"Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God."

-- Saint Mark, 10: 14

El Dia de los Muertos is a scenario for Chaosium, Inc's Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game that utilizes the Delta Green sourcebook from Pagan Publishing. It's also the third and final chapter in the "Day of the Dead... Rising" trilogy.

Background

It is November 2nd - The Day of the Dead. In recent days, seven children between the ages and four and six have been kidnapped in San Diego, California. One child was found murdered. The others were taken from the city to Tijuana, on the coast of Baja, Mexico. All seven had something in common: they weren't entirely human.

The covert agency known as Majestic-12 - described in the Delta Green sourcebook - is divided into twelve branches, MJ-1 through MJ-12. MJ-6, known as Project PLUTO, is the home for most of Majestic-12's mad-science work. PLUTO administers the development of new technologies - from microbiology and genetics to advanced military weapons systems - based on captured or negotiatedfor alien technology.

Beneath PLUTO lies Sub-Project ARC DREAM, which focuses on the field of human genetics. The key to ARC DREAM's work is a document known as the Cookbook, a scientific guide to the human species provided by the aliens known as the Greys. Several additional sub-projects lie beneath the authority of ARC DREAM, each focusing on a different path of research based on different parts of the Cookbook.

One of these is Sub-Project BOUNCE. BOUNCE is headquartered at a facility on the Atomic Energy Commission's reserve at Los Alamos known as YY-11, or the ICE CAVE. BOUNCE's goal is the creation of super soldiers, humans who are resistant to radiation, chemical toxins, and biological agents. This resistance is to be accomplished by splicing the genes of the alien Greys with those of humans, to gain the strengths naturally possessed by the Greys.

BOUNCE began in 1988. At first it had little success. However, in 1993 viable hybrid embryos were developed in the lab. The head of BOUNCE made the decision to place these embryos into unknowing civilian birth mothers, where the resulting children could develop in a real-world environment.

San Diego was chosen as the test ground. BOUNCE infiltrated area hospitals and, over the next three years, settled on fifteen viable candidates - fifteen women who were seeking fertilization treatments to help them become pregnant. The embryos were implanted and disguised as the natural result of pregnancy, assisted by "experimental fertilization techniques." Eight of the women subsequently miscarried or had stillborn or fatally malformed infants. Seven of the hybrid children survived, and have been developing normally in the years since.

In recent months, routine checkups of the seven children by Majestic-controlled physicians revealed that while the youths were already demonstrating some unusual and desirable talents, they were also manifesting the very early symptoms of some genetic diseases. Clearly, this generation of hybrids was unsuccessful. BOUNCE decided to bring the children in for euthanasia, dissection, and analysis.

The responsibility for this operation was handed down the chain through several layers of deception, with the goal of making the abductions seem like the act of a psychotic serial offender. These layers of deception protected BOUNCE, but also introduced an unexpected factor: the patsy manipulated into performing the abductions was too psychotic, and also had his own agenda (as seen in the two previous scenarios of this trilogy).

He murdered one of the children - whose corpse was taken by the police before an NRO DELTA infiltration team recovered it from the morgue - and attempted to send the remaining six children to associates in Tijuana unconnected to Majestic-12. At this point, BOUNCE lost contact with the psychotic patsy and with the six living children.

Dr. Silverman

Or so the leaders of BOUNCE believe. In truth, one of the Majestic- controlled doctors in San Diego learned that his superiors planned to eliminate the children. Dr. Luther Silverman, a pediatrician at the San Diego Children's Hospital, has no idea of the true nature of the experiment he has been involved with. He's never heard of Majestic or BOUNCE or the Greys. He believes that he's been conducting clandestine research for a major pharmaceutical corporation attempting to avoid FDA attention during their illegal but (ultimately) well- intentioned human experiments.

Representatives of this company (actually BOUNCE agents) have been blackmailing Silverman into cooperating with their experiment. Silverman has an unhealthy obsession with children. While he has never harmed a child himself, he does distribute the photos he takes of his young patients to like-minded individuals on the west coast. He is a tortured man, and he has done his best to channel his obsession into the healthy, healing practice of medicine.

When his controller told him that the experiment was being ended and that the children would have to disappear, Silverman flipped out. He wanted to save them, to prove to himself that he really was a good man and that all he really wanted was for children to be happy. Without BOUNCE's knowledge, Silverman staked out the home of one of the children and followed the kidnapper when he struck. He continued following the man until the six surviving children were assembled into a van and sent south to Tijuana.

At a rest stop just inside the Mexican border, the van pulled off for gas. Silverman ambushed the driver in the bathroom and subdued him with a potent drug, but not before the driver shot him twice. Bleeding and desperate - and deeply paranoid of the drug company's connections in San Diego politics - Silverman called the only people he felt he could trust. He called Childsafe.

