THE AMICI DOMITIANI

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Intro

Kenneth Hite's The Fall of Delta Green adapted the setting of Delta Green to the Gumshoe system, winding the clock back to the twilight years of Delta Green as a clandestine, but still "official" organization within the U.S Government, primarily focusing its involvement in the Cold War, specifically, the War in Vietnam. It contains alternate interpretations of existing Delta Green foes and foils - Majestic-12 before it completely lost sight of its mission, the Karotechia before it formalized under Bitterich's direction, The Fate before they Delta Green realized killing Stephen Alzis was an impermanent solution to the problem. 

One of the factions given special attention is the Cult of Transcendence and its satellite cults adding new organizations previously unseen in the Cult's original writeup in Targets of Opportunity. My friends know my opinion on the Cult of Transcendence but I'll iterate on it here for the sake of readers. I have mixed opinions on the Cult of Transcendence. I think the Cult offers a lot of interesting stuff to take apart and use, but as a whole I'm not overly compelled by it. I like the Bishops, and I like the satellite organizations, but all of them working under the enourmous umbrella of a big evil cult of Nyarlathotep rings a little hollow for me.

I'll dedicate a longer post on how I approached the Cult of Transcendence in my personal Delta Green game, but here I'd like to write about one of its Satellite cults that were introduced in Fall of Delta Green: The Amici Domitiani. My take on them, ideas for scenarios and expansions on them, and maybe some sample characters if I have the drive to do that. 

Lore Alterations

"This globally distributed police conspiracy takes its name from the Roman Emperor Domitian, who famously said “I care not for their hate, so long as they fear.” The A.D. (or “Friends of Dom” in some U.S. precincts) provides backup, cover, funding, alibis, and protection both legal and extra legal for cops who go outside the law to terrorize or murder criminals. The Amici use Interpol connections, coded police alerts and bulletins, and informal “retreats” to maintain communications."

- The Fall of Delta Green, pg. 300 

Structure

To start off, in Belli Occulta, my home game from which pretty much all of my current Delta Green content is derived, The Cult of Transcendence does not exist as an organization. This choice was made because of one of the contributing reasons that I don't like the Cult, because in my opinion, they reheat The Fate's nachos. 

The Fate are described in the original Delta Green sourcebook and again later in Eyes Only as one of, if not the, most powerful cults in the entire world. They're given all this gassing up - only for them to basically never be used in any official material. I think the creative energy that went into the Cult of Transcendence could have been used to flesh out and breathe life into The Fate, and so that's what I did. I removed the organization of the Cult of Transcendence, but preserved those of its characters and organizations that I liked, and reflavoured them either as members of The Fate or its clients. The Fate is said to rule over a vast occult underground, so here they are. The motley assortment of cults, corporations, book clubs, sorcerer cabals, and fraternities are those people that are going to Club Apocalypse and pleading for Stephen Alzis to give them an audience. 

So by default, the new A.D answer to no one, but they do often grovel to The Fate for any number of reasons. It's likely through The Fate they get their A. professional connections and contacts, and B. their occult knowledge. Beyond this, there's minimal detail given on the cult's structure. though there are details on its involvement in the mythos.

Mythos Connection

Fall of Delta Green illustrates that the A.D's members gravitate to two Great Old Ones. It explains that the cult absorbed a number of Mormo-worshipping NYPD officers after a cult in New York was "suddenly decapitated" in the 1920s, and remarks that some members of the A.D have embraced worship of Nodens. 

Initially I didn't like either of these because I initially wasn't big into either of these great old ones. I'm still not crazy about Nodens, I feel like he's sort of is a one-trick pony (or I guess a two-trick pony, because he's one of three Great Old Ones that bothers to talk to you like a person, and his other trick is fixated on trying to kill Nyarlathotep through.... some sort of means.). I have eventually come around to the Amici Domitiani having Mormo cultists. It ties in nicely with the old Lovecraft story and adds an interesting dynamic with The Keepers of the Faith and The Fate, which I'll get into later.

