Italy, 1943. A terrified Nazi official surrenders to an italian anarchist resistance group that has had contact with the Allied Command. In exchange for his extradition, the defector reveals about the SS-Ahnenerbe interest in a deep caves system right below the Segesta ruins in Sicily. There’s a subterranean temple built on the shore of an underground ancient lake: all Nazi soldiers that entered the caves came back mad or worse. OSS and Delta Green must act quickly to stop them, whatever they are up to.
Operation PURPLE DUST
An one shot scenario by LowPhotojournalist6
Briefing 12AM, Tunis, 1943
All team members are OSS personnel involved somehow with Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily. The briefing occurs in a secluded room inside one of the airfield buildings. An Army Colonel instructs the team:
- A Nazi defector gave us intel about the effort of the SS to explore and research ancient knowledge in Sicily. We suspect that they are dealing with dangerous forces. They will use it against us and our allies.
- He says that “less and less German soldiers are coming back alive” and “we are all having strange and terrifying dreams''. He’s talking about Segesta temple, Greek ruins from 420 BC and the caves below it. The Karotechia officials keep ordering people to go down there searching who knows what.
- You are going in with the 82nd Airborne, it’s the quickest and safest way. You'll be dropped at the medieval city of Calatafimi.
- At the ground, you will have to find our Italian asset, he will be right outside the city in a gas station. The password is polvere viola.
Landing Zone 10PM, Operation Husky
Through the C-47’s windows, the team can see Flak rounds exploding around the plane. The right wing gets hit by machine gun fire, and dark oil stains the windows. The red light turns on and the paratroopers start checking their gear and fixing their hook in the parachute line, when, suddenly, the right motor becomes a fireball, making the plane shake violently. (Alertness/Dodge or 1d4 damage from shrapnel). When the green light turns on and everyone jumps, the team can only see the dark sky being lit by tracer fire and searchlights and the medieval Calatafimi below.
The agents fall on a small hill near the town, close to a 37mm AA emplacement, with at least a dozen German Wehrmacht troops guarding and operating it. The agents must pass an Athletics of Dexterity test to cut the parachute and run for a more concealable position or they will take direct fire from the Germans. Nearby, paratroopers will engage the emplacement and the agents must fight with them to get a chance to move. After 3 or 4 turns, the Germans will abandon the AA gun and fallback.
Inside the gas station, there’s an old italian man acting like a night watcher wearing a purple tie. After the agents say the password, the man will take them into a storage room with makeshift beds.
The Anarchist 08AM, Pelato
The agents are awakened by the old italian who provides them with local clothing and some food. He explains that the team must visit the resistance leader in Pelato, a small village nearby:
- Our leader, Vincenzo, is a very intelligent man, a history teacher. He runs a bookshop and the local paper.
- You can use this truck to reach most places around here. However, all the roads are blocked in the area near the temple.
The trip is over in two hours and right outside the village the truck is stopped by an old italian lady crying:
- She was so young, a blessed girl, they took her, those Germans took her! I saw them taking her when she was coming back home from the church. She dreamt yesterday about this happening!
Near the central market, there was a decrepit house with a discreet sign: Libri Rari. Vincenzo is a middle aged man with sharp feline eyes who politely greets the agents. It’s a regular bookshop until he opens the backroom door: there’s an incredible collection of occult and forbidden political literature. There’s some interesting occultism related antiques, including rare ones (A well succeeded History/Archeology roll can tell that there are impressive items lying around, but nothing Mythos-related). Vincenzo is incisive:
- There’s real danger in those caves. The SS are uncomfortably close to gaining knowledge of things too abominable, even for them. What lives in those underground waters is raw power.
- Some texts say that there’s an entity called Glaaki who’s trapped in a maze of lakes. Those are interconnected around the globe, and, in some circumstances, it can be summoned to grant wishes for those who promise servitude. Ancient civilizations probably built this temple deep into the caves as a sign of worship and fear.
