The One That Got Away

## **Objective**

Agents are a standby team to assist Hit Team Lima on a sanitize mission.

## **Brief**

Lima was sent to eradicate a couple at their home in rural North Tustin CA, Oliver and Temperance Grijalva. They’ve been kidnapping and sacrificing victims to an old sect. DG has had the electricity shutoff for non-payment. You are on standby several miles away at a Starbucks. (What DG doesn't know is that Temperance is a sorceress.)

Their phone rings, and they receive the message to rescue Lima, go hot.

## **Approaching The House**

The ranch style house is in a hilly area with plenty of open space between neighbors. It’s 11pm on a warm summer night and the house is dark and quiet with the front door ajar. Upon entry, the Agents find Agent Leo lying wounded in the living room. He says Agent Linda is in the study, dead. (Because of the distance between homes, gun shots inside wouldn’t be heard.)

He says, as soon as we entered the house, the shooting started. We killed Oliver who is dead in the living room. Temperance ran into the study as Linda gave chase. I followed only to see Temperance shoot a bolt of light at Linda from her fingertips then disappear into the wardrobe. I think it goes into a tunnel. You have to go through and sanitize her. (What DG doesn’t know is the wardrobe leads to The Dreamlands.)

## **The Study**

Agent Linda is dead on the floor with her chest shriveled and blackened. There is a light trail of blood drops going into the wardrobe, the door is open.

If the PCs search the study, they will find a few papers of interest in a desk. They seem to be photocopies of pages from author CS Lewis’s diary when he’s reflecting about his time at the Wynyard boarding school in Watford, Hertfordshire. Entries of note are:

* > *I Hid in a wardrobe from the headmaster and ended up in a forest. It was snowing and quite cold.*
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* > *All the animals talk and there was a giant grinning cat in a tree with sharp teeth that tried to eat me.*
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* > *… ran into some Conquistadores looking for gold. They were unsure how they got here but they were sailing in the Caribbean and encountered a storm. They tried to enslave me but I escaped.*
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* > *I made friends with a cheeky green gingerbread man and his pony friend. They loved to read and adventure.*
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* > *A village I lived in for a summer was raided by flying monkeys. Sadly they flew away with some villagers.*
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* > *This place can be very dangerous. Sometimes you can’t do what you want and you move slowly as if in a dream.*
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## **Going Through The Wardrobe**

The wardrobe has coats hanging in it. If the Agents reach for the back, they have to push through the hanging clothes. It’s dark and goes on. The Agents will eventually feel the clothes give way to branches and they will come out in a snow covered clearing. It is very cold, right above freezing and lightly snowing.

From here on out, the Agents will take 1 HP of Cold damage every 20 minutes unless they have cold weather clothing on, which they probably don’t.  A successful *Survival* roll will reveal they will have to move quick and get back to the wardrobe soon or freeze to death.

Any items the PCs are carrying turn into their medieval equivalents. Guns become bows, flashlights become torches, clothes turn into tunics, breeches, shawls, etc. (SAN Loss 0/1).

(For one to get to the Dreamlands from the wardrobe, the person entering must have a mindset of needing to escape or wanting to go through it. Only the people that came through the wardrobe can use it to come back, which is easy. Others will not see it. However, whomever the travelers are touching when they come back will come back with them.)

## **Following The Trail**

There are droplets of blood and footprints going into the forest, easy to track. After 20 minutes, the footprints disappear and there’s a snowman 35 yards ahead. The blood drops go right by it. (The footprints will reappear next to the blood drops about 40 yards past the snowman.)

A successful *Search* will show footprints walking up into the air for 20’ then visibility is lost because it’s snowing. (Should any Agent try and follow the footsteps in the air, they need to succeed at a POWx2 roll. A success allows the Agent to follow the footprints 50’ into the air, walk over the snowman, then come back down 40 yards past it.)

Passing the snowman, the blood drops go for another mile and ends at a beaver dam in a frozen pond. This takes 40 minutes trudging in the snow. (Remember to tally up the cold damage and there is the return trip to consider.)

## **The Snowman**

Is a 7’ tall traditional happy snowman with a top hat, twigs for arms and a smile. Nothing will happen if it’s prodded or destroyed.

However, when the Agents are passed it, they find their feet are stuck in the snow and they can no longer walk (unless they can make a POWx1 roll). This is when the snowman attacks. It triples in size and envelopes them. The Agents feel like they’re in a blizzard and hear Gregorian chants in their minds. Their feet become moveable after the attack.

(SAN loss for Snowman 1/1D3).

## **Beaver Dam**

There is a 5’ round wooden door in the beaver dam. Inside are 2 4’ tall beavers, Ward and June. They will greet the agents and invite them in for some fish. They share that the Winter Queen came by and said we’d have visitors soon and they would help us repair our dam (it leaks). Small talk reveals the Winter Queen rules over the animals in this valley and she flew away on her broom which they were holding for her. She most likely went to her ice palace on the mountain.

(SAN loss for talking beaver 1/1D3).

