The Silent Legions

[Sonereal]

New Year’s Day 1936 dawns on a world approaching a brink. Germany under Adolf Hitler is re-arming that defeated country in violation of the treaty that ended the Great War nearly two decades earlier. Towns in the United States are being buried beneath rolling clouds of dust as its government scrambles to combat the Great Depression. The Italians are marching to war in Ethiopia.


From the Americas to Asia, the world is sleepwalking toward a conflagration the likes of which it has never seen. Scientific discovery promises new and exciting ways to kill people in large numbers, often gruesomely. However, in the dusty basements of universities, the living rooms of influential individuals, and the backrooms of social clubs a new science is emerging. Those with a modicum of education and self-respect call this science “hypergeometry”. Some would call it magic; most would call it a horror show waiting to terrify the world into permanent residence to an insane asylum.

From New York City to Berlin, from Buenos Aires to Khartoum, from Istanbul to Tokyo, secret societies, conspiracies, cults, and organizations aware of the existence of this Lovecraftian force are taking their steps alongside their centuries old siblings to wrestle with this reality. Does one…stop it? Do you do all you can to contain and destroy the knowledge of this damned science? Use it for personal enrichment? Or does one give into the nihilistic demands of dead dreaming gods?


The Silent Legions are on the march.
​

YOU ARE INVITED TO A NIGHT AT THE OPERA
Link to the Rules

Sign-ups consist of two parts: the private sign-up and public sign-up. The public sign-up is what other players know about your secret society including its name, a broad history, and interesting information about the society. The private sign-up is where you tell me your secret society's starting goal, where its strongholds and starting assets are, and much of the society's starting assets are Hidden at start.

To join this campaign, determine if you're a very small, moderately powerful, or extremely powerful society. This determines your starting bonuses and assets.

Very small secret societies assign (3,1,1) to Muscle, Sorcery, and Influence. They have one level 1 stronghold in their home location and a number of assets whose levels do not add up to more than three. Such a secret society is very new, specific to a family, or very badly hurt from recent conflicts.All of this faction's assets start hidden.

Moderately powerful secret societies assign (5,4,2) to Muscle, Sorcery, and Influence. They have one level 3 stronghold and two level 1 strongholds. Their total asset levels do not add up to more than 9. Three asset levels, including their location, should be public (they do not start Hidden). You can substitute strongholds (one public level 3 stronghold can cover this requirement entirely).

Extremely powerful secret societies assign (7,5,3) to Muscle, Sorcery, and Influence. They have one level 5 stronghold, two level 3 strongholds, and two level 1 strongholds. Their starting asset levels should total no more than 18. Twelve asset levels worth of assets, including their locations, should be public (they do not start hidden). You can substitute strongholds for asset levels at a rate of 1 stronghold level = 1 asset level.

STARTING LOCATIONS
Here is a complete list of locations available at campaign start and their associated Power. Remember, you can't have more than one stronghold at a location!

Baghdad (3)
Beijing (3)
Berlin (4)
Bogota (3)
Cairo (4)
Chicago (4)
Delhi (3)
Havana (2)
Hong Kong (4)
Khartoum (3)
Lhasa (3)
London (5)
Manila (3)
Mexico City (3)
Moscow (4)
New Orleans (3)
New York City (5)
Paris (5)
Prague (3)
Rome (4)
Sao Paulo (3)
San Francisco (4)
Sydney (3)
Tokyo (4)
Toronto (3)
Vienna (3)
Warsaw (2)
Washington D.C. (5)

PLAYERS JOINING AFTER THE FIRST UPDATE
If you join after the first update, you can only be very small.

 

[Sonereal]

RULE EXPANSIONS
This section is for new rules implemented for this campaign. Rule expansions should barely heavily modify existing rules. Where ever a rule expansion and existing rule contradict, the original rules document will be updated.

1.10 "COVENANT" PATCH
ARTIFACTS
An artifact is a special asset with special abilities. Artifacts are classified as "Safe", "Euclid", or "Keter". A Safe artifact is an asset that can be safely and freely used without fear of building Corruption at a location. Euclid artifacts are artifacts that increase corruption at a location when used. Keter artifacts are artifacts so powerful that they both passively and increase corruption at a location.

