TEXT: Published by Arc Dream Publishing in arrangement with 
  the Delta Green Partnership. The intellectual property 
  known as Delta Green is ™ and © the Delta Green Part-
  nership, which has licensed its use here. The contents of 
  this scenario are © Dennis Detwiller. Editing, layout and 
  additional material by Shane Ivey. Updated 20 APR 2018.
  The Home of the Mounds
  Chester is a sleepy little town in Meigs County, Ohio. The 
  county seat is in the even smaller town of Pomeroy, on 
  the Ohio River just over 10 km to the southwest; county 
  deputies keep the peace in Chester. The West Virginia state 
  line is on another bend of the Ohio River, just under 10 
  km to the east.
  Chester is home to the Parsons Plastics factory, the 
  major employer, and several smaller manufacturing plants. 
  The economic dips that have come and gone since the 
  Great Depression have somehow passed Chester by, and 
  people like it that way.
  The 2,000 people who call Chester home love it; its 
  small-town flavor has not been marred by the bustle of 
  city life. Life goes on there much in the same way as it has 
  for the last eight decades.
  It’s also home to the Chester Mounds. Ohio has long 
  been known for the Great Serpent Mound, an earth-
  work thought to have been created almost 3,000 years 
  ago. It is the largest earthwork in the world. Chester has 
  mounds of its own.
  The Chester Mounds draw tourists and add a lot to 
  local flavor. They are a series of interlocked earthworks 
  totaling nearly 200 m in length, supposedly built by the 
  Adena culture. From the air, they are clearly visible as 
  three snakes pointing inward, tongue-to-tongue, undulat-
  ing out in a bizarre triskelion. That symbol is everywhere 
  in Chester, from the town seal to the local baseball team, 
  the Chester Serpents.
  The people love their mounds.
  But that’s not all Chester can claim. Over the decades, 
  it has produced some exceptional people in the shadow 
  of that mound. Its most famous son, Arthur Hunt, the 
  town drunk turned eccentric genius, forged an empire on 
  consumer electronics. A statue dedicated to him sits in 
  the middle of town. A four-meter image of Hunt cast in 
  bronze beckons to the west, his hand outstretched. With 
  an uncharacteristic smile on his face, Hunt’s eyes point 
  towards the mound.
  In recent years, several odd crimes marred the town’s 
  beloved mounds. Douglas Yale—the deceased Ohio River 
  Killer, who murdered and ate his victims—was connected 
  to vandalism that cut into the priceless construction. And 
  a local coven of nuts, the New Star Crusade, are often 
  busted for trespassing at odd hours.
  The mounds seem to draw people in.
  Future/Perfect, Part 2
  A Scenario for Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game
  Written by Dennis Detwiller
  1
  
  2
  // Future/Perfect, Part 2 //
  // Delta Green //
  country? To Delta Green, the only thing worse that an-
  other Innsmouth is an Innsmouth that goes undiscovered 
  until it is too late.
  Future/Perfect Part 2 is ostensibly set in 2018. If 
  your campaign is set in a different year, adjust the 
  dates accordingly.
  Starting with Part 2
  If your Agents are entering Future/Perfect through Part 2, 
  the investigation should focus on the New Star Crusade 
  and its connection to the Ohio River Killer (see page 5). 
  Perhaps an agent from Cincinnati—see THE CINCINNATI 
  CELL on page 3—never managed to shake a suspicion that 
  something strange was behind the Ohio River Killer and 
  has convinced the Program to send help. The players can 
  be drawn into the mystery of Arthur Hunt, and from there 
  to Hellbend (Future/Perfect Part 1) and Duxbury (Future 
  Perfect Part 3).
  Briefing
  Future/Perfect Part 2 assumes the Agents have already 
  investigated Future/Perfect Part 1. Agents with a taste for 
  adventure will not be hard-pressed to begin looking into 
  the past of Arthur Hunt, particularly if they uncovered his 
  “oddities” in Part 1. Chester is a natural place to start pull-
  ing apart the secrets that cover Hunt’s life like a shroud.
  If the Agents failed to gain the testimony of Monty 
  Greene in Part 1, Delta Green can provide it in audio 
  files from some follow-up investigation. The Agents’ case 
  officer can make noises about locating and removing any 
  further threats that have to do with Hunt’s past. It’s well 
  known that such “infestations” can corrupt entire towns. 
  Delta Green’s leaders have not forgotten the horrors 
  of Innsmouth, an entire town devoted to the worship of 
  the Great Old Ones. Could such a horrific and danger-
  ous threat go overlooked for decades in the center of the 
  
  // Future/Perfect, Part 2 //
  // Delta Green //
  The Cincinnati Cell 
  A Delta Green team operating out of Cincinnati was dev-
  astated recently by an operation gone wrong. Six months 
  ago, an occult-connected man named Zacharias Wilkes 
  killed two of the team’s four agents.
  The two remaining agents (a local police officer and 
  a DEA agent) are very paranoid about their involvement 
  in the operation and in Program in general. They have 
  made it a policy to meet only when vitally necessary. DEA 
  Special Agent Rigoberto R. Young and Cincinnati Police 
  Sergeant Stephen Moreno are not exactly knocking down 
  doors to get back into the action. For the last half-year, 
  they have looked into their case officer’s requests inde-
  pendent of one another, hoping to prevent any outside 
  investigation from linking them together.
  If instructed to meet with the players’ Agents, they 
  choose an out-of-the-way spot: an isolated highway over-
  pass, an abandoned railyard, or a dilapidated farm; perfect 
  ambush territory. They assist in whatever way the Agents 
  need, though they seem reticent and evasive.
  Sergeant Moreno, particularly, is on edge. He appears 
  well adjusted and normal, though cautious, but he has 
  been wracked with severe nightmares since the shootout 
  that ended the lives of his teammates. 
  Special Agent Young is made of somewhat sterner 
  stuff. Though he does not wish to be involved, he does his 
  duty to the best of his ability. However, Young requires 
  alcohol. Without it, he becomes unfocused, jumpy, and 
  prone to mistakes. 
  This is not to say that these agents are useless. Special 
  Agent Young has access to federal information on the New 
  Star Crusade and Danen Ignis (see THE NEW STAR CRU-
  SADE on page 15), as well as information on Douglas Yale. 
  Sergeant Moreno can access the state police database, and 
  look up nearly any major crime in Meigs County in the 
  last 40 years.
  The Cincinnati team investigated the oddities of the 
  Yale case briefly in 2015, but nothing came of it. By then, 
  the Ohio River Killer had been identified as Douglas Yale 
  and had been found dead in the woods.
  Delta Green in Chester
  Delta Green prefers to insert Agents into FBI investiga-
  tions, but that’s not an option here. Whether the Agents 
  are following clues about Arthur Hunt from Hellbend or 
  are following old leads about the New Star Crusade, there 
  is no active case for them to officially investigate. The 
  Ohio River Killer case was resolved with the death of its 
  suspect, years ago, and authorities have not connected it 
  with missing-person cases since then. 
  The Program could arrange a highly restricted “train-
  ing exercise,” without telling the local authorities or FBI 
  office about it. Otherwise, the Agents must go to Chester 
  off the clock, taking vacation time or sick leave, and tell-
  ing their families whatever excuses they can manage. The 
  impact this has on each Agent’s Bonds and career is up to 
  the Handler. 
  Whatever brings them to Chester, the Agents must es-
  tablish a base of operations. At your discretion, their case 
  officer could give them access to useful assets in Cincin-
  nati: a pair agents who have worked in the region before, 
  and a Green Box that has been untouched for years.
  Room and Board
  Chester, Ohio is located 130 km from the Cincinnati 
  airport, and is dotted with several small, out-of-the-way 
  hotels, motels, and rental cabins. The Agents’ best bet lies 
  with the anonymous motels that dot Highway 50, north-
  east of town. They are technically out of the jurisdiction 
  of Chester, Ohio, and are home only to traveling business-
  men and tourists. In other words, people who mind their 
  own business.
  Staying at the Regency Motel or a bed-and-breakfast 
  in Chester proper is higher profile and therefore more 
  dangerous. In such a town, there is little else to do except 
  talk about strangers. If the Agents stay in town and are 
  implicated in some type of crime, numerous witnesses 
  will step forward reporting their schedule in detail to the 
  Meigs County Sheriff’s Office, making it much more likely 
  that such charges will stick. If the Agents are public about 
  their investigation, this draws even more scrutiny. Staying 
  in town also makes it far more likely that a deputy takes 
  an interest, especially if some sort of crime seems to have 
  been committed.
  3
  
  4
  // Future/Perfect, Part 2 //
  // Delta Green //
  Anyone staring at it finds themselves drawn to the 
  crows circling the tower. Those failing a Sanity roll find 
  they can hear the birds as they wheel in the sky, and 
  continue to stare until pulled away. After ten minutes, the 
  viewer sees the birds move (costing 1 SAN).
  Those unfortunate enough to come upon the paint-
  ing alone and are trapped, staring, and who fail a second 
  Sanity roll, are not seen again. They will be observed 
  going into the unit by the manager, and the painting will 
  be found unwrapped and pointed at a set of footprints 
  in the dust. 
  This painting has a side effect, one that the Program 
  would be most interested in. Items smaller than a person 
  left facing the uncovered painting for more than 10 min-
  utes vanish, never to seen again. The Agents might dis-
  cover this by accident if they leave the painting uncovered 
  with a chair or footstool in view. This method can per-
  manently remove nearly any piece of evidence to a place 
  where it is quite literally, beyond human reach.
  Painting 2: The Bride
  This unfinished painting of a pale woman clad in crimson 
  seems to catch the light in amazing ways, making it diffi-
  cult not to observe at length. A viewer must make a WP×5 
  roll or stare at it closely, becoming drawn to the woman’s 
  lips, which are painted black. The viewer must make a 
  Sanity roll or see the lips move and hear the whisper of 
  the word “Kadath.” This costs 1 SAN. The painting does 
  nothing else. The painting is not signed.
  The Green Box
  Green Box #419 is located three km outside Cincinna-
  ti, in a facility called Park-N-Store-It. It’s a  corrugated 
  steel box, six meters square (20 feet by 20 feet), with 
  a steel rolling-top door. The door is padlocked with a 
  rusted Yale lock.
  Moreno and Young do not even know it exists.
  Park-N-Store-It is surrounded by a four-meter (12-
  foot) fence topped with razo wire. It is accessible only 
  during business hours, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The key 
  to the unit is hidden on top of the lip of the door, amidst 
  moss, rotting leaves, and water. It is obvious it has not 
  been used in years.
  Inside, the unit is packed with what seems to be the 
  remnants of an estate: old tables, chairs, and a disassem-
  bled bed, all wrapped in plastic and covered in dust. Two 
  paintings, each bound carefully in yellowed muslin bound 
  with wire, are stowed in the corner. They are propped up 
  on milk crates to keep them away from potential flood-
  ing. Many of the items are marked in fading pen with the 
  following inscription: “Pickman-Wright Estate 01/12/69.”
  Those opening either of the two paintings are in for an 
  upsetting turn of events.
  Painting 1: The Tower
  This painting of an ancient stone tower with staggered 
  windows is haunting in its simplicity. The painting is 
  signed “R.U.P.”
  
