A Hound of Tindalos Ate My Homework

## **Agent preparation**

Take your favorite Delta Green Agent, pristine at character creation, before adding damaged veteran. Knock any stat above 14 down to 14, then slice 3 off each stat except POW. Slice any skill above 50% down to 50%. Set their age to 13. This is your character for this game, the other Agents are your crew, and life is good as your summer wraps up as you enter your senior year at Horace Mann Middle School.

## **Synopsis**

Chaz and his crew of jocks have been peddling a new street drug called Brever which they stole from Chaz’s uncle. They overheard that if someone takes it they get better at math (they grossly misunderstood the term hypergeometry in the overheard conversation), and are marketing it as an easy way to pass your next test. It even works, to a certain extent, with students who take it before a test being unable to remember any details from their test but getting back grades in the mid 90’s. *There haven’t been any other side effects yet.* The concentration of the drug being taken at the school has attracted a Hound of Tindalos. The hound is waiting for enough (5-7 doses) Brever to build up in a student before attacking and devouring them.

## **The school day**

There are six periods in the school day, plus a homeroom first thing in the morning, broken up in the middle by lunch. This event happens on a Friday, and next Monday is a holiday. The event needs to wrap up today. The Agents don’t share every class together, but they all share 1st Period Trigonomics, Third Period Latin, and Fifth Period Gym (they share this class with Chaz). After Sixth period, there’s a period for after-school activities, after which the Agents presence in the school would be questioned. Each period is about an hour.

There is no map included to allow for a handler to move people and spaces around to suit their needs, but aside from a swath of classrooms, the school has an indoor fieldhouse/gym with a track, a *circular library*, and the usual office space for faculty. If the Agents need there to be something to keep the flow going (a chemistry lab in 4th period, for example) roll with it.

## **Handler notes**

**Sanity:** These are kids, not hard-experienced Agents, hit them with appropriate sanity tests, especially if they have to get or witness violence or helplessness.

**Shark-punching:** If the Agents don’t engage with the plot, don’t be afraid to pause play and get things on track. Work with your Players to get their Agents in the game.

**Clues**: Italicized items are clues

**Gameplay:** Ask each Agent to describe their place in the complex middle-school hierarchy. Are they class clown? Chess-club king? Burnout? They can’t be part of Chaz’s crew. How do the Agents know each other? They know a big math test is today, are they ready? What do they do during homeroom? For this scenario, replace adult bonds with inter-Agent bonds. Be sure to identify the year this scenario is set.

**Ms. Ryder’s First Period Trigonomics class (Friday):** The Agents are the only kids in the class not taking Brever. Everyone else anticipated a big test today, but Mr. Lynch, the Latin teacher from across the hall rolled in a TV right before class. Announcing that Ms. Ryder was having car trouble, Mr. Lynch stuck in a battered VHS/DVD copy of *Is Math Cool?* (a special exploring math in the Arctic narrated by David Schwimmer). The lights switch off and Mr. Lynch goes back to his own Latin class.

Ten minutes in, the Agents notice that their peers are paying less attention than normal. *Their eyes are slightly glazed, and they respond to stimulus slowly and awkwardly.* Ten minutes later, the Hound of Tindalos appears. It squeezes out of a corner, piece by jagged piece emerging from the point where the planes of the walls intersect. It moves like a predator, up and down the classroom. Looking at it is like looking through a shattered mirror, though it appears *roughly dog shaped*, it’s exact shape is distorted by the fracture lines which catch and reflect light as it moves around. When it encounters something circular, like the trash bin, *it shies away and tries to keep the circular reflection out of it’s jagged, angular body’s field of view.* San Loss for seeing the hound while not taking Brever is **1D4/1D8.**

The *hound pauses at each student who has taken Brever, sniffing around their heads and chests*, before moving on. It moves like a drug-sniffing dog, there was a demonstration from the local Police Department at the start of the school year. *It’s clearly looking for something*. If there is no interference from the Agents, it circles the room and plunges into the corner of the desk, disappearing.

The Agents can attempt to run (Athletics, Dodge, or Dex\*5), the hound will only chase them to the doorway as they make a run for it. It’s more interested in the Brever-rich students. The Agents can attempt to fight, (Handlers Guide, Page 205), but they will not win in a stand up fight. Give them a chance to get bloodied and then run, or if they insist, let them meet their fate on their terms.

