TEXT: By Jason Durall, Gareth Hanrahan and John Snead
  Based on the ‘Laundry Files’ novels by Charles Stross
  
  Based on the Laundry Files novels by Charles Stross.
  The Laundry Files © 2001-2010 Charles Stross, used under license by Cubicle 7 Entertainment Ltd.
  All rights reserved.
  The Laundry RPG © 2011 Cubicle 7 Entertainment Ltd.
  The Basic Roleplaying System © Chaosium Inc, used under license by Cubicle 7 Entertainment Ltd.
  Published by Cubicle 7 Entertainment Ltd, Riverside House, Oxford, OX2 0ES, UK.
  www.cubicle7.co.uk
  Printed in the USA
  Credits
  Writing: Jason Durall, Gareth Hanrahan and John Snead
  Additional Writing: Andrew Oakley
  Editing: David T Moore
  Layout and Graphic Design: Paul Bourne
  Art Direction: Gareth Hanrahan, Jon Hodgson
  Art: Nate Furman, Andy Hepworth, Jerome Hugenin, Pat Loboyko, Rich Longmore, Sam Manley, 
  Jan Pospisil, Graeme Neil Reid
  Line Manager: Gareth Hanrahan
  Cubicle 7 Overlord: Dominic McDowall-Thomas
  Publishers: Angus Abranson and Dominic McDowall-Thomas 
  1
  AGENT’S HANDBOOK
  Laundry
  The
  Laundry_Files: 
  Agent’s_Handbook
  
  THe LAundry
  Introduction 
  3
  Chapter One: 
  Tradecraft 
  4
  The Spy in the Laundry Basket 
  5
  Running Agents 
  8
  Covert Messages 
  11
  Stenography 
  13
  Fieldcraft 
  14
  Electronic Surveillance 
  17
  Chapter Two: 
  Bell, Book and Candle 
  19
  Protective Gear 
  27
  Vehicles 
  27
  Chases 
  33
  Safe-houses 
  35
  Designated Premises 
  36
  Sample Laundry Safe-houses 
  38
  Chapter Three: 
  Firearms 
  39
  Firearms 
  39
  Firearm Equipment and Customisation 
  47
  Miscellaneous Weapons 
  51
  Explosives 
  52
  Chapter Four: 
  Black Budget, Red Tape 
  54
  Bureaucracy & Status 
  55
  The Inquisition 
  59
  Bureaucracy Random Encounters 
  61
  Chapter Five: 
  Training Courses 
  66
  New Courses 
  67
  Course Information 
  69
  Special Instructor Courses 
  75
  Chapter Six: 
  Character Templates 
  77
  Other Professions 
  84
  Past Experience 
  87
  Veteran Laundry Agents 
  90
  Chapter Seven: 
  Weird Characters 
  92
  Deep One Hybrids 
  92
  Ghosts 
  94
  Ghouls 
  95
  Gorgons 
  95
  Parallel Reality Refugees 
  96
  Residual Human Entities 
  96
  Chapter Eight: 
  Outside the Laundry 
  98
  Civilian Characters & Campaigns 
  98
  Character Types 
  103
  Cultists 
  107
  Other Intelligence Agencies 
  110
  Chapter Nine: 
  Laundry Campaigns in Other Eras 
  114
  Fighting Nazis: World War II Campaigns (1939-1945) 114
  The Cold War (1955-1970) 
  115
  The Dawn of the Geek Age (1970-1990) 
  117
  The Internet & The Age of Capitalism (1990-2001) 
  119
  Official Forms 
  121
  Index  
  134
  COnTenTS
  2
  
  The Laundry compartmentalises itself. Secrets are hidden 
  behind closed doors and codewords. Walk down one of 
  the endless corridors (beige or hospital-green paint peeling 
  from the walls, carpets worn bare or oddly stained) and 
  you pass an endless succession of equally anonymous 
  doors. Who knows what’s behind those doors? Open one 
  at random, and you might find some office drone at a desk 
  piled high with paperwork, or a meeting room where grey-
  suited bureaucrats debate the cost/benefit of replacing that 
  oddly stained carpet, or an archive crammed with three-ring 
  binders... or you might lay a hand upon that handle, turn it, 
  and be instantly snuffed out by the invisible warding spell. 
  The Laundry does not encourage curiosity.
  The Agent’s Handbook is a much, much safer way of 
  learning about the Laundry’s inner workings than wandering 
  the corridors of power. This book gives new options and 
  new tools for your field operatives. Maybe, just maybe, these 
  new weapons and tricks will let you survive long enough to 
  learn a few of the Laundry’s deeper secrets...
  So, what’s in the book?
  Chapter 1: Tradecraft describes the art of spying. 
  There’s more to it than sitting in an office reading reports. 
  Sometimes, you get to be James Bond and put the luxury 
  hotel room and the champagne on the company credit card, 
  and sometimes, you get to strangle some guy in an alleyway 
  with his own tie. 
  Chapter 2: Bell, Book & Candle covers equipment, 
  vehicles and other gadgets. Pinky and his ilk never sleep, 
  not when there are things they can miniaturise and/or 
  stick summoning grids into. Cutting-edge spyware and 
  experimental occult gadgets, safehouses, and rules for 
  driving like a lunatic. What’s not to like?
  Chapter 3: Firearms covers a long, long list of ways to 
  turn chemical energy into kinetic energy via the medium of 
  small pieces of hot lead. While most agents in the Laundry 
  are unarmed or packing plastic Glocks, the opposition may 
  be carrying M4 Carbines or Mossberg 590A1s, so it’s good 
  to know if you’re going to need a new protective amulet – 
  or a body bag, when the shooting’s done.
  Chapter 4: Bureaucracy is all about the Laundry’s endless 
  red tape. How to survive it, how to navigate it, and how 
  to use it as a weapon. The pen is mightier than the sword, 
  especially when the pen’s used to inscribe runes of binding 
  and banishing on someone’s end-of-year appraisal. 
  Chapter 5: Character Templates is all about creating new 
  player characters quickly. If your agent just got eaten by 
  something with tentacles, and you need a quick replacement, 
  just pick one of the template characters here to get back in 
  the game.
  Chapter 6: Training Courses has new courses for Laundry 
  employees, ranging from a solid grounding in Health and 
  Safety to making binding oaths to alien gods. Just remember 
  to fill in a time-sheet.
  Chapter 7: Weird Characters describes post-human 
  and non-human Laundry employees. Agents with the 
  Innsmouth Look, sentient zombies, ghosts and gorgons 
  and stranger things. 
  Chapter 8: Outside the Laundry contains rules for playing 
  civilians, freelance spies, employees of other OCCINT 
  groups, and even semi-competent cultists. You can either 
  play a game where the player characters are working outside 
  the Laundry, or the Game master can use these rules to 
  create suitable opposition for your characters.
  Chapter 9: Laundry Campaigns in Other Eras describes 
  how to run games set during the history of the Laundry. 
  Fight Nazis in World War II; fight Commies in the 1960s; 
  fight fashion sense in the 1970s.
  Introduction
  [He] knows what’s coming. He knows exactly what is going to bleed through the walls of reality, when 
  the stars burn down from the pitiless heavens and our ever-thinking numbers corrode the structure of 
  reality. And he believes we’re his best hope for his own survival.
  Like I said: the only god I believe in is coming back. And when he arrives, I’ll be waiting with a 
  shotgun.
  – The Fuller Memorandum
  InTrOduCTIOn
  3
  AGENT’S HANDBOOK
  
  THe LAundry
  The invisible history of the 20th Century is full of middle-
  aged men in trenchcoats and business suits, skulking around 
  the capitals of Europe in a secret ballet of spies and deceits, 
  all conducted as an overture to nuclear armageddon. The 
  techniques used by these men for avoiding capture and 
  concealing their activities are collectively referred to as 
  tradecraft. Brush passes, dead drops, honeytraps, the arcana 
  of the shadow war – the Laundry instructs its field officers 
  on all these techniques.
  In the mundane world – the part of the intelligence 
  community that frets about frivolities like terrorist 
  bombings, industrial espionage and dirty bombs – 
  tradecraft is slightly outdated. Electronic communication 
  and encryption makes the art of the secret message less 
  relevant; SIGINT has replaced HUMINT as the primary 
  focus of conventional intelligence.1 Your average MI6 
  officer is more likely to be sitting behind a desk in Whitehall, 
  analysing intercepted traffic from GCHQ, than sitting in 
  a cafe in Prague waiting for a man with a red carnation 
  in his lapel who’ll enquire about the price of oranges.2
  The old tricks of the SIS, KGB, CIA and other sinister 
  TLAs are still an important part of the Laundry’s field ops. 
  Firstly, we’ve got certain... issues with technology. There 
  are times when you absolutely don’t want to be listening 
  in via a hidden microphone, and there are ways to occlude 
  a phone that bypass conventional interception methods 
  entirely. Edison experimented with a GRAVEDUST-
  powered necrophone in the 1900s; these days, we can route 
  3G mobile signals through the dead and get you coverage 
  anywhere on the globe as long as there’s a corpse handy. 
  Relying on SIGINT won’t cut it in our line of work – and 
  anyway, our access to SIGINT is limited since we don’t have 
  the same close relationship with UKUSA pact members 
  that the SIS has with their counterparts. The NSA don’t 
  seem to want to take our calls. 
  Secondly, we deal a lot with unique or rare artefacts. You 
  can’t email a fire-and-forget banishment talisman to an 
  undercover agent, and if you’re trying to smuggle an 
  ANNING BLUE SKULL fragment out of Chile, you need 
  to be able to do a brush pass in person. The human factor 
  still means something when it comes to hungry ghosts and 
  observed-mediated incantations.
  Thirdly, and most importantly, we’ve got to keep up with 
  the opposition, and not just the Thirteenth Directorate or 
  the Black Chamber. 
  The lifespan of your average potentially-dangerous cult 
  is about five years. Someone reads a book full of really 
  bad ideas (like worshipping prehuman deities that seek to 
  consume all our souls) and thinks ‘my, these guys sound great. 
  Sure, they’ve devoured all their other worshippers, but I bet this time, 
  it’ll be different!’ Mr. Cult Leader acquires a little power, enough 
  to draw in other impressionable idiots, schizophrenics, 
  rebellious teenagers or just ordinary people hungry for a 
  taste of the divine; we’re hardwired to worship those things 
  bigger and more powerful than we are. Anyway, our little 
  model Cthulhu cult lasts, on average, about five years before 
  it collapses into schisms (‘you’re holding the sacrificial knife 
  all wrong!’ ‘heretic!’ ‘splitter!’), suicide pacts (‘I can see Great 
  Cthulhu rising... but that might be the weedkiller I just injected 
  into my eyeball’), apathy (‘I can’t be bothered catching alley cats 
  for sacrifice on Walpurgisnacht... let’s just get takeout instead’) or 
  occupational hazards (‘hey, let’s summon this thing!’). 
  If the cult does really, really well, then they crop up on the 
  Laundry’s radar, and some of our nice men take the survivors 
  away to Camp Sunshine. Think of these cults as small terror 
  cells, radicalised kids who plot bombings without training or 
  support and usually end up killing themselves. 
  The bigger, older cults, though, are a different kettle of faintly 
  suspicious squid. The Brotherhood of the Black Pharaoh, 
  for example, hasn’t survived more than a century in its 
  current incarnation3 without being as thoroughly paranoid 
  and security-conscious as any intelligence organisation. The 
  larger cults have spread their bloody tentacles all over the 
  world, and they can play the game very well indeed. They’ve 
  got their hooks into every aspect of our civilisation, and 
  they could be anywhere. Any sleepy country village could 
  have a cell of the EOD (Esoteric Order of pissed-off 
  abandoned fish hybrids) or the Children of the Goat. Your 
  bank manager could spend his weekends scrimshawing 
  runes into the teeth of murdered children. That’s the thing 
  about old cults – they’re embedded into society, a hidden 
  cancer running under all our history, invisible until it kills us. 
  If we’re going to beat them, we need to know how to find 
  them, how to watch them, and how to survive.
  Tradecraft
  1: Which is a problem when the bad guys are living in caves in Tora Bora and not generating lots of juicy ECHELON traffic.
  2: One of the big losers in the post-Cold War world are the pigeons and ducks of St. James Park in London, whose primary source of breadcrumbs and 
  crusts dried up sharply around 1990.
  3. There’s moderately convincing archaeological evidence to support the cult’s claim to date back to the Third Dynasty.
  4
  
  The Spy in the Laundry Basket
  Espionage is all about clandestinely gathering information 
  that other people want to keep hidden. Information is 
  literally power, in the field we work in. The spy must not 
  only acquire the information needed, but he must also 
  ensure that his efforts go unnoticed by the opposing side. 
  If the enemy knows  or suspects that they are the target of 
  espionage, they may respond with hostile action (starting 
  World War III, for example) or turn the espionage against 
  the spy’s masters by feeding him false or misleading 
  information. 
  The Laundry’s intelligence-gathering efforts are targeted 
  at multiple groups and areas. The current breakdown 
  is classified, but it’s roughly a 50/20/30 split between 
  domestic (mainland UK), European (EU and other 
  partners) and overseas (the rest of the world). Domestically, 
  our primary focus (70% of espionage efforts) targets cults, 
  corporations, universities and research groups, with the 
  remaining 30% being aimed at foreign groups operating 
  in the UK, including a limited amount of spying on 
  certain non-human residents of our fair nation (or, more 
  accurately, our coastal waters).
  Within the EU, espionage efforts break down along similar 
  lines. When dealing with international cults, we liase with 
  our European partners under the auspices of the JIFCI;4 if 
  we’re spying on, say, a cult in Amsterdam, we’ll work with the 
  AIVD and they’ll provide local intelligence and an interface 
  with civilian authorities. The Laundry is the pre-eminent 
  occult intelligence group in the EU, though, so we get to 
  do a lot of the heavy lifting. (We also spy on our European 
  partners. If the French get les brains eaten by possessors 
  from Dimension X, they’re not going to volunteer it at the 
  next JIFCI meeting; we need to know who we can trust.)
  Outside the safe waters of the European Union, the 
  Laundry’s operations are a mix. There’s the usual keeping-
  tabs-on-cults-and-potential-outbreaks, but there’s a lot more 
  emphasis on investigating state actors and military research. 
  We’re moderately sure that no government in Europe is 
  going to deliberately tunnel to an anti-De Sitter space using 
  the Dirac-Hite Conjecture, but if North Korea’s RDEI 
  got their hands on that formula, they’d hold the world to 
  ransom (until someone calls their bluff, and reality Blue-
  Screens).
  The goals of the spy in the Laundry basket are to:
  • Identify threats to the security of the United Kingdom 
  and its interests
  • Maintain the secrecy and security of the Laundry
  • Clandestinely acquire information about these threats 
  using any available means
  So, what are those any available means?
  Open Source Information
  Open Source Information is information gathered from the 
  public domain. A large part of a spy’s day involves reading 
  newspapers, although different agencies focus on different 
  sections. A spy from the SIS starts by reading foreign news 
  and political commentary, but a spy from the Laundry skips 
  straight to ‘two-headed lamb born in Dorset’ or ‘librarian 
  eaten in suspicious circumstances’. We live in the funny 
  papers and the local interest segments of the nightly news.
  Scientific journals, university publications and research 
  abstracts are also of interest to the Laundry. We need to stay 
  ahead of the exponentially accelerating pace of research, 
  so we can subtly mug any mathematicians who are on the 
  verge of recreating one of the nastier Dho-Nha curves, 
  or interrupt well-meaning marine biologists before they 
  inadvertently breach the Benthic Treaty. Don’t neglect the 
  importance of old records and libraries – our definition of 
  ‘current information’ works on a longer timescale from those 
  of other agencies. Troop movements and tribal politics in 
  Kashmir are out of date within days, but the location of 
  certain geomagnetic anomalies in Srinagar hasn’t changed 
  in recorded history. 
  TrAdeCrAFT
  4. Joint Intergovernmental Framework on Cosmological Incursions
  5
  1 - TRADECRAFT
  
  THe LAundry
  The biggest source of Open Source Information is the 
  Internet. Google has saved the world more than once. The 
  first step in any investigation should be a quick web search, 
  to see what’s publicly available. Laundry analysts keep tabs 
  on occult websites and chatrooms; it’s in everybody’s best 
  interest to ensure certain images don’t go viral.
  Informants
  Informants are individuals with access to privileged or 
  semi-privileged information. Most informants are contacts 
  cultivated by the Laundry officer, who can provide the 
  inside scoop on a topic. The janitor at a university can tell 
  us about after-hours work in the physics labs and suspicious 
  bloodstains. A barman in the right pub knows about skinhead 
  gangs with far-right links. A bureaucrat in a central African 
  airport provides us with a list of recent travellers who 
  always fly during thunderstorms. Some informants think 
  of the agent as a friend or acquaintance, but others are paid 
  for their services. Obviously, try to avoid paying money 
  unnecessarily – once the informant starts monetising his data, 
  he will start holding information back in order to sell it later. 
  The distinction between an informant and an agent is 
  a fuzzy one. In general, an agent is willing to take action 
  to acquire information or complete assignments, while an 
  informant is a passive source, just passing on information 
  that they acquire as part of their everyday duties. Still, an 
  informant – especially a paid informant – may be in danger 
  if discovered, so take precautions when setting up meetings. 
  Agents
  Agents are individuals who are willing and in a position 
  to aid intelligence-gathering efforts. Often, an agent holds 
  a senior role within the target organisation, such as a 
  bureaucrat in a government department, or a scientist in a 
  research laboratory. Other agents are uniquely capable of 
  acquiring information or completing missions. There’s a 
  sizable crossover between con artists and espionage agents. 
  Agents are potentially the richest source of HUMINT. Get 
  an agent into a cult, and you can learn more from a single 
  debriefing than from years of observation and research. 
  Agents can get you the keys to the kingdom, but they 
  must be treated carefully. The officer assigned to managing 
  an agent is referred to as his handler, and the relationship 
  between the two is always a complex one. The handler must 
  understand the agent intimately, be able to anticipate the 
  agent’s needs and emotions, and be willing to support the 
  agent through the intense pressure of undercover work. 
  However, the handler must never trust the agent, and must 
  always be on guard for the possibility that the agent has 
  been turned. 
   
  Surveillance & Eavesdropping 
  Wifi-enabled rocks, fibre-optic cameras threaded around 
  lightbulbs, laser microphones picking vibrations off a 
  window, bugs planted in altars, or just sitting in a car all 
  night watching a graveyard. Bugs and other means of direct 
  6
  
  or indirect surveillance are a potentially invaluable source 
  of information. Planting the bug can be dramatic and 
  dangerous and may require covert operations; analysing the 
  data it records can be a dull slog. 
  Covert Operations
  Finally, covert operations are the most direct and the riskiest 
  way of gathering information. If there is no other way, then 
  you can try breaking into the cult stronghold or climbing 
  in the windows of the Chinese embassy. Direct action of 
  this sort is exactly what you don’t want to do if you can 
  possibly avoid it, as it’s both embarrassing (for the Laundry) 
  and lethal (for you) if you’re caught. 
  Intelligence Sources
  HUMINT: Human Intelligence – informants, 
  agents, spies, boots on the ground. The 
  primary focus of this document.
  SIGINT: Signals Intelligence – information 
  garnered by intercepting signals, such 
  as telephone conversations, email, data 
  transfers.
  IMGINT: Image Intelligence – information 
  gathered by camera, especially drones or 
  satellites.
  OSINT: 
  Open 
  Source 
  Intelligence 
  – 
  information already in the public domain.
  OCCINT: Occult Intelligence – information 
  obtained by non-linear methods, such as 
  divination, precognition, remote viewing, 
  sensitives 
  and 
  other 
  supernatural 
  sources.
  Cover Identity 
  As a spy, you will inhabit many cover identities over the 
  course of your career. False identities do not necessarily 
  mean undercover work. When meeting with an agent, 
  for example, it may be necessary to adopt the identity of 
  a fictional Laundry officer, even if the agent knows he is 
  working for the Laundry. If the agent is later turned by the 
  opposition, he can only tell them of your false identity. A 
  false identity also provides added protection against magical 
  attacks. 
  Cover Identities: When operating undercover, you may 
  be assigned an identity by the Laundry, or given free reign 
  to create one. A good cover is plausible for whatever field 
  you are operating in (a Defra5 sustainable development 
  consultant in rural areas, a cultural attache or insurance 
  claims investigator when overseas); has a reason to do a 
  lot of travelling, especially at odd hours and to obscure 
  locations; and is dull enough to deflect suspicion when 
  questioned. 
  In every case, live your cover. The smallest detail can give 
  you away, so prepare as much as possible and be ready to 
  improvise when questioned. Even if the cover identity is 
  only intended to last for a short time, a good spy fleshes it 
  out as much as possible. Be ready to answer questions about 
  your childhood, your friends, your hobbies, your political 
  opinions, which local sports team you support, your tastes 
  in whiskey or internet porn, and why you were caught 
  sneaking across the Kyrgyzstani border with six metres of 
  copper wire, a car battery, two bags of B-negative blood and 
  a glowing idol. 
  Passports & Papers: The Laundry can provide cover 
  documentation, including false UK passports, official 
  letters, identity cards, entry visas and travel documents. 
  These, coupled with a flash of the warrant card, can bypass 
  most problems. Travelling under a false passport can result 
  in arrest and deportation, and the Laundry may be obliged 
  to deny knowledge of your existence.6
  Maintaining an Identity: A cover identity has to be more 
  than a name and a false passport. It has to leave all the 
  expected traces in the world. It has to have a credit history, 
  with a suitable trail of purchases that would be visible if the 
  opposition ran a credit check. It has to have a home address, 
  ideally one with a nice, stable boring family and 2.4 children. 
  It has to have a favourite brand of jeans, a usual drink at the 
  bar, medical records going all the way back... it has to appear 
  to be a real person. More, it has to be a living person – it has 
  to continue all these established habits, even if the history 
  and habits were all invented by a committee last Tuesday. 
  Histories can be faked. Use a Laundry safehouse or a rented 
  property (ensuring that the property appears to have been 
  rented years ago, in case anyone checks) as your home and 
  bring in another Laundry officer to act as your spouse or 
  partner. Borrow someone’s kids and put them playing in 
  the lawn. The more solid the identity appears, the more 
  convincing it is. No-one trusts the mysterious salesman who 
  lives out of his suitcase in a hotel. 
  Existing Identities: The Laundry maintains several dozen 
  cover identities to be used as necessary. These identities 
  have solid credit histories and backgrounds in their cities of 
  residence, with long-established homes, jobs with excellent 
  TrAdeCrAFT
  5. Department For Environment, Food & Rural Affairs 
  6. Payroll may keep denying you exist for weeks afterwards.
  7
  1 - TRADECRAFT
  
  THe LAundry
  credentials (there are several rare book dealers in the mix, 
  along with conspiracy theory writers, film location scouts, 
  photographers – all the sorts of people who might take an 
  interest in the occult, and be out of town unexpectedly for 
  long periods). When an officer needs a strong cover, he can 
  take on one of these long-running identities and maintain it 
  for the duration of his case. 
  Occult Cover: A simple glamour can paper over cracks in a 
  hastily-constructed false identity. A more powerful glamour 
  (Level Three) can even be used in place of a cover identity, 
  as observers will fill in the blanks themselves. Relying on 
  authority glamours can cause problems with multiple 
  observers, as their individual perceptions of you may not 
  correlate with each other.
  In our line of work, a cover identity needs to be able to 
  withstand occult investigation as well as mundane methods, 
  and that isn’t easy. Magic can peer into your mind and read 
  the stains on your soul. You can fake the ritual burns of 
  the chen tao, but you cannot fake the spiritual brand of the 
  initiation rite – at least, not easily.
  Basic occult cover methods first – if you’re using the identity 
  of a dead person,7 you should also use a GRAVEDUST 
  system to establish a link between you. Otherwise, 
  divination spells will show suspicious interference between 
  your cover’s horoscope and your actual one. 
  Glamours can be a liability when working undercover. The 
  presence of a glamour is a giveaway that you are trying to 
  conceal your true identity, and glamours can be detected by 
  low-level scrying spells. If you must use a glamour, make 
  sure you have a cover story to explain it (‘if  you saw my true 
  form, mortal, your mind would break and you would run into the 
  night like a whipped cur’).
  Your personal possessions and your home pick up your 
  psychic imprint, and this can be detected using sympathetic 
  magic. Establishing this imprint takes time – or a properly 
  configured entropic field and a spray can full of a bonding 
  agent and your aerosolised blood. It’s possible to make a 
  suit of clothes or an apartment feel spiritually ‘lived in’ 
  within five minutes. 
  The killer app of undercover occult investigation is destiny 
  entanglement. With a sufficiently strong entanglement, an 
  agent can masquerade as another individual in the eyes – 
  or equivalent psychic organs – of extradimensional entities 
  and magic. When infiltrating a target organisation known 
  to employ significant occult countermeasures, the standard 
  protocol is to entangle the infiltrator with a suitable member 
  of the organisation (ideally, a friendly agent or a cult member 
  who has already been captured, but it is possible to entangle 
  a subject with an unwitting partner8).
  Running Agents
  The value of a well-placed agent is considerable. During the 
  Second World War, Germany sent dozens of agents into 
  England, but all of these were identified and a great many 
  turned against their masters by means of the Double Cross 
  system pioneered by J. C. Masterman. By the end of the 
  war, MI5 ‘actively ran and controlled the German espionage system’ 
  in the United Kingdom. As a counterexample, we need 
  look no further than the ‘Cambridge Five,’ who obtained 
  positions of influence within British intelligence while 
  reporting to the KGB. 
  This section discusses how to contact, assess, recruit, handle 
  and eventually terminate an agent. It can also be applied to 
  handling of informants.
  7. A lot of cover identities are founded on dead infants; having a birth certificate that roughly matches your real ethnicity and date of birth opens up a lot 
  of bureaucratic doors and makes establishing your bona fides much easier.
  8. cf Project Q5208, Mirror of  Soul Stealing.
  8
  
  In the past, the Laundry has recruited agents in
  • Foreign governments
  • Foreign intelligence agencies
  • Foreign militaries
  • Paramilitary and terrorist groups
  • Cults and religious sects
  • Corporations
  • Research institutions
  In rare cares, non-human agents have been recruited, but 
  exonomes/BLUE HADES/WOOD LOUSE all present 
  such unique challenges that the techniques here do not 
  entirely apply. It’s very hard to be discreet and covert when 
  your contact has glowing green eyes and smells of sulphur.
   
  Identifying agents
  A good candidate for an agent is a resourceful, discreet and 
  motivated individual with the ability to gain access to secret 
  information, either through their trusted position (employee 
  of a corporation, member of a cult), their existing contacts 
  (arms dealer, occult historian) or their talents (thief and 
  saboteur, sorcerer). The agent must be able to obtain the 
  desired information without arousing suspicion. In many 
  cases, the agent will volunteer their services, either by 
  contacting the authorities9 or, if they are already in contact 
  with a Laundry officer, by confiding in him.
  The reasons for why someone would take the risk of 
  betraying their associates and working with the Laundry as 
  an agent are varied, and can be summarised as MICEGUT. 
  This stands for Money, Ideology, Compromise, Ego, Geas, 
  Unholiness and Terror. These are the seven classic handles 
  by which a spy can be manipulated.
  Money: The agent wants to be paid for their services. This 
  is a time-honoured tradition; spying is the second oldest 
  profession, of course, and bears a striking resemblance in 
  this case to the first. A large portion of the Single Intelligence 
  Vote (black budget) has always gone on paying bribes. 
  In the Laundry, extracting money from the accounting 
  department to pay for agents is an order of magnitude more 
  difficult than recruiting the agent in the first place. (That said, 
  some potential agents can be recruited for comparatively 
  trivial amounts of money. Cultists are often poor at 
  managing their cash flow, and black candles aren’t cheap.) 
  Agents who are motivated by money tend to demand more 
  and more as time goes on; the handler must keep a tight 
  grip on the purse-strings and avoid paying too much too 
  soon. However, not paying the agent is an open invitation 
  for betrayal.
  Ideology: The agent truly believes in a cause, and thinks 
  that betraying his associates is the best way to serve that 
  cause. Some agents consider themselves to be patriots, or 
  are committed to a religious faith or belief system that 
  is at odds with the target group. When dealing with an 
  ideologically motivated agent, the handler must take care 
  to appear to be in full agreement with the agent’s beliefs, 
  while also restraining the agent’s enthusiasm – such agents 
  are more likely to take risks. See False Flag, on page 10.
  Compromise: The agent has been compromised in some 
  fashion, and can be blackmailed by the handler. Ideally, 
  the handler has proof, such as incriminating photographs 
  or financial records, but it is possible to recruit an agent 
  through deception, by hinting that the handler possesses 
  damaging information. 
  Once an agent has been approached, he may already be 
  considered compromised; the handler can threaten to 
  secretly inform the agent’s associates that he has betrayed 
  them. 
  Ego: The agent is willing to risk his life out of a taste 
  for excitement, fame, challenge or some other internal 
  motivation. Some agents want the thrill of danger and 
  tradecraft. Ego-driven agents are unreliable, so the handler 
  should take steps to deepen the agent’s commitment 
  (through compromise, geas etc) before the agent changes 
  his mind. Never let an ego-driven agent get bored. They’re 
  like hyperactive children; you have to keep them occupied. 
  Geas: The agent is geased to serve the Laundry. A simple 
  compulsion geas may suffice, but usually it takes a specially 
  crafted enchantment to alter the agent’s behaviour without 
  arousing suspicion. Obviously, cultists and other occult 
  operatives have protections or counter-geases, or are 
  routinely scanned for signs of magical subversion. Methods 
  such as an Imp of the Perverse or the Maskelyne Ploy can 
  temporarily hide the presence of a geas, but geased agents 
  will almost certainly be uncovered eventually. (Unless the 
  target organisation is totally clueless about sorcery, in which 
  case break out the warrant cards and nuke their free will.)
  Unholiness: Also known as unheimlich, this category 
  of agents are motivated by fear of the supernatural. The 
  manifestation of genuine entities from beyond or witnessing 
  actual magic is deeply unsettling, especially for those who 
  were previously wavering in their loyalty to the group. 
  TrAdeCrAFT
  9. Basically, a guy walks into the local police station or the British embassy and rants about how the gods are coming back and everyone is going to die. The 
  police think he’s a nutter and stick him in a cell to dry out, and a nice chap from the Laundry pops down with a cup of valium-doped tea and a warrant 
  card. Happens more often than you’d think.
  9
  1 - TRADECRAFT
  
  THe LAundry
  The aftermath of a cult ceremony or summoning is an 
  excellent opportunity to pick up wayward or inexperienced 
  cult members and recruit them as spies. To make a convincing 
  unheimlich recruitment ploy, the handler must present 
  himself as willing to believe the prospective agent’s story, but 
  also reassuringly confident and capable of dealing with such 
  occult horrors. Gibber, weep and go fetal on your own time.
  Terror: This category refers to agents who have seen the 
  potential result of their activities and have had a ‘road to 
  Yuggoth’ conversion. It happens only rarely, but a formerly 
  committed cultist may have a moment of clarity and realise 
  that the Great Old Ones have no love for their followers, 
  and that there is no ‘winning side’ in an apocalypse. Terror-
  driven agents must be recruited and secured quickly, before 
  they start thinking irrationally again. 
  Recruitment
  Once a potential agent has been identified, the process of 
  recruitment can begin. The handler must gather as much 
  information as possible about the spy, to ensure he is not 
  a double agent or the bait in a trap. If the agent did not 
  volunteer for the role, then he must be prepared for his 
  intended purpose. The handler might plant the suggestion 
  of acting against the agent’s associates, then wait for the 
  agent to seize upon the thought and volunteer.
  Honeytrap: A honeytrap is a means for obtaining blackmail 
  material on an agent. Traditionally, this involves using an 
  attractive member of the appropriate gender to lure the 
  prospective agent into a compromising position. Obviously, 
  it works better on some targets than others.10 Glamours help 
  with this, as the Laundry budget rarely stretches to high-
  class hookers who are willing to bed goat-smelling cultists.
  False Flag: A false flag recruitment is aimed at agents 
  motivated by ideology, and involves the handler pretending 
  to represent another group instead of his actual allegiance. 
  For example, during the Cold War, KGB officers recruited 
  spies in the United States by claiming to be CIA officers 
  who needed to spy on potential Communist infiltrators. 
  Their recruits were convinced they were patriotically 
  helping America, when in fact they were providing 
  information to the enemy. The Laundry has utilised similar 
  methods in the past (Yellow Sign brotherhood/Operation 
  PALLID MASK). Occult false flag ops are best conducted 
  using summoned exonomes; just call up something scary to 
  impress the mark. 
  Training: If the agent lacks the necessary skills and 
  tradecraft to carry out his operation (such as lockpicking, 
  photography, computer cracking, scrying, countermagic), 
  the handler must provide training. Usually, this is done at 
  a temporary training camp where the agent is kept from 
  learning too much about the workings of the handler’s 
  organisation. Where necessary, the Laundry carries out 
  agent training at the Village.
  Contacting Agents
  Communication between agent and handler must be kept 
  secret, especially after recruitment. The agent should meet 
  the handler only on rare occasions, and only when necessary. 
  Such meetings must never take place in the same location 
  twice, and the agent should be informed of the time and 
  location of the meeting at the last possible moment (the 
  usual solution is to inform the agent of the location using 
  a cut-out). 
  The primary method of communication between agent 
  and handler is Covert Messages (see page 11). The 
  handler should use intermediaries whenever possible, 
  and these intermediaries should have no knowledge of 
  either the handler or the agent. Compartmentalisation of 
  information is key. Telephones should be avoided, as they 
  can be intercepted. Letters or emails should be enciphered 
  or encrypted (see Stenography, page 13). The agent should 
  be provided with some method of secretly informing the 
  handler that he is writing under duress, such an innocuous 
  word that can be included as a warning. 
  Missions
  Agents inevitably have a high degree of autonomy, and 
  the handler must accept that whatever task he assigns to 
  his agent will be accomplished in the agent’s own fashion. 
  At best, the handler can advise and assist. A good agent 
  may be able to acquire specific information (‘we need you 
  to photograph the cult’s grimoire’), but often agents just take 
  whatever opportunities arise to acquire information. 
  Occult sabotage missions can be especially fruitful. Most 
  organisations attempting invocations, summonings and 
  other arcana have no real understanding of the Dee-
  Turing theorem. Their magic is based on the brute-force 
  application of poorly comprehended principles. When one 
  of their rituals fails, they have no debugging protocol, and 
  hence it is simple for a well-placed agent to sabotage the 
  ritual without being caught. A powerful invocation can be 
  cut short just by connecting the summoning grid to earth 
  before the Dho-Nha curve is drawn. Introducing a tiny 
  impurity into the Birthing Wine of Celeano can prevent the 
  Messengers from Afar from manifesting. 
  10. Don’t sleep with the fishes. 
  10
  
  Handling Agents
  Spying is a stressful and harrowing task for anyone, and 
  many of the people the Laundry is obliged to employ are 
  not especially stable even before they become agents. A 
  good handler must be aware of his agent’s emotional state, 
  so he can judge when to threaten and when to reassure, 
  when to ask for more and when to let the agent rest for 
  a time. He must also ensure that the agent never gets the 
  upper hand in the relationship – as soon as the agent starts 
  dictating terms to the handler, the relationship is unlikely to 
  be salvaged. 
  When dealing with an agent, the handler should keep the 
  agent from learning anything about the true workings of 
  the Laundry. The more the agent knows, the greater the 
  risk should the agent be captured or turned. Be prepared to 
  completely abandon your cover as a handler if the agent is 
  turned – the whole cover identity should be ready for roll-
  up at a moment’s notice. At the same time, agents are more 
  likely to trust their handler if they believe the handler is 
  also at risk, so a good handler ‘accidentally’ lets slip personal 
  details, becomes the agent’s confidante, and may even 
  introduce the agent to his family (other Laundry operatives 
  using temporary cover identities). 
  The handler must also review the information that the agent 
  provides, and examine it carefully for inconsistencies and 
  fabrications. Ideally, this information is crosschecked against 
  intelligence gathered from other sources that the agent is 
  unaware of, so the veracity of the agent’s information can 
  be confirmed. Never let an agent know whether or not 
  the Laundry has other ways of getting the information 
  he provides. If possible, put the agent under a truth geas 
  during debriefings. 
  Terminating Agents
  Eventually, every agent outlives their usefulness. At this 
  point, the handler must resolve the agent’s status. If the 
  agent knows nothing useful about the Laundry, and is no 
  longer at risk of being turned or captured by his former 
  associates, then the agent can be realised back into civilian 
  life (after signing Section III, of course, and being suitably 
  geased and brainwiped to ensure operational security.)
  If the agent knows too much about the Laundry, then more 
  powerful geases can be employed. In some cases, the agent 
  may even be recruited into the organisation where we can 
  keep an eye on him.11 If this is not an option, the agent’s 
  file should be sent to the Accounts department to be closed 
  out.
  Double Agents
  Double agents are agents who are working for both sides 
  simultaneously. The agent may claim to be really working for 
  the Laundry against the opposition, but the agent invariably 
  has some amount of loyalty or commitment to the other 
  side too. Double agents require especially delicate handling, 
  as they are in a unique position either to do damage or to 
  provide results.
  When dealing with a double agent, assume that everything 
  you do and say to him will be relayed faithfully to the enemy. 
  Anything you reveal to him is likely to fall into enemy hands. 
  With that caveat in mind, can the agent still be useful? 
  Often, the best use of a double agent is to feed disinformation 
  back to the opposition. A carefully orchestrated campaign 
  of misinformation and half-truths can manipulate an 
  enemy organisation. If a double agent passes on the secret 
  location of a necromancer’s crypt that is of great interest 
  to the enemy, the Laundry can arrange for that crypt to 
  be wired with SCORPION STARE. More subtly, a hostile 
  organisation can be directed down fruitless or hazardous 
  paths of occult research.
  If an agent is suspected of passing secrets to the opposition, 
  the handler should begin feeding him what is termed a 
  ‘barium meal.’ A barium meal is a packet of information 
  whose dissemination can be traced. For example, a suspected 
  double agent might be informed that the Laundry is tapping 
  a cult’s cellphones. If the cult suddenly stops using their 
  cellphones, this is strong evidence that the agent has been 
  turned. 
  Covert Messages
  Stolen secrets are worthless unless they can be conveyed 
  without detection. There are a variety of ways to secretly 
  communicate with another agent without being noticed 
  by observers. A good spy never assumes that he is safe 
  from prying eyes; at any time, there could be agents of the 
  opposition shadowing him. Communication methods must 
  be covert, and they must also protect the recipient from 
  detection. If an agent is observed sending a message, that 
  compromises the agent, but if that message can be followed 
  to its destination, that can compromise the whole Laundry. 
  Ideally, when passing a message, the sender should not 
  know the identity of the receiver, the receiver should not 
  know that of the sender, and any intermediaries should be 
  equally ignorant. This can be accomplished through the use 
  of cut-outs.
  TrAdeCrAFT
  11. Specifically, a disembodied human eye that seems to turn up everywhere he goes. Sometimes, it’s stuck to the ceiling. Sometimes, it’s peering out from 
  under a pile of leaves, or on the far side of a crack in the wall. Sometimes, it’s staring out at him from his daughter’s eyesocket... but it’s always the same 
  eye, and it’s always watching him.
  11
  1 - TRADECRAFT
  
  THe LAundry
  Cut-Out
  A cut-out is a method of sending messages that can be 
  trusted by both sender and receiver. A cut-out might be an 
  unremarkable office where the receptionist takes messages 
  for ‘Mr. Smith,’ a particular teller in a bank, a bicycle courier 
  or a pizza delivery boy – anything  that the agent can access 
  without arousing suspicion can function as a cut-out. 
  In the past, the Laundry has bought out several local dry 
  cleaners and uses them as cut-outs. Dry cleaners are ideal for 
  this – you have a stream of people going in and out, contact 
  with the staff is kept to a minimum, and a freshly cleaned 
  suit can have its pockets stuffed with secret messages. 
  Another form of cut-out is the ‘dead drop’ or hidden 
  post-box. This is a cache for written messages and small 
  objects. The agent puts the message in the dead drop and 
  walks away. At some point, another agent collects the 
  message without the two ever having to meet. Dead drops 
  are located in public places, but need to be hidden from 
  casual observers. A dead drop might be a hollow statue, a 
  post office box, or behind a loose brick in an alley wall. 
  Another dead drop variant uses a small magnet clamped to 
  the underside of a park bench; the agent can casually slip 
  a small metal container, such as a box of mints, under the 
  bench where it adheres to the magnet, out of sight but is 
  easily retrievable. 
  Brush Contact
  A brush contact or brush pass is used when a message 
  must be passed both quickly and covertly. It is riskier than 
  using a cut-out, as the messenger must be able to identify 
  the recipient. The messenger approaches the recipient in a 
  crowd or other public place, and hands over the message 
  swiftly and surreptitiously. The classic brush pass involves 
  both parties carrying identical suitcases. The messenger 
  ‘accidentally’ bumps into the recipient, both briefcases fall 
  to the ground, and in the moment of faked confusion, 
  the two suitcases are exchanged. A simpler brush pass just 
  has the messenger slip a folded piece of paper into the 
  recipient’s pocket, or whisper a message into his ear. 
  One key use of a brush contact is to pass a ward to an 
  undercover agent (usually just before a dangerous thaumic 
  discharge.)
  Brush contacts are often used to direct the recipient to a 
  nearby dead drop or a meeting. 
  The key to a successful brush pass is speed and secrecy. 
  The contact must look trivial and accidental to external 
  observers. Ideally, a brush pass should be combined with a 
  momentary distraction, such as a loud public argument or 
  car crash, that draws the attention of any observers away 
  from the recipient. 
   
  Signalling
  Covert signalling involves sending messages that blend 
  into their surroundings unless you know what to look for. 
  The colour of the sheets hanging from a washing line, for 
  example, might signify different alert conditions. White 
  sheets indicate that all is well, blue sheets that a cult leader 
  is in town, green sheets that a cult ceremony takes place 
  tonight, and red sheets that the agent is under suspicion and 
  requires extraction.12
  Most signals need to be agreed upon beforehand, as part 
  of mission preparation or an agent’s training regimen. 
  A spy can improvise a signal in the field if he knows his 
  fellow players well enough to come up with a signal that 
  friendlies will spot and decode, but enemies will ignore. 
  For example, Agent WINDOW was undercover in a 
  Manchester-based cult when his cover was blown. The 
  cultists put him under house arrest and planned to sacrifice 
  him as punishment for betraying them. His telephone and 
  ward were taken from him, leaving Agent WINDOW with 
  no direct method of calling for assistance. He was allowed 
  access to a television, and used his Laundry credit card 
  to rent a series of pay-per-view movies. These purchases 
  were noticed by accounting, who contacted WINDOW’s 
  handler to complain. This tipped the handler off and 
  WINDOW was rescued.
  Occult signalling is a useful adjunct to conventional 
  methods. If the agent has access to sorcery in some form, 
  he can create effects that are visible only to scryers. A Level 
  One incantation lets an agent brand objects or individuals 
  with invisible runes, or conjure a thaumic burst perceptible 
  to anyone with the skills to see it. 
  Even if the agent lacks the ability to generate magical effects, 
  he can still leave emotional patinas on objects through 
  concentration and strong emotions. Strong associations can 
  be detected with scrying magic, and an extremely out-of-
  place emotional trace can alert observers (‘why is this bus 
  ticket dripping with terror?’). 
  Letters
  Yes, people still communicate by snail-mail. Letters can be 
  intercepted and opened, so they should be coupled with 
  stenography if the agent needs to communicate secretly.
  12. The use of brown sheets is left as an exercise for the reader.
  12
  
  Physical writing has an occult power; signing a letter carries 
  a lot more oomph than appending a .sig to your email,13 
  which is why we still use letters of binding and release and 
  sign contracts. 
  Telephones
  Mobile telecommunications have changed the landscape of 
  espionage and tradecraft. It’s a lot simpler to send a text 
  message saying ‘am about to be fed to shoggoth’ than it is 
  to fiddle around with dead drops and carefully arranged 
  bunches of flowers in the window. Phone tapping and 
  surveillance techniques are discussed on page 16, but 
  remember that the opposition may be able to use these tricks 
  on you. Laundry-issued phones are encrypted, but officers 
  should also carry a pay-as-you-go disposable phone for use 
  in situations when a work phone would be suspicious. 
  Undercover agents should have their phones tapped as part 
  of standard surveillance; they should also be instructed to 
  have a backup phone in a secure hiding place in case they 
  need to communicate secretly. Agents should clear their 
  recently called list and sent messages regularly, in case the 
  phone is searched by enemy security.
  Obviously, never give your work number to anyone outside 
  the Laundry. All calls from outside must be routed through 
  the Switchboard.
  Calling Cards
  Laundry business cards are blank white 
  pieces of cardboard that tingle slightly to 
  the touch. If an individual with a warrant 
  card handles the card, they can see a faint 
  image of the person who issued the card. If 
  a business card is held next to a telephone 
  and concentrated on, the holder of the card 
  can call the Switchboard, but they have 
  memory of the number they just automatically 
  typed. The Switchboard can route the 
  call to the person who issued the card.
  Computers
  Email, instant messaging and other computer-based 
  communication can be an excellent way to stay in touch 
  with an agent, as long as it is used sparingly. Obviously, 
  the handler should set up a false email address or use a 
  cut-out (sending emails to an undercover agent from your 
  work email address is a rookie mistake). Agents must be 
  encouraged not to overuse electronic communication, 
  which can be hard. An undercover agent is in a dangerous 
  and lonely position, and the temptation to confide in a 
  handler excessively can be overwhelming. If the undercover 
  agent’s computer is searched, any suspicious messages will 
  be discovered. 
  If possible, the agent’s computer should be equipped with 
  a concealed secondary operating system. This second OS 
  is installed on a hidden partition in the computer’s hard 
  drive, and its data appears to be random noise if examined. 
  Using a hidden OS is especially vital if the agent needs to 
  install specialised software, such as cryptography or occult 
  applications. 
  Stenography
  Stenography is the science of ‘hidden writing,’ which 
  means codes and ciphers. Briefly, a cipher is a method of 
  encrypting data so it cannot be read unless you’ve got the 
  key to decipher it, or you’ve got the processing power to 
  break the cipher. Modern cipher algorithms are massively 
  computation-intensive, so you can’t reasonably do them by 
  hand (with the exception of one-time pads). Fortunately for 
  the Laundry, one of the side benefits of getting to play with 
  the Dee-Turing theorem is that we can torpedo virtually 
  every cryptosystem below the waterline. The mundane 
  portion of the theorem, before you get to computationally 
  generating Dho-Nha curves, converts NP-complete 
  problems into P-complete problems; this means that an 
  encryption that should take millions of years to crack can be 
  solved in a lazy afternoon. We can’t break every encryption, 
  but anything your average cult or third-world country can 
  muster is easy prey. 
  Of course, if the enemy is aware of the Turing theorem 
  (as opposed to using old-school, brute-force, virgin-on-the-
  altar-and-my-brains-leaking-out-my-nose magic), then they 
  too can crack most forms of encryption, so agents should 
  be trained in using the few secure methods left to us, like 
  one-time pads and codes.
  One-Time pads
  A one-time pad consists of a string of random numbers. To 
  send a message, you just add the number to the numeric 
  equivalent of the first letter of the message (A=1, B=2 etc) using 
  modular addition, so the resulting value is between 1 and 26. 
  TrAdeCrAFT
  13. As per HR Directive 643.10, employees are requested to keep their signatures below three lines, and not to include any glyphs, incantations, soul traps, 
  glamours or unapproved text.
  13
  1 - TRADECRAFT
  
  THe LAundry
  You then translate that back into a letter. You keep going for 
  your entire message, using each number from the pad once 
  in sequence. The resulting cyphertext is perfectly  secure, 
  as it gives no information about the original message to the 
  attacker. 
  There are several downsides that make one-time pads 
  impractical for long messages. The first problem is that your 
  pad has to be at least as long as the message you want to 
  send – if you plan on encrypting a 12-gigabyte text file, you 
  need 12 gigabytes of perfectly random data as the key. 
  Secondly, both sender and receiver need access to that key. 
  The usual approach is to send the agent into the field with 
  a small booklet of tear-off sheets, each of which contains 
  a key string. These sheets are burned after use. The receiver 
  has a matching booklet. For longer texts, USB sticks with 
  longer key strings can be used.
  Thirdly, if the key string is known to the enemy, deciphering 
  the message is trivial. 
  The Laundry continues to favour the use of one-time pads 
  (and not just because there are still thousands of the buggers 
  in a warehouse, dating back to the SOE years), and has 
  experimented with alternative methods of key-text delivery, 
  such as radio broadcast via numbers station, temporary 
  possession, post-hypnotic suggestion and entangling the 
  agent’s psyche with a single copy of the one-time pad. 
  Codes
  A code system is a set of signals that are known to both 
  parties in a communication. The elements of the code 
  system are meaningless in themselves, but if both sides 
  know that ‘purple monkey dishwasher’ means ‘these bastards 
  just opened a Class IV gate to somewhere terrible – call the 
  bloody SAS’ the message can be sent in the clear without 
  worrying about interception. 
  Microdots
  Another traditional spy method largely eclipsed by 
  modern telecommunications, but still occasionally handy. 
  A microdot is a photograph the size of a period mark. 
  Examined under a microscope, each microdot contains 
  pages of text or images. Microdots are prepared using a 
  special camera. Traditionally, you stick them into letters, but 
  they can be concealed anywhere. Microdot cameras can be 
  obtained from Q Division; their use is recommended when 
  copying occult tomes. There’s some writing that should be 
  kept away from any computation device, even a scanner or 
  a Mark I Human Brain. 
  Electronic Stenography
  Electronic stenography conceals data within seemingly 
  innocent files, usually image files. You can stick a lot of text 
  into the code of a .jpg without significantly affecting the 
  picture. A specialised application is needed to encrypt or 
  recover the data, but the resulting cyphertext – the image – 
  does not arouse suspicion.
  Using this method on magical incantations can have 
  unexpected side effects. Thaumic energy can leak and cause 
  bit rot, warping the image in disturbing and dangerous ways. 
  Occult Stenography
  An entropic manipulation Somebody Else’s Problem 
  effect can convince casual observers to ignore a message, 
  but the presence of an active thaum field can trigger 
  opposition security. Sympathetic magic allows the use of 
  arcane encryption keys, such as soul-based or blood-based 
  encryption. 
  One of the earliest books on stenography, Stenographia by 
  Johannes Trithemius, used occult language to disguise the 
  true nature of his treatise on cryptography. The names of 
  the angels were used as encryption keys. The suppressed 
  fourth book, however, contains genuine summoning 
  formulae that are still valid; the summoned entity encrypts 
  the message, and can be invoked on the far side to decrypt 
  it again. All the recipient needs is the ciphertext and the 
  symbolic name of the entity to invoke. 
  A modern stenographic method combines conventional 
  encryption with a reverse invocations of Trithemius’ angels 
  of the message. This means that whenever an attacker tries 
  to break the encryption using conventional techniques 
  without first placating the angel, the spirit will introduce 
  errors into the decryption process and ruin the decryption.
  Fieldcraft
  Fieldcraft is a collection of techniques used by spies and 
  thieves, covering evasion, tactical awareness and surveillance 
  in the field. While all Laundry employees are given a brief 
  course in fieldcraft as part of introductory training, field 
  officers should hone their evasion and observation skills to 
  a higher level. Poor fieldcraft has been the death of many 
  spies. 
  14
  
  Fieldcraft Rules
  Spy-vs-spy duels should be handled through 
  opposed Hide and Spot rolls. Depending on 
  the circumstances, skills like Disguise, 
  Stealth, Knowledge (Streetwise) or even 
  Climb or Fast Talk can also come into 
  play. Characters may use their Knowledge 
  (Espionage) skill as a complementary skill 
  when using fieldcraft, adding 1/5th of the 
  skill’s total as a bonus to their rolls.
  Tailing 
  Tailing is the art of following someone without being 
  spotted. The tail should keep the target in sight as much as 
  possible, by taking up a position a few metres behind him and 
  staying in his blind spot whenever possible. The tail should 
  vary his gait and position; crossing from one side of the 
  road to the other, stopping to window shop, pretending to 
  talk on the phone and so on, especially if there is little other 
  foot traffic to provide cover. If the target spots (or ‘makes’) 
  the tail, the tail should try to allay suspicion (say, by walking 
  past the target, or entering a nearby building), evade the 
  target, then change his appearance and re-establish pursuit. 
  Floating Box: A floating box is a more effective method of 
  tailing a target, but requires several tails. The ‘floating box’ is 
  drawn around the target by the tails; members move to keep 
  the subject in the box at all times. One or two members 
  keep the target in view, while other members move ahead 
  of or parallel to the target. The member with the best 
  view of the target is said to ‘have the eyeball,’ and if visual 
  contact with the target is lost, he has ‘lost the eyeball’. If 
  the target changes direction, the member he moves towards 
  takes up surveillance. Members swap positions within the 
  box regularly, never staying in one position long enough to 
  arouse the target’s suspicion.
  Ideally, the members of a floating box are linked by radio or 
  telephone so they can co-ordinate their surveillance. 
  For example, three agents (A, B and C) are following a 
  target Z. At the start of the tail, A has the eyeball and is 
  directly behind Z. B follows on a parallel street, while C 
  walks ahead of Z. After a few minutes, A hands the eyeball 
  off to C; C pretends to examine a restaurant menu while Z 
  passes him, at which point he takes up position behind Z. 
  Meanwhile, B comes down a connecting street and takes up 
  C’s old position at the front of the box, while A goes to the 
  parallel street out of sight of Z. By rotating who has the 
  eyeball, the agents ensure that Z never registers that any one 
  person is acting suspiciously. 
  On Foot
  When following a target on foot, the agent should adapt his 
  movements to the environment. On a crowded street, it is 
  safer to stay close to the target; the crowd helps conceal the 
  agent, but also increases the likelihood of losing the eyeball. 
  In less busy places, the agent should hang back and avoid 
  being seen if possible. If the target moves to a very open 
  area where a tail would be obvious, the best solution is to 
  keep the target in sight using binoculars, and get a second tail 
  to pick up the eyeball when the target leaves the open area.
  By Car
  Following a target in a vehicle uses the same principles as 
  tailing on foot, but requires an intimate knowledge of local 
  streets and traffic patterns so the tails can predict where the 
  target can go, and move assets into position to pick up the 
  eyeball. 
  Occult Tailing 
  A simple contagion link between the target and a suitable 
  instrument (compass or pendulum for traditionalists, 
  but you can use a GPS) allows a target to be tracked. A 
  contagion link needs something of the target as a link, but 
  this can be something as trivial as a scrap of fabric from the 
  target’s jacket (obtainable with a brush contact and a pocket 
  knife). A low-intensity contagion link does not last long, and 
  can be disrupted by external factors. Any high-energy or 
  high-entropy source can disrupt the trace, so if the target 
  crosses running water or goes close to a power line, the link 
  may break. Stronger contagion items, such as an important 
  personal item or a tissue sample, provide more resilient links.
  Entropic manipulation spells can fuzz probability, making 
  it more likely that the target takes certain routes, as can 
  a targeted glamour to make the target mistake one place 
  for another. Entropic occlusion (invisibility spells) and 
  glamours can substitute for mundane tradecraft by making 
  tails invisible. 
  Avoiding Tails
  The best way to avoid being tailed is to avoid being picked 
  up in the first place. If an agent suspects the enemy knows 
  she is at home, then they probably have a tail waiting outside 
  the front door. A good spy will leave by the window instead, 
  dodging the tail. Agents should vary their routes as much as 
  possible. Similarly, an agent should change his appearance at 
  times. If the enemy are looking for a tall man in a business 
  suit, the agent should slouch, stoop his shoulders and put 
  on a grubby hoodie with the hood pulled up.
  TrAdeCrAFT
  15
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  Spotting a Tail
  Cultivate a good memory for faces, and look for recurring 
  faces in the crowd. Change your pace and course randomly, 
  and consider cutting across open ground or through crowds 
  if you suspect you are being followed. Avoid looking directly 
  at any suspected pursuers; shop windows, rear view mirrors 
  and other reflective surfaces can be used to discreetly 
  observe a suspected tail. Mobile phones with cameras can 
  also be used to scan a crowd without turning around.
  If you spot someone following you, do not panic and do 
  not immediately employ more extreme evasive tactics – if 
  the tail realises they have been made, they may hand off 
  surveillance to another agent who you have not identified. 
  Stick with the tail until you have a better appraisal of the 
  situation. If you do decide to evade the tail, wait until a good 
  opportunity presents itself – it is better to be patient and let 
  the tail observe you until you can make a clean escape. 
  Evasion
  Evasion is predicated on either breaking line of sight or 
  preventing the tail from pursuing. 
  Line of sight can be temporarily broken by moving behind 
  obstacles, ducking into a building, entering a crowded 
  area or taking advantage of environmental factors such as 
  weather. Once line of sight is broken, the agent should leave 
  the area as quickly as possible using an unpredictable and 
  hard to follow route (fire escapes, alleyways, service doors, 
  cutting through buildings and so on). 
  The agent should also change his appearance – even a simple 
  alternation can greatly decrease the opponent’s chances of 
  reacquiring the agent. 
  • If you are carrying a distinctive object, such as a 
  backpack or briefcase, get rid of it or hide it. Such 
  objects are easy to spot. 
  • Change your torso clothing, as this is the largest surface 
  area on the body and hence the easiest to recognise 
  from a distance. If you are wearing a jacket, remove it; 
  if you are not wearing a jacket, acquire one. Your new 
  appearance should, if possible, blend into your current 
  surroundings. Ironically, high-visibility jackets worn 
  by workmen can be excellent camouflage, as they are 
  ubiquitous in many cities.
  • Change your gait, posture and body language. 
  • Change your appearance; glasses, facial hair, hairstyle 
  and colour can all be altered quickly. 
  In urban areas, take advantage of the environment. Most 
  buildings have multiple exits, so enter via one door and exit 
  through another (if possible, an unexpected one like a cellar 
  door). Use transport and traffic to your advantage – for 
  example, in London, it is possible to shake a tail by making 
  rapid changes from one underground line to another and 
  getting off at random stations. 
  Occult Evasion
  Occult evasive techniques build on conventional methods. 
  Obviously, against enemies without divination, the use of 
  entropic manipulation spells to render the agent invisible 
  and inaudible can make evasion much easier. 
  Sources of thaumic energy can interfere with divination, 
  making occult surveillance less effective. Take routes that 
  pass through graveyards, along ley lines, past emotionally 
  resonant symbols or structures. Flowing water can disrupt 
  thaumic traces; still water preserves or reflects them, and 
  hence can be used as a decoy. Conduct a low-level exorcism 
  of yourself to wash away any tracer spells or contagions. 
  Surveillance
  Surveillance is usually conducted using electronic means 
  (see Electronic Surveillance, below), but when budgets 
  are tight or the situation is fluid, there’s no alternative to 
  sitting in a car for thirty-six hours straight, living off junk 
  food and watching some Cthulhu cult bake sale or college 
  dormitory. A good surveillance position has a wide, elevated 
  field of view and allows observers to come and go without 
  being seen by the target. 
  For short-term surveillance of a few hours, disguises like 
  telephone repair technicians work well. A van can conceal 
  electronic surveillance equipment, telephone poles offer an 
  elevated vantage point, and officers may even be able to 
  effect entry to the target’s home by claiming to be ‘checking 
  the phone connections.’
  For longer-term surveillance, consult with local police 
  authorities or SCD-10 of the Met; the police can request 
  the use of a private room in a suitably positioned house for 
  conducting surveillance. 
  Photograph anyone entering or leaving the target area, as 
  well as any vehicles used. Thermal cameras can pick up 
  movement inside a building, but are easily blocked by a heat 
  source in the walls. Parabolic and laser microphones should 
  also be employed during surveillance operations. 
  Track the waste, especially papers; dumpster diving and 
  trash sorting can turn up pearls of useful intelligence. 
  16
  
