With a gurgling scream, the last cultist slumps against the slide he’d been using as cover. The following silence is broken only by the sobbing of the two children, the sacrifices you’ve just saved. You’d arrived moments too late to save the third and a broken tiny form lies mixed in with 5 deputies from the sheriff's office, the mayor, the town treasurer and clerk, a couple (local business magnates), the librarian, and the Shoggoth they’d just raised. Each is covered with glowing green runes carved into their skin. No one can see these bodies.
The Town and Ritual SiteBlowing Rock, NC (map), pop. ~1000, sits within the Appalachian mountains. The ritual site is a park playground on the mountainside on the outskirts of town. A folding card table has been engraved with runes and sits in the center like a makeshift altar. It is now coated in blood and broken by bullets. The Agent's vehicle and two unmarked white vans are parked nearby.
There is one main road in and out of town but a successful Navigation role turns up offroad trails to hide on or maintenance routes to circle back on. The road also extends further into the mountains. Agents electing to flee on foot may elect to simply brave the wooded terrain going down the mountain, requiring a Navigation or Survival roll to return to town.
How We Got HereDelta Green was alerted to strange goings on in Blowing Rock by the retired Agent Derelict (Mark Mills). The Agents have had no contact with Derelict and were only told that occult symbols were being inscribed around the area. The Agents found strange photoluminescent carvings, much like the ones on the bodies and tampered with them. They plotted the location of the markings and surveyed likely locations of further markings. Ambushing and capturing the cultist, the local bank manager, they pressed information out of him about how town elites were planning a ritual to make themselves immortal rulers. As Agents staked out the others, the banker's disappearance spooked them and they pubackroom up their timeline. The Agents reorganized and followed them to the Playground, catching them mid- ritual.
The Shoggoth
The Agents were lucky, they arrived as the beast was only partially summoned and ambushing the cultists and pouring fire into the creature were enough to down it. The dimension the beast was being brought from has time running at a far faster rate, and so the creature will rise again in 2d4 hours as opposed to the normal 2d20. It can still be destroyed as per normal.
The Agents are not aware the beast was a Shoggoth. The team has not identified the creature, merely that it was being summoned. Nor did they get a good look at it. Now it is simply a hardened mass of desiccated ichor. If the Shoggoth’s remains are simply abandoned, it eventually makes its way down to the town below and begins to wreak havoc.
The Bodies
The runes on the bodies mean that merely leaving someone to find them is problematic. There is also the problem of the prominent nature of the individuals merely having them go missing is going to lock down the whole county and surrounding areas and cause its own problems. There are a dozen corpses in total, enough that it will be difficult to move them and finding an incinerator or foundry worker who can be bribed to overlook not just a suspicious bag or bundle but a dozen is nigh on impossible. Examining the markings on the bodies with Occult or Anthropology ties the markings to extinct ancient swamp cults (0/1 San). A text visible on one cultist’s phone lockscreen mentions getting supplies from the Library’s backroom
The Kids
The surviving children, Ruby and Max, are uncontrollable sobbing. First Aid 30% reveals that they are unharmed. Psychotherapy 50% is needed to fully calm them down, give a bonus to Agents with children. Once calmed, Persuasion 20% reveals that they were kidnapped along with their sacrificed brother, who they call Eric, by the deputies who once the door was opened, shot their parents.
Eric has had his heart cut out and placed into a jar of noxious liquid. The liquid is a strong acid.
If left for the authorities, the kids will provide distorted physical descriptions of the Agents, if the Agents said their names roll Luck, on a failure they tell the Sheriff. The kids will insist that they were rescued by them. They will talk about the monster and the sacrifice.
The Sheriff
The Agents should have just enough time to come up with an initial plan before the Sheriff and his gathered posse can be noticed inbound. A single squad car and the lights from three other vehicles can be seen coming up the hill. An Agent with Drive 50% or INT 16 realizes that they have about fifteen minutes before Sheriff Barnes and ten armed and highly suspicious locals arrive.
The Agents Stay
If the Agents are at the crime scene when the posse arrives, they will immediately be detained. The posse take cover behind their cars and the Sheriff immediately phones the station to bring in reinforcement from neighboring towns and to bring ambulances to the scene. Agents holding a weapon are held at gunpoint and fired upon if they make sudden moves. If an Agent either has their ID ready or can talk their way into getting it out, Federal Agents, Special Forces, etc. might be able to pull rank on the situation with the Sheriff, but this will not fully defuse the jumpy posse. The children vouching for the Agents goes a long way to calm things down.
The Sheriff will insist on taking the evidence for proper collection and recording, especially if he realizes who the bodies belong to. If this occurs, the evidence leaks to the local news as the crime scene clean up takes multiple days. Evidence collection also includes the remains of the Shoggoth being taken into town. Worse, if the posse have access to the scene for an extended time, photos they take on their phones eventually leak onto social media.
If Agents manage to take control, the Sheriff will keep a close eye on them and keep someone on the evidence locker at all times. Careful log is kept of the evidence, if the Agents attempt to disappear items, the Sheriff resists and may leak information to the news.
Should the situation erupt into a firefight, each townsperson should roll POW to see if they break and flee. In this situation the children will flee into the woods.
The Agents Flee
The Sheriff takes control of the crime scene. He calls for backup and puts out a general road closure request for the area. Soon the entire region is on alert for suspicious persons. All of the evidence that is left on the scene is taken to the Police Station and an attempt is made to salvage any that is damaged or partially destroyed. The scene makes national news within hours if any bodies are left, faster if Eric’s body remains.Checkpoints set up along the roads are easily passed by Agents with proper credentials. Agents may attempt to circle back through the checkpoints to take control of the scene. Acting too fast in this manner draws additional suspicion.
Calling Delta GreenUsing the burner phone given to the Agents results in a stressed phone call with the Handler. Agents are told to “handle it”. If pressed for reinforcements, the handler forwards the phone call to another Agent on the scene.Agent DerelictDerelict’s dead body can be found in a small office connected to the backroom. It is booby trapped with a crude swinging spiked plank on a tripwire to bash someone opening the door. The Agent opening the door must roll dodge or take 1d10 DMG. The body is in a trunk, the heart removed and sitting in a jar nearby. It has been covered with runes and appears to whisper terrible secrets in a prothean language. Agents with Occult/Anthropology 90% or Occult 20% or successful roll, have the nature of the Shoggoth revealed to them. Interacting with the heart costs (San 1/1d6)San 1/1d4 or 1/1d6 if they understand. Also in the backroom are a handful of strange books written in Latin.The Cult’s Books
Time to study: days
San: 1/1d6
Rituals: Call Forth Those From Outside (Shoggoth), Consciousness Expansion, The Elder Sign
Credits
Operation White-Snake Pt.2 was written by AstroCat for the 2024 Shotgun Scenario contest.
Source: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vxXvDSDDmzprlPBzdAY0_rq0J4h7dYCYqgPuHJoYXso/edit