Reach For The Powder

Summary

Corpus Christi, Texas, a duo of degenerate Deep-One hybrids, exposed to narcotics in infancy at the hands of the Exalted Circle, have made contact with their oceanic ancestors. They p etition their ancestors for support, which they’ve been given in the form of strange gold artifacts and magic. The deep ones wait for the hybrids to transform further until they are ready to be brought into the deep. The hybrids bide their time selling the gold in exchange for firearms and cocaine. A police raid finds some of their gold, which attracts the attention of Delta Green.

Briefing

Delivered as the handler pleases. Briefing is as below:

OPERATION VICEROY

• Police raid on a stash house in Corpus Christi, Texas turned up some antique gold coins of unknown minting. Coins were reported to federal authorities as potentially illegally trafficked antiques.
• Delta Green recognizes the coins as being affiliated with certain unnatural phenomena.
• Agents are entering Corpus Christi under the cover of a Homeland Security Cultural Property, Art and Antiquities Investigations team. Credentials provided.
• Determine origin and providence of the coins. Follow standard operating procedure.

If your agents have encountered the Deep Ones previously, there’s no need to be coy, tell them that gold coins of similar make were recovered at Deep One colonies, notably Innsmouth.

Coins

Their federal credentials gain them access to strange coins.The CCPD are cooperative.

• Examining them chemically shows them to be solid gold, though the gold exhibits strong magnetic properties that it shouldn’t.
• They look to have been made roughly 100 years ago.
• Some of the coins have a viscous, amber residue on them that can be chemically identified as Indulin AA-86.
• The minting is unidentifiable, due in part to them being very smoothed out.

Indulin AA-86

Indulin AA-86 is an asphalt emulsifying agent. It is an obscure, controlled substance and is not known to be used for any sorts of illegal activities like drug-making.

Agents that investigate Indulin AA-86 with regards to Corpus Christi will discover that two years prior to the operation, Schuyler Asphalt was investigated by the USCSB and the EPA after traces of the chemical were found in the water in the Corpus Christi as the result of unreported mishandling and spillage. Town & Federal officials will indicate that Lake Tule, a creek near the Plant, still has high quantities of contamination.

In Custody

Three tenants of the stash house remain in police custody awaiting trial and can be questioned. Persuade checks to get them to talk, a successful Law roll can add a +10%, enticing them with a plea deal or threatening them with a harsher indictment. All of them have criminal records. If they fail to get meaningful answers from the suspects, the stash house itself might have useful information.

• Doran Barker: African-American male, 30s. He knows nothing important, only that they were Shane’s.
• Cece Franklin: African-American female, 20s. Knows nothing about the coins. If successfully questioned about the sale of guns, she’ll tell the agents that they used to peddle coke to some people who worked at the Schuyler Asphalt plant. Shane had one customer who used to sell him weird shit to him for him to pawn off in exchange for coke and one time for guns. They were weird but always worth something, so he allowed it.
• Shane Willis: Caucasian male, 20s. If successfully questioned, he’ll tell the agents that he’s had a regular customer named Cecil, a crackhead who pays for his product with gold coins and ostensibly stolen jewelry. Shane’s made a killing pawning it off, so he’s happy with the arrangement. Cecil hangs out around the industrial park and at a few bars in that area. If asked to describe Cecil, he’ll say he was a white guy with “some weird shit going on with his face like a skin infection or something”. He last saw Cecil a week ago.

Other Evidence

Agents unsatisfied with their interrogations can review other evidence collected from the stash house for further leads.

• A gold wedding ring found among their things can be traced to a jeweler in Corpus Christi who can then tell the agents it belonged to Roger Barron, a foreman at the Schuyler Asphalt plant who went missing four years ago, allegedly having drowned in Tule Lake. Investigation will discover the search for Barron was delayed by three days due to a monsoon.
• The police know that Willis slung his product at a bar in the industrial park called The Saloon. Regulars there vaguely remember Cecil and Willis, a few of them think Cecil was a feral kid who lived in the area.

Homeless Community

Agents may decide to investigate social services and probe the homeless community for answers concerning feral kids and weird hybrid-people. Depending on where they look, they learn different pieces of information.