- Deranged scholars even say that there’s not a single dream in a human mind that isn’t touched by Glaaki. And dreams live forever. Nazis want to live forever.
- I don’t care what and how you do it, just keep the Nazis away from it. Preferably kill them all.
There’s something odd about Vicenzo. Agents with HUMINT at 50% or more can try a roll. With a success, the agent will be sure that he’s hiding something serious: He went down there, he found something valuable, and the rest can be blown. With a failure, the agent just knows that he’s a shady character.
Vincenzo is tough to break, he’s an occultist with limited knowledge about the Mythos and leader of a guerrilla group. He found a solid gold plate with an engraved Elder Sign in the underground temple. (Agents with Unnatural 10% should know about it: the agent understood that this plate was protecting the caves against an evil manifestation, a seal of some sort). He wants power for himself and his future anarchist revolution, but he’s not willing to hurt his current allies: the agents. What to do about this is up to the agents to decide.
About the camp, Vicenzo can provide the team good intel: because of the Allied invasion, there’s no more Wehrmacht troops, only SS-Ahnenerbe archeological specialists and nothing more than a platoon (20-30 men) of security personnel around the temple. The agents should come up with an assault plan.
The anarchists can provide the team with some explosives, small arms and even a working radio connected with Allied Command: allied airpower within a radio call.
SS-Ahnenerbe Camp Segesta ruins
The ruins of the temple are located on the top of Monte Bàrbaro. Agents can reach it by hiking steep slopes or risking being out in the open using the roads. The SS-Ahnenerbe set a bigger camp down in the valley, but the most important personnel, including the Karotechia ones, are allocated in a smaller camp near the ruins. The cave entrance is heavily guarded by Waffen-SS soldiers, at least 4 men, 24h hours a day. An Alertness test can reveal that the smaller camp is empty and there’s no officers at sight: there’s something up. A HUMINT test indicates that all soldiers in the camp are slightly sleepy (-20% at any roll) and those actually sleeping are clearly having nightmares.
Navigating inside the humid caves is easy: there’s electric lights and signs in every turn, there’s bats, insects and cave vegetation covering the walls. At some point, there’s some collapsed rocks forming a connection with another tunnel, this one with not a single form of life in sight. In approximately 10 minutes, the team starts hearing orders in german. The tunnels start to look bizarre: there’s strange mineral veils encrusted in the dark-gray basalt walls.
The tunnel opens in a surreal vision: it’s like the team stepped out of the cave: a large lake with a ziggurat built in the shore. It is impossible to see the ceiling of the cave due to the intense fog and it looks like there’s a sky full of exotic stars behind it (San 1/1d3). There is more than a dozen Nazis with feet deep in the lake’s exotic water chanting in strange languages and getting ready to sacrifice a young woman tied to a pillar.
- Within 10 minutes of chanting, a giant and malicious smile filled with millions of teeth will materialize inside the mist (San 1d3/1d6). 5 more minutes, the presence will become fully tangible: Glaaki’s three alien eyes will shine in purple and a myriad of dark spikes will puncture the woman, obliterating her. (San 1d3/1d8) All agents must roll POW tests to stay conscious or fall asleep to a brutal nightmare about his Bonds. Agents still awake will see the nazi officials pleading for immortality. What happens next is up to the Handler and should change the course of history.
- If the agents act before the evocation, only 4 nazis are conscious enough to react.
They will attack the agents in sight and spend turns trying to wake up their comrades.
An Alertness check will reveal a specific Karotechia Officer commanding the ritual. Killing him first will make it stop faster. When there’s no more ritual, the cave becomes less interesting: no mist, no night sky.
- If the agents enter this area in possession of the Golden Plate, Glaaki will show up in a blink of an eye, killing everyone near the water, except the woman. (San 1/1d6) Her eyes are blue, but in the darkness, they become subtly purple.
At this point, the team is free to decide what to do with the cave, Vicenzo and the woman.
