Cutting to the Chase in Borellus

The Borellus Connection’s designed as a relatively linear set of adventures. The player characters have a supervisor (Boiler o’Riordan, aka CARSTAIRS) who gives them assignments; these assignments are all part of DELTA GREEN’s ongoing investigation into the Unione Corse’s ties to the Unnatural. The campaign can be played as a series of missions of the week where the players follow CARSTAIRS’ directions until they finally confront the Mythos; the emphasis here is on the current investigation, not the big picture.

More ambitiously, a Hander can let the players drive the investigation, with clues found at the conclusion of one mission leading onto the next. (If they get off track, use Boiler to push them long). SPOILERS for the campaign from this point on…

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ALONSO leads right onto HORUS HOURS; the documents in Charriere’s mansion also point at Marseille and MISTRAL.

Operation DE PROFUNDIS is supposed to feel initially like a disconnected investigation, but the Handler could plant clues in Wheeler’s car (p. 157) pointing to Charles Whiteman of DE PROFUNDIS, and DE PROFUNDIS leads into PURITAN, and PURITAN leads into MISTRAL.

Similarly, SECOND LOOK’s driven by the needs of the higher-ups in DELTA GREEN and doesn’t initially appear connected to the Unione Corse situation – but clues there point to the Unione Corse and MISTRAL.

MISTRAL’s the poisoned root of the whole campaign – everything’s connected to Marseille. The Unione Corse/Guérini outfit are based there; the SS Invicta operates out of there; clues in every scenario hint at Orne’s activities, as the necromancer gathers the various components – the Mask , the Slime of A-Abhi, the khmaw chouk resin, and the Egyptian Corpse – he needs for his transcendent ritual. So, if the players are in the driver’s seat, it’s possible that they’ll try to head to Marseille early. You can delay them and prolong the campaign by having DELTA GREEN insist they tackle the higher-priority assignments in DE PROFUNDIS, SECOND LOOK or PURITAN first, both of which involve immediate Unnatural threats.

DE PROFUNDIS can be safely skipped if the investigators are really focussed on chasing Orne, although they’ll lose useful intel about Orne’s operations including leads to the Prague House.

MISTRAL, of course, leads to the finale in NEPENTHE, so you want to delay them playing MISTRAL as long as possible, as that’s the endgame. The events of MISTRAL are tied to the upheavals of May ‘68’; if you have to run MISTRAL early, then assume that Orne provokes the protests as psychic chaff to distract the investigators, instead of just taking advantage of existing unrest. Also, you can run elements of NEPENTHE independently – if the investigators follow Wheeler to Baltimore after the concluding handover in HORUS HOURS, they can investigate some of the weirdness there. Everything up until Into the Past works, with the following exceptions:

• Downplay the intensity of the time slips, and MAJESTIC aren’t yet on the scene
• There’s no Jonestown Stranger yet
• The Abandoned Lab doesn’t have a time portal in it (yet) and Artie Czenka hasn’t yet been kidnapped

Obviously, if the Agents kill Wheeler and break up Orne’s occult drug ring in the city, he’ll need to rebuild before you run the second half of NEPENTHE, but the sorcerer’s got no shortage of resources; he’s already planted the Thorns of Almousin-Metraton, and the seeds of his victory are in the past…

The Fall of DELTA GREEN adapts DELTA GREEN: THE ROLE-PLAYING GAME to the GUMSHOE investigative roleplaying system, opening the files on a lost decade of anti-Mythos operations: the 1960s. Players take on the role of DELTA GREEN operatives, assets, and friendlies. Hunt Deep Ones beneath the Atlantic, shut down dangerous artists in San Francisco, and delve into the heart of Vietnam’s darkness. Purchase The Fall of DELTA GREEN in print and PDF at the Pelgrane Shop.