It Does a Body Good

## Setting

In any rural part of America where the Dairy industry is still present. For Example: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, New York

Time: end of May/ start of June. It is right before summer break in the school year.

## The Hook

Teachers and administrators of the local Elementary school have issued a series letter to all parents for a rash of bullying at school has started to effect other children.

It started small and no one noticed at first for it was small things like skipping together or laughing at the same time. It was just kid stuff, but then the children slowly became more coordinated, they would raise their hands in class at once, write all the same answer on tests, play on the playground the same way. Only a few of the children are unaffected and the other children stopped interacting with them and that is what prompted the letters.

The administration has considering shutting down the school for if it is mold or water contamination, they are just opening themselves to a lawsuit for every day they wait, but they can’t afford to ship the children to other districts or close for if the children don’t get the 180 days by June 30 the district would lose federal funding as well.

The school board is now panicking for the effects are getting worse for now some of the teachers have started to exhibit the same coordinated ‘bullying’.

They are running out of time.

## The Truth

All the milk that is being supplied to the school from a local dairy has been contaminated by a supernatural vector.

The farmer unknowingly has let his cows graze on a patch of land that is over a prison of sorts. A Shoggoth has been imprisoned underground since the war with the Elder Things. The bindings that keep it asleep have started to weaken therefore bits and pieces of it have leaked into the water table. The water feeds the plants various animals and the cows eat the grass, then the farmer milks the cows.

The cows and everything that drinks milk have started to be affected the same way. Barn cats, the farmer and his wife, the teachers and children.

## The Investigation

The Agents should learn that the children and adults at the school who are not affected by the Hive Mind are lactose intolerant.

Due to posters to promote local businesses the Agents should discover that the school district sourced products from vegetables to dairy from the surrounding farms to support the local economy due a federal grant.

If they send out samples of the milk for testing, the Agents will discover that the lipids in the milk are unusually large and malformed, but the milk is not poisonous. This milk will be traced back to a local dairy farm.

When they Investigate the farm, the Agents will learn the horrible truth by interacting with everything that has consumed the milk. All the animals on the farm will not act naturally, dogs and cows will walk together and the same pace. Rabbits and cats will mix and sit together. They will also find some of the school children here and a teacher. **SAN vs Unnatural 0/1**

The Farm has become a giant HIVE MIND, with everything in its place, like one giant organism and its goal is to break out the Shoggoth.

If the Agents try to restrain an animal or human, the rest of the HIVE will become hostile and the Agents will be attacked by all, the cats scratch, the dogs bite, the cows trample. See STATS.

If the Agents don’t interfere, they will be able to observe the HIVE move as one and proceed in unison to walk out to the cow pasture and start to excavate a large hole. The farmer using a backhoe, his wife and the teacher using a shovel, the children using their hands and the animals using their hooves or paws. **SAN vs Unnatural 1/1d6.**

If the Agents wait too long to act the prison will be shattered and the Shoggoth will be set free.

It will take the HIVE MIND 3 hours to dig deep enough. The Agents need to come with a plan before then, but they don’t know the time they have left.

## Possible Solutions, but not limited to

* Kill everything, **SAN vs Violence** 0/1d4 vs animals, 0/1d6 vs Humans
* Incapacitate everything, **San vs Violence**, 0/1d4 vs Humans
* Let the Shoggoth be dug up and then attack it. **San vs Unnatural**, 1d6/1d20
* Get the Federal Grant provided to the school canceled to stop the vector, but you would be ruining the economy. **San vs Helplessness**, 0/1
* Use Federal Money and eminent domain to buy the land after stopping the HIVE.

### Fighting the HIVE MIND

The HIVE will break off into 2 small animal swarms, the as 2 groups of Cows will try to knock over the Agents and trample and then the Humans will use fist or shovels.

### Fighting the Shoggoth

If the PCs wait for the Shoggoth to be released they can go and get whatever they need for the HIVE MIND won’t stop until it reaches the prison.

When the Shoggoth oozes out of the hole all the animals and humans will start to puke and retch up bits and pieces that will join with the main body. They will be incapacitated for the duration of this fight.