After the chit chat, Ward says, ‘let’s fix the dam.’ He then looks at the Agents expectantly. He means for them to lay themselves into the wood of the dam and become part of it. Looking at the walls, the Agents now see it’s not made of logs, but frozen bodies of fauns, centaurs, large rabbits, gnomes, humans, etc.

(SAN loss for dam 0/1).

If the Agents are hesitant, Ward will sigh and allude that he thought the Agents would be more helpful. He and June then attack. If the Agents win the fight, the dam will start crumbling apart.

At this point, the Agent who previously made their *Survival* roll will suggest it’s time to leave or die from the cold. If no one made it, have the Agents make an INTx5 to realize this.

## **Witch Attacks**

As the Agents leave the dam, Temperance will fly down out of the sky making one sword attack as she swoops by. This should be a surprise attack (+40%). She will then fly away, cackling on her broom. Agents with bows who were ready, can make one attack as she flies away.

## **Wrap Up**

What happens next? Do the Agents gear up and go back? Does DG secure the wardrobe?

### **Research**

The PCs may have the wardrobe tested after the operation or do some research. This shows the wardrobe is made of wood from an apple tree. Carbon dating gives it 161 years old with the wood from an unknown apple strain. Temperance purchased it from an estate sale from Art Clokey in 1995 in Los Osos California. (She ran into the dreaming Art Clokey in the Dreamlands and hunted him down in the waking world.) Clokey encountered the wardrobe in Watford, Hertfordshire England at a school repurposed to house Allied soldiers in WW2. After the war, he arranged for it to be purchased and shipped to his home.

A successful *History* roll will reveal some English folklore about an unusually large apple tree in Hertfordshire England around 1890 whose apples were rumored to have restorative powers. It was blown down in a storm.

(Note to GM, players should feel free to research any of this on the internet during play.)

### **Rewards**

Gain +1D2 SAN for surviving.

Gain +1 SAN for each beaver or snowman killed.

## **STAT BLOCKS**

### **Temperance Grijalva, Psychologist, Sorceress, 48 year old female**

STR 10, CON 13, DEX 12, INT 15, POW 18, CHA 14

HP 12, WP 18, SAN 0

**SKILLS**: Bureaucracy 43%, HUMINT 54%, Occult 54%, \*Fly Broom 61%, Foreign Language Latin 48%, Foreign Language Spanish 68%, Persuade 60%, Science Psychology 68%, Sword 48%, Unnatural 44%.

**RITUALS**: Fascination, Obscure Memory, Petrification, Withering.

**ATTACKS:**

* Sword 41% Damage 1D8
* Withering, see page 187 of the *Handler’s Guide*.

**NOTES**: Has a blood stone, a garnet, which currently gives her 12 extra WP for casting purposes. For every 2 HP a sacrifice victim had, 1 WP is put into the soul stone.

\*Fly Broom only works in the Dreamlands.

### **Burl, 7’ Snowman**

**INT** 11, **POW** 13

**WP** 13

**ATTACK**: \*Blizzard

**ARMOR**: Immune to physical weapons. Fire does double damage to its WP.

**SAN LOSS**: 1/1D3

\*Blizzard is an opposed POW roll for all those caught in its 21’ long x 21’ wide x 21’ high area of effect.

All victims in the area of effect individually roll against the Snowman’s POW.

Winner – takes no damage

Tie – no one takes damage

Loser – take 1D4 damage to WP

A critical success Winner does max damage (4 points) + 1D4.

The Snowman dies if its WP reaches 0. Others who reach 0 WP die and add 1’ to the Snowman’s area of effect.

### **Ward, 4’ Adult Male Beaver**

**STR** 10, **CON** 13, **DEX** 11, **INT** 11, **POW** 11, **CHA** 10

**HP** 12, **WP** 11, **SAN** 55, **BP** 44

**SKILLS**: Alertness 50%, Athletics 50%, Dodge 55%, Stealth 60%, Swim 90%, Unarmed Combat 43%.

**ATTACK**: Bite 43%, Damage 1D6+1, Armor Piercing 3

**ARMOR**: 2 points of thick skin

**SAN LOSS**: 1/1D3 only for the first time they encounter a talking animal in the Dreamlands.

### **June, 4’ Adult Female Beaver**

**STR** 9, CON 13, **DEX** 12, **INT** 13, **POW** 11, **CHA** 12

**HP** 11, **WP** 11, **SAN** 55, **BP** 44

**SKILLS**: Alertness 50%, Athletics 50%, Dodge 40%, Stealth 60%, Swim 90%, Unarmed Combat 38%.

**ATTACK**: Bite 38%, Damage 1D6+1, Armor Piercing 3

**ARMOR**: 2 points of thick skin

**SAN LOSS**: 1/1D3 only for the first time they encounter a talking animal in the Dreamlands.

## Credits

The One That Got Away was written by Gil Cruz for the 2021  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 © Gil Cruz, excepting those elements that are components of the Delta Green intellectual property.

The One That Got Away is not available here under CC-BY-SA.
Source: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lq\_LF7LFbGXkhQ\_n-lulDECYcloNMfmT6RowZBtSnQw/edit