The Story So Far

The mission team operating under the codename SHELTER met at the NSA headquarters building in Fort Meade, Maryland. They were introduced to one of their three administrators, codenamed Y, a highly ranked NSA official. Y told them of the theft of a secret encryption system known as WAVER, taken from a NSA front company in Baltimore. He identified the thief as a professional corporate spy named Rebecca Van Lewton, and the team was given the task of locating Van Lewton and recovering WAVER. Upon their arrival in Baltimore, however, they found that Van Lewton had been shot and killed during a Project Pitfall raid on her apartment.

Pitfall claimed to have targeted Van Lewton as an agent of the terrorist group Banshee Net, but the team found no proof to back this up. Investigating Van Lewton's associates, they learned that she had been hired to steal WAVER through a criminal contact named Sonny Charlton. Negotiating with Charlton, they discovered that he had in turn been hired by Avery Mitchell, husband of Senator Gwen Lockheart and a highly ranked agent of Project Pitfall. Tailing Mitchell and doing surveillance on his home, the team was able to learn that he was selling classified intelligence secrets to a group known as the Peace Cartel. The team gathered evidence of Mitchell's treason and encountered operatives of the Peace Cartel, including a former associate of Simon's named Johnathan Roberts. Carter came into contact with an encryption expert on the internet, learning what he could about WAVER. He discovered, among other things, that the code related to one he'd personally come across from a suspicious website. Grabbing WAVER before Mitchell could exchange it with the criminal organization's representatives, they foiled the Cartel's plans. Y then used the evidence of Mitchell's secret activities to blackmail him into providing SHELTER with information on Pitfall activities as well as reducing Pitfall interference in future SHELTER operations.

The team's next mission, given by a CIA supervisor codenamed 'X', involved a branch of the Franchise known as The Apothecary, a drug organization that was trading in biochemical agents on the black market. The team was to meet Apothecary operative Nelson Grakos, an amoral and hedonistic drug designer, and try to learn the location of an illegal hot lab used in creating lethal toxins. Arriving in New York City, they adopted the guises of an Albanian smuggler and his entourage, and managed to get an invitation to one of Grakos' infamous parties in his downtown penthouse. As part of the arrangement, however, they were tasked with killing a former associate of Grakos named Tommy Laredo. Laredo was an accountant for his operation who had become a security risk through heroin addiction. Locating Laredo in the vicinity of Coney Island, they captured him. Planning to escort Laredo to an agency safehouse, they were interrupted by the arrival of crooked NYPD Narcotics Detective Larry Bloch. Bloch tried to negotiate for a piece of the action, but he eventually gave up, warning the team to watch their backs.

After some surveillance of the heavily secured penthouse, the team attended the weekend party Grakos was throwing. During the party they saw Grakos meet with representatives of an Indonesian terrorist group known as True Faith. Damian recognized Grakos' live-in girlfriend, Katja, as being connected with a Russian organized crime figure he had investigated while with the FBI. Katja in turn revealed to Bill that she recognized him as a friend of a friend, a KGB operative Bill had encountered during his time in Serbia. Katja stated that she and this mutual acquaintance were actually with the Krypt, and that she was under orders to make sure nothing untoward happened to Grakos or his organization. She also hinted that Bill's agency was not all that it seemed. Meanwhile, Charlotte and Damian accessed Grakos' office and his personal computer. After downloading encrypted files on the hot lab and the deal The Apothecary was making with the Indonesian terrorists, the team quietly left the party.

Finding that the hot lab was hidden within an apparently abandoned hospital in the Bronx, the team identified the security and power set up for the facility. After Simon had a close call with a guard, Damian sabotaged the power to the hot lab and the team surrounded its exits, threatening to set it on fire if the Apothecary guards inside did not surrender. After the team lit one door, the Apothecary operatives attempted to flee, and the SHELTER team was able to subdue three of them and kill a fourth. A fifth one was wounded but escaped from the scene. The team quickly sabotaged the equipment in the laboratory, destroyed the more dangerous samples inside, and set the entire facility on fire. The team reported their mission success to X and were told to await further orders. Charlotte was redeployed to a different cell.

In the period between missions, Carter received an email from the username "BigNothing", a contact he made during his investigation into WAVER. The email was asking Carter and his teammates for a favor on behalf of BigNothing's unnamed backers. An agent of theirs was injured, hiding from Project Pitfall, and needed to be escorted safely to a container vessel in the Atlantic Ocean. In exchange for this favor, BigNothing offered to provide intel related to the team's personal mysteries. Carter approached the others about this offer, and they agreed to take part in the rescue operation. Finding the safehouse, they met Yvette Brown (probably an alias), a young woman who had been shot in the leg and who was somewhat delirious. After tending to her injury, they got her into a car and talked their way past a police checkpoint, escaping the area before a Pitfall strike team arrived at the safehouse. The team drove to a dock where a boat was prepared to take them out to the container ship. On their way to the boat, however, they were attacked by a hit squad composed of a sniper and several assaulters using a speedboat. Carter was injured in the ensuing shootout, and a security guard and several assaulters were killed. Searching the bodies, the team found an old photograph of Simon Jordan in one assassin's possession.

