Delta Green

Delta Green

Delta Green cover
Designer(s)	Dennis Detwiller, Adam Scott Glancy, John Tynes
Publisher(s)	Pagan Publishing
Publication date	1997
Genre(s)	Horror
System(s)	Call of Cthulhu

Delta Green is a setting for the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game created by Adam Scott Glancy, Dennis Detwiller, and John Tynes, a.k.a. the Delta Green Partnership, of the Seattle gaming house Pagan Publishing. In August 2011, Arc Dream Publishing and the Delta Green Partnership announced development of a standalone Delta Green role-playing game.

Premise

Delta Green is a contemporary setting, starting in the mid-1990s with intermittent updates thereafter. The game revolves around a fictitious secret organization, created by the U.S. Government following the covert raid on the town of Innsmouth, Massachusetts mentioned in H.P. Lovecraft's The Shadow Over Innsmouth. The organization takes its name from its World War II era codename.

Delta Green agents work undercover through other U.S. government agencies, recruiting across a wide range including the FBI, ATF, CDC, and DEA. It appears to have "gone rogue" somewhere between the 1960s and the 1980s, following a disastrous operation in Cambodia and a "deal" struck by Reagan-era rivals in Majestic-12, ostensibly with "Greys".

The group was introduced in the seventh issue of The Unspeakable Oath, a Call of Cthulhu fanzine created by Pagan Publishing, in early 1993. Four years later, the Delta Green supplement appeared and spawned a number of its own supplements and novels. The premise is similar to The X-Files, although the original incarnation of Delta Green preceded The X-Files by almost a year). Both draw on federal alphabet soup folklore, UFO conspiracy theories and other modern legends.

The Delta Green supplement lays the groundwork for organized investigations into paranormal crime and horror, setting up the initial plot and providing players with their motivations and the resources they need to carry out their tasks. It also provides a source of replacements for characters who go mad or are killed. Canonical materials revolve around threats from the Cthulhu Mythos, but the framework is very flexible. Delta Green agents typically know little about the Mythos.

History

In 1998, Delta Green won the Origins Award for Best Roleplaying Supplement of 1997. The setting also won two awards in 2000: Best Game-Related Novel of 1999 for Delta Green: The Rules of Engagement and Best Roleplaying Supplement of 1999 for Delta Green: Countdown.

On May 1, 2006, the Pagan Publishing homepage was updated with an announcement describing the reasons for the delay of the new release of Delta Green, and stating that the d20 edition of the game should be available in time for Gen Con Indy. While there were a few show copies available there were no copies available for sale to the public as most of them were "still being shipped from China". As of May 2007 the book, which is a reprint of the 1997 book with the addition of D20 stats, was finally reprinted and was available in stores.

A hardback compilation of the three Delta Green Eyes Only chapbooks, along with additional material, was released in November 2007. The book was published in cooperation with Arc Dream Publishing. The entire 1,000 copy print run was sold out by February 2008. The hardback edition of "Delta Green: Eyes Only" was a finalist for the Origins Award for Best Roleplaying Supplement of 2007. A softback version of the compilation followed in September 2008 and is available to retail distribution.

Pagan Publishing and Arc Dream Publishing began work in mid-2008 on a new sourcebook, Delta Green: Targets of Opportunity, which was released as a limited-edition hardback in June 2010, to be followed by a softcover retail edition. As of August 2011 the entire 1,000-copy print run of the hardback limited edition was sold out. In August 2011, Delta Green: Targets of Opportunity won silver (2nd place) Ennie Awards for Best Writing and Best Adventure.

Arc Dream Publishing released an ebook edition of the novel Delta Green: Denied to the Enemy in January 2011.

As of October 29, 2015, a Kickstarter Campaign by Arc Dream Publishing funded a series of new Delta Green products, starting with a standalone rulebook and followup sourcebooks designed to update the game modern times.

