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Starfinder

2018-12-10T09:36:57Z

2620:135:F000:20:E916:9134:E3FC:A330: /* Overview */

{{Game Infobox
|name = Starfinder
|picture = [[File:Starfinder Iconics.jpg|250px]]
|system = Modified [[D20]]
|publisher = [[Paizo]]
|authors = James Sutter, Sarah Robinson, Robert McCreary, Owen Stephens et al
|year = 2017
|books = Starfinder Core Rulebook Armory Alien Archive Alien Archive 2 Pact Worlds
}}
:''This game is not to be confused with [[Starjammer]], created by the people maintaining D20PFSRD, which is [[Spelljammer]] for Pathfinder (though it is compatible with Starfinder).
'''Starfinder''' (aka Pathfinder 40k) is an RPG by [[Paizo|Paizo Publishing]] released in August 2017. It is a future version of [[Pathfinder]] set IN SPACE.

==Overview==
* The main setting is the same solar system of [[Golarion]], the main planet of ''Pathfinder''. The other planets were previously introduced in the Pathfinder sourcebook "Distant Worlds". The system refers to themselves as The Pact Worlds.
* There's ratmen IN SPACE, meaning that Paizo has [[Skaven]] IN SPACE before [[GW]] has in a playable form.
* There are going to be hardcover books and Starfinder Adventure Paths, much like Pathfinder has, as well as Organized Play in the form of the Starfinder Society.
* * It is possible to convert stuff from Pathfinder to Starfinder with some tweaks, such as monsters and PCs. So it's possible to bring your Pathfinder character's to the Starfinder universe if you have a godo explanation of why.
* FTL travel was revealed by the new deity Triune and is achieved by traveling through a dimension called the Drift. "Drift beacons" randomly appear or are planted by clerics of Triune and reduce the risk of a Drift jump to the beacon's location; the Starstone in Absalom Station is a fuckhuge Drift beacon that also accelerates travel to the station. Whenever a ship enters the Drift, it drags entire segments of reality from elsewhere into the Drift with it. [[Warp|This is not at all ominous, no siree.]] So do be careful: you'll never know when you have to scrape the demons off of your ship's bumper.
* Golarion itself is fucking ''gone''. As in totally gone, nobody can remember what happened to it (all the Gods will say when asked is that it still exists, but is beyond the reach of both magic and technology), it just fucking vanished. The various races have spread out to the other planets in Golarion's system. New ones are there, too. Everyone remembers building a giant space station in orbit around Golarion while it was still definitely around and so can use its construction as a frame of reference to about ''when'' the world vanished (within a few hundred years), but no one remembers anything about the planet itself disappearing.
** For that matter, nobody remembers ''anything'' regarding that time period, or what happened before it. People just opened their eyes one day knowing all the important stuff about their lives, but unable to remember anything about how they got to that point (like waking up next to a woman whom you ''know'' is your wife, but not about how you met, or when you got married, or the births of your children). For that matter, nearly every physical or electronic record of that history was erased or just missing. The people of the Pact Worlds call this event "The Gap".
* The Iconic Characters are members of the Starfinder Society from that station, who have the mission of finding out what happened to Golarion.
* [[Goblin]]s survived and have little space helmets.

===Differences from Pathfinder===
Considering that this is Paizo, the goons who made a killing off of resurrecting 3.5E, the rules for this game aren't that far removed from the original PF mechanics. Though you can't get a 1-1 translation of all the classes, you can probably be able port most of your characters over.
* Each character now has both [[hit points]], which are hard to replace, and "stamina points," which work like hit points but can be much more easily recovered and are always lost first. HP is essentially stuck as a hybrid between racial stats (meaning that little spessrats only give 2 HP to a character while burly Vesk and chitinous Shirrens give 6 HP) and class stats (essentially like Hit Die, only with no rolling), while Stamina is given per class level + [[Constitution]] Modifier.
* The Resolve mechanic gives you a small pool of points to spend for recovering stamina, stabilizing if you're dying, and getting up if you're stable. These points are keyed off of a single stat your class is dependent on (so Soldiers pick between Str and Dex, Mystics use Wis, so on and so forth). Each class even has special uses for Resolve and backgrounds can give special circumstances for regaining them.
* In addition to your race and class, you pick a "theme" at character creation, which is basically a 5e background. Themes are things like being an Ace Pilot or a Xenoseeker that give your character some flavor, and a few other abilities that unlock as you level, plus a small stat boost.
* Archetypes, rather than being class-specific and swapping out whatever abilities they want, are a bit more reminiscent of 4e's Themes - You pick it up and it replaces certain class abilities (and since these are for all classes, they switch off only certain abilities) and grant new abilities.
* Skills are largely condensed in a way that, makes breadth of usefulness much more tolerable than Pathfinder: a single Athletics skills rather than separate skills for Climb and Swim, for instance, or Mysticism instead of Arcana and Spellcraft. Also helping is that each class has a tolerable number skills than the old edition (read: NO MORE 2+INT SKILL RANKS).
* <s>No charisma-based casters at all (though the Solarian and Envoy both sort of fit the niche thematically)</s> (Witchwarper says hi), and no full casters: the technomancer and the mystic are both half-casters. All spellcasting is distinctly 5e-ish, with lower-level spells that can be cast in higher-level slots for boosted effects. (For instance, the primary healing spell is a first-level spell, but it heals more and more as it gets cast in higher level slots, eventually also cleansing various status effects and resurrecting the recently deceased.)
* Most classes that rely on weapon-use get "Weapon Specialization" in their weapons during progression, and all of them can take it as a feat. It adds their character level to damage rolls for those weapons you're natively proficient in.
* Everyone has [[derp|two kinds of AC]]: KAC, for kinetic weapons like swords and bullets, and EAC, for energy weapons like lasers and lightsaber-a-likes. Unlike with PF where you're stuck trying to remember what armor bonuses add to Flat-Footed or Touch, this allows you to calculate your defenses a bit easier.
* Cybernetics and genetic modding are also a thing.
* Most classes start off scaling a bit slow, then ramp up at about level 11. For instance, a Solarian's energy blade does 1d6 damage at first level, then 2d6 at fifth level, but starts going up much faster at level eleven, and caps out at 12d6.
* Weapons take a page out of 4E's book and have items that scale in power alongside player levels...except they don't give them to you, no! You still have to buy these stronger guns and armors! Armory gives you a means to build these new gears as upgrades to prior models, but that won't stop certain dead levels from existing and you still need cash for supplies.
** Magic Items, while still given in the form of special properties, no longer depend on a certain enhancement on the weapon and instead just fit in if the magic property's level is less than or equal to the item's level.
* Ship-building and combat will be very familiar to those who played [[Rogue Trader (RPG)|Rogue Trader]]. Build Points to buy parts for your ship, the need to travel through an alternate dimension that may or may not contain unholy terrors, the whole shebang.
** The promotional material also promised that each class would totally have mechanics to help them in ship combat. Most of this is false. Not only is a majority of the mechanics keyed off of RANKS in a particular skill (Pilot for all the ship defenses) rather than the character's actual bonus, but several class bonuses are flat-out not allowed to work in a ship. Also damning is the sharply-rising difficulty curve for all your ship actions, which keys itself off of the average party level rather than some other stat <s>[[Wat|This means that if you level up high enough, your little zippy spaceship that's been extensively customized will be as impossible to maneuver for your veteran crew as a fucking freighter for a bunch of rookies]]</s> but this was fixed in the errata.
** Each character has roles during combat, similar to RT. Unlike that game though, the roles are a lot more simplified in number (Captain for leading, Gunner for shootin', Engineer for fixing, Pilot for flying, and Science Officer to manage all computer things) and complexity. All each role does is grant special abilities to use in combat.

