The Truth -
Amidst the cornfields of Home, Pennsylvania, an old farmhouse off the beaten path holds a secret.
The Cranes, a family of refugee inbred Deep Ones, reside inside. To the outside world they’re isolated, self-sufficient pig farmers, but in truth they also hunt stray people and rob graves to eat. The family breeds with their own extremely deformed Mother in the basement, producing children deformed even by Deep Ones standards.
The Hook -
Recently, the mother has given birth to a stillborn child. The family buried the child in a field nearby, where it was uncovered by some kids playing baseball. The discovery of the extremely deformed child catches Delta Green’s attention, along with a steadily growing list of missing persons in the area, and the Agents are sent to investigate and make sure there isn’t anything unnatural with the deformities.
The Town -
Home is a rural town in Pennsylvania comfortably lacking in many modern appliances. The police station, local motel, and diner all lay on the same main road of the town.
The police station, headed by Sheriff Sparrow, has a small coroner room (currently used for the infant), two holding cells and a few offices.
The local motel is owned by the nosy Lila Ross and offers rooms at affordable prices for the Agents stay.
Leads -
The Infant - the deceased infant is being kept at the police station’s coroner's office. Examination of the body reveals dirt in its lungs (it was buried alive) and extensive genetic deformities, some verging on the inhuman.
A successful Medicine or appropriate science roll reveals as much as the Handler wishes, or by percentage:
30%-49% - The deformities (primarily ichthyosis) render the infant as barely recognizable as human. The dirt matches the composition of the soil around the Crane’s property.
50%-69% - The deformities are similar to the characteristics of fish and other aquatic life.
70%-89% - The deformities are similar to those found in cases from Innsmouth, Massachusetts in 1928.
90%-100% - The child is a Deep One.
The Crime Scene - The sandlot the child was buried in has been haphazardly fenced off as an active crime scene. The shallow grave of the infant was exhumed and examined, but no trace of whoever did it was found. Next to the sandlot field is woods and cornfields, and beyond that the Crane house and their rusting car. Three figures can be seen, but quickly disappear inside.
A simple History roll confirms the common knowledge in town that the Cranes are an agoraphobic and probably inbred family.
The Graveyard - Several corpses have been stolen from the local graveyard recently. Mentioned off hand by the Sheriff.
A successful Automobile roll matches tire tracks in the parking lot with those of the Crane’s old car in their lawn.
The Missing Persons - the Sheriff is currently working on locating several missing persons, all no-names and vagabonds. A mother and their newborn are the last to disappear in the area as reported by the local food bank.
The Green Box - A storage unit in Pittsburgh, an hour and a half drive from Home.
Dead Ends -
The mother of the dead child is suspected as being kidnapped, but in truth it's the Crane’s Mother.
The grave robbing, while committed by the Cranes, is far from their worst crime and unconnected to the death of the infant.
Trouble and Interruptions -
If the Agents are still for any significant amount of time (going to the Green Box, missing clues) a person is reported missing around the area, either the sheriff’s wife Susan or a local child. They’ve been kidnapped by the Cranes to be had as their going-away meal.
Sheriff Sparrow suspects the Cranes and investigates, and in retaliation the Cranes drive out to his house and brutally murder him and his wife.
If and when the Agents investigate the house first, it’s empty besides the Mother in the basement (the door’s locked). The family is out hunting, and by the evening the news will come that a person has gone missing in the local area. The Agents have a short window of time to return and save the victim from a horrible fate at the hands of the Cranes.
The Agents see Milton Crane at a store buying meat. Unlike the rest of his family, he speaks coherently and logically, explaining all the family’s strangeness as just being isolationists.
The Green Box -
The Green Box lies in a storage unit in downtown Pittsburg. With the combo, the inside reveals:
Two fake FBI IDs.
A Russian ADS amphibious-use rifle, with a powerful waterproof flashlight mounted below the muzzle; there are one hundred eighty rounds of ammunition for it and three magazines.
A genealogy report on the “Innsmouth Taint” that is at least two decades old, outlining numerous family trees connected to a rare gene mutation that triggers extreme ichthyosis. In addition to the Crane family being inside, an Agent or someone they know is the last in another family line.
The House -
The Crane’s house is a two-story plus basement farmhouse that has a pen of pigs in the back. From the outside, the house looks like a dilapidated, decaying wreck. The air is hot and stuffy, and filled with flies and the smell of rotting food. The inside is even worse.
The Crane’s house is filled with horrific trophies of the family’s victims and grave robbing:
Human skin on the chair seats, skulls on the bedposts, human flesh on plates served for dinner, and an entire carcass stuffed in a lead-lined refrigerator. Requires sanity checks.
A photo scrapbook next to a green-brown fishtank reveals the family’s deformities stretching back decades, the earliest photo of a couple in front of the town sign of Innsmouth, Massachusetts.
The family’s patriarch, a human father, lies decomposing in the bathroom tub on the second floor.
The basement is filled up to the waist with water, and the Mother lurks in the dark. Bones float along the surface and line the bottom from bodies fed to the Mother. While the others at least maintain vaguely humanoid appearance, the Mother is pure Deep One and acts like it, slinking through the water like a frog or a fish, dragging any that step into her lair under the water.
A newborn, human looking baby is in a crib. The Agents have to decide if it’s part of the family, and more importantly, if they can pull the trigger.
Resolution -
The Cranes boobytrap the house for the Agents return. The Deep Ones have no intention of playing fair, and will do whatever they can to protect their family.
There’s a rudimentary sound alarm poised to topple over perched bottles when someone opens the door.
Floorboards are weakened to drop whoever steps on them to the basement where the Mother is waiting.
Marion is at the top of the stairs, ready to swing with her ax.
Sam is hiding in a closet, waiting to rev up his chainsaw.
If the Agents burn down the house before confronting them, the surviving Cranes go to the Sheriff’s house and plan an ambush, killing anyone there.
If the Cranes aren’t stopped before the end of the night, they’ll kill their kidnapped victim and flee to start a new family.
Cover-Up -
Sheriff Sparrow doesn’t believe anything unnatural is going on, but if Lila or any other townsfolk catch wind of the Crane’s ancestry, they’ll be very hard to dissuade. Blackmail may be necessary. Sparrow is concerned that the Agents aren’t a legitimate operation, though, and he certainly won’t approve of killing the newborn.
Characters -
The Cranes -
Norma “Mother” Crane - the matriarch of the family, a completely evolved Deep One who still breeds with her own family. She resides in the basement.
Norma is a Lesser Deep One (see sourcebook).
All Crane children are Deep One Hybrids (see sourcebook).
Sam Crane - a son of Mother and armed with a chainsaw. He has a mouth like a piranha's and dead, black eyes.
Marion Crane - a daughter of Mother and armed with an axe. Half her face looks like it’s wax melting off her skull.
Milton Crane - a son of Mother confined to a wheelchair. Though he seems somewhat normal (if misshapen) at first, a closer examination reveals his legs to be those of a crab.
The Town -
Sheriff Ken Sparrow - Good-hearted sheriff of the town. He’s getting up there in age and hasn’t seen action since his time in the army twenty years ago, but his aim and mind are still in good shape. A firm skeptic but a trusted ally.
Susan Sparrow - Wife of Sheriff Sparrow, possible victim of the Cranes.
Lila Ross - owner and concierge of the local motel. Extremely nosy and pestering.
This was an entry to the 2020 Delta Green shotgun scenario contest, written by Hank.