<br /><br />Chapter 3: Puppet Shows and Shadow Plays

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Thursday, March 6

Chapter 3: Puppet Shows and Shadow Plays

This scenario, “Puppet Shows and Shadow Plays,” is from the Call of Cthulhu supplement, “Delta Green,” by Adam Scott Glancy. You can read more about Delta Green at http://www.delta-green.com. Please note: This story hour contains spoilers!

Our cast of characters includes:

• Game Master: Michael Tresca (http://michael.tresca.net)
• Joe “Archive” Fontaine (Dedicated Hero) played by Joe Lalumia
• Jim “Jim-Bean” Baxter (Charismatic Hero) played by Jeremy Ortiz (http://www.ninjarobotstudios.com)
• Hank “Guppy” Gupta (Smart Hero) played by Joseph Tresca (http://www.creepyportfolio.com)
• Kurt “Hammer” Grange (Fast Hero) played by George Webster
• Jake “Blade” Iron Shirt (Strong Hero) played by Matt Hammer
• Sebastian “Caprice” Creed (Fast/Smart Hero) played by Bill Countiss

This is one of those scenarios that should never have been in the main rulebook for Delta Green. It features a body-hopping alien known as the Traveler (yay!) who has no “goals other than an ongoing orgy of violence and mayhem” (boo!). So right from the start, our bad guy is a one-shot cipher. More importantly, the alien is a shapeshifter that hides in the bodies of other people. It has no other purpose? No weird character traits? There’s not even the slightest hint in the scenario as to how to run the Traveler when it’s taken over a body.

The other problem is that the scenario involves a BODY-HOPPING ALIEN. But instead, we end up with the thing hiding out in the desert where there are NO PEOPLE WHATOSEVER; in essence the alien picks the dumbest location it can find to hide out in and stays there. If it was really true to its “orgy of violence and mayhem,” surely there are better areas to hunt than the Arizona desert?

Then there’s the Coyote spirit. Basically, the Traveler eats three shamans, one of which manages a prayer to Coyote, the trickster spirit. This Coyote spirit then SHOWS UP and harasses the Traveler, giving the investigators clues to help track the alien. Or to put it another way, it’s a heavy-handed, genre-breaking attempt to give the PCs advice from a supernatural cause that has no place in a Call of Cthulhu setting. The answer to this is, “if you are concerned about the cosmological purity of CoC’s no-gods-but-those-of-the-Mythos approach, you’re welcome to assume that Coyote Spirit is a manifestation of Valor’s magical energy or willpower, and that it will dissipate when the Traveler is defeated.”

Seriously? What spell is this? How do PCs get a hold of it? What blasphemous tome did this shaman learn it from? The presence of a Coyote spirit is far more than messing with the mythos, it’s not playing by the rules of cultists, spell casting, and creepiness in general that is Cthulhu. The presence of Coyote had everyone convinced that there was a were-coyote running around, which made more sense because, you know, that was at least slightly creepy and seemed to fit better with the Cthulhu setting.

Fortunately, I knew this was coming. One of our agents just happens to be a Native American from that region, and I wrote it into his background that he has a connection to Coyote (he has a tattoo of a coyote and considers the animal his spirit totem). This provided some great moments that made Coyote more of a bizarre poltergeist of Blade’s ID than…you know, a spirit who saves people, White Wolf style. Still, it confused the players even if Coyote had a good excuse to exist.

Once the Traveler realizes its cover is blown, I decided it should run for it by stealing a car and rapidly hopping between bodies (as opposed to what the bad guy does in the scenario which is “flee the area on foot…rather than steal a car”). And it was going to flee to a big city filled with Lovecraftian horrors. Also known as Hollywood.

I know what you’re thinking: that sounds a lot like the movie The Hidden.

That’s exactly what my players said.

They were right. :)

Defining Moment: The defining moment in this scenario is when Blade called his shaman and the cell phone rang. That was NOT planned at all; it just worked out that way. Read on to see what I mean. [MORE]

Labels: d20 modern