  5
  // Future/Perfect, Part 2 //
  // Delta Green //
  he faded into the group, sticking close to Danen Ignis and 
  doing whatever was asked of him. But soon, Yale began 
  causing trouble in town, something the group tried to 
  avoid. Yale was arrested twice for drunk and disorderly 
  conduct and once for assault. When Ignis confined him to 
  the farm, he turned his problems on the Crusade.
  In 2011, after an armed confrontation, Yale was 
  ejected from the New Star Crusade. For six months, he 
  vanished, only seen from time to time in town. Rumors 
  persisted that he was living in the forest in an old tent. He 
  was known to frequent the mounds at night. On Oc-
  tober 21, 2012, a county deputy discovered him defac-
  ing the mounds.
  Yale flew into a rage and seriously injured the deputy, 
  who only survived by shooting Yale five times with his 
  sidearm. Still, Yale escaped. One of the largest manhunts 
  in Ohio history followed.
  For the next seven months, through one of the worst 
  winters in Ohio history, Yale eluded capture. In that time, 
  three people disappeared: nurse Maureen Poch, age 30; 
  farmer Ignatius Gerhard, age 88; and Sabrina Callard, age 
  6. When their remains were found, Yale became the sole 
  suspect. In each case, bones, teeth, and hair ground up 
  into a disgusting pile, all the meat dissolved away. The 
  state crime lab could not identify the dissolving agent. It 
  said the remains had been exposed to the elements too 
  long. (An Agent with Medicine 50% or higher or who 
  succeeds at a Medicine roll finds that explanation dubious. 
  If asked, a medical examiner at the crime lab says it’s the 
  best explanation they could find for a strange situation. 
  But the examiner could tell dozens of stories just as weird.)
  In 2013, Yale was captured at the Chester Mounds on 
  the summer solstice. Local authorities keeping an eye on 
  rites performed by the New Star Crusade saw him at the 
  edge of the forest. Despite a hail of bullets, Yale survived 
  to be captured. He was catatonic and unresponsive, and 
  was thrown in the Meigs County lockup.
  After a day and a half in custody, Yale vanished from 
  his cell on the night of June 23, 2013, along with Deputy 
  Arthur Falstaf. Falstaf had a distinguished career, but he 
  left his post without warning the night that Yale vanished. 
  It was strongly suspected that somehow, for unknown 
  reasons, Falstaf helped the killer. The deputy has not been 
  seen since. The New Star Crusade was placed under tight 
  Chester History
  Lying on the Shade River, Chester was a rural community 
  from the earliest days of Ohio. It was the original county 
  seat of Meigs County from about 1821 until the county 
  seat moved to Pomeroy in 1841. Author Ambrose Bierce 
  was born nearby in 1842. 
  In 1923, an incredible transformation took place. A 
  local drunk, Arthur Hunt, suddenly became the town’s 
  resident genius. Drawing reporters from all over the state, 
  Hunt went on to form Hunt Electrodynamics in Ches-
  ter. He patented 60 significant electronic inventions and 
  then left town, all in a matter of four years. Hunt left a 
  large Hunt Electrodynamics plant behind, which rapidly 
  supplanted the waning Crescent Machine Company as the 
  number-one employer in town.
  By 1943, a new company arrived through the work-
  ings of Hunt Electrodynamics: Parsons Bakelite Company, 
  a plastics manufacturer for the war effort. This small 
  business exploded over the next two years.
  The Hunt plant closed in 1953 during the restruc-
  turing of Hunt Electrodynamics after the death of Ar-
  thur Hunt. Parsons Bakelite Company, renamed Parsons 
  Plastics, has remained the top employer in Chester for the 
  past 60 years, producing light sockets, plastic tubing, and 
  cheap plastic screws.
  Chester Township Facts
   
  » AREA: 118 square km (45.5 square miles)
   
  » POPULATION: 1,284 (1950 Census); 2,496 
  (2010 Census)
   
  » FOUNDED: 1821
   
  » INDUSTRY: Plastics, Tourism
   
  » TEMPERATURE: High 40 C (104 F); Low 
  –78 C (–109 F)
  The Ohio River Killer 
  The most cursory Internet search for strange events in 
  Meigs County turns up the story of Douglas Yale, the 
  Ohio River Killer.
  In 2010, Douglas Yale joined the New Star Crusade. 
  At first, there was little special about Yale. He was a quiet 
  man with a long history of psychological problems, but 
  
  6
  // Future/Perfect, Part 2 //
  // Delta Green //
  Yale’s nightly walks at the mounds had affected him 
  badly, and he degenerated slowly into madness. He was 
  ejected from the New Star Crusade when Danen Ignis real-
  ized his charge had lost his mind. 
  Even after Yale’s bones were discovered in October 
  2014, murders and disappearances in the area continued. 
  But no one in law enforcement connected them to the 
  dead Ohio River Killer. 
  To residents, the Douglas Yale case is old news. It is 
  something akin to the story of Jeffery Dahlmer or Rich-
  ard Speck, yet another lost person looking to matter in 
  the world. Few give a second thought to the strange fact 
  that Yale survived a huge shootout unscathed, or that he 
  escaped from a secure jail and abducted an armed deputy. 
  It’s just another strange part of a strange story.
  A Haunted Place
  The truth is, nothing much is wrong with the town itself. 
  There are unnatural anomalies (such as the mounds, the 
  Ohio River Killer, and Arthur Hunt himself) but Chester is 
  surprisingly normal. Its obsession with its mounds and the 
  triskelion snake image is just a natural bit of town pride. 
  Chester has no supernatural significance. But the players 
  don’t need to know this. As far as they are concerned, the 
  town can seem sinister and just “a little too nice.” In fact, 
  playing up this apparent veneer of good will can be a great 
  way to enhance the paranoia. And paranoia is what Delta 
  Green is all about.
  The Mound Builders
  Archeologists believe the Chester Mounds were built by 
  the Adena culture, which rose and fell long before the first 
  Europeans arrived in North America. The Adena left be-
  hind a legacy of earthworks and ancient mound structures 
  from as far east as West Virginia all the way to the edge 
  of Oklahoma. They are thought to be responsible for the 
  construction of the Great Serpent Mound and Chester’s 
  more modest triskelion of serpents.
  Little is known of these people, and it remains a mat-
  ter of archeological debate whether a single culture was 
  responsible for the various earthwork structures found 
  across the eastern U.S. or a mixture of tribes with similar 
  rites and rituals. 
  surveillance for weeks, and hunkered down at the Ignis 
  farm, but was quickly eliminated as a suspect.
  Over the next month an a half, four more people 
  disappeared, their distinctive remains found by hunters, 
  hikers and travelers in the back woods of the county. The 
  bones and hair had been ground up into compressed piles, 
  picked clean of meat. In this time, Yale became nationally 
  famous as the Ohio River Killer. Reports compared him 
  to the likes of Ted Bundy and the Son of Sam. Dozens of 
  reporters descended on Chester to cover the story. Numer-
  ous television shows would be made about the murders, 
  due mostly to their brutality and cannibalistic nature.
  In October 2014, the case took an even stranger 
  turn. Bones found by hikers near the Chester Mounds 
  were identified as those of Douglas Yale. There was no 
  mistake; the man thought to be responsible for seven 
  confirmed and one suspected death was dead. Yale’s bones 
  were picked clean and had been scattered. Police and the 
  press observed the poetic justice that he had apparently 
  been killed and eaten by animals much as he had done 
  to his victims.
  In death, Douglas Yale remained as much of a mys-
  tery as in life. Despite numerous sensational books on 
  the subject, few solid facts on Douglas Yale exist. Yale’s 
  childhood—what of it is known—is the standard tale of 
  an absent father, a drunken mother, and deep poverty. 
  Yale experienced various brushes with the law through-
  out his life. 
  
  7
  // Future/Perfect, Part 2 //
  // Delta Green //
  These degenerate serpent folk remained in the area un-
  til the Shawnee appeared nearly 2,500 years later. By that 
  time, the serpent folk could not offer significant resistance. 
  The Shawnee killed and drove off the creatures.
  Sensing the evil of the Chester Mounds, the Shaw-
  nee placed them in a kind of quarantine. Those who 
  were drawn to their power were slain. Shawnee warriors 
  patrolled to watch for signs of the return of the “strange, 
  white-faced people,” as the degenerate serpent folk came 
  to be remembered. Meanwhile, embedded in the mounds, 
  Xichlasa slept, waiting for a time more suited for his kind.
  He slept for nearly 3,000 years, until Arthur Hunt 
  drunkenly dug him up in 1923. The serpent con-
  sumed Hunt, took his form, and was let loose on the 
  modern world.
  The Hunter
  Douglas Yale never committed a single murder—but a 
  doppelganger of him did, eight times before his capture, 
  and eight times after the confirmation of Yale’s death. Yale 
  had come under the psychic sway of a monster called Xa, 
  one of the serpent-folk.
  The Chester Mounds are home to the sleeping bodies 
  of 25 more of its kind, “degenerate” serpent-folk who 
  long ago served the ophidian that would take the form of 
  Arthur Hunt. Xichlasa chose to leave them in their slum-
  ber until such a time as they would be useful to his cause. 
  They are crude, violent creatures, capable of only physical 
  labor and a blunt, hypnotic mind-control. In the past, 
  Archeologists agree that the earthworks they con-
  structed date from between 2000 and 100 BCE. These 
  earthworks are some of the largest in the world, and 
  some (such as the Chester Mounds and the Great Serpent 
  Mound) are intricate and detailed.
  The Adena are thought to be the predecessors to the 
  modern Indian tribes that populated the area when Euro-
  peans began populating the continent. Many Indian tribes 
  claim to be unbroken descendants of the Adena, but no 
  one has definitive proof.
  For more information about the Chester 
  Mounds, see page 19.
  The Last Age of the Serpents
  The truth of the early Adena culture has long been lost 
  to humanity. It was in fact a series of human “fiefdoms” 
  ruled by singularly powerful serpent folk nearly 3,000 
  years ago. These few serpent folk, numbering fewer than 
  six, awakened from a three-million-year slumber to find 
  their old kingdom wiped from the surface of the Earth. 
  The first of the serpent folk to awaken resurrected 
  a handful of its powerful cousins, and an army of more 
  degenerate ophidians, who had survived the downfall of 
  their culture 750,000 years before. They hoped to forge 
  a new serpent-folk culture in the wilds of the mam-
  mal-overrun world. 
  Unfortunately, the serpent folk are secretive and re-
  clusive. Each created a small kingdom, using their magics 
  to enslave the primitive human cultures. Disputes erupted 
  in a pointless war between them. This war lasted nearly 
  a thousand years. The conflict ended with the human 
  cultures discovering the serpent folk’s weakness. There 
  was a reason the serpent folk were strict vegetarians: their 
  bloodlust was so great that once tempted by blood, they 
  would feed until glutted and then enter a torpor in which 
  they were eminently vulnerable.
  This quickly led to the death of most of the serpent 
  folk, bringing their reign to an end. However, one of them, 
  Xichlasa, reentered his long slumber. His twenty-five most 
  valued guards were buried with him. The rest of his army 
  of degenerate serpent folk guarded his tomb. Xichlasa 
  would later become Arthur Hunt.
  
