CSC Campaign Report 2: The Green Box

Continuing where we left off last time, here's the green box section of the reference doc. I've split it up into the box as it was inherited, and then added a subheading for each of the main sources of stuff as it comes up later. Some of these items will ring a bell from my previous green box posts; proof that I do occasionally use my own work.

We also get into the fun territory of "mentioning things that will be described later, so as to build suspense through unanswered questions."

Any information uncovered via downtime investigation will be in nested bullets and italicized - the master doc has them in blue, but that doesn't really work with the background of the blog. Commentary in brackets.

CSC Campaign Index

• Player's guide
• Green Box 
• Library
• NPCs and Anomalies
  
• Operation 1: LAST THINGS LAST
  
• Operation 2: ROOM FOR SECONDS
  
• Operation 3: SPEEDY DELIVERY
• Side-Op: MAGINOT
• Operation 4: UNICORN MEAT

 

CSC Team

A recently-formed working group operating out of Pittsburgh PA. 

Case Officer: [REDACTED]

Active Members:

• Agent Princess - UPMC security officer and dabbling occultist
  
• Agent Marko - Pittsburgh city police officer
  
• Agent Kelly - Mechanical engineer
  
• Agent Deanna - Historian and academic
  
• Agent Anton - Ex-con who still has a few criminal contacts left
  
• Agent Dion - Low-rent lawyer
  

Green Box Inventory

A hidden storehouse, located in a locked basement of a building we can figure out later.  CSC Team (all of you) have been given the responsibility of keeping it secure and keeping the inventory up to date. You can treat anything on this list as a potential resource to use or a potential thread for Further Investigation. Any additional information will be added in blue. Any items lost or destroyed will be crossed out.

The Box’s Contents, as You Inherited It

• Shotgun with half-empty box of 8 shells. The stock is covered in Love Live! stickers, over which someone has written SHIT TASTE in permanent marker.
• 4 kevlar vests. Nametags read "Inky", "Pinky", "Blinkie" and "Fuckface.”
• Assorted handgun ammunition - Several unopened boxes plus shoebox filled with loose bullets. 1 speed-loader for a .45 revolver.
• Crayon drawing of a cow in a field. Three stick figures are laying in the field. The cow is covered in red.
• Skull of adult human. The word DENNIS has been carved into the forehead.
• 3 heavy down winter jackets (1 woman's medium,  2 men's large). 3 pairs heavy gloves. 3 pairs tinted snow goggles. Several dozen hand and foot warmer packets.
• Folding card table
• Folding coffin tent x5
• CRT TV; DVD + VCR player; Playstation 3 w/ Demon Souls (in-progress save present)
• Chef Boyardee canned ravioli x36
• First aid kit x3; Disaster prep kit x3
• Icon (Joan of Arc)

 

Recovered from Clyde Baughman’s Cabin

• Stone knife in buckskin sheath. Handle is human femur wrapped in red parachute cord. Series of notches etched along the blade (undeciphered)
• Book: Headhunters and Devils of the Upper Air: The Private Mythologies of Jackson Barrow (Gerhart & Doyle, U of OK Press, 1985.)
• Bomber Jacket: Grey-blue. “Bec” written on collar tag. Three patches.
• Iconographic lighthouse (right arm)
• No exact matches; “watch the lighthouse”, used in online occult circles  to describe waiting for an anomalous phenomena to re-appear.
• Raised fist (left arm)
• Common emblem in leftist groups; patch’s design is generic.
• Labyrinth with Greek text (left breast)
• Eis tḕn khthóna katabēsometha (“We shall descend into the earth”)
• Quote from the Book of Saints and Watchers, primary text of a Christian-derived new religious movement called the Katabatic Church.
• Photograph:  Vietnam-era. Soldiers pose with hand painted sign (“SO LONG AND THANKS FOR NOTHING”). Background treeline is blurry and out of focus: suspicious dark smear might be a tree or a very tall person.
• 3 cassette tapes, unlabeled. [They never played these, but they would be beginner's Navajo lessons if they had]
  
