The Agency [DFRPG Setting]

[FunnyMattress]

"Most of the world has no idea that anything even remotely supernatural exists. This is a good thing. I mean, can you imagine the panic you'd feel if you found out that your next-door neighbor wasn't actually human? Now apply that feeling to everyone on the face of the planet not already clued in to that fact.

"But look past the veil of normality, and you'll find that the supernatural has wormed its way into almost every aspect of modern life. Your next-door neighbor? He drinks blood and can't go out in the sun. Your grandkid's teacher? He's a mage, and an unlicensed one at that. Your co-worker? The one that always smells like gravedirt and rotting meat? Yeah, he clawed his way back from the grave, moved towns, got a new identity and a new job.

"Even our own government knows the supernatural exists, though they're loathe to admit it. That's why they have BLACKCAT. What? You've never heard of us? Good. We're doing our job. BLACKCAT is a federal agency dedicated to keeping the U.S. in the dark about the supernatural, while protecting it from paranormal threats. We're a crazy mix of the FBI and Delta Force, all drunk on a keg of Lovecraft Lite.

“I read your file, Mr. Henderson. SOG operations in Vietnam, loads of experience in the field, special-forces training out the wazoo. We can use someone like you. Besides…remember back in ’83? We both know that wasn’t a wild dog that killed your wife. You’ve known it for years, deep down.

“So I tell you what, Henderson. You’ve got two choices. You can refuse my offer of recruiting you into the Agency, in which case you’ll forget I was ever here. Or…you can kill that lycanthropic bastard that slaughtered your wife.

“Take your time. Big decision, I know.”

-Transcript of recruitment of G. Henderson by Section-2 Agent [REDACTED].
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Having recently become a FATE-system addict, I decided to do my usual mischeif and create a campaign setting whole-cloth. In this case, it's for the Dresden Files RPG. This thread will serve as my "creation journal", in which I document my work.

Feel free to contribute! I welcome comments criticism, and additions to the setting. Everything in this thread is considered at least semi-canonical.

[FunnyMattress]

BLACKCAT


Background: The organization known in a handful of documents as “BLACKCAT” has it’s origins in one of the most infamous events in American history. On the night of April 14th, 1865, an actor and Confederate sympathizer named John Wilkes Booth shot then-president Abraham Lincoln in the back of the head in Ford’s Theater, in Washington D.C. Booth escaped the theater, only to be gunned down 12 days later by a soldier named Boston Corbett. This is the truth…or at least as much of the truth as appears in history books.

The real history is much more sinister. The assassination of President Lincoln was not motivated by politics, but by the machinations of the supernatural. For centuries, the vampires of the American South had used the “Peculiar Institution” of slavery as an easy supply of blood. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation dried up this pipeline, and, having lost their preferred method of acquiring food, the South’s undead had Lincoln killed by one of their mortal agents; the actor, John Wilkes Booth.

After Booth’s escape from Ford’s Theater, one of the groups of soldiers sent to hunt the assassin down was a platoon commanded by Lt. Alexander Francis Mason. Mason and his platoon hunted Booth for over a week, before finally catching up with the assassin on the night of April 22nd. It was then that Lt. Mason and those under his command learned the truth about Lincoln’s death, as they arrived to find that Booth had just received his reward for slaying Lincoln.

The newly-undead Booth slaughtered Lt. Mason’s platoon, escaping once more when the survivors managed to injure the newly-risen vampire. Lt. Mason, along with the four other survivors, knew the truth about the world after they drove Booth off. They also knew what would happen if this information was learned by the general public. And so, they hatched a plan. They found a look-alike of Booth, moved him into position…and the rest was history.

During Reconstruction, the five soldiers traveled throughout the Untied States, continuing the hunt for Booth. Thought Mason and the others never again found the vampire, they did encounter and record a multitude of other supernatural creatures and events. After years of searching, the cadre of soldiers decided that they could no longer search for John Wilkes Booth effectively. So, they brought their findings to the president himself.

After reading the group’s reports and records, president Ulysses S. Grant authorized a secret government agency be developed for the explicit purpose of defending the United States from supernatural threats. It was thus, on October 31st, 1876, that BLACKCAT first came into being.

In the 135 years since BLACKCAT was formed, it has fulfilled its role as America’s supernatural guardians admirably. What’s more, the Agency (as it’s known internally) has also been responsible for resolving several international incidents as well, most notably the destruction of the German’s “Gespenstjager” divisions during the Second World War. Despite all their success, however, BLACKCAT still has not apprehended John Wilkes Booth.

