Source Creator: Onyx Path Publishing & White Wolf
Game line: Chronicles of Darkness game line
Venue: Hunter: The Vigil 2nd Ed
Post by: Jerad Sayler
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.
The following are broad classifications for Extra-Normal Entities (ENEs) TFV uses in the development of protocols and Tactics, Techniques and Procedures (TTPs) against said entities. All Agents are expected to known their classifications to assist in the tagging and identifying of threats to National Security.
A Tangled Web: VALKYRIE superiors hand out two books as “required reading” for those who may encounter haemophagic ENEs in the field: Sun Tzu’s The Art of War and Niccoló Machiavelli’s The Prince. (Some agents and commanders supplement this reading with other texts too, such as anything detailing Greek mythology or Roman history—the vain machinations of the Olympian gods and the Roman emperors are similar enough to those practiced by the vampires.) The vampires may not have read these books, but these books seem to comprise their society’s general playbook. Just as Task Force:VALKYRIE have their Advanced Armory to draw upon, the vampires have their supernatural abilities. Many of these are superlative tools of tradecraft, allowing a vampire to infiltrate facilities, photograph plans, tamper with or steal evidence and sabotage equipment or plant bombs. However, it’s far easier for the vampires to simply plant their mortal servants into those facilities, and let them do all the dirty work for their masters instead. And it’s entirely possible that some of those mortal servants are sleepers, some of them in positions of high influence within the conspiracy itself.
TWILIGHT & HP-SP/ENEs
As a result, VALKYRIE monitors law enforcement and domestic intelligence data feeds on a constant basis, alert for indicators of werewolf activity across the country. Police or news reports of savage, unexplained murders – particularly in remote or rural areas – will raise an immediate red flag, and a field team will get a call within 48 hours of the event. Where possible, VALKYRIE will give the job to a team that already has a lot of experience in dealing with shapeshifters, but the timing and location of an incident doesn’t always make that possible. At the very least, the investigators are given a thorough brief on the capabilities of a typical werewolf, and every effort is made to make sure they’re equipped to survive an encounter with one. This can include silver rounds for their issue sidearms, silver buckshot for tactical shotguns, scent neutralizing spray, and even experimental gear like hormone-balancing auto-injectors to help fight off the worst effects of a werewolf’s terrifying aura. Of course, if the creature in question turns out to be a different kind of shapechanger – or another sort of monster entirely – the agents can quickly find themselves up the proverbial creek without a paddle.
The fact that this happens with disturbing frequency leads many experienced field teams to pass on the offers of equipment and go into the investigation with only their wits and a few basic tools to assist them. During VALKYRIE’s early years, considerable effort was devoted to try and capture one or more shapechangers for medical and scientific study. It’s known that in the late 40s at least three werewolves were captured during covert operations in Nazi Germany, but casualties among the capture teams was so high that the practice was abandoned. Files of the subsequent examinations still exist, but with the medical technology of the time, little useful data was obtained.
Task Force: VALKYRIE responds to suspected witches in the same way that other government departments respond to suspected terrorists. They’re under a lot of pressure from the very top to snuff out the threat to good American lives, and can get clearance for military operations and hardware just by saying the word “witch.” On the other hand, VALKYRIE’s analysts need information. That means sending sleeper agents to infiltrate covens, setting up elaborate surveillance — everything from phone taps to bouncing a laser beam off a window — and tracking down every link that a witch has to other people. The Task Force has no mid-level sanctions, no mechanism to deal with suspects that they’re not sure of — there’s no mystical equivalent of a no-fly list, and ID checks mean jack shit to someone who can cloud the minds of men. The comparison to terrorists doesn’t stop there. Witches, like terrorists, have a nasty habit of looking like normal people. Unlike terrorists, there’s a hell of a lot of witches on American soil. And these terrorists (or, as some call them, Reality Deviants) can do a lot more than blow up the 7-Eleven. Reality Deviants span the entire length of psychics and hedge wizards but the tippy top are the Mages, true Reality Deviants. Collectively they are all referred to as witches.
Task Force: VALKYRIE maintains a number of specialized witch-hunter units. Normally, they’re based in major urban areas. That’s not because of any specialist concentration of witches; rather, if an occult weapon of mass destruction were detonated they’d want to protect the main population centers. In addition to these cells, the agency has a large number of agents who’ve gone through EOCHAI training under the auspices of Project TWILIGHT. Most agents who go through the training but don’t join a witch-hunter squad get assigned to VALKYRIE cells as mission experts. The remainder work as specialists in cells drawn from wider fields. Unlike graduates of other training programs, EOCHAI agents tend to be prized for their tactical knowledge rather than their access to advanced weapons.
Hardest damn thing is convincing people there’s a war on. People want to go about their business. Shopping, dating, dropping the kids off at day care. They don’t get the danger they’re in. They resent the things we do to protect them. They forget that the enemy looks just like us. That they’ve moved into our neighborhoods, or they work in our offices. Some of them even deliver our mail.
The second hardest thing is that you can’t tell them. Task Force: VALKYRIE’s peers in the legitimate Homeland Security and military get to have their war in public, at least a little. They get speeches from the president, grave reminders of the importance of national security, and defense against the nation’s enemies. A civilian can get caught tapping millions of email accounts and all he has to offer is a vague defense and those key words: national security. Hunters don’t get that in the Task Force. There are no official excuses or pats on the back. If there’s ever a congressional hearing… well, God knows what would happen.Task Force: VALKYRIE fights a shadow war against terrorists whose enemy is all reality, and nobody gives a damn. Here’s what they know: there are ENEs that seem to oppose a vast machine rooted in the planet. Captured suspects say this entity is malevolent, but it’s really a case of whether the cup is viewed as half empty or half full. The interrogated ENEs blame the monstrous state of the world on this God-Machine, but a lot of VALKYRIE agents prefer to look at the world a little differently. They prefer to view the world as being a fundamentally good place, where monsters may exist but hunters protect the innocent. It’s just like any war. Sure it’s awful that people get hurt, but what matters is that the United States has the power to help. The ENEs claim the establishment and the world it’s created are horrific places? They’re forgetting the points of light. And a lot of those points of light are the Etheric Rounds of Task Force: VALKYRIE. These ENEs commit acts of terrorism against… well, anything. They blow up construction sites and radio towers, launch murder sprees on office buildings and somehow slip away by discarding their identities. They view the world as malignant, and strike against it any way they can.
