Game line: Chronicles of Darkness game line
Venue: Hunter: The Vigil 2nd Ed
Post by: Jerad Sayler
COMBINED JOINT TASK FORCE VALKYRIE (TFV)
Conspiracy Overview
The following is a compilation of information on the Task Force Valkyrie (TFV) hunter conspiracy from Hunter: The Vigil. The following events mentioned below are canon in our current Chronicle: Mage 2: The Dethroned Queen using Mage: The Awakening 2nd Edition. Access to this information In-Character requires Chronicle Storyteller approval with rationale on how the information might be obtained.
Sources:
- The Laundry Files books/RPG by Charles Stross
- RPG.net, original post by Professor Phobos on May 7, 2010
- RPG.net, original post by Professor Phobos on May 7, 2010
- Hunter: The Vigil 1st Edition (HtV1.0) corebook
- Compacts and Conspiracies sourcebook for HtV1.0
- Fallcoast.net page on TFV
TFV Document Repository:
Conspiracy Overview (Warning: Classified TS///SA///CJTFV)
Extra-Normal Entity (ENE) Classifications (Warning: Classified TS///SA///CJTFV)Advanced Armory (Warning: Classified TS///SA///CJTFV)
Report: CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN (Warning: Classified TS///SA///CNG/SCS/EJV/DOM/DP7/BLH)
Report: DEEP SEVEN (Warning: Classified Top Secret///SA///DP7)
Report: BLUE HADES (Warning: Classified Top Secret///SA///BLH)
Report: GOD GAME BLACK (Warning: Classified Top Secret///SA///CBS/GG-RW/BLB)
Report: CODICIL BLACK SKULL (Warning: Classified Top Secret///SA///CBS)
Program: GOD GAME RAINBOW (Warning: Classified Top Secret///SA///GG-RW)
Program: BLOODY BARON (Warning: Classified Top Secret///SA///BLB)
Program: SCORPION STARE (Warning: Classified Top Secret///SA///SCS)
Report: DREAM OF MADNESS (Warning: Classified Top Secret///SA///DOM)
THE FOLLOWING IS CLASSIFIED: TOP SECRET///SPECIAL ACCESS//
COMBINED JOINT TASK FORCE: VALKYRIE
Opening Remarks: THIRD PARTY ASSESSMENT
The following is a restricted report from the U.S. Inspector General's office on their first-ever review of Combined Joint Task Force Valkyrie after bypassing compartmentalization restrictions and getting hand-picked personnel cleared to interact with the Task Force from Black Cauldron division. Recommendations have not been submitted or approved coming out of the inspection and Task Force HQ Staff should standby until further notice. The findings in this broad review provide a full overview of the Task Force, its procedures, plans and policies as well as holistic observations meant to drive HQ leadership to improve the organization from within.
BACKGROUND:
Fact: in December 1927, the US Army raided a number of coastal towns in Massachusetts. The towns no longer exist. Their inhabitants vanished. Fact: in 1947, an unidentified object crashed near a SAF base in Roswell, New Mexico. Government agents waded in to clear things up.
Fact: in November 1963, John F. Kennedy was assassinated. The US Government’s investigation seemed reluctant. Fact: in the 1960s and 1970s, the Zodiac killer stalked northern California. No one ever caught him. Still, the killings ended.
Fact: in August 1997, Princess Diana’s car crashed under mysterious circumstances, killing Diana, its driver and the industrialist she was dating at the time. Was the People’s Princess really the intended victim?
Conspiracy theorists would have you believe there is a great agency behind all of these events. They don’t know for sure, of course. Task Force: VALKYRIE knows. They know the truth about Diana
and the precise location of the Roswell pilot’s grave. They know who didn’t shoot Kennedy. And they know about vampires, werewolves, demons and ghosts.
It began in 1865, when a hastily organized unit of government men (led by a man named Gordon West) failed to rescue Abraham Lincoln from the clutches of a creature from outside any human frame of reference. Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter? Realizing that for the good of the Union, they had to cover up the President’s death, they enlisted a look-alike, and without the hapless man’s knowledge, hired John Wilkes Booth to follow him to the theater and do the deed before anyone noticed the difference.
Things kicked off then. After the Roswell incident (an early triumph for VALKYRIE’s disinformation policy), TFV managed, effectively, to disappear. Its mission is to protect the USA from extra-normal forces. A handful of people at the top level of government know it exists. The President isn’t one of them.
Every story of sinister Men in Black who cover up paranormal events, every account of black-clad, heavily armed Special Forces operatives who descend from black helicopters and make people vanish, every supernatural or UFO conspiracy theory comes right back to TFV. It really is the conspiracy that keeps the people blissful in ignorance. Or it’d really like to think it is. The fact is, it’s still a government agency, and just like every other government agency, the Task Force suffers from nepotism and incompetence. Sometimes it’s at a level that endangers the men and women in the field. Intelligence gatherers are often as lazy as those foreign-posted CIA men who get their intel from watching the news. They’ve got a wide base of information about any number of ENEs, but a mountain of red tape and clearances to get through before it’s readable.
And then there’s the budget. Obviously, TFV is a black budget agency, but that only leads to certain irregularities, such as TFV having a budget a fraction of the size of ATF, let alone the FBI . So how can it afford the black helicopters, or that enormous underground facility in Arizona (the one you
think you know about in New Mexico is as flimsy as a movie set) and the astoundingly well-funded R&D department?
And if TFV’s remit is to protect the US people from ENEs, how come so much field work involves observation and kidnap rather than straight fighting? Why has it got so many ENEs stored away in that underground prison? Why do field agents who get close to certain secrets find their assignments changed without warning? Maybe there’s something else going on. TFV has a shadowy history, but what if that’s just a fabrication? What if none of this is true? What if it’s all really just a cover for something else entirely? Perhaps TFV’s masters have a more comprehensive plan, which their agents don’t need to know. On the other hand, perhaps the agency is compromised. Perhaps TFV is working for the very monsters its agents seek to defeat. But then, that’s just paranoia.
EXTRA-NORMAL ENTITIES (ENEs)
TFV has a firmly set procedure for dealing with most ENEs: report, observe, assess, report again,
neutralize or call for backup. Having said that, few agents stick closely to procedure when in the field. A snarling, shapeshifting beast who’s just realized he’s being observed isn’t going to wait until the agents have assessed, reported and taken action. TFV’s strict cell-based structure might technically require approval up the chain of command before breaking out the Advanced Armory, but often agents are blasé about exploiting the seemingly limitless budget. Having said that, agents who
get too blasé have been known to end up in an offshore prison facility, wearing an orange jumpsuit and not knowing their own names. TFV possesses big guns, but has to balance its use of astonishing gear with the knowledge that it can’t allow the public to know it exists, let alone the other conspiracies out there. This category is not to be confused with Extra-Dimensional Entities (EEs) which are ENEs in most cases, but from another plane of existence or alternate reality.
The Joint Task Force: A Global War on Terrors
A task force is the formation of unit meant to be temporary: it has a task, and once that task is complete, the unit is dissolved. Task Force: END RUN was a WWII unit tasked with the penetration
of Burma, and was built from the survivors of Task Force: GALAHAD. Once the job was done, the units were dismantled or changed to different tasks.
Some task forces, though, go against design and pick up a “task” that has no end in sight because completion is largely impossible—consider, for instance, that Joint Task Force: BRAVO was put into play in 1983 to provide US military support in Central America, and is still in operations today. (A “joint” task force is one that has members from various military or governmental institutions as opposed to just one.) VALKYRIE’s in the same boat. It has the task—“protect America from monstrous threats within and without”—that only ends in a perfect world. Since no perfect world appears on the horizon, VALKYRIE’s job security is firmly in place.
It’s a global war from VALKYRIE’s perspective. Yes, many of the monstrous threats they fight are on American soil, but they’re just as happy to send soldiers into the jungles of Thailand, the choked streets of Kolkata, or the deserts of Mexico.
Do other countries have similar organizations? Certainly. Britain has MI18, Military Intelligence, Section 18 referred to as The Laundry, headed by Sir Vernon Chickering. Israel has a sub-group within Shin Bet (its motto of “We are the unseen shield” is particularly appropriate for this kind of task). That being said, soldiers and agents of other countries can actually be brought on as a part of Task Force: VALKYRIE. Technically, VALKYRIE is a “combined” joint task force, which is a joint task force that borrows manpower (and in some cases, bureaucracy) from other NATO nations. Hence, an agent of Mossad might end up as part of VALKYRIE, not Shin Bet; a member of the Militärischer Abschirmdienst (MAD) counterintelligence agency in Germany may be recruited into VALKYRIE, too.
As is widely known, given the small numbers of aware individuals, Task Force Valkyrie forces are slightly unorthodox, and the squad composition allows for a degree of tactical flexibility in the field. Forces are made up all available recruits from all walks of life, and while military discipline and orders can be expected among them, civilians as well as government personnel are expected to work among each other in concert to eliminate the supernatural threat. Your over-all objective is to seek out the leaders and individuals of each group and neutralize them, be it through diplomatic reasoning, bribes, or strongarm tactics, such as utilizing creative persuasion techniques, or hostile coercion. Now more than ever, the abundance in crime threatens to expose the supernatural entities, which is entirely unacceptable, and given the presence of neonates not necessarily possible to contain by orthodox means, as in relying on the usual propensity of these individuals to try to remain hidden from society. Reports of strange creatures, werewolves, and vampires have been disseminated among major hospitals and law enforcement, and this information being spread to the media would bring a plethora of unnecessary investigators to potentially expose the threat. Due to this and other reasons, emergency task forces and divisions have been established in the area to deal with the threat.
