Die Nachtbrüder

Richmond Corby is a dying man. Faced with a creeping end in palliative care at home, he's decided to instead return to the site of a previous investigation into an unusual religious sect, contact the cannibalistic subterranean humanoids the sect worships, and allow them to devour him. This, he knows, will grant him a form of immortality. His real motive, however, is to stop seeing himself die through his daughter's eyes.

Most of his contacts from the old days are dead, insane, or would kill him if they knew what he wanted to do. Thus, he has to reach out further into the network of Delta Green to find someone to help him-the Agents.

## Involving the Investigators

Corby seeks the Agents' help through his contacts in Delta Green. Use whichever Delta Green NPC you think would be willing to pass on a request from a dying ex-agent (bypassing A-Cell in the process). Corby's request comes through whatever channels the intermediary uses. They relay:

* Name, cellphone number and address of Richmond Corby.
* Corby's status as a friendly and former agent.
* That he needs help completing a Delta Green-related task.

All Corby really needs from the Agents is transportation; the symptoms of his late-stage cancer precludes him from driving himself.

Corby may be introduced in an earlier scenario as an ailing source of information on past investigations (or Delta Green itself). If questions about ghouls somehow come up, he'll express the opinion that unless actively killing people, they're mostly harmless and should be respected, regardless of their physical monstrosity.

## The Target

Richmond Corby is a white male, 71 years old, who worked for Delta Green during the 90s and 00s, at which time he was an agent of a federal agency that mirrors one of the Agents' day-jobs. He retired at 65, and was thus downgraded to friendly status in Delta Green. By the time he was was diagnosed with aggressive lung cancer, he had only provided operational support to the conspiracy, and hasn't been a direct part of an investigation in a decade.

He's living in hospice care with his daughter, Denise Stovall (white female, 36, fast-food restaurant manager). Her house is a small bungalow in a run-down suburb of Fort Wayne, IN. His son, George Corby (white male, 41, bank teller), lives in Chicago, IL. Denise and George's mother, Tammy (white female, 66, inpatient treatment for alcoholism), divorced Corby in 1999.

A nurse, Monica Truman (black female, 39), visits the Stovall home for a few hours every day of the work-week to attend to Corby's physical care. She's well-versed in scams targeting the aged, and keeps Denise up-to-date with anything odd that happens with Corby or the house.

Meeting Corby is the first challenge in this scenario. Talking person risks the PCs being seen by his daughter or his nurse, but contact by phone also leaves records for police to follow.

Once he's in conversation with the Agents, he tells them the following:

* He has one final task to take care of. It's related to Delta Green, and it's important.
* He can't risk his family or friends in completing this task.
* All he needs from the Agents is transportation to a place where they can leave him, alone.
* It won't be dangerous if everyone follows his instructions.
* He can't tell them what the task is, but knows and has everything he needs to to be able to complete it.

If pressed for details he'll add:

* The estimated total driving time, a little under four hours.
* He may hint that it's more personal than professional-"I've given my life to the group. All I ask is that they give me this one thing back."
* If you want, Corby can bargain his knowledge of past Delta Green operations for the Agents' assistance. He offers to fill them in on details of unnatural phenomena they haven't learned themselves, or on the recent history of Delta Green itself. (The scenario could also begin with the Agents seeking out Corby for this very reason.)

## Getting Him Out

Corby has to take his portable oxygen tank and a walker with him on the trip; his mobility is seriously impaired. He's secreted a small 'go bag' behind the headboard of his bed; it contains an old (loaded) revolver, a flashlight, a change of clothes (with extra underwear), sealed and stamped goodbye letters to his children, and a notebook. This notebook is his retirement's work, a collation of everything he remembers about his investigations as part of Delta Green (see Statistics). He tries to hide this notebook from the Agents.

Denise leaves for work at a quarter to 7 every morning of the work-week, and returns between 6 PM and 9PM depending on whether she's gone to see her boyfriend, Tom Baccani (white male, 41, auto shop manager). Denise is not on speaking terms with her ex-husband, Daniel (white male, 38, unemployed).

Denise regards her father as an unreflective asshole. Taking care of him is supposed to help them come to a rapprochement before he dies, but he hates feeling like a burden and displaying weakness in front of his children.

It's up to the Agents and Corby to work out a plan to get him out of the house and on the road. Demand skill tests as appropriate for their plan during both the extraction and the journey.

