The One and Only Gun Story

In 1865 President Lincoln was shot once in the head by an 1860 Colt Army, dropped and lost as Booth fled from the crime. In 1914 Archduke Ferdinand and his wife were shot in the chest by an assassin supplied with a Colt Army, knocked from his hands and lost when he was detained. Three from a Colt Army killed Gandhi in 1948, the gun disappears into the crowd as the shooter is detained. ‘65 marks the end for Malcolm X using a shotgun, a 1911 and a Colt Army; the CIA try to make sure none of them are ever found. A man shoots John Lennon in the back with a Colt Army in 1980, the gun is long gone when the police arrive. A Colt Army puts one through Tupac’s lung, then the gun is gone until it puts the final shot through Biggy’s hip.

And that’s just the highlight reel.

## *Thee Gun*

History's greatest firearm is a first batch Colt Army Model 1860 and has been in constant use since its creation, and whilst the exact history of the gun and how it works is left up to Handler’s discretion it does have some universal truths.

1. **Thee Gun is firmly grounded inside human violence**. When someone comes to own Thee Gun, it latches onto a piece of hate or disdain inside a person and grows it. Thee Gun is excellent at manipulating emotion to drive people to murder, but they have to pull the trigger of their own free will. Sometimes Thee Gun even leaves the possession of someone before they kill someone, as it can tell they aren’t ready for what has to be done.
2. **Thee Gun radiates its madness in the form of anguish and apathy**. Thee Gun does not wish to turn its owner into a snivelling pile of insanity, if that were the case they would never be able to pull the trigger. Instead, it drives them towards fear and paranoia of those around them as to get the owner to build small frustration into a murderous rage over time, and then when prepped moves them towards coldness and cruelty so they may find conviction in their hearts. If after six months it cannot hollow someone out enough to shoot the first person that looks at them wrong it moves on, but historically most people are completely warped after only a month; promptly they take a life, usually someone else's but occasionally their own, unable to recognize the person they have become.
3. **Thee Gun remembers everyone it has ever killed**. Thee Gun has been involved in countless deaths for 160 years now, but one mad enough to attempt counting them need only to pull the trigger. Roughly 2000 deaths flash before your eyes in the time it takes for the hammer to fall, the fear and anger and pain inside every shooter burned into your mind alongside the faces of every victim truly realizing the permanence of death. Near everyone goes insane as these images flash through their heads, if not made completely catatonic from it, they will always sit just alongside the edge of complete shutdown.

These are the only truths, anything else is malleable. With those rules in mind, as well as the weapon stats at the end, you should already have enough information to use *Thee Gun* as a green box item and/or plot hook. Below, however, is a small example scenario using it in action for those interested. Notably, it adds the principle that the gun can teleport towards sources of anger and cannot be destroyed, but these elements can be easily written out if the Handler sees fit.

## *Briefing*

From August 1st 2020 to today, October 17th 2020, an in-family murder has occurred in Colorado Springs almost every other week. As almost every killer was found at the scene and all admitted to the murder when asked, police saw very little reason to investigate these murders. However, last week the Mayor was killed in his office and without a suspect arrested on sight, a full-blown investigation began. What police found was striking, the same gun used to kill the Mayor was linked to all of those “solved” homicides over the past three months.
This eight person long body trail has left police extremely confused as to how they’ve all had access to the same gun, given none of them knew each other and didn’t live particularly close to one another. They have come to a fairly mundane, if outlandish, theory: a serial killer has been operating in town, forcing someone close to the victim to confess to the murder to save their remaining family and cover their trail from the police.
Not wishing to seem as though the police had allowed a serial killer to thrive in their community with absolutely no opposition for months, amidst protesting against the police, CSPD called on the FBI to take the case off their hands and absolve themselves of any guilt. Player characters can either be an actual group of FBI Agents from the Denver field office investigating the case as a serial killer plot, or a group of Delta Green agents assigned after the program intercepted the call for assistance and noticed how strange the case appeared to be.

### *Investigation*

In either set-up, players are tasked with solving the murder of Colorado Springs Mayor Winston Fattore and understanding the movement of the .44 used to kill him and seven others. Here we lay out three main areas of interaction: The Police Station, the Mayor's Office and the Prison.
The Police Stations offers the players a full briefing on the case, information on all the arrestees and their murders, ballistic evidence relating to the murders and three bodies for autopsy. Alongside this, they should meet Detective Theo Reynolds, the only cop who thinks CSPD should be owning up to their mistake by fixing it instead of outsourcing. Keep track of how players interact with him, it’s important.
The Mayor’s Office provides interviews with local council and staff about who might have shot the mayor (the only person with the correct answer is a secretary who ID’d the shooter) and who entered the room to guess at where the gun went (no one there knows Detective Reynolds found it an hour later when he was examining the scene).
The Prison offers interviews with all the murders, seven people from totally different walks of life, all of which killed a close family murder over personal grievances and will admit to that. If players specifically ask about the gun, the prisoner makes a SAN check. They all have 0 SAN and fail, 1d20 Violence. 2-4 they can talk about finding a gun, developing an obsession with it and a sheer mental collapse after, 5-20 they go into **Temporary Insanity**, on a 1 same as 2-4, but they remember seeing a homeless person drop it.

## *Shooters*

Mayor Fattore was shot in his office by Sophie Rodriguez, a homeless veteran. Her experience with killing and extreme anger at the world could draw the gun to her anywhere in the city, but without a single target it would often fall away from her soon after and latch on to a different source; this is how the gun was getting passed wildly between peoples. After the Mayor cancelled a winter clothes distribution event due to COVID concerns, she turned her anger towards him and the rest is history.
For tracking her down, players have two main clues: the ID by the secretary giving the name Sophie and a description of a junkie, and the possible homeless designation by the prisoners. When the players find her, be it in a homeless shelter, a rehab clinic or as Jane Doe in the morgue, she’s dead from a morphine overdose. This leads the players back to the Police Station for the first and final encounter.
Detective Reynolds has already fully fallen to Thee Gun’s influence when the players arrive. If they were kind people who saw things as he did, then the players would find the police station in the middle of a gunfight between him, two officers and the chief. If the players were rude or too excited to take over the case, he jumps them when they arrive.
Thee Gun has a fairly straightforward goal in this encounter, make sure everyone here dies. If the gun is ever knocked from the current shooter's hand and disappears from sight, it teleports to the next person in the initiative and suddenly makes its presence known to bait them into picking it up. This continues until everyone who has touched the gun is dead or has killed someone, at which point it leaves. If players and NPCs stop fighting with people still marked, the gun stays around and latches onto the person with the most potential.

## *Stats*

*Thee Gun* is treated as a Heavy Pistol from the Agent's Handbook (Pg.97) with ammo 6 instead of 10 and dealing 1d12+2 Damage.
When fired, you trigger its living memory and experience the death of everyone it had ever killed, as detailed above. Instead of rolling 2000 SAN 1/1d4 Violence checks, a player makes one SAN test against 1d20+5/3d20+5 Violence & one against 1d8/1d20 Unnatural. If the first shot didn’t kill, players have to take **Temporary Insanity: Fight**, if it did, they can take any. Subsequent shots remove the +5 and the Unnatural check as you know what’s coming, but not the Violence, as you will always be picking out new faces of anguish you missed the last time.

Detective Reynolds uses Firearms 60%, other cops use Firearms 40%, and the coroner uses Firearms 20%. If any of their other skills are called into question, assume they’re competent unless opposing the Players, then use the Police or Physician stats respectively.
Reynolds has 14 HP, other cops have 12 HP and the coroner has 10 HP, all the cops wear a bulletproof vest with 3 Armour. Reynolds has Initiative 14, everyone else is sprinkled throughout the PC initiative.

## Credits

The One and Only Gun Story was written by Abigale Isley for the 2021  shotgun scenario contest. Source: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1A4wK8ZNYxkzuBlVyLxZbOOhV0QZeoOf07hQT3yjzfgU/edit.

Published by arrangement with the Delta Green Partnership. The intellectual property known as Delta Green is a trademark and copyright owned by the Delta Green Partnership, who has licensed its use here. The contents of this document are © Abigale Isley, excepting those elements that are components of the Delta Green intellectual property.

The One and Only Gun Story is not available here under CC-BY-SA.