You're the Shan Now, Dog

Written for the 2021 Delta Green Shotgun Scenario Contest.

Feeds four.

PISCES has reached out to Delta Green; an Unnatural threat has fled the UK and landed in the United States. PICES is sending an agent of their own to retrieve or neutralize the threat, but has contacted the Program as a token of good faith and a request for additional resources. The Agents have been assigned to work with the PISCES Agent, Hannah Arbor, in capturing or killing what Arbor describes as a confused animal with mind-warping magic. Delta Green finds her description of the threat to be vague, but Arbor’s insistence that it be taken alive if possible has intrigued the Program’s higher ups; if PISCES wants the threat taken alive, then there must be something about it that’s worth having. The Agents are sent into the situation with the instructions to capture the threat for Delta Green’s own use and to neutralize the threat if it cannot be secured for the Program.

## **WHAT’S UP, DOG?**

PICES is a British intelligence arm dedicated to pursuing Unnatural threats and resources in service of the British state. In many ways, they resemble the modern Program, down to their recent emergence from a horrific, occult civil war; PICES was once thoroughly infested by skull-dwelling insects from beyond the stars known as the Shan. This infestation was so thorough and so hostile that in order to rid themselves of the menace, PISCES effectively burnt itself to the ground. Shan hosts and suspected Shan hosts alike were interrogated, trepanned, and eliminated— not always in that order.

Thanks to the extermination campaign against the Shan and their hosts, PICES was decimated by a massive loss of personnel and institutional knowledge. At some point in the past, PICES got their hands on the ghoul ritual Changeling Feast. The specifics of the ritual were lost in the purge, but a salient fact remained; eat the brains of the dead, and you devour their memories as well. As a result of the use of this ritual, PICES now has a small unit of new ghouls who are confused about and largely ignorant about their own condition. They know that they must eat rotten meat, and that they can access the memories of those they have consumed. Beyond that, they are often unaware of their own powers and the drawbacks to using them.

This is dangerous; the Shan of PICES were well-practiced at dominating human minds. Any memory of the Shan that is complete enough to simulate the original consciousness is also strong enough to take over the mind and changeable body of the untrained PICES ghoul that devoured it. In this case, the memories of a Shan overwhelmed the new ghoul in a matter of hours, and planned its escape in a matter of days. The last that the Shan remembered, PICES was not on good terms with their American counterparts. As such the Shan has fled to the United States to make things harder for PISCES' hunting hounds while it regroups, reassesses, and rebuilds its power base in exile.

## **IF FOUND RETURN TO K-9 UNIT “GOLDEN”**

The person of interest fleeing to America is a psychic asset formerly known as Chester Luna. Luna was a member of a unit at PICES informally referred to as “the Cadaver Dogs,” and officially known as “K-9 Unit Golden.” Chester was haughty and headstrong, taking very few precautions against subversion, such as frequent sessions with the unit’s attached psychological specialist who helps them keep in tune with their “real” lives rather than the personalities and the memories of the dead they devour. Chester believed he was the master of his own mind, and the memories of a specific, high-ranking Shan have now proved him wrong.

The new pilot of his body is a Shan by the title of High Operant; a priest with several rituals under its belt and a perverse craving for elaborate violence and the humiliation of others. It views humans the way humans view pigs; potentially intelligent and dangerous, but ultimately more useful as tools and flesh. Similarly, it is absolutely galled that said mammals have ousted their Shan masters from PICES and seem to have destroyed their base of power in Goatswood.

The High Operant knows several rituals of the Handler’s choice, but here is a recommended list:

* Ageless Banquet, (Handler’s Guide pg 175)
* Clairvoyance, (Handler’s Guide pg 176
* One Who Passes the Gateway, (Handler’s Guide pg 182)
* Song of Power, (Handler’s Guide pg 185)

The High Operant technically does not have a body; it exists purely as formless memories within the mind of the ghoul it has subverted. Because of this, it cannot protect itself by fleeing its host and finding a new one. Thankfully, the ghoul’s body is a malleable one. If given enough time, the High Operant will master Changeling Feast and try to blend back into society.

If the Agents approach it, the High Operant will be willing to bargain with them. It offers its Unnatural knowledge in exchange for safe passage to the Agents’ masters or failing that, help getting away from PISCES.

## **WHO LET THE DOGS OUT?**

K-9 Unit “Golden” (also known as “Golden’s retrievers”) is a fledgling group that has, at best, maybe two years under its belt when it comes to field operations. They’re untrained, largely ignorant, and fumbling around in a world of arcane horrors that they understand only well enough to pose a massive threat to themselves and everyone around them while claiming that they act in the interests of all mankind. So, they’re quite similar to Delta Green.

This batch of PICES agents are young and idealistic; back in the United Kingdom, they have a handler who communicates with them frequently via phone, and less frequently via more esoteric means when greater security is required.

These ghouls are optimists at the beginning of their careers despite any existing background in the Intelligence field. Despite participating in Unnatural rituals and having their bodies changed beyond recognition beneath their human forms, the members of Golden believe they are doing a necessary and vital function. They believe that the Unnatural can be understood, if only they reclaim enough memories and resources that were lost to the purges. They are, quite literally, hungry for knowledge.

They’re also willing to negotiate with the Delta Green Agents. After all, they announced their presence before coming to America, a move that surprised the Agents’ higher ups in the Program. The ghouls assume that their own organization and the Americans’ are comrades, based on the memories of old PICES officers who remembered working with the first incarnation of Delta Green during the second world war. Golden’s retrievers think that this relationship was broken during Delta Green’s days of unofficial operation (of which they are only vaguely aware) and the Shan infiltration of PICES. Surely, now that Delta Green now has official remit and the Shan have been driven out, there’s no reason to believe that the two groups cannot reconcile and pool their resources once again.

This may be an optimistic stance, but it is also a practical one; after its own civil war Delta Green has much more institutional knowledge and resources on hand. The cadaver dogs want to take advantage of that in the long term to rebuild their power base in the United Kingdom more than they want to take advantage of those things in the short term in order to hunt down and capture Chester Luna.

### **Sample Members of Golden’s Retrievers**

The PIECES agents use the stats from the tab on ghouls in the Handler’s Guide, on page 199. The PIECES ghouls use the stats from the tab on ghouls in the Handler’s Guide, on page 199. Furthermore, they are armed with light pistols and one spell each of the Handler’s choice.

### **HANNAH ARBOR**

*Leader of the pack, age 27*

Hannah is a firm young woman who believes in the rightness of her cause even as that cause ruins her life. She believes that sacrifices are necessary to protect humanity, and has come to terms with being one of those sacrifices. Hannah is adapted to Helplessness.

### **LAYTON LOCKE**

*Pitbull, age 29*

Lieutenant Layton Locke is a former royal marine. He served his country with honor and distinction and is no stranger to the mutilation of corpses, or the living for that matter. He is adapted to Violence.

### **DAISY CHRISTODOULOU**

*New puppy, age 24*

Daisy was a graduate student recruited by PICES for her intelligence and her research into strange anatomies. She has since been brought in to do more hands-on research than she ever thought she would get the chance to do. Her background as a forensics scholar has adapted her to Violence.

## **SAN COSTS & REWARDS**

* Seeing one of the ghouls outside their human disguise costs **0/1D6 SAN**.
* Knowledge of the Shan costs **0/1D6 SAN**.
* Destroying Luna rewards **1 SAN**.
* Somehow freeing Luna from Shan control rewards **1D6 SAN.**

**Final word count: 1497 words.**

## Credits

You're the Shan Now, Dog was written by Bird Bailey 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 © Bird Bailey, excepting those elements that are components of the Delta Green intellectual property.

You're the Shan Now, Dog is not available here under CC-BY-SA.
Source: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lMNDLMEfiDXi435Bee3jOW5f4INnzjq2lMFbY4S9new/edit