Chaosium Digest Volume 25, Number 6 Date: Sunday, March 8, 1998 Number: 1 of 2 Contents: Fire Bombs: A Delta Green Plot (Paul Williams) CTHULHU NOW SIZ Chart (B. Byars) MISC Announcement: GloranthaCon VII (Janice Sellers) MISC Editor's Note: This week a digest in two parts. In V25.6 you'll find a potpourri of cool stuff: a short plot outline for Delta Green; a chart of heights and weights for various BRP SIZes; and a final announcement for GloranthaCon VII (just a month away!). Over in V25.7 you'll find a long article on Fir Bolg in Pendragon. For next issue I have a few long Mythos pieces lined up. See you in two weeks! Shannon NEW RELEASES: * Call of Cthulhu - _Day of the Beast_ (Chaosium, 128 pg., $19.95), by Keith Herber, et al., is a revision of the classic _Fungi from Yuggoth_ campaign. This is an episodic campaign set in the 1920s involving the machinations of a global cult and encounters with half-a-dozen Mythos races. This new edition features three totally new adventures to set up the campaign, as well as expanded Celaeno and Dreamer sections, and lots of revisions. ISBN 1-56882-125-5. BOOKS OF NOTE: * Nephilim - _On Crusade: More Tales of the Knights Templar_ (Warner / Aspect, 246 pg., $11.99) is an anthology of short stories about the Templars, and a sequel to an earlier anthology, _Tales of the Knights Templar_, which was published in 1995. Like the earlier book it is edited by Katherine Kurtz and contains interesting bridging text on Templar history. Authors are Duane, Harris, Honigsberg, Woods, Reginald, Norton, Sinor, Kurtz, Doyle, MacDonald, and Spangler. ISBN 0-446-67339-0. * Pendragon - _The Wolf and the Crown_ (Harper Prism, 326 pg., $14.00), by A. A. Attanasio, is the third book in Attanasio's series about Arthor, Eagle of Thor. The first two books are _The Dragon and the Unicorn_ and _The Eagle and the Sword_. This third book concerns Arthor's first year as monarch. ISBN 0-06-105370-8. NEW ELECTRONIC RESOURCES: The Mana Brothers Cthulhu Page http://www.fortunecity.com/tattooine/zenith/134/cthulhu.htm A new site still under construction. It currently features "The Book of Characters"--professions and background for PCs and NPCs in the '20s--plus the first two installments of The Turin Guidebook--a timeline for Italy and an extended Tale of Terror set in Turin between 1918 and 1938. The Byakhee Character Generator http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Haven/4173/byakhee.html A new CoC investigator sheet editor for Windows 95. Freeware that can print out every character sheet from the CoC 5 rules. -------------------- From: Paul Williams Subject: Fire Bombs: A Delta Green Plot System: Cthulhu: Delta Green Here is a plotline for Delta Green, set just after the Gulf War (although in theory it could be set anytime between then and yesterday). The adventure does not mention politics, nor the righteousness of the war; it is just a roleplaying adventure set around a situation many of us know about. I was heavily influenced by a recent _2000AD_ story which used djinns instead of fire vampires--I have merely adapted it for CoC. FIRE BOMBS: A DELTA GREEN PLOT The players are summoned by their superiors and shown a bunch of aerial photographs of burnt out apartments and shops. The pictures are in black and white but it is clear that fire caused much of the damage, rather than an explosion. There is an initial impact point clearly marked on the photos but there is no crater. The PCs' superior informs them that these are pictures of Tel Aviv after a SCUD missile hit during the war and have just been "made available" by Mossad. If the players do not comment on the damage, he will, stating that the SCUD hit the ground but there was no explosion, rather a firestorm swept out of the warhead. If the Iraqis were using conventional chemical warfare there would be chemical traces--the Israeli found none. They are directed towards a civilian in Tel Aviv who claims to have seen one of the warheads explode but is too afraid to talk to Mossad. In return for information the PCs are to grant him a visa to enter the States (other country as appropriate to the setting). On arriving in Tel Aviv the PCs are immediately followed by Mossad agents who discovered the security leak that allowed the PCs to gain access to the photos and are now trying to clean up any loose ends. The witness can be found easily enough and he is badly burned. He insists on having the visa first. He tells the PCs that when the warhead hit he ducked, waiting for the explosion, but nothing seemed to happen. He came out from behind the wall he was sheltering behind and saw a firestorm. Not a normal firestorm he adds, but one made up of millions of small globes of fire which seemed to move randomly. He was hit by three of them. He also has a fragment of the warhead case, which he recovered later. Inside is a partial Elder Sign. The PCs are to escort the witness to the airport and put him on a plane to America. As the PCs leave the witness' house Mossad turn up and attempt to gun them down, as well as the witness. Eventually the PCs escape (I hope). Returning home they can hypothesise about the meaning of the Elder Sign. Research reveals that Hitler used a similar sign inside incendiary versions of his V2 rocket. A team of DG agents eventually found and destroyed his research base in the Bavarian Alps. The only surviving member mentioned something about a star gate before he died. Checking satellite photos of Iraq shows unusual heat sources around a disused army base in central Iraq. If the team have friends in any special forces group currently in the group they can do some scouting for them, otherwise its down to the library. Whatever way the information is gained, the team learns that the base is supposedly disused after intensive Allied bombing during the war, but was supposed to be a research base of some kind. The team is volunteered to enter the base, find out what is going on, and stop it by any means possible. The getting to the base, the base's layout and the defenses are up to the individual GM. Make it hard, but don't go overboard. The Iraqis aren't expecting much trouble. Inside the base the Iraqis have opened a permanent gate to Fomalhaut and are sucking fire vampires through into the world, for use in their specially prepared warheads. Anyone looking in the gate sees Cthugha, surrounded by fire vampires (SAN loss). The team is to blow the gate up, as this will seal it forever. As the gate explodes a huge fiery tendril (Cthugha) shoots through and ignites the laboratory. Within minutes the whole base is alight and eventually explodes. Before it does so, the PCs get a chance to grab research papers. How the PCs get home past the increased Iraqi army activity is up to the individual GM. Research Notes: +2% Mythos, 1d4/1d8 SAN loss, written in Arabic, 199? Contain: Summon/Bind Fire Vampire, Summon/Bind Cthugha, Create Gate, Create Permanent Gate (don't know the name of this spell) Please excuse any incorrect spells in the research notes, my rules are not readily available. Regards, Wiggy a.k.a. Paul Williams -------------------- From: Subject: SIZ Chart System: Misc I designed this chart specifically for Pendragon, but it could be useful in other fantasy rpgs as well. Since the SIZ statistic reflects a character's physical structure, I choose to use it as a point of reference in choosing the heights and weights of my characters. Height (in.) Weight (lbs.) SIZ Male Female Male Female 5 61 59 121 109 6 62 60 125 112 7 63 61 129 116 8 64 62 134 120 9 65 63 138 124 10 66 64 142 128 11 67 65 146 132 12 68 66 151 136 13 69 67 155 140 14 70 68 160 144 15 71 69 164 148 16 72 70 169 153 17 73 71 174 157 18 74 72 178 162 19 75 73 183 166 20 76 74 188 171 Note: Feel free to make adjustments as necessary. For example, I have a SIZ 10 female NPC. According to the chart, she would be 5' 4" (64 in.) and 128 lbs. However, she has a very high APP statistic, so I slimmed her down to 5' 4" 108 lbs. Also, I have a heroicly STR knight, so instead of keeping him at 6' 2" 178 lbs., I bulked him up to 240 lbs. Use your own judgment in making the adjustments. If you are familiar with BMIs (body mass indices) and technically minded (like me), you may wish to develop your own BMI spreadsheet based on APP or CON to help you adjust the weight. -------------------- From: Subject: Announcement: GloranthaCon VII System: Misc ANNOUNCEMENT: GloranthaCon VII May 22-25, 1998 Los Angeles, California U.S.A. Everything and everyone are coming together for GloranthaCon VII, which will take place in conjunction with the Gamex Convention at the LAX Wyndham Hotel in Los Angeles, California. FEATURED GUESTS Greg Stafford, the creator of Glorantha, and Robin Laws, the author of the new Glorantha RPG, will be Guests of Honor. Guests of Distinction will include Sandy Peterson, Michael O'Brien (MOB), Larry DiTillio, David Hall, David Cheng, David Dunham, and Stephen Martin. HOTEL The convention will take place at the LAX Wyndham Hotel, 6225 W. Century Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90045; (310) 670-9000. Room reservations must be made directly with the Wyndham. The convention room rate is $84 (plus taxes)/night for a single, double, triple, or quad. The cut-off date for this rate is May 8, 1998. The Wyndham runs a free shuttle between the hotel and L.A. International Airport. For those driving, parking at the hotel is $6/day ($9 for valet parking) with convention validation, and free (but still $9/day for valet parking) for hotel guests. EVENTS Regular GloranthaCon events will include Stafford Reads, Trollball, Gloranthan Storytelling, and the Glorantha Auction. NEW GLORANTHA RPG DEMONSTRATIONS Our featured game will be the demos of the Glorantha RPG, the new game coming from Issaries, Inc. Robin Laws and a specially trained demo team will run and teach the game on Saturday and Sunday. Additional events already scheduled are Once Upon a Time in Glorantha (Gloranthan version of the storytelling card game); Three Heads are Better than One (a freeform LARP); two Gloranthan miniatures games; and seminars on Mythology of the Red Moon, Glorantha RPG, History of the Orlanthi, The Seattle Farmer's Collective Cultural Exchange, Secret History of Sun County Seminar, and the First Age. There is still some room for additional events. Anyone interested in running an event should contact Roderick Robertson at . REGISTRATION Please register through us for GloranthaCon. Preregistration is $27.50 through May 1, 1998. After that date registration is $33.00. Checks and money orders must be in U.S. funds and should be made out to "Strategicon." Please mail them to: GloranthaCon c/o Janice Sellers Chaosium, Inc. 950-A 56th St. Oakland, CA 94608 Preregistration materials will then be mailed to you. For further information, please contact Janice Sellers at . --