They Wait In the Woods

## Intro

Late November 1995, the United States Federal Government has shut down. President Clinton and Speaker of the House Gingrich have failed to agree to a federal budget, suspending all non-essential federal departments. Covert communications cease, and Delta Green command loses contact with many of its operations cells. Your group of three investigators haven’t heard anything in several weeks, when one of them notices something odd hitting the usenet newsgroups.

Reports of strange sightings and weird encounters are nothing new, and posts from a farmer in Upstate New York mentioning dairy cow mutilations garner little interest until he writes, “Finally help has arrived, a team is here.” A second post states that the three “feds” are helping with the “human survivors.” A quick Internet search locates the rural town, and also uncovers spotty information about Connecticut Hill, a large, forested area of NY State-owned land that was something of a UFO hotspot in the late 60s. No further information is available, but local paper records might have something. Is this another Delta Green cell working a case? What exactly are these “human survivors?” Is this enough information for your ever-curious agents to investigate Connecticut Hill and the nearby village of Newfield?

## Keeper’s Lore

The other team is not Delta Green, it’s a trio of NSA agents gone off-grid and using the government shutdown to track down a suspected troublemaker. Besides being a summer of UFO sightings, this area is also known as a popular hideout for wanted peace activists and political agitators. The NSA agents use the ruse of investigating the strangely mauled victims while they look for their target, a man named **James Wilson**.

But there is something going on, and there was something going in in ‘67. Buried deep beneath Connecticut Hill, hidden in the 11,000-acre forest, is an old Mi-Go colony containing a dimensional teleportation gate. In the summer of ‘67 this gate was breached by an invading brood of Elder Things, eight entities who appeared from a distant world to destroy the resident Mi-Go. The UFO sightings were the Elder Things flying through the night sky, their awkward aerial movements mistakenly taken as cumbersome skycraft.

The NSA team are not the only agents in the field. A group of disguised Greys is also present, dressed in long coats and wide-brimmed hats and staying at one of the outlying houses. Having arrived as soon as they heard the news of the cattle mutilations and missing people, they remain disguised as they investigate the area. Rarely making contact with people, seen from afar folks often confuse them for the NSA agents. The Greys know that the Elder Things attacked the Mi-Go colony in ‘67, and wonder if the entities have returned. They have.

## Poke and Prod - a Game of Cat and Mouse

The four Elder Things fly out of their hidden warren at dusk, abduct a person or animal (they don’t quite understand the difference), and extract information from them using their suckered faces, a procedure that drives the recipient mad. If they react violently, like the cows and horses, the Elder Things pull them apart and deposit them in some farmers field. If they remain docile or frightened, like most humans, they are released into the woods, naked, covered in scars, and insane. The Elder Things are only occasionally seen, as was the case with **Eli Anderson**, the local farmer who first asked for help on the usenet newsgroups. Once the investigators are in Newfield and the surrounding woodland, the Elder Things continually move around to avoid direct confrontation.

## The Setting

The hamlet of Newfield is 4 miles from the edge of the forest that forms Connecticut Hill. A village at one point, the townspeople elected to revoke its village status in 1927, hence it has no official civic structure. The fire department is volunteer, there is no mayor, no town council, no police force. Newfield is essentially one long village street, with some 200 houses scattered along it and around nearby crossroads, with a total population of 650. The town’s significant locations include:

* Newfield Hotel, where the NSA agents stay;
* Post Office, where there is a (restricted) listing of town residents;
* Grocery Store, a good place for rumors and social information;
* Newfield Public Library, a small building with copies of the local newspaper. Searching through it takes time, but might uncover helpful clues;
* The Newfield Bridge, a wooden covered bridge spanning Cayuga Creek, one of the few left in New York State—a good location for a shootout or climactic scene.

Connecticut Hill is 11,000 acres of densely wooded forest, all slowly rising in elevation to the crown, some 2,000 feet above sea level. Part of the Appalachian Highlands, the hill’s ridges are rugged and often difficult to travel. Farmers tried cultivating the area, but never gained a foothold in the rocky soil. There woods’ significant locations include:

* Several abandoned, ruined farmhouses. Often all that is left is a moss-covered fieldstone foundation;
* A Revolutionary War-era cemetery, with resident ghosts (if necessary);
* Many hidden crevices and thorny defiles.

## Running the Game

The gameplay is freeform. Let the players direct the action and the direction of the scenario. Keep as much hidden for as long as you can, including finding the Greys, interacting with the NSA, discovering Wilson’s hiding place, and the secret entrance to the old Mi-Go mine.

The investigators show up and sniff around, looking for the agents and the usenet-posting farmer. He’s easy to find and says that he’s already told everything to the federal agents (the NSA), who he’s later seen wandering around his property at dusk (the disguised Greys hoping to spot an Elder Thing). He can describe the cattle mutilations and still has one that he hasn’t disposed of. The beast is ripped in half and covered in small circular wounds. Interviewing any of the villagers yields similar results; they have either heard of the cattle mutilations or have had some of their herd taken.

At some point the investigators encounter a human survivor, shell-shocked, lost, and wandering Connecticut Hill or stumbling into town. One of the rural residents, he has no recollection of what happened, and the last thing he remembers is going berry picking on Connecticut Hill with his two children. The other villagers readily identify him, and a search of his house yields nothing. The children are either lost on the hill or captured by the Elder Things.

After the investigators help someone in the village, this person reveals that if anyone in town knows about the UFO sightings of ’67 it would be James Wilson, the same person the NSA is hunting. He is in hiding, living in a log cabin tucked deep in Connecticut Hill’s woods. The resident can take the investigators there. They arrive just in time to see a trio of men leaving (the Greys), hurrying away from the house with armfuls of papers, journals, and other items. Inside Wilson is dead, recently slain and decapitated. The Greys spilt up when pursued, and will do anything to avoid capture, including dropping what they carry. Perhaps the dropped journals, and Wilson’s head, will delay the investigators long enough for the Greys to get away. If they manage to escape, they return to the house they have commandeered. The investigators may well believe that the NSA agents killed Wilson and tried to take the evidence.

The Greys know where the old entrance to the secret Mi-Go mine is and will watch it. Wilson has a map that indicates where the entrance is on Connecticut Hill. The Elder Things use a different entrance, one that leads to the same mines, and have trapped the old entrance to collapse. Wilson’s journals indicate where he suspects this new opening is, and a careful search of that area locates it in an overgrown foundation of a dilapidated farm house. One Elder Thing may guard this entrance. At dusk, pairs of them fly out and search for stock for their experiments.

Eventually the investigators enter the old Mi-Go mine. Don’t stage the climactic scene here. Instead, allow them to rescue the human captives, learn about the dimensional gate and the active Elder Things, and fight a tentacled bovine hybrid, the monstrous result of the Elder Things’ experimental surgeries. An obvious control panel rests beside the dimensional gate. Its removal prevents the gate from operating, and causes the enraged Elder Things to track the panel down and retrieve it.

There are three groups of powerful antagonists to harass your Delta Green agents with. Play them off against each other—naturally when your investigators are in the crossfire—or have them sequentially confront your PCs. Both the Greys and the Elder Things have fantastic weaponry at hand—the Elder Things have enough weird firepower to level the hamlet if they desire. Remember: the government is shutdown, and no help will be forthcoming.

## Credits

They Wait In the Woods was written by Noah Lloyd and Matt Ryan for the 2017  shotgun scenario contest.

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 © Noah Lloyd and Matt Ryan, excepting those elements that are components of the Delta Green intellectual property.

They Wait In the Woods is not available here under CC-BY-SA.