Childsafe

Childsafe is a highly visible and highly respected American charitable organization. It provides a no-nonsense rescue service for children on the street. If a kid calls Childsafe's toll-free number, a Childsafe volunteer will get the child off the street within thirty minutes and take him or her to a shelter, to the police, or any other refuge the child needs. Childsafe's volunteer lawyers will follow up on the child's situation and provide counsel and representation where needed.

Dr. Silverman has been a zealous volunteer for Childsafe in San Diego for ten years, performing duties ranging from manning phones to free medical treatment to expert-witness testimony, all to assuage his guilt over his obsessions. He trusts Chitdsafe completely, and he relied on them to rescue the kidnapped children from the clutches of the "drug company" and the psycho they hired to eliminate the kids. Sure enough, Childsafe was there in half an hour, and drove off with the six children even as the wounded Dr. Silverman was being taken to a hospital in Tijuana.

Unfortunately, calling Childsafe was perhaps the worst thing Dr. Silverman could have done. For Childsafe is not what it appears.

Rick Lash

Childsafe was founded in 1980 by Rick Lash. Lash was a pop star in the late 1950s and 1960s, a minor rival of Frank Sinatra's who found more success in Europe than in America. The coming of the Beatles and the advent of the late-1960s counterculture killed his mainstream career in America, though he continued recording and touring in Europe through the late 1970s. His music made him very, very wealthy, and unlike many of his colleagues he didn't squander his money.

Investments made during the peak of his early fame left him fantastically rich by the time he left the music business altogether. He avoided drugs, alcohol, and the whole fast life that claimed the talent and fortunes of many others in his field.

Lash shared Dr. Silverman's peculiar obsession. As his career wound down, he made plans to build a children's theme park on a private island in the Sea of Cortez between Baja and the Mexican mainland, a place where children and their families would come and play. Building it offshore made financial sense, but secretly Lash also wanted to avoid the attention of U.S. law-enforcement authorities, who might otherwise discover some of his secret proclivities.

As construction of the theme park began, Lash relocated from Los Angeles to Isla de Placer, the name given to the small body of land a few hours' voyage from San Felipe. He built a house for himself on the edge of the theme park and oversaw construction every day. The more time Lash spent in the fantastical place he was building, the more possessive he became. Cut off from what few friends and family he had north of the border, Lash began to see his new project not as a theme park, but as a private kingdom: a place where he and the children he loved could live without interference, in a sort of cotton-candy utopia.

He soon bought out the other investors, scaled down the plans, and turned the theme park into a private compound, with rides, living quarters, and other facilities constructed not for the general public but for himself, and for the children that he imagined would one day live there.

But Where Would He Get the Children?

In answer to this question, Lash founded Childsafe, the street-rescue charity, launching it in the southwest in 1980 but expanding steadily into a nationwide organization by 1990. The vast majority of the children who seek Childsafe's help get exactly what they expect: rescue from the streets and professional help in turning their lives around. But a small percentage of children get something else.

Those children who have no safe familial haven to go to generally orphans, or children whose parents cannot be identified - are classified as special cases and receive special treatment.

The leaders of Childsafe take direct responsibility for those children, wherever they may be. Some get legitimate, high-profile assistance, the better to throw the curious off the scent. The rest get the special treatment: their paperwork is forged, their records are sealed, and no one ever asks what happened to them again.

These children, never older than ten or twelve, are secretly shipped to Lash's private compound on Isla de Placer.

Everland

Everland is a combination children's theme park and wildlife preserve - but the "wildlife" are human children. Rick Lash lives there year-round, spending his days with the kidnapped children riding the rides, watching movies, eating candy, and on and on. He is always dressed and made up as a clown, and is so far gone into his madness that he no longer truly conceives of a world beyond the boundaries of Everland.

In fact, he's never personally harmed any of the Everland children under his care - his benign fantasy of perpetual childhood has eradicated any other impulses he may once have had. The children's obedience is ensured with a steady diet of chemicals that keep them mentally enfeebled, content to play, and happy in the want that they will never grow up.

Someone, of course, has to keep Everland running. Someone has to pay the bills, bribe the local officials, and arrange for the transport of new children to the island compound. That someone is the Karotechia.

The Karotechia

Described in the Delta Green sourcebook, the Karotechia is a Nazi offshoot based in Brazil. They foster links to whitesupremacist and anti-Semitic organizations all over the world. They are also thoroughly corrupted by the Cthulhu Mythos, and the group's leaders live magically extended lives.

The Karotechia have their hands in a variety of strange and unpleasant operations, but Everland takes the cake. Rick Lash was raised by his bigoted parents to hate Jews and other ethnic groups, and he kept that hatred his whole life. During his 1970s tours of Europe, as he was sliding into madness, Lash made secret donations to radical racist groups in many countries. This brought him to the attention of the Karotechia, who envied his wealth and sought to make him their puppet.

