Delta Green cover |
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| 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, aka 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.[1]
Contents |
Delta Green takes place in the mid-to-late 1990s. The game revolves around a fictitious secret organization called Delta Green (created by the U.S. Government following the covert raid on the town of Innsmouth, Massachusetts as alluded to in H.P. Lovecraft's The Shadow Over Innsmouth) spearheaded by elements of the United States government. Its members are dedicated to combating the mind-rending horrors of the Cthulhu Mythos. The organization works undercover by contacting and gathering members across the wide range of U.S. government agencies like 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 the "deal" struck by the Reagan administration with the "Greys" (actually a facade for Mi-go) via the offices of the Majestic-12 governmental UFO conspiracy group. 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 frequently compared to The X-Files (although the original incarnation of Delta Green preceded The X-Files by almost a year[2]), as both draw on federal alphabet soup folklore, UFO conspiracy theories and other modern legends.
The Delta Green supplement lays the groundwork for the scenario, 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.
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".[3] 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.[3]
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.[4] 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[5] 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.[6][7] 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.[8]
Arc Dream Publishing released an ebook edition of the novel "Delta Green: Denied to the Enemy" in January 2011.[9]
As of April 2011, the following Delta Green books have been published:
The following novels and short stories share similar backgrounds to Delta Green: