Iraq is the cradle of human and grave of pre-human civilisation, currently being: liberated/saved/protected/occupied/colonised/looted/destroyed (please circle all that apply) by the USA and its allies.
If you were DG, you probably wouldn't be able to swing a dead cat without hitting someone you knew (i.e. DG) in Iraq. And with the relative freedom from oversight that one has over there, it would be a perfect opportunity for Cell A to put together ad hoc teams to deal with any outstanding issues in that part of the world—and with a good deal more force than you'd normally be able to get away with.
Places
- Possibly Irem or The Nameless City
- Irak
Players
Creatures
Operations
Michael W. Short wrote (DGML 11199)
From my own experiences there, I can think of a few things that could build into
a purty-dern good scenario.
1) Some of our soldiers were invited to a Sufi religious ceremony. I didn't go
myself, but I saw video of it later. It was…wierd. Really wierd. Lots of
chanting, ecstatic dancing, people DRIVING FREAKIN' NAILS INTO THEIR HEADS.
What if the US soldier invitees had been the main event, so to speak?
2) In our AO, we had a lake, with a nifty little island in it. The island
was used by smugglers, had some cool looking ruins, and alleged had once had
a house where Saddam Hussein had kept some of his concubines. I wanted to
conduct a raid on the island in order to bust up the smuggling ring, but we
were never able to pull one together. The ruins on the island were typical
Iraqi—couldn't tell if they were a couple or a couple thousand years old.
What if while searching the ruins for illegal goods or weapons, the troops
disturbed something in the ruins?
The Man In Black speculated (DGML 11203)
What were they smuggling? If it was ancient artifacts, then we're onto
something. It also makes me wonder about Karotechia operations in the Middle
East… now is an ideal time for the Nazis to step up their game against
Israel. Perhaps the largest supernatural threat in Iraq isn't "sleeping dog"
artifacts and temples, but something decidedly more Aryan.
I imagine the Karotechia would pose as European Arms Dealers in the middle
east, and rely on their contacts in the officer corps to worm their way into
the region. Blond blue-eyed businessmen with their fingers in all the pies
would certainly come to the attention of various intelligence agencies and
eventually get made as Karotechia by PISCES, Delta Green, the GRU, etc. If
the Mossad suddenly started assassinating these folks… maybe someone in
the CIA would start looking into how the Israelis were getting such accurate
information about their targets.
Recommended reading
Charles Stross' A Colder War postulates that Saddam's Ba'athist party were Yog-Sothoth worshippers. This was a driving factor behind the Iran-Iraq war.
http://footnotes.pegritz.com/ or http://theend.thecrawlingchaos.net/
For those of you who may be interested where this site and these narratives are headed, here's a quick survey of the stories currently in process:
- "City of Pillars": When Azifist cultists attack New York City on September 11, 2001, in order to bring the Great Old Ones' reign back to Earth, terrorism proves to be the least of the Human species' problems.
- "Naming the Nameless City": Soldiers in the United States' war against the "Cthulhu cultists" have begun the ground assault on the Azifists' "capitol" city, Irem, in Saudi Arabia. Expectations of the assault being a cut'n'dried matter prove to be…drastic underestimations.
- "Trois Freres": Within R'lyeh risen and Great Cthulhu's armies beginning to reclaim the Earth for their kind, Humanity's only hope for survival may be to bury itself before the "squidheads" come to fill the graves themselves….
- "Goodnight, Antarctica": in the frigid emptiness of the Old Ones' Antarctican cities, a pair of Human scientists, a "tame" shoggoth, and a Yithian in Human form attempt to beg the Thing Beyond the Mountains to save the Human species from the octopoids.
- "Incomprehensible Shapes": On a mission to Yuggoth to barter with the Million Favored Ones for aid in the octopoid holocaust, a Human professor housed in a brainbox discovers that a threat greater than the greatest Great Old One is stirring in the dark between the stars.
- "The Fifth of Five Forms": A direct sequel to "Incomprehensible Shapes", in which Dr. Sarkozy leaves behind his last trace of organic Humanity in order to flee from both Fungi and Incomprehensibles alike.
- "Under the Moons of Madness": In 1976, the first interplanetary mission from Earth travels to Mars to discover why the Old Ones abandoned terraforming Mars in favor of Earth, and then never again set foot on the planet….
- "Unaussprechlichen": In 1941, General Erwin Rommel, in charge of the Third Reich's Ultima Thule Campaign to secure the Old Ones' Antarctican cities for Nazi Germany, disturbs the Thing Beyond the Mountain's sleep…and discovers just how horrific waking up an Other God can be.
- And…so far, that's what I've got planned and/or under construction. Yes, it's a lot. After all, I've got seven decades of "post-Lovecraftian" to fill in here! Fortunately, that gives me the chance to play all sorts of wonderful alternate-history games along with digging up all manner of Lovecraftian horrors….Enjoy!