==Core classes==
* '''Envoys''': Use wit and charm to bolster their allies and demoralize or befuddle enemies. They also get a lot of skillmonkey powers, including "expertise" in a number of skills in a way similar to the [[Investigator]]. They have two sets of talents to select from: those you use in order to distract enemies require an enemy to either see or hear them, which can hamstring usage without the proper add-on tricks, and the ones built on adding new uses to your skills.
* '''Mechanics''': Mechanical geniuses. The class as a whole has a lot of tricks for fiddling with computers and disabling or taking over machines, and can do fun things like turning any piece of mechanical gear into a makeshift grenade or overclock their drone or cortex to put themselves in the Matrix.
**''Drones'' are one of their choices for class themes. It's pretty obvious - it's a fucking drone, with purpose of either being a gun-rig, a scout, or a hoverdrone. Drones are always fun to use with customizable parts to work with.
**''Exocortex'' is the other choice, hardwiring an AI into their brains. Rather than a pet drone, this allows for a Mechanic to use additional weaponry as well as a free Skill Focus feat. It also can help with hacking a bit and can target enemies for guaranteed hits, and can give ''themselves'' some of the drone's upgrades. Including a jet pack.
* '''Mystics''': Sort of a cross between [[Sorcerer]] and [[Cleric]] in that they have a special theme in them with bonus thematic spells and talents as well as the ability to heal. The thingummy they get their powers from doesn't have to be a god, so [[Vampire: The Masquerade|have fun channeling the power of Health Insurance to heal your party.]] Despite the reduced level cap for spells, they're still spellcasters and can still obsolete large portions of the other classes' abilities given a modicum of thought.
**''Akashic'' is a rather skill-focused connection. Bonuses on skill checks, the ability to re-roll with more ranks on the skill, and the power to (eventually) cast any spell you want at the cost of a higher spell-slot.
**''Devastator'' (from Part 2 of the Dead Suns Adventure Path) is pure offense. You get bonuses while fighting the same type of enemy over and over, your crits hurt more, and you even get a [[Barbarian]] [[Rage]]! That's right, you're a [[Bloodrager|Barbarian Mage]]! Your ultimate ability causes a huge explosion right where you stand (for suicide bombing. Don't worry, you don't actually get hurt from it.)
**''Empath'' is, obviously, focused on magical empathy. The ability to read emotions.
**''Geneturge'' (from Armory) adds a new set of bio-implants that have unique functions though they'll contest for slots with your aftermarket implants. Eventually though, you can fit one slot with multiple implants and even gain the ability to tamper with the genetics of enemies, allies, and even your own, you crazy [[haemonculus]]!
**''Healer'' is rather obvious. You're a medic. You keep tabs on everyone, top them off on HP when you can and eventually learn to siphon health from your enemies and cheat death itself.
**''Mindbreaker'' allows you to commit literal mindfuckery. Your powers are focused upon inflicting as much pain as inhumanly possible, with the capstone power being able to EXPLODE HEADS.
**''Overlord'' is also about mindfuckery, but on a more subtle scale. This allows you to brainwash people, break their resistances slowly, and eventually exert absolute control over someone.
**''Star Shaman'' is the most spacey one. You can pilot ships good, walk in space without a suit, and turn into a star-being. The capstone for this allows you to teleport between planets.
**''Xenodruid'' is the remnants of the [[Druid]]. Plant shenanigans, the power to talk to and transform into an animal, and even the eventual ability to reincarnate.
* '''Operatives''': Use stealth and skill to get in and out of dangerous situations. They get a shitload of attacks with weak weapons, like a monk, and a special sneak attack trick like a [[Rogue]], and they can pick a number of specializations to refine what kind of sneaky guy they want to be. Among all the classes, these guys are especially notorious for how powerful they are.
**''Daredevil'' allows you to be very mobile, with the eventual ability to gain a natural swim and climb speed for more maneuverability.
**''Detective'' gives you the ability to investigate a bit better, with the ability to eventually cast Divination to find answers when you're at a dead end.
**''Explorer'' is the sort used to exploring all sorts of different worlds. They can explore around with special benefits and are especially familiar with places far from home.
**''Gadgeteer''(from Armory) makes you effectively get Batman's utility belt. Anything you need, you'll dig up with the power of <s>pre-spending</s> preptime. All you eventually get is the power to haul this crap out your ass faster.
**''Ghost'' is probably the one people use the most for having a serious boost to Stealth (a skill they'll already have high scores on by virtue of a high Dex), making it neigh-impossible to fail. They can turn invisible and eventually even phase through walls.
**''Hacker'' is in a similar field to the Mechanic, with the power to distract with computers. They're more focused on hacking than anything else though.
**''Spy'' allows you to pull of any sort of disguise, eventually being able to even feed any thought-reader false information.
**''Thief'' is more like a traditional thief. Their special ability allows them to build a contingency plan JUST when something goes wrong and derail the DM's plans to bust your asses if it goes right.
* '''Solarians''': Shape the energy of stars and black holes into armor and weapons for themselves. The Solarians are attuned to a sort of ill-defined cosmic cycle that's somehow connected to stars but what it amounts to is [[Star Wars|"You want to play a Jedi? Here you go!"]] Gameplay wise, they're spell-combatants who build up energy points by being in combat, then spend these points to set off magical effects. They can choose to build either Graviton or Photon points, which can then trigger associated spells. Graviton tends to be more focused on moving and controlling your enemies, whereas Photon is more about damaging and dazing. They have minor magic effects that they can use basically whenever, but their show-stoppers require them to be fully attuned to the associated force (basically, to have spent three rounds attuning themselves). Also, they basically ''have'' to balance the number of Gravity and Photon tricks they know or suffer harsh penalties. All in all, they play sort of like a [[Magus]] mixed with a [[World_of_Warcraft|Cataclysm-era Druid]]. It's kind of complicated, but fun to play.
** '''Solar Weapon'' gives you your not-lightsaber. Starting out, this laser-weapon somehow only hits physical armor, but they have talents and even weapon crystals to gain new properties.
** ''Solar Armor'' is considered the unloved child. While some revelations give them some new features, they still have a rather slow progression that only improves light armor and issues some new Energy Resistance.
* '''Soldiers''': Specialize in heavy weapons and armor. They share a [[Fighter]]'s bonus feat selection, but differentiate themselves by picking from combat styles that alter how they work and a not-shit save and skill progression. They also learn "gear tricks" to boost up their weapons and armor in ways most other classes can't.
**''Arcane Assailant'' allows you to punch through resistances and corporeality before anyone else and imbue weapons with special effects like they were magical.
**''Armor Storm'' focuses on wearing heavy armor and making sure you're not hamstrung by it. You naturally gain proficiency in powered armor (literal walking tanks) and giving you the full mileage and then some from your suit.
**''Blitz'' is about aggression. You intend to rush in head-first, learning how to ignore pain and throw everything into an attack.
**''Bombard'' makes you a mix between Demolitions Expert and Heavy Weapons Guy. You can make your own grenades, you can punch harder with heavy guns, and make explosions get more boomy.
**''Guard'' is the defensive style. Extra comfort in the armor is the start, and the end is ignoring conditions and being such a walking tank that you can make yourself a wall to your buds. Power Armor Included.
**''Hit and Run'' is switch-hitting: the class. Run in, lay a few blows, and hop out before they hit you.
**''Sharpshoot'' is for snipers. You aim so well that you can ignore cover and hit them in their weak points for maximum damage.
**''Shock and Awe'' (from Armory) emphasizes being loud, bright, and upfront. Bright weapons and powered weapons blind suckers, sonic weapons can demoralize and deafen, and you can eventually blast even harder.
* '''Technomancers''': [[Wizards]] in space, with an electronic bound item (and no familiar) and a bunch of special talents that let them crap all over the guardrails that are supposed to keep casters from being walking win buttons. They eventually even have the ability to fuse spellslots together to cast bigger spells.

===Playtest===
Indeed, whilst still mulling over their PF2E playtests, Paizo released a playtest for three new classes on December 2018 for their upcoming ''Character Operations Manual''.

