Shotgun Scenario Review: Eat, Pray, Love

This is a review of Eat, Pray, Love by magnificentophat and Lithobraker, which was submitted to the 2020 Shotgun Scenario Contest. I have played in this scenario, as well as run it myself. Do not read on if you want to avoid spoilers.

The scenario is about a pair of Y'Golonac worshippers that kill people and feed their meat to guests of a fast food restaurant. Some of the inadvertent cannibals turn into ghouls, which is how the Agents get involved.

The Defiler by hubertspala

The scenario has a very interesting intro. The Agents get contacted by LYDIA, a ghoul that sometimes provided intelligence to Delta Green. LYDIA is a cool character and this introduction is a welcome change from the usual briefing.

It is possible that the Agents fixate a lot on LYDIA and ghouls, even though they are not the main threat of the scenario. Handlers should be aware of this and should prepare some answers to possible questions that the Agents might have. E.g. how exactly did LYDIA become aware of and find the newly created ghouls? The players in my group are not well versed in DG lore or Lovecraft's stories, so they knew nothing about ghouls and were thus very suspicious of LYDIA. Prospective Handlers should keep this in mind, when preparing the scenario.

The investigation around the McDonald's where the human meat burgers are sold is solid and the Agents should be able to quickly locate Travis, the bad guy of the scenario, with the provided clues.

Following Travis leads the Agents to an abandoned warehouse, where they encounter the Fat Man, a formidable and creepy opponent. I especially like the suggestion on how to best "voice-act" him.

The scenario does not give any details on the backstory of the Fat Man. This is understandable, since this is only a shotgun scenario. But because the Fat Man is such a cool enemy I would have liked to learn more about him. But since the Agents encounter the Fat Man only at the end of the scenario it is not really necessary to add any more information on his background.

The scenario does include a bunch of cool new rituals, which are very thematic and have the potential to make Y'Golonac a recurring threat.

Overall, a great scenario. I had fun both as a player and Handler and I would run it again for a different group.