VALKYRIE is also aware of ENEs that are a lot harder to capture. Spirits that possess people, for example. Best thing to do is to try and draw them out, then spray them with etheric ammunition. They’re also becoming familiar with ENEs that seem to possess entire buildings or organizations. They’re faced with the very real possibility that some of the terror cells they usually pass off to conventional intelligence agencies may actually be acting under the influence of, let’s just say it, something demonic. The possibilities are frightening. The hardest damn thing is convincing people there’s a war on, and that just might include everyday civilians and hunters, too.
The soldiers of Task Force: VALKYRIE don’t approach the Vigil the way many other groups do. They don’t have to do their own legwork, for the most part. Agents get their orders, they go in, they do the job, they go home. As such, if TFV is dealing with a Promethean, it’s likely because the situation has already escalated. A TFV squad might get called out to deal with a large-scale Wasteland (“toxic waste spill”), a rampaging golem (“PCP”), a Frankenstein’s creation that fries a town’s power system (“freak electrical storm”), or a torch-wielding mob that can’t find its target (“everybody go home, nothing to see here!”). These hunters have the advantage of doing a job, and not taking the hunt personally.
Except, of course, that Prometheans make it personal. If the soldiers don’t kill the Promethean quickly, Disquiet can set in, and at that point, the soldiers will start violating orders. They follow the monster into dark and unsafe places, they take unnecessary risks, and if the Disquiet manifests as fascination or obsession, they might even shoot each other to protect the creature! TFV’s other problem is that they’re very rarely given all available data about a specific subject. How much does command know about Prometheans? Quite a bit, as it turns out.
But the rank-and-file aren’t usually informed Prometheans can shrug off damage from conventional weapons, that they can heal by electrocuting themselves (put a different way, they are rarely told “don’t use the Mjolnir Cannon”), or that some of them can talk to ghosts. The brass is never exactly forthcoming, but where the Created are concerned they’re downright tight lipped. Why? The soldiers of TFV seldom know enough to ask, and rarely bother to ask when they do. They’ve got their orders.
What Task Force: VALKYRIE cells don’t know helps them sleep at night. The top brass knows about Prometheans. What’s more, the truth is that a government scientist found a way to clone human beings, using a Promethean as the catalyst. Doing so destroyed the Promethean, and to make matters worse the technology isn’t exclusive to the government anymore. However, few other organizations or individuals have the means necessary to duplicate this process or a ready supply of Prometheans. Task Force: VALKYRIE, then, gets called in when the mysterious forces behind this technology learn of a Promethean’s whereabouts. This is why, incidentally, the orders concerning the Created are always “capture” and never “destroy.” It’s also why incendiary weapons are never allowed on such missions.
Consisting of anyone who has been a taken by EEs or been lost in an extra-dimensional space for a prolonged period of time and returned as a para-human. Most commonly, these beings are Changelings. All three of Task Force: VALKYRIE’s open recruiting departments have had contact with Changelings or other fae creatures. And, for the most part, that contact is positive. TFV’s official purpose is to protect humanity from extra-normal entities (ENEs); for the most part, TFV doesn’t believe the Lost poses a huge threat to the human race — at least not as a group.
TWILIGHT & EA-SP/ENEs
Project: TWILIGHT has operatives in direct contact with Lost freeholds across the globe. While their agents can’t actually pass as Changelings, there are always hangers-on who have a chance at earning their way into the good graces of the local population. By providing vital supplies and services like false identification, jobs, and resources, TWILIGHT operatives find it fairly easy to get ears and eyes on freehold members, at least at a sufficient level to ascertain that they’re not planning direct actions against humanity.
FORT & EA-SP/ENEs
Project: FORT agents are often more focused on understanding fae magics than on investigating the Changelings themselves. It is rumored that entire cells have been assigned to investigate the Hedge and Arcadia, although no official files are known to exist on the latter topic. As well, FORT operatives are responsible for trapping and containment of a wide variety of (mostly) non-sentient hedge creatures, although it can be difficult to imprison creatures who can open doorways to the
Hedge with minimal effort.
ADAMSKI & EA-SP/ENEs
Radio Free Fae operatives often work alongside the TFV agents assigned to Operation: ADAMSKI, although each rarely realizes that the others are a part of anything more than a loosely tied group of crackpots and cranks. Often, however, one group will provide tips to “prove” supernatural evidence is a hoax, while the other ensures the “proof” is well publicized in the appropriate print or electronic sources to cover any situations where fae magics may have been witnessed by outside eyes.
NCEE POSSESSED (NCEEPs)
A category consisting of anyone possessed by a ghost or spirit and may include Claimed and Geist. The most specific and powerful example being someone who has survived a near-death experience (NDE) and then was co-possessed by a powerful ghost or death EE. These SP/NCEEPs are particularly dangerous.
Task Force: VALKYRIE first encountered ghostwalkers in Europe during the waning days of World War II. Though the Fog Men took out their revenge on Nazis and Soviets alike, they were rare compared to other supernatural monsters. So, while top brass did recognize that the Fog Men were a threat, they never really topped Task Force: VALKYRIE’s list of targets. Deemed to be a phenomenon unique to the battlefield, brass didn’t give much credence to the idea that Fog Men might exist in America. That is, not until Task Force: VALKYRIE had a run in with a few ghostwalkers in the 1980s, and quickly realized that Fog Men were operating at home, too.
When Project: FORT began upping their efforts in earnest, however, TFV encountered ghostwalkers far more often. Trying to eliminate or contain ghosts ultimately drew the wrath of a number of Fog Men, who proved to exhibit unusual powers, and camaraderie with ghosts the conspiracy didn’t think was possible. Task Force: VALKYRIE hunters have few ideas about the ENE’s true nature — and top brass hasn’t fully disclosed what the Fog Men are, either. Amongst hunters, the dominant theory is that the Fog Men are possessed, and only appear after a violent death — like dying in battle. Whatever they are, TFV has figured out Etheric Rounds hurt ghostwalkers even though they are made of flesh. While the Fog Men are clearly upset that TFV has found a weakness, top brass has ordered the conspiracy not to use them. It seems that, at the highest level, some think the Fog Men should be left alone — a belief that’s often ignored.
In general, the conspiracy’s response to ghostwalkers is to kill them with fire, before they can kill anyone else. When TFV encounters the Fog Men, they’re often told to consider them a serious threat, one that should be handled carefully and possibly ignored. Not only can the Fog Men wreak havoc on TFV forces, they’re also difficult to kill.
