-bending in the extreme and costs 1/1D3 SAN for any who experience it, as the characters realize there is no longer any outside world. A fat man is seen at a distant doorway, and he too sees the Agents. He rushes to open his door with a set of keys, looking incredibly nervous and sweaty, as if he had done something wrong. The door swings shut behind him, but remains unlocked. If opened, the doorway opens onto a dark and seemingly depthless elevator shaft. No evidence of an elevator or the fat man can be seen. (1/1D3 SAN)

A little girl is heard singing in the distance. She is found in an empty dance hall dancing to a tune which comes from an unknown source. She is covered in a white gauze-like material which obscures her features. Looping round and round and singing in an alien tongue, she will ignore all questions from Agents. If left undisturbed she will slowly wind down, her dance and voice slowing as time passes. Eventually she will freeze in place and never move again. Anyone touching the gauze at any point will cause her to collapse into a thousand pieces of watch-like clockwork; she was an automaton. (1/1D3 SAN)

The Agents come upon a room full of unmarked books. Anyone opening a book will discover what appears to be a turn-of-the-century text depicting, in great detail, a dream the Agent once had. (1/1D3 SAN)

As the Agents approach the crux of a hallway they find themselves reflected in a mirror. The closer they come to the mirror, the more they realize that they are wearing gaudy party gear in the reflection, and are at the forefront of a much larger crowd, although there is nothing like this to be found in the hallway. If the Agents look toward the back of the hallway in the reflected image they can make out a huge, tattered figure in yellow robes. (1/1D4 SAN)

The muffled voices of what sound like actors delivering lines can be heard carrying on in a room nearby. Occasionally huge outbursts of applause or laughter can also be heard, as if an entire theater full of people was enjoying a performance. Agents finally locate a tiny child’s room with a small puppet theater. The puppets within continue to act as the Agents enter, apparently worked by someone within the tiny curtained enclosure. When opened, there is no one there. (1/1D3 SAN)

The tinkling of a music box is heard nearby. If the Agents pursue this sound they locate the clockwork child: a small, porcelain-faced, wheeled child made of clockwork. It rolls slowly towards the Agents , stopping before them, and its mouth rapidly clacks open and shut several times. On its back is an unaddressed invitation to the masked ball of Carcosa. If the Agents turn their back on the child it vanishes. (1/1D3 SAN)

39

The sound of vigorous love-making can be heard. If tracked down, a room is found where the bed is covered in blood and shards of chromed metal. No one is in the room, though the words “Where’s my bottle?” are written on the wall in blue-black ichor. (1/1D3 SAN)

A large fracture in a wall opens into what appears to be a cave deep underground. A cool, dry wind blows out of the hole. Digging equipment – evidently used to open the wall – lies discarded nearby. Anyone who steps in the hole is now in the Whisper Labyrinth, and it is quite obvious to any inside the hole that such a labyrinth could not exist adjacent to the hallway they came from. (1/1D3 SAN)

A woman and a man are heard arguing in a room, quite heatedly. If the door to the room is opened, two statues – that of an arguing man and woman – can be found, made of a white alabaster-type porcelain. If the door is shut on them again the fighting resumes. (1/1D3 SAN)

An entire ballroom full of human-sized marionettes is found. Marionette couples sway and dance, their strings disappearing up into the dark’ marionette waiters bring empty glasses to tables of revelers; a marionette band plays a soothing melody. The Agents are completely ignored by the marionettes. Inspection of the ceiling, perhaps effected by stacking tables, reveals that the strings are locked on tracks without an operator, moving their own free will. (1/1D4 SAN)

An Agent discovers a long crack in the join between the ceiling and wall. If prodded, the entire hallway falls away like a house of cards revealing a huge stage. The Agents stand on stage in the remains of what they thought was “reality,” but which was nothing more than simple plywood backdrops. In the audience, hundreds of human-sized marionettes sit mute, staring at the stage, their strings running up into the dark. If the Agents leave the stage the marionettes begin to file out and disperse into the hallways. (1/1D6 SAN)

