Delta Green - another dead drop lands...

The latest dead drop.

There was a surprise parcel for me this Saturday, the latest Delta Green release. This one is an anthology of scenarios which have been released separately as PDFs and PODs but are now gathered nicely together in an offset press hardcover. This was an extra over the original Kickstarter, but Arc Dream do a great job of offering extra material at a decent rate through the channels that they've established for fulfilment.

I backed the first Kickstarter that Arc Dream did back in 2015, and it reached a number of books when it was worth going in deep in the backing. That Kickstarter is still not quite fulfilled, but a couple of times a year a new, wonderfully illustrated, fantastically edited and well written tome lands through my letterbox.

I trusted the team behind this, because Kickstarter wasn't their first rodeo. The Delta Green team were into crowd-funding early on, on a platform called Fundable (long since gone), initially to produce a combined volume of the various chapbooks that they had produced for the initial release that subsequently went for silly amounts on eBay. The result was a hardback book called Delta Green: Eyes Only and more subsequently followed. 

They've subsequently run two more Kickstarters - one for Delta Green - The Labyrinth and more recently for The Conspiracy, the original 1990s material redone in the new style and format. I backed both fully and I'm not disappointed in what I have received.

Delta Green is a game of cosmic horror and although it deals with the Lovecraftian mythos, the feel is vastly different to Call of Cthulhu. It's set in the modern day, with formal government agencies and/or an illegal conspiracy within the government to oppose the occult horrors.

The game is a laser-focused d100 percentile engine, streamlined and focused. The experience is different to Call of Cthulhu, perhaps colder and more dangerous. The sanity system and bonds to family and friends feel more robust and real. The end times are coming and the stars are nearly right, but perhaps the agents can hold back the darkness for a little. It will cost them everything and more. If you're curious, the Quickstart is free and gives a good flavour for the game. 

It will taste of ashes.

I absolutely recommend this game and setting; I've run several one off games, in one case turning the whole opening series of Stranger Things into a sandbox scenario. I'm also on a promise to my fellow Eternal Lies player and the GM to run Impossible Landscapes when we finish that game, a campaign that explores the King in Yellow mythos.

2 February 2025