Hero Complex - a DG Shotgun Scenario
Liam Cane remembers how he reverse engineered the liao drug in a single weekend after taking ayahuasca and studied medieval alchemical texts. He also remembers being handed the new formula from an angel investor named Stephen Alzis. He can recall spending years in a lab funded by March Technologies on a quest to recreate the formula. More origin stories crowd Dr. Cane’s mind. He is undisturbed by the mutually exclusive memories, because to him they’re all true. However he did it, Cane made an altered version of the drug that fractured his timeline every time he took it. He’s now taken it enough times that his timelines are branching out, infecting anyone in proximity to him. Anyone who comes into close contact with Liam Cane is at risk of becoming a version of him.
Altered Liao
Instead of viewing the past, Cane’s version of the drug shows visions of a timeline the viewer subconsciously desires to see. The viewer believes the visions are from the current timeline but instead pull their timeline closer to other timelines. Repeated uses of the drug causes the user’s personal timeline to fracture. Timelines begin to merge and dissolve, forming new ones with mutually exclusive events. This culminates in the user’s existence being erased from reality, along with any other infected timelines.
Dr. Liam Then
Liam Cane was a scientist working for a biotech startup funded by an eccentric billionaire who believed that ancient occult texts held secrets to help extend human lifespan. Liam read books of alchemy and mysticism and applied modern science to them. An idealist, Liam suffered from a hero complex and wanted to make a difference in the world.
As he started using the altered liao, his subconscious showed him visions of the world ending, a gamma ray burst fatally irradiating the planet in the near future, a cosmic event, inescapable and inevitable. Liam saw a way out, a single timeline in which humanity survived. He saw himself making a concentrated version of liao, one that could not only view the past, but alter it. By changing minor events in the far distant past, he could slightly alter earth’s orbit, ensuring that it missed the gamma ray burst without affecting anything else in the timeline. Of course by then, Liam’s mind had shattered under repeated use of the drug, so it’s impossible to tell if his visions were anything but a delusion, an errant timeline, or the truth.
Dr. Liam Now
In order to make concentrated liao, Liam needs radioactive ingredients (uranium 230 obtained through his employer or whatever the GM deems interesting) and an isolated area to work. He has chosen an office in Subsurface Vault, an underground storage and office facility converted from a limestone mine outside of Kansas City, Missouri. His theft of uranium from his job led to a federal investigation, which tracked him down to Subsurface. A Nuclear Emergency Support Team (NEST) team accompanied local police to arrest him, but Liam had already been alerted due to his use of liao. He became infectious a few hours ago and has already killed or transformed everyone else in Subsurface at the time. He believes he is almost ready to make concentrated liao and save the world. He just needs a little more time. Infected versions of him have banded together to protect him, hoping to infect any intruding agents.
The Hook
The federal investigation uncovered work emails and Liam’s personal notes, which contained multiple references to liao and other flagged keywords. Delta Green inserted the player characters in time for the NEST raid at Subsurface. They know that Liam Cane has behaved erratically, used proscribed keywords, and has stolen uranium for an unknown research project. They also know that communication with anyone in Subsurface ended roughly two hours ago. They know which office Liam rented and have a map of the facility but have no idea what happened inside. All security cameras are down. Thirty one people are unaccounted for in the facility.
Running the Scenario
This is essentially a dungeon crawl where the PCs have access to a map but not the inhabitants. Use a map of Subtropolis or similar business for the map.
Some of the Infected versions of Liam are trying to buy as much time as they can for the original Liam. They believe his version of events and think they are saving the world. They have no reason to doubt him. They have set up barricades, traps, and ambushes where possible. They may try to fake surrendering to the PCs in order to try to infect them and convince them to join Liam’s cause. Infection does not remove free will, so an infected PC can still try to stop Liam.
Other infected hate Liam or are too traumatized to do anything. They still infect others
When the PCs reach Liam, he responds by trying to kill any uninfected PCs first. He cannot be persuaded to stop. If the PCs kill Liam, the timeline fractures stop and all of the survivors in Subsurface receive a 1/1d4 SAN unnatural check, as the timeline repairs itself. They remember killing a psychotic scientist with stolen uranium and little else. Infected characters retain any changes, causing possible issues in the future…
Liam finishes making concentrated liao in about two hours after the PCs arrive. He’ll take it immediately and cause a localized temporal collapse. Countless Hounds appear to consume all humans in Subsurface. An uninfected character who runs into the dark, unfinished cavern section (no right angles) of Subsurface might survive on a luck roll. Everyone in the facility disappears, never to be seen again.
Whether or not Liam stopped the gamma ray burst or if earth was even threatened by one is impossible to determine.
Infectious Timeline
In the later stages, an altered liao user’s personal timeline, already a mess of contradictory history, can infect any other intelligent being they affect. This means anyone they talk to, touch, or change in any way. Resisting infection requires a POW roll based on the type of exposure.
POW x 5: Momentary interaction - opening a door, brushing past, breathing on them
POW x 3: Casual interaction - brief conversation, consciously acknowledging them
POX x 1: Prolonged conversation or anything more involved
A success means the character’s timeline is safe from infection. However, if the character suffers from temporary insanity or hits a breaking point becomes vulnerable again to infection, as their timeline becomes more malleable and unstable.
Failure means the character becomes infected by Dr. Cane’s timeline. Roll on the table below or make up a new effect at the handler’s discretion.
An infected character can be infected by other versions of Liam but gains a +10% bonus per infection to resist other infections. If a character gets the same result on the table, reroll.
01-30% Memories of the character’s father are replaced with Liam’s father, Nathanel. He is mostly a distant and demanding parent with some signs of warmth and affection. The character loses a bond. Replace it with Nathanel Cane, Dr. Cane’s father, with a score of 5. Roll 1d6/1d10 helplessness and unnatural SAN loss. Knowledge of this new bond can be used against Liam by a manipulative character.
31-60% The character gains Science (Liao chemistry) at 80% and gains +10% to unnatural and suffers a 1d6/1d20 SAN loss as they remember Liam’s many experiments with Liao and visions of the past. The character also loses one trained skill - reset it to its default level.
61-80% The character gains Liam’s disorder: Obsession (saving the world) and learns of Liam’s motivation and plan. Lower the character’s SAN 1 point below their current breaking point. The character now understands Liam’s plan. If the character tries to stop Liam, they must make a SAN check like any other disorder.
81-94% A hound of Tindalos interacts briefly with the character’s timeline, mutating them. Roll a lethality attack of 30%. If the character dies, their body convulses as Tindalos features erupt from below the character’s skin. Witnesses make a 1d4/1d10 SAN check for unnatural. If the character survives, they make a 1d6/1d20 SAN check for unnatural as they are wracked with pain and visions of the hound’s mind. A character who goes to 0 SAN from this becomes a Hound mutant. If they survive both the attack and the SAN loss, their body remains intact, resisting the mutation.
95-00% The character is erased from reality as their timeline collapses.
The Hounds of Tindalos
Altered Liao use alerts the hounds of Tindalos but they have a harder time ‘finding’ the user as their timeline fractures. As the Hounds draw near, they find themselves in the same danger as humans. Their timelines can be infected as well. When a Hound is infected, they can mutate infected humans, transforming them into hybrid entities intent on collapsing timelines to guarantee their erasure from existence.
STATS
Hound/Human Hybrid Stats
A human impossibly merged with an unnatural entity, a wretched being doomed to live a short time or eternity in agony. It looks vaguely humanoid, covered in a thin blue slime as its angles shift and distort when it moves.
STR 18 CON 18 DEX 18 INT 8 POW 8
HP 18 WP 8
Armor: see Transcendent
Skills: Alertness: 55% Unnatural Movement 50%, Track 45%
Attack: Angular Blades 35% Damage 1d10+2 armor piercing
Transcendent: All attacks that roll an odd number fail against the hybrid.
Unnatural Movement: The Hybrid can teleport out of any right angle within 20 meters of its initial location. This can be used to dodge attacks and get behind enemies in battle.
Angular Blades: The limbs of a hybrid are covered in impossibly sharp blades, piercing any conventional armor.
SAN Loss: 1d3/1d6
Liam Cane - Man of a Thousand Timelines
The convergence point of countless fractures in time, Liam moves through reality as a moebius strip that subtly shifts. Liam sees infinite variations of himself taking a step, breathing, and focusing on the next step of making concentrated liao. He is the nexus point of the temporal instability, so even perceiving him is dangerous.
Stats: All stats are 2d6+6, which change every round.
HP: See Timeline Resistance
WP: 30
Armor: See Timeline Resistance
Skills: Liam knows all skills at 1d100% - change every round.
Attacks: Timeline Offensive
Perceiving Liam
Uninfected characters must roll to resist infection upon seeing or encountering Liam. If they resist, they see multiple versions of Liam overlapping each other, a living time lapse that shifts and changes, showing different histories and version of him. 1d3/1d6 SAN unnatural check to witness this.
Infected characters see infinite timelines converging on Liam, including their own. They see Liam’s history overwriting their own. This is a 1d10/1d20 SAN unnatural SAN check.
Timeline Resistance
Liam can attempt to dodge (at a variable percentage) every attack made against him. He cannot be surprised or ambushed or tricked. Lethality attacks only inflict 2d10 damage on Liam and can never instantly kill him. Any attack that inflicts damage causes a cumulative chance to kill him outright, based on the amount done. If the first attack does 5 damage, roll 5% to see if he dies. If the roll fails, Liam survives. If a second attack inflicts 12 damage, then the second roll is made at 17%.
Timeline Offensive
Liam can attack every hostile foe every round. He ‘borrows’ weapons from his opponents’ timelines, using the exact same weapons aimed at him. His skill with them is variable (as stated above).
Credits
Hero Complex was written by Ross Payton for the 2024 Shotgun Scenario contest.
Source: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OgMPkrC_-Y6pDLJzgMbM6zU-HPI_TZuvE-gPr7goLL0/edit