They succeeded. By the time Everland was finished, the Karotechia had snuck its Ritter (Knights) into the ranks of Childsafe and into Lash's personal staff on Isla de Placer. They maneuvered to discredit and eliminate the few people around Lash who were not loyal to the Karotechia, and slowly expanded their control over Lash's life.

By 1990, Rick Lash was a delusional idiot content to ride the roller coasters with the children he loved. The Karotechia took care of everything else.

Their point man for the Everland operation was and is Terry Matthews, a former Hollywood agent who is convinced that a Jewish conspiracy killed his career. Terry has been thoroughly corrupted by the Karotechia, and is now completely loyal to their goals. Officially, he's been Rick Lash's agent since 1987. Unofficially, he runs Everland and is the main contact for the Knights who work within Childsafe to divert selected children to Mexico.

He reports directly to SS Oberfuhrer Reinhard Galt (see the Delta Green sourcebook), one of the three leaders of the Karotechia and the man personally responsible for bringing Rick Lash into the fold back in the late 1970s. Technically, Matthews is a Pawn, not a Knight, but he functions like a Knight in terms of his responsibilities; he just doesn't know about all the occult lore that encircles the upper echelons of the Karotechia.

The Karotechia's primary interest in Rick Lash is his fortune. They now manage all of his assets, and they manage them skillfully enough to bring in a healthy amount of revenue each year without reducing Lash's capital. It's like a Nazi endowment.

Secondary to Lash's fortune, it is Everland and the kidnapping operation of Childsafe that interest the Karotechia the most. Reinhard Galt uses Everland as a source of food - he practices a form of magical cannibalism to prolong his life. The children of Everland are fed a Galtsupervised diet to produce the sweetest, heartiest meat Galt has ever found. However, Galt also uses Everland as a training ground. Some children - the strongest, cruelest specimens - are spared the chemical regimen that keeps the rest docile and childlike.

These children are personally brainwashed and trained by Galt as racist warriors. Over time, they fill supervisory roles at Everland, keeping the rest of the children in line. Eventually, they graduate and are sent out into the world as full-fledged Knights to manage Karotechia-funded skinhead cells across the U.S. They are frothing racist hatemongers, as ready to make a bigoted speech to a booing crowd in Ohio as they are to field-strip an AK-47 and take out a schoolyard of black kids in Georgia. They are the brainwashed shock troops of the Fourth Reich.

The Rule of Day

For three weeks out of each month, the Rule of Day holds sway over Everland. Everything is happiness and joy. Rick Lash roams the park in his tattered clown suit and unkempt makeup, leading his young charges in each day's innocent activities. He spends a great deal of time arranging and rehearsing elaborate stage shows with the kids, personally supervising the choreography, set construction, and so forth; these "projects" - as he calls them - keep the kids busy and content, and are comprised primarily of his past musical hits.

The Rule of Night

For one week out of each month, the Karotechia take Rick away to his private residence. He is sedated, medicated, bathed, and otherwise tended to. Meanwhile, the children of Everland undergo a change of program. With the aid of drugs, they spend their days asleep and their nights awake. Each night during the Rule of Night, everything turns upside-down.

The children are taken off their enfeebling medications, and are instead dosed with psychoactive drugs that provoke psychotic states. During the Rule of Night the children swiftly factionalize and the strong children hunt and kill the weak, reveling before bonfires amid the artificial beaches of Tiki Haven. The Karotechia's Pawns remove the corpses from the park each morning once the children fall asleep and spend the day repairing anything that was altered, so that each night the territorial factions may form anew among the children and the Rule of Night continue.

At the end of the Rule of Night, the drug regimen switches back to the enfeebling medications, Rick Lash is freshly dressed and made up and released, and the Rule of Day returns. The slain children from the Rule of Night are butchered and prepared as per Reinhard Galt's Food of Life spell (see the Delta Green sourcebook), their flesh converted into a beef jerky that is then dispensed to the surviving children during the Rule of Day along with cotton candy and copious quantities of milk and vitamins. The cannibalistic beef-jerky diet slows the growth rate of the surviving children, so that they age at roughly half the normal rate.

The San Diego Kids

It is into this nightmarish cauldron of misfortune that the six BOUNCE-controlled children from San Diego have been thrown. Childsafe picked them up from the rest stop and questioned the raving Dr. Silverman long enough to decide that these kids could be safety removed from public scrutiny. They were taken directly to Everland.

It falls to Delta Green to rescue these kids from Everland and the Karotechia, as well as from Majestic-12 and SubProject BOUNCE. All six children will be dead from cancer within a few years in any event, of course, owing to the genetic defects resulting from their unusual heritage, but even that fate is preferable to the nightmares that Everland offers to its tousled-haired citizenry.

Halloween Scenario 3: Call of Cthulhu El Dio de los Muertos

Introduction
Getting Started
The Everland Compound
Map of the Everland Compound (slow: 107K)