  Countersurveillance
  If in a residence or office that you suspect may be under 
  enemy surveillance, follow these precautions: keep blinds 
  or curtains drawn whenever possible. Track whatever 
  vehicles are regularly parked in the vicinity – new vehicles 
  that are parked for a long period of time may be in use 
  as watchposts. Look for food waste, empty coffee cups 
  and so forth around suspect vehicles – if you are under 
  surveillance, the enemy probably has agents watching you 
  through the night, and even cultists get hungry at four AM.
  Electronic Surveillance
  Electronic surveillance and bugging can yield vast amounts 
  of data, although only a fraction of this data is useful.14 
  Modern bugs and other surveillance devices are so small 
  as to be virtually undetectable without a thorough search, 
  and are more powerful and accurate than ever before. 
  Nonetheless, they are not infallible and proper procedures 
  must be observed if the bugs are to be used correctly. 
  Installation
  Getting a bug into place is often the most challenging part 
  of a surveillance mission. Most bugs have only a short 
  range, so they must be placed within the target structure or 
  on the target individual, which means having access to that 
  target for several minutes. 
  • Agents may be able to gain access to the target in 
  disguise, by claiming to be workmen carrying out 
  necessary structural repairs, plumbing and so forth. If 
  the target is a private residence, then the agents will 
  need a stronger excuse to gain entry (a gas leak is a 
  classic cover, and it is easy enough to engineer a sewer 
  blockage or power cut as justification for carrying out 
  repairs in or near the target.) 
  • Bugs can be planted in trojan horses of some sort. A 
  bug could be planted in a suitcase, and then swapped 
  for the target’s real suitcase during an airport security 
  check or using a brush contact. Get creative – if the 
  targets order pizza regularly, but only put out the trash 
  once a week, then a bug in a pizza box could gather up 
  to six days worth of information. 
  • Not all bugs require physical access. If the targets are 
  within the United Kingdom, or friendly authorities 
  are willing to co-operate, phone and data lines can be 
  tapped via the telecommunications companies. 
  • If all else fails, the last recourse is a risky black bag job 
  – break in at night, plant the bug and get out.
  There are three major concerns when planting a bug – 
  concealment, coverage and retrieval.
  Concealment: A bug has to be hidden and secure. Ideally, 
  it should be placed out of easy reach, so it is not found by 
  chance, and drilled into a wall or other object so it cannot 
  be seen. Make sure that any debris from installing the bug 
  is removed; it’s a shame to spend an hour drilling a hole in 
  the ceiling to thread a snake-cam into the terrorist’s secret 
  base, only for a few flecks of paint and plaster dust to give 
  the whole game away. Bugs give off electromagnetic signals, 
  so they should be placed close to other sources of EM 
  interference to disguise their presence. Hiding bugs near 
  power cables, electrical appliances, light fittings and so forth 
  can help shield them from a security sweep. Obviously, 
  placing a bug too close to interference is counter-productive.
  Coverage: A bug needs to be placed to maximise the amount 
  of information it gathers. Consider the room layout when 
  planting the bug – are the targets more likely to congregate 
  around the table in the dining room, or on the couch?15 
  Retrieval: Some bugs broadcast the information they pick 
  up, so retrieving their data is simple (but these bugs need 
  an aerial and are much easier to detect). Other bugs save 
  up their data, and transmit it once every few hours or days 
  or when their onboard memory is full. Again, these bugs 
  need an aerial, but are only easy to detect when squawking, 
  and the burst transmission conserves battery life. These 
  days, bugs that piggyback on local wifi and 3g networks to 
  transmit their data are often the best solution.
  Occult Surveillance
  The primary methods of occult surveillance are:
  • Scrying, using a link to an object or individual. The 
  scryer can see the area immediately around the target 
  object. For this, a sympathic link is needed, but the 
  actual scrying spell is quite simple. Scrying can be 
  defeated by exorcising the target object, thus breaking 
  the link, or by putting anti-scrying wards around the 
  target. 
  TrAdeCrAFT
  14. And that is why God gave us junior officers, who get to listen to 400 hours of Subject #3 screaming about how the Freemasons put tiny men under 
  his skin. 
  15. If it’s a geek cult, then put the camera above the comfy seat, so you can shoulder-surf their passwords. If it’s a cell of terrorists, then put the listening 
  device near the largest concentration of cigarettes – people talk while they smoke.
  17
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  THe LAundry
  • Remote viewing, by projection. Remote viewing 
  is notoriously finicky and unreliable; apply to the 
  Laundry’s Predictive Branch for advice on the field use 
  of remote viewing.16
  • Variations on the Rune of Al-Harijoun, allowing the 
  perceptions of an observer to be viewed remotely. 
  Traditionally, the rune was inscribed on animals, 
  making them familiars, but the rune can be inscribed 
  on any lens, including that of a camera. 
  Security
  Basic security procedures for any building or residence not 
  already secured by Security Management:
  • A defensive ward is to be established around the 
  perimeter as quickly as possible.
  • Never let anyone into the building without checking 
  their credentials. Observe visitors at all times, and 
  never leave them alone.17
  • Regularly scan for listening devices.
  • Regularly exorcise or scramble the thaumic fields, if 
  possible.
  • Kill any mice or other pests; they could be familiars.
  In Conclusion
  Despite advances in SIGINT and OCCINT, success still 
  requires HUMINT, and safe handling of HUMINT assets 
  calls for the skills developed during the last century of 
  espionage. All officers should be aware of the techniques 
  of tradecraft, and be prepared to exercise them when 
  necessary. 
  Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, these precautions will 
  prove utterly pointless, and you will feel like a silly bugger 
  hiding in the bushes when the suspected tail turns out to be 
  Mrs. Frobisher out walking her dog. One day, though, it will 
  be a thing wearing Mrs. Frobisher’s skin,18 and tradecraft 
  will save your life.
  16. The response will probably be ‘hazy – try again later.’
  17. Not even in the loo. 
  18. Or her dog’s skin. There’s a direct correlation between brain complexity and the magnitude of the entity that can possess it – if you try to stick a Level 
  Four entity into a dog, you’ll be wiping fur off the ceiling for weeks. At the lower magnitudes, though, you can have something with a roughly human level 
  of cognition in a much smaller body... Brown Jenkins wasn’t just a big rat. 
  18
  
  BeLL, BOOk And CAndLe
  Q Division are always creating new devices and adapting 
  captured devices for their own use. In addition, other 
  agencies and corporations that work with the occult, 
  either legally or not, also regularly create their own new 
  technologies. The Laundry may issue some of the following 
  devices to operatives, others may be created by various rival 
  organisations, and a few are known only in rumours (and 
  your superiors will be exceptionally pleased with you if 
  you manage to retrieve a working example that the R&D 
  department can examine). However, they aren’t going to be 
  sufficiently pleased that they’ll let you keep an experimental, 
  one-of-a-kind device, so use it while you’ve got it; after you 
  turn it in, you’re likely to never see it again. 
  Not every piece of specialised gear your agents are issued 
  will be inscribed with silver intaglio banishment glyphs 
  or feature hidden Bluetooth capability. Some amount of 
  what the Laundry does falls into the realm of conventional 
  spycraft, and conventional spycraft frequently requires tools 
  that fall specifically outside of the realm of specialised, 
  exotic or even high-tech gear coveted by most Laundry 
  agents. This section covers a variety of equipment used 
  in espionage of the non-supernatural sort, adding to the 
  conventional spy gear presented on pages 99-102 of the 
  core rulebook.
  Bell, Book and Candle
  …and machine gun, and tank, and hidden safehouse. The right tool for the job.
  Normal vs. Experimental Technologies
  Although every unusual device issued by the Laundry, including both occult gadgets and high 
  tech devices, are specially built items that are not available to the public, the vast 
  majority are well tested devices that are known to be safe and reliable, if likely also 
  expensive and difficult to produce. However, new technologies don’t just spring forth from 
  the lab fully functional and ready to use. Once the techs have completed basic testing 
  procedures, the next step in finalising a device is testing it under actual field conditions. 
  This means experienced operatives are occasionally issued experimental devices. On the 
  positive side, this means that these operatives get access to tech that their opponents 
  not only don’t have, but likely haven’t even heard of. On the downside, not all field tests 
  are successful. Sometimes devices can fail utterly at just the wrong moment, and on rare 
  occasions they can have unforeseen and typically unfortunate side effects. Q Division is 
  required to let operatives know if a device they’ve been issued is experimental, but they 
  can’t tell the operative when or how it might go wrong – if they could, it wouldn’t need to 
  be tested. Operatives are expected to make a full report on any experimental device that 
  they were issued. They are also expected to return it, even if it breaks. Operatives who 
  are about to be captured while carrying an experimental device should hide or destroy it. 
  Allowing an experimental device to be captured by an enemy organisation is often cause for 
  a formal review of the operative’s record.
  The techs in Q Division aren’t the only people testing experimental devices. Various other 
  occult organisations, both friendly and hostile, often also do the same thing, including 
  devices that the Laundry either has only heard rumours about, or which are entirely new to 
  the Laundry. Operatives are expected to deliver comprehensive reports about any previously 
  unknown devices that they encounter. Photographs of the device, and other hard evidence, 
  including the bodies of anyone killed by the device, are also considered important, if they 
  can be obtained without jeopardising the operative’s mission. Obtaining the device itself 
  is going above and beyond the call of duty, and is always worth at least a commendation. 
  It’s also important to note that even if an operative has heard of a particular experimental 
  device, they are not authorised to request it. Experimental devices are issued according to 
  the needs of Q Division and the directives of the Predictive Branch. 
  19
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  An operative with friends in Q Division can always suggest that they be the one to test a 
  particular device – sometimes this tactic even works – however, during testing a single 
  operative will never be issued a device for more than one mission. Seeing how a device works 
  for different operatives is part of the testing procedure.
  Rules for Experimental Devices
  Experimental devices have all been tested under normal conditions, and under normal conditions 
  they work perfectly well. However, if the device is dropped, struck hard, or exposed to 
  high levels of heat, electricity, or radiation, it may malfunction. In addition, exposure 
  to Level Three or higher hauntings, trips through magical gates, or close proximity to the 
  summoning of a Level Three or higher entity can also negatively affect both occult and 
  ordinary experimental devices. If any of these unfortunate incidents occur, the device may 
  malfunction. In such situations, the player rolls 1D10. If the roll is 4 or higher, the 
  device functions normally. If the roll is a 2 or 3, then the device fails to operate, but may 
  work the next time it is used; every time the device is used again until its next service, 
  the operative must make the same roll. If a 1 is rolled, then the device does something 
  unexpected, fails, and will not work again until it has been serviced. These unexpected results 
  can range from the device exploding or catching fire, to it working too well, like a weapon 
  designed to incapacitate a target accidentally killing or severely injuring him instead.
  Experimental Devices Operating Under Unusual Circumstances
  Roll
  Result
  1
  The device produces an unexpected and problematic result and then 
  breaks.
  2-3
  The device fails to operate, but may work if used again – roll again 
  each time it is used.
  4-10
  The device functions normally.
  10
  The device functions, but there’s an unexpected side effect or 
  problem.
  Automatic Lock Pick
  Availability: Average
   
  A small handheld mechanical device used to automatically 
  open a conventional lock. Quality of automatic lock picks 
  range from rubbish to professional locksmith quality, 
  though fortunately the Q Division has only purchased the 
  best. Using an automatic lock pick makes any attempt at 
  opening a conventional lock using the Fine Manipulation 
  skill Easy. 
  Display Glasses
  Availability: Average
  This little piece of geek heaven has recently completed 
  testing and is being considered for widespread adoption by 
  the Laundry. Display glasses consist of a pair of glasses with 
  a miniature web cam installed in the centre, tiny projectors 
  next to each lens and microphones and speakers on the 
  temple pieces. Anything that can appear on a computer 
  monitor can be displayed on these glasses in a format that 
  only the wearer can read. These glasses can be made for 
  any prescription and function as sunglasses. Display glasses 
  allow operatives to use augmented reality and to view data in 
  an exceptionally discreet fashion. To use them, the operative 
  pairs the glasses with a recent smartphone using the built-
  in Bluetooth connection. Display glasses work wonderfully 
  with the latest model of the Necronomiphone (Laundry 
  RPG, p. 96) and similar devices. 
  To fully use this item, the phone is also given access to 
  special government servers to allow the user to navigate the 
  web and use their phone solely by means of whispered voice 
  commands, supplemented by a combination of camera and 
  projected images that allows the user to turn any surface into 
  20
  
  BeLL, BOOk And CAndLe
  a virtual keyboard. The user need only discreetly touch the 
  virtual keys that they see on the wall or the sleeve of their 
  jacket. This device allows remote technical staff to discreetly 
  feed real-time date to operatives. Also, operatives can swiftly 
  and accurately draw magical diagrams by simply tracing over 
  the lines that the glasses project in front of their eyes. The 
  only downside is that all display glasses have somewhat 
  thick plastic rims and operatives who are surfing the web 
  on their glasses may miss events occurring around them.
  Display Contacts (Experimental)
  Availability: Not Available for Request
  The major limitation of display glasses is that someone 
  nearby could still potentially hear the wearer whispering 
  commands, or catch a glimpse of the images being displayed 
  on their glasses. Also, glasses with thick plastic rims are 
  perfectly reasonable geek wear, but are not appropriate 
  for all cover identities or all situations. To solve these 
  problems, the Laundry has developed an experimental unit 
  consisting of long wear contact lenses fitted with miniature 
  video displays. They are used with an adhesive microphone 
  designed to pick up subvocalisations, affixed to the user’s 
  throat and covered in flesh-coloured plastic, a miniature 
  webcam on a ring or pendant, and miniature speakers 
  that can be fitted to earrings or simply stuck behind the 
  user’s ears. When properly applied, these devices function 
  identically to a pair of display glasses as long as they are 
  within 20 metres of the user’s smartphone. 
  In addition, the subvocal microphone allows the user to 
  communicate or control their phone without making even 
  the slightest whisper or moving their lips at all. It’s not 
  possible to talk and subvocalise at the same time, but anytime 
  the user isn’t speaking, they can subvocalise commands or 
  talk to someone on the phone with no chance that they can 
  be overheard. 
  Unfortunately, these devices remain experimental and prone 
  to problems. There are two common reported bugs. The 
  contact lenses have been known to bluescreen, rendering 
  the user temporarily blind until the unit reboots or the user 
  removes the contacts, both of which require at least one 
  minute. In addition, subvocal microphones are notoriously 
  imprecise. They occasionally pick up some of the user’s 
  inadvertently subvocalised thoughts, which can lead to 
  problems if his supervisor listens to a broadcast while 
  he’s thinking less than pleasant thoughts about both the 
  mission he is currently on and the individuals responsible 
  for sending him on the mission.
  Electronic Drop Cloth
  Availability: Average
  A number of computational sorcery spells require the 
  operative to draw a large diagram in conductive ink. 
  Sometimes operatives do not have time to do so, or are on 
  a surface not suitable for conductive ink, and that’s where 
  this device comes in. It’s a thin, highly flexible sheet of 
  synthetic fabric 2.5 m on a side, weighing 50 grams. The 
  cloth can be easily folded so that it fits in a coat pocket or 
  handbag and can be spread out over any vaguely flat surface 
  in one round. The cloth contains conductive electronic 
  ink and a Bluetooth connection. Using a smartphone or 
  laptop with the correct software, the operative can instantly 
  cause the cloth to display the desired conductive diagram. 
  Accomplishing all this is the work of a few seconds, where 
  fumbling for a conductive pen and drawing on the ground 
  can take as long as a minute or more. Electronic drop cloths 
  can also be disguised as carpet, beach towels, or the lining of 
  an overcoat, as the occasion demands. Replacing someone’s 
  welcome mat or carpet with an electronic drop cloth can 
  be an ideal way to surprise an opponent with a geas or a 
  powerful offensive ward. 
  Field Medical Kit
  Availability: Average
  A basic medical bag containing bandages, sutures, 
  antiseptics, swabs, painkillers, antibiotics, and associated 
  pharmaceuticals to handle a wide range of injuries and 
  conditions up to the point of severe trauma. With this, an 
  21
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   AND CANDLE
  
  THe LAundry
  agent could perform a tracheotomy, stitch up a middling 
  flesh wound, or handle first-degree burns, but it is no 
  substitute for an emergency room. Using the field medical 
  kit adds +10% to any First Aid attempts. 
  Forensics Kit
  Availability: Average 
  Certification Required: Science (Forensics) 25%
  A basic forensics kit includes a variety of storage solutions 
  (vials, bottles, canisters, slides, tubes, plastic envelopes, 
  etc.) and tools for collecting evidence (magnifying glasses, 
  infrared and ultraviolet lamps, tweezers, mini-vacuums, etc.), 
  and noncontamination tools (gloves, plastic boot covers, 
  sterile surgical masks, goggles, etc.) for use in gathering 
  evidence to analyse with the Science (forensics) skill. All of 
  this is packaged in a mid-sized case made of shatterproof 
  plastic. A forensics kit will add +20% to any attempts to 
  find evidence using the Search skill. 
  Goggles of  Good and Evil
  Availability: Rare
  Certification Required: Knowledge (Philosophy) 50%
  These enchanted goggles are the part of the regular working 
  equipment of the combat epistemologist. The goggles show 
  the spiritual and emotional taint of everything the wearer 
  sees. This is similar to the enhanced perceptions offered by a 
  Tillinghast Resonator, but instead of seeing every spirit and 
  thaumic stain, the wearer only sees the work of human (or 
  human-like) evil. Wearing the goggles gives a +20% bonus 
  to Insight rolls, allows the user to make Insight checks to 
  tell friend from foe, and makes the use of certain spells and 
  items possible. 
  Invisibility Shield
  Availability: Average
  Certification Required: Technical Use (Electronics) 25%
  This device is constructed of advanced metamaterials that 
  bend light in ways that do not allow viewers in front or to the 
  side of the device to see this object or anything immediately 
  behind it. This device renders objects behind or beneath 
  it invisible to both visible and infrared light. Folded, this 
  device can easily be disguised as a large folding umbrella. 
  However, when unfolded it vanishes from sight, at least 
  from the front. The adjustable struts in this device allow the 
  user to unfold it into hemisphere between 1 and 3 meters 
  across and between 0.5 and 1.5 metres high. From the back, 
  the device looks vaguely like a complex folding umbrella. 
  If this device is set up on a flat surface, so that it appears 
  to be a dome sitting on the surface, it and anything 
  underneath it is invisible from all angles. Unfolding it as a 
  hemisphere 1.5 metres in diameter is sufficient to cover a 
  single crouching person. If desired, this device can be fitted 
  with tiny rollers, which allow anyone underneath is to move 
  the invisibility shield at a rate of up to 3 metres per round. 
  However, while the shield is moving, it can be made out as 
  a slight visual distortion, on a special success on a Spot roll. 
  If the invisibility shield is moved faster than 0.5 metres per 
  round, viewers need only make a Difficult Spot roll. If the 
  user remains stationary, the device is perfectly invisible, and 
  from the front, the only way anyone can notice this device 
  is if they bump into it or drop something on it. However, 
  walking around the side of this device allows the user to see 
  the back of the device. 
  Although Laundry operatives usually prefer using an 
  invisibility spell, this device is not affected by any sort of 
  sorcerous wards, and most sorcerers do not know that 
  technological invisibility shields actually exist. This device 
  weighs half a kilogram and is 40 cm long and 5 cm in 
  diameter when folded. Folding or unfolding the device 
  requires one full round. Up to four people can fit underneath 
  this device if unfolded to its full 3 metre diameter. Some 
  field operatives have fully unfolded this device and used it 
  as an invisible tent. 
  Invisibility Cloak (Experimental)
  Availability: Not Available for Request
  This advanced and experimental version of the invisibility 
  shield is made in the form of outwear. It comes as either a 
  hooded poncho or a long, loose hooded coat,  made from 
  a relatively thin, flexible material. When turned off, this 
  device looks like a rain slicker made of some sort of plastic. 
  If examined, it appears to have some sort of faint pattern 
  on the surface. When activated, low-level electric current 
  reshapes the metamaterials that make up the device’s surface 
  and it works exactly like an invisibility shield. 
  Since the user is wearing it, this device functions in all 
  directions. To prevent the user’s face from showing, the 
  hood has an additional section that can be pulled down 
  over the user’s face, leaving only two small openings for the 
  user’s eyes. If the user remains stationary, or moves at no 
  more than one metre per round, observers will only notice 
  a slight visual distortion if they make a special success on 
  a Spot roll. However, if the user moves faster, the visual 
  distortion can be spotted on a Difficult Spot roll. If the user 
  doesn’t mind crowding, he can fit up to one other person of 
  approximately his size underneath the cloak. 
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  BeLL, BOOk And CAndLe
  Lockpick Set 
  Availability: Average
  A small nylon case containing a variety of precision tools 
  useful for picking conventional locks. Using a lockpick set 
  adds +20% to any lock-opening attempts using the Fine 
  Manipulation skill. Complex locks, such as those on safes 
  and/or electronic locks, require specialised equipment 
  specific to the nature and model of the lock.
  Magnetic Mind Control Device
  Availability: Difficult
  Certification Required: Medicine (Neurology) 25%
  Known as an MMCD, this device uses a focused magnetic 
  field from a powerful superconducting magnet to alter the 
  target’s mental and emotional state in predictable ways. 
  Unknown to conventional intelligence operatives who use 
  this device, these magnetic fields affect the target’s inner 
  ear in a manner that duplicates the effects of a siren’s or 
  banshee’s powers. Both conventional and occult intelligence 
  services use this device, and its major limitation is that it 
  must be worn by or implanted in the subject, no more than 
  half a metre from their head. An MMCD can be used to 
  affect any mammal, including humans, dogs, and cats. This 
  device is typically made into the form of a collar for pets, 
  or a choker or pendant for humans, but models have been 
  built into shoulder holsters and clip-on ties. The device is a 
  disk 1 cm thick and 4 cm in diameter.
  This device is almost always given to the target without their 
  knowledge, since it allows the person operating the device 
  to control the target. The MMCD contains a transceiver and 
  a GPRS chip identical to the one found in many mobile 
  phones, as well as a speaker and a sensitive microphone. The 
  user can call the device with a mobile phone, determine the 
  target’s location, and listen to any sounds in their vicinity. In 
  addition, by entering a special code, the user can induce one 
  of four overwhelming mental states in the target and can do 
  so as often as once every 10 minutes. Unless the target can 
  make a POW x 1 roll, they are affected by this mental state. 
  The MMCD can induce any of the following four mental 
  states in the target.
  • Berserk Rage: The target attacks the nearest 
  person, or anyone visible who actively attracts her 
  attention. She continues to attack for 1D6+6 rounds, 
  but may make a POW x 1 roll once every round to 
  cease attacking if immobilised by being restrained or 
  handcuffed. Knocking a berserk character unconscious 
  also immediately ends their berserk rage. 
  • Hallucinations: The target hallucinates randomly and 
  is unable to separate hallucinations from reality for 
  1D6+6 rounds. He will talk and react to people and 
  objects that are not there, and will often ignore the 
  people and physical world around him. If he is able 
  to take a useful action at all while hallucinating, all 
  Easy rolls become Average, all Average rolls become 
  Difficult, and all Difficult rolls become Impossible.
  • Hypnotic Trance: The target rapidly sinks into a deep 
  trance where she largely ceases to notice the world 
  around her. In this state, the target talks to anyone who 
  addresses her clearly and automatically believes any 
  remotely reasonable lie. If no one addresses the target, 
  she simply sits or stands motionless, unaware of the 
  world around her for the duration of ther trance. Once 
  the trance is over, the character remembers nothing and 
  will almost certainly assume she either took a short nap 
  or perhaps had some sort of seizure. This trance lasts 
  for 1D6 minutes, but the target may make a POW x 5 roll 
  to resist it if she is actively engaged in combat, driving 
  a car in difficult conditions, or otherwise performing 
  a potentially dangerous physical activity that demands 
  much of her attention. In addition, characters who are 
  injured automatically and instantly leave the trance state. 
  • Terror: The character is overcome with a feeling of 
  intense terror. If able to do so, he flees in a random 
  direction for the next 1D6+6 rounds. If there is some 
  obvious threat, he flees from the threat. However, if 
  the character is trapped or restrained, he will attempt 
  to fight his way to freedom and will attack anyone who 
  attempts to keep him from doing so. 
  Even if the target succeeds in the POW x 1 roll to resist 
  this device, she still feel the device’s effects, and as long as 
  it is on, must make another roll if she is in any situation 
  where an emotional response similar to the one the device is 
  broadcasting would make sense. For instance, if the device 
  is broadcasting terror, someone who avoids being affected 
  by this terror must make another POW x 1 roll to resist 
  if they experience any situation that would normally cause 
  them to experience even mild fear.
  Magnetic Mind Control Device 
  (Experimental)
  Availability: Not Available for Request
  Certification Required: Medicine (Neurology) 25%
  This ranged version of the MMCD uses a focused 
  superconducting magnetic field to affect targets as far away 
  as 5 metres. The user must aim the MMCD at the target’s 
  head; unless the target is stationary, the user must make a 
  successful hit roll. 
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  THe LAundry
  This device measures 12 cm x 5 cm x 2 cm and is often 
  disguised as a large smart phone or a medium-sized flashlight. 
  Because it is not attached to the target, it is considerably 
  less reliable. If the device’s magnetic field strikes the target, 
  the target makes a POW x 2 roll to resist the device’s 
  effects. If the target successfully resists, she spends one 
  round restraining herself and being too distracted to take 
  any other action, but is otherwise unaffected. In addition, 
  the berserk rage, hallucinations, and terror induced by this 
  device only last 1D6+1 rounds and the hypnotic trance only 
  has a duration of 1D3 minutes. One of the most common 
  mishaps with this device is inducing the wrong mental state in 
  the target, perhaps causing the target to enter a berserk rage 
  when the user was attempting to induce a hypnotic trance. 
  Night-Vision Imaging Goggles
  Availability: Average 
  The technology dates back 
  to World War II, although 
  the steady advances in night 
  vision goggles have taken 
  immense strides with the 
  advent of microcomputers. 
  From the earliest German ‘Vampihr’ night-vision system 
  used for snipers to the gargoyle-like AN/PSQ-20 Enhanced 
  Night Vision Goggle system in use by the US military, night-
  vision has proven to be of immense tactical advantage on 
  any battlefield. Current fourth-generation night vision 
  equipment incorporates advanced imaging software and 
  panoramic view, image-intensification, telescopic view, 
  and other enhancements. While using night-vision imaging 
  goggles, reduce by 20% the penalty to any Spot or Search 
  checks from darkness. 
  Pentacle Gun (Experimental) 
  Availability: Not Available for Request
  Certification Required: Science (Thaumaturgy) 25%
  In the 1990s, several military contractors attempted to create 
  guns that fired large nets that would entangle the target. All 
  of these experiments ended in failure; the weapons were 
  too bulky and too clumsy to use. For better or worse, Q 
  Division acquired some of the discarded prototypes and 
  reworked them. One of the problems was that tossing a 
  weighted net over them isn’t going to keep someone clever 
  and determined restrained for very long. However, if the 
  net is instead a protective pentacle designed to restrain 
  summoned beings, and the target is a summoned being, 
  then if the net strikes the target, the target isn’t going 
  anywhere. One of the advantages of using a protective 
  pentacle worked into a net is that the net can be a great deal 
  lighter and less tightly woven, since the target is incapable 
  of attempting to rip and tear it. As a result, this weapon is 
  considerably more portable and has a greater range.
  A pentacle gun has a range of 10 metres and appears to be 
  a cylinder 6 cm in diameter and 40 cm long. It can easily 
  be disguised as a tube for carrying posters or blueprints. It 
  weighs only 1.5 kg and fires a lightweight circular net 3 metres 
  across. If any portion of the net touches a summoned being 
  or someone who is possessed, the target is stuck to the 
  pentacle net; grabbing it or struggling just results in more 
  of the target being stuck. Also, the target cannot use their 
  strength to attempt to tear the net. Summoned or possessed 
  targets are magically bound to the net and cannot attempt 
  to remove or destroy it. This weapons is somewhat clumsy 
  and awkward to aim and fire, making it no more likely to 
  hit its target than a pistol in spite of the large size of the 
  net. If used on a target who is not a summoned being or 
  possessed, the net incapacitates the target for one round, 
  after which the target can easily throw off the net and act 
  normally.  
  Satellite Phone
  Availability: Average
  A satellite phone (or satphone) connects with geostationary 
  or low-Earth orbital satellites rather than using the 
  conventional cellular network. Satphones are frequently used 
  by ships or remote travellers, and are capable of sending 
  and receiving from almost anywhere on the planet, rather 
  than being constrained to normal cellphone coverage. They 
  have the normal capabilities of most modern phones (voice, 
  text, internet access, even video), and recent models are 
  indistinguishable from regular smartphones in appearance, 
  with the only noticeable difference being the slight signal 
  delay when using them. Like conventional phones, it’s 
  possible to trace the location of a satphone using doppler 
  shift calculations, but the results are fairly inaccurate and 
  only of general use. The excessive cost-per-minute of 
  satphone calling makes the Auditors frown on their use. 
  Security Robot
  Availability: Difficult
  Often, the best security is the most discreet. Several 
  intelligence agencies and large multinational corporations 
  have adopted various types of armed security robots, the 
  most common of which is simply a modified robot vacuum 
  cleaner. This robot still looks like and functions as an 
  effective automated vacuum cleaner , but has been fitted 
  with visual, infrared, and RFID sensors as well as ultrasonic 
  movement sensors, a speaker and a sensitive microphone. 
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  BeLL, BOOk And CAndLe
  The robot can detect the presence of individuals and, using 
  either its facial recognition software or the RFID reader 
  to detect the presence of the appropriate ID badge, it can 
  determine if an individual is authorised to be in the facility. 
  It can also often tell if a person is carrying an ID badge that 
  does not match their face. Most security robots are fitted with 
  either tasers or wireless tasers (see below). However, a few 
  are also fitted with lethal weaponry, typically a 9 mm pistol. 
  Both the robot’s sensors and its weapons are concealed until 
  activated; the robot simply appears to be a normal robotic 
  vacuum cleaner until it attacks. At the operator’s discretion, 
  the robot can also electrify its outer casing, causing anyone 
  who touches it to suffer the effects of a taser attack. A 
  few exceptionally paranoid organisations, most notably 
  the Black Chamber, have security robots that are designed 
  to attack anyone who seems to be unauthorised, but most 
  other individuals and organisations instead program these 
  robot to contact someone in a position of authority. Security 
  robots used in the homes of Laundry operatives typically 
  call the operative, and if they cannot reach them, someone 
  in Laundry security. The person it contacts can then use a 
  computer or smartphone to either observe what is going 
  on, issue a verbal challenge to the intruder, or simply attack 
  without warning.
  Autonomous Security Robot (Experimental)
  Availability: Not Available for Request
  Certification Required: Technical Use (Robotics) 25%
  Robots that are advanced enough to reliably perform 
  autonomous security work have proven to be extremely 
  difficult to create. However, as an alternative, some occult 
  agencies and computational sorcerers summon and bind 
  a Level Two spirit into a security robot, creating a fully 
  autonomous security robot that should precisely obey the 
  summoner’s instructions. Unfortunately, most Level Two 
  spirits are relatively bloodthirsty and will take any loophole 
  in their instructions to cause harm. Laundry operatives 
  are advised not to summon extradimensional entities into 
  security robots that have been issued to them. Having other 
  loyal Laundry personnel harmed by possessed security 
  robots is grounds for both an immediate revocation of the 
  operative’s right to possess a security robot, and a review by 
  the Auditors. The Black Chamber is rumoured to use such 
  robots in several of their most secure facilities.
  Thermal Imager
  Availability: Difficult 
  A thermal imaging camera detects, records, and displays 
  light in the infrared range rather than the visible light 
  spectrum. It is useful for recognising telltale thermal shifts 
  from exonomic activity, as well as temperature changes 
  to an object or environment when conventional sight 
  is inadequate. Images from infrared radiation are called 
  thermograms, and the colour spectrum is usually depicted 
  in a range from deep purple (cool) to bright yellowish-white 
  (hot), although the imaging software can be reprogrammed 
  to display the colour shifts in any other colour combination. 
  Thermogram outputs frequently display an onscreen 
  temperature gradient. While using a thermal imager, 
  add +20% to the Spot or Search skills for any applicable 
  beings or environmental aspects that would potentially be 
  better revealed in thermograms. Modern thermal imaging 
  cameras are digital and can be readily hooked up via USB, 
  micro-USB or I/O port to a laptop, palmtop, or even some 
  smartphones. 
  Wireless Taser
  Availability: Average
  Certification Required: Firearms (Exotic) 25%
  An ordinary taser requires the user to shoot a dart attached 
  to a wire into the target. This device replaces the dart and 
  the wire with a low power ultraviolet laser beam that ionises 
  the air between the weapon and the target. The electricity 
  travels down this beam and strikes the target, exactly as if 
  an actual wire was connecting the weapon to the target. This 
  device works exactly like a conventional taser, except that it 
  has a range of 20 metres and doesn’t require either darts or 
  wires. The unit is 20 cm long and 5 cm in diameter, weighs 
  half a kilogram and looks like a mid-sized flashlight. 
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  Experimental Wireless Taser 
  Availability: Not Available for Request
  Certification Required: Firearms (Exotic) 25%
  This device is a larger and more powerful version of the 
  wireless taser. In addition to having a longer range, it has 
  several other specific uses. It is designed to incapacitate 
  both people and automobiles. However, this device is 
  considerably larger than a normal wireless taser. It weighs 5 
  kg and is the size of a large hardback book: 25 cm x 15 cm 
  x 6 cm. At the user’s request, this weapon can be built into 
  a bag or briefcase, firing either from a lens in the side of the 
  bag or from a handheld unit like a small flashlight, attached 
  to the weapon with a thin one-metre cable. 
  This weapon has a range of 100 m and fires a series of 
  extremely rapid pulses, allowing the user to sweep it across 
  multiple targets. If aimed at a single target, the weapon 
  works like a conventional taser. If used on multiple targets, 
  the user can strike up to four targets standing within 5 
  metres of one another, but the user must make a separate 
  roll to strike each target. This device is powerful enough 
  that the target suffers the effects of being struck by a taser 
  for 1d3 rounds. If desired, the user may sweep the beam 
  back and forth over the same several targets for multiple 
  rounds, but must continue making rolls to hit each target.   
  When used on cars, the electrical beam disrupts the 
  circuitry in the car’s engine, instantly cutting all power to 
  the car and shutting it down. This weapon affects gasoline, 
  hybrid, and electric vehicles, regardless of where they 
  were manufactured, but only affects cars with electronic 
  ignition systems, meaning that it has no effect on cars made 
  before the late 1970s. The user must strike the car’s engine 
  compartment, but any hit on this area automatically stops 
  the car.
  Tasers and the Possessed
  ‘…she raises a highly illegal taser, and there’s a snap and a blue flare as she zaps the 
  feeder. The cadaver collapses like a marionette with its strings cut, its rider temporarily 
  banished back from whence it came: beings who are basically patterns of energy bleeding 
  through from a parallel universe to ours don’t respond well to high voltage electrical noise.’
  – The Fuller Memorandum
  Comprised, as it were, essentially of hostile energy matrices, exonomes are extraordinarily 
  vulnerable to electrical current. Electrical arcs and currents are frequently used to contain 
  exonomes, and they react poorly to the direct application of current. If an exonome-possessed 
  being suffers direct contact with a high-voltage electrical charge, from a taser, shock-
  stick, cattle prod, or even exposed wires, the entity must make a resistance roll with its 
  POW vs. the rolled damage done by the attack. 
  • If the entity is successful in resisting the damage, it is not evicted and merely suffers 
  the damage normally inflicted. 
  • If the exonome fails the resistance roll, it is immediately expelled from the host body 
  and is banished back to its dimension of origin. The host takes the damage instead. More 
  powerful entities may be able to retain control of the body despite being disrupted; in 
  such cases, the possessor reasserts its control after a few rounds. 
  If the exposure to electrical current is from something other than a weapon, determine the 
  damage as follows: light current (small household appliance) 1D6; moderate current (large 
  household appliance) 2D6; high current (industrial appliance or power line) 3D6; extremely 
  high current (high-voltage power lines or generators) 4D6+.
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  BeLL, BOOk And CAndLe
  Protective Gear
  Investigations don’t generally require Laundry agents to 
  need more protection than that conveyed by the standard-
  issued ballistic wards, but there are times when it’s vitally 
  important to go better prepared. This section lists an 
  assortment of conventional means of protection against 
  firearms and other environmental hazards. 
  CBRN Suit: A protective garment 
  used by the military to protect against 
  Chemical, Biological, Radiologic, and 
  Nuclear threats. CBRN suits are designed 
  for battlefield deployment, allowing the 
  users to fight with minimal impairment, 
  making them ideal for groups like the 
  Laundry’s Toshers, OCCULUS, and the 
  Artist’s Rifles. They offer the equivalent 
  of 15 points of protection against the 
  listed threats, subtracting the protection 
  from the potency of the radiation (see 
  Radiation on page 53). 
  Fire Kit: Conventional firefighting gear, including tough 
  multilayered coveralls, a flame-retardant coat, a helmet 
  with SCBA (self-contained breathing apparatus), gloves, 
  a nomex hood, and visored helmet. In addition to the 
  (nominal) armour protection, a fire kit provides eight points 
  of protection against fire. 
  Fire Proximity Suit: A hooded silvery bodysuit used by 
  firefighters when they must enter fiery areas. Originally 
  called an asbestos suit, these suits are now manufactured 
  of vacuum-deposited aluminised materials. With an integral 
  SCBA, the fire proximity suit is the best conventional defence 
  against Level Two entities such as Fire Vampires. A fire 
  proximity suit provides 16 points of protection against fire. 
  HAZMAT Suit: A hazardous materials suit is worn when 
  dealing with potential biological agents, toxic chemicals, 
  highly infectious disease, or increased levels of radiation. 
  They are generally paired with SCBA and an internal two-
  way radio, and are relatively hot, stiff, and uncomfortable 
  to wear for extended periods. There are six grades of 
  HAZMAT suit: statistics are provided for Type 1, the 
  suit offering the highest level of protection. A HAZMAT 
  suit offers 10 points of protection against fire as well as 
  complete coverage from poison gases, chemical weapons, 
  and infectious materials. Subtract the HAZMAT suit’s 
  protection value from the potency of any radiation exposure. 
  Riot Gear: Heavy gear for dealing with public gatherings, 
  this includes a heavy ballistic jacket, armoured plates on legs 
  and arms, a helmet with clear plastic visor, and heavy boots 
  and gloves. Usually accompanied with some type of combat 
  harness. 
  Riot Shield: A large, reinforced square shield – usually 
  made of a transparent, high-strength polycarbonates – used 
  by riot police and militaries worldwide. They provide 12 
  points of protection from low-velocity or thrown weapons, 
  and six points of protection from firearms. Statistics for 
  riot shields as combat weapons are in the miscellaneous 
  weapons table (page 52).
  Tactical Ballistic Vest: Mentioned in the entry for the 
  concealed ballistic vest described on page 99 of The 
  Laundry rule book, a tactical ballistic vest is a heavy and 
  obvious piece of body armour worn by police or military 
  forces. A tactical ballistic vest offers 6 points of armour 
  protection against melee weapons and 12 points against 
  firearms, in addition to a variety of straps, pockets, loops, 
  and buckles for personal gear.
  Armor
  Availability
  Armor 
  Protection
  Skill 
  Modifier
  CBRN Suit
  Difficult
  Special
  -5% to 
  Fire Kit
  Average
  2 and 8 vs fire
  -10% to
  Fire Proximity 
  Suit
  Difficult
  16 vs. fire
  -20% to 
  HAZMAT 
  Suit
  Difficult
  Special
  -10% 
  Riot Gear
  Difficult
  8
  -10% to
  Riot Shield
  Difficult
  6
  None
  Tactical 
  Ballistic Vest
  Average
  6
  None
  Vehicles 
  ‘The Smart is insanely cute and compact, does about seventy 
  miles to a gallon, and is the ideal second car for nipping about 
  town; but I’m not nipping about town. I’m going flat out at 
  maybe a hundred and fifty kilometres per hour on the autobahn 
  while some joker is shooting at me from behind with a cannon 
  that fires Porsches and Mercedes. Meanwhile, I’m stuck driving 
  something that handles like a turbocharged baby buggy.’ 
  – The Jennifer Morgue 
  Despite generations of spy films showcasing ‘the chase’ 
  as part and parcel of any espionage-related operation, the 
  unfortunate reality is that secret agents just don’t get to whip 
  around in Aston Martins customised to the roof with secret 
  weapons, defences, and amazing utilities. Investigations 
  don’t usually include car chases racing through picturesque 
  European cities or segue into high-speed pursuit in luxury 
  sport-boats, and rarely do agents need to defend themselves 
  while in vehicles. It just doesn’t happen, they’ll tell you in the 
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  road safety training seminars. So you can console yourself 
  with that certainty the next time you’re half out the window 
  of a rented VW Golf VI as it races through the winding 
  streets of Tallinn, popping shots off with your sidearm 
  in the general direction of the Mercedes full of former 
  KOLIVAN branch terrorists, most of whom are busy firing 
  automatic weapons at you from their own open windows. 
  ‘This sort of thing never happens,’ you can remind yourself 
  as your fellow agent wrenches the wheel and nearly sends 
  you spilling into the street. 
  This section describes in game terms a variety of vehicles 
  identified in the Movement Rates table from page 52 
  of The Laundry core rulebook. Your agents may end up 
  using these vehicles, or the GM may use them as guidance 
  for creating additional types of vehicles. The attributes 
  provided here are samples based on estimated averages, 
  and the GM is encouraged to expand these listings or alter 
  statistics as desired. This table contains attributes utilised in 
  chases (described on page 33 of this chapter) and for use 
  with other game systems (such as combat). 
  • Type: The general category of vehicle. 
  • Skill: The skill used when piloting it. 
  • Handling: A modifier applied to skill rolls when 
  piloting this vehicle. 
  • Rated Speed: The maximum speed of the vehicle, an 
  abstract value used in the chase system on page 33 of 
  this chapter.
  • ACC: Acceleration, the number of increments the vehicle 
  can accelerate or decelerate from its current speed each 
  combat round. This is also used in the chase system. 
  • MOV: The maximum speed of the vehicle in a round 
  is expressed with its Move (MOV) characteristic. For 
  comparison, characters generally have a MOV between 
  1–5 meters. 
  • Armour: The vehicle’s own resilience and the amount 
  of protection it confers upon the crew or passengers. 
  Two values separated by a slash indicate different values 
  for the fuselage and the window. Attacks on passengers 
  are usually through a window or open section of the 
  cabin; the GM should determine whether a character 
  has full or partial protection while in the vehicle. 
  Attacking someone in a vehicle through a window or 
  open door is usually Difficult. 
  • SIZ: The vehicle’s weight and volume are abstracted 
  as a SIZ score. 
  • HP: The vehicle’s hit points. 
  • Crew: The number of characters required to pilot and 
  maintain the vehicle at full effectiveness while in use. 
  Vehicle-related skill rolls may be Difficult if the vehicle 
  is under-crewed. 
  • Passengers: The number of passengers the vehicle 
  can comfortably accommodate. You can double this if 
  comfort and safety are not concerns. 
  • Cargo: The amount of SIZ the vehicle is designed to 
  accommodate in cargo. You can double this if safety 
  and comfort are not concerns, though you can’t double 
  passengers and cargo at the same time. 
  • Availability: This modifies any Status rolls Laundry 
  agents must make to procure the services of this 
  vehicle. Vehicles may be assigned regardless as part 
  of an operation’s parameters; being assigned a vehicle 
  does not require a Status roll. 
  • Notes: Additional notes about the vehicle and its 
  capabilities, including armament or special equipment. 
  Though circumstances can bring almost any type of vehicle 
  into play, this section deals primarily with vehicles that can 
  be controlled or affected significantly by Laundry agents in 
  an investigation. For example, an industrial ship the scale of 
  John Billington’s Glomar Explorer might play a significant 
  role in a mission, but is more a feature of terrain than an 
  actual vehicle to be interacted with.
  Vehicle Descriptions
  This section describes all manner of vehicles, organised 
  alphabetically from the vehicle table above.
   
  Compact Car: A small, energy-efficient vehicle, usually for 
  the budget conscious. Fuel-efficient and nondescript. 
  Smart Car: A small, light-framed vehicle powered with 
  a combination of an electric battery and a fuel-efficient 
  engine. The Smart Fortwo coupé is an excellent example 
  of a smart car. 
  Luxury Car: A deluxe, high-end automobile, with an 
  elegant interior and all of the extras, such as the Mercedes 
  S190. 
  Saloon Car: An average four-door automobile, the most 
  common vehicle used for offices and government functions. 
  Sports Car: An extremely fast, two-door, two-seat, high-
  performance automobile, such as a Jaguar XJ6, an Aston-
  Martin, or an Audi TT sports coupé.
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  BeLL, BOOk And CAndLe
  Pickup Truck: A four-wheel-drive pickup truck with a bed 
  large enough to haul cargo. The cab is either a two- or four-
  seater. 
  Minivan or SUV: A small-to-mid-sized van, popular 
  for families or delivery services. Can seat six to eight 
  comfortably, more less so. 
  Van: A largish van featuring a roomy interior space filled 
  with two (or more rows) of seats, or left open for cargo. 
  Popular for police stakeouts and maintenance workers. 
  Utility Van: A large square-bodied truck with ample 
  interior space, favoured by utility companies, maintenance 
  workers, etc. Often boasting interior shelf and storage space 
  for tools, supplies, and other required paraphernalia. Also 
  popular for stake-outs. 
  Ambulance: A medium-to-large van with space in back for 
  rapid transport of patients to the hospital and potentially 
  emergency medical procedures in the field or en route. 
  Storage space is filled with medical supplies, equipment, and 
  life-saving devices. 
  Police Car: A typical panda car fitted with police gear 
  and modified for the rigours of police work. Most police 
  vehicles are equipped with a variety of communications 
  and security devices. Despite extensive use by the Counter 
  Possession Unit, police cars (and their drivers) are not a taxi 
  service. 
  Fire Engine: Used for civil fire-fighting, this large vehicle 
  contains storage space for firefighting and emergency 
  medical equipment, ladders and extendible ladders, winches, 
  pumps for water dispersal, floodlights, etc. 
  Motorcycle: A two-wheeled motor vehicle with room for 
  a driver and one passenger. Sidecar optional. These range 
  from compact speed bikes to heavy choppers.  
  Lorry: A large commercial truck with a small cabin and a 
  long cargo compartment. 
  Tank: A heavily armoured tracked combat vehicle equipped 
  with a large-calibre central gun as well as other armaments. 
  You know, the kind of thing you see rolling through the 
  Middle East on CNN. 
  Boat, Motor: A smallish motorboat with a single propeller 
  and a small forward cabin. 
  Boat, Small Rowed: A small two-bench rowboat. 
  Hovercraft: A commercial hovercraft ferry suitable for 
  around 20 passengers on relatively still water. 
  Propeller Plane: A small propeller-driven passenger plane. 
  Jet Fighter: A relatively small, highly manoeuvrable jet 
  designed for aerial combat and light bombing strikes. 
  Bomber: A huge propeller- or turbine-driven aircraft 
  utilised for long-range bombing missions, usually equipped 
  with several machine-gun turrets. 
  Passenger Jet: A commercial airliner, with seating for 
  anywhere from a dozen to more than a hundred passengers. 
  Luxury jets seat fewer but include more amenities and 
  greater comfort. An agent travelling on a passenger jet while 
  on assignment should expect to be seated in coach. 
  Helicopter: A smallish rotary blade-powered helicopter, 
  such as those used by hospitals, news stations, wealthy 
  industrialists, etc. 
  Military Helicopter: A heavy helicopter, used for field 
  combat, armored with troop compartments, gun mounts, 
  etc.
  29
  2 - BELL, BOOK
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  THe LAundry
  Land Vehicles
  Type
  Skill 
  (Specialty)
  Handling
  Rated 
  Speed
  ACC
  MOV
  Armour
  SIZ
  HP
  Crew
  Passengers
  Cargo
  Availability
  Notes
  Compact Car
  Drive 
  (Automobile)
  +5%
  12
  ±5
  134
  10/2
  40
  35
  1
  3
  16
  Average
  Smart Car
  Drive 
  (Automobile)
  +5%
  10
  ±5
  100
  8/2
  32
  30
  1
  1
  12
  Average
  Saloon Car
  Drive 
  (Automobile)
  –
  12
  ±7
  134
  12/2
  50
  45
  1
  3-4
  24
  Average
  Luxury Car
  Drive 
  (Automobile)
  –
  12
  ±5
  134
  14/2
  54
  50
  1
  3
  28
  Difficult
  Sportscar
  Drive 
  (Automobile)
  +5%
  15
  ±8
  200
  10/2
  45
  45
  1
  1
  8
  Difficult
  Pickup Truck
  Drive 
  (Automobile)
  –
  12
  ±7
  134
  12/2
  55
  65
  1
  1 or 3
  36
  Average
  Minivan/SUV 
  Drive 
  (Automobile)
  -5%
  12
  ±5
  134
  12/2
  60
  65
  1
  5
  32
  Average
  Van
  Drive 
  (Automobile)
  -5%
  12
  ±5
  134
  12/2
  65
  70
  1
  1-8
  40
  Average
  Utility Van 
  Drive 
  (Automobile)
  -5%
  10
  ±5
  100
  14/2
  70
  75
  1
  1-4
  52
  Difficult
  Lorry (18-wheeler) 
  Drive 
  (Automobile)
  -10%
  10
  ±4
  100
  16/2
  90
  90
  1
  3+
  72
  Difficult
  Ambulance
  Drive 
  (Automobile)
  –
  12
  ±6
  134
  12/2
  65
  70
  1
  3+
  36
  Unavailable
  Medical supplies, etc.
  Police Car
  Drive 
  (Automobile)
  +5%
  14
  ±6
  172
  14/4
  50
  50
  1
  3
  18
  Unavailable
  Police gear/weapons, wi-fi, radio, etc.
  Fire Engine
  Drive 
  (Automobile)
  -10%
  10
  ±4
  100
  14/2
  80
  80
  1
  8+
  36
  Unavailable
  Contains firefighting gear, ladder, hoses, 
  medical kit, etc.
  Motorcycle
  Drive 
  (Motorcycle)
  +5%
  13
  ±8
  166
  10/– 
  18
  25
  1
  1
  6
  Average
  Offers driver no armour protection.
  Tank
  Drive (Tank)
  –
  8
  ±4
  83
  24/18
  90
  140
  2
  –
  12
  Impossible
  Armed with tank gun, machinegun 
  turret, grenade launcher, etc.
  30
  
  BeLL, BOOk And CAndLe
  Water Vehicles
  Type
  Skill 
  (Specialty)
  Handling
  Rated 
  Speed
  ACC
  MOV
  Armour
  SIZ
  HP
  Crew
  Passengers
  Cargo
  Availability
  Notes
  Rowboat
  Pilot (Boat)
  -5%
  2
  ±1
  4
  4/– 
  18
  20
  1
  1
  12
  Average
  Motorboat
  Pilot (Boat)
  –
  8
  ±2
  83
  6 – 
  40
  40
  1
  5+
  24
  Average
  Hovercraft
  Pilot 
  (Hovercraft)
  -5%
  4
  ±2
  42
  10/– 
  80
  40
  2
  20+
  48
  Unavailable
  Speedboat
  Pilot 
  (Speedboat)
  +5%
  10
  ±3
  100
  8/– 
  32
  30
  1
  3
  18
  Difficult
  Air Vehicles
  Type
  Skill 
  (Specialty)
  Handling
  Rated 
  Speed
  ACC
  MOV
  Armour
  SIZ
  HP
  Crew
  Passengers
  Cargo
  Availability
  Notes
  Propeller Plane
  Pilot 
  (Propeller 
  Plane)
  –
  15
  ±1
  200
  4/1
  55
  55
  1-2
  2+
  12
  Expensive
  Bomber
  Pilot 
  (Bomber)
  -10%
  17
  ±1
  334
  6/2
  105
  105
  6+
  4+
  48
  Impossible
  Armed with machinegun turrets, bombs, 
  etc.
  Passenger Jet
  Pilot 
  (Jet Airliner)
  –
  30
  ±2
  1084
  8/3
  110
  110
  1-2
  48+
  48
  Impossible
  Jet Fighter
  Pilot 
  (Jet Fighter)
  +10%
  33
  ±10
  1334
  6/2
  80
  80
  1
  –
  2
  Impossible
  Helicopter
  Pilot 
  (Helicopter)
  –
  15
  ±10
  200
  4/2
  48
  48
  1
  3+
  12
  Difficult
  31
  2 - BELL, BOOK
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  THe LAundry
  Vehicular Weapons
  Vehicles such as the OCCULUS wagon are equipped with 
  weapons, larger than personal scale and mounted to the 
  vehicle. This section gives a brief description of a number 
  of vehicular weapons, with SIZ incorporated into the 
  overall SIZ of the vehicle.
  For automatic weapons like the minigun and machinegun 
  turret, the damage listed is not per-bullet: it represents 
  an entire round of burst or automatic fire consisting of 
  potentially hundreds of bullets expelled, blanketing an 
  affected area up to the radius listed. An attacker must roll 
  a separate attack against each target within the affected 
  area at the normal skill chance. If the automatic weapon 
  attack is against a single target, the attack chance is Easy. 
  Additionally, Dodge attempts against mounted automatic 
  weapon fire are Difficult. Mounted automatic weapons are 
  extraordinarily lethal and only a complete idiot would do 
  anything but seek cover when one is brought to bear.
  Name
  Avail.
  Skill (Specialty)
  Base
  Damage
  RoF
  Special
  Mal
  Range
  HP
  Ammo
  Grenade 
  Launcher
  Special
  Heavy Weapon 
  (Grenade Launcher)
  15%
  3D6/2 
  metres
  1 
  Crushing, 
  Knockback
  99-00
  40
  16
  4
  Minigun
  Special
  Heavy Weapon 
  (Minigun)
  15%
  4D6+4/4 
  metres
  1 
  (Auto)
  Impaling
  98-00
  150
  14
  4,000
  Mortar
  Special
  Heavy Weapon 
  (Mortar)
  05%
  10D6/2 
  metres
  1
  Crushing, 
  Knockback
  00
  800
  18
  1
  Machinegun 
  Turret
  Special
  Heavy Weapon 
  (Machinegun Turret)
  05%
  6D6+4/4 
  metres
  1 
  (Auto)
  Impaling
  98-00
  65
  48
  1,000
  Rocket 
  Launcher
  Special
  Heavy Weapon 
  (Rocket Launcher)
  05%
  10D6/5 
  metres
  1/3
  Impaling, 
  Knockback
  00
  400
  12
  1
  Tank Gun
  Special
  Artillery (Tank Gun)
  05%
  15D6/4 
  metres
  1
  Impaling, 
  Knockback
  00
  700
  36
  1
  An OCCULUS Wagon
  ‘…the wagons are painted cheerful cherry-
  red with luminous yellow stripes; if they 
  weren’t armed to the teeth with automatic 
  weapons you’d swear they were only here 
  because somebody had phoned in a toxic 
  chemical release warning. But the pump 
  nozzles above the cabs aren’t there to spray 
  water, and that lumpy thing on the back isn’t 
  a spotlight – it’s a grenade launcher.’
  – The Concrete Jungle
  Skill: Drive (Automobile)
  Handling: -10% 
  Rated Speed: 12
  ACC: ±6
  MOV: 134
  Armour: 18 body / 4 windows
  SIZ: 72
  HP: 120
  Crew: 1 driver 
  Passengers: 12
  Cargo: 48
  Availability: Difficult 
  Notes: Disguised as a fire engine or other 
  emergency vehicle appropriate to the region 
  it’s being utilised in, an OCCULUS wagon 
  is one of the most useful vehicles at the 
  Laundry’s disposal, serving as a mobile 
  headquarters, rapid response vehicle, and 
  troop transport. OCCULUS wagons are full 
  of useful equipment and weapons, including 
  concealed roof-mounted grenade launchers, 
  tear gas sprayers, Nitesun floodlights, 
  loudspeaker systems and an extendible 
  ladder. The ample storage space is kitted 
  out with everything that might be required 
  in the field, from firefighting equipment, 
  breathers, additional weapons and ammo, 
  conventional explosives, a field tool kit, 
  medical supplies and equipment, personal 
  body armor, bomb defusing equipment and 
  suits, radiation suits, HAZMAT suits, 
  radiation gear, wireless connectivity, a 
  secure two-way radio, cell/radio/wireless 
  jammers, an occult field kit with basic 
  supplies to perform a field exorcism or 
  banishment, and more as required. 
  32
  
  BeLL, BOOk And CAndLe
  Damage to Vehicles 
  In the course of a mission, a vehicle may be attacked or suffer 
  damage as the result of a chase. Vehicles do not suffer the 
  effects of Major Wounds (page 65 of the core rulebook), 
  and a special success will simply ignore the vehicle’s armour, 
  striking a vulnerable spot and doing normal rolled damage.
   
  • A vehicle reduced to 50% of its total HP makes all 
  skills using it (such as Drive, Pilot, etc.) Difficult. Its 
  Rated Speed, ACC, and MOV are reduced to half, and 
  its armour values are also reduced by half (round up 
  in all cases). 
  • At 5 HP or less, the vehicle ceases to function. If it is 
  in motion, it continues to careen along its trajectory for 
  another 1D3 rounds until crashing. 
  • A vehicle reduced to 0 HP has been destroyed and 
  cannot be rebuilt. Its armour value is quartered. 
  A successful Repair (Mechanical) skill roll may restore 1D3 
  HP to the vehicle, taking 1 hour per HP restored. A special 
  success restores 2D3 HP. The GM should determine what 
  happens to the passengers inside, based on the nature and 
  location of the vehicle, referring to spot rules covering 
  explosives, falling, fire, radiation, etc. as appropriate.
  Chases 
  An honest-to-Cthulhu pursuit or vehicular combat during 
  an operation is a rarity, but can happen if things get 
  completely out of hand. These rules provide guidelines 
  for handling chases and other situations involving pursuit 
  or moving combat. They are simplified and abstract: a GM 
  wishing for additional detail can elaborate on the results 
  suggested. Chases are conducted along the Range Track 
  (see below), with the GM showing participants’ positions 
  with coins, miniatures, or other markers. These are defined 
  by position, range, with modifiers to combat based on each 
  range. Ranges are general, not specific, and each ‘round’ of 
  the chase can represent a longer amount of time: the default 
  12 seconds, minutes, or even hours. The GM should adjust 
  the participants’ positions on the Range Track each round 
  the chase continues, until the chase ends.
  Side by 
  Side
  Two 
  Lengths
  Close
  In Sight
  Out of  
  Sight
  Range 1
  Range 1
  Range 1
  Range 1
  Range 1
  Ranged 
  weapon 
  attacks are 
  unmodified.
  Ranged 
  weapon 
  attacks are 
  Difficult 
  (½ chance)
  Ranged 
  weapon 
  attacks are 
  at ¼ chance.
  Ranged 
  weapon 
  attacks 
  are at 1/8 
  chance.
  Ranged 
  weapon 
  attacks are 
  Impossible.
  33
  2 - BELL, BOOK
   AND CANDLE
  
  THe LAundry
  Each round, the GM should determine the following:
  • Participants in the chase can change speed, if possible.
  • Determine the outcome of manoeuvres and potential 
  crashes.
  • Individual characters can move or act on their DEX 
  ranks.
  The following concepts are used while describing chases:
  • Rated Speed: The maximum sustainable speed of the 
  vehicle or character. Both may travel at the top Rated 
  Speed, or any Speed less than this. All entities in a chase 
  begin at Speed 0, and accelerate up to travel speed.
  • Range: This represents the distance between entities in 
  a chase. There are five ranges, as shown on the Range 
  Track (above). For every Speed increment faster than 
  an opponent, a vehicle can move one Range increment 
  closer to or further away from the other vehicle per 
  round – if ahead, the leader moves further away from 
  the pursuer; if behind, the pursuer moves one Range 
  increment closer. 
  • Accelerate, Decelerate: A vehicle can accelerate/
  decelerate a certain number of Speed increments in a 
  round. These are provided in the vehicles section in 
  this chapter.
  • Handling: This is the ease and responsiveness of a 
  manoeuvre. Add or subtract the Handling modifier for 
  the vehicle from the driver/pilot’s appropriate skill. 
  Generally, once a participant is out of sight, the chase is at 
  an end. Tracking or other means of locating the ‘escaped’ 
  party must be utilised before a new chase can be initiated. 
  Relevant skills for chases include Drive, Pilot or Ride; 
  additional skills such as Navigate, Spot or even Track may 
  be required for the chase to continue uninterrupted. 
  Manoeuvres
  Whenever the driver (or pilot) makes a manoeuvre, he must 
  make a Drive test. Manoeuvres are described in the Skill 
  Roll Modifier chart. When a manoeuvre is failed, roll on the 
  Chase Trouble Table.
  • Turn: Turning may require a vehicle to decelerate by 1 
  or more Speed increments. A U-turn always requires the 
  vehicle to slow to Speed 1. Success for this manoeuvre 
  under normal circumstances is Automatic.
  • High-speed Turn: When a vehicle attempts a high-
  speed turn, the driver must succeed in the relevant skill, 
  with a -10% modifier applied.
  • ‘Bootlegger’ Reverse: A classic manoeuvre that can 
  be applied to a variety of vehicles, using brakes to 
  make the vehicle suddenly skid and spin to one side, 
  eventually ending up facing the direction it came from. 
  To accomplish this, the driver must make a relevant skill 
  roll with a -25% modifier. Success places the vehicle in 
  the reverse direction, and the driver may accelerate to 
  Speed 2 in the next round. 
  • Ram/Collide: The vehicle smashes into or sideswipes 
  a moving or stationary target. A ram manoeuvre does 
  1D6 HP damage per level of Speed to the vehicle it 
  collides with; subtract the vehicle’s armour rating. the 
  passengers within each vehicle take 1D3 HP damage per 
  level of Speed. Adequate protection (seatbelts, airbags, 
  etc.) can reduce the damage suffered by the passengers 
  by 1D3 points (roll 1D3 and reduce the damage 
  taken). Exceptional protection such as crash harnesses 
  can reduce the damage suffered by 2D3 points. 
  While vehicles are side-by-side, characters can move inside 
  or even on the outside of vehicles, attempt to move to one 
  other, or attack each other, or some other activity. The GM 
  may impose penalties on skills attempted while in or atop 
  a moving vehicle. If a character misses a skill check while 
  outside a vehicle, the GM should require the character 
  to make a Luck or Agility roll (as appropriate) to grab 
  something to prevent from being thrown away or falling off 
  the vehicle. Falling off a moving vehicle causes 1D3 points 
  of damage per Speed increment, with a successful Agility 
  roll reducing rolled damage by half. 
  Skill Roll Modifiers
  All modifiers from the tables below are cumulative and can 
  be applied to any relevant appropriate activities performed 
  by the drivers or passengers of the vehicles.
  Type of  
  Modifier
  Specific Condition
  Skill 
  Modifier
  Weather
  Fog
  Night
  Rain
  Rain, Heavy 
  Wind, Strong
  Wind, Severe
  Wind, Storm
  Oily, Icy 
  Snow 
  -10%
  -10%
  -10%
  -20%
  -10%
  -20%
  -50%
  -20%
  -20%
  Manoeuvre
  At Speed 1 or 2
  At maximum speed
  High-speed turn 
  Bootlegger reverse
  +10%
  -10%
  -10%
  -25%
  Terrain
  Gravel road
  Long downhill grade 
  Dirt road
  Limbs, rocks
  -10%
  -10%
  -20%
  -20%
  34
  
  BeLL, BOOk And CAndLe
  Chase Trouble Table
  Use this table whenever a manoeuvre is failed or when a 
  vehicle is damaged, with the GM’s discretion to interpret 
  inappropriate results. Additionally, the GM should 
  personalise each result based on the type of vehicle and 
  environment it is moving through. If a re-roll on this table 
  gives a result greater than 10, roll again and use both results.
  D10 roll
  Result
  Effects
  1
  Flat Tire
  This slows the vehicle to Speed 1 until repaired. It can also indicate minor damage to an engine, jet, wing, etc.
  2
  Engine 
  Damage
  This slows a vehicle by 2 additional Speeds each round until stopped. 
  The vehicle cannot start again without a successful Repair roll being made.
  3
  Fuel 
  System 
  Damage
  This has no effect until the vehicle takes additional damage, though long-range travel is limited severely. 
  To restart the vehicle, the fuel tank must be repaired or replaced, and the fuel must be restored. Leaking 
  fuel may pose an additional hazard.
  4-6
  Skid
  Lower the driver’s appropriate skill (Drive, Pilot, etc.) by -20% for the next round only.
  7
  Minor 
  Fishtail
  Lower the driver’s appropriate skill (Drive, Pilot, etc.) by -10% for the next round only.
  8
  Moderate 
  Fishtail
  Lower the driver’s appropriate skill (Drive, Pilot, etc.) by -15% for the next round only, then roll again on 
  this table with a +2 modifier.
  9
  Severe 
  Fishtail
  Lower the driver’s appropriate skill (Drive, Pilot, etc.) by -30% for the next round only, then roll again on 
  this table with a +4 modifier.
  10
  Roll
  The vehicle careens widely off the intended path, rolling once per Speed travelled. Each roll does 2D3 
  HP damage to the vehicle, and 1D3 HP to each passenger (see above for protection from seatbelts, etc.). 
  For fueled vehicles, allow a 10% chance of a fire or potential explosion.
  Safe-houses
  ‘“They changed the locks today,” he says conversationally, 
  “departmental orders, apparently.” There’s a new mat inside the 
  front door, and when I look closely I can see silvery lettering in a 
  very small font stitched into its edges. “They came in and swept 
  the house for listeners and actors then renewed the wards on all 
  the windows, the doors, the air vents – even the chimney.”’ 
  – The Atrocity Archives
  Though the notion of a ‘safe-house’ is laughable in the wake 
  of an extinction-level event such as CASE NIGHTMARE 
  GREEN, the Laundry (like many espionage organisations) 
  occasionally sees the need to keep someone secure, for 
  their safety or the safety of others, either as a short-term 
  accommodation or a semi-permanent residence. Safe-
  houses can range from nondescript apartments in an 
  innocuous building, to temporarily-secured hotel rooms, to 
  hidden sections of public facilities, to small cottages in the 
  countryside. 
  Under a long-standing arrangement with MI5, the Laundry 
  has access to their safe-houses in addition to the more 
  ‘secure’ safe-houses classified solely for its own use. 
  (Incidents where a subject is mistaken for a KGB defector 
  and get treated to killer sushi hardly ever happen.) The 
  group known as the Plumbers are in charge of all safe-
  house security, operating under the aegis of the Housing 
  department (formerly a division of Facilities). All safe-
  houses used by the Laundry are identified by a three-digit 
  code sequence made up of one or two letters and one or 
  two numbers. 
  The most secure safe-houses utilised by the government and 
  available to the Laundry have some or all of the following 
  characteristics:
  • Security systems (motion control sensors, burglar 
  alarms, perimeter alarms, hidden cameras, etc.) 
  ranging in quality from average to those restricted for 
  government use only. 
  • Presumedly unknown to the enemy: a compromised 
  safe-house is never used, unless as a decoy.
  • Easily defensible in the event of a conventional assault.
   
