Welcome to Agents Dossier, a Delta Green actual play series brought to you by 12 Sided Stories.
And now your GM, Wes Otis.
Hello Patreon listeners and welcome to the very first show of Delta Green Agents Dossier.
We are going to be doing this show especially for our Patreon backers as just a really big
thank you for supporting us, supporting 12 Sided Stories.
The way that this is going to work is we're starting out with Michelle as our first agent,
and then we're going to slowly work in other agents, as in cast members, as we go along.
But for right now, let's introduce Michelle.
Hello, nice to be talking to all of you. And I'm really excited. I get to play Agent Perla
Ayala and we're going to learn a little bit about her story.
Yep. So basically, this is before any of the characters have actually joined Delta Green,
and then we're going to kind of get everybody into the mix as we go along.
So why don't you tell us more about who you're playing and what's her background, all that
good stuff.
Well, Perla is currently a professor at the University of Virginia. She is a forensic
anthropologist, so she loves to deal with them skeletons. She's very close to her family.
Her parents, Horhen and Sylvia, are still alive and actually pretty young enough. And
she has a brother named Peter. She's also married to her husband, Ron Calderon. They
have this nice little life. She's, like I said, a professor of forensic anthropology.
Her husband is also a professor of English. I just made that up on the spot.
We can make stuff up. It's a game, after all. The family members and everybody you just
mentioned in this game are your bonds. Now, for those of you who've never played, this
is the new edition of Delta Green. It's one of my favorite lines or IPs, whatever. Even
if you never play a Delta Green game, I think you should own the books. And they don't pass
any money. So they're great. It's awesome. Awesome stuff.
It's very close to Call of Cthulhu, but you have bonds. You can use those bonds to lessen
the amount of sanity you have to take. So, whenever you have to roll against your sanity,
if something horrible happens, then you can use your bonds. But over a while, your bonds
start to break down. There starts to be more problems.
Delta Green is not, like all Cthulhu games, but probably even worse, a game that usually
has a happy ending. But that's the ride. That's the fun part, watching everything go down.
So, you're teaching. How popular are your courses? Are you a popular teacher?
Flippenberg-Helpingen I wouldn't say I'm a popular teacher.
I'm well-liked, but it's not like people are knocking down my door to take my courses.
My courses are usually for the more advanced students who are really going to go into forensic anthropology.
So, PhD people or masters?
Probably both.
How many classes do you teach in a week, do you think? Probably three or four?
Probably about three, because the rest of my time is going to be advising doctoral candidates.
After a long day of teaching, you head back home. Your husband is cooking dinner. He usually
gets home. Is he a college professor as well?
Yes, he's also at the University of Virginia.
He gets back a little bit early and is cooking dinner. Does he teach as advanced classes
as you, or does he teach the hundreds and two hundreds class or something like that?
He's usually teaching the undergrads.
So he goes, how was your day? Did you have a good day?
Yeah, it was pretty good. Pretty standard day, not much happened. How about you?
It went well. One of my students left this flyer. He pulls out this orange flyer with
a bunch of band names on there. Do you remember going to shows?
Oh my god, it's been forever. This is so cute.
Yeah, it's interesting. This last one's kind of weird. It says it's the Grave's End.
Probably somebody trying to be edgy.
Well, yeah. I think that the picture of the grave with a shovel in the dirt is kind of
funny. I'm sure it's like a metal band or something.
Oh, more than likely.
How mortified would students be if we showed up?
They would die. It would be the Grave's End.
Yeah, it's pretty cheesy. You think we should go?
Oh yeah.
Alright. So you guys have a pretty good rest of the week. You're sitting in your office
on Friday. This show with all these bands is happening on Saturday. You hear a knock
on the door and standing there is a man in a black suit with a red tie, nice like silk
tie. He's older, probably in his mid-50s and he just kind of looks like a fed, like a stereotypical
fed except for the fact that he has a colorful tie on. He says, ma'am, are you the head of
the anthropology courses or do you teach anthropology?