Despite TFV’s proven expertise when dealing with Fog Men, top brass hesitates to order Project: FORT to handle them in the field. What TFV’s commanders aren’t saying, is that they believe the Fog Men can be used to the conspiracy’s advantage. It seems brass figured out that the Fog Men do have something they want: the ability to travel to the Underworld. Now, the conspiracy hopes to test new equipment — the Gatekeeper Device — which may allow Task Force: VALKYRIE to open an Avernian Gate. Most hunters want to use the Gatekeeper Device to give them an edge on their hunts. Though the device isn’t fully operational yet, top brass believes that Gatekeeper will allow TFV to target monsters at their point of origin. Though the project has been developed in a top secret environment, some ghostwalkers are beginning to pay close attention to the conspiracy. Thus far, the Fog Men act only on suspicion; they don’t know what Task Force: VALKYRIE is up to, if they are trying to recreate them, just what their tech can do, or what the conspiracy’s long-term plan is.
Project: FORT has not been eager to engage the Fog Men, so they’re not wise to the fact that the ghostwalkers are seeking to secure a spot within the conspiracy. A handful of hunters within Project: FORT have dared to wonder if the haunted serve some sort of purpose or higher power, and worry that the conspiracy is interfering with the natural order. If ghostwalkers exist to keep ghosts contained, why should they interfere? Given how Project: FORT defers to top brass, however, they mostly keep their opinions to themselves. After all, should the bigwigs disapprove of their newfound morality and cut their funding, they’ll have to uphold the Vigil the old-fashioned way.
POST-LIVING REANIMATORS (PLR-SP/ENE)This category includes non-possessed (in so far as they are immune to all standardized forms of exorcism)reanimated corpses and subcomponents. Most HP-ENEs (Haemophagics) are also PLRs but if they get their own category because of the immense harm they can cause and for special protocols such as the Stearne Certifications. The rarest and most powerful immortal undead are mummies from a lost-era of Egypt that periodically return to life and use massive cults to further their goals. These are the quintessential PLRs (instead of Zombies) because as far as TFV can determine they are the only 100% verified "truly immortal" ENEs with some of the NCEEPs (like the Fog Men)making close seconds. As these Egyptian RLRs have withstood ten thousand years of death-like sleep and resurrection, they take home the prize to their elaborate crypts.
Task Force: VALKYRIE is aware that, there are many creatures around the world that can resist death. A handful of unpleasant incidents has made it clear that dead doesn’t always mean dead. As a result, there are standing protocols in place to contain any beings that match a loose set of criteria. The Task Force’s understanding of their prey is so low, however, that their guidelines are vague and often ignored in practice. When they are employed, like the need to timestamp activities, they’re often used on the wrong kind of being.
Should the unit act within protocol, any creature identified as a possible “returner” is targeted for immediate execution. The remains may be captured by a forensic science team. In the meantime, however, hunters are required to eliminate the threat the best way they know how. Those methods vary wildly and aren’t coordinated neatly — especially since mummies are rare and mortals may be involved.
The undying PLRs, when they are recognized, are considered too dangerous for routine R&D. Project: TWILIGHT may be happy to hand over a mummy, whether it’s awake or in a state of repose, to Project: FORT for analysis before its body is transported to Containment for storage and neutralization. Construction may be underway on a new form of combined Containment and R&D facility that can go into complete lockdown in under three seconds.
With mummy encounters happening so infrequently, members don’t engage in standard protocol. However, there are rules members of Operation: ADAMSKI are ordered to follow when they are forced to deal with a “beheaded” cult. It seems Task Force: VALKYRIE wishes to cover its tracks as well as the creature’s, but not before members try to pry information out of a captured cultist.
When Task Force: VALKYRIE does encounter a mummy, it’s typically through the conspiracy’s work to infiltrate and dismantle a cult. Hunters tend to make good use of their deprogramming
facilities to contain suspects who may (or may not) have ties to the supernatural. After all, cults are filled with human members who can be studied and interrogated much easier than any supernatural being. Still, some argue that the practice of locking up civilians to question them about the occult or a magical being isn’t practical, given the overwhelming number of cults in the United States alone. This is part of the reason why members don’t chase after rumors about mummies; due to their rarity, it’s not financially worth the effort, fiscal responsibility on an already shoe-strung budget.
EXTREME MASS/SERIAL KILLERS (NE/ENEs)Task Force: VALKYRIE The Men in Black know about slashers as a vague, inchoate phenomenon, but most of what they know comes from monitoring the work of Null Mysteriis and VASCU. Often, they let the other agencies get on with the hard part of the work, if only because it saves resources
(funny, though, how selective TFV’s masters are about the budget. It’s almost as if they only mention it when it suits them. Not that this is anything more than an opinion. Nah, it’s just paranoia). As far as TFV is concerned, the simple fact is that slashers often don’t fall within their remit: they’re not ENEs, they’re just psychos. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and local law enforcement can deal with that one, and Task Force: VALKYRIE can continue pursuing their War Against Terrors.
Besides, sometimes the slasher happens to be the son of a congressman, and you can’t arrest him. Of course, agents in the field know they’re kidding themselves if they think that. These guys might just look (mostly) like people, but how come they don’t fall over when they’re shot? How come they can do things that normal people can’t, like talk perfectly ordinary folks into their psychosis or somehow manage to take out six heavily armed agents in the middle of a room without a scratch? How do they spring out from around corners and behind doors like that? No, there’s something going on there. But try telling the top brass that. Official line is to let the ordinary Feds and cops handle this one, and concentrate on the werewolves and vampires and stuff.
The one exception, of course, is dealing with a slasher who used to work for TFV. It’s not common, but just like so many of the other compacts and conspiracies, the horror takes its toll on a person. Given that TFV agents are often pretty shell-shocked by their experiences (sometimes before they even join up), it doesn’t take as much as it should for them to go batshit crazy after a while. There’s no counseling service for TFV, no regulation psych assessment for agents who deal with demons and vampires on a regular basis. There’s no way of telling when a cell working for TFV will have to put a bullet through the head of a team member who’s just sliced up half the population of some Virginia mountain hamlet because he’s convinced they’re monsters.