• Photograph: Clyde with unidentified young woman (late teens/early 20s; Black; distinct blue eyes). Both are posing on dock with fishing gear, holding up prize walleye. Taken 20-25 years ago (late 90s or very early aughts)
• 10 extremely magnetic marbles in a drawstring bag
• Yellow notebook paper with handwritten note, as follows
  

ROCHEFOCAULD

• Sunny Smiles Farms - Defunct health foods company. Prided itself on free-range, cruelty-free meats.  
• 5 Rivers Shipping - International shipping and logistics company. Operates worldwide; US offices in Houston and San Francisco.
• Locus Financial - Investment firm. Typically deals in real estate, but has been moving into more active venture capital avenues. New York.
• New World Armory - Lifestyle brand for firearms and firearm accessories. Recently in hot water with the press after it was revealed that the CEO made a major personal donation to the election fund of a hardline right-wing candidate in Arizona.
• S & C Plastics - Small plastics manufacturing company located in Sloth’s Pit, Wisconsin. Most of their business is doing tchotchkes, but they have been researching biodegradable plastics.
• Advanced Medical Technology Solutions Polypharmikon?? - Defunct medical lab equipment manufacturer and R&D-focused pharmaceutical company, respectively. The CFO of AMTS is on the board for Polypharmikon, but there’s no other apparent connection.
• Cephalonics, Inc - Silicon Valley tech company; primarily software design, has recently pivoted hard into AI research and development. Has been around surprisingly long, even did a little video game design in the early 80s.

• Remains of Marlene Baughman: Sealed plastic tub containing inert organic slurry.
• Photograph: Circular sigil drawn by Not-Marlene on the interior wall of the septic tank.
• Blue Lady cigarettes, 2 packs (Claimed by Anton)
  

Purchased from Virginia_Woolfe

• Book: Book of Saints and Watchers
  

[The players never followed up on this one, alas]

Recovered from Agent Merriweather’s Possessions

• Laptop: Contains two pdfs:
• pdf file: Blurry scans of an Untitled Grimoire (incomplete)
• pdf file: Loss of the 7th Goddess: Drawing Connections Between the Discoveries at Çift Tepe and Pre-Proto-Indo-European Matriarchal Religion
• Stone Venus figurine in carrying case; ~3 inches tall. No facial features, bust and hips are exaggerated. Clearly having a good time, euphemistically speaking.
  

Recovered from Home of Michael Hill

• Hard drive: Contains the contents of Hill’s personal computer, including manifestoFINAL.docx and a significant collection of pornography.
• Black Binder containing machine-translated survivor’s accounts of the Taiping Rebellion.
• Collection of books, including
• The Adytum Hymnal
• The Horse’s Eye
• The Uranaka Book
• Age of the Serpents
• Meditations on Bodily Physick
• Tale of Sir Gaub and the Wyrm
• Other uncatalogued books of no relevance
  
• MEAT BOX: a bear-proof trash container with anomalous interior. (handed over to Processing Team)
• Milk crate with 7 VHS tapes (1/7 viewed): anomalous; point-of contact with the Woman in the Box (handed over to Processing Team)
• CRT TV with built-in VCR (handed over to Processing Team)
• 2011 Ford F150 (blue)

[If I am remembering things correctly, I think they passed the criminology checks to forge the documents and use it as a disposable team vehicle. As any good agents should]

Weird Things Found While Visiting the Curator

• Strange handgun
• Serial # in unknown script; 3 chamber-revolver; aesthetically dissimilar to known handgun models. 1d10 damage. Quiet but not silent. Will accept .45 rounds.
• Photograph: Blurry phone-camera image of the Curator
• Vague feeling of heimweh provided by the Statue of the Seated Woman.
• Cryptic couplet provided by the Statue of the Whispering Figure
•  “The man in the tower built a door to enter into the Dream / the man in the tower is no more, and all he can do is scream”

**

Nothing better than a nice green box. Certainly nothing more fun to put together (said the man who has dedicated considerable brain processing power over the years to the SCP Wiki, which is just one extremely big green box of infinite fractal complexity) - the game of spot-the-reference commences now!

Next post is the real meat of the situation: the library.