Stat Blocks
U.S. 82nd Airborne Division Paratrooper
"Death From Above"
STR 13 CON 13 DEX 14 INT 11 POW 11 CHA 9
HP 13 WP 11 SAN 55 BREAKING POINT 44
SKILLS : Alertness 60%, Dodge 40%, Firearms 60%, First Aid 40%, Melee Weapons 40%, Military Science 30%, Search 40%, Stealth 50%, Unarmed Combat 50%.
ATTACKS:
M1 Carbine (1d10)
M1A1 Thompson Submachine (1d10 / Lethality 10%)
Mk 2 Fragmentation grenade (Lethality 15%)
Bayonet (1d6)
Wehrmacht Soldier
Backbone of the III Reich.
STR 14 CON 12 DEX 12 INT 12 POW 13 CHA 9
HP 13 WP 13 SAN 65 BREAKING POINT 52
SKILLS : Alertness 50%, Dodge 30%, Firearms 50%, First Aid 20%, Melee Weapons 40%, Military Science 30%, Search 40%, Stealth 30%, Unarmed Combat 50%.
ATTACKS:
MP40 Submachine Gun (1d10 / Lethality 10%)
Kar98k rifle (1d12+2)
Bayonet (1d6)
Waffen-SS Security Troops
Protecting the Füher’s best interest.
STR 14 CON 14 DEX 10 INT 12 POW 14 CHA 8
HP 14 WP 14 SAN 70 BREAKING POINT 56
SKILLS : Alertness 70%, Dodge 50%, Firearms 60%, First Aid 20%, Melee Weapons 50%, Military Science 50%, Search 40%, Stealth 50%, Unarmed Combat 50%.
ATTACKS:
MP40 Submachine Gun (1d10 / Lethality 10%)
Gewehr 43 rifle (1d12+2)
MG34 machine gun (1d12+2 / Lethality 10%)
SS Bayonet (1d6)
Stielhandgranate (Lethality 15%)
SS-Ahnenerbe archeological crew .
Scholars looking for magic mummies.
STR 10 CON 11 DEX 10 INT 17 POW 14 CHA 10
HP 11 WP 14 SAN 70 BREAKING POINT 56
SKILLS : Alertness 40%, Anthropology 50%, Archaeology 50%, Dodge 30%, Firearms 20%, History 50%, Melee Weapons 30%, Occult 40%, Search 60%, Survival 30%, Unarmed Combat 40%.
ATTACKS:
Walther P38 pistol (1d10)
Shovel or Pickaxe (1d6)
SS-Karotechia officer.
Mythos enthusiasts of the Reich. Delta Green’s priority target.
STR 9 CON 9 DEX 10 INT 18 POW 15 CHA 11
HP 9 WP 15 SAN 65 BREAKING POINT 60
SKILLS : Alertness 50%, Anthropology 70%, Archaeology 50%, Dodge 30%, Firearms 40%, History 70%, HUMINT 50%, Melee Weapons 30%, Occult 70%, Persuade 50%, Search 60%, Survival 40%, Unarmed Combat 40%, Unnatural 20%
ATTACKS:
Luger P08 pistol (1d10)
SS Cerimonial Dagger (1d4)
RITUALS:
Withering
Simple ritual. Study time: hours; 1D4 SAN. Activation: one turn; 12 WP, 3 HP, 1D8 SAN.
This chanted ritual withers flesh and blasts bones, inflicting 3 HP damage to the operator and 1D20 HP damage to a living target. The target must be nearby and in sight. The ritual can be enacted on a target who is not in sight by burning a small effigy that contains a sample of the target’s DNA. This costs another 7 WP, but the WP may be spent over any amount of time while constructing and ritually consecrating the effigy.
Obscure Memory
Simple ritual. Study time: hours; 1D4 SAN. Activation: one turn; 3 WP, 1 SAN.
With weird passes of the hand and a brief chanted phrase, this ritual can block the target’s memory. It takes only one turn to activate, and costs 3 WP and 1 SAN. The operator must overcome the target in an opposed POW test; if the effort fails, the operator can try again at a further cost of 3 WP. The operator may instruct the target to forget one specific, brief event. This does not change the target’s skills or known rituals, and it cannot undo SAN loss. A particularly frightening event may linger in the target’s subconscious and nightmares even after the memory has been obscured. A single use of the ritual can affect multiple targets, costing 3 WP each and allowing each to oppose the POW test.
Vincenzo.
Anarchist-occultist and rebel leader.
STR 9 CON 9 DEX 10 INT 16 POW 15 CHA 13
HP 9 WP 14 SAN 60 BREAKING POINT 56
SKILLS : Alertness 60%, Anthropology 50%, Archaeology 20%, Dodge 50%, Firearms 50%, History 80%, HUMINT 70%, Melee Weapons 30%, Occult 70%, Persuade 70%, Search 60%, Survival 60%, Unarmed Combat 40%, Unnatural 5%
ATTACKS:
Mauser C96 pistol (1d10) Winchester Model 1897 shotgun (2d8)
Pocket knife (1d4)
RITUALS:
Exaltation of the Flesh
Simple ritual. Study time: hours; 1D6 SAN. Activation: a minute; costs vary.
This minute-long incantation invokes Shub-Niggurath and Yog-Sothoth, amid many other syllables of apparent gibberish. Different versions come from different traditions; one German ritual embeds consecrated bread under the skin. The ritual imbues the operator’s flesh with the power to resist harm. Each time the operator takes damage, whether it penetrates the ritual’s protection or not, the Armor drops by one point. As long as the operator has a single Armor point from this ritual, Lethality rolls against the operator automatically fail, and the ritual’s Armor protects against their HP damage. The ritual protects against every kind of harm that reduces hit points: physical injuries, flames, or even poison. Twenty-four hours after the ritual, any remaining Armor points granted by the ritual fade. Vincenzo can plead for 4 points of armor at a cost of 9WP and 1d4 SAN.
Clairvoyance
Simple ritual. Study time: hours or days; 1D8
SAN. Activation: minutes; 1 WP and 1 SAN per minute of use. Sometimes called “remote viewing,” this ritual is often encountered as an apparently innate psychic ability. After entering a trance, the operator sees events and places far away, and sometimes in the past. The operator has little control over the visions,
which are easily misinterpreted and are always determined by the Handler. The operator may see visions without meaning to activate this ritual, at the Handler’s discretion.
Anarchist resistance member.
Italian resistance against Mussolini and German occupation.
STR 14 CON 12 DEX 11 INT 12 POW 13 CHA 10
HP 13 WP 13 SAN 65 BREAKING POINT 52
SKILLS : Alertness 50%, Dodge 50%, Firearms 40%, Melee Weapons 40%, Search 30%, Stealth 60%, Unarmed Combat 50%, Survival 50%.
ATTACKS:
Beretta Model 38 submachine gun (1d10/ Lethality 10%)
Carcano rifle (1d12+2)
Dynamite stick (Lethality 15%)
Rudimentary IED (Lethality 30%)
Golden Plate with Engraved Elder Sign
An artifact from another era.
Extra-e ffects determined at the Handler’s discretion.
320th Air Expeditionary Wing
Allied air superiority at your service.
If the agents choose to call air support over the radio, Allied Command can provide a single squad of B-26 Marauder bombers and P-38 Lightning escorts to make a bombing run. ETA 30 minutes. It’s enough firepower to suppress any german threat in the area and maybe cause some underground collapsing.
Sources
All four rituals are from Delta Green: Handler’s Guide.
All images are from WikiCommons and was edited by myself, except:
https://digitalarchive.mcmaster.ca/islandora/object/macrepo%3A84904
Credits
Operation Purple Dust was written by LowPhotojournalist6 for the 2022 Shotgun Scenario contest.
Source: https://docs.google.com/document/d/19UL2hlim5JOMiMkWaUQcQghb7CJaaXCDxFYwQzakqAo/edit