Pyramid Pick

Delta Green Eyes Only Volume One

Machinations of the Mi-Go

Published by Pagan Publishing

Written by Dennis Detwiller

$9.00

The folks at Pagan Publishing usually publish huge volumes on a very occasional schedule. It takes a while for one to come out, but when you get it, you know it's going to be big and beautiful and creepy and wonderful.

But Machinations of the Mi-Go is a departure from this concept. Small (digest-sized, 52 pages), with no color and no interior art, this booklet is Volume One of a Delta Green Eyes Only series, supplements for the Origins-Award-winning Call of Cthulhu game world published last year. The Eyes Only series is cheap -- only $9.00! -- and will come out with a greater frequency that lunar eclipses (the second one is already on the way to stores.)

Machinations of the Mi-Go started as a repository of the odds and ends about the Fungi from Yuggoth that didn't make it into Delta Green, but quickly grew. Pulling in information on Mi-Go magic, technology and physiology from other CoC source material, Machinations has become the definitive sourcebook on one of the stranger (though "strange" is definitely a relative term when talking about the denizens of the Cthulhu Mythos . . .) inhabitants of the modern-day solar system, the Mi-Go.

If you're not familiar with Delta Green, I'll try not to spoil some of its surprises -- but this was the obvious first choice for the Eyes Only series. The Fungi from Yuggoth figure into the paranoia and conspiracy theories of the modern world in some very believable -- and chilling -- ways. If you have any desire to run a Delta Green campaign, this is a must-have book. And the Mi-Go make great bad guys in any horror campaign from any time period (they first arrived on Earth during the Jurassic period and are still here today, so you have lots of opportunities to find the right time-frame for your game).

The book starts with the basic Mythos lowdown on the Mi-Go: where they came from, what they want, how they go about getting it. There's complete information (as far as us puny, limited-to-four-dimensions-of-perception humans can understand it) on their physiology, reproduction (the Mi-Go, it turns out, are big fans of Shub-Niggurath, the Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young), religion, their "magic" (which is usually just psionic and technological tricks well beyond our comprehension), their medical technology, their weapons and their continuing fascination with -- and constant experimentation on -- humans. There's new magic spells, and updated information on how the Mi-Go -- through some brilliant sneakiness I won't give away here -- are pulling the strings of Majestic-12, the major human bad guys of the Delta Green world.

Dennis Detwiller, who got his start on the art and graphics side of Pagan Publishing, has revealed himself to be a very good writer of horror; for a slim 52 pages, this book is chock full of creepy, awful things demented Keepers can do to their players. And while I missed the interior art, the graphic design (and the shortness of the book) kept it from being a major detraction.

So pack up your troubles in your old brain case and go flying through the ether to Yuggoth. I give Machinations of the Mi-Go two pincers up.

-- Scott D. Haring



Article publication date: December 24, 1998


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