The Lynchburg Cluster - A Delta Green Mini Campaign

Over the past few months the 2024 Delta Green Mini Campaign Jam has taken place, where participants could submit a campaign of no longer than 30000 words. This jam was a good opportunity to finally work on my modern-day Karotechia campaign.

I have previously written about the framework for the Karotechia campaign in this post. My submission to the jam is the first part of this longer campaign, you can find it here. Originally, I planned to submit the whole campaign to the jam, but that would have taken me far over the word limit and also the submission deadline. Instead, the mini campaign is all about the lowest level of the conspyramid that I introduced in that previous post.

In the mini campaign the Agents have to investigate the unnatural incursions that are cause by the Wolves of Erik and people associated with them, namely the NSBM band Wotans Reich and the fitness/self-help grift Berserker Strength Program. If Wotans Reich rings a bell then probably because you have either read my scenario The Sound of Doom or my earlier post about that scenario. A very slightly modified version of The Sound of Doom is the opening scenario to the mini campaign.

I have also modified the conspyramid since I originally introduced it. Odin's Reich was renamed to Wotans Reich (no apostrophe, because it's a German band), the Wolfsangel Warrior Program was renamed to Berserker Warrior Program. I also removed Patriot Watch Media as an antagonist group. I wanted to cut the down the amount of stuff I had to write for the jam and I didn't really have an exciting idea about what kind of unnatural stuff a right-wing media company could be meddling with.

Originally I wanted to make the campaign as sandboxy as possible. I'm not sure if I succeeded. The idea of the conspyramid is that the Agents can decide which investigative path they want to follow. But in my campaign it is presented more linearly, first the Agents investigate Wotans Reich, then the Berserker Warrior Program, and then finally the Wolves of Erik. I think you could switch the positions of the first and second scenario, but the Handler would have to rework the provided timeline. The third scenario is a climactic showdown with the Wolves of Erik at their stronghold, running this before the other scenarios doesn't make much sense. Maybe it would have been better to write a fourth investigative scenario about the Wolves that is interchangeable with the others and then the confrontation happens after all the other scenarios are done.

I have some more ideas on how to turn the mini campaign back into a true sandbox, but there are some difficulties. For example, it would require that all inciting incidents happen roughly at the same time, so that the Agents get to choose what they want to investigate first. It would also require that the timeline is more relaxed. E.g., The Sound of Doom has a ticking clock, two days after the investigation starts the band is playing a concert at which Tru'nembra is summoned. In a sandbox the scenario cannot escalate as fast, because the Agents might decide to investigate the Berserker Warrior Program first. Having Tru'nembra be summoned before the Agents even looked into Wotans Reich might be a bit unfair. Having all this stuff happen at the same time also means that the Agents never get a home scene.

I might go back to this mini campaign and change it, if I find a good way to fix this issue. I already have some other ideas to improve it and I'm also currently running it. The player feedback might give me even more ideas. But currently I am working on scenarios for the other levels of the conspyramid. I am expecting it to be another three scenarios, so keep an eye out for that!