One Agent finds a small piece of paper with the terrible image of the Yellow Sign scrawled on it. As he shows it to his companions, each says “Tell me, have you seen the Yellow Sign?” one by one. They are not aware of speaking these words, though the other Agent all hear them. (1/1D6 SAN)

Carcosa Set Pieces from The Hastur Mythos by John Tynes, as seen in Delta Green: Countdown ​ ​ ​ (Originally Printed in The Unspeakable Oath) ​ ​ The Whisper Labyrinth: Somewhere in the winding corridors of the Imperial United States Building ​ (perhaps below, in the morass of catacombs that join its foundations to the undercity) there is a crumbling archway from which a pale draft issues. An Agent might be led here by the distant calling of their name from within, or perhaps by the smell of the draft. Entering the archway, one sees a smallish, circular room with three damp and narrow hallways leading off into darkness; a light source is needed to progress beyond here.

As soon as anyone progresses far enough down any hallway to lose sight of their companions or the archway, they are lost. Physical aids such as ropes and marks will not help exploration: the rope will soon be found to have looped around somehow and become tied to itself; markings on the wall will be altered beyond usefulness, repeated on every surface, or simply deleted. Agents who explore as a group will become separated if any of them go too far ahead or drag behind; remaining in immediate contact is essential. The labyrinth consists of hallways and small rooms. In every wall there will be several little alcoves or shelves. Each of these holds a bottle; there are tens of thousands of these bottles throughout the labyrinth, and no two are alike. They are short or tall, fat or skinny, ornate or plain, and may be constructed of any number of materials. Each bottle, however, has a name on it, the name of the owner of

40

the bottle. All bottles are closed in some fashion — cork, lid, whatever — but none may be opened except by the person whose name appears on the bottle.

In wandering around, there is a 3% chance per hour (not cumulative) that an Agent comes across their own bottle, though an Alertness roll (or score of 60% or better) is still needed to spot it. Should the bottle be opened, a whisper will be released, audible only to the Agent. The message and its effects are up to the Keeper, who must come up with something suitable. It may be a revelation about a past mystery; it may be the voice of a dead friend or a forgotten lover; it may be a cryptic statement that will offer aid or lead them into a trap. Whatever the message is, it will not be inconsequential or insignificant.

When an Agent (or a group) enters the labyrinth, roll 3D6. This gives you the number of perceived hours they will wander around before finding the way out. Should an Agent’s bottle be found, however, that Agent (and any who are with him) will find the exit from the labyrinth in a matter of minutes. If a bottle is taken that does not belong to the taker, they will find that no matter which direction they turn they keep coming back to the empty alcove until the bottle is returned. Agents may keep their own bottle, if they like, though it will not do anything after first being opened. Needless to say, it should be quite rare for anyone to just happen upon their bottle. An adventure that used this location would probably include a spell, magic item, or perhaps a guide of some kind that would enable the desired bottle to be found in a reasonable period of time. As the Agents wander around the labyrinth, feel free to allow them glimpses of other travelers, or hear voices cry out; unless you wish it, none of these phenomena can be caught up with. Take note of what light sources the Agents bring with them, and determine if they will last long enough. Anyone unlucky enough to be lost in the dark will eventually reach the surface, but will quite probably be insane.

The Whisper Labyrinth is a strange and frightening place; at your discretion, a hallway may suddenly open up into a large room or other oddity, perhaps where nefarious goings-on are going on. There may be truth to the legend that somewhere, deep in the labyrinth, one may find the Voice that gives breath to all the bottles. This may not be a desirable objective…

The Gallery of Shades: Taking up several floors of the Imperial United States Building, this elaborate ​ museum houses the works of dozens of artists, all influenced in some way by the madness that is Hastur. The gallery, like most rooms in the building, changes constantly. Rooms and balconies contract and expand or disappear completely when you’re not looking; carpeting becomes oak becomes tile becomes marble. The disorienting nature of the structure has a purpose: to draw the visitor’s interest to the works shown, rather than to the gallery itself.

The artworks displayed are of all types: paintings, sketches, statuary, kinetic sculptures, folk art, etc. The quality varies widely, but all share a common heritage of unbalanced creativity. Works here are rarely designed to shock or disgust; the grotesqueries of Richard Upton Pickman would have a hard time finding a place in Hastur’s aesthetic. The subject matter varies widely in both depiction and effect; a painting of a strange alien landscape may not be as disturbing as the sketch of a Paris cafe where a woman’s eyes hunger for something that she will never find in Paris. The influence of Hastur is pervasive and ever-changing, and its madness finds new interpretation in each creator.

The effect of these works upon touring Agents is slow but insidious. As they travel through the gallery’s many floors and wings, call for CHA tests from each. The person who fails with the highest roll will begin to fall under the gallery’s sway. Optionally, you may simply target any Agent who is appropriate (a painter, a writer, has the lowest SAN, read The King in Yellow, etc.). The affected Agent will now lose 41

1D3 SAN every ten minutes. In some way the others can not grasp, he has had a terrible insight into the nature of Hastur, and now all the artworks in the gallery make a curious kind of sense. While the others in the party simply feel uneasy when they view these pieces, he begins to understand them. Each bit of sanity lost makes it easier to lose the next bit, and soon the rational structure of the unfortunate Agent’s mind falls like a line of dominoes. Do not roll for temporary insanity, etc., but instead just keep track of how much SAN has been lost without telling the player. The Agent is not consciously aware of what is going on, as he slowly retreats into the madness growing inside him.

Should the Agents decide to leave the Gallery (entrances abound, so this is not a problem), the affected Agent will not want to leave. He will resist any physical attempts at taking him out, even fighting if he has to. Should a friend attempt to talk him into leaving, however, he may make an opposed POW test against the speaking friend. Should the roll fail, the insight he gained will suddenly elude him, and, shaken and pale, he may be led out of the Gallery, though the lost SAN still applies. Once the Agent has escaped, he will remain pale and melancholy for as long as the party is in Carcosa.

Should the Agents remain in the Gallery for too long, the affected victim will go with the party, acting perhaps quiet but otherwise normal until he reaches 0 SAN and is permanently, incurably insane. At this point, a dozen masked figures in dark robes will suddenly step into the room where the party is, blocking all entrances. The Agents will find themselves frozen, unable to act, as the insane Agent steps forward and walks off with the strange figures, never to be seen again. The remaining Agents will find that the strange paralysis wears off quickly, but no trace of their friend will be found. However, if they spend any significant amount of time looking for him, another Agent will begin to suffer the same fate. Should the party refuse to leave until their friend is found, it is likely that they will all become Shades of the Gallery.

Somewhere in the Gallery is the hall referred to in the section on Mottled Clay. This area will contain somewhere between thirty and sixty stone objects at any given time. These will include petrified people, animals, books, items, any number of things, all awaiting (many in vain) for the day when the dust of their creation will be sprinkled on them, releasing them from the invulnerable stone prison they find themselves in. Some sculptors, it is said, prefer to construct their works entirely from life, using Mottled Clay to transform real objects or people into eternal statues, to be displayed here.

Other Victims Many tenants of the Empire State Building are now trapped in the Imperial United States building, and are already feeling its corrosive effects. Some may not be from our world. ● Adriana Lemelson (29) Tax Attorney. She lies languidly on a couch, being served food and champagne by mannequins. She will not expend the slightest effort on anything without being prompted ● Douglas Chu (23) Legal Intern. He is trying to find the Empress, who needs his urgent care and attention. He fears the dark forces massing outside “The Interdiction” ● Harvey Liebowitz (53) Financial Planner. An elderly Hebrew, Harvey fears deportation due to his Jewish heritage, but cannot explain why ● Sax Brueghel (48) Opera Critic. His life is now literally theater. He comes from a world where New York is ruled by “The Goddess” and men die after losing their virginity

