This session report is based on a Dogs in the Vineyard campaign that was ran in September 22nd 2019 and September 29th 2019. It serves as the backstory behind the Cthulhu Verde setting. If you would like to run this adventure, please look at my “1986 Coup” Notes. You may also want to look at the house rules that were used in this campaign as well.
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In 1986, the National Bolsheviks (a hardline nationalist faction) seized control over the Soviet Union, raising geopolitical tensions and threatening to spark a Third World War. The National Bolsheviks were led by the journalist Nikolay Durgin, who claimed the old Gorbechev regime allowed the United States to gain considerable influence in the Third World – especially the strategic location of the Gulf States. If the Soviet Union was to survive, it need to take extreme actions.
Nikolay made his initial demand clear – the demilitarization of West Germany in order to protect the “Eurasian heartland” from the “Atlanticism” (the United States). NATO strongly oppose this demand, and both sides begin to mobilize to stop the other side’s aggression.
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A few years before, The United Kingdom had taken measures to prepare itself from a nuclear war.
Money from the British economy was secretly plundered and placed into slush funds, to be used in the event of an armageddon. Ken MacClean (the brother of another British policymaker) tried to stop the plundering, but failed horribly.
Britain encouraged rural migration to limit casualties – a policy that was denounced by protesters as being damaging to the environment (as urban centers tend to be less polluting on a per capita basis). These protesters hailed from the Combined Peace Movement, a left-wing movement led by Victoria Steffan (the ex-wife of one of the British policymakers). The protesters, however, failed to stop the rural migration.
Britain also tried to shut down KGB cells to stop potential subversion, though they encountered token opposition from nationalist factions that relied on KGB assistance. These forces were led by Ken MacClean.
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When the United Kingdom heard about Nikolay’s demand to demilitarize Germany, the UK politicians were…willing to accept it. A UK policymaker made some snide comments about whether Poland voluntarily accepted the Soviet Union, but otherwise saw no problem with a “public” demilitarization of Germany, so long as people covertly defended Germany via other means.
It took some time for UK to strong-arm NATO into accepting this face-saving compromise. The Soviet Union regained some of the prestige that it lost during NATO’s rise, while NATO managed to defend the security of West Germany.
And then the United Kingdom decided that since Germany was demilitarized, Poland should also be demilitarized. This led to a brief propaganda war between the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union. Poland even had a brief military uprising before it was crushed by Soviet troops. While the Soviet Union barely won the war, Nikolay Durgin was blamed for the “Polish quagmire” and was poisoned by the Soviet military. This scared British policymakers, as the situation now begins to spiral out of control.
During the brief propaganda war, British policymakers embarrassed the Soviets by “leaking” details about how the NATO and the Soviet Union still secretly militarized Germany. This meant the UK-backed treaty imploded into a mess, and it also hardened the Soviet Union’s stance towards NATO…making World War Three all-but-inevitable.
Meanwhile, KGB agents used their contacts with the Combined Peace Movement to launch riots in London. The rioters claimed that NATO (and, by implication, the British policymakers) was trying to plunge people into a nuclear war by threatening the security of Poland. Only a revolution can save the world from a thermonuclear war.
Victoria Steffan used these riots as an opportunity to try to get rid of of her ex-husband, but the ex-husband successfully managed to retreat to the Kelvedon Hatch Secret Nuclear Bunker. Before entering the bunker, the ex-husband gave his illegitimate daughter a pistol, to protect herself from Victoria.
Still, at the end of the first session, London is now completely occupied by the Combined Peace Movement.
In the next session, British politicians cut off the water supply to London (while claiming that it was being damaged in a terrorist attack). They then provided water to loyal aspects of the city to gain popularity, while covering all the looting and rioting the protesters did (while neglecting the fact that the journalists themselves were also looting and rioting). They then managed to get an interview with the Combined Peace Movement’s leader. The interviewers managed to get the leader to call the protests off, and in return the government provided self-governance to each Region of the United Kingdom. Water supply to London quickly got restored soon afterwards.
The British policymakers launched a crackdown on the KGB agents helping the protesters. It went horribly wrong though, and a Region was soon subverted by the KGB and declared independence. The KGB agents, though, then started shooting at each other, which stopped future subversion attempts. A British policymaker sacrificed his political career to keep the KGB agents at each other’s throats, choosing a life of obscurity in order to better protect British security.
World War Three then began in earnest. The Soviets won the land battle and conquered Germany. NATO began preparing for a nuclear war.
At this point, British policymakers refused to accept fate.
The British policymakers sponsored another propaganda campaign, directed at the Soviet Union itself. Victoria Steffan also assisted the policymakers, because a faction of the KGB opposed the reigning military junta. Together, they managed to destabilize the USSR long enough to get pro-peace generals to launch a coup, thereby averting a nuclear war between the West and the East.
The game ended with the Soviet Union and NATO agreeing to form a CoDominium, and Germany itself being demilitarized and “neutral” territory.
This “CoDominium” is what we now call today The Network.