itch.io

 This actually sounds amazing, if you ever need a Beta reader let me know. I am literally a stranger (British) in a strange land (Canada) haha so reading your synopsis made me excited to see it! 

I’m going to reply on this to post a quick update for anyone who’s interested!

Step 2: Review

The first post is up and we got some really solid feedback, so we are both working through that to try and spruce up the Operation, mostly streamlining it. I think we will have 3 tabs, one for each operations, and then 1-2 other tabs for ‘Supplemental’ material, background lore that ties the three ops together, detailed NPC breakdowns ect. I’ll drop a quick log here;

• Review First Operation - Lots of good feedback, and some good points made about the length of the intro and the number of NPC introduced that are not actually involved with the main story thread. We’ll work on separating some of this off into supplemental material, and keep the main mission streamlined. Once we complete the next round of edits, it would be nice to playtest it, or get more feedback from some of the experienced handlers.
• Hammer out the main entity - The name got some criticism, which is fair, as we went back and forth on it ourselves. We are exploring other names, but it also brought forward another issue - how present will this eldritch entity be? We are currently torn between keeping the creature as a vague, nebulous threat or into a fully defined creature with motivations, hopes, dreams and all those things that us mere mortals can’t comprehend, but handlers kind of need to know to work with the subject matter. This aspect might go more on the back burner as we try to flesh out the missions themselves, and then see what makes more sens as we go. We have a lot of ideas, but settling on one might be a easier said than done.
• The Stories - We had originally intended for the Grimms’s fairy tales to be the introduction, and then expand into whatever stories caught our fancy, justifying it in the ‘birthplace of all human stories’ mantra. This has proven a little confusing for the readers, and will make the actual investigation and theme a little harder, so we are going to try to relate everything back to the tales. Morganna is now the Evil Queen (Name Pending) - related to Snow White, which strengthens the connection to putting people in a coma, which is one of her big things in mission 2.  As a result, we’ll probably need to do much more research before the we start work on the third mission, but that’s part of the fun. 
• Supplemental Material - I’m currently working on a Timeline for the first mission, and I’ll create one for each other mission afterwards. From there we will have a Persistent NPC tab, this will have the full breakdown, motivations and progression for each NPC so that we can avoid lore-dumping in the missions themselves. (The lore seemingly being our favorite part to write) We are also still planning on including some unique content for Home Scenes, Information to discover if Agnets Stay on The Case and a kind of ritual, random table monster generator thing for the Book itself. (We will see if this ever manifests, the notes are a mess.) And handouts. We want to do handouts.

NEXT TASKS

So, lots of work still to do. Daktyl (me), is currently 75% of the way through the first draft for Mission 2, tentatively named Operation Shackled Dreams (I will almost definitely change this name). It’s set a year and a half later in a children’s hospital in Pennsylvania. Mythomancer is still plugging away at the rewrites, and I’ll be looking over some of the notes to see if there’s anything I can help out with for Black Forest oh I also made some more cover photos because I learned the basics of photo editing and can’t seem to stop myself.

Hi there, I’m posting on behalf of myself (Daktyl) and Mythomancer from the n@to discord. We are collaborating on what we hope will be a 3 scenario mini campaign, and I’ve dropped the details below. We are hoping to get things posted quickly to maximise playtest and feedback time, so any feedback is welcome and appreciated!

Step 0: Premise

Once upon a time, Mythomancer messaged Daktyl an idea that got both of their creative juices going - A Surreal/Fantastical horror using the Grimms Fairy Tales as a base, but giving it a Delta Green Spin. We’ve been riffing off each other in Discord for the last few weeks since the submissions for the N@to contest finished up, and we think we have a pretty solid outline. As a concept, Grimms Fairytales has a lot to recommend it for a Mini-Campaign;