CRYPTIDS (UNCATEGORIZED ENEs)
Game line: Chronicles of Darkness game line
Venue: Hunter: The Vigil 2nd Ed
Post by: Jerad Sayler
COMBINED JOINT TASK FORCE VALKYRIE (TFV)
EXTRA-NORMAL ENTITY (ENE) CLASSIFICATIONS
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:
- Hunter: The Vigil 1st Edition (HtV1.0) corebook
- Compacts and Conspiracies sourcebook for HtV1.0
- Spirit Slayers sourcebook for HtV1.0
- Night Stalkers sourcebook for HtV1.0
- Slashers sourcebook for HtV1.0
- Witchfinders sourcebook for HtV1.0
- Mortal Remains sourcebook for HtV2.0
- Mortal Remains: Tooth & Claw sourcebook for HtV2.0
- Spirit Slayers sourcebook for HtV1.0
- Night Stalkers sourcebook for HtV1.0
- Slashers sourcebook for HtV1.0
- Witchfinders sourcebook for HtV1.0
- Mortal Remains sourcebook for HtV2.0
- Mortal Remains: Tooth & Claw sourcebook for HtV2.0
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)
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
The following requires US Government Clearance for Special Access ///CJTFV. If you do not have CJTFV access you are not cleared to read this document. Violating special access will result in criminal prosecution. The unauthorized disclosure of government secrets is High Treason and is punishable by up to 30 years in prison and death. This is your final warning.
The following are broad classifications for Extra-Normal Entities (ENEs) TFV uses in the development of protocols and Tactics, Techniques and Procedures (TTPs) against said entities. All Agents are expected to known their classifications to assist in the tagging and identifying of threats to National Security.
HAEMORPHAGES (HP-SP/ENEs)
To the Men in Black, hunting vampires is a lot more involved than a simple “bag and tag” mission.
The Children of the Night are just as capable of playing the spy game as the agents of Task Force: VALKYRIE. Even more so, at times. Sometimes, senior officers look on the reports of the vampires’ schemes and plots, and realize just how much catching up the conspiracy has to do. VALKYRIE certainly has its share of competent spymasters (though it has its share of incompetents, too—this is government, after all), the tortuous cons of the undead seem to hang them every time. Of course, it doesn’t help the agents of Task Force: VALKYRIE when occasionally, the conspiracy seems to be working against itself when it begins investigating the affairs of bloodsuckers. Technically the HP categorization can include most SPs that drain the life out of people, covering psychic vampires and other ENEs that parasitize American citizens.
Cold War of Terror: This is the reality: America is under attack from all sides. The old girl is beleaguered; rogue nations, tyrant regimes, and terrorists both on and off domestic soil have their guns and evil eyes pointed at the heart of this nation. And that doesn’t even count the fact that innumerable monsters seek to do this society harm. Vampires are among such nefarious evil-doers, hiding amongst the people the same way terrorists do— for the most part they look like us and talk like us, only separating themselves from the herd to hunt and spread disease. But, the terrorist analog continues, because they’re a broken society that remains hidden. One hand doesn’t know what the other is doing, and that’s to their benefit; so mired are these creatures in secrecy that capturing and interrogating one does not (or cannot) reveal what the others are truly doing. VALKYRIE struggles against this insurgent enemy. They must be domesticated, or they must be destroyed. At least, that’s the party line. The reality can be somewhat different. At times, it feels as if the Men in Black and the Shadow Congregation are playing the same game against the same enemy. Both conspiracies are fighting a cold war against the same foe, albeit in different ways and with far different tools.
A Tangled Web: VALKYRIE superiors hand out two books as “required reading” for those who may encounter haemophagic ENEs in the field: Sun Tzu’s The Art of War and Niccoló Machiavelli’s The Prince. (Some agents and commanders supplement this reading with other texts too, such as anything detailing Greek mythology or Roman history—the vain machinations of the Olympian gods and the Roman emperors are similar enough to those practiced by the vampires.) The vampires may not have read these books, but these books seem to comprise their society’s general playbook. Just as Task Force:VALKYRIE have their Advanced Armory to draw upon, the vampires have their supernatural abilities. Many of these are superlative tools of tradecraft, allowing a vampire to infiltrate facilities, photograph plans, tamper with or steal evidence and sabotage equipment or plant bombs. However, it’s far easier for the vampires to simply plant their mortal servants into those facilities, and let them do all the dirty work for their masters instead. And it’s entirely possible that some of those mortal servants are sleepers, some of them in positions of high influence within the conspiracy itself.
The Response: Strictly speaking, the agency lumps the haemophages in with the rest of the monsters: they damage civilization, they work in opposition to democracy, and they must be stopped. End of story, right? If only. Task Force: VALKYRIE seems unable to mark a universal response when it comes to dealing with vampires. For every bloodsucker that receives a “high priority” sticker on its file (meaning, dust that leech at one’s earliest opportunity), there exist two fangs that get a free pass. Larger games are at work at higher levels of this conspiracy, and only those hunters with high Status in the organization will ever start to see those games exposed.
The Stearne Protocols:
When agents confirm the involvement of haemophagic ENEs in an ongoing investigation, they must follow a series of complicated procedures known as the Stearne Protocols. The Stearne Protocols are a list of approved and unapproved procedures surrounding the means by which agents may investigate and hunt the suspected haemophagic ENEs. Supposedly these Protocols are in place to help keep the agents from getting killed. But the Protocols themselves, in practice, are often so arcane and confusing that following them to the letter is as likely to get the agents killed as the vampires themselves.
All of this is shepherded by the Stearne Steering Group (SSG), who oversees and maintains the Stearne Protocols. Since the first meeting chaired in 1952, the Stearne Committee meets once every ten years to decide the policy of contact with haemophagic ENEs over the whole Task Force. These meetings take place over the course of three days—December 20th, 21st and 22nd—then everybody heads home for Christmas. To truly “understand” the Protocols and become an authority on deciphering them, one must pass through Stearne certification. Certification authorizes them to pursue lines of investigation independently wherever a vampiric ENE is concerned.
But there’s the rub: the waiting list to join the cert courses is practically eternal, and even when one finally approaches the front of the line, something always seems to happen to knock most agents out of the running. An agent is assigned a particular task on the day of testing, and is thus bumped to the back of the line. Or the testing facility isn’t where it was supposed to be, and the hunter misses his “opportunity” to become certified. Certainly some hunters—who seem to fall under intense scrutiny beforehand—actually get to the certification. But they come out and never talk about what goes on inside the testing facility. Those who are not “Stearne-certified” are supposed to take orders regarding vampires from only those VALKYRIE superiors who are. If they do not have access to one who is, they must refer the case to another cell, one more capable of deciphering the labyrinthine set of bureaucratic directives. This isn’t always put into practice, of course: a government hierarchy falls down in a lot of places, and some VALKYRIE cells are left alone so long they start to make up their own “protocols.”