The Offer That’s Not An Offer
Sometimes, in the line of duty, a person sees things: a fiery ifrit over burning bodies on Iraqi sands; an inexplicably-fast, blood-hungry monster leaving a trail of bodies for a pair of FBI agents to follow; a strange package in the mail that hums and gives the mailman who carries it haunting dreams long after he drops it on the intended doorstep. When people see things, generally, they tell someone— a superior, a co-worker, a friend. Even if they don’t tell someone, they exhibit certain… traits. Exposure to the supernatural can be damaging to the psyche. It doesn’t shatter one’s sanity, but it wears it down; any time any member of the United States Government (USG) is found exhibiting traits or discussing the paranormal, the course of action is singular. That agent is removed from active duty and sent for counseling, which lasts for however long it takes to get the character’s mind back on firm ground.
Once that individual proves sane, she’s given an offer that isn’t much of an offer at all: Train with VALKYRIE and join the task force, or enjoy an honorable discharge (or, in the case of non-military
personnel, a severance package). Sadly, the war is active enough that those who choose to join are thrown into the line of fire rather quickly; a curious and perhaps counterproductive approach, given
that these individuals went through a month of therapy (sometimes only days before) to calm their addled minds. Being launched right into combat or surveillance of supernatural forces often opens old wounds and new fears. Nobody said the war against reality terrorists would come without sacrifice.
To Become a TFV agent requires extensive assessment of a PCs physical skills and mental capacities. Most TFV agents are recruited from the military or law professions because they understand taking orders, discretion and can be expected to have some degree of physical/combat skills. So much so that the latter is probably the least important aspect to be assessed. Potential recruits will be placed in situations where they can be both judged at resolving it and what they do afterwards - do they keep it to themselves, cover it up, blab to friends etc.
Undercover TFV agent PCs can be involved in scenes drip-feeding info to a prospective agent as well as monitoring their abilities. TFV PCs can put PCs up for possible selection and will also take on a mentor role during the agent's probationary period after recruitment. If a PC doesn't work out then there is always memory blanking as an option.
The Schism: SWAT Versus Suits
A schism divides VALKYRIE. The problem is this: the conspiracy makes use of personnel from within the military, but also from outside agencies—people from any government agency (cops, intelligence officers, bureaucrats, diplomats). Those who are militarily-trained (inaccurately thought of as “SWAT”) don’t always get along with those who are driven by a more informational and intelligence-gathering approach (Suits). One group (SWATs) would rather kick down the doors of a known vampire haven and go in with flamethrowers (or stake-throwers). The other group (Suits) would rather build a case the way you might attempt to work up the ladder of a drug cartel or a terrorist organization. They are also referred to more officially as LOKI (Suits) and THOR (SWATs).
Which means that ultimately, VALKYRIE is almost two different agencies—and given that one group doesn’t take precedence over another, and that each group has representatives even at the highest echelons of the organization, it means that these factions do not play well together. A recent push has occurred, driven by more neutral members of the upper echelons, to put the SWATs and the Suits in the same cells. Previously, it usually shook out that cells comprised one type over the other,
and were used for competing purposes—except, that meant that the agency was getting in its own way and suffering under turf wars. The new push to get these two “tribes” to play in the same sandbox and as a part of same cells hasn’t been entirely effective—the cells sometimes self-destruct—but it has cut down on the overall problem. So, for now, the directive continues.
Recent Whistleblower Scandal: Carlton Johns "The Truth Merchant"
Carlton Johns found out about VAL KYRIE because he worked as a part of the combined joint task force as… well, an accountant. He was the king of the number-crunchers, an unstoppable force obfuscating the realities behind VAL KYRIE as a black budget, black box operation. When did he turn on the Task Force? About three years back, Carlton Johns disappeared, and he took with him a packet of damaging information. And he’s been using it to “out” VALKYRIE to various elected officials and Pentagon big-wigs in what amount to guerilla strikes—he appears on the radar out of nowhere, offers exposing evidence, and then disappears again. So far, he hasn’t exposed what VALKYRIE is, exactly, only that it exists, and it’s doing some subversive things with taxpayer money. That may change, however, and Carlton might start showing them what VALKYRIE is in addition to highlighting its existence. To date we don't know why Johns is doing this. Johns was, by all accounts, an avid loyalist. We can only speculate that he may have turned quisling when his hand was forced. But perhaps he read something he couldn't abide, a hideous truth that we are not privy to. In any case, he is a very real threat to the Task Force and we have active warrants for his arrest so he can be neutralized.
Hot Zones and Dead Zones
A hunter’s experience within VALKYRIE partly depends on one thing: where she is stationed. If she’s stationed in what’s considered to be a “hot zone,” then she and her cell are on a slide under the microscope. A hot zone—any major metropolitan area or war zone where the fight against the supernatural is ramping up or in full swing—means that the conspiracy doesn’t want any mistakes
made. The bureaucratic tangle is thick. The protocols a cell must follow could choke a horse. A number of cells will be present, and if hunters get killed, more are brought to the area. Higher-ups visit regularly. Everybody’s under the gun.