Structure: BLACKCAT is a federal agency of the United States of America. As such it is structured much like the FBI or the CIA. There is a Director, who oversees the entire organization, along with various divisions, which are detailed below.

Section-1: “Admin”. Section-1 is responsible for the administration of the Agency.
Section-2: “Men in Black”. Section-2 handles information suppression and “Public Relations”.
Section-3: “The Library”. Section-3 maintains the Agency’s archives of supernatural creatures and phenomena.
Section-4: The Workshop”. Section-4 is responsible for Research and Development of equipment.
Section-5: “The Grunts”. Professional soldiers and mercenaries, Section-5 usually handles security at Agency bases.
Section-6: “The Cleaners”. Section-6 sports heavy weapons and armor. They specialize in “mopping up” after operations that go very, very wrong.
Section-7: “The Specialists”. Section-7 is comprised the members of the Agency with access to paranormal abilities or a high enough degree of skill to compete with the supernatural on almost-equal terms.

Security clearances within BLACKCAT are named after the orders of angels, with a numerical suffix to denote the Section the agent in question is a member of. The highest security clearance, “God”, is reserved for the Director.

Despite its status as a federal agency, BLACKCAT receives very little official support. In fact, BLACKCAT is routinely ignored by the government, who prefer to simply pay the agency’s annual budget, read their reports, and forget BLACKCAT even exists beyond that. The funds for BLACKCAT are siphoned off from various other budgets: janitorial supplies for the Pentagon, the Army Band’s budget, Air Force One’s alcoholic beverages budget, etc. BLACKCAT’s bases and offices are generally abandoned or surplus buildings, which are then converted to serve the Agency’s needs. The most infamous of these locations is the Groom Lake facility, near Rachel, Nevada. Despite originally being a US Air Force base, Groom Lake has been under the ownership of the Agency since 1951.

BLACKCAT’s Director is currently a man who calls himself Aaron Goldstein. Goldstein has been the Director of the Agency ever since Alexander Francis Mason died in 1891. How he’s stayed alive for so long, and without aging to boot, is a mystery.

Members: Employment with the Agency is considered “invitation-only”. Most new recruits are drawn from mundane law-enforcement and intelligence organizations, with others being recruited because of special skills or other talents. Candidates for membership are typically watched for years by Section-2 operatives, carefully evaluated in everything they do. While a large number of applicants have few or no surviving family, sought-after qualities in members of BLACKCAT are psychological stability and the ability to be well-adjusted emotionally. If any candidate shows signs of psychosis or mental illness, they are immediately removed from the roster of potential members.

If an applicant is found to have had any first-hand experience with the supernatural (surviving a vampire attack, being a freelance hunter, or being a supernatural being themselves), they are immediately approached by the Section-2 agents observing them. The agents explain what they’ve been doing, and why, and offer to take the applicant with them. Should this offer be refused, the candidate may have their memory wiped, depending on the situation. Acceptance, however, means that the potential member is taken to the nearest BLACKCAT office or base for orientation.

A significant number of BLACKCAT’s agents are actually supernatural in nature, as the Agency prefers to have “special talents” on-hand for particularly bad situations. What’s more, many agents are previous offenders, who accepted employment with BLACKCAT rather than going to prison. Considering that the Agency controls prisons that make the Hanoi Hilton look like an actual Hilton, this isn’t surprising.

Aspects: This Mission Isn’t Exactly Sanctioned. Good Thing Nobody Cares: BLACKCAT isn’t exactly blessed with a whole lot of government support. In fact, while Uncle Sam knows that the supernatural exists, he’d much rather just ignore it unless he can’t. The upshot is that BLACKCAT operatives are given significant leeway in how they complete their missions; provided collateral damage and civilian casualties are kept to a minimum, and that the general public is not made aware of the supernatural’s existence, the Agency is given carte blanche.

Bob, We've Met Before: Some feel that the operatives of Section 2 are given too much leeway, both externally and internally. Projects must be extensively backed up and reviewed, because it's a not uncommon occurrence for a low-level functionary to suddenly show up to work with no memory of what he's been researching for the past three months.

Don’t Rock the Boat, and We’ll All Get Along Fine: In many ways, BLACKCAT is a lot like the FBI: don’t cause trouble, and they won’t come after you. That means that werewolves should resist the urge to rip through shopping malls, necromancers need to have a license, and vampires should go to the blood bank to get their food (no, seriously. There are forms for this kind of thing.). Ironically, the Agency will also go after normal humans who are committing “Van Helsing Hate Crimes”.