One thing I will add is that across the groups I will list below, I find it very plausible that one would see the different "cults" among the A.D cross-pollinating into other nearby chapters. It would even be plausible that larger, more influential chapters project their cult doctrine onto nearby smaller chapters. 

My Take on The A.D

Okay, so with that established, what do I want to do that's meaningfully different from them, or which expands on something that isn't illustrated above. 

Something that's indicated towards in the existing writeup, but which I very much like and would like to expand on, is that the Amici Domitiani are not a cult devoted to one singular great old one. Mormo and Nodens are mentioned, but I think there's tremendous room for others. I don't know that many A.D members are truly "sorcerers" in that they wield magical power (those that do being in thcarry e slim minority), but I think they certainly enjoy the boons of their patron's favour in some form or another. 

Amici Domitiani "rings" are described as "independent but fraternal", to me indicating that "chapters" or "clubhouses" of the A.D are self-governing / autocephalic to some degree, all the better for Rings to develop their own obsessions. Here's a few that I can think up with sample NPCs attached. 

As far as membership goes, the rank system is fairly simple. The A.D recognize three levels of "membership". "Friends" are officers that are generally favorable to the A.D's members and can be trusted to carry out orders on their behalf, though they're kept at arm's length and know nothing of the larger organizations. "Soldiers" are officers who have been read-in to the Amici Domitiani, having been inducted by their clubhouse, taken an oath of secrecy and duty to the group, and undergone a prerequisite hazing ritual. "Centurii" are A.D members who have been appointed as leaders of their clubhouse. Centurii guide the clubhouse, report to the larger organization, and are entitled to vote in A.D meetings discussing future goals . Each Clubhouse is mandated to keep at least three active Centurii. 

That being said, just as each clubhouse is different, they all approach the rank structure differently.

The New York Chapter

Also sometimes referred to as the "Red Hook Chapter" or the "Suydam Lodge". Formed in the 1920s and exploding in size in the 60s-70s thanks to the NYPD's Red Squads, the A.D Clubhouse is primarily a cult of Mormo. Through gathering of funds (their own money, plus whatever they can rake together from skimming off drug-busts and civil forfeitures), they managed to acquire the manor of the late Robert Suydam and transform it into their clubhouse. Police union meetings and other social events are hosted there, but on special nights, only "qualified" guests are permitted entry.

Activities

The New York Chapter is one of the largest chapters in America, as well the one with the largest concentration "cultist" members. Nearly half of their Soldiers (and all of their Centurii) know of and have participated in the occult rituals to Mormo and Lilith. In a sound-proofed basement under the old Suydam mansion, they keep a shrine to Mormo and her avatar, Lilith. They brutalize and murder "convenient" targets there as offerings (unreported arrests, folks they figure no one is going to miss). The New York Chapter keeps a vast network of Friends that act as spies and informants through the NYPD. These "Friends" are cops whose careers were put at hazard by their indiscretion, but who were saved by a favour from the Amici Domitiani. A lot of NYPD cops owe "favours" to the Amici Domitiani. They are also the ones sent as delegates to Club Apocalypse to treat with The Fate. 

Members

The leaders of the clubhouse have long since retired, and use their pensions and the club's funds to live as full-time priests of Mormo in seclusion, consulting with Robert Suydam's old Witch's Familiar for guidance. One of the more popular members of the club is Lieutenant Robert "Rocky" Fabian. Fabian has been initiated into the higher occult secrets of the New York Clubhouse and actively participates in ritual sacrifices to Mormo. Although he isn't as senior, and isn't the highest authority in the clubhouse, his charisma and strength, as well as his absolute cutthroat ruthlessness, give him an air of authority that, in his comrades' eyes, qualify him as a strong leader. Fabian, as well as his retired predecessors, are all Centurii. 