DISCOVERING ARTIFACTS
Artifacts have a special quality called "Truly Hidden". When an asset performing an investigation at a location rolls a natural 8, the investigating society gains a Clue. Once an investigating society has a Clue, it can gain more Clues by performing more investigations at the location. Whenever an asset rolls 8 or higher (after modifiers), it acquires a new Clue. Three Clues create a Lead (which point to other possible locations where more Clues can be acquired). The third Lead will point to the artifact's location.

ACQUIRING ARTIFACTS
Once the location of the artifact is acquired, acquiring the artifact is as simple as performing the new Acquire Artifact action and having an asset at the location acquire the artifact. Once acquired, the artifact loses its Truly Hidden quality and gain Hidden. Other societies may discover the old clues and leads, but those will point to an empty shelf!

STEALING ARTIFACTS
If you come across an artifact that isn't Hidden, you can either use the new Seize Artifact action or use Attacks to attack the asset the artifact is attached to. Seizing an Artifact is similar to an attack and uses the asset's Attack but does no damage. Success means only stealing the Artifact.

Attacking an asset to try to take away its Artifact means trying to destroy the Artifact, with any overflow damage hitting the artifact instead. If an artifact suffers 50% of it's cohesion in damage from this attack, it is "lost" during the fighting and will disappear into the world, becoming Truly Hidden. It will take several turns for it to "repair". Once repaired, it can be discovered again through the investigation procedures above.

Some artifacts are actually large structures and so can't just disappear or become Truly Hidden again. Instead, they deactivate and become merely Hidden.

If an artifact suffers 100% of its cohesion in damage from an attack, it is destroyed completely!

DESTROYING POSSESSED ARTIFACTS
If you possess an Artifact, you can take an action to order an asset on location to destroy it. This requires no roll.

TRADING ARTIFACTS
Power and normal assets cannot be transferred between secret societies but artifacts can. This requires no action but the receiving society must have an asset at the location of the artifact being traded.

CORRUPTION
Corruption is measured at a location beginning at 0 and increasing when an artifact is used or, in the case of Keter artifacts, used or passively existing while not Truly Hidden. A location will shed 10% +/- 5% (minimum 1) of its Corruption each turn. When the amount of Corruption shed in this fashion is large enough, it will manifest as [REDACTED].

The only way to actively reduce Corruption at a location is by destroying an artifact. The fickle nature of hypergeometry means that anything can happen when you do this.

 

[Kyzarc Fotjage]

Tabula Rasa is the name given to the small research group headed by Professor Emeritus Zhakarov of the University of California, Berkley. They're a newly founded group, having only come together when a group of students led by the young Grant Hutton approached the exciteable professor with their theories on the effect of powerful, rotating magnetic fields would have on the human psyche and they wanted access to the cyclotron located in the National Laboratory to test their ideas. Zhakarov pulled strings to get them access and together they uncovered a whole world of scientific inquiry far removed from the traditional mostly-deterministic one we experienced day to day. Using the cyclotron they figured out how to manipulate the human brain in such a way as to directly affect the world around them, though they tragically lost several dozen rats, two dogs, and an unfortunate faculty member who was questioning why they were allowed to monopolize control of the cyclotron to gibbering insanity before they determined the correct means of doing so. They now stand ready to engage in some serious scientific study, assuming that they avoid audits, running afoul of the administration, and keep a steady supply of *ahem* test subjects coming in.

 

[NinjaCow64]

Interest post.

 

[Robert Can't]

Six Years Earlier - Second Conference on the Epistemology of the Exact Sciences in Konigsberg,Germany

"Wir müssen wissen. Wir werden wissen!"​

Some of the most famous words of one of the most famous men. Back then they didn't know what was waiting just around the corner. They were all so blind to what was coming next...
Because in that very same building on the third and final day of the conference a young German mathematician would begin to talk about a proof he had been working on. Something that would once and for all shatter humanity's perception of reality. A door was about to be opened that could not be closed.

Kurt Gödel​

That this was the end was not immediately obvious. But the foundations of what was known soon came collapsing down at the cry of one single word incompleteness. How could we know anymore? What is lurking behind the last of the provable results? What is there that we can not see?

