The Delta Green Sunsetter Campaign - Operation SKI LODGE Report (Sessions 11 and 12)

02 Nov, 2025

This time around I'm doing a more extensive session recap, as I don't have much to say with regards to thoughts on the session. I thought it went fine and had nice tension, it's just a part of me trying to figure out how to embed a mystery in a larger campaign and point towards a larger world.

I will sometimes point at missed opportunities from my players, not as a means to criticise how they play, since mysteries are difficult, but rather to illustrate the kinds of things one must keep in mind when preparing a mystery, particularly the difficulty in doing leaps in logic.

But before that

For archival purposes, the previous session was a player-organised and led operation in South Dakota, in late 2010.

One of the characters spent her downtime investigating the strange man they had seen in the previous session, the dream dungeon one, to check if someone else had seen it. They tracked a likely candidate in a few internet forums and found out she - Sherry Jackson, 33 - had recently disappeared.

They weren't able to find her. I didn't plan for this to be particularly hard, but there's just so much evidence that exists when a person who's alienated from society is whisked out from the street at night. They did get a lead on a regular customer at the place she worked at, but they failed at pursuing him due to bad rolls. They could have coordinated their cars for the stalking, but they had no faith that he would actually show up. It is important for the investigator to act boldly and believe in his plan.

Operation SKI LODGE (Jan 21, 2011)

The briefing for this one was basically a bear mauling incident in the Berkshires¹, in west Massachusetts. Jared Tran, 19, was taking a sabbatical year with two friends (Zachery and Nicholas, both also 19) and went out for a skiing trip. They also had their guns for hunting, in case they heard of any game nearby. At one moment, Jared heard a noise, went out with his gun, yelled, shot, and was found dead. This morning, the coroner's report found strange bite marks, as if made by a human mouth. And so Delta Green was activated.

They were instructed to figure out whatever had produced the bite marks and retrieve the asset, or neutralise it, failing that. They were also cautioned that Carson (see below) couldn't secure federal involvement in the investigation because it seemed like a regular wildlife attack, and thus it was safely within the Massachusetts Commonwealth jurisdiction. He got them fake credentials to pass as Massachusetts Environmental Police, but they wouldn't hold up to scrutiny.

For this operation we had only half the group: Sophie Biancardi, a Yale professor in the arts department, and Jimmy Hughes, a cop from Southold, Long Island. Thomas Carson, their handler, gave them the briefing at 6 AM. I counted half an our for them to get ready and start going there.

Biancardi would be able to arrive at 8:30, Jimmy would only be able to get there at 10. They asked Carson and (after me rolling Luck to check if he would know this) he said that it was likely that the Environmental Police would be sent out from Boston to check, so they would probably arrive around 11.

Not wanting to waste time, Biancardi decided to start the investigation on her own. She scouted the place and found it to be a ski resort, the street continuing to the right with a row of lodges to the left and a parking lot with a toll booth to the right. The lodge where Jared had been had its sides covered by zebra tape. Looking into it, she found that the two other young men were still there, so she knocked on the door and introduced herself as being part of the Environmental Police and wanting to go over what they had seen. They repeated the information from the briefing with more detail, explaining more their relationship to Jared than anything else. They were all childhood friends, watching movies and playing cards when the worst happened. Biancardi also found that there was a cop, Officer Hunter, on the neighbouring lodge to keep watch over the crime scene.

Biancardi inspected the scene at a distance but ultimately decided to wait for Hughes to arrive.

When he did, he brought donuts to the boys and told them he had been through something similar when he was young, so he really sympathised with them. I don't think this is true, but interestingly, this is true for Biancardi. Anyway he didn't ask them anything, just hung out and built rapport very briefly before going over to Officer Hunter, distracting him under the guise of a friendly conversation about the superbowl. Officer Hunter, being tired and bored from a night standing over a crime scene, readily acquiesced.

Meanwhile, Biancardi went down to the scene to investigate. Behind the lodges there was a relatively steep ridge that went down to the edge of the forest. The lodges themselves were arranged as jutting out from the top of the ridge, with balconies looking over the forest.

• Unknown to the players: They would find this later, but there are cameras in the balconies and the porches of the lodges. The path behind the lodge is too low for the balcony camera and too much to the left for the porch camera. They had already been caught on tape.

There was a wealth of footprints going down the ridge, particularly around the forest's edge. One set of tracks was that of Jared's, and it stopped at a point close to the bottom of the ridge, where it transformed into skid marks produced as he fell down. The other tracks were seemingly from the paramedics who took Jared's body away, the cops, etc.

Biancardi has just 10% Survival so she couldn't glean very specific information from any of this. What she did find was the set of tracks that went away from the body and into the woods. They kinda looked like human prints, but she knew just enough about footprints to know that the footprints of a bear can also look like human feet. These would be a barefoot human in -15º C cold, but Biancardi assumed it would be something unnatural, so that was no impediment. She perfunctorily looked for bullet holes but could find none, looked for a blood trail and there was none either, so she thought that maybe Jared had missed his shot.

At 10:30 AM, Biancardi texted Hughes to come down and take a look, so Hughes extricated himself from the conversation and went down to the crime scene. They decided to follow the tracks and see where they led. They found they were going East, and I asked them how far they would be going. They weren't very specific, so I ruled they followed the tracks for about an hour before realising they weren't turning back, they just kept going east.

• Unknown to the players: It was now after 11 AM, so the Massachusetts Environmental Police and the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife were on the scene, and hadn't found out about them, as there is no real reason for the MEP to talk to the witnesses besides making their presence known. They are professionals, however, and were starting to realise the tracks were human tracks, as well as noting the parallel sets of tracks from Hughes and Biancardi. Soon afterwards they would question Officer Hunter about this, find it weird that two other officers had been on the scene - with badges - and start escalating things. However, from their perspective, the signs pointed towards a murder.

By this time, the players decided to go back. I asked them if they would like to return through the same way they came, and they said they would like to go the long way around. A failed Survival roll meant they overshot it, found the highway instead of the resort, and took 2 hours to come back, arriving at 13:30.

• Unknown to the players: By noon, the environmental agents, suspecting murder, had passed the ball to the Sheriff's Office, and also that there were two strange elements in the scene. From this time up to 13:00 they were having lunch, and Officer Hunter didn't see when a group of 3 heavily armed men in black appeared on the scene, emerging from the forest, quickly looked over the crime scene, and went back inside the forest. The two young men had, however, but assumed they were police. At 13:00, the Sheriff and a deputy came up to the scene.

Arriving back at the ski resort, Hughes decided to go in and look for camera footage, leaving Biancardi outside as a scout, as they noticed there was a new police car on the scene - there previously had been only one other, Officer Hunter's. He used the technique of acting like you belong to tell the clerk he was "with the big mess outside" while flashing his MEP badge and saying the Sheriff had the paperwork. This worked (no roll required, flashing badges typically opens doors like this pretty easily), and he was brought into the security room with the day guard.

Reviewing the footage, he saw that Jared looked like he was on a dare or putting on airs of fake bravado as he exited the lodge, brandishing his gun. But Hughes' high Awareness skill (and a successful roll by the day guard, who had about 40%) made him notice a strange movement right before Jared came out. There in the dark he saw the white shape of a large human person emerging from under the balcony, tripping, noticing someone inside had heard it, and dashing out towards the forest.

In damage control, Hughes explains this away to the security guard saying that it was a bear with an injured front paw, potentially ill, and that they sometimes became more bipedal for it. I asked for a roll with a negative modifier on account of it being a severe reach, but Hughes succeeded, and so the guard bought it.

Importantly, he also confiscated the tape as evidence, telling the guard "in case the Sheriff comes around, tell him I'll leave the tape in my car, he'll know the one". Hughes miscalculated a bit here, as there were only two police cars on the scene: the Sheriff's and Officer Hunter's.