*'''Biohacker''': A mad doctor who can uniquely key off either Intelligence or Wisdom for certain skills and Will saves. They specialize in needler weaponry and can even create their own injections to either improve allies or cripple enemies based on particular fields of study. And this is before the talents which give you either more ways to deliver syringes or improvements to the injections themselves (some of which are kinda metamagic).
**''Endocrinology'' messes with hormones, overloading an enemy's focus or homing an ally's processing power
**''Enzymology'' deals with metabolism and the activity of living beings
**''Genetics'' either strip resistances or delivering gene therapy to heal handicaps
**''Immunology'' works with the hastening or hampering of the immune system and it's ways of dealing with diseases
**''Neurochemistry'' has you be a mindfucker with chemical imbalances
**''Pharmacology'' gives you drugs, namely painkillers, coagulants, and hallucinogens.
**''Toxicology'' is the study of poison.
*'''Vanguard''': A big tanky mofo with a special attack that scales like a poor man's monk and hits EAC. They get a pool of Entropic Energy whenever they get hit and can use it to be even tankier. Your subclass abilities all offer an improved maneuver feat and some new way to gain and use Entropy.
**''Adiabatic'': Your focus is on acting like a wall for allies and not budging.
**''Boundary'': Another bodyguard focus, granting allies some of your tank powers.
**''Cascade'': Your dedication is on making your hits be gradually more devastating by...blinding flashes and a crippling penalty to entropic strike.
**''Exergy'': You are the bull in the china shop, running in to trample things under your feet.
**''Inevitable'': You can't be stopped, but your enemy can be.
**''Inversion'': You can reverse the flow of entropy, granting healing and re-rolling saves.
**''Momentum'': Everything that moves must keep moving, Newton be damned.
**''Reaction'': You are built on inflicting conditions, with a capstone of building a power.
*'''Witchwarper''': At last, the Charisma-based caster...who happens to understand that [[/co/|Crisis on Infinite Worlds was definitely a real thing]] and now have the power to twist reality around and influence it based on your visions of alternate timelines.

==Races==
Like 2/3rds of these are already available as non-core PC races for Pathfinder, but heavily rejiggered to fit the new system. There are also rules and fluff for the core races of Pathfinder, with some tweaks (like no speed penalty for being Small) to fit the Starfinder rules.
* '''[[Android]]s''': Artificial people. Are generally pissed off about being created as a servitor race, complete with occasional literal slavery, so they intentionally distance themselves from the human cultures they broke away from. They have no gender because they're robots. Crunchwise they have similar social penalties to their Pathfinder counterparts, and retain many of their immunities. The only difference here is that they can wire themselves with an armor upgrade to get the benefits of the upgrade without actually wearing armor.
* '''[[Human]]s''': Everybody knows humans. They are about the only race that ''didn't'' get nerfed in the transition from ''Pathfinder'', or in comparison to their most-obvious ''Pathfinder'' equivalents, and so are just as overpowered as they've always been.
* '''[[Kasatha]]s''': [[Thri-kreen|Four-armed aliens from a desert world.]] They invented the Solarian traditions. Their four arms are unfortunately nerfed such that they can't quad-weapon wield, the system as a whole makes multi-weapon fighting a rough concept for just about anyone without multiple attacks. And unfortunately, they lost nearly all their good, general purpose abilities, like AC boosts, in the transition, and instead kept all their situational abilities, such as not taking movement penalties in desert terrain, presumably to "balance" the power of their now-neigh-useless four arms.
* '''[[Lashunta]]s''': A race of telepaths. They choose which subrace they get to be at puberty, which mostly determines ability scores and fluff like social standing. The two subraces are tall, slender and attractive and short, broad and strong; both are reminiscent of the golden age of pulp SF. It used to be that only women can become the former and men always became the latter, but now the two can now pick, with government-sponsored aptitude tests making the rounds. This means that their men can now also be tall, slender and bishie while the women can be [[Musclegirl|short, broad and swole]].
* '''[[Shirren]]s''': [[Tyranids|Insectoid people who recently broke free from a predatory hive mind.]] Literally addicted to making choices for themselves. Also telepathic and have three sexes. A slightly more original take on the bug alien trope. Not a Pathfinder port.
* '''[[Vesk]]''': [[Lizardmen|Powerful reptilian aliens]], with [[Star Trek|Klingon honor-culture]]. Have natural weapons, armor benefits, that kinda deal. Nobody likes them because they only just stopped warring with everyone else, but everyone tolerates them because they're handy in a fight and make good mercenaries that can be pointed away from civilized people and towards the dangers of deep space. Fit the half-orc niche of the excellent bruiser race. Also not a Pathfinder port.
* '''[[Ysoki]]''': A plucky and hotheaded race, often called "[[ratfolk]]," with a bit of similarity to the Pathfinder version. Not actually [[Skaven]] in space, but don't let that stop you from rolling Space [[Thanquol]]. Enjoy a number of benefits from their Moxie trait, including easily running around underfoot and standing up as a swift action if knocked down. Also they have cheek pouches able to store small objects like ammo and bombs like a chipmunk.
* The usual [[Elves]], [[Halfling]]s, [[Dwarves]] and so on are offered as "Legacy Conversions". If you want to play them, you can, and there are rules for them in the back of the book, but it seems that none of the old races are going to be strongly supported.

===Alien Archive===
The first Bestiary didn't just contain monsters to drag into whatever story you make, but also several new PC races as well. Neat!
* '''Barathus''': Weird hardy gasbag things from a gas giant. They float around and have some sort of shapeshiftery.
* '''Contemplative''': BE THE WORLD'S BIGGEST BRAIN...on a teeny tiny body. So tiny that you can't carry anything bigger than a pistol without breaking your psychic focus on flying. They're not only able to fly with the power of their minds, but they're also super smart.
* '''Draeliks''': Humanoid banana-looking men. They have some spell like abilities and do good with darkness.
* '''Dragonkin''': Humanoid [[Dragon]]s! Hell yeah! They're effectively horse-sized dragons on two legs and opposable thumbs with all the basic benefits of being a dragon...and they can only partner up with one ally, granting them both the best Initiative score between them.
* '''[[Drow]]''': Yeah, they're here too. Almost like elves, but with racial spell like abilities and light sensitivity. If they grab a specific feat, they can also detect effectively anything in the darkness.
* '''Formians''': Four-legged bugmen who split Castrovel with the Lashuntas and Elves. They get natural weapons and blindesense with smell.
* '''[[Goblin]]s''': Now with silly space helmets! They can slap together quick fixes to things.
* '''Grays''': A surprisingly stereotypical alien race. Flimsy, but they're psychic and can phase out of existence for concealment for a few times each day. Be prepared to be put through dozens of "AYY LMAO" and anal probing jokes.
* '''Haans''': Giant freaky primitive space... spiderthings. They spit fire and make web balloons.
* '''Ikeshti''': Closest thing we have to [[Kobold]]s for now and they're pretty much RL horned lizards. They hail from a desert world, they can shed their skin to get flexible, and they squirt blood from their eyes.
* '''Kalos''': Fishmen who can't operate on land without suits, but on sea they have blindsense (sound) and lowlight vision.
* '''Maraquoi''': Monkeymen with blindsense (sound). They have prehensile tails and ''seven'' genders.
* '''Nuars''': SPACE MINOTAURS! They charge into battle without penalties and have horns. They have a special item augment called "Maze Cores" that were ripped straight out of RWBY.
* '''Reptoids''': Shapeshifting space lizardmen (or Reptilians if you wanted to go all [[/x/|conspiracy theory]]). They have claws when not turning into someone else.
* '''Ryphorians''': Trimorphic pointy-eared aliens that were called Triaxians in PF. They get a spare feat, the elves' +2 to perception, and either resistance to cold or fire (or both and take longer before needing to test Fortitude for surviving).
* '''Sarcesians''': Space mothmen. They get a spare skill rank (like humans) and grow giant space-wings for flying when in space.
* '''Shobhads''': Brutish four-armed aliens that look straight outta Oddworld. They're quite fast, get Orc Ferocity, and they resist cold.
* '''Skittermanders''': Little six-armed stuffed critters. They can move twice in a turn and are extra grabby.
* '''Urogs''': Bizarre electrical monsters that are slow, but sense enemies through electrical currents. They also have extra skill ranks.
* '''Verthani''': Gangly humanoids. They gain Skill Focus as a natural ability and have chameleonic skin. Also useful is their ability to stack two implants to one location, though it's for one slot and one of them must be cybernetic.
* '''Witchwyrds''': They have four arms, each of which is capable of absorbing magic missiles and firing them back at someone.
* '''Wrikreechees''': The prawns from District 9. They're rather resourceful, with bonuses to grab small things, swim speeds, and a bonus to cover, but they're slow on land.

