Delta Green: Researching the Pnakotic Manuscripts (Patreon)

Excerpted from a passage I wrote for the forthcoming Iconoclasts.

When the Agents seek a ritual or some other piece of unnatural lore, a Program or friendly researcher sends a nearly indecipherable scan from some esoteric source, adding a handwritten note: “Original in Athens. Nat’l Library of Greece. Pnakotika in restricted holdings.”

An Agent (or a friendly consultant) with 50% or greater skill in Occult, or who succeeds at an Occult roll, recognizes the reference to the Pnakotika and knows the following details.

The Pnakotika—called the Pnakotic manuscripts or the Pnakotic fragments—are Greek magical papyri from around the time of Christ. They draw oracular and mythical meanings from a set of indecipherable runes and hieroglyphics supposedly discovered in Ultima Thule. The Pnakotic manuscripts purport to deal with a wide range of unnatural lore, gleaned from the wisdom of ancient masters who exist beyond time. 

Conflicting interpretations of the Pnakotika are an old part of the Western magical tradition. Since about 1485, explorers, occultists, philologists, and archaeologists have added texts, steles, and inscriptions in similar alphabets to the Pnakotic corpus (as well as forgeries, honest mistakes, and trance writing), along with their commentaries. 

There is no "complete" or even authoritative edition of the Pnakotic manuscripts. Handwritten copies, academic conference proceedings, and other partial versions can be found in most top-rank university collections. A three-volume set of the commonly accepted corpus of the time was printed in London in 1768. That is now prohibitively expensive and hard to find. A mimeographed copy can be found in the collection in the National Library of Greece.

Finding a particular passage from the Pnakotika in the the National Library of Greece requires either flying to Athens or hiring an Athens researcher to find, translate, and email it. 

HIRING A RESEARCHER

The Agents’ case officer vehemently objects to this as a breach of operational security. If the Agents do it anyway, they can find an appropriate researcher as an Unusual expense, or a Standard expense if an Agent succeeds at a History or Occult test to know the right questions to ask. The researcher sends the results by email in 4D4 days or by courier service in 4D6 days, as instructed. 

The Agents must also make a Luck roll. If it fails, NSA surveillance records the discussion of unnatural matters, or an inspector reviews the documents before they arrive. If the Agents send or receive other communications about the unnatural, the chance rises that Program analysts outside the Agents’ team notice. This could lead to the contact being assassinated by a separate team as the Program covers its tracks. The Handler should improvise the repercussions. 

FLYING TO ATHENS 

A flight to Athens takes one or two days, depending on the Agent’s location, and is an Unusual expense. An Agent who does not know Greek needs a local translator. Asking library staff makes it easy to find a translator who is experienced in mythology and esoterica, who can be hired as a Standard expense for one week’s work to research a particular piece of information. 

An Agent accompanied by a hired researcher can access the restricted holdings without trouble; otherwise the Agent can attempt a Bureaucracy, Persuade, or CHAx5 test once per day to gain access. 

Sifting through the Pnakotika holdings requires three tests: History; Occult; and either the Agent’s roll of Foreign Language (Greek) to read the obscure documents, or a Luck roll for a hired researcher to translate them effectively. A critical success counts as two successes; a fumble cancels out one success. One roll may be attempted each day. After succeeding at all three, the Agent learns the needed information, as determined by the Handler.

LONG-TERM RESEARCH

As a Home pursuit between scenarios, an Agent could return to Greece to study its version of the Pnakotic Manuscript in greater depth, a months-long work. The tome is detailed in the Handler’s Guide.