War with Terror

*The Man In Black wrote (DGML 18493)*

A War with Terror has to include the Black Brotherhood as the primary architect of human-mythos evil in the world, perhaps with a bit of influence from the Cult of Transcendence infiltrating and insidiously seeping into the edges of perception. Perhaps the Transcendants hope to ignite a conflict between the Cthulhu Cult and Hastur that would unmake the world.

According to Cthulhu Live, the eastern masters of the Cthulhu Cult in Leng take a dim view of the Black Brotherhood, and the western priesthood in Europe and Irem actively hunt down and murder Black Brothers as part of an ongoing theological dispute.

Basically, the founding members of the Black Brotherhood believe that the downfall of human society and sanity will hasten the awakening of the Great Cthulhu and thus take extreme measures to foment this awakening. To the Leng Monastics and Priesthood of the Archheirophant of Irem, this "activist" stance is heresy, as they believe that Cthulhu will awaken only when the Stars Are Right, regardless of the pitiful endeavors of a fundamentally inadequate species such as humanity.

*To which James Haughton gratuitously added (DGML 18496)*

There are some obvious parallels here with the divisions between various fundamentalist Xians movements: "dispensationalists" who if I understand correctly believe that by helping Israel conquer the [[[Middle East]] they can "immanentize the eschaton": fulfil various biblical prophecies and bring about the second coming, vs "Supersessionalists" who believe that God will take his own time about it. It's quite easy to imagine that the Black Brotherhood might infiltrate/recruit from/dupe the dispensationalists.

Hey, you want a Mythos explanation of the Iraq war? Black Brotherhood posing as Xian dispensationalists influenced GWB to invade the middle east, allegedly in support of Israel, the second coming of Christ, etc, actually to smash and raid Irem and the Archheirophant's cult (not to mention attempting to trigger general war, etc). Would explain the widespread looting of Iraq's ancient cultural heritage. They've probably been plotting it since 1992 (when they finally got a fix on Irem's real-world location) but the Clinton presidency delayed them.

Meanwhile the Leng Monastics (China) are quite happy to sit back and watch the Black Brotherhood (USA) and the Archheirophant (Middle East) pound each other into insignificance…

## Agencies and Organisations Post-9/11.

### Existing Organisations

MilInt should be accessable from Countdown, including Brit.

### What're We Doing Here Anyway?

This will be a brief description of possible PC jobs. Largely military intelligence, I'd guess.

## Stans and Sandboxes

Where the PCs may find themselves posted. Modern and recent history, culture, geography and more.

I'll just slap in a few Wikipedia links for now.

### Afganistan

* General Background
* Invasion.

### Iraq

* General Background
* Invasion

## Employment Opportunities

What changes will be made to who the Agents are. Essentially what's needed to work in intelligence in terrorist-ridden hellholes- languages, backgrounds, jobs.

## Names in the Dossier.

Basically the opposition.

Perhaps a small section on the terrorists you're meant to be fighting, and then the paranormal opposition.

### Karotechia

Running medium-arms (rockets, explosives) and possibly bio/chem weapons to terrorists in the Mid-East, and opium (hey, gotta fund ourselves somehow) in Afganistan. Play up the Dogs-of-War, not our yard but here for profit angle. Perhaps replace/merge with MiB's Black Brotherhood instead, as two Aryan gundealer groups might confuse players in a bad way

### Local Cults

A local cult or three. Strange fringe religious groups (and I've read about several long-founded, tiny religious groups in Iraq- Zoastrianish monotheists and Abrahamic offsplits). Hell, have them apply to coalition forces for "protection for minority religious ritual" in the face of bigotry by the Islamic forces. Then have them rather unpleasantly butcher multiple animals in front of the PCs. Inventiveness of cultists has been one of Delta Greens strong points (Skoptsi!) so I'd be overjoyed if people could come up with something twisted/imaginative enough.

### PISCES

Ah, the joys of allies. Write up MI6 Operations Team 12. Mixed bag of a few Shan agents, a few innocents and some SA-80 wielding <del>goons</del> squaddies.

### MJ12

Here for the ArchInt, and probably the player's bosses. I'd suggest basing them in an airforce base as air force intelligence- which may result in pleas for airstrikes from desperate players. After all, even MJ12 can see the wisdom of not letting a Shoggoth loose in downtown Basra. Can't they?

### GRU SV-8

Perhaps have them send a team to recover a McGuffin (Tome? Yithian tech recovered from Siberia?) left behind in Afganistan the last time the Russians got in? Or perhaps just have agents in place who used to work for GRU SV-8, but contact hasn't been maintained. I'm sure lots of Soviet intel networks just fell apart without warning.

As far as the War On Terror goes, the GRU should be deeply involved in Chechnya and Arms Smuggling in Iraq and Afghanistan. Maybe they conduct some surveillance on the competition and witness an Aryan arms dealer meeting with Reinhard Galt…

## Missions.

As I said, it would be nice to give a couple of unconnected scenarios and one more substantial one. It's a nice format for RPGs. I have ideas in my head- clearing caves in Afganistan, undead suicide bombers (hey, all the zombie had to do is walk and pull a toggle… "Didn't we kill this guy last week?" and the inevitable artifact hunt. I'm sure others will have far superior ideas.