Cthulhu, of course, still waits and still dreams. He still has his worshippers, but they are mostly strong-willed individuals who are not part of the Cult, and who worship Cthulhu in secret, to achieve their own personal goals. Rarely do they work together, as they often do not even know of each other's existence. Should you begin to examine the rich and powerful of the world, you would find a surprising number who pay tribute to Cthulhu. They do this secretly, and alone.

Sometime soon, however, the dreams will come, their eyes will be opened, and they will realize that they are not alone in their adoration of the dweller in the deep. At that time, the Cult of Cthulhu will be reborn, made up now of the cream of society, commerce, and politics; at that time, they will do all they can to orchestrate the events of the End Time. Until then, they are each alone, and may perhaps be dealt with. But there are so many, so very many...

- Delta Green, Pagan Publishing. 1997

Delta Green's oldest enemy was the Esoteric Order of Dagon a degenerate cult that had nested itself in the town of Innsmouth, Massachusetts, and encouraged its members to debase themselves in service to a race of aquatic aliens and their inhuman "gods". When members of the Navy and federal law enforcement were provided with irrefutable proof of the Order's activities and their alien threat they posed to America, swift and decisive action was taken, and the town of Innsmouth was razed. The story is old, and a version of the story (to varying degrees of vagueness) has been shared to many agents of Delta Green.

Delta Green, then operating as P4 of the ONI, uncovered a trove of information at Innsmouth connecting the backwater town to a network of degenerate cults of "Cthulhu" and "Dagon" across the world. P4 orchestrated operations across the South Atlantic and pacific, from Nicaragua to the Philippines, raiding, pilfering, and burning the coastal villages where other cults like the Order had cropped up. Black Chamber cryptographers and linguists worked to translate tablets and artifacts recovered from these raids. Their translations revealed the cosmology that the Deep Ones and their cultists believed. They discovered the aquatic aliens worshipped a slumbering sea-god that the aliens venerated as their overlord, further research pointed to this being a figure named in esoteric texts as "Cthulhu".

The onset of the Second World War and the rise of more sophisticated, government-sanctioned secret societies and occult research programs in the German "Karotechia, the Imperial Japanese "Gen'yosha / Kokuryukai", Russian "GRU SV-8", and British "PISCES" drew Delta Green's attention away from the Deep Ones and their cults (at least as their primary target).

But the cult never died, neither did its "deathless masters" that steered the cult from the hills of China, and of course, neither did Cthulhu, and while Delta Green battled new horrors in the second world war and later during the 50s and 60s, the cult reinvented itself. By the 1990s, it had recuperated. Reorganized and more sophisticated, and readier than ever to enact the will of great Cthulhu.

An Exploration The Exalted Circle

This is a reimagining of the Delta Green faction "The Exalted Circle", first described in Delta Green: Targets of Opportunity. This writeup imagines the Circle as an independent faction from the Cult of Transcendence, and links them more closely to other mythos elements, namely the Brotherhood of the Ocean (as described in Delta Green: The Handler's Guide) and the Kuen-Yuin / Quanyouyin (Likewise described in the Handler's Guide).

History

The Exalted Circle's first American member was a trader named Nathan Warrick.When or where exactly Warrick was inducted into the worship of Cthulhu, Dagon, and the Deep Ones is difficult to tell, though reports point to him having been guided for many years by the mythical "Dream-Call of Cthulhu". Indeed, Warrick never thought of (or referred to ) himself as a cultist of the "Exalted Circle", but as a member of the Cult of Cthulhu. Warrick was said to have spent extensive time in Shanghai in the company of "strange, insular old men", and to have sought out the "wisdom" of polynesian elders from isolated and shunned villages, some so esoteric as to have never been charted.

Forming the Circle

The facts might never be known, but by 1830, Warrick had grown to be a potent sorcerer, who would summon deep ones to guide his vessels during storms and to terrify and dispose of recalcitrant slaves from the Guinea Coast. Warrick shared his tricks with a small circle of rich, seafaring gentlemen such as himself. These men used Warrick's teachings to shore up their business interests - locating rich cargoes, instilling total fear and obedience in slaves, sinking rival vessels. This group of cruel, young slave-drivers that flocked to Warrick, beggaring the man for greater power and knowledge, became the earliest iteration of the "Exalted Circle". Warrick referred its membership as the "Guardians of the Will and Edict of the Dreaming God", this mouthful of a title was quickly abbreviated to just "Guardians". Those he deigned to teach these secret rites and rituals to would only be taught after passing an "initiation": They would pledge themselves to Lord Cthulhu and be expected to take a "Fish-Wife" and sire offspring. Only once healthy, living offspring were produced would Warrick begin to teach them his secrets.

Warrick guided the Circle with quiet ruthlessness. Many knew that Warrick worked in concert with men outside the circle, and was said to receive his orders from "deathless chinamen" who he would often allude to as being "high-priests" or "hierophants" of Cthulhu, whatever disdain the plutocrats had for the glass-eyed whalers and fishmongers (or the notion of taking orders from Chinese), most knew better than to question Warrick's command, and completed whatever task he laid out for them diligently. Many of these tasks were to travel to isolated backwater settlements across the Americas and conduct trade with the locals, often as a sickening financial loss, as Circle members were "encouraged" to give favorable prices to these "exceptional" people in need. (Those whose service pleased Warrick and his masters would be rewarded, as whatever loss incurred by the trade was made up for by the inexplicable but consistent discovery of strange golden trickets; suddenly appearing in the quarters and vessels of Circle member, stained with sea salt).

Warrick abandoned the circle in the late-1850s for "Yian-Ho, to see and speak with Yue-Laou in his resplendent city". Warrick's most senior and loyal Guardians would receive invitations in later years beckoning them to Chongqing to be received by Warrick and taken into "Lands unchartable, to be received by and be audience to those wielders of great and terrible wisdom". Those few who were offered such invitations left urgently and returned months later...changed, possessed by a renewed coldness and cruelty.

In the years following Warrick's disappearance, others like him would drift into the circle, rich men who heard the Call of Cthulhu in their thoughts, though many of the circle's members were plutocrats and slave traders who had embraced the occult and the power it granted them. In the years leading up to the Civil War, the Circle diversified its business interests beyond shipbuilding and shipping and into other businesses, primarily the rubber industry and the arms industry. Guns produced in Circle factories armed Union men, while guns shipped from France (and bargained for by Circle agents) were brought to the South on Circle ships, this scheme was repeated on a larger scale during the First World War. For years, the Circle operated as an essentially secular cabal of sorcerers, partaking in dark rituals merely to appease the Deep Ones in exchange for their secrets and occasionally their services. It was veneration of the Great Old Ones not for its own sake, but for the sake of profit. This ended in 1928, when the American military descended on the coastal New England village of Innsmouth.

Innsmouth

In a story known to all agents of Delta Green. The U.S Navy, Federal Agents from the Department of the Treasury, and U.S Marines, raided the town of Innsmouth. Arresting most of its population, killing those that resisted. They were met with extreme resistance by the local cult of Dagon and the Deep Ones, but ultimately won the day and razed the village. In the years following, Deep One cults in South America and the Pacific were attacked by P4. They even became so bold as to send a detachment of their men into the mountains of China to locate Yian-Ho. While this latter expedition was deemed a total failure by P4, the Cult of Cthulhu and its Kuen-Yuin masters saw it as a wake-up call.

The old model of the "Esoteric Order of Dagon" and its isolated but feeble cults operating in villages was obviously no longer feasible. A boat could float on the horizon and shell the village flat, and while a Deep One-controlled Quasi-Shoggoth could wrench the thing apart like a can of sardines, the cult would be decimated. With the world becoming increasingly connected too, it was obvious new measures would need to be taken to insulate Deep One Cults from outside interference. The new model to replace it would hinge on the Exalted Circle.

The Exalted Circle's Guardians who had been touched by the mind of Cthulhu suddenly heard it louder, and in their dreams they communed with Cthulhu's highest and most holy priests, the Kuen-Yuin, in their extradimensional stronghold of Yian-Ho. From them, the orders were received. The Exalted Circle was to focus on the protection and proliferation of Deep One colonies and to further the goals and interests of the Kuen-Yuin and the cult of Cthulhu. In the latter, it would often be asked to accomodate, facilitate, and protect the odd, quiet cultists of Cthulhu (referred to often as the "Brotherhood of the Ocean") while they went about their esoteric tasks (writing books, casting spells, killing people). Its reward in this endeavour - glimpses of the future, riches, occult power. Sorcery would help them in this effort, certainly, but the Circle's primary tool would be money.

The New Order

Through the 1930s and 40s the Circle maintained its opportunistic streak. Feeding both sides of the Second World War with guns, armor, ammunition. When the war in China threatened the interests of the Kuen-Yuin, Circle operatives opened Gates to China that allowed the sorcerers to move their libraries and themselves across the globe, before the Imperial Japanese, or the Kuomintag or Communists could raze their libraries (or at least, too many of them). Efforts were made to steer allied attacks and patrols away from settlements that harbored Cthulhu cults, though this was far from perfect, and still, many cults vanished without a word in the war.

In the 1960s, the Circle formed two critically important front companies: Cypress Security and Arm of Providence. Cypress Security was a private military contractor that the Circle used to guard their facilities around the globe. It hired from anywhere, everywhere. In the proxy wars of the Cold War, it took no time at all for Cypress to build a roster of former Nazis, Cuban exiles, Rhodesians, Japanese, English, Canadian, American soldiers, all willing to kill without question for a handsome salary. Cypress rarely, if ever, glimpsed the truth of the Exalted Circle's activities, few in its ranks even knew the name, those that did were often silenced. Those that showed potential became occult hatchetmen for the Circle. Arm of Providence was a charitable Christian NGO that focused on delivering food and financial aid to developing countries. It quickly became cozy with the CIA, with many operatives entering foreign countries under the guise of AoP volunteers. The group's real purpose was to insulate Cthulhu Cults across the developing world - Southeast Asia, South American, and Africa especially. Communities that harbored Cthulhu cults, new and old, would be selected for greater infrastructure to be built, and for factories and facilities owned by the Exalted Circle to be built, making the cult-villages more resistant to attack, giving the communities (and the Circle) economic prosperity, and justifying the presence of Cypress Security contingents guarding Exalted Circle-linked facilities. Arm of Providence would also be used to transport

Mergers and Acquisitions

In the 1960s and 70s, the Circle encountered a variety of other cults that it quickly became close with, some more forcefully than others. It was in the 1970s that Guardians of the Circle received invitations to Club Apocalypse, a hip and edgy dance club in the Alphabet City neighborhood of Manhattan. There, they met the manager, Belial, and Stephen Alzis. There, they encountered the Occult Underground. Since then, The Network and its leaders, The Fate, have been close "partners" of the Circle. The two cults maintaining amicable relations, exchanging favors and information freely.

