Worldwatch Wednesday: Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense

The Bureau of Paranormal of Research & Defense is a organization that was founded in 1944 by Professor Trevor Bruttenholm to combat various occult threats uncovered in operations against Nazi Germany.

By 1948, the Bureau was based in a facility in Fairfield, Connecticut, retaining links to various branches of the United States Armed Forces that it had built up during the war.

A private organization that receives funding from several major governments, it had numerous human agents, in addition to some unusually talented or noteworthy agent. Of course, the B.P.R.D. also has had paranormal agents such as Liz Sherman, Abraham Sapien, Johann Krauss, Ben Daimio, and -- of course -- their most famous agent: Hellboy.

Campaign Use

The B.P.R.D. (or something very much like it) is a useful organization in a campaign because it has several attributes that help flesh out the setting and perform some useful game functions:

• We've been around since the War. -- As an organization with a relatively long history has many secrets, many past employees and agents, and many past cases (and possibly artifacts) and ongoing experiments and files;
• Those don't grow on trees, you know -- Government funding isn't always (surprise!) extravagant, or predictable. Some pet projects get the money, while others end up shelved and some things wind up pushed back or short of resources. Until it's an emergency, of course.
• Dark corners of the world -- Adventures for the B.P.R.D. agents take them all around the world, into all the dark places that they must walk.
• The Abyss also gazes -- While some agents' lives are short, others transition through many phases across many major and minor (traumatic?) cases, and developments in their own lives due to exposure to the occult or the use of their own powers. Seldom for the better.
• We've lost track of it -- Part of the reason that the B.P.R.D. tries to keep tabs on personalities and artifacts of interest is that there's always someone (or something) that has an agenda for the world.
• Beyond the Bureau -- Another aspect of the B.P.R.D. is that each agent has ties, alliances, and enemies beyond the Bureau. And sometimes those lead into stories and adventures beyond the current agency mission list.

Fading Sundays: Using Ashen Stars (and Hideous Creatures)

Ashen Stars is a GUMSHOE-powered SF RPG that could be used for Fading Suns. The races might require a bit of tweaking, and of course the background would have to hew closer to Fading Suns (particularly with the importance of investigation and the presence of religion).

The primary adventuring group centers around licensed troubleshooters on the frontiers that are legally empowered to taken on 'law enforcement / problem resolution' jobs.

However, it has something else going for it that makes it quite palatable for an Inquisitorial Seal-powered set of Lazers on a ship: the presence of Kenneth Hite's series of Hideous Creatures for Trail of Cthulhu (another GUMSHOE-powered RPG dealing with, er, Cthulhoid adventures).

Here are some initial suggestions that you may wish to look at:

• Hounds of Tindalos -- great for a near-encounter while transiting via Jumpgate! And then when they begin following you throughout the void by materializing in the corners of your ship -- or even on ground... I guess it just adds to the dangers of jumpgate travel. And perhaps that's the real reason for the Sathra dampers? Perhaps the minds of Sathraists have intersected in some way with those of the Hounds -- or their masters?
• Star Vampires -- an invisible creature whose horrible inhuman visage is slowly revealed by the splattering blood of victims that it feeds on? Perfect for a shadowy encounter on a planet -- perhaps in a town that has ceased to communicate with the main colony of the planet. And initial sorties that have gone to investigate haven't returned.
• Ghouls -- Lazers coming in, expecting to deal with a husk outbreak will be woefully unprepared for these cunning predators. Far more interesting is to introduce them in one of their aspects are denizens of the Dreamlands, and their hints as to how they've been able to colonize the stars via Jumpgates and human exploration. Is there, perhaps, an empire of space-faring ghouls beyond one of the Jumpgates? One shudders at the thought.

Armchair Review: The Nazi Occult

The book The Nazi Occult (from Osprey Publishing) is packed solid with adventure hooks and telling details on the occult in Nazi Germany during WWII.

Here's my review as it appears on RPGNow:

It should be pointed out that this book is written as an 'alternate history', detailing a richly imagined and meticulously researched tapestry of Nazi plans, activities, artifacts and personas. 