Lieutenant Robert "Rocky" Fabian

NYPD SWAT, Amici Domitiani Centurion

STR 13 CON 13 DEX 11 INT 10 POW 12 CHA 14

HP 13 WP 12 SAN 48 BREAKING POINT 36

MOTIVATIONS / DISORDERS PTSD (Lilith's "Embrace")

Secret Knowledge Gives You Secret Power.

I Don't Care For Your Hatred, Only Your Fear.

SKILLS Alertness 50%, Anthropology 40%, Athletics 50%, Bureaucracy 30%, Craft (Carpentry) 30%, Criminology 30%, Driving 40%, Firearms 50%, HUMINT 40%, Law 40%, Melee Combat 50%, Occult 40%, Persuade 50%, Search 40%, Stealth 30%, Unarmed Combat 50%, Unnatural 10%.

ATTACKS Beretta Medium Pistol 50%, Damage 1D10

M4 Carbine 50%, Damage 1D12, Armor Piercing 3

Mossberg 500 50%, Damage 2D8 (shooting buck), Damage 1D6+Stun (shooting beanbag rounds)

Sacrificial Dagger 50% Damage 1D6+1, Armor Piercing 3

Baton 50%, Damage 1D6

RITUALS Call Forth Those From Beyond (Witch's Familiar, Lilith), Exaltation of the Flesh, Open Gate. 

Lieutenant Robert Fabian is a caucasian man of average height and heavy build. He has a round face with brown eyes and brown hair, and he often wears a moustache and wire frame glasses. He doesn't drink and doesn't smoke. His smile is warm, but practiced, and falls from his face as soon as he doesn't think he's being seen. As one of the chief priests of Lilith, he's expected to engage in tantric ceremonies with the gruesome avatar of the godling in her extradimensional lair. These acts of congress have left their mark on him: agents that tackle / grapple / embrace Fabian freak him the fuck out, and he scrambles to escape them rather than continue to fight. 

The 11th District Police Station

Also called the "Chicago Chapter", or just "The 11th". Detailed on page 304 of Fall of Delta Green. The burgeoning cult of Nyogtha at the 11th District Police Station in Chicago, IL, would make for a natural addition to the A.D. Extrapolating from the writeup, its members (at least, those who've been "gifted" by their patron, Nyogtha) are blessed with the power to see in darkness, and with the ability to see and read "auras", discerning a person's motives, intentions, ... guilt.

Activities

The 11th Station focus primarily on mundane criminal enterprise and shielding themselves, and other policemen who they see as promising candidates, from disciplinary action or investigation. Unlike New York, only a small core of members within the 11th practice the occult. Most of those members are Soldiers. 

Members

The 11th Station's centurion, Captain George Grant, is actually relatively virgin to the mythos, and is content to keep his role as leader of his chapter free of the sorcery that he's seen other Centurii indulge in. He's seen what it leads to, and he's not interested in it. Two of Grant's Soldiers, Sergeants Frank Kozak and Ethan Meredith, spend most of their free time in the district's basement, contemplating Nyogtha. Kozak has become seduced by the promise of its power, while Meredith has become a full-on zealot to the "God Under the Precinct". Kozak has contented himself to brutalize and sacrifice unfortunates to Nyogtha whenever he thinks the opportunity is ripe. Meredith's ambitions are towards the 7th District's headquarters, "Bloody Maxwell". He's been lead to believe its sub-basements are more closely connected to Nyogtha's realm, and would make for a perfect temple to his god. 

Sergeant Frank Kozak

Chicago Police, Amici Domitiani Soldier

STR 12 CON 12 DEX 10 INT 9 POW 8 CHA 7

HP 12 WP 15 SAN 24 BREAKING POINT 16

BONDS Sergeant Ethan Meredith (partner), 4

MOTIVATIONS / DISORDERS Totemic Compulsion (The Dark Bowl)

Fugues

This Isn't Cruelty, It's Payback.

I've Only Seen One Thing That's Ever Scared Me: I Worship It. 

They'll Look Up to me and Scream "Save Us", and I'll Whisper "No". 

SKILLS Alertness 50%, Art (Music) 30%, Criminology 50%, Drive 50%, Firearms 40%, HUMINT 50%, Law 30%, Persuade 50%, Search 30%, Stealth 30%, Unarmed Combat 50%, Unnatural 5%. 

ATTACKS Service Pistol 40%, Damage 1D10.

Winchester Shotgun 60%, Damage 2D8 (firing buck). 

THE DARK BOWL This polished singing bowl never leaves Kozak's side, even on patrol. When used in perfect, subterranean darkness, it beckons Nyogtha from the depths of earth. Kozak treats this something like a dinner bell for his patron to feed on freshly clobbered unfortunates. Using the bowl costs 1 POW from the operator, or 10 HP of damage inflicted on a human sacrifice. 

RITUALS Soothing Song, Song of Power, Healing Balm (Ia! Nyogtha!), Hunger of Ammit

Sergeant Frank Kozak is a broad-shouldered caucasian man with a crew cut and sunglasses. He used to rock a wicked tan, though with all the time he's been spending in the basement, he's starting to get real pasty. While plumming the depths of the tunnels beneath the 11th, he came across a singing bowl that he began to deploy in his rituals to Nyogtha. Using the bowl to meditate, he's begun to learn new ways of wielding the terrible power of the Dweller in the Darkness. Nyogtha's power has enabled him to vent out a lifetime's worth of frustration on those that won't be missed. Kozak has been angling to kidnap and sacrifice his alcoholic stepfather to Nyogtha, the source of much of his frustration. Kozak's mind has started to wander, especially during ablutions to the God Below The Precinct, but its even started to crop up when he's on stakeout. 

Sergeant Ethan Meredith

Chicago Police, Amici Domitiani Soldier

STR 13 CON 11 DEX 12 INT 11 POW 10 CHA 10

HP 12 WP 10 SAN 30 BREAKING POINT 20

BONDS Penelope Meredith (Wife), 5

Ryan & Dahlia Meredith (Son & Daughter), 3

Sergeant Frank Kozak (partner), 3

MOTIVATIONS / DISORDERS Agoraphobia

Mania (Religious Ecstacy)

Bask in the Bright Darkness

Once You've Seen God, You Understand What They Meant Be "We're All in His Image"

Through me, an Ultimate Will is Realized

SKILLS Alertness 60%, Archeology 50%, Bureaucracy 40%, Criminology 40%, Dodge 50%, Drive 50%, Firearms 60%, Forensics 30%, History 50%, HUMINT 50%, Law 30%, Melee Weapons 50%, Military Science (Land) 20%, Navigate 40%, Persuade 60%, Search 65%, Stealth 60%, Unarmed Combat 70%, Unnatural 15%.

ATTACKS Service Pistol 60%, Damage 1D10.

Armalite AR-18 60% Damage 1D12, Armor Piercing 3.

Sawed-off Winchester Shotgun 80%, Damage 2D8 (shooting shot). 

AURA SIGHT Meredith's contemplation of Nyogtha has granted him with an ability to see "auras" around people he's near. Meredith believes he can read the aura to detect guilt and criminal intent, what the auras actually correlate to is the target's SAN level. It also grants him a +20% to HUMINT checks to detect fear, deception, and anger in others. Meredith is generally going to be more suspicious of Agents with a lower SAN level, as he thinks he detects guilt and ill intent in them. 