It was also during this time they learned of the Lamplighters. They had come up randomly in conversation between Guardians of the Exalted Circle drinking brandy after a live performance of the Velvet Underground at Club Apocalypse. They learned they were a cult, global in scale, devoted to the worship of a transcendent race of aliens, known in occult scripture as the "Great Race of Yith". "Why, you want them?" Alzis asked, allegedly.

He must have known what the answer would be; asking a sorcerous plutocrat if he wanted something?

The deal was made, and the Lamplighters were "acquired" that night by the Exalted Circle. The Lamplighters were, unfortunately, the last to know. Some resisted and died for it. Some were placated by the enourmous price the Circle was willing to pay them for their loyalty, coupled with protection from their patrons. Indeed, the Great Race seemed uninterested in violent reprisal after the North and South American schools of the Lamplighters were acquired. No less when the Circle acquired the European school. Though when the Circle's emissary to the Australian school went missing, and two Guardians suddenly vanished, the Circle figured they had pushed their luck far enough.

Since then, the Lamplighters have changed their role. Working now as channelers and occult hatchetmen for the Circle. The Lamplighters once studied a ritual art that allowed them to erode their own sense of identity and ego to "make space" and "open themselves to" the Great Race of Yith. This practice continued, though now it was for other patrons to "enter" these initiates. The Kuen-Yuin project their minds into the bodies of Lamplighters, often merely to convey information, though sometimes it is to perform a task they figure they need to do themselves. A handful of Exalted Circle Guardians have learned to do the same. Occasionally, they sell this service out to other cults, including The Fate.

The Lamplighters are a dying breed, unfortunately. Under mismanagement by the Circle, their recruitment is faltering. The Exalted Circle is now more concerned with hoarding its technology than keeping the sect alive.

The 1990s

By the last decade of the twentieth century, the Circle are in their stride. It's also at this time they re-encounter Delta Green directly.

Delta Green, restructured and better equipped to tackle large scale conspiracies, begins to bite at the feet of the Circle. Agents in the IRS notice highly irregular spending habits among its members, and Agents coming from the Special Forces have the technique to drop Deep Ones and Cypress Security thugs like bad habits. This decade sees the Circle see the first major resistance since encountering the Lamplighters. It's also a decade when serious inroads are made in the White House, particularly in the securing of high-caliber security contracts for Cypress.

The G.W.O.T.

The GWOT sees the Exalted Circle get aggressive, using the prolonged deployment of U.S armed forces to the Middle East as license to tear-ass across the region, pillaging archaeological sites they had long since eyed for their potential. Of course, Delta Green never loses the scent: a sabotaged attempt to raise a Babylonian priest of Cthulhu from Essential Saltes in Iraq, and the defrauding and later assassination of a Guardian in Macau serve as a bitter reminders of that to the Circle.

Heads of the Hydra

The Exalted Circle exerts global control through economic power, channeled into a cadre of private security contractors, private detective agencies, and non-profit NGOs, and law firms. It's cash cows are in the arms manufacturing and global shipping industries. Below is a non-exhaustive list of companies under the Circle's control.

Cypress Security

Cypress Security was founded by the Circle in the 1960s, cashing in the West's increased interest in privately-owned paramilitaries that could be deployed to foreign nations to do the work the leaders of the "Free World" didn't want to be seen doing. The Circle hired former Nazi officers who had found gainful employment in South Africa, Rhodesia, and the Congo, they hired anti-communist Finns, exiled Cubans, American, Canadian, and English special forces operators, and many, many more.

Cypress operates primarily to guard Circle personnel, their property, and the infrastructure of the cult at large. They have a dedicated "anti-piracy" task force that guards Circle vessels, a lighter personal security force that protects the private islands of Exalted Circle Guardians, and a general security branch that protects factories, foundries, storage depots, and drydocks owned and maintained by the Circle. Cypress Security's offices are in London, United Kingdom, though they maintain "command centres" and offices in the United States, Qatar, Italy, Cote D'Ivoire, the Philippines, and Australia.

Manderly Private Detective Agency

Manderly Private Detective Agency is one of a handful of small, private investigation firms that the Circle operates. Manderly is headquartered outside of Galveston, Texas, and maintains a staff of 6 private investigators and a cadre of support staff. Its primary interest is monitoring the hybrid children of Exalted Circle Guardians, assuring that nosy investigations go nowhere near them without encountering serious legal backlash and resistance.

Arms of Providence International

Arms of Providence is one of two NGOs that the Exalted Circle operates. Headquartered in Washington, D.C, Arms of Providence has had a "cozy" relationship with the American intelligence community for years. It is used by the Exalted Circle to insulate and raise communities in the "third world" claimed by the Cult of Cthulhu, bringing western business interests (including the Circle's own) into impoverished areas to insulate them against outside investigation, and to justify the presence of Cypress Security and the Circle's own members. More than a handful of times, the Circle has taken a page out of the American intelligence community's handbook and used Arms of Providence to sneak their own agents in foreign countries under fake identities.

Clarity Creek Adoption Agency

Clarity Creek Adoption Agency is one of several "Adoption Agencies" used by the Exalted Circle to raise the hybrid children of Deep Ones and the Circle's own members. The agency is headquartered in New Orleans, Louisiana and is considered the responsibility of Gino Bova, a Sentinel who sees the agency as a personal eugenics laboratory. The Circle is keenly interested in the parasitic, metamorphic quality of Deep One reproduction.

Andrade & Saavedra Law Partners

Headquartered in the Bahamas, Andrade & Saavedra Law Partners is the name of an enourmous law firm, that while operated independently of the Circle, has effectively become the cult's in-house law firm used to put smothering legal pressure on investigations that come too close to the truth.

Millennium International

Millennium International is an international maritime shipping company headquartered in San Francisco, California. Millennium operates across the world's ports, and has storage depots, drydocks, and other facilities across the Americas, Africa, South Asia, and the Pacific. A secret list of Millennium's ships are known colloquially as "death barges", and are used for human trafficking as a method of sourcing offerings to the Deep Ones.

Cadre Armories

Cadre Armories is a firearms manufacturing company that operates across the world. Cadre and Millennium are two of the primary companies that the Circle uses to boost the economy of Cthulhu-cult communities. Cadre Armories has many plants in China and Indochina, and enjoys very close ties to China's Norinco.

Facilities

The Exalted Circle's "facilities" (as in, facilities owned by Circle partners and fronts) are everywhere, around the world. Law offices, military bases, shipyards, drydocks, hangars, storage depots, you name it. To list them in high detail would be its own post. To list them exhaustively would be...impossible.

But as far as the cult itself goes, there are really two types of major facilities operated by the cult for the cult.

Guardian Islands

The Guardians, the thirteen plutocratic leaders of the Exalted Circle, each own a private island somewhere on the earth. Each of these are a fortress in of themselves, protected by a full-time, round-the-clock security detail courtesy of Cypress Security and sophisticated security infrastructure all across the islands.

Additionally, the Guardians themselves are not just men in nice suits. Each Guardian, through meditation and worship, has become a potent sorcerer, and can deploy a whole host of hypergeometric techniques to escape danger and to kill intruders. That's to say nothing of the Deep Ones.

The Deep Ones skulk in the waters of these islands and respond quickly to summons, although they are unlikely to come lurching out of the water for battle. They have lent some help in securing the island against intruders: The K'Yog'Ha, a degenerate slave-breed of the Shoggoths, one of which was deployed at Innsmouth (and nearly killed the entire detachment of marines that had stormed the town). They are plasticky, white masses of putrid-smelling flesh, chitin, and black, soulless eyes. They are controlled by a stone that each Guardian has in their homes, though controlling them beyond the most basic directions is something only a few Guardians have been able to master (meaning they're just as likely to devour the Cypress Security personnel as they are Delta Green).

Sacred Colonies

The colonies are those few communities, few and far between, across the world. In the 1990s and 2000s, most of these are in Southeast Asia, Africa, South America. A select few in the Mediterranean. Delta Green's predecessor, P4, saw to the crushing of the biggest colony in America, Innsmouth, and after that the other colonies fizzled out or vanished shortly after. During the Second World War, the Karotechia's interest in the Deep Ones lead Delta Green, PISCES, and GRU SV-8 right to the most prominent colonies in Europe and those were crushed too. One of the only stable colonies that persists in North America is Black Cod Island, a native community in the pan-handle of Alaska.

The Colonies are a variety of different cultures and communities, the cult and their blood are the only things that connect them. The specifics many vary, but each colony has a cult of the Deep Ones, perhaps their masters, Dagon and Hydra, or the sleeping god itself, Cthulhu. They all pay homage to the Deep Ones and accept their "gifts", harboring and siring hybrids. The Circle insulates these communities from outside scrutiny and provides for thme. Covering up any crimes or off-color activities. Arm of Providence keep the communities well furnished and well fed, Exalted Circle companies open factories and facilities in these communities to keep the local economy active, and to justify the presence of Cypress Security armed guards on site.

Occasionally, Exalted Circle members visit these communities themselves. Occasionally they are ordered to by the Kuen-Yuin, often to lead or participate in a ritual to the Deep Ones.

Personnel

The Exalted Circle's hierarchy remains largely the same as it is presented in Targets of Opportunity. There are three ranks: Watchmen, Sentinels, and Guardians. There are thirteen guardians who command the circle and receive orders from the Circle's masters, the Kuen-Yuin, often through dream-visions or emissaries. Although the Circle is predominantly male and predominantly white, women and "non-whites" are allowed entry, though the Circle comes with all the tender prejudices of the upper-class circlejerks that produce most of its members.

Watchmen

The Watchmen are the lowest ranking members of the Circle. The initiation ritual for Watchmen involves taking two oaths, mirroring the first two oaths taken by the Esoteric Order of Dagon, those being an oath of secrecy and an oath of loyalty. The initiation ritual involves cloaks, masks. The oaths involving the initiates pricking their fingers with a needle and wiping blood onto gold coins that are then saved by the Circle.

Sentinels

Every Guardian manages ten to fifteen Sentinels, Sentinels are trusted with a higher caliber of responsibility, and are initiated into the higher secrets of the Circle, including its alliance with the Deep Ones. They are the ones primarily trusted with overseeing offerings to the Deep Ones, and managing Sacred Colonies.

The initiation ritual to become a Sentinel involves reaffirming the two oaths taken when they became Watchmen, with the addition of the Esoteric Order of Dagon's third oath. The Sentinel, in an audience of their fellow Sentinels and a Guardian, sire a child with a Deep One. Most Sentinels raise their children, but some will give them away to an Exalted Circle-affiliated adoption agency. Some Sentinels are trusted with knowledge of secret ritual powers, but this is far from the norm.

Guardians

Guardians are the highest echelon of the cult. Guardians must have successfully bought the position at auction. Guardians are the only members that are, as a rule, taught the secret rituals of hypergeometry. After purchasing their position, the Guardian is given a trio of hypergeometric rituals they are expected to learn before being accepted as a true Guardian. The first is the Call of Dagon, which is to be performed first at the initiation of a Sentinel or at a Sacred Colony making human offerings to the Deep Ones. The second ritual are third rituals are then learned, and are to be demonstrated before an audience of at least one or two other Guardians or Sentinels. The Guardian hosts their guests at their private island and treats them to a dinner. As the dinner begins. The Guardian excuses himself and goes to the surf, conducting the first ritual, Breath of the Abyss, and immersing themselves in the waves over their heads. Then, under the ocean, breathing water, they conduct the second ritual, Mark of the Great Old Ones. Using a ritual dagger or talon of a Deep One, they carve an Aklo figure into their own flesh, forever identifying them as a member of the Cult. They are not to emerge from the sea until their guests have finished their meal and the glyph is complete. If they succeed both, they are formally inducted to the cult.

Ideology

Although the Cult appears united in its devotion to the Kuen-Yuin, the Deep Ones, and Cthulhu, there are divisions in the cult, small, but enough to cause issues. Two ideologies dominate the cult, some call them the Cultists and the Pragmatists. Cultists are those members of the Circle who hear the Call of Cthulhu in their dreams. They partake in rituals to Cthulhu, Dagon, and the Deep Ones out of cultish devotion to those alien beings do so out of genuine devotion. They truly worship these powers and wish to ascend to the status of the Kuen-Yuin.. Pragmatists do not hear the call. They do all the rituals, make all the offerings, say all the prayers, but their true god is money. They bend to Cthulhu and the Deep Ones half out of fear and half out of opportunism. Some believe Cthulhu will wake only after they (the pragmatists) are long dead (to some Cultists, they wouldn't have it any other way). 6 or of the 13 Guardians are Cultists, a third of the Sentinels are Cultists. A quarter of the Watchmen are. They are usually outweighed by their pragmatist peers, but often are the most gifted in ritual matters, and are favored by the Deep Ones.

Alternate Truths

Should what's above not jive with your vision or your canon, there are other possibilities to make the Exalted Circle fit better with your vision.

The New Regime: The Post-Transcendence Circle

In 2012, the Cult of Transcendence undergoes an upheaval and two of its four "leaders" vanish, one transcends to a higher reality, another is murdered by a rival. In the chaos that follows (both leaders insulating themselves against real and imagined power-plays by the other, incessant infighting among subordinates jockeying for power), the Cult implodes. Lionel Glass, the Bishop of Greed, inserts himself as a Guardian of the Exalted Circle and assumes a leadership position.

The Circle, weakened by a Delta Green operation that had killed most of its leaders and soured their alliance with the Deep Ones, spends much of the 2010s recuperating their losses and reorienting their goals. It's then that the Kuen-Yuin make themselves known.

By 2018, the Kuen-Yuin institute themselves as the true masters of the Circle through demonstrations of their power. This version of the Circle has new goals and new divisions. From their time as a subordinate to the Cult of Transcendence, and their time being directly led by one of the cult's former leaders, the Circle has become much more open to the worship of Nyarlathotep over Cthulhu. This new camp of Nyarlathotep worshippers are content to play ball with the Kuen-Yuin, but a few are hardline worshippers of Nyarlathotep and will outright refuse to abandon their new god for the capricious and inscrutable Cthulhu. The Kuen-Yuin tolerate them as long as they don't rock the boat. Of course, both camps secretly scheme to violently oust the other and claim hegemony over the cult, the Nyarlathotep Cultists align themselves with the Pragmatists, whereas the Kuen-Yuin scheme to remove prominent Pragmatists from positions of influence and replace them with Cultists who hear the Call of Cthulhu.

The Mandate: Wardens of Tsan-Chan

In the 1960s, as China is rocked by the resurgent Communist Party, the Kuen-Yuin flee as their cults and temples are bulldozed. Many flee to the otherworldly realm of Yian-Ho, other flee to Hong Kong and beyond. One is visited by a vision in their dreams...by themselves. They commune in their dreams with a future iteration of themselves and are informed of the existence of the Cruel Empire of Tsan-Chan, a bastion of humanity in the far future ruled by an ascendant Kuen-Yuin in worship of Ghatanothoa and Cthulhu in what is now modern-day China. The Kuen-Yuin of the 1960s are ordered that they are to mobilize themselves to insure Tsan-Chan's prosperity in the year 5000. The Kuen-Yuin set themselves to this new mandate, and their primary tool in this effort is the Exalted Circle.

In this setting, the Exalted Circle takes on the role of the Acquisitions Group from my earlier Tsan-Chan writeup. The Circle uses cloak-and-dagger espionage and sorcery to infiltrate the Majestic program in the 1990s and delicately siphon out secrets for their own research and use. Much of the research done by Acquisitions Group originally would still be done in the Chinese interior, though other labs and field tests would be conducted around the world.

Important Characters

David Janeway

David Janeway's father had been a member of the Circle, as was his father before him. Janeway knew this because his father was never shy about it. He practiced rituals to the Deep Ones in front of his son. He actually had the young David present when he fulfilled his third oath to the Circle and when he became a Guardian, an ordeal that involved David's father opening the throat of David's grandfather, who he supplanted in the Circle.

When Janeway's father died of complications to an Apoplexy in 1991, Janeway snatched the opportunity. His bid for Guardianship was endorsed by several other Guardians, and he was quick to master the prescribed rituals and codes.

Janeway has been the mastermind of the Circle's activities in the United States since then. He uses his influence to score highly valued no-bid contracts between the government and the Circle and to get legitimate U.S funding and even military support for Circle activities. Janeway has met every president since Bush Sr. and golfs with senators and military commanders. Like his father before him, he isn't shy about his allegiances. Isaac, his fourteen-year-old son (as of 2000) has seen him conduct rituals to the Deep Ones many times, and witnessed his father give his wife, Isaac's mother, to a Deep One. He knows nothing of "Pascal", his older half-brother who lives in Hawaii and is halfway to joining the Deep Ones in the sea.

United States Navy Rear Admiral David Janeway is a Caucasian man with a round face, reddish-brown hair and green eyes. He stands at 6'0" and is in decent shape for a man of his age. On his left pectoral is a scar that identifies him as a member of the Circle, if seen in the right light. He is a cultist, and is occasionally guided by the voice of Cthulhu, though these calls are infrequent.

R.ADM. DAVID JANEWAY, ONI

Deputy Commander of the ONI, Guardian of the Exalted Circle.

STR 11 CON 12 DEX 10 INT 14 POW 14 CHA 12

HP 11 WP 14 SAN 42 BREAKING POINT 28

BONDS Isaac Gabriel Janeway, Son (10)

MOTIVATIONS AND DISORDERS Depersonalization Disorder

Sleeping Disorder

Only one thing has ever scared me, which is why I worship it.

They get want they want, we get what we want, everybody's happy.

Shaping my son to fill my place.

SKILLS Accounting 35%, Alertness 61%, Athletics 42%, Bureaucracy 75%, Computer Science 30%, Craft (Electrician) 60%, Craft (Mechanic) 66%, Firearms 55%, History 40%, HUMINT 30%, Melee Weapons 38%, Military Science (Sea) 70%, Navigate 72%, Pilot (Sailing Ship) 67%, Pilot (Submarine) 66%, Science (Nuclear Engineering) 70%, Swim 58%, Unarmed Combat 40%, Unnatural 18%

ATTACKS Ritual Dagger 38% Damage 1D6

Colt M1911A1 55% Damage 1D10

Unarmed 40%, 1D4

RITUALS KNOWN: Call of Dagon, Breath of the Abyss, Mark of the Great Old Ones, Change Aklo, Read Aklo, Vigor of Dagon, Wrath of Sekhmet

BREATH OF THE ABYSS: This ritual, known to all Guardians, allows the operator to breath seawater for 9 WP and 3 SAN. The ritual takes seconds and culminates in the operator violently coughing out a bloody lining of their lungs and throat, hence the high SAN cost.

MARK OF THE GREAT OLD ONES: The Mark is more than just a scar. It is a figure in Aklo with extra meanings encrypted in it that can be understood by an operator who casts "Read Aklo" or someone who is fluent in the abhorrent tongue. A Guardian can detect a fake mark at a glance.

VIGOR OF DAGON: For 12 WP and 4 SAN, Janeway can initiate a ritual that, over the course of 1D12 minute, causes him to undergo a violent metamorphosis, taking on the physique and power of a Deep One, giving him their traits and increasing his STR, CON, and DEX by 2D4 for 2D6 days.

Gino Bova

Gino Bova hails from an aristocratic family from Naples, Italy. Business relations introduced him to the Circle in the late 1990s. He was initiated as a Watchman in 1996 and a Sentinel in the Spring of 2001, a fast promotion quickened by a scheme by Bova and a fellow Italian Watchman to secure positions are Sentinels that ended in the defrauding and screaming deaths of their superiors.

Bova, who had studied biological chemistry and genetics in University before turning to business, was sought as a suitable candidate to manage the Circle's "Breeding Program". Primarily in the managing of Deep One Hybrids borne of the Guardians and Dagon cultists (or their victims) around the world, and more to the point, experiments and observations on their transformation. Bova's experiments, at the direction of the Guardians, has been to experiment with addictive substances (the Circle is interested in the possibility of getting Deep Ones hooked on these substances as youths, creating future customers). So far these experiments end in slow, pitiful deaths in subjects once mutations set in.

Bova can't help but feel the whole ordeal is a little myopic, and is angling to expand the program to explore the use of gene-splicing to create supersoldiers and clone technology. He is doing this without approval or knowledge of his superiors. He's sure, however, that the untimely demise of a Guardian and his ascension to that coveted post will help smooth over any objections the Guardians may have with his work. Before he can do that, he should figure out the situation with whoever's been sending him images of the fateful evening that Bova beat his wife to death on the deck of his megayacht of the coast of Cyprus.

Gino Bova is a stocky Italian man with olive skin and black hair which he wears at medium length. He dresses plainly by sharply in black suits and sunglasses and is partial to smoking cigars and evenings with escorts. Bova is a pragmatist, and sees his alliance with the Deep Ones, and the conducting of Deep One rituals, as customary rather than servile in service of a more lucrative business deal.

GINO BOVA

Sentinel and Aspiring Eugenicist

STR 10 CON 10 DEX 13 INT 13 POW 12 CHA 12

HP 10 WP 12 SAN 48 BREAKING POINT 36

MOTIVATIONS AND DISORDERS Addiction (Tobacco)

Expanding the breeding program's potential

Outwitting his rivals in the Circle

Ascension to guardianship

Might makes right

SKILLS Accounting 50%, Alertness 70%, Athletics 50%, Criminology 60%, Dodge 55%, Drive 60%, Firearms 52%, History 49%, HUMINT 50%, Law 30%, Melee Weapons 60%, Persuade 50%, Science (Biology) 50%, Science (Genetics) 65%, Search 60%, SIGINT 40%, Stealth 60%, Survival 50%, Swim 40%, Unarmed Combat 60%.

ATTACKS SIG Sauer M11 pistol with optional suppressor 52%, damage 1D10.

Anderson Cetina-Ross

Anderson Cetina-Ross was a Navy SEAL and had left the group to sign on with the Hurricane Group, a subsidiary of Cypress Security. His work paid him a lucrative amount of money and he saw serious action during Iraq. It was during Iraq that he was paid to escort some VIPs and their guests into the Saudi Arabian desert for an "event". That event turned out be an attempt at binding a slumbering, invisible horror to one of the VIPs, and when the thing protruded itself into our reality and one of the security guards lost their shit and tried to open up on it (and the VIPs) with a SAW, it was Anderson who drew first and brained the horrified man.

Sometime after this event, and after Anderson had time to undergo a full existential crisis, and vomit-laden panic attack in the desert, he was approached. One of the VIPs liked his ability to keep cool. He wasn't read into the Circle then and there, but he was brought into the entourage of that VIP. He was elevated, eventually, to a command position in Cypress Security, and after a few years of this, he was ready to peek behind the curtain.

The American chapters of the Exalted Circle's admission policy of blue-blooded old-money Americans only proved as a challenging obstacle. An obstacle Cetina-Ross circumvented by marrying the daughter of a rich, old Sentinel. The move, while bold, was seen as sufficient, and once he gave the old fuck a grandchild, he was in.

Anderson Cetina-Ross is 5'10". He is a caucasian man with short, brown hair and a warm smile. Under his cheery veneer is an appetite for violence and the transgressive. Cetina-Ross regularly sits in on the hour-long torture sessions carried out by CIA-affiliated Cypress Security contractors at bases and blacksites around the world. He has a nasally but deep voice that strikes some people as weird. Cetina-Ross is a pragmatist, and does not hear the Call of Cthulhu.

ANDERSON CETINA-ROSS

Watchman and Cypress Security Commander

STR 13 CON 14 DEX 13 INT 11 POW 14 CHA 8

HP 13 WP 14 SAN 56 BREAKING POINT 42
BONDS: Pam Cetina-Ross (Wife), 4

MOTIVATIONS AND DISORDERS Antisocial Personality Disorder

It feels good to remind others of their place

Plugging the leaks

Learning the deeper mystery

Recognition of one's excellence

SKILLS Alertness 68%, Athletics 60%, Bureaucracy 70%, Demolitions 60%, Dodge 66%, Drive 48%, Firearms 70%, Heavy Weapons 45%, Melee Weapons 60%, Military Science (Land) 60%, Military Science (Sea) 40%, Navigate 45%, Persuade 38%, Pilot (Mini-Sub) 56%, HUMINT 51%, Search 65%, Unnatural 4%

ATTACKS HK23 SOCOM, Medium Pistol 70%, Damage 1D10

Alonso Encarnacion

Alonso Encarnacion was the son of a musician and a mathematician in Santiago, Chile. Encarnacion became a student of the liberal arts and eventually became a renowned poet. The rise of Augusto Pinochet turned his life upside down, and Encarnacion fled North to Panama, leaving behind comrades he suspects died slow, horrible deaths at the hands of Pinochet.

In Panama he found solace. In Panama, he found the Lamplighters.

The Lamplighters opened an entirely new perspective on his life, and in his condition, a defeated poet in exile, he took easily to the cult's doctrine of ego-erosion. He remembers the first out-of-body experience he had: the things he saw, the things he tasted and heard and felt. It became a high he would long for each and every day.

When a rival cult slaughtered the Lamplighter chapter in Panama, Encarnacion's psyche collapsed he was placed in psychiatric care, then eventually spirited out of the counrty to the U.S Virgin Islands, where he was asked to continue his old practices in service to a new power: The Exalted Circle. He has since become a vessel for the Circle to channel ancient, dead priests of Cthulhu, the Kuen-Yuin, and the spirits of dead Guardians. Although he lives in comfort on a guarded villa in the Virgin Islands, he is filled with such longing.

There are nights he longs for home, for Chile. There are nights he remembers Panama before the purge, the friends he made. When the sun comes up and his maids make him breakfast, it's nice, but it's hollow. He sometimes ponders what would happen if he were to burn the house to the ground, kill the guards, and stumble, like one of the blind, into the ocean until the waves took him.

Of course, he lacks the will for such an act. Presently, that is. There's always tomorrow.

ALONSO ENCARNACION

The Last of the Lamplighters

STR 9 CON 10 DEX 9 INT 15 POW 8 CHA 13

HP 9 WP 8 SAN 20 BREAKING POINT 18

MOTIVATIONS AND DISORDERS Obsession (Suicidal Urges)

Fugues

Reflect on the old years, the green years.

Solace in the quiet.

SKILLS Alertness 30%, Art (Writing) 70%, Art (Poetry) 70%, Athletics 24%, Foreign Language (English) 40%, Persuade 40%, Melee Weapons 40%, Unarmed Combat 40%, Unnatural 33%

ATTACKS Unarmed 40% Damage 1D4-1

RITUALS KNOWN: Whispers of the Dead (The Great Race of Yith), Consciousness Expansion, Pentagram of Power, One Who Passes the Gateways, Song of Power, the Voorish Sign, Soothing Song

Emil Nyström

The Swedish crab fisherman Emil Nystrom first heard the voice of the master after being heaved up from the cold North Sea after going overboard, December 2nd, 1999. Nystrom, an insular man with few relations and few friends, kept it to himself.

The voice was so persuasive. When he followed its directives, he was overwhelmed by a sense of accomplishment and success. He travelled the world in looping paths, often retreading the same cities, the same waters. It mattered little, he was content. He performed odd tasks, slashing tires, breaking windows, building snowmen outside random homes in the night, starting barfights, buying books, burning paintings, delivering packages. It mattered little, he was content. He murdered. It mattered little, he was content.

Nystrom is, unwittingly and uncaring, insulated against interruptions in his tasks or the consequences of his actions by the Exalted Circle. Should the Circle ever fail. It matters little. As long as the master is obeyed.

EMIL NYSTROM

Cultist of Cthulhu

STR 13 CON 13 DEX 14 INT 10 POW 10 CHA 10

HP 13 WP 13 SAN 0 BREAKING POINT N/A

MOTIVATIONS AND DISORDERS Obey the Master

Obey the Master

SKILLS Accounting 30%, Alertness 30%, Athletics 50%, Craft (Electrician) 50%, Craft (Mechanic) 50%, Demolitions 23%, Firearms 38%, Heavy Machinery 60%, Melee Weapons 67%, Pilot (Sailing Boat) 50%, Pilot (Fishing boat) 50%, Ride (Horseback) 49%, Unarmed Combat 50%, Unnatural 2%

ATTACKS Sig Sauer M11 38% Damage 1D10

Pipe Wrench 67% Damage 1D6

Unarmed 50% Damage 1D4

RITUALS KNOWN: Breath of the Abyss, Veil of the Sea, Whispers of the Death (Cthulhu), Mountain and Sea, Withering

DREAM-CALL OF CTHULHU: Nystrom's "orders" from his Master often manifest in his dreams, though they occasionally protrude into his mind in his waking life, though these are fleeting and rare. They occasionally inform him of plans against his person. If combat is initiated with Nystrom, the Agents must succeed a luck roll or else Nystrom, impossibly, anticipates their attack. This can (emphasis on "can", not "will") extend also for attempts made to sabotage Nystrom's income, his personal electronics, or to arrest him.

VEIL OF THE SEA: For 4 WP, Nystrom can recite a hymn to Cthulhu that, until he next sleeps, enables him to cloak himself in invisibility so long as a part of him is in direct contact with the sea. This can be if he's over his head in deep ocean water or standing barefoot in the surf. Nystrom knows the ritual off by heart, but keeps the instructions in a water-damaged, beaten coil-bound notepad on his person almost all the time.

An Exploration of the Exalted Circle