It was 14:00 by now and Jimmy left the security room. A successful Luck roll said that the Sheriff was going to check the security tapes, too, but stopped on the way to discuss something with his deputy, giving Hughes and Biancardi ample time to evade them. As they exited, they saw an unmarked helicopter fly over high above, hover a bit on the horizon (they estimated it was on top of the trail) and then kept flying. Biancardi called Carson to report this and ask if there were other Delta Green operatives in the scene. Carson asked for time to check.

• Unknown to the players: This was the men in black requesting air support. It was already marked on my timeline but it was nice that they were able to see it, I didn't think they would.

Evading the Sheriff, Hughes hurried to the lodge of the young men, who were now more dour than before on account of the Sheriff getting involved and saying it might have been a murder (which the players were just learning too). Hughes leveraged his previous good will to ask what had actually happened, so the young men sighed and told him the truth: after some recent Bigfoot sightings in the region, they had been joking the entire time about coming over to shoot it. It was night, they were drinking - which they weren't supposed to, by US law, and were reticent to tell this to the other officers - so they thought they had seen a bear's head poke out from under the balcony and move. They egged Jared on to go outside and "shoot Bigfoot", thinking he would come back soon when he realised it was an actual bear, but instead he was killed.

Right after this they also mentioned the "guys in black skulking around" who didn't come up to the lodge, and they thought these were Sheriff deputies. Hughes nodded and quickly helped them to their car, as they were already packed and the Sheriff had let them go back to Boston, leaving their contact info to get in touch for the rest of the police proceedings.

As Hughes got to the car, he saw the Sheriff coming outside the ski resort. While Hughes had been talking, the Sheriff had discussed with the clerk and the security guard about the tape, and then started looking for whoever had impersonated his deputy with a MEP badge, getting Hughes' description.

Hughes gave the lads a goodbye and, as soon as he broke eyesight, started crouching through the cars in the parking lot to get to his car. It had been established earlier that he had parked outside of the parking lot, along with Biancardi, so he managed to get there while the Sheriff hurried to the lodge of the young men, as he had seen on the cameras that Hughes had JUST been there. A successful Luck roll by Hughes let Zachery and Nicholas leave the scene before the Sheriff could notice their car going away, and while he was doing that, Hughes had successfully gotten to his car. He and Biancardi then left the ski resort to get lunch and regroup.

• Unknown to the players: The Sheriff, meanwhile, started marshalling state's resources to organise a manhunt. Notice how all of this started looking like a murderer had killed Jared, then came back to the scene to tamper with the tracks he had left the day before, try some bizarre currying favour with the potential witnesses, then steal the evidence and run away. There was now an APB on Hughes and Biancardi.

In the meanwhile, Carson called them back on the mysterious chopper. He said those men were from the Breckenridge Corp, a Private Military Contractor who operated closely with Delta Green, but that - due to internal failures of communication² - Delta Green hadn't been informed of their movement. He now knew they were also on the hunt for a rogue asset, and therefore they were allies, but he still instructed the agents to try and get ahead of them, as they lacked Delta Green's tact and finesse. That is, they aren't that concerned with subtle secrecy, they will simply start killing people.

The players seemed at a loss on what to do, so Carson suggested they could try to get ahead of Breckenridge or try to figure out where the thing had come from and chart out where it was likely to be going. I did not suggest looking at the body because this was still in-character, and Carson expected the body to have been top priority for them.

Something else which was interesting was that the players were discussing trying to get more manpower on the operation, which is impossible, of course, as they already had Breckenridge with a chopper out there and couldn't risk exposing regular people to the unnatural, but that tells you where their head was at. It was a memory of when the group had 6 people in it, which gave them the ability to be at 3 places at once with decent chances of success, rather than 2 places at once and isolated. It's interesting because of how much of a difference group size makes in an investigation.

They decided on the following course of action: Hughes would drive out in the direction he thought the creature was going, towards Springfield, look for the helicopter and try to get an hour ahead of it, on another road. He did this, pretended to be asleep with Breckenridge showed up, and they left him unmolested. They were seemingly following the tracks by the ground and using the helicopter the sweep the area ahead of them.

