A Dreamlands Predator for Delta Green

Created for the 2025 Night At the Opera Monster Mash.

By Kevin Dent

So-called “Inner Space” was discovered by American research into the Unnatural via top-secret programs such as Project MKULTRA. Attempts to create mind control drugs and investigate Unnatural parapsychological abilities (such as “ESP”) led to the discovery of this extra-dimensional phenomenon known to madmen as “the Dreamlands.”

The use of meditation and consciousness-altering hallucinogens enabled research into this new frontier, exploration of a realm long said to be accessible .
But that was just the Americans. Research was conducted in a similar vein on the other side of the Iron Curtain. Whereas the CIA lost a few intrepid agents to sudden sublimation into Inner Space, the Soviet GRU SV-8 pursued a more aggressive exploration agenda.

The objectives of this long standing research were twofold:
To explore the military applications of identifying targets via Inner Space, and the possibility of economic colonization or exploitation of Inner Space (with an ideological justification of denying these advantages to their foes).

Expeditions were conducted by GRU SV-8 “psychics,” aided by similar pharmaceutical aids as used by their American counterparts.
These expeditions were made into the reaches of Inner Space, GRU parautilitarians plunging into a vast unknown. Unfortunately for them, they plunged into the darkest recesses of Inner Space: the places where humanity’s nightmares reside.

The Nightmare Crawler is a title that fails to sell the true horror of these strange entities, theorized to arise from the nightmares of Arachnophobes the world over.
Initial impressions suggest an arachnoid body plan on the scale of a human, but closer examination betrays their Unnatural biology: ten unevenly spaced legs, shaped in the vein of mismatched human limbs, glistening and clicking with iridescent black chitin.

Five sets of strange mandibles surround sixteen sets of eyes that look disturbingly human, never blinking for their lack of eyelids. The first observed specimen came upon the expedition in a dark, underground region and made quick work of men trained in firearms who suddenly found their weapons replaced with bows and blowdarts by the twisted logic of Inner Space.

Encased in strong cocoons of the finest silk, the Crawler’s venom works and the men are made paralyzed and ready for its final scheme: for this creature knows that there are men beyond Inner Space.

It waits for its several young to hatch and meet their preserved and very conscious Dreamer meals. Each pair of hatchlings enters the mouth of a victim and begins a process by which the Dreamer’s body shall incubate twins: one shall feed on the dreamer and create a new Nightmare. The other incubates in the body of the Dreamer in the Waking World, rising to seek prey in a brave new world.

Nightmare Crawler

STR 23 CON 31 DEX 16 INT 12 POW 13
HP 27 WP 13
ARMOR: 5 points of bulletproof chitin.
SKILLS: Alertness 45%, Athletics 80%, Dodge 40%, Stealth 60%
ATTACKS: Clawed forearms 45%, damage 1D8, Armor Piercing 2.
Grapple and Bite 40% (see EMBRACE).
SPIDER-LIKE: The crawler can cross any surface at normal speed, including walls and ceilings.
UNNATURAL BIOLOGY: The crawler’s physiology would baffle any biologist. Making a called shot for “vitals” or another apparently vulnerable area inflicts normal damage, with no special game effect.
EMBRACE: The Crawler engulfs a foe in its multitude of limbs, biting the target with its many mandibles, injecting the victim with its unnatural venom. This paralytic venom operates differently in mundane reality than it does in Inner Space. Victims in Inner Space are merely paralyzed for 1D3 turns after which they may attempt a CONx5% test to regain regular function, in the fashion of many spider venoms. Victims in the Waking World must make a successful CONx5 test for 1D3 turns or fall unconscious. Victims who fail this test find themselves transported into the midst of a Crawler Nest located within Inner Space. The Dreamland Crawlers will quickly begin to approach the trapped Agent, arriving in 1D4+1 turns. Being woken up is their only escape.
COCOON: Once successfully paralyzed (see EMBRACE), the Crawler may spend 1D4+1 turns spinning a target into a cocoon. Unless freed from inside with the aid of a blade, victims must make a STRx5% test at a -40% penalty to break the incredibly strong silk. Those outside may use tools to break the cocoon open at a +40% due to its immobile nature. Doing so will immediately awaken a victim.
SAN LOSS: 1/1D6

Scenario Hooks

• An asylum has become a nest for nightmare crawlers after a particularly powerful Dreamer becomes Patient Zero for an outbreak.
• A rogue scientist from MAJESTIC continues his research into Inner Space unabated. He performs experiments on local homeless people, offering them drugs in exchange for their expeditions to the Dreamlands. The scientist is found deceased, with detailed handwritten records of his test subjects, who are now all being hunted by Nightmare Crawlers. The scientist has discovered how to produce an antivenom. It is synthesized from the cerebrospinal fluid of an arachnophobe. A syringe sits on his desk.
• A spiritual influencer livestreams her daily wellness sessions. She has unwittingly discovered how to meditate and access the Dreamlands, which she refers to as her own realm of Seeking, a spiritual journey of enlightenment. Yesterday, she was livestreaming her meditation session when her Dreamland self was killed by Crawlers. Her body in the Waking World splits into a newborn Crawler before an entire audience, before skittering out of the influencer’s open door.
• A smattering of new cattle mutilations in rural Bone, Idaho are capturing the public’s imagination. The cattle have been ripped apart in their fields, but forensic analysis suggests that only sleeping cattle were killed. While stories tell of UFOs, in truth the perpetrator has been a lone Crawler. The low population density has forced a Crawler to feed on cattle. They will do for sustenance, but not for reproduction. Eventually, tracking the Crawler leads the Agents to its body, killed by a local rancher. He succumbed to the venom and fell into a coma after driving to the local hospital. Now, Agents must find a way to deal with the ticking time bomb of a man struggling to survive in the Dreamlands while he lies in a hospital bed.

Credits

Created by Kevin Dent for the N@TO 2025 Monster Mash.
Original submission: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Vo3GO9Av9W2pntPxTKBpzjAAg-TAsSJyo-IvKnQkrn0/edit?tab=t.0