I teach forensic anthropology.
Ah, okay. I'm in the right spot. My name is Agent Roos.
Agent?
Yes, I'm with the FBI and we recently had a discovery at a construction site. It's a
set of bones. We're not quite sure what they are. So we were kind of hoping to maybe hire
you as a consultant to come down and take a look.
Well, that sounds really interesting. I'd like to see some credentials first though,
please.
I'm sorry, I'm not used to being on campus and it's kind of weird. He pulls out a photo
and a badge, his wallet and shows you. He goes, here you go. If you're interested, it's
actually here in town. They're building a new theater near Scott Stadium and you know
it's not very far. This guy's obviously not a local so everything seems really far away
from him. Anyway, they called us in to check it out. There were some oddities with the
bones. Anyway, so if you wouldn't mind going with us, my partner's actually out in the
car. If you wouldn't mind driving over with us, you could follow us if you want.
Yeah, I'll probably follow you. Let me just text my husband and let him know.
Absolutely. We'll meet you out in the parking lot.
Alright. I probably have some sort of kit because I've been on a lot of archaeological
digs and things like that. I dig my kit out and head to my car and I text my husband on
my way to the car.
Okay. Everything seemed legit.
I text him back, yeah. I checked his badge, looked legitimate. Everything looks good.
Alright. You get out to the car and his partner's a woman probably a little bit older than he
is. She's black with short hair and nice suit on and her hair is completely white at this
point. She says, hi, I'm Agent Wells.
How do you do? I'm Dr. Ayala.
Oh, it's nice to meet you. You just follow us and come over to the site. So you follow
over there and they've got this large section of ground, like this big square dug out of
this area near the sports stadium. And the people kind of stand around. You can tell
it's like crew and management wanting this to be resolved quickly.
Agent Wells says, well, they called us two days ago. At first we thought we were dealing
with a skeleton and it wasn't going to be that big of a deal, but they said that there
was some problem with it. We had no idea. She's talking to you as you guys are walking
down this graded dirt slope. And as we dug up more, we found more than one skeleton.
And so when they found multiple skeletons, that's when they called the FBI. First they
just called the police department, local PD. So you get down to the bottom and there's
a group of like 20 skeletons, like a mass grave, like they've just been thrown in and
the bones of each of them are fused together. So it's not separate skeletons. It's a bunch
of skeletons fused together into one block.
Okay. And I go, Ooh, I wonder what could have caused this. This is, you're right. It's unusual.
Yes, it is. Do you now, what kind of skills do you have? Do you have anthropology? You
have?
I have anthropology. I have forensics. I have archeology.
Do an archeology role first, I would think.
Made it 28 under my 40.
Okay, cool. So you look at it and the first things that you recognize is the fact that
the bones don't look aged. They don't look like they've been in the ground for a very
long time. So you have no way to go, Oh, it's five years old or it's a year old or whatever,
but you can tell that they're newish as it were. The other thing that you notice is that
you have like a femur of one skeleton fused into the skull of the next skeleton. So they
make a large web of skeletons fused together. You can't see like melting or anything. It's
almost as if they were alive this way.
It's almost like conjoined twins, but multiple.
Yeah, like a mass. The other thing that you notice is that it looks like, because you
can tell the difference between like their pelvic bones and everything else, it looks
like it's all men. There's no women.
Interesting.
Here. Okay.
Are there any other things like in the dirt, around the dirt that might give me any clues?
Give me a search role.
I did not make it 64 over my 40.
Okay. So you're searching around and yeah, you find this chip of black stone that is
out of place. Why it's here, you have no clue. It kind of looks like lava rock, the really
shiny black lava rock.
Kind of like obsidian a little bit.
A little bit. Yeah. And they have them like all over like Hawaii and stuff like that where
there's active volcanoes. Anyway, so it's a really shiny rock that looks like a triangle
and it's really thin. Obviously someone created it.
It doesn't look like an arrowhead?