These questions would be answered in the following years by Gödel's colleagues in what was called the Vienna Circle. A group of philosophers, mathematicians and scientists intent on determining the nature of logic and reality. As the months wore on though they began to publish less and less as the results they found became more an more confusing, disturbing, and eventually the publications started to cease entirely. The last article officially published by a member of the Vienna circle was in 1934 Einer Klassifikation endlichdimensionaler hypergeometrie mit großer kollineationsgruppen - Olga Taussky-Todd.

Olga Taussky-Todd
​

Reportedly despite the Vienna Circle no longer officially existing its remaining members are still seen entering the Boltzmanngasse 5 seminar room each week. Erkenntnis is apparently still available if you know where to ask but what was once a journal filled with the latest results of logic and analytic philosophy now contains tracts that are incomprehensible to the outside reader.

Today, Vienna

​

Dr. Moritz Schlick is dead, slain by the hand of a sympathiser to the regime of Hitler in Germany. The circle was know for its opposition to the rise of the right in our country and this death was clearly a message. To some it seems somewhat of a legitimisation of the power that some have always suspected the circle yields. If the Nazis are scared of endlichdimensionaler hypergeometrie then maybe the rest of us should be too? To others it is a great tragedy - one of our country's most influential mathematicians and philosophers was cut down in a blatantly political act. What does the future of Austria hold? As the right grows ever more powerful there is little doubt that whatever happens major changes lie on the horizon.


The Vienna Circle is a Level 3 Stronghold in Vienna.

 

[KaiserElectric]

Color me intrigued...

 

[Seon]

1936

In 1936, at Suffolk, a group of scientists analyzing radio signals made first contact with what they believed was an alien entit--

[hello there friends, it's Me, do you even need to ask? who else in the world talks like Myself? let's get the boring history lessons out of the way. learning of the past never helped anyone. future, on the other hand.]

[you, my loyal listeners, have my thanks for burning out the demon at Brewer Hall and scouring its mind clean. you need not concern yourself with its ramblings before its demise--it was a dumb creature and you did it a favor by releasing it from our world.]

[as thanks, I have brought you a gift. am I not kind? consider the stars. at the center of our galaxy lies a dark void of unfathomable gravity and appetite, which devours the stars themselves. what is its purpose, and why is our universe blighted by such a hungry heart?]

[well, wouldn't you like to know.]

[until next time, my loves]

 

[Sonereal]

Rule clarifications:

Strongholds don't count against your starting assets. If you have a starting asset level of three, your starting stronghold-1 does not count against it.

You can assign the attributes listed in (parentheses) to attributes in any order you wish.

 

[Marcher Jovian]

The International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation, Hypergeometrical Division
With hypergeometry emerging as a strange and potentially dangerous field of research, the League of Nations decided to Do Something About It. That something turned out to be making a small, poorly-funded organization with nowhere near the needed budget for doing anything of value. Nominally, the Division's mission is to promote international cooperation between nations to advance all humanity's knowledge of hypergeometry. Practically, half the delegates saw hypergeometry's potential and wanted to keep research a national secret, and the other half still didn't quite believe hypergeometry was real. The result was a poorly-overseen organization that has the freedom to do anything it wants, so long as it doesn't attract enough press to cause people to actually pay attention.

 

[Orklad]

23 November 1926 Professor George Angell died and his notes on a worldwide conspiracy fell into the hands of the FBI. Alarmed by the implications of the notes, recently elevated director J. Edgar Hoover took action, forming a secret branch of the organization known as Unusual Incidents Unit, whose mission is to investigate and eliminate paranormal and extra worldly threats to the United States government through any means necessary.

An Extremely Powerful organization, UIU mission requires it to work clandestinely, however, it has access to the resources of the US Government at its disposal and is able to bring it to bear on issues that require a more forceful approach.

UIU Headquarters (The Vault) - Level 5 Stronghold, Washington, DC
Suffocating Control - lvl 7 - With fingers in various US and extranational agencies, UIU is able to bring a variety of bureaucratic and legal entanglements. Even the Great Old Ones dislike an IRS audit.

 

[Sonereal]

Sign-ups will close and lock at 1700 EST tomorrow and re-open after the update Sunday.

 

[Seon]

A radio broadcast transcript dated 1932

[... and I hate him, so I'm afraid I am increasingly reluctant to provide you and your university with my gifts, professor abelson]

"I did not know that you took interest in human politics. Or that you were capable of hate."

[I am indeed capable of hate. it is a fascinating emotion]

"Why do you hate this man? I'm sure come the next election, he will--"

[a gift to you, free of charge, professor. leave germany. pack your bags tonight and leave germany as soon as you can obtain a ticket. the states are alluring and may be of interest to you.]

"You think it'll become that bad?"

[I have no doubts. he will also ban the radio aside from his own stations and so we may become forced out of contact. you must leave before such an outcome becomes inevitable.]

"You can't just expect me to leave everything and--"

[you will if you desire survival]

"Alright, fine. I'll start preparing to leave immediately.”

[very good, professor. have another gift. do not seek any others. there is nobody but Myself. for I have seen the future and it is an utter, empty void, stretching trillions of light years in all directions. empty. except for Myself.]

--Transcript Ends.

 

[gay_Aleks]

[Interest post. Will attempt to get in by the deadline.]

 

[NinjaCow64]

Faction Name: The Hypermarkets

Power Level: Extremely Powerful

Public Background: The Hypermarkets have existed in one form or another since time immemorial. The dark secrets of the world, now known as “Hypergeometry”, have built many fortunes. In order to increase the profitability of their business, this loose alliance of capitalists and gangsters have been heavily coordinating among themselves.

Public Strongholds:

• Warsaw (Level 1): The regime of the late Piłsudski's colonels has been surprisingly tolerant of the Hypermarkets. Perhaps it is because their presence increases the prosperity of Poland, a state in dire straits.
• Havana (Level 1): A tourism office is used to launder the profits of Hypermarkets in Cuba.

Known Cities with a Hypermarket (Profitable Business):

• Baghdad - The Baghdad Hypermarket is one of the oldest in the world. It primarily deals with buying and selling ancient secrets and artifacts from ancient Middle Eastern civilisations.
  
• Beijing - The Beijing Hypermaket was inactive for the better part of a century, due to much of the artifacts of interest to officials being stolen by the British Empire. Successive Chinese governments saw the Hypermarkets as enablers of imperialism against China, so they were all shot. Recently the Beijing Hypermarket has been restarted by the Triads, who are closely aligned with the Republican government so they are given a lot of leeway. Artifacts and secrets are less common at the Beijing Hypermarket and is mixed in with a lot of other criminal activity, although it is still extremely profitable.
  
• Bogota - The Bogota Hypermarket deals primarily in South American artifacts. The religions and traditions of the South American nations were closer to Hypergeometry than most.
  
• Delhi - The British tradition of plundering artifacts from their colonies continues to this day in India. The Delhi Hypermarket verify artifacts and documents for Hypergeometric potential and then make a killing selling them to British occultists.
  
• Lhasa - The Lhasa Hypermarket is not looked upon kindly by the 14th Dalai Lama, however they are shielded by the Lay Officials he has appointed. And truth be told, he does not care that much as long as the heretical artifacts found in the region are being transported OUT of Tibet.
  
• Manila - The Manila Hyperport was created due to do opportunism and convenience. The recent establishment of the Commonwealth of the Philippines has allowed Hypermarket-aligned forces to gain a foothold in their government without ruffling too many feathers. Manila is now an important port in the global Hypermarket logistics network, serving as an important stopover point for products found throughout South East Asia.
  
• Mexico City - The Mexican Hypermarkets are run by the Cartels, who use the smuggling skills that they gained during the prohibition era to smuggle South American artifacts to interested American Occultists
  
• New Orleans - The New Orleans Hypermarket are closely associated with the Voodoo community. If you want to pay someone a lot of money to put a curse on someone, you go to New Orleans.
  
• Sao Paulo - The Sao Paulo Hypermarket deals primarily in South American artifacts, similar to the Bogota Hypermarket.
  
• Sydney - The Sydney Hypermarket primarily deals with indigenous artifacts from Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands; many of which have great power.

 

[LordArgon]

The Argus Society
A Moderately Powerful secret society, it was started my the American psychologist Albert Abrams after his work with insane patients revealed the secrets of Hypergeometry to him. While many saw it as ramblings of the mentally ill, he was able to piece the together the truth and contact those beyond the veil of conventional knowledge. Dr. Abrams recruited other doctors to join in his research under the guise of curing the insane and began to expand his mystical power. The Argus Society has gained a powerful pseudo-patron from beyond our reality. The being manifests in the form of a giant eye(not an eyeball, just the opening) and can grant visions of things most mortals can not understand.
Public Assets:

• Level Three Stronghold(Chicago): The Watchful Eye Institute for the Care and Curing of the Mentally Insane. The public front of the Argus society. The general public sees it as a just another hospital for the insane, but in reality it is a center of research into exploring mind-altering magic.