PATROLMEN AUDIE HILKES AND WAGNER EATA - Beat cops who want to go home STR 13, CON 11, DEX 11, INT 11, POW 11, CHA 11 HP 12, WP 11, SAN 46

42

Skills: Alertness 60%, Bureaucracy 40%, Criminology 40%, Drive 50%, Firearms 40%, First Aid 30%, ​ Forensics 50%, HUMINT 50%, Law 30%, Melee Weapons 50%, Navigate 40%, Persuade 40%, Search 40%, Ride 60%, Unarmed Combat 60% Attacks: Glock 17 (40%, D10 damage), Baton (50%, D6+1 damage), Taser (55%, Stun), Unarmed (60%, ​ D4 damage) Armor: 4 (reinforced kevlar) ​

These are the police officers who responded to the initial 9/11 call. They want to get back to New York, but it seems like so long ago that they were there...

The Climb Climbing the Imperial United States Building would be exhausting even in our world, and doing so in its native Carcosa is even more enervating. At some point, such as after a particularly long flight of stairs, ask for CON tests from the Agents, with a failure costing D6 WP.

An Agent who reaches 0 WP as a result of their exertions passes out. They experience a haunting dream: being pursued through the building by an unknown presence, always lurking one step behind. Cornered in a ballroom, they hide beneath a table, right as the doors swing open in a blaze of hot yellow light. The pursuers are the other Agents, who see someone hide under the table as they enter. When they are reunited with their fellow Agent, they will no doubt wonder just whose body they have been carrying around this whole time. When examined it will be a mannequin, whose head tumbles to the floor and shatters like glass. This refills the WP of the Agent who passed out, but costs them a permanent 1D6 POW.

The Mask Shop At some point the Agents will find the Mask Shop. Nobody is tending the register, but a sign on the counter instructs the customer to SERVE YOUR SELF (YOUR MONEY’S NO GOOD HERE). ​ Masks of every kind can be found here. Agents who are obsessed with Carcosa will be delighted. They may get the idea to search for masks resembling people they know, which they will find. Anyone can find their own mask, if they only wish to do so.

Putting on a mask grants the wearer 1 SAN, as they are suffused with a sense of warmth and belonging. Removing it costs 1/D4 from Unnatural, as their new identity is ripped away from them.

The View At some point the Agents are going to get a look outside, through a window or off a balcony. This view costs 1/D8 SAN from Unnatural.

The Empire State Building is buried several floors deep in the dross of Carcosa, which stretches out on all sides, as far as the eye can see, in a riot of ruined structures, all slowly sinking into the morass below. To one side, an enormous step pyramid rises from the ruins, linked to the building with an enormous buttress of pale yellow coral, which imitates the architectural styles of both structures. Numerous moons drift, bloated and lazy, across the milky gray sky above. At the top of the building, a zeppelin is moored to the peak of the spire. A 50 foot yellow sign is stitched onto the side of its gasbag, clearly visible.

Even without binoculars, it is possible to see figures moving around on the step pyramid: Strange “Indians” with stretched heads and charcoal gray or burnt yellow skin, some as tall as 15 feet. They laugh and howl and chase one another around, fighting and fucking and detaching their limbs or growing new 43

44

ones, changing form on a whim or disappearing entirely. Some enact bizarre dramas on makeshift stages, donning costumes and reciting lines from scrolls and tablets. They daub sinister symbols and hang garish banners that flutter without an animating breeze.

These are the K’n-Yani. Their civilization has recently been subsumed into Carcosa, poisoned by the worship of the Not to be Named One which the sky devils surreptitiously introduced to neutralize these psychic, cave dwelling humanoids. When the phantom of truth arrived to announce that the King in Yellow was to take them beyond the black stars to the Hyades, the K’n-Yani either rejoiced or barely noticed - already up to their elongated foreheads in debauchery.

