The Brotherhood of the Road
By Marc “grandini” Dilazzaro
Special thanks to Tophat
Cars in a circle, little lamb in the middle
All the headlights, so bright, he ain't cast a shadow off
Sick - SALEM
The ritual is always the same, but the place and people almost never are. Six cars formed in a circle facing one another in a lonely, abandoned place off the highway, each car’s driver standing to the side of their idling vehicle. It is night, the headlights come together to form a fully lit circle, in the center of which is a bound individual, often a teen runaway, but not always. The Man manifests to take what is his. He does not cast a shadow.
Disconnected But United
The Brotherhood of the Road is an inadequate title for a form of cult that is not organized, and has no true hierarchy or doctrine, yet acts with a definite purpose and cannot be called anything other than a cult. Brotherhood is something of a misnomer, for there are plenty of women among their ranks, but it captures the absolute solidarity they share with one another, for how else could one feel towards other extensions of the same divinity?
The one commonality every driver of the Brotherhood has is that they all routinely drive long distances on the highways between the major cities of America, and routinely do so at night. For it is then that the Man calls to them. The initiation is always the same, the driver will find their eyes growing heavy as they drive the darkened highway late in the night, they fall asleep at the wheel into fantastical dreams of landscapes unimagined, only to wake hours later to find themselves parked in some lonely stretch of back road, always at a crossroads. It is there they see the Man standing in the center of their headlights, a pure, featureless darkness in the vague shape of a person. He speaks to them without words, offering them his mark. Not a single person has ever hesitated in their immediate acceptance. How could they? Their entire life has been leading up to this moment.
As soon as they accept the mark, they are given several boons. First and foremost, they never experience exhaustion, though they can still sleep at will. More esoterically, accidents and disease approach them not. They can smoke 60 cigarettes everyday for their whole life and be no worse for wear. They can wrap their car around a tree doing 100 mph and walk away from the fiery wreck unharmed. Only age or violence will take their lives. More than that, they can rest assured that nothing bad will ever happen to those they love, and this is not an uncommon concern among the drivers, for a good deal of them have functional family lives.
Due to the nature of their selection, the vast majority of the drivers are long-haul truckers, but all that’s needed is routine long distance driving at night, as such they count among their numbers migrant oil workers, drifters, traveling businessmen and women, drug smugglers, people smugglers, and at least one highway patrolman in every state. There are also the Holy Vagabonds, men and women who live their entire lives on the road, often as hitchhikers.
For them, driving the highways that cut through the lonely places of this country is a religious experience. It is there that they communicate with God, for they now have the eyes to see and the ears to hear. The sibilant instructions from the radio static, the pattern of a dead deer's entrails spread across the road, the swirling smoke of the road flair, the sequence of flashes on a failing neon sign. It tells them all they need to know, like to drive 90 mph on a certain stretch of road without breaking for anything or anyone, or to shiv a man wearing a suit in this truck-stop bathroom, or to pick up the corpse at the interchange between US 85 and State Road 25 and dump it at the Geographical Center of North America.
Every single member of the Brotherhood radiates an astonishing sense of calm, of contentment. They are absolute fatalists utterly at peace with their role and whatever fate the Man has dictated for them. Treat every driver as adapted to helplessness, and though a few of them are adept at and comfortable with inflicting violence on others, most are not. However, this does not mean any single one of them will flinch when the path dictates that they must kill, and they will try to stoically endure the trauma of murder the best they can. They are not suicidal, and will try to escape if combat has clearly turned against them, and they will cry from the pain of being stabbed or shot. However, if it is clear that no escape is possible, if a gun is against their head, the serenity of total acceptance washes over them. They smile, “do it, pull the trigger.”
They’re remarkably resistant to torture, humming nonsense hymns to themselves between screams and wracked sobs, but torture isn’t necessary, they offer what few secrets they have freely. If you were not meant to hear what they know, then the two of you would not have met at this crossroad. But the emphasis is on few when it comes to secrets. They have virtually no names to give, and the few they do will lead to dead ends before long as the Man cauterizes the wound. What they can tell Agents of are the glories and the wonders they now know. Each has an idiosyncratic vision of their faith, colored by their own cultural and religious background. Some even know the Man as the Woman, Hekete, goddess of the crossroads and witchcraft. They can share their signs and sigils, they can share on how to call upon the Man, how to curry his favor. In fact, it’s not inconceivable that after interrogating a captured Brother, that the Agent might find themselves drifting off while on a long drive down some lonesome road, only to awaken to find themselves at a crossroads. The Man and his Book awaiting them.
Unremembered History and Disorganization:
The Brotherhood has no structure as such, but it rather spontaneously organized by some Outside will the membership collectively refer to as the Man. The vast majority are referred to simply as Brothers by one another, regardless of gender. They are the Drivers, the seers, the bagmen, the hatchetmen and come from all walks of life that involve frequent, long distance drives alone. By in large, these are unremarkable people, some living marginal existences, others leading functional lives as contributing members of society. They are blessed with the boons of immunity to exhaustion, to see that which is unseen, to have chance and circumstance approach them not, but are in all other respects in regards to skill and ability exceedingly average.
The Second rank are referred to as the Laity, and they number among the service station attendants, truck stop waitresses, and motel staff in the lonely places across the continent. They provide succor to the Brothers who cross their paths, and they maintain shrines in the back rooms of gas stations, in sealed bathroom stalls, and along the roadways where people have died in fiery accidents.
The final rank is that of Holy Vagabond. These are among the most revered members of their order. Many are those wayward sons and daughters offered unto the Man but were spared by His grace and given a glimpse of his wondrous design and a scant morsel of His power. There is also a contingent who have appeared since 2003 with marks on their wrist or palms of a stylized eye and have spread out across the continent from the nexus of New York City. These chosen have acted as bloodhounds for the Man, chasing down the faithless of the Fate who have scattered to the four winds and are in desperate need of punishment.
A member of the Brotherhood can recognize a Holy Vagabond on sight and never hesitates to pull over and take them wherever it is they wish to go and assist them in any way possible. It is the Holy Vagabonds who are able to wield some of the Man's power with focus and intent. Rarely do they live long, but the short lives they live are full of wonder, meaning, and murder.
Signs and Wonders:
The brotherhood is very heterodox in both their beliefs about the man and what sorts of things they associate with Him. Shrines will likely host a mish mash of symbols and traditions, Voodoo, Bon, Santeria, Satanism, Christianity, pick a flavor. There are a few constants, however.
Firstly is the Sign of the Road. This involves splaying one's index and middle fingers and place the tips at their left temple and then running the fingers down their face, making sure that the Driver's left eye (or socket) has the two fingers pass by either side of it. Almost like one is tracing a road down the left side of their face and their eye is at the center of it. This is be responded to in kind by another Driver and a great understanding between them will be reached as they know they are dealing with a Brother. Should an uninitiated individual try this, the Brother will see through it once they respond in kind. This sacrilege will be noted.
The Shrines will often look very similar to memorials to the dead one commonly sees at the site of fatal traffic accidents along the roads and highways of America, except there is always an empty picture frame at the center. Small offerings will be left here, mostly of food and drink but all sorts of things, like spark plugs or bullets or a syringe of a lethal dose of heroin. In fact, whatever is left here is exactly what the next Driver needs.
The Shrines are often in out of the way places, sometimes alongside roads or under an overpass, but also in back rooms of rest stops and gas stations. They're attended to by the Laity, who will guard them with their lives. Their presence can be noted by symbols etched or painted that look similar to classic "Hobo code" but with certain variations .
The Circling:
How to Cross Paths
The brothers have an uncanny ability to be at the right place at the right time, like pulling over on the side of the road offering a ride just as an agent bursts forth from the underbrush, bloody and afraid of the things following close behind. Or they’re in just the right place at the right time to offer the target of an investigation a speedy escape. Either way, they take a person to exactly where they need to be.
Those who drive the road have an uncanny ability to be close to unnatural events and those investigating them. Agents may notice themselves surveilled in this way. The Brotherhood can either be a help or hindrance, they are just as likely to give a lift to a mad cultist fleeing the Agents as they are to save an Agent from the lurch. But should a former member the Fate be involved, the Agents might find themselves witnessing a fortuitous car crash that incapacitates or kills their target, or perhaps a good old boy driving a beat up pick up truck takes his rifle off the rack and provides covering fire.
The Brotherhood is not designed to be a main antagonist or a cult to be destroyed. Rather they are to serve as a sort of liminal plot device. Something to hint at some greater, unknowable design, something to add a sense of menace and mystery, something to haunt the background of a campaign and to serve the immediate needs of the plot to whatever ends the Handler might desire.
Now, of course, players have a habit of chasing after anything interesting to them and there's a very real chance they might end up obsessed with the Brotherhood of the Road. I'd say allow it, but have it ultimately come to a dead end. What I'd suggest there is let them chase them down,,let them follow a Driver for a prolonged time, see how they live, see them run their index and middle finger down either side of their eye at a Nepalese refugee working as a gas station clerk who returns the sign in kind before showing them to a Shrine in the store room for obeisance. Let them witness the Circling.
Let them figure out it cannot be stopped.
Should they intervene in the Circling, well, let's just say it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living god. To quote a famous TED talk, "We're just gonna kill em!"
It’s entirely possible the Agents might be directed to make some kind of offering at one of the many roadside shrines to the Man, either by their Cell Leader who knows an upcoming operation requires a blessing or on their own initiative. See Services Rendered below for an example.
Services Rendered:
An Agent is told to take a rusted red 1986 Chevrolet Silverado K20 with a truck bed full of caged goats and drive along US HWY 70 until reaching the San Augustin Pass Overlook of Whitesands where they are to let go of the steering wheel while flooring the gas pedal. The Agent will then find themselves in a six car pile up that they manage to walk away from uninjured. The scene on the highway will be chaotic, with broken glass and bloody goats strewn across it, but when the agent crawls from the cab of the truck they will see a single goat standing among the wreckage, oblivious to its surroundings. A Mexican man with a road flare will approach and slit the goats neck with a knife, watching it die before turning to the Agent approvingly. “It will go well” he says with a smile.
A New Mexico State Police car will pull up almost immediately after and begin cordoning off the scene. One of the officers will approach the agent, address them by their birth name with a smile and assure them all is well, the offering has been accepted. He will then hand them a set of car keys to an abandoned vehicle parked on the overlook.
Coda:
So this is a concept that's been gestating in my mind for over a decade, ever since I first heard the track Sick by SALEM back in 2011, which isn't terribly lone before I ran my first Delta Green campaign. The idea of how to utilize what that song inspired perfectly crystalized in my my mind making the drive from Los Angeles to San Antonio about two years ago. I typed this out almost as soon as I got back home and just sort of sat on it. You can thank tophat for that terrific set piece outlined in "Services Rendered."
The real impetus for me posting this now was seeing the SALEM: The Midwest's Most Wanted documentary on Youtube last night. The introduction so uncannily matched the feeling of what I was going for with the concept of the Brotherhood of the Road, chance meetings in the interstitials of America that change the course of lives, but it also went a long way to articulating what drew me to the band in the first place, and why I always associated it with Delta Green and my vision of running it. The ugliest and long forgotten parts of America, the lives eked out in the margins of society, the down and out in the great, rotting Heartland of the Great Satan. Witch House and the great American malaise honestly loom large on my style when it comes to running Delta Green.
I hope to add some NPCs and an concept of how to introduce the Brotherhood as an "antagonist," but I wanted to release what I had and write down my thoughts while they were still feverishly hot in my mind. I call chose to refer to them as a Delta Green "element" rather than a faction, as they're something amorphous whose mortal agents neither know nor care to know the agenda they work towards, and they're not something that can truly be destroyed. But they're something to function as a kind of narrative "lube" while also providing an atmosphere of the strange and mysterious along the highways criss-crossing America's neglected and decaying interior. Mellon described the concept as "the Brotherhood of the Ocean but usable" once, which is a compliment I treasure to this day. Regardless, I hope this serves to inspire some of you, or at least serves as an enjoyable read. Please share your thoughts and/or criticisms as you see fit. I honestly want to know what you think of it. I'd love to develop this further and make it more useful to other people's games, and I'd be happy to integrate suggestions and critiques.
Until next time, traveler
Be Seeing You
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