Operation BUCK RUN

## **PART ONE: INFORMATION THE PLAYERS NEED**

*You are playing private contractors selected for Working Group SANTA CLAUS. You murder for clandestine government reasons. This operation is BUCK RUN.*

*You are deniable employees who get paid well for your reliability. Your names are fake but they appear on your real driver’s licences as part of your legend.*

*You each have one loaded and holstered side arm with two spare magazines and one assault rifle, shotgun or other reasonable choice of weapon in backpacks and duffel bags lying at your feet with one spare magazine or a few spare shells. You are in civilian drag with combat boots and jackets. You have water, snacks, sunglasses, cigarettes, flashlights, wallets, keys, little else.*

*You need to create heavy-hitter PMCs hardened to violence -- special operators are best. They each get +10% bumps to five skills of your choosing.*

## **PART TWO: FOR HANDLER’S EYES ONLY: WHO IS SAUL PACKER?**

In August 1969, Saul Packer was a Vietnam-era draftee charged for gross dereliction of duty, treason, selling contraband, assault and other crimes. The men in black came with an offer: spend the rest of your life in solitary confinement or sign your rights away for medical experimentation. He signed and joined Project SEKRET WAVE.

All documents and materials related to Project SEKRET WAVE were incinerated in July 1970 after its first and only great success: Creating a super soldier.

In June 2020, the Program discovered an unaged Packer and ordered Working Group SANTA CLAUS to get rid of him.

Packer is a variation of the ***Liveliest Awfulness*** (HG.213). He was injected with a carefully recalculated and refined formula, not the muddy bathtub-moonshine recipe the Nazis used. It didn't produce a slimy, croaking humanoid tumour but a high-octane 200-proof, clear-liquor murder machine. The formula and the calculations are lost.

### ***SAUL PACKER***

**STR** 26 **CON** 20 **DEX** 20 **INT** 20 **POW** 20 **CHA** 12

**HP** 23 **WP** 20

**INJURIES and 50 HP:** Packer’s injuries look normal for the first 10 HP in damage. After 10HP, his blood turns into a warm but thick and opaque red liquid more like paint that splatters but doesn’t bleed. Witnessing this is 1d4/0 SAN loss.

Packer cannot be suffocated, choked or drowned but subconsciously reacts as if he is.

At 5 HP and/or 1 WP, or lower, Packer will attempt to escape, if possible.

**AT ZERO HP:** Packer dies at 0HP. His remains partially disintegrate into flaky-gritty rusty powder and partially crystalises into a damp crunchy-squishy meat (like partially-frozen steak but at room temperature). 1d4/0 SAN loss, if you must.

**WILLPOWER:** Packer recovers 1 WP every hour if he's sleeping or being lazy.

**SKILL VALUES (for rolling):** Alertness 80, Athletics 80, Disguise 20, Dodge 50, Firearms 30, Grapple 50 (see RAVENOUS, below), Persuade 20, Stealth 50, Unarmed Combat 50 (1d4+5 damage bonus). All other skills should be at basic minimums.

### **MEETING SAUL PACKER**

When the players meet Packer, he’s in cuffs. He sobs, begs and pleads the agents to not hurt him [this costs 1 WP and works as a 15% Persuade roll]. He is a janitor facing a murder for no reason he knows. He’ll get more and more desperate. The moment the agents let him go, he runs to get some tactical space then attacks the nearest agent from behind.

If they attack first, he plays dead and/or gets out of his cuffs (breaking restraints is 1 WP spent on Athletics), moves to gets tactical distance, then starts his attack.

### **PERSONALITY WITH SAN 0 AND INTELLIGENCE 20**

Packer is superhumanly intelligent but a thrill-seeking slacker. He can only learn subconsciously by trial and error but that is rapid. He can work out the most difficult crossword in a few seconds. Any more effort bores him. Combat brings him amazing thrills. He cures boredom by being sadistic. He is fulfilled making a person suffer.  He can do that for days and days.

If he has to apply himself to any sort of education or book learning, he will fail in under a minute as if he rolled a 00. Packer only thrives in a physical environment of immediate gratification.

Packer is a thrill-seeker and can’t turn down a physical conflict unless it’s obviously against his capacities. He is superhumanly cunning and understands the need for loyal allies and worshippers. He is chaotic and restless so he doesn’t have fixed routines.

**POWERS:** Witnesses to his unnatural powers roll SAN and face a 1d6/1 SAN loss.

### **PACKER’S AMBIENT UNNATURAL POWERS**

Ambient powers are “always on”.

**AGELESS:** Packer does not age.

**RAVENOUS:** After Packer grapples and pins a target, he can eat, inflicting 2D6 damage and healing exactly as much up to his maximum. Eating freshly-dead meat heals as much as its CON provided as it's no older than a few hours.

**SPEEDY:** While he has the same movement rates as humans (10/20/30), Packer can sprint indefinitely; pausing to regenerate the constant wear from friction after a few hours.

**UNFORMED:** Parker takes half the HP damage from any attack except for fire or hypergeometry. If Packer is hit with a Lethality check, he only takes half the damage.

**USING 26 STRENGTH:** Packer can punch for 1d4+5 damage ([1d4-1] +6 damage bonus). He can reach the roof of a single-storey house in a single jump. Packer can tactically move in 3D if there are buildings, trees and big boulders to allow that.

### **PACKER’S ACTIVATED UNNATURAL POWERS**

Each power costs 1 WP to activate (no roll required). Packer can only spend 1 WP in a round.

**REGENERATION:** Lose 1d6 HP and regenerate a destroyed or near-destroyed limb or body part. It’s like flesh-coloured clay reforms the tissue in one turn. NOTE: It is a reflexive, automatic and immediate free action regenerating headshots. If it reduces Packer to 0HP, he dies.

Otherwise, Packer regenerates 1 HP every hour if he isn’t doing some strenuous task.

**SLEEPLESS:** Spend 1 WP to shake off the need to sleep another 24 hours without ill effects.

**SUPERACUITY:** After activation, superacuity provides one automatic result of 15% to an Athletics, Dodge, Grapple, Stealth or Unarmed Combat check for every 1 WP spent

**SUPERMIMICRY:** Packer is casually fluent in emotions. He can charm, laugh, cajole, beg, sob and plead. Spending 1 WP grants Packer one free 15% success in Persuade. It’s good for superficial interactions but it doesn’t work for long conversations as his boredom takes over.

Packer’s personality is fluid which means he takes a 15% disguise success for 1 WP spent too. Obviously, the effectiveness is limited if not nigh-impossible in the middle of combat.

Packer can pick up a new language in days where others take months. In six months, he'll be as fluent as a native speaker from birth.

**WHIP FAST:** Spend 1 WP and gain an immediate free action. It cannot interrupt an action being rolled but immediately after that is acceptable. Since WP has already been spent this round, the action has to be rolled.

## **PART THREE: CHOOSE THE FLOOR PLAN FOR THE ABANDONED HOUSE**

Mark out the secret door for the well on the ground floor or in the basement. The depth of the well is up to you but the agents don’t have spelunking gear to check it out.

Packer can climb out regardless of how deep it is.

Visit https://www.vintag.es/2019/02/sears-catalog-homes.html for more choices.

## **PART FOUR: READ ALOUD TO THE PLAYERS TO START THE GAME**

*It's just past 4am in the cold Nevada Desert. The roads are old, cracked concrete that roar under the sedan’s tyres. Small dunes of fine, beach-pale sand lie strewn everywhere and slow you down. This is scorpion and snake territory so your boots are laced on your feet.*

*The moon dips below the horizon and the stars are piercingly bright, but the only light here is what you bring with you.*

*You park the rental at The Well. It’s an abandoned kit house on government land the satnav led you to.*

*The house was built atop a well a century ago. When the well dried up, the owner moved on. The house is a bleached bricolage of ad hoc repairs and graffiti. The windows are broken and the doors gone. Drifts of sand pile up the corners, inside and out.*

*Outside the restless wind is a constant hiss. You haven't spoken much. You check the safeties and slides of your weapons.*

*This is operation BUCK RUN. It’s the Special Access Programs’ ongoing house cleaning. The job is trussed in the trunk. You need to kill him and dump him in the well hidden under a detachable floor in middle of the house.*

## **DESCRIPTION OF SAUL PACKER FOR PLAYERS**

*The target is a skinny, short white man in his mid-twenties dressed in a bland, unmarked orange jumpsuit with reflector stripes on the cuffs and torso. His face has signs of foetal alcohol syndrome sandwiched between malnutrition. His mostly-bony physical form is a little buff but otherwise his mouth is full of poor dental care and his mouse-brown hair is buzzcut to 1mm.*

## Credits

Operation BUCK RUN was written by Chris Cooper 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 © Chris Cooper, excepting those elements that are components of the Delta Green intellectual property.

Operation BUCK RUN is not available here under CC-BY-SA.