The team left the dock and found a rental boat at another location, taking it out to meet the container ship before it left the coast. Aboard the Pearl of Tangiers, Carter, Damian, and Simon handed Yvette over to a man who called himself "Marin". Marin didn't offer many explanations, but did give the team an envelope filled with intelligence data. The data included, among other things, surveillance on Jonathan Roberts, pictures of ex-CIA station chief Francis Prosper, and an assessment of SHELTER. The latter was a fully decrypted version of the same file Carter had intercepted and tried to decrypt earlier, and it implied that SHELTER was in fact a cover operation for the organization known as the Shadow Patriots. The team decided to hand over all of the other intel, keeping the assessment secret from their control for the time being.

Campaign Qualities

I've decided to apply the following Campaign Qualities to the first Season of this game:

Clandestine (+0 XP) Each time a player character gains any non-Covert feat choice, he may choose a Covert feat instead.

Robert Hanssen: Tell me five things about yourself, four of them true.

Eric O'Neill: I'm sorry?

Robert Hanssen: It's a game we used to play, at the subanalytical unit. Keep ourselves sharp. It's lie detection.

Eric O'Neill: Oh. I don't think I'd be much good at bluffing.

Robert Hanssen: That would've counted as your lie, right there.

- Breach (2007)

Faction (+0 XP) All player characters are subject to the Faction gear rules. Further, Faction characters may only gain Reputation, not Net Worth. Finally, the Freelance campaign quality may not also be in effect.

Joseph Palmi: You're the guys that scare me. You're the people that make big wars.

Edward Wilson: No, we make sure the wars are that it will somehow find a way to break this cycle and finally land a crippling blow. Only time will tell.

Goals: 3 (Meddling, Protection, Secrecy)

History: 3 (Allies, Enemies, Rivals)

Image: 5 (Secretive goals, Mysterious methods, Secretive leaders, Secretive members, On record sites)

Sites: 5 (Classroom, COMSEC Center, Hospital, Records Office, Satellite Network)

Tools: 6 (E-IV, G-II, R-IV, S-IV, T-V, V-III, W-IV)

Mission

Life During Wartime

Heard of a van that is loaded with weapons

packed up and ready to go

Heard of some gravesites, out by the highway

a place where nobody knows

The sound of gunfire, off in the distance

I'm getting used to it now

- "Life During Wartime", Talking Heads

Campaign Qualities:

Corrupt (-25 XP): Rare is the honorable soul. The GC may not spend action dice to designate characters as honorable during bribes. Further, all Reputation and Net Worth exposure penalties inflicted for violating an honor code are reduced to 1/2 standard, rounded down (see page 436).

Violent (+50 XP): Characters are trained to take head and vital shots whenever possible. The threat ranges of any attack check made by any character — including any NPC — increases by 2.

Caliber: IV

Known Objectives:

Capture or neutralize Jonathan Roberts

Investigate Peace Cartel operation

Sabotage Peace Cartel operation

Reputation Award: 15

Known Exposure Penalties: The following occurrences generate exposure:

Failure to capture or neutralize Jonathan Roberts, -4

Failure to sabotage Peace Cartel operation, -4

Causing a national incident, -6

Recommended Gear Picks: Dossier, Reconnaissance, Smuggling, Training (Drive, Tactics), Translator, Vehicle (off-road or rotary-wing), Weapons (lethal and non-lethal)

Mission Bundle: None

Gear Restrictions: None

Action Dice

Carter: 4

Damian: 3

Hailee: 3

John: 5

Simon: 3

GC: 16

Mission Gear

Spending Cash Pool: $921

Fragile Playlist

The following is an iTunes playlist I concocted for listening to while working on the game:

1. Dangerous World, Mychael Danna, Breach

2. Gimme Shelter, The Rolling Stones, Let It Bleed

3. The Drive to Paris, John Powell, The Bourne Identity

4. Everybody's Been Burned, The Byrds, Younger Than Yesterday

5. New Memories, John Powell, The Bourne Supremacy

6. Signal to Noise, Peter Gabriel, Up

7. License: 2 Kills, David Arnold, Casino Royale

8. Life During Wartime, Talking Heads, Fear of Music

9. Assets and Targets, John Powell, The Bourne Ultimatum

10. Happiness is a Warm Gun, The Beatles, The White Album

11. The Lighthouse, Amon Tobin, Chaos Theory: Splinter Cell 3

12. Thinking of Marie, John Powell, The Bourne Ultimatum

13. Code of Silence, Bruce Springsteen, The Essential Bruce Springsteen

14. Man Versus Man, John Powell, The Bourne Ultimatum

15. The Man Who Sold the World, David Bowie, The Man Who Sold The World

16. Paint It Black, The Rolling Stones, Aftermath

17. Faces Without Names, John Powell, The Bourne Ultimatum

18. Wish You Were Here, Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here

Sources of Inspiration

The Bourne Identity (film)

The Bourne Supremacy (film)

The Bourne Ultimatum (film)

The Ipcress File (film)

Queen and Country (comic book)

The Sandbaggers (TV series)

Spy Game (film)

SHELTER:Main Page

Contents

The Story So Far

Campaign Qualities

Mission

Action Dice

Mission Gear

Fragile Playlist

Sources of Inspiration

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