  // Future/Perfect, Part 2 //
  // Delta Green //
  When Xa, disguised as Yale, was discovered near the 
  mounds on the night of the summer solstice June 21, 2013, 
  it was nearly drained of all its power protecting itself 
  from a devastating hail of gunfire from more than a dozen 
  officers. The hunt lasted more than two hours, and ended 
  with the creature, still in the guise of Douglas Yale, in the 
  Meigs County jail.
  The creature soon worked its powers on Deputy 
  Arthur Falstaf, controlling, consuming, and then becom-
  ing him. It escaped and slowly but surely continued its 
  killings, in the hinterlands of the county, in the guise of 
  Falstaf and others. Xa has both grown hungrier and more 
  fastidious in its hunting, burying the remains of its feasts 
  with great care. 
  The conventional case against Yale died with him in 
  October 2014. Xa still wanders the back woods of Meigs 
  County, utilizing its human disguises as a natural camou-
  flage to lure unsuspecting travelers to their deaths.
  Timeline
  Adjust the last few years to suit your campaign.
  1906: Arthur Hunt born in Chester.
  1922: Arthur Hunt arrested for drunkenly defacing the 
  Chester Mounds.
  1923: Arthur Hunt frees the ophidian Xichlasa, who 
  devours and replaces him. To Chester, Hunt suddenly 
  becomes an unexpected genius.
  1930: Arthur Hunt patents the Hunt Mark I Resistor 
  and launches Hunt Electrodynamics.
  1940: Arthur Hunt moves to Hellbend, California, the 
  site of a second Hunt Electrodynamics plant.
  1943: Parsons Bakelite establishes a plant in Chester.
  1952: Arthur Hunt dies in Hellbend, California. The 
  Hunt Museum opens in Chester.
  1953: The Hunt Electrodynamics plant shuts down.
  1954: Parsons Bakelite becomes Parsons Plastics.
  1992: Teenager Scott S. Cogan convicted of 
  beating another boy to death during a party at the 
  Chester Mounds.
  1998: Michael Brown leaves Ohio University and 
  returns home to Chester.
  they were his loyal guards and laborers, but in the mod-
  ern era they were of little use. In fact, in a world overrun 
  by mammals, their presence would pose a huge threat to 
  Hunt’s plans.
  When their master was roused, the lifting of the wards 
  woke one of the lesser creatures as well. This creature, 
  named Xa, was still trapped within the mound and could 
  only reach out with its primitive mental abilities to those 
  nearby. This power affected the mentally ill more pro-
  foundly than others, though nearly anyone who went near 
  the mounds could “feel” something. Slowly, as this crea-
  ture drew power from those it had “affected,” it began to 
  exert more influence and control. 
  First, Xa drew in local man Chip Brown and then his 
  son Michael Brown, who would become Danen Ignis of 
  the New Star Crusade. But it lacked the power to force 
  their hand to release it from its tomb. The dreams it sent 
  to Michael Brown shaped his mental illness into the New 
  Star Crusade cult, which in turn drew followers that 
  fueled the creature further. Xa was building a charge like a 
  battery: power it would use to affect its escape.
  Douglas Yale was the key. By the time he appeared, 
  Xa had grown bloated on the power of the New Star 
  Crusade worshippers, and it began to reshape the al-
  ready damaged mind of Yale. This turned Yale against 
  the Crusade and the townsfolk, and almost derailed the 
  creature’s plans.
  Finally, after Yale’s ejection from the cult, Xa exerted 
  enough influence over him to dig it free of the mound. It 
  consumed Yale and sorcerously became him. Weakened, 
  but finally free, it confronted by Deputy Jason Kisent, who 
  believed he had discovered the deranged Yale defacing the 
  mound. Kisent was lucky to survive the encounter.
  The creature lived in the woods of Meigs country, 
  feeding from time to time on people who had misfortune 
  to cross its path. It would secretly return to the mounds 
  on the summer solstice to psychically draw strength from 
  New Star Crusade cultists, replenishing its reservoir of 
  “power” with which it could manipulate minds.
  For the most part, the subtleties of human culture 
  were lost on Xa. It cared little for the developments of the 
  world since its entombment, thirty centuries before. Mas-
  terless, it had no motivation save survival and satiation.
  8
  
  9
  // Future/Perfect, Part 2 //
  // Delta Green //
  less funding each year. Right now, Parsons Plastics is 
  the main supporter, but the future of the museum re-
  mains uncertain. 
  It contains displays unchanged since 1952, document-
  ing Hunt’s bizarre life. It maintains technical drawings, 
  devices, and the original Hunt Mark 1 Resistor—an in-
  vention that revolutionized consumer electronics and put 
  Chester on the map. It also houses over 100 photographs 
  of Hunt throughout his life, including one taken three 
  days before his death in 1952.
  Mary Jarrard, a 52-year-old historian, is the director 
  and sole employee of the museum. She gives tours, rear-
  ranges displays, and cleans the facility. In fact, cleaning is 
  what she spends most of her time doing.
  Jarrard is a local expert in all things Hunt. She is 
  forthcoming and open with anyone in authority, allowing 
  them to examine any item in the museum in detail—under 
  her supervision. She’ll even remove objects from their dis-
  play cases for Agents to look at more closely. If the Agents 
  pose as ordinary tourists, they can talk her into that kind 
  of access only with a convincing case and a Persuade roll.
  The Statue
  In the park before the museum, a four-meter (12-foot) 
  bronze statue of Arthur Hunt stands atop a hollow cement 
  pylon. It faces west, towards the mounds. The statue is 
  unremarkable. It was sculpted by Alan Melendez (de-
  ceased) of Chicago, Illinois, in 1953, and unveiled in 1954. 
  Hunt Electrodynamics paid for the original statue as well 
  as the museum.
  2000: Michael Brown’s father Chip dies. Michael 
  Brown forms the New Star Crusade and changes his name 
  to Danen Ignis.
  2003: Chester Township launches the first of three 
  costly attempts to interfere with the New Star Cru-
  sade. All fail.
  2010: Douglas Yale joins the New Star Crusade.
  2011: Douglas Yale is ejected from the New 
  Star Crusade.
  2012: Douglas Yale frees Xa, a “degenerate” ser-
  pent-man that once served Xichlasa, from the Chester 
  Mounds. It devours and replaces him. Deputy Jason 
  Kisent catches Yale defacing the mounds. Yale injures the 
  deputy and flees. Over the next two years he is linked to 
  three murders in the area.
  2013: Douglas Yale is captured at the Chester 
  Mounds. He soon escapes from the county jail, apparent-
  ly with the aid of Deputy Arthur Falstaf. Falstaf is nev-
  er seen again.
  2014: Hikers find bones, identified as Douglas Yale’s, 
  in the woods a few km from Chester.
  2015: Delta Green’s Cincinnati cell looks into the 
  Ohio River Killer case but finds nothing.
  2017: The Cincinnati cell loses two of its 
  four members.
  2018: The Agents are sent to Chester.
  The Hunt Museum
  Following his sudden and cryptic death in 1952, the town 
  of Chester constructed a museum to celebrate Arthur 
  Hunt, its most famous and prodigal son. The Hunt Mu-
  seum is a sleepy, rarely visited piece of Chester history. It 
  sits in the center of town, a two-story stone structure with 
  nine rooms. It is fronted by a small park with a statue of 
  Hunt in its center, beckoning to the west. People often 
  come to the park (its official name is “Malcolm Chester 
  Park,” but is most often called “Hunt Park”) but rarely 
  visit the museum.
  The building is maintained by the city, and is open for 
  free to the public, but is almost always empty. Up until 
  the summer of 1990, the museum employed two full-time 
  personnel. Now it only employs one, part-time. It is slowly 
  dying, losing support as a landmark and getting less and 
  
  10
  // Future/Perfect, Part 2 //
  // Delta Green //
  The newly christened Hunt Farm fell into ruin over 
  the next few years. Since 1920, Hunt had maintained 
  his booze habit illegally, purchasing liquor from boot-
  leggers. He began to associate with hoodlums in the 
  county, including a Shawnee Indian named Saucy Jack, 
  a drunken rumrunner who drove the backwoods in a 
  souped-up Ford.
  Jack and Hunt became partners of sorts, frequenting 
  the often-ignored Chester Serpent Mounds to drink, play 
  cards, and shoot birds. On May 3, 1922, police found 
  Hunt at the mounds, drunk, carrying a pickaxe and shout-
  ing drunkenly about Shawnee gold. Hunt was incarcerated 
  briefly, but he kept visiting the mounds. Soon after the 
  arrest, Saucy Jack and Hunt had a falling out, and the 
  Indian was not seen in the county again.
  For nearly a year, Hunt rarely appeared in town.
  The Change
  On April 9, 1923, Hunt returned to town a changed man. 
  He settled into the newly finished Chester Public Library 
  and began to read. This first vigil lasted eight hours and 
  soon drew spectators. Hunt read books on nearly every 
  subject, and remained mute, refusing to engage with ques-
  tioners and onlookers. As he read, he seemed to get faster. 
  Soon he was reading each page with a glance of only a 
  second or two.
  When the library closed for the evening, Hunt left as 
  easily as he had come, vanishing into the woods, reappear-
  ing at opening each morning. He ate and drank nothing 
  during his reading, and kept up this cycle unceasingly for 
  three weeks. Locals remained split on Hunt’s motives. 
  Most thought it was a complex con. Others thought Hunt 
  had finally seen the error of his ways. Rumors began to 
  spread that Hunt had quietly educated himself during the 
  previous years.
  By week three, Hunt began speaking with the locals 
  again, and it was if his entire personality had changed. 
  His voice was a quiet monotone without any humor. His 
  English was precise and ordered. His interactions were 
  brief and to the point. Hunt ordered a list of over 200 
  items from the five and dime, including drafting tools, a 
  table, various metals, torches, and workbenches, as well as 
  various radios sets. He paid in gold, which was odd, but 
  not unheard of.
  Though it may lead to some suspicion, the statue 
  is completely mundane and has no connection to local 
  unnatural events. Cracking open the base reveals nothing 
  except a 1950s Pabst Blue Ribbon can.
  Arthur Hunt in Chester 
  Arthur Hunt is a local legend in Chester. He’s the great 
  success story of the town, almost the inversion of Douglas 
  Yale, the Ohio River Killer. Hunt rose from poverty and a 
  life of debauchery to forge an electronics empire that has 
  stood the test of time, surviving even after his unexpected 
  death in 1952.
  But at first, no one in town thought much of him. In 
  fact, he was considered a local ne’er-do-well. He seemed 
  more prone to theft, violence, and lying than any produc-
  tive endeavor.
  Hunt was born to an unwed mother, Emily Harris, on 
  October 19, 1906. He was born in the McMurtry Rail 
  Station, which would later become the Chester Train 
  Station. Having been sent from Chicago to live with an 
  elderly aunt in disgrace, Emily Harris arrived in the tiny 
  bump in the road called Meigs County just minutes before 
  her water broke. She named the child Arthur Hunt, after 
  his absent, and never again to appear, father.
  Margaret Harris, the aunt, lived in a farm near the 
  Chester estate, four miles from what would become down-
  town Chester. She welcomed Emily and the baby into her 
  house, but in 1909 Emily ran off, never to be seen again.
  Margaret raised the unruly youth as best she could, 
  but Arthur was a violent, simple-minded child. He was 
  a known troublemaker, ejected from the local school on 
  more than one occasion for fights and theft. It was ru-
  mored he couldn’t read and write properly.
  By the end of the Great War, Arthur Hunt was 12, 
  and had already taken to alcohol. He left school the 
  following year, as the influenza epidemic swept the newly 
  forged town. Hunt was unaffected, but his aunt fell ill. She 
  remained bedridden from 1919 until her death in 1921.
  During this time, Hunt held several short-lived jobs. 
  He was a counter-boy at the local five and dime, a street 
  sweep, and an ice delivery man. No job lasted more than a 
  few months. In his 15th year, his aunt died, leaving him a 
  sizable estate, the house, and livestock.
  
  11
  // Future/Perfect, Part 2 //
  // Delta Green //
  When it was discovered that Hunt had been construct-
  ing a town in Death Valley, California—one of the most 
  inhospitable places on Earth—no one was really surprised. 
  Nothing about Hunt could strike the townsfolk as odd 
  anymore. Few had anything bad to say about the man, but 
  Hunt was considered an eccentric at best. Announcements 
  were made that the Chester plant would remain in opera-
  tion, but Hunt would leave for California.
  By 1940, Hunt was living in Hellbend, California, per-
  manently. He was largely forgotten in Chester, trotted out 
  only as an interesting story from time to time. With Hunt’s 
  mysterious death in the Hellbend explosion of 1952, the 
  Hunt Museum was constructed in Chester to celebrate its 
  most famous and successful son.
  Photographs
  The museum’s photographs of Hunt feature only four 
  taken before his “rebirth” in 1923. Each shows Hunt in 
  various states of intoxication, including one during the 
  celebration of the end of the Great War where Hunt has 
  climbed a light pole with his pants down.
  Over 60 photos show Hunt in Chester after 1923. In 
  all of them, his expression is identical: a look of bored 
  Hunt disappeared to the Hunt Farm, which, over the 
  next year and half, transformed into a clean and orderly 
  place. Hunt meticulously replaced everything, down to the 
  gate to the road—though, oddly, he sold all the livestock. 
  The electric lights he had installed in 1924 were among 
  the first along his stretch of road. Soon, every room in the 
  house burned with an incandescent bulb.
  Hunt hired a local farmhand named Allan Me-
  stemacher to run errands for him in town, and Me-
  stemacher became the local conduit for Hunt gossip. Hunt 
  worked ten hours a day on drawings of complex electrical 
  devices, and built bizarre electronic contraptions. This 
  continued for several years, until it was assumed it would 
  continue this way indefinitely. Then, as suddenly as he 
  had first arrived at the library, Hunt arrived in town again 
  and filed papers to incorporate Hunt Electrodynamics. On 
  the same date, he submitted three thick envelopes to the 
  U.S. Patent Office, and mailed several letters to far-flung 
  corporations in Europe and America.
  Within months, Hunt had forged lucrative deals to 
  license small components to various electronics firms, 
  including Westinghouse and Consolidated Edison. He 
  continued to operate from his farmhouse, but now began 
  to make national news. His company posted large profits 
  and its paperwork was meticulous. Considering Hunt was 
  its sole employee, it was considered amazing he could 
  complete all the paperwork himself as well as continue to 
  create and patent inventions.
  Hunt’s biggest hit, the Hunt Mark I Resistor, debuted 
  on August 5, 1930, and rocketed the one- man company 
  into the stratosphere. When Hunt realized he could make 
  far more money producing the Resistor, he opened the 
  Hunt Electrodynamics plant near Chester. Soon, the plant 
  was the largest employer in town. 
  It was during the first few years of the Chester plant’s 
  operations that Hunt began traveling. His trips took him 
  far and wide, though almost no one in town knew where 
  he was going. Mestmacher reported that Hunt returned 
  from his trips with odd books and items from around the 
  globe, and stickers on his trunks indicating he had been to 
  Istanbul, Casablanca, Cairo, Catania, and elsewhere. By 
  1938, rumors began to spread that Hunt was planning to 
  leave Chester.
  
  12
  // Future/Perfect, Part 2 //
  // Delta Green //
  SAN watching the devices operate for the first time. As it 
  provides a perfect and secure basis of communications, the 
  device would be tremendously interesting to the Program.
  Records
  Most of Hunt’s paperwork left Ohio with Hunt in 1940, 
  and is assumed destroyed in the 1952 Hellbend explosion. 
  All that remains in the museum are the smallest scraps of 
  thousands of engineering schematics and documents that 
  Hunt drafted in town and left behind.
  Documents reproduced at the museum include various 
  arrest records for Arthur Hunt pre-dating 1923, a birth 
  certificate, his name on the deed to the long-demolished 
  Hunt farm, and little else. His handwriting is a childish 
  scrawl, the signature of someone who obviously has a 
  poor grasp of language.
  Post 1923, examples of Hunt’s writing are everywhere. 
  It is block-like, angular and mathematical, though his 
  signature remains the same clumsy scrawl. Copies of the 
  papers incorporating Hunt Electrodynamics show the 
  same methodical, code-like writing.
  Hunt’s technical plans on display at the museum 
  exhibit Aklo characters in place of normal lettering. A 
  plaque notes, “This code was used to thwart attempts at 
  theft and fraud.”
  The Untitled Hunt Book
  Jarrard has been assembling a comprehensive book on 
  Hunt’s life and eccentricities from the perspective of a 
  Chester native. Her book, which is not yet titled but 
  is nearing completion, tracks the rise of Chester, Ohio 
  and the rise of Arthur Hunt. Only with a great amount 
  of convincing will Jarrard allow Agents gain access to 
  a copy of the book. Agents must make two successful 
  Luck or Persuade rolls on two different occasions while 
  talking her into it.
  Jarrard’s book is rough, often blank in places save for 
  cryptic notes for future additions, and mostly irrelevant to 
  the Agents.  But it includes the only known interview with 
  Allan Mestemacher, Hunt’s assistant in Chester, before his 
  death at the age of 91 in 1999.
  The Mestemacher interview mirrors Monty Greene’s 
  testimony in Hellbend (see Future/Perfect Part 1). 
  detachment. His eyes are passive and strange. He is well 
  kept and clean, though his posture is odd. When standing, 
  he seems to stoop his head forward in a way that seems 
  out of sorts for a young man.
  The remaining 36 are varied Hunt Electrodynamics 
  promotional shots, showing an impassive Hunt standing 
  before various constructions around the U.S., including 
  the facility in Hellbend at its opening.
  The last photo, taken three days before the Hellbend 
  explosion in August 1952, shows something unusual. 
  Hunt, his face usually implacable, seems to be smirking.
  There is also another oddity evident in the photos, 
  since they are displayed sequentially. From 1923 to 1952, 
  despite a gap of almost thirty years, Hunt appears exactly 
  the same, as if he had not aged a day in the interim.
  Artifacts
  Almost all of the artifacts in the museum are mundane. 
  The Mark 1 Resistor, for example, is advanced for its time 
  but within the realm of conventional science.
  However, there is one supernatural item, mixed in 
  with a set of tools in a display entitled “Hunt’s Toolset.” 
  Amidst miters, saws, die-cutting tools and various ham-
  mers and chisels is a stained, aged metal funnel. In actuali-
  ty, it is two funnels, one inside another. Anyone making an 
  INT×5 or Search roll while inspecting the display recog-
  nizes that they don’t belong there. Those who have seen 
  Aklo characters before gain a +20% bonus to this roll.
  If removed and examined, the funnels appear to be 
  simple metal cones, open on both ends, made of a strange 
  alloy. (Something like bronze, though tests prove incon-
  clusive.) On the tapered end of the cone, the opening is 
  bisected by a complex arrangement of wire. This wire 
  traces out a symbol. Agents familiar with Aklo recognize 
  it as that language. (For details, see the discussion of Aklo 
  in Future/Perfect Part 1.)
  If both cones are stuck into soil or soft ground, no 
  matter the distance, anything said into one can be instant-
  ly and perfectly heard from the other. This “geophone” 
  operates through hypergeometrical principles that are 
  beyond modern understanding. It allows instant communi-
  cation between any two locations on the planet. Any cha-
  racter with Science (Physics) at 25% or higher loses 0/1D4 
  
  13
  The Old Plant 
  The old Hunt Electrodynamics plant sits southwest of 
  town. It was a large facility for its time, with nearly 1,000 
  full-time employees. 
  County deputies frown upon wandering around the 
  ruins of the Hunt Electrodynamics plant. After an injury 
  in 1988, a large fence with razor wire was erected around 
  the entire site. Since the plant is removed somewhat from 
  the town, cutting through or carefully traveling over the 
  fence is quite possible. 
  The plant is a series of low brick buildings, a large 
  loading/shipping dock, a closed railroad spur, and a large, 
  overgrown parking lot. The Hunt Electrodynamics sign 
  still stands, but the ruins are long since overgrown with 
  vines and weeds. Every window has been broken. The tar 
  roofs on many of the buildings have collapsed from winter 
  snows. Metal struts and frames are rusted.
  There is nothing useful to be found here, but this 
  does not mean it’s devoid of adventure. Agents arriving at 
  night might surprise a group of teenagers drinking in the 
  ruins, and an interesting game of cat and mouse can take 
  place. The teenagers will be certain the Agents are local 
  deputies in plain clothes, and the Agents might mistake 
  the teenagers (attempting to hide) as something connect-
  ed to the case.
  The Retirement Home
  Green Hills Retirement Home is located six km (four 
  miles) from town. Agents using official identification can 
  easily gain access to the facility and walk around with 
  guest passes. Those undercover have a harder time. They 
  must either be a family member or the guest of a family 
  member to interact with one of the retirees. Posing as one 
  is not as hard as it might sound, as long as some footwork 
  and fast talk is done. A Persuade roll may be necessary.
  The residents range in age from 61 to 101. Some of 
  them were alive and in their prime when Arthur Hunt ran 
  Chester, Ohio. Few ever met Hunt. All clearly recollect his 
  status as town recluse, as well as his habit of appearing 
  (when he did) randomly and on his own terms. When he 
  was seen, it was usually at a distance, and usually at night. 
  Mestemacher discusses Hunt’s predilection to eating only 
  vegetables, his fear of blood, and his obsession with tinted 
  glasses. He says Hunt spent much of his time talking in 
  a “language I have no way of knowin’, like speaking 
  in tongues.” 
  In town, Hunt acted as a quiet, introspective man who 
  went out of his way to avoid conflict or interaction. Hunt 
  seemed to consider Mestemacher “unimportant” and did 
  not put on his “act” when only Mestemacher was around. 
  At the Hunt farm, Hunt was a tyrant, often shouting at 
  Mestemacher for the slightest inconvenience or mistake. 
  He never injured Mestemacher, but Mestemacher lived 
  in constant fear of the strange man. This fear could not, 
  however, kill his curiosity.
  On occasion, Hunt deigned to show his servant 
  disturbing things which seemed to defy science. On one 
  occasion, Hunt had Mestemacher run a quarter of a mile 
  out into a field, jam a steel cone into the ground, and wait. 
  Hunt did the same, and when he bent and spoke into the 
  steel cone, Mestemacher could hear him through his cone, 
  as clear as day. Mestemacher was certain that Hunt would 
  patent and sell this invention, but it never came to pass. 
  This item is now on display in the Hunt museum, mistak-
  enly identified as portions of a toolset.
  Mestemacher spied on Hunt’s travel plans, secretly 
  digging through itineraries and maps Hunt had marked up. 
  Hunt made a circuit of the Mediterranean, stopping at ma-
  jor ports. He bought ancient books—Mestemacher had no 
  idea what they were, though he notes one was in Greek—
  as well as various “Egyptian artifacts.” Where those 
  artifacts and books might be today remains a mystery.
  During the later half of his life (after 1941), Me-
  stemacher became devoutly religious, obsessed with the 
  Devil and hell. The interview with Mestemacher is telling, 
  insomuch as the old man seems to tie huge importance to 
  Hunt’s choice of “Hellbend,” California, for a new home.
  Mestemacher made no bones about it. He believed 
  Hunt was a devil from Hell, if not the Devil himself. 
  Mestemacher never explained how he had come to this 
  conclusion, but would only say, “I know. I saw.”
  // Future/Perfect, Part 1 //
  // Delta Green //
  
  14
  // Future/Perfect, Part 1 //
  // Delta Green //
  prefer to leave unreported. If the Agents are investigating 
  unofficially but using their real names, that’s even juicier.
  Of course, Maskenogi keeps this idea to himself until 
  the Agents are long gone. Careful Agents could find out 
  about his plans by poking around Maskenogi’s house or 
  vehicle for notes. Otherwise, a year after the operation 
  ends, the Agents may learn that a new book describes their 
  exploits in exciting ways that could get them investigated 
  and fired or prosecuted. 
  Shawnee Legends
  An Agent can learn these stories from Maskenogi or by 
  researching the Shawnee online, in nearby libraries, and by 
  talking to historians with a successful History roll. 
  The Shawnee have their own theories about the 
  Mound Builders. They tell stories of a time when the 
  Shawnee encountered “strange, white-faced people” who 
  lived inside the mounds. These people feared the sun and 
  worshipped a god called Maneto (“The Snake”). After 
  hunting in the area soured, the Shawnee made war on 
  them and forced them from the mounds. The beings fled 
  west or died defending their mounds.
  More specifically, there is a legend about the Chester 
  Mounds. It is said that when the Shawnee made war on 
  the strange people, their last shaman “drew down a star” 
  and smashed the earth in revenge, killing himself and his 
  wives and a Shawnee chief. At the point of impact, the 
  Shawnee themselves built the three Maneto mounds: 
  snakes turned in upon themselves to prevent the spirits of 
  their enemies from escaping and haunting the Shawnee.
  A geological survey of the Chester Mounds placed 
  them on a cryptoexplosion structure—it is highly likely 
  that it was subjected to a meteor impact sometime in the 
  past—but historians regard the Shawnee stories as myths.
  Maskenogi’s Writings 
  Maskenogi has written four books on the mound builders 
  and the Shawnee, drawing parallels between their cultures 
  and concluding that one culture became the other. As his 
  books developed a following, they turned from history to 
  sensationalism.
  One man, Henry Hearston (age 89), says his father 
  Gary Hearston was a schoolmate of Hunt at the Ches-
  ter School before his expulsion, and often talked about 
  Hunt’s “rebirth” in 1923. Hearston is very clear-minded. 
  From his father’s stories, whatever happened to Hunt that 
  year, it completely changed him. The man after 1923 bore 
  absolutely no relation to the man before 1923, save his 
  physical appearance. After 1923, Hunt didn’t even recog-
  nize Gary Hearston.
  Gary Hearston worked at the train station for thirty 
  years as a porter. He was employed at the station when 
  Hunt began shipping large amounts of items in and out 
  of Chester, items Hearston had to move. The main port of 
  call for these crates was Istanbul.
  Residents reveal nothing else about Hunt that can’t be 
  found elsewhere in town. If the Agents have not explored 
  the museum, some of its details can be gleaned here.
  John Maskenogi
  Anyone in Chester asked about Shawnee history points 
  the Agents to John Maskenogi, a local author. John 
  Maskenogi is half-Shawnee, and has made a comfortable 
  living writing about the Shawnee culture. He is a local 
  Chester celebrity and is considered the expert on the Ad-
  ena. He knows all the most popular Shawnee stories and 
  often gives speeches at the local colleges and bookstores 
  on the subject.
  Maskenogi has released several speculative books 
  about the mounds and their relation to Shawnee legend, 
  often exaggerating supernatural concepts to drum up sales. 
  In person, he comes across as a learned, serious student of 
  Native American occult lore, somewhere between shaman 
  and historian. This is mostly a charade. Since he stumbled 
  on this source of money, he has cultivated the airs of a 
  true believer, but he privately thinks it’s all hogwash.
  Maskenogi is a natural contact to develop in the area, 
  and he can act as a researcher for those who seem to be 
  in authority in any case involving the mounds. But the 
  Agents would be wise to be paranoid about having an 
  exploitative writer along on their investigation. He plans 
  to exploit his involvement in a new book filled with details 
  about the case, particularly details that the Agents would 
  
  15
  // Future/Perfect, Part 2 //
  // Delta Green //
  The New Star Crusade
  When Michael Brown quit his job as a professor at the 
  Ohio University in 1998 and settled in Chester, Ohio at 
  his family farm, little was thought of it. But when it was 
  discovered that he was assembling an “army” of believers 
  on his property and arming them, local authorities became 
  interested. There was nothing they could do, of course, 
  unless Brown did something first.
  Brown—who changed his name to Danen Ignis—
  formed the New Star Crusade officially in 2000 after 
  the death of his elderly father. By 2001 his newsletter, 
  Crusade, had 3,800 subscribers. Lost and troubled souls 
  were drawn to the Brown farm from as far as Stock-
  holm, Sweden, and Osaka, Japan. They freely gave their 
  personal fortunes up for a chance at redemption. Ignis’ 
  influence grew with his wealth. By the 2010s he was a 
  multimillionaire.
  Ignis claimed his group was a revival of the culture 
  that worshipped at the Chester Mounds in ancient times. 
  He was certain that if they prayed and made offerings at 
  the mound, a new star would descend and take them from 
  the Earth to another, purer world. But there would be 
  conflict. Forces would attempt to stop them. They need-
  ed to be ready.
  Early attempts at legal wrangling cost the county dear-
  ly. The county had a very clear “hands off” policy against 
  the cult, but even that backfired. Back before Douglas 
  Yale, townies often trespassed on the farm, and county 
  deputies refused to act with “necessary speed and clarity” 
  to keep them off. Ignis taped phone calls to the sheriff’s 
  The Mound-Builder Mystery (2010)
  This largely academic title postulates a connection be-
  tween the Adena and Shawnee cultures, using verbal 
  traditions, comparisons of wood and stonecraft, and other 
  conventional archeology. 
  Shawnee Legend and the Snake 
  Mounds of Ohio (2012)
  This is an interesting weave of oral tradition and songs ex-
  ploring Shawnee legends about the mounds. It does much 
  to contradict Maskenogi’s first book. Far from implying 
  the Shawnee descended from the Adena culture, it claims 
  the Shawnee arrived to find another culture of “moon-
  faced people” occupying the mounds, and drove them off 
  after several large skirmishes. This title was a surprise hit, 
  selling 10,000 copies worldwide and placing Maskenogi 
  on a short list of scholars on the subject of the mounds.
  Maneto: The Snake God (2015)
  This more sensationalistic title examines a particular 
  Shawnee tale related by John T. Walker, a full-blooded 
  Shawnee over 90 years old. The story is of the Chester 
  Mounds and their role as a site for worship of Maneto, 
  the snake god. Walker (now dead) paints a picture of the 
  site either as a site of worship built by the “moon-faced 
  people” to the snake-god Maneto, or as a “spirit trap” 
  built by the Shawnee after the moon people were driven 
  off. Walker’s stories are fascinating, often contradicto-
  ry, and quite involved. Due partly to a book deal with a 
  larger publisher, this book sold twice as many copies as 
  Maskenogi’s previous title.
  In the Shadows of the Mounds (2016)
  This title is by far Maskenogi’s least academic. It is full of 
  unsupported suppositions, hearsay, and sensationalistic in-
  ventions. It is an uneasy mix of his former historical work 
  and straightforward fiction involving the Douglas Yale 
  murders, the New Star Crusade, and other oddities of the 
  mounds. It ultimately posits that the spirits of the “moon-
  faced people” inspired the Ohio River Killer’s crimes, and 
  suggests those spirits may have been disturbed by the New 
  Star Crusade. The book was a commercial success, break-
  ing his last sales record by more than 5,000 copies, driven 
  mostly by interest in the Ohio River Killer. 
  
  16
  // Future/Perfect, Part 2 //
  // Delta Green //
  everyone in city government knew it was a losing battle. 
  The cult’s lawyer in Cincinnati, Richard A. Goldfarb, sent 
  a strongly worded letter to the sheriff’s office warning 
  them against making a public connection between Yale 
  and the New Star Crusade. No one did. 
  After Yale’s death in 2014, the New Star Crusade went 
  underground, no longer appearing in public. Ignis has not 
  emerged from the property in some time. The solstice rites 
  continue, however, carefully watched by local authorities 
  but undeterred. The cult performs its rites in isolation, 
  away from the town. The town likes it that way. They’ve 
  learned to leave well enough alone.
  Danen Ignis, aka Michael Brown
  Michael Brown taught literature at Ohio University for 12 
  years before he packed up and left it all behind to return 
  to his family farm. Most at the university believed he was 
  on his way home to care for his ailing elderly father. The 
  formerly talkative and social Brown had changed over a 
  period of months, becoming somber and distracted. Most 
  chalked it up to worry and grief, but a few who knew him 
  well could tell something was seriously wrong.
  Brown grew up on his family farm less than a ki-
  lometer from the Chester Mounds. He spent an unre-
  markable childhood playing in and around the mounds, 
  and was well known in town as a bookworm. People 
  had fond memories of him, until his return in 1998 and 
  the strange turn of events that gave birth to his cult, the 
  New Star Crusade, and his new name, Danen Ignis. Few 
  understood his motivations. Those were chalked up to 
  greed or insanity.
  office, and recorded their arrival times. The shortest was 
  over two hours. He filed a personal suit against the county 
  and cost them $800,000 in damages.
  When the state of Ohio tried to intervene and block 
  the cult from using the mounds for worship, Ignis spent 
  nearly $3 million on legal fees in four court battles. A final, 
  pitched battle fell just short of the Ohio Court of Appeals. 
  Ignis won handily on the grounds of freedom of religion. 
  The cult was permitted to perform its solstice rites. Ignis 
  also made national news and drew in new followers. Lo-
  cals called them nuts, but for several years they performed 
  their rituals in peace. 
  The Cult in Detail
  The New Star Crusade is dedicated to the follow-
  ing principles:
   
  » Danen Ignis is the reincarnation of the mystical 
  leader who constructed the mounds millennia ago.
   
  » Those who accept Ignis as their leader are imbued 
  with the spirit of the people who helped build the 
  mounds and are opened to spiritual wonders.
   
  » Through worship at the mounds, they will call 
  down “others” who will descend from the Pleiades 
  and take the cultists to a new and better world.
  Its membership worldwide is about 8,000, though 
  most are not far enough down the road of delusion to 
  fully embrace the mythology. Fewer than 50 have fully 
  dedicated themselves to the cult, pledging all their earthly 
  possessions as well as their bodies to Danen Ignis.
  The cult is not a recognized religion, but is fastidious 
  in all matters legal and financial. Ignis is a stickler for 
  playing the system. His personal wealth is in the tens of 
  millions of dollars, all gained from devoted followers. He 
  does not risk it recklessly.
  Those in town, particularly the sheriff’s deputies, 
  know very well that although Ignis may be insane, he is 
  methodical, and is very adept at exploiting the legal sys-
  tem. The sheriff’s office monitors the farm but can do little 
  else. Ignis pays his taxes and bills on time, and spends 
  copious amounts of money in town.
  Even when the Douglas Yale situation erupted in 
  2012, no one in Chester dared accuse Ignis. By that time, 
  
  17
  // Future/Perfect, Part 2 //
  // Delta Green //
  Brown’s father, Charles “Chip” Brown, was a local 
  oddity. For nearly twenty years before his confinement to 
  what would become his death bed, he walked every night 
  at the mounds, often talking to himself. But before his 
  self-isolation and slow descent into madness (harmless as 
  it had been), Chip had been well-liked. He spent his eve-
  nings in the local pool hall “shooting the shit.”
  Chip’s descent seemed to begin after his son’s depar-
  ture in the early 1980s. In truth, Chip’s obsession with 
  the mounds had driven his son off, and kept the two from 
  speaking for nearly 15 years. 
  Michael Brown returned home twice in 1997 and 
  1998 to see his bed-ridden father. At the urging of his dy-
  ing father, he went out to the mounds at night and waited. 
  There his mind was changed. Each time he returned to 
  the university, he seemed more distracted and distant. The 
  Agents can find many people at Ohio University in Athens, 
  Ohio, who knew Brown and witnessed his “illness” devel-
  oping first-hand. His countenance shifted from affable and 
  outgoing to dark and brooding. 
  In 1999, he traveled to the University to pick up the 
  remainder of his personal effects. A colleague, Brenda B. 
  Muckelroy, can tell the Agents, “It was like he looked at 
  me and had no idea who I was. Like Michael was dead, 
  like this was a new person altogether. He looked at me 
  like I was a problem to be solved.”
  With Chip’s death in 2000, the farm—which had 
  been gathering random, lost individuals from around 
  the globe for some time—officially became home to the 
  New Star Crusade, and Michael Brown changed his name 
  to Danen Ignis.
  Since then, Ignis has held court at the Brown Farm, 
  fighting legal battles to allow his “religion” to perform 
  rites at the Chester Mounds.
  Since the legal struggle involving Douglas Yale, the 
  Ohio River Killer, Ignis has not left the farm. He lives a 
  life of isolation, surrounded by devoted followers, sitting 
  on a stockpile of legally purchased weapons that make the 
  local authorities decidedly nervous.
  The Headquarters 
  The Brown farm sits on 25 acres of land west of Chester, 
  Ohio. The property backs up on the Chester Mounds site. 
  A well-worn path runs from the ramshackle buildings of 
  the Brown farm to the mounds.
  The buildings of the farm were once sane and ordered, 
  that much is clear, but they have long since degenerated. 
  The main house—a three-story, four-bedroom affair—is 
  now home to over 20 listless followers of the Crusade 
  as well as Ignis himself. The house’s powder-blue paint 
  has fractured and peeled, showing a dull, split-wood grey 
  beneath it. The roof sags and the gutters are overfilled. 
  At least half of the front porch is beyond repair, ruined 
  by summer rain.
  The top floor is a master suite occupied by Danen Ig-
  nis himself. (Nearly everyone in the town knows this, due 
  to his habit of standing on the adjoining patio naked.) The 
  windows are whited out with what appears to be latex 
  paint. An assembly of various weather equipment and 
  electronic antennae jut from its roof. At night, the paint is 
  lit by a dull glow.
  The farm has long since stopped functioning. There 
  are no animals or livestock. Instead, the barn is filled with 
  another 26 followers who live on army surplus bunk-beds 
  and share three chemical toilets stashed on the wall away 
  from the road.
  Five beaten cars haunt the driveway, most overflowing 
  with random assortments of dry goods for which there is 
  no room in the house or barn. Occasionally, one drives 
  into town to purchase food and supplies for the cult.
  A small, weather-beaten port-a-potty, converted to 
  use as a tollbooth, oversees the entrance from the main 
  road. Someone is always here, watching those coming 
  and going. A cheap, wireless intercom system is employed 
  to see who is, or is not, given permission to enter. This 
  
  18
  // Future/Perfect, Part 2 //
  // Delta Green //
  Ignis is a corpulent, bored-looking man clad in a one-
  piece cotton toga-like outfit. He is treated with reverence 
  by the cult members, who surround him like pets.
  Ignis’ acquiescence should not be considered cooper-
  ation; he’s a very clever man. He records the conversation 
  with the Agents and then have them “looked into” by his 
  rather pricey lawyer in Cincinnati. If there’s anything to 
  be found (such as the Agents being on vacation miles from 
  their jurisdiction), Ignis will find it. But it may take some 
  time (on a successful Luck roll, it takes 1D6+2 days for 
  him to track down the Agent’s dirty laundry.)
  Ignis is forthcoming with his beliefs. He does, in fact, 
  believe the New Star Crusade mantra he spews. He warns 
  that “forces in the Mound are evil”, and that the cult’s 
  worship is necessary to keep those forces contained. In 
  fact, he does his best to convert the Agents to his cause. 
  Strangely enough, Ignis would make a fine Delta 
  Green friendly, capable of both monitoring the mounds 
  intercom communicates directly to Ignis. It could easily 
  be spied upon.
  Most activity on the farm occurs at night. At night, 
  groups of followers can be seen from the road, walk-
  ing back and forth between the main house and barn. 
  During the day, only lone individuals are spied wander-
  ing the grounds.
  Cult members walk the perimeter at all times of the 
  day and night, whipped into a frenzy by Ignis’ declara-
  tions of their pending godhood. They do so unarmed 
  except for a concealed flare gun. They are instructed to 
  fire the flare in case of trouble. When this happens (and 
  it never has, yet), the cult is instructed to arm itself “and 
  come to its brother’s aid.”
  The Guns
  Over the years, the New Star Crusade has purchased near-
  ly 2,300 firearms, all legal. These purchases were carefully 
  monitored by Ignis and were all carried out in a wholly 
  legal manner at gun shows throughout the state. Every 
  member of the cult has been issued a gun permit, and has 
  taken a state-run gun safety course.
  There are strict rules at the farm as to who can have 
  guns and when. Only those in the house carry pistols. 
  Guards on the periphery of the farm remain unarmed 
  except for flare guns.
  Ignis is certain that the guns “will be needed in the 
  future” and that “the time will be evident when they 
  shall be issued to the followers”. Although Ignis does not 
  know it, his brush with the degenerate serpent-man at the 
  mounds has given him a glimpse of the possibility of all 
  the serpent-folk waking and descending on Chester. This 
  has led to an obsession with fighting them with maxi-
  mum firepower.
  If, indeed, the creatures stir and attack, the New 
  Star Crusade will be one of the few places prepared 
  to repel them.
  Meeting Ignis 
  Meeting Ignis is as easy as approaching the main gate and 
  asking to see him. (Of course the Agents have to show 
  identification.) As simply as that, the Agents will be escort-
  ed by listless cult members into the dilapidated farmhouse.
  
  19
  // Future/Perfect, Part 2 //
  // Delta Green //
  His firm has cut a swath through state courts and is 
  greatly feared. Even the vaguest hint of a “Goldfarb Case” 
  is enough to make the state counsel of Ohio switch to 
  public relations mode very quickly. Goldfarb enjoys the 
  power his connections have given him. He takes any slight 
  from state or federal government to the limit, suing for 
  slander and libel at the drop of a hat.
  Agents unfortunate enough to cross paths with the 
  tiny, elderly man are immediately be struck by two things: 
  his precision in speech, and his constant allusions to pos-
  sible suits and cases against and transgressions committed 
  by the Agents. Goldfarb does not wait for his quarry to 
  make a mistake. He suggests what mistakes they might 
  make, robbing them of maneuverability. He’s friendly, 
  but when he speaks he projects the image of a man who 
  understands the whole of the law.
  Once Goldfarb’s hackles are up, Agents are in deep 
  trouble. The man has access to a vast fortune. He will 
  track down any lead, real or imagined, which might give 
  him leverage against a troublesome Agent. He’ll call super-
  visors and directors, and even publish news stories about 
  “harassment” in the Cincinnati papers.
  If the Agents are wise, and they do some homework, 
  the closest they should come to Goldfarb is the Internet.
  The Chester Mounds 
  These ancient earthworks are a mystery. Though scien-
  tists believe the Adena mound culture constructed them 
  3,000 years ago, there is no clear evidence of this culture 
  at the mounds. They remain a question mark in North 
  American history.
  The Chester Mounds are larger and more intricate 
  than many smaller earthworks of a similar design. The 
  Chester serpents are smaller than the Great Serpent 
  Mound along the Ohio Brush Creek (they are approx-
  imately half the size, when laid end-to-end), but they 
  represent the most intricate design attributed to the 
  Adena culture.
  The site is composed of three large mounds, each 
  about 60 meters in length in the shape of an undulating 
  serpent. The serpents are so intricate, they even have 
  tongues. These serpents face inward, tongues touching.
  and—in case of disaster—mustering enough firepower 
  to defend the town. He also is smart enough to keep his 
  mouth shut. But few Agents will be able to see past his 
  “cult leader” status to make such a call.
  Sneaking Onto the Farm 
  Sneaking onto the farm and spying on the cult is much 
  more difficult than simply walking in. During the day, it is 
  virtually impossible, as dozens of eyes are trained on the 
  farmhouse and barn. 
  At night, it’s still difficult. The Agents must make a 
  successful Sneak roll. The Agent with the worst skill must 
  make the roll. The Sneak roll is opposed by a cult member 
  rolling Alertness. If the cultist wins, she fires a flare gun 
  and alerts the whole farm. 
  Within minutes, 20 armed cult members converge on 
  the spot where the flare was fired. They do not fire unless 
  fired upon. If this is not enough to scare the Agents off, 
  deputies arrive shortly thereafter. Needless to say, if the 
  Agents are operating under the radar and they’re found on 
  the property, they could be in big trouble.
  Ignis’ Lawyers
  The Cincinnati firm of Richard A. Goldfarb and Associ-
  ates serves several clients, but the lion’s share of its atten-
  tion goes to the New Star Crusade, or more specifically, 
  Danen Ignis. Goldfarb is down to earth and has no belief  
  in the supernatural. He thinks, though he would never 
  admit it out loud, that Ignis is a fraud. Not that this keeps 
  him from cashing the checks.
  Goldfarb spent 13 years as a public defender in 
  Cincinnati and made quite a reputation for him- self. He 
  quit his position and opened his own firm when long-time 
  client Michael Brown began asking more and more of his 
  time, first handling estate transfers and later dealing with 
  the Meigs County Sheriff’s Office.
  Finally, the work became overwhelming for one 
  person, and Goldfarb hired three lawyers whose full-time 
  job was dealing with the intricacies of tax law for the cult 
  (which he calls a “church”). He also hired an expert on 
  constitutional law. Goldfarb is the cult’s direct contact, 
  but he does very little of the work. He preferrs to be the 
  threatening voice on the telephone.
  
  20
  // Future/Perfect, Part 2 //
  // Delta Green //
  These mounds are four to five meters high and are 
  easily mistaken for simple man-made hills. Only someone 
  walking the grounds and thinking carefully (or observ-
  ing it from the air) can get a clear idea of the intricacy 
  of the layout.
  Data on the Mounds 
  A surveyor named Clinton Cowan surveyed the mounds 
  in 1901, at the behest of the Ohio Historical Society. This 
  surveyor did little but take exacting measurements and 
  generate the definitive map of the Chester Mounds (just as 
  he had of the Great Serpent Mound). This map is the best 
  information available on the Chester Mounds.
  Though the Ohio Historical Society opened the site as 
  a park in 1967 along with the Great Serpent Mound, their 
  much larger cousin quickly overshadowed the Chester 
  Mounds. Attendance to the Chester park was a mere 
  fraction of the huge number of visitors the Great Serpent 
  Mound drew every year.
  Finally, in 1971, with a plummeting attendance to 
  the Chester Mounds, the Ohio Historical Society “closed” 
  the park (meaning they no longer paid for tour guides, a 
  small visitors toilet, and a security guard). The mounds 
  remained protected property under the ownership of the 
  Ohio Historical Society, but no one but locals showed up.
  For a decade, it was a location where locals went to 
  drink and make out. It became a common stop for the 
  town’s law enforcement personnel. Occasionally, there 
  were fights there, as well as reports of vandalism.
  The mounds remained this way until they became 
  the focus of worship for the secretive New Star Crusade 
  in the 2000s.
  Crime at the Mounds 
  Agents who are law-enforcement officials can talk to the 
  sheriff’s office about crime at the Chester Mounds. Other 
  Agents can sift through crime reports in the newspaper 
  archives at the local library (requiring a History skill of 
  50% or higher, or a successful History roll) or else talk 
  reporter Nicole Henninger at the Pomeroy Daily Sentinel 
  into answering questions over drinks. 
  If Henninger suspects the Agents are on an official 
  investigation, making that appointment requires no roll—
  but she will do her best to get more information out of 
  the Agents than they get from her. Even cursory details 
  of what the Agents are really up to could make the story 
  of her career.
  Looking into local crime reports reveals a large num-
  ber of fights, violence, drinking and sex at the mounds, 
  as well as several cases of vandalism. These cases date 
  back decades, some even to before World War I. The most 
  interesting cases involve Douglas Yale, the Ohio River 
  Killer, and Arthur Hunt, the town’s most famous son. 
  Both were caught, at one time or another, attempting to 
  dig up the mounds.
  Yale was caught vandalizing the mounds in 2012—
  having dug more than a meter and a half into one of the 
  snakes’ heads—and was interrupted by a sheriff ’s deputy. 
  See THE OHIO RIVER KILLER on page 5 for details.
  Hunt was a ne’er-do-well who was obsessed with the 
  mounds, and often was caught there puttering about. In 
  the summer of 1922, he was caught digging with a pick-
  axe and shovel (and a pint of bourbon). Hunt was incar-
  cerated for a day while he sobered up. A fading police 
  report in the county archives says Hunt babbled about 
  “gold” being buried in the mounds.
  Fights have also been common at the mounds. Most 
  were no more than a scuffle, ending with a busted nose, 
  or lost tooth or two, but one in particular, was serious. In 
  the summer of 1992, teenager Scott S. Cogan beat anoth-
  er boy, Lucas Jeffries, to death at a drinking party at the 
  mounds. Cogan, now in his forties, is still serving a 50-
  year sentence at the Ohio State Penitentiary.
  Talking to Scott Cogan 
  Cogan is easy man to reach; he’s not going anywhere for 
  a long time. He was convicted quickly of murder in the 
  second degree, and offered up no significant defense. An 
  Agent who digs up the trial records and has Law at 30% 
  or higher, or who makes a Law roll, can tell Cogan’s 
  court-appointed defender did a slapdash job. Cogan is in 
  the Ohio State Penitentiary as prisoner 00067171, and is 
  known by the guards as a forgettable and quiet ward.
  Cogan agrees to meet anyone who shows up to see 
  him, whether he knows them or not. His family turned 
  their backs on him when he was convicted and he hasn’t 
  had a visitor in nearly six years.
  
  21
  // Future/Perfect, Part 2 //
  // Delta Green //
  perhaps by offering to share findings in a joint academic 
  paper that will never be written. Insurance and transpor-
  tation would be an Unusual expense. Buying a system 
  outright is a Major expense. Either option takes about a 
  week to arrange. 
  A ground-penetrating radar system is about the size 
  and shape of a push lawnmower, and is moved slowly 
  across the ground as it scans the earth in slices that can 
  be assembled for a (very rough) three-dimensional view 
  of what’s underneath. Using it at the Chester Mounds, an 
  Agent with Archeology 60% or higher, or who succeeds at 
  an Archeology roll, identifies 26 gaps in the mounds that 
  appear to contain artifacts or other remains. A successful 
  roll by an Agent with Archeology at 60% or higher, or 
  a critical success in any event, identifies what look like 
  mummified human remains. 
  Actually removing core samples from the interior of 
  the mounds (one meter or deeper) is risky and illegal. Any 
  Agent attempting it must attempt a Luck roll or be ob-
  served and reported by New Star Crusade cultists or other 
  neighbors who care about the mounds. If the Agents are 
  acting under the color of federal law enforcement, a com-
  plaint will be filed with their agency. Otherwise, Meigs 
  County deputies will charge them with criminal mischief 
  and vandalism. That’s not enough to get them jail time, 
  but it requires court appearances and fines that add up to 
  an Unusual expense. If the Agents resist arrest, of course, 
  they can quickly rack up felonies and risk years in prison.
  If they remove a sample safely, testing at a lab re-
  veals nothing out of the ordinary, and dating the mounds 
  proves inconclusive.
  Digging up the Mounds 
  Agents foolish enough to attempt a full-bore excavation of 
  the Chester Mounds face several obstacles. Accomplishing 
  even a small excavation is a daunting task. Excavation is 
  possible only at night, for one thing. Attempting it during 
  the day immediately fails, as either a New Star Crusade 
  member or a deputy notices and disrupts the work. Agents 
  arrested for defacing the mounds are in deep trouble. 
  The Ohio Historical Society pushes the district attorney 
  to prosecute mercilessly, demanding the maximum sen-
  tence of five years. The Agents could easily face firing 
  at their jobs.
  Cogan is forthcoming about his crime. He admits do-
  ing it—he remembers it all—but why he did it still remains 
  a mystery. He speaks very plainly of “the feeling.” He 
  claims he was “overwhelmed” by a sense that the people 
  around him at the party were a danger to him, and that 
  one, in particular—Lucas Jeffries—was the most signif-
  icant threat.
  Cogan cannot explain it any better than that. He 
  simply (and sadly) says that he has no idea why he did it, 
  but at the time, it seemed vital. If asked specifically about 
  voices at the mounds, Cogan breaks down and begins 
  weeping, drawing the guards in to cut the visit short.
  As he’s removed, he says, “You heard them too?”
  After that, he refuses to see the Agents or answer 
  further questions.
  Testing the Mounds
  Geographical information on the mounds is relative-
  ly easy to come by. The earth around the mounds has 
  been surveyed several times, and accurate topographical 
  and soil maps exist at the Meigs County seat in nearby 
  Pomeroy, Ohio.
  Giving these maps to someone with the Navigate or 
  Science (Geology) skill at 40% or higher reveals that the 
  Chester Mounds are on a cryptoexplosion structure—a 
  place on the Earth that has been struck by a meteorite. 
  This is clear both by the bowl-shaped “extrusion” that 
  surrounds the entire mound area, as well as the conver-
  gence of three disparate soil types in one area.
  An Agent with Archeology at 50% or higher could 
  attempt a Bureaucracy or Persuade roll to borrow a 
  ground-penetrating radar system from Ohio University, 
  
  22
  // Future/Perfect, Part 2 //
  // Delta Green //
  The Hibernating Killers
  In their hibernating state, the degenerate serpent folk ap-
  pear as odd, deformed, fetus-like stone statues, about 1.5 
  m tall. If one is exhumed, an Agent with at least 20% in 
  Medicine or Science (Biology) recognizes that they are not 
  statues, but petrified remains of a biological creature.
  The “remains” are somewhat brittle to brute force at-
  tacks, and shatter like stone under very heavy blows. The 
  creatures are easily destroyed in this state. But they do not 
  have the fragility found in mummified remains. Their flesh 
  and organs show no deterioration.
  An expert in the field of mummification (such as an 
  Agent with Archeology at 60% or higher, or a combina-
  tion of Archeology, Forensics, and Medicine adding up to 
  80% or more) recognizes that some sort of non-standard 
  mummification process was used to create them. It had to 
  be something advanced, such as freeze-drying or another 
  method of water replacement. That means they must have 
  been interred in the recent past, since such methods did 
  not exist before the 20th century. The Agents, of course, 
  may know otherwise.
  Tests performed on the remains find that no known 
  chemical was used for the “preservation” process. DNA 
  samples from the remains confirm that the creatures are 
  not human. In fact, their genetic structure does not fall 
  into an easily classifiable category. 
  These creatures represent much more than the shadow 
  of a threat. They are not actually dead.
  Left uninterred for a day (one sun/moon cycle), an 
  exhumed serpent awakens, weakened but still quite deadly. 
  However, this is by no means an instant process.
  After two or three hours above ground, the remains 
  begin to change coloring. After four more hours, water 
  begins to bead on the body, even in a humidity-controlled 
  environment. After 12 or 13 more hours, the faintest signs 
  of biological processes can be heard within the body.
  The last hour shows movement in the extremities, 
  culminating with the creature waking. Each living being 
  within clear view of the serpent feels suddenly overcome 
  by fatigue, losing 1 WP. The creature begins hunting in 
  the same way as Xa, its cousin that was previously freed.
  Those venturing out at night in an attempt to uncover 
  what’s in the mounds must make two consecutive Luck 
  rolls to avoid being detected. If both succeed, they uncover 
  one of the interred serpent folk after a full night of dig-
  ging. Digging machinery is out of the question; it would 
  obviously draw attention from the cult farmhouse.
  The defacement of the mounds will be discovered 
  the next day. That leads to a police detail staking out the 
  area for weeks.
  It’s highly likely the Agents will only get one chance to 
  cut into the mounds.
  Destroying the Mounds
  Demolishing the mounds requires vast amounts of 
  time, money, and access to explosives or earth-mov-
  ing machinery.
  Such a task requires a successful Science (Geology) 
  roll and either a Demolitions or Heavy Machinery roll, in 
  addition to 2D10+2 hours uninterrupted at the site. This 
  time will be very hard to come by, since many people 
  frequent the mound site.
  Bulldozing the mounds is another option, but it 
  is a bad one. In addition to drawing people from the 
  cult farmhouse, it wakes the degenerate serpent folk 
  interred there.
  
  23
  // Future/Perfect, Part 1 //
  // Delta Green //
  It does not appear even vaguely human, and anyone 
  seeing it loses 1/1D6 SAN.
  Behavior
  Xa’s hunting style has developed over the years. It realizes 
  that humans have overrun the world, and they are more 
  advanced and dangerous than the humans it last knew 
  from the Adena culture. They have weapons and abilities 
  that it does not fully understand. It knows they can cause 
  serious injury at a distance, but it does not comprehend 
  how any human technology works.
  Xa hunts by walking on backroads at night in its 
  more vulnerable-looking disguises—a little girl, a young 
  woman, an old woman—waiting for a human to approach 
  it. Due to the crude nature of its disguises, such illusions 
  appear unclothed, and are often startling for those who 
  come across them. It has learned that humans are social to 
  the point where they will ignore signs of danger until it is 
  far too late. 
  The creature’s main weakness is blood. While gorging, 
  the creature enters a torporous state, akin to a heroin high, 
  when it is eminently vulnerable and unable to protect 
  itself. This occurs only after the killing is done and the vic-
  tim is to be digested. Such digestions often take more than 
  two weeks, during which time the creature is completely 
  immobile. It usually drags off its prey to one of several 
  “dens” in the woods where it can digest it unmolested.
  Xa
  Before being released by Douglas Yale in 2012, this crea-
  ture had been mentally preying on people near the Chester 
  Mounds for a long time. Since 1923, with the disturbance 
  of its grave when its master was freed, this creature was 
  conscious but trapped. The other 25 serpent folk still 
  hibernate within the mounds.
  Over the decades, Xa slowly “fed” on the power 
  exuded by the minds of those who visited the mounds. At 
  first, it could only do so on solitary individuals, and could 
  exhibit control only over those with a natural mental 
  instability. It could do little but wait and slowly siphon 
  power from lone visitors. But by the late 1970s, it had 
  gained enough power to “touch” people.
  It corrupted Chip Brown during his lonely walks to 
  the mounds in the 1980s, and later his son during his 
  similar walks in the 1990s. Xa’s manipulations gave birth 
  to the New Star Crusade.
  It moved Scott Cogan to kill Lucas Jefferies in 1992. 
  Later, it inspired Douglas Yale to become even more 
  violent, antisocial and crazed than before. Finally, it drew 
  Yale in and sparked a fit of crazed digging, forcing the 
  madman to free it.
  It consumed and became Yale, kicking off a series 
  of brutal, cannibalistic murders from 2012 to 2014. It 
  still haunts the county. It has learned to bury its kills 
  with great care in the wild. But now that Yale is believed 
  dead, and the Ohio River killer case is closed, it kills 
  with impunity.
  Appearance
  Xa can appear as any of its 16 victims, ranging in appear-
  ance from a six-year-old girl to Deputy Arthur Falstaf. It 
  can cycle through these forms in seconds. 
  Without a disguise, Xa is a squat, pale creature ap-
  proximately 1.5 m tall. It stands upright like a man, but 
  has long, muscular arms tipped by crude hands with basic, 
  prehensile thumbs.
  Its skin is the texture of a tire, white and pearles-
  cent but shot through with crimson splotches. Its face is 
  dominated by two huge, vulpine eyes, a slit for a nose, 
  and a jaw that can drop and open to accommodate a vast 
  amount of meat.
  
  24
  // Future/Perfect, Part 2 //
  // Delta Green //
  DISORDER: Especially acute post-traumatic stress disorder. 
  Any significant supernatural threat that costs Moreno 5 or 
  more SAN transforms him into an animal. He unloads his 
  weapon at the source of his fear and fights or shoots anyone 
  who tries to restrain him, and then lapses into a catatonic state 
  from which he never recovers.
  SKILLS: Bureaucracy 31%, Driving 49%, Firearms 60%, 
  HUMINT 35%, Law 20%, Melee Weapons 50%, Persuasion 
  51%, Search 53%, Swim 29%, Unarmed Combat 51%.
  ATTACKS: Smith & Wesson M&P9 pistol 60%, damage 1D10.
  Colt Detective Special .38 revolver 60%, damage 1D8.
  Collapsible baton 50%, damage 1D6.
  Unarmed 51%, damage 1D4–1.
  John Maskenogi
  Two-faced Shawnee author. Native American male, age 45.
  John Maskenogi
  STR 15  CON 16  DEX 8  INT 15  POW 6  CHA 6
  HP 16  WP 3  SAN 30  BREAKING POINT 24
  SKILLS: Accounting 21%, Anthropology 31%, Art (Writing 
  51%), Computer Science 42%, Driving 37%, Persuasion 50%.
  ATTACKS: Unarmed 40%, damage 1D4.
  Danen Ignis
  Leader of the New Star Crusade, aka Michael Brown. 
  White male, age 60.
  Danen Ignis
  STR 12  CON 13  DEX 12  INT 18  POW 10  CHA 18
  HP 13  WP 10  SAN 40  BREAKING POINT 30
  ARMOR: Reinforced Kevlar vest if expecting trouble (Armor 5).
  DISORDER: Obsession with the Chester Mounds.
  SKILLS: Art (Writing) 39%, Computer Science 29%, Driving 
  36%, Firearms 65%, Foreign Language (French) 29%, Foreign 
  Language (Latin) 25%, Heavy Weapons 60%, History 27%, 
  HUMINT 50%, Law 35%, Navigation 40%, Occult 51%, Per-
  suade 75%, Science (Geology) 19%, Survival 40%.
  SPECIAL TRAINING: Cult Teachings (INT).
  ATTACKS: SKS semi-automatic rifle 65%, damage 1D12+2, 
  Armor Piercing 3.
  Glock 40 pistol 65%, damage 1D12.
  Unarmed 40%, damage 1D4–1.
  Xa is quite content to hunt like this indefinitely. It 
  quite likes the quality of prey it has found in the modern 
  era. But if hunted incessantly, or injured on more than one 
  occasion by Agents who seem to understand its abilities 
  and limitations, the creature retreats to the mounds to 
  unearth others of its kind. They descend upon Chester in a 
  killing frenzy, hoping to drive the humans off. Such tactics 
  worked for its kind in the distant past, before the humans 
  became so numerous and powerful. As a last-ditch plan, it 
  can muster up little else.
  Characters
  Special Agent Rigoberto R. Young, DEA
  A Delta Green veteran with a liquid crutch. Hispanic 
  male, age 39.
  Special Agent Young
  STR 12  CON 15  DEX 11  INT 11  POW 8  CHA 9
  HP 14  WP 8  SAN 30  BREAKING POINT 24
  ARMOR: Reinforced Kevlar vest if expecting trouble (Armor 5).
  DISORDER: Addicted to alcohol. If involved in a violent 
  situation without some alcohol to “give him a leg up,” Young 
  is likely to shoot a fellow agent by accident. If there’s gunplay, 
  he must make a Luck roll or target a random companion 
  instead of the target. 
  SKILLS: Alertness 34%, Athletics 60%, Bureaucracy 30%, 
  Computer Science 61%, Driving 45%, Firearms 44%, Foreign 
  Language (Spanish) 45%, Law 52%, Science (Biology) 19%, 
  Science (Chemistry) 45%, Search 45%, Stealth 31%, Un-
  armed Combat 50%, Unnatural 9%.
  ATTACKS: Glock 17 pistol 44%, damage 1D10.
  Unarmed 50%, damage 1D4–1.
  Cincinnati Police Sergeant 
  Stephen Moreno
  A Delta Green agent who has seen far too much. White 
  male, age 41.
  Sergeant Moreno
  STR 13  CON 15  DEX 15  INT 10  POW 12  CHA 14
  HP 14  WP 12  SAN 45  BREAKING POINT 36
  ARMOR: Reinforced kevlar vest while on duty (Armor 5).
  
  25
  // Future/Perfect, Part 2 //
  // Delta Green //
  BLOOD FRENZY: A target that is bleeding causes Xa to enter 
  a blood frenzy. It attempts to grapple and pin the victim. If it 
  succeeds, it drains 1 HP per turn in blood loss until the victim 
  dies. Only a Dodge roll allows the target to escape. A seized 
  victim can attempt an opposed STR roll to struggle free, suffer-
  ing 1D4 damage from tearing flesh. Any successful attack on 
  Xa during the blood frenzy causes this attack to cease. During 
  the blood frenzy, Xa cannot perform any other action until the 
  target is dead or escapes.
  CHANGELING FEAST: Xa can instantly take on the appear-
  ance of any human it has consumed. This illusion is a perfect 
  magical disguise based on ancient serpent-folk rituals, but it 
  has limitations. First, it does not imitate clothing. Second, Xa 
  has not learned human languages, and even in disguise, its 
  body language and demeanor are disturbingly alien. Finally, 
  Xa always casts its natural shadow. In any light source more 
  significant than a candle, an Alertness roll at –40% recogniz-
  es its terrifying shadow, at a cost of 0/1 SAN.
  IMMORTALITY: Xa never grows old, starves to death, or 
  perishes of natural causes. If it fails to feed on fresh meat or 
  blood, after a period of time, it enters a torporous state which 
  can last hundreds, perhaps millions, of years.
  INHUMAN DODGE: Xa has preternatural senses and reaction 
  speed, allowing it to Dodge even firearm attacks. This includes 
  Lethality attacks from machine guns, but not explosives or 
  hypergeometry.
  UNNATURAL BIOLOGY: Xa’s physiology would baffle any 
  biologist. Making a called shot for “vitals” or another appar-
  ently vulnerable area inflicts normal damage, with no spe-
  cial game effect.
  VENOM: If Xa’s bite inflicts damage past a victim’s armor, 
  then the victim also suffers poisoning. The venom has a Speed 
  of 1D6 turns and Lethality of 15%. An antidote that treats 
  snake venom is effective if the victim makes a Luck roll.
  SAN LOSS: 1/1D6
  Xa’s Brethren
  The other 25 degenerate serpent-folk in the Chester 
  Mounds have the same skills and abilities as Xa, though 
  their stats are each 1D4 points lower.
  Average Member of the 
  New Star Crusade
  Forty-six fanatics, ages 18 to 57. The most attractive 
  women are Danen Ignis’ lovers and constant companions. 
  Individual members’ stats vary by ±1D4.
  New Star Crusade Cultist
  STR 10  CON 10  DEX 10  INT 9  POW 7  CHA 7
  HP 10  WP 7  SAN 30  BREAKING POINT 28
  ARMOR: Reinforced Kevlar vest if expecting trouble (Armor 5).
  SKILLS: Alertness 30%, Firearms 50%, Heavy Weapons 40%, 
  Occult 30%, Navigation 30%, Persuade 40%, Search 30%, 
  Stealth 30%, Survival 40%.
  SPECIAL TRAINING: Cult Teachings (INT).
  ATTACKS: Colt AR-15 carbine 50%, damage 1D12, Ar-
  mor Piercing 3.
  Barrett M82A1 heavy sniper rifle 50%, Lethality 20%, 
  Armor Piercing 5, with advanced combat optical gunsight 
  (double base range, double bonus for aiming).
  Glock 17 pistol 50%, damage 1D10.
  Unarmed 40%, damage 1D4–1.
  Xa
  The inhuman Ohio River Killer, a degenerate survival of 
  the serpent-folk.
  Xa
  STR 17  CON 19  DEX 18  INT 13  POW 18 
  HP 18  WP 18
  ARMOR: 2 points of thick, scaly skin
  SKILLS: Alertness 68%, Scent 55%, Search 70%, Stealth 61%, 
  Survival 90%.
  ATTACKS: Grapple 49%, damage special (and see 
  BLOOD FRENZY).
  Bite 25%, damage 1D10+2, Armor Piercing 3 
  (and see VENOM).
  Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game
  Order in hardback from Arc Dream Publishing or in PDF from RPGNow.
  Delta Green: Future/Perfect, Part 1
  Order in PDF from RPGNow.
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Delta Green [multi]/adventures/Future Perfect/Delta Green - Future Perfect Part 2.pdf