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Delta Green RPG
Delta Green: The Labyrinth
Mystery Attracts Mystery
Born of the U.S. government’s 1928 raid on the degenerate coastal town of Innsmouth, Massachusetts, the covert agency known as Delta Green opposes the forces of darkness with honor but without glory. Delta Green agents fight to save humanity from unnatural horrors—often at a shattering personal cost.
Delta Green: The Labyrinth takes Delta Green agents beyond the beltway and deep into the fissures of America in the new millennium. From the loathsome servitors of the 1% to the hardscrabble faithful of the Rust Belt, from the abusive warrens of the Internet to the lonely chambers of every human heart, from the toxic legacy of the Cold War to the doomed idealists trapped in a world they cannot save, American life has entered a labyrinth of twisty passages all alike. And while there are many ways in, there is no way out.
Written by Delta Green co-creator John Scott Tynes, this all-new collection of organizations presents ready-made sources of allies, enemies, mysteries, and surprises for your Delta Green campaign: Center for the Missing Child…The Dream Syndicate…Agent Renko…The Witness Alliance…New Life Fertility…The Lonely…The Sowers…and The Prana Sodality.
Each group has its own story arc, progressing through three stages as it encounters Delta Green agents and the evils they fight. Some groups corrode, wither, and die. Others gain hideous strength and uncover profound new horrors. Each has connections to other groups, ensuring that players find fresh hells at every turn. But all are destined to change. The journey each one takes holds up a mirror to the agents themselves.
Because things fall apart. The center cannot hold. And once you enter the Labyrinth, you will never escape.
The Labyrinth is a sourcebook for Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game, available from Arc Dream Publishing.
Born of the U.S. government’s 1928 raid on the degenerate coastal town of Innsmouth, Massachusetts, the covert agency known as Delta Green opposes the forces of darkness with honor but without glory. Delta Green agents fight to save humanity from unnatural horrors—often at a shattering personal cost.
Delta Green: The Labyrinth takes Delta Green agents beyond the beltway and deep into the fissures of America in the new millennium. From the loathsome servitors of the 1% to the hardscrabble faithful of the Rust Belt, from the abusive warrens of the Internet to the lonely chambers of every human heart, from the toxic legacy of the Cold War to the doomed idealists trapped in a world they cannot save, American life has entered a labyrinth of twisty passages all alike. And while there are many ways in, there is no way out.
Written by Delta Green co-creator John Scott Tynes, this all-new collection of organizations presents ready-made sources of allies, enemies, mysteries, and surprises for your Delta Green campaign: Center for the Missing Child…The Dream Syndicate…Agent Renko…The Witness Alliance…New Life Fertility…The Lonely…The Sowers…and The Prana Sodality.
Each group has its own story arc, progressing through three stages as it encounters Delta Green agents and the evils they fight. Some groups corrode, wither, and die. Others gain hideous strength and uncover profound new horrors. Each has connections to other groups, ensuring that players find fresh hells at every turn. But all are destined to change. The journey each one takes holds up a mirror to the agents themselves.
Because things fall apart. The center cannot hold. And once you enter the Labyrinth, you will never escape.
The Labyrinth is a sourcebook for Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game, available from Arc Dream Publishing.
182 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
September 20, 2019
Is it a good book? Yes. Does it live up to the hype? I am not sure. After the Handler's Guide left me with the impression that most of the ingenious stuff that made old DG so interesting in the first place (MAJESTIC-12, the Karotechia, OUTLOOK, etc.) was destroyed without giving the handler new metaplot-relevant material to utilize for their own campaigns I placed high hopes that this book would finally carry on the torch and might even be a worthy successor to the incredible work that was Countdown. But in the end you get four antagonistic and four potential friendly organizations for DG of varying quality, each of which change through their growing knowledge of the unnatural by being in contact with DG. One can furthermore link them together to create the eponymous labyrinth but I will mostly ignore this and briefly go through them one by one:
Potential Allies
- Center for the Missing Child
A nonprofit dedicated to the cause of missing, exploited and murdered children. The general idea is not bad but the capacities of this organization are very specific and I don't really see an easy way to integrate them into a campaign as long as it is not centered around missing children. Perhaps God's Teeth (if it is ever going to be released) will be a good fit for this. Furthermore it is not really new - something like this organization could easily have existed in the 90s. 3.5/5
- Dream Syndicate
An online group of people who have identical dreams of unnatural events. The premise is intriguing and I really like the distinctively modern tone of the plot which revolves around the two admins/moderators of the board. Something like this would not easily work in the 90s. Still it is again difficult to see how this might be integrated into a DG-campaign. The provided hooks don't seem very convincing. Why on earth should a high-school wannabe-hacker be able to provide the group with information they can't easily get by their own research, especially if one of the players is a computer scientist? Instead one might use the presented ideas for a modern CoC scenario with more mundane characters. 3.5/5
- Agent Renko
A GRU SV-8 agent who is surveiling the agents and tries to steal information or artifacts from the Program. Or is he actually willing to defect and allow DG to gather a plethora of intelligence on their russian competitors? I really like this "organization". The premise is creative and presents a useful way to integrate the GRU into a running campaign. The idea for first contact with Renko is amazing and I am already looking forward to use him. The only weird thing is that for a certain necessary escalation of the relationship between Renko and the agents a trip to Ukraine is required and no sane agent would do this based on the given information and motivation because the whole operation is obviously a trap. It is not, actually, but that doesn't make it better. Still very useful. 4/5
- The Witness Alliance
Some kind of weird mashup of the SPLC and the State Security of the former GDR. Maybe I am on the wrong side of the culture war but the organization itself is a social-justicey trainwreck which I have hard time to consider to be part of "the good guys" (which the text heavily implies they actually are). I appreciate that there is at least a single questionable NPC in the organization who characterizes the more problematic aspects of the modern regressive left but he is almost comically evil compared to the other reasonable and well-intentioned people at the WA. A more greyish tone might have made all of this more bearable. Furthermore the plot surrounding it is the same old story of "everybody who fights the unnatural will see his complete life fall apart piece by piece". As the Karotechia is gone this write-up in addition presents the only information on political extremism and the mythos in the present. And from this perspective it is just utterly disappointing as well as besides some really bland, uninspiring and unhelpful comments concerning so called "Neo-Völkische" (1-2 lone wolves among them who might be in contact with the unnatural) we learn absolutely nothing. 1/5
Enemies
- New Life Fertility
A private company which provides infallible fertility services based on IVF (and Shub-Niggurath) to the global elite, whose offspring are not what they might seem... This is actually a really interesting organization with many potential uses. Without time constraints I'd love to write a campaign on them. 4/5
- The Lonely
Unnatural lonely people interacting online and haunted by a mysterious book... Not bad and indeed a creative use of the King in Yellow. However after reading Impossible Landscapes I am tempted to compare both interpretations of this great entity of the mythos and then The Lonely don't evoke the feelings I most strongly associate with the KiY. 3/5
- The Sowers
A Christian fundamentalist sect in the Rust Belt is building self-reliant communities with the help of Nyarlathotep and will retaliate against DG using some really good lawyers and a PR-firm? Sounds like fun! Indeed I like the Sowers but unfortunately due to the fact that they are only active in a certain locale one would have to play a campaign which focuses on this area in the first place or write a story which only concentrates on the Sowers. This however is as time consuming as with NLF. 4/5
- The Prada Sodality
A new-age nonprofit at a remote compound in Washington State has developed an energy healing technology in an old ICBM silo to help people get healthy. Throw in a joint venture of GRU SV-8 and March Technologies as well as the Lloigor and you got all you need for a great campaign! This is by far the best and most extensive part of the book. You get the description of the city Stanton in Washington State including a small selection of NPCs and locales plus some information on the fascinating and violent past of this place. Seriously, this is might be the best setting so far devised for a sandbox-campaign in DG. It is a pity that this chapter did not evolve into its own publication. 50 additional pages (including a more epic finale) and this would have been a system seller. 4.5/5
In conclusion I fear this publication is not quite sure what it wants to be: The chapters on the antagonists (especially Sowers, Prada and NLF) have great ideas but read more like campaign-sketches which need additional work than new shadowy and nefarious organizations which can compare to OUTLOOK, Karotechia or MAJESTIC working in the background. The friendlies are actually more or less interesting and can be incorporated relatively well (sometimes easier, sometimes with more work) into a running campaign. The result is a weird but interesting mix which will require some time by experienced handlers to be used properly in game.
