Mairzy Doats

Kinnear BioSolutions Amalgamated is a fragment of a larger international R&D company. Their specialty is livestock antibiotics and animal health for various agricultural industries. Recently their parent company has acquired some genetic augmentation data that KBSA was asked to try to include in their products. Test have not gone to plan and research done into the acquired data has raised some red flags. The Agents are to head to the KBSA branch office in Boone, NC and investigate further.

## Background

KBSA’s owner has managed to purchase one of the many leaked secrets of MJ-12’s Cookbook that was put on the open market by an old spook who needed some cash. Scraps of data from Sub-Project CORE were collated, mashed together and sold for a tidy sum before ending up in KBSA’s hands. KBSA now has quite a leg up on the bioengineering market…and zero context for the tool they have.

The implementation of this data is for a pipe dream of COO Wayne Reynolds: expanded digestive abilities for livestock. Information on retroviral agents were combined with CORE data to create gene therapy treatments to allow ungulates to digest uncommon or unpalatable plants. The augmented sheep have increased appetites and are less fussy when it comes to eating things like kudzu or hogweed.

Well, the ones that survived the gene therapy. KBSA has a handful of fully functional sheep they’re currently testing in Boone; a substantial amount didn’t survive on due to strain or mutation from the process. The process is far from perfect and Reynolds is demanding rigorous testing on the survivors before bringing the product to market. The main threat is the less obvious side effects of the process that have made unsettling changes to the sheep.

## The Sheep

First, the sheep have the uncanny ability to draw the human mind and eye. Some find themselves thinking positively of them either in adoration or fascination. Others are actively apathetic verging on disgust. This attitude increases in strength and irrationality as time goes on due to proximity where most folks are overcome with the urge to pet them or tend to them while others will go out of their way to deride the sheep. KBSA is already fraying at the seams with conflicting opinions threatening to boil over.

Second, the sheep no longer excrete waste products. This is much more noticeable and alarming. The sheep simply grow larger and denser and healthier the more they consume. The research department can’t determine why, how or to what end. The research department is also on the forefront of what will inevitably happen to KBSA and Boone: outright civil war over the sheep.

The heightened opinions are annoying but tolerable. Add the wrinkle of the sheep actively defying the laws of biology and you have deep-set opinions overruling reasonable thought. Believers go from friendly to fanatical; skeptics go from doubting to horrified. The sheep either need to be protected or destroyed; there is no compromise.

When the research department breaks the news to the rest of KBSA, the dams break.

Other than that, they are normal sheep. Hungrier and less picky than usual, but normal.

## Important NPCS

**Chief Manager Porter Lockley**: the grand law and authority of the branch office and the branch office alone. Directly and unknowingly responsible for keeping the sheep influence from the core offices. Intense, not as charismatic as he thinks, smiles wide. Pro-Sheep.

**Head Researcher Colleen Broderick**: overworked, underpaid, has no idea what to do with these sheep. Mumbles a lot, stares off into space, dismissive of people who can’t help her. Possibly your best ally. Anti-Sheep.

**Dr. Phoebe Steiger**: co-veterinarian. Abhors the sheep to the point of panic. At odds with Lockley who is threatening to fire her for desertion because she refuses to perform her job without explanation. Flighty, bubbly, sing-song despite the fearful mania. Anti-Sheep.

**Dr. Thomas Franks**: co-veterinarian. Out of his mind with joy. Often found just laying with sheep in their pens or grooming them with obsessive detail like a kid with a new pet. Distracted, playful, beaming with delight. Pro-Sheep.

## Phase One: Approach

Boone, NC, is actually unharmed by the sheep; their influence has been limited to the branch office. The locals are pleasant for a town of 17,000 and can be tapped for basic information on the area and KBSA. There are reasonable accommodations and supplies to be found for Agents who think outside of the box and need unconventional materials. Otherwise the town doesn’t have much to offer.