Then again, a whole lot of VALKYRIE agents are stationed around the world in places considered “dead zones”—a relatively stable region in terms of monstrous activity (which is sometimes accurate, and sometimes not). These agents grow used to the isolation from the larger conspiracy. They’re practically forgotten. It’s hard to get new equipment, hard to get any budget at all, but it’s easy to perform the Vigil however one chooses to do it. A lone agent stationed in Nowhere, Nebraska, is free to join another cell of hunters under true or false auspices. A cell in a city that the conspiracy doesn’t consider a hot zone (like, say, Miami) has free rein to act outside the protocols. When a dead zone becomes a hot zone, a VALKYRIE cell with some autonomy will see its entire world change. When the conspiracy sets up shop and turns on all the bright lights, scrutiny is not necessarily a good thing.
Black Budget: Your Taxes At Work
Two questions of import orbit the mysterious Task Force: VALKYRIE.
First, how does a black budget work? A black budget program is kept secret from Congress, the public, and in some cases even the President. Such programs have line items, but they have mysterious code names (Painted Lady, Rose Thorn, Wolf Pelt) with everything else blacked out
(hence, black budget). Classification is a fact of the system. Sometimes, the obfuscation is somewhat practical (nobody wants to know how much the B-2 bomber really costs). Sometimes, it’s meant to dissuade foreign spies (knowing how much a surveillance program costs tells you the scope of the program). Other times, though, it’s about concealing projects that are ultimately so improbable are they that any examination would force them to dissolve. That’s VALKYRIE. It’s been a line item in the lack budget for countless years, and the code name and its place in the budget changes. Sometimes it’s lumped in with intelligence costs. Other times with military expenditures. It shifts and shimmers, as insubstantial as a wave of heat rising off a sun-baked road. (If classification reform ever takes hold, VALKYRIE would be in danger.)
Second, how much money is devoted toward VALKYRIE as a program? One would expect a combined joint task force to have a substantial budget—after all, black budget expenditures cover an upwards of $30-40 billion. What does VALKYRIE get, then? A billion? Half that? Hardly. VALKYRIE as a line item gets no more than $875,000 a year. That’s it. Not nearly enough money for new weapons or vehicles. Certainly not enough to train members, to maintain their black site prisons around the world or to run their training facilities. That, then, leads to a third question: How does VALKYRIE even continue? A secondary money stream must fund the conspiracy. But from where?
The Insidious Truth About That $875,000
An unknown group steer Task Force: VALKYRIE by infusing the project with cash. As a result, they help dictate the conspiracy’s mission on a night-to-night basis. The particular group who hold the agency’s leash happen to have a seemingly insurmountable tide of enemies, and they can tug on VALKYRIE’s leash and direct the hunters toward their foes. The rest of the time, they have bizarre protocols in place to ensure that their vampiric allies are allowed to escape or at least brought in as “captives.” Mistakes happen. Then again, when they do, the magical stream of clandestine funding might suddenly dry up for a little while… just as a warning. Who knows about all this? Only those sitting at the very zenith of the organization might have a clue—though, even those who possess that level of Status don’t necessarily know the truth. It’s guarded among a handful of people.
DEPARTMENTS
TFV divides itself into special units and departments beyond the normal mix of Suits and SWATs, many of which work closely in the field with ordinary agents. Although departments such as Containment and R&D have essentially closed membership (hand-picked/by-name recruiting), field agents can apply to join any of the following specialized efforts:
PROJECT TWILIGHT
Free Specialty: Investigation (Surveillance)
Overview: Project TWILIGHT concerns itself with the doings of ENEs classified as P (Para-human, P/ENEs) and S (social, S/ENEs), the ones that are near human or post-human and seem to operate in covens, cults, conspiracies or other underground societies. They’re mostly field agents. They recognize that taking down one SP/ENE won’t necessarily resolve the threat posed by their respective conspiracies, and dedicate themselves to information gathering and more circumspect activities. Some go deep cover.
Comprising SWAT and Suits (in an approximate 50/50 split), this department is conflicted. Given that its primary jurisdiction are those monsters who mimic the social constructs of human beings (witch cults, werewolf congregations, vampire covens), it’d be ideal to have an agreed-upon approach. Sadly, that’s not the case, and the bureaucratic protocols make finding the
legally-sanctioned proper path a grave difficulty. Some want to eradicate and exterminate; others want to work the system and use their own investigative abilities to lure out the bigger fish.
PROJECT ADAMSKI
Free Specialty: Persuasion or Subterfuge (Conspiracy Theories)
Overview: Project ADAMSKI gets its name from a notorious hoaxer who convinced many that he was in regular contact with beings from Venus. ADAMSKI operatives work in the field, and it’s their job to hide the existence of ENEs by disseminating disinformation among people who are, frankly, cranks. They distribute crudely faked photographs and footage of alien autopsies and UFO sightings to people they know will spread these stories around as gospel.
