Voelz Grant Conservatory

In 1936 Professor Henry Armitage of Miskatonic University was approached by Dr. Armand Voelz with a proposal to create a network of sponsored archives to preserve important cultural texts. Dr. Voelz had accumulated a vast fortune by investing the profits from his patents on several surgical devices into numerous projects, including petroleum recovery. Ostensibly, he had created a special grant with the bulk of his fortune that could be used to fund special collections in participating Universities.

**The reality is far more disturbing.**

The real impetus behind the project was the loss of Dr. Voelz's daughter, who had been kidnapped and sacrificed to a Cthulhu cult during a trip their family took to to Australia. His grief-stricken wife died soon after. Voelz discovered that the cult had been carrying out a ritual from the Shazak scrolls, a bastardized copy of which was found on the body of one of the cultists after a police raid on their hideout that came too late to save Juliet Voelz. The shattered doctor, learning of Armitage's involvement in the Dunwich affair, conspired with him to create the Voelz Grant Conservatory in order to buy up mythos tomes, and lock them away from the cults that could put them to dangerous use.

Under Armitage's leadership, several major Universities and libraries created well funded special "Voelz collections" with protection rivaling that of the best bank vaults. The participating libraries, at the University of Iowa; Miskatonic University; Harvard University; the University of New Mexico; Bodleian Library; the Biblioteque Nationale de France; and the British National Library (among others), began buying up any mythos tomes they could, while using whatever means necessary to obtain the ones they couldn't. Today this network still acts to obtain and sequester mythos grimoires, with the Voelz grant continuing to provide an impressive level of funding to member institutions. Librarians of the Conservatory will sometimes work with other organizations and can be relied upon to be almost fanatically devoted to curbing the activities of the mythos. They make only semi-reliable DG friendlies, however, due to their loyalty to the Conservatory and their home libraries.

One unwelcome side-effect of this effort has been the accumulation of mythos cults near the libraries housing Voelz archives. The Miskatonic valley (already heavily infested), the Iowa City area, and the Albuquerque/Tijeras canyon areas are particularly problematic for Delta Green operatives. It is advised that cells operating in these areas (as they must with increasing frequency) seek out the assistance of the local Voelz grant librarians through the use of some suitable cover story. It is not considered advisable to attempt to recruit those librarians for permanent friendly or agent status, however.

A Voelz grant associated librarian of particular note is Robert Crucian.

Voelz grant affiliated librarians are often equipped with mythos magic of various types, though the magic they employ is almost exclusively designed to neutralize, damage, reveal, or deflect elements of the mythos rather than call upon their power in any way. Said librarians should be considered highly knowledgeable about the mythos. They should also be regarded as *armed and extremely dangerous*.