No, it doesn't. It looks like a perfectly measured out triangle. That's about, each
side is about an inch.
Okay. Can I tell the ages of the skeletons at all?
You're going to have to do more research for that. Like you know how old they were in their
lives?
Yeah.
Give me a forensics role.
Yes, 38 under my 50.
Okay. Most of them look like they were in their late 20s and mid 40s.
Okay.
So a good 20 year span.
Okay. Well, from what I can tell, all of these skeletons are male, 20s to 40s, but they're
all blended together like organically. Not, it doesn't look like they were burned and
the bones fused somehow. It looks like they grew this way, which makes no sense to me.
And I found this and I showed them the triangle thing, which definitely looks manmade, but
without a full team here.
Agent Russ says, what do you mean team? Like an archeological dig?
Yes. I mean, you know, cause you would need archeologists, you need a geologist to find
out more about these, this black rock. We would need, you know, we would need anthropologists
just to understand some of the history of the area.
Agent Wells says, is that something that you could put together?
Yeah. Yeah, actually I could.
All right. Well, we'll have human resources give you a call and talk about how much all
this is going to cost. And I'll go tell the overweight gentleman up there with the odd
look on his face that he won't be able to start working again for another, how long
do you think this will all take?
I, this is going to take a while. I mean, this could take weeks, if not months.
Not my problem. And then Wells starts to walk up the thing.
I have one more question. Am I able to tell, like, ethnicity as far as is it, are they
Native American? Are they African American?
No, not right off. That's a little bit deeper dive that you would have to do.
A lot more research, like longer hours. You're even a little sketchy on how old they were
when they died because you have your field kit, but some stuff just, it takes a lot longer.
Okay. So I go back to the university and I have to start talking to the higher ups about
assembling a team and giving us the time to do it and everything like that, because that's
not something you could just do on a whim. And so I'm going through the process of that.
Okay. Who would you go to in particular? Like, would you go straight to the dean or would
you go to the head of your department?
Probably the head of my department first.
What's the head of your department's name?
Really?
Yep.
Joy Crandall.
Wow, that's a good name. I like that. Joy Crandall. So you're heading over to Joy Crandall's
office. Come in, come in. So nice to see you. How are you?
I'm doing well, Joy. How are you?
Oh, you know, every day is good. How can I help you?
Well, something very interesting happened to me today.
And I had actually an agent from the FBI show up at my office.
Oh, well, that's exciting.
It was. They're actually what happened was they are digging for a new theater in town,
you know, over by the stadium.
Yes, I know.
And they found some skeletal remains, a lot of them, and they asked if I would put together
a team to go and dig it out and figure out what happened there.
Well, so they don't think it's a like foul play kind of thing.
It's
No, but it is different.
Well, I think the best way to go about it is to talk to your students and find out,
you know, maybe pick students that want to work for either extra credit or as part of
their thesis or project. Start with them. Is the FBI footing the bill for this?
That's the best news. Yes, they are.
Well then I'm completely OK with all of it. As long as my budget doesn't have to take
a hit, I'm perfectly fine with that.
Exactly. I just I know I'm going to need other professors.
Yeah, of course. I would like to see what the site looks like.
Oh, that would be lovely.
I mean, if it's as interesting as you say.
Well, I do need an archaeologist for the dig. I would love to have you come along.
I figured we could work around our teaching schedules and it's close enough by. It's not
like we're flying to, you know, some other country or something.
True, true. No, I agree. All right. Well, do you teach tomorrow?
No, actually, tomorrow's one of my off days.
So you don't have any classes tomorrow? It's Saturday. Let's say Tuesday.
OK.
That gives you a few days to get the group together and we can all go out there and see what's what.
All right. I think this is going to be really interesting.
Should be. Have a good weekend.
You too. Thanks.
We're going to fast forward to you guys going to the show.
OK.
You have sent out all the emails. You have most the PhD candidates who are not completely
burnt out at this point are really excited.
The ones who just wanted to end are like, all right, fine, we'll be there.
You also have a lot of just volunteers, people who pop up who are like, oh, I really want to do this.
There are your overachievers, you know, anything that looks good on a resume also popping up.
So you guys put on what you feel is like your best outfits to go to a place where someone
your age probably hasn't been to in a while.
So, you know, your husband has on jeans and a t-shirt.
What would you be wearing?
Probably similar like jeans and a t-shirt, maybe like a little jacket, you know.
Right, right.
You guys head over there and the first like most of it is pretty hardcore metal stuff.
I don't know. Is that something you think you guys would even enjoy?
Probably not, but we're just laughing because it's all so silly.
Are you guys drinking at all?
I'll probably have a beer.
Okay. So you have a beer and you're watching and then Graves End finally comes on
because they're like the headliner.
They've got on the white makeup with the black around their eyes and everything.
And, you know, they look like Norwegian.
They look like a Norwegian death metal band, definitely.
And they start to play, there's a dissonance in the melody that is hitting your brain wrong.
It just kind of starts to really feel like you're almost like you're underwater
and everything's kind of muted in a way.
Like everybody's like dancing and running around in a mosh pit kind of thing.
And they look like they are turning back into like apes.
Right.
They're kind of slumped over and they're hitting each other and they're screaming and everything.
And your husband turns around and just starts throwing up.
Make a sand check for me.
Yes, 43 under my 70.
Okay. So you are, for whatever reason, keeping yourself above the threshold of whatever the hell this is.
And you see he's throwing up and having a really hard time.
And that the crowd is getting more and more dangerous.
Like some of them seem to be like attacking each other, biting each other's faces,
doing horrible, primitive caveman kind of stuff.
The band seems like they're far away.
The music is right there all around you.
But there is there's definitely a strange temporal distance between you and them as they're cranking through this song.
That's just bizarre.
What do you want to do?
I think I grab my husband's wrist and try and get him to the door.
He doesn't fight you.
And you guys get out of the door.
What do you want to do?
I want to get as far away from the building as I can because I'm seeing what was going on in there was dangerous.
So I try and get him to the car.
Okay. When you guys get in the car, you look up and you notice that there are two figures.
You can't make them out because they're all in black with black hoods.
And they look like they're armed and they go through the front door.
You can still kind of hear the music all the way out to where you're at because those clubs don't have the greatest whatever.
And then you can hear the popping of automatic gunfire.
And then there's just silence.
Do you leave before they come out or do you watch from the car?
Get down the block a couple blocks and then call 911.
Okay. You leave, you go down, you call up 911 and report what you've seen.
And they say, okay, we're going to stay where you're at.
We're going to send a car down.
Sure enough, within five to 10 minutes, a bunch of cops show up and they locate you.
You explain to them what happened, takes down all your information, doesn't give you any indication of what's happened.
Just says thank you for your time and kind of send you on your way.
The next morning, which is going to be Sunday, you wake up and there's no mention of it at all in the newspapers.
There's no nothing.
Sounds like burping.
So there's no mention of any like gunplay, no police, anything.
So I'm going to jump forward again.
Your husband's sick the entire day Sunday.
It takes him a while. Monday morning, he's feeling much better.
Oh, good. Okay.
Tuesday, after you've gotten everybody together, you get to the site.
And the foreman of the dig sites, you know, asking a ton of questions.
How long is this going to take? What is why does this have to happen?
Can't you move all the bodies out anyway so we can keep working?
Yada yada yada.
And Dr. Crandall is just like, look, you know, we don't want to move anything until we find out what we have.
We're going to start moving stuff out as we figure out what's going on.
Because there's obviously a lot of bodies here.
So you start to dig for a good portion of the day.
Now, are the agents there?
The agents aren't there this time.
OK. And I forgot, I'm sorry, the male agents name?
Agent Roos and then Agent Wells.
Agent Roos is the older white gentleman.
And then Agent Wells is the older black agent.
So a couple of days go by and as they dig deeper, they find that the area of skeletons covers about a 30 by 30 foot square.
Yikes.
Perfectly. Right.
And there are several more skeletons than originally thought.
And as they get down to the first layer, they realize that there are skeletons that are on top of each other.
So it's not just one layer of skeletons.
It's like it's huge.
It's like a big block of skeletons going down.
You can see through it like there's like you can see through holes and stuff.
It's not like there's mortar or anything holding them together.
And at some point, Dr. Crandall comes up to you and goes, I thought we'd be able to unearth at least the mass of this and move it.
But it's it's very deep.
I know this is this is so bizarre.
I mean, it's a perfect 30 by 30 square.
I'm wondering if the perfect 30 by 30 cube, do we need to dig on either side 30 feet down till we get to the bottom of it and then somehow extract it in one piece?
How do you extract a 30 by 30 foot cube of fused together skeletons?
Very carefully.
No, I mean, I think we should definitely keep digging, but it might be a while till we get it completely free of the earth.
Yeah, I guess the best we can do is dig as much as we can and document as much as we can so that if it does break, we at least have photographs.
Right. Makes sense.
Because it's even too big to like, you know, how archaeologists will put stuff in like a foam or, you know, whatever.
It's even too much for that.
Like, yeah, absolutely.
You spend the next few days digging and sure enough, it keeps going down and going down.
It's literally thousands of skeletons fused together in different angles and everything else.
Some of it defies some logic, and as you go farther down, people on the site start to get a little shaken.
I need you to make a sand check as well, just because looking at this every day is making your brain hurt.
I made it a 10.
OK, so you're still OK.
You're still able to kind of say that there has to be a logical explanation for this.
So on Thursday night, you drive up and your husband's car is not there.
And he's already texted you that he's going out with some friends to watch some game or something like that, something innocuous.
And when you park, you notice that the door between your house and the garage is open.
I'm probably still weirded out by the whole experience Saturday and everything that's going on.
I don't know if I feel comfortable just walking into my house.
OK, so what do you want to do?
I don't know.
I guess sitting in your car and sitting in my car like so.
Have I pulled into the garage already?
You pulled in and then you realize that the door going into the house, leading into the house is open.
Well, then I might not think anything of it because my husband may have just left it open.
OK.
So I guess I just walk in.
Honey?
You hear what sounds to be like sizzling from the kitchen.
OK.
Is there anything in the garage like a bat or a golf club or something?
OK, I grab a bat and I slowly like try and peek around the corner to the kitchen.
You see a guy standing there.
He's got on a very similar black outfit to the one that you saw the gunman in standing there.
He's got a couple of eggs cooking on your stove.
Can you give me a stealth roll?
Wow.
Ten again under my 30.
All right.
So you're kind of looking at him.
He flips the eggs over, puts it on a couple pieces of bread, some ham, puts it on.
What are you going to do?
Do I recognize him?
No.
But he's just cooking eggs in my house.
Basically, yes.
Can I help you?
If you had better soda in this house, it would be nice.
That would be a good start.
He picks up the sandwich and takes a big bite.
And that's where we're going to stop it before you can say anything.
So thank you very much for playing, Michelle.
I appreciate it.
Thank you.
And I hope everybody enjoyed our first episode of Delta Green Agent Dossier.
We appreciate you guys listening.
We really appreciate your support of the show.
Our goal with these shows is to probably put out two a month.
That would be probably where they're not going to be as long as our normal shows,
but they're still going to be cool.
So that's good.
Well, it's fun.
Michelle and I are on Playit Mail Games.
She's at where are you at?
Michoulu?
At Michoulu, M-I-C-H-U-L-A-T-U.
That's where you can find me on the socials, usually Twitter.
Yeah, I'm pretty much Twitter too.
And you can find our stuff on DriveThruRPG or on BattleBards under Playit Mail Games.
So if you're interested in sound effects, check those out.
Thank you guys so much for listening and we look forward to talking at you soon.