The front line agents of VALKYRIE are out there night after night. Many of TWILIGHT’s commanding agents are, indeed, Stearne certified. They pursue. They kill. They rack up lots of kills, frankly—it’s a matter of record, and VALKYRIE never throws any paperwork away. What intrigues some agents of TWILIGHT, however, is why they only go after some vampires, and not others. There have been times when an investigation into something routine turned up a lead on a known haemophage—only to have some director shut them down and swiftly assign them elsewhere. In other cases, a mission to bring in a leech for questioning suddenly becomes a “burn-and-bottle” directive (burn the vampire, bottle the ashes) on the orders of some Stearne assessor. It’s all rather vexing. Vampires are expert manipulators and string pullers nestling their way into all walks of life, from the vial-strewn alleyways to the topmost halls of power. Some of the parasites are known to call the highest echelons of society their host. Crackpots claim the creatures run the White House, Parliament, Pentagon, AT&T, Comcast Cable, and NASA. Vampires are certainly pervasive, but it’s hard to believe they walk unassailed in the halls of power throughout the world. It’s not as if master vampires come into work and punch a clock; monsters looming large, working their fingers into the cracks and crevices of every corporation, government and public service. Right? Yes, but it’s not for lack of trying.
FORT & HP-SP/ENEs
This team has the least direct or indirect contact with vampires, because their remit is usually elsewhere. However, once in a while an ongoing investigation into what looks like to be some man-
The Down-Low What’s weird is, it almost seems as if the vampires police themselves, doing ADAMSKI’s job for them. It doesn’t stop ADAMSKI claiming the credit, though, because if the Top Floor found out how inefficient they were, they’d just cut the budget in the next review. But other hunters have noted it, too—yes, vampires are monsters, they’re fiends, they drink blood, they spread infection, but they don’t often make a big show of it. Some hunters have reported tracking down an overt vampiric presence only to discover that he’s already greasy ash spread across the sidewalk. Are they destroying their owner of Fortean phenomena turns out to be something completely different. Someone claims “missing time” and an evil presence in their room at night sounds like a case involving extranormal or extra-dimensional incursion, but the reality is, it could be an ENE that drinks the blood or the breath of the slumbering. The agents of FORT hear about some reptilian atavism lurking in the sewers, but it ends up as some bat-faced bloodsucker with leathery flesh. Strangely enough, because FORT’s remit never mentions vampires directly, Stearne certificated agents often overlook them—giving FORT agents much greater freedom to investigate troubling vampire activity than their counterparts in TWILIGHT.
ADAMSKI & HP-SP/ENEs: For some reason, ADAMSKI never really has much to do when it comes to handling vampires, because there’s often very little evidence after the fact. Faces blur up on camera, in mirrors and in lineup photos. Vampires who die for good shrivel up to dust. Dead blood addicts just look like regular stiffs. And haemohages’ circulatory fluid just congeals to a sticky mass of old human blood in minutes, providing nothing for forensics. It’s really the witnesses that ADAMSKI deals with. Sometimes, witnesses get a whole head of steam about “proving” the existence of vampires. Such individuals represent a destabilizing presence, and generally, the agents of ADAMSKI are happy to issue a dose of Munin serum to keep everybody calm and appropriately fuzzy on matters. (Of course, it should be obvious that such “destabilizing” individuals can be, or end up as, hunters.) One thing that’s been sticking in agents’ craws lately: why do some witnesses end up dead or missing? Specifically, witnesses successfully issued doses of the serum?
FORT & HP-SP/ENEs
This team has the least direct or indirect contact with vampires, because their remit is usually elsewhere. However, once in a while an ongoing investigation into what looks like to be some man-
The Down-Low What’s weird is, it almost seems as if the vampires police themselves, doing ADAMSKI’s job for them. It doesn’t stop ADAMSKI claiming the credit, though, because if the Top Floor found out how inefficient they were, they’d just cut the budget in the next review. But other hunters have noted it, too—yes, vampires are monsters, they’re fiends, they drink blood, they spread infection, but they don’t often make a big show of it. Some hunters have reported tracking down an overt vampiric presence only to discover that he’s already greasy ash spread across the sidewalk. Are they destroying their owner of Fortean phenomena turns out to be something completely different. Someone claims “missing time” and an evil presence in their room at night sounds like a case involving extranormal or extra-dimensional incursion, but the reality is, it could be an ENE that drinks the blood or the breath of the slumbering. The agents of FORT hear about some reptilian atavism lurking in the sewers, but it ends up as some bat-faced bloodsucker with leathery flesh. Strangely enough, because FORT’s remit never mentions vampires directly, Stearne certificated agents often overlook them—giving FORT agents much greater freedom to investigate troubling vampire activity than their counterparts in TWILIGHT.
ADAMSKI & HP-SP/ENEs: For some reason, ADAMSKI never really has much to do when it comes to handling vampires, because there’s often very little evidence after the fact. Faces blur up on camera, in mirrors and in lineup photos. Vampires who die for good shrivel up to dust. Dead blood addicts just look like regular stiffs. And haemohages’ circulatory fluid just congeals to a sticky mass of old human blood in minutes, providing nothing for forensics. It’s really the witnesses that ADAMSKI deals with. Sometimes, witnesses get a whole head of steam about “proving” the existence of vampires. Such individuals represent a destabilizing presence, and generally, the agents of ADAMSKI are happy to issue a dose of Munin serum to keep everybody calm and appropriately fuzzy on matters. (Of course, it should be obvious that such “destabilizing” individuals can be, or end up as, hunters.) One thing that’s been sticking in agents’ craws lately: why do some witnesses end up dead or missing? Specifically, witnesses successfully issued doses of the serum?
THERIANTHROPES (THT-SP/ENEs)
As far as the Men in Black are concerned, shapechangers represent one of the greatest – if not the greatest – paranormal security threat facing the American homeland. Some hunters argue that this just demonstrates Task Force: VALKYRIE’s deep ignorance of the supernatural world, but the field agents who have survived a werewolf attack don’t believe a word of it. Any creature that can operate in any environment, pass undetected among normal humans and change into a nine-foot-tall killing machine virtually at will is something that gives most VALKYRIE agents chills. Never mind the fact that these creatures can heal damn near any injury in seconds and travel unseen from one physical location to another.
