It's been a busy couple months for me, so who knows if I'll actually be able to finish anything, but I might as well dump some notes here:
Step 0: Premise
The *structural* premise I'm starting with is ‘none’, or rather, ‘the default DG campaign’ since I feel that that doesn’t actually get a lot of support.
But after 30 years of DG, is the default in my head actually the default? How would I describe that to a player, especially a new player, who might be more familiar with SCP creepypastas than the *X-Files*, *Silence of the Lambs*, or sober-faced reporting on the dangers of child-eating Satanic cults?
It's probably best to put that aside, and consider what I _do_ want to include.
With that in mind, I'm not sure what monsters or mythos entities would be best to use in an 'introduction.' The obvious answer to me would be Deep Ones for what I can only describe as "historical" reasons, but they're not necessarily the most effective or interesting creatures in the menagerie.
What I usually find most fruitful in games is the intersection of body-horror and the traditional occult, but after going in circles no specific ideas are jumping to mind in that regard.
That said, elements I'd like to include are:
1. Sacrifices/magical effects/curses as things deputizing the PCs over other cops/LEOs/general people on the scene.)
2. A central campaign thread of some sort of complex crime that requires expert consultants. (Serial murder over a wide geographic area, organized crime, something like that. That means that if it features a cult, the cult would have some sort of public face or faces to be investigated as part of this.)
3. An initial scenario that can lead to the PCs being deputized by an existing cell or inducted into DG. (I'd like a beginner campaign to be useful as a _character_ introduction, too. Maybe I should provide some optional pregens?)
4. The history of the SRA/Satanic-Panic-era policing and it's relationship to the case. This is not just a perennial interest of mine, it's also the elephant in the room when it comes to anything involving LEO and spooky stuff.
5. A cult with a position within the upper echelons of society, which can deploy its interests to oppose the PCs on a social as well as a physical or metaphysical level. (Relating back to items 1 and 3.)
6. Gothic horror elements reframed with contemporary contexts: Familial curses, overgrown ruins, omens of doom, twisted interpersonal relationships, etc etc. This is, I think, key to making something 'feel' Lovecrafty without necessarily dumping a bunch of mythos brand names into the mix from the getgo. A more specific thing I'd like to use is weird dreams or similar means for there to be a connection to the supernatural element that's not objectively obvious. This also helps to underscore that the PCs are, at some level, vulnerable to the unnatural elements regardless of where they are or what they're doing.
7. A set of scenario structures which represent 'archetypes' of DG scenarios or X-Files episodes. I think in practice this means looking one step back at common inspirational material that doesn't necessarily involve aliens or the occult. *Manhunter*, *Silence of the Lambs*, *All the President's Men*, and regular mysteries or real-world investigations are all key things to remember here.