HOW IT STARTS
Augustus Blake hasn’t eaten any meat or animal byproducts for over 20 of his 35 years. He has done deep research and maintains an extremely healthy lifestyle. When the new meat substitutes came on the market, called ‘Beyond Meat’, ‘Impossible Burgers’ and other buzzword-filled names, he was curious. But Augustus knew that when someone seems too good to be true, it often is.
And so, Augustus wanted to be at the forefront of the research this time. A pharmacist technician, he had made many professional and personal contacts in the health food industry. He knew what companies to avoid, and which doctors were only in it for publicity.
What he didn’t know was how far down a rabbit hole he had fallen.
After reaching out to his contacts, he was turned on to a startup named simply ‘Good Grub’. They claimed a remarkably small carbon footprint, and amazing sustainability. He sent them an email, and after some back and forth and signing of an NDA, he was sent his first box of burgers. He eats one at every meal, never craves anything else, and has never felt better.
And his dreams have never been more terrifying.
GOOD GRUB
Good Grub are not the nice, friendly, planet-saving company they claim to be. Sure, their marketing team is. The customer-facing portion of the company believes everything they’re saying. But they don’t know the truth of what it is they’re unleashing on the public. Not even the scientists behind their meat substitute do. But that’s why they’re doing it. They’re conducting an experiment on the public, an experiment into shared consciousness. An experiment known officially, thought not publicly, as Operation GOODBURGER.
The burgers themselves are created from something brought back after a field operation by the Program. A creature that could communicate telepathically, and had turned a team of agents against each other. Eventually, through trial and error, and deep digging into Majestic’s files on Project SEARCH, MKULTRA, and MKSEARCH, they stumbled upon a chemical concoction that could quiet the creature’s thoughts. They then discovered the creature also had remarkable regenerative capabilities. With a creature they could continually cut pieces off of and study, they began looking for a way to put telepathy to use in the field.
The study they conducted was originally titled Operation MINDMELD. Their first experiments ended in horrifying results. Any agents who came in direct contact with the creature had their brains overloaded with thoughts, to the point that some of them clawed their own eyes and ears out.
This was less than ideal.
Eventually Operation MINDMELD learned that the problem was the diet of the subjects. They needed subjects who had not consumed animal byproducts for multiple years. So many years that not a trace remained. Such subjects were hard to find within government agents.
So they reached out to the public, and the project was renamed as Operation GOODBURGER.
Their first subjects have had miraculous success. Since the subjects don’t know how they’re being studied, or even that they are, Operation GOODBURGER has had to reach out to other parts of the Program. Those who are being sent the burgers made from this creature are being closely monitored, their homes bugged and all of their incoming & outgoing data combed through dilligintely.
THE RESULTS
Augustus, and others like him who have been eating these burgers, have become addicted, though they don’t know it. They simply have no desire to eat anything else. These burgers are the most delicious thing they’ve ever tasted, and the latent telepathic powers found within the meat has latched onto their brains.
This is causing them to have horrible nightmares. What Operation GOODBURGER doesn’t realize is that the creature absorbed the memories of every agent sent to take it down. Every Opera, every murder, every monster. Those memories are now being fed to the subjects, literally.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOUR AGENTS
This is designed as a sandbox scenario. It’s up to you how you implement it into your game. What follows one way you can do so.
One of your Agent’s Bonds is an early adopter of Good Grub. They’re eating the burgers, and having the nightmares. This could have multiple effects on the agent. Their Bond will begin having horrible dreams, and eventually those dreams will start affecting them in the waking world. They may have unnatural desires that they want to act on.
What happens when an Agent’s best friend, sibling, or parent becomes the subject of an Opera?
The GOODBURGER Creature
STR 25 CON 25 DEX 1 POW 20
HP 25
SKILLS: Alertness 90%
SENSE THOUGHTS: The creature can sense the thoughts of a living creature up to 10 meters away with an Alertness test.
MIRACULOUS REGENERATION: The creature automatically regains 2D10 HP every round after taking damage. The creature is immune to radiation, fire, and cold. Physical attacks made with metal can harm it, however no other physical attacks seem to have any effect.
UNNATURAL BIOLOGY: The creature has no sensory or internal organs as human science understands them. It appears to be made simply of a greyish-green slimy flesh(similar to Scrapple), and undulates it’s way around to move, similar to a caterpillar(at a top speed of 10KMH). Those who know of such things have hypothesized that it is a relative of the Shoggoth.
TELEPATHY: Upon sensing the thoughts of a living creature, it can attempt to gain control of that creature’s mind as an action. Make opposed POWx5 rolls. If the creature is successful, then the victim is under its control. Those controlled this way are fully aware of everything, but cannot stop their bodies from doing whatever the creature wants it to do. This incurs a SAN vs Helplessness(1/1d6) check. This may also incur other SAN checks, depending on what the creature makes them do(attacking a friend would be a check vs Violence, an attack on themself would be a check vs Helplessness, etc). They can make another opposed POWx5 roll on their initiative. There appears to be no limit to how many victims can be controlled at once, though the creature can only make the attempt one at a time. Once controlled though, they can attempt to control another while also causing those already controlled to perform actions. Any required skills are treated as Luck Rolls(50%)
ABSORPTION: Once an enemy is incapacitated(by whatever means the creature makes them incapacitate themself), it will move ontop of them and secrete an acid which dissolves all organic matter(1D4 damage/round), and then the creature will absorb the remains into itself. It is unknown why the creature does this, as it does not appear to require any form of nourishment.
DREAM SHARING: Those who consume the flesh of the creature gain minor telepathic abilities, limited to thoughts the creature has sensed. They will at first have dreams of the memories, and as they consume more of the flesh they will begin to having waking nightmares. As the majority of thoughts and memories absorbed from assailants were rather horrifying, these nightmares will frighten even the hardiest of individuals. A SAN check vs Helplessness 0/2 after each night of sleep is suggested. A Sleep Disorder is the most likely Disorder to be gained from this, followed by Fugues, Depersonalization Disorder, and Dissociative Identity Disorder as the dreams begin to bleed into their waking world.
SAN LOSS: 1/1D6
Credits
This was an entry to the 2020 shotgun scenario contest. Written by Lex.