At least one of them travelled across the coral bridge into the Imperial United States Building, and from there through a door into our world - the giant woman mentioned in the 911 call. Other K’n-Yani may seek to follow her example, either in search of victims to torment, or because they don’t like Carcosa and want to go home.

THE PEOPLE OF K’N-YAN - Now the people of Carcosa STR 22, CON 29, DEX 11, INT 19, POW 19 HP 25, WP 19 ARMOR: See OUT OF PHASE and SCALE CONTROL ​ SKILLS: Alertness 60%, Anthropology (Human) 35%, Athletics 30%, Swim 45%, Unarmed Combat ​ 45%, Unnatural 50% ATTACKS: Projection Attack 55%, damage 1D6 (see PROJECTION) ​ HUMAN OFFSHOOT: The K’n-Yani are genetically close to humanity, as such, standard practices of ​ human violence often have the usual effect on them. However, drugs and other chemical irritants sometimes work, and sometimes do not. When attempting to drug or disable a K’n-Yani (with chemical irritants or sedatives) roll against Luck—success indicates it operates normally. OUT OF PHASE: K’n-Yani spend much of their immortal lives in a ghostly, immaterial state. A fully ​ physical K’n-Yani can use its action in a combat turn to go immaterial, becoming immune to physical harm. Or one can go half-immaterial but still able to grasp physical things. When a K’n-Yani is half-immaterial, any attack that rolls an odd amount of damage passes harmlessly through it. SCALE CONTROL: The K’n-Yani can disassemble their physical form, and cause it to grow or shrink ​ at will, by absorbing nearby matter or expelling it. While on the surface, the K’n-Yani often are 5 meters tall (15 feet) or more. A K’n-Yani at that size is a Huge creature, so Lethality rolls against it automatically fail; it takes the Lethality rating as damage instead. Beneath the Earth they assume human sizes, with human-scale STR, CON, and HP. Expelling mass causes a blue white bright light that is visible at great distances. MOTHER EARTH: A K’n-Yani touching bare earth can instantly vanish and return to their ​ underground kingdom. TRANSAPPORTATION: The K’n-Yani can step through physical obstructions as if they were not ​ there; a single step will transport the subject to the “other side” of the item, no matter the distance. Anyone they are holding is transported as well (and suffers 0/1 SAN loss). PROJECTION, POSSESSION OR ERASE: The K’n-Yani can move objects, possess humans or ​ remove themselves from an individual’s perception. PROJECTION allows the K’n-Yani to push objects with blunt force at a distance (enough to inflict 1D6 ​ HPs). Roughly the equivalent force of being struck by a baseball bat. POSSESSION is a mental onslaught of any person in sight. The target gets a SAN roll in defense, on a ​ success, they suffer 1 SAN point and feel an alien presence. On a fail, the K’n-Yani is in them, can see, hear and feel what they do (they feel nothing). Once inside, the K’n-Yani can cause them to take a 45

SINGLE action as if they were not in control of their body (this includes things like shooting themselves, or others—normal SAN losses apply). ERASE causes a target to fail to see the K’n-Y’ani or the effects of their presence. Meaning the K’n-Yani ​ can stand right next to them, root through their belongings, or otherwise be near them and not be seen. It only works on one target at a time. The target gets a SAN roll. On a fail, the K’n-Yani vanishes completely and remains unobservable by them—even if it is right next to them, or is attacking them! SAN LOSS: 0/1D4 ​

Unless the Agents deliberately attract their attention or antagonize them, the K’n-Yani stay distracted and leave them alone - or at worse torment them with “harmless” pranks and experiments.

The Ticket Office The office is filled with stacks of documents, stock tape, filing cabinets, and people waiting for their turn. Any of the aforementioned NPCs lost in Carcosa who the players have not already encountered can be found waiting here. At the end of the room, Jessica Hernandez (35), General Counsel, types away at a typewriter. If asked for a ticket, she will proffer a sheaf of forms to be filled out, indemnifying the owners of the Imperial United States Building against any suit which comes about from riding the elevator.

Somewhere in the paperwork, in between “the management of the IMPERIAL UNITED STATES BUILDING disclaims all liability…” and “services are provided as is” etc and so on is a strange clause that takes the Law skill to pick out: ALL YOU ARE GOING TO WANT TO DO IS GET BACK THERE. Jessica waives this off as standard boilerplate if questioned. Signing the document slices D6 off a random bond, accompanied by a deep, overwhelming sense of loss. Threatening or attacking Jessica is easy, but finding the tickets among the drawers and piles of documents requires a successful Search. She promises retribution on the part of the building’s legal department, though whether this is forthcoming is up to the Handler.

The Observation Deck The observation deck is at the base of the spire. The top of the spire can be reached by climbing, which is difficult and dangerous, or by elevator, which goes up to the zeppelin mooring platform at the very top. The elevator is operated by the elevator man, who demands that anyone wishing to ride produce a ticket from the office below before boarding. He can easily be dispatched or intimidated out of the way, but the buttons on the elevator are totally incomprehensible, written in the aphasic language of Hastur. Pushing one at random may take the riders to the top of the spire, back down to the bottom of the building, or violently eject them to a fatal fall.

The Spire The elevator lets out onto the zeppelin mooring platform at the peak of the building. The Emperor card is nowhere to be found, but the gangplank extends to the boarding ramp of the enormous Zeppelin mentioned earlier. From this angle, it is clear that the airship’s gondola is actually the Imperial Palace, suspended upside down.

The ramp leads into a passageway within the airship, surrounded by gasbags on all sides. Inside, a set of stairs goes nowhere but up. Agents ascending these stairs are, bizarrely, disgorged into the grounds surrounding the Palace on the underside, with the gray sky below them and the city of Carcosa above.

46

The Court in Yellow There is a masquerade in progress, with courtiers, music and revelry. A majordomo approaches the Agents and informs them with the greatest of obsequiousness that the dress code demands that they don masks of some kind. He is quite adamant about this edict, but has no way of enforcing it.

Agents may recognize guests from every culture and time period, along with many from no culture or time known to earth. Agents who are Obsessed with Carcosa will wander off and have to be dragged back by their colleagues. The grounds are expansive and the Agents could wander here forever, but if they approach the Palace proper, they will notice a marked change in tone.

The entire structure radiates a kind of alien sadness. Within, the recent remnants of a great party are evident. When the Agents enter, in fact, it is only a few hours after the initial arrival of the King in Yellow. Time here has in some way slowed almost to a standstill. The Agents may wander the strange, ornate rooms of the Palace unchallenged, but the sound of voices will eventually draw them to the great ballroom. There they will find the inhabitants of the Palace, standing and sitting in small groups, speaking in low, stunned tones. Everyone here is gaily dressed for a masquerade, though they have all unmasked. Only a few hours previous, it should be explained, the King in Yellow arrived, informing the party-goers of his identity. In that moment the city of Yhtill — wherein the Palace lay — became Carcosa, and the royal family of the palace learned that they were somehow doomed. They stand around now, morose and uncertain. Any of them will speak with the Agents, seeing them only as familiar party-goers. Little information may be passed on, however — the people of the Palace are truly lost in both mind and soul.

At the center of it all is the Court in Yellow, where the Phantom of Truth can be found. He sits atop his amber throne, clad in shellac-smeared robes and a mask that is not a mask. His courtiers part to make way for the Agents as they enter.

If any of the Agents are not wearing masks, the Phantom will ask them, “No Mask?”. If this does not prompt every maskless Agent to don a mask, he removes his own. Anyone wearing a mask loses D10 SAN. Anyone without loses D100 SAN.

This accomplished, he hands the nearest masked Agent the Emperor card.

“It’s not your time,” he tells them. “Not yet.”

The Agents are free to leave.