The spooks of ADAMSKI do one thing, and they do it very well: misdirect. Just as the Western world would blanch if it knew just how extensive the terrorist networks and the plans of those networks were, it would piss its pants if it realized that monsters were not only real, but had invaded all aspects of our nocturnal existence. So they lie. They spread disinformation. They give ammunition to the crazies and the conspiracy nuts that only makes them seem crazier. (This sometimes means putting real information in their hands, information so absurd it can only be dismissed out-of-hand).
PROJECT FORT
Free Specialty: Occult (Extradimensional Entities)
Overview: Agents attached to Project FORT dedicate themselves to understanding extraterrestrial and extra-dimensional phenomena. They’re interested in aliens, but they also investigate fairies, demons, ghosts and alien entities that evidently hail from some other-dimensional source. They’re the least scientific of TFV’s agents, drawing a lot of their methodology from folklore and religion. They’re often nearly as cranky as the civilians who bang on about conspiracies.
By and large, FORT hunts what they call EEs (pronounced as its spelled: ee-ee’s): extradimensional entities. That’s any being that comes to this world from another plane of existence: ghosts, demons, fairies, aliens, psychic mandalas, hyper intelligent parasites, and the like. This has its effect on the hunters of this department. It’s a department of fringe-dwellers and oddballs: urban shamans, former cult leaders, abductees, conspiracy junkies, and the downright insane. They don’t follow protocol very well, and as a result, the conspiracy is reluctant to make use of them (often shuttling them off to various dead zones—zones which often become hot as soon as the FORT hunters start messing around).
Every story of sinister Men in Black who cover up paranormal events, every account of black-clad, heavily armed Special Forces operatives who descend from black helicopters and make people vanish, every supernatural or UFO conspiracy theory comes right back to TFV. It really is the conspiracy that keeps the people blissful in ignorance. Or it’d really like to think it is. The fact is, it’s still a government agency, and just like every other government agency, the Task Force suffers from nepotism and incompetence. Sometimes it’s at a level that endangers the men and women in the field. Intelligence gatherers are often as lazy as those foreign-posted CIA men who get their intel from watching the news. They’ve got a wide base of information about any number of ENEs, but a mountain of red tape and clearances to get through before it’s readable.
And then there’s the budget. Obviously, TFV is a black budget agency, but that only leads to certain irregularities, such as TFV having a budget a fraction of the size of ATF, let alone the FBI . So how can it afford the black helicopters, or that enormous underground facility in Arizona (the one you
think you know about in New Mexico is as flimsy as a movie set) and the astoundingly well-funded R&D department?
And if TFV’s remit is to protect the US people from ENEs, how come so much field work involves observation and kidnap rather than straight fighting? Why has it got so many ENEs stored away in that underground prison? Why do field agents who get close to certain secrets find their assignments changed without warning? Maybe there’s something else going on. TFV has a shadowy history, but what if that’s just a fabrication? What if none of this is true? What if it’s all really just a cover for something else entirely? Perhaps TFV’s masters have a more comprehensive plan, which their agents don’t need to know. On the other hand, perhaps the agency is compromised. Perhaps TFV is working for the very monsters its agents seek to defeat. But then, that’s just paranoia.
TFV has a firmly set procedure for dealing with most ENEs: report, observe, assess, report again,
The Joint Task Force: A Global War on Terrors
A task force is the formation of unit meant to be temporary: it has a task, and once that task is complete, the unit is dissolved. Task Force: END RUN was a WWII unit tasked with the penetration
of Burma, and was built from the survivors of Task Force: GALAHAD. Once the job was done, the units were dismantled or changed to different tasks.
It’s a global war from VALKYRIE’s perspective. Yes, many of the monstrous threats they fight are on American soil, but they’re just as happy to send soldiers into the jungles of Thailand, the choked streets of Kolkata, or the deserts of Mexico.
Do other countries have similar organizations? Certainly. Britain has MI18, Military Intelligence, Section 18 referred to as The Laundry, headed by Sir Vernon Chickering. Israel has a sub-group within Shin Bet (its motto of “We are the unseen shield” is particularly appropriate for this kind of task). That being said, soldiers and agents of other countries can actually be brought on as a part of Task Force: VALKYRIE. Technically, VALKYRIE is a “combined” joint task force, which is a joint task force that borrows manpower (and in some cases, bureaucracy) from other NATO nations. Hence, an agent of Mossad might end up as part of VALKYRIE, not Shin Bet; a member of the Militärischer Abschirmdienst (MAD) counterintelligence agency in Germany may be recruited into VALKYRIE, too.