## STATS

***HIVE MIND***

***(Cats, Dogs, Rabbits) 2 swarms***

**HP**: 35 total, Tooth and Claw 20%, damage 1d6

***(Cows 14)***

**HP**: 20. Kick 20%, 1d6. Trample 30%, Lethality 15%(Prone target only)

***(Humans, 3 adult)***

**HP**: 12, Unarmed 20%, 1d4-1, Melee 20%, 1d6(shovel)

***(Humans, 2 child)***

**HP**: 4, Unarmed 10%, 1d3-1

***Shoggoth***

**STR** 100 **CON** 50 **DEX** 10

**INT** 8 **POW** 12

**HP** 75 **WP** 12

**ARMOR**: See **PLASTIC** and **RESILIENT**.

**SKILLS**: Alertness 80%, Swim 90%.

**ATTACKS**: Grapple and crush 55%, Lethality 15% (see **CRUSH**).

Smash 35%, Lethality 30% (see **SMASH**).

Impale 35%, damage 1D10+2, Armor Piercing 5 (see **IMPALE**).

**CRUSH**: A target grappled and pinned by a shoggoth, even if the target has already acted in that turn, may attempt a single, unopposed DEX test to struggle free. Failure means the victim is engulfed and crushed for 15% Lethality damage, which ignores armor. The victim must then make a Luck roll once per turn to be spat back out. Failure means the victim is consumed, ground up into nutrients; the victim loses 1D8 HP each turn and the shoggoth gains an equivalent amount. Against a target that’s larger than human-sized, the shoggoth simply squeezes whatever portion seems most vulnerable, inflicting Lethality 25% without absorbing nutrients.

**ENDURANCE**: A shoggoth that has at least 2 HP heals 1D10 HP, up to its maximum, every turn that it neither moves nor attacks. A shoggoth can survive comfortably in vacuum, in any depth of water, in freezing temperatures, and in catastrophic heat. Radiation which would cause cell-death in mammals is quite harmless to a shoggoth. A shoggoth suffers no ill effects from aging. Presumably a shoggoth must feed, but they have been known to sit in torpor for years—or centuries, or millennia, or eons; who can say?—with no apparent harm. The limits of a shoggoth’s endurance are unknown.

**FURY**: A shoggoth has intelligence on the same scale as a human, but its modes of thought are utterly, incomprehensibly alien. In most encounters, a shoggoth acts with seemingly mindless, destructive wrath. But it may have inscrutable goals, newly conceived or developed over billions of years, which are served by the destruction it causes.

**IMPALE**: The shoggoth suddenly extrudes a thin tentacle tipped with a bone-talon, impaling a target and inflicting 1D10+2 HP damage. Each HP inflicted on the target is added to the shoggoth’s own HP as it absorbs nutrients

**LOCOMOTION**: A shoggoth can roll along the ground, disperse its density to rise lighter than air, or pull water or air through itself like a jet. No one has survived an encounter long enough to measure a shoggoth’s maximum speed, but some victims have escaped shoggoths by speeding away via automobile, boat, or airplane.

**PLASTIC**: Shoggoths can ooze, grow, shift or change their plastic form to fit through almost any gap. If air can pass through an opening, a shoggoth can as well. Any attack against a shoggoth inflicts no more than 1 HP damage, except one using hypergeometry or a weapon with Lethality of 40% or more.

**RESILIENT**: Even a heavy weapon that can truly harm a shoggoth—requiring Lethality 40% or higher—does not destroy it with a successful Lethality roll. Instead, it inflicts HP damage equal to the Lethality rating.

**SENTRY**: Shoggoths are encased in a thousand shifting eyes that can see in every portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. All Stealth attempts against them are at −40%.

**SMASH**: Gathering up a dozen huge limbs, a shoggoth can smash or dismember a target with a Lethality rating of 30%. An attempt to Dodge this attack is at +20%.

**TEKELI-LI**: Shoggoths were bred to communicate, and to imitate the sounds of their former masters. They are incredible mimics. Few know how long it would take a shoggoth to use this facility for actual communication, but they certainly can imitate any sound they hear.

**UNSTOPPABLE**: If reduced to 0 HP, a shoggoth collapses into inert, hardened, desiccated bits of organic matter. However, it is not dead. If left in this state in an environment with access to oxygen and water, even trace water in the air, it reconstitutes to half strength in 2D20 hours. If this desiccated matter is burned or subjected to other destructive forces (even ones which would not usually affect the shoggoth), the shoggoth is permanently destroyed.

**SAN LOSS**: 1D6/1D20.

## Credits

It Does a Body Good was written by James Burns for the 2018  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 © James Burns, excepting those elements that are components of the Delta Green intellectual property.

It Does a Body Good is not available here under CC-BY-SA.