The 23 Faces of Lizard McFadden

## Riding Shotgun - a word of explanation.

This is a sawed-off shotgun scenario.

It's short, twisted, dirty, dangerous at both ends, and offers no moral redemption - because this is Delta Green.

But this is also a scenario written in memoriam of my old friend, Mark McFadden, also known as the Lizard King.

Which means the good guys will prevail - if you can find them.

Also, this is an unusual scenario, because it will require you, the Keeper, the become him, the Lizard King - and jazz it as it goes.

In other words, you gotta walk it the way you talk it, or you're gonna lose that beat.

## The Set-up

### Double-barreled

The only survivor of an op gone awfully rhino in downtown LA, hunted by both enemies and friends, former US Army Captain and DG agent Rex "Lizard" McFadden faked his death in the winter of 200… and vanished, trying to keep one step ahead of his enemies.

Now, two years later, he has stumbled on something big.

And dangerous.

His only option - put together a rag-tag band of friendlies, false-flag them (they think they are working for Delta Green) and get them on the case; a master of disguise, McFadden will follow them, providing support and hints should it be necessary. [23 disguises will be provided in a second mail, but feel free to create your own]

But the Lizard's plan is making waves - and soon Delta green will have a cell out sniffing for the "rogue agent", with a full-featured 9mm retirement plan.

And the old rhino is only sleeping…

But look on the bright side - you can play this scenario twice!

With the players starring as the… shall we call them the A-Team? This one plays like a TV series from the 80s… AND with them playing the DG cleaners – and this one starts like "Try and Catch Me" and ends like "The Fugitive", with tcho-tchos.

### What he Lizard Saw

OK - let's say the sushi they serve at the “Taco & Tako” franchise is not exactly kosher.

A supposedly Mexican/Japanese ethnic food franchise, “Taco & Tako” is actually a front for a cartel of tcho-tcho enclaves in South California.

They eat people.

Raw.

### Snakes & Ladders

Cell L's raid on the Church of Our Lord the Snake, a sui generis non-denominational group living in a squat in downtown LA and financing their activities with a joint program of drug pushing and “sacred prostitution”, took a turn for the worst when the head priest turned out to be not some kind of whacked-out uber-cultist as anticipated, but a full-fledged Serpent Man wizard. Mixing DG operatives, Yig cultists on crack and a serpent wizard caused the situation to go to hell in a basket, and then turn horribly rhino when the well-meaning but clueless LAPD showed up. The body count was impressive (make up a suitable number) Cell L was cancelled, except for McFadden.

* Extra slugs

Wanna see something scary? – play this as a flashback (or call it a pre-title sequence, Bond-like).

Now the Serpent wizard has a score to settle - his surviving cultists monitor police frequencies and other sources of info to catch a reference to the missing agent.

## First Reel

A-Team reunion in an old motel.

McFadden (pretending to be Agent Mason from cell M) gives a general overview of the situation to the guys.

Tcho-tchos.

Take away.

A hive of cannibal runts somewhere in LA, multiplying.

* Mission objective – scout locations, define targets, collect information, plan strategy.

* What might go wrong – they are tcho-tchos, for crying out loud!

* Triggers
	+ any serious team blunder sets Delta Green off.
	+ any serious blunder involving police forces/the press sets the Yig cult off.

* Set piece - Ethnic kitchen shootout.

Main Ingredients:

* tcho-tchos, like, in cartloads
* frying pans filled with boiling oil
* gas canisters
* meat hooks, big cleavers, assorted cutlery
* the Eight Brass Tcho-tchos of Shaolin
* the fight spills from the kitchen into the restaurant
* innocent bystanders
* way big aquarium (glass + bullets + 10000 gallons of water + lobsters)

## Second Reel

At this point, the A-team should have a good idea of what's facing.

And they have yet to take into account the Delta Green Cleanup Team

AND the Yig cult!

Time for some research on the tcho-tchos.

And some shopping!

* Mission objectives – be prepared.

* What might go wrong – very little. This is where we play up the

gunfondling and tome-fetish of old-time DG players.

### Conan the Librarian

Library Use checks are required to collect data on

* how the tcho-tchos came to LA (Tiger Transit hook)
* neighborhoods in which the tcho-tchos settled
* the location of the tcho-tcho hive (a kindergarten?! Now that would be nasty, a shootout in a kindergarten…)

* Trigger - Any major blunder may set the Delta Green alarms off.

### The Green Box

Made using Project Nemesis Green Box Generator, with one extra…

* A white envelope containing $5000 in twenty dollar bills. On the back it says "FOR NON-LEGITAIMATE TRANSACTIONS ONLY" in green magic marker. The bills are marked.
* A Consumers' Union book entitled "How to Remove Any Stain from Any Surface." The entry on blood stains has been marked with a scrap of notebook paper.
* A two-by-four plank with a rusty nail through it.
* A bundle of 14 SKS rifles, in various states of condition and age wrapped with duct tape and all with erased serial numbers. About half of them are loaded, some are even chambered. The weapons have a envelope attached to a barrel by a string. The envelope says, "Clean and cheap guns, use one, drop, replace."
* A cardboard box, unmarked except for a label that reads "Cyanide" and filled with individual plastic bottles each containing a single replica of a human tooth. There are three missing from a box of 20.
* An iron mace, probably 18th century, of Indian manufacture. Ornamentation depicts various gods in pitched battle.
* A modern reprint of Barrett's "The Magus". Penciled into the front cover are instructions on how to cast "Bind Nightgaunt".
* A pair of round eyeglasses with "occult" (i.e. unrecognizable) symbols scratched into the lenses.
* A betamax copy of the Carol Reed movie, The Third Man

## Intermission - The Yig Cult Strikes!

They want McFadden, but the snake wizard figured out if he can hit his new team hard enough the Lizard King will come forth to protect his own.

Cue to…

* car chase through the deserted streets of LA (think "Bullit")
* crash escape through a mall (think "Blues Brothers")
* big shootout with extra magic (think "Big Trouble in Little China")

* Mission objectives – WTF…?!

* What might go wrong:

* innocent bystanders

* guns blazing

* fireball-casting snakeman out in the open (and on the Evening News)

## Third Reel – An end to the franchise

Time to wrap things up.

The A-team is ready to go and raid the tcho-tcho hive.

They have the info, they have the weapons, they have the molotov

cocktails, they have the home-made explosives (if they have any

sense).

* Mission objetives – they go and raze the kindergarten.

* What might go wrong – are you kidding?

* Set piece 1 – they are coming in from the walls!

* they are usually described as “spider-like”, so go for it: they are spider-like, seriously pissed off and have filed teeth to bite you better with…

* and, did we mention there's lots of them? Like, in cartloads?

* Set Piece 2 – come on, you bitch!

* the tcho-tcho queen is incredibly pregnant (this is not making her any sweeter)

* SuperDave-Approved(TM) tcho-tcho queen sumo wrestling!

## The Famous Final Scene

It would not be a good shotgun scenario without a proper Mexican stand-off.

So get together in the same room

* Lizard McFadden

* the Snake wizard

* the Tcho-tcho queen

* any surviving member of the A-team

* at least one Delta Green cleaner

Have fun!

## This is the end

OK, this is your scenario, so you decide how things go in the end.

You decide who lives and who dies, and how.

But there's a catch.

Rex Lizard McFadden dies in the end.

This is not negotiable.

Make it a worthwile death, a funny death, a sarcastic death.

Use it to increase drama or to deflate rhetoric.

Use it to mock authority or to stress the value of the individual.

Use it for something that will stay with your players for a long time.

And then point out that

* they

* never

* found

* the body.

Go in peace, Mark.

## Addendum

Odds and ends, as required by the rules….

### a . the 23 Faces of Lizard McFadden

characterize them as best fitting your team's needs

1. literature & theater student
2. Hollywood extra
3. computer Geek (with a serious axe to grind with AOL)
4. martial artist (doing tai-chi in the park, maybe?)
5. US Navy sailor
6. construction worker
7. indian chief
8. urban cowboy
9. leather-clad biker
10. gas station assistant
11. crime scene clean-up technician
12. street bum ranting about Oliver Stone
13. Apple employee (badge reads "Employee of the year")
14. Richard Dreyfuss
15. Elvis impersonator
16. FBI Agent ("Mason")
17. Comic book shop hanger-on wearing an Invisibles t-shirt
18. street musician playing Doors songs
19. a guy in a lizard suit in front of an exotic pets shop
20. lawn-mowing man in residential suburb
21. a shadow and a voice in a dark alley
22. a guy waiting for the bus reading "Great vanishing acts"
23. [your call]

### b . Movies and other media referenced (that I am aware of)

You gotta walk it the way you talk it or you gonna lose that beat
Richard Pryor vehicle and Steely dan song.
The A-team
tv series
Try and Catch Me
Frank Abagnale book and Di Caprio/Hanks movie
The Fugitive
tv series and Harrison Ford feature movie
The Invisibles
DC Vertigo comic series - Mason Lang is a character, and the Lizard King's persona in that continuum: Human Meat
Rost Pork Buns
underrated (??) Thai movie
Twilight zone
the movie
Year of the Dragon
Mickey Rourke vehicle
UHF
Weird Al Yankovich thing
The Third Man
classic thriller about a guy that fakes his death and the guys looking for him; Joseph Cotten, Orson Welles, Alida Valli… rent it, watch it, love it.
Bullit
featuring Steve McQueen, the cooler king.
The Blues Brothers
sunglasses after dark, Belushi/Ackroyd. The sequel is crap.
Big Trouble in Little China
another classic - evil wizards, Eastern Mysteries, Jack Burton…
Aliens
Jim Cameron doing a Ridley Scott
any number of Tarantino/Rodriguez movies
but they were just ripping off John Woo anyway
The Famous Final Scene
Bob Seger slow song
The Doors
the band and the movie
The End
Doors song
## Credits

The 23 Faces of Lizard McFadden was written by Davide Mana for the 2009 shotgun scenario contest.