RITUALS Voorish Sign, Open Gate, Finding, See the Other Sign, The Primal Lay

The first time Ethan Meredith witnessed Nyogtha boil from the grates in the wall of the 11th's sub-basement and consuming a bloodied, howling victim, it filled him with a feeling he still cannot describe. "Awe" approaches it. When Meredith thinks about it, he often thinks back to his pop talking about the "unearthly quiet" he experienced in the pits of that West Virginia coal mine. "Even though you were closer to hell", he'd often say, "in the dark, there were times you swore you were crouched in the margins of heaven". Meredith adores Nyogtha. In Nyogtha, he believes he sees god's likeness, and in its roiling chaos, he believes he sees the blueprint of the world entire. He believes his and the Amici Domitiani's purpose goes beyond earthly law, and he's begun to ponder how to guide the group towards more "high-minded" goals. Try as he may to keep up with his professional and familial responsibilities. Professionally, he's on top of his game: his newly acquired "powers" thanks to his god have made him one of the most successful investigators in the entire Chicago police department. On the family front, however, things are beginning to slip.... Recently, he's been tempted to take Ryan with him to the 7th District's sub-basement, and show him daddy's God himself. Maybe he'll take the whole family. 

The Cottonmouth Club

This Californian chapter of the Amici derives its name from Cottonmouth Ranch, an isolated piece of property near the north shore of Isabella Lake in Southeastern California. The majority of the Cottonmouth Club's members are employed by the California Highway Patrol in the Southeastern area of the state.

Activities

The Cottonmouth Club's activities, as one might expect, centre around the latticework of highways that criss-cross Southern California. Club members stalk the highways day and night looking for victims. These days, it's hitch-hikers and drifters. 

Whereas other chapters of the Amici Domitiani resort of truncheons, guns, or knives to do their ritual murder, the Cottonmouth Club their own unique way. Victims are taken out to Cottonmouth Ranch and kept in a bedroom in the basement where they're fed with food spiked with psychedelics. The Club keeps their victims there for about a week - it gives them time to assemble a "perimeter party", and gives them time to monitor the reaction to their victims disappearance. If they've accidentally snatched some wealthy heiress, or a relative of the secretary of defense, they have time to let them go and let the heat cool off. They typically give their victims a great big dose of LSD or some other psychedelic right before they let them go so whatever memories they have will be that much more distorted (and less plausible, 'I swear, Elvis and the machine elves were there! You got to believe me!'). But if nothing seems to happen, they wait until enough members have congregated before they move to make their offering. 

Their method of ritual murder is to dump their victim at a sacred "killing ground" the mountains late at night. The aforementioned "perimeter party" stands watch around the killing ground to keep their victim on the grounds like sheepdogs. In the center of the killing ground, not far from where they drop you off, is a ring of great and high standing stones. The stones are older than any culture known to have lingered in this region with ineffable (and quite faded) petroglyphs across their surface. Strange noises echo out from those grounds on certain nights, and even Cottonmouth Club members are loath to linger there alone after dark. Something immense and invisible dwells there, though it only seems to stir at night, and whatever it is, it appears to be almost completely invisible to the naked eye.

Members

Most Soldiers of the Cottonmouth Club know that something alien and evil lingers on the land near Cottonmouth Ranch, and when they do a turn watching the perimeter on offering nights, they're given a serious warning - don't follow it. Most brush it off until they're confronted by the ghostly, mangled corpse of a hitch hiker glide serenely towards them, beckoning them to venture further into the killing grounds. Some claim they don't even see hitchhikers, but instead see their wives, parents, children.

The Club's Centurion, Laird Keech, and a selected few of his soldiers, occasionally venture out into the field on certain nights to commune with the killing ground's invisible denizen - which most of them just refer to as "El Diablo". El Diablo appears to them on such nights, communicating through a "puppet" of a mangled corpse of one of its victims. El Diablo is said to offer insights from the minds of its victims, which have allowed the Club to collect on stashes of drugs and cash that their victims left behind elsewhere in the country. 

Captain Laird Keech 

STR 10 CON 9 DEX 16 INT 12 POW 10 CHA 9

HP 10 WP 10 SAN 30 BREAKING POINT 20

MOTIVATIONS / DISORDERS Addiction (Devil's Nectar)

Addiction (Alcohol)

I Don't Need Your Big City Meddling in my Small Town Life.

