A crazy introductory shotgun scenario for Delta Green
The agents in this scenario are ordinary federal agents not recruited by the Program or the Outlaws yet. The horrors they are going to suffer might be a good excuse for Delta Green to approach them afterwards.
Background
The Elder Things, an alien species, conquered the Earth long before the humans walked the planet. Arrogants as they were, they started a war against Cthulhu and his Star Spawn. The Mi-go, on the side of the cosmic entity, fought a brutal fight on the Antartica where they captured some of the Elder’s leaders. They removed the brain of the fearsome Elder’s commander and put it in a metallic brain cylinder for further interrogation.
This cylinder disappeared.
The cylinder has an alarm system that triggers if anyone tries to fly it into the sky in order to leave the planet.
The hook
An international arms dealer called Ramón Ramírez is flying in VIP class of the flight 719 with four bodyguards from Manila to L.A. and a joint international operation to arrest him is getting prepared in LAX. He has a reputation as a businessman and does not expect any detention. He is carrying a strange biochemical weapon in the form of a pill, but the agents don't know anything about it.
The box
Mariah Josephs is an archaeologist from Columbia University that has discovered a strange metallic cylindrical box in a dig of ancient ruins near Manila. She suspects of some occult origin, as the material and the symbols reminds her of some studies she has read. She has a contact in the US (Delta Green agent), who she trusts and intends to bring the box to. The paperwork to send that artifact home is impossible, so she has decided to steal the box and carry it herself back home. She is a tourist on flight 719.
When things start to go crazy she will suspect the powers of the box she carries are responsible and feel guilty about it. It's possible that she helps the agents if they ask.
The box is impossible to break or open and the material doesn’t look like anything any human has seen before. It’s the size of a shoe box but it is very heavy.
Manila Ninoy Aquino International Airport
The agents have received instructions in order to keep an eye, without raising suspicion, on Ramón Ramirez and the bodyguards and give backup from inside the plane when it lands on LAX. They travel as tourists without any weapons.
Ramón Ramírez will appear in the VIP area with a false identity, light on luggage and minutes later will enter the plane. He won’t talk to anyone. One bodyguard always travels with him.
The three other bodyguards are chatting in the waiting room. If somebody listens to them, they will be talking nonsense about workout, women and beer, but at one point Matias, the youngests, will ask another if it’s true that they are transporting the “weapon”. This should trigger the agent’s interest.
Moments before taking the plane Mariah Joseph will appear with a large leather bag. The personnel will tell her that that luggage cannot go into the cabin, she will initially refuse but in the end will accept. In that bag, that will be stored somewhere in the plane by the crew, there is the metallic brain cylinder with the brain of the Elder Thing’s Commander.
Plane
Flight 719 uses a modern Airbus A380: a two stories plane with capacity for 520 people. The VIP part consists of ten private rooms on the frontal part of the second floor. First class and business class are also upstairs while tourist class is on the bottom floor.
The flight
When the flight starts gaining altitude the alarm of the metallic box is triggered and strange invisible waves start to emanate from it. At first, some passengers are going to have a strong headache (also possibly the agents, if they fail a CONx5 check), but this is going to get worse as time passes by. Light and heavy turbulence will affect the plane but the pilots won't change course as they think it is a natural phenomenon and nothing to worry about.
Ramón Ramírez
Ramón won’t leave his private room in the VIP area. He is carrying a small box of pills that takes extra care: they are an experimental chemical weapon that when mixed with water and in contact with skin, knocks out for several hours the target and when it gets up will have a temporal amnesia for days. It's a weapon perfected for robbery.
Half an hour after the take off. Mattias, while bodyguarding, will talk to his master, kill him and run, with the weapon, and hide in the lavatory of the rear bottom floor (next to the closet where the box is). The crew of the plane will hear the shouting and when they arrive just find the body of Ramón wil several cuts in the stomach. If the agents investigate the scene they will find a laptop (with information regarding the weapon, contacts, and more implications), also the footprint of the sneakers of Mattias on the blood. The trail is lost on the stairs going down.
The rest of the bodyguards will also start a hunt for the killer of Ramón, suspecting Mattias. They will improvise weapons and get violent with whoever tries to stand in their way.
When the pilots understand that there has been a crime aboard they will secretly request landing at Guam airport, and change course there.
Strange events
The agents should be occupied by solving what is the weapon and who is the killer of Ramón Ramírez, but in the background strange things are going to happen as time goes by and the box sends the waves. The box is placed on a closet on the rear part of the plane so most of events should happen over there:
- A man knocking on the toilet’s door: there is blood on the floor. Inside Mattias is dead with blood emanating from the nose, mouth and ears. In his hands he has the pills called “the weapon”.
- People start to have nose bleeds.
- One guy panics and tries to rush into the cockpit, telling everyone they should land immediately. Cockpit enters on lockdown.
- People start to have black spots on the skin that are so itchy, some start to faint.
- A person very close to the box is ill, aging at a crazy speed.
- All the rear part of the plane starts to be black and moldy: chairs, floor, clothes…
- All electric devices collapse and a thick red light comes from the heart of the box.
- People cannot speak as the waves eat all sound. All is silence and no words go out of the mouth of anybody.
- Chaos, people panic.
Use some or all of the events to increasingly raise the tensions in the plane step by step, when one crisis seems under control, just raise the stakes a little.
The Mi-Go
Once the plane is in panic a giant Mi-go will appear at the wing of the plane, he is determined to get back the metallic cylindrical box of the Elder Thing. He will tear down the door, creating a problem for everybody inside the plane without the seat belt locked (STRx5 or DEXx5 check). The oxygen masks will fall from above while the giant insect travels to the back of the plane to retrieve what is his. Any attempt to stand in his way will result in an attack from this strange creature. Once he has the box will leave the plane.
Conclusion
The plane is in free fall, ready to emergency land somewhere in the Pacific. If the pilots are ok they should be able to do it, if there are no pilots, let’s hope some of the agents have piloting experience. In the best case scenario the plane will crash into the ocean, all the survivors will jump into the life rafts and hours later some rescue team will be there. In the worst case scenario… well… let’s say that nobody will ever know a Mi-Go attacked a commercial flight.
If the agents survive, Delta Green will be there for interrogation. If they think they can trust the agents, they will be recruited. If they describe the creature, maybe Delta Green can explain at least that it looks like an alien form known as Mi-Go, but not a lot of information will be shared.
How to play it
This scenario is thought to distract the agents from the real threat: the metallic cylindrical box. Tension towards there should be rising increasingly while maintaining interest towards the death of Ramón and the dangerous weapon. The idea is to keep the agents distracted while all events just keep surrounding them. Don’t rush events too much, space them in time and let the tensions and weirdness melt down step by step.
Credits
This was an entry to the 2021 shotgun scenario contest. Written by Eduard Cot
The scenario can be seen in its original google docs form here