Operation Wagner

[Walsingham]

Following Hellboy I had the following idea for an 'adventure' set against the backdrop of ww2. The themes are quite Call of Cthulhu, but you could use any platform in my opinion. Other platforms might make for better surprise factor when the players get into the mission.

 

Players: as many as you like. A broad diversity would be good. Professions should be accurate to the year 1938. All the players characters should be conversant to fluent in German. At least one should be a mad sort of cthulhu enthusiast, although as I say you may want to keep this secret.

 

Pre-story: I like to give players a solo pre-story. Let them get the feel for their natural characters. You may even want to let them have some small adventures before this one. But try to keep them appropriate to their careers and so on.

 

Try to emphasise the shocking nature of living in the US and suddenly having agents bust in their homes/labs/opium dens and drag them out. This is long before the opening of hostilities with Nazi Germany. You can decide why and who orders this. The players need never know. They are taken away and kept in solitary confinement in simply concrete cells at a facility in the Mountains. I would describe to them the passing of days trackable by the changing seasons, the solitude and the tedium. Let about two years pass. The guards do not talk to them.

 

One day an armed detail enters each cell and deposits two years worth of newspapers on the floor. The players are given two weeks to familiarise themselves with this material, and then taken before a smartly dressed US Army Airforce major, major Schwarznegger. He speaks with something like a Kentucky drawl. He is in fact from Wiltshire in the United Kingdom. Players with the right background may spot this. He will not explain.

 

The major will offer them English tea from a teapot and ask if they have read the newspapers. Whatever the response he will ask if the player saw a single reference to their being missing. They willl not have done. He will then offer them the chance to prove they are not after all an Axis spy (the first time the player will have heard the charge). He will attempt to persuade them using lots of promises. he may if necessary threaten to take the character out and shoot them on the spot. he may even drag them out and fire a pistol near their head. He will not actually kill anyone yet, although wash-outs will be put straight back in their cells and cannot continue the campaign FOR NOW.

 

Characters who accept will be put back in their cells, where the newspapers will have been removed, and given green-grey whermacht uniforms to wear (without rank insignia), instead of their old clothes/prison uniforms. Days will pass as all the characters are approached by major Schwarznegger.

 

Mission:

 

Eventually, once the players are selected, they will be assembled on a bright February morning in an almost unfurnished Nissen hut. They will have never met one another before. There will also be several NPC people in the group. They are still under guard. Also present are the major, and four US soldiers.

 

The players will be told by major Schwarznegger that the Germans are in possession of a device which controls the weather. It seems that the device was supposed to be fully operational in time for the German Barbarossa offensive, and that this is why no winter uniforms were issued. However, it had insufficient power to beat the Russian winter. Since then the German army has fought every major engagement under favourable conditions [this is almost historically true].

 

The Allies are presently bogged down in Italy. A second front is needed in mainland Europe. But an invasion of France is going to be very difficult so long as the device is operational, due to the natural ferocity of the weather in the Channel. It must be found and destroyed or captured and returned to the United States for study. The group has been assembled as being unknowns with a variety of skills and skill in German. It is going to be their job to enter Germany as soon as intelligence identifies the location of the device. A four man Army Ranger detail will accompany them as muscle. These are the four soldiers in the hut. Unknown to the players one of the NPC people in the party is an OSS agent who will also be keeping an eye on them.

 

The rangers will immediately commence training up the flabby and or emaciated civilians. They will know how to operate in basic terms all standard pieces of wehrmacht equipment, including their radio sets. All conversation will be in German. the players will be moved to a Nissen hut to live together, and bonding betweeen characters may take place at this stage. the rangers will have separate accomodation.

 

Irrrespective of what shenanigans they get up to in the two months, at the beginning of May the group will be assembled to receive word that an invasion of France has been agreed by Eisenhower for this summer, and by lucky chance intelligence have established the location of the weather control device.

 

It location is in the town of Haigerloch, near the Swiss border. the wehrmacht have codenamed the building the 'Virus House', wth the intention of scaring people away. Internally they call it the 'Atom Kellar', and say it is involved in building an atomic bomb. But this too is a cover. Inside, a group of Thule Society officers and SS guards are overseeing the operation of "Thor's Hammer".

 

In case the players feel a bit put upon, major Schwarznegger wil explain that suspicion regarding the facility had existed for some time, and that attempts had been made to put it out of action by depriving it of deuterium from the Norsk Hydro plant. However, in spite of recent successes against the deuterium supplies, the Germans appear to have found another way to fuel it. The team is not being risked for nothing.

 

They should also be aware that Stalin, through the NKVD, appears to know about Haigerloch as well. He has been pressing the Allies on the idea that the Red Army should invade Germany through Switzerland at recent conferences. It is imperative that the facility not fall into Soviet hands, and there may be Soviet commandos in the country already.

 

The cover arranged for the team is that they will be disguised as SS guards transporting a shipment of silver from Switzerland in two trucks. The gold, in case they get any ideas, will be silver-plated lead. there are certain border posts that the Germans often use for this sort of thing, and the transport will go more or less unnoticed. they can exfiltrate by the same route, or are to move the device to Holland and bury it for later collection.

