COSMIC HORROR MEETS TECHNO-THRILLER ESPIONAGE IN ‘DELTA GREEN: STRANGE AUTHORITIES’

Arc Dream Publishing Presents a Collection of the Award-Winning Cthulhu Mythos Horror Fiction of John Scott Tynes

April 18,  2012 — John Scott Tynes merges Lovecraftian cosmic horror with techno-thriller espionage in “Delta Green: Strange Authorities,” now available from Arc Dream Publishing.

“Delta Green: Strange Authorities” is a 388-page collection of award-winning Cthulhu Mythos horror fiction. It includes the short stories “The Corn King,” “Final Report,” “My Father’s Son,” and “The Dark Above,” and the Origins Award-winning novel “The Rules of Engagement.”

“Delta Green: Strange Authorities” is available in trade paperback from Amazon.com, Ingram Book Company, and Arc Dream Publishing, and in ebook for Kindle, Nook, and other devices. A limited hardback edition is available direct to collectors from Arc Dream Publishing.

Shane Ivey, editor and president of Arc Dream Publishing, says: “John Scott Tynes’ stories of ‘Delta Green’ are obsidian splinters of fear and beauty. John brings a sense of humanity, of its love and confusion and despair, to the mind-bending terror of the Cthulhu Mythos. These stories have been too hard to find for far too long and I am thrilled to make them available to new readers.”

The sequel to “Strange Authorities,” Dennis Detwiller’s “Delta Green: Through a Glass, Darkly,” is also available in trade paperback, ebook, and a limited collector’s hardback edition from Arc Dream Publishing.

ABOUT JOHN SCOTT TYNES: John Scott Tynes is a game designer and writer in Seattle. He currently designs Xbox 360 videogames for Microsoft Studios. He was the founder and editor-in-chief of Pagan Publishing and Armitage House and his best-known projects include “Unknown Armies,” “Puppetland,” “Delta Green,” “The Unspeakable Oath,” and “Call of Cthulhu D20.” His film “The Yellow Sign” is available on DVD from Lurker Films.

ABOUT ARC DREAM PUBLISHING: Arc Dream Publishing produces novels and tabletop roleplaying games that have won awards and wide acclaim. Its product lines include “Delta Green,” “The Unspeakable Oath,” “Monsters and Other Childish Things,” “Wild Talents,” and “Godlike.” In 2011 Arc Dream Publishing released the novel “Delta Green: Through a Glass, Darkly,” which continues the tale that began with the stories in “Delta Green: Strange Authorities.”

ABOUT DELTA GREEN: “Delta Green” is a modern setting for H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. Delta Green itself is a conspiracy of federal agents, soldiers, intelligence officers, and “friendlies” who secretly and without sanction use the resources of the U.S. government to thwart supernatural horrors that no legitimate agency could face. Delta Green agents slip through the system, manipulating the federal bureaucracy while pushing the darkness back for another day — but often at a shattering personal cost.

FOR INTERVIEWS, EXCERPTS AND REVIEWS: Contact Shane Ivey (shane.ivey@gmail.com) to make any of these arrangements or to suggest others:

Please include a summary of your publication’s history, circulation and target audience.

CONTACT:
Shane Ivey — president, Arc Dream Publishing
shane.ivey@gmail.com
PHONE: 205-296-6670

FOLLOW DELTA GREEN:
WEB: deltagreen.com
TWITTER: twitter.com/#!/shaneivey
FACEBOOK: facebook.com/deltagreenrpg
DELTA GREEN MAILING LIST: http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/dglist/

Delta Green at PAX 2011

To commemorate Bumps In the Night, our friends at Role Playing Public Radio have posted the audio of Scott Glancy’s epic six-hour Delta Green game at PAX 2011. One reward for supporting Bumps In the Night is having Scott run a game for you live via Skype. This will give you a taste.

Investigator Weapons, Vol. 1

Our friends at Sixtystone Press meanwhile have released Investigator Weapons, Vol. 1 in PDF. It’s a comprehensive treatment of the firearms of the classic era of Call of Cthulhu, the 1920s and 1930s.  Get it now for $15.