Getting Back There Once the Agents retrieve the Emperor card, they are going to be more than ready to return home. As the terrain of Carcosa solipsistically shifts with the thoughts of its inhabitants, this is an exercise in memory. Ask the players what they encountered, and in what order, on their journey through the Imperial United States Building to the Court in Yellow. They may discuss amongst themselves at their leisure. Once they have arrived at either a consensus or an impasse, ask each player to write down their version of events. Once they are finished, examine what they have produced. Agents who remember exactly what happened remember the way back. Agents who come close (such as remembering all the events but mixing up the order of a few) can try to find their way back with Navigate (or INT if they don’t have the skill, the

47

Handler is feeling merciful, and they did a good job). Groups which commit to the same incorrect interpretation of events can use the highest skill. Agents who forget everything are lost in Carcosa.

Destroying the Emperor closes the bridge between our world and Carcosa. This costs D4 SAN for Agents Obsessed with Carcosa. If the Agents destroy the Emperor while they are still in Carcosa, the bridge closes and they are trapped there.

Getting Stuck There Agents lost in Carcosa, either because they could not remember the way home or because they destroyed the Emperor card while on the wrong side of the gateway, are obviously going to want another way home. At the discretion of the Handler, they may find one, at a price.

After enough distressed wandering through the jumbled streets, snaking corridors and fractally multiplied chambers of Carcosa, the Agents come across a vast hoard of randomly assembled objects. This collection of antiques is equal parts strange treasure and worthless crap.

The more lost one becomes, the easier it is to find a childish pleasure in the items, increasingly impossible and pointless as they are: a Dracula costume stained with semen, a dozen bioluminescent bonsai, a child’s ivory face mask with a hundred elegant figures dancing around its edge, a broken Rube Goldberg device that promises to “reverse charcoal” into living plants, garishly painted fossils, and the first several hundred issues of the Nova Belgica Tribune, among other periodicals from alternate histories and alien worlds. The crossword puzzles are all done.

These collections are part of the archives in a sub-basement of a Carcosan museum. A dusty, spider-like employee of the museum guesses at the Agents provenance and requests in writing that they “help organize the collection” by placing potent Yhtillian artefacts on Earth. If they agree to the curator’s ​ bargain, the being proffers each Agent with an innocuous looking object somehow suitable to their taste. It instructs them to place each object “somewhere it will be seen and appreciated” and admonishes them against attempting to damage or destroy museum property.

The Agents are then directed to a wing of the museum choked with increasingly familiar objects. Eventually, they emerge into an apartment filled with random garbage.

Before you play out Home Scenes, ask each player to write down what they do with the piece they got from the museum. With this in hand, ● Agents who place the artefacts as instructed, be it in a pawn shop, private collection or somewhere else they will be circulated, handled or seen lose 3D4 SAN during their home scene, as they are overwhelmed with a crushing sense of nostalgia and regret. They have granted the corrupting influence of Hastur yet another foothold in this world. ● Agents who destroy or hide the artefacts where they can never be found play out their home scenes as normal, to a point. Then, right when they think they’ve got away with it, the rug is pulled out from under them. If they fulfil responsibilities, their daughter asks them if they’ve seen the Yellow Sign. If they go back to nature, a dozen moons rise out of the milk-gray waters of the ocean. If they go to therapy, their therapist suggests they end it all in a government lethal chamber. Whatever they choose, they violated the bargain and are still lost in Carcosa, and will never find their way home. Roll credits.

48

CREDITS AND SOURCE TEXTS

At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft ​ Beyond the Mountains of Madness by Charles and Janyce Engan ​ ​ The Starkweather Foundation by James Knevitt ​ ​ The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers ​ Providence by Alan Moore and Jacen Burrows ​ The Hastur Mythos by John Tynes, as seen in Delta Green: Countdown and The Unspeakable Oath ​ ​ ​ ​ The Night Floors by Dennis Detwiller and Robert Parker, as seen in Delta Green: Countdown ​ ​ BESTOW by Ross Payton ​ Hoard by Viktor Eikman ​ ​

Shared RPG adventures with Cue, Dico, and Nik

Playtested with the invaluable assistance of the users at r/nightattheopera

49

50