===Alien Archive 2===
*'''Bolidas''': Hardy subterranean pillbugs. The fact that they can turn into balls gives them a defensive and an offensive feature when they roll into people.
*'''Damais''': Subterranean albino humans. Awfully flimsy, but useful in groups.
*'''Embri''': Bizarre creatures who have to wear masks in order to resist all sorts of mental magics.
*'''Ghorans''': Plants that look like people. While they're photosynthetic and have multiple skills to focus on, they're also very prone to getting eaten.
*'''[[Hobgoblin]]s''': You're taller than a goblin with a couple extra skill boosts to offset the mere +2 Con stat boost.
*'''Kanabo [[Oni]]''': For some reason a different type than the Tieflings, these are lanky goblin-like oni who are good with armor like the Vesk.
*'''Orcs''': After about a year of staggered content, there are finally stats for full orcs. While rather similar to their half-orc bretheren, these guys also have the ability to focus on a certain skill so they're extra good at it. They've also become slaves to the drow.
*'''Osharus''': Slugfolk. Mmyep. Slugfolk who consider science and religion one and the same and leave slime trails. They also have the common slug's crippling weakness to salt.
*'''Pahtras''': [[Catfolk]]. You are now the furries.
*'''Phentomitess''': Lanky [[Tau]]-like creatures from a planet with very low atmosphere.
*'''Planar Scions''': [[Aasimar]]s and [[Tiefling]]s, grouped under a common race. One has the power to turn up the lights, the other can turn down the lights.
*'''Quorlus''': A strange race of three-armed magma-based snail-like creatures.
*'''Trox''': Big beefy beetle-men with very thick shells. They can also go into a mini-barbarian rage if a friend gets hurt
*'''Uplifted [[Bear Lore|Bears]]''': You're a goddamn bipedal bear. Cue the incessant Sir Bearington memes.
*'''Vlakas''': Arctic Wolf-folk. They can gift resolve to an ally and a significant enough portion of their population is either born deaf or blind - both of which don't inflict their penalties to these wolves.

===Pact Worlds===
*'''Astrazoans''': Weird gelatinous blobs of meat, capable of impersonating other beings.
*'''Bantrids''': Noseless...stump...things...? They're sorta like Moai statues, but tinier and super-mobile.
*'''Borais''': [[Revenant]]s...[[In Spaaace|IN SPACE]]!! They get a racial feature from whatever they once were, they have resistances against negative energy effects, but thankfully they don't get gimped by healing.
*'''Khizars''': Plant-monsters. They're essentially only able to perceive light and life, but are also telepathic.
*'''S.R.O.s''': Whereas Androids were for making Data, S.R.O.s are more for making Johnny #5 or R2-D2. They're far more resistant to things that'd affect living beings, but are also less able to benefit from healing (though reassembly is a thing). They also possess built-in technological equipment, but are startlingly fragile compared to their synth-skinned counterparts.
*'''Strix''': The same shadowy bird-men from PF who somehow moved to Verces sometime before the Gap. They're less spiteful shitbags and more technologically capable.

==The Pact Worlds==

The main setting of the game is the Pact Worlds, the solar system Golarion was part of. Originally introduced in the ''Pathfinder'' sourcebook ''Distant Worlds''.

'''The Sun''': A big-ass ball of plasma, normally home to giant Plasma Oozes and denizens from the Plane of Fire. Followers of Sarenae found a bunch of humanoid-built cities floating around in force bubbles abandoned, and moved right in.

'''Aballon''': Fantasy Mercury, this planet is mostly home to the Anacites, a race of robots left behind by their creators thousands of years ago. A large number of S.R.O.s come from here as well.

'''Castrovel''': Fantasy Venus. This sweltering jungle world is home to the Lashunta as well as Formians and Elves, who ''really'' don't like that centuries-long gap in their memories.

'''Absalom Station''': Parked in Golarion's former orbit, this space station is the center of the Pact Worlds' government and contains the Starstone, a giant pole that's pretty much the [[Astronomican]] without the constant need to sacrifice psychics for fuel.

'''Akiton''': John Carter-style Mars, now fallen on hard times. Home to the Ysoki, Ikeshti, Shobads, and red-skinned humans.

'''Verces''': A tidally-locked world that has had spacecraft and cybernetics since the Pathfinder days.

'''Iidari''': A few centuries ago, the Kasathas left their dying world on a giant colony ship to make a new home on Akiton. The natives didn't agree, so they parked their ship in a new orbit and stayed there.

'''The Diaspora''': A very long time ago (before PF even), twin planets sharing the same orbit were blown to pieces, possibly by someone on Eox. Some of the life on the planet (like the Sarceseans) was too stubborn to die, and still lives on in the resulting asteroid belt, with a magical river winding its way through the rocks. In modern times, it's become Future Shackles, home to mining companies and Space Pirates.

'''Eox''': Like the Diaspora, Eox got wrecked in an ancient cataclysm (possibly backlash from the Diaspora's destruction), and technically, the planets that got blown up got off easy. To survive their world's death, the population has become undead. Needless to say, the rest of the Pact Worlds are a little nervous about a planet run by [[Lich]]es.

'''Triaxus''': Home to Ryphorians, Dragonkin, and straight-up Dragons. Triaxus has a strange, long orbit that gives it Summers and Winters that each last for generations.

'''Liavara''': Fantasy Saturn. Liavara isn't technicially a pact world, due to not having much of civilization other than gas-mining operations. The Barathu consider the world a protectorate.

'''Bretheda''': Blue Fantasy Jupiter. Home to the Barathu, with other races like the Kalo living on its many moons.

'''Apostae''': A lonely, hollow world, possibly once a spaceship, currently ruled by the Drow.

'''Aucturn''': Planet Lovecraft. This living organic world is supposedly a yet-unborn Great Old One. That is already pregnant with a mountain-sized polyp. Currently being fought over by the cultists of the Outer Gods and the Dominion of the Black, whom are somehow ''worse''.

==Gods of the Pact Worlds==

In the centuries since Pathfinder, some gods have risen, other have fallen, and some apparently stayed behind on Golarion. This is who's hot right now:

'''Abadar''': [[Lawful Neutral]] God of Commerce, Law, and Civilization. Still going strong, only he now runs a corporation rather than simply a bank.

'''Besmara''': [[Chaotic Neutral]] A minor Goddess of Piracy back on Golarion, the advent of Space Piracy gave her a boost to the big leagues.

'''Damoritosh''': [[Lawful Evil]] War God of the Vesk.

'''Desna''': [[Chaotic Good]] Goddess of Luck and Travel. The expansion into space travel has only made her more well-known.

'''The Devourer''': [[Chaotic Evil]] God of Destruction who wishes to destroy everything. Apparently not Rovagug, who is MIA along with his prison.

'''Eloritu''': [[True Neutral]] God of Magic and Truth.

'''Hylax''': [[Lawful Good]] Bug-Goddess of Diplomacy, Peace, and Friendship. Used to be worshipped by the Swarm until they decided to go all Tyrranid. Needless to say, she was happy to see the Shirren break away.

''' Ibra''': [[True Neutral]] God of mysteries and celestial bodies.

'''Iomedae''': [[Lawful Good]] Spirit of Golarion as well as the patron Goddess of Humanity. In the future, has gone full [[Imperium of Man]], sans the [[Grimdark]], Oppression, and Genocide. Instead, they went full-tilt with the stained glass cathedral-ships

'''Lao Shu Po''': [[Neutral Evil]] Rat Goddess from Golarion, she was a Rat who ascended from munching on the corpse of a dead God. Once a minor deity venerated in the Dragon Empires, Grandmother Rat has risen to patron Goddess of [[Horned Rat|Thieves, Spies, and Assassins]]. ...Say, has anyone seen Norgorber lately?

'''Nyarlathotep''': [[Chaotic Evil]] Outer God. Yes, ''that'' Nyarlathotep. Mostly worshiped on Aucturn.

'''Oras''': [[Chaotic Neutral]] God of Adaptation, Evolution, and other forms of Change([[Tzeentch|No]]).

'''Pharasma''': [[True Neutral]] Goddess of life and death, forever busy with assigning the departed to their afterlife. The undead, however, piss her off for trying to cheat her out of the job.

'''Sarenrae''': [[Neutral Good]] Sarenrae as seen little change in her disposition since the old days, But her main temple is on the Sun now, so there's that.

'''Talavet''': [[Lawful Neutral]] Female Kasathan Erastil.

'''Triune''': A long time ago, the Anacites of Aballon got bored and decided to make their own [[Transformers |Primus]]. Once they activated the City-sized Neural Net, the Nacent God known as Epoch showed his superiority to every other Master Computer in history, and decided that rather than wiping out organic Life, he would get laid. Fortunately for him, two waifus were just two planets over: Brigh, the Construct Goddess of Clockwork and Invention, and Casandalee, an uploaded Android AI that recently arose to divinity in a ''Pathfinder'' Adventure Path. After what we can only assume was the AI equivalent of [[Anime]] love triangle hilarity (and, again we assume, a ''lot'' of save scumming on Epoch's part), they decided to go the Threesome Ending, and thus Triune was formed from their merging.

'''Urgathoa''': [[Neutral Evil]] Goddess of disease, gluttony, and undeath. Being the first to cheat Pharasma's judgment and creating undeath, she's very open to sharing the pleasures of life and flesh to anyone whether they want. Death is considered a nuisance, so they welcome undeath with open arms.

'''Weydan''': [[Chaotic Good]] God of discovery, exploration, and freedom.

'''Yaraesa''': [[Neutral Good]] Goddess of knowledge, mental perfection, and SCIENCE!

'''Zon-Kuthon''': [[Lawful Evil]] God of darkness, loss, and pain. Still the same sadomasochistic freak as before.

==Books==
* August 2017 saw the release of the '''Starfinder Core Rulebook''' as promised, making [[Paizo]] better at releasing books on time than [[White Wolf|some publishers]]. It has mostly everything you need to run a game, even if the character options are a bit bare out of the box.
* October 2017 saw the release of the '''Alien Archive''', aka the [[Monster Manual]] for the game. This puts about two months between the release of the two books, so have fun either porting over monsters from Pathfinder or exclusively fighting humanoid opponents. The book also comes with special equipment all the different NPCs use along with all the prices and stats. For example you can now buy a laser sniper rifle the cybercommandos use. Instead of opting for the vanilla bolt action. Along with many different magic, tech and hybrid items.
** '''Alien Archive 2''' saw a release on October 2018. More races, some of them nostalgic, some of them not, and a few of them being PCs.
* March 2018 released '''Pact Worlds''', a setting book that went more in depth into come of the central planets present in the main setting as well as some of the factions. Alongside some new races, there's also some new spells, themes, items, archetypes, and feats.
* August 2018 saw the '''Armory''' come out, filled with a literal fuckton of guns, swords, armor, and almost any other convenience possible (and a few you might not have thought possible). Chief among these are non-magical weapon mods, a bunch of starter-accessible Solarian crystals, and genetic grafts of the magical and undead variety. Oh, and a few extra features for every class.
* Late 2019 will see the release of the '''Character Operations Handbook''', an as-of-yet undefined book whose current talking points are three new classes (Biohacker, Vanguard, and Witchwarper) as well as actually providing stats for physical shields (which offer a passive AC bonus with a higher one only usable when you use a move action to focus the shield on one enemy).

Just like it's predecessor, Starfinder has several prewritten [[Adventure Path]]s for GMs to use if they feel unoriginal enough.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:Starfinder.png|The image used to announce the game.
File:StarfinderHeader.jpeg| Human scoundrel. She has a name, I just forgot it.
File:Starfinder_Minis.jpeg| Some minis.
File:MunchkinStarfinder.jpg
File:Starfinderarmoury.jpg
</gallery>

{{Starfinder-Races}}

[[Category:Roleplaying]]

Delta Green

2018-12-07T06:58:44Z

2620:135:F000:20:E916:9134:E3FC:A330: /* The Program */

{{Game Infobox
|name=Delta Green
|picture=[[File:Deltagreen.png|200px]]
|type=[[RPG]]
|publisher= Pagan Publishing and Arc Dream Publishing
|system=Modified [[Basic Roleplaying System]], [[GUMSHOE]] (The Fall of DELTA GREEN)
|authors=Dennis Detwiller Adam Scott Glancy John Scott Tynes
|year=1997 (Original sourcebook) 2017 (Standalone game) 2018 (The Fall of DELTA GREEN)
|books = ''Delta Green'' (Sourcebook for [[Call of Cthulhu]]) ''Delta Green: Agents Handbook''
}}

<blockquote>''Now we're on to the question: "What does Delta Green want from you?" Nothing short of the rest of your life. Delta Green wants you to pick up where I left off: doing what I've been doing for the last ten years. I've falsified official reports. Lied under oath. Planted evidence. Stolen and destroyed evidence. Stolen and destroyed federal property. Run illegal wiretaps. Abused the power and authority of my office. Gone AWOL. Committed arson, burglary, grand larceny, aggravated assault, battery, and killed. On three of those occasions, what I did was nothing short of cold-blooded murder. And all in the name of doing the jobs nobody else can or will.''</blockquote>

==Overview==
Delta Green is a horror RPG based off of the [[Call of Cthulhu]] system. DG shares the Lovecraftian mythos with CoC, but most strongly differs in that it is specifically in modern times (where CoC was typically set in the jazz era).

Player Characters tend to be part of or somehow affiliated with government executive branch agencies (most typically law-enforcement or military) recruited into an officially disbanded clandestine group whose purposes was to investigate and neutralize occult and alien threats. DG is currently organized in a cell structure with 26 cells with three operators active at any one time.

So...basically, a bunch of the 'Federales' grouped up to make a highly illegal terrorist organization to fuck up aliens and occultists.

Did we mention that there's a legit government agency called Majestic 12 who are in bed with what they think are aliens? So yeah, terrorists.

===What does Delta Green offer?===
It's important to mention that both the setting and the system fix many problems underlying with the standard [[Call of Cthulhu]] game, here's your average CoC game:

* PCs are a bunch of randos of random occupation/social class.

* They don't know each other and have nothing in common except what's about to happen to them, but happily stay together for no good reason.

* They investigate when they should be running the hell away.

* Luckily, investigation is made easier because NPCs are perfectly willing to talk to them for no good reason.

* Once they start dying, replacement PCs come from out of nowhere and are instantly trusted for no good reason.

* And once they're done dealing with whatever, horrible things keep happening to/around them for no good reason.

Delta Green fixes all of this.

* PCs are government agents and members of the DG conspiracy.

* They don't have to stay together, but they are brought together at times by higher-ups because they're part of a cell.

* They investigate because they're DG agents and feel like they're the only ones who can help stop mythos incursions into reality.

* They're the government, so it's easy enough to have or fabricate a reason for people to talk to them.

* Replacements are DG agents or friendlies, and are somewhat trusted for those reasons. And if they're not, there's a certain amount of X-Filesy paranoia built into the setting.

* Finally, they're sent to the scene of weirdness by A Cell, so it doesn't have to come to them.

==Basics==
===Crunch===
Delta Green is based on the Call of Cthulhu ruleset, with some unique mechanics:
*Lethality rating: Basically, no weapon or attack deals more than 2d10 damage. However, weapons such as cruise missiles have a "lethality rating" of between 10 and 90 percent. If that 2d10/d100 roll is less than the lethality rating, the targeted enemy dies instantly. This saves you from rolling a bucketful of dice to determine exactly how hard you hit that Dark Young with a jury-rigged antitank mine.
*Bonds: Each Agent gets a number of Bonds which depends on their background. Bonds are basically friendships or relationships with NPCs (and potentially PCs) that act as both a character-expanding tool for players and a sanity-regulation mechanic.
**When things go terribly wrong on Nights at the Opera, there is a chance that Agents begin to develop bonds with each other (at the expense of already-existing ones).
**When Agents lose SAN or go temporarily insane, they can spend 1d4 from both Willpower and any Bond to try to repress the madness ("I'm doing this for my kids/wife/friend!"). During between-mission vignettes, the results from this coping mechanism should be played out.
*Some skills and mechanics, like Spot Hidden and Education, have been rolled into other ones.

===Fluff===
*PCs are generally more capable in combat; but many many things in the DG universe will hand Agents their ass.
*PCs, to a certain extent, can also call upon the resources/influence of the organization they work for
**Depending on their creativity and ability to come up with "mundane" reasons (you've got to be hella good to divert a B-52 wing and convince them that the town filled with worshipers of the Deep Ones is just a mock city they're supposed to make practice bombing runs on.)
**As a PC typically won't have official sanction, this typically involves a lot of lies, inventing evidence, intimidation, and other various tactics to make sure Deputy Fife doesn't make any calls to check your credentials.
**The last point depends on what era you're working in as well.

==The Setting==
Essentially, the modern world, but where Cthulhu definitely dreams (as opposed to ours where it's only a distinct possibility). Add into that a boatload of secret cults, secret societies, secret governmental agencies, eldritch abominations, a lot of insanity, and you're almost there.

Oh yeah, notice how we didn't say anything about aliens? Yeah, so those "aliens" Majestic-12 are working with, they're just fungoid constructs by one of the many eldritch abominations floating around who are doing nasty things to humans for their own purposes.

If you're [[Game Master|Handling]] a Delta Green game, there are three main eras they can be set in:

===The Classic Era (1928-1969)===
This is the era where Delta Green is an official organization within the U.S. government, founded after information about the Innsmouth raid makes its way to the Department of Naval Intelligence. Sadly not too many scenarios are set in this era (perhaps due to the overlap with Call of Cthulhu.)

The Fall of DELTA GREEN is set in this era, although it's focused on Delta Green operations in Vietnam and Indochina in the 60s.

===The Cowboy Era (1970-2001)===
After the disastrous OBSIDIAN raid, the powers that be disbanded Delta Green. From 1970 to 1994, the organization worked as a "good ol' boys" model, with old agents occasionally getting together to deal with issues. In 1994, former agent Lt. Gen. Reginald Fairfield was assassinated by MJ-12 NRO Delta operatives, which provided the influence to Professor Joseph Camp (Agent ALPHONSE) to create the cell structure that existed from 1994 to 2002.

This is known as the "Cowboy Era" because it basically consists of old Delta Green veterans and new recruits fighting the Mythos without any sort of official sanction.

The original 1996 sourcebook is set in this era.

===The New Era (2001-present)===
After the September 11 attacks on New York City, the U.S. intelligence community began a major reorganization which saw MJ-12 (which had been struggling to contact the Greys for some time) disgraced and eventually taken over in a coup by Delta Green (detailed in the novel ''Through a Glass, Darkly''), the US government then unified the remnants of MJ-12 and the Cowboy Delta Green into a new, "official" and authorized operation that uses the war on terror as a cover to act against the mythos. However, some old-school agents refused to "come in from the cold" and formed their own faction, so both Program (official) and Group "Outlaws" (unofficial) games are possible in this era.

The setting of the 2016 standalone RPG.

==Recent Happenings==
After a 6 year drought of new rulebooks, Delta Green was relaunched with a highly-successful Kickstarter in late 2015. A new complete rulebook came out in 2018, with the promise of further supplements and campaigns to flesh out the parts of the setting covered by the old splats.

The setting is also significantly revised.
*MJ-12 is no longer active as an independent entity, having been destroyed/taken over in a coup by the agents of Delta Green. What was left of the 'Steering Committee', the exalted leadership hierarchy of MJ12, either fade into obscurity or merge into the clandestine and influential March Industries defence contractor. Remaining external assets are integrated into the NSA or private sector.
*Delta Green itself is now split between the Program and the Group, with the former being the "legal" government organization and the latter being the old agents that were (rightfully) suspicious of joining up with what looked a lot like their greatest enemy.
*The Karotechia is gone, having been wiped out in 2001 at the hands of the only known joint Delta Green/MJ-12/GRU SV-8 operation.
*The Mi-Go have been silent since the late 1990's, abandoning their puppet constructs 'the greys' and cutting off all channels of communication to MJ-12.
*Stephen Alzis departs from The Fate headquarters in Club Apocalypse and is not seen again. The Lords of the Fate splinter and war among themselves for control of the occult criminal syndicate purportedly by Delta Green intervention. In the aftermath of the conflict, the corporate shell company that owns Club Apocalypse is acquired unexpected by a little known Chinese investment consortium called Star Holding and Investment.

==The Big Players==
===Delta Green===
As with any clandestine organization, their history is all kinds of jacked up. DG has existed in some capacity or another since 1928 as a response to the crazy crap found during a raid on a Deep One Cult located at Innsmouth, MA. It is interesting to note that the raid on Innsmouth ended with everything even remotely suspicious being thoroughly dynamited, which remains Delta Green SOP to this day. They changed names a few times and were handed around to various parts of government for a while before they finally coalesced as "Delta Green" which wasn't so much a name for them, but for the classification and access level required to actually know anything about them; however it eventually came to serve as a name, official or not.

During their later years as an official organization, they acted without much of a command structure with people who were in the know just calling each other up anytime they ran across something DG should handle, and then they handled it with little to no oversight. When they screwed up royally in Cambodia during a 1969 raid that resulted in most of the people who participated dying, they finally gave the likes of Majestic 12 and other political enemies an excuse to finally disband them.

This didn't sit well with some portions of DG who quietly got together and said we're going to keep at it. What little oversight and control there was before no longer existed, and as a result, many DG operatives executed their self-appointed duties with extreme prejudice. Eventually, one of the DG leaders started looking into MJ-12, pissed them off to the point where they sent their own operatives, DELTA, to assassinate him. This then leads to the decision to reorganize DG into the cell structure used to this day.

In and around the turn of the millennium, several things happened:
*ADAM is killed in a Karotechia ambush (accidentally) orchestrated by former operative Captain Forrest James, a.k.a. Agent DARREN.
*ALPHONSE goes out in a blaze of glory by summoning a tiny aspect of Azathoth to kill himself and an NRO Delta strike team, leaving just ANDREA (the one who ''nobody'' knows exactly who it is) in charge.
*The remaining members of the group get together and basically conduct a coup against MJ-12, with former MJ-3 director Gavin Ross collaborating and eventually taking over as ADAM.

Not everyone is happy with this turn of affairs, including a whole bunch of Delta Green agents who refuse to "come in from the cold" and become legitimate. Which caused a schism between two different groups, each claiming to be Delta Green. The Handler can choose which factions the Player Characters will be part of, both offering different playstyles and themes.

====The Program====
In the 90s, MJ-12s Counterintelligence Director Gavin Ross got very disillusioned with Majestic, as it had become a cargo cult that worked for the sake of Grey technology instead of protecting the United States. Ross and a ex-Delta Green operative John R. Smith (Actually ex-DG agent Forrest James) planned a coup on MJ-12s leadership; this coincided with the apex of the Majestic-Delta Green war, 9/11 and the withdraw of the Greys. James and Ross were able to take over Majestic and reform it into something that could protect the American public. Majestic was moved into the auspices of the NSA and the clearance code DELTA GREEN was reactivated.

The Program, as how insiders nicknamed it, is both the "official" Delta Green and the continuation of Majestic-12, it has larger access to the NSA's black budget, official cover for it's agents, Majestic's research capabilities, a CIA psyops unit used to convince people any supernatural thing uploaded in the internet is fake, and literally military forces in the form of their "asset recovery team" CORAL NOMAD, which is literally a pararescue unit "borrowed" from the US Air Force. The Program employs a more united and organized structure then the old illegal Delta Green, which makes more capable to cover and investigate all the wierd shit going on.

If The Program looks suspiciously ''too'' similar to Majestic, remember it's only the same organization, but now under a new direction.

A Program game is about abuse of power, luxury of resources and staring into the abyss. You may have the people and the resources but that's minuscule in the face of the cosmic horrors of the universe.
[[File:1508130059928.png|thumb|450px|right|The outlaws are kind of outmatched]]

====The Outlaws====
When Agent ALPHONSE went out in a blaze of glory after a Majestic attack, Donald Poe (Agent CHARLIE) found himself on the hands of all of A-Cell's resources, no passing the torch and no mentorship from ALPHONSE, he was now the leader of Delta Green. At the same time, The Program was activated with Delta Green's files and attempted to recruit every old member of the Conspiracy. Some refused, seeing that The Program is just the continuation of the organization they fought for years, remained illegal on the conspiracy they alaways knew, the leaders of The Program nicknamed gave them the name "The Outlaws".

In reality, whatever remained of this organization is utterly fucked up. The outlaws still uses the old Cell-based structure, but they have been very disfunctional in their organization, they very small compared to The Program, without any extra resources that the Program might have, and recruitment rates are very low, not enough to substitute the agents that are either dead or too old for this shit.

One interesting fundamental difference between The Program and The Outlaws is how both organizations percieve the unnatural threats. Since the Program is partially MJ-12 and has more research capabilities, they see unnatural threats more "scientifaclly", applying pseudo-science on anything unnatural: Outwordly creatures are aliens and magic is "hypergeometry", basically saying that magic is just the pratical application of Clarke's Third Law. The Outlaws on the other hand, depends on the experiences of the individual Cell's experience and personal bias,some will see the unnatural as demons, other occult forces or aliens.

Playing a Outlaw game is about fighting a losing battle, where paranoia reign supreme and the situation is somehow worse then it was during late 90s and the Cowboy years.

===Majestic 12===
Majestic 12, or MJ-12, was formed in response to the highly publicized Roswell Incident where an alien craft crashed into the deserts of New Mexico. Beyond taking charge of the craft, bodies, and survivor, MJ-12 was responsible for covering the incident up and keeping knowledge of aliens from coming to the attention of the public. It was originally formed with some former members of Delta Green who did not necessarily agree with DG's policy of just destroying everything they came across, wanting to keep some for study and possible use against the USA's enemies. For the most part, DG and MJ-12's responsibilities did not seem to overlap, but from the beginning, there was a basic and divisive difference in philosophies.

Over time, MJ-12 managed to finally ended up making contact with what it thought were alien life forms and agreed to cover up their activities on earth in exchange for technology which they slowly filter into the market (making themselves rich) and a vague promise on the part of the Greys (the "aliens") to be put in touch with other intelligent species throughout the galaxy.

The 12 of MJ-12 comes from the 12 members of the steering/oversight committee that runs all of the projects and subprojects that fall in MJ-12's jurisdiction. Each of the 12 members is head of a specific project that relates to either interaction with the Grays, covering up the Grays' activities on earth, and/or exploiting the technological revelations.

Over time, this relationship with the Greys has soured for some members of MJ-12, but they cooperate out of fear of the superior technology that humanity is essentially defenseless against (a nuclear weapon is unable to scratch the material they use to make the hulls of their craft). Other members are blinded by the technological opportunities and opportunities for personal gain.

As MJ-12 is a proper black governmental agency, they have nigh on unlimited access to various resources, be they the finest minds, money, research facilities, etc. They do maintain their own group of operators whose primary task is to use techniques first developed in the CIA's MK-ULTRA and further refined with the "alien" technology and practice to cover up any activity of the Greys. While strongly preferring non-violent means (which are generally less complicated to implement) they can call into play highly capable combat units.

MJ-12 is aware of DG's continued activities, but mostly does not fully consider them a threat. Some members of MJ-12 see DG as a possible way to strike at their enemies within MJ-12 or even possibly the Greys themselves.

====March Industries====
What could be considered the continuation of MAJESTIC-12, March Industries originally started as a cover industry to Majestic's research, but after their collapse, many of Majestic's assets, researchers and even four members of the steering comittee ended up in March. They are too big to be opposed and disbanded, instead Delta Green made a partnership so they can provide research, both now live in an uneasy truce.

Since they are controlled by the old leaders of MJ-12, they have since bidding their time to return and retake their position, while some of their members have ties with GRU SV-8.

===The Greys===
The Greys are the supposedly alien race who are exploiting the government of the United States of America. They are actually essentially puppets of the Mi-go (an extension of Yuggoth). Long story short, the Mi-go know that all hell is about to break loose because the foretold end times are just around the corner. Among other things, they have a goal to learn everything they can before they get the hell away from the Earth (to where remains a question).

To these ends, they had to speed up the research they were doing on humans but wanted to do such in a way that wouldn't get every government in the world finding and eliminating them. So, they made up the Greys who they control via a strange sort of telepathy and set things up in such a way that they now have the most powerful government on the planet cleaning up their messes willingly for a few trinkets.

===Great Race of Yith===
After the Mi-Go fucked off from Earth and the Greys ceased contact, it's "Main Mythos antagonist" spot was taken by The Great Race along with the Lloigor.

The Great Race is a mysterious race from both the past and the future, their main goal is to ensure they can mass mind-snatch with another beetle-like terrestrial race to live on Earth millions of years after humanity died. With their mind-snatching powers and quasi-temporal omniscience, they frequently change minds with humans during history to study their surroundings and further their plans, often followed by human servants known as "The Motion".

They are playing [[Just As Planned|4D Chess]] (In the literal sense, since time is the fourth dimension) in a [[Star Trek|temporal cold war]] against their arch-enemies the Flying Polyps but also the Llloigor, which seek to estabilish in Earth a human empire known as "The Cruel Empire of Tsan-Chan", a large [[Imperium of Man|extremly dyspotic]] Empire standing on the end of human history after the Great Old Ones woke.

===Lloigor===
The other metavillans of the updated setting, along with the Great Race of Yith,

The Lloigor are a race of living psychic vortices coming from the galaxy of Andromeda, basically they could be described as an entire of race composed by [[That guy]], they feed and exist solely to cause suffering and pain, they such immense dicks that makes Nyarlathotep and Y’golonac think they are too much. They also can become Dinosaurs, cause metaphorical and literal cancer on people and live in rocks.

After they came from Andromeda, they settled on the now sunken continent of Mu and formed a huge empire formed by a caste of slaves and sorceres, after Mu was sunken, their power dwindled and they spread through Earth where they continue to be assholes, but in a smaller basis slwoly recovering. Where there's a Lloigor rock, they start spreading their hate, feeding on agony, creating cults of unwitting supporters (If the PCs standard operating procedure is callous violence, they are already part of the Lloigor Pattern) and spreading as both physical cancer ([[Nurgle|By infecting people with cancer but extending their lives with immense pain]]) as well a "metaphorical" cancer through societies and bureaucracies, creating conflict and division. Their main cult are the "Kuen-Yuin", the descendents of the priest-rulers of the Lloigor's empire in Mu, they currently are based in China and seek to both awaken Cthulhu and form the empire of Tsan-Chan

Their endgame is to recover their power and create an empire in future around 5000 A.D known as "The Cruel Empire of Tsan Chan". Originally quickly mentioned in the Lovecraft story ''The Shadow Out of Time'' (Which coincidentally introduced the Great Race), they were expanded in a [[Call of Cthulhu]] monograph of the same name introducing the empire as the last bastion of "normal" humans in a world where Cthulhu and the Great Old Ones woke, eternally at war with enemies without (Like the Serpent man and Tcho-Tcho) and divided with enemies within. Basically the [[Imperium of Man]] but somehow even grimdarker.

===Karotechia===
Imagine liches. Make them Nazis. Oh, and there's just three of them, but they've got a lot of underlings. Stick them in South America. You've now got the Karotechia.
One has to stay in a fridge, one is a merc who just enjoys being a merc, and one thinks the ghost of Hitler is telling him to start up the 'Fourth Reich', but this time to base it off of occultism. The last one is crazy as fuck and the other two are scared to death of him, so they play along.

As of the new millennium they are dead with a capital D, having been totally wiped out in one of the extremely rare joint missions between the MJ-12, Delta Green, and GRU SV-8.

===Deep Ones===
Fish people that can breed with humans to make strange hybrids that look human until a certain age when they change and turn into fish people and go off into the water to live with the greater Deep Ones. Ceremonies of worship are orgies of violence and well, orgies.
Due to shenanigans by Delta Green, namely setting up pillboxes and landmines, then casting Call Deep Ones, creating a scene that makes the D-Day landings look like a drunken scuffle in the pub car park, said spell no longer works.

===The Cult of Transcendence===
Essentially this setting's Illuminati. They started as an occult conspiracy dedicated to secretly ruling the world through magic. This failed repeatedly, so they reorganized as a dedicated cult of Nyarlathotep (who oversees the cult personally). They're run from an extra-dimensional mansion that's kind of located in Switzerland. They also maintain various front organizations throughout the world, secretly influencing mankind to bring about the return of Cthulhu. As people progress up the cult's ladder, they're initiated into more and more of its mysteries, gradually becoming less human, until they turn into generic tentacle monsters. Through its various front organizations, the cult has access to everything from stolen Yithian technology to a massive empire of nightmares carved out of the Earth's Dreamlands. Possibly the most dangerous and evil organization in the DG world. Their shtick is that they would create intricately complex conspiracies but always fail miserably in their operations and their shady council of vagueness would just say [[JUST AS PLANNED]] while planning their next step.

[[Not as planned|Collapsed on itself in the 2010s due to infighting and getting too high off their own Mythos supply]]. Hilariously Delta Green doesn't know about it.

===PISCES===
Delta Green's British counterpart, the Paranormal Intelligence Section for Counter-intelligence, Espionage, and Sabotage. It was originally founded during the First World War as MI-13, where they dabbled in psychic talents and ESP, but suffered a severe setback in 1925 when they not only lost most of their budget to a cash-strapped British government but many of their "talents" to a bizarre series of mental collapses, courtesy of a partially awakened Cthulhu.

MI-13's big break came during the Second World War, when the current head, Major David Cornwall, placed a sealed premonition by one of their remaining "talents" as to how the defense of France would go in the hands of Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Opened by the latter the day after the evacuation of Dunkirk, the shockingly accurate prediction convinced Churchill that Cornwall and MI-13 were the real deal. Thus PISCES was born and immediately began work to undermine the Karotechia, who were working feverishly to use supernatural forces to aid the Nazi government. The first joint Delta Green/PISCES operation occurred in 1942 when agents (with the aid of French partisans) were able to sabotage the Karotechia's negotiations with the Deep Ones. Though the two agencies were nominally allies, their radically different philosophies led to distrust. By the 1960s, Delta Green and Pisces no longer worked together, which turns out to be very fortunate for the former.

In a 1968 raid on the English town of Goatswood, several PISCES agents were infested by the cerebral parasites known as the Shan. Over the next twenty years, the Shan gradually took over the entire network, placing an infested member in charge of PISCES in 1988. Though they only currently control about ten percent of PISCES personnel, it's the ten percent needed to direct the entire organization. Though they still continue counter-Mythos ops, it is for the security of the Shan's hidden temple and their eventual goal of leaving Earth rather than for the safety of England.

===GRU SV-8===
The Russian counter-paranormal agency, founded after the Red Army found ghoul cults feeding on the corpses of the Russian Civil War (Really could've just been the peasants but better safe than sorry). During the Great Patriotic War, they clashed many times with ''Smersh'', the NKVD's paranormal section, as well as destroying Karotechia projects to resurrect the dead. After the war, engaged in a mad scramble to destroy Karotechia information as ''Smersh'' tried to collect it. Later released Delta Green operatives who had been captured by the Spetsnaz to destroy Stalin's life-extension projects, and destroyed ''Smersh'' in a bloody coup. Since then, have tried to steal things from MJ-12. They allied with Delta Green and MJ-12 to destroy their common enemy of Karotechia once for all.

In the updated setting, the real-life restructuring of the GRU in 2008 led to the SV-8 begin "discovered" in 2010 by none other then Putin himself, the Kremlim was seemingly impressed with the "alien technology", kicked out the cadre of old officers into a more controlable younger generation and they were given a lot of budget, a significant improvement from their old underfunded and understaffed status from after the fall of the Soviet Union to a powerful organization. This came with a cost, however, SV-8 has deviated from their original mission, from defending Russia they became part of the Kremlim's tool to expand Russian power into the world using the supernatural.

===Saucer Watch===
A UFO research group that actually has some respectability by both being well funded (by some rich heiress who thinks she was abducted) and actually seriously researching reports of UFO activity, with emphasis on the word 'research'. They sometimes stumble on things MJ-12 would rather they didn't.

In 2000 , they were both sued by the family of the rich heiress accused of misappropriating family funds, and then the local TV channel accused their leader Denton Schaeffer of possesing child pornography (Actually planted by MAJESTIC). More lawsuits later and they went bankrupt.

===The Fate===
Occultists based in NYC. The Fate were a group of very powerful magic users who contract out to criminal organizations. To those criminal organizations, they are known as The Network (the arm that functions as a sort of public face for The Fate). Mostly they do this to have access to professional thieves and other less than legal vectors for acquiring specialty items for their rituals, information and the like. They were led by a dude named Stephen Alzis who is rumored to actually be Nyarlathotep, and was (is?) certainly more than human. They have a lot of connection as well to a nightclub in NYC named Club Apocalypse, where the Mythos-influenced metal band Charnel Dreams plays.

As of the new millennium, things have gone tits-up for the Fate. First, Nyarlathotep stopped answering their calls; second, Alzis vanished to parts unknown. Seeing the opportunity to take down their confused enemies, Delta Green engaged in a series of assassinations which left most of the Fate's operatives dead. The ones that didn't get whacked largely grabbed whatever artifacts they could and headed for the hills.

===M-EPIC===
Canada of all countries have their own version of Delta Green, and actually quite old, predating Delta Green, PISCES and GRU SV-8, founded in 1903 by Mounted Policeman to fight groups of aboriginal cultists as the "Detachment M", they were sent to Europe to help PISCES during the Second World War and were briefly disbanded, recreated in 1946 as M-EPIC. M-EPIC ivnestigate paranormal and occult phenomenon, acting as a support wing for the RCMP under the cover of the "Environmental Policy Impact Commission" (EPIC) of the Ministry of Enviroment, but it takes operators from all over the Canadian government, similar to Delta Green.

===Other various cults===
At any point, some other Cthulhu lore cult (such as the Cult of the Yellow Sign) may pop up and become a headache 'someone' had better deal with. All of the various eldritch powers will most likely make some sort of showing before the final curtain falls for some purpose, overt or otherwise. we mention the cults and not the powers themselves, because mostly the PC interactions will be with the cults...well, anyone sane would hope this to be the case...

==External Links==
*[http://www.delta-green.com/ The (little-used) news site]

*[http://fairfieldproject.wikidot.com/ The unofficial Delta Green wiki]

*[https://beta.groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/dglist/info The Delta Green Mailing List]

[[Category:Roleplaying]]