What's a Man Got to do to Get Some Goddamn Peace and Quiet Around Here.

SKILLS  Alertness 50%, Athletics 40%, Bureaucracy 40%, Criminology 50%, Computer Science 25%, Demolitions 40%, Disguise 50%, Drive 40%, Firearms 40%, Foreign Language (Spanish) 45%, HUMINT 60%, Persuade 60%, Search 40%, SIGINT 40%, Stealth 50%, Swim 30%, Unarmed Combat 50%.

ATTACKS AMT Hardballer Medium Pistol 40%, Damage 1D10

M1 Carbine 40% Damage 1D12, Armor Piercing 3

Ithaca 37 Shotgun 60% Damage 2D8 (shooting buck)

Captain Laird Keech is a tall and thin man with a gaunt face and a heavy brow that gives him something of a ghoulish look to him, even in uniform. He takes his role deadly serious and has little humour about him. When not working, he prefers to linger at Cottonmouth Ranch drinking beer and abusing "Devil's Nectar", a concoction of fruit juice, homogenized milk, and mescaline derived from a the peyote cacti he cultivates on the land. He spikes the food of his prisoners with mescaline. As per El Diablo's direction, he has fertilized some of the peyote on his land with the mutilated corpse of El Diablo's corpse-puppets. The mescaline harvested from such plants has a much stranger effect on him - namely, it has allowed him to see El Diablo's true form in all its horror. El Diablo has insisted that its victims be fed the concoction, claiming it gives the meat a more desirable "flavour". 

What is El Diablo?

Up to you. It could be:

• The Moon Head (from Dennis' blog).
• A Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath.
• Yig, or a Serpent Person.
• A Lloigor.
• A mask of Nyarlathotep, perhaps the Haunter of the Dark.

Cossacks

The Amici Domitiani chapter known as the Cossacks are spread across the Canadian prairies from Manitoba to Alberta. The Cossacks descend from a small clade of Russian Kotura (also known as Itla-Shua) cultists that fled to Canada from Russia to escape the persecution of the Tsars and later the Bolsheviks. They had hidden themselves among the Doukhobors and later the Sons of Freedom splinter-sect, which offered them a temporary cloak to mask their activities, but which later came back to bite them when the RCMP cracked down on the Sons of Freedom and shipped off the children of their members to Residential schools to have the love of Lord Jesus Christ beaten into them.  From the 1930s, the so-called "Cossacks" acted basically as their own, disconnected cult. In the 60s, they encountered the Amici Domitiani through the now-defunct Edmonton Chapter, and were brought into the larger murder cult. 

Activities

The Cossacks (a name given to themselves as a nod to their shared Russian heritage) are unique among the Amici Domitiani chapter in that they are not only a cult that recruits within the police, but they're also a familial cult, grooming their own children into becoming future cultists. The "Cossacks" chapter of the A.D move around from place to place, and rarely convene en masse except for large scale rituals. Unlike some other chapters of the Amici Domitiani, the Cossacks are uninterested in focusing their efforts on "criminal enterprises" and use their authority in the RCMP strictly to cover up their activities as a bona fide murder cult. 

 

The primary artifact of the Cossacks are the skeletal remains of Thralls of Kotura. These skeletal remains are imbued with the ruinous essence of Kotura, which the Cossacks use for various ritual purposes. The femur bones are wielded by the Cossacks' two Centurii as symbols of authority and as ritual weapons - the femurs are used to bludgeon sacrificial victims to death in honour of Kotura. The other bones are used primarily in the ritual "birth" of the Thrall, in which a willing victim ingests a bone fragment and is slowly frozen to death from the inside out by the bone's supernatural chill. This is often seen as a holy rite for senior cultists who've earned great favour with Kotura.