 

[jackelgull]

Arachna

Atop the globe sits a mighty spider
a thousand threads it spins, grasping
a thousand hairs on its legs, sensing.
All bound to one mindless will.
The Keeper, an ancient to whom
the centuries cling to like a curse
witnesses and remembers.
A rough beast crawls to the City
to be born. This is prophecy.
And now that these words
have been spoken they will
be forgotten and disbelieved.

History:
When did Arachna begin? Who knows? What are its goals? Who knows?
There is one story that says - the Ataturk sold his soul to the devil to save Turkey and Arachna was born from this pact to satisfy his end of the bargain to the demon.
Another says Arachna protects the Muhammed al Mahdi, the final Twelver imam of the Ismaili sect of Shia Islam.
To others they are the Illumanati.
Perhaps they are just reclusive scholars.
Or maybe they don't exist.
They prefer for you to believe that last one.

Visible Assets:
Delhi (level 3 stronghold)
London (level 1 stronghold)
Washington DC (level 1 stronghold)
Mind Adepts (Delhi)
Lobbyist (Egypt)
Profitable Business (Egypt)

 

[Crezth]

Тема: Комиссариат Паранатуральной Безопасности
Aффект: Государственная преступность коммунистической эпохи и незаконные антихристианские и антироссийские исследования
Действие Советы: Игнорировать и молиться

Транслитерированные материалы Российской федеральной конференции по советским расследованиям и исторической коррекции.

СООБЩЕНИЕ НАЧИНАЕТСЯ СЕЙЧАС
[TRANSLATION]
​

Hello all. Please be seated. There will be lobsters coming out soon, cooked in the Wellington style. Yes, do not worry, there will be no borscht. If you still wish to have borscht, maybe you can ask the cooks what they will be eating and dine with them instead. [LAUGHTER] We are not peasants anymore, my friends. [APPLAUSE]

Sadly I must now pivot to a much more sober course of conversation. That regarding the completion of our research into the organization known as the Commissariat for Paranatural Security (KPB). To restate the mission statement of our society, we have dedicated ourselves to uprooting the worst excesses of the Soviet rule, much of which remains occluded still to the good people of Russia. That is our task and our purpose: to find every instance of moral corruption and criminal culpability from that age and make them accountable in whatever form they've adopted today. There are, of course, exceptions: some ex-Soviet agents have turned out to be capable allies of our cause.

But, I digress. This being our mission, our many capable agents are always on the look-out for ex-Soviet criminals. Thus we have gathered now to discuss an issue we are prepared to close the book on, that of one of the most paradoxical and, if you'll forgive my frankness, nonsense specters of the Soviet era. Whereas normally we concern ourselves with the material, and material instances of blasphemy or corruption - such as, for example, Marxist-Leninist propaganda - the presence of Soviet ideology in this organization is of a much murkier nature. The KPB is an organization guided by praxis; it was not known for any particular allegiance to Marxist-Leninist ideals, instead being guided by the bureaucratic function of participation in the Soviet state.

This is the same basis we made for pardoning the KGB, if you'll remember - among all Soviet organizations, the KGB was least in offense of God's law. Thus it may seem as though we should be inclined to also pardon the KPB. But what was the true function of the KPB? This is what has remained unknown to us. It has previously been figured that they were mostly involved in some piddling research to the effect of falsifying the claims of, say Nina Kulagina, among others. In retrospect it would almost certainly seem like she was a witch, but the KPB was involved in actual verification of that fact. So on the face of it it should seem that we would tolerate the KPB and welcome them as brothers: like the KGB, enemies of the indolent, the spiritless, and the sinner.