**Research:** Agents have can attempt to research what they’ve seen. They know that Mr. Lynch is a wealth of knowledge, and could talk to him after school or after their Latin class. The school library might have some books on cryptids or scary stories they can draw from. They can also get online from the computer lab. They can also talk to other students from the class. While those students don’t remember anything from the class, they can offer insight on Brever and Chaz.

The following clues can be gained through these methods, or anything else that makes sense. If the Agents obfuscate what they saw (because who would believe them) they will get more helpful information, but if they play it straight most adults will brush them off as daydreaming.

* The Hound was looking for something which links the other, non-agent students together (The Brever).
* The hound was all angles, no curves. Curves might be a weakness or a weapon.
* The other students in the class were on Brever which they got from Chaz (anticipating the test)
* The other students have only taken Brever once or twice before. Chaz has taken it the most, four or five times.
* Chaz’s uncle works for USAID, and is currently assigned to a project dealing with refugees from Southeast Asia.
* Brever works, according to students who’ve taken it.

**Chaz:** Chaz is the leader of a small group of jocks who are peddling Brever. They are the stereotypical overcompensating, trouble-making group of middle schoolers.With his group of five, he’s pretty sure of his place in the pecking order (above the Agents). Alone he’s no fool and won’t pick a fight he can’t win. He’ll use his words and come back with reinforcements. *The reason he sells Brever is just to make some extra cash, he’s not a criminal mastermind, and does not touch drugs harder than the weed his cousin can occasionally get him.*

**Stopping the Hound:** The school's library is all circles, even the shelves, desks, and windows. It would be a perfect place to try and trap the Hound until it’s weakness kills it. Surviving long enough to kill it would be a challenge. Ms. Cox, the school librarian is an introverted, but polite and helpful young woman hoping to go from school librarian to children's librarian in town. *She won’t leave students unattended* in the library without good reason, and since *she has nothing scheduled for after-school, will lock the door and leave after sixth period.*

Pumping Chaz up on Brever (forcibly, or consensually) will cause the hound to attack him (and kill) which will also cut off the supply, saving the school from further incursions.

**Cleaning Up:** If there’s lots of messy evidence after stopping the hound, adults from the Police, Fire Department, maybe even Delta Green might show up with questions. Unless they covered their tracks, use the getting fired rules (Agents Handbook, Page 80) to determine if they are suspended, or worse. If the Agents stopped the hound without getting Chaz killed, reward **1D6 SAN**.

**Three Kids in a Trenchcoat**: Two or more agents with a skill can combine for a single roll with a +20% for each assisting agent. Ensure this makes sense narratively.

**Do you have a Hall Pass?:** The Agents can’t simply wander the halls of their school unmolested. They will either need a hall pass, stealth, or a silver tongue to get around. Anytime Agents move through the halls to a new destination roll, there is a 33% chance they will be stopped by a member of the faculty. A Successful stealth roll or clever-enough plan will drop that chance to 10%.

## **Stat Blocks**

### **Teacher (Generic)**

**STR** 10 **CON** 10 **DEX** 8 **INT** 17 **POW** 13 **CHA** 14

**HP** 10 **WP** 13 **SAN** 65

Skill (their subject) 60 Skill (not their subject) 40

### **Sample Adults**

**Mr. Nelson**, hip 30’s writing teacher who plays video games and wants to be everybody’s friend.

**Mrs. Walker**, grey-haired, close-to-retirement, stickler-for-the-rules assistant principal

Jenkins, an old black janitor, a fixture in the school, often found leaning on a broom or whistling a tune.

**Mrs. McGregor**, frazzled, always-running-late chemistry teacher, usually pushing a cart full of chemicals and equipment around.

### **Student (Generic)**

No Stats above 14 (most stats 7-11), no skills above 50% (most skills 20-30).

**HP** 7 **WP** 10

**Sample Students**

**Elizabeth**, sweet and beautiful brunette, target of many crushes but rather chaste

**Marco**, latinx, lightning fast with a pun, will lend you his last dollar and won’t let you pay him back

**Evan**, entitled, was king in elementary school but out-of-his depth and still clinging to the past in middle school

## Credits

A Hound of Tindalos Ate My Homework was written by Kevin Ham for the 2020  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 © Kevin Ham, excepting those elements that are components of the Delta Green intellectual property.

A Hound of Tindalos Ate My Homework is not available here under CC-BY-SA.