• Bountiful Source Material: There are over 200 Fairytales in the original copy of Grimms Fairytales, and they cover a wide range of topics that fit in well with the Horror Genre in general. Most of the fairytales have cemented themselves in pop culture through the power of disney, and comically missing the point of the original fables, while also having an even larger selection of lesser known fables to include.
• Low Delta Green Lore requirement: Grimms Fairytales are widely known, and the campaign would be able to feature a number of clues and easter eggs without requiring the players to have deep knowledge of Delta Green/Lovecraftian Lore. While tackling the threat, the players will see how DG operates, their priorities and what they are willing to sacrifice to finish the mission. 
• Steadily increasing threat/difficulty: The first mission will be intended to be a more straightforward ‘bug hunt’, with the agents investigating an unnatural threat in a subturb, and then dealing with the combat and cover up, like a standard DG mission. The 2nd mission will have possible no combat, and with the emphasis being on picking whatever the agents consider the ‘lesser of all the evils’ option, and trying to live with it. The third and final mission ties that all together into an extended, surreal journey through a Delta Green Blacksite (to be confirmed) where the agents (and the players) can see just how out of the depth Delta Green is. The plan would be that the complexity of the missions levels up with the players.
• Between Operation content: Pulling a little bit from the extra content in the homescenes for Impossible Landscapes and Gods Teeth, We are hoping to have a list of supplemental material as kind of a long term goal. Tables for events that happen during home scenes that tie into the more Eldritch nature of the enemy, rewards for Staying on the Case ect.
• Unexplored Lore: While the majority of this campaign will be regarding a reality warping original creature with Godlike powers (Currently named: The Grymm), the plan is to include references and concepts from lesser known parts of Lovecraftian lore. A little bit of Dreamlands, and some other stuff that we haven’t decided on yet. (March Tech, Deep One connection ect)

Step 1: Outline

We didn’t  have any scenarios set yet, so we’ll be making the three scenarios, and our bonus content from scratch. Myth is currently working on the first one and we plan on posting that ASAP to solicit any feedback or advice, and then one of us will hopefully playtest it by the time I (Daktyl) have finished the second one. By the time that’s written up, we should know the exact story beats we are aiming for in the climax at the Delta Green Blacksite. Carrying us through these three scenarios are three ‘main’ characters, seen below;

• Leo Grimes (The Decendent) A Delta Green friendly that works mostly in the background and then featuring heavily in the final Mission. Still working out how much the agents will actively interact with him. His main story beat will be as an onlooker in the first mission, a non-activated Delta Green friendly and occult expert. He owns the original copy of the German Dictionary, which will likely be a major plot point. I’m thinking of having him interface much more with the agents as a primary or secondary contact in the 2nd mission, and then his role in the 3rd will be major, although weather as a willing antagonist or a suffering pawn, we aren’t sure yet.

• Morganna La Faye/Emma Layfaette (Two Souls in one Body) Emma is a young woman and dreamer who has gotten wrapped up with the Wicked Witch of Orkney. (Real or one of the stories made manifest is undecided) Morganna will be a behind the scenes player in mission 1 and the main antagonist of mission 2, with her defeat, escape or capture kicking off the events that lead to Mission 3. The premise is a truly evil, hateable ritualist with a few spells if a direct confrontation occurs, but with a pretty simple weakness; she shares her body for 50% of the day with a terrified woman in her early 20s who just wants everything to stop. Emma exists to give that classic Delta Green hard choice. There is no happy ending for Emma yet. She’ll either die or get trapped in the dreamlands, as the story requires.

• The Books - We have two tomes, The German Dictionary penned by the elder Brother Grimm and now owned by Leo. This book is, in fact, a prison for The Grymm, the eldritch entity responsible for all of humanity's spooky stories and tales, now bound within the confines of brutal German language Logic. The other book is the original Grimm’s Fairytales, the book that the Grymm either offered to, or was stolen by, the Brothers Grimm to create their own book of folklore. This book is the beginning, middle and end of the campaign. Reading one of the tales creates a monster that is filtered by the perception of the user. An innocent person reading it outloud creates a creature of fear. Morganna wants it to create an army to wage war on the other nations of the dreamlands. Delta Green, possibly, wants to see if they can utilise it to handle other threats. (We would have to make this a Program story in that case) The Grymm wants it because it belongs to it. Figuring out what can be done with these books will be one of the big tasks for the final mission. 

Next Tasks

Research. We’ve picked out a few key monsters/stories we want to tackle (The Frog Prince, The Big Bad Wolf, and Briar Rose.) but there’s a lot of stories to choose from, possibly too many. Some we will sprinkle in home scenes. I’m currently looking at Briar Rose and The Girl with No Hands as the inspiration for my 2nd mission which brings me to my actual Next Task - turning my mess of incoherent bullet points into an actual narrative. 

Myth’s way ahead of me and has just wrapped up the first draft of our first mission, and his burst of creativity last week really got the main plot of this from a hypothetical to something actually tangible. He’ll be posting the scenario, Operation: BLACK FOREST, into our project for feedback and playtest roday. Right now, in fact.