Potential Allies
- Center for the Missing Child
A nonprofit dedicated to the cause of missing, exploited and murdered children. The general idea is not bad but the capacities of this organization are very specific and I don't really see an easy way to integrate them into a campaign as long as it is not centered around missing children. Perhaps God's Teeth (if it is ever going to be released) will be a good fit for this. Furthermore it is not really new - something like this organization could easily have existed in the 90s. 3.5/5
- Dream Syndicate
An online group of people who have identical dreams of unnatural events. The premise is intriguing and I really like the distinctively modern tone of the plot which revolves around the two admins/moderators of the board. Something like this would not easily work in the 90s. Still it is again difficult to see how this might be integrated into a DG-campaign. The provided hooks don't seem very convincing. Why on earth should a high-school wannabe-hacker be able to provide the group with information they can't easily get by their own research, especially if one of the players is a computer scientist? Instead one might use the presented ideas for a modern CoC scenario with more mundane characters. 3.5/5
- Agent Renko
A GRU SV-8 agent who is surveiling the agents and tries to steal information or artifacts from the Program. Or is he actually willing to defect and allow DG to gather a plethora of intelligence on their russian competitors? I really like this "organization". The premise is creative and presents a useful way to integrate the GRU into a running campaign. The idea for first contact with Renko is amazing and I am already looking forward to use him. The only weird thing is that for a certain necessary escalation of the relationship between Renko and the agents a trip to Ukraine is required and no sane agent would do this based on the given information and motivation because the whole operation is obviously a trap. It is not, actually, but that doesn't make it better. Still very useful. 4/5
- The Witness Alliance
Some kind of weird mashup of the SPLC and the State Security of the former GDR. Maybe I am on the wrong side of the culture war but the organization itself is a social-justicey trainwreck which I have hard time to consider to be part of "the good guys" (which the text heavily implies they actually are). I appreciate that there is at least a single questionable NPC in the organization who characterizes the more problematic aspects of the modern regressive left but he is almost comically evil compared to the other reasonable and well-intentioned people at the WA. A more greyish tone might have made all of this more bearable. Furthermore the plot surrounding it is the same old story of "everybody who fights the unnatural will see his complete life fall apart piece by piece". As the Karotechia is gone this write-up in addition presents the only information on political extremism and the mythos in the present. And from this perspective it is just utterly disappointing as well as besides some really bland, uninspiring and unhelpful comments concerning so called "Neo-Völkische" (1-2 lone wolves among them who might be in contact with the unnatural) we learn absolutely nothing. 1/5
Enemies
- New Life Fertility
A private company which provides infallible fertility services based on IVF (and Shub-Niggurath) to the global elite, whose offspring are not what they might seem... This is actually a really interesting organization with many potential uses. Without time constraints I'd love to write a campaign on them. 4/5
- The Lonely
Unnatural lonely people interacting online and haunted by a mysterious book... Not bad and indeed a creative use of the King in Yellow. However after reading Impossible Landscapes I am tempted to compare both interpretations of this great entity of the mythos and then The Lonely don't evoke the feelings I most strongly associate with the KiY. 3/5
- The Sowers
A Christian fundamentalist sect in the Rust Belt is building self-reliant communities with the help of Nyarlathotep and will retaliate against DG using some really good lawyers and a PR-firm? Sounds like fun! Indeed I like the Sowers but unfortunately due to the fact that they are only active in a certain locale one would have to play a campaign which focuses on this area in the first place or write a story which only concentrates on the Sowers. This however is as time consuming as with NLF. 4/5
- The Prada Sodality
A new-age nonprofit at a remote compound in Washington State has developed an energy healing technology in an old ICBM silo to help people get healthy. Throw in a joint venture of GRU SV-8 and March Technologies as well as the Lloigor and you got all you need for a great campaign! This is by far the best and most extensive part of the book. You get the description of the city Stanton in Washington State including a small selection of NPCs and locales plus some information on the fascinating and violent past of this place. Seriously, this is might be the best setting so far devised for a sandbox-campaign in DG. It is a pity that this chapter did not evolve into its own publication. 50 additional pages (including a more epic finale) and this would have been a system seller. 4.5/5
In conclusion I fear this publication is not quite sure what it wants to be: The chapters on the antagonists (especially Sowers, Prada and NLF) have great ideas but read more like campaign-sketches which need additional work than new shadowy and nefarious organizations which can compare to OUTLOOK, Karotechia or MAJESTIC working in the background. The friendlies are actually more or less interesting and can be incorporated relatively well (sometimes easier, sometimes with more work) into a running campaign. The result is a weird but interesting mix which will require some time by experienced handlers to be used properly in game.