On top of that, they’re holding an awesome giveaway. Go to a game store before March 15 and buy The Unspeakable Oath (or, technically, any product on the list) and you could win $2,011!

WE CAN HELP! Be sure to tell the store ahead of time that you need The Unspeakable Oath so they have time to get it. To buy it they can either talk to me directly (Shane Ivey, shane@arcdream.com, 205-296-6670) or order it along with a host of other great games from Cubicle 7 Entertainment (info@cubicle7.co.uk). We’ll put them on our Store Locator Map, too.

And tell the store that by helping you enter the contest not only do they make a sale, they also get in the running for $2,011 worth of free advertising on the Gamerati network.

Good luck!

Unspeakable! episode 5, at a svelte two hours and twenty minutes of uninterrupted Mythos gaming geekery, is hosted by Ross Payton of Role Playing Public Radio and Zombies of the World, Shane Ivey of Arc Dream Publishing and The Unspeakable Oath, and Adam Scott Glancy of Pagan Publishing.

Today’s special guest is Greg Stolze, writer of many things for many games, including several Unspeakable Oath articles, nearly half of the award winning sourcebook Delta Green: Targets of Opportunity, and the new modern-day Cthulhu Mythos novel Mask of the Other.

Subscribe to the Unspeakable! podcast feed at http://theunspeakableoath.com/home/?feed=podcast

Or subscribe at iTunes.

0:00:00 INTRO.

0:00:21 WELCOME. Shane gets a better microphone and Greg loses his name.

0:02:15 SPONSORS. They signed on for one issue and three episodes, but we still haven’t finished the next issue so they get extra episodes free. Score!

• Miskatonic River Press with The Legacy of Arrius Lurco.
• Atlas Games with Cliffourd the Big Red God and Cthulhu Gloom.
• Innsmouth Free Press with Historical Lovecraft and lots of other things.
• The H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival, with the next show this May in Portland, Ore.

0:06:09 NEWS.

• Delta Green: Strange Authorities by John Scott Tynes is getting new material! So it’ll take a little longer.
• Oath 21 still languishes under Shane’s slacking and Scott’s overdue Delta Green column. Greg demands to know whether things that he wrote will be in the new issue.
• The outline for Delta Green: The Roleplaying Game is under review. Will it have more than just shotguns? If Shane has his way, Greg and Ken Hite will soon take over rules development.
• Greg Stolze’s hands are made of baby butts.
• Coming soon: An awesome reading of the original Delta Green teaser story, “Final Report,” recorded by longtime radio announcer Allan Tynes, the father of author John Scott Tynes. We’ll have a snippet of it this episode and the whole thing online for listening soon.
• Kickstarter approved Pagan Publishing’s Bumps in the Night fundraiser so it’ll go live soon.
• DriveThruRPG is working on high-res PDFs of Delta Green and Delta Green: Countdown to put them on sale.
• Ross pronounces “Hastur” funny.
• We love the Hotel Carcosa.
• Ross’ new story is “Zombies in Afghanistan.”
• Ross is putting recordings together for YouTube and AP podcasts.
• Tell us in the comments if you want to hear the full recording of Scott’s shenanigan-filled GenCon game.
• Greg talks about Mask of the Other, which a reader described as “‘The Shadow Over Innsmouth’ crossed with Black Hawk Down.”
• Greg wrote an introductory scenario for the Delta Green RPG called “Wormwood Arena,” where investigators must go undercover to infiltrate a dangerous cult.
• Greg has another Delta Green adventure called “Star Chamber,” where the horror unfolds in memory and in conflicting perspectives.

0:40:05 INTERLUDE. An excerpt of John Scott Tynes’ “Final Report” read by Allan Tynes.

0:41:18 MYTHOS HORROR GAMING IN THE PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

• Ross’ Yakuza game set in post-WW2 Japan.
• Research!
• Taking advantage of player expertise.
• Take care where you hang your plot points.
• The challenge of keeping your players in suspense.
• Watch for misunderstandings and conflicting assumptions.
• The perils of the infodump.
• Mythos horror in the modern day.
• More information is not always a good thing!
• Scanning Mythos tomes for fun and prophets.
• Giving the players access.
• A digression into the Gumshoe model.
• The key things to research: Interviews and social norms. Laws and law enforcement. How does research happen. Communications. Geography.
• A few key details to evoke the setting.
• Making it accessible while keeping it strange and interesting.
• Policing around the world.
• Using the unpleasant mores of the day for misdirection and versimilitude.
• Greg and Scott love The Book of Cthulhu.
• Supernatural evil and cultural conflict.
• Cultural bias and things people don’t believe.
• Strange Aeons and Strange Aeons II.