  • ‘Off the grid,’ with limited communications in and out.
   
  • Limited and controlled means of entry and egress. 
  • Infrequent-to-frequent security sweeps for bugs, 
  bombs, or other security threats.
  • One or more security personnel onsite at all times, 
  working in shifts, drawn from one of the groups 
  described in the core rulebook’s Chapter Twelve: The 
  Directory. 
  35
  2 - BELL, BOOK
   AND CANDLE
  
  THe LAundry
  Because the Laundry deals with some unusually resourceful 
  enemy organisations, each of their safe-houses can have 
  additional enhancements or peculiarities, such as: 
  • A panic button that alerts a 24-hour on-call rapid-
  response and extraction team (a sample Cleaner is 
  described on page 177 of the core rulebook). 
  • A secure line to the Capital Laundry Services offices. 
  • Occult countermeasures and defences, including: 
  defensive wards and exclusion sigils situated at all 
  entries/exits, as well as windows, air-vents, fireplaces, 
  mail slots, etc.; glamours designed to dissuade the 
  property from being noticed, or to mask unusual 
  activity within; and banishment grids hidden within 
  design motifs or under large rugs. See Chapter Ten: 
  Tools of  the Trade in the core rulebook for more 
  information. 
  • A safe room with an armoured door and reinforced 
  walls, with several days supplies and a dedicated 
  emergency line out. 
  • In severe cases, the safe-house can offer a region of 
  utter electronic blackout with no land- or signal-based 
  electronic communication in or out.
  Designated Premises 
  ‘It’s best not to mention specifics: the house we share is subsidised 
  accommodation, provided by the Laundry for employees like us 
  – otherwise there’s no way we could honestly afford to live in 
  Central London on two civil service salaries – and the flip-side 
  of  this arrangement is that if  we start discussing state secrets 
  the walls grow ears.’
  – The Jennifer Morgue 
  Due to the high cost of living in the London metropolitan 
  area, employees of Capital Laundry Services are often 
  provided with subsidised housing, handled through the 
  Housing division. To save on costs, unmarried employees 
  are often asked to share housing. In all likelihood, one’s 
  career as a Laundry agent often begins sharing quarters 
  with an unlikely assemblage of fellow employees. This is 
  an intentional edict from Mahogany Row: fraternisation 
  with employees across departments builds camaraderie and 
  increases efficiency, as well as limiting the chance that secrets 
  will be inadvertently spilled with non-Laundry roommates. 
  The majority of these housing options are fairly mundane 
  and otherwise undistinguished and have been acquired 
  through years of slowly appropriating rental properties and 
  paying off mortgages. The turbulent nature of the housing 
  market in London requires Capital Laundry Services to 
  play it safe and keep on hand a number of ideal and less-
  than-ideal properties and make them available for employee 
  housing: it would not do to have a new agent, with access to 
  state secrets and even worse things Man Was Not Meant to 
  Know, to be forced to find a room via Craigslist. Occasional 
  austerity drives and budget cutbacks require designated 
  premises to be sold off or released, but due to the extensive 
  security measures required for employee housing, once a 
  safe-house has been established, it is kept and used until 
  compromised. 
  Frequently though, investigations into reality-threatening 
  activities can cause new properties to become available to 
  the Housing office. Just as real estate can be confiscated as a 
  punitive effort by law enforcement, or homes are occasionally 
  seized by the government after the owners are imprisoned, 
  the Laundry occasionally assumes proprietorship of various 
  properties. It is able to use them as it sees fit, usually as 
  designated premises: temporary or long-term housing for 
  Laundry employees. Behaviour that draws the attention 
  of the Laundry generally involves a better class of lunatic 
  than drug dealing or straightforward crime, and cultists 
  are if anything more discreet than simple criminals. Thus, 
  they tend to inhabit higher-quality residences. For this 
  reason, a great number of formerly cult-held properties are 
  converted into designated premises and made available to 
  Laundry employees. 
  36
  
  BeLL, BOOk And CAndLe
  An unfortunate side effect of claiming properties seized as 
  a result of Laundry operations, is that there are occasional 
  irregularities and unconventional issues inherent to such 
  properties. These sites often see violent activity committed 
  within their walls, and often boast evidence of traditional 
  occult activity: pentacles painted on floors, arcane symbols 
  scratched into walls, mysterious burns, bloodstains, etc. In 
  more severe cases, these premises feature telltale signs of 
  more advanced uses of magic, such as curious ozone smells 
  that never quite dissipate, disquieting psychic echoes, or 
  stray occult energies that have soaked into the wood- and 
  stonework and continue to radiate the misery and horror 
  once committed inside.
  Unusual Characteristics for Designated Premises 
  When Laundry agents are provided with designated housing, 
  the GM should roll D100 on the chart below to determine 
  what quirks, if any, are present. Agents may attempt to deal 
  with these quirks in an appropriate fashion, or simply accept 
  them in the manner of many ‘renter beware’ discoveries.
  Result
  Unusual Characteristic
  01-30
  Residence is unremarkable, with no unusual characteristics.
  31-45
  Residence was the site of minor cult activity. Occupants may find remnants of ineffectual occult paraphernalia 
  or activity, such as unusual blood stains, unmistakable smell of patchouli, mystic symbols scratched into walls, 
  pentagrams painted onto flooring beneath rugs, etc.
  46-55
  Residence was the site of significant cult activity. In addition to two or more of the telltale signs listed in result 
  31-45, occupants may find material remnants of cult activity hidden in a crawl space or concealed part of the 
  residence. Possibilities include a (non-functional) traditional grimoire, ceremonial elements such as a dagger or 
  human fat candles, vials containing sacred herbs and oils, etc.
  56-65
  As with 46-55, but with the additional complication that fellow/rival cultists connected to the previous 
  occupants of the property may return, either to retrieve cult paraphernalia or for ritual purposes. See pages 
  227-229 of the core rulebook for more information about cultist groups.
  66-70
  Neighbour is a conspiracy theorist convinced that the occupants of the residence are up to no good. Is keeping 
  a journal on their activities and may attempt to confront them, or (even worse) break into the residence to 
  collect evidence.
  71-75
  Something indefinable and unnatural occurred in the premises. Despite all efforts by the Plumbers to detect 
  and eradicate it, living within the residence causes a gradual and almost undetectable erosion of sanity, 
  characterised by unsettling dreams, a feeling of being watched, turbulent and unexplained emotions, etc. All 
  residents must make a Sanity Check once per month or lose 1 SAN.
  76-80
  Human sacrifice was performed within the premises, leaving a resident supernatural entity that somehow went 
  undetected by the Plumbers. ‘Haunt’ is a Level One exonome repeater ghost as described on page 201 of the 
  core rulebook.
  81-85
  A summoning within the premises was at least partially successful, bringing to Earth (and the premises) a 
  Level One exonome along the lines of a poltergeist or ectoplasm wallah as described on page 200 of the core 
  rulebook. The Plumbers are getting extremely sloppy.
  86-90
  Despite best efforts by Housing and the Plumbers, the premises has been compromised and is known to a 
  hostile organisation such as the Thirteenth Directorate, the Chinese Ministry of State Security, or other groups 
  described on pages 122-123 of the core rulebook, or even a minor group like the White Knights of Britain 
  (page 231 of the core rulebook). Interference may involve surveillance, attempted wiretapping and breach of 
  security, and possible hostile incursion.
  91-95
  Residence is still inhabited by something more frightening and difficult to deal with, a Level One or Level Two 
  exonome such as an Imp of the Perverse, a Lesser Horror from Beyond, a Feeder in the Night, or a Gremlin, 
  as described on pages 200-202 of the core rulebook.
  96-00
  Roll twice more on this table, ignoring any further result of 96-00.
  37
  2 - BELL, BOOK
   AND CANDLE
  
  THe LAundry
  Safe-House Bravo Delta Two 
  ‘Behold, a typical London family home: recently renovated 
  kitchen, dining room with French doors opening onto a patio in 
  the garden, lounge with bay window out front, staircase in hall, 
  under-stair closet, side-door leading into garage, bedrooms and 
  bathroom upstairs. Why the creeping dread, then?’ 
  – The Fuller Memorandum 
  Located at 34 Hazelhurst Road, Safe-house Bravo Delta 
  Two has recently become available for Laundry employees 
  and may be assigned to agents who have distinguished 
  themselves in the pursuit of duty. Formerly reserved 
  solely for management, recent history has caused it to 
  become downgraded for general assignment. Despite this 
  reclassification, the house is a fine example of an utterly 
  nondescript two-storey London town-home, built in the 
  mid-1930s and located in a quiet residential neighbourhood. 
  It is reasonably spacious, with three bedrooms, a front 
  lounge with bay window, a renovated kitchen, an enclosed 
  garage, and hedge-enclosed back yard with patio. The 
  interior walls are painted in charming magnolia, and the 
  flagstoned back patio has recently been dug up and replaced, 
  stone by stone. Though the hedges and yard show signs of 
  neglect, it would take very little effort to restore the yard to 
  respectable condition. Additionally, the French-style back 
  patio doors have been replaced, frame and all, and the walls 
  and carpet in one of the three upstairs bedrooms has just 
  been redone. 
  Should an occupant choose to make a careful examination 
  of the property using all of the occult detection means at 
  his or her disposal, they will discover a slight emanation of 
  negative energy from the back yard in the vicinity of the 
  patio, and may find tiny, barely-detectible stains of blood in 
  the repainted bedroom. 
  Safe-House Charlie Twenty-Two: ‘Chateau 
  Cthulhu’ 
  ‘Chateau Cthulhu is a mid-Victorian terrace, an anonymous 
  London dormitory unit distinguished mainly by having three cellar 
  rooms and a Laundry residential clearance, meaning that it’s 
  probably not bugged by the KGB, CIA, or our enemies in MI6.’ 
  – The Atrocity Archives 
  Formerly occupied by agents Robert Howard, Dominique 
  O’Brien, and two employees of Q Division identified only 
  as ‘Pinky’ and ‘Brains,’ this two-storey, mid-Victorian terrace 
  has re-entered the Laundry’s housing lottery and is available 
  for occupation by a new generation of agent tenants. The 
  nickname was conferred by Howard and his roommates 
  and has stuck with the property, along with a curious hand-
  waggling gesture that has continued despite no apparent 
  means of transmission. In addition to four double-
  bedrooms (each with its own door lock), Chateau Cthulhu 
  boasts a full kitchen, a dining room, and a full washroom, 
  the unit has undergone a substantial and nigh-unto-illegal 
  upgrade to its electrical system and supports secure high-
  speed DSL with a bewildering amount of bandwidth. 
  Chateau Cthulhu is aligned due east-west and situated at 
  the corner of an equilateral triangle of streets, a fortuitous 
  location for certain magical practices and beliefs. Prior to 
  being appropriated by the Laundry, the property’s prior 
  tenants were cultists, with one cellar room clearly devoted 
  to attempts at magic. These tenants were investigated by 
  the Laundry and remanded into custody, and now inhabit 
  maximum security facilities in undisclosed locations. The 
  landlord of the property is a Mr. Hussein, who remains 
  blissfully unaware of the activities of either his former or 
  current tenants. 
  The furniture is vintage, worn, and bordering on a 
  health threat. The plumbing is substandard and gurgles 
  throughout the night, the paint is discoloured and peeling, 
  and the carpet is dated, stained, and should be replaced (but 
  likely will never be), but Chateau Cthulhu is not without 
  its charms. One closet holds an enormous bin of plastic 
  Lego pieces (a remnant from previous tenants), enough to 
  fashion a table or desk.
  Sample Laundry Safe-houses
  Following are two examples of designated premises, provided to the GM and players for use as agent housing. As player-
  character agents of the Laundry are likely assumed to be sharing quarters, these environments create a unique ‘home base’ 
  that agents can unwind in after missions, a retreat from the vicissitudes of the office and the mind-numbing tedium (or 
  mind-shattering peril) of the average work-day. Larger groups of player-character agents may inhabit more than one of 
  these designated premises. 
  38
  
  Accounting practices notwithstanding, the Laundry operates 
  with a robust budget, no small amount of that financing 
  being tied to practical (i.e. non-magical) weapons inventory 
  and equipment. Field assignments may pit Laundry agents 
  against entities beyond comprehension and unbound by 
  mortal weaknesses, in which case no physical weapons 
  are likely to be of use. Despite this, there are inevitable 
  comforts to be had in having the right tools and equipment 
  at hand. This section covers a variety of firearms, firearm 
  equipment, hand weapons, ranged weapons, explosives, 
  protective gear, and other useful odds and ends of gear that 
  may be of use in the field. 
  Firearms
  Private ownership of firearms in the United Kingdom 
  is rare, though not unknown among criminal elements. 
  With the rise in terrorist and anti-terrorist activity, guns 
  are nonetheless becoming more commonplace. Working 
  for Capital Laundry Services doesn’t mean that you’re 
  automatically issued a firearm any more than you’ll ever fire 
  one if you do have it. 
  Most employees of the Laundry will never handle a firearm 
  and may never even see one used in the field. Unfortunately, 
  field agents routinely face a variety of threats – of the 
  human and extraterrene, squiddy variety – and as a result 
  the usefulness of firearms in the line of duty is an entirely 
  different cuttle of fish.
   
  Sidearms
  Other than a mobile phone, the sidearm is likely the most 
  useful piece of equipment your character will use in the 
  course of duty. The Glock 17 and the Walther PPK are 
  standard-issue for Laundry agents, and are described on 
  pages 102-103 of the core rulebook, but experienced agents 
  are not prohibited from using other sidearms. This section 
  lists a variety of popular and/or interesting sidearms your 
  character may potentially requisition or encounter in the 
  field. 
  American Derringer Mini COP: Despite the compact 
  size and limited ammo capacity, this unique four-barreled 
  derringer fires .357 magnum rounds. The COP (Compact 
  Off-duty Police) is no longer being manufactured, though it 
  remains popular among gun collectors and private owners. 
  AMT Automag V: A large single-action semiautomatic 
  pistol, this sidearm fires a .50 Action Express cartridge. 
  Though it has a limited magazine (five shot capacity), its 
  heavy cast-steel frame makes it an excellent impromptu 
  club. 
  Auto-Ordnance ZG-51 Pit Bull: A newer model of the 
  incredibly popular Colt M1911A, this pistol fires .45 ACP 
  (American Colt Pistol) rounds. A serviceable update to a 
  reliable handgun that’s been in continuous and widespread 
  use for a century. 
  Beretta Vertec: An update of the Beretta 92 family of 
  pistols, this Italian-made automatic fires a 9 x 19 mm 
  Parabellum cartridge. Though the factory clip holds 15 
  rounds, for many years versions sold in the USA were 
  restricted to a 10 round magazine capacity. 
  Beretta Model 21A Bobcat: This Italian-made, pocket-
  sized derringer is available in two varieties: one fires a .22 
  LR (long rifle) cartridge and has a seven-round capacity, 
  while the other fires a .25 ACP round and has an eight-
  round capacity. 
  Beretta Model 950BS Jetfire: Another compact pistol 
  from Beretta, the Jetfire is known for being reliable and 
  simple to operate and maintain. It has an eight-round 
  magazine and fires .25 ACP rounds, with a flip-top barrel 
  that makes it easy to clear misfires or jams. 
  Browning Hi-Power: One of the most popular handguns 
  in the modern world, the Hi-Power is used in the armed 
  forces of more than 50 countries. Firing 9 x 19 mm 
  Parabellum cartridges from a 15-round magazine, the HP 
  has been manufactured and utilised for three quarters of a 
  century. 
  Firearms
  ‘Contrary to popular fiction, there is no such thing as a “license to kill.” Nor do secret agents routinely 
  carry firearms for self-defence. Me, I don’t even like guns – I mean, they’re great fun if all you want to 
  do is make holes in paper targets at a firing range, but for their real design purpose, saving your ass in 
  a life-or-death emergency, no: that’s not on my list of fun things.’ 
  –The Fuller Memorandum
  FIreArMS
  39
  3 - FIREARMS
  
  THe LAundry
  Colt 380 Government Pocketlite: A scaled-down version 
  of the M1911A, this firearm is also called the ‘Mustang.’ 
  It chambers .380 ACP with a six-round magazine capacity. 
  Colt M1911A: 
  Simply put, the most popular handgun in the world. This 
  semiautomatic handgun uses the .45 ACP cartridge and 
  has an eight-round capacity. Named for the year it was first 
  introduced, the M1911A (and variants) is used by militaries 
  throughout the world. 
  Colt Detective Special: A compact snub-nosed revolver, 
  this firearm is popular among old-school police detectives 
  for its convenience as a concealed weapon. It has a six-
  round cylinder and fires .38 Special rounds. 
  Colt King Cobra: A sturdy and dependable medium-framed 
  double-action revolver, the King Cobra is chambered for 
  either the .357 Magnum or .38 Special cartridges, and has 
  a six-round cylinder. Though not manufactured for over a 
  decade, an enormous number of these are still in circulation, 
  used by private citizens and police forces across the world.
  Heckler & Koch P7: A German semiautomatic compact 
  pistol introduced after the massacre at the 1972 Olympics 
  in Munich, the P7 fires the 9 x 19 mm Parabellum cartridge 
  and has a seven-round magazine. 
  Heckler & Koch MK23 USSOCOM: Developed for use 
  by the United States Special Operations Command, the 
  MK23 is equipped with a suppressor and laser aim module. 
  It fires .45 APC rounds and has a 12-round magazine. The 
  pistol component of the MK23 is considered a ‘match 
  grade’ pistol, superior in accuracy, reliability, and ease of 
  maintenance. 
  Intratec TEC-9: Technically a semi-automatic handgun, 
  the TEC-9 boasts a 30-round magazine mounted before 
  the trigger. It is chambered for 9 x 19 mm Parabellum. 
  Because of the configuration of the magazine, it is difficult 
  to conceal. Despite this, it is a popular weapon among 
  terrorists and criminals because of its high capacity and 
  mostly polymer construction. 
  Intratec TEC-22: Like the TEC-9, the TEC-22 has a large, 
  forward-mounted 30-round magazine, and is chambered 
  for .22 long rifle. As with the TEC-9, it is difficult to carry 
  concealed. 
  Llama Mini-Max II: A scaled-down version of the classic 
  M1911A, the Mini-Max is available in several calibres, from 
  9 mm Parabellum, .38 Super, .40 Smith & Wesson, and .45 
  ACP, with clip capacities of eight, eight, seven, and six, 
  respectively. Though popular among law enforcement and 
  military, it was discontinued in 2005. 
  Magnum Research Desert Eagle .50: 
  This large-frame pistol is one of the most powerful 
  handguns in the world. Gas-operated and semiautomatic, 
  the Desert Eagle is available in a variety of calibres, with the 
  most impressive being the .50 AE (Action Express). It has 
  only a seven-round magazine, but any situation requiring 
  more than seven shots from a Desert Eagle .50 is beyond a 
  ballistic resolution. 
  Makarov PM: 
  This Russian-made semiautomatic pistol was the default 
  sidearm for Soviet military use from 1951 until roughly 
  2005. Though it was officially replaced, the Makarov is 
  still used widely throughout former Soviet countries and 
  their trade partners. It is chambered for the unique 9 mm 
  Makarov round, as well as versions chambered for .380 
  ACP. The Makarov has a 12-round magazine. 
  Norinco Type 54: This Chinese-made semiautomatic 
  pistol is a knock-off of the Russian-made Tokarev T-33, 
  and has been in continuous use by the Chinese military 
  and government for almost sixty years. Popularly called the 
  ‘Black Star,’ this pistol uses 7.62 x 25 mm Tokarev rounds 
  and has an eight-round magazine. It is very easy to get on 
  the Chinese black market, and thusly is popular in the field 
  of international terrorism. 
  Rossi Model 972: This heavy revolver is available only in 
  .357 Magnum calibre, with a six-shot cylinder. Made by an 
  American company but manufactured in Brazil. 
  40
  
  Ruger P90: Yet another variant of the M1911A, the Ruger 
  P series of pistols are American-made semiautomatic 
  revolvers popular among law enforcement and private 
  citizens worldwide. The P90 is chambered for .45 ACP and 
  has an eight-round magazine. 
  SIG P226: This sturdy, reliable semiautomatic pistol is an 
  evolution of the immensely successful SIG P220, as used 
  by US Navy SEALS. Manufactured by SIG Sauer, it is 
  chambered for the 9 x 19 mm Parabellum round and has an 
  astounding 15-round magazine. 
  Smith & Wesson Model 19 Combat Magnum: First 
  manufactured in the 1950s, the Model 19 was the original 
  .357 Magnum revolver, popularised by US law enforcement 
  and still in use more than half a century later. 
  Smith & Wesson Sigma:
  Made almost entirely of high-strength polymers, this 
  semiautomatic pistol is extremely similar to Glock’s line of 
  automatic pistols. The majority of these are chambered for 
  the .40 S&W (Smith & Wesson) cartridge, though it’s also 
  available for .380 ACP and 9 x 19 mm Parabellum. It has a 
  15-round magazine. 
  Walther P5 Compact: 
  A compact version of the popular Walther P5 (itself a 
  variant of the PP/PPK model) chambered for 9 x 19 mm 
  Parabellum ammunition, with an eight-round magazine. 
  Used principally by the Royal Army and still in active use. 
  Walther P99: A semi-automatic pistol in 9 x 19 mm 
  Parabellum, this highly-ergonomic sidearm was introduced 
  in 1997 with incremental improvements over the earlier 
  P5 and P88 Walthers. Part of the marketing push involved 
  making it the official gun of a relaunched international spy 
  film franchise. 
  Webley Revolver: 
  A break-top revolver chambered for .455 Webley rounds, 
  this was the standard sidearm for British armed forces from 
  1887 through 1963, a weapon of immense influence and 
  history. Though retired in favour of more modern sidearms, 
  the Webley is a sentimental favorite of the old guard, the 
  type of pistol you’re likely to find in a desk-drawer on 
  Mahogany Row if you should be so daring as to look.
  Name
  Avail.
  Skill
  Base
  Damage
  Attack
  Special
  Mal
  Range
  HP
  Ammo*
  SIZ
  American Derringer 
  Mini COP
  Difficult
  Pistol
  20
  1D8+1D4
  1
  Impaling
  00
  5
  8
  4
  .5
  AMT Automag V
  Average
  Pistol
  20
  2D6+1
  1
  Impaling
  00
  20
  12
  5
  1
  Auto-Ordnance 
  ZG-51 Pit Bull
  Average
  Pistol
  20
  1D10+1
  2
  Impaling
  00
  20
  10
  7
  1
  Beretta Vertec
  Average
  Pistol
  20
  1D10+1
  3
  Impaling
  99-00
  20
  10
  15
  1
  Beretta Model 21A 
  Bobcat
  Average
  Pistol
  20
  1D6
  3
  Impaling
  00
  5
  6
  7-8
  .5
  Beretta Model 
  950BS Jetfire
  Average
  Pistol
  20
  1D6
  3
  Impaling
  99-00
  15
  8
  8
  .5
  Browning Hi-Power
  Average
  Pistol
  20
  1D10
  2
  Impaling
  00
  20
  10
  15
  1
  FIreArMS
  41
  3 - FIREARMS
  
  THe LAundry
  Rifles, Assault Rifles, Submachine Guns, and 
  Machine Guns
  Traditionally, field agents are equipped with little more than 
  smartphones, warrant cards, and (occasionally) sidearms. 
  Occasionally, though, agents may feel that situations require 
  more significant firepower in the form of assault rifles or 
  machineguns. This is generally an incorrect assumption, as 
  the assumption that an assault rifle is needed indicates that a 
  situation has escalated past the point where any amount of 
  firepower will be of use. 
  That said, following are examples of such weapons in the 
  unlikely event agents ever lay hands on them. 
  Barrett M107 Long Range Sniper Rifle: The ‘Light Fifty,’ 
  this .50 calibre heavy semi-automatic rifle is a consummate 
  sniper’s weapon, recoil-operated with an integrated bipod. 
  It can be mounted on military vehicles, and is often paired 
  with advanced telescopic sights. An evolution of the M82, 
  the M107 has been adopted by dozens of world militaries. 
  Colt M4 Carbine: An evolution of the M16, the M4 
  is a recent entry into the US military’s arsenal, using 
  5.56 x 44 mm NATO ammunition, with selectable semi-
  automatic or three-round burst fire. It is regularly used 
  with a bipod and integrated telescopic/red-dot sight, and 
  is capable of mounting a M203 grenade launcher under the 
  barrel. Though it has not yet been adopted by the UK, it 
  is rapidly becoming a weapon of choice for many world 
  militaries. 
  Name
  Avail.
  Skill
  Base
  Damage
  Attack
  Special
  Mal
  Range
  HP
  Ammo*
  SIZ
  Colt 380 
  Government 
  Pocketlite
  Average
  Pistol
  20
  1D8
  2
  Impaling
  00
  15
  9
  6
  1
  Colt M1911A
  Average
  Pistol
  20
  1D10+1
  2
  Impaling
  00
  15
  10
  8
  1
  Colt Detective 
  Special
  Average
  Pistol
  20
  1D10
  2
  Impaling
  00
  15
  10
  6
  1
  Colt King Cobra
  Average
  Pistol
  20
  1D8+1D4
  1
  Impaling
  00
  20
  10
  6
  1
  Heckler & Koch P7
  Average
  Pistol
  20
  1D10
  3
  Impaling
  99-00
  20
  8
  7
  1
  Heckler & Koch 
  MK23 USSOCOM
  Difficult
  Pistol
  20
  1D10+2
  2
  Impaling
  00
  20
  9
  12
  1.5
  Intratec TEC-9
  Average
  Pistol
  20
  1D10
  3
  Impaling
  98-00
  15
  8
  30
  1.5
  Intratec TEC-22
  Average
  Pistol
  20
  1D6+2
  3
  Impaling
  98-00
  15
  8
  30
  1.5
  Llama Mini-Max II
  Average
  Pistol
  20
  1D10
  2
  Impaling
  99-00
  15
  9
  6-8
  1
  Magnum Research 
  Desert Eagle .50
  Average
  Pistol
  20
  2D6+2
  1
  Impaling
  94-00
  30
  11
  7
  1.5
  Makarov PM
  Average
  Pistol
  20
  1D8+1
  2
  Impaling
  98-00
  20
  8
  12
  1
  Norinco Type 54
  Average
  Pistol
  20
  1D8+1
  2
  Impaling
  96-00
  15
  8
  8
  1
  Rossi Model 972
  Average
  Pistol
  20
  1D8+1D4
  1
  Impaling
  00
  20
  11
  6
  1
  Ruger P90
  Average
  Pistol
  20
  1D10
  2
  Impaling
  00
  20
  9
  8
  1
  SIG P226
  Average
  Pistol
  20
  1D10
  3
  Impaling
  00
  20
  10
  15
  1
  Smith & Wesson 
  Model 19
  Average
  Pistol
  20
  1D8+1D4
  2
  Impaling
  00
  20
  12
  6
  1
  Smith & Wesson 
  Sigma
  Average
  Pistol
  20
  1D10+1
  3
  Impaling
  99-00
  20
  7
  15
  1
  Walther P5 Compact
  Average
  Pistol
  20
  1D10
  3
  Impaling
  00
  15
  8
  8
  .5
  Walther P99
  Average
  Pistol
  20
  1D10
  3
  Impaling
  00
  15
  8
  15
  1
  Webley Revolver
  Difficult
  Pistol
  20
  1d8+1
  2
  Impaling
  97-00
  15
  8
  6
  1
  * Most semiautomatic pistols can carry an extra round in the chamber, adding +1 to ammo
  42
  
  Colt M16 Rifle: 
  An immensely popular and reliable rifle, the M16 and 
  its variants (the A1, A2, A3, and A4) have been used by 
  militaries worldwide for half a century. Highly customisable, 
  the M16 fires the 5.56 x 44 mm NATO cartridge. It is 
  currently being phased out of US military use in favour of 
  the M4, above. 
  CZ Skorpion vz.61: The Skorpion is a pistol-sized 7.65 mm 
  machine gun developed by the Czechs back in the 60s and 
  still popular in former Soviet bloc countries and the Middle 
  East, as well as some African and Southeast Asian nations. 
  It fires 7.65 x 17 mm Browning SR ammunition and has 
  an ‘over the top’ folding shoulder stock. It can be fired in 
  semi-automatic and full-auto mode. If a villain in a film is 
  firing two automatic pistols simultaneously, they’re probably 
  using Skorpions. 
  Enfield L85 Rifle: 
  Agents operating alongside British troops are going to 
  be familiar with the the L85, as it’s been standard issue 
  for the British Armed Forces since 1987. Chambered for 
  5.56 x 44 mm NATO ammo, it’s a bulky weapon with a 
  bullpup design and an integrated flash suppressor, and can 
  be fitted with a grenade launcher or bayonet. 
  FN Minimi: A Belgian-made light machine gun used in 
  most NATO countries and elsewhere, Fabrique Nationale’s 
  Minimi is chambered for 5.56 x 45 mm NATO rounds and 
  fed by a 100-round disintegrating-link belt, or can be fitted 
  with a smaller 30-round magazine. It is fitted with a flash 
  suppressor and can be fired in normal and adverse mode 
  (adverse being a higher rate-of-fire). 
  FN P90 Personal Defence Weapon: 
  A Belgian-made selective fire rifle, the FN P90 is possibly 
  the strangest looking weapon agents will ever encounter. An 
  extremely organic bullpup configuration and a top-mounted 
  magazine make it look like nothing else in the field. It fires 
  5.7 x 28 mm ammunition and can be set for semi- or full-
  automatic fire. It’s often kitted out with tactical lights, red-
  dot laser sights, sound suppressors, and other fun extras. 
  Heckler & Koch G36 Assault Rifle: Adopted by the UK’s 
  Metropolitan Police Service and used by other militaries 
  and police forces across the globe, the G36 is an assault 
  rifle firing 5.56 x 45 mm NATO ammo, with a 30-round 
  magazine or a 100-round detachable drum magazine. It is 
  usually equipped with red-dot and telescopic sights, and 
  variants are fitted with bipods, skeletonised folding stocks, 
  grenade launchers, and even bayonets. 
  Heckler & Koch MP5 Submachine Gun: 
  With the ‘MP’ short for ‘maschinenpistole,’ the MP5 and 
  its variants are among the most internationally popular 
  submachine guns agents are liable to encounter, used by 
  most branches of the British armed and police forces, as 
  well as in police and military organisations worldwide. It 
  chambers 9 x 19 mm Parabellum, can be set for semi- or 
  full-automatic fire, and is frequently paired with extras such 
  as a flash suppressor, a rifle grenade launcher, a tear gas 
  grenade launcher, optical sights, tactical lights and red-dot 
  sights, and has a collapsing, extendable stock. 
  Ingram MAC-11: A scaled-down variant of the M10 
  (which went out of production in the mid-70s), the MAC-
  11 machine pistol is chambered for the .380 ACP round. It 
  can be set for semi- or full-automatic fire. 
  FIreArMS
  43
  3 - FIREARMS
  
  THe LAundry
  Kalashnikov AK-47:
  One of the most commonly-used and widely-copied 
  assault rifles ever made, the Russian-made Avtomatik 
  Kalashnikov-47 was introduced in 1949 and is still used 
  worldwide today. The AK-47’s popularity stems from its 
  durability and reliability. There are dozens of copies and 
  variants, including the Chinese Type 56, Iraq’s Tabuk 
  Sniper Rifle and Israel’s IMI Galil, and nearly all use the 
  7.62 x 39 mm M43 cartridge. Different varieties have 10-, 
  20- and 30-round magazines, and the black market offers 
  40-round box and 75-round drum magazines. 
  Kalashnikov AK-74M: 
  An update of the Kalashnikov line of weapons, the AK-
  74M has become the premier Russian military assault rifle 
  since its introduction in 1991. It (and other AK-74 variants) 
  fire a 5.45 x 39 mm cartridge, and can be set for semi- or 
  full-automatic fire. It accommodates a barrel-mounted 
  grenade launcher, bayonet and flash suppressor, and uses 
  either a 30- or 45-round magazine, with a folding shoulder 
  stock and built-in mounting for optical sights. 
  Mini-Uzi: A scaled-back version of the Uzi (described 
  below), the Mini-Uzi trades a slightly lower muzzle velocity 
  for an increased rate of fire. The Micro-Uzi (recently 
  updated as the Uzi-Pro) has similar statistics, but is even 
  smaller (reduce SIZ by .5). 
  Ruger MP9: A US-made machine pistol, the MP9 is similar 
  to the Uzi in design. It can fire semi- and full-automatic, and 
  uses the 9 x 19 mm Parabellum cartridge, with a 32-round 
  box magazine. 
  Uzi: Developed by Israel Military Industries and named 
  for its designer, Uziel Gal, the Uzi has been the premiere 
  submachine gun in Middle East conflicts, although its 
  popularity has waned somewhat in the last decade. Variants 
  fire the 9 x 19 mm Parabellum or .45 ACP rounds. It has an 
  extendable stock, and box magazines come in 10-, 16-, 20-, 
  32-, 40-, and even 50-round capacity.
  Name
  Avail.
  Skill
  Base
  Damage
  Attack
  Special
  Mal
  Range
  HP
  Ammo
  SIZ
  Barrett M107 
  Long Range Sniper 
  Rifle
  Difficult
  Firearm 
  (Rifle)
  25%
  2D8+6
  1
  Impaling
  0
  300
  10
  10
  4
  Colt M4 Carbine
  Average
  Firearm 
  (Rifle)
  25%
  1D10
  1 or 3
  Impaling
  0
  100
  12
  30
  4
  Colt M16 Rifle
  Average
  Firearm 
  (Rifle)
  25%
  1D10
  1 or 3
  Impaling
  99-00
  90
  14
  30
  4
  CZ Skorpion vz.61
  Difficult
  Firearm 
  (Submachine 
  Gun)
  15%
  1D8
  3 or 
  burst
  Impaling
  96-00
  20
  6
  10 or 
  20
  1.5
  Enfield L85 Rifle
  Average
  Firearm 
  (Rifle)
  25%
  1D10
  3 or 
  burst
  Impaling
  99-00
  110
  12
  30
  4
  FN Minimi
  Difficult
  Firearm 
  (Assault Rifle)
  15%
  1D10
  1 or 
  burst
  Impaling
  97-00
  100
  11
  100 or 
  30
  4
  FN P90 Personal 
  Defense Weapon
  Difficult
  Firearm 
  (Assault Rifle)
  15%
  1D8+1
  3 or 
  burst
  Impaling
  0
  100
  12
  50
  4
  Heckler & Koch 
  G36 Assault Rifle
  Average
  Firearm 
  (Assault Rifle)
  15%
  1D8+1
  3 or 
  burst
  Impaling
  99-00
  110
  12
  30 or 
  100
  3
  Heckler & Koch 
  MP5 Submachine 
  Gun
  Average
  Firearm 
  (Submachine 
  Gun)
  15%
  1D10
  2 or 
  burst
  Impaling
  97-00
  45
  10
  15 or 
  30
  2.5
  Ingram MAC-11
  Difficult
  Firearm 
  (Submachine 
  Gun)
  15%
  1D8
  3 or 
  burst
  Impaling
  96-00
  20
  7
  32
  1.5
  Kalashnikov 
  AK-47
  Difficult
  Firearm 
  (Assault Rifle)
  15%
  2D6+1
  2 or 
  burst
  Impaling
  0
  90
  12
  10
  4
  44
  
  Shotguns
  ‘Harry pulls something that looks like an M-16 on steroids 
  off  the wall and picks up a drum magazine the size of  a small 
  car tyre. “Can I interest you in an Atchisson AA-12 assault 
  shotgun? Burst-selectable for single shot or full auto? Takes a 
  twenty-round drum full of  twelve-gauge magnum rounds, and 
  I’ve got a special load-out just for taking down paranormal 
  manifestations – alternate FRAG-12 fin-stabilised grenades, 
  white phosphorus rounds, and solid silver triple-ought buck, each 
  ball micro-engraved with the Litany of  Khar-Nesh – right up 
  your street, my son.” He racks the slide on the AA-12 with a 
  clattering clash like the latch on the gates of  hell.’
  – The Fuller Memorandum
  The popular misconception of the shotgun is that it’s a 
  clumsy, imprecise firearm. The reality is that few weapons 
  are as versatile and devastating when used properly. 
  Shotguns are indispensible in tactical situations: breaching 
  doors, destroying obstacles, and in laying down more 
  firepower a over larger area than a sidearm is capable of. 
  Laundry agents will rarely, if ever, be issued shotguns as 
  part of assignments, but sometimes may find them useful if 
  situations… evolve.
  Benelli M3 Super 90: An Italian-made semi-automatic 
  or pump-action shotgun, the Super 90 can be fitted with 
  a tactical flashlight or a red-dot sight. It is chambered for 
  12- or 20-gauge shells. 
  Daewoo USAS-12: Designed by US-owned Gilbert 
  Equipment Company as an improvement to the popular 
  Atchisson line of shotguns, the USAS-12 is manufactured 
  in South Korea by Daewoo. This 12-gauge combat shotgun 
  is popular throughout Asia, and has made its way into the 
  black market through those channels. It is fed by a 10-round 
  box magazine or a 20-round drum magazine. 
  Mossberg 590A1: A combat shotgun designated and 
  designed for use by law enforcement and the armed forces, 
  the 590A1 is heavier than civilian models, 12- or 20-gauge 
  ammo, and comes in three different barrel lengths, each 
  equipped with a red-dot laser sight. 
  NeoStead 2000: A South African-made combat shotgun, 
  the NS2000 is pump-action and was designed for police and 
  security use. It has a bullpup configuration, fires 12-gauge 
  shotgun ammunition, and has an outstanding 12-shell 
  magazine. In the UK, the NS2000 is the shotgun of choice 
  for the S.A.S. 
  Saiga-12:
  A Russian-made 12-gauge combat shotgun manufactured 
  on the versatile Kalashnikov pattern design. Saiga-12 
  variants come with folding stocks, optics, and expanded 
  drum magazines. Though the Saiga-12 is not used much 
  outside the Russian Federation, Laundry agents operating 
  in Russia may end up on the wrong side of one of these.
  Name
  Avail.
  Skill
  Base
  Damage
  Attack
  Special
  Mal
  Range
  HP
  Ammo
  SIZ
  Kalashnikov 
  AK-74M
  Difficult
  Firearm 
  (Assault Rifle)
  15%
  2D8
  2 or 
  burst
  Impaling
  97-00
  120
  12
  30 or 
  45
  4
  Mini-Uzi
  Difficult
  Firearm 
  (Submachine 
  Gun)
  15%
  1D10
  2 or 
  burst
  Impaling
  96-00
  30
  8
  20 or 
  32
  2
  Ruger MP9
  Difficult
  Firearm 
  (Submachine 
  Gun)
  15%
  1D10
  2 or 
  burst
  Impaling
  97-00
  40
  9
  32
  2
  Uzi
  Difficult
  Firearm 
  (Submachine 
  Gun)
  15%
  1D10
  2 or 
  burst
  Impaling
  98-00
  40
  8
  10
  2
  FIreArMS
  45
  3 - FIREARMS
  
  THe LAundry
  Exotic Guns 
  The following list of weapons are not easily categorised, 
  serving a variety of purposes. Requisitioning any of these 
  weapons as part of a normal mission would be highly 
  unusual and should be undertaken in only the direst of 
  circumstances. Even though the lunatics in the Armoury 
  are more than willing to release this kind of firepower, an 
  agent actually signing one of these items out is likely to get 
  their dossier flagged for closer inspection by Operational 
  Oversight, Financial Control, or (shudder) the Auditors. 
  Proceed with caution. 
  Flare Pistol: 
  This isn’t that unusual an item, and is a ready part of any 
  water-going craft’s emergency supply kit, but carrying one 
  around is bound to raise a few eyebrows. No sane person 
  would choose to use one of these in combat, but there are 
  times that setting a target on fire is a welcome occurrence. 
  Hydroar LC T1 M1 Flamethrower: Though the use of 
  conventional flamethrowers in combat is highly frowned 
  upon by the terms of the Geneva Convention, field agents 
  routinely encounter beings not covered by that pact. 
  The Brazilian-made LC T1 M1 replaces the antiquated 
  American-made M2 in many world armouries. 
  Tranquiliser Gun: A gas-powered pistol or rifle that fires 
  ballistic syringe ammunition, usually filled with fast-acting 
  paralytics or sedatives. Tranquiliser guns are relatively 
  quiet, and though they are rarely used in military activities, 
  they are frequently used in ‘black bag’ operations. Though 
  most tranquilisers used in these guns were developed for 
  animals, and have not been approved for use on humans, 
  lessened or weakened doses are frequently (and illegally) 
  used on humans. Common brands are Immobilon (M99) or 
  Fentanyl. Injection follows the same procedures as poison 
  (see page 62 of the core rulebook), with dosages ranging 
  from potency (POT) 12 to 18 and effects mirroring that of 
  chloroform. Calibrating a correct dosage requires an Easy 
  Science (Pharmacy) roll. 
  Higher doses run the risk of causing heart failure or other 
  severe reactions in the target. A target receiving a dose 
  greater than their CON must make an Endurance roll to 
  avoid a reaction: failure costs the target 1D6 damage per 6 
  points of the drug’s potency (rounded down).
  XM25 Counter Defilade Target Engagement System: 
  Simply put, the state of the art in assault weaponry. 
  Developed by the US military and recently deployed 
  in Afghanistan, the XM25 is a stubby ‘smart’ grenade-
  launching rifle with explosive ammunition that can be 
  programmed to detonate at a desired range, rendering most 
  cover useless. 
  Firing specialised 25 mm grenades with an astonishing 
  effective range of 750 yards, the XM25 is every gun fetishist’s 
  dream. It has an integral thermal sight, laser rangefinder, 
  optical sight, and integrated ballistic computer, offering 
  +20% to the base chance to hit. If operated correctly, 
  the XM25 reduces the penalty to hit from cover by half, 
  meaning that shots that would be ½ chance (Difficult) are 
  reduced by only ¼ the chance to hit.
  Name
  Avail.
  Skill
  Base
  Damage
  Attack
  Special
  Mal
  Range
  HP
  Ammo
  SIZ
  Benelli M3 
  Super 90
  Difficult
  Firearm 
  (Shotgun)
  30%
  4D6/2D6/1D6
  2
  Impaling
  00
  10/20/50
  12
  7
  3
  Daewoo 
  USAS-12
  Difficult
  Firearm 
  (Shotgun)
  30%
  4D6/2D6/1D6
  1 or 
  auto
  Impaling
  99-00
  10/20/50
  10
  10 or 20
  4
  Mossberg 
  590A1
  Difficult
  Firearm 
  (Shotgun)
  30%
  4D6/2D6/1D6
  1
  Impaling
  00
  10/20/50
  12
  9
  3
  NeoStead 2000
  Average
  Firearm 
  (Shotgun)
  30%
  4D6/2D6/1D6
  2
  Impaling
  99-00
  10/20/50
  12
  12
  4
  Saiga-12
  Difficult
  Firearm 
  (Shotgun)
  30%
  4D6/2D6/1D6
  2
  Impaling
  00
  10/20/50
  12
  10 or 20
  4
  46
  
  Firearm Equipment and Customisation 
  This section covers a variety of additional equipment 
  to customise, augment, expand, or enhance a firearm’s 
  capabilities. Most of these are nonstandard and must be 
  requested in addition to the regular firearm, although in 
  some cases they are assigned already integrated into or in 
  conjunction with the firearm. For the most part, Q Division 
  takes a dim view on agents modifying their own equipment, 
  so modifications such as these are at the agent’s risk. 
  Bayonet: A barrel-mounted combat knife, these may be 
  used in commando activities, but for obvious reasons are 
  rarely used in Laundry operations. If the rifle itself cannot 
  handle the target, there is little chance a pointy bit of metal 
  will do the job. Stats for a bayonet are in the Miscellaneous 
  Weapons chart on page 48. 
  Combat Grip: An ergonomic handgrip customisable to 
  the operator’s hand shape, a combat grip adds +5% to the 
  chance of hitting. These are available for most weapons. 
  Extended Magazine: Many firearms can accommodate an 
  extended magazine, increasing ammo capacity by anywhere 
  from +25% to +100% normal. Rather than provide a 
  detailed list of each model of firearm and what additional 
  ammo capacity the extended magazine confers, the Game 
  Master should assign an availability rating based on the 
  amount of expansion, from Easy (+25% ammo), Average 
  (+50% ammo), or Difficult (+100% ammo). The SIZ 
  modifier is negligible, but an expanded magazine makes the 
  weapon more difficult to conceal, with modifiers of -5%, 
  -10%, and -20% respectively. 
  ‘Match Grade’: Technically a quality of equipment rather 
  than a specific item, match grade refers to a level of quality 
  in firearms, firearm equipment, and ammunition suitable 
  for competition, such as competitive marksmanship events. 
  Match grade components are manufactured to exceedingly 
  high standards and at a level of precision beyond 
  conventional manufacturing, and are routinely as much as 
  10 times as expensive as comparable components (bump up 
  one Value/Availability level for purposes of procurement). 
  Specific classes of match grade components have the 
  following effects: 
  •	 Ammunition: Match grade ammunition lowers the 
  chance of a misfire (malfunction) by 1%, though the 
  ammo will still misfire on a roll of 00. 
  •	 General Manufacture: A weapon of match grade 
  quality has 1 additional hit point and a +5% modifier 
  to the attack chance, and the chance of a jam is 
  reduced by 1%, though the weapon will still jam on a 
  roll of 00, even if used cumulatively with match grade 
  ammunition. 
  •	 Sights: Match grade sights and/or scope adds +5% 
  to the attack chance when using aimed attacks (page 
  57 of The Laundry rulebook), cumulative with other 
  modifiers. 
  Speed-Draw Holster: Normally, drawing a weapon takes 5 
  DEX ranks. As described in the core rulebook on page 58, 
  a speed-draw holster reduces this amount to 3 DEX ranks. 
  Tactical Light: A flashlight affixed to the barrel of the 
  weapon. Infrared varieties are often paired with night-vision 
  goggles. 
  Trigger Lock (Conventional): A conventional trigger lock 
  is recommended when the firearm is not in use. These take 
  5 DEX ranks to install or remove with the key. Opening a 
  trigger lock without the key requires a successful Difficult 
  Fine Manipulation roll. Regulations prohibit Laundry agents 
  from using conventional trigger locks for requisitioned 
  weapons: they must instead use the standard enchanted 
  trigger guard issued by Q Division (described on page 97 of 
  The Laundry core rulebook).
  Name
  Avail.
  Skill
  Base
  Damage
  Attack
  Special
  Mal
  Range
  HP
  Ammo
  SIZ
  Flare Pistol
  Average
  Firearm 
  (Exotic)
  25%
  1D10+1D3 
  fire
  1
  Fire
  00
  10
  11
  1
  2
  Hydroar 
  LC T1 M1 
  Flamethrower
  Difficult
  Firearm 
  (Flamethrower)
  10%
   2D6 fire per 
  round
  1
  Fire
  93-
  00
  25
  6
  10 
  5
  Tranquiliser 
  Gun
  Difficult
  Firearm 
  (Exotic)
  05%
  1 + special
  1
  Special
  99-
  00
  10
  8
  Varies, 
  usually 1
  1 
  or 2
  XM25 CDTES
  Impossible
  Firearm 
  (Assault Rifle)
  15%
  Burst
  1
  Knockback
  98-
  00
  300
  10
  12
  1
  FIreArMS
  47
  3 - FIREARMS
  
  THe LAundry
  Specialised Ammunition 
  Though The Laundry core rulebook describes occult 
  ammunition such as banishment rounds (page 92 of the 
  core rulebook), such armament is hardly standard issue. 
  Most weapons are issued with conventional ammunition, 
  and generally enchanted, advanced, or otherwise specialised 
  ammunition must be requested. Firearm range and damage 
  values provided here and in the core rulebook are assumed 
  to be based on conventional ammunition unless otherwise 
  specified. The specialised ammunition described in this 
  section modifies these values. Unless otherwise specified, 
  these ammunition types are for pistols, rifles, and automatic 
  weapons, not shotguns or other specialised firearms. 
  Armour Piercing: Designed to penetrate protective 
  armour or barriers, armour piercing ammunition ignores 
  half of the armour protection of a target, although it does 
  -1 to the rolled damage. 
  Baton: Plastic bullets meant to avoid causing lethal harm to 
  the target, baton rounds are traditionally used in crowd/riot 
  control situations. Baton rounds do ½ rolled damage within 
  point blank range, and the value of any armour protection 
  worn by the target is doubled. Beyond point blank range, 
  baton rounds do the firearm’s minimum damage, and 
  armour protection for the target is doubled. 
  Beanbag: Flexible baton (or beanbag) rounds are fired 
  from a shotgun and used for non-lethal conflict. Beanbag 
  ammo is almost what it sounds like, a small flexible bag of 
  resilient plastic containing small hard rubber shot. Beanbag 
  ammo knocks people down without killing them, and is used 
  in situations where casualties are absolutely unacceptable. 
  Beanbag ammo has half the range of normal shotgun 
  ammo, and does minimum rolled damage. 
  Blank: Primarily used for military simulation exercises, 
  blank ammunition contains gunpowder but no actual shot. 
  Used safely, they are harmless, but within 1 yard range they 
  do ½ the normal rolled damage, and at a 5 yard range blank 
  ammunition will do 1 point of damage. 
  Breaching: Breaching rounds are fired from shotguns and 
  are intended for use punching through door locks without 
  risk of ricochet. They consist of metal powder bound into 
  a solid slug round, and are usually fired with the shotgun 
  barrel inches away from the door lock. The slugs dissipate 
  into harmless powder instantly upon impact. They are 
  ineffectual against living targets, doing full damage only 
  within three feet of the shooter. Beyond that range, they do 
  minimum damage and the value of any armour protection 
  the target is wearing is doubled. 
  Glaser Safety Slug: Created by a US ammunitions 
  manufacturer, the Glaser Safety Slug is a relatively 
  lightweight, hollow-tipped round with a polymer tip, the 
  hollow filled with fine bird shot. Glaser Safety Slugs fragment 
  almost immediately upon impact, trading penetrating power 
  for wide dispersal of ammunition fragments into a wound. 
  The relative lightness of the bullet and its design minimises 
  its use at long range or against armoured targets. Halve the 
  range of a firearm loaded with Glaser Safety Slugs, and 
  double the armour protection value worn by the target, but 
  add +4 to the rolled damage. 
  Hollow Point: Designed to minimise collateral damage and 
  to inflict increased soft tissue damage, these bullets have a 
  hollow space in the tip that causes the bullet to collapse 
  and mushroom (or shatter) when hitting a solid target. 
  This minimises penetration but increases the diameter 
  of the bullet itself. The armour protection value of any 
  armour a target is wearing is increased by +1 against hollow 
  point ammunition, but the rolled damage of the round is 
  increased by +2. 
  Tracer: Tracer ammunition has a small pyrotechnic charge 
  that burns brightly when fired, providing a visible streak of 
  light along the bullet’s trajectory. They’re generally utilised in 
  one of three ways: loading one out of three rounds so that 
  Name
  Availability
  Effect
  HP
  SIZ
  Bayonet
  Average
  See Misc. Weapons chart, page 52
  15
  +.5
  Combat Grip
  Average
  +5% to attack chance
  +1
  –
  Extended Magazine
  Average
  +25% to +100% ammo capacity
  –
  +.5
  ‘Match Grade’ Ammunition
  Difficult
  Lowers chance of malfunction by 1%
  –
  –
  ‘Match Grade’ Manufacture
  Difficult
  +5% attack chance, -1% to chance of malfunction 
  +1
  –
  ‘Match Grade’ Sights
  Difficult
  +5% to attack chance when aiming 
  –
  –
  Speed Draw Holster
  Average
  Reduces draw time from 5 to 3 DEX ranks
  –
  1
  Tactical Light
  Easy
  Illuminates target 
  2
  –
  Trigger Lock
  Easy
  Keeps firearm secure
  –
  –
  48
  
  one tracer is fired in each burst; for squad leaders to load a 
  clip entirely with tracers to mark a target for the squad to 
  fire upon; and using them as the final few rounds in a clip 
  to signal that it’s almost empty. When used for the former 
  two methods, tracer rounds add +5% to the attack chance 
  for one round for the shooter and anyone adjacent aiming 
  at the same target. Tracer rounds do the same damage as 
  conventional rounds.
  Name
  Availability
  Effect
  Armor Piercing 
  Difficult
  Halves armour protection, -1 rolled damage
  Baton
  Average
  ½ rolled damage and double armour protection within point blank
  Beanbag
  Average
  ½ range, minimum damage
  Blank
  Easy
  ½ damage within 1 yard, 1 point damage at 5 yards, harmless past 5 yards
  Breaching
  Average
  Full damage within 1 yard, minimum damage past that and double armour protection
  Glaser Safety Slug
  Difficult
  +4 rolled damage, double armour penetration, half range 
  Hollow Point 
  Difficult
  +2 rolled damage, +1 to armour protection 
  Tracer
  Average
  +5% to attack chance for one round 
  Occult Shotgun Shells
  The following shells can be fired from any 
  12 Gauge shotgun, including the AA-12 
  Assault Shotgun. Different versions of the 
  same shells can also be fired from one-shot 
  flare pistols.
  Exorcism Rounds
  Availability: Average
  Certification Required
  Just as banishing rounds are designed to 
  pack the effect of a banishing spell into a 
  bullet, Q Division has created two types of 
  exorcism rounds that produce the effects of 
  an exorcism spell on anything they strike. 
  The first is a shotgun shell containing a 
  miniaturised grounding array capable of 
  dispelling a Haunting of up to Level Four. 
  This shell merely needs to strike anywhere 
  within the haunted area to exorcise it. 
  This shell has no effect on Level Five 
  Hauntings. 
  The other variety of exorcism shell is 
  designed to dispel spells. This shell is 
  designed to dispel any spell of up to Level 
  Four on the target it strikes. If the spell 
  has been cast upon a person, then the shell 
  must strike the person. Fortunately, this 
  shell is relatively fragile and shatters 
  upon impact. As a result, anyone struck by 
  this shell suffers only 1D4 damage.
  Alternately, immediately before firing the 
  shell, the user can say a designated code 
  word that causes a minor shift in the 
  structure of the thaumic grounding array 
  inside the shell so that the shell affects 
  an area instead of a single target. If 
  used in this fashion, the shell dispels all 
  spells up to Level Two within 5 metres of 
  the shell’s point of impact. Higher level 
  spells are unaffected by this shell when it 
  is used to affect an area. 
  FIreArMS
  49
  3 - FIREARMS
  
  THe LAundry
  Thaumic Release Rounds
  Availability: Difficult
  Certification Required
  Exorcism safely grounds thaumic energy. 
  However, sometimes operatives find releasing 
  this energy to be more useful, especially 
  if several dozen members of a dangerous 
  cult are all standing in or near an area 
  affected by a Level Three Haunting. When 
  fired at a target, this shell duplicates 
  the affects of an ungrounded, improperly 
  done exorcism. For safety reasons, this 
  shell is specifically designed so that it 
  only effects haunting up to Level Four. The 
  shell is not powerful enough to improperly 
  ground a Level Five haunting. However, 
  operatives are strongly advised not to test 
  this safety feature.
  Rules Note: If an operative fires this shell 
  into a Level Five Haunting, the GM should 
  roll 1D10. On a 1, the shell functions, 
  causing 
  large 
  scale 
  destruction 
  and 
  temporarily opening a gateway to another 
  dimension. On a roll of 2-10, the shell has 
  no effect. 
  Thaumic Attack Rounds (Experimental)
  Availability: Not Available for Request
  Certification Required
  Releasing thaumic energy makes an excellent 
  weapon, if you are lucky enough to have 
  your opponent standing in a haunted area. 
  However, the clever folks over in Q Division 
  have decided to find a way around this 
  problem. This shell is literally haunted. 
  The details are secret, but there are more 
  than a few stories of Q Division interns 
  tossing these shells through small magical 
  gates or sorcerers summoning a powerful 
  demon to spend some time juggling them. 
  Regardless of the details, these shells are 
  subject to a Level Three Haunting, and when 
  they strike a target, they produce a rapid 
  thaumic energy discharge (Laundry RPG, p. 
  138) of the appropriate Level, destroying 
  electronics and causing 2D6+2 damage to 
  everyone and everything within 10 metres of 
  the shell’s target. Operatives are strongly 
  advised to only fire at targets at least 15 
  metres away. 
  Operatives should use extreme caution when 
  firing this shell in or near areas that are 
  already haunted. This shell duplicates the 
  effects of the thaumic release shell, in 
  addition to producing its own effect. Also, 
  although this has not yet been tested, this 
  shell could possibly improperly ground a 
  Level Five Haunting, resulting in a large 
  scale disintegration effect and the opening 
  of a temporary Level Four gateway to a 
  dimension associated with this haunting. 
  Deliberately using a thaumic release shell 
  inside a Level Five Haunting is grounds for 
  an automatic review by the auditors – if 
  there is anything left to review. There are 
  rumours that some large cults or possibly 
  the Black Chamber have created thaumic 
  attack shells that pack the punch of a 
  Level Four Haunting. Operatives are advised 
  to use extreme caution if they encounter 
  anyone possessing such weaponry.
  Name
  Availability
  Effect
  Exorcism
  Average
  Exorcise haunting up to Level 4
  Single Targer 
  Exorcism
  Average
  1d4 damage, dispels spells up to 
  Level 2 within 5m of impact
  Thaumic 
  Release
  Difficult
  Exorcise haunting up to Level 4, 
  dumps thaumic energy in vicinity
  Thaumic 
  Attack Round
  N/A
  Blasts target with thaumic release
  50
  
  Miscellaneous Weapons
  When push roars past shove and escalates into full-blown 
  violence, these weapons may come in handy. Most of these 
  weapons are self-explanatory in nature: any special rules 
  relating to their use are presented here. 
  Bow: Most modern bows fall into two categories: 
  compound bows, which use resistance, levers, and pulleys; 
  and laminated bows, made of layers of different materials 
  laminated together. 
  Cosh: Also called a sap or blackjack, a cosh is a small metal 
  weight sewn into a leather or nylon bag, used to expertly 
  deliver nonlethal blows to a victim’s head with the purpose 
  of knocking him out. 
  Crossbow: 
  A modern crossbow is a sophisticated piece of equipment, 
  often incorporating pulleys and integral cranks. They 
  are still used by several modern militaries for clandestine 
  operations, and by some police forces against foes armed 
  with explosives. 
  Crossbow, Pistol: A scaled-down crossbow, these are 
  rarely used in combat and are primarily used to deliver zip-
  lines or other payloads. 
  Pepper Spray: 
  Legal only for police use in the UK, pepper spray is a 
  concentrate of capsicum sprayed into the eyes and face 
  of an opponent, causing considerable – though non-lethal 
  – pain and distress. If an attack is successful, the target 
  must make a Difficult Stamina roll or be stunned for 2D10 
  rounds. 
  Push Dagger: A small blade set perpendicular to the 
  handle, a push dagger is usually disguised as part of a belt 
  or piece of equipment. 
  SA121 Shockstick: An electrified baton used by guards and 
  riot police, a shockstick delivers a nonlethal charge when 
  the trigger button is pressed. If an attack is successful and 
  the wielder wishes to stun the target, the target must make a 
  resistance roll of CON versus 12. If the roll is a failure, the 
  target is stunned for 1D6 rounds. 
  Shuriken: 
  These star-shaped throwing knives are popular distraction 
  weapons, but rarely lethal. 
  Spear Gun: 
  Designed for use underwater, spear guns occasionally find 
  service on land due to their relative silence and lethality. 
  Throwing Knife: 
  A slender knife without a crosspiece guard, balanced for 
  throwing. Not commonly used, though still a part of the 
  old-school commando’s repertoire of means to deliver 
  death at range.
  FIreArMS
  51
  3 - FIREARMS
  
  THe LAundry
  Explosives 
  ‘Ahead of  us, Pike picks up the controls on something that looks 
  like an electric street cleaner – the kind of  wheeled cart you walk 
  behind – and drives it forward to the doors. It nudges through 
  and the gale almost sucks me forward; I follow in his wake, 
  trying not to think about the cart’s payload.’
  – The Atrocity Archives
  Grenade, Fragmentation: 
  Also known as an antipersonnel grenade, this has an 
  explosive core surrounded with a metal or hard plastic shell 
  designed to fragment easily and deliver shrapnel into and 
  beyond the blast radius. Laundry agents will most likely 
  have access to the L109A1 HE Fragmentation Grenade. 
  Grenade, Incendiary: A grenade filled with self-igniting 
  white phosphorus, these horrific weapons were developed 
  during World War 2. Banned for use against civilians, 
  white phosphorous grenades are almost exclusively used 
  in battlefield conditions. The American-made M15 White 
  Phosphorus Grenade is a recent model, though an unsettling 
  number of the British-made Model 76 Special Incendiary 
  Grenade are still in circulation, having gone on walkabout 
  from munitions dumps where they were carefully stored. 
  Mine, Antipersonnel (AP): An explosive mine purposed 
  to eliminate enemy combatants, with an emphasis on 
  wounding them rather than terminating them. 
  Mine, Antitank (AT): A mine designed to cripple tank 
  treads or other vehicles triggering it by driving over it. 
  Molotov Cocktail: An improvised firebomb made with any 
  flammable liquid, a bottle, and a fuse such as a piece of 
  cloth. Usually, Molotov cocktails only show up in riots, in 
  the hands of juvenile delinquents or thugs, or manufactured 
  in desperation. 
  Nuclear Bomb: A weapon of last resort, nuclear bombs 
  are available to OCCULUS teams for extradimensional 
  incursions, utterly destroying any enemy presence and 
  neutralising any major threats. Only the most unlucky of 
  Laundry agents will ever encounter a nuclear bomb, or, in 
  the event of CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN, all Laundry 
  agents will likely become very familiar with them. Rules 
  governing radiation are presented on the opposite page. 
  Pipe Bomb: A small improvised explosive, usually utilising 
  easily-purchased or household components such as PVC 
  pipe. Not particularly effective, a pipe bomb is an amateur 
  weapon generally used against vehicles or property.
  Name
  Avail.
  Skill
  Base
  Damage
  Attack
  Special
  Range
  HP
  Ammo
  SIZ
  Bayonet
  Average
  Melee Weapon 
  (Bayonet)
  25%
  1D4+2+db
  1
  Impaling
  –
  15
  –
  1
  Bow
  Average
  Missile Weapon (Bow)
  10%
  1D8+1+½db
  1
  Impaling
  100
  12
  1
  3
  Cosh
  Average
  Brawl
  25%
  1D8+db
  1
  Crushing
  –
  10
  –
  .5
  Crossbow
  Average
  Missile Weapon 
  (Crossbow)
  25%
  2D4+2
  1/2
  Impaling
  50
  15
  1
  2.5
  Crossbow, 
  Pistol
  Average
  Missile Weapon 
  (Crossbow)
  25%
  1D6+2
  1/2
  Impaling
  20
  10
  1
  2
  Pepper Spray
  Average
  n/a
  DEX x 5%
  Special, see 
  description
  1
  Special
  ½ DEX 
  in feet
  4
  25
  .5
  Push Dagger
  Average
  Melee Weapon (Dagger)
  25%
  1D3+db
  2
  Impaling
  –
  12
  –
  1
  Riot Shield
  Expensive
  Melee Weapon (Shield)
  30%
  1D3+db
  1
  Knockback
  –
  16
  –
  4
  SA121 
  Shockstick
  Difficult
  Melee Weapon (Club)
  25%
  1D6 plus 
  special, see 
  description
  1
  Stun
  –
  15
  20
  2
  Shuriken
  Easy
  Missile Weapon 
  (Shuriken)
  10%
  1D3+½db
  1
  Impaling
  20
  5
  –
  –
  Spear Gun
  Average
  Missile Weapon (Spear 
  Gun)
  25%
  1D6+2
  1/2
  Impaling
  20
  10
  1
  3
  Throwing 
  Knife
  Easy
  Missile Weapon 
  (Throwing Knife)
  15%
  1D4+½db
  1
  Impaling
  20
  10
  –
  .5
  52
  
  Radiation 
  Exposure to excessive amounts of radiation or 
  radioactive material is usually harmful to living 
  beings. Radiation poisoning (properly known as 
  acute radiation syndrome) is the equivalent of 
  a poison and direct burns. Though radiation’s 
  intensity is properly measured in rads, for the 
  purpose of simplicity it is merely classified as low
  through fatal intensity exposure, with associated
  effects (see chart). The GM should assign a potency 
  value for each exposure to radiation. An agent 
  exposed to radiation must make a resistance roll 
  using CON versus the radiation’s potency. Success 
  means that the agent avoids the effects for the 
  period listed. Following are some general guidelines 
  for different levels of radiation and effects from 
  exposure:
  Name
  Avail.
  Skill
  Base
  Damage
  RoF
  Special
  Mal
  Range
  HP
  Ammo
  SIZ
  Grenade, 
  Fragmentation
  Difficult
  Demolition
  Throw%
  4D6/
  4 metres
  1
  Impaling
  99-00
  Thrown
  8
  1
  1
  Grenade, 
  Incendiary
  Difficult
  Demolition
  Throw%
  2d6/
  2 metres
  1
  Fire
  96-00
  Thrown
  6
  1
  1
  Mine, Anti- 
  personnel (AP)
  Difficult
  Demolition
  –
  4D6/
  5 metres
  –
  Impaling
  99-00
  5 metres
  9
  1
  3
  Mine, Antitank 
  (AT)
  Difficult
  Demolition
  –
  6D6+6/
  3D6+2/1D6
  –
  Impaling
  99-00
  10/25/50
  12
  1
  3
  Molotov 
  Cocktail
  Easy
  None
  Throw%
  1D6 fire per 
  round
  1
  Fire
  95-00
  Thrown
  1
  1
  2
  Nuclear Bomb
  Impossible
  Demolition
  01%
  400/200/100
  Special
  Fire, 
  Knockback, 
  Radiation
  00
  1/2/4 
  mile 
  radius
  64
  1
  12
  Pipe Bomb
  Easy
  Demolition
  –
  4D6/
  3 metres
  1
  Knockback
  95-00
  3 metres
  3
  1
  1
  Potency
  Description
  Effects
  5
  Low 
  intensity 
  radiation
  Roll every 30 days. Failure means that the victim suffers irritations such as skin 
  rashes, headache, shedding skin, minor hair loss, mild nausea, diarrhoea, etc.
  10
  Moderate 
  intensity 
  radiation
  Roll every week. Failure means that the victim suffers a bout of incapacitating illness 
  (cannot rise from bed, tremors, shaking, etc.) that lasts 2D10 hours, in addition to 
  the above symptoms. Two failures in a row mean that the victim has developed cancer 
  (GM’s discretion). 
  15
  Medium 
  intensity 
  radiation
  Roll every day. Failure means that the victim suffers a bout of incapacitating illness 
  lasting 2D10 days, cumulative with other failed rolls. The victim also suffers 1 point 
  of general burn damage, in addition to suffering from one or more heightened symptoms 
  of low intensity radiation, described above. Failing this roll twice in a row inflicts 
  1D10 days of temporary blindness on the victim. Failing this roll three times in a row 
  means that the victim has developed cancer, at the GM’s discretion. Other people coming 
  into close contact with the victim are at risk for low-level radiation (see above). 
  20
  High 
  intensity 
  radiation
  Roll every hour. Failure means incapacitating illness as above, cumulative. The victim 
  suffers 1D3 points general burn damage as above, as well as other symptoms. Blindness 
  is automatic if roll fails. If blindness continues for ten consecutive days, it becomes 
  permanent. A victim failing a roll of CON x 1 becomes permanently sterile. Two failures 
  of this roll indicate terminal cancer. Other people coming into close contact with the 
  victim are at risk as per moderate level contamination (see above).
  25
  Acute 
  intensity 
  radiation
  Roll every minute. Failure equals all of the above symptoms, though blindness and 
  sterility are immediate. Burn damage is 1D6 points per turn, and the victim will 
  inevitably die in CON/2 hours unless provided with suitable medical assistance. All 
  physical skills are Difficult and require a successful Difficult Stamina roll to attempt. 
  The victim’s corpse presents a health risk to others. 
  30+
  Fatal 
  intensity 
  radiation
  Roll every combat round. Failure equals all of the above symptoms. Burn damage is 1D4 
  points per combat round. Movement or action is impossible. The victim is wracked with 
  excruciating pain and dies in 1D3 combat rounds.
  Radiation Effects Table
  Radiation poisoning is clearly quite deadly. There are few means of reducing exposure to radiation in the 
  modern world other than distance and protective gear. First Aid is useless against radiation exposure, and 
  the Medicine skill can do little to stave off its effects and is mostly only useful as a diagnostic method. 
  FIreArMS
  53
  3 - FIREARMS
  
  THe LAundry
  The horrors of the many-angled ones who wait, timeless 
  and terrible, in the gulfs between the slumbering stars are 
  as nothing compared to the Laundry’s ISO9001-certified 
  bureaucracy. Blizzards of incomprehensible forms that 
  are processed by overly-literal bureaucratic zombies. 
  Procedures for writing procedures. Quintuple reports to 
  account for every fifteen minutes of your day and every 
  penny of your departmental accounts. And the meetings; 
  the endless, unbearable meetings. It’s a running joke down 
  in the basement levels that the Laundry’s paperwork is 
  designed to be psychically indigestible. The Great Old Ones 
  will eat our minds, but we’ll taste like canteen sandwiches.
  The Laundry is obliged to recruit anyone who has witnessed 
  occult phenomenon,1 and once they’re recruited, they 
  have to be put to work somewhere. If the new draftee 
  happens to be an expert in non-Euclidean geometry or 
  C++ programming or Etruscan folklore, then the Laundry 
  can put them to actual productive use. Most recruits lack 
  skills that are immediately useful, so they get hung on the 
  bureaucratic org chart like an ornament on a structurally 
  unsound Christmas tree. Player characters cannot escape 
  the Laundry bureaucracy. It engulfs them like a red-ink 
  shoggoth, pushing squamous tentacles into their inboxes 
  and dragging them off to the seminars of madness. 
  Black Budget, red Tape
  “That wasn’t very clever, Bob, winding Harriet up like that.”
  “I know.” I shrug. “It’s just that every time I see her I get the urge to drop salt on her back.”
  ‘“Yes, but technically she’s your line manager. And I’m not. Which means you are supposed to phone in 
  if you’re going to be late on a day when you’ve got a kickoff meeting, or else she will raise seven shades 
  of low-key shit. And as she will be in the right, appeals to matrix management and conflict resolution 
  won’t save you. She’ll make your annual performance appraisal look like it’s the Cultural Revolution 
  and you just declared yourself the reincarnation of Heinrich Himmler. Am I making myself clear?”
  I sit down again. “Yes, for very bureaucratic values of clear.”
  – The Atrocity Archives
  How I Learned To Love The Paperwork
  We assume that you’re playing the Laundry Files because you want to have fun (for esoteric 
  geek values of ‘fun’) and not because you:
  a) are working out deep seated issues of self-loathing and fetishisation of paperwork.
  b) really like filling out forms and going to planning meetings.
  Neither of which are commonly considered fun. So, while your unfortunate player character has 
  to endure the torments of Human Resources, you don’t have to play through every soul-draining 
  minute of it, any more than Sir Paladin the Crusader has to play through every aspect of his 
  explosive dysentery. Remember, 99% of your characters’ time in the Laundry is taken up with 
  writing reports, reading reports, attending meetings and filling out forms. Game sessions focus 
  on the 1% involving mortal danger and tentacled horrors, but the bureaucracy is still lurking 
  in the background. Here’s how to bring it into the game.
  Humour
  The incongruity between a secret agency battling eldritch evils and an underfunded government 
  department obsessed with timekeeping and quotas is a rich source of humour. You might save the 
  world or thwart the machinations of an ancient cult, but you still have to fill out a timesheet. 
  If you retrieve the fabled tablets from the cavern of Ubbo-Sathla, you had better have a receipt 
  for them. As Laundry Files players, you are exhorted and encouraged to moan about the bloody 
  Laundry until your throats are dry. Come up with assignments and drudgery for your character 
  to endure. Mix eldritch horror with the most soul-sucking bits of your real-world job. Mutter 
  darkly about how your character has spent the last sixteen hours reading reports on sewer 
  1: Assuming they can’t be memory-wiped, geased, intimidated, bribed, appealed to or otherwise convinced not to go to the Daily Mail.
  54
  
  blockages in the Greater London area, to determine how many of them were caused by ghoul nests 
  (answer: zero). Get into contests with other players about how ghastly your character’s job is 
  (‘sewer blockage reports? Luxury! I had to spent six weeks rewriting our document management 
  database so it’s compliant with the new schema – and then they cancelled the project and some 
  berk in archives deleted the original, so I had to spend another six weeks putting everything 
  back in by hand’).
  It can be hard to maintain an atmosphere of dread in a roleplaying game. There’s always the 
  urge to crack jokes and make light of the situation; doubly so in a Laundry game, where the 
  threats are often deliberately absurd and the characters are often smart-aleck geeks.2 If you 
  can use the bureaucracy jokes at the start of the game session to get the laughs out of your 
  system, then it’s easier to concentrate on the horror. 
  Realism 
  The Laundry Files are set in something approximating our world. Unwanted behavioural geas fields 
  aside, Bob’s not Bond. The reality of the Laundry is a grubby, mundane one, alien space bats and 
  fractal magic notwithstanding. Your player characters might be battling cults and impossible 
  gods, but they also have to worry about mortgage payments, about pensions and timesheets and 
  performance reviews. The occasional intrusion of realism keeps the game grounded, and reminds 
  the characters that there’s a world out there beyond the Laundry that needs defending. 
  When playing, remember that you’re a civil servant, not a secret agent with a licence to kill. 
  Real spies spend most of their time doing mundane paperwork and arguing over budgets and costs, 
  too. You have to act within the limits of the law and the Laundry. Embrace the restrictions; 
  it’s much more satisfying to beat both the bad guys and the system than it is to shoot your 
  way out of every problem. 
  BLACk BudgeT, red TApe
  Bureaucracy & Status
  These two skills are of paramount importance when it 
  comes to building a long-term career in the Laundry. Status, 
  really, is your long-term career, boiled down into a number. 
  The higher your Status, the more the Laundry trusts you. It 
  correlates more-or-less directly to pay grade, responsibilities 
  and security clearance. If you’ve a low Status, then you’re:
  • A new recruit
  • Someone who recently fucked up and has the Auditors 
  breathing sulphurously down your neck
  • Someone who doesn’t give a damn about their career, 
  and isn’t a team player
  High Status means long service, competence, the right 
  connections and a string of successful assignments. You 
  can draw on your Status to get shit done within the Laundry. 
  2: The divide between ‘player’ and ‘character’ is thin indeed.
  55
  4 - BLACK BUDGET,
  RED TAPE
  
  THe LAundry
  The Bureaucracy skill is your ability to navigate the system, 
  your attention to detail when it comes to paperwork and 
  forms, your talent for speaking managementese, and what 
  you’ve learned about loopholes and exemptions. A low 
  Bureaucracy implies you’re new to the Laundry or don’t 
  have the patience to deal with paperwork. 
  For most characters, Status and Bureaucracy go hand in 
  hand. Angleton, for example, has a high Status, but also 
  has enough Bureaucracy to squish Bridget in The Concrete 
  Jungle. A low Status coupled with a high Bureaucracy... 
  as a foulness shall ye know them, the spawn of Human 
  Resources. Examples of high Status/low Bureaucracy in 
  the Laundry Files are harder to come by, but you could 
  argue that Ramona Random (post-defection) would have 
  a moderately high Status thanks to her BLUE HADES 
  contacts, but only limited Bureaucracy. 
  Budget Manipulation Revisited
  As described in the main Laundry Files rulebook on page 
  108, you can use Bureaucracy to disguise Departmental 
  Budget expenditures when on a mission. You can wring 
  a few extra quid out of a travel-and-subsistence budget 
  through creative accounting, or pay the costs of calling 
  in the SAS out of your department’s payroll. A high 
  Bureaucracy skill lets you hide these expenditures under a 
  bushel of spreadsheets and paperwork; if you’re lucky, your 
  questionable expenditures won’t be discovered until after 
  you’ve retired. 
  You have to come up with some justification, however 
  tenuous or improbable, for your expenditure. 
  Remember, you only need to justify purchases from your 
  Departmental Budget, not your Mission Budget. The 
  Mission Budget, tiny as it usually is, can be spent as you see 
  fit (well, as long as you don’t spend it on blow and hookers, 
  or amazon.com, and even then you should get a receipt). 
  Note that while the Departmental Budget is technically 
  unlimited, that doesn’t mean you use for it absurd purchases, 
  like calling out the entire Royal Air Force or turning the 
  Hubble telescope into a SCORPION STARE weapon. 
  Drawing more than 25% from your Departmental Budget 
  will be noticed instantly. 
  Example: Peter-Francis Young, sent off  on his first field 
  mission, decides that he really could use one of  those shiny 
  3W lasers. The Mission Budget is 0, so he dips into the 
  Departmental Budget to pay for the shiny. He makes a 
  Bureaucracy roll to hide the purchase cost in the tame black 
  hole Bob uses as a filing system.
  Cleanup 
  “I’d like to see a written report of  your trip’ Bridget adds before 
  I can close the door behind me. “Documented in accordance with 
  Operations Manual Four, chapter eleven, section C.”
   – The Atrocity Archives
  The Games Master should also call for Bureaucracy checks 
  after a mission, to ascertain the quality of the characters’ 
  reports and other paperwork. The difficulty of this check 
  increases if there are certain facts that the characters want 
  to conceal from their superiors. If the check fails, then 
  there are problems with what the characters filed. They may 
  have forgotten to include all the supporting evidence, or 
  misfiled a document in the wrong section. These mistakes 
  lie dormant in the Laundry’s archives, waiting for the day 
  when they are exhumed. A cruel GM could even make the 
  Bureaucracy checks secretly, so the players are unaware of 
  any errors their characters have made. 
  Missions fall into two categories – projects and non-
  conformances. Projects are planned in advance, and fall 
  under the remit of Project Management. To get full sign-off, 
  someone needs to have filed a Project Initiation Document 
  (PID) and a Project Plan, and a complete Project Review 
  Document must be compiled afterwards. 
  Non-conformances are unplanned emergencies and 
  responses to ongoing situations, and are overseen by 
  Quality Assurance. The mission briefing is outlined in the 
  first half of a Non-Conformance Report (NCR) which lists 
  a Description, and possibly a Cause. If the Cause is known, 
  it might give orders called Remedial Actions. If the Cause 
  is unknown, then there is only a Description, and the player 
  characters must investigate the Cause, then propose and 
  carry out some Remedial Actions of their own (possibly 
  requiring approval from their manager). After the mission 
  is completed, the Non-Conformance Report is completed 
  by adding an Impact Assessment and suggesting some 
  Future Corrective Actions. The NCR must be signed off 
  by a manager.
  If the characters cannot get sign-off from all necessary 
  parties, their expenses will not be refunded. Even if they 
  get sign-off, one of the characters still has to make a 
  Bureaucracy roll to reclaim the team’s personal expenses 
  from the Laundry. Whilst major costs such as borrowing a 
  tank would be invoiced directly to the Finance department, 
  day-to-day living costs, meals, personal transport and 
  accommodation would not. Player characters would have 
  to fund these out of their own pocket and then claim them 
  back, usually by filling in an Expenses Claim Form complete 
  with receipts at least five working days before pay-day. 
  Failed Bureaucracy checks might indicate that a player is out 
  of pocket personally. If the players drove several hundred 
  56
  
  miles in their own cars or in hire cars in the UK or Western 
  Europe, then the cost of petrol alone could be financially 
  crippling to anyone below an Affluent wealth level. 
  Note that it is exceptionally rare nowadays for the Civil 
  Service to pay for first-class travel or lunch, and breakfast 
  would only be paid for if it were included in overnight 
  accommodation. Hotels will be capped at something only 
  slightly above motel rates, and evening meals are likely to 
  be limited to a very meagre amount, around a typical chain 
  restaurant. If players are on an expenses-paid assignment, 
  then they will not be in a five-star hotel ordering caviar and 
  champagne, unless they want to pick up most of the tab 
  personally. If players attend a restaurant as a group then 
  they may need a roll against Knowledge (Accounting) 
  simply in order to obtain a suitable receipt.
  Example: After his little trip to the United States as part of  
  OGRE REALITY, Bob has to write up a report. The mission 
  to contact Dr. O’Brien was a project with full signoff, but Bob’s 
  impromptu rescue mission complicates things, as that brings 
  Quality Assurance into the fray, waving Bob’s business-class 
  plane ticket like a bloody red banner. To avoid being hit with 
  the cost of  his return flight, Bob needs to make Bureaucracy 
  rolls to pacify Quality Assurance. 
  Investigation
  Bureaucracy can be used along with Research to search 
  through records and files. Combined, the two skills can 
  be used to investigate other Laundry departments and 
  personnel. If the target of an investigation has failed to 
  properly file reports in the past, or has concealed their 
  screw-ups or bad decisions, an investigation can bring these 
  to light. Investigation is the precursor to an Internal Inquiry 
  or even an audit (see page 60).
  A Bureaucracy or Status of 50% or more means the 
  character is sufficiently well-connected, or sufficiently 
  paranoid, to be alerted if someone starts investigating his 
  past work through official channels. Characters without 
  the requisite Bureaucracy or Status will only find out about 
  an investigation through random chance, or when they’re 
  called to a very uncomfortable meeting. 
  Example: Suspecting the worst, Bob digs around the files relating 
  to his new manager. After all, the last four have been dangerous, 
  manipulative, psychotic or actively plotting the downfall of  
  humanity, so a little caution is warranted. He turns up several 
  records relating to conflict resolution processes involving his new 
  manager, all of  which were resolved using intrusive geases and 
  Helms of Opposite Opinions. Ungood.
  Worse, because the manager has a Bureaucracy score in the 60s, 
  she knows that Bob was digging into her files...
  Turf  Wars
  The Laundry’s internal organisation is as mutable as a 
  formless spawn. New departments spring into being 
  at the whim of the Board; other sections are renamed, 
  folded into each other, repurposed or shut down with little 
  notice. Keeping track of who’s in charge of what is almost 
  impossible. Every day, managers fight bloody and bitter 
  invisible wars behind the cubicles, where memos are artillery 
  weapons and meetings are pitched battles. The Bureaucracy 
  skill helps characters survive this onslaught, and even thrive 
  in the office trenches.
  Every few months of game time, the Games Master should 
  call for a Bureaucracy roll from all players, representing 
  their ability to survive the reshuffles and reorganisations. 
  The result of this roll affects the character’s Status.
  Fumble: The character is a casualty of the bureaucratic 
  war; his job is eliminated and he is transferred to a new 
  department. He might not have the right skills to excel at his 
  new role, but no doubt he will muddle through somehow. 
  His Status is reduced by 1D10%.
  Failure: The character is transferred to a new role within 
  the department, or is left behind while co-workers advance, 
  with a commensurate loss of influence; reduce the 
  character’s Status by 1D6%.
  Success: The character manages to hang on to his current 
  job, which is a success of sorts. His Status is unchanged.
  Special Success: The character manages to grab greater 
  responsibility or takes charge of a new project; his Status is 
  increased by 1D6%.
  Example: Bob and Mo both make Bureaucracy checks to cope 
  with the changes in the Laundry structure. Bob barely passes 
  his check, so his situation is unchanged. Mo, by contrast, gets 
  a Special Success. There’s an opening for a field agent, and she 
  qualifies... 
  I Hit You With My Bureaucracy
  Finally, the Bureaucracy skill can be used as a weapon 
  against your enemies in the Laundry. You can make trouble 
  for other personnel by swamping them in requests for 
  information, nitpicking their reports, spreading rumours, 
  stalling on projects and a thousand other petty ways of 
  inconveniencing them. To attack another character in this 
  fashion, decide how much of your Bureaucracy skill you 
  wish to allocate to attacking them; the target’s Bureaucracy 
  is temporarily reduced by twice the amount allocated by the 
  attacker.
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  Example: Harriet wants to soften up Angleton before 
  launching her coup attempt. She therefore floods the Counter 
  Possession Office with petty problems, time-sucking meetings 
  and  requests for forms last filed in 1971. She allocates 25% 
  of  her Bureaucracy score to making trouble for Angleton; his 
  Bureaucracy is temporarily reduced by 50% while he deals with 
  Harriet’s mischief.
  Your Own Department
  A character with a Status of 40% or more 
  may be assigned subordinates or even put 
  in charge of a subsection. Having your own 
  subsection means many things – a better 
  office, the chance of more pay, a bit more 
  pull in office politics, and your very 
  own minions. You’re responsible for your 
  subordinates – or partially responsible, 
  anyway; it may be that you’re their line 
  manager, and someone else takes care of 
  their administration, or vice versa.
  If you are in charge of a subordinate, then 
  you may have to make a Bureaucracy roll at 
  the whim of the Gamesmaster to sort out all 
  the boring stuff, payroll and expenses and 
  lunch vouchers and all that. Success goes 
  unnoticed; failure means the added weight of 
  management has caused some problem for you.3
  Requisitioning Items
  The primary use of the Status skill is when requisitioning 
  items or resources from the Laundry (see page 104 of the 
  main rulebook). Select the weapon, item or support you 
  need, apply any difficulty modifiers, and roll against your 
  Status. If you succeed, you get what you asked for. If you 
  fail, you can spend points from your Mission Budget or 
  Departmental Budget to make up the difference. 
  There are a few caveats you should be aware of.
  Firstly, you still have to justify your requisition request, 
  even if you’re not drawing on a budget. A senior Laundry 
  manager has the Status to grab a Hand of Glory, but he still 
  needs to explain where he’s taking the invisibility generator/
  deadly laser gun. There is accountability at all levels.
  Secondly, all requests must be reasonable. The armoury 
  might let you borrow multiple guns, if you argue that you’re 
  going to keep one in your office and one at home, but they 
  won’t let you requisition a dozen submachine guns for an 
  unspecified length of time. (There’s personal security, and 
  there’s laying the groundwork for an armed takeover.) 
  Thirdly, while you can use your Status on behalf of 
  others, you become responsible for their actions. If Bob 
  uses his Status to requisition a gun for Peter-Francis, and 
  Peter-Francis blows his own head off, then the wrath of 
  the Laundry will fall even more heavily on Bob than it 
  would have otherwise. Making a Requisition roll means 
  taking responsibility for the weapon or support that was 
  requested. One player character with a high Status can do 
  all the requisitioning for the team, but this is a fast track to 
  rapid Status loss. In general, characters should take charge 
  of their own equipment.
  Reputation
  Status also measures reputation in the Laundry. A character 
  with a low Status is a forgettable nobody; a high-Status 
  officer is either senior management or infamous. Of course, 
  the Laundry is so secretive that ‘infamous’ translates to 
  ‘rumours, half-truths and wild speculation.’ Just because you 
  have heard of someone by reputation does not mean that 
  you know anything accurate about them. 
  Optionally, characters can pick up a reputation modifier. A 
  reputation modifier is a short description of the character’s 
  best-known trait (‘creepy,’ ‘problem with authority,’ ‘ex-
  cultist,’ ‘hot’) that adds a circumstance modifier of up to 
  +20% to their Status, but only when rolling for recognition. 
  Similarly, a character who deliberately cultivates anonymity 
  can have a negative reputation modifier; he has a very high 
  Status, but no-one outside senior management know he 
  exists. 
  I Hit You With My Status
  Like Bureaucracy, Status can be used offensively. A character 
  can spread rumours about a rival, throw his influence 
  against him, undermine senior management’s trust in the 
  rival and eventually hound him out of his position. The 
  character reduces his Status by any amount (representing 
  the cost of using his influence to sabotage the career of 
  another), then rolls against his reduced Status score. This 
  roll may be modified if the character has acquired evidence 
  of wrongdoing or incompetence on the part of the target. 
  The attack is Difficult if the target has more than twice as 
  much Status as the attacker, and Easy if the target has less 
  than half as much Status.
  3: In this case, problems related to your subordinates are stuff like ‘wrong file sent to HR’ or ‘subordinate copies the wrong boss on a cc list, accidentally 
  angers management.’ Problems like ‘subordinate is actually a Black Chamber spy’ or ‘subordinate summons Yog-Sothoth’ cannot be averted with a simple 
  Bureaucracy roll.
  58
  
  The effect of the attack varies as follows.
  Fumble: The attack backfires. The attacker loses another 
  1D6 Status; the target is unaffected. 
  Failure: The attack fails. The target is unaffected. 
  Success: The attack succeeds. The target loses the same 
  amount of Status that the attacker spent making the attack. 
  Special Success: The attack succeeds, and the attacker 
  regains any Status he spent on the attack.
  While Status-based attacks are costly even when successful, 
  a defeated rival may be forced to abandon juicy portfolios 
  and untapped budgets on the field of battle, so an attacker 
  can quickly recover the Status he lost in the skirmish.
  Status Advancement
  Characters start at a Status of 15% on 
  average, and should pick up between 1% and 
  6% per mission, for an average advancement 
  of about 10% per year for the first few 
  years of their career in the Laundry. Past 
  60%, the character is likely to end up in 
  management, where his advancement will be 
  slow and steady instead of the risky-but-
  quick promotion prospects in the field.
  The Inquisition
  ‘Though not an issue inquired into by staff  surveys, there was 
  also minor irritation among some staff  at the growing inroads 
  made into the Service’s vocabulary by ephemeral jargon invented 
  by Whitehall bureaucrats and management consultants with a 
  tin ear for the English language and a passion for performance 
  indicators...’
  – The Defence of the Realm: 
  The Authorised History of MI5
  Intrusive investigations are part of life in the Laundry. The 
  fear of betrayal from within has haunted British intelligence 
  since the Cambridge Four, so the Counter-Subversion Unit 
  and the other internal affairs spooks are extremely diligent 
  about making everyone else feel unwanted and oppressed. 
  Still, that’s to be expected in the secret service; it’s an 
  occupational hazard, like alcoholism and paranoia.
  It’s the skills-based assessment frameworks and career 
  vision reviews that really drive you mad. 
  Informal Manager Meetings
  All player characters have a manager, and those entwined in 
  the sinister webs of matrix management might have two or 
  more. If you’re lucky, your manager barely knows who you 
  are, or only comes out at night, or is too busy with her own 
  work and doesn’t bother you. If you’re unlucky, then your 
  manager perches on your cubicle divider like a harpy and 
  takes a predatory interest in your career.4 You can expect to 
  have an informal meeting with your manager every mission 
  or so, where she checks up on your progress, ensures you 
  haven’t done anything that would embarrass her, and drops 
  another load of work on your desk while reducing your 
  budget. These informal meetings involve more corporate 
  buzzwords than the human mind can parse. Just tune out 
  and let the managerial logorrhoea wash over you.  
  Games Masters should use informal manager meetings to 
  let player characters describe recent missions from their 
  perspective. Having moments of reflection and confession 
  can cement the memory of events and ensure continuity. 
  Random Checks
  Human Resources aside, there’s a sense of camaraderie 
  in the Laundry, a ‘we’re all in this trench together’ spirit 
  of brotherhood. There are always a few bad eggs and 
  backstabbing bastards, but the job is bad enough that the 
  majority of your colleagues don’t go out of their way to 
  make it worse. So it’s all the more surprising when you 
  stagger out of a two-hour procedural review meeting, 
  gulping down oxygen like a half-drowned diver, and two 
  sinister-looking chaps from Operational Oversight glide 
  down the corridor and drag you off to the subbasement. 
  There, they ask you some awkward questions about your 
  use of your work email address for personal messages, your 
  last overseas holiday and a doodle you scribbled on the back 
  of a file sometime in 2002. These security sweeps are the 
  malformed brainchild of some joint project between half-a-
  dozen different sections. 
  At any time, they might swoop in to make sure you’re 
  obeying all the security regulations and aren’t passing secrets 
  to the KGB.  Consider them Auditors Lite – all the intrusive 
  questioning, but in a fraction of the time (and, mercifully, 
  with less soul-killing power). 
  4: If you’re very lucky, your manager is caring, considerate and efficient; she shields you from interference from higher up while ensuring you don’t slack 
  off. And then she turns out to be a cultist and tries to eat your liver.
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  Performance Reviews
  All employees get a quarterly performance review. Have you 
  met the goals you set for yourself three months ago? Do 
  you have personal development needs in the areas of policy 
  formation, forward planning and project management? Are 
  you meeting the targets of the skills-based competency 
  audit framework for your role? A bad performance review 
  can scupper a character’s chances of promotion and 
  advancement for years.
  When running a performance review, the GM should play 
  the character’s primary manager. The other players get 
  to play co-workers, other managers, conflict resolution 
  specialists and consultants who also attend the meeting 
  so the victim – er, the subject of the review – can enjoy 
  a more well-rounded assessment of his performance and 
  development needs to date. Every player character deserves 
  to be pilloried by their peers once in a while.
  Internal Inquiries
  ‘Jo pulls out a notepad and a voice recorder, then her official 
  warrant card. She holds it up and my eyes are drawn to it, with 
  a swelling, stabbing sensation in my forehead as if  a swarm of  
  bees have taken up residence between my ears. “By the power 
  vested in me in the name of  the state, by the oath of  service you 
  have sworn under penalty of  your mortal soul, I bind you to tell 
  the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”
  Not ask, or order, but bind. My tongue feels swollen, as if  I’m 
  having an allergic reaction. I manage to nod.’
  – The Fuller Memorandum
  An internal inquiry is convened when something has 
  gone serious wrong. Bob was on the wrong end of one 
  when he accidentally killed a bystander during a routine 
  field exorcism. Inquiries are handled by Operational 
  Oversight, who interrogate everyone involved. Copies of 
  the interrogation transcripts and all relevant reports are 
  passed onto Human Resources, Internal Affairs and the 
  Auditors; if the investigative committee finds evidence of 
  negligence, then Human Resources handles the process of 
  reprimanding whoever is at fault. If the committee decides 
  there is criminal wrongdoing or malice, then Internal Affairs 
  writes up the case for prosecution before the Black Assizes, 
  the Laundry’s internal court of law. 
  Player characters will face internal inquiries whenever a 
  mission goes awry or they break the law. The Laundry’s 
  extensive use of truth compulsion geases and mind-reading 
  spells means that the inquisitors always have access to a very 
  accurate picture of what happened. If the player characters 
  were at fault, and did not have a genuinely valid reason 
  for their actions, they can expect to be disciplined. Likely 
  punishments from an internal inquiry include:
  • Loss of Status
  • Temporary suspension
  • Withdrawal from active duty
  • Withdrawal of permission to carry firearms
  • Withdrawal of permission to carry offensive magic 
  items 
  • Subject is geased to observe certain restrictions (for 
  example, a player character who lets slip a state secret 
  could be magically geased to never speak while in 
  the field without the permission of another Laundry 
  officer)
  Audits
  The Auditors are scary sorcerers who can see into your very 
  soul. It’s like an internal investigation, only the Auditors don’t 
  necessarily need a cause to pry and they aren’t restricted to 
  inquiries on a particular topic. They just want to know if 
  you’ve been naughty or nice, and they will turn your office 
  upside down and your brain inside out to find out which. 
  If a player character incurs the wrath of the Auditors, then 
  everything they’ve ever done or thought is fair game for the 
  inquisitors.
  60
  
  Games Mastering the Bureaucracy
  Running the bureaucratic elements of the 
  Laundry requires a light touch. On the 
  one hand, you want the bureaucracy to 
  be actually meaningful; worrying about 
  budgets, meetings, promotions and legal 
  cases distinguishes the Laundry from other 
  occult-investigation games. If you jump 
  straight from field investigation to field 
  investigation, you lose the whole crushing 
  despair and mind-numbing boredom of the office. 
  At the same time, crushing despair and 
  mind-numbing 
  boredom 
  aren’t 
  especially 
  fun. Paperwork and form-filling is boring 
  enough when you have to do it in real life, 
  so don’t make the players jump through 
  pointless hoops. If the bureaucratic element 
  is tangential to the main plot of the 
  game, then just handle it with roleplaying 
  (optionally, throw in a Bureaucracy roll; 
  if the roll fails, then the PC has some 
  added complication to deal with).
  There are a few good reasons for bringing 
  paperwork to the fore of a game session 
  for a while. Want to establish a manager 
  as an adversary? Have him dump a load of 
  petty paperwork on the characters. Are the 
  player characters growing too dependent on 
  their gadgets? Have the latest version of 
  the OFCUT software get tied up in a review 
  committee – no magic smartphones for anyone 
  until the deadlock is resolved. 
  If you do bring the bureaucracy into play, 
  make sure the stakes are worthwhile. A 
  subplot over whether or not a character can 
  claim the price of a rail ticket in expenses 
  for travelling to Glastonbury Tor to summon 
  some byakhee might be amusing, but it’s 
  also trivial in the grand scheme of things. 
  It’s better to have a bureaucratic plot 
  actually have long-term implications; if 
  the characters can find out who in the Laundry 
  torpedoed their reputations, they can get 
  promoted to a special new investigative 
  unit. Similarly, if you force the players 
  to fill out paperwork, make it count. Don’t 
  just throw expense account forms at the 
  players – only have them fill out the form 
  if there is something significant in their 
  expenses that will come up in play (‘Mr. 
  Howard, can you explain why you spent 
  £30,000 on sundries (explosive)?’).
  Bureaucracy Random Encounters
  Although most paperwork is assumed to take place outside 
  played session hours, there may be times when the GM may 
  call for a Bureaucracy Random Encounter to increase 
  the Kafka-esque ambience, to make the game more of a 
  challenge, or to stop players pursuing a dead-end and return 
  to the plot.
  The use of Bureaucracy Random Encounters is entirely 
  at the GM’s discretion. You might never use them. When 
  required by the GM, roll D100 to select your encounter. 
  If you have a Status of less than 40%, then you roll on the 
  Employees’ table; 40% or greater Status and you roll on the 
  Managers’ table.
  Each of these encounters is resolved by a subsequent roll 
  in either Bureaucracy or Status. A Success indicates that 
  you brushed off the task as unnecessary, completed the task 
  quickly online over a secure connection (maybe you’d already 
  prepared for it) or delegated the task to someone else (such 
  as the department’s shared secretary or another employee 
  elsewhere). It is your choice as a player whether you pick 
  Bureaucracy or Status to roll against. The difficulties are 
  listed on the Bureaucracy Random Encounter tables. 
  There are no Fumble or Special Success criteria.
  GMs should not expect you to perform a Bureaucracy 
  Random Encounter when it is impossible for you to access 
  a secure connection to the office. For example, you won’t 
  be doing any paperwork whilst imprisoned in a cultists’ lair 
  a hundred metres underground. However, if the GM thinks 
  you’re getting behind with your paperwork, then you might 
  get a Bureaucracy Random Encounter the next time you 
  check your email.
  That’s not to say that you can avoid bureaucracy simply by 
  being out in the field; a Bureaucracy Random Encounter 
  can happen whenever and wherever you might be able 
  check your email or receive a phone call from the office. 
  Your superiors and administrative staff might even use an 
  insecure connection to advise you that you need to “call 
  the office” or “check your messages,” and then switch to a 
  secure communications method.
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  Returning to the Office
  If you fail your Bureaucracy or Status roll on a Bureaucracy Random Encounter, you may be 
  required to Return to the Office and spend some time there as a failure penalty. Not everything 
  can be done online; sometimes you’re required to be physically present behind your desk, 
  including some very vague “security” justifications, or simply to flatter your manager’s sense of 
  self-importance.  If you’re already there, that’s fine. If you’re in the same or neighbouring 
  county, and it’s before lunchtime, you’ll be expected to return to the office in the afternoon. 
  Otherwise, you will be expected to return to the office the next working day or as soon as cost-
  effective transport can be arranged (at Finance’s discretion). Travel time must be added to any 
  penalty time spent performing the bureaucratic task.
  “The Office” in this context is whichever regional office you report to. If you are not assigned 
  to a regional office then you may assume that the office is the Laundry’s HQ in London.
  Matrix management means that you report to several different managers for several different 
  projects. Even if your line manager is out in the field with you, you may still be required to 
  return to the office for a meeting with another manager. For example, you may have multiple 
  Quarterly Appraisals with multiple managers.
  When you Return to the Office, you may need to spend a number of hours or days completing the 
  paperwork or procedures (as listed for each encounter). The Laundry’s core office hours are an 
  8-hour day Monday-Friday. Therefore if you roll more than 8 hours, you may need to spend more than 
  one working day in the office. Outside the office hours, you may continue to pursue the adventure.
  You may not claim overtime for bureaucratic tasks. If you attempt to perform bureaucratic tasks 
  outside core office hours, you will need to fake your timesheets. Unless you pass a Difficult 
  Bureaucracy roll, your timesheet inaccuracies will be discovered and you will lose 1D3 Status 
  points, or 1D6 Status points for a Fumble.
  Bureaucracy Random Encounter Table – Employees (Status below 40%)
  % Roll
  Paperwork
  Difficulty
  Failure penalty
  01-30
  Fill in timesheet
  Automatic
  (N/A)
  31-50
  Close support tickets
  Easy
  RtO + 1D6 hours
  50-60
  Update Personal Objectives
  Easy
  RtO + 1D6 hours
  61-70
  Report on Project Plan progress
  Average
  RtO + 1D6 hours
  71-80
  Report on ISO9001 KPIs
  Average
  RtO + 2D6 hours
  81-85
  Web filter verbal warning
  Average
  RtO + 2D6 hours
  86-90
  Quarterly Appraisal
  Difficult
  RtO + 3D6 hours
  91-95
  Manage minor project
  Difficult
  RtO + ½ day for 1D6 weeks
  96-98
  Disciplinary Hearing
  Difficult
  1d6 days suspended & 1D6 Status
  Bureaucracy Random Encounter Table – Managers (Status 40% or above)
  % Roll
  Paperwork
  Difficulty
  Failure penalty
  01-20
  Fill in timesheet
  Automatic
  (N/A)
  21-30
  Assign support tickets
  Easy
  RtO + 1D6 hours
  31-40
  Report on Project Plan progress 
  Easy
  RtO + 1D6 hours
  41-60
  Report on ISO9001 KPIs
  Average
  RtO + 2D6 hours
  61-70
  Perform Quarterly Appraisals
  Average
  RtO + 3D6 hours
  71-80
  Manage major project
  Average
  RtO + ½ day for 1D6 weeks
  81-90
  ISO9001 Non-Conformance Review 
  Difficult
  1D3 days
  91-95
  Update ISO9001 Corrective Action Matrix
  Difficult
  1D6 days
  96-98
  Conduct Disciplinary Hearing
  Difficult
  2D6 days
  99-00
  DV query
  Difficult
  1D6 weeks suspended & 1D6 Status
  62
  
  Postponing a Return to the Office
  You can optionally attempt to postpone the commencement of a Return to the Office for up to one 
  week by rolling a success in Fast Talk (Average difficulty). Use this, for example, if you’re out 
  in the field and don’t want to come back to the office right now.  If you get a Special Success, 
  you gain one Status point and do not have to return to the office nor perform the task at all. 
  If you Fumble, you loose one Status point and still have to return to the office to perform the 
  task anyway.
  You can also postpone a Return to the Office for up to two weeks if you can get a Laundry-approved 
  medical doctor to sign you off for sick leave (at the GM’s discretion). You may have repeat 
  fortnights on sick leave, but you’ll need to be checked by a Laundry doctor every two weeks 
  (again, GM’s discretion).
  Refusing to Return to the Office
  Refusing to Return to the Office will result in a verbal warning for the encounters listed as 
  Automatic or Easy difficulty (lose 1D3 Status points), a written warning for those listed as 
  Average difficulty (lose 1D6 Status points), and for the Difficult encounters, a Disciplinary 
  Hearing with an automatic encounter failure (if you’re a manager, you will be punished with a 
  Disciplinary Hearing as if you were an employee).
  If you refuse to Return to the Office for a Disciplinary Hearing as a result of previously 
  refusing to Return to the Office, you lose 2D6 Status points and the Disciplinary Hearing still 
  goes ahead, including suspension on full pay and further Status point loss.
  Fill in Timesheet (Manager or Employee)
  A Laundry Timesheet lists what an employee did and for 
  how long, each day, in fifteen minute intervals. Questioning 
  the culture of timesheets can mark you out as an “individual” 
  – and in HR’s eyes, that means you’re a problem. Most 
  employees fill in timesheets solely because they are required 
  in order to claim overtime. Filling in a Timesheet takes 
  a couple of minutes for each day you’re recording and 
  can be done over any secure computer connection (such 
  as your Necronomiphone). There is no need to roll, you 
  automatically succeed with an average result. There are no 
  good or bad timesheets, only empty or filled-in ones.
  Close Support Tickets (Employee) / Assign 
  Support Tickets (Manager)
  Most of an employee’s day-to-day work – the 99% of your 
  job that happens at your desk, rather than the exciting 
  1% that happens out of your office – is far too trivial for 
  managers to talk about in person. Instead, the Laundry has 
  an agency-wide intranet support system, through which 
  staff are assigned mundane tasks. Imagine a helpdesk 
  support system where people are simply trying to ping-pong 
  requests around in a bid to avoid doing any actual work. 
  Actually, avoid using your imagination at all. As an employee, 
  your goal is to mark all of your assigned tasks as “Closed” 
  (i.e. completed), or at least find someone else to assign them 
  to. As a manager, your goal is to ensure you have no tasks 
  assigned to you; assign them to your employees, or even 
  better, assign them to some other manager’s employees! 
  A failure on this encounter indicates that you have been 
  unable to complete or offload some menial tasks. You will 
  need to Return to the Office and spend 1D6 hours actually 
  doing these tasks yourself.
  Update Personal Objectives (Employee)
  All employees must have up-to-date Personal Objectives 
  to comply with ISO9001. They must have goals to strive 
  for, opportunities to challenge them, and Key Performance 
  Indicator Targets to miss. Above all, employees must 
  be provided with hope for promotion, a pay rise and job 
  satisfaction, no matter how illusory that hope actually 
  is. Personal Objectives must be revised frequently, or the 
  employee might complete them and actually qualify for a 
  promotion or a pay rise – and that would never do! Fail this 
  encounter and you will have to Return to the Office to 
  discuss your personal objectives with your manager.  Spend 
  1D6 hours updating your Personal Objectives to your 
  manager’s satisfaction.
  Report on Project Plan Progress     
  (Employee or Manager)
  As an employee, you will be assigned to work on several 
  projects. As a manager, you will be assigned to oversee 
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  several projects. Every so often, somebody will ask how 
  those projects are going. It’s best to have your excuses 
  prepared in advance. If you fail this encounter, you will 
  need to Return to the Office and spend 1D6 hours in 
  emergency Project Review meetings.
  Report on ISO9001 KPIs                 
  (Employee or Manager)
  The Laundry is an ISO9001-certified organisation. ISO9001 
  requires you and your department to have Key Performance 
  Indicators and other quality assurance metrics by which 
  quality is measured, your performance is judged and your 
  pay-rise is withheld. You need to report these measurements 
  to your superiors. If you fail this encounter, you will need 
  to Return to the Office and spend 2D6 hours in ISO9001 
  Quality Assurance Review meetings.
  Web Filter Verbal Warning (Employee)
  Sooner or later, everyone uses the Laundry’s internet 
  connection inappropriately; even the most saintly of 
  employees will enter an unfortunate typo into a search 
  engine at some point. It’s just a question of whether you get 
  caught. Managers can get away with it, but for employees it 
  is more difficult. Fail this encounter, and you must Return 
  to the Office and spend 2D6 hours on an Acceptable Use 
  Policy training course. Despite the verbal warning, there is 
  no loss of Status for this encounter.
  Quarterly Appraisal (Employee) /      
  Perform Quarterly Appraisals (Manager)
  Employee feedback is important. Employees must know 
  how they are perceived to have performed against their 
  Personal Objectives, why their pay rise is below the rate of 
  inflation and why they’ve been passed over for promotion. 
  Three-hundred-and-sixty-degree appraisals take feedback 
  from your fellow employees, your superiors and your 
  subordinates – if you have any; if not, they can always ask 
  the Residual janitorial staff how tidy your desk is. There’s 
  bound to be something to criticise everyone for. Fail this 
  encounter and you will have to Return to the Office to 
  prepare for (as an employee) or conduct (as a manager), a 
  Quarterly Appraisal in person.  Spend 3D6 hours drafting 
  the appraisal, reviewing it with your manager or employee, 
  and writing it up afterwards.
  Manage Minor Project (Employee) / 
  Manage Major Project (Manager)
  All employees should have the opportunity to fail 
  conspicuously, not only in front of their own managers, 
  but in front of an audience of entirely different and more 
  senior managers. As an employee, if you fail this encounter, 
  you will get landed with the management of a trivial project 
  – along the lines of researching printer cartridge prices or 
  compiling a spreadsheet of office pot-plant mortality rates. 
  The only resource assigned to this project will be yourself, 
  so you don’t get to boss anyone around.
  Fail this encounter as a manager, and you will get 
  responsibility for a significant project, but with the 
  advantage of being able to assign resources (other staff) to 
  perform the actual work.
  Either employee or manager, if you fail this encounter you 
  must Return to the Office for half a day to manage this 
  project, continuing half a day every week for a total of 1D6 
  weeks.
  ISO9001 Non-Conformance Review (Manager)
  The Laundry is an ISO9001-certified organisation. It has 
  documented, measurable standards for service delivery. 
  Where a department fails to meet those standards, this is 
  called (thunderclap on soundtrack) a Non-Conformance, 
  accompanied by a Non-Conformance Report. As a manager, 
  you must periodically review these Non-Conformance 
  Reports and make decisions that should prevent them 
  happening again in the future. Or you could just fiddle 
  the measurement criteria so that the same mistakes won’t 
  be considered a Non-Conformance next time. Fail this 
  encounter, and you must Return to the Office and spend 
  1D3 consecutive days in ISO9001 Non-Conformance 
  Review meetings.
  Update ISO9001 Corrective Action Matrix 
  (Manager)
  ISO9001 is all about learning from Non-Conformances 
  (mistakes). These lessons are called Corrective Actions, and 
  unfortunately they have a habit of piling up in a list called 
  the Corrective Action Matrix, rather than being actually 
  implemented. It’s like procrastination purgatory for stuff 
  that nobody fancies doing. Sometimes these actions have 
  been postponed due to other priorities. Sometimes they’re 
  stupendously dumb ideas that must be prevented from being 
  implemented for the safety of all mankind. Mostly, though, 
  they’re stupendously obvious but expensive ideas that must 
  be prevented from being implemented for the safety of the 
  Finance department. ISO9001 doesn’t demand action, it 
  64
  
  demands record-keeping. So long as this list is kept up-to-
  date, there’s no reason to refuse ISO9001 certification. Fail 
  this encounter, and you must Return to the Office and 
  spend 1D6 consecutive days in ISO9001 Corrective Action 
  Matrix Review meetings.
  Disciplinary Hearing (Employee) /  
  Conduct Disciplinary Hearing (Manager)
  Somebody did something seriously wrong. Maybe some 
  money went missing. Maybe a print-out got left on a 
  train. Maybe someone punched a superior. Maybe that 
  Necronomiphone’s screen wasn’t locked when it was swiped 
  off the pub bar. Fail this encounter as an employee and 
  you’ve got the blame. You must Return to the Office for 
  a quick meeting. You will then spend 1D6 consecutive days 
  suspended on full pay, away from the office preparing for, 
  and in the office facing, a disciplinary hearing. During that 
  time your access to Laundry sites and systems is revoked 
  – you must prepare your defence in isolation (quite how 
  you’re supposed to prepare when you have no access to any 
  evidence nor witnesses is an interesting conundrum).
  Whilst you are suspended on full pay, all your Status, 
  Bureaucracy and other difficulty checks related to Laundry 
  staff or facilities will be increased by two difficulty levels, 
  so if you wish to continue with the adventure during 
  suspension, most likely you will need to Fast Talk or 
  Persuade other characters to do any Laundry interaction 
  on your behalf. Unlike a DV query, though, you are still 
  permitted to talk to other Laundry staff outside the office.
  Of course, you are innocent, but the management never 
  like to admit mistakes, so it will end in a written warning for 
  something more trivial; lose 1D6 Status points.
  As a manager, you’re less likely to be the focus of blame. 
  If you fail this encounter, you’ve had the responsibility for 
  running one of these witch-hunts foisted upon you – and 
  worse, you’ve got to stick to procedure or the randomly-
  chosen victim might wriggle free. You must Return to the 
  Office and spend 2D6 days preparing for, and running, a 
  disciplinary hearing. Of course, the suspect must be found 
  to be mostly innocent (we don’t want this turning into an 
  employment tribunal, do we?), but the management never 
  like to admit mistakes, so it will end in a written warning for 
  something more trivial.
  Managers may be tried as employees in a Disciplinary 
  Hearing with an automatic encounter failure if they refuse 
  to Return to the Office for other Difficult encounters.
  DV Query (Employee or Manager)
  Demonic Vetting is one of the more involved Laundry 
  security clearance processes. It’s not just you that needs to 
  be checked, it’s your partner, your parents, your family, your 
  landlord, your great-grandparents’ graveyard, everyone in 
  close contact with you. This clearance isn’t a one-off check, 
  it’s monitored and reviewed frequently. Maybe one of 
  your frequent associates tripped an ECHELON alarm bell 
  yesterday, or maybe your mother’s flower arranging course 
  moved venue to a hall used by cultists. Fail this encounter 
  and you’re unable to brush off the concerns as trivial; you’re 
  suspended on full pay, your security clearance is immediately 
  suspended and you will be required (at gunpoint by other 
  characters, if necessary) to stop all Laundry activities and 
  hand in all Laundry equipment (including any firearms 
  and your Necronomiphone). You will be barred from all 
  Laundry premises and must cease contact with all Laundry 
  staff.
  You lose 1D6 Status points and must remain out of contact 
  for 1D6 weeks (in a cheap hotel on meagre expenses, if you 
  normally live with other Laundry staff). Your activities may 
  be monitored and your movement tailed by investigators. 
  You will be interviewed by Security Management at home, 
  a hotel, the local police interview room or another more 
  suitable external venue.
  This lengthy absence may present a problem for your 
  character to continue in the adventure, and you may consider 
  rolling-up another character or temporarily playing an NPC. 
  However, if other players are prepared to work with you 
  covertly, if your skills are up to it, and if the GM is prepared 
  to deal with the hassle, you may continue with the adventure 
  whilst attempting to conceal your involvement during your 
  mandatory down-time. All your Status, Bureaucracy and 
  other checks related to Laundry staff or facilities will be 
  increased by two difficulty levels during this time, so most 
  likely you will need to use Fast Talk, Persuade or similar skills 
  to convince other characters to do any Laundry interaction 
  on your behalf. You may also need to use other skills such 
  as Disguise, Stealth or Computer Use (Hacking) to avoid 
  being monitored or tailed by investigators. These rolls are at 
  the GM’s discretion.
  Unlike a Return to the Office, you cannot postpone a DV 
  query with Fast Talk; you’re barred from the office anyway. 
  If you refuse to co-operate with Security Management, 
  then your career at the Laundry will end… probably with a 
  sudden and permanent onset of severe amnesia, plus final 
  salary pension.
  BLACk BudgeT, red TApe
  65
  4 - BLACK BUDGET,
  RED TAPE
  
  THe LAundry
  Knowledge, they say, is power. The Laundry’s duty is to 
  prepare the United Kingdom for the horrors to come, 
  and that means honing its employees into weapons. When 
  the dread day finally dawns and Cthulhu stops hitting 
  the snooze button, the Laundry will need a loyal staff of 
  competent, informed, courageous individuals to shepherd 
  the nation through its darkest hour.
  At least, that’s the theory. In practice, you’re a lot more likely 
  to get sent on Windows NT Server management courses or 
  week-long torture sessions organised by Health and Safety 
  than you are to be sent to study at the knee of some wizened 
  sorcerer in Shangri-La. 
  Laundry training courses fall into six categories:
  • External 
  (Non-Governmental): 
  University-level 
  academic courses, conferences, or training courses 
  run by private companies and institutions. As they’re 
  external to the Laundry, there’s no occult content 
  whatsoever, and any employees who attend are to 
  use cover identities. You’ll be rubbing shoulders 
  with civilians; try not to mention the apocalypse and 
  remember that most people don’t wake up screaming 
  every night.
  • External (Joint): Courses run by other government 
  departments. Laundry employees might sit in on a 
  course in bioweapons preparedness run by the Army 
  for CO3 and the Home Office, or attend a meeting 
  to get up to speed on new anti-terror legislation. 
  External (Joint) courses tend towards the ‘stuffy and 
  dull’ end of the spectrum; wear a tie, and remember 
  you’re representing the Laundry. (Don’t mention the 
  Laundry, of course, even if some of the more senior 
  civil servants may be able to guess where you’re from...)
  • External (JIC): EJIC courses are run by the other 
  spookshows in town – our old friends at MI6, the 
  codebreakers down at Cheltenham. Unlike other 
  external courses, these training sessions are always 
  classified and involve sensitive information. Bring a 
  warrant card, and remember not to trust anyone. 
  • Internal (NCD): These are courses run by Laundry 
  personnel, for Laundry personnel, which contain no 
  computational demonology or other occult content. 
  They’re effectively identical to External (NG) courses, 
  only run internally. Instead of sending the new cubicle 
  drones to a private training course on Excel, they get 
  some poor sap from the IT dungeon to teach it instead. 
  • Internal (Eso): Internal courses involving occult 
  material. These range from the basic Introduction to 
  Occult Computing primer to more advanced courses 
  on summoning, tradecraft, magic countermeasures, 
  interspecies diplomacy or gate travel.
  • Special Instructor: Special Instructor courses are 
  offered only to highly qualified employees, and only 
  in rare circumstances. These courses are, as the title 
  suggests, taught by Special Instructors. Most of these 
  courses are taught at Dunwich, when the tides are 
  right. Normal health and safety regulations may be 
  suspended for these courses.
  Training Courses 
  ‘The one big difference between this training course and a particularly boring stretch at university is 
  that everything we learn here is classified under Section Three; the penalty for letting someone peek in 
  your notebook can be draconian.’
  – The Atrocity Archives
  66
  
  Using Training Courses 
  The simplest way to use training courses is 
  as a reward for successful missions. Come in 
  under budget and alive, and you can spend 
  your remaining Mission Budget on shiny new 
  skill checks. Just work out how much you’ve 
  got to spend and pick the courses you want to 
  go on. If a course isn’t listed, get your GM 
  to invent it. 
  Training courses can also be the starting 
  point for new adventures. The characters 
  might make new friends at an external course 
  (who then get eaten by something eldritch), 
  or run into old lovers, or rivals, or spies. 
  Qualifying for more advanced training courses 
  can be an adventure in itself. 
  Sharing Training
  As an optional rule, assume that the player 
  characters can all attend a single course 
  after a session for twice the basic cost. 
  For example, if a course normally costs 20 
  points of Mission Budget for one attendee, 
  then six player characters can all attend 
  the same course for the low, low price of 
  40 Mission Budget. This is to encourage all 
  the player characters to stick together, and 
  to let the GM use a training course as an 
  adventure hook.
  New Courses
  ‘“You know how there’s always someone who ends up in the wrong course?”’
  – The Atrocity Archives
  Course
  Cost
  Requirements
  Skills
  OFFICE & MANAGEMENT COURSES
  Communications Skills
  10
  None
  Insight, Persuade
  Time Management & Organisation
  15
  None
  Bureaucracy, Status
  Teamwork (TW)
  15
  None
  Bargain, Bureaucracy, Command
  Motivation & Leadership (M&L)
  15
  None
  Command, Status
  Decision Making & Crisis Management
  20
  Teamwork, 
  Motivation & Leadership
  Command, Status, Strategy
  Introduction to Health & Safety (IHS)
  5
  None
  First Aid
  Advanced First Aid (AFA)
  10
  Introduction to 
  Health and Safety
  First Aid, Medicine
  Unconventional Injuries & Field Medicine 
  (UIFM) 
  20
  Advanced First Aid
  Cthulhu Mythos, First Aid, Medicine, Science 
  (Thaumaturgy)
  A-Z of Government Departments (AZGOV)
  10
  None
  Bureaucracy, Knowledge (Politics)
  Aspiring to the Senior Civil Service (ASPIRE)
  20
  Status 50% or more
  Bureaucracy, Knowledge (Politics), Status
  An Introduction to Public Accountability 
  15
  None
  Fast Talk, Knowledge (Law), Knowledge (Politics)
  Linguistics & Social Awareness 
  20
  None
  Insight, Language (any), Knowledge (any group), 
  Knowledge (any region)
  Managing Change
  20
  None
  Bureaucracy, Sense, Status
  Economics for Policy Makers
  10
  None
  Accounting, Knowledge (Politics)
  HR For Line Managers (HRLINE)
  25
  None
  Bargain, Bureaucracy, Command, Insight, Knowledge 
  (Law) 
  Conflict Resolution
  10
  HRLINE
  Insight, Persuade
  People Core Management Skills (PCMS)
  20
  HRLINE
  Fast Task, Insight, Persuade, Listen
  Achieving More With Less
  10
  None
  Accounting, Bureaucracy
  67
  TrAInIng COurSeS
  5 - TRAINING COURSES
  
  THe LAundry
  Stress Management
  15
  None
  Art, +1D6 SAN
  Managing Changelings
  10
  PCMS
  Knowledge (Occult), Science (Thaumaturgy)
  Essential Skills for Social Research
  15
  PCMS
  Fast Talk, Insight, Knowledge (any group)
  Effective Knowledge Management
  15
  None
  Computer Use (Design), Research, Teach
  Introduction to Public Sector Law
  15
  None
  Knowledge (Law), Knowledge (Politics), Status
  Antiquity Conservation (ANTICON)
  20
  None
  Appraise, Craft, Fine Manipulation, Knowledge 
  (Archaeology), Knowledge (Art History), Repair 
  MILITARY & FIELDWORK
  Introduction to Survival & Evasion
  20
  None
  Knowledge (Natural History), Navigation, Sense, Track
  Basic Self Defence (BSD)
  15
  None
  Dodge, Grapple, Sense
  Advanced Self Defence
  20
  BSD
  Brawl, Dodge, Grapple, Sense
  Basic Fitness
  15
  None
  Climb, Jump, Swim 
  Advanced Fitness
  25
  Basic Fitness
  Brawl, Climb, Dodge, Jump, Ride, Swim
  Professionally Qualified Officers
  15
  Medicine 50% or 
  Knowledge (Law) 50%
  Command, Firearms (any), Status, Strategy
  TA Phase 1
  20
  None 
  Climb, Dodge, Firearms (any), Stealth, Swim
  TA Phase 2
  20
  TA Phase 1
  Firearms (any), Heavy Weapons (any), Spot, Stealth, 
  Technology Use (Communications)
  TA Commissioning Course
  20
  TA Phase 2
  Command, Firearms (any), Navigation, Status, Strategy
  Demolition and Explosives
  20
  TA Phase 2
  Artillery, Demolition, Navigation, Repair (Electronics)
  Helicopter Operations & Gunnery
  20
  TA Phase 2
  Navigation, Pilot (Helicopter), Repair (Helicopter), Spot
  ESOTERIC COURSES
  Exorcism 101
  15
  None
  First Aid, Insight, Knowledge (Occult), Psychotherapy
  Exorcism 102
  25
  Exorcism 101
  Computer Use (Magic), Knowledge (Occult), Science 
  (Thaumaturgy), Sorcery
  Combat Epistemology
  25
  Exorcism 102
  Cthulhu Mythos, Knowledge (Occult), Sorcery, Status
  Introduction to Gate Travel (IGT)
  15
  None
  Knowledge (Astronomy), Knowledge (Planetology) 
  Navigation, Science (Mathematics)
  Gate Travel & Survival
  25
  TA Phase 2, IGT
  Cthulhu Mythos, Knowledge (Planetology), Sense, 
  Technology Use (Survival Equipment)
  Grammar of Thoth Workshop
  20
  None
  Computer Use (Magic), Knowledge (Occult), Science 
  (Psychology), Sorcery
  Grimoire Appraisal & Conservation
  25
  Antiquity Conservation
  Appraise, Language (Aklo), Language (Arabic), Language 
  (Latin), Repair (Bookbinding), Science (Cryptography), 
  Sorcery
  Dealing with K Syndrome
  15
  Introduction to Health & 
  Safety
  Special: see description
  Ethics of Arcana
  15
  Public Sector Law
  Knowledge (Occult), Knowledge (Law), Science 
  (Psychology), Science (Thaumaturgy)
  NHE Liaison & Diplomacy
  20
  Public Sector Law
  Bargain, Etiquette, Knowledge (any group), Knowledge 
  (Politics)
  Geas & Ward Management
  15
  HRLINE
  Bureaucracy, Sorcery, Status
  Large Scale Incursion Assessment
  20
  Ethics of Arcana
  Command, Sorcery, Strategy
  OCCULUS Operations Management
  25
  Large Scale Incursion 
  Assessment
  Artillery, Command, Heavy Weapons, Science 
  (Thaumaturgy), Status, Strategy
  Eschatological Countermeasures
  25
  Large Scale Incursion 
  Assessment
  Command, Cthulhu Mythos, Heavy Weapons, Sorcery, 
  Status 
  68
  
  Philosophy of Prognostication
  10
  None
  Knowledge (Folklore), Knowledge (Occult), Science 
  (Mathematics)
  Occulinux Installation & Use 
  10
  Introduction to Applied 
  Occult Computing
  Computer Use (Magic), Computer Use (Maintenance)
  Application Wizardry Development Workshop
  10
  Introduction to Applied 
  Occult Computing
  Computer Use (Design), Computer Use (Magic)
  Occult Forensics
  20
  Introduction to Forensics
  Science (Forensics), Science (Thaumaturgy), Sense, Spot
  Directed Dreaming Workshop
  10
  None
  Knowledge (Folklore), special
  Departmental Accounting Arcana
  15
  None
  Appraise, Bureaucracy, Knowledge (accounting), 
  Computational Demonology & IT Security
  20
  Introduction to Applied 
  Occult Computing
  Computers (Hacking), Computers (Magic) Repair 
  (Electronics), Spot
  Esoteric Diplomacy & International Relations
  30
  NHE Liaison & 
  Diplomacy, ASPIRE
  Bargain, Cthulhu Mythos, Etiquette, Language (varies), 
  Knowledge (any group), Knowledge (Politics), Status
  Briefing the Uninitiated: Rapid Esoteric 
  Induction Workshop
  20
  ASPIRE
  Cthulhu Mythos, Etiquette, Knowledge (Folklore), Status, 
  Teach
  TECHNICAL & SCIENTIFIC
  Introduction to Forensics
  10
  None
  Science (Forensics), Spot
  Advanced Forensics
  20
  Introduction to Forensics
  Science (Botany), Science (Chemistry), Science 
  (Forensics), Science (Genetics), Spot
  Forgery, Lockpicking & Safecracking: Tradecraft 
  201
  15
  None
  Craft, Demolition, Fine Manipulation, Knowledge 
  (Espionage), Sleight of Hand
  Disguise, Evasion & Tailing: Tradecraft 202
  20
  Tradecraft 201
  Disguise, Hide, Knowledge (Espionage), Listen 
  Navigation, Sleight of Hand, Stealth
  Agent Spotting, Recruitment & Handling: 
  Tradecraft 203
  20
  Tradecraft 202
  Bargain, Command, Insight, Knowledge (Espionage), 
  Science (Psychology)
  Bugging & Surveillance: Tradecraft 204
  20
  Tradecraft 203
  Knowledge (Espionage), Science (Physics), Sleight of 
  Hand, Spot, Technology Use (Bugging Devices),
  Sabotage & Wetwork: Tradecraft 205
  20
  Tradecraft 204
  Demolitions, Firearms (Pistols), Knowledge (Espionage), 
  Sleight of Hand, Status
  Radiological and Biological Threat Management
  15
  None
  First Aid, Medicine (Oncology), Science (Biology), 
  Technology Use (Survival Equipment)
  Electronics Handling & Repair
  10
  None
  Technology Use (Electronics), Repair (Electronics)
  Barricade The Doors! Building Security in the 
  Event of Zombie Attack Workshop
  20
  None
  Craft (Building), Firearms (shotgun), Grapple, 
  Navigation, Strategy
  Weapons Maintenance & Safe Storage
  10
  None
  Firearms (any), Repair (firearms)
  Course Information
  Achieving More With Less: The age of austerity in the 
  public finances bites deep. A three-day course on how to 
  make do with what you’ve got – reusing teabags, using 
  zombies in the cafeteria, outsourcing to private occultists, 
  scrimping on the IT budget.
  Advanced First Aid (AFA): Triage, emergency surgery, 
  caring for the sick. Requires Introduction to Health & 
  Safety. 
  Advanced Fitness: Two weekends spent slogging around 
  some eldergodforsaken forest outside Dunwich, being 
  shouted at by burly men as you stumble through the mud. 
  Requires Basic Fitness.
  Advanced Forensics: This course is taught by Metropolitan 
  Police specialists; it’s the full CSI treatment. Everything 
  from blood splatter patterns to learning exactly how long it 
  takes the maggots to hatch out of a corpse’s eyes. Requires 
  Introduction to Forensics.
  Advanced Self  Defence: Sixteen ways to kill a man with a 
  pencil, as taught by a quiet man from the Artist’s Rifles with 
  callused hands. Requires Basic Self  Defence. 
  Agent Spotting, Recruitment & Handling: Tradecraft 
  203: How to identify potential informants, spies and double 
  agents, how to make contact with them, how to convince 
  them to serve (or betray) their country, and how to keep 
  them sane. The course is taught by grey-faced men who 
  spent most of the 70s and 80s in West Berlin. Requires 
  Tradecraft 202.
  69
  TrAInIng COurSeS
  5 - TRAINING COURSES
  
  THe LAundry
  An Introduction to Public Accountability: How to 
  avoid having to account for your actions while talking more 
  about accountability in public. Excellent training for saying 
  nothing at all at length.
  Antiquity Conservation (ANTICON): An intensive four-
  week course in art history, archaeology and conservation, 
  with special emphasis on soapstone idols looted from 
  strange tombs, Egyptian papyri, and fragments dredged up 
  from the sea floor. 
  Application 
  Wizardry 
  Development 
  Workshop: 
  Creating new occult apps for smartphones. The instructor 
  is very enthusiastic about this topic, and students often find 
  exciting experimental apps installed on their phones (even if 
  they didn’t bring their personal phones to the workshop…) 
  Requires Introduction to Applied Occult Computing. 
  Aspiring to the Senior Civil Service (ASPIRE): 
  Mandatory course for anyone with ambition within the 
  civil service. An entrance exam to the Whitehall old boys’ 
  network. Requires Status 50%.
  A-Z of  Government Departments (AZGOV): How to 
  read acronym soup. Anyone taking this course must make a 
  SAN check (0/1D3), but on the bright side, you’ll be able to 
  bore people to death at dinner parties.
  Barricade The Doors! Building Security in the Event 
  of  Zombie Attack Workshop: Remarkably popular course 
  among field officers. Ever since the Swindon Incident, the 
  use of RHRs to simulate zombies is no longer permitted. 
  Instead, course participants divide into two teams and swap 
  over after lunch. 
  Basic Fitness: The Territorials throw you around for 
  four weekends a year. It’s not too taxing if you’re at all in 
  shape, but couch potatoes and cubicle warmers may find 
  even this basic level of training beyond them. Maintaining 
  basic fitness qualification is mandatory for all field-qualified 
  personnel.
  Basic Self  Defence (BSD): A large part of this course 
  is about not getting into trouble; the instructors show you 
  how to read body language, spot potential hostiles, and 
  avoid getting trapped. The actual combat part of the course 
  concentrates on breaking holds, blocking, and running away. 
  Briefing the Uninitiated: Rapid Esoteric Induction 
  Workshop: A surprisingly intensive and useful course on 
  how to bring your average clueless civilian from complete 
  ignorance of the Mythos to accepting the impending doom 
  of CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN without turning them 
  into a gibbering wreck. As CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN 
  gets closer, all line officers above grade 3 and all admin 
  above grade 4 will be obliged to take this course. Requires 
  Aspiring to the Senior Civil Service. 
  Bugging & Surveillance: Tradecraft 204: Planting 
  surveillance equipment, sweeping for bugs, how to avoid 
  being seen while running a stakeout. As a side benefit, 
  this course gives a complete overview of every late-night 
  restaurant and 24-hour coffee shop in the United Kingdom. 
  Requires Tradecraft 203.
  Combat Epistemology: High-level theory on magical 
  targeting, sympathetic magic, geases and the limits of 
  understanding. A vital course for anyone using powerful 
  artefacts (like an Erich Zann Violin) or who is dealing with 
  summoned entities. Requires Exorcism 102.
  Communications Skills: Basic ‘how to talk to people’ 
  course used to soak up training budgets. A lot of lab geeks 
  or damaged field officers get regular refreshers in this 
  course. Pro tip: normal people do not say ‘lol’ or ‘Ia! Ia!’ in 
  everyday conversation. 
  Computational Demonology & IT Security: Occult 
  firewalls, using commercial security systems when the 
  attackers may be using the Dee-Turing Theorem, quantum 
  computing, or demons, and exorcising your network of 
  gremlins and spooks. Requires Introduction to Applied Occult 
  Computing. 
  70
  
  Conflict Resolution: Advice on dealing with disputes 
  between employees, defusing tension, acknowledging 
  disagreements, and navigating the grievance process. Also, 
  comes in handy when trying to talk crazed cultists away 
  from the sacrificial altar. Requires HR for Line Managers.
  Dealing with K Syndrome: This course can only be taken 
  by a character who has suffered a permanent INT loss from 
  casting mental magic (see page 132 of the Laundry Files 
  core rulebook). Each time this course is taken, the character 
  may make a Luck check. If successful, he regains 1 point 
  of lost INT.
  Decision Making & Crisis Management: Another 
  course that’s going to become a lot more popular in the 
  next few years, this one’s nicknamed ‘Urban Triage’ among 
  trainers. It consists of three three-day-long courses. The 
  first two are for the general civil service, and are about how 
  to make decisions under pressure, how to quickly synthesise 
  information, and how to lead in a crisis. The final course is 
  Laundry-only, and discusses what can be saved and what 
  can be sacrificed when the time comes. Requires Teamwork, 
  Motivation & Leadership.
  Demolition and Explosives: Gives instructions on 
  everything from safecracking charges to claymore mines to 
  calling in an airstrike on an angry god. You even get to play 
  with an (empty, harmless) nuke. The course is run by the 
  Territorial Army. Requires TA Phase 2.
  Departmental Accounting Arcana: Magic for accountants, 
  basically. How the occult interacts with the Laundry’s 
  financial planning systems, line items for black candles and 
  gold coins cast into a deep well in Somerset, how to use 
  the spending geases. Taking this course is basically signing 
  your soul over to Financial Control. (On the bright side, the 
  course also covers selling your soul, and how to list such a 
  change in spiritual assets on your tax returns.)
  Directed Dreaming Workshop: This course allows a 
  character to develop the Dreaming skill. Dreaming starts at 
  INT + POW, and is usable only when undergoing a shared 
  hallucination like a dream. A successful use of the Dreaming 
  skill allows the character to alter the circumstances of the 
  dream, such as conjuring items or changing shape.
  Disguise, Evasion & Tailing: Tradecraft 202: Spotting 
  and avoiding tails, changing your appearance using 
  everything from movie-quality makeup to classic improvised 
  spy disguises like soot in your hair. It emphasises quick, 
  practical disguise methods. Requires Tradecraft 201.
  Economics for Policy Makers: Effectively a workshop on 
  how to present policies to the Board. You’ll learn next to 
  nothing useful on this course, but it’s vital for ambitious 
  civil servants to talk the talk about cost-saving. 
  Effective Knowledge Management: How to develop 
  institutional memory, proper record keeping, managing 
  skills transfer and training. For the Laundry, this is especially 
  complex; between secret classification, the abstruse nature 
  of much of the work, and the fact that it’s hard to manage 
  Things Man Was Not Meant To Know, proper knowledge 
  management is more of an aspiration than a goal. The 
  arcane section is putting the Laundry’s ISO9001 certification 
  in jeopardy, and the Board sees this as letting the side down.
  Electronics Handling & Repair: Special emphasis 
  on repairing equipment in the field and improvising 
  replacements, as well as how to store and secure the more 
  esoteric bits of electronics like Basilisk Guns.
  Eschatological Countermeasures: A lengthy and 
  intensive course on saving the world. Covers everything 
  from planning nuclear strikes against Great Old Ones to 
  managing food production and medical treatment after the 
  collapse of civilisation. This course is currently optional, 
  but it’s expected to be made mandatory for Line Officers 
  above Grade 6 by 2013. Taking this course requires a SAN 
  check (1/1D4). Requires Large Scale Incursion Assessment. 
  Esoteric Diplomacy & International Relations: A 
  course run jointly by the Foreign Office, the Cabinet Office 
  and the Laundry, this is all about playing with the big boys. 
  Keeping BLUE HADES happy, negotiating with eldritch 
  entities, swearing blood oaths, what you’re allowed to say 
  when briefing the Prime Minister. Anyone completing this 
  course is marked for greatness within the Laundry. Requires 
  NHE Liaison & Diplomacy and Aspiring to the Senior Civil 
  Service. 
  Essential Skills for Social Research: A surprisingly 
  useful course on how to question people in a way that 
  encourages them to volunteer information and trust you. 
  Recommended for field officers who spend a lot of time 
  questioning witnesses, and want more subtlety than pushing 
  a warrant card in someone’s face and demanding answers. 
  Requires People Core Management Skills.
  Ethics of  Arcana: A head-wrecking course of philosophy 
  and legal mumbo-jumbo. This course is required for would-
  be Auditors, as well as anyone who throws spells around 
  in public. As an added bonus, the course attendees almost 
  always include one or more undercover Internal Affairs 
  watchdogs. Requires Introduction to Public Sector Law.
  Exorcism 101: Basic introductory course on how to deal 
  with supernatural incursions and thaumic energy build-
  ups. This part of the course has very little magical content, 
  beyond ‘point the smartphone at the glowing thing and press 
  start,’ but instead concentrates on dealing with witnesses, 
  safety precautions, and identifying when to use exorcisms.
  71
  TrAInIng COurSeS
  5 - TRAINING COURSES
  
  THe LAundry
  Exorcism 102: The real meaty bit of the exorcism course, 
  this covers all sorts of banishment techniques. It starts 
  with traditional exorcism methods such as prayer (wholly 
  ineffective) and the old bell, book and candle routine (has 
  some validity, if you’ve got the right book and the bell’s 
  resonating frequency is a certain multiple of the candle’s 
  flicker rate) and then onto more modern approaches like 
  Computational Demonology, thaumic grounding and 
  counter-possession. Requires Exorcism 101.
  Forgery, Lockpicking & Safecracking: Tradecraft 201: 
  More tricks from the archives of the Special Operations 
  Executive. Many of the techniques taught on this course are 
  woefully out of date – the Black Chamber don’t use locks 
  when they have wards that can recognise your soul – but it’s 
  a good foundation in the spy’s trade. 
  Gate Travel & Survival: A tough course in surviving on 
  the far side of gates, covering the use of survival equipment, 
  basic physics, and how to cope with being shunted into 
  another dimension and then back out onto some dead alien 
  planet. This course technically qualifies you as an astronaut, 
  too. Requires Introduction to Gate Travel.
  Geas & Ward Management: The first thing you learn on 
  this course is that there’s no ‘undo’ button for the mind. This 
  course instructs participants in the proper construction, 
  casting and wording of magically-enforced commands to 
  ensure that the geas is comprehensive without being overly 
  restrictive. Amateur sorcerers can dig themselves into 
  very deep holes through badly planned geases (the classic 
  example is commanding a target to ‘forget everything you 
  have seen,’ which is like pulling the plug on the brimming 
  bathtub of their selfhood). Requires HR for Line Managers.
  Grammar of  Thoth Workshop: The Grammar of Thoth 
  was one of the first codified magical metalanguages, 
  predating Enochian (at least, depending on who you ask). 
  While it’s outdated by modern standards, it’s still useful 
  especially for mental magic, and a good grasp of Thoth is 
  very useful when dealing with cultists and old grimoires. 
  The course covers the use of neurolinguistic programming, 
  computer models of the Grammar, and disarming spells 
  based on the Grammar.
  Grimoire Appraisal & Conservation: Caring for rare 
  old books, the history of occult literature (from Ye Book 
  of  Eibon to more modern works), recognising forgeries, 
  translation and the use of cryptography. Requires Antiquity 
  Conservation and a lot of  patience.
  Helicopter Operations & Gunnery: You get to log a 
  few dozen hours in a Eurocopter AS350 (aka the ‘Twin 
  Squirrel’), and sit in the cockpit of an Apache. It qualifies 
  you to fly a chopper in an emergency. Requires TA Phase 2. 
  HR For Line Managers (HRLINE): A two-day course 
  that takes the line manager through the complete employee 
  life-cycle from pre-recruitment to post-termination to 
  reanimation as well as pervasive coverage of key employment 
  legislation affecting the employer-employee relationship. It’s 
  mostly management techniques with a gloss of avoiding 
  legal trouble. Anyone above Grade 4 can expect to be sent 
  on this course, sooner or later.
  Introduction to Forensics: This course is taught by the 
  Met’s forensics specialists, so it crams about six months of 
  training into five evenings. Immensely useful. 
  Introduction to Gate Travel (IGT): A comprehensive 
  overview of how to screw with the laws of space and time 
  via dimensional travel. IGT courses always attract an odd 
  mix of students; you’ve got hardened special forces types 
  who are doing the Tosher training course rubbing elbows 
  with virologists, planetologists and economists. 
  Introduction to Health & Safety (IHS): It covers basic 
  first aid in the office, as well as drilling you in a mind-boggling 
  array of workplace health policies, from keyboard posture 
  to testing the office air vents for dust mites. The Laundry’s 
  attitude towards health and safety is schizophrenic at best; 
  you’ll often find yourself being lectured on the dangers of 
  not taping down power cables – they’re a trip hazard – while 
  a slavering demon throws itself against the containment 
  grid powered by said cables.
  Introduction to Public Sector Law: How to avoid getting 
  the Laundry into legal trouble, how to avoid getting your 
  department into legal trouble, and how to avoid getting 
  yourself into legal trouble – in that order.
  Introduction to Survival & Evasion: It’s like orienteering, 
  only there are men with guns and hunting dogs after 
  you. Come to scenic Dartmoor and get lost in the bogs. 
  Supplementary courses also teach urban evasion and living 
  off the land.
  Large Scale Incursion Assessment: This seminar teaches 
  participants the skills they will need to deal with major occult 
  events, like mass possession, a Class 5 Gate, the dead rising, 
  or invasion by BLUE HADES or DEEP SEVEN or some 
  other non-human threat. Obtaining an LSIA qualification 
  is the first step to becoming a senior Line Officer. Requires 
  Ethics of  Arcana.
  Linguistics & Social Awareness: Partially a diversity 
  awareness course, but this also covers blending in with 
  different cultures, picking up on social cues, and reading 
  subtle clues about intent. Different L&SE courses cover 
  different regions and cultures; anyone going undercover 
  abroad should go on the relevant L&SE training course.
  72
  
  Managing Change: An excellent opportunity for 
  Buzzword Bingo, but HR loves this course, and anyone who 
  completes it is anointed with rare oils and deemed to be a 
  golden child who shows great promise. Learn to achieve 
  buy-in, communicate your vision and plan how to think 
  outside the box.
  Managing Changelings: A supplementary course for 
  line managers of employees with unusual conditions or 
  restrictions, such as BLUE HADES hybrids. Requires 
  People Core Management Skills.
  Motivation & Leadership (M&L): Everything from 
  trust exercises and positive thinking to applying The Art of  
  War to the accounting department. On the bright side, this 
  course is usually held in plush hotels with good catering, so 
  book early.
  NHE Liaison & Diplomacy: NHE stands for ‘non-
  human entity’; this course is for officers working with 
  ‘friendlies,’ where ‘friendly’ means ‘not actively trying to kill 
  us right now.’ Different modules cover species like BLUE 
  HADES and ghouls. The course is carefully vetted by both 
  Counter-Subversion and Health & Safety; the former to 
  ensure no-one defects, the latter to ensure no-one infects. 
  Requires An Introduction to Public Sector Law.
  Occulinux Installation & Use: Occulinux is a fork 
  of the NSA-built Secure Linux, optimised for use with 
  computational demonology – drivers for summoning 
  grids, raster engines for Dho-Na curves, virtual wards, /
  bin/alhazared, all that handy stuff. Requires Introduction to 
  Applied Occult Computing.
  Occult Forensics: Building on conventional forensic 
  techniques, this course teaches the use of magic in 
  investigation, such as using sympathetic magic to track 
  auras from fibre or blood samples, divination, psychometry, 
  remote viewing and thaumic field fingerprinting. It also 
  covers the physical evidence left behind by various entities. 
  A strong stomach is recommended, as a large chunk of the 
  seminar is an endless series of gory PowerPoint slides. This 
  is how a ghoul chews your face off… this is what’s left of  you 
  after a Polyp hatches… this is what a failed auto-trepanation 
  looks like… and before lunch, the Brood of  Eihort. Requires 
  Introduction to Forensics.
  OCCULUS Operations Management: This course is run 
  jointly with our European Partners, and so involves popping 
  over to Belgium for a fortnight. Over this course, you’re 
  taught how to manage a crisis, contain threats, direct civilian 
  and military assets, and wield the full bureaucratic power of 
  the EU from inside a giant armoured truck. Requires Large 
  Scale Incursion Assessment.
  People Core Management Skills (PCMS): There is 
  something deeply creepy about this course. It’s as though 
  it was designed to teach human behaviour to something 
  that’s very, very far from human, something with more legs 
  and angles than anyone should have. The course has been 
  updated for general use, but there’s still the occasionally 
  really weird slide or note, like ‘Humans blink regularly’ or 
  ‘sleeping usually takes place at night’ in between seminars 
  on hiring & firing, behavioural problems in the workplace, 
  reading body language and non-verbal clues, and handling 
  employees. Requires HR for Line Managers.
  Philosophy of  Prognostication: Half semi-practical 
  advice on working with the Predictions Branch, half 
  philosophical noodling about free will and predestination. 
  The most useful thing about this course is that it teaches 
  you how to block when management attacks. You see, 
  Predictions Branch makes a great club to beat people with. 
  Let’s say you’re running the Laundry local office in the 
  Isle of Wight. Every week, Predictions send you a vaguely 
  worked message about potential threats and ‘semi-significant 
  random number clusters’ and funny feelings that Psychic 
  Auntie Agnes had in her ankles. As there is absolutely 
  nothing concrete in there, you ignore the predictions. 
  Next week, another set comes along, and another, and 
  another, all similarly useless. Then Cthulhu rises out of 
  the sea and snacks on the island, and you’re hauled before 
  the Auditors. ‘Why did you not act on the warnings given 
  by Predictive Branch?’ they ask. If you try pointing out 
  that Predictions Branch are usually about as much use as 
  a water-soluble umbrella, you’re accused of trying to shift 
  the blame. However, if you’ve completed Philosophy 
  of Prognostication, you can befuddle your interrogators 
  by talking about unus mundus theory, cognitive bias, 
  Newcomb’s paradox and retrocausality. Particularly talented 
  philosophers can even convince the investigative committee 
  that it is the committee’s own doubt that travelled back in 
  time to undermine the Predictive Branch’s evidence, and 
  argue that the committee created itself by ensuring there 
  would be a problem to investigate.
  Professionally Qualified Officers: Holders of certain 
  degrees, like doctors, dentists, lawyers, chaplains and vets, 
  can pass through officer training with the British Army 
  at an accelerated rate. This ten-week course, colloquially 
  referred to as the ‘Vicars and Tarts’ course, gives the 
  qualified professional a grounding in military life, tactics, 
  weapons drills, strategy and tactics. It requires a degree-level 
  qualification.
  Radiological and Biological Threat Management: 
  A cheery course about all the lovely ways you can die. It 
  covers natural and accidental hazards (pandemics, chemical 
  spills, nuclear accidents) and military and terror threats 
  (biowarfare, dirty bombs and so on). 
  73
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  5 - TRAINING COURSES
  
  THe LAundry
  The first three days of the course are taught by CO3 of 
  the Met; the last two days are internal to the Laundry, 
  and cover Colours out of Space, BLUE HADES plague 
  vectors, gate-shifted radiation, and the possibility of alien 
  supercivilisations using gamma ray bursts to wipe out all 
  life on Earth.
  Sabotage & Wetwork: Tradecraft 205: Getting to go on 
  this course means the Board has great faith in you; officially, 
  this seminar does not exist. It’s a course in how to murder 
  people in a clean, professional, ISO9001-certified way. 
  Requires Tradecraft 204. 
  Stress Management: The Stress Management course 
  teaches meditation, breathing techniques and positive 
  thinking – and a few little white pills. Each time the course 
  is taken, it restores 1D6 SAN.
  TA Commissioning Course: This course qualifies 
  participants as officers in the Territorial Army. It’s run twice 
  a year at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. It’s three 
  weeks long – week one is training, while weeks two and three 
  are testing, including a one-week field exercise and mock 
  operation. The course is a gruelling one. Requires TA Phase 2. 
  TA Phase 1: Part 1 of the Territorial Army training course, 
  covering basic soldiering. This version is an intensive course, 
  crammed into a few weeks; the other option is to join your 
  local TA regiment and complete the training course over a 
  year at weekends and evening.
  TA Phase 2: Part 2 of the Territorial Course, concentrating 
  on weapons systems and technology. Requires TA Phase 1.
  Teamwork (TW): Trust exercises, delegating responsibility, 
  group work, team building exercises. Basically, there are two 
  ways to learn this stuff. Option 1: learn to trust your team-
  mates when you’re all pinned down in a foxhole by an angry 
  DEEP SEVEN. Option 2: learn to trust your team-mates in 
  a nice hotel in Essex. Hint: go for option 2.
  Time Management & Organisation: Time-keeping 
  methods, so you can break your day down into 15-minute 
  action items and properly report on everything you do. 
  Another course for the penitent and the terminally late.
  Unconventional Injuries & Field Medicine (UIFM): 
  Treating injuries received from supernatural entities and 
  weapons, like thaumic burns, stoner hits, claws and caustic 
  tentacles. Requires Advanced First Aid. 
  Weapons Maintenance & Safe Storage: Keeping your 
  guns out of reach of kiddies and psychos.
  Unwanted Courses 
  ‘“This is all beyond me, you know? Dunno 
  why I’m on this junket, our training budget 
  is just way over the top. Got to use the 
  course credits or we lose them next year.”’
  – The Atrocity Archives 
  Characters may be sent on training courses 
  as 
  part 
  of 
  disciplinary 
  procedures. 
  If, say, you let off a firearm in public 
  without due cause, you might be ordered 
  to attend Introduction to Public Sector 
  Law and Weapons Maintenance & Safe Storage 
  before you’re allowed carry a gun again. 
  A character who repeatedly overruns his 
  mission budget might get sent on Achieving 
  More With Less. Talk back to your boss? 
  It’s Communications Skills and Conflict 
  Resolution for you!
  Due to the Laundry’s abstruse and arcane 
  accounting procedures, the cost of these 
  courses is usually borne by the character’s 
  own department. So, if you’re ordered to go 
  on Introduction to Heath and Safety, it’s 
  up to you to find space in the mission budget 
  or else pay for it out of the department 
  budget (which may cause a Status loss or 
  other troubles).
  74
  
  Special Instructor Courses
  Special Instructor courses are not advertised. You do not 
  choose to do them – the Laundry chooses you. They are 
  available only rarely, and only for the worthy. According 
  to rumours, special instructor courses inevitably change 
  the participants, granting them new abilities or insights at 
  the cost of sanity and free will. Signing up for a Special 
  Instructor course invariably means appearing before an 
  Audit Committee and a full background check, as well as 
  taking on more loyalty geases and restrictions. 
  Unlike normal training courses, Special Instructor courses 
  cost Sanity instead of budget points. They can also alter 
  Characteristics, give special powers and generally carry 
  much more spiritual weight.
  Course
  Sanity Cost
  Requirements
  Benefits
  Gawr Madoc Oath
  1D10
  Sorcery 50%, Status 75%, Aspire, Ethics of 
  Arcana
  Cthulhu Mythos, Status, +3 CON & 
  +3 POW while within United Kingdom 
  Great Rite of Dagon
  2D6
  Cthulhu Mythos 10%, Sorcery 50%, Status 50%, 
  Swim 25%, NHE Liaison & Diplomacy
  Cthulhu Mythos, Sorcery, Status, Swim, 
  BLUE HADES link
  Advanced Binding Protocols 
  2D6
  Command 40%, Cthulhu Mythos 25%, Science 
  (mathematics) 25%, Sorcery 50%, Status 50%, 
  POW 15, Geas & Ward Management
  Command, Cthulhu Mythos, Sorcery, 
  Authority of  Y’ghonzzh N’hai, Binding 
  Mastery, Geas Mastery
  Descent of the Steps of Deeper 
  Slumber
  1D6
  Dreaming 25%, Insight 50%, Sorcery 50%, 
  POW 15
  Cthulhu Mythos, Dreaming, Dream 
  Mastery
  Blessing of Tawil-at’Umr
  2D6
  Cthulhu Mythos 10%, Science (Mathematics) 
  50%, Sorcery 75%, Introduction to Gate Travel
  Cthulhu Mythos, Sorcery, Sorcery 
  Mastery
  Treaty of Pnath
  1D8
  Cthulhu Mythos 10%, Status 50%, CON 15
  Cthulhu Mythos, Extend Life, Ghoul 
  Link
  Strategic Binding
  1D10
  Eschatological Countermeasures, OCCULUS 
  Operations Management
  Command, Cthulhu Mythos, Terrible 
  Majesty
  Advanced Binding Protocols: Referred to, obscurely, 
  as ‘the keys to the kingdom,’ knowledge of the Advanced 
  Binding Protocols permits the recipient to speak on behalf 
  of the Laundry in high-level negotiations with alien powers. 
  The course is taught in the Laundry itself, behind closed 
  doors in Mahogany Row. There are three unique magical 
  benefits that pertain to this office:
  • Authority of  Y’ghonzzh N’hai: This authority gives 
  spiritual authority to the character for the purposes of 
  certain treaties and bargains made by the Laundry.
  • Binding Mastery: The character can invoke a level 3 
  protective pentacle around himself or around another 
  creature at will. This pentacle lasts as long as the 
  character concentrates.
  • Geas Mastery: The character has the authority to cast 
  or dispel binding, truth or silence geases of up to level 
  3 at will, simply by speaking.
  Blessing of  Tawil-at’Umr: An obscure and rarely-invoked 
  blessing. This course is highly secret, and the instructors are 
  never named, although it is rumoured that they are past and 
  future incarnations of the candidate. The Blessing reveals 
  the ultimate secrets of the universe, but the candidate 
  retains only a fraction of this knowledge afterwards.
  • Sorcery Mastery: The character may take up to 5 points 
  of temporary POW damage to increase his INT by an 
  equal amount when casting a spell.
  Descent of  the Steps of  Deeper Slumber: An initiation 
  into the Dreamlands. Using conventional oneiromantic 
  engines, the initiate travels to Mount Ngranek and looks 
  upon Kadath in the Cold Waste, and there meets certain 
  strange beings who acknowledge him as one of their own. 
  The course is taught by a ‘consultant,’ a turbaned swami 
  who speaks with a distinct Boston twang.
  • Dream Mastery: Characters may enter the Dreamlands 
  freely, without needing magic, drugs or good fortune. 
  They may even enter the Dreamlands while awake.
  Gawr Madoc Oath: This oath is taken in the dead of night 
  on Harrow Hill, and witnessed by the Lord Privy Seal as 
  well as a Star Chamber from the Black Assizes. It binds 
  the candidate to eternal service of the Laundry and to the 
  Crown. After this, there is no turning back, no way out, 
  nothing but duty. It bolsters the candidate’s strength and 
  fortitude as long as he is close to the seat of power. 
  Great Rite of  Dagon: The Great Rite is held in an 
  underwater city of BLUE HADES; the participants attend 
  using diving equipment or magic. 
  75
  TrAInIng COurSeS
  5 - TRAINING COURSES
  
  THe LAundry
  This is – officially – a modified version of the traditional 
  rite that does not include human sacrifice, but those who 
  have undergone the Rite never speak of what they saw on 
  the ocean floor. Part of the Rite involves a mediated psychic 
  contact between the participants and an ageless entity that 
  sleeps somewhere deep under the Pacific. As a side benefit, 
  those who survive the Rite have a permanent link to BLUE 
  HADES. This link allows them to call up BLUE HADES 
  from the ocean depths and use certain artefacts and spells 
  that are normally unavailable to humans.
  Strategic Binding: The Strategic Bindings restrain a 
  number of extremely powerful entities that are currently 
  under the Laundry’s aegis. While these entities cannot be 
  controlled, they can be constrained and channelled. The 
  Strategic Binding course gives the character the codes to 
  these binding spells; in effect, these are the launch codes to 
  the occult equivalent of nuclear-tipped ICBMs. As a side 
  effect, the character gains:
  • Terrible Majesty: Take one point of temporary POW 
  damage to gain +10% Command.
  Treaty of  Pnath: This course is held in a labyrinth of 
  catacombs in Egypt by certain elder ghouls, and binds the 
  candidate to eternal friendship with the ghouls. 
  • Extend Life: The character’s natural lifespan is 
  increased by 2D20 years.
  • Ghoul Link: The character can sense and recognise 
  ghouls from a distance, and call them up from the dark 
  places under the earth.
  Just as Angleton encouraged Bob Howard to keep 
  a memoir of his service to the Laundry, player 
  character agents of suitable rank are also 
  expected to do so. Journals or memoirs can’t be 
  simply dictated into a recorder, or assembled 
  on a computer. Instead, these autobiographies 
  must be prepared under the auspices of Security 
  Management. The manuscripts must be prepared 
  in longhand or typed up with a specific 1962 
  Triumph Adler 66 manual typewriter, with the 
  carbon papers and typewriter ribbons burnt in 
  the Security Office. Staples and paperclips are 
  not allowed, nor is, heaven forbid, a hole-
  punch or binder. The resulting manuscript is 
  assembled, bound with string, marked with a 
  seal made with red wax, and delivered into 
  the care of Security Management for possible 
  review and eventual filing. 
  This activity can be handled by the GM and 
  Player Characters as a matter of fact, assumed 
  to occur between sessions, and otherwise have 
  no effect on game play. Industrious players, 
  however, may choose to actually write up 
  their mission notes in the form of memoirs and 
  submit them to the GM when they are complete. 
  Many players enjoy writing up session notes, 
  player diaries, collections of quotes, etc. 
  and the conceit of an agent memoir provides an 
  appropriate means of expressing this. 
  Firstly, in the real world, the player must 
  create a memoir in a reasonable amount of 
  time and provide it to the GM. The GM may ask 
  that this document be emailed or otherwise 
  circulated to the other players, if the player 
  agrees. For any suitable memoir (or facsimile 
  thereof) that has met the above requirements, 
  the GM should allow the player to pick one of 
  the following in-game benefits: 
  An automatic improvement of +1D6% to one skill 
  used successfully in the play session described 
  in 
  the 
  memoir, 
  representing 
  time 
  spent 
  considering the skill and its application. 
  This benefit can only be used for a skill that 
  had a failed improvement roll and cannot be 
  added to a skill that already successfully 
  improved during that particular mission. 
  An improvement to Sanity (SAN) in the amount 
  of +1D6 points to the current total. This 
  value will not increase the agent’s current 
  SAN beyond the maximum allowed SAN, and 
  this increase will not heal any existing 
  psychoses, insanities, or other debilitating 
  psychological conditions resulting from prior 
  SAN loss.  
  If these benefits become excessive, or the 
  quality of the memoir is not adequate for such 
  a benefit, the GM is encouraged to discontinue 
  this reward.
  Agent Memoirs 
  ‘Then he pointed me at the rule book that explained how all officers above OC2 rank are 
  required to either keep a classified journal or to periodically update their memoirs, which 
  would be kept under lock and key – automatically classified under the various keywords they’d 
  been cleared for during the time period covered – the books to be opened only in event of 
  their author’s death, retirement, or permanent disablement in the line of duty.’
  – The Fuller Memorandum
  76
  
  This section provides a large variety of off-the-shelf 
  character templates ready for use. While Chapter Four of 
  The Laundry core rulebook presents a straightforward 
  character generation system, players and GMs alike can 
  benefit from these easily-customisable characters, moments 
  away from being ready for play. These six character 
  templates are similar to the six presented on pages 191-196 
  of the core rulebook. Each is based around an easy-to-grasp 
  core concept suitable for adventures in the world of the 
  Laundry, with room for player involvement in generating 
  characteristics and personal skills. 
  Creating a character in this fashion will not yield as custom 
  a character as the method provided in The Laundry core 
  rulebook, but it does allow for some personalisation in very 
  little time. 
  Professional skill point expenditures – potentially the most 
  time-consuming part of the character generation process – 
  has been done beforehand, allowing for core competency 
  in all relevant professional skills, ensuring that the character 
  is as prepared for Laundry assignments inasmuch as any 
  prior training can prepare one for the joint horrors of 
  government bureaucracy and Elder, eldritch horrors. 
  • To customise one of these template characters for use 
  as a player character, get a clean character sheet. The 
  following steps are recommended: 
  • Pick a template that appeals to you from the following 
  pages and copy all completed values onto the character 
  sheet, including starting equipment. 
  • Choose a name, gender, etc. and write them on the 
  character sheet. 
  • Roll for the remaining characteristics. Write the 
  characteristics 
  on 
  the 
  character 
  sheet. 
  Some 
  characteristics have already been provided and should 
  be used as presented. 
  • Your character’s EDU has already been determined, 
  and their professional skill points spent accordingly on 
  skills relating to their profession. 
  • Pick an age. Your character must be at least 19 and 
  cannot be older than 79 years of age. At ages 40, 50, 
  60, etc., add +1 EDU and +20 additional professional 
  skill points per decade. At ages 50, 60, and 70, subtract 
  1 point from either STR, CON, DEX, or CHA, 
  cumulative. 
  • Determine Sanity Points, Hit Points, Damage Bonus, 
  Major Wound Level, and experience bonus as described 
  in The Laundry core rulebook on pages 13-14. 
  • Derive starting values for the Dodge ([DEX x 2]%) 
  and Language (Own) ([INT x 5]%) skills. 
  • Spend personal skill points (INT x 10) as desired 
  and write these values on the character sheet. Your 
  character’s Personality Type and associated skill 
  modifiers have already been applied. Skill points for 
  Laundry assignment and training have already been 
  applied. If a skill is not listed here, no points have been 
  added to or spent on it. 
  Once these steps are complete, your new character should 
  be ready for her first assignment. 
  Character Templates
  CHArACTer TeMpLATeS
  77
  6 - CHARACTER
  TEMPLATES
  
  THe LAundry
  C o n s p i r a C y  T h e o r i s T 
  ‘“A big bomber with four engines and afterburners is a much 
  flimsier cover, and the plane spotters and conspiracy theorists 
  keep the Plumbers busy, but we cannot neglect the watch on the 
  dead plateau.”’
  – The Fuller Memorandum 
  Age ___, Monitoring Office
   
  You were an active part of an unofficial community of online 
  journalists, researching and blogging about the vast web of 
  conspiracy that the British government was elbows-deep in. 
  You knew about everything – black helicopters, men in black, the New World Order, chemtrails, 
  Reptilians, plane spotting, MAJESTIC-12, phantom timelines, Atlanteans, 9/11, the Hollow Earth, 
  Delta Green, peak oil, Princess Diana, global warning – and you knew how it was all connected. 
  One day, some serious spooks from a group you’d never heard of showed up at your door. They 
  caught you as you were climbing out your bathroom window, and dragged you back into your living 
  room. “The Laundry” knew everything about you, they claimed. They swore you to Section Three 
  of the Official Secrets Act and then they told you some things about themselves. You learned 
  at that moment that in everything you feared in your deepest and most paranoid imaginings was 
  a rosy, Pollyanna view of the real world. 
  You had to shut down your blogs, and you can’t really post about anything you’ve learned, 
  so what else could you do but join the Laundry? Now you actually fight the horrors that lurk 
  beyond, rather than just writing about them from the safety of your apartment. There are 
  perks, though. In the Archives, you’ve got access to one of the greatest archives of secret, 
  clandestine information ever assembled. And the pay isn’t bad, either. 
  STR 3D6 
    CON 3D6 
  SIZ 2D6+6 
  INT 2D6+6
  POW 3D6 
    DEX 3D6 
  CHA 3D6  
  EDU 14
  SAN: POW x 5
  HP: [CON + SIZ]/2, rounded up
  Damage Bonus: See page 17 of the core rulebook 
  Major Wound Level: [HP]/2, rounded up
  Experience Bonus: [INT]/2, rounded up 
  Move: 10
  Skills: Bargain 25%, Bureaucracy 40%, Computer Use (Hacking) 70%, Disguise 25%, Fast Talk 
  45%, Fine Manipulation 10%, Firearm (Esoteric) 05%, Gaming 30%, Hide 30%, Insight 45%, 
  Knowledge (Accounting) 15%, Knowledge (Espionage) 15%, Knowledge (History) 75%, Knowledge 
  (Law) 10%, Knowledge (Occult) 20%, Knowledge (Politics) 50%, Language (English) (INT x 5)% 
  + 20%, Listen 65%, Persuade 50%, Research 65%, Sense 30%, Sleight of Hand 25%, Spot 50%, 
  Stealth 35%. 
  Starting Equipment: Warrant Card (page 98 of the core rulebook), Personal Ward (Level Two, 
  page 145 of the core rulebook), secure smartphone, palmtop personal computer with OFCUT 
  package (page 19 of the core rulebook). 
  78
  
  C a r e e r M i l i T a r y  o f f i C e r  
  ‘A weird breed, not uncommon in the British public schools, 
  who recycle their own graduate cannon fodder to train the next 
  generation in an ethos of military service.’ 
  – The Atrocity Archives
  Age ___, OCCULUS 
   
  It was inevitable that you became a soldier serving in Her 
  Majesty’s armed forces. With a family history that has seen 
  service in every major British military endeavour from the last 
  hundred and fifty years, you couldn’t escape the force of destiny.
   When you signed up for the military, you imagined that you might see service in the Middle East, 
  maybe Africa, or even as part of some peacekeeping force in one of the former Soviet nations. 
  Things didn’t work out that way. 
  You did well on your qualifications for officer, and rose steadily within the ranks. Some aspect 
  or combination of factors from your personality profile attracted the attention of a statistician 
  at the Security Service, and you were assigned to counterterrorism activities, specifically 
  working for the Territorial SAS. 
  Then one day, what seemed a routine crackdown on a potential terrorist cell in Camden revealed 
  they were up to far more than manufacturing a bomb. You saw things that day... terrible things. 
  While most of the survivors spend their time writing home with crayons and aren’t allowed sharp 
  objects, you came out fine. A few weeks later, you found yourself assigned to OCCULUS, assisting 
  the Laundry when they can’t handle things on their own.
  STR 3D6 
    CON 3D6 
  SIZ 2D6+6 
  INT 2D6+6
  POW 3D6 
    DEX 3D6 
  CHA 3D6  
  EDU 13
  SAN: POW x 5
  HP: [CON + SIZ]/2, rounded up
  Damage Bonus: See page 17 of the core rulebook 
  Major Wound Level: [HP]/2, rounded up
  Experience Bonus: [INT]/2, rounded up 
  Move: 10
  Skills: Appraise 35%, Bargain 25%, Brawl 70%, Bureaucracy 10%, Command 45%, Computer Use 
  (Maintenance) 10%, Drive (Automobile) 60%, Etiquette 25%, Fast Talk 25%, Fine Manipulation 
  10%, Firearm (Assault Rifle) 55%, Firearm (Pistol) 75%, Firearm (Rifle) 50%, Insight 25%, 
  Knowledge (Accounting) 15%, Knowledge (Espionage) 05%, Knowledge (Law) 30%, Knowledge 
  (Occult) 10%, Knowledge (Politics) 10%, Language (English) (INT x 5)% +20%, Language 
  (German) 20%, Listen 35%, Navigate 30%, Perform 25%, Persuade 35%, Sense 40%, Spot 40%, 
  Strategy 30%, Teach 20%, Throw 45%. 
  Starting Equipment: Warrant Card (page 98 of the core rulebook), Personal Ward (Level Two, 
  page 145 of the core rulebook), secure smartphone, sport utility vehicle, Glock 17 (page 102 
  of the core rulebook). 
  CHArACTer TeMpLATeS
  79
  6 - CHARACTER
  TEMPLATES
  
  THe LAundry
  (i n v o l u n T a r i ly) C o n s C r i p T e d  C i v i l  s e r v a n T 
  ‘…a generous portion of the Laundry’s payroll is devoted to buying 
  the silence of incompetent lambs, manufacturing work for people 
  who need something to fill the time between the first, accidental 
  exposure and final retirement.’ 
  – The Atrocity Archives 
  Age ___, Legal Affairs 
   
  Your parents were proud of your achievement: a secure government 
  job in middle management. You walked the high-wire perfectly, 
  nestled deep enough within the bureaucracy to avoid redundancy 
  through budget cutbacks, but not so highly placed that you were 
  expected to do much. 
  It was near the end of the year, and you were burning off the remainder of your training budget 
  allocations. You sent yourself to an innocuous-sounding Team Building and Management campout in 
  the Cotswolds, when your group ran into trouble... cultists in need of human sacrifices!
  You should have been dead, but help was there in the form of agents of the Laundry, kicking in 
  the door with smartphones wreathed in eldritch fire, their pistols cracking staccato. When the 
  dust was settled and the brains scrubbed from the walls, you signed the secret third article of 
  the Official Secrets Act and became a member of Capital Laundry Services.
  Once exposed to the organisation from within, you saw how sloppily things are run, and dedicated 
  yourself to bringing the standards of Total Quality Control and ISO9001 compliance to the 
  Laundry. If your fellow agents have a problem with this level of oversight, you have a form (in 
  triplicate) for that!  
  STR 3D6 
    CON 3D6 
  SIZ 2D6+6 
  INT 2D6+6
  POW 3D6 
    DEX 3D6 
  CHA 3D6  
  EDU 15
  SAN: POW x 5
  HP: [CON + SIZ]/2, rounded up
  Damage Bonus: See page 17 of the core rulebook 
  Major Wound Level: [HP]/2, rounded up
  Experience Bonus: [INT]/2, rounded up 
  Move: 10
  Skills: Appraise 35%, Bargain 65%, Brawl 25%, Bureaucracy 50%, Climb 40%, Computer Use 
  (Programming) 50%, Disguise 25%, Dodge (DEX x 2)% +20%, Etiquette 35%, Fine Manipulation 10%, 
  Firearm (Pistol) 25%, Insight 25%, Knowledge (Accounting) 75%, Knowledge (Espionage) 05%, 
  Knowledge (History) 30%, Knowledge (Law) 50%, Knowledge (Occult) 30%, Knowledge (Politics) 
  60%, Listen 45%, Persuade 45%, Research 75%, Sense 30%, Spot 50%, Status 25%, Stealth 30%, 
  Technology Use (Communications) 25%.  
  Starting Equipment: Warrant Card (page 98 of the core rulebook), Personal Ward (Level Two, 
  page 145 of the core rulebook), secure smartphone, laptop computer with full suite of 
  accounting software and OFCUT package (page 19 of the core rulebook). 
  80
  
  d i s i l l u s i o n e d  p r i e s T 
  ‘Being predisposed to religion has its uses, but it’s a real 
  Achilles’ heel if your civilisation is under threat by vastly 
  powerful alien horrors.’ 
  – The Fuller Memorandum 
  Age ___, Translation and Analysis 
   
  The call to the priesthood was undeniable, though you served 
  in a theologian capacity rather than pastoral. With a doctorate 
  in theology, you devoted yourself to the study of the great 
  mysteries. 
  This meant poring over the works of medieval metaphysicians such as Abelard, Aquinas, and 
  Roscellinus, devoting yourself to answering questions that had gripped theologians for millennia. 
  In the course of your study, you became more than familiar with aspects of alchemy, Hermeticism, 
  Gnosticism, and related fields. 
  As something of an expert in these subjects, you were asked by a fellow academic for assistance 
  translating something unusual: an ancient and near-rotten philosophical treatise from an 
  obscure and heretical German thinker named Von Juntz. You made inquiries through the usual 
  channels, pooh-poohing your friend’s request for absolute secrecy, and somehow you triggered 
  the attention of the Laundry. 
  All the while, you continued to study that damnable book. The revelations it conferred upon 
  you were terrible to learn, inflicting ghastly insights that tore your world-view apart. When 
  Capital Laundry Services caught up with you, you were on the edge of utter existential despair, 
  ripe for recruiting. You’re still wrestling with the loss of your faith, but you’ve gone from 
  believing the end is nigh, to knowing it. 
  STR 3D6 
    CON 3D6 
  SIZ 2D6+6 
  INT 2D6+6
  POW 3D6 
    DEX 3D6 
  CHA 3D6  
  EDU 18
  SAN: POW x 5
  HP: [CON + SIZ]/2, rounded up
  Damage Bonus: See page 17 of the core rulebook 
  Major Wound Level: [HP]/2, rounded up
  Experience Bonus: [INT]/2, rounded up 
  Move: 10
  Skills: Appraise 45%, Bargain 25%, Brawl 45%, Bureaucracy 10%, Computer Use (Maintenance) 
  10%, Disguise 25%, Etiquette 55%, Fine Manipulation 20%, Firearm (Esoteric) 05%, Insight 45%, 
  Knowledge (Accounting) 15%, Knowledge (Espionage) 05%, Knowledge (History) 70%, Knowledge (Law) 
  10%, Knowledge (Occult) 40%, Knowledge (Politics) 10%, Knowledge (Religion) 70%, Language 
  (Greek) 30%, Language (Latin) 50%, Listen 65%, Perform 25%, Persuade 45%, Research 75%, 
  Sense 30%, Sorcery 10%, Spot 50%, Stealth 30%, Teach 30%, Technology Use (Electronics) 25%. 
  Starting Equipment: Warrant Card (page 98 of the core rulebook), Personal Ward (Level Two, 
  page 145 of the core rulebook), secure smartphone, secure ebook reader, occult reference 
  materials, handheld optical scanner, laptop with translation software and OFCUT package 
  (page 19 of the core rulebook). 
  CHArACTer TeMpLATeS
  81
  6 - CHARACTER
  TEMPLATES
  
  THe LAundry
  f o r M e r p o l i C e i n s p e C T o r   
  ‘The Laundry has a haphazard and inefficient approach to recruiting 
  personnel, and has to make do with whatever it can get; consequently 
  it should come as no surprise to learn that the quality of 
  management we get is famously random, governed only by the tiny 
  shred of civil service protocol that sticks to the organisation, 
  and Human Resources’ spasmodic attempts to cover up the more 
  egregious outrages.’
  – The Fuller Memorandum 
  Age ___, Operational Oversight   
   
  It’s hard to remember the combination of reasons that made you become a police officer, 
  but you’re sure it wasn’t the maze of bureaucracy, reams of paperwork, paranoid citizens 
  glimpsing terrorists in every corner, yearly budget cuts looming like a guillotine, and 
  interminable sensitivity training seminars. Instead of helping citizens in need, you found 
  yourself ineffectual, handicapped by regulations and constrained by procedure, treated like an 
  enemy by the people you swore to protect. After a few years of it, you were ready to give your 
  notice and find another line of work. 
  Then came that fateful night when you were called to investigate yet another call where some 
  pensioner suspected the inhabitants of his neighbouring flat of being terrorists. Strange smells, 
  shady people coming by at strange hours, odd packages in the mail, and unexplained noises at all 
  hours. The reasons were thin, but you had to at least stop by and see. Your knock at the door was 
  answered by gunfire, and you responded in kind. When you got into the flat, you discovered they 
  were building something far worse than a bomb… a summoning grid to invoke something terrible 
  from beyond this world. Two government spooks showed up, a clean-up crew if there ever was one, 
  and when they tried to shush you, you pushed back, and in a matter of moments you found that 
  you’d inadvertently talked yourself into a job with the Capital Laundry Services. 
  STR 3D6 
    CON 3D6 
  SIZ 2D6+6 
  INT 2D6+6
  POW 3D6 
    DEX 3D6 
  CHA 3D6  
  EDU 14
  SAN: POW x 5
  HP: [CON + SIZ]/2, rounded up
  Damage Bonus: See page 17 of the core rulebook 
  Major Wound Level: [HP]/2, rounded up
  Experience Bonus: [INT]/2, rounded up 
  Move: 10
  Skills: Appraise 35%, Brawl 45%, Bureaucracy 10%, Computer Use (Maintenance) 10%, Craft 
  (Cooking) 25%, Disguise 25%, Dodge (DEX x 2)% +20%, Drive (Automobile) 50%, Fast Talk 45%, 
  Fine Manipulation 30%, Firearm (Pistol) 45%, First Aid 50%, Knowledge (Accounting) 15%, 
  Knowledge (Espionage) 05%, Knowledge (Law) 70%, Knowledge (Occult) 10%, Knowledge (Politics) 
  10%, Knowledge (Streetwise) 55%, Listen 55%, Navigate 30%, Persuade 45%, Pilot (Fishing 
  Boat) 20%, Ride 25%, Sleight of Hand 25%, Spot 60%, Stealth 60%. 
  Starting Equipment: Warrant Card (page 98 of the core rulebook), Personal Ward (Level Two, 
  page 145 of the core rulebook), secure Blackberry with Bluetooth headset, handcuffs, police 
  badge and identification, Glock 17 (page 102 of the core rulebook), concealed ballistic vest 
  (page 99 of the core rulebook), extensible baton (a truncheon, as described on page 271 of 
  the core rulebook), mid-sized saloon car. 
  82
  
  (s l i g h T ly M a d ) i n v e n T o r 
  ‘Since the 1950s, Q Division has kept the Laundry in more 
  esoteric equipment: summoning grids, basilisk guns, Turing 
  oracles, self-tuning pentacles, self-filling beer glasses, and 
  the like.’ 
  – The Concrete Jungle
  Age ___, Q Division  
   
  As a child, your intelligence was obvious when you’d take apart 
  and rebuild your toys in ways the manufacturers never dreamt. 
  Your skills improved (much to your parents’ dismay) when you began monkeying with household 
  appliances, small engines, and home electronics, modifying them, augmenting them, overriding 
  safety features... the works. You grew up interested in tech and all things mechanical. 
  More than Connery, Moore, Dalton, or Brosnan, Desmond Llwellyn was the one you cheered for 
  whenever you watched James Bond films. You never imagined that Q was a real organisation and 
  not just an invention of Ian Fleming. You followed Q’s example, and eventually your technical 
  expertise earned you a job in cutting-edge technology development, a lab coat-wearing mad 
  scientist! 
  Under the corporate aegis, you worked on some pretty amazing technology, but occasionally to 
  technical specs you began to suspect were dictated by madmen. You asked questions... too many 
  questions, learning that the things you worked on were going to some secret division of DERA. 
  You dug further, and found yourself a government employee, working with the real-life honest-
  to-Cthulhu Q Division, making outlandish toys for the Laundry. 
  STR 3D6 
    CON 3D6 
  SIZ 2D6+6 
  INT 2D6+6
  POW 3D6 
    DEX 3D6 
  CHA 3D6  
  EDU 16
  SAN: POW x 5
  HP: [CON + SIZ]/2, rounded up
  Damage Bonus: See page 17 of the core rulebook 
  Major Wound Level: [HP]/2, rounded up
  Experience Bonus: [INT]/2, rounded up 
  Move: 10
  Skills: Appraise 35%, Bureaucracy 30%, Computer Use (Magic) 40%, Computer Use (Programming) 
  60%, Craft (Metalwork) 35%, Disguise 25%, Dodge (DEX x 2)% +20%, Fine Manipulation 35%, Firearm 
  (Esoteric) 35%, First Aid 50%, Knowledge (Accounting) 15%, Knowledge (Espionage) 45%, Knowledge 
  (Law) 10%, Knowledge (Occult) 50%, Knowledge (Politics) 10%, Language (Perl) 30%, Navigate 
  30%, Pilot (Helicopter) 20%, Repair (Electrical) 55%, Repair (Electronic) 55%, Research 35%, 
  Ride 25%, Science (Mathematics) 30%, Science (Thaumaturgy) 20%, Sleight of Hand 25%, Spot 30%, 
  Stealth 30%, Technology Use (Electronics) 55%.  
  Starting Equipment: Warrant Card (page 98 of the core rulebook), Personal Ward (Level Two, 
  page 145 of the core rulebook), Necronomiphone (page 96 of the core rulebook), thaumometer 
  (page 97 of the core rulebook), laptop with OFCUT software package (page 19 of the core 
  rulebook), portable electronic toolkit. 
  CHArACTer TeMpLATeS
  83
  6 - CHARACTER
  TEMPLATES
  
  THe LAundry
  Other Professions 
  Though the core rulebook presents a variety of suitable 
  professions that might field agents of Capital Laundry 
  Services, circumstances can force less suitable civilians into 
  service. The following professions represent individuals 
  who, despite previous career trajectory (and a potential lack 
  of any appropriate skills) now serve as Laundry agents. 
  The GM may allow you to pick from this list of ten new 
  professions in addition to those presented on pages 22-27 
  of the core rulebook.
  List of  New Professions:
  Assassin  
  Athlete  
  Bureaucrat
  Craftsman 
  Criminal  
  Entertainer
  Merchant 
  Politician  
  Priest 
  Writer 
  Assassin
  Though most governments would disavow having any 
  outright assassins on the payroll, your skill set marks you as 
  exactly that. You specialise in the unfortunately necessary 
  aspect of covert operations known as “wet-work,” ending 
  lives to effect political goals. It isn’t a field you would have 
  likely imagined yourself in when you were in school, and it’s 
  not really anything you could have worked to achieve. You 
  were likely recruited while serving in conventional military, 
  perhaps after displaying aptitude for the tasks the job calls 
  for. After a lengthy stint of indoctrination and training, you 
  were put to work as the darkest sort of spy, killing enemies 
  of the state in as non-traceable a fashion as possible. 
  Eventually, you found yourself in the Laundry, as a 
  sometimes member of the Cleaners, in the Department of 
  Field Support. Alternately, you might just be attached to the 
  Laundry in a consultancy role, that scary sort of spy who 
  sits quietly in briefings… then stays after the briefing to 
  receive additional, secret orders. 
  Skills: Brawl or Grapple, Demolition, Dodge, Drive, 
  Firearm (any), Hide, Listen, Spot, Stealth, and any one other 
  weapon skill as a personal specialty.
  Wealth Level: Average
  Athlete
  An unconventional profession to find one’s way into service 
  of God, Queen, and Country, you nonetheless are now a 
  member of the Capital Laundry Services and are trying to 
  make the best of it. As a child, you were gifted in a particular 
  field of athletics and found yourself lucky enough to be 
  encouraged to pursue it. Higher education, for you, meant 
  additional means of training, and you found yourself 
  devoted to your sport, whether it be football, tennis, track 
  and field, etc. You may have even been a contender for the 
  Olympic Games, representing your country internationally. 
  Perhaps you were on your way to a career in professional 
  sports, with lucrative contracts, product endorsements, and 
  the accompanying fame. In that famously simple and yet 
  momentous turn of phrase, “something happened,” and 
  you were thrust face-to-face with horrible, unexplainable 
  circumstances from beyond this world. The Laundry was 
  there, and to buy your silence you were offered a paycheck 
  and a pension. The choice then became to spend your 
  days at a desk reading a newspaper, or to serve your time 
  in the field, adrenaline pumping as you faced unimaginable 
  horrors from beyond reality. The decision was easy… but 
  now you wonder if you made the right choice. 
  Skills: Athletics (any), Climb, First Aid, Jump, Throw, and 
  any five of the following as personal specialties: Brawl, 
  Dodge, Grapple, Melee Weapon (Sword), Missile Weapon 
  (Archery or Javelin), Ride, Swim. 
  Wealth Level: Average 
  Bureaucrat 
  Capital Laundry Services, like any government agency, is 
  overstaffed with middle-to-upper-level management, well-
  paid civil servants in business suits who make things happen 
  at an administrative level. You are one of these besuited 
  individuals, the bane of Bob Howard’s existence. You came 
  into the Laundry through a sideways path: no accidental 
  exposure to tentacular horror for you! Instead, you were one 
  of Britain’s many devoted civil servants, finding satisfaction 
  in the management and operation of the most complex of 
  living organisms on the planet: a bureaucracy. 
  You were likely ensconced within another major government 
  agency such as QinetiQ, but when an opportunity for career 
  advancement arose within the sprawling, messy management 
  structure of Capital Laundry Services, you took it. Now 
  you find yourself dealing with an organisation in a state of 
  utter disrepair, and it is your job to enforce order through 
  tools such as ISO9001-certification compliance standards, 
  software reviews, and even paperclip audits. You have no 
  real interest in what the Laundry actually does: instead, your 
  focus is on how well it does it. 
  Skills: Bargain, Bureaucracy, Command, Etiquette, Fast 
  Talk, Insight, Persuade, Status, and two Knowledge or 
  Language skills as personal specialties. 
  Wealth Level: Affluent 
  84
  
  Craftsman 
  You imagined your life would be spent sedately and in 
  moderate comfort. Throughout school, and perhaps even 
  as a hobby, you avidly pursued one craft, whether repairing 
  antique violins, restoring old books, working on vintage 
  World War II planes as a museum curator, or even dealing 
  with the creation and maintenance of esoteric electronic 
  equipment. There was no reason to ever think you’d ever 
  do anything other than ply your trade to an ever-so-distant 
  retirement. There were these clients, see… unusual ones. 
  You probably should have said ‘no,’ but the money was 
  too good and the subject was too interesting. Perhaps it 
  was an evaluation on a musical instrument terrible in its 
  construction, or you were asked to run tests to determine 
  the nature of a mysterious artefact from your field… 
  something that should not exist. At any rate, the situation 
  escalated, you saw things you were not meant to. Terrible 
  things. You were hustled into the back of a black van, with 
  the next stop a briefing room where an agent of Capital 
  Laundry Services laid out the new parameters of your life: 
  a different name and a job consulting for the Laundry on 
  matters relating to your specialty. It seemed like the ultimate 
  desk job, but more often than you’d like you find yourself in 
  the field, and in the line of fire. 
  Skills: Appraise, Art (any), Bargain, Craft (any), Fine 
  Manipulation, Repair (any), Research, Spot, Status, and an 
  appropriate Knowledge skill as a personal specialty. 
  Wealth Level: Average 
  Criminal 
  Sometime in your past, you went from being a law-abiding 
  citizen to the life of a professional criminal, flouting the 
  police and avoiding arrest. You may have been a criminal 
  since childhood, with a history of incidents, a youth 
  spent dealing with the juvenile correctional system and an 
  adulthood filled with brushes with the law. Or your lawless 
  ways may have arrived late in your life: perhaps a single, 
  damning incident was all it took to mark your record forever 
  and put the police onto you. In your wheeling and dealing 
  with the criminal fringe elements, you ran across some of 
  the Wrong People, shady characters up to something bad, 
  something so terrible that you were willing to make a deal 
  with the strange government agents who came sniffing 
  around. You didn’t know who they were, but they needed 
  your help, and you cut a deal. In return for amnesty for 
  your criminal activities, you assisted agents of the Capital 
  Laundry Services in the line of duty. Now you work 
  with them, giving them an invaluable “in” to the criminal 
  underground you’re still familiar with. 
  Special: With the Game Master’s permission, a criminal 
  character can be assumed to work outside the Laundry’s 
  office environment as more a part-time consultant than a 
  full-time agent. Keeping an asset “embedded” in the black 
  market can potentially be more useful to Capital Laundry 
  Services than bringing the individual in question into the 
  Laundry’s organisation. Such a character must agree to abide 
  by the law, however, and uphold the same level of secrecy as 
  traditional Laundry agents. The penalties for violating these 
  conditions are undoubtedly more severe than any internal 
  agent would incur. 
  Skills: Drive, Fast Talk, Hide, Knowledge (Streetwise), 
  Stealth, and any five of the following as personal specialties: 
  Appraise, Bargain, Brawl, Computer Use (any), Demolition, 
  Disguise, Dodge, Etiquette, Firearm (any), Gaming, 
  Grapple, Insight, Listen, Melee Weapon (any), Persuade, 
  Sleight of Hand, Spot. 
  Wealth Level: Average (If the Laundry has inducted 
  a criminal into its ranks, financial penalties reduce any 
  affluence to Average wealth.)
  Entertainer 
  Like many people you work with, you never would have 
  even imagined the existence of Capital Laundry Services, 
  much less that one day you’d be drawing a paycheck from 
  them. Your career path was much easier to chart before 
  you entered government service: you had an artistic 
  or performance-based talent and pursued the goal of 
  making that your living. It may have been acting in theatre, 
  television, or even film. You may have been a musician, 
  struggling or moderately successful. Alternately, you may 
  even have struggled to make ends meet, delivering kiss-
  o-grams or wearing a clown suit for children’s parties. It 
  doesn’t matter: all of that is behind you now. You stumbled 
  into something you clearly weren’t meant to: perhaps as an 
  intended sacrifice, or you may even have just turned the 
  wrong corner at the wrong moment. Now your career as an 
  entertainer is over, and you must forever shun the spotlight. 
  Hopefully no one from your past life will notice you while 
  you’re in the field. 
  Skills: Etiquette, Fast Talk, Insight, Language (any), 
  Listen, Perform, and any four of the following as personal 
  specialties: Art (any), Athletics, Disguise, Knowledge (any), 
  Sleight of Hand, Status. 
  Wealth Level: Average
  Merchant 
  You may have inherited a shop as part of a family business, or 
  you could have created a thriving commercial enterprise online 
  by yourself, from nothing. Either way, your business was simple: 
  people came to you looking for things they wanted; you found 
  those items at a good price; you sold those items at a profit. It 
  may be the type of merchandise you specialised in that put you 
  CHArACTer TeMpLATeS
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  TEMPLATES
  
  THe LAundry
  into trouble, or you might have had the wrong kind of clientele. 
  Was your trade unusual books of the unspeakable grimoire 
  variety, ethically questionable World War II memorabilia, high-
  end electronic equipment of a specialised nature, or worse? 
  Or did you sell classified information to terrorist organisations 
  looking to add metaterrene summoning to their arsenal, or 
  did you sell copies of ‘Armageddon 101’ to the members of 
  a doomsday cult? For whatever reason, you came across the 
  Laundry’s radar, and in return for amnesty from prosecution, 
  you agreed to take a paycheck and sell your services and your 
  silence. Who got the better end of that bargain? 
  Skills: Appraise, Bargain, Etiquette, Persuade, Research, 
  Status, and any four of the following as specialties: Art (any), 
  Computer Use (any), Craft (any), Fast Talk, Knowledge 
  (any), Language (any), Repair (any). 
  Wealth Level: Average (Was Affluent prior to joining the 
  Laundry, but now all assets have been seized.)
  Politician 
  Whether elected or appointed, you were a career politician. 
  You may have originally sought political office to help 
  people, in service of a particular cause, to earn a (lucrative) 
  living, as a corporate proxy, or because at a deep level 
  you enjoyed the power over others that your authority 
  conferred. While in office, you became aware of how 
  the world was really run: the back-office deals and secret 
  negotiations that were actually how government policy was 
  born. You moved among the power brokers, whether in 
  Whitehall or hopping from one quango to the next, and 
  made a decent living at it. While in office, you became aware 
  of the existence of something euphemistically titled Capital 
  Laundry Services, perhaps noticing some irregularity on the 
  GCHQ budget allocation, or as some vaguely described 
  section of a Ministry of Defense jurisdictional flowchart. 
  You asked questions, and maybe you even said some things 
  to the wrong people. The next thing you knew, you received 
  a special visit from some Deeply Scary People. You quickly 
  made a ‘no questions, please’ retirement announcement, 
  and reported for work at the Laundry. Now you’re learning 
  how the world you thought you understood is really run. 
  Skills: Bargain, Etiquette, Fast Talk, Insight, Knowledge 
  (Law), Knowledge (Politics), Perform (Oratory), Persuade, 
  Status, and one other Knowledge or Language skill as a 
  personal specialty. 
  Wealth Level: Affluent 
  Priest 
  Your life was spent in faithful service to the highest power. 
  Your days were marked by devotion, reverence, and 
  prayer, aiding a congregation or serving in a more esoteric 
  fashion. Then came the event that changed your life. You 
  encountered agents of Capital Laundry Services in an 
  unexpected fashion: as a consultant, rather than for your 
  faith. You agreed to help them, and in the process of doing 
  so, became privy to Things Man Was Not Meant to Even 
  Ask About. That exposure shattered your world-view, and 
  unfortunately, forced the Laundry to bring you into the fold. 
  Since then, the hardest thing to accept has been the horrible 
  realisation that the entire belief system you’d dedicated your 
  life to was utterly superfluous. Heaven, Hell… none of it 
  was real. Everything you had held to be sacred was utterly 
  meaningless in the light of the infinite tapestry of horror 
  that threatens humanity. Despite this shock, you have found 
  a new purpose in life, risking your sanity and self to save 
  the human race from utter extinction. Your studious nature 
  makes you invaluable when it comes to winnowing hidden 
  truths out of esoteric tomes or understanding the mindset 
  of the cults the Laundry fights against. 
  Skills: Etiquette, Insight, Knowledge (Religion), Language 
  (any), Listen, Perform (Oratory), Persuade, Research, Teach. 
  Wealth Level: Average 
  Writer 
  As Bob Howard said, “…there were those who came too 
  damned close to the truth: if  H. P. Lovecraft hadn’t died of  
  intestinal cancer in 1937, something would have had to have 
  been done about him, if  you’ll pardon my subjunctive.” Like 
  that famous pulp author, you fashioned tales of horrifying 
  alien vistas and barely-nameable entities lurking at the edge 
  of human comprehension. Though you felt compelled to 
  write stories about those subjects, you assumed they were 
  simply borne out of your own twisted imagination. You 
  may have felt inspired by Lovecraft’s work, but the reality 
  was that you were drawing from the same well, revealing the 
  same secret knowledge that he inadvertently wrote about. 
  Amidst some marginal success, you found yourself facing 
  rejection letter after rejection letter, but you kept at it. Then 
  one day, you were visited by agents of the Laundry, who 
  explained to you exactly how great a threat your fiction and 
  poetry was to national – even global – security. Now you 
  have a job at Capital Laundry Services, with the explicit 
  restriction that you do not write a word about the horrors 
  you encounter on the job. You’ve agreed to this condition, 
  but the temptation to write is so strong…
  Skills: Art (Writing), Computer Use (Art), Etiquette, 
  Insight, Language (own), Research, and any four of the 
  following skills as personal specialties: Art (any), Bargain, 
  Fast Talk, Knowledge (any), Language (any), Listen, Science 
  (any), Teach. 
  Wealth Level: Average
  86
  
  Past Experience 
  This section provides past experience for characters, with 
  skill packages and optional character generation systems 
  including age categories, specialised training, etc. This 
  expands the character generation system described on pages 
  16-22 of The Laundry core rulebook. 
  Unlike the previous section of this chapter, which provided 
  a shortcut to character generation, this section elaborates 
  on character generation, resulting in player characters that 
  have substantially detailed backgrounds, and in some cases, 
  greater competency (reflected in more skill points). This 
  system of character creation should only be used with the 
  GM’s approval, and ideally should be used by all players in 
  the group. 
  Using this character creation system, rather than determining 
  where a character currently is in their life, and what they’ve 
  learned in their profession thus far, the character’s life is 
  described in five-year blocks, improving appropriate skills 
  upon completion of each block in a profession.
  Steps One, Four, Five, Six, and Eight from the core 
  rulebook are unmodified. The only part of Step Two that 
  is changed is the determination of the EDU characteristic. 
  For modifications to Step Three and Step Seven, see 
  below. Follow the directions in these steps instead of 
  those in the core rulebook. When the revised Step Three is 
  complete, proceed with the following three steps per usual, 
  and replace Step Seven from the rulebook with the revised 
  one presented below. 
  Step Three (Revised) 
  Your character is assumed to be a recent graduate of 
  secondary school and the upper sixth form. (In the US or 
  Canada, this would be the completion of high school.) 
  • Age: Your character is 16, 17, or 18 years old: either 
  pick an age or roll 15+1D3. 
  • Education (EDU): Roll 1D6+6 to determine how 
  many years of worthwhile education your character 
  received through completion of secondary school. 
  EDU is not a straight one-to-one equivalent to years 
  spent in study: it’s more representative of how much 
  your character learned, abstracted as a characteristic 
  value. 
  • Characteristics: 
  Subtract 
  1 
  point 
  from 
  one 
  characteristic of your choice for every year your 
  character is below 19 (an 18-year-old subtracts one 
  characteristic point, a 17-year-old subtracts two, etc.). 
  Keep track of what you subtracted: your character will 
  regain these subtracted characteristic points at a rate of 
  one per year until your character is 19 years old. 
  When this step is complete, your character is ready for Step 
  Four: Characteristic Rolls and Base Skills as described 
  on page 17 of the core rulebook. 
  Step Seven (Revised) 
  At this point, you can choose to have your character enter 
  the Laundry as a (poorly) paid intern. It’s assumed that 
  some degree of nepotism was involved in your hiring, and 
  you are years away from any security clearance and unlikely 
  to ever qualify for field service. 
  • Skills: Multiply EDU x 20 and distribute those 
  professional skill points as per the Student profession. 
  If that doesn’t sound very appealing (and it shouldn’t), 
  you can select five-year blocks of additional professional 
  experience until your character has a suitable profession 
  from which to launch your glorious career as a Laundry 
  agent. The five-year period is an abstraction… it might be a 
  little more, or a little less, but for ease of use, a professional 
  sojourn is standardised into five-year blocks. 
  Choose a profession from the table below. Because 
  many careers require additional study and training, it is 
  an excellent idea to take “Student” as the first period of 
  previous experience, representing higher education in an 
  institution or focused study towards the equivalent of a 
  Bachelor’s degree. The skill point guidelines do not exactly 
  match those from standard character creation: this provides 
  additional freedom for character customisation. 
  Apply the modifiers to your character based on the Previous 
  Professional Experience chart, on the next two pages. 
  The Requirement field lists a previous profession that 
  must be taken before the profession can be picked. A few 
  professions require multiple periods of being a Student, 
  representing the equivalent of attaining a Master’s or 
  Doctorate degree, or an equivalent certification. Skill 
  Modifiers are added per period of professional experience. 
  The EDU value is added to your character’s EDU 
  characteristic per period of professional experience.
  CHArACTer TeMpLATeS
  87
  6 - CHARACTER
  TEMPLATES
  
  THe LAundry
  Profession
  Requirement
  Skill Modifiers
  EDU
  Antiquarian
  None
  Appraise +5, Art (any) +5, Bargain +5, Knowledge (History) +5, Research +5, and divide 25 points 
  among any of the following: Art (any), Craft (any), Fine Manipulation, Knowledge (any), Science 
  (any).
  +2
  Artist or Designer
  None
  Art (any) or Craft (any) +20, Insight +5, Spot +10, and divide 15 points among any of the following: 
  Knowledge (any), Language (any), Language (Own), Listen, Research.
  +1
  Assassin
  None
  Brawl or Grapple +5, Dodge +5, Firearm (any) +10, Hide +10, Stealth +10, and divide 10 points 
  among any of the following: Demolition, Drive, Listen, Spot, and any one other weapon skill as a 
  personal specialty.
  +1
  Athlete
  None
  Athletics (any) +20, First Aid +5, Jump +5, and divide 20 points among any of the following: Climb, 
  Brawl, Dodge, Grapple, Melee Weapon (Sword), Missile Weapon (Archery or Javelin), Ride, Swim, 
  Throw.
  +1
  Bureaucrat
  Student
  Bureaucracy +10, Command +5, Etiquette +5, Persuade +5, Status +5, and divide 20 points among 
  any of the following: Bargain, Fast Talk, Insight, Knowledge (any), Language (any). 
  +1
  Clerical Worker
  None
  Bureaucracy +5, Computer Use (any) +5, Knowledge (Accounting) +10, Research +5, and divide 
  25 points among any of the following: Bargain, Etiquette, Knowledge (any), Knowledge (Law), 
  Language (Own), Persuade.
  +1
  Computer Hacker 
  or Tech
  None
  Computer Use (any) +15, Language (a programming language) +5, Repair (Electrical) +5, Repair 
  (Electronics) +5, Technology Use (any) +5, and divide 15 points among any of the following: 
  Bureaucracy, Hide, Knowledge (any), Knowledge (Law), Research, Science (Mathematics). 
  +1
  Consultant
  Student
  Bureaucracy +5, Computer Use (any) +5, Insight +5, Research +5, and divide 30 points among any 
  of the following: Appraise, Bargain, Etiquette, Fast Talk, Listen, Knowledge (any), Language (Own), 
  Persuade, Science (any), Technology Use (any).
  +2
  Craftsman
  None
  Appraise +5, Art (any) +5, Craft (any) +10, Fine Manipulation +5, Repair (any) +5, and divide 20 
  points among any of the following: Bargain, Knowledge (any), Research, Spot, Status.
  +1
  Criminal 
  None
  Appraise +5, Fast Talk +5, Knowledge (Streetwise) +10, and divide 30 points among any of the 
  following: Bargain, Brawl, Computer Use (any), Demolition, Disguise, Dodge, Drive, Etiquette, 
  Firearm (any), Gaming, Grapple, Hide, Insight, Listen, Melee Weapon (any), Persuade, Sleight of 
  Hand, Spot, Stealth.
  +1
  Dilettante
  None
  Appraise +5, Etiquette +10, Status +10, and divide 25 points among any of the following: Art (any), 
  Athletics, Craft (any), Drive, Gaming, Knowledge (any), Language (any), Perform (any), Research, 
  Science (any), Technology Use (any).
  +1
  Doctor
  Student x 2 
  First Aid +10, Medicine +10, Research +5, Science (any) or Science (Biology) +10, and divide 
  15 points among any of the following: Insight, Language (any), Language (Own), Persuade, 
  Psychotherapy, Spot.
  +3
  Engineer or 
  Technician
  Student
  Computer Use (any) +10, Fine Manipulation +5, Repair (any) +5, Technology Use (any) +10, and 
  divide 20 points among any of the following: Art (Drafting), Artillery (any), Craft (any), Demolition, 
  Drive, Heavy Machine, Knowledge (any), Pilot (any), Repair (any), Research, Science (any).
  +1
  Entertainer
  None
  Art (any) +5, Etiquette +5, Fast Talk +5, Insight +5, Perform +10, and divide 20 points among any 
  of the following: Athletics, Disguise, Knowledge (any), Language (any), Listen, Sleight of Hand, 
  Status. 
  +1
  Journalist
  Student
  Computer Use (any) +5, Insight +5, Language (Own) +10, Listen +5, Research +5 and divide 20 
  points among any of the following: Art (Photography), Craft (Photography), Disguise, Fast Talk, 
  Hide, Knowledge (any), Language (any), Persuade, Spot, Stealth.
  +2
  Labourer
  None
  Craft (any) +5, Drive +10, Repair (Mechanical or Structural) +5, and divide 30 points among any 
  of the following: Appraise, Brawl, Climb, Computer Use (any), Fine Manipulation, Grapple, Heavy 
  Machine, Language (any), Technology Use (any).
  +1
  Lawyer
  Student x 2 
  Bargain +5, Knowledge (Law) +20, Research +5, and divide 20 points among any of the following: 
  Bureaucracy, Fast Talk, Insight, Knowledge (any), Language (Own), Perform (Oratory), Persuade.
  +2
  Linguist
  Student
  Etiquette +5, Language (any) +10, Language (Own) +10, Listen +5, and divide 20 points among any 
  of the following: Insight, Knowledge (any), Language (any), Persuade.
  +1
  88
  
  Merchant
  None
  Appraise +5, Bargain +10, Etiquette +5, Research +5, Status +5, and divide 20 points among any 
  of the following: Art (any), Computer Use (any), Craft (any), Fast Talk, Knowledge (any), Language 
  (any), Persuade, Repair (any).
  +1
  Military Officer
  None
  Artillery (any) +5, Command +10, Drive (any) +5, Firearm (any) +5, Strategy +5, and divide 20 
  points among any of the following: Navigate, Persuade, Teach, and any two other skills as personal 
  specialties.
  +1
  Occultist
  None
  Knowledge (Anthropology) +5, Knowledge (History) +5, Knowledge (Occult) +5, Research +5. 
  Divide 30 points among any of the following: Fast Talk, Insight, Language (any), Language (Own), 
  and any two of the following skills: Computer Use (any), Craft (any), Knowledge (Archaeology), 
  Medicine or Science (any).
  +2
  Parapsychologist
  Student
  Insight +5, Knowledge (Occult) +5, Listen +5, Research +5, Sense +5, Spot +5, and divide 20 
  points among any of the following: Fast Talk, Hide, Knowledge (any), Stealth.
  +2
  Philosopher
  Student
  Insight +5, Knowledge (Philosophy) +10, Language (Own) +5, Persuade +5, Research +5, and 
  divide 20 points among any of the following: Knowledge (History), Language (any), Teach, and any 
  two Knowledge or Science skills as specialties.
  +2
  Police Officer
  Student
  Brawl +5, Drive +5, Firearm (any) +5, Knowledge (Law) +5, Knowledge (Streetwise) +5, Spot +5, 
  and divide 20 points among any of the following: Brawl, Computer Use (any), Disguise, Dodge, Fast 
  Talk, Grapple, Hide, Insight, Language (any), Listen, Persuade, Stealth.
  +1
  Politician 
  Student
  Bargain +5, Etiquette +5, Fast Talk +5, Knowledge (Politics) +5, Perform (Oratory) +5, Persuade 
  +5, Status +5, and divide 15 points among any of the following: Insight, Knowledge (Law), and one 
  other Knowledge or Language skill as a personal specialty.
  +1
  Priest 
  Student
  Etiquette +5, Knowledge (Religion) +10, Perform (Oratory) +5, Persuade +5, Research +5, and 
  divide 20 points among any of the following: Insight, Language (any), Listen, Teach.
  +1
  Professor, Scholar, 
  or Teacher
  Student (x 2 
  for Professor) 
  Insight +5, Persuade +5, Research +5, Teach +10, and divide 25 points among six of the following 
  skills as areas of expertise: Appraise, Art (any), Computer Use (any), Craft (any), First Aid, Insight, 
  Knowledge (any), Language (any), Language (Own), Listen, Medicine, Psychotherapy, Repair (any), 
  Science (any), Technology Use (any).
  +3
  Scientist
  Student
  Computer Use (any) +10, Research +10, Technology Use (any) +5, and divide 25 points among any 
  of the following: Craft (any), Persuade, and any five Knowledge or Science skills appropriate to your 
  field of study.
  +3
  Spy
  Student
  Fast Talk +5, Hide +5, Listen +5, Research +5, Spot +5, Stealth +5, Dodge +5, and divide 15 points 
  among any three of the following: Art (Photography), Brawl, Bureaucracy, Computer Use (any), 
  Disguise, Etiquette, Firearm (any), Grapple, Knowledge (any), Language (any), Language (Own), 
  Navigate, Pilot (any), Psychology, Repair (Electronics), Repair (Mechanical), Ride, Swim, Technology 
  Use (any), Throw, Track.
  +1
  Student
  None
  Computer Use (any) +5, Knowledge (any two) +5 each, Language (Own) +5, Research +5, and 
  divide 25 points among any of the following skills: Art (any), Athletics, Computer Use (any), Craft 
  (any), First Aid, Insight, Knowledge (any), Language (any), Listen, Medicine, Perform, Persuade, 
  Psychotherapy, Repair (any), Science (any), Technology Use (any).
  +1D3
  Writer 
  None
  Art (Writing) +10, Etiquette +5, Insight +5, Language (Own) +5, Research +5, and divide 20 points 
  among any four of the following: Art (any), Bargain, Computer Use (Art), Fast Talk, Knowledge 
  (any), Language (any), Listen, Science (any), Teach. 
  +2
  Do not increase any skill beyond 75% through this process. 
  If a skill begins at 75% or higher during this phase of 
  character generation, no further points can be allotted to 
  it and are lost. 
  Repeat the process as desired, adding bonuses per period 
  of professional experience. This represents a slow and 
  incremental improvement among professional skills, 
  and the ability to pick up a broader spectrum of skills by 
  changing professions. The GM may ask you to provide some 
  explanation for unusual or dramatic professional shifts. 
  For each period of professional experience you select, add 
  five years to your character’s age. Keep track of how old 
  your character gets through this process. At age 50, 60, 
  and 70, subtract 1 point from either STR, CON, DEX, or 
  CHA (your pick). At age 80, subtract one point from three 
  of those characteristics (again, your pick). A character that 
  reaches 0 in a characteristic has died. 
  When you’ve completed all desired periods of professional 
  experience, your character is ready for Step Eight: 
  Assignment and Training as described on page 18-19 of 
  the core rulebook.
  CHArACTer TeMpLATeS
  89
  6 - CHARACTER
  TEMPLATES
  
  THe LAundry
  Veteran Laundry Agents
  ‘I may believe in mind-eating horrors from beyond spacetime, 
  but I’ll break my neck before I bend it to their yoke.’
  – The Fuller Memorandum
  The default assumption is that the player characters are 
  newish recruits to the Laundry. They had jobs in the private 
  sector or academia until they took a wrong turn and were 
  brought – willingly or otherwise – into the occult world 
  behind the wainscoting of reality. A new player character is 
  roughly where Bob is at the start of The Atrocity Archives. 
  Newly qualified for fieldwork, competent enough in his 
  own area, knows the business end of a Basilisk Gun and 
  isn’t shocked when the corpses start moving, but is still a 
  bit wet behind the ears and doesn’t know much about the 
  big picture. 
  Optionally, though, players can play experienced, veteran 
  Laundry characters. These make for much more highly 
  skilled agents than the normal character generation system 
  produces, but at a higher risk. Apply the modifiers to your 
  character based on the Previous Laundry Experience 
  chart, below.
  Assignment 
  Skill Modifiers
  EDU
  Archives
  Bureaucracy +10, Knowledge (any) +10, Knowledge (Occult) +10, Navigate +5, Research +10, Stealth +5, and 
  divide 25 points among Computer Use (any), Knowledge (any), Language (any) and Spot.
  +2
  Computational 
  Demonology
  Computer Use (any) +15, Computer Use (Magic) +10, Science (Mathematics) +10, Science (Thaumaturgy) +10, 
  Sorcery +5, and divide 25 points among Bureaucracy, Knowledge (any), Firearm (any), Repair (any) and Technical 
  Use (any).
  +1
  Contracts & 
  Binding
  Knowledge (Law) +15, Knowledge (Occult) +10, Persuade +10, Research +10, Sorcery +5, and divide 25 points 
  among Bureaucracy, Knowledge (any), Insight and Science (Thaumaturgy).
  +1
  Counter-
  Possesssion
  Bureaucracy +5, Computer Use (Magic) +5, Firearms (any) +5, Insight +10, Knowledge (Occult) +10, Sorcery +5, 
  Stealth +10, and divide 25 points among Bureaucracy, Grapple, Knowledge (any), Science (Thaumaturgy) and Spot.
  +1
  Information 
  Technology
  Computer Use (any three) +10, Knowledge (Occult) +5, Repair +5, Technology Use (any) +10, and divide 25 
  among Bureaucracy, Knowledge (any), Gaming and Research.
  +1
  Media Relations
  Computer Use (Hacking) +5, Etiquette +5, Fast Talk +10, Knowledge (Law) +10, Knowledge (Occult) +5, 
  Knowledge (Politics) +10, Research +5, and divide 25 points among Bureaucracy, Insight, Knowledge (any) and 
  Persuade.
  +1
  Medical & 
  Psychology
  First Aid +10, Medicine (any two) +10, Psychotherapy +10, Research +5, Science (Biology) +5, and divide 25 points 
  among Bureaucracy, Insight, Knowledge (any) and Persuade
  +2
  Occult Forensics
  Science (any two) +10, Science (Thaumaturgy) +10, Sense +5, Spot +5, Technology Use (any) +10, and divide 25 
  points among Bureaucracy, Insight, Knowledge (any) and Sorcery.
  +1
  Plumber
  Firearm (any) +10%, Knowledge (Occult) +5, Knowledge (Tradecraft) +10, Science (Thaumaturgy) +10, Sorcery 
  +5, Stealth +10.
  +1
  Other Assignment
  +10 to the five skills listed for that assignment in Chapter Nine of the Laundry rulebook, and divide 25 points 
  among any other five skills.
  +1
  90
  
  For every five years spent in the Laundry, make a SAN test (1/1D8), and roll on the Past Laundry Events table.
  Roll
  1
  Got Away With It. Congratulations! You survived five years in a field role without anything going (majorly) wrong. 
  2
  Botched Job. You screwed up badly, and people died. Reduce your Status by 2D10% (minimum 5%). Your name is still dirt in the 
  corridors of power.
  3
  Nightmares. When you close your eyes, you see... oh, God, no! Reduce your starting SAN by 10.
  4
  Enemy. You’ve got an enemy who wants you dead. It could be a cultist, a Black Chamber agent, a foreign government, or even an 
  elder god. Or someone in HR. Either way, they know who you are and they’ve got a taste for your blood.
  5
  K-Syndrome. You suffer from Krantzberg syndrome; a bit of your brain was eaten by Them. Reduce your INT by 1, lose 1D10 SAN 
  and develop an odd tic.
  6
  Thin Ice. The Auditors have their eye on you. Double any Status loss from failed missions or overspending.
  7
  Unusual Injury. Something happened to you – maybe you were marked by a cult brand, or had a bit of your soul eaten, or got 
  partially petrified by a Basilisk. Reduce one of your characteristics by 1D3 and come up with an interesting injury.
  8
  Missing Time. A part of your memories are locked away behind a geas. Your manager knows the password to your lost time, but 
  you’re not permitted to access those missing years yourself. You’re left only with the scars, the dreams and the mystery.
  9
  Managerial Responsibilities. You’re a senior agent, on the management track, and that means no bunking off on training courses. You 
  may not attend more than one training course per year. 
  10
  Special. GM’s choice. Maybe you’re a traitor or a spy. Maybe you’ve seen the Great Old Ones in all their glory, and switched sides. 
  Maybe you’re not human... or not anymore, anyway...
  CHArACTer TeMpLATeS
  91
  6 - CHARACTER
  TEMPLATES
  
  THe LAundry
  Not all of the people employed by the Laundry are, strictly 
  speaking, people. The zombies Residual Human Resources 
  employs within the Stacks and as security are an obvious 
  example of ‘out of the box’ hiring practices, but there are 
  others within the Laundry whose origins are less human 
  still. The Black Chamber, the Laundry’s counterpart in the 
  United States, makes extensive use of Deep One hybrids as 
  agents, and reports of their effectiveness has allowed a re-
  evaluation of hiring policies within Capital Laundry Services. 
  This is not without precedent. Since its founding, Capital 
  Laundry Services has employed a number of exceptional 
  individuals who defy common categorisation, including 
  at least one bound demon within the upper echelons of 
  management. Ever-resourceful and eager for any advantage 
  that might give the organisation the edge against current 
  and emerging threats, Inhuman Resources (the Laundry’s 
  personnel department) is becoming increasingly open 
  to employing a wider variety of agents from more outré 
  backgrounds. 
  This section covers a variety of alternate backgrounds for 
  highly unusual Laundry agents, character types requiring the 
  GM’s approval for use as player characters. Agents created 
  with these guidelines will be exceptional and highly unusual 
  within the Laundry’s organisation, and should be the rare 
  exception rather than the norm. Because of this, the GM is 
  advised to disallow any of these options in favour of a more 
  traditional approach to staffing. These backgrounds may be 
  limited to none, one or two per group, or a truly unusual 
  campaign where all of the agents are of unusual origin. 
  These backgrounds can also be of use for the creation of 
  non-player characters. 
  Deep One Hybrids 
  ‘Her skin has a faint silver iridescent sheen to it, like the 
  scales of  a fish; her hair is long and green as glass, framing 
  a face with higher cheekbones and a wider mouth, rising from 
  an inhumanly perfect long neck, the skin broken by two long 
  rows of  slits above her clavicle… She raises her right hand and 
  spreads her fingers, revealing the delicate tracery of  webbing. 
  “So what do you think of  me now, monkey-boy?”’
  – The Jennifer Morgue 
  We’ve shared our world with an older civilisation for the 
  entirety of human history. Tales of gods and monsters 
  born from the sea are a part of every culture; our species is 
  marked by our congress with the Deep Ones. These days, 
  of course, the Benthic Treaty limits that congress, so BLUE 
  HADES come ashore to mate only in state-sanctioned 
  breeding reserves. Most of their hybrid offspring never 
  stray far from the shore, waiting out their comparatively 
  brief larval stage as air-breathers before metamorphosing 
  into full Deep Ones and swimming out to sea, to dwell 
  forever amid the wonders of the ocean. A minority of 
  offspring never make the change and stay almost human. 
  The children of these hybrids might not even know they 
  carry Deep One genetic material. Over time, these genetic 
  markers disseminate through the population; over 20% of 
  people have something squamous in their ancestry, and 
  around 0.01% have enough to qualify as a hybrid.
  Quite a few of that 0.01% end up involved in the Game, 
  either as cultists (obviously, the Esoteric Order of Dagon 
  sweeps up most of them), or as agents. The Laundry 
  recruits quite a few specialists from Dunwich and towns 
  in Cornwall near the Deep One city of Ahu-Y’hloa, but 
  also picks up hybrids from the general population. Hybrids 
  are sensitive to thaumic fields and other weirdness, so have 
  a much higher than average chance of running across the 
  Laundry’s radar.
  Weird Characters
  92
  
  The Type III BLUE HADES – those sexy, sexy Sea-Born 
  like Ramona Random – are much rarer and find it harder to 
  blend in with human society. Pudgy, ugly, bug-eyed weirdos 
  with skin conditions who smell of fish? You see them every 
  time you walk out the door or look in the mirror. Inhumanly 
  beautiful women with skin like quicksilver? Not so many of 
  these around. 
  Deep One Hybrid and                                  
  Sea-Born Player Characters 
  At the Gamemaster’s discretion, a player can choose an 
  agent of Deep One heritage, either a hybrid or a sea-born.
  Characteristic Rolls
  Hybrid
  Sea-Born 
  STR
  3D6+3
  3D6
  CON 
  3D6
  3D6
  SIZ
  2D6+9
  2D6+6
  INT
  2D6+6
  2D6+6
  EDU
  3D6
  3D6
  POW
  3D6
  3D6
  DEX
  2D6
  4D6
  CHA 
  2D6
  4D6
  Aquatic Heritage
  Deep Ones are at home in the water. Their eyes have 
  nictitating membranes, and gills are one of the first BLUE 
  HADES traits to develop during puberty, allowing Hybrids 
  to remain submerged indefinitely. This has the following 
  game effects:
  • Sense +20%
  • Listen +20% when in water
  • Swim +20%
  Deep Ones also suffer less from the effects of cold and 
  pressure, taking only one-quarter as much damage as 
  humans. This resistance to pressure increases over time.
  Reduced SAN 
  Hybrids have a starting SAN score of POW x 4.
  Sea-Born have a starting SAN score of POW x 3. 
  Call of  the Deep
  Deep One player characters have a special trait called Deep 
  One Taint. This skill starts at 25+1D20% for Hybrids 
  and 45+1D20% for Sea-Born. Deep One Taint works 
  like a reverse SAN score – if it hits 100%, the character 
  transforms into a full Deep One and leaves the game by 
  swimming off into the ocean. 
  Certain situations can increase Deep One Taint. Exposure 
  to BLUE HADES technology, spending too long in the 
  deep ocean, magical spells, the passage of time, strange 
  dreams – all have a chance of triggering a transformation. 
  To test for transformation, roll 1D100 against your current 
  Taint score. If you roll equal to or under the score, you gain 
  the larger amount of Taint listed (after the slash). If you 
  roll over your current score, you gain the smaller amount of 
  Taint listed (before the slash).
  • Every three months: 1D4/1D10
  • Crossing over the deep ocean: 1/1D4
  • Spending more than 12 hours at sea: 0/1D4
  • Descending below the ocean surface: 0/1D4
  • 100 metres below the surface: 1/1D6
  • 1,000 metres below the surface: 1D10/1D100
  • Exposure to thaumic field: 0/1D6
  • Exposure to BLUE HADES magic: 1D6/1D10
  • Exposure to BLUE HADES technology: 1D4/1D8
  • Contact with BLUE HADES: 1D4/1D10
  • Dreaming of  the ocean: 0/1D6
  There are several ‘benefits’ to Deep One Taint. Firstly, you 
  may be able to count as one of the Deep Ones when it 
  comes to their magical defences and creations. Ramona 
  was able to avoid being squished by the titanic defenders 
  of the Jennifer Morgue site because they recognised her as 
  one of their masters. Doing anything complex with BLUE 
  HADES technology – like, say, ordering a bound shoggoth 
  to obey you – means making a Deep One Taint roll.
  Secondly, if you don’t think like a human, you don’t go mad 
  like a human. A Hybrid can choose to ignore any SAN loss, 
  but gains ½ the Sanity points that would have been lost as 
  Taint, instead. So, if you see something ghastly and lose 30 
  SAN in one go (enough to send you Indefinitely Insane) 
  you can instead gain 15 Taint and keep your (increasingly 
  inhuman) mind together.
  Thirdly, when your Taint passes 50% and 75%, you get 
  a skill check for learning Sorcery, but also lose 1d6 CHA 
  if you’re a Hybrid, as you become increasingly inhuman 
  and malformed. The Sea-Born become more graceful and 
  beautiful as they change.
  Fourthly and finally, you can share your ability to breathe 
  underwater with monkey co-workers. Doing so adds 1D4% 
  to your Taint every hour, and the GM may request Stamina 
  tests if you do anything exerting while breathing for two.
  WeIrd CHArACTerS
  93
  7 - WEIRD 
  CHARACTERS
  
  THe LAundry
  Ghosts
  ‘Violent death tends to go with the territory, and a few ghosts 
  – echoes in the informational substrate of  reality – wouldn’t be 
  anything out of  the ordinary.’ 
  – The Fuller Memorandum
  Violent death or strong emotion can create psychic 
  impressions on the vicinity. A strong thaumic field can 
  be shaped by those impressions, conjuring a short-lived 
  spectral echo of the original event. A ghost is like water in a 
  footprint, a copy made from a psychic cast of an old trauma. 
  The Laundry’s full of ghosts and awash with thaumic fields; 
  ‘a ghost stole my pen’ is a perfectly valid excuse for failing to 
  submit your paperwork. 
  Most ghosts aren’t self-aware – they’re just recordings or 
  echoes, repeating the same actions over and over again. A 
  small percentage of ghosts are more complex and intelligent. 
  These spectres arise from unusually complex and complete 
  psychic impressions. Instead of a murder impressing the 
  psychic images of the victim’s death onto, say, the stone 
  floor where she died, it sometimes happens that the psychic 
  impression contains a complete copy of the victim’s 
  personality, encoded into the informational substrate of the 
  floor. The formation of these complex ghosts is correlated 
  with the use of sorcery – persons already experienced in 
  imposing their will onto reality through magic are more 
  likely to give rise to conscious ghosts.
  The Laundry ‘employs’ a small number of such ghosts. 
  Technically, these ghosts are property, not employees, but 
  it’s rude to bring this up in conversation. To manifest, ghosts 
  need a strong but unpolarised thaumic field that they can 
  shape. Normally, such fields are a side effect of sorcery, but 
  the Laundry has developed ‘séance boxes’. These gadgets 
  contain a GRAVEDUST unit, a thaumic generator and a 
  fragment of the haunted area. When activated, the séance 
  box creates a self-aware and potent ghost that can move 
  outside its usual haunts. Only a fragment of the haunted area 
  is required, as ghosts are holographic; any portion of the 
  ghost contains the whole. If a ghost haunts a whole office, 
  then the séance box only needs a splinter of wood from 
  the desk or an emotionally resonant paperclip to function. 
  These ghosts are used as specialists and consultants; the 
  Board disapproves of extended use of ghosts, although 
  some understaffed departments have turned to the undead 
  as a way of getting around a hiring freeze.
  Ghost Player Characters 
  Ghost characters are created in the normal way, but have 
  no CON or STR scores, and no Hit Points. Instead, they 
  are dependent upon their POW score and the séance box 
  to keep them going.
  Spectral Powers
  Ghosts take only 1 point of damage from most physical 
  attacks. Damage to a ghost is applied to the ghost’s POW 
  score. Attacks from magic weapons or spirits inflict full 
  damage, as do electrical attacks. Ghosts may suffer damage 
  from electromagnetic or thaumic fields.
  If the ghost runs out of POW, it is destroyed. A new ghost 
  can be formed from the original psychic impression, but it 
  lacks any memories formed by the first ghost. Effectively, it 
  ‘resets’ to the moment of death.
  Ghosts count as Level Three Entities for the purposes of 
  banishing, wards, exorcism and so on. Ghosts cannot wear 
  protective wards as they are non-physical creatures, but they 
  cannot be possessed as they lack a nervous system. If a ghost 
  wants to interact with the physical world, this costs POW. 
  Feeble actions, like levitating a pencil, causing a light breeze 
  or cold spot, or speaking above a whisper, cost 1 point of 
  temporary POW damage each. At the cost of 1D4 POW, a 
  ghost can use his current POW score as Strength for one 
  round (say, to punch someone or to pick up and fire a gun). 
  Ghosts can move a number of metres from the séance box 
  equal to their current POW. They can walk through walls. If 
  the séance box is destroyed, so is the ghost. A séance box is 
  94
  
  about the size of a laptop computer. As ghosts cannot carry 
  physical objects, someone else has to lug the box around. A 
  séance box has 12 hours of battery life. Most ghosts cannot 
  possess humans, but it is possible to learn this trick through 
  experience. 
  Ghouls  
  There are small communities of ghouls living beneath most 
  large cities. These subterranean humanoids survive mostly 
  by scavenging, with the occasional bit of petty crime, drug-
  dealing or working in fast food to obtain cash for surface 
  goods. It is a rare ghoul who is willing to leave the comfort 
  of the tube tunnel and the graveyard to work in an office.
  The Laundry employs a small handful of such ambitious 
  ghouls, as go-betweens with the larger ghoul community and 
  as field operatives. Ghouls are a sub-species of humanity 
  and so have civil rights (albeit heavily restricted ones, as per 
  the terms of the 1969 amendment to the Monster Control 
  Act (1864)). The life of a ghoul in the Laundry is similar 
  to that of any other employee, only they usually eat in a 
  different cafeteria and go home to an underground lair 
  instead of secure housing. 
  Ghouls are stronger, faster and tougher than the average 
  human, but they have trouble with abstract learning. Actually 
  ‘trouble’ is the wrong word; ghouls are just as intelligent 
  on average as any human, but they can rarely muster any 
  interest in anything other than the next meal of dead flesh.
  Ghoul Player Characters 
  Ghoul characters are generated in a similar fashion to 
  humans, with the following changes.
  Characteristic Rolls
  Hybrid
  STR
  3D6+6
  CON 
  2D6+6
  SIZ
  2D6+6
  INT
  2D6+6
  EDU
  1D6+1
  POW
  2D6+6
  DEX
  2D6+6
  CHA 
  1D6+1
  Ghouls may only take the Ghoul profession. The skills for 
  this are: Appraise, Bargain, Climb, Disguise, Grapple, Hide, 
  Knowledge (History), Listen, Sense, Spot, Stealth and Track. 
  Ghouls take only half damage from firearms. Ghouls have 
  teeth and claws that can be used as weapons. A claw or bite 
  attack inflicts 1D6 damage. A ghoul may claw and bite up to 
  three times in a round; if it hits with all three attacks, it can 
  grab hold and keep inflicting automatic bite damage until 
  dislodged.
  Hunger
  Ghouls need to feed regularly on human flesh – preferably 
  nicely aged corpses, but fresh meat will do in a pinch. A 
  ghoul can go up to a week without feeding before becoming 
  Hungry. A Hungry ghoul has a +20% bonus to Athletics, 
  Climb, Grapple, Hide, Jump, Listen, Sense, Stealth and 
  Track, but suffers a -20% penalty to any interpersonal or 
  knowledge-based skills. After another week without food, 
  a ghoul becomes Very Hungry; the bonuses and penalties 
  double, and the ghoul becomes aggressive towards prey 
  animals, including humans. The GM may take control of a 
  Very Hungry ghoul player character.
  Gorgons 
  ‘Then I realised what he was talking about, and what deadly 
  jeopardy I had placed my life in, for the honour of  Her Majesty’s 
  government in Chittral: he was talking about a Medusa. And 
  though it unmans me to confess it, I was afraid.’ 
  – The Concrete Jungle
  Gorgons are one of the most feared monsters. Their 
  terrible gaze turns flesh to stone. In medieval times, gorgons 
  were killed by burying them alive or shooting them from 
  a distance with arrows; in more civilised times, they were 
  locked away inside monasteries or asylums and allowed to 
  die naturally, for a gorgon has only a few months to live 
  once its powers manifest. Experiments in the early part of 
  the 20th Century discovered that gorgonism is the result of 
  a rare form of brain tumour; creating this so-called ‘map of 
  Medusa’ gave rise to stoner weapons like the Basilisk Gun 
  and SCORPION STARE. The Laundry spends much more 
  time dealing with artificial gorgons these days than it does 
  on the real thing, but natural gorgons still arise among the 
  civilian population.
  There is no cure for gorgonism, and victims cannot be 
  allowed back into normal society – there is much greater 
  emphasis on keeping the supernatural under wraps these 
  days than there was a century ago, and references to ‘Madame 
  Marianne, l’executrice of the Reign of Terror’ have been 
  removed from the history books. Most gorgonism victims 
  are placed in palliative care in special hospices, where they 
  can live out the scant few months left to them before the 
  tumour kills them. A few volunteer as living weapons for 
  the Laundry, to give their lives a little meaning before the 
  end.
  WeIrd CHArACTerS
  95
  7 - WEIRD 
  CHARACTERS
  
  THe LAundry
  Gorgon Player Characters 
  Gorgon characters are created in exactly the same way as 
  human characters. However, gorgons lose 1D3 points 
  of CON per month as the tumour progresses. A gorgon 
  reduced to CON 0 dies.
  The Gaze
  The gaze of a gorgon has exactly the same effects as a 
  Basilisk Gun, inflicting 6D6 damage on anyone who fails 
  to dodge the monster’s gaze. Those too close to the target 
  may also suffer radiation poisoning. Furthermore, each time 
  the gaze is used, the gorgon must make a Stamina test; if he 
  fails, he loses another point of CON permanently. Gorgons 
  working for the Laundry wear special goggles containing 
  a head-mounted video camera that feeds to a small screen 
  in front of each eye, allowing the character to perceive 
  his surroundings without looking directly and triggering 
  gorgonism. A trigger mechanism at the side of the goggles 
  flips the screens up so the gorgon can ‘fire’ its gaze. These 
  goggles must be examined each day by a qualified technician 
  to ensure that the gorgon effect has not damaged the screens 
  or their housing. Gorgons are also given medical treatments 
  for the symptoms of their incurable cancer.
  Parallel Reality Refugees
  ‘The truth is, we live in a multiverse – a sheath of  loosely-
  connected universes, so loosely connected that they’re actually 
  leaky at the level of  the quantum foam substrate of  space-time.’ 
  – The Jennifer Morgue
  Not all incursions from parallel realities are hostile. Once 
  in a great while, the Laundry encounters an instance when 
  a dimensional breach is ‘friendly’ and takes into custody a 
  refugee or an inadvertent traveller. History is rife with such 
  beings, individuals drawn from parallel realities without 
  any effort on their behalf and stranded, unable to return 
  to their home dimensions. Some number of inexplicable 
  disappearances are in fact just this sort of event transpiring 
  in our own world, where a person happened to be in the 
  wrong place at the wrong time when a dimensional barrier 
  was breached or otherwise ruptured, wilfully or through an 
  unpredictable, unrepeatable concatenation of exonomic 
  activity. In some cases, these extradimensional refugees 
  are unaware that they have crossed into other realities, and 
  are misdiagnosed as having mental disorders. Occasionally, 
  they become referred to the Laundry, and at that point they 
  become wards of the state, channelled into some avenue of 
  Capital Laundry Services’ labyrinthine bureaucracy and put 
  to work as best suits their talents or training. If fortune has 
  it that these undocumented ‘aliens’ possess the aptitude and 
  mindset to serve as Laundry agents, they are tested with the 
  usual barrage of psychological evaluations and, if they are 
  suitable, they are issued warrant cards and suitably prepared 
  for active field duty. 
  In the event of a further extra dimensional incursion, 
  ostensibly these agents should be ideally suited to deal with 
  refugees like themselves or to identify the telltale signs of 
  fellow travellers. 
  Parallel Dimensional Refugee Player Characters 
  Extradimensional refugee player characters are created in 
  the same fashion as traditional Laundry agents, with one 
  unique condition to their extradimensional origin. 
  • Out of  Touch: Every time a parallel dimensional 
  refugee makes a successful Knowledge roll or another 
  roll concerning Earth’s history, current events, politics, 
  etc. the character must make a Luck roll to determine 
  if the appropriate information from their home world 
  is identical to the state of affairs on this world. If the 
  Luck roll succeeds, the Knowledge is correct. If the 
  Luck roll fails, the Knowledge the player character 
  possesses is true of their home dimension but not this 
  one, and is therefore incorrect. 
  Residual Human Entities 
  ‘“Look,” I say gently, “have you ever seen Night of  the Living 
  Dead? It’s really not all that different – except that I’ve got 
  permission to be here, and you’ve got a temporary warrant card 
  too, so we should be all right.”’
  – The Atrocity Archive
  Capital Laundry Services, like all good bureaucracies, 
  prides itself on its conservative use of resources and 
  environmentally-friendly recycling. Chief among these is the 
  re-use of the most precious of commodities, human capital. 
  Personnel is expensive to recruit, manage, and maintain, and 
  even after death the Laundry is able to make use of fallen 
  employees in the form of Repurposed Human Entities, 
  more commonly known as a Residual Human Resources 
  (RHRs). Every employee – with only a rare exception – is 
  required to sign a waiver at the time of their hiring, granting 
  the Laundry continued access to their mortal remains 
  should they meet their demise in the line of duty (‘in the 
  line of duty’ being broadly interpreted as ‘while at work’). 
  Death benefits (pensions, insurance settlements, etc.) for 
  employees’ families are comprehensive and fairly generous, 
  as it does the agency no good to have bereaved and bereft 
  spouses angrily asking questions. When an employee meets 
  their demise, this is where Inhuman Resources steps in 
  96
  
  and assumes possession of the corpse for evaluation as a 
  potential Residual Human Resource, or zombie. 
  The process of transforming a formerly-possessed or 
  otherwise supernaturally devitalised human is inevitably 
  deleterious to the host and almost always results in what is 
  conventionally called a zombie: a lumbering, flesh-hungry, 
  dim-witted being capable of few tasks other than menial 
  security or light filing. Pages 203-204 of The Laundry RPG 
  describe the types of zombies employed by Capital Laundry 
  Services, pitiful beings inhabited by Level Two exonomes, 
  their former human identities almost entirely sublimated by 
  the experience of death and the ensuing possession. 
  However, the process of creating a Repurposed Human 
  Resource sometimes goes awry in an unpredictable fashion. 
  Occasionally the process of summoning and binding a 
  Level Two exonome to this dimension can traumatise the 
  possessing exonome, causing it to enter a relatively benign 
  fugue state in which its normal behavioural tendencies 
  (murder, destruction, debauchery, etc.) are dormant 
  or virtually nonexistent. In these cases, the fleeting 
  electrochemical arrangement within the human brain that 
  makes up ‘personality’ is normalised and, in extraordinarily 
  rare cases, restored. Physically, the Residual Human 
  Resource is animated by the exonome, but guided by the 
  latent personality of the material host, a condition that 
  prevents the rapid biological deterioration caused by death. 
  Muscle memory causes the lungs to continue to expand and 
  contract, and involuntary muscle movements such as blinks, 
  facial tics, and even pain responses continue as if the subject 
  were still among the living. 
  When this conjunction of circumstances transpires, the 
  necromantic branch of the Laundry is left with a Residual 
  Human Resource that, for all intents and purposes, is 
  still recognisably human, with a semblance of its former 
  personality and behaviour, and any moral code seemingly 
  intact. The initial institutional response was to terminate 
  such a being, but that course of action presented a host of 
  potentially ethical issues and represented a considerable loss 
  of investment in training spent on that agent. 
  The current position taken by the Laundry is that the 
  Repurposed Human Resource be given a barrage of tests to 
  assess suitability for continued service and, having passed that, 
  be assigned to a range of approved duties under supervision. 
  In the event that the re-activated agent is assigned to field duty, 
  any agents accompanying the Repurposed Human Resource 
  are issued quick-action banishment wards and suitable 
  precautionary measures should the exonome’s personality re-
  assert itself. A special password that lets the RHR know the 
  speaker is not to be attacked is taught to all teammates. Most 
  RHRs develop the habit of wearing sunglasses constantly, as 
  the sight of eyes crawling with luminous worms can cause 
  extreme reactions among veteran agents. 
  Zombie Player Characters 
  Zombie characters are created in the same way as normal 
  characters, with a few key differences.
  • Increase STR and CON by half
  • Reduce DEX by a 3rd
  • Reduce CHA by half
  • Reduce starting SAN by 25 points
  Zombies have trouble learning new skills; zombies only 
  gain 1D3 Skill Points when they improve a skill through 
  experience or training, instead of 1D6. Zombies take only 1 
  point of damage from impaling weapons, and half damage 
  from other attacks. They do not heal naturally, and any 
  damage must be repaired through surgery. 
  Sentient zombies are Level Three Entities; they can be 
  exorcised or banished. As they are physical entities, a ward 
  won’t stop a zombie beating someone to death, but it is 
  possible to magically bar zombies from entering a warded 
  area. Zombies never sleep. Over time, this takes its toll on 
  the character; zombies lose 1D6 SAN per year. 
  Repurposing a Deceased Player 
  Character 
  If a player character agent is killed 
  in the line of duty and their corpse is 
  recovered in a relatively intact fashion, 
  the Inhuman Resources department springs 
  to work evaluating its potential for use 
  as a Residual Human Resource. To determine 
  whether the body can be saved, the GM 
  should evaluate the nature of the death and 
  associated trauma. Generally, a body that’s 
  suffered a fatal major wound is unsuitable 
  for use as a Residual Human Resource. 
  As the zombies are required to interact 
  with the regular staff in the course of 
  their duties, excessively mutilated or 
  otherwise horrifically disfigured corpses are 
  disallowed. Additionally, the body must be 
  recovered in a relatively fresh state: it 
  must be in the hands of Inhuman Resources 
  less than 48 hours from the time of death. 
  If a player character’s corpse meets these 
  requirements, the player should make a Luck 
  roll for their character (based on the 
  character’s characteristics while alive). 
  A special success indicates that the player 
  character is one of the unusual Residual 
  Human Resources that emerges with some 
  degree of faculties and personality intact, 
  while a normal success indicates that the 
  body is able to be turned into a normal 
  zombie. If the Luck roll fails, the body 
  is unsuitable for some reason and cannot 
  be zombified.
  WeIrd CHArACTerS
  97
  7 - WEIRD 
  CHARACTERS
  
  THe LAundry
  Despite this game’s name, it’s possible to play characters 
  who have nothing to do with the Laundry, or in fact any 
  intelligence agency. The Laundry is the British government’s 
  attempt to keep a lid on a whole unseen world of monsters 
  and magic, a cosmic truth that has to be forcefully denied if 
  modern civilisation is going to keep on going. The Laundry 
  aren’t the only people who know what’s really out there...
  The Laundry & External Contractors
  The Laundry does not, as a rule, employ 
  external contractors for field operations. 
  Anyone who learns the truth gets recruited, 
  memory-wiped or both. That said, there 
  are... exceptions to the rule, and such 
  exceptions are handled by the Department 
  of Externalities. Few external assets are 
  worth handling in this matter – this honour 
  is reserved for the few people too valuable 
  or too powerful to be suborned into the 
  Laundry’s bureaucratic labyrinth.
  Civilian Characters & Campaigns 
  Roleplaying civilians offers a number of challenges, 
  the most important of which is avoiding the Laundry. 
  Every year, dozens of civilians run across occult events 
  or Laundry personnel who are engaged in all manner of 
  unusual activities. The swift display of a warrant card and 
  instructions to forget what they have seen are sufficient for 
  almost all purposes, however, and in the few occasions when 
  they aren’t – and the person actively wishes to help – they 
  end up accepting the same geas that all Laundry personnel 
  operate under, and often end up joining the Laundry.
  This is one possible path for a non-Laundry campaign. 
  Characters can start off knowing little or nothing about the 
  occult, and then stumble upon various dangerous secrets; 
  they then encounter a Laundry operative, who attempts to 
  get the characters to leave official government matters to 
  government officials, and eventually the characters end up 
  helping the Laundry operative achieve his goals. By the end 
  of the scenario, the characters join the Laundry, and the next 
  scenario involves their first assignment as new operatives. 
  This is not, however, the only way to run such a campaign. 
  It’s perfectly possible for characters to be clever or lucky 
  enough to witness various occult events without being 
  noticed by nearby Laundry personnel. And, of course. if the 
  characters see a Laundry operative brandish a warrant card 
  at another bystander, and later learns that the person has 
  no memory of anything beyond a government official of a 
  rather vague agency telling them to move along, they will be 
  careful not to let anyone shove a warrant card in their faces. 
  Interacting with the Laundry
  One of the truths about any civilians investigating the 
  occult is that they are going to occasionally encounter 
  Laundry operatives doing the same thing. The problem with 
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  this is that, depending upon what the operative observes, 
  she could end up simply using her warrant card to make 
  the civilians forget about the events they are investigating, 
  or could even forcibly recruit them. While the latter can 
  be an excellent way to transition from a short-term civilian 
  campaign to a long-term Laundry campaign, it’s no fun at all 
  if everyone wants to keep playing civilians. 
  It’s also worth considering how civilians learning about 
  the occult are going to react to the Laundry. Laundry 
  operatives may be heroic saviours for anyone unfamiliar 
  with demons and spells, and it’s obvious to almost everyone 
  who encounters them that they keep the public safe from 
  various supernatural dangers. However, once someone has 
  gotten a little of experience with the occult, they are likely 
  to hear rumours about the Laundry, rumours that may be 
  backed up by their own experience. 
  People who talk to Laundry operatives can’t remember 
  or can’t talk about their experiences with the supernatural 
  afterwards, and some of them even find themselves 
  compelled to report any new supernatural events. Various 
  officials who interact with Laundry personnel automatically 
  let them take charge the situation, as soon as they flash their 
  mysterious ID cards. Anyone who looks at these cards looks 
  a bit dazed and obeys the operatives’ requests. From the 
  outside, the entire process looks a bit like something out of 
  a vampire movie, minus the fangs – one look at the card, 
  and everyone becomes the Laundry’s willing thralls. 
  Worse yet, some people vanish for a while, and when they 
  reappear they have a new job, and they quite literally can’t 
  talk about it. The new recruits may even have been geased to 
  inform on other occultists they know. From the perspective 
  of people who would rather look into supernatural 
  mysteries on their own, and who prefer to keep their minds 
  and free will intact, the Laundry can be fairly scary (of 
  course, the Laundry looks far worse if anyone ever finds 
  out about SCORPION STARE, which is why the Laundry 
  makes certain that no one does). Characters who observe 
  the actions of the Laundry may agree that much of what 
  the Laundry does is necessary, but they also may not want 
  to have anything to do with it. 
  The easiest way for civilians to avoid recruitment by the 
  Laundry is for the characters to already be carrying powerful 
  wards. While not likely, it’s always possible that a character 
  found a weird pendant, watch fob, or belt buckle at a local 
  thrift shop, or perhaps an eccentric uncle or aunt gave it to 
  her as a good luck charm. In either case, when a Laundry 
  operative presents his warrant card and orders the character 
  to forget everything and go about her business, she briefly 
  feels a bit weird and hears what the Laundry operative says, 
  but no mind-warping happens. If she has any sense at all, 
  she’ll pretend the geas worked.
  There are other options. Everything can break down. If 
  a warrant card is exposed to too much thaumic energy, 
  or perhaps struck in just the right way by a tiny piece of 
  shrapnel, it might fail to work. In such a case, the character 
  has gotten very lucky indeed, but will need to find a more 
  reliable way to keep her memories and her free will intact, 
  the next time she encounters an agent of the Laundry. 
  One unusual way to keep characters’ minds intact is 
  to assume that some very small percentage of people 
  are naturally immune to the geas on the warrant card. 
  Something about their neural wiring, their vision, or their 
  psychology means that this particular geas simply doesn’t 
  work on them. Obviously, if this problem was remotely 
  common, the Laundry would design a new and improved 
  warrant card. However, if it only fails on one person in fifty 
  thousand, then almost every operative will be able to work 
  a long career without encountering a single failure, but on 
  rare occasions, someone will be shown the warrant card, 
  hear the speech, and walk away geas-free. 
  Such a person would make an ideal character in a civilian 
  campaign, because he merely needs to pretend to go along 
  with the geas, and he’s fine. However, a party of four or five 
  characters who are all freakishly immune to warrant cards is 
  exceptionally unlikely, so a diversity of options for avoiding 
  Laundry geases is probably best. One character might 
  be naturally immune, another might have unknowingly 
  inherited a Level Four personal ward, and perhaps the two 
  remaining characters are both learning sorcery from some 
  independent sorcerer, and have each been given a personal 
  ward so the sorcerer doesn’t lose promising apprentices to 
  the Laundry. 
  Either encountering Laundry operatives on their own, or 
  even simply watching what Laundry operatives can do to 
  other civilians, should be enough to warn most civilian 
  characters away from the Laundry. Of course, some overly 
  curious characters are going to want to find out more 
  about the Laundry. These efforts can be used to inform 
  the characters of exactly how scary the Laundry can be and 
  how long their reach actually is. 
  Someone foolish enough to try to search for information 
  about a top secret and obviously powerful occult organisation 
  on the desktop computer in their home or cubicle can 
  easily get into trouble. This is especially true if he isn’t too 
  careful about his search terms, or if he gets on chat sites and 
  starts asking around about creepy agents who investigate 
  occult weirdness and carry strange cards. The next thing he 
  knows, a Laundry operative will come to his door, warrant 
  card in hand. If the character has some means of resisting 
  a warrant card, then a few clueless-seeming answers, such 
  as having overheard some people at a bar talking about a 
  weird incident recently, will likely suffice to send a Laundry 
  operative on her way, after attempting to geas him into losing 
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  all interest in secret government agencies. His computer will 
  be carefully monitored for the next week or two, and if a 
  Laundry operative shows up at the door again, she’ll be taking 
  him with her when she leaves. 
  Using a computer at an internet café or college computer 
  lab is far safer. However, if he is at all careless with how he 
  searches, a nondescript sedan is likely to show up at the café 
  and one or two people will get out and start asking questions. 
  If the character wasn’t sufficiently clever, he’ll need to put 
  his warrant card immunity to the test; if he’s more careful, 
  he’ll be watching from across the street and hoping that no 
  one in the café can provide a good description. Regardless 
  of how it happens, civilians will swiftly learn that no on-line 
  computer they are likely to be able to gain access to is proof 
  against Laundry spying. Of course, there are other, more 
  traditional methods of finding out more about the occult 
  and about the Laundry.
  The Occult Underground
  Once a group of civilian characters has had their first 
  experiences with both the supernatural and the Laundry, 
  they’ll be looking for answers. After finding that on-line 
  searchers are both uninformative and drastically unsafe, 
  they’ll likely go looking for other sources of information. If 
  the GM wishes to jumpstart the campaign, it’s always possible 
  for the characters to encounter some useful information 
  before it was taken down by Laundry techs. Characters may 
  even download a copy of the Tome of  Power or find some 
  musty grimoire with scribbled marginal equations, giving 
  them the chance to learn sorcery. Letting the characters see 
  how rapidly and seriously Laundry operatives respond to 
  someone experimenting with magic should show them that 
  they’ve found something special. 
  Alternately, one of the characters may either attract the 
  interest of a local sorcerer or make contact online with 
  an amateur computational sorcerer good enough to keep 
  communications over a special chat client hidden from 
  Laundry monitoring programs. This character can then 
  provide the characters with information, while also letting 
  them know ways to keep themselves from drawing the 
  Laundry’s attention. Of course, both of these options beg 
  the question of why a sorcerer is talking to a complete 
  novice. The characters may find a cult or dangerous 
  freelance sorcerer attempting to make them into recruits or 
  pawns. 
  Another way to learn about the occult – and eventually, 
  perhaps, learn sorcery – is for the characters to gradually 
  get to know people offline. The advantage of this approach 
  is that it’s far less likely to be discovered by the Laundry, 
  and the characters will have a chance to meet and evaluate 
  individuals. Especially if they are in a large city, characters 
  who seek out people interested in the occult will eventually 
  encounter eccentric computer hobbyists; people on the 
  fringes of the neopagan and New Age communities who 
  aren’t insane, self-deluded fools; people with non-traditional 
  religious beliefs but no interest in actual sorcery; or people 
  who simply enjoy non-mainstream social environments.
  Regardless of which communities the characters make 
  contact with, their first contacts may involve nothing 
  more than a phrase and a knowing look. However, if the 
  characters continue asking discreet questions and dropping 
  hints that they have some clue what they are talking about, 
  they will eventually be investigated in various sorcerous and 
  mundane ways, and once it becomes clear that they do not 
  work for or report to the Laundry, further conversations 
  will ensue. Some of the people they meet will be sorcerers, 
  others are simply people interested in the occult or in 
  investigating government occult conspiracies and similar 
  activities. These people will include everyone from geeky 
  hobbyists to secretive cultists interesting in recruiting, to the 
  bizarrely insane; separating the wheat from the dangerous, 
  crazy chaff will be a daunting task that could make for an 
  excellent scenario.
  However, after dealing with crackpots, cultists, and the 
  profoundly insane, determined characters will eventually 
  discover that despite their best efforts, the Laundry is not 
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  the only source for occult knowledge. Although national 
  and international efforts have kept knowledge of magic out 
  of the newspapers and away from the general public, there 
  is a small and often seriously eccentric subculture of people 
  who study the occult. Many are merely interested in occult 
  mysteries, but have no desire to practice sorcery. However, 
  more than a few of the people in the occult underground are 
  sorcerers or would-be sorcerers. An equal number have no 
  interest in learning magic, but are only interested in finding 
  some way to use sorcery to accomplish some goal, which 
  could range from gaining vast wealth, to revenge against an 
  enemy, to raising a departed loved one from the dead. 
  In this small and eccentric subculture, the characters will 
  discover little tolerance for clueless noobs. If someone has 
  interesting or useful information or can provide a useful 
  service, then they’ll find people willing to talk to them. 
  However, people who arrive hat in hand, seeking someone to 
  explain the oddities of the multiverse, discover that the only 
  people eager to talk to them are rambling nutcases and cult 
  recruiters. Plenty of people in the occult underground are 
  eager to share information or to work with other occultists 
  on projects, but only if the exchange of information and 
  effort is a two-way street.
  The Laundry’s Response to                         
  the Occult Underground
  The Laundry has some knowledge of the occult 
  underground, but ignores the vast majority of it. Eliminating 
  every old book with references to gorgons, ritual magic, 
  or various other occult oddities would be impossible. As 
  CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN approaches, the Laundry 
  is increasingly busy with serious and immediate threats. As 
  a result, anyone who wishes to study the occult is largely 
  free to do so, as long as they don’t attempt to inform the 
  public about magic, interfere with the actions of Laundry 
  operatives, commit human sacrifice, or use sorcery. The last 
  of these is also sometimes ignored; summoning possessing 
  entities is right out, as is using geases to turn other people 
  into will-bound thralls – the Laundry prefers to have 
  a monopoly on that sort of activity – but the occasional 
  low level glamour doesn’t concern the Laundry overly 
  much. People suspected of occasional low level sorcery are 
  watched and dealt with if they seem to be causing too much 
  trouble. In addition, the Laundry takes a keen interest in 
  anyone who is working with any spells of Level Three or 
  higher, as well as with anyone who is performing or even 
  researching computational sorcery.
   
  The Laundry knows that they can’t eradicate all knowledge 
  of traditional magic, short of shutting down every used 
  bookstore and every Classics and Medieval Studies 
  department in the UK, but computational sorcery is 
  far faster, easier, and safer than traditional magic, as well 
  as being far more contained. As a result, computational 
  sorcery interests the Laundry a great deal, and operatives 
  do their best to stamp it out. There are very few freelance 
  computational sorcerers in the UK, and those that exist 
  are skilled enough with both magical wards and mundane 
  computer security as to be more or less untraceable. There 
  are also the various corporations who experiment with 
  sorcery, but they generally have no interest in talking to 
  civilian occultists. 
  One of the other reasons that the Laundry largely ignores 
  much of the occult underground is that the knowledge 
  that characters will be able to acquire from the occult 
  underground is substantial, but is also seriously limited 
  compared with what Laundry operatives have access to. 
  The best amateur occultists know about gorgons, ghouls 
  and haunting, and they may know about the fae or BLUE 
  HADES, but almost all of this knowledge comes from 
  books and other sources produced before WWII. After 
  the war, the Laundry’s crackdown on occult knowledge 
  was increasingly effective. While most knowledgeable 
  amateur occultists know a great deal about gorgonism, 
  none of them know about later experiments with Basilisk 
  weapons or about many of the other occult developments 
  of the 1960s and later. The only recent information that 
  most occult hobbyists and freelance sorcerers have access 
  to is the events that they have seen and the reports and 
  rumours they’ve heard from other members of the occult 
  underground. Of course, the Laundry has a few of its 
  own operatives pretending to be members of the occult 
  underground. These operatives both keep an eye out for 
  serious threats and spread various forms of disinformation 
  to help suppress or discredit information that the Laundry 
  prefers to keep secret. 
  Some Laundry operatives have also learned that the occult 
  underground can serve as a useful source of information 
  about new cults and other threats. The Laundry also goes 
  after anyone who tries to contact or dynamite-fish for 
  BLUE HADES, or help ghouls kidnap and murder people. 
  However, people who wander through haunted houses, set 
  up night scopes to watch for suspected ghoul activity, buy 
  alleged gorgon skulls on Ebay, or read accounts of Nazi 
  magic aren’t worth bothering with, unless they put any of 
  what they’ve seen up on Youtube or attempt to practice 
  some of that Nazi sorcery. 
  Knowledge of  the Laundry
  The only thing most amateur occultists know about the 
  Laundry is that there’s a mysterious and frighteningly 
  powerful government organisation that goes after nasty 
  sorcerers and anyone who attempts to let the general 
  public know about the supernatural. Members of the 
  occult underground may have heard vague hints about 
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  some coming apocalypse, but people have been talking 
  about coming apocalypses pretty much since people started 
  talking. No civilian knows more than the vaguest rumours 
  about CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN, and they know even 
  less about any of the various countermeasures. Anyone 
  who seemed like they might even suspect the existence of 
  the SCORPION STARE network is going to face memory 
  erasure or recruitment.
   
  Learning Sorcery 
  Characters not associated with the Laundry can easily 
  encounter various supernatural manifestations, but without 
  some sorcery or occult items on their side, they are more 
  likely to become possessed, or dead, than they are to 
  become demon hunters. Unfortunately, civilians don’t have 
  an impressive government organisation to teach them the 
  ins and outs of magic or supply them with occult weapons. 
  Instead, they’ve got to learn it all on their own. There are 
  several ways that they can manage this. One easy answer is 
  for the characters to download a copy of The Tome of  Power 
  or some similar on-line grimoire. In fact, the characters 
  finding such a file and then having to flee from Laundry 
  operatives who came looking for them could be an excellent 
  beginning for a civilian campaign. The early part of the 
  campaign would involve the characters learning to use the 
  file as they discovered the eldritch truths of the world.
  Civilians might instead find a teacher; although the Laundry 
  does its very best to recruit or dispose of anyone with any 
  clue about computational sorcery, they don’t get everyone, 
  and capturing skilled sorcerers is especially difficult, since 
  they have wards and other protections that keep the Laundry 
  from finding them with scrying spells. If the characters are 
  found by a rogue sorcerer before the Laundry picks them 
  up, they may get some training and some useful trinkets 
  like personal wards. Of course, everything has a price. Any 
  sorcerer willing to teach their craft is likely going to want 
  the characters to perform a few favours in return. The exact 
  nature of these favours and whether or not the characters’ 
  mentor is monstrous, heroic, or somewhere in between will 
  determine a great deal about where the campaign goes next. 
  Civilian characters could also run into traditional magic. 
  Accurate grimoires of traditional magic are difficult to 
  find, but considerably easier than works of computational 
  sorcery, and there are a few traditional sorcerers around. 
  More than a few, unfortunately, are cultists looking for 
  recruits. Of course, learning sorcery while having to deal 
  with a cult could make for an excellent scenario or two.
  Having a Friend on the Inside
  Eventually, civilians who go around dealing with occult 
  problems are going to encounter Laundry operatives dealing 
  with the same situations. Often, leaving quickly is the best 
  answer, but if lives are at stake, a group of civilians may 
  be put in the difficult position of having to save innocents 
  while the Laundry steam in to fight the horrors, or even of 
  having to save a Laundry operative themselves. 
  Once the monsters or cultists have been defeated, the 
  Laundry operative is going to want to talk to the characters. 
  If it’s clear that the characters are working to save lives and 
  deal with problems, then the results of this meeting needn’t 
  involve the use of a warrant card or signing documents 
  in blood. The operative knows that if she reports the 
  characters’ activities, then they’ll either be geased to leave 
  occult investigation to professionals, or dragooned into the 
  Laundry; the first result means there will be fewer people 
  out saving lives, and the second means completely screwing 
  over the lives of a group of well-meaning people who may 
  have just helped save her life. The third option is simply 
  neglecting to mention the characters’ involvement. If the 
  cult, demon, or whatever is dealt with, and there is no 
  evidence that civilians were involved, none of the operative’s 
  superiors are likely to ask any difficult questions. 
  If the characters really impress the operative, or she feels 
  indebted to them, then the characters may even end up 
  with a minor reward. While the Laundry keeps careful track 
  of occult weapons and sorcerous software, ‘dropping’ or 
  ‘losing’ a Level Three personal ward or a roll of warding 
  tape is simply chalked up to operating expenses. A grateful 
  operative could easily give one or both to the characters. An 
  exceedingly grateful operative might even give them a hand 
  of glory and explain how to make more from a pigeon claw 
  and a few circuits you can buy down at any electronics store. 
  They’re never going to get a Necronomiphone, a mirrored 
  hand of glory, or anything similar; agents who want to 
  avoid premature reassignment as a residual human resource 
  simply do not give directed energy weapons to civilians. 
  She may even set up a way for them to contact each other 
  again, so that, if the characters find something of interest 
  to the Laundry, they can pass it along to her. Alternately, 
  she might ask the characters to check out something that’s 
  suspicious, but politically inexpedient for the Laundry to 
  investigate without further evidence. She might even be 
  willing to liberate some minor gear in return for such a 
  request. To obtain this reward the characters, may well have 
  to break into the home or office of someone exceedingly 
  rich or powerful who is suspected of being a dangerous 
  sorcerer; any rewards are likely to be well-earned. Of 
  course, if the operative gets in trouble, or knows that one 
  of her superiors is a murderous traitor, but doesn’t know 
  exactly who, then she may also ask the characters for some 
  far more up-close-and-personal help.
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  Character Types
  The following character types are all possible choices for 
  civilian campaigns. This isn’t an exhaustive list, but one 
  factor to keep in mind is that none of these characters 
  should be government employees. Police officers, emergency 
  services workers, and low-level government clerks could all 
  easily stumble upon the supernatural, but they are also all 
  especially susceptive to warrant cards, and anyone working 
  for the government who has previous experience with 
  the supernatural will have signed paragraph three of the 
  Official Secrets Act in blood, making them unsuitable for 
  civilian campaigns. Such characters can, of course, be ideal 
  recruits for a campaign based around the characters joining 
  the Laundry in the course of the campaign. 
  Clueless Civilians
  This is the most challenging option. Sometimes ordinary 
  civilians – temps, web designers, shop keepers, and office 
  clerks – encounter truths that humanity wasn’t meant to 
  know and secrets that can literally drive people insane. One 
  moment, she’s thinking about the nice dinner she’s just eaten, 
  the warm bed and cat waiting for her at home, and the next 
  she’s being chased by glowing-eyed people hungry for her 
  neural structures or watching a headless black dog eat two 
  police officers and jump through a wall. After witnessing 
  or being a part of such events, most people run gibbering 
  for the police and are soon comforted and questioned by 
  an official carrying a warrant card. Afterwards, she’s safely 
  forgotten all supernatural oddness and can go on with her 
  life. 
  Naturally, characters in this sort of campaign are not most 
  people. It’s possible for the character to react to nameless 
  horrors reasonably calmly. Alternatively, she may encounter 
  an agent of the Laundry, warrant card in hand, and come 
  out of the experience with her will and her memory fully 
  intact; various options for how to manage this are discussed 
  above. In either case, the first few days after she ceases to be 
  a clueless civilian and learns at least some of what’s going on 
  around her will be the defining moment for the character.
  Once a character decides to deliberately investigate the 
  supernatural, and finds ways to avoid having the Laundry 
  make her forget about what she has seen, she’s gone from 
  being an ordinary civilian to being an amateur occultist 
  or supernatural investigator. Soon, a whole section of the 
  character’s life involves meeting strange people in dimly-
  lit pubs, breaking into abandoned and supposedly haunted 
  houses, tracking down the truth behind bizarre rumours, 
  and possibly attempting to learn sorcery, all while doing her 
  best to stay under the Laundry’s radar. In the meantime, she 
  also still has the entire rest of her life to worry about – her 
  job, her family and friends. 
  Managing to keep a job while delving into various unnatural 
  secrets can be tough enough. Trying to also maintain 
  close relationships can be really difficult, especially if the 
  character’s significant other worries that she’s having an 
  affair and secretly follows her into a haunted house – or 
  worse yet, follows the character when she attempts to free 
  someone who has been captured by a nasty cult. Both 
  the character’s personal life and her occult encounters are 
  excellent fodder for adventures, especially when the two 
  collide.
  Goals & Activities: Civilians who get involved in the occult 
  can have a wide range of goals and can become involved 
  in a multitude of different occult adventures. Obviously 
  learning more about what’s going on is going to be a high 
  priority at first, and the events that got them into the 
  supernatural in the first place – a murderous cult, a demon 
  haunting the neighbourhood, or some similar danger – may 
  still be looming. 
  Also, once someone begins to look into the supernatural, 
  much of what she finds is going to be hostile. The characters 
  are soon going to end up seeing serious problems that they 
  might be able to help solve. When they meet other amateur 
  occultists, they may hear stories about someone who 
  vanished after talking with the wrong people, and be drawn 
  into investigating a suspected cult. 
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  Alternately, their activities may endanger their friends and 
  loved ones. One of the character’s friends, seeing her go into 
  a strange-looking pub, might visits it later and ends up being 
  recruited or even abducted by a cult. One way or another, 
  the focus of a civilian campaign should be a mixture of 
  uncovering the truth about the occult and working to defeat 
  various unnatural threats and dangers. 
  Journalists
  It’s the job of a good investigative journalist to go out 
  and find trouble, and on occasion, the trouble they find is 
  supernatural. A journalist might encounter a spontaneous 
  possession, the aftermath of an unlucky hacker vaporising 
  his living room or opening a gate in his monitor to let 
  through a couple of hungry monsters, or even a dangerous 
  cult performing rituals and fighting Laundry agents. Unlike 
  various government officials, journalists haven’t taken 
  any oaths, and most are completely clueless about the 
  supernatural. However, there are always rumours of odd 
  and inexplicable events that are discussed in hushed tones; 
  or more loudly, when people have been drinking. 
  Nevertheless, there’s a big difference between vague 
  rumours and anything remotely resembling actual proof. 
  The vast majority of journalists who uncover evidence of 
  occult activities are visited soon after by Laundry personnel 
  with warrant cards in hand and careful instructions to forget 
  what they have seen. Unfortunately for the Laundry, no 
  system is ever perfect. Occasionally, a journalist is the first 
  person on the scene and leaves before Laundry operatives 
  arrive, or they happen to observe everything that happens 
  through a telephoto lens, while on a rooftop a block away. 
  Of course, the Laundry has a number of other ways of 
  keeping reports of zombies, cults, and similar problems 
  off the evening news. To do their jobs, journalists need 
  to publish their work, and the Laundry has operatives 
  and software monitoring stories as they are readied for 
  print. A flash of a warrant card – or, in the most extreme 
  circumstances, issuing an official DA-Notice – can keep any 
  problematic story out of print. 
  The fact that several large news conglomerates have senior 
  officials who are bound by an Official Secrets act oath to reject 
  problematic articles and to report the reporters responsible 
  also doesn’t hurt. The standard pattern runs something like 
  this: a reporter observes something supernatural, and writes 
  and submits an article. The article never sees print, and the 
  reporter’s editor gives the article to the official government 
  types, who drop by for a chat. Within a day or two, the 
  same government types pay the reporter a visit, flash their 
  warrant cards, and everything is either forgotten or a big, 
  silly mistake. Of course, this doesn’t make for good gaming 
  if you’re playing the reporters. You need to figure out why 
  your character isn’t on a watch list, and hasn’t been geased. 
  Ultimately, what you need is a character who has seen 
  enough to know that the supernatural is real... and also 
  that if he wishes to keep being aware of this fact, and to 
  not vanish into an unmarked van, he must keep fairly quiet 
  about this fact. Any truly dedicated reporter is going to 
  try to get to the bottom of this mystery. At this point, you 
  have a journalist who is effectively working two jobs: the 
  officially-sanctioned reporting that earns his paycheck and 
  that he turns into his editor, and the unofficial reporting 
  about all matters eldritch that he is carrying out in their 
  spare time; articles that can never be published under his 
  own name, and which are almost certainly too unsafe to 
  publish in any fashion. 
  Before you start playing or running a campaign with 
  journalists, it’s worth considering what the characters’ goals 
  may be. Are they content to simply find out the truth, or 
  will they need to do something with it? Where is the line 
  between investigating occult phenomena and attempting to 
  stop the threats they pose? One obvious place for this line to 
  be crossed is if some group of crazed cultists or malevolent 
  sorcerers find out that they’re being watched by the press 
  and decides to do something about it; journalist characters 
  may get involved in combating supernatural threats purely 
  out of self-defence. Of course, finding out that the cult 
  your are investigating is planning on sacrificing half a dozen 
  homeless people in an effort to summon a creature that will 
  104
  
  possess the local mayor may well be sufficient to cause any 
  character to get involved, even without any actual direct 
  threats.
  Goals & Activities: As soon as it becomes clear that they’ll 
  never be able to publish anything they discover about the 
  occult, journalists are going to need to decide why they 
  are still investigating it. The answers to this question will 
  determine what the character does next. Some journalists 
  want to know the truth, even if they know that they can’t 
  publish it. Others start off wanting to find the truth and end 
  up helping to save others from occult threats, or become 
  fascinated with the occult.
  With CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN approaching 
  and magic getting more powerful and more common, 
  eventually, the Laundry won’t be able to keep a lid on the 
  supernatural, and so reporters who want to eventually get 
  the truth out are likely to be able to. Also, if the GM and 
  players are willing to deal with the consequences, then 
  there’s no reason that a sufficiently dedicated character 
  or group of characters can’t bring the occult into the 
  open – that’s the sort of thing proactive characters do. 
  Of course, like any other major change to a setting, this 
  isn’t something that the characters are going accomplish 
  in a single game session, or even in a single scenario. The 
  Laundry has been keeping a lid on the supernatural for 
  more than half a century; beating them at this game is 
  something that should likely become the entire focus of 
  the campaign.
  There’s also the possibility of journalists ‘going native’. A 
  journalist could easily become fascinated with the occult and 
  become an amateur occult problem solver, or even work on 
  learning sorcery. However, if they want to keep paying their 
  rent, they’ll also need to keep meeting their deadlines. 
  Independent Sorcerers
  The Laundry would prefer to have a complete monopoly 
  on magic in the UK. Almost everyone in the Laundry 
  believes that there are only two types of sorcerers in the 
  UK: Laundry operatives, and dangerous and often insane 
  cultists. Reality is rather more complicated; there are a small 
  number of independent sorcerers. None of these freelance 
  sorcerers know all that much about the Laundry, but they 
  do know that it is a government agency that functions 
  like a magical lobster pot – anyone who knows anything 
  about magic and who encounters it, never leaves. There are 
  rumours of magical brainwashing, horrific geases, secret 
  heavily-warded holding cells, and various other similarly 
  dreadful fates, many of which are actually true.
   
  What independent sorcerers are all certain about is that 
  they need to stay under the Laundry’s radar if they want to 
  remain independent. Many of them have morals and ethics 
  similar to some of the famous computer hackers – they 
  want to explore the supernatural, and they want to do so on 
  their own terms, without the interference of governments, 
  corporations, or anyone else who wants to keep secrets from 
  them. To find these secrets, this group of eccentric loners 
  occasionally team up, and regularly share information – in 
  part to obtain needed help or to secure favours from other 
  independents, and in part to show off exactly how skilled 
  they are. Similarly, if an independent sorcerer discovers 
  something new and impressive, many of them are going to 
  want to tell other people about it, and the only other people 
  they can tell are other independent sorcerers. As a result, 
  there is a loose and rather geeky subculture of independent 
  sorcerers. Most practice traditional magic; the few 
  computational sorcerers may be more effective, but they also 
  must deal with hostility and scorn from traditionalists who 
  believe that advanced technology ‘taints’ the purity of magic. 
  These sorcerers have the freedom to experiment and 
  explore whatever ideas interest them. As a result, they can 
  make impressive discoveries, and seek out and eliminate 
  dangerous magical threats, without any outside help. 
  However, sometimes the only people who can stop them 
  – if they go rogue and begin plotting world domination, or 
  get possessed by something hungry and powerful – is the 
  Laundry, the very authority that they avoid and decry. 
  Safety and Discretion: One of the first things that any 
  independent sorcerer learns is that the Laundry, as along 
  with other occult agencies, regard freelance sorcerers as 
  dangerous loose cannons and unwelcome intruders. The 
  only way to stay off of their radar is to keep hidden. For 
  a few, this means giving up magic, but for others it means 
  using more and better magic. A good Level Three personal 
  ward protects the wearer from scrying, sympathetic magic, 
  and many other problems, including having a decent chance 
  of protecting the wearer from the effects of a Laundry 
  warrant card. Independent sorcerers lucky enough to own 
  a Level Four personal ward have nothing to fear from 
  warrant cards. However, personal protection isn’t enough; 
  sorcerers also need to ward their magical workspaces, so it 
  isn’t obvious to anyone who cares to cast a scrying spell or 
  look at a thaumometer that someone in a particular house 
  or apartment is regularly performing magic. Regardless 
  of whether they’re practicing computational sorcery or 
  traditional magic, independent sorcerers swiftly learn to be 
  cautious and highly secretive, and to magically cover their 
  tracks. The disappearances of those that are not sufficiently 
  careful serve as a vivid warning to others.
  Goals & Activities: So, other than keeping out of the 
  Laundry’s way, what exactly does an independent sorcerer 
  do? To an extent, this question can be answered by deciding 
  how the character learned magic. A sorcerer who learned 
  from a mentor may find the mentor asking him for favours. 
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  He may have found a dusty occult tome or two, or perhaps 
  downloaded a file like the Tome of  Power, in which case 
  he is going to want to experiment, to find out what he 
  can do. He might try to use a glamour to get into fancy 
  and exclusive nightclubs, or he might hear about a missing 
  child and attempt to use sympathetic magic to find her. Of 
  course, after the child’s grateful parents tell their friends, 
  the sorcerer might get a request to find someone else, and 
  could easily end up disguising himself as a fluffy New Age 
  type and pretending to be a helpful psychic. His encounters 
  with other independent sorcerers will also be an important 
  part of such a campaign. Some will need help, some will 
  be sources of valuable aid and instruction, and some will 
  be dangerous threats that the character may want to deal 
  with before the Laundry gets involved... and possibly finds 
  out about everyone the now-possessed sorcerer knows. 
  One classic plot is for a dangerous sorcerer to be killing 
  people in a city, sparking a redoubled effort by the Laundry 
  to locate every independent sorcerer in the city. To keep 
  from being captured or killed by the Laundry, the various 
  independent sorcerers team up to hunt down and deal with 
  the murderous sorcerer themselves... 
  Creating Independent Sorcerers
  To create an independent sorcerer, use the 
  standard method of character generation, 
  and then instead of Laundry training, the 
  character gains +10 in Knowledge (Occult), 
  Research and Sorcery. Characters can then 
  spend an additional 40 points in other 
  skills, with no more than 10 points going 
  into any single skill. A traditional 
  sorcerer might spend points in various 
  obscure languages, while a computational 
  sorcerer would spend points in Computer Use 
  (any, with Hacking & Magic being the most 
  obvious choices), or Science (Mathematics 
  or Thaumaturgy). These bonuses can raise 
  skills over 75%.
  Freelance Spies
  By far the most likely way that someone becomes an 
  effective freelance spy is by being trained as a professional 
  spy and then going private. Laundry operatives never retire 
  and go freelance. Those that don’t end up dead, imprisoned 
  for treason or in an asylum have geases to keep them from 
  unofficial activities. However, members of other intelligence 
  services are not quite so limited. Individuals who worked 
  for MI5 or for intelligence agencies in other nations won’t 
  have been trained as sorcerers, but most people working in 
  the field will at least have heard stories, and some have seen 
  a wide variety of occult oddities: terrorist cells that are also 
  sorcerous, gorgons, even the odd piece of stolen Laundry 
  gear. Of course, governments aren’t the only employers 
  of spies; corporate espionage is big business, and many 
  of these operatives are as good as the best government 
  spooks. And as the magical antics of Ellis Billington show, 
  corporations with the right sort of government contracts 
  have as much understanding of the occult as the Laundry 
  or the Black Chamber. 
  Government and corporate spies sometimes get fired or 
  laid off, sometimes they are set up for crimes they didn’t 
  commit and blacklisted, and sometimes they simply get fed 
  up with their jobs and leave. Given that some corporations 
  include geases in their non-compete agreements and 
  governments seriously frown on ex-operatives working for 
  other governments, the job prospects for an ex-spy can be 
  seriously limited. One option is to go freelance. Some of 
  these people take jobs for the money, others have a sincere 
  calling to use their skills for good, or at least to try to atone 
  for some of the evils they committed, and others may 
  simply decide that they have no other marketable skills and 
  have no interest in trying to sell lattes or shoes. 
  Goals & Activities: Regardless of why she is now a 
  freelance spy, what does someone like that actually do and 
  who does she work with? While shop clerks, journalists, 
  and even freelance sorcerers can all work together well, 
  106
  
  freelance spies have a significantly different skill set and far 
  different experiences. As a result, most freelance spies, ex-
  assassins, former security personnel, and similar characters 
  work with people from similar backgrounds. If nothing 
  else, when an ex-spy mentions some of the less moral acts 
  she’s performed, other ex-spies are less likely to be sickened 
  and horrified. GMs who wish to allow mixed parties of all 
  sorts of civilians are free to do so, but in general, groups 
  where either all or none the characters are freelance spies 
  are likely to be easier to manage.
  Creating Freelance Spies
  Instead of generating freelance spies as 
  civilians, they should be generated like 
  Laundry operatives, but replacing Sorcery 
  with some other spy-type skill, like 
  Stealth, Drive, Computer Use, or a weapon 
  skill. However, if the character has had 
  access to some top secret or otherwise 
  restricted 
  government 
  or 
  corporate 
  documents, with your GM’s permission, the 
  player of a freelance spy can spend up to 
  10 of her skill points on Sorcery and up to 
  10 on Knowledge (Occult).
  Freelance spies and other freelance ex-intelligence 
  operatives can be defenders of the common people, or 
  at least of common people able to afford their fees. They 
  can also be freelance corporate flunkies or dedicated and 
  perhaps fanatical idealists who are determined to uncover 
  the truth about the corruption (or other evils) that drove 
  them from their previous jobs. A spy can easily run across 
  various occult menaces in the course of her work. In fact, 
  perhaps the reason she was fired or quit is directly related 
  to an occult menace; maybe one of her former superiors 
  was possessed or placed under a geas, or secretly engaging 
  in hideous magics and worried that the character might 
  find out.
  One possible career choice is for a group of freelance spies 
  who all know one another, from their days working together 
  in the same corporation or government agency, to hang out 
  an unofficial shingle and look for clients with some sort 
  of unusual problem. This premise has been used in several 
  successful TV shows and would work marvellously well 
  for a Laundry campaign. These problems can range from a 
  person or corporation being blackmailed or threatened by 
  criminals, to helping someone deal with a missing persons 
  case that the police won’t take seriously, or recovering a 
  stolen object when the victims of the theft don’t want to 
  report the theft to the authorities. Of course, while perfectly 
  mundane scenarios without any spells or demons can be 
  lots of fun, in the Laundry RPG, there’s always some sort 
  of magical threat waiting just around the corner. 
  For an occult twist, you could have a client who is trying 
  to escape (or rescue a friend or sibling from) a creepy cult, 
  an occult dabbler who has gotten in way over his head, or 
  perhaps someone being threatened or blackmailed by a 
  sorcerer. The characters might even be approached by an 
  occultist who quite sensibly doesn’t wish to reporting that 
  his grimoire was stolen, but who wants it back. Ultimately, 
  the basic plots are the same, but with occult rather than 
  mundane treasures or threats. 
  Regardless of their exact level of knowledge of the occult, 
  many freelance spies will have been sworn to secrecy, and 
  in some cases, especially for ex-government operatives, this 
  secrecy will be enforced with a geas. However, just because 
  someone can’t talk about something to ordinary civilians, 
  doesn’t mean they can’t talk about it with other people 
  who have taken similar oaths, or that they can’t investigate 
  problems that turn out to have occult aspects when they 
  begin working freelance. As soon as they encounter 
  anything to do with the occult, most freelance spies will 
  know that they either need to turn the situation over to 
  someone else, or they need to find some way to prepare 
  themselves for dealing with occult threats. Like any other 
  civilian, freelance spies could learn sorcery, and they might 
  have already picked up an occult device – or maybe a flash 
  drive with a grimoire on it – during their time working for a 
  government or corporation. 
  Cultists
  Some days, you haul yourself out of bed and realise it’s just 
  not worth it. Drag yourself off to the daily grind, waste 
  your life in front of a glowing screen, work for peanuts, 
  then drag yourself home in the gathering twilight as the 
  cold pitiless stars look down on you from an uncaring 
  universe. Some days, you just want to end it all. Hey, given 
  a choice between all that and what Cortez promised in the 
  swamps of Loisiana (‘the liberated Old Ones would teach 
  them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, 
  and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of  ecstasy and 
  freedom’), it seems easy to go to Option B.
  Playing a cultist isn’t playing the bad guys – it’s playing the 
  winning side. At least, assuming you make it all the way 
  to the promised time when the stars come right again. 
  Until then, it’s a harrowing existence of dodging amateur 
  investigators and OCCINTEL groups, recovering lost relics 
  and experimenting with strange rituals, and trying not to get 
  eaten by your own gods.
  Player character cults are never any of the really powerful, 
  dangerous, 
  depraved 
  organisations 
  like 
  the 
  Black 
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  Brotherhood. Instead, they’re the clueless also-rans, the 
  small fry, the scrappy underdogs. Depending on your tastes, 
  the cult can have goals that aren’t necessarily anthetical 
  to humanity (free-thinking sorcerers who worship Yog-
  Sothoth) or are just not into the whole torture and 
  human sacrifice routine, like Universal Unitarian Cthulhu 
  worshippers or third-generation Satanists who just pay lip 
  service to the whole demon-worship thing. 
  Safety & Discretion: Just like independent sorcerers, 
  cultists need to keep their heads down and avoid being 
  noticed by the Laundry. Unfortunately, it’s even harder for 
  cultists to avoid drawing attention. A cabal of sorcerers can 
  rely on each other to be discreet, whereas cultists have to 
  live with fanatical fellow-worshippers and crazy old uncle 
  Zadok who rants to everyone about the coming of the gods. 
  ‘Cult troubleshooters’ is a great role for player characters – 
  they’re the guys who have to clean up the cult’s messes.
  Cults are perennially short of cash; the days when Deep One 
  gold would wash up on the shore are long gone, magical 
  extortion risks alerting the police, and the traditional scheme 
  of getting some old rich guy to give you all his money in 
  exchange for immortality got scuppered by private health 
  insurers. Cultists are rarely the sort of proactive go-getters 
  who succeed in business, so paying the temple cleaning bills 
  out of your own pocket isn’t an option. In the modern day, 
  the cross-over between Mythos cults and organised crime is 
  increasingly common. The player characters might be sent 
  off to smuggle Liao-derived drugs to the Russian mafia, or 
  try robbing banks using glamours and entropy-manipulation 
  spells to bypass security. What can possibly go wrong?
  Goals and Activities: Each cult has its own beliefs and 
  methods of worship that must be observed. The characters 
  might have to complete a bizarre ceremony every few weeks, 
  and each rite requires different ingredients and must be held 
  in a different place. Isolated blasted hilltops and circles of 
  ancient stones are a lot harder to find these days. Cultists 
  might also want to summon up alien horrors and have some 
  form of bizarre congress with them, or recover lost relics 
  and books of lore. Good luck breaking into the Laundry’s 
  archives to steal back that copy of the Necronomicon. The 
  only people cultists hate and fear more than the human 
  authorities are other cultists – those bastards are not only 
  worshipping the wrong god, they’ve been our enemies since 
  before the dawn of civilisation. Cults invest a lot of time 
  and effort in slinging death spells back and forth at each 
  other, some of which even work. 
  Being in a cult is a lot like working for the Laundry. You 
  can’t talk about it to anyone outside the cult, you’re sent off 
  on bizarre missions by insane superiors, and you’re likely to 
  get devoured by something with altogether too many teeth 
  and tentacles. The all-important difference is the endgame 
  – if you survive, you win!
  At least, that’s what they tell you...
  Creating a Cultist
  To create a bottom-feeder cultist, use the 
  standard method of character generation, 
  and then instead of Laundry training, the 
  character gains +10 in Cthulhu Mythos, 
  Knowledge (Occult), and Sorcery. Characters 
  can then spend an additional 40 points in 
  other skills, with no more than 10 points 
  going into any single skill. These bonuses 
  can raise skills over 75%. Most cultists are 
  limited to careers with an income of Average 
  or Poor, and cultists may not raise Computer 
  Use (Magic) or Science (Thaumaturgy) higher 
  than 50. Different cults also have their 
  own fringe benefits. See the individual cult 
  descriptions for more details.
  Church of  Starry Wisdom: The Starry Wisdom Sect was 
  founded by an Egyptologist-turned-mystic named Enoch 
  Bowen, who returned from a dig in Egypt claiming to be 
  108
  
  the bearer of secret knowledge. Central to the teachings 
  of the Starry Wisdom Sect is the concept of revelation 
  through meditation on certain many-angled crystals. The 
  cult’s original branch in Boston was driven out in the 1870s, 
  but Bowen’s teachings took root elsewhere. The original 
  crystal, referred to as a ‘Shining Trapezohedron’ was lost, 
  and recovering it is one of the cult’s primary goals. Fake 
  crystals have circulated through the occult underground 
  since the 1920s. 
  Without the otherworldly insight granted by the crystal, 
  different sects have proliferated, each with its own 
  interpretation of Bowen’s teachings. Branches of Starry 
  Wisdom have cropped up in the United Kingdom. Bowen’s 
  original scrolls contained incantations and summoning 
  spells, so more than a few sects have been taken over by 
  extradimensional horrors. 
  Special Rules: All Starry Wisdom Sect members have 
  studied the teachings of the cult, gaining +10 Sorcery and 
  +10 Knowledge (Occult) in addition to other skills. 
  Order of  the Silver Star: Aleister Crowley, the infamous 
  British occultist and enfant terrible of the Golden Dawn, 
  was among his many accomplishments a talented 
  mathematician. His attempts to formulate a scientific theory 
  of religion and magic brought him to the same insight as 
  the Dee-Turing theorem, from the opposite direction. 
  He lacked the computational tools – or, for that matter, 
  the desire – to further this theory, being more concerned 
  with sex and drugs and bad poetry, but one of the orders 
  he founded pursued his line of inquiry. The Argentium 
  Astrum, or the Order of the Silver Star is an order of 
  Hermetic magicians and demonologists. Unlike other cults, 
  the A  A   is not beholden to any one Great Old One or 
  extradimensional entity; if anything, they worship magic 
  for itself, and have their fingers in a lot of occult pies. The 
  most infamous scion of the Order of the Silver Star was 
  Elias Billington of TLA; his parents were members, and he 
  used his magical knowledge to establish his corporation as 
  one of the premier occult-technology suppliers to the Black 
  Chamber and other secret organisations.
  Most Silver Star sects are comparatively harmless seekers 
  after enlightenment and cosmic insight, at least until they 
  accidentally summon a possessor entity that eats their 
  brains. The Laundry launched a counter-operation 
  against the A   A    in the 1980s, classified under CRYSTAL 
  CENTURY. Since then, the A  A   has moved most of its 
  operations out of its traditional haunts in the UK, leaving 
  only a few isolated cells and splinter cults behind.
  Special Rules: Unlike other cults, Order of the Silver Star 
  cultists can take Computer Use (Magic) as a starting skill.
  Esoteric Order of  Dagon: The Esoteric Order of Dagon 
  was once the favoured agents on land of the ancient BLUE 
  HADES civilisation. Branches of the EOD were founded 
  in coastal towns where the Deep Ones came ashore to 
  interbreed with humanity. As the cult’s influence grew, it 
  expanded inland, bringing worship of the Deep Ones and 
  their strange gods to territories that had not known the 
  touch of salt water since the Deep Ones were young. The 
  EOD was one of the most successful and widespread cults, 
  thanks to the backing of its aquatic masters. Then came 
  the Benthic Treaty, which limited the Deep Ones’ access to 
  the surface. The EOD became a political embarrassment, 
  and BLUE HADES cut it loose without a moment’s regret. 
  Abandoned by their masters and deprived of their main 
  source of power and funding, the organisation collapsed in 
  on itself. Various EOD sects blame the occult intelligence 
  community, the Deep Ones themselves, alien gods, modern 
  civilisation and other EOD factions for the loss of access to 
  BLUE HADES backing. 
  Today, the Esoteric Order is like a bunch of neglected 
  children. Some are still trying to win their parents’ love with 
  grand gestures, like sacrificing people to Dagon or trying to 
  recreate the Deep One breeding programs in vitro. Other 
  sects just want attention, or revenge, through sorcerous 
  attacks on the Laundry and other occult groups. Some 
  EOD groups even want revenge on the Deep Ones for 
  abandoning them, and claim to be the true heirs to Dagon 
  and Hydra. No matter what their beliefs, all EOD sects 
  smell strongly of fish.
  Special Rules: The blood of the Deep Ones runs within 
  the Esoteric Order of Dagon. Many are Deep One Hybrids 
  (see page 92).
  Servants of  the Yellow Sign: The Yellow Sign is a 
  memetic infection, a disease of the mind. It looks – it is – 
  a scrawled symbol, but its strange combination of angles 
  and curves plants a seed in the human mind. As you think 
  about it, something grows within your mind, born from 
  the interaction of your unconscious and the shape in your 
  memory. Over time, this mental construct functions as an 
  incantation, opening the way between the worlds and inviting 
  extradimensional possessors in. It can take years for the 
  interaction of the memory and the mind to come to fruition, 
  but the growing construct also behaves like a parasite, 
  compelling the human host to replicate the Yellow Sign 
  so the construct can reproduce. In most cases, possession 
  occurs within ten years of exposure. Some people are 
  naturally immune to the sign’s malefic influence, while others 
  succumb much more quickly. In short – if you’ve seen the 
  Yellow Sign without protective filters, then you’re screwed. 
  There’s an alien entity growing in your mind that’s going to 
  open you up to possession in a few years, and the only thing 
  that can save you from that fate is a lobotomy. Oh, and 
  you’re also compelled to spread the Sign whenever you can. 
  ..  . 
  ..  . 
  ..  . 
  ..  . 
  ..  . 
  ..  . 
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  On the bright side, there’s a period of a few years between 
  infection and possession when the presence of the Sign in 
  your brain gives you Magick Powerz. 
  Calling the Servants of the Yellow Sign a cult is a misnomer; 
  they’re more like a support organisation for the magically 
  diseased. The shape in their minds compels them to behave 
  in ways considered deviant or criminal by the rest of society, 
  so they are really only understood by other sufferers. 
  Special Rules: Yellow Sign sufferers lose 10% from their 
  Maximum Sanity each year, but gain an effective +1 to INT 
  for the purposes of casting mental magic each year. When 
  a Yellow Sign sufferer reaches 0 SAN, they are possessed by 
  an exonome. 
  Brotherhood of  the Black Pharoah: According to its own 
  traditions, the Brotherhood of the Black Pharoah claims to 
  date back to Ancient Egypt; the Laundry suspects that’s the 
  story given to the lower grades, and that the cult is actually 
  far older than that. Of course, the age of the Brotherhood 
  is largely academic – the modern Brotherhood effectively 
  dates back to 1918, when the moribund organisation was 
  taken over and revitalised by an alliance of dispossessed 
  nobility and radical thinkers. The modern cult claims that 
  its overall aim is to ensure the survival of humanity by 
  aligning us with them; in practice, the cult’s power-hungry 
  and extremely dangerous. It has branches and false fronts 
  all over the world. In addition to the main branch of the 
  Brotherhood, there are innumerable smaller sects. Some are 
  fragments of the older cult that survived the Brotherhood’s 
  near-dissolution in the 19th Century; others are splinter 
  groups, satellite churches, pawns or even sacrificial cells 
  designed to draw attention away from the church’s real cult. 
  Special Rules: The Brotherhood has agents everywhere. 
  Cultists gain +10 to any one Knowledge skill.
  Other Intelligence Agencies 
  On soils both foreign and domestic, agents from Capital 
  Laundry Services are more than likely to cross paths with 
  operatives from other intelligence agencies. Historically, the 
  Laundry has worked in tandem with these agencies on a per-
  mission basis or over prolonged periods of time, utilising 
  cross-jurisdictional or even cross-national workgroups to 
  accomplish great ends. This section outlines a number of 
  agencies that could furnish non-Laundry groups or even 
  unusual characters within Capital Laundry Services teams.
  Goals & Activities: Playing characters from a rival 
  intelligence agency works just like playing a Laundry 
  character for the most part. All the OCCINTEL groups 
  have a similar brief – investigate weirdness, keep tabs on 
  computational demonology, make sure no-one ends the 
  world ahead of schedule, prepare for the return of the 
  Great Old Ones. They differ mainly in their internal culture. 
  If working for the Laundry involves endless petty-minded 
  bureaucrats in an office that smells of boiled sprouts and the 
  legacy of empire, then working for, say, the Black Chamber 
  should feel like seeing the sunrise over Washington DC 
  and realising you’re looking at the non-Euclidian cyclopean 
  tombs of R’lyeh. Strip the Britishness out of the Laundry 
  and inject, say, German efficiency or Dutch assuredness 
  instead.
  You can also (with the GM’s permission) play a character 
  from one of the Laundry’s European partner agencies in 
  a Laundry campaign, as part of a joint operation or a staff 
  exchange program.
  The Black Chamber
  The inner workings of the Black Chamber are a secret 
  so closely guarded that even its own agents know little 
  about the organisation. The Chamber is the United States 
  government’s occult research and defence agency, or the 
  United States government is the Chamber’s social control 
  and fundraising arm, depending on who you ask. The 
  Black Chamber exists above and beyond the penumbra of 
  intelligence agencies and shadow government groups that 
  sprang up after 9/11; they’re older than the CIA and more 
  clued-in than the NSA. Their attitude to the occult smacks 
  of arrogance and exceptionalism – you don’t call up and 
  bind the sort of entities that the Black Chamber consorts 
  with unless you’re very, very good or very, very suicidal.
  The Black Chamber and the Laundry have co-operated in 
  the past – the Special Relationship still holds some weight – 
  but only when their interests clearly coincide. For every joint 
  operation, there are three or four incidents of sabre-rattling, 
  squabbling over territory, or tit-for-tat schemes where one 
  goes after what the other wants and vice versa. Relations 
  between the Black Chamber and the Laundry’s European 
  partners are frosty, at best.
  The Laundry’s primary source about the Black Chamber 
  comes from defectors, and defectors are a problem. The 
  Black Chamber is notorious for using demons and other 
  summoned critters to ensure loyalty. Instead of a simple 
  geas, your average Black Chamber field op has a succubus 
  or some other horror riding shotgun on his soul; if he tries 
  to switch sides, his mind gets eaten. And that’s assuming the 
  field op was alive in the first place – the Chamber makes use 
  of a lot of remote-controlled zombies and other inhuman 
  agents, keeping their real staff safe hundreds of miles away. 
  The Black Chamber pioneered the whole ‘go to war in a 
  distant country with a remote-controlled drone’ scheme 
  that the Air Force now uses, only they use walking corpses 
  instead of Reapers and Predators.
  110
  
  Creating a Black Chamber Operative: Agents of 
  the Black Chamber are inevitably co-opted or enslaved 
  with some sort of demonic pact or ‘rider’. This rider is 
  usually a Level Three entity such as a succubus, night hag, 
  doppleganger or other exonome. This rider gives the Black 
  Chamber operative one or more supernatural powers, but 
  also means that the Chamber can liquidate uncooperative 
  assets remotely. 
  Succubus: Succubus entities feed on sex and death. A 
  succubus-bound agent gains access to the succubus’s 
  telepathy, but must feed the demon regularly with suitable 
  sacrifices. If the binding is broken, the succubus will devour 
  the agent’s soul the next time he has sex.
  Night Hag: Night Hags feed on dreams. The victim of a 
  night hag suffers from sleep paralysis, as the entity manifests 
  and forces its way into the victim’s unconscious to use his 
  dreamspace as a nest. A Black Chamber agent ridden by a 
  Night Hag may use the creature to explore the dreams of 
  others or paralyse sleepers, but will never have a full night’s 
  sleep himself. If the binding is broken, the hag murders the 
  agent the next time he sleeps.
  Doppleganger: Dopplegangers are created when an 
  extradimensional entity uses a human as a template when 
  manifesting in our reality. The doppleganger is a mirror 
  image of the original (right-handed hosts give rise to left-
  handed copies) that appears near the original. A character 
  bound to a doppleganger is haunted by his duplicate. 
  Sometimes, the duplicate may help the original; at other 
  times, it pursues its own inscrutable purposes. An unbound 
  doppleganger seeks to murder the original and take his place.
  Stalker: Stalker entities are your classic tentacled horrors 
  from beyond the stars. When one of these is bound to a 
  Black Chamber agent, he becomes a disposable asset – all the 
  Chamber handlers need to do is remotely break the binding, 
  and the creature appears to devour both the agent and any 
  bystanders before sublimating off to another dimension. 
  The agent can also temporarily relax the binding, causing 
  the monster to appear and attack anyone nearby. Basically, if 
  you’ve got one of these, you’re a suicide bomber wearing a 
  vest of grenades, but you can chuck a few before the whole 
  vest goes boom.
  Living Dead: Like the Laundry, the Black Chamber 
  recycle their employees as zombies. Unlike the Laundry, the 
  Chamber can deliberately trap the consciousness of a dead 
  agent and refire the decaying neurons with thaumaturgy. 
  Living dead agents are locked inside their own preserved 
  corpses. They look almost like they did when they were alive 
  – a little puffier, their skin a little more waxy, and their eyes 
  always unfocussed and glassy – but the instant the binding 
  spell is broken, they flop down stone cold dead. Living dead 
  agents are caught on the threshold of oblivion, and cling to 
  the little bit of life left to them with inhuman ferocity. These 
  agents use the same rules as Zombies (page 97).
  Zombie Rider: Not all Black Chamber agents are bound 
  by magic. Some never enter the field directly, using zombie 
  drones under remote control as their shambling eyes and 
  ears. If you’re playing a zombie rider, then your body is 
  safely back at a workstation in Langley or Texas or Cheyenne 
  Mountain, while your mind controls a reanimated corpse. 
  These agents do not need loyalty bindings – if one tried to 
  betray the Black Chamber, her manager could just cut the 
  remote link to the zombie and discipline the agent directly. 
  Soul Rider: Like a zombie rider, but controlling a bound 
  human subject. The Black Chamber has hundreds of 
  ‘stringers’ across the world, all prepared with binding spells. 
  Most of the time, they have their own free will, but at any 
  moment, a Black Chamber soul rider can take control of the 
  stringer’s body. As a Soul Rider, you’ll be hopping bodies as 
  needed. One day, you’re riding the body of a nineteen-year-
  old Thai prostitute; tomorrow, you might be a CIA-trained 
  assassin in Prague, or walking into the Capital in the body 
  of a bound US senator. 
  Otherwise, Black Chamber agents are created using the 
  same process as Laundry agents as described in the core 
  rulebook on pages 16-28, with the following exceptions: 
  Instead of using the bonuses provided in Step Eight: 
  Assignment and Skills on pages 18-19 (and 21), add the 
  following skill bonuses: Bureaucracy +10, Command +10, 
  OuTSIde THe LAundry
  111
  8 - OUTSIDE THE
  LAUNDRY
  
  THe LAundry
  Cthulhu Mythos +10, Firearms (any) +15, Knowledge 
  (Espionage) +15, Sorcery +10, Spot +10, Technology Use 
  (any) +10, any other skill +10. 
  The Black Chamber does not use warrant cards or any 
  standard means of identification. They already know who 
  you are. They use tattooed wards for agents, and most 
  important assets are protected by implanted microscopic 
  wards engraved with defensive spells. As a Black Chamber 
  field op, you’ll know next to nothing about your superiors or 
  the organisation you work for. You don’t need to know – all 
  you’ve got to do is complete your mission. Fail, and they’ll 
  pull the demonic choke-chain they’ve got tied around your 
  soul. Black Chamber missions tend to be more... proactive 
  than the ones the Laundry undertakes, and the organisation 
  has a much longer reach. The Black Chamber runs missions 
  all over the world and beyond. 
  Gehime Sicherheiabteilung (GSA)
  Better known as the ‘Faust Force,’ the GSA is Germany’s 
  counterpart to the Laundry. Germany’s occult scene was 
  razed following World War II, and the whole country was 
  turned into a magical DMZ. There wasn’t any counter-
  occult agency in West Germany until the late ’fifties, and 
  even up to the 1970s the Faust Force was an understaffed 
  joke. However, after a period of intensive investment and 
  research, the GSA was able to reinvent itself as a cutting-
  edge OCCINTEL group.
  As the GSA has few local problems (Germany’s still 
  largely cult-free) and is extremely well funded (thank you, 
  German economy), they act as the EU’s troubleshooters 
  and inspectors. If the Laundry or another similar group 
  needs backup, the GSA are usually the ones to provide 
  extra manpower and magic. The EU loves the Faust Force, 
  and wants to use them as the nucleus of the planned pan-
  European occult defence group. The various national 
  agencies see the Germans as overfunded, standards-
  obsessed Eurocrats, and GSA support teams often find 
  themselves fighting organisational turf wars before they 
  even get close to the alien horrors. The GSA is, by the 
  standards of the OCCINTEL world, brand new. As a result 
  of the post-WWII denazinecromancerfication process, it 
  lacks the supernatural treaties and bindings common to 
  other groups. It only signed the Benthic Treaty in the late 
  60s, for example. The organisation feels new and fresh and 
  high-tech, in contrast to the Laundry’s curious mix of the 
  traditional and the technological.
  Creating a GSA Agent: GSA agents are created using the 
  same process as Laundry agents as described in the core 
  rulebook on pages 16-28, with the following exceptions: 
  Language (Own) is German rather than English. 
  Instead of using the bonuses provided in Step Eight: 
  Assignment and Skills on pages 18-19 (and 21), add the 
  following skill bonuses: Bureaucracy +10, Command +5, 
  Computer Use (any) +10, Firearms (any) +10, Insight +5, 
  Knowledge (Accounting) +5, Knowledge (Espionage) 
  +5, Knowledge (Law) +5, Research +5, Science (any) 
  +5, Science (Thaumaturgy) +5, Spot +5, Strategy +5, 
  Technology Use +10 (any), any skill +10. 
  Instead of warrant cards, GSA agents wear protective 
  amulets inscribed with Enochian runes and incorporating a 
  security token that generates a one-time password to verify 
  the wearer’s identity when needed. 
  Unit G6, ‘The Gallery’ 
  A small division of the the Dutch AIVD (properly known 
  as the Algemene Inlichtingen- en Veiligheidsdienst, translated 
  as the ‘General Intelligence and Security Service’), the group 
  known as ‘the Gallery’ (or properly as De Gallerij) is, like 
  the Laundry, informally named for their old location, the 
  former National Art Gallery in the Hague, in the Kingdom 
  of the Netherlands. When the former National Art Gallery 
  was incorporated into the Rijksmuseum when it was moved 
  to The Hague, the immense collection of occult matériel 
  was collected from former NATO storehouses now under 
  control of EUINTEL, and assembled into one of the 
  world’s largest occult libraries, the Atrocity Archives. The 
  Gallery is the division of the AIVD assigned to cataloguing, 
  caretaking, and expanding the holdings of the Atrocity 
  Archives. This occult storehouse is of immense strategic 
  importance and considerable threat to the world’s security, 
  and the Gallery are among the most capable, dedicated 
  agents, supposedly incorruptible and zealous in their 
  internal security. 
  Prior to 2001, the Netherlands was, per capita, the most 
  wire-tapped nation in the world, and the national security 
  agency’s willingness to monitor its own citizenry was 
  without peer. The Gallery’s active role in this was disguised 
  as a Cold War remnant distrust of leftists, masking its true 
  intent of actively seeking potential cult activity. 
  Highly trusted by most of the extranormal security agencies 
  within the EU, Gallery agents frequently serve as consultants 
  or even mediators, coming in to advise investigations and 
  task force activities large enough to cross national lines 
  and jurisdictions. They frequently take custody of artefacts 
  and other occult paraphernalia discovered in the course 
  of security activities, escorting said materials back to the 
  Rijksmuseum. 
  In addition to this consulting and cross-agency work, 
  the majority of the Gallery’s day-to-day activity involves 
  tracking known and heretofore-missing occult items across 
  112
  
  international lines and making all efforts at recovering them 
  for the Archives. This involves scouring the catalogues of 
  various international auction houses, and keeping a keen eye 
  on the vagaries of the occult black market, paying special 
  attention to items connected to the Third Reich. With a 
  budget that would fluster any Laundry agent, the Gallery 
  aggressively seeks to recover occult items through legal 
  means whenever possible, but will not hesitate to use force 
  if there is a perceived threat to national or international 
  security. Gallery agents frequently request assistance from 
  other agencies when travelling abroad, and as such they are 
  fairly adept at international bureaucracy, and are familiar 
  with the internal structures and operating guidelines of 
  many extranormal security agencies. 
  As part of the AIVD, the Gallery works alongside the 
  NCTb (the Nationaal Coordinator Terrorismebestrijding, 
  the Dutch agency responsible for counter-terrorist 
  activities) and the MIVD (the Militaire Inlichtingen- en 
  Veiligheidsdienst, or Military Intelligence and Security 
  Service), with all three agencies falling under the command 
  of the Dutch Ministry of Justice. 
  Creating an Agent of  The Gallery: Gallery agents 
  are created using the same process as Laundry agents as 
  described in the core rulebook on pages 16-28, with the 
  following exceptions: 
  Language (Own) is Dutch rather than English. 
  Instead of using the bonuses provided in Step Eight: 
  Assignment and Skills on pages 18-19 (and 21), add 
  the following skill bonuses: Bureaucracy +10, Computer 
  Use (any) +5, Knowledge (Art History) +10, Knowledge 
  (Group [The Third Reich]) +5, Knowledge (History) +15, 
  Knowledge (Law) +5, Knowledge (Occult) +20, Knowledge 
  (Politics) +5, Knowledge (Streetwise) +10, Research +10, 
  and Technology Use (Surveillance) +5. 
  Gallery agents are assigned their variant of a warrant card 
  (see page 98 of the core rulebook), specific to their agency 
  but otherwise identical to those used by the Laundry. 
  Due to their longtime, regular exposure to the horrors of 
  the Atrocity Archives, Gallery agents begin with 10 fewer 
  Sanity (SAN) points than they would normally begin with. 
  This does not represent a single encounter or cause an initial 
  insanity, but instead represents the effect of the occult 
  ‘background radiation’ emanated by the Archives. 
  Gallery agents receive a complimentary discount of 15 
  towards the Rijksmuseum gift shop and the coffee shop, 
  and free admission to the museum’s conventional exhibits 
  upstairs. 
  Gallery agents are regularly sent on international 
  assignments, so a campaign featuring the Gallery would be 
  a globe-hopping affair, a mix of high-society auctions and 
  tedious sifting through abandoned warehouses looking for 
  scraps of occult knowledge that have lain undisturbed for 
  more than two-thirds of a century. GMs may even wish to 
  introduce Gallery agents into regular Laundry campaigns, as 
  allies or potentially even at cross-purposes with the Player 
  Characters. 
  New Zealand Domestic & External Security 
  Group
  For a small country, New Zealand punches well above its 
  weight when it comes to the Mythos. It’s located close to 
  Cthulhu’s doorstep, for one thing, and while the Laundry’s 
  pretty sure that a plush-toy-inspiring squid-headed Godzilla 
  isn’t going to rise out of the ocean and eat us all, there’s 
  definitely something down there under the sea, and it’s not 
  Spongebob. New Zealand’s also a major stopping-off point 
  for Antarctic expeditions, and the South Pole contains 
  the remnants of ANNING BLUE SKULL. In terms of 
  prehistoric super-civilisations, New Zealand is the place to be.
  The underfunded DESG section dedicated to the 
  supernatural, S4, spends half its time dealing with the 
  relics of said alien civilisations, and most of the rest of the 
  time running counterintel operations against all the Black 
  Chamber, Thirteenth Directorate, Nameless Bureau and 
  cult agents that come to New Zealand’s green isles to steal 
  those relics. A field agent in Wellington is going to see as 
  much action in a single year as a London-based agent might 
  in five; when Bob talked about ‘a sock-shod foot washed up, 
  unaccompanied, on a Pacific beach one morning while the crabs 
  dine heavy,’ the risk of getting seconded to the DESG was 
  at the back of his mind. 
  Creating a DESG Agent: Agents are created using the 
  same process as Laundry agents as described in the core 
  rulebook on pages 16-28, with the following exceptions: 
  Instead of using the bonuses provided in Step Eight: 
  Assignment and Skills on pages 18-19 (and 21), add the 
  following skill bonuses: Bureaucracy +5, Computer Use 
  (any) +5, Cthulhu Mythos +5, Disguise +5, Drive or Pilot 
  +10, Firearms (any) +5, Knowledge (Archaeology) +15, 
  Knowledge (Espionage) +10, Research +10, Spot +10, 
  Stealth +5, Technology Use (Surveillance) +5, any skill +10%.
  DESG agents are assigned their variant of a warrant card 
  (see page 98 of the core rulebook), specific to their agency 
  but otherwise identical to those used by the Laundry.
  OuTSIde THe LAundry
  113
  8 - OUTSIDE THE
  LAUNDRY
  
  THe LAundry
  The modern Laundry was founded during World War II, 
  where it took the lead in combating the efforts of Nazi 
  occultists. It took on its current form in the early 1950s, 
  after several senior members of British Intelligence fully 
  understood the implications of Alan Turing’s unpublished 
  last theorem. The Laundry has been in existence for almost 
  seventy years, and while most campaigns will be set in the 
  modern day, there’s no reason that a GM can’t set a campaign 
  at any point in the organisation’s history. Here are a few 
  guidelines for running Laundry campaigns in other eras.
  Fighting Nazis:                                   
  World War II Campaigns (1939-1945)
  During WWII, when the operatives of the Laundry fought 
  Nazi sorcerers and prevented the Wannsee Invocation 
  from summoning a world-ending alien entropy god. In 
  this campaign, operatives could be everything from skilled 
  commandos armed with rifles and personal wards, to daring 
  sorcerer-archaeologists hunting valuable magical artefacts 
  in remote corners of the globe, to smooth-talking spies 
  sneaking behind enemy lines to see what occult horrors the 
  Nazis were up to. World War II was an era before the Turing 
  Theorem and when modern computers were in their earliest 
  infancy. The only type of sorcery was traditional magic, 
  with all the risks that this entailed. In this era, the British 
  government attempted to recruit every known or suspected 
  sorcerer in the British Isles, and didn’t worry too much 
  about their past history, as long as they were loyal to the UK 
  and willing to accept geases to that effect. Some sorcerers 
  who had previously been in secret UK prisons were offered 
  pardons in return for helping the war effort. 
  The tone of this campaign would be very different from 
  a traditional Laundry campaign. The most important thing 
  to remember is that the campaign is ultimately a war story. 
  Laundry operatives are in a fight for the lives of all of 
  humanity, against a foe willing to kill millions powering a 
  ritual to summon a cosmic horror that they hope will do 
  their bidding. The campaign could entail a globe-trotting 
  search for occult wonders and dangers, taking the characters 
  to remote locations like Egypt and Tibet; or could take 
  place entirely in France or Germany, where hard-eyed and 
  desperate sorcerer-soldiers use powerful glamours to sneak 
  past Nazi checkpoints and offensive wards to assassinate 
  high-ranking Nazi officials. 
  Threats & Dangers
  Nazis! The Laundry’s main opposition was the Ahnenerbe, 
  a section of the SS devoted to scientific research and the 
  development of occult lore obtained from the cryptic 
  Thule-Gesellschaft secret society. The concentration camps 
  provided their researchers with horrific stockpiles of 
  necromantic energy; they looted Europe and the Near 
  East in search of relics and secret lore, and they tried to 
  turn the Mythos into a weapon against the Allied Forces. 
  Zombie troops marched east until they froze, their rotted 
  limbs shattering in the Russian winter; Byakhee tore at the 
  wings and cockpits of American bombers over France, 
  and many-legged things crept through the forests on the 
  western front. While Alan Turing was the first to develop 
  computational demonology, Konrad Zuse was ahead of the 
  Allies in computer design. His Z3 prototypes were taken 
  by the Ahnenerbe and put to diabolical uses in the torture 
  chambers and soul capacitors at Peenemunde. The Nazis 
  weren’t the only potential threats faced by the Laundry 
  in this era. The other players, like the Soviet Thirteenth 
  Directorate and the American Black Chamber, were also 
  at large in the European theatre. While these groups were 
  nominally allies, no-one could be trusted. All three groups 
  wanted to secure as many Mythos relics and sorcerous items 
  as possible, and none of them could be sure that any other 
  group was still serving human goals.... 
  Laundry Campaigns
  in Other eras
  114
  
  Sorcery & Occult Items in the 1940s
  Computational Demonology is very limited, 
  and not available to field operatives. 
  The characters have to rely on their own 
  knowledge of sorcery. The rules on what’s 
  permitted and what is out of bounds have 
  yet to be written, so WWII agents have 
  greater latitude in using dangerous spells 
  and bindings. A WWII Laundry agent might be 
  bound to a demon, or handed some ghastly 
  relic like a gorgon’s head hooked up to 
  a crude life support machine and told 
  to wreak havoc on the enemy. Protective 
  talismans like wards and defensive bindings 
  exist, but are produced in only very small 
  numbers and are not yet standard equipment. 
  It’s the Wild West era of modern occultism 
  – anything goes, as long as it works.
  The Cold War (1955-1970) 
  Although the Laundry continued to operate once the 
  war ended, its role in the post-war world was exceedingly 
  unclear for the first few years. A Cold War campaign would 
  ideally start in 1955. By this point, Russian and American 
  spies and researchers had learned of and confirmed the 
  validity of Turing’s theorem, and created their own occult 
  intelligence services. 1955 was also the beginning of the 
  height of the Cold War. The USSR had just detonated its 
  first true hydrogen bomb, and both conventional and occult 
  espionage were extremely active. This era also began shortly 
  after the signing of the top-secret Helsinki Protocol, which 
  prohibited all signatories, including the entire membership 
  of the UN Security Council, from using, or even testing, 
  occult weapons of mass destruction. 
  In this era, the Laundry was a very different organisation 
  from either its WWII origins or its modern form. The most 
  obvious differences were in membership and recruitment. 
  Most of the sorcerers who joined during WWII resigned 
  once the war was over. Some went back to private life, and 
  even more left the UK in search of nations where sorcerers 
  were able to practice a bit more openly; India and South 
  America were both popular destinations. After the war 
  was over, most of the remaining Laundry personnel were 
  career intelligence operatives, some of whom had learned 
  sorcery, and a few sorcerers who decided that they preferred 
  intelligence work to the other options open to them.
  Instead of a steady stream of overly imaginative hackers 
  and computer hobbyists, the only people who ever had 
  a chance of stumbling upon or accidentally duplicating 
  computational sorcery were a few dozen mathematicians 
  and an even smaller number of theoretical physicists and 
  philosophers. In this era, computers were very large and 
  very difficult to gain access to, and performing the necessary 
  calculations by hand was something that only a tiny number 
  of people were likely to do by accident. As a result, most 
  Laundry personnel were deliberately recruited, whether 
  from academe or intelligence, rather than stumbling into it. 
  Involuntary recruitment existed in the ’50s & ’60s, but 
  was rare; the majority of these recruits were practitioners 
  of traditional magic who were discovered by the Laundry. 
  Individuals found guilty of using sorcery to commit serious 
  crimes or who had sold their morals and their sanity to 
  extradimensional entities were imprisoned in prisons or 
  asylums, but magical hobbyists, or people who had only 
  used sorcery to commit non-violent crimes, were recruited 
  into the Laundry, where their talents were still useful.  
  This sometimes awkward mixture of career intelligence 
  officers, theoretically inclined academic mathematicians, 
  and the occasional eccentric sorcerer was charged with 
  protecting the UK from occult threats ranging from 
  gorgonism and strange cults to occult threats posed by rival 
  powers, chiefly the USSR. Laundry operatives were also 
  attempting to discover what the newly formed American 
  Black Chamber was up to. In addition, while the Nazis did 
  not successfully use any occult weapons during the war, 
  they attempted to develop them, and some of these plans, 
  along with some of the Nazi sorcerers responsible for 
  creating them managed to evade capture, often through the 
  LAundry CAMpAIgnS In OTHer erAS
  115
  9 - LAUNDRY CAMPAIGNS
  IN OTHER ERAS
  
  THe LAundry
  use of magic. For much of the 1950s & ’60s, the Laundry 
  attempted to track down any rumours of Nazi sorcery or 
  occult weapons being used either in the UK or elsewhere 
  in the world.
  The details of the Laundry’s operations were also 
  very different. The most obvious difference was that 
  computational sorcery was both new and rare. With the 
  exception of a handful of people in the Soviet Union and 
  the US occult intelligence services, and the occasional Soviet 
  mole, every hostile sorcerer Laundry operatives encountered 
  was a practitioner of traditional magic. Other than by 
  using pencil and paper, the only method of performing 
  computational sorcery required a large mainframe 
  computer; in the 1950s, these computers were exceedingly 
  bulky and unreliable machines that were no faster than a 
  modern scientific calculator. The smallest required at least 
  120 square metres and constant maintenance, including the 
  replacement of several vacuum tubes a day. 
  In the 1960s, vacuum tubes were replaced by transistors. 
  1960s-era minicomputers have the same capabilities as 1950s 
  vacuum tube computers, but required far less maintenance 
  and were no larger than three large filing cabinets. 1960s 
  mainframes were no more than 20 square metres and were 
  significantly more powerful. Even the best computers in the 
  1960s, however, required punch-card input, making them 
  almost unimaginably slow and awkward compared to the 
  most primitive modern scientific calculator or smartphone.
  Thanks to these practical limitations, most computational 
  sorcery was performed in the Laundry offices; field agents 
  were mostly limited to working slowly and laboriously using 
  pencil and paper. By the 1960s, computers were beginning to 
  make their way into corporations and universities all across 
  the first world, and operatives would sometimes use their 
  warrant cards to gain access to a computer, or use stealth, 
  bribery or other disreputable means to spend half an hour 
  playing with punch cards on someone else’s mainframe. 
  More often, operatives who could not gain access to a 
  computer would call up the Laundry and put in a request. In 
  the 1950s, unless the request was exceptionally urgent, the 
  operative might have had to wait for as long as twenty-four 
  hours for the spell to be performed on the Laundry’s few, 
  slow computers. By the 1960s, the computers were both 
  faster and more plentiful. Any important request would 
  usually be filled within an hour, and if the spell was especially 
  urgent, it could be cast in a few minutes. Ducking into a 
  payphone to ask for a fast glamour, scrying or invisibility 
  spell was a regular occurrence by the 1960s.
  Computational sorcery was also exceedingly new and no 
  one fully understood all of what it could do, which was a 
  cause for both great optimism and terrible fear. This was 
  also an era before Moore’s Law was understood. Like all 
  other computer users of the time, everyone in the Laundry 
  expected that computers would remain large, hulking 
  devices accessible to only a few. In addition, the first 
  computer networks were in their early experimental stage 
  in the late 1960s; hacking a computer meant gaining access 
  to it, printing out dozens or hundreds of pages of data, 
  and then escaping with a ream of paper. Computer security 
  consisted of well-armed guards, and in the Laundry, 
  powerful area wards. 
  This was also an era when there was a great deal of 
  rivalry between practitioners of traditional magic and 
  computational sorcerers. In addition to involuntary recruits, 
  a number of older and highly experienced Laundry 
  Sorcery & Occult Items in 
  the 1950s & ’60s
  Traditional 
  magic 
  and 
  pencil-and-paper 
  computational sorcery are both common in 
  this era. Performing computational sorcery 
  using either a 1950s vacuum tube computer 
  or a 1960s minicomputer functions the same 
  as using a modern scientific calculator to 
  perform computational sorcery, except that no 
  INT roll is needed to ensure accuracy when 
  using a 1960s minicomputer. By the mid 1960s, 
  scientific calculators the size of a modern 
  desktop computer are available, if also rare 
  and expensive.
  Occult items are also less powerful. The best 
  personal wards available are Level Three wards, 
  and are sufficiently difficult to manufacture
    
  that they are only given to operatives on 
  especially 
  dangerous 
  missions. 
  Hands 
  of 
  glory exist, but the necessary circuitry ads 
  another half a kilogram to the weight, and 
  the delicacy of these circuits were such that 
  dropping a hand of glory automatically breaks 
  it. Mirrored hands of glory are not available.
  POW
  Equipment
  Time Modifier
  11
  1950s Mainframe 
  computer
  10 x Listed 
  Time *
  12
  1960s Mainframe 
  computer
  4x Listed 
  Time
  11
  1960s Minicomputer
  10 x Listed 
  Time
  11
  1960s Desktop 
  scientific calculator
  10 x Listed 
  Time *
  *Roll Int x 5 once per level of the spell to avoid 
  a mistake.
  116
  
  operatives, including some highly decorated WWII veterans, 
  practiced traditional magic. Instead of having to make 
  frantic phone calls to headquarters, these operatives could 
  perform their sorcery in a hotel room, although they might 
  need to pay extra cleaning charges due to the black candle 
  wax in the carpet, and possibly the chicken blood on the 
  sheets. In the 1950s, many of the Laundry’s older sorcerers 
  regarded computational sorcery as a useless fad that had no 
  future, but this feeling began to shift by the 1960s, when 
  these same sorcerers realised that the future of their own 
  sort of magic was far more in doubt. 
  Threats and Dangers
  Soviet spies and sorcerers are the most obvious villains 
  for Laundry campaigns of this era. The Cambridge Five, 
  a group of high-level British diplomats and intelligence 
  operatives who were secretly passing information to the 
  Soviets, had just begun to come to light, and all aspects of 
  British intelligence, including the Laundry, were hotbeds 
  of paranoia and suspicion. However, amidst tracking down 
  Soviet agents either inside the Laundry or elsewhere in the 
  UK, the Laundry was also busy hunting down monsters, 
  dangerous cults, and Nazi sorcerers. 
  This was an era well before anyone other than a few mystics 
  suspected the truth of CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN. 
  Instead, the apocalypse that everyone feared was global 
  thermonuclear war, which at times seemed horrifyingly 
  close. In addition to regularly being asked to use their 
  magics to help the rest of British Intelligence prevent such 
  an occurrence, there were also similar fears about occult 
  threats. Although the Helsinki Protocol had been signed 
  by all members of the UN Security Council, no one knew 
  who might be sheltering a team of Nazi sorcerers working 
  to create occult weapons of mass destruction, or perhaps 
  simply occult weapons designed to enslave the minds of 
  enemy soldiers or civilians. 
  This era was also the dawn of official treaties with BLUE 
  HADES, and there were a number of attempts to spy upon 
  BLUE HADES cities and installations, before it became 
  abundantly clear that attempting to do so rarely succeeded 
  and usually resulted in multiple fatalities. However, as the 
  Laundry and other occult intelligence agencies learn a few 
  more tidbits of information about BLUE HADES, they 
  also learned to better recognise BLUE HADES artefacts. 
  The acquisition of this initiated a search of small museums, 
  private collections, and archaeological sites across the world 
  for artefacts that had been washed up decades or centuries 
  earlier, and which collectors mistook for exotic carvings 
  or interesting rock formations. At the same time, occult 
  intelligence organisations were also competing to acquire 
  various ancient occult devices and texts from museums, 
  private collections, and ancient ruins all across the world. 
  Some had previously been collected by Nazi sorcerers 
  and then hidden in Germany or smuggled to Switzerland, 
  Argentina or a host of other nations. The Laundry worked 
  to acquire these objects and texts, to study them, keep them 
  out of the hands of cultists, would-be sorcerers, and enemy 
  occult intelligence agents. This was also when the Laundry 
  was still cataloguing the various occult threats and dangers 
  in the UK and the world. Although most were known, many 
  creatures and natural phenomena, especially those found in 
  remote portions of the globe, were still only rumours that 
  Laundry operatives had begun to investigate.
  The Dawn of  the Geek Age (1970-1990)
  This era began with the spread of computers to an 
  increasing number of businesses and the development of 
  the first actual desktop computers. It ended with both the 
  fall of the Berlin Wall and the release of the first widely-
  used version of Microsoft Windows. By the mid-1970s, the 
  first personal computers were beginning to become popular 
  among hobbyists and the Laundry was about to find that 
  their job had become a great deal more difficult. 
  In this era, the number of people who were learning to use – 
  and to experiment with – computers exploded. This process 
  started with teens and university students with access 
  to mainframes and minicomputers, through either their 
  schools or programs for gifted students, and grew to include 
  electronics hobbyists who spent their time writing all manner 
  of programs for their simple machines with 4 or 8K of RAM. 
  LAundry CAMpAIgnS In OTHer erAS
  117
  9 - LAUNDRY CAMPAIGNS
  IN OTHER ERAS
  
  THe LAundry
  By the late 1970s, these early home programmers had 
  created a multitude of simple computer games, and a 
  very few of them had managed to stretch the capabilities 
  of their machines to the limit and accidentally performed 
  computational sorcery. In this era, accidentally performing 
  more than a Level Two spell was almost impossible, but 
  even that can be lethal, and anyone who discovered even 
  very minor effects was likely to keep probing, and see what 
  else they could do. 
  According to policies previously only used to forcibly 
  recruit brilliant mathematicians and users of traditional 
  magic, the Laundry began receiving an influx of poorly 
  socialised paleo-geeks, who were simultaneously confused 
  and upset by their new circumstances, and excited to 
  gain access to some of the best mainframes and desktop 
  computers available in the UK. The late 1970s marked a 
  transition for the Laundry. By this time, more than half of 
  its new personnel were recruited because of programming 
  accidents and near-accidents. The lives and experiences of 
  these new recruits were a vivid contrast to those of the 
  older and more senior personnel, who were still the mixture 
  of academics, career intelligence officers and old-style 
  sorcerers that had made up the vast majority of Laundry 
  personnel in the previous three decades.
  The Laundry still recruited a few practitioners of traditional 
  magic during this era, but as time went on, most were either 
  re-trained to become computational sorcerers or were given 
  desk jobs. The most brilliant were encouraged to go into 
  theoretical sorcery, but they were the only practitioners of 
  traditional magic whose work was not considered dangerous 
  and outdated. Occasionally, traditional magic was useful for 
  a mission, but computers had become common enough and 
  fast enough that there was less need for them. In this era, the 
  tide had turned and practitioners of traditional magic were 
  seen as backwards, not to mention half-mad for risking their 
  minds and bodies, performing magic that was far slower and 
  less reliable than the sort performed on a computer.
  In this era, the Soviet Union remained a powerful threat, but 
  Laundry operatives were also learning exactly how much of 
  a threat a clever college student with a stack of punch cards 
  or access to a terminal could be. This was also the dawn 
  of networked computing. From the official government 
  networks of the 1970s to the BBSs that originated in the 
  late 1970s and became popular in the 1980s, an increasing 
  number of smart, computer-savvy, and often overly curious 
  people got on-line in this era, and some of them either knew 
  more than they should or were blindly experimenting with 
  dangerous forces and hostile entities. On rare occasions, 
  someone typing on a BBS might find that the individual 
  responding them when was nothing remotely human, and 
  had a few favours to ask...
  Sorcery & Occult Items 
  in the 1970s & 80s
  Computers are much improved in this era. 
  The 
  first 
  pocket-sized, 
  battery-powered 
  scientific calculators are available in the 
  early 1970s, and by the early 1980s, the first 
  portable computers are available. Of course, 
  these devices have to be plugged in and 
  weigh between 10 and 15 kg, so they’re more 
  like medium-sized luggage than something 
  you could slip in a bag or briefcase. 
  POW
  Equipment
  Time 
  Modifier
  12
  1970s Mainframe 
  computer
  Listed 
  Time
  11
  1970s Minicomputer
  2x Listed 
  Time
  11
  1970s Desktop 
  computer
  4x Listed 
  Time
  13
  1980s Mainframe 
  computer
  Time
  Listed
  12
  1980s Minicomputer
  Time
  Listed
  11
  1980s Desktop or 
  Portable computer
  Time
  Listed
  Communications & Computing
  The 1970s was much like the previous two decades, in terms 
  of the availability of communications. The Laundry had 
  their own private computer network and could access the 
  larger networks used by British Intelligence and the British 
  military if they had a good enough reason to do so, but 
  individual operatives were almost never given authorisation 
  to do so. However, by the 1970s, an increasing number 
  of people, including exactly the sorts of people who 
  were recruited by the Laundry, had learned how to hack 
  telephones and telephone networks, making calls that 
  seemed to originate from other locations, making free long 
  distance calls, and gaining access to supposedly isolated data 
  and voice networks. The 1970s was the era of the infamous 
  Blue Box that allowed the clever to make free phone calls, 
  and the even more clever to discover various hidden phone 
  lines that were only accessible using specially made phones, 
  or a sufficiently determined phone phreak. Of course, 
  some of these lines were used by British Intelligence or the 
  Laundry, and by the mid-1970s, several Laundry employees 
  were skilled phone phreaks who had dialled the wrong 
  hidden phone code and heard information that mandated 
  their recruitment. 
  The 1970s was a particularly vulnerable time for the 
  Laundry, because very few of the older employees had 
  any understanding of the capabilities of phone phreaks, 
  118
  
  and were exceptionally surprised when more than a few 
  engineering graduate students and similar geeks managed 
  to listen in to supposedly secret phone lines. They were not 
  ready for the way in which faster and far more available 
  computers allowed ordinary programmers and hobbyists 
  to stumble upon some of the secrets of computational 
  sorcery. After a few exceedingly unfortunate incidents, 
  involving everything from extradimensional entities 
  possessing everyone in a college computer lab to exotic, 
  magically produced weather patterns causing rains of frogs 
  over various London suburbs, the Laundry began to take 
  this new threat very seriously indeed. Many of the new 
  recruits were charged with attempting to make certain that 
  no one else stumbled upon the secrets that they had.
  Communications began to change even more in the 1980s. 
  By the early ’80s, (barely) portable computers, computer 
  BBSs, and mobile phones the size of a half litre soda 
  bottle were all available. Laundry operatives could now cast 
  spells from the comfort of their hotel room, and check 
  their favourite BBS the same way. Laundry operatives on 
  the run could even use a mobile phone to call for help, at 
  least if they were on the run in a large city and had their 
  big, clumsy phone with them. Of course, this technology 
  was used by more than just the Laundry. Aside from overly 
  curious hobbyists and programmers, Soviet spies used the 
  same equipment, as did a handful of cults composed of 
  computational sorcerers who were clever enough to learn 
  about sorcery before they were picked up. The best of these 
  sorcerers learned to hide their activities from the Laundry, 
  and one or two posed least as much of a threat to the UK 
  as the USSR.
  Threats and Dangers
  The 1980s was the era when the Laundry and other occult 
  intelligence agencies first became aware of the possibility 
  of CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN. It was regarded as a 
  distant and still theoretical threat, of course, and there were 
  a number of far more immediate dangers. Until the end of 
  the 1980s and the beginning of the end of the USSR, the 
  Soviets remained a major threat, although somewhat of a 
  less immediate one than in the previous two decades. 
  Now, computers themselves began to become dangerous. 
  Accidental magic was far easier and more common than it 
  had been in previous decades. The most dangerous form of 
  this magic was accidental summoning, where creatures from 
  beyond the walls of the universe used, say, a CSs grad’s final 
  project as a gateway to slip into this world. Since accidental 
  magic was often seriously imperfect, sometimes these 
  entities could not get quite all the way into our universe, but 
  if they could send messages over a terminal, they might be 
  able to talk a programmer into helping them. 
  More than one programmer, computer science grad 
  student, or electronics hobbyist experimented with new 
  hardware and software and saw mysterious messages 
  appearing in green or amber text on their monitors or 
  terminals. Often, these beings pretended to be some sort of 
  artificial intelligence; or, if the computer was connected to a 
  network, another hacker or hobbyist who needed help. The 
  hapless programmer would then give the entity full access 
  to our world, and frequently a new home, just behind his 
  eyes. Unlike later decades, the vast majority of computer 
  networks were dial-in BBSs, where only a few individuals 
  could be on the network at the same time and where 
  individuals had to dial the number of the BBS directly. 
  Monitoring all of the hundreds, and then thousands, of 
  BBSs in the UK was an exceptionally daunting task, and 
  most often the Laundry only learned about a problem after 
  the fact, in police reports or in the readings of their thaumic 
  energy detectors.
  The Internet & The Age of  Capitalism 
  (1990-2001)
  The end of the 1980s was when the Laundry changed 
  forever. The Soviet Union collapsed, the Berlin Wall fell, 
  and the decades-long dynamic between East and West was 
  forever changed. Within a few years, tourists and locals 
  were buying fast food in Moscow, and ex-KGB agents were 
  talking about the ‘good old days’ in bars from London to 
  Kiev. This was also the era of the birth of the commercial 
  internet. 
  LAundry CAMpAIgnS In OTHer erAS
  119
  9 - LAUNDRY CAMPAIGNS
  IN OTHER ERAS
  
  THe LAundry
  Previously the domain of technically-adept college students 
  and IT professionals, the online world was playing host 
  to a growing population of normal men and women. For 
  the next few years, computer sales skyrocketed; everyone 
  had to have one in their home and their office. When 
  computers went mainstream and the internet boom began, 
  the Laundry knew trouble was headed their way fast. Just 
  as everyone was beginning to relax now that the threat 
  of Soviet sorcerers was largely gone, the far more diffuse 
  and ultimately more dangerous threat of clueless noobs 
  summoning eldritch entities and warping physical laws only 
  continued to increase.
   
  In this era, the Laundry still recruited a few eccentrics who 
  practiced traditional magic, but other than a handful of 
  brilliant magical theoreticians working in Faraday cages, 
  the Laundry no longer had any use for this form of magic. 
  Laptops running eldritch programs beat the heck out 
  of complex rituals that take half an hour or more and 
  had a good chance of serious unintended side effects. 
  Practitioners of traditional magic who were forcibly 
  recruited were either re-trained or given jobs that didn’t 
  involve sorcery (and geased into not being able to perform 
  it on their own time). This was also an era when more than 
  a few computational sorcerers who annoyed their superiors 
  or were late for work once too often were assigned to 
  teach remedial computer skills to would-be computational 
  sorcerers who had never used a computer before, and 
  whose knowledge of sorcery included the liberal use of 
  incense, crystals and chicken blood.
  Threats and Dangers
  The explosive growth of both computers and computer 
  use, combined with the continued growth of the human 
  population, brought CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN ever 
  closer. The British government first began preparing for 
  CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN in the last years of the 
  1980s, and preparations were redoubled in the 1990s. It was 
  now clear to everyone in the field of occult intelligence and 
  security that CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN was no longer 
  a terrible, but distant possibility; it was real, and it was going 
  to happen in approximately 20-25 years. 
  Of more immediate concern was the risk of magical 
  criminals and terrorists. Although the Soviet Union was 
  no more, a significant quantity of Soviet occult resources 
  had vanished immediately after the fall of the USSR, and 
  both the Laundry and the Black Chamber worried a great 
  deal about what had happened to the various occult devices, 
  computational sorcerers, books, and data files that were 
  now unaccounted for. The fact that some of these object 
  and a few of these people had found their way into the 
  hands of Eastern European criminal gangs was especially 
  problematic. More than a few Laundry operatives were 
  sent into the former USSR to attempt to recover especially 
  valuable objects and people, and to help make certain that 
  the Russian Mafia and similar groups didn’t gain access to 
  intelligence-grade sorcery. 
  Such problems were also not limited to Eastern Europe. A 
  number of third-world nations who had received limited 
  magical support by the US, UK or USSR were now more 
  than happy to attempt to go their own way, and to use 
  whatever magics they had on hand. In addition, Russian 
  and other Eastern European criminal organisations often 
  had branches all across the EU, including gangs within 
  the UK. With tactics including geased police officers and 
  customs officials, wards against damage, and the occasional 
  invisibility spell, the gangs were considered a major threat 
  to UK occult security, especially since a few of them had 
  demonic partners.
  Sorcery & Occult Items in the 1990s
  In the 1990s, computers are considerably less 
  powerful than modern machines, but are at 
  least in the same ballpark. Graphic interfaces 
  are now the norm and computational sorcery has 
  become something that any Laundry operative 
  can do in a hotel room, or even a table at a 
  café – all you need is a laptop loaded with 
  the right software. Advances in microprocessor 
  technology also enable the Laundry and similar 
  agencies to create all of the occult devices 
  from the core rulebook.
  POW
  Equipment
  Time Modifier
  14
  1990s Supercomputer
  1/5 the 
  Listed Time
  14
  1990s Mainframe 
  computer
  Listed Time
  13
  1990s Desktop 
  computer
  Listed Time
  12
  1990s Laptop
  Listed Time
  120
  
  Official Forms
  O f f ic i a l  S e c r e t s  A c t , 
  - - - - - -1 9 1 6 - - - - - -
  3. “(1) If any person having in his possession or control any secret official code 
  word, or pass word, or any sketch, plan, model, article, note, document, formula, 
  diagram or information which relates to or is used in a prohibited place or anything 
  in such a place, or which has been made or obtained in contravention of this Act, 
  or which has been entrusted in confidence to him by any person holding office or 
  sanction under His Majesty or which he has obtained or to which he has had access 
  owing to his position as a person who holds or has held office under His Majesty or 
  has held a contract made on behalf of His Majesty or as a person who is or has been 
  employed under a person who holds or has held such an office or contract, – 
  (a) communicates the code word, pass word, sketch, plan, model, article, note, document, formula, 
  diagram or information to any person or entity, other than a person or entity to whom he is authorised to 
  communicate it, or a person or entity to whom it is in the interest of the State to communicate it, or
  (b) uses the information in his possession for the benefit of any foreign power, organisation, individual 
  or entity or in any other manner prejudicial to the safety or interest of the State, or
  (c) uses the information in his possession for any action or in such a way that is prejudicial to the 
  safety or interest of the State, or
  (d) retains the sketch, plan, model, article, note, document, entity, binding or grimoire in his possession 
  or control when he has no right to retain it or when it is contrary to his duty to retain it, or fails to 
  comply with all directions issued by lawful authority with regard to the return, disposal, or dismissal 
  thereof, or
  (e) fails to take reasonable care of, or so conducts himself as to endanger the safety of the official 
  code word, pass word, sketch, plan, model, article, note, document, entity, binding, grimoire or 
  information; 
  that person shall be guilty of a misdemeanour.
  (1a) If any person having in his possession or control any sketch, plan, model, 
  article, note, document, entity, binding or grimoire which relates to munitions 
  of war, official secrets or other powers, communicates it directly or indirectly 
  to any foreign power, organisation, individual or entity or in any other manner 
  prejudicial to the safety or interest of the State, that person shall be guilty of a 
  misdemeanour.
  1/2
  1. The Official Secrets Act 
  
  (2) If any person receives any secret official code word, or pass word, or sketch, 
  plan, model, article, note, document, entity, binding, grimoire or information 
  knowing, or having reasonable grounds to believe, at the time when he receives it, 
  that the code word, or pass word, or sketch, plan, model, article, note, document, 
  entity, binding, grimoire or information, is communicated to him in contravention of 
  this Act, he shall be guilty of a misdemeanour, unless he proves to the satisfaction 
  of the binding powers that the communication to him of the code word, or pass 
  word, or sketch, plan, model, article, note, document, entity, binding, grimoire or 
  information was contrary to his desire.
  (3) Section III of the Official Secrets Act is considered an official secret as 
  per Section III 1a, and should an individual obtain or receive any knowledge of 
  this Act without first having signed this Act, that person shall be guilty of a 
  misdemeanour.
  (4) Any person who is guilty of a misdemeanour under the Official Secrets Act, 
  Section III, 1916 shall be liable on conviction or indictment to imprisonment 
  of mind or body, at His Majesty’s pleasure, or, on conviction under the Summary 
  Jurisdiction Acts, to imprisonment of mind or body, for a term not exceeding two 
  years or to a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds or both such imprisonment and 
  fine.
  (5) Let this Act be witnessed and bound by those named in Appendix One, in 
  accordance with the abjuration of Dee.
  I understand that the above clause of the Official Secrets Act 1916 cover also 
  articles published in the press or in any other form, and I undertake not to 
  divulge any official information gained by me as a result of my employment, either 
  in the press or in any other form. 
  I warrant that I sign this document of my own free will, and that I am the person 
  whose true name I inscribe below, and that pursuant to Subsection D, Paragraph 15, 
  clause one I do bind myself to service now and forevermore. 
  Signed: __________________
  Date: ____________________
  2/2
  
  2. Laundry warrant card
  
  I N C I D E N T  R E P O R T  F O R M  –  S B B 1 C
  The information in this report is confidential, subject to the Official Secrets Act 1916, Section III.
  ------------------------------------------------------------------
  Codeword (if any): ____________________________________________________________________________
  Date: ____/____/ ____ 
  Officer: ________________________ Serial Number: _______________________
  Location (Address/Nearest Landmark/Co-Ordinates): ___________________________________________
  _______________________________________________________________________________________________
  Incident #:
  Incident Type:  [ ] Unusual sighting 
  [ ] Unusual event  
    [ ] Haunting or disturbance
   
   
  [ ] Injury or death 
  [ ] Suspicious behaviour  [ ] Thaumic discharge
   
   
  [ ] Close encounter 
  [ ] Possession  
    [ ] Criminal investigation 
   
   
  [ ] Other ________________________________________________________
  Witnesses
  Name
  Address
  Age
  OSIII1
  SBG2
  Notes
  Enter further witnesses on an attached sheet.
  1: Is the witness a signatory to the Official Secrets Act? Enter Yes/No
  2: Is the witness suborned by a geas not to remember or speak of this event? If so, enter the 
  word of unbinding here. 
  Description of Event (enter a brief description of the event here): ______________________________
  _______________________________________________________________________________________________
  _______________________________________________________________________________________________
  _______________________________________________________________________________________________
  _______________________________________________________________________________________________
  3. Incident Report Form (SBB1C)
  
  Diagram of Event Location (note location of witnesses, any other relevant data)
  Thaumic Reading: ______ thaums
  If a Tillinghast Resonator, Scrying Field or other Divinatory mechanism was used, complete Form 
  SSB/2 and attach it to this document. [ ] 
  Physical Evidence Collected
  Item
  Location on diagram
  Evidence #
  Notes
   
  Signed: _____________________________ (Investigating Officer)
   
  S B B 1 C
  
  R E A L I T Y  E X C U R S I O N  A S S E S S M E N T  –  ( S S B 2 )
  Codeword (if any): ______________________________________________________________________________________
  Date: ____/____/ ____ 
  Officer: 
  ________________________ 
  Serial 
  Number: 
  _______________________
  Location (Address/Nearest Landmark/Co-Ordinates): ______________________________________________________
  __________________________________________________________________________________________________________
  Note any significant auras or power sources in the vicinity: _______________________________________________
  ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
  Incident # (from SSB1/C): _________________
  Describe the incident, if possible: __________________________________________________________________________
  ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
  ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
  Note any wards used, together with the serial number of the ward, if available:
  Ward Magnitude (1-5)
  Serial Number
  Note any damage or other effects connected to 
  the ward.
  Divinatory Method Used:  Thaumometer [ ]   
  Scrying (Class I) [ ] 
  Scrying (Class II) [ ]
   
   
   
  Scrying (Class III) [ ] 
  Scrying (Class IV) [ ] 
  Experimentation [ ]
   
   
   
  Tillinghast [ ] 
   
  Geiger counter [ ]  
  IG powder [ ]  
   
   
   
  Glass of Leng [ ]   
  Sorcery [ ] 
   
  Other (specify) [ ]
  Estimated Magnitude:
  [ ] Level I (minor breach/haunting/low entropy/minimal threat)
  [ ] Level II (visible effects/lesser manifestation/moderate entropy/limited threat)
  [ ] Level III (noticeable warping of reality/multiple entities/high entropy/considerable threat)
  [ ] Level IV (radical warping of reality/mass outbreak/extreme entropy/extreme threat)
  [ ] Level V (reality collapse/conjunction/infinite entropy/existential threat)
  Note any methods used to contain the incursion:
  [ ] Exorcism 
   
  [ ] Defensive ward 
  [ ] Banishment 
   
  [ ] Termination of evocation
  __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
  __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
  Recommended Course of Action:
  [ ] Containment  
  [ ] Observation 
   
  [ ] Investigation  
  [ ] Erasure
  __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
  __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
  4. Reality Excursion Assessment (SSB2)
  
  Instructions: Enter the stack number of all requested documents in 
  column one. If a document is classified under a codeword or codewords, 
  enter any appropriate codewords in column two. Enter the projected 
  return date in column three. Enter any handling codes in column four. 
  Make three copies of this form. One copy must be sent to Archives 
  (Retrieval) and one copy to Archives (Storage). Retain the third copy 
  for your files. 
  Due to ongoing construction works at Service House, access to the 
  Stacks is restricted. Non-priority requests may take up to five (5) 
  working days to complete.
  Stack #
  Codeword
  Return Date
  Handling Code 
  Handling Codes: 
  A: Priority  
         B: Hand deliver only 
    C: Fragile or damaged 
  D: Dangerous         E: Original only 
    F: Copy & translation
  G: Live specimen      H: Bulky object    
    I: Pre-1953 
  J: Electronic media   K: Remove all copies 
    L: Avoid physical contact 
   
   
  All documents withdrawn from the archives are the responsibility of the 
  requesting officer. Failure to return a document by its due return date 
  without informing the archives will result in disciplinary action. 
  Removal of documents from approved secure sites is not permitted. 
  Copying or other reproduction of documents is not permitted.
  If you accept these conditions (summarised in the Employee’s Handbook, 
  pages 353-362), enter your signature below.
  Signed: _______________________________
  5. Document Request Form
  
  Name: __________________________ 
  Serial Number: _________________________________
  SectioN 1 – ApplicAtioN type 
  tick oNe box oNly. thiS ApplicAtioN relAteS to:
  Field use of thaumaturgy  
   
  [ ] 
   
  research   
   
  [ ]
  Applied computational demonology   
  [ ] 
   
  binding & evocation  
   
  [ ]
  training/apprenticeship 
   
  [ ] 
   
  in-house invocation 
   
  [ ]
  other 
   
   
   
  [ ]
  tick oNe box oNly. 
  [ ] i have held a sorcery licence in the last three years. the certificate number is [        ] and i wish to renew it.
  [ ] i have held a sorcery licence in the last three years. the certificate number is [        ] and i wish to replace it with the above licence type.
  [ ] i do not have a sorcery licence or it has lapsed and am applying for a new one.
  SectioN 2 – perSoNAl DetAilS
  Name: 
   
   
   
  Date of birth: 
   
   
  time of birth:
  original name, if different: 
   
  place of birth: 
   
   
  blood type:
  Next of kin:  
   
   
  offspring, if any:
  relevant medical history, if any: 
   
  Date of last ct:  
   
   
  Doctor’s Name: 
  SectioN 3 – trAiNiNg
  tick ANy ApplicAble boxeS.
  courSeS completeD:
  introduction to occult computing    1 [ ] 
   
   
  Advanced occult computing    1 [ ]   2 [ ]
  esoteric history    1 [ ]   2 [ ]   3 [ ]   
   
   
  practical occultism    1 [ ]   2 [ ] 
  certificate of Weapons expertise, unconventional    1 [ ]   2 [ ]   3 [ ]   4 [ ]   5 [ ]
  introduction to Summoning    [ ]  
   
   
   
  Advanced Summoning    1 [ ]   2 [ ]
  liSt ANy other courSeS oN A SepArAte Sheet.
  have you studied sorcery outside of an approved training course?    yes [ ]    No [ ] 
  have you studied occult computing outside of an approved training course?    yes [ ]    No [ ] 
  have you studied summoning or binding outside of an approved training course?    yes [ ]    No [ ]
  if the answer to any of these question is ‘yeS,’ give details on a separate sheet.
  - S o r c e r y  L i c e n c e  A p p L i c A t i o n -
  6. Sorcery License Application
  
  list any thaumaturgical practitioners who have given you instruction below.
  SectioN 4 – previouS hiStory
  have you ever used sorcery without an intermediate finite state automaton device?    yes [ ]    No [ ]
  have you ever used sorcery to inflict injury or suffering on another human?    yes [ ]    No [ ]
  have you ever used sorcery for personal gain or other matters?    yes [ ]    No [ ]
  have you ever used sorcery to summon or contact an unbound entity?    yes [ ]    No [ ]
  have you ever used sorcery beyond your rated capabilities or clearance?    yes [ ]    No [ ]
  have you ever been the subject of an internal inquiry or audit?    yes [ ]    No [ ]
  have you ever been the target of a non-work-related enchantment?    yes [ ]    No [ ]
  have you ever been the target of possession or contact by an unbound entity?    yes [ ]    No [ ]
  have you suffered any medical conditions or side effects related to sorcery?    yes [ ]    No [ ]
  have you ever been treated for a psychological disorder?    yes [ ]    No [ ]
  SectioN 5 – thAumAturgicAl DetAilS
  tick All ApplicAble boxeS. i Apply For permiSSioN to uSe:
  unconventional weapons    [ ]  
   
  regalia of office (items related to your current role)    [ ]
  Field computational demonology (oFcut)    [ ] other computational demonology    [ ] 
  Summoning grids, level 1 or 2    [ ]   
  Summoning grid, level 3 or more    [ ]
  level 1 Sorcery    [ ] 
   
   
  level 2 Sorcery    [ ]   
   
  level 3 Sorcery    [ ]
  level 4 Sorcery    [ ]   
   
  level 5 Sorcery    [ ] 
   
   
  other    [ ] (please specify)
  ApplicANt’S DeclArAtioN: 
  i declare that the information provided by me in relation to this application is true to the best of my knowledge and belief. i 
  understand that i may be prosecuted if i knowingly give false or misleading information. i bind myself to the code of Dee and 
  undertake to comply with the guidelines for the ethical use of sorcery. i understand that i may be subject to further enquiries or 
  auditing if this is deemed necessary in order to decide on whether or not to grant this application. i undertake to inform the issuing 
  authority of any changes to the information provided as a basis for this application. i will comply with all conditions that may apply to 
  the Sorcery certificate. i undertake not to use sorcery for ill. i undertake not to summon any unbound entity, loose any bound entity, 
  or bring about the end of the world without prior consultation with the issuing authority. Following the expiration of this licence, if 
  granted, i undertake to apply for a replacement licence or to eschew the use of sorcery completely. may my heart be riven and my 
  soul devoured by the angels of thrice-great hermes should i break these oaths.    yes [ ]    No [ ]
  Applicants Signature: _________________________________________________ 
  
  E m E R g E n C y  m i s s i o n  C a n C E l l at i o n
  FoRm 1008.7
  REaD tHEsE instRUCtions CaREFUlly! 
  Use this document in the event that:
  •	
  you are currently outside the United Kingdom (including the isle of man, Channel islands, and other crown dependencies
  •	
  your line manager is unavailable ;
  and
  •	
  you have reason to believe that your assigned mission is no longer valid due to unforeseen circumstances
  or
  •	
  you have reason to believe you are in grave and immediate danger that will make completing your assigned mission 
  impossible
  Officer Name: __________________________________  Serial Number: ________________________________
  Name on Passport: ______________________________ 
  Passport Number: ______________________________
  A. EmErgEncy Protocol
  A1. Which of the following have you informed of your situation?
  [ ] Other officer  
  [ ] Consul or ambassador  
  [ ] SIS Liaison  
  [ ] Designated safe contact
  A2. Do any of these conditions apply to you?
  [ ] Injured 
  [ ] Incapacitated
  [ ] Lacking necessary travel documents
  [ ] Lacking necessary transport
  [ ] Restrained 
  [ ] Under surveillance 
  [ ] Other __________________________________________
  A3. Ensure all of the precautions below have been observed. 
  [ ] All sensitive documents destroyed or placed under ward
  [ ] All material relating to your mission destroyed or placed under ward
  [ ] An approved cleaning service has been employed, if available
  [ ] Supplies for travel, survival and evasion have been secured
  If Any One Of the AbOve pReCAUtIOnS CAnnOt be ObSeRveD, AnSweR qUeStIOn A4.
  A4. Do you believe that you can successfully exfiltrate?
  [ ] yes, I believe there is a reasonable likelihood of successful exfiltration. 
  [ ] no, I require extraction. 
  B. thrEAt AssEssmEnt
  B1. Threat is believed to be
  [ ] Danger of exposure  
  [ ] Danger of injury   
  [ ] Danger of arrest   
  [ ] Danger of death   
  [ ] Occult threat
   
  B2. Can local law enforcement or other authorities deal with the threat?
  [ ] yes  
   
   
  [ ] no – not within juridiction  [ ] no – not within capability  [ ] no – no relevant authority
  B3. Threat is 
  [ ] Other intelligence  
  [ ] Law enforcement   
  [ ] Criminal  
   
  [ ] Other hostile (mundane)
  [ ] Known entity  
   
  [ ] Unknown entity   
  [ ] Other (specify)
  7. Emergency Mission Cancellation
  
  B4. Ensure all of the following options have been exhausted before cancelling the mission.
  [ ] verbal warning
  [ ] Contacting authorities (foreign)
  [ ] Contacting british authorities
  [ ] Use of warrant card
  [ ] Use of evasion
  [ ] Use of approved countermeasures
  [ ] Use of force (if authorised)
  c. mission AssEssmEnt
  C1. Have all aspects of the mission been documented? 
  [ ] yes [ ] no
  C2. Have all other stakeholders been informed of the proposed cancellation?
  [ ] yes [ ] no –  AnSweR qUeStIOn C3
  C3. Can you inform all other stakeholders through secure channels of the cancellation?
  [ ] yes [ ] no
  D. EvAcuAtion Protocol
  D1. Has the Transport Office been informed of your change in travel plans?
  [ ] yes [ ] no
  D2. If you intend to use a car or other motor vehicle to travel to your point of exit, note the 
  vehicle registration number [  
   
  ] and proposed route. [ 
   
   
   
  ]. 
  If yOU ARe USIng A RenteD vehICLe, AnSweR qUeStIOn D3.
  D3. Note the rental agency [ 
   
  ] and your customer number [ 
   
   
  ]. 
  Can your rented vehicle be returned at the planned exit point? 
   
   [ ] yes [ ] no.
  Are any added charges (damage, fuel, etc) liable on the rented vehicle? 
   [ ] yes [ ] no
  D4. If your exit point is an airport, note:
  the airport code:  
   
   
   
  flight number:
  departure time: 
   
   
   
  and list any stopovers or transfers:
  Are you liable for any added baggage charges?   
   
   
  [ ] yes [ ] no [ ] 
   
   
  D5. If your exit point is a port, note:
  the name:  
   
   
   
  home port:
  registry number: 
   
   
   
  and destination [                                 ] of your vessel.
  D6. If your exit point is a border crossing, contact the Foreign Office Liaison Office 
  immediately after crossing the border. 
  D7. Ensure the following steps have been taken:
  [ ] this document has been completed
  [ ] this document has been placed under ward or destroyed
  [ ] form 1018.9 (Unexpected expenses Incurred) has been completed
  Signed: ____________________________________________________ Date: [  
   
  ]
  FoRm 1008.7
  
  U n E x p E C t E D  E x p E n s E s  i n C U R R E D 
  i n  R E s p o n D i n g  t o  a  s i t U at i o n  1 0 0 8 . 7  i n  t H E  l i n E  o F  D U t y
  FoRm 1018.9
  REaD tHEsE instRUCtions CaREFUlly! 
  Use this document in the event that:
  •	
  you are required to complete a Form 1008.7
  and
  •	
  your expenditures in the course of exiting the mission exceed your assigned petty cash limit
  This	form	must	be	completed	and	filed	before	the	end	of	the	month	in	which	the	1008.7	was	filed,	unless	that	filing	was	within	
  three	(3)	working	days	of	the	prior	end	of	the	month,	in	which	case	this	form	must	be	filed	before	the	end	of	the	subsequent	
  month along with Form 1018.12.
  Officer Name: __________________________________  Serial Number: ________________________________
  ExpEnditurE
  BudgEtEd1
  ActuAl2
  diffEr-
  EncE3
  rEAson for ExpEnditurE4
  signoff5
  AccommodAtion
  SubSiStence
  trAvel (internAtionAl)
  trAvel (other)
  medicAl 
  Phone & internet
  equiPment rentAl
  equiPment PurchASeS
  clothing & footweAr
  other SuPPlieS
  grAtuitieS
  SundrieS
  other
  1. budget line item as agreed in initial form 1008.2.
  2. Actual line item expenditure 
  3. Difference between 1 & 2, if any.
  4. explain why the expenditure was necessary. Attach extra pages if necessary. 
  5. Manager must initials here. If multiple signoffs are required, note department of each manager in brackets after initials.
  8. Unexpected Expenses
  
  expenDItURe LISt
  Cash Spent: [ 
   
   
  ]         [ ] gbp [ ] eUR [ ] USD [ ] Other __________________________________
  Credit Card: [ 
   
   
  ]         [ ] gbp [ ] eUR [ ] USD [ ] Other __________________________________
  Card number: [ 
   
   
  ]        name [ 
            
       ]        Account [ 
   
   
         ]
  chEquE #
  Account #
  Amount
  pAyABlE to
  Other Debts (cash):  [ 
   
   
   
   
  ]
  Other Debts (other): [ 
   
   
   
   
  ]
  Attach receipts for all line items to this document. failure to include receipts or full accounting of expenditures may result in 
  summary rejection of all claimed expenses. Any claims not validated by the expenditures Oversight Committee must be paid by 
  the officer who incurred the expenses within 28 working days. 
  i swear that the above information, to the best of my knowledge and judgement, is wholly correct and accurate.
  Signed: _____________________________
  FoRm 1018.9
  
  THe LAundry
  134
  A
  Agents 
  6
  Agent Memoirs 
  76
  Aquatic Heritage 
  93
  Assassin 
  84
  Athlete 
  84
  Audits 
  60
  Automatic Lock Pick 
  20
  Autonomous Security Robot (Experimental) 25
  Avoiding Tails 
  15
  B
  Bell, Book and Candle 
  19
  Black Budget, red Tape 
  54
  Black Chamber (The) 
  110
  Brush Contact 
  12
  Budget Manipulation Revisited 
  56
  Bureaucracy & Status 
  55
  Bureaucracy Random Encounters 
  61
  Bureaucracy Random Encounter Table 
  62
  Bureaucrat 
  84
  C
  Call of the Deep 
  93
  Calling Cards 
  13
  Career Military Officer 
  79
  Character Templates 
  77
  Character Types 
  103
  Chase Trouble Table 
  35
  Chases 
  33
  Civilian Characters & Campaigns 
  98
  Cleanup 
  56
  Close Support Tickets 
  63
  Clueless Civilians 
  103
  Codes 
  14
  Cold War (The) 
  115
  Communications & Computing 
  118
  Computers 
  13
  Conscripted Civil Servant 
  80
  Conspiracy Theorist 
  78
  Contacting Agents 
  10
  Countersurveillance 
  17
  Course Information 
  69
  Cover Identity 
  7
  Covert Messages 
  11
  Covert Operations 
  7
  Cut-Out 
  12
  Craftsman 
  85
  Creating a Cultist 
  108
  Creating Freelance Spies 
  107
  Creating Independent Sorcerers 
  106
  Criminal 
  85
  Cultists 
  107
  D
  Damage to Vehicles 
  33
  Dawn of the Geek Age (The) 
  117
  Deep One Hybrids 
  92
  Deep One Hybrid and Sea-Born Player 
  Characters 
  93
  Designated Premises 
  36
  Disciplinary Hearing 
  65
  Disillusioned Priest 
  81
  Display Contacts (Experimental) 
  21
  Display Glasses 
  20
  Double Agents 
  11
  DV Query 
  65
  E
  Electronic Drop Cloth 
  21
  Electronic Stenography 
  14
  Electronic Surveillance 
  17
  Entertainer 
  85
  Evasion 
  16
  Exotic Guns 
  46
  Experimental Wireless Taser 
  26
  Explosives 
  52
  F
  Field Medical Kit 
  21
  Fieldcraft 
  14
  Fieldcraft Rules 
  15
  Fighting Nazis: World War II Campaigns 
  114
  Fill in Timesheet 
  63
  Firearm Equipment and Customisation 
  47
  Firearms 
  39
  Forensics Kit 
  22
  Former Police Inspector 
  82
  Freelance Spies 
  106
  G
  Games Mastering the Bureaucracy 
  61
  Gaze (The) 
  96
  Gehime Sicherheiabteilung (GSA) 
  112
  Ghost Player Characters 
  94
  Ghosts 
  94
  Ghoul Player Characters 
  95
  Ghouls 
  95
  Goggles of Good and Evil 
  22
  Gorgon Player Characters 
  96
  Gorgons 
  95
  H
  Handling Agents 
  11
  Having a Friend on the Inside 
  102
  How I Learned To Love The Paperwork 
  54
  Hunger 
  95
  I
  I Hit You With My Bureaucracy 
  57
  I Hit You With My Status 
  58
  Identifying Agents 
  9
  Independent Sorcerers 
  105
  Informal Manager Meetings 
  59
  Informants 
  6
  Inquisition (The) 
  59
  Intelligence Sources 
  7
  Interacting with the Laundry 
  98
  (The) Internet & The Age of Capitalism 
  119
  Introduction 
  3
  Internal Inquiries 
  60
  Inventor 
  83
  Investigation 
  57
  Invisibility Cloak (Experimental) 
  22
  Invisibility Shield 
  22
  ISO9001 Non-Conformance Review 
  64
  J
  Journalists 
  104
  K
  Knowledge of the Laundry 
  101
  L
  Laundry Campaigns in Other eras 
  114
  (The) Laundry & External Contractors 
  98
  (The) Laundry’s Response to the Occult 
  Underground 
  101
  Index
  
  INDEX
  135
  Learning Sorcery 
  102
  Letters 
  12
  Lockpick Set 
  23
  M
  Magnetic Mind Control Device 
  23
  Manage Major Project 
  64
  Manage Minor Project 
  64
  Manoeuvres 
  34
  Microdots 
  14
  Miscellaneous Weapons 
  51
  Missions 
  10
  N
  New Courses 
  67 
  New Zealand Domestic & External 
  Security Group 
  113
  Night-Vision Imaging Goggles 
  24
  Normal vs. Experimental Technologies 
  19
  O
  Occult Evasion 
  16
  Occult Shotgun Shells 
  49
  Occult Stenography 
  14
  Occult Surveillance 
  17
  Occult Tailing 
  15
  Occult Underground (The) 
  100
  OCCULUS Wagon (An) 
  32
  Official Forms 
  12
  One-Time pads 
  13
  Open Source Information 
  5
  Other Intelligence Agencies 
  110
  Other Professions 
  84
  Outside the Laundry 
  98
  P
  Parallel Dimensional Refugee Player Characters 96
  Parallel Reality Refugees 
  96
  Past Experience 
  87
  Pentacle Gun (Experimental) 
  24
  Performance Reviews 
  60
  Politician 
  86
  Previous Laundry Experience Table 
  90
  Previous Professional Experience Table 
  88
  Priest 
  86
  Protective Gear 
  27
  Q
  Quarterly Appraisal 
  64
  R
  Radiation 
  53
  Random Checks 
  59
  Recruitment 
  10
  Reduced SAN 
  93
  Report on ISO9001 KPIs 
  64
  Report on Project Plan Progress 
  63
  Repurposing a Deceased Player Character 97
  Reputation 
  58
  Residual Human Entities 
  96
  Returning to the Office 
  62
  Requisitioning Items 
  58
  Rifles, Assault Rifles, Submachine Guns, 
  and Machineguns 
  42
  Running Agents 
  8
  S
  Sample Laundry Safe-houses 
  38
  Safe-houses 
  35
  Satellite Phone 
  24
  Security 
  18
  Security Robot 
  24
  Sharing Training 
  67
  Shotguns 
  45
  Sidearms 
  39
  Signalling 
  12
  Skill Roll Modifiers 
  34
  So, what’s in the book? 
  3
  Sorcery & Occult Items in the 1940s 
  115
  Sorcery & Occult Items in the 1950s & ’60s 116
  Sorcery & Occult Items in the 1970s & 80s 118
  Sorcery & Occult Items in the 1990s 
  120
  Special Instructor Courses 
  75
  Specialised Ammunition 
  48
  Spectral Powers 
  94
  Spotting a Tail 
  16
  Spy in the Laundry Basket (The) 
  5
  Status Advancement 
  59
  Stenography 
  13
  Surveillance 
  16
  Surveillance & Eavesdropping 
  6
  T
  Tailing 
  15
  Tasers and the Possessed 
  26
  Telephones 
  13
  Terminating Agents 
  11
  Thermal Imager 
  25
  Threats and Dangers 
  114, 117, 119, 120
  Tradecraft 
  4
  Training Courses 
  66
  Turf Wars 
  57
  U
  Unit G6, ‘The Gallery’ 
  112
  Unusual Characteristics 
  37
  Unusual Characteristics Table 
  37
  Unwanted Courses 
  74
  Update ISO9001 Corrective Action Matrix 
  64
  Update Personal Objectives 
  63
  Using Training Courses 
  67
  V
  Vehicles 
  27
  Vehicle Descriptions 
  28
  Vehicles Table (Air) 
  31
  Vehicles Table (Land) 
  30
  Vehicles Table (Water) 
  31
  Vehicular Weapons 
  32
  Vehicular Weapons Table 
  32
  Veteran Laundry Agents 
  90
  W
  Web Filter Verbal Warning 
  64
  Weird Characters 
  92
  Wireless Taser 
  25
  Writer 
  86
  Y
  Your Own Department 
  58
  Z
  Zombie Player Characters 
  97
  Index
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/The Laundry/CB71203 Agents Handbook.pdf