## On the Way

Stovall reports her father missing the minute she realizes he's not at home. Any details she might have about the abductors (i.e. the Agents) she passes on to the Fort Wayne police, who then act on the information as necessary.

Once he's out the house, Corby tries to bum cigarettes off of any Agents who smoke. He also needs to use the bathroom, get antacids or wait out bouts of carsickness every (1d10 x 10) minutes of the journey. When he's close to the final destination, he cajoles the Agents to stop at a pizza place. While visiting the bathroom, he rips the pages with the Contact Ghoul spell out of his notebook, and burns the rest in a convenient sink or garbage can. His last act on the road is to mail the goodbye letters to his children.

## Where He's Going

Corby's destination is a cemetery near Bethel, OH, specifically the space in front of three old mausolea-vandalized relics of families now all dead or dispersed. This is a sacred place to the Bethel ghoul cult, die Nachtbrüder. In his notebook he has a rough map pointing to the cemetery, though it's sparse enough that Agents can't tell what it means until close to Clermont County (or they are familiar with the area).

The ghoul cult in Bethel is made up of a small handful of ghouls (equal to the number of Agents) and a penumbra of humans whose devotion consists of providing their bodies, and the bodies of their family members, to the ghouls when the humans die. The ghouls serve the cult as a kind of collective lares. The ghouls usually take upon the appearance of past cult elders when receiving the bodies, which they devour out of sight of the human cultists.

## Conclusions

Agents bring matters to a head by either demanding full disclosure before cooperating, or through figuring out his plan, or by following his instructions.

* If the Agents absolutely refuse to cooperate without disclosure of Corby's plan, he euphemistically describes what he wants to do: he knows a "secret group" who, if he gives up his current life, will allow him to "live forever, in a way," with them.
* Threatening him with death means nothing; he defies them to kill him. If he is threatened, a Psychology roll (with a 20% bonus) reveals that he's eager for a violent confrontation, if it seems likely to end in his death.
* He rationalizes objections to feeding himself to a ghoul by declaring that it's not really any stranger than embalming, the Tibetan practice of chod, or to contemporary euthanasia.

Once Corby is at the cemetery at night, he casts Contact Ghoul and waits. When the ghouls arrive, one wearing the body of a petit, nonagenarian woman in Eisenhower-era clothes. The others in ghoul-shape lurk in the shadows at the edge of vision as backup, and try to outflank anyone watching Corby. Once the ghouls arrive, Corby explains his request to them in plain terms. The central ghoul interviews him about his sincerity and understanding. After ten minutes, the ghouls lead him into one of the decrepit mausolea, and then into the ghoul tunnels where the ceremony is consummated.

If the Agents threaten or act against the ghouls in Corby's presence, he tries to interpose himself between the Agents and the ghouls to both let the ghouls escape and get himself killed.

## Rewards and Penalties

**Discovering Corby's plan beforehand**: 0/1d2

**Realizing Corby's plan during or after**: 0/1d4

## Statistics

### Richmond Corby

*White Male, 71.*

**STR**: 3 (15%) Everything hurts

**DEX**: 3 (15%) Tied to an oxygen machine

**CON**: 5 (25%) Dying of cancer

**INT**: 13 (65%) Eye for details

**POW**: 12 (60%)

**CHA**: 11 (55%)

**HP**: 3

**WP**: 12

**SAN**: 26

**BP**: 24

**Indefinite Insanities**: Totemic Compulsion (Notebook), Depression

**Skills**: (Agency-related skill) 80%, (Agency-related skill) 70%, Drive Auto 30%, Firearms 20%, Occult 70%, Stealth 20%, Unnatural 40%

**Note**: Corby is incapable of moving faster than a few feet every round, and each round that he has to engage in strenuous activity he must succeed at a CONx5 roll or be stunned.

**Bonds**: Denise Stovall, daughter (3)

### Corby's Notebook (Intact)

If studied in a Home pursuit:

* +5% Unnatural skill
* Costs 1d6 SAN
* Spells: Contact Ghoul, and two other Contact spells of your choice.
* A Successful Bureaucracy roll identifies the real identities of two (four on a critical success) other members of Delta Green.
* Details on past Delta Green investigations, including the Bethel ghoul cult.

## Credits

Die Nachtbrüder was written by Chris Huth for the 2015 shotgun scenario contest. The scenario was later expanded and published in The Unspeakable Oath vol 25 in 2018.