Publications

As of April 2011, the following Delta Green books have been published:

Pagan Publishing game books

• Delta Green (February 1, 1997), the basic sourcebook; ISBN 1-887797-08-4.
• Delta Green: Countdown (1999), the 2000s sourcebook, by John Tynes, Dennis Detwiller and Adam Scott Glancy, ISBN 1-887797-12-2.
• Delta Green Eyes Only Volume 1: Machinations of the Mi-go ISBN 1-887797-13-0.
• Delta Green Eyes Only Volume 2: The Fate.
• Delta Green Eyes Only Volume 3: Project Rainbow ISBN 1-887797-21-1.
• Delta Green (May 2007), the basic sourcebook with dual BRP/D20 stats; ISBN 1-887797-23-8.
• Delta Green: Eyes Only (November 2007), a compilation of the Eyes Only chapbooks with additional material; ISBN 1-887797-27-0.
• Delta Green: Targets of Opportunity (2010), a sourcebook detailing five new evils, by Warren Banks, Dennis Detwiller, Adam Scott Glancy, Kenneth Hite, Shane Ivey, and Greg Stolze, illustrated by Todd Shearer; ISBN 1-887797-31-9.

Additional material by the original creators

Scenarios by Dennis Detwiller, published online:

• Music from a Darkened Room (2005)
• The Last Equation (2010)
• Future/Perfect (parts 1 through 4 as of 2012)

Adam Scott Glancy wrote a regular column titled "Directives from A-Cell" in the first six issues of Worlds of Cthulhu magazine. The column was then transferred to The Unspeakable Oath from Arc Dream Publishing, starting with issue 20. The latter magazine has featured a lot of Delta Green-related articles since 1993.

Other publishers

Fantasy Flight Games Live Action RPG supplements:

• Cthulhu Live: Shades of Gray (2000); ISBN 1-887911-92-8.
• Cthulhu Live: Delta Green (2000); ISBN 1-887911-43-X.

Ronin Arts:

• Dubious Shards by Kenneth Hite (2006).

Pyramid Magazine:

• Green Box (8/21/02 & 10/9/02), with d20 stats.
• Jack Frost by Shane Ivey (12/24/99 & 12/31/99), a scenario.

Dungeon Magazine:

• PX Poker Night (issue 96), scenario with d20 stats.

Shadis:

• Dia de Los Muertos, issue 52.

Fiction

• Delta Green: Alien Intelligence (Tynes Cowan Corp, March 1998), anthology, ISBN 1-887797-09-2.
• Delta Green: Dark Theatres (Armitage House, 1999), anthology, ISBN 1-887797-17-3.
• Delta Green: The Rules of Engagement (Tynes Cowan Corp, 2000), novel by John Tynes, ISBN 1-887797-16-5.
• Delta Green: Denied to the Enemy (Tynes Cowan Corp, distributed by Impressions, 2003), novel by Dennis Detwiller, ISBN 1-887797-24-6.
  • Ebook edition (Arc Dream Publishing, 2011), ISBN 978-0-9832313-0-1.
• Delta Green: Through a Glass, Darkly ebook edition (Arc Dream Publishing, 2011), novel by Dennis Detwiller, ISBN 978-0-9832313-6-3.
• Delta Green: Strange Authorities (Arc Dream Publishing, 2012), collection of previously published fiction by John Tynes, ISBN 978-0-9853175-0-8.
• Delta Green: Tales from Failed Anatomies (Arc Dream Publishing, 2014), collection of short stories by Dennis Detwiller. ISBN 978-1-940410-08-1 (hardback edition).
  • Paperback edition, ISBN 978-1-940410-07-4.
  • Ebook edition, ISBN 978-1-940410-09-8.
• Delta Green: Extraordinary Renditions (Arc Dream Publishing, 2015), anthology.

See also

The following novels and short stories share similar backgrounds to Delta Green:

• The Atrocity Archives and its sequels by Charles Stross
• The Spiraling Worm by David Conyers and John Sunseri

External links

• Delta Green, official site.