In 1976 the US and South Korean governments sent an armed patrol into the Korean Demilitarized Zone with the ostensible goal of destroying a tree. (More truthfully, it was a response to the killing of two US soldiers in the DMZ.) Comprised of over eight hundred men, including soldiers, engineers and South Korean special forces, Operation Paul Bunyan was one of the finest examples of military sabre-rattling in history. The show of force cowed North Korea from a response and the engineers successfully chainsawed the offending tree down, thus demonstrating the US and South Korean unwillingness to tolerate acts of aggression from North Korea in the DMZ.
However, paperwork filed after the operation demonstrates a curious discrepancy. While allocation papers clearly show eight-hundred and thirteen men were committed to Operation Paul Bunyan, debrief papers do not show casualty rates or headcounts following the return of troops to South Korea, as would be standard. As such, we do not know how many soldiers failed to come back from the demilitarized zone, nor why those soldiers were left behind.
. . .
Peace Eternal is a game set in the aftermath of the (quite real!) Operation Paul Bunyan in the 1970s. It posits that a small group of investigators was dispatched by the US and South Korean governments into North Korea, using the prior Axe Murder Incident as cover. Operation Paul Bunyan was deliberately large to cow response, yes, but also to create a diversion for the investigators to break away.
Your PCs will be, of course, that investigative team.
There’s a lot of scope here for various concepts. US Soldiers, engineers, scientists and the like are obvious, but if you want to play a tae-kwon do master you can: The South Korean special forces were black belts. And you can get a bit more fanciful: A member of a shadowy US government group coming in under cover, investigating the Mythos? That works just fine. There’s a LOT of scope here.
I’ll be shooting less for pulpy gun and fist Call of Cthulhu and more for creepy, atmospheric mythos stuff. Expect less action, more chill.
Hosted and narrated by:
Sean Riley (JackSlack)
Started 08/01/14.
Scenes played: 1
License: Community License