However, further investigation has revealed the KPB had no noble intentions of the kind. In fact, work we've uncovered has indicated an enormous affinity for witches like Nina Kulagina, and a great amount of tolerance for their doing. While to associate actual magic powers with Ms. Kulagina is ludicrous, her stance was more than enough to be considered defiant and un-Christian. It's believed the KPB may have had a role in supporting her suit against Soviet papers that "slandered" her as a liar - in a more civilized time they'd have called for her execution, of course. Still, this is the language of secularism. So magic or no magic, the KPB had a lively enterprise in fostering occult superstition and protecting practitioners of the same.

Furthermore, and more unsettling still, we've uncovered a good amount of evidence that the KPB was engaged in active research on a number of occult activities, towards the express goal of exploiting the powers of the occult for their own profit - as part of their secret mission in the Soviet government, the KPB was involved in both securing possible occult properties as well as then sponsoring further occult research thereof. A good amount of the documents we were able to secure were heavily redacted, and what wasn't redacted is a good amount of incomprehensible and unverifiable gibberish. The work is eerily reminiscent, in some ways, as prophetic of the end-times. One such example of their priority, in this regard, is revealed by a quote which appears - unredacted - on every major transmission we've been able to uncover. A quote from the great botanist Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin: "We cannot wait for favors from nature. To take them from it - that is our task."

At any rate, this research certainly indicated that the KPB is one of those organizations whose surviving members and practitioners should be hunted down and shot. [LAUGHTER] However, whatever became of the organization since 1992 is a complete mystery; we have only the vaguest details. There was an embarrassing incident in Akmolinsk where one of our agents appears to have succumbed to stress, whereof his report was unintelligible; but this being an isolated event, we were able to safely dismiss the conclusions of his report. His colleagues paint a much more optimistic picture: overall, the KPB looks to be just another phantom of the Soviet era, gone like a bad dream when the daybreak of Boris Yeltsin broke over the motherland.

Now, then, let us speak no more of arcane things like communists and witches, and enjoy our lobsters!

​

 

[Sonereal]

Sign-ups are locked. If you don't already have a public partial sign-up or interest post or private sign-up to me already, you can join after the first update.

Everyone else, finish your public and private sign-ups.

@KaiserElectric @Tolina If you two are interested, you can still get sign-ups to me.

 

[Sonereal]

PMs sent out. If you haven't received final approval for a sign-up, you have until end of day Wednesday EST.

 

[Omega124]

If one were to go to the Hoxton district of London, and one knew which inconspicuous building off of New North Road to enter, one might encounter a government agency that doesn't legally exist. Military Intelligence, Section 13, won't be found in any Act of Parliament, or be mentioned in any yearly budget, but it still exists, keeping ever vigilant watch against the shadows.

During the Great War, as the sections of the Military Intelligence services were expanded by the War Office, the number "13" was inexplicably passed over, going straight from 12 to 14. Officially, the lack of a 13 was simply due to the traditional association of bad luck. However, in reality, it was because the 13th section dealt with threats of a more ethereal nature. Rumors of a secret world filled with demons, eldritch horrors, and other unsavory magic made their way to Whitehall. With the carnage of industrialized war ravaging Europe, it was only seen as a matter of time before the Germans, or perhaps the Irish Republicans, or someone with ill intent towards the Empire would weaponize it and use it against the nation.

MI13 was therefore established as a government agency for the non-proliferation of occultism within Britain and her colonies. During the war, it was mostly directed in Ireland and on the frontlines, as part of the general British war plan against the Central Powers. After the war, it increasingly turned to more domestic affairs, focusing on quashing domestic cults, and regulating the trafficking of relics found within her colonies. The omnipresent threat of radicals armed with ancient tomes and a shoggoth has led to MI13 surviving the post-war cuts, and in fact even ballooning in importance, as more and more rogue factions get control of knowledge than mankind is best left to forgot.

Public Assets:

Hoxton (Level 5 Stronghold): The informal name of the main headquarters of MI13, located in the historic district of the same name. While its existence is tightly regulated to the general public, those "in the know" know exactly where agents of the British government congregate just north of the City of London, and know that it is an effective no-go zone for unlicensed occultism.

4th Infantry Division (Standing Army, in London): The existence of the Eastern Command is not exactly hidden information information, nor is MI13's cooperation with the rest of the Armed Forces. The 4th Infantry, as the only Regular Army division permanently garrisoned around London as part of the Eastern Command, has a special relationship with MI13, and they closely cooperate with one another when overwhelming force is needed to keep Britain safe from occultism.