• A few homeless folks remember hearing about a community of “weird kids” that were camped out on Padre Island. They don’t know what became of them.
• Corpus Christi Police recall clearing out a small community of homeless kids on Padre Island six years prior. Most wound up in Juvenile Detention and then the Foster Care system.
• Most fell out of the system, others left the city, and a few have died. Their records show no one with the name “Cecil”, though there is a “Cedrick Fulton”.
• Consulting the CPS agent responsible will point out that one is confirmed to still reside in Corpus Christi, Tracy Hoover. They will refer the agents to Hoover’s parole officer.

Hoover

Tracy Hoover is easily tracked down by her Parole Officer, Darryl Messer, she works a steady nine-to-five at a nearby diner and has been clean for a year-and-a-half. If the agents approach her, she’ll excuse herself for a cigarette break to talk. She’ll convey that the only people from Padre Island she knows  are the Fulton twins. They haven’t hung out for three years. The last time they did, Cedrick took her to a bar called the Saloon then showed her the place he and Vivian were camped out in. She can point to its rough location on a map. She doesn’t think about them much and hasn’t seen them since. Concerning the gold, Cedrick told her a “friend” gave him it, she suspects he stole it.

Pinkerton

Asking questions about Padre Island and the Twins attracts the attention of the Exalted Circle, who will deploy their bagman, John Temple, to investigate the agents and also hamper their investigation, breaking into their lodgings to steal evidence and harassing them physically.

If Temple is arrested, his agency’s lawyers come to get him off. If he’s detained extralegally and questioned, he will eventually reveal that he receives payments from Riordan Holdings, LLC., a shell company owned by Gino Bova, a Sentinel of the Exalted Circle, potentially opening the door for a follow-up scenario.

The Schuyler Asphalt Plant

A large industrial facility near Tule Lake.

• Indulin AA-86 is used as an emulsifying agent at the Schuyler plant, an accident years ago caused some to leak into Tule Lake.
• Amon Perry is the security supervisor for the Schuyler plant. He can tell the agents he, and the other workers, heard about the crackheads and that he’s even seen them marching through the swamps on security footage. They haven’t disturbed the plant or its workers yet, so he isn’t overly concerned about them.
• A lot of the people Willis used to sling coke to were fired for that very reason a few years ago, but workers can validate a few of his claims and a few may have even seen Cecil.

The Encampment

Near the mouth of Lake Tule, hidden behind trees and a heap of gravel is the encampment that Vivian and Cedrick live in, it’s little more than a few tents around a firepit. A few things to note.

• Cedrick keeps his innsmouth gold buried near his tent. Agents can detect the spot from the regularly disturbed earth.
• A 2-foot tall limestone statue of Dagon is near the firepit. If the twins hear the agents coming, they use it to summon a degenerate Greater Deep One, the Tale Tule Lurker.
• Cedrick and Vivian have set up booby-traps in the tall grass and trees around their encampment, mostly as alarms, these are in the form of tripwires that drop /drag cords of tied-together glass bottles and bottle caps.
• The twins’ weapons are kept in their tents or on their person.

Resolution

A few suggested options on how to resolve the scenario.

• The Sting: The CCPD can be convinced to let Shane Willis go for a night for the sake of luring Cedrick into a sting. Cedrick will murder Cecil out of anger for missing their last deal and will try to steal his cocaine. Spiking the cocaine with fentanyl is very illegal, but an effective method to poison the twins.
• Raid: Though near an industrial park, a night-time raid can quickly murder the twins without anyone noticing. A CCPD raid will also do the trick.

Entities

Cedrick “Cecil” Fulton

High Priest of the Lake Tule Deep One Colony, Twin Brother
STR 15 CON 17 DEX 14 INT 8 CHA 6 POW 14
HP 16 WP 14
MOTIVATIONS AND DISORDERS
Obsession (the deep ones)
Addiction (cocaine)
Depression
SKILLS Alertness 50%, Athletics 40%, Firearms 30%, Melee Weapons 40%, Persuade 53%, Swim 50%, Unnatural 7%
ARMOR 1 point of strange, thick amphibian flesh that covers portions of his body.
ATTACKS Box Cutter 40%, 1d4
Bite 50% 1d6
DEMI HUMAN The Fulton Twins’ exposure to cocaine has interacted strangely with their deep one hybrid biology. Portions of their body have begun to undergo metamorphosis sooner than others. They look mostly human, but are covered in strange, fishy flesh with barbs. Agents that do unarmed attacks or who are grappled by the Fultons must succeed a DEXx5 check or else take 1 damage from these barbs.
RITUALS Song of Power, Call Forth From Beyond (Lake Tule Lurker), Infallible Suggestion