As is widely known, given the small numbers of aware individuals, Task Force Valkyrie forces are slightly unorthodox, and the squad composition allows for a degree of tactical flexibility in the field. Forces are made up all available recruits from all walks of life, and while military discipline and orders can be expected among them, civilians as well as government personnel are expected to work among each other in concert to eliminate the supernatural threat. Your over-all objective is to seek out the leaders and individuals of each group and neutralize them, be it through diplomatic reasoning, bribes, or strongarm tactics, such as utilizing creative persuasion techniques, or hostile coercion. Now more than ever, the abundance in crime threatens to expose the supernatural entities, which is entirely unacceptable, and given the presence of neonates not necessarily possible to contain by orthodox means, as in relying on the usual propensity of these individuals to try to remain hidden from society. Reports of strange creatures, werewolves, and vampires have been disseminated among major hospitals and law enforcement, and this information being spread to the media would bring a plethora of unnecessary investigators to potentially expose the threat. Due to this and other reasons, emergency task forces and divisions have been established in the area to deal with the threat.
The Offer That’s Not An Offer
Once that individual proves sane, she’s given an offer that isn’t much of an offer at all: Train with VALKYRIE and join the task force, or enjoy an honorable discharge (or, in the case of non-military
personnel, a severance package). Sadly, the war is active enough that those who choose to join are thrown into the line of fire rather quickly; a curious and perhaps counterproductive approach, given
that these individuals went through a month of therapy (sometimes only days before) to calm their addled minds. Being launched right into combat or surveillance of supernatural forces often opens old wounds and new fears. Nobody said the war against reality terrorists would come without sacrifice.
To Become a TFV agent requires extensive assessment of a PCs physical skills and mental capacities. Most TFV agents are recruited from the military or law professions because they understand taking orders, discretion and can be expected to have some degree of physical/combat skills. So much so that the latter is probably the least important aspect to be assessed. Potential recruits will be placed in situations where they can be both judged at resolving it and what they do afterwards - do they keep it to themselves, cover it up, blab to friends etc.
Undercover TFV agent PCs can be involved in scenes drip-feeding info to a prospective agent as well as monitoring their abilities. TFV PCs can put PCs up for possible selection and will also take on a mentor role during the agent's probationary period after recruitment. If a PC doesn't work out then there is always memory blanking as an option.
The Schism: SWAT Versus Suits
A schism divides VALKYRIE. The problem is this: the conspiracy makes use of personnel from within the military, but also from outside agencies—people from any government agency (cops, intelligence officers, bureaucrats, diplomats). Those who are militarily-trained (inaccurately thought of as “SWAT”) don’t always get along with those who are driven by a more informational and intelligence-gathering approach (Suits). One group (SWATs) would rather kick down the doors of a known vampire haven and go in with flamethrowers (or stake-throwers). The other group (Suits) would rather build a case the way you might attempt to work up the ladder of a drug cartel or a terrorist organization. They are also referred to more officially as LOKI (Suits) and THOR (SWATs).
Which means that ultimately, VALKYRIE is almost two different agencies—and given that one group doesn’t take precedence over another, and that each group has representatives even at the highest echelons of the organization, it means that these factions do not play well together. A recent push has occurred, driven by more neutral members of the upper echelons, to put the SWATs and the Suits in the same cells. Previously, it usually shook out that cells comprised one type over the other,and were used for competing purposes—except, that meant that the agency was getting in its own way and suffering under turf wars. The new push to get these two “tribes” to play in the same sandbox and as a part of same cells hasn’t been entirely effective—the cells sometimes self-destruct—but it has cut down on the overall problem. So, for now, the directive continues.
Recent Whistleblower Scandal: Carlton Johns "The Truth Merchant"
Carlton Johns found out about VAL KYRIE because he worked as a part of the combined joint task force as… well, an accountant. He was the king of the number-crunchers, an unstoppable force obfuscating the realities behind VAL KYRIE as a black budget, black box operation. When did he turn on the Task Force? About three years back, Carlton Johns disappeared, and he took with him a packet of damaging information. And he’s been using it to “out” VALKYRIE to various elected officials and Pentagon big-wigs in what amount to guerilla strikes—he appears on the radar out of nowhere, offers exposing evidence, and then disappears again. So far, he hasn’t exposed what VALKYRIE is, exactly, only that it exists, and it’s doing some subversive things with taxpayer money. That may change, however, and Carlton might start showing them what VALKYRIE is in addition to highlighting its existence. To date we don't know why Johns is doing this. Johns was, by all accounts, an avid loyalist. We can only speculate that he may have turned quisling when his hand was forced. But perhaps he read something he couldn't abide, a hideous truth that we are not privy to. In any case, he is a very real threat to the Task Force and we have active warrants for his arrest so he can be neutralized.
