Suzerain of the Earth - Master Post / Introduction

 

Introduction

Of the world's organized crime syndicates, there are few that are as infamous as the Russian mafia, also known as "Bratva". The Russian mafia maintains an ideal they call "The Vory Mir", the Thieves' World: that the Russian Mafia and its members are sovereign, outside the jurisdiction and moral boundaries of any culture, country, or nation. To the cabal known as Tadjbegskaya Bratva (The Brotherhood of Taj Beg), that ideal has taken on a whole new meaning. They've literally been to another world, and when they returned, they were eager to cast off the yoke of human morality and realize their new purpose - to amass wealth and status through esoteric and strange sorcery wielded with inhuman cruelty. The Bratva are a gang of human traffickers, taking their living cargo to the alien slave markets of Leng in exchange for riches. An attempt to expand their operation in New York City attracts the attention of the IRS. When the Bratva resorts to abhorrent sorcery to deal with the investigation, it attracts the attention of Delta Green.

Suzerain of the Earth is a 90s scenario for Delta Green, and is intended to introduce players to three very potent enemies of Delta Green that handlers can choose to hang their campaign on: The Fate, The Skoptsi, the Tadjbegskaya Bratva, and GRU SV-8. Agents are drawn into this web of criminality and intrigue by the gruesome and strange suicide of an investigator for the IRS. This scenario references events and characters from Dennis Detwiller's Call of Cthulhu campaign "The Sense of the Sleight of Hand Man". Reading that campaign is not necessary. 

This scenario will be published in three parts over the coming weeks:
Part One deals with the initial investigation into Special Agent Klinger's death, inquiries with the Internal Revenue Service, and researching the symbol. 
Part Two deals with some groups and factions of interest at play in this scenario, namely Coney Island Carpets, the Nedelko House, Guidelight Holdings, and the Red Star Lounge, as well as a cameo from the Skoptsi. 
Part Three deals with the Tadjbegskaya Bratva and its fixer, Kostya Bekhterev, including their dealings with Club Apocalypse, how they respond to the agents' meddling, and ways of resolving the scenario. 

Until then, enjoy the reading. Any and all feedback is appreciated. 

You are Cordially Invited to a Night at the Opera.  

Background

The lynch-pin of the Bratva's activities in New York is the Nedelko House, a building with a long and dark history. 

The Nedelko House

The house was previously owned by Cecil Uller, an occultist and affiliate of Mr. Lao, a drug lord and opium trafficker that ran a Tong out of "The Lotus", a Chinese restaurant and parlor on Delancey Street (long since demolished). Mr. Lao was, in fact, a human trafficker, who used a mystic drug called "Bywandine" which transported humans to the Dreamlands to be enslaved by his masters, the Men of Leng. Uller was a fellow servant of Leng who cooperated in Mr. Lao's slave-driving activities, using the riches to erect a mansion in Coney Island. 

Mr. Lao was murdered in the late 1920s by a gang of escape mental patients, claiming to have been sent to a "hellish dream world" and that Lao was a "sorcerer". The neighborhood did not mourn the loss, and Uller made haste to seize whatever occult trinkets and texts Lao had accumulated. Uller used these, and nightly jaunts to the Dreamlands to commune with his inhuman masters, to accumulate his own power as a sorcerer in New York. 

In 1958, Uller, then an old man, vanished. His disappearance came at the onset of scandal and scrutiny, as it had become widely believed that Uller was responsible for unspeakable acts, and was implicated in the kidnapping and murder of an eighteen-year-old aspiring actress. Uller had no family and was grossly in debt, and so his estate, including his lavish mansion, was sold at auction. The mansion passed into the hands of Janus Nedelko, a Ukrainian-Jewish real estate mogul who converted the mansion into an apartment building, changing its name to the "Nedelko House" and opening it for rentals in 1961.

After 29 years since its acquisition in '58, Janus Nedelko sold the property to finance his retirement to Florida, the property was bought by an English real-estate firm by the name of Guidelight Holdings. 

The Mafiya

Guidelight Holdings is managed by Fedor Bell-Platonov, a "Vory", a powerful, well-respected member of the Russian Mafiya. He works very, very closely with the "Tadjbegskaya Bratva" (meaning "Brotherhood of Taj Beg"), an insular but well-respected and feared brotherhood of the Mafiya.

The Tadjbegskaya Bratva exists around a core membership of veterans from the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, a mechanized infantry division, trekking through the mountains of Afghanistan, somehow crossed over into another world, one that crumbling old grimoires and madmen call "The Plateau of Leng". The inhuman Men of Leng struck a bargain with the interlopers, and after the war was settled, the Bratva convened and set about exploiting that bargain, which was simple but lucrative - living human beings for gemstones of immense worth. 

The Bratva have many ways of transporting themselves into the Plateau of Leng, and the strange parallel dimension that borders it known as The Dreamlands. Many of the group's members have taken great pains to develop small "charms" that allow them to locate and exploit "weaknesses" in the boundary between these two planes, allowing them, at specific places at specific times, to press through and enter the other world. But this technique has limits, and for the transportation of mass equipment, resources, and human cargo, special gates to the Plateau have been built, the prospect of which is time consuming and resource-intensive. The Bratva therefore have turned to another way of acquiring these gates - locating active ones, killing their stewards and commandeering them for themselves. One such gate was located recently by the Bratva, and though inactive, its location and secrecy made it a prime candidate for reactivation. A gate built by an ally of the Men of Leng in the 1920s in Brooklyn, New York, in a secret sub-basement beneath what was then a mansion in Coney Island. Bratva members in London purchased the property through their middle-man, Fedor Bell-Platonov. A local contractor with connections to the Brother's Circle in Brooklyn, Coney Island Carpets, were given the contract to oversee the refurbishing of the mansion. On paper, Guidelight hopes to reshape it into condos that can be sold to Mafiya members in America. The Tadjbegskaya Bratva isn't picky about what comes of the mansion, only that the building (and the inert Dream Gate underneath it) remain in the Mafiya's possession. 

Konstantin Bekhterev, a member of the Bratva, has been sent to New York City with an assignment to represent the Bratva and fulfill its interests: Forming crucial business alliances with The Fate and The Skoptsi and reactivating the Dreamland Gate. 

The Investigation

Coney Island Carpets' connections to the Mafiya were known to the IRS, and when word came around that they, a relatively young and untested contracting crew, had been hired - XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The Tadjbegskaya Bratva knew that placing a hit on a federal agent would draw huge amounts of scrutiny, and, always eager to build their fearsome reputation among the mafia, decided to turn to esoteric means of eliminating Klinger. The Bratva had a way to drive Klinger into madness and then to suicide in a way that, to conventional investigators, might seem strange, but totally unconnected to his investigation. Kostya Bekhterev, the Bratva's man in Brooklyn, executed the operation, which took about a week to complete.Bekhterev was able to steal a sample of Klinger's hair and used it to cast a spell that would plague Klinger with horrific nightmares and intrusive thoughts until his willpower was whittled away. Once Klinger's will was shattered, Bekhterev performed an invocation that drew an alien intellect to Klinger, one that occult manuscripts describe as "Moon Beasts", sadistic alien slave-drivers of the Dreamlands.The Moon Beast, controlling Klinger's body, delighted in destroying Klinger's life and body before finally killing himself. 

Before Klinger died, the Beast carved a sigil into his scalp with a shattered piece of mirror, one with little meaning to the IRS or the FBI, but which is commonly used in the Dreamlands as an emblem of the Tadjbegskaya Bratva. The circumstances of Klinger's sudden spiral into suicidal madness baffles police investigators, the symbol in his scalp just a cherry on the cake of weirdness. When the IRS and FBI are notified, it takes no time at all for word to reach A-Cell. Delta Green's leaders take most of the day cross-referencing and collating intelligence, not arriving to any solid conclusions beyond that the symbol seems to resemble certain scripts found by Delta Green in the past, marking it as highly likely to be involved in some manner of supernatural force. The player's Cell is activated and the investigation of Klinger's death is reassigned to a covert cross-agency task force consisting of the agents. 

Business Matters

The Bratva believe that the matter with Klinger is settled, and that any awkward questions or inquiries will go nowhere near them, and if they do, it won't be for long. They've redirected their attention to settling into their new digs in Brooklyn. Before they can do that, they have a few matters to attend to. 

For starters, they knew even before they moved in that the five burroughs of New York City are under the jurisdiction of one criminal syndicate that all others pay homage to. That syndicate is known as The Network. Bekhterev has spent time at Club Apocalypse negotiating with the leaders of The Network, known as The Fate, and has been told very plainly that the Bratva will pay tribute to The Fate, and that Bekhterev, as a representative, is expected to perform certain rites and rituals alongside the Fate to "seal the deal". Bekhterev understands that the Bratva's interests in New York live and die on their alliance with The Fate, and is eager to please. 

The Bratva's second order of business is to meet with a delegation from a cult they've made contact with known as The Skoptsi. The Skoptsi are an insular but strong cult that will be useful in the Bratva's efforts to shore up their operation in New York, and both groups have agreed to meet in one week's time to discuss a long-term working relationship.