With that out of the way, this is a must-have for GMs who are planning to run games (or are already running ones) that are set in WWII with a touch of mystical / magical elements, weird science hints, or even Cthulhoid intrusions. It's also a treasure trove of origin hooks for superheroes or supervillains from the WWII / post-WWII era of comic book gaming.

Even a cursory read will clue you into names major and minor in the network of allied and opposed occult factions; a close read will give you a rundown of a multitude of Ahnenerbe activities around the world, major artifacts that passed through Nazi Occult hands like the Spear of Destiny, the Holy Grail, the Ark of the Covenant (with a tip of the hat to our favorite adventuring archaeologist), Nazi mystical rites with occult significance with their exact dates in the timeline, and ties to locations like Agartha and to technologies like the Vril-powered Bell.

If you want to freak your players out with fantastic and horrific adventure elements strongly grounded in history, this is the book for you.

I strongly recommend you pick it up, and read it with notebook or digital recorded in hand -- to capture all the ideas that will be triggered on a page-by-page read of this tome. And, if you're already familiar with the subject matter, you may find inclusions of well-known and lesser known characters from pop culture and gaming culture added into the mix.

Armchair Review: The Zalozhniy Quartet

I posted my review of this Night's Black Agents adventure earlier in the year on RPGNow, but forgot to put it here:

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Once you've settled in to your regularly Night's Black Agents sessions, I highly recommend The Zalozhniy Quartet.

Set in post-Cold War Europe, agents must unearth the nature of the conspiracy from clues, and a tangled web of allies, foils, and enemies.

I liken it to a shorter Masks of Nyarlathotep, wherein the campaign is best run when the Director (GM) has read through all the materials, has prepared and understood where all the events, clues, NPCs, and linkages are in advance so as to maximize the enjoyment and reward of the players when (if?) they overcome this slew of antagonists and difficulties.

Unlike Masks, the author has gone out of his way to enable running the four segments of the campaign in any order! This means that there are options for each segment to be modified if it is played 2nd, 3rd or last (and therefore a climactic ending) in the campaign.

As a resource for a supernaturally touched post-Cold War Europe, it also has a lot of material to mine and reuse in future campaigns.

I'm a bit daunted by the modern day espionage campaign; perhaps I always was. But when I remind myself that a campaign can be grounded in cinematic versions of espionage, then I can probably try my hand at it.

There is a certain level of commitment to this type of campaign, certainly. And my old GM muscles want me to actually insert it into an ongoing campaign. But I think it actually might work as is, sort of a tip of the hat to British TV series -- a complete season in one go.

Armchair Reviews: Eldritch Skies

I already posted my review for Eldritch Skies on RPGNow / DriveThruRPG, and I really wanted to give it a 5-star rating. Unfortunately, my preferences in terms of organization, structure, information architecture, and layout really came out and I had to downgrade by one star.

Here's the review as it appears:

First the negative: this book is not really laid out (or organized) to my tastes. It's done in a competent manner, but there are certain slips that, in my opinion should be addressed to make the book stronger and easier not only to read, but also to use a as a reference book. In general, I do agree with the ordering of the material, but I feel strongly about trimming the 'game fiction for flavor', a more refined layout from the two column approach, and a more detailed table of contents.

Next, the positive: this is, surprisingly, a different take on the Lovecraftian mythology. It goes purist in that it ignores a lot of the post-Lovecraft additions to the Mythos, but allows for both the pessimistic and optimistic Lovecraftian play. And it takes the characters into space, allows characters to play with sorcery, forces characters to deal with the various races on Earth and beyond, and exposes characters to Hyperspatial radiation.

The games you play here could easily echo a Twilight Zone episode or Bradbury's Mars tales, your games can inject a sense of exploring the unknown, pushing the limits, and taking mankind beyond its cradle into a dangerous universe that could easily kill him or, strangely enough, king him. Not all endings need to result in the deaths of the protagonists -- some might survive, or even thrive as Randolph Carter did in the Dreamlands.

The juxtaposition of the open secret of hyperdimensional travel with the strange dangers of the mythos-filled universe is interesting for me. The actions of world governments and individuals in the timeline feel plausible and interesting to me, and the opportunities for a different type of space adventure / horror / exploration campaign are very appealing.

I also like (though I've not playtested) the unfolding of the cinematic Unisystem ruleset to allow for fast play. The character templates give a broad spectrum of recognizable archetypes, the character creation rules and gear give enough twists to optimize and ready your character for adventure.

I would like to add several things however:

This is a densely detailed, finely crafted setting. It provides standard kits for different types of military and scientific teams. It details a wide variety of realms and worlds that humanity has gone to or can go to. It provides a ready kit of well-known (and lesser known) creatures and dangers to threaten the PCs with. And it manages to maintain a Science Fiction feel despite the presence of the Lovecraftian elements. You don't get that overwhelming 'small band of heroes against a government conspiracy' feel that you do in Delta Green (which I love); in Eldritch Skies you get a 'humanity with all its strengths and foibles against the sea of unknowable terror and wonder that is the universe' vibe.

There's potential here to celebrate exploration of the universe, to celebrate the human spirit that seeks to push farther and delve further into cosmic mysteries than it has any right to, to celebrate cooperation and conflict and courage. There's also potential to expose all the ugly sides of the human condition -- greed, pride, and a lust for personal power at the cost of other peoples' lives and loves.

It reminds me of the potential of shows like the early season(s) of X-files and Earth: Final Conflict, and of (as mentioned above) the Twilight Zone episodes about space exploration and the Bradbury Mars Chronicles -- a wonderfully dark merging of science and weirdness that somehow avoids becoming science fantasy (which it technically is) and somehow avoids being merely horror in space.

If this is your kind of thing, give Eldritch Skies a shot.

On the Radar: Eldritch Skies

Eldritch Skies seems like an interesting Unisystem RPG. Especially with the Mythos-inspired setting, and the MegaTraveller-inspired font choice and cover design (YMMV).

This book is a complete role-playing game of Lovecraftian science fiction that uses the Cinematic Unisystem. It contains all rules needed to play, and requires no additional material beyond your imagination and a few dice.

In 1931, the Miskatonic Antarctic Expedition found the Elder Ones' city.

In 947, the Mi-Go crashed at Roswell.

In 1958, we used barely understood eldritch powers and took the step to Mars.

In 1994, human scientists cracked alien technology and overcame the lightspeed barrier and brought us the stars. They also brought us the madness that lies between them -- the mind-twisting undarkness of hyperspace.

It is 2030. The Gilman-Hawking drive has given us access to the stars. But we are not alone. We've never been alone.  Aliens, gods, and monsters are out there; but they've always been here.

We walk amongst giants. Tread carefully.

I like Unisystem, and -- like almost all Cthulhu Mythos influenced settings -- it should be fairly easy to crib material from other game settings.

More Prometheus and Fading Suns musings

I posted before about how the upcoming Ridley Scott film Prometheus can serve as inspiration for the Fading Suns RPG. And that was before I saw the full trailer above.

Aside from the very obvious option of tying in the major archeological find here with the Annunaki of the Fading Suns, there is a lot that might be mined for direct application to the way the Guild (in particular the Scravers and Engineers) might mount such an expedition to a secret Annunaki world.

The fact that the Fading Suns universe holds penalties for non-authorized citizens of the Known Worlds that use high technology shouldn't matter here -- Engineers, Scravers, Charioteers, etc. are covered by the Doctrine of Martyrs, allowing them to take on the burden of understanding technology and the higher sciences.

Another option that can be used: this scenario that unfolds in the trailer can be the very reason the Second Republic -- humanity at the height of its scientific and mystical knowledge -- fell apart. It could be the very reason entire systems were sealed off. It could be why certain technologies and certain gateway technologies are still proscribed, and why the Universal Church of the Pancreator (as well as Guildsmen and Nobles in the know) punish violators secretly, violently, and permanently.

Update

Below is the UK version of the trailer. It's different from the U.S. version above.