The KBSA office is located on the outskirts of town on the Blue Ridge Mountains themselves. A solidly built wood and stone two-story building, the office is unassuming and rustic with around 50-75 employees including on-site security. The company’s whole corporate aesthetic flows from their architecture with a relaxed dress code, open-air floor plans and wide windows. The first floor is home to administrative and clerical, second is R&D and the basement is where the live specimens and testing equipment is held.

Avenues of approach: undercover approach or tactical infiltration could work best. A-Cell wants a sitrep before they let you bring out the big guns. Department of Agriculture foot soldiers or private investors are a solid cover as is something plausible like IRS auditing. Infiltration is a snap due to poor op-sec on the part of KBSA.

The office itself is easily above board and inspection will reveal that. Steer them towards finding the sheep and the real challenge raises its wooly head.

## Phase Two: Taking A Side

Encountering the sheep forces a Sanity check against Helplessness, 0/1. On a success the Agent is not yet affected as the effect just bounces off for the time being. On a failure, ask the Agent what they think about the sheep and assign Pro or Anti-Sheep accordingly. This check is made every time the Agent encounters a sheep until they fail and slip into the next stage: radicalization. For Agents already protected against Helplessness, ask them for their opinion on the sheep regardless.

For every half hour spent around the sheep in the point of radicalization the Agent makes a sanity roll, also 0/1. Every two points lost increases the magnitude of opinion. After four magnitude shifts, the Agent becomes entrenched in their position. Every half hour thereafter they will passively lose 1 Sanity while around the sheep.

When entrenched, the next stage is mania. Mania is only obtainable through true understanding of the nature of the sheep. Knowledge of the sheep’s inability to excrete is a 1/1d6 sanity roll against Unnatural. Anyone with any opinion on the sheep at all switches immediately to mania. Agents hardened to Helplessness who fail this roll become firmly entrenched in their position as they go from neutral parties to staunch believers. Anyone with no opinion on the sheep make the sanity roll but have enough presence of mind to remain subjective.

Phase two itself is slowly chipping away at Sanity and Bonds, letting the Agents discover what the ultimate problem is and letting them ask for guidance. The various departments and important NPCs within the company have their own positions and will be cooperative with the Agents. Asking Delta Green (The Program or The Outlaws) are of the firm belief that the sheep should be destroyed (and the data taken or destroyed). Both believe that any threats should be neutralized and events covered-up.

## Phase Three: All-Out War

The Agents’ actions will upset the balance of the office. Either their course of action or their disruptions in general will cause the knowledge to get out and for the sides to radicalize. Both sides cannot be reasoned with and will not stop until the sheep are safe or destroyed.

If you want to go easy on the Agents, these are just normal people driven to manic violence. They use improvised weapons or passioned flailing of fists. Subdual and incapacitation are enough to stop them.

If you want to go hard, the on-site security is armed with weapons and the Agents are likely equipped with pieces as well. The improvised weapons are sharp and heavy, their passions running deep and to the bitter end. Even their allies are bloodthirsty.

Dole out sanity checks as necessary for violence or reward creative thinking for outwitting or outmaneuvering enemies.

## Phase Four: Apotheosis

By default, nothing worse will come from the sheep’s strange biology. That stretches beyond the scope of this scenario. At your discretion (and reading the room), feel free to add your own twists and turns.

The clear endings are the sheep’s destruction or salvation. Being on the winning or losing side restores or costs 1d6 Sanity respectively. Complete destruction leads to depression, withdrawal and gradual relief with no threat of resurgence. Rescue means these irrational symptoms remain indefinitely unless the affected can get free and clear for a while. Even then, they may return one day as the sheep feed and survive in exile.

## Credits

Mairzy Doats was written by James Esten for the 2018  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 © James Esten, excepting those elements that are components of the Delta Green intellectual property.

Mairzy Doats is not available here under CC-BY-SA.