The fact that this happens with disturbing frequency leads many experienced field teams to pass on the offers of equipment and go into the investigation with only their wits and a few basic tools to assist them. During VALKYRIE’s early years, considerable effort was devoted to try and capture one or more shapechangers for medical and scientific study. It’s known that in the late 40s at least three werewolves were captured during covert operations in Nazi Germany, but casualties among the capture teams was so high that the practice was abandoned. Files of the subsequent examinations still exist, but with the medical technology of the time, little useful data was obtained.
Since then, the organization has managed to build a fairly useful database on werewolves and other shape-changing creatures, pulling facts from team debriefs and witness interviews that go back more than 50 years. Most of the information in the database is very specialized: estimated speed and strength, estimated regenerative capacity, known weaknesses, and so forth. Task Force VALKYRIE knows next to nothing about what shapechangers are and how they interact, but they’ve got a pretty good handle on how to hunt and kill them.
NON-CORPOREAL EXTRA-DIMENSIONAL ENTITIES (NCEEs)
Category for all intangible beings like Ghosts and Spirits. In the case of purely spiritual threats, Task
Force VALKYRIE is hamstrung by characteristic governmental short-sightedness. The wording of the organization’s mandate empowers them to deal with “tangible threats to the safety and security of the United States and its citizens,” which is often interpreted too literally by field supervisors to mean that ghosts and other intangible spirits fall outside the agency’s remit. Field teams frequently conduct investigations of haunted sites, but other than collecting EVP’s and digital Kirlian footage, most times that’s as far as an investigation is allowed to go. Once a person is possessed by a malevolent spirit, the agents can take action against the threat, but until that point their hands are often tied. Even then, VALKYRIE’s response is typically limited to dealing with the possession itself, and the possessing spirit all too often escapes to find another victim later. A now obsolete but more popular name for these entities are Non-Corporeal Intra-Dimensional Entities (NICEs).
REALITY DEVIANTS (RD-SP/ENEs)
Task Force: VALKYRIE responds to suspected witches in the same way that other government departments respond to suspected terrorists. They’re under a lot of pressure from the very top to snuff out the threat to good American lives, and can get clearance for military operations and hardware just by saying the word “witch.” On the other hand, VALKYRIE’s analysts need information. That means sending sleeper agents to infiltrate covens, setting up elaborate surveillance — everything from phone taps to bouncing a laser beam off a window — and tracking down every link that a witch has to other people. The Task Force has no mid-level sanctions, no mechanism to deal with suspects that they’re not sure of — there’s no mystical equivalent of a no-fly list, and ID checks mean jack shit to someone who can cloud the minds of men. The comparison to terrorists doesn’t stop there. Witches, like terrorists, have a nasty habit of looking like normal people. Unlike terrorists, there’s a hell of a lot of witches on American soil. And these terrorists (or, as some call them, Reality Deviants) can do a lot more than blow up the 7-Eleven. Reality Deviants span the entire length of psychics and hedge wizards but the tippy top are the Mages, true Reality Deviants. Collectively they are all referred to as witches.
VALKYRIE has a lot of theories on where witches come from, all of which are backed up by some semblance of "proof.” (Sometimes, VALKYRIE even steals documents and theses from Null Mysteriis and casually inserts them into case files or records — whiting out any names, of course.) Are witches actually possessed by or servants of the ghosts of the First People, of pissed-off Native Americans who are now working to get back at America? Could they be genetically-modified insurgents or terrorists, their brains and souls tinkered with by a supernaturally-ascendant Middle Eastern nation (or by the once-again-burgeoning Soviet Union)? Maybe it’s the result of a contagion like anthrax or smallpox. Maybe it’s all of the above. Pet theories live within VALKYRIE, and often do more harm than good given the fractured command structure. False information falls too easily into the hands of a cell, especially when a commanding officer’s pride is on the line.
While it doesn’t know much about witches, VALKYRIE’s got a whole load of information about psychic phenomena from every government program that studied mental powers. Though the researchers hired by the CIA for the MK-ULTRA program vanished when the project was disbanded, VALKYRIE holds full copies of the program’s research and findings. They’ve also got reports acquired from KGB remote sensing experiments. Some agents died to get the result of a single experiment, but with the fall of the Iron Curtain the trickle of information became a torrent. Rumor has it that some of the MK-ULTRA researchers remained active after the program ended, possibly even within the United States government, and the Task Force’s commanders would happily kill to get their hands on that research. In the end, the point is that witches and psychics damage the cultural currency of democracy. A sorcerer can screw with the vote. He can mind-rape a politician or, worse, become one himself. He can wage a war against the American people by conjuring some awful new infectious bacteria just by willing it to be so. If the American people knew just how often they needed to be protected from witches — and, more importantly, how often it’s TFV doing the dirty work — they’d be shitting their britches.
The Response: Shock tactics are the mainstay of Task Force: VALKYRIE’s response to witches and psychics. It’s not always enough, but often bursting through the door with flash grenades and guns blazing is a damn good start. The agency’s trademark big guns are actually less useful against witches — unlike shapeshifters or undead serial killers, a witch dies the same as a normal human. Anything bigger than a bullet is probably a waste of ammo, though sometimes you get those sorcerers who can turn a bullet into a rose or a firefly just by snapping her fingers. When the element of surprise fails, hunters are on their own. Their equipment reflects this: screamer pistols and witch-busters have a nice line in regaining the element of surprise, either by knocking a witch’s concentration for a few seconds or just giving her another target to fix upon. When they’re not effective, it’s up to agents to use their own secret weapon: everyone.
When it comes to dealing with witches, Task Force: VALKYRIE has a two-stage strategy. First, they find out who they’re dealing with. Claiming to operate under the aegis of the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, or even the NSA, the agents can legally put anyone under surveillance. Enough bad movies have lead most people to believe that the government run black helicopters and monitor alien abductions, giving VALKYRIE agents far more leeway than any other group. The agents know that witches are terrorists with the equivalent destructive power of a dirty bomb. They’ve got hundreds, maybe thousands of witches under surveillance. It used to be hard — trying to secure a warrant for stuff like this can be tricky to describe on the formal documents. But these days, it gets all the easier. The Patriot Act has done wonders for VALKYRIE’s surveillance capabilities: wire-taps and hidden cameras, ahoy.
EOCHAI Certifications:
REALITY TERRORISTS (RD-SP/ENEs)
The second hardest thing is that you can’t tell them. Task Force: VALKYRIE’s peers in the legitimate Homeland Security and military get to have their war in public, at least a little. They get speeches from the president, grave reminders of the importance of national security, and defense against the nation’s enemies. A civilian can get caught tapping millions of email accounts and all he has to offer is a vague defense and those key words: national security. Hunters don’t get that in the Task Force. There are no official excuses or pats on the back. If there’s ever a congressional hearing… well, God knows what would happen.Task Force: VALKYRIE fights a shadow war against terrorists whose enemy is all reality, and nobody gives a damn. Here’s what they know: there are ENEs that seem to oppose a vast machine rooted in the planet. Captured suspects say this entity is malevolent, but it’s really a case of whether the cup is viewed as half empty or half full. The interrogated ENEs blame the monstrous state of the world on this God-Machine, but a lot of VALKYRIE agents prefer to look at the world a little differently. They prefer to view the world as being a fundamentally good place, where monsters may exist but hunters protect the innocent. It’s just like any war. Sure it’s awful that people get hurt, but what matters is that the United States has the power to help. The ENEs claim the establishment and the world it’s created are horrific places? They’re forgetting the points of light. And a lot of those points of light are the Etheric Rounds of Task Force: VALKYRIE. These ENEs commit acts of terrorism against… well, anything. They blow up construction sites and radio towers, launch murder sprees on office buildings and somehow slip away by discarding their identities. They view the world as malignant, and strike against it any way they can.
VALKYRIE is also aware of ENEs that are a lot harder to capture. Spirits that possess people, for example. Best thing to do is to try and draw them out, then spray them with etheric ammunition. They’re also becoming familiar with ENEs that seem to possess entire buildings or organizations. They’re faced with the very real possibility that some of the terror cells they usually pass off to conventional intelligence agencies may actually be acting under the influence of, let’s just say it, something demonic. The possibilities are frightening. The hardest damn thing is convincing people there’s a war on, and that just might include everyday civilians and hunters, too.
NON-LIVING CONSTRUCTS (NC-ENEs)
Non-Living Constructs are a category for any animated objects or golem-type creature made from non-living or post-living material. What really takes it to the extreme is when the NLC also has the P/ designation. The rarest and most powerful of this category are usually Prometheans but like all Hunter Groups, TFV has a hard take making the distinction between different flavors of simulacra. The soldiers of Task Force: VALKYRIE don’t approach the Vigil the way many other groups do. They don’t have to do their own legwork, for the most part. Agents get their orders, they go in, they do the job, they go home. As such, if TFV is dealing with a Promethean, it’s likely because the situation has already escalated. A TFV squad might get called out to deal with a large-scale Wasteland (“toxic waste spill”), a rampaging golem (“PCP”), a Frankenstein’s creation that fries a town’s power system (“freak electrical storm”), or a torch-wielding mob that can’t find its target (“everybody go home, nothing to see here!”). These hunters have the advantage of doing a job, and not taking the hunt personally.
But the rank-and-file aren’t usually informed Prometheans can shrug off damage from conventional weapons, that they can heal by electrocuting themselves (put a different way, they are rarely told “don’t use the Mjolnir Cannon”), or that some of them can talk to ghosts. The brass is never exactly forthcoming, but where the Created are concerned they’re downright tight lipped. Why? The soldiers of TFV seldom know enough to ask, and rarely bother to ask when they do. They’ve got their orders.
What Task Force: VALKYRIE cells don’t know helps them sleep at night. The top brass knows about Prometheans. What’s more, the truth is that a government scientist found a way to clone human beings, using a Promethean as the catalyst. Doing so destroyed the Promethean, and to make matters worse the technology isn’t exclusive to the government anymore. However, few other organizations or individuals have the means necessary to duplicate this process or a ready supply of Prometheans. Task Force: VALKYRIE, then, gets called in when the mysterious forces behind this technology learn of a Promethean’s whereabouts. This is why, incidentally, the orders concerning the Created are always “capture” and never “destroy.” It’s also why incendiary weapons are never allowed on such missions.
EXTRA-DIMENSIONAL ABDUCTEES (EA-SP/ENEs)
TWILIGHT & EA-SP/ENEs
FORT & EA-SP/ENEs
Project: FORT agents are often more focused on understanding fae magics than on investigating the Changelings themselves. It is rumored that entire cells have been assigned to investigate the Hedge and Arcadia, although no official files are known to exist on the latter topic. As well, FORT operatives are responsible for trapping and containment of a wide variety of (mostly) non-sentient hedge creatures, although it can be difficult to imprison creatures who can open doorways to the
Hedge with minimal effort.
ADAMSKI & EA-SP/ENEs
Radio Free Fae operatives often work alongside the TFV agents assigned to Operation: ADAMSKI, although each rarely realizes that the others are a part of anything more than a loosely tied group of crackpots and cranks. Often, however, one group will provide tips to “prove” supernatural evidence is a hoax, while the other ensures the “proof” is well publicized in the appropriate print or electronic sources to cover any situations where fae magics may have been witnessed by outside eyes.
NCEE POSSESSED (NCEEPs)
Task Force: VALKYRIE first encountered ghostwalkers in Europe during the waning days of World War II. Though the Fog Men took out their revenge on Nazis and Soviets alike, they were rare compared to other supernatural monsters. So, while top brass did recognize that the Fog Men were a threat, they never really topped Task Force: VALKYRIE’s list of targets. Deemed to be a phenomenon unique to the battlefield, brass didn’t give much credence to the idea that Fog Men might exist in America. That is, not until Task Force: VALKYRIE had a run in with a few ghostwalkers in the 1980s, and quickly realized that Fog Men were operating at home, too.
When Project: FORT began upping their efforts in earnest, however, TFV encountered ghostwalkers far more often. Trying to eliminate or contain ghosts ultimately drew the wrath of a number of Fog Men, who proved to exhibit unusual powers, and camaraderie with ghosts the conspiracy didn’t think was possible. Task Force: VALKYRIE hunters have few ideas about the ENE’s true nature — and top brass hasn’t fully disclosed what the Fog Men are, either. Amongst hunters, the dominant theory is that the Fog Men are possessed, and only appear after a violent death — like dying in battle. Whatever they are, TFV has figured out Etheric Rounds hurt ghostwalkers even though they are made of flesh. While the Fog Men are clearly upset that TFV has found a weakness, top brass has ordered the conspiracy not to use them. It seems that, at the highest level, some think the Fog Men should be left alone — a belief that’s often ignored.