 

They are scheduled to begin preparation immediately, and will enter Germany on the 1st of June. Lt. Fury of the rangers alone will know that Overlord, the invasion is planned to take place on the 5th. As they get closer to the off it shoudl be mentioned to them that the Germans have caused such bad weather over the channel that it is like mid-winter [again historically accurate].

 

~~~

 

What is really happening?

 

The facility is indeed Thule controlled. It does indeed control the weather. It was indeed taking power from the rare elements in the Norwegian deuterium. However, what is inside the thick casket in the bunker at Haigerloch is a nine-dimensional monstrosity. A being of evil and great power. Although the majority of defences are standard gestapo, SS, and Army outside the bunker, inside are an assortment of horrors a la carte. Mutated SS men, scientists who can sing to your organs and make them explode. The usual.

 

The irony is that even if the players get inside, and I hope they do, it is quite impossible for them to hurt the being, and they should become aware that destroying the machine would set it loose, with unimaginably bad consequences. The only sensible move is to run away back home.

 

Action:

 

I really don't know or want to suggest exactly how the operation will go down. However, it is vitally important that the players NOT succeed. Otherwise here are a couple of ideas.

 

- It would be gravy if the players attack the facility on the 5th of June. the disruption to operations can then conveniently explain the 'window' in the unseasonably bad weather that enabled the invasion to take place. Of course, once the damage is repaired you can show them pictures of the storm-wracked invasion beaches, and of the wrecked allied Mulberry harbours.

 

- If the players are captured during the mission then anyone who initially refused may form a rescue party.

 

- During the mission it should become clear to the players that the 'device' is now deriving sustenance from human sacrifice. You can decide whether to let them go on a further mission to attempt to disrupt these activities in the death camps.

[Darque]

Interesting

[metadigital]

Yeah, it's good. But I guess we're all now unsuitable for players as you've just explained the entire "hidden plot" device to us.

 

[Walsingham]

Ah. Yes. *ahem* Slight flaw in my plan there. Still, it may still help youse who are referees.

[Jorian Drake]

Ah. Yes. *ahem* Slight flaw in my plan there. Still, it may still help youse who are referees.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Anyway, nice idea

[metadigital]

Ah. Yes. *ahem* Slight flaw in my plan there. Still, it may still help youse who are referees.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Can I have a blue-haired manga cyborg-alien-human super pre-pubescent girl with two chest-implanted cannons and a fiendish hatred for small insectivorous furry marsupials and burrowing spine-covered monotremes (but not the fluffy duck-billed ones)? That has a prediliction for betting on rooster fights and an unfortunate habit of detonating as a thermonuclear explosion?

[Dark_Raven]

Strangely odd.

[Jorian Drake]

Strangely odd.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Strangely japanese

[metadigital]

Strangely odd.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Is that like being ordinarily usual?

[Dark_Raven]

Strangely odd.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Is that like being ordinarily usual?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

If that is your hearts desire.

[metadigital]

Strangely odd.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Is that like being ordinarily usual?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

If that is your heart's desire.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

My heart seeks the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. (Okay, maybe a little delusional dilettantism on the side ... so something else beside the truth, as well.)

[Gabrielle]

Truth is a lie.

[Jorian Drake]

Truth is a lie.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

And this is true "

 

 

PS: just think about this a little, have yourself confused a little :D

Edited February 9, 2006 by jorian

[metadigital]

Or is it ..? :ph34r:

[Walsingham]

I'm confused. Is this nuko girl a nazi? She sounds like something from Flaming Carrot Comics.

[Gabrielle]

Or is it ..? :ph34r:

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Of course.

 

Happiness is sorrow

Pain is pleasure

Hate is love

[metadigital]

They stole my IDEA!

[Gabrielle]

yes it appears so.

[metadigital]

Okay, I'll have to change my character ... make it a lecherous old man, instead.

 

And instead of a thermonuclear capability, let the dribbling old codger make a large, piercing whistle like what a little posies of pansies make as they fall to earth after being transmogrified from surface to air missiles.

[Gabrielle]

Okay, I'll have to change my character ... make it a lecherous old man, instead.

 

And instead of a thermonuclear capability, let the dribbling old codger make a large, piercing whistle like what a little posies of pansies make as they fall to earth after being transmogrified from surface to air missiles.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Whatever wets your whistle.

[Walsingham]

Or in this case sends his neurons tearing around his cranial cavity, like toddlers in a sweet factory. A factory set afire.

[metadigital]

Actually, I wanna change it again. Not enough RP opportunities. (Posies of pansies don't have a wide palette of whistles.)

 

Maybe if I were a tiny extra-terrestrial being, that strangley looks identical to a 1980's vehicle, and can change into another form with robotic limbs and weapons?

[Walsingham]

Actually, I wanna change it again. Not enough RP opportunities. (Posies of pansies don't have a wide palette of whistles.)

 

Maybe if I were a tiny extra-terrestrial being, that strangley looks identical to a 1980's vehicle, and can change into another form with robotic limbs and weapons?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Like your mother?

[metadigital]

D

[Dark_Raven]

D