Read
March 19, 2024How? Part of my ongoing DG read. (This one took several months to finish because of how depressing it is.)
What? Several factions that might be potential allies or enemies for your DG characters (with some spoilers):
Allies(?):
* The Center for the Missing Child is focused on tracking missing children and teaching law enforcement about the topic; while mostly mundane cases, a volunteer is obsessed with a supernatural-connected crime he couldn't solve in the past
* The Dream Syndicate is an online group of people who all have the same or similar dreams; one of the members is a creepy stalker obsessed with the original founder.
* Agent Renko is a Ukrainian/Soviet spy who might be defecting or might be trying to trap the characters.
* The Witness Alliance is interested in cataloguing hate groups and new religions/cults; but one of the volunteers is a shattered ex-DG operative, and one of the other members hates DG for what its done to him.
Enemies:
* New Life Fertility is a fertility clinic using Shub-Niggurath material to help the rich and powerful conceive, only the kids aren't totally human.
* The Lonely isn't an organization, but more a loose connection of violent incels who go from feeling aggrieved to taking violent action, all loosely led by a nonentity called CptnSnshn (and connected to the Yellow King)
* The Sowers is a patriarchal Christian cult, which engaged in a ritual murder of Azazel (Nyarlothotep) which grants them innocence; the men also gain supernatural luck through a ritual that costs willpower, which they suck out of their wives.
* The Prana Sodality is a New Age movement interested in electromagnetic resonances that has accidentally found a way to focus the anti-human energy of the Lloigor that have long infested this one Pacific Northwest mining town.
Yeah, so? So this is all very bleak, and as fiction, is sort of wonderfully composed towards that end. Which makes it, for me, a mixed bag for roleplaying. That is, I love most of the groups here, and I love how they are presented as having some dynamism and fracture lines. (Like: the New Life Fertility clinic is run by two inhuman siblings, but one of them is really driven by the ideological goal, while the other is driven by, well, his lust for his sister. (See, the NLF kids are inhuman and can only breed with each other, but they don't really care about incest.))
That dynamism and fracture lines are interesting; but each chapter ends with a potential framework for an adventure or series of adventures, which mostly boils down to: the PCs get wind of something, and when they start investigating, the group fracture comes out in some way. I feel like the Prana Sodality is a very good example of this: PCs can start poking around and learning the true awful history of this locale (there was a mine where the owner killed a lot of laborers; there was a monastery that hosted a lot of child abuse; there was a military base that had a lot of murders), but the present/future of the locale is mostly about the Prana Sodality starting to murder each other. The DG PCs end up seeming like witnesses to the horror rather than participants.
I recently left a comment on the Vintage RPG instagram to the effect that I love books that go "here's some info, and here's a non-obvious adventure using that info -- as long as the adventure doesn't invalidate that info for future use." And here, well, each group seems designed to blow-up in the PCs' faces. So if you play through the Prana Sodality group's framework, the end result is no Prana Sodality.
It makes me wonder if some of these might have been better served by a campaign book.
Still and all, an awful ride with some very compelling stories.
What? Several factions that might be potential allies or enemies for your DG characters (with some spoilers):
Allies(?):
* The Center for the Missing Child is focused on tracking missing children and teaching law enforcement about the topic; while mostly mundane cases, a volunteer is obsessed with a supernatural-connected crime he couldn't solve in the past
* The Dream Syndicate is an online group of people who all have the same or similar dreams; one of the members is a creepy stalker obsessed with the original founder.
