Minireview: Delta Green: Eyes Only
An alien conspiracy 160 million years in the making.
A group so powerful, their leader may be a god.
An accident so terrible it threatens the past, present and future.
To DELTA GREEN, it’s just another goddamn Night at the Opera.
Finally got around to reading this. Wow, once again; I have yet to be disappointed by any Delta Green book. This is extremely good stuff and quite creepy to boot.
Delta Green: Eyes Only collects three old and long (long!) out-of-print chapbooks for DG, and adds in three new scenarios (each one built around one of the chapbooks) and some extra articles. The first section/chapbook, “The Machinations of the Mi-Go”, concerns the Mi-Go (no surprise) and expands on their operations from what we’re told in the core book. While good, this section is maybe the weakest, simply because there isn’t all that much new here – lots of nice expansions on previous ideas, though. The second section, “The Fate”, deals with that organization (also initially introduced in the corebook), and here they are shown to be even scarier than initially depicted – which is understandable given the “default” answer presented here as to who/what Stephen Alzis actually is. Nice character detail on all the “Lords” is given, in addition to some supporting cast.
The last non-adventure section, “Project Rainbow”, is perhaps the best, and it’s completely original to this book – namely, the DG version of the Philadelphia Experiment. Very creepy and very cool.
Next up we have the scenarios. First is “A Night on Owlshead Mountain” which is a very nice scenario connected with the Mi-Go – but in a pleasantly subtle way. Probably the easiest scenario in this bunch to integrate with an existing campaign. Second up is “Artifact Zero”, which is a chilling and extremely deadly scenario built around the Project Rainbow stuff. Really good scenario, but also so ridiculously deadly that it makes Convergence from the core book look a bit tame. Run this for established play groups only if you’re prepared to lose a lot of PCs. I’d personally run this as a one-shot, and continue on with survivors (if any). You need a ridiculous level of paranoia to survive this thing. Not a bad thing, but… well, you have been warned. This one is nasty and unfair.
Last up is “Holy War”, which concerns internal Fate politics and the fallout of that into the hands of DG and other groups, set in New York just after 9/11. Reads like a nice adventure, but probably best suited for more experienced agents.
All in all, I was extremely impressed with this book, it continues the very high level of quality that Delta Green books are known for. If you want some nasty nihilism into your modern-day occult/supernatural games, you can’t really go wrong with Delta Green material.
As an aside, Scott Glancy just announced on the DG mailing list that a softcover reprint of “Eyes Only” is going to the printers today – so expect to see that available from some places in the near future. Good news for those who missed the original 1000-copy print run, which sold out fast.
Mon, 07 Jul 2008 11:06 Posted in Games
Tags delta green, eyes only
