The Truth Has Consequences

## HANDLER SUMMARY

Truth or Consequences, New Mexico is a small town two hours north of El Paso, Texas. The population barely reaches 5,000. But every year, for the first 3 days in May, Truth or Consequences hosts the abnormally popular “Truth or Consequences Fiesta,” a festival celebrating local art, culture, and food. Thousands of people flock from the surrounding counties and states to attend the festival, filling hotels and campgrounds.

For the past three months, a Serpent-Folk Nest have been killing and replacing members of the local community. The Nest has penultimate plans to use the Fiesta as a tool to spread their members across the southwestern United States.

A week before the Fiesta, a county EMT found her elderly neighbor deceased in his home: old age. The body was taken to the morgue and the house was locked. A day later, she saw the elderly man at home, watching TV with his cat. The EMT went to report the incident to the Police, but was quickly stonewalled as they were busy preparing for the festival. In her frustration, she took to the web and complained about how her neighbor “returned from the dead,” triggering Program phrases.

## AGENT INTRODUCTION

A team of Agents is assembled in the early hours of April 28th, 2019. Language matching trigger phrases has been detected in New Mexico. An EMT named Danica Bledsoe posted online about how her neighbor is “back from the dead.” Additionally, she posts about how she can’t sleep due to deafening rattles and shadows outside her house. She suspects there have been attempted break-ins and her overall tone has evolved into intense paranoia.

Agents are told they have less than three days to resolve the incident before shit hits the fan. People have started arriving in the town for the annual Fiesta, but by the time it starts the town will be absolutely swarmed with tourists. They are having trouble arranging a flight directly to Truth or Consequences, so travel is an additional delay.

**Pilot (Airplane)** or high **Bureaucracy**: *A small passenger plane can be arranged within an hour to take the team within a twenty-minute drive of the town. Otherwise, waiting a few hours for a commuter airline can get them within a two-hour drive.*

## ARRIVAL

Agents land at the Truth or Consequences Municipal Airport… it is quaint with a single paved runway. A single dusty Jeep Wrangler is waiting for them. Driving into town the traffic has already swelled. Local shopkeepers and city workers are preparing for the Fiesta. Bledsoe’s house is somewhat centralized in town, but isolated by a rough empty hill behind her house.

Lawns of stone stand in place of grass with succulents in place of flowers. A single level stucco house with curtained windows. A dirty Buick in the driveway. An elderly man next door can be seen through his front window; he’s watching TV, a cat is curled up on his lap.

### Alertness

* *Danica is trying to peek through the curtains without being noticed, she glances towards the team then towards the neighbor’s house. She moves to the door and opens it if she is noticed.*

If she isn’t noticed, then the Agents will have to knock on her door. She ushers them in frantically, seemingly trying to keep herself out of the doorway as much as possible.

*“Get the fuck inside, come on hurry up they’ll see you.”*

Danica Bledsoe looks rough; dark, heavy bags under her eyes suggest she hasn’t slept significantly for days. Her hair is greasy and unkempt. She will cooperate with apprehension.

### What Danica Bledsoe knows:

* *Her neighbor died a few days ago, now he’s back. She has no idea how or why.*
* *Her neighbor never had a cat. It was with him when he “returned.”*
* *She is kept up at night by loud rattling outside her house.*

**Persuasion or succeeded noticing Danica**

* *The shadows she has seen of her neighbor and others has seemed… off.*
* *She is convinced someone is trying to hurt her or keep her silent. She found tracks outside her house a day or so ago.*

**Examining the tracks with Survival or Biology**

* Several three-toed prints indicate multiple beings walked outside her house.
* **Unnatural**: The tracks are from Serpent-Folk.
* A large smooth trail indicates a long heavy tail that drags along the ground.

She is obviously exhausted from days of fear and paranoia, and lack of sleep. Her first suggestion is that Aliens have taken over the town and the FIesta should immediately be stopped.\*

\*A sane agent recognizes this as a crazed delusion fuelled by fatigue.

## HELLO, NEIGHBOR!

The neighbor man appears to be around age 73 and of above average health. His time is spent in front of the television watching Jeopardy, with his cat on his lap…

*And neither he nor the cat move from the couch the entire day…*

### Alertness

* *The elderly man has to physically remind himself to blink, scrunching his entire face as he closes and reopens his eyes. He seems uncomfortable in his own body.*
* *He does not get up to use the restroom, nor does the cat. They also do not eat during the day.*

At night, things change. The old man and the cat move out of sight. They aren’t seen leaving the house.

If the Agents decide to enter the house, they find strange things:

* The house is devoid of food for either the man or cat.
* Several exotic weapons and tools, resembles Native American in nature, but curved and of strange materials..
* A scrawled note:
	+ “Beast tamer has been taken. Find others soon.”
	+ **INT TRANSLATIONS**: Animal Control has been compromised.
* A shed snakeskin, larger than a man in the bathtub.

Upon discovering the snakeskin, a deafening rattle overtakes the house: the old man crawls into the hallway on all fours, his skin is overtaken with scales and a large rattlesnake tail erupts from his back. The cat is nowhere to be found. The Rattleserpent-Folk engages the Agents in combat to the death.

## THE BEAST TAMER

The Rattleserpent-folk have found that some of them are more comfortable in the bodies of animals rather than men. The Animal Control Officer has been replaced by one of the Nest members.