• Unknown to the players: If someone asked, their cover story was that they were U.S. Marshalls looking for an escaped convict; not caring that this was a very flimsy excuse. If pressed, they pulled the trigger and used the helicopter to dump the body a few km away. This didn't happen because of a successful Luck roll from their part.

Hughes then repeated this, but instead of meeting Breckenridge head-on, he did a rolling stop and left as soon as it seemed like the helicopter would be out and about. At this point I should have asked for a Luck roll of some sort because of the manhunt, but he was mostly using rural roads and sticking to gas stations, so I didn't think of it. Plus the session was running a bit late and I knew the next part of their plan would likely have police involvement.

That plan was for Biancardi to wait for night to fall, go back to the ski resort through the woods, and check under the balcony for evidence of the Bigfoot.

Biancardi parked her car down the road where they had come out earlier, got a flashlight and went inside. I didn't ask for a Survival road here because it wouldn't be very important to lose an hour or another here. I just assumed she found her and Hughes' tracks from earlier that day and followed them, plus she knew the general area of the ski resort.

Arriving there, she had to decide how to deal with the cameras. She chose the "act like you belong" approach, waving to the camera and counting on its terrible definition to not pick up her face very well.

• Unknown to the players: What she didn't count on was that the Sheriff's office knew Hughes had a woman with him because they had gone over the tape and saw her on the porch. She had the same clothing. A failed Luck roll meant that the night guard, who had been briefed on all this by the Sheriff's Office, saw her and called the Sheriff immediately.

Underneath the balcony, Biancardi saw a vague marking that something large had laid there recently, and also found a few dark hairs, but nothing else.³

Looking back, Biancardi saw the red and blue light of a police car flashing silently, and so she decided to run down and away. I don't quite remember exactly how it went down, but Biancardi decided not to turn her flashlight on. Since she couldn't see anything on account of the very piney and closed forest that extends over the Berkshire Hills, I also decided she couldn't find her own tracks back to the car, so she decided to just hide and hope the Sheriff would not find her. I asked for her to call a coin toss, and she called correctly, so I let her choose which track the Sheriff would follow - the one that led to her hiding place, or the one that led to her car. She picked the latter. Remember that the tapes Hughes had stolen were in Biancardi's car.

• Unknown to the players: The Sheriff blocked the wheels of the car and called up reinforcements that the suspects were in the area, exerting the resources he had been managed to gather since the early afternoon.

Biancardi then walked dejectedly back to the ski resort, trying to avoid the cameras and walking around the entire perimeter, and eventually finding her way back to the front road, where she decided to walk to the nearest town in the freezing cold of -15º C. She called up Hughes and informed him of what had happened, but decided not to ask for him to pick her up.

Walking up to the nearby town, she saw a police blockade. To her left was a gated suburb, to the right a farm with a bit of a hedge. She decided to go around the blockade through the hedge, but fumbled a Stealth check and was immediately seen by the cops. She could either try to chance ahead, seeing that there was a river there (almost certain death) or go back through a lumber company's yard. Biancardi at this point had hiked in the freezing wilderness for a combined 6 or so hours, had been chased by a policeman through the woods, and was generally very spent physically and emotionally, as the helplessness of her situation sank in. She ran as far as she could before stumbling to her knees and being caught by the police.

Hughes managed to leave the state back to Long Island. This was some 10 minutes after the end of the session and I had personal issues to deal with (minor ones but still), plus my stomach was acting up so I just let him. Police was gonna find him eventually anyway. There was a coda however: an Air Force experiment in the outskirts of Boston ended up with a helicopter "accidentally firing" towards the ground. And also someone was now missing, Caitlin Williams, which the news didn't realise was connected but Carson and Hughes very clearly thought otherwise.

For the downtime between this session and the next, Hughes and Biancardi will be prosecuted and possibly fired. However, they didn't do anything that could sacrifice the safety and integrity of Delta Green, so they should receive some aid. We'll find out how it goes, next time, on the Sunsetter Campaign.

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