Hot Zones and Dead Zones
A hunter’s experience within VALKYRIE partly depends on one thing: where she is stationed. If she’s stationed in what’s considered to be a “hot zone,” then she and her cell are on a slide under the microscope. A hot zone—any major metropolitan area or war zone where the fight against the supernatural is ramping up or in full swing—means that the conspiracy doesn’t want any mistakes
made. The bureaucratic tangle is thick. The protocols a cell must follow could choke a horse. A number of cells will be present, and if hunters get killed, more are brought to the area. Higher-ups visit regularly. Everybody’s under the gun.Then again, a whole lot of VALKYRIE agents are stationed around the world in places considered “dead zones”—a relatively stable region in terms of monstrous activity (which is sometimes accurate, and sometimes not). These agents grow used to the isolation from the larger conspiracy. They’re practically forgotten. It’s hard to get new equipment, hard to get any budget at all, but it’s easy to perform the Vigil however one chooses to do it. A lone agent stationed in Nowhere, Nebraska, is free to join another cell of hunters under true or false auspices. A cell in a city that the conspiracy doesn’t consider a hot zone (like, say, Miami) has free rein to act outside the protocols. When a dead zone becomes a hot zone, a VALKYRIE cell with some autonomy will see its entire world change. When the conspiracy sets up shop and turns on all the bright lights, scrutiny is not necessarily a good thing.
Black Budget: Your Taxes At Work
Two questions of import orbit the mysterious Task Force: VALKYRIE.
First, how does a black budget work? A black budget program is kept secret from Congress, the public, and in some cases even the President. Such programs have line items, but they have mysterious code names (Painted Lady, Rose Thorn, Wolf Pelt) with everything else blacked out
(hence, black budget). Classification is a fact of the system. Sometimes, the obfuscation is somewhat practical (nobody wants to know how much the B-2 bomber really costs). Sometimes, it’s meant to dissuade foreign spies (knowing how much a surveillance program costs tells you the scope of the program). Other times, though, it’s about concealing projects that are ultimately so improbable are they that any examination would force them to dissolve. That’s VALKYRIE. It’s been a line item in the lack budget for countless years, and the code name and its place in the budget changes. Sometimes it’s lumped in with intelligence costs. Other times with military expenditures. It shifts and shimmers, as insubstantial as a wave of heat rising off a sun-baked road. (If classification reform ever takes hold, VALKYRIE would be in danger.)
Second, how much money is devoted toward VALKYRIE as a program? One would expect a combined joint task force to have a substantial budget—after all, black budget expenditures cover an upwards of $30-40 billion. What does VALKYRIE get, then? A billion? Half that? Hardly. VALKYRIE as a line item gets no more than $875,000 a year. That’s it. Not nearly enough money for new weapons or vehicles. Certainly not enough to train members, to maintain their black site prisons around the world or to run their training facilities. That, then, leads to a third question: How does VALKYRIE even continue? A secondary money stream must fund the conspiracy. But from where?The Insidious Truth About That $875,000
An unknown group steer Task Force: VALKYRIE by infusing the project with cash. As a result, they help dictate the conspiracy’s mission on a night-to-night basis. The particular group who hold the agency’s leash happen to have a seemingly insurmountable tide of enemies, and they can tug on VALKYRIE’s leash and direct the hunters toward their foes. The rest of the time, they have bizarre protocols in place to ensure that their vampiric allies are allowed to escape or at least brought in as “captives.” Mistakes happen. Then again, when they do, the magical stream of clandestine funding might suddenly dry up for a little while… just as a warning. Who knows about all this? Only those sitting at the very zenith of the organization might have a clue—though, even those who possess that level of Status don’t necessarily know the truth. It’s guarded among a handful of people.
DEPARTMENTSTFV divides itself into special units and departments beyond the normal mix of Suits and SWATs, many of which work closely in the field with ordinary agents. Although departments such as Containment and R&D have essentially closed membership (hand-picked/by-name recruiting), field agents can apply to join any of the following specialized efforts:
PROJECT TWILIGHT
Free Specialty: Investigation (Surveillance)
Overview: Project TWILIGHT concerns itself with the doings of ENEs classified as P (Para-human, P/ENEs) and S (social, S/ENEs), the ones that are near human or post-human and seem to operate in covens, cults, conspiracies or other underground societies. They’re mostly field agents. They recognize that taking down one SP/ENE won’t necessarily resolve the threat posed by their respective conspiracies, and dedicate themselves to information gathering and more circumspect activities. Some go deep cover.
legally-sanctioned proper path a grave difficulty. Some want to eradicate and exterminate; others want to work the system and use their own investigative abilities to lure out the bigger fish.
PROJECT ADAMSKI
Free Specialty: Persuasion or Subterfuge (Conspiracy Theories)
Overview: Project ADAMSKI gets its name from a notorious hoaxer who convinced many that he was in regular contact with beings from Venus. ADAMSKI operatives work in the field, and it’s their job to hide the existence of ENEs by disseminating disinformation among people who are, frankly, cranks. They distribute crudely faked photographs and footage of alien autopsies and UFO sightings to people they know will spread these stories around as gospel.
The spooks of ADAMSKI do one thing, and they do it very well: misdirect. Just as the Western world would blanch if it knew just how extensive the terrorist networks and the plans of those networks were, it would piss its pants if it realized that monsters were not only real, but had invaded all aspects of our nocturnal existence. So they lie. They spread disinformation. They give ammunition to the crazies and the conspiracy nuts that only makes them seem crazier. (This sometimes means putting real information in their hands, information so absurd it can only be dismissed out-of-hand).
PROJECT FORT
Free Specialty: Occult (Extradimensional Entities)
Overview: Agents attached to Project FORT dedicate themselves to understanding extraterrestrial and extra-dimensional phenomena. They’re interested in aliens, but they also investigate fairies, demons, ghosts and alien entities that evidently hail from some other-dimensional source. They’re the least scientific of TFV’s agents, drawing a lot of their methodology from folklore and religion. They’re often nearly as cranky as the civilians who bang on about conspiracies.
By and large, FORT hunts what they call EEs (pronounced as its spelled: ee-ee’s): extradimensional entities. That’s any being that comes to this world from another plane of existence: ghosts, demons, fairies, aliens, psychic mandalas, hyper intelligent parasites, and the like. This has its effect on the hunters of this department. It’s a department of fringe-dwellers and oddballs: urban shamans, former cult leaders, abductees, conspiracy junkies, and the downright insane. They don’t follow protocol very well, and as a result, the conspiracy is reluctant to make use of them (often shuttling them off to various dead zones—zones which often become hot as soon as the FORT hunters start messing around).
PROJECT LAUNDRY
Requirement: A Supernatural Merit restricted to Mortals
Free Specialty: Occult (Parahumans)
Overview: A highly secretive and small group within TFV is called the Laundry. They are a group of agents who have obtained para-human abilities. Some may even be supernatural beings that are used to engage with secret projects and the worst threats to the US and its allies. The project is so far into the black that its even black to 90% of TFV agents. Who they are and who has oversight of them is completely unknown except at the highest level or organization such as the TFV Steering Committee.
PROJECT NIGHTFALL
Overview: Data Masked.
Perspectives on Other Hunter Conspiracies:
Network Zero: We’ve been monitoring Network Zero since late 2004. It doesn’t pose a threat to our work — its efforts to publicize the existence of ENEs have been largely deniable. Several ADAMSKI operatives are on their case. We advise observation with a view to recruitment or instrumentalization
of connected individuals.
The Union: Vigilantes have always been an issue when dealing with ENEs, but in early 2002, we became aware of a vigilante organization with a recruitment base on the Internet. Politically, several prominent members are suspect. Files are available, should you wish to see more information. Some may be useful, however, inasmuch as they can save on valuable resources in terms of finding ENEs, and can if necessary be given to the authorities for arrest, should collateral damage ensue.
The Cheiron Group: Project: TWILIGHT has been monitoring the activities of the Cheiron Group and its related consortia since 1986, when a number of VALKYRIE agents collided with a cadre of Cheiron Group employees on a routine clean-up operation. We were unable to capture them alive, but examination of their bodies revealed unusual surgical modifications, apparently derived from ENE tissue. Efforts to infiltrate the Cheiron Group have been so far unsuccessful, but we persist in our efforts.
Malleus Malefificarum: We gained incontrovertible proof of the existence of a dedicated ENE-hunting wing within the Catholic Church in late 1944. It’s efficient, well funded and supported by both the worldwide hierarchy of the Church and the communities in which its divisions temporarily base themselves. We would prefer that the Church does not know of our existence. Agents are advised to avoid likely operatives of this organization, since they pose a threat, and cannot easily be disposed of without gaining unwelcome attention.
Requirement: A Supernatural Merit restricted to Mortals
Free Specialty: Occult (Parahumans)
Overview: A highly secretive and small group within TFV is called the Laundry. They are a group of agents who have obtained para-human abilities. Some may even be supernatural beings that are used to engage with secret projects and the worst threats to the US and its allies. The project is so far into the black that its even black to 90% of TFV agents. Who they are and who has oversight of them is completely unknown except at the highest level or organization such as the TFV Steering Committee.
PROJECT NIGHTFALL
Overview: Data Masked.
Perspectives on Other Hunter Conspiracies:
Network Zero: We’ve been monitoring Network Zero since late 2004. It doesn’t pose a threat to our work — its efforts to publicize the existence of ENEs have been largely deniable. Several ADAMSKI operatives are on their case. We advise observation with a view to recruitment or instrumentalization
of connected individuals.
The Cheiron Group: Project: TWILIGHT has been monitoring the activities of the Cheiron Group and its related consortia since 1986, when a number of VALKYRIE agents collided with a cadre of Cheiron Group employees on a routine clean-up operation. We were unable to capture them alive, but examination of their bodies revealed unusual surgical modifications, apparently derived from ENE tissue. Efforts to infiltrate the Cheiron Group have been so far unsuccessful, but we persist in our efforts.
Malleus Malefificarum: We gained incontrovertible proof of the existence of a dedicated ENE-hunting wing within the Catholic Church in late 1944. It’s efficient, well funded and supported by both the worldwide hierarchy of the Church and the communities in which its divisions temporarily base themselves. We would prefer that the Church does not know of our existence. Agents are advised to avoid likely operatives of this organization, since they pose a threat, and cannot easily be disposed of without gaining unwelcome attention.
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