Members

As stated before, the Cossacks don't have a central clubhouse or city they all share. Most of their members are isolated, working in secrecy in RCMP detachments across the prairies, moving from city to city every few years. Some have settled down in order to raise children - the next generation of the cult. The two Centurii of the cult share the sacred femur-clubs of Kotura, and are responsible for conducting ablutions and rituals to the Walker in the Wind for their brothers and sisters in the cult. 

Lieutenant Leonid "Leon" Banin

RCMP Officer, Amici Domitiani Centurion

STR 12 CON 12 DEX 14 INT 14 POW 15 CHA 7

HP 12 WP 15 SAN 45 BREAKING POINT 30

BONDS Daniel Banin (Brother) 5
Shaun Banin (son) 5
Leah Banin (daughter) 5

MOTIVATIONS / DISORDERS Totemic Compulsion (Sacred Femur)

Obsession (Fight Me Like a Man)

Protector of Kotura's Realm

Keep the Family Together 

SKILLS  Accounting 60%, Alertness 50%, Bureaucracy 60%, Criminology 70%, Disguise 50%, Drive 50%, Firearms 30%, Forensics 50%, HUMINT 60%, Law 70%, Melee Weapons 70%, Persuade 50%, Ride 50% Search 70%, Unarmed Combat 60%, Unnatural 20%

ATTACKS Service Pistol 30% Damage 1D10

Colt Carbine 30% Damage 1D12, Armor Piercing 3

Cattle Prod 50% Damage 1D4+Stun

Sacred Femur 50% Damage 1D8 (see 'SACRED FEMUR')

SACRED FEMUR This femur from a Thrall of Kotura / Wendigowak has been passed down through the generations. The femur is unnaturally resistant to physical harm and is unnaturally cold all the time. Nothing can alter its temperature, and it will begin to freeze anything its brought into contact with, including human flesh. Corpses slain with the femur descend to below freezing temperatures. Whoever wields the femur can descend to extreme low temperatures without experiencing any ill effects. 

RITUALS Whispers of the Dead (Itla-Shua), Storm and Stillness.

Leonid Banin has served at the RCMP detachment in Fort McMurray for over ten years, sticking it out through thick and thin. He is actually considered something of a model citizen by the community. Looking up his photo shows that he was even featured on an article on the CBC for selfless acts taken to protect friends and neighbors during the 2016 Fort McMurray Wildfire. Many ascribe his frequent facebook posts about environmentalism and green energy to his experiences back then. But his fixation with the great Canadian wilderness goes further back than 2016, and he's done a lot more about it than just share articles on his social media. He's killed. Banin feels an overwhelming compulsion to safeguard the domain of his god by punishing transgressors. For years, he's contented himself to taking out these compulsions on drunk oil workers and roughnecks that get turned around after too many drinks on a weekend. Over the years, Banin's killed twelve people this way, seven were just roughnecks that worked the platforms, two were administrative staff, two were welders, one was a petrochemical engineer. The deaths were chalked up to exposure caused by drunkenness and the unforgiving Albertan winter. No corpses have ever been found. 

Banin secretly resents his inability to do more to protect his god's realm. Lately, he's been dreaming up a plan to summon the Cossacks to Fort McMurray and enact a ritual that would summon his god in its full power, and destroy the city with its power. 

Setpiece: Highway Interdiction

This came up in discussion and I wanted to include it. 

If the Cossacks decide to ambush your Agents, give this a shot. While your agents are on the highway, a blizzard comes on with unbelievable speed and severity, and visibility quickly drops. As they continue, cars that had slid off the highway, and pileups have put things in a deadlock. Of course, this was the doing of the Cossacks casting Storm and Stillness. While your agents deal with the horrific blizzard, Cossacks on horseback approach them bearing rifles to hunt and kill them in the whiteout. Their horses wear fetish charms made from Thralls of Kotura to keep them from freezing to death in the cold.