Vivian Fulton

Deranged Enforcer of the Tule Lake Deep One Colony, Twin Sister
STR 15 CON 15 DEX 14 INT 8 CHA 6 POW 14
HP 15 WP 14
MOTIVATIONS AND DISORDERS
Obsession (the deep ones)
Addiction (cocaine)
Intermittent Explosive Disorder
SKILLS Alertness 50%, Athletics 40%, Firearms 36%, Melee Weapons 40% Persuade 53%, Swim 50%, Unnatural 3%
ARMOR 1 point of strange, thick, scaly skin that covers portions of her body.
ATTACKS Sawed-off Shotgun 56% 2d6
Steak Knife 40% 1d8
DEMI HUMAN The Fulton Twins’ exposure to cocaine has interacted strangely with their deep one hybrid biology. Portions of their body have begun to undergo metamorphosis sooner than others. They look mostly human, but are covered in strange, fishy flesh with barbs. Agents that do unarmed attacks or who are grappled by the Fultons must succeed a DEXx5 check or else take 1 damage from these barbs.
RITUALS Exaltation of the Flesh, Fascination, Obscure Memory

John Temple

Former Texas Ranger, Bagman for the Exalted Circle
STR 13 CON 12 DEX 12 INT 12 POW 10 CHA 11
HP 13 WP 10 SAN 50 BREAKING POINT 40
BONDS: Angela Temple (wife) 5
MOTIVATIONS AND DISORDERS
Getting paid for a day’s work
Staying ahead of the competition
Always being prepared
Never not be in the one with the power
SKILLS : Alertness 50%, Athletics 50%, Bureaucracy 30%,  Computer Science 40%, Demolitions 40%, Drive 40%, Firearms 45%, First Aid 40%, Melee Weapons 50%,
Navigate 40%, Persuade 30%, Search 60%, SIGINT 40%, Swim 60%, Unarmed Combat 50%.
ATTACKS : 9 mm pistol 45%, damage 1D10.
Halligan Entry Tool 50% Damage 1d8.
Baseball bat 50%, damage 1D8.
Unarmed 50%, damage 1D4−1.
SPECIAL TRAINING: Lockpicking (DEX)

The Lake Tule Lurker

STR 23 CON 20 DEX 7 INT 5 POW 10
HP 22 WP 10
SKILLS : Alertness 70%, Stealth 20% (+40% underwater), Leap 30%, Swim 80%
ARMOR : 6 points of rubbery, oily skin
ATTACKS : Bite 30%, 1d10% Impale 40%, (see IMPALE)
IMPALE : The lurker darts out its tongue, tipped with a barbed stinger, to impale its target. This attack deals 1d12+2 damage, if the stinger isn’t removed by the Lurker’s next turn, it will either begin to inject the Deep One Reproductive Element, or an enzyme that will deal a Lethality 20% attack, dissolving the agent’s innards into a nutrient slurry for it to absorb later.
UNNATURAL BIOLOGY: The Lake Tule Lurker’s anatomy is inconceivable and alien, called shots are moot.
RESILIENT: The Lake Tule Lurker is about the size of a school bus, lethality attacks less than 20% do not kill it instantly, only deal damage equal to their lethality rating.
PHOTOPHOBIC: The Lurker never emerges during the day. At sunrise, it bee-lines for the sea.

Maps

IMGUR links to two maps are below. If they’re too much trouble to add to the wiki, don’t bother.

https://imgur.com/a/GfwrXdX

Credits

Reach for the Powder was written by Finley Deeley for the 2023 Shotgun Scenario contest.
Source: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GDp-pOuYc693p8lPGF4GDozEc980YjKvg4DkBFwRvyE/edit