Delta Green brings horror and modern conflict to game tables with plenty of adventure support. And now it has an entire connected campaign called Impossible Landscapes (PDF only). A GM can kick off an entire campaign with a pursuit of the terrors of Carcosa and the King in Yellow.
Thanks to Shane Ivey for sending me this book to review. In other RPG news, I have interviewed Shane Ivey and reviewed: Kali Ghati and Lover in the Ice, Night at the Opera, the Agent’s Handbook, and the Handler’s Guide. This campaign kickoff does not try to review the book, but instead offers ideas on how to use the adventures to create an entire campaign. I heartily endorse the adventures, the use of subtle and mind-bending horror, and the suggestion to intersperse the normal with all the crazy shenanigans. My review is five mucilaginous tentacles out of five. I also have to point out the amazing layout.
Delta Green may have the finest layout and art that I have seen in standard RPG books. You look at the cover and weird writing from the back wraps around to the end papers which in many books are blank. Everything is scribbled on with notes from previous agents including the index, but nothing you have to know and are cleared for is ineligible. The RPG book really becomes a game artifact. And this property is not unique to Impossible Landscapes. It is a standard in the line of Delta Green itself.
Impossible Landscapes kicks off in the 90s, the time when Delta Green the RPG debuted in the real world and the focus of their latest kickstarter to bring it shambling back into the modern world. The next of the four interconnected adventures doesn’t start until 2015. In between that time would be a great place to set a campaign, especially one carrying on in the 90s. While the kickstarter will update many existing adventures to the current ruleset, a GM wanting help writing their own modules have many PDFs to choose from that are set in the 90s that would be easy enough to update now.
If the PCs die along they way, they can pass along what they learned without knowing the King in Yellow will return. I think running an entire campaign between this first adventure and then wrapping everything up in the last three would be amazing as well as a real surprise to the players.
This type of campaign set up would support the overall them of surreal horror. Surreal horror will be the eldritch energy that infuses your campaign and brings it to shambling life.
According to Impossible Landscapes, surreal horror skirts the edges of belief. Agents are like planets in an elliptical orbit around the surreal elements that are like the sun. Sometimes they get close, sometimes they are farther away. Horror is seeing a dead friend shamble back to life. Surreal horror is when that dead friend sits down to lunch and everyone else acts as if everything is fine.
There is plenty more advice for GMs on how to successfully run Delta Green in general and these adventures in particular. This advice covers everything from pacing, how to frighten the players, and what types of scenes to run and when.
Impossible Landscapes has travel to another world, time travel, reality warping, corruption, unnatural rituals, and 72 demons to add to the mix. It spans decades, it warps and changes the agents it doesn’t kill or consume, and just reading it left me pondering the consequences and the sheer audacity and scope of the campaign. I really believe this one is worth getting just to read if you think you will never get to play it. If you are going to play it, don’t read a word of it. You’ll be meeting the King in Yellow soon enough.
Thanks to Shane Ivey for sending me this book to review. In other RPG news, I have interviewed Shane Ivey and reviewed: Kali Ghati and Lover in the Ice, Night at the Opera, the Agent’s Handbook, and the Handler’s Guide. This campaign kickoff does not try to review the book, but instead offers ideas on how to use the adventures to create an entire campaign. I heartily endorse the adventures, the use of subtle and mind-bending horror, and the suggestion to intersperse the normal with all the crazy shenanigans. My review is five mucilaginous tentacles out of five. I also have to point out the amazing layout.
Delta Green may have the finest layout and art that I have seen in standard RPG books. You look at the cover and weird writing from the back wraps around to the end papers which in many books are blank. Everything is scribbled on with notes from previous agents including the index, but nothing you have to know and are cleared for is ineligible. The RPG book really becomes a game artifact. And this property is not unique to Impossible Landscapes. It is a standard in the line of Delta Green itself.
Impossible Landscapes kicks off in the 90s, the time when Delta Green the RPG debuted in the real world and the focus of their latest kickstarter to bring it shambling back into the modern world. The next of the four interconnected adventures doesn’t start until 2015. In between that time would be a great place to set a campaign, especially one carrying on in the 90s. While the kickstarter will update many existing adventures to the current ruleset, a GM wanting help writing their own modules have many PDFs to choose from that are set in the 90s that would be easy enough to update now.
If the PCs die along they way, they can pass along what they learned without knowing the King in Yellow will return. I think running an entire campaign between this first adventure and then wrapping everything up in the last three would be amazing as well as a real surprise to the players.
This type of campaign set up would support the overall them of surreal horror. Surreal horror will be the eldritch energy that infuses your campaign and brings it to shambling life.
According to Impossible Landscapes, surreal horror skirts the edges of belief. Agents are like planets in an elliptical orbit around the surreal elements that are like the sun. Sometimes they get close, sometimes they are farther away. Horror is seeing a dead friend shamble back to life. Surreal horror is when that dead friend sits down to lunch and everyone else acts as if everything is fine.
The agents are trying to destroy knowledge of the King in Yellow and kill anyone who knows too much about him. The surreal horror lies in that their very actions could actually lead to them saving and inspiring the playwright who will eventually write the blasphemous play (due to the time distortions involved). The agents' work through the decades may actually bring the King in Yellow to their world in their past and lead to the very struggle they are currently waging.
Even worse, they may not escape and be trapped in the play and actually see the universe as it is. I’m not going to record that revelation here, but if it happens to an agent, they will learn the true extent of the power and influence of the King in Yellow and understand that even if their fellow agents got away this time, they can never really escape the King.
Even worse, they may not escape and be trapped in the play and actually see the universe as it is. I’m not going to record that revelation here, but if it happens to an agent, they will learn the true extent of the power and influence of the King in Yellow and understand that even if their fellow agents got away this time, they can never really escape the King.
There is plenty more advice for GMs on how to successfully run Delta Green in general and these adventures in particular. This advice covers everything from pacing, how to frighten the players, and what types of scenes to run and when.
Impossible Landscapes has travel to another world, time travel, reality warping, corruption, unnatural rituals, and 72 demons to add to the mix. It spans decades, it warps and changes the agents it doesn’t kill or consume, and just reading it left me pondering the consequences and the sheer audacity and scope of the campaign. I really believe this one is worth getting just to read if you think you will never get to play it. If you are going to play it, don’t read a word of it. You’ll be meeting the King in Yellow soon enough.