2:20:00 NYARLATHOTEP!

Rate us on iTunes!

This episode’s music includes “Ride the Flying Polyp” and “Nyarlathotep” by the Darkest of the Hillside Thickets, courtesy Divine Industries. Copyright 2011. Visit www.thickets.net.

Delta Green: Strange Authorities cover art by Dennis Detwiller, © 2012. Unspeakable! cultist art by Toren Atkinson, © 2011.

A collection of links to inspire your Call of Cthulhu gaming, most often culled from the Delta Green Mailing List.

The Hotel Carcosa
Built in 1897 in Kuala Lampur and yes, named after that Carcosa. Link sent by the Rook.

Strange is the night where black stars rise, And twin moons circle in the skies, But the stranger still is Lost Carcosa.

How do I make my document look like it was written by an Cthulhu worshipping madman?
If you use the old layout code LaTex, and that by itself hasn’t driven you mad, here’s how you make a page of text look crazy. Link sent by Ross Payton.

British art historian creates world’s largest  shawl woven from the silk of one million spiders
“Clearly the high priestess of an Atlach Nacha cult needed some appropriate ceremonial garb.” Link sent by Marshall Gatten.

Floor plan porn
A great resource for urban games. Link sent by Ross Payton.

Links for Delta Green

Pentagon outsources War on Drugs to Blackwater
“Something for Delta Green south of the border, perhaps.” Link sent by Russell Rayburn.

Inside an abandoned Russian rocket factory
The text is in Russian but the photos are amazing. Link sent by Ricus.

The FBI’s Dead List
“This is an updated list of the people the FBI understands are deceased.” There are two Iveys on the list but I’m not one of them. Link sent by Dennis Detwiller.

Game system: Nemesis. GM: Ross Payton. Players: Patrick French, Patrick Gingrich, Mike Ranali and Matt Willis.

ARC DREAM PUBLISHING PRESENTS ‘DELTA GREEN: STRANGE AUTHORITIES’

Coming January 2012: A Collection of the Award-Winning Cthulhu Mythos Horror Fiction of John Scott Tynes

21 December 2011 — “This is pure evil, pure destruction. This is the apocalypse.” And it’s just getting started. In January 2012, Arc Dream Publishing will release “Delta Green: Strange Authorities,” a collection of the award-winning Cthulhu Mythos horror fiction of John Scott Tynes. It will be available in trade paperback from Amazon.com and Ingram Book Company, and in ebook for Kindle, Nook, iBooks and other devices.

“Delta Green: Strange Authorities” features the complete fiction of John Scott Tynes in the “Delta Green” setting, which explores the cosmic horrors of H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos in a modern world of deadly conspiracies and personal apocalypse. “Delta Green: Strange Authorities” includes the short stories “The Corn King,” “Final Report,” “My Father’s Son,” and “The Dark Above,” and the Origins Award-winning novel “The Rules of Engagement.”

Shane Ivey, editor and president of Arc Dream Publishing, says: “John Scott Tynes’ stories of ‘Delta Green’ are obsidian splinters of fear and beauty. John brings a sense of humanity, of its love and confusion and despair, to the mind-bending terror of the Cthulhu Mythos. These stories have been too hard to find for far too long and I am thrilled to make them available to new readers.”

ABOUT JOHN SCOTT TYNES: John Scott Tynes is a game designer and writer in Seattle. He currently designs Xbox 360 videogames for Microsoft Studios. He was the founder and editor-in-chief of Pagan Publishing and Armitage House and his best-known projects include “Unknown Armies,” “Puppetland,” “Delta Green,” “The Unspeakable Oath,” and “Call of Cthulhu D20.” His film “The Yellow Sign” is available on DVD from Lurker Films.

ABOUT ARC DREAM PUBLISHING: Arc Dream Publishing produces novels and tabletop roleplaying games that have won awards and wide acclaim. Its product lines include “Delta Green,” “The Unspeakable Oath,” “Monsters and Other Childish Things,” “Wild Talents,” and “Godlike.” In 2011 Arc Dream Publishing released the novel “Delta Green: Through a Glass, Darkly,” which continues the tale that began with the stories in “Delta Green: Strange Authorities.”

ABOUT DELTA GREEN: “Delta Green” is a modern setting for H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. Delta Green itself is a conspiracy of federal agents, soldiers, intelligence officers, and “friendlies” who secretly and without sanction use the resources of the U.S. government to thwart supernatural horrors that no legitimate agency could face. Delta Green agents slip through the system, manipulating the federal bureaucracy while pushing the darkness back for another day — but often at a shattering personal cost.

###

To arrange an interview with author John Scott Tynes about “Delta Green: Strange Authorities” or to request a review copy in print or ebook, contact Shane Ivey (email preferred). Please include a summary of your publication’s history, circulation and target audience.

CONTACT:
Shane Ivey, president, Arc Dream Publishing
E-mail: shane.ivey@gmail.com
Tel: 205-296-6670

Cover art by Dennis Detwiller, © 2011

Unspeakable! episode 4 is hosted by Ross Payton of Role Playing Public Radio and Zombies of the World, Shane Ivey of Arc Dream Publishing and The Unspeakable Oath, and Adam Scott Glancy of Pagan Publishing. Scott just last episode was a guest and has already been promoted to cohost. That’s how fast things move here at the Oath.

Our guest today is Dan Harms, author of The Cthulhu Mythos Encyclopedia and uncounted pieces of Cthulhoid brilliance in The Unspeakable Oath, Worlds of Cthulhu and elsewhere.

We’ll be talking about scaring your players at the Call of Cthulhu game table.

Subscribe to the Unspeakable! podcast feed at http://theunspeakableoath.com/home/?feed=podcast

Or subscribe at iTunes.

Show Notes

00:00:00 INTRO.

00:00:25 WELCOME. Who are these people? Scott appreciates Dan’s treatment of Tsathoggua, the Great Old One who is so much more than an angry bunny rabbit. More about teasing out horrific details from the source material when only hints are given in the Call of Cthulhu rules.

00:11:10 Scott persuades us that Dan Harms makes a good bulletproof vest.

00:23:20 NEWS. Announcing Delta Green: Strange Authorities, a collection of the award-winning Delta Green fiction of John Scott Tynes, coming in January 2012 from Arc Dream Publishing. Strange Authorities will be published in ebook, paperback and maybe hardcover.

The guys tell stories while Shane flounders around for the cover art to show them. But our listeners can see it RIGHT NOW!

00:31:55 Dennis Detwiller is still working on a new fiction collection, Delta Green: Failed Anatomies. He’s also hard at work sending out the autographed copies of Delta Green: Through a Glass, Darkly.

00:35:15 The Unspeakable Oath issue 21 is coming soon! Honest! We’re working on it!

00:41:10 Shane is working on the rules parts of the Delta Green role-playing game with help from Greg Stolze. Also: Being in the officially reinstated version of Delta Green will not make your investigators any happier or more cocksure.

00:50:45 Scott says Pagan Publishing is gearing up to run a Kickstarter to print Bumps in the Night, a collection of classic-era Call of Cthulhu adventures that draw from non-Mythos supernatural folklore. Scott is working through production of an Actual Play recording of the seven-hour Delta Green game he ran at Pax. (It was based on “Divine Fire” by Ross’ friend Tom Church.)

01:05:46 Ross just finished a successfully Kickstarter for Killsplosion, a rules-light player-vs.-player RPG. Part of the funding paid for a video camera that Ross will use to interview game designers. Also, Ross’ pregen in a mountain climbing adventure needed a better Climb skill.

01:11:06 Ross’ book Zombies of the World has been picked up by Barnes and Noble! Now he’s working on a novel, Dead Power.

01:12:53 Dan has a Wall Street scenario in Miskatonic River Press’ Tales of the Sleepless City. In playtesting: Fury of Yig. (Not a bag of dicks!) He’s working on a couple of other scenarios. “The Chapel of Contemplation,” from The Unspeakable Oath 18, will appear in the new Spanish translation of the Call of Cthulhu rulebook from Edge Entertainment. Dan encourages you to submit short pieces for the Oath! Especially stuff that is uncanny and horrific and weird. Shane hijacks that discussion to talk about the upcoming new Delta Green Shotgun Scenario contest and how we’re going to clamp down on the word counts for it. Dan has a book coming: an annotated edition of The Long-Lost Friend, an 18th-century manual of folk magic.

01:23:01 INTERLUDE. “Sounds of Tindalos” by The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets, courtesy Divine Industries. Copyright 2011. Visit www.thickets.net.

01:24:01 SPONSORS! Sacrifice your time, money and blood to the people who support The Unspeakable Oath.

• Miskatonic River Press with The Legacy of Arrius Lurco for Cthulhu Invictus.
• H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival, Sept. 16-17 in L.A. and Sept. 30 – Oct. 1 in Portland.
• Atlas Games with Cliffourd the Big Red God and Cthulhu Gloom.
• Innsmouth Free Press with Historical Lovecraft: Tales of Horror Through Time.

01:25:15 HOW TO HORRIFY PLAYERS. Players at the game table are easily distracted. Many of Call of Cthulhu gamers have been playing it for a long time and have seen and read about all the monsters. How do you spook them?

• Reining in the laughs. Getting the players on board with the horror.
• Surprising the players with horror and how rare that is with veterans.
• Using the material in the rulebook as the starting point and making the horror about the decisions and fates of human beings. You don’t need an alien monster for horror.
• Describing familiar things in unfamiliar ways. Delving into the source material for new details and implications.
• Stephen King’s tips from “Danse Macabre.”
• Playing the monsters as characters — as intelligent but alien beings.
• Feeding the details to the players with deliberation and learning to roll with the roll of the dice.
• Presenting smaller, more horrifying goals for the antagonists.
• Monsters and magic as the tools and flavor of the underlying horror.
• Giving the players just enough hope that despair hurts.
• Body horror and surprises with Blair Reynolds.
• Use the Sanity rules with care! Calling for a roll can actually detract from the mood; make sure the Sanity roll is a confirmation of what the players are feeling.
• Using sound to viscerally unsettle and shock the players. Immersion.
• Focusing on the things in the fiction that matter to the players. Making nonplayer characters and their fates matter.
• Anecdotes from Pagan Publishing’s home games (Scott), Eclipse Phase (Ross), and Delta Green games (Shane and Dan).
• Confounding expectations by mixing up genres and using non-supernatural horrors.
• More on this topic at RPPR:
  • Fear in the Long Haul
  • Danse Macabre 2: Electric Boogaloo
  • Halloween Tricks and Treats
  • Get Your Fear On

SPOILER WARNINGS for “The Well of Sacrifice,” “The Dagger of Thoth,” “The Wild Hunt,” and “Convergence,” and New Tales from the Miskatonic Valley.

02:57:30 THE END. Merry Christmas! Rate us on iTunes!

02:58:34 NYARLATHOTEP!

This episode’s music includes “Cthulhu Dreams,” “Sounds of Tindalos” and “Nyarlathotep” by The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets, courtesy Divine Industries. Copyright 2011. Visit www.thickets.net.

Enter the code “amanda” during checkout when it asks if you have a coupon.

Have we reminded you lately that with most of our games you get the PDF free when you order the print edition? Because with most of our games — get this — if you order it in print you get the PDF absolutely free. We’ve reminded you of that, right?

A special note for those of you who got Delta Green: Through a Glass, Darkly in its fundraiser or who ordered it recently: 25% of the book would be worth about $6 off, and we don’t want you to feel like you could have done better by waiting. So if you order something in the Black Friday sale, send email to shane.ivey@gmail.com and we’ll set you up with a separate coupon worth $12 (twice the difference!) after the sale.

Click the pile of money to order now.

Get our awesome games and save your awesome money. That coupon code again is "amanda".