The stout building housing animal control is eerily quiet, no barking dogs or rattling cages, just a teenage girl sitting behind a desk on her phone. A rudimentary supply of first aid and antivenom is on site.

“Oh, hi. Welcome to shelter. In town for Fiesta?”

Her greeting is a grim reminder of the ticking clock. The name tag labels her as “Amy.” She informs the team that the Officer is out on a call but should be back shortly. The town has no shortage of stray dogs and they’re trying to gather them up before the Fiesta starts.

“Be free to look at the cages. They are so quiet recently.”

## HUMINT

* *Amy is speaking strangely and more awkwardly than a standard teenager.*
* **Alertness**
* *Two of the animal cages are not locked, they also do not react to Amy’s approach.*

The cages are occupied, but the animals are nearly silent. They’re barely moving and most of the food is untouched. The truth is that the dogs are under a trance cast on them by the Control Officer. The dogs begin to whimper and retreat into corners. A large shadow cast over the Agents, shaped as vaguely humanoid and reptilian. It’s coming from Amy. She has approached the Agents, and with each step her skin pulses and begins shifting to that of a middle-aged man in an Animal Control uniform with a gun on his hip.

“I understand you are looking for Animal Control Officer?”

Two dogs growl behind them, out of their cages. Their teeth appear more as snake fangs than canine teeth. One dog shifts into its true serpent form. All three attack the Agents simultaneously.

At the end of the combat, Agents can clearly hear sirens and see flashing lights outside of the building. Gunshots have a tendency to draw police, especially close to large public events. Out the front, police are taking cover behind their cars with weapons drawn. However, at the rear of the building they haven’t fully covered the exit.

When the Rattleserpent-folk are slain, they cycle through the beings they have devoured: a coyote, a cat, the Mayor, a middle-aged woman, and then Amy.

They have a chance to escape, but still leaves the problems of two Rattleserpent-folk corpses.

**Persuade**

* They can negotiate with the Police Chief to have him enter and see the bodies, likely damaging his sanity, but will buy them an excuse to get out of the town without interference.//

**Stealth**

* They can sneak out of the back door, leaving the bodies of the Rattleserpent-folks to the police. As a result, the Fiesta is delayed and cut down to one day. The Program eventually steps in to take the bodies. The tabloids blow up and the town becomes popular with some conspiracy theorists.//

### Rattleserpent-Folk

**STR** 19 **CON** 21 **DEX** 18 **INT** 20 **POW** 16

**HP** 20 **WP** 16

**ARMOR** 3 points of thick, scaly skin.

**SKILLS** Alertness 80%, Anthropology (Human) 35%, Disguise 40%, Dodge 40%, Medicine 99%, Science (Biology) 99%, Sciences (Serpent-Men) 90%, Search 90%, Survival 70%, Unnatural 65%

**ATTACKS** Bite 55%, damage 1D6, Armor Piercing 3 (see VENOM).

Grapple 45%, damage special (see BLOOD FRENZY)

Sign of Power, damage 2D6 (see SIGN OF POWER)

**BLOOD FRENZY** A target that is bleeding causes one of the serpent-folk to enter a blood frenzy. It attempts to grapple and pin the victim. If it succeeds, it drains 1 HP per round from blood loss until the victim dies. Only a Dodge roll allows the target to escape. A seized victim can attempt an opposed STR roll to struggle free, suffering 1D4 damage from tearing flesh. Any successful attack on the serpent during the blood frenzy causes this attack to cease. During this blood frenzy, the serpent cannot perform any other action until the target is dead or escapes.

**RATTLE** The Rattleserpent-folk can vibrate their tail at a high frequency to release a disorienting and harmful sound. Humans exposed to the sound must succeed a POWx5 test or be stunned for 1 round and take 1 damage. The Rattleserpent-folk must remain still while using this ability.

**CHARNEL VISAGE** The serpent-folk have no CHA stat as humans would understand it. A serpent that uses an unnatural ritual such as Changeling Feast to disguise itself as human gains a CHA stat, usually with a score equal to half its INT. Many serpent-folk have consumed multiple

victims, allowing one to instantly switch its appearance to any of a dozen human forms.

**IMMORTALITY** A member of the serpent-folk never grows old, starves to death, or perishes of natural causes. If it fails to feed on fresh meat or blood, after a period of time, it enters a torporous state which can sometimes last hundreds, perhaps millions, of years.

**VENOM** If a serpent-folk bite inflicts damage (in other words, if it’s not stopped by armor), then the victim also suffers poisoning. The venom has a Speed of 1D6 turns and Lethality 15%. An antidote that treats snake venom is effective if the victim makes a Luck roll.

**RITUALS** All serpent-folk know unnatural rituals. Changeling Feast, Fascination, Infallible Suggestion, Obscure Memory, and Withering are the most common, but some know many more.

**SIGN OF POWER** With a gesture, one of the serpentfolk can cause a single person to be flung backwards with extreme force, inflicting 2D6 damage. It is unknown whether this ability is a ritual or an inherent ability.

**UNNATURAL BIOLOGY** Serpent-folk physiology would baffle any biologist. Making a called shot for “vitals” or another apparently vulnerable area inflicts normal damage, with no special game effect.

**SAN LOSS** 1/1D6.

## Credits

The Truth Has Consequences was written by SeaTurtles for the 2019  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 © SeaTurtles, excepting those elements that are components of the Delta Green intellectual property.

The Truth Has Consequences is not available here under CC-BY-SA.