In general, the conspiracy’s response to ghostwalkers is to kill them with fire, before they can kill anyone else. When TFV encounters the Fog Men, they’re often told to consider them a serious threat, one that should be handled carefully and possibly ignored. Not only can the Fog Men wreak havoc on TFV forces, they’re also difficult to kill.
Despite TFV’s proven expertise when dealing with Fog Men, top brass hesitates to order Project: FORT to handle them in the field. What TFV’s commanders aren’t saying, is that they believe the Fog Men can be used to the conspiracy’s advantage. It seems brass figured out that the Fog Men do have something they want: the ability to travel to the Underworld. Now, the conspiracy hopes to test new equipment — the Gatekeeper Device — which may allow Task Force: VALKYRIE to open an Avernian Gate. Most hunters want to use the Gatekeeper Device to give them an edge on their hunts. Though the device isn’t fully operational yet, top brass believes that Gatekeeper will allow TFV to target monsters at their point of origin. Though the project has been developed in a top secret environment, some ghostwalkers are beginning to pay close attention to the conspiracy. Thus far, the Fog Men act only on suspicion; they don’t know what Task Force: VALKYRIE is up to, if they are trying to recreate them, just what their tech can do, or what the conspiracy’s long-term plan is.
Project: FORT has not been eager to engage the Fog Men, so they’re not wise to the fact that the ghostwalkers are seeking to secure a spot within the conspiracy. A handful of hunters within Project: FORT have dared to wonder if the haunted serve some sort of purpose or higher power, and worry that the conspiracy is interfering with the natural order. If ghostwalkers exist to keep ghosts contained, why should they interfere? Given how Project: FORT defers to top brass, however, they mostly keep their opinions to themselves. After all, should the bigwigs disapprove of their newfound morality and cut their funding, they’ll have to uphold the Vigil the old-fashioned way.
POST-LIVING REANIMATORS (PLR-SP/ENE)This category includes non-possessed (in so far as they are immune to all standardized forms of exorcism)reanimated corpses and subcomponents. Most HP-ENEs (Haemophagics) are also PLRs but if they get their own category because of the immense harm they can cause and for special protocols such as the Stearne Certifications. The rarest and most powerful immortal undead are mummies from a lost-era of Egypt that periodically return to life and use massive cults to further their goals. These are the quintessential PLRs (instead of Zombies) because as far as TFV can determine they are the only 100% verified "truly immortal" ENEs with some of the NCEEPs (like the Fog Men)making close seconds. As these Egyptian RLRs have withstood ten thousand years of death-like sleep and resurrection, they take home the prize to their elaborate crypts.
Task Force: VALKYRIE is aware that, there are many creatures around the world that can resist death. A handful of unpleasant incidents has made it clear that dead doesn’t always mean dead. As a result, there are standing protocols in place to contain any beings that match a loose set of criteria. The Task Force’s understanding of their prey is so low, however, that their guidelines are vague and often ignored in practice. When they are employed, like the need to timestamp activities, they’re often used on the wrong kind of being.
Should the unit act within protocol, any creature identified as a possible “returner” is targeted for immediate execution. The remains may be captured by a forensic science team. In the meantime, however, hunters are required to eliminate the threat the best way they know how. Those methods vary wildly and aren’t coordinated neatly — especially since mummies are rare and mortals may be involved.
The undying PLRs, when they are recognized, are considered too dangerous for routine R&D. Project: TWILIGHT may be happy to hand over a mummy, whether it’s awake or in a state of repose, to Project: FORT for analysis before its body is transported to Containment for storage and neutralization. Construction may be underway on a new form of combined Containment and R&D facility that can go into complete lockdown in under three seconds.
With mummy encounters happening so infrequently, members don’t engage in standard protocol. However, there are rules members of Operation: ADAMSKI are ordered to follow when they are forced to deal with a “beheaded” cult. It seems Task Force: VALKYRIE wishes to cover its tracks as well as the creature’s, but not before members try to pry information out of a captured cultist.
When Task Force: VALKYRIE does encounter a mummy, it’s typically through the conspiracy’s work to infiltrate and dismantle a cult. Hunters tend to make good use of their deprogramming
facilities to contain suspects who may (or may not) have ties to the supernatural. After all, cults are filled with human members who can be studied and interrogated much easier than any supernatural being. Still, some argue that the practice of locking up civilians to question them about the occult or a magical being isn’t practical, given the overwhelming number of cults in the United States alone. This is part of the reason why members don’t chase after rumors about mummies; due to their rarity, it’s not financially worth the effort, fiscal responsibility on an already shoe-strung budget.
EXTREME MASS/SERIAL KILLERS (NE/ENEs)Task Force: VALKYRIE The Men in Black know about slashers as a vague, inchoate phenomenon, but most of what they know comes from monitoring the work of Null Mysteriis and VASCU. Often, they let the other agencies get on with the hard part of the work, if only because it saves resources
Besides, sometimes the slasher happens to be the son of a congressman, and you can’t arrest him. Of course, agents in the field know they’re kidding themselves if they think that. These guys might just look (mostly) like people, but how come they don’t fall over when they’re shot? How come they can do things that normal people can’t, like talk perfectly ordinary folks into their psychosis or somehow manage to take out six heavily armed agents in the middle of a room without a scratch? How do they spring out from around corners and behind doors like that? No, there’s something going on there. But try telling the top brass that. Official line is to let the ordinary Feds and cops handle this one, and concentrate on the werewolves and vampires and stuff.
The one exception, of course, is dealing with a slasher who used to work for TFV. It’s not common, but just like so many of the other compacts and conspiracies, the horror takes its toll on a person. Given that TFV agents are often pretty shell-shocked by their experiences (sometimes before they even join up), it doesn’t take as much as it should for them to go batshit crazy after a while. There’s no counseling service for TFV, no regulation psych assessment for agents who deal with demons and vampires on a regular basis. There’s no way of telling when a cell working for TFV will have to put a bullet through the head of a team member who’s just sliced up half the population of some Virginia mountain hamlet because he’s convinced they’re monsters.
For every category and clunky acronym that TFV has for supernatural creatures there are hundreds of beings that are miscatagorized or don't fit anywhere across the board. In cases like this, agents in the field are allowed to resort to mythology or preference to name or classifiy an entity as required. They do know, however, never to enter a Lair of a powerful primordial creature of legend.
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