* Agent Renko is a Ukrainian/Soviet spy who might be defecting or might be trying to trap the characters.
* The Witness Alliance is interested in cataloguing hate groups and new religions/cults; but one of the volunteers is a shattered ex-DG operative, and one of the other members hates DG for what its done to him.
Enemies:
* New Life Fertility is a fertility clinic using Shub-Niggurath material to help the rich and powerful conceive, only the kids aren't totally human.
* The Lonely isn't an organization, but more a loose connection of violent incels who go from feeling aggrieved to taking violent action, all loosely led by a nonentity called CptnSnshn (and connected to the Yellow King)
* The Sowers is a patriarchal Christian cult, which engaged in a ritual murder of Azazel (Nyarlothotep) which grants them innocence; the men also gain supernatural luck through a ritual that costs willpower, which they suck out of their wives.
* The Prana Sodality is a New Age movement interested in electromagnetic resonances that has accidentally found a way to focus the anti-human energy of the Lloigor that have long infested this one Pacific Northwest mining town.
Yeah, so? So this is all very bleak, and as fiction, is sort of wonderfully composed towards that end. Which makes it, for me, a mixed bag for roleplaying. That is, I love most of the groups here, and I love how they are presented as having some dynamism and fracture lines. (Like: the New Life Fertility clinic is run by two inhuman siblings, but one of them is really driven by the ideological goal, while the other is driven by, well, his lust for his sister. (See, the NLF kids are inhuman and can only breed with each other, but they don't really care about incest.))
That dynamism and fracture lines are interesting; but each chapter ends with a potential framework for an adventure or series of adventures, which mostly boils down to: the PCs get wind of something, and when they start investigating, the group fracture comes out in some way. I feel like the Prana Sodality is a very good example of this: PCs can start poking around and learning the true awful history of this locale (there was a mine where the owner killed a lot of laborers; there was a monastery that hosted a lot of child abuse; there was a military base that had a lot of murders), but the present/future of the locale is mostly about the Prana Sodality starting to murder each other. The DG PCs end up seeming like witnesses to the horror rather than participants.
I recently left a comment on the Vintage RPG instagram to the effect that I love books that go "here's some info, and here's a non-obvious adventure using that info -- as long as the adventure doesn't invalidate that info for future use." And here, well, each group seems designed to blow-up in the PCs' faces. So if you play through the Prana Sodality group's framework, the end result is no Prana Sodality.
It makes me wonder if some of these might have been better served by a campaign book.
Still and all, an awful ride with some very compelling stories.
September 17, 2025
It is true that these types of manuals tend to be less appealing to storytellers than anthologies of adventures, campaigns, or rule companions, but in this case, we are dealing with a fabulous product.
John Tynes describes four allies and four potential enemies, detailing their origins, backgrounds, agendas, important characters, and beliefs, giving us a set of tools to gradually introduce them into our games and, even more, a series of guidelines on how they will evolve in our game. This interesting, dynamic, and modern approach allows us to get much more out of the organisations described here.
The eight organisations are, to a greater or lesser extent, designed as plug & play tools to add to your games and get to know them at your own pace, until they eventually become the protagonists of an operation. Perhaps Prana is the most difficult to add in this way, and seems more designed to develop a powerful module on its own merits.
All of this is excellent in itself, as it makes the material in the book much more useful and usable, completely transforming the manual, but the best thing is how brilliant all these factions are, the amount of creativity, ideas and love that has gone into each one. They are so interesting to read, and so different, that it seems like a miracle that they are the work of the same author. (My favourites were Agent Renko and The Sowers, but I'm sure there will be a diversity of opinions).
In short, this is an essential book because of its quality and ideas, which you are sure to use in your campaigns. A gem. 10/10
John Tynes describes four allies and four potential enemies, detailing their origins, backgrounds, agendas, important characters, and beliefs, giving us a set of tools to gradually introduce them into our games and, even more, a series of guidelines on how they will evolve in our game. This interesting, dynamic, and modern approach allows us to get much more out of the organisations described here.
The eight organisations are, to a greater or lesser extent, designed as plug & play tools to add to your games and get to know them at your own pace, until they eventually become the protagonists of an operation. Perhaps Prana is the most difficult to add in this way, and seems more designed to develop a powerful module on its own merits.
All of this is excellent in itself, as it makes the material in the book much more useful and usable, completely transforming the manual, but the best thing is how brilliant all these factions are, the amount of creativity, ideas and love that has gone into each one. They are so interesting to read, and so different, that it seems like a miracle that they are the work of the same author. (My favourites were Agent Renko and The Sowers, but I'm sure there will be a diversity of opinions).
In short, this is an essential book because of its quality and ideas, which you are sure to use in your campaigns. A gem. 10/10
December 31, 2021
The Labyrinth is one of the most brilliant ttrpg books I have ever read. Apart from John Scott Tynes' meticulous, sharp writing, and Detwiller's amazing art, both the content and the concepts behind them are genius.
Factions, both friendly and antagonistic, should be organic. Interaction with pcs should leave marks and have consequences. The more interactions they have, the more this effect accumulates... usually with dire consequences. Tynes traces how these interactions change the dynamics of each group, how it affects the players, and also how it affects each other group as well. Each of thsse factions breeds connections to each other. You pull on one thread, and the unraveling could take you from one to another.
The amount of options it gives for the table is enormous. Amazing game changing stuff.
I hope John Scott Tynes gives birth to more labyrinths in the future!
Factions, both friendly and antagonistic, should be organic. Interaction with pcs should leave marks and have consequences. The more interactions they have, the more this effect accumulates... usually with dire consequences. Tynes traces how these interactions change the dynamics of each group, how it affects the players, and also how it affects each other group as well. Each of thsse factions breeds connections to each other. You pull on one thread, and the unraveling could take you from one to another.
The amount of options it gives for the table is enormous. Amazing game changing stuff.
I hope John Scott Tynes gives birth to more labyrinths in the future!
January 8, 2026
Genuinely just...not a particularly good or inspiring sourcebook to me. All the interesting enemies and antagonists from the original Delta Green (the Mi-Go/Greys, Karotechia, MJ-12, The Fate, etc.) were nuked and replaced with real-world, modern day cultural adversaries loosely mixed with the Lovecraftian mythos.
We have the bourgeois, yacht sailing, Scientology-adjacent "New Life Fertility". The terminally online, digitally-shut-in incels of "The Lonely". The evil, white, middle-American conservative Christians that make up "The Sowers". And the fake-science, New-Agers of the Prana Sodality.
I don't know. I like Tynes' writing a lot usually (Convergence, The Rules of Engagement) but Delta Green's modern shift from "Coast-to-Coast AM conspiracy" to "Fox News conspiracy" just doesn't do it for me.
We have the bourgeois, yacht sailing, Scientology-adjacent "New Life Fertility". The terminally online, digitally-shut-in incels of "The Lonely". The evil, white, middle-American conservative Christians that make up "The Sowers". And the fake-science, New-Agers of the Prana Sodality.
I don't know. I like Tynes' writing a lot usually (Convergence, The Rules of Engagement) but Delta Green's modern shift from "Coast-to-Coast AM conspiracy" to "Fox News conspiracy" just doesn't do it for me.
November 14, 2020
Having been new to Delta Green, one of the many recommendations I saw was to pick up this book on how to create overlapping and intertwined stories between different groups to deepen the conspiracy stories in play. Having read this, John Scott Tynes work is amazingly detailed, with hooks in each group described and how to introduce them to agents, as well how other groups can tie in. I wholely recommend picking this up as companion to the core ruleset if your going to be a Handler for your games.
August 4, 2020
Lot of good stuff here but I still find the Countdown-era DG setting more appealing.
November 18, 2020
The best TTRPG supplement I've ever read! I got this the same week I got my PS5 and this book won out for the majority of my time
April 17, 2022
A lot of interesting allies that can be used in any Delta Green game and I do like the wide variety they give us from online groups to soviet agents that can be easily put into a Delta green story.
January 3, 2023
Excellent use of the innovative "narrative sandbox" approach. Full review: https://refereeingandreflection.wordp...
February 21, 2023
Solid, lots of good lore.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews