Facility: Clearance, Redaction, and You

Clearance

Every employee, from the lowest test subjects and janitors to the most dangerous Kappa operatives and Esoteric Assets, are issued identification with a Clearance Level (or just Level) between 0 and 9.

Oversight does not have or need Clearance Level 10. — A.O.

Admin is often forced to issue day passes to Rival Agency liaisons or to Security and Maintenance teams resolving specific issues. These badges are large and clearly marked with a red expiry time stamp 24 hours from issuance.

Many doors, vaults, cabinets, and machines require a passcode that (1d6):

1. Changes daily.
2. Is incredibly difficult to type (roll Admin to input correctly).
3. Pokes fun at a specific employee.
4. Is written somewhere nearby.
5. Hasn’t changed from factory settings.
6. You already know.

L5+ IDs are linked to biometrics in the Facility database. L5+ locks require a number of the following biometric samples equal to their level minus 4.

1. Speech sample
2. Palm print
3. Facial scan
4. Retinal scan
5. DNA sample (saliva)
6. DNA sample (blood)

If you suspect that your biometrics have been compromised due to artefact exposure, please report to Inhuman Resources for a full scan and/or autopsy. — A.O.

L0 — A dog tag, blinking subdermal chip, or visitor sticker.
L1 —  An employee ID and a keyfob, typically worn together on a lanyard. Includes location tracker, can be loaded with vending machine bucks.
L2 — An ID badge, typically carried in a wallet. Easily mistaken for local government agency.
L3 — An employee ID issued to team leaders. Still tracked, but has unlimited vending machine bucks.
    
A privilege, not a right. — A.O.

L4 — A nonreactive metal ID card. Etched to maximize legibility in case of severe mangling. Tracked for your safety.
L5 — Biometric ID card issued to Division Chiefs. Isn’t tracked.
L6 — Biometric ID card. Role and department are redacted.

Admin just doesn’t want to admit that some secretaries need to have the same clearance level as moonshot researchers and Kappa team grunts. — A.O.

L7 — Biometric ID card issued to Departmental Directors. Awarded alongside a small congratulatory plaque.

Bugged by Internal Affairs, naturally. — A.O.

L8 — Matte black ID card. Probably legible under UV or something.

If someone flashes this at you, run. They need the exercise. — A.O.

L9 — Biometric ID card issued to the Facility Director.

Redaction

Lots of media in the anomalous containment space leans on redaction as a tool to build horror. This doesn’t work in the tabletop RPG space, or at least, it has to work differently.

If you redact out any amount of information, players will want to know what’s behind it. In a story, video game, or an SCP-style database entry, the best a reader can do is infer the scariest thing they can think of given the space constraints established by the redaction. In tabletop games outside of the storygame milieu, a GM needs better answers than “you tell me”.

Most tabletop RPGs already presume an amount of redaction due to the vast information asymmetry between players and the GM. Therefore, redaction is useful as a visual signifier of information that can be discovered with further effort. The only difference between a monster’s stat block and an anomaly’s case file is the amount visible to the players; the latter is far more transparent.

If the party knows about an object’s perilous aura, but its effective range is redacted, they can take actions to identify that range and act accordingly. If a player approaches an entity without yet having untangled a large redaction in its file, they will be more understanding when it paralyzes them, emits a roomful poison gas, or fades from their memories. Partial documents become valuable loot. Black boxes become a quest log. A feel-bad moment becomes a successful scouting mission.

At the table, use redaction as a puzzle that generates gameplay. Hand your players your prep, liberally marked up. Let them play smart, metagame, and sneak peeks behind the screen. If any place is appropriate to gain extradimensional insights through creative malfeasance, it’s the Facility.

For examples of productive use of redaction, highlight this page.

Janitor

Qualifications
None.

Saves
Weapons +0, Trauma +0, Explosions +0, Contaminants +2, Anomalies +2

Expertise
Cleaning (Normal), Sneak (Physique)

Uniform
L1 ID, blue coveralls, janitor’s cart (buckets, mundane cleaning supplies, push-broom, mop, vacuum, toiletry refills).

Sanitize
With appropriate cleaning agents and ten minutes of vigorous scrubbing, you may roll Normal to remove all hazardous materials from a room. If you fail, you may Salvage the attempt at the risk of becoming exposed to one of those hazards. Whether you succeed or fail on the Salvage attempt, you must save vs. a hazard you cleaned.

You may spend a Break (1 hour) cleaning to automatically succeed at cleaning 1d6 rooms.

This cleaning process produces a bucket of hazardous sludge that inflicts 1d3 wounds to everyone in the splash zone and may cause additional effects based on the originating hazards. You will also have to clean the resulting mess up again.

Nondescript
You are always the lowest priority target for hostile action. 

Facility: Jobs

Characters in the Facility start with one of several jobs. Most jobs require specific Qualifications. All jobs provide baseline Save bonuses, starting Uniform (including a badge with a Clearance level), Expertises, and abilities.

Facility jobs do not have standard advancement procedures. Instead, advancement occurs through acquisition of new artefacts, equipment, clearance levels, expertise, and titles. Some titles have Qualification prerequisites; some directly replace and upgrade starting jobs.

A “high-level” Facility character wears many hats. A character that started as a lowly Research Assistant may end up as a Team Lead, Entity Handler, Certified Professional Accountant, Third-Rank Adept of the Night, and Research Director.

Under special circumstances such as continuity of administration protocols or blatant nepotism, unqualified candidates may receive high-level positions. — A.O.

Field Agent

Delta Team operatives, External Affairs liaisons, and Public Relations triage teams all wear the traditional black suit and silver tie clip. In the aftermath of the Incident, Agents must adapt their training for a far more dangerous Field: the Facility.

Qualifications
+1 Physique, +1 Insight

Saves
Weapons +2, Trauma +2, Explosions +2, Contaminants +0, Anomalies +0

Expertise
Firearms (Phys), Running (Phys)

Uniform
Agent badge (Clearance 2), field agent suit, 9mm pistol, earpiece radio, tinted glasses (PPE, Rating 1 — Anomalies).

Research Assistant

The Facility runs on an endless succession of bright-eyed recent graduates who want to leave their mark on the world. That mark usually turns out red and sticky.

Qualifications
+2 Science

Saves
Weapons +0, Trauma +0, Explosions +1, Contaminants +2, Anomalies +2

Expertise
Choose one (Science)

Uniform
ID card (Clearance 1), lab coat, lab goggles, surgical mask, latex gloves.

Artefact Analysis
Start with an additional slot for a bound Artefact. You may Bind artefacts with Science rather than Insight.

Craft Device
You can attempt to combine items in your possession into a new device with novel capabilities based on the properties of its parts. Describe this new item to the GM, who sets a difficulty. Spend a Shift crafting the device, then make a Science roll. On a success, you create the desired item. If you fail, save or suffer 1d6 Wounds, and you may consume the items to Salvage the attempt. On a partial success, you create an item with unknown properties. If you fail to Salvage, save or suffer 1d6 Wounds again.
The nature of the save is up to the GM.

Crafting Guidelines

• Base difficulty: 12
• Includes power source: +2
• Large: +2, takes additional Shifts to craft (only roll at the end)
• Modifying a mundane item: -2
• Bound artefact: +2
• Unbound artefact: +4
• +X, where X is the total number of artefacts in the final device
• Weapon: +X, where X is its maximum Damage
• PPE: +1 for each point of Rating and each point added to saves
• Anything else the GM thinks is relevant.

Security Guard

You have a patrol route, a list of duties, a kevlar vest, and a gun. None of these have prepared you for what you’ve seen or what comes next.

Qualifications
+1 Physique

Saves
Weapons +1, Trauma +1, Explosions +1, Contaminants +1, Anomalies +1

Expertise
None.

Uniform
ID card (Clearance 1), security helmet, security vest, submachine gun, walkie-talkie.

Resilience
Add an additional box to each of your stats’ Wound Capacity.

Administrative Assistant

Grease the wheels of bureaucracy by providing real decision-makers with copious amounts of coffee and an outlet for their rage. Maybe learn a thing or two in the process.

Qualifications
+2 Admin

Saves
Weapons +0, Trauma +2, Explosions +0, Contaminants +0, Anomalies +0

Expertise
Choose one (Normal)

Uniform
ID card (Clearance 1), business casual (PPE Rating 1 — Trauma, Contaminants).

Declassify Document
When you encounter a new redacted document, you may roll with Insight. The target number is 12 plus the document’s Clearance. On a success, fill in all the blanks. On a partial success, fill in one blank of your choice. You cannot attempt to Declassify the same document more than once.

Turn Employees
To force Facility staff to follow protocols or browbeat them into compliance, make an Admin roll. On a success, roll 2d6 to determine the total Clearance level of staff that follow your orders until the end of the scene. On a partial success, roll 1d6 to determine the total Clearance level of staff that follow a single order you gave them during the Turning attempt.

You cannot attempt to Turn employees that you have previously failed to Turn until your Clearance increases or you gain a new Title.

Lab Rat

An unkind term for the expendable test subjects demanded by less reputable researchers and containment teams. Not usually a literal rat.

Qualifications
None.

Saves
Weapons +0, Trauma +0, Explosions +0, Contaminants +0, Anomalies +0

Expertise
Sneak (Phys), Climb (Phys), Hide (Phys)

Uniform
ID tag (Clearance 0), grey coveralls, high visibility vest.

Test Subject
Whenever you fail a Save, mark it. At the end of a session, you may erase all marks on one of your marked saves and choose one.

• If you removed one or more marks, gain +1 to that save (to a maximum of +3).
• If you removed three or more marks, gain an Expertise in that save.
• If you removed five or more marks, gain an additional slot for a bound artefact.

Opportunist
When you hit a creature unaware of your presence with an attack, you inflict an additional 1d6 damage.

Binding Artefacts

Wielding artefacts is dangerous. In order to reliably control an artefact’s effects, one must understand both its properties and its interactions with the world around it. This becomes exponentially more difficult when artefacts interact with each other, as experimental conditions diverge further and further from established physical laws. The process of understanding an artefact well enough to use it in a personal capacity is called Binding.

To Bind an artefact, spend a Shift performing scientific analysis and/or occult rituals while making any requisite offerings. At the end of the Shift, make an Insight roll and suffer a Wound to your Normal. On a Success, you Bind it and gain a modicum of control over its anomalous capabilities. On a Failure, you may upgrade that Wound to a Scar to Salvage the roll.

• Gain +2 to the roll if you have the artefact’s fully declassified containment file. Expertise will not help you here, only specific knowledge.
• A Bond gives you more leeway to make creative use of an anomaly without needing to roll, and allows you to benefit from its passive effects at all times.
• Binding yourself to a large, powerful, or intelligent artefact is dangerous. A Bond is a two-way street, and powers one believes they can wield often end up wielding them instead.

By default, a character has two slots for Bound artefacts. When a character is at capacity but wants to Bind a new artefact, they must Unbind an old one, which can be Bound again at a later date. Unbinding is instantaneous, but not without difficulty: make an Anomalies save to avoid Backlash.
The nature of the Backlash is up to the GM, but typically includes several Wounds.
Some Jobs and Titles provide additional artefact slots.

Oπ — “Jar of Wounds”: This glass mason jar is stoppered with a large stained cork and filled with damaged flesh. A damaged label reads “WHOOP-ASS // bottled 12-08-19[illegible]”.

The jar can store up to three points of Wounds and/or Scars. All injuries associated with the wounds disappear into the jar as if poured like a liquid; careful examination of the jar’s contents can identify the wounds contained within. If the jar is opened while full or broken at any time, the wounds and scars escape onto the nearest creature.

A character who has Bound the Jar of Wounds can immediately dump wounds that they would suffer into the Jar until it’s full. The character might direct emptied wounds to small animals crawling on the jar, dump them onto a corpse until the corpse disintegrates, or fire them at an enemy (treat as a Science attack vs. target’s Trauma save).

We don’t have reclassify an artefact to τ just because you Bound it. We have the Special Projects division for a reason — binding the Haunted Tape is impressive, but Legal is never going to sign off on using it to populate break room entertainment cabinets with media pirated from your subconscious. You’re going to watch re-runs of Heritage Minutes like everyone else in the Facility. — A.O.

Further artefacts: https://archonsmarchon.blogspot.com/2025/07/some-artefacts-first-dossier.html

Facility Core

 A tabletop game for playing in a strange modern megadungeon inspired by Abiotic Factor, CONTROL, Triangle Agency, Prey (2017), Delta Green, and the SCP Foundation.

You are members of an Organization that identifies, captures, contains, and neutralizes supernatural threats. Everything has gone wrong, and the Facility is in total lockdown. Hold out for as long as you can.

1. Rolling Dice

To accomplish an interesting, dangerous, or complicated task, roll d20 and add your relevant stat bonus. Meet or beat 12 (or a higher number, at the GM’s discretion) to succeed.

• If you have a relevant Expertise, add an additional +2.
• If you have help from another player character (declared before the roll), they may also roll with a relevant stats, and on a success they give you an additional +1. Helpers are also exposed to dangers associated with the task. You cannot Salvage a Help roll.

On a failure, you may attempt to Salvage your roll (at the GM’s discretion) and make the same roll again. If you meet or beat the original target number, you get a Partial Success that is less effective, more time/resource consuming, and/or exposes you to more harm than initially expected. If you fail to Salvage, the consequences above still occur.

• Before the Salvage roll, other PCs may chip in and attempt to help.
• You cannot Salvage a Salvage roll.

2. Stats

To generate your stats, roll 3d6 down the line for Physique, Science, Insight, Admin, and Normal, and consult the Employee Competence Scale to get each stat’s bonus.

Employee Competence Scale
3-4: -3        5-6: -2        7-9: -1        10-11: 0    12-14: +1    15-16: +2    17-18: +3

After generating your stats, you may undergo On-the-Job Training and do one of the following:

• Subtract 1 from the bonus of a stat of your choice to gain an Expertise in a different stat.
• Subtract 2 from the bonus of a stat of your choice to gain +2 to the bonus of a different stat.
• Swap two stats.

These cannot take stats below -3 or above +3 (and so you can't subtract 2 points from a stat that's already -2 or less). A stat with a bonus of -3 or below is permanently Impaired (c.f. 3(a) “Wounds & Impairment”).

Stats with bonuses of +2 or higher provide additional benefits, such as Expertise and improved saves. 

(a) Physique

Roll Physique to run, climb, jump, lift, shove, sneak, and make physical attacks.

• +2: Gain a Physique Expertise.
• +3: +1 to your Weapons and Contaminants saves.

(b) Science

Roll Science to understand, remember, treat wounds, utilize the mundane and anomalous principles that govern the Facility, and attack with crafted and/or anomalous weapons.

• +2: Gain a Science Expertise.
• +3: Gain +2 to your Contaminants save.

(c) Insight

Roll Insight to connect the dots, perceive the imperceptible, detect impending ambushes, unravel interpersonal dynamics, and make psychic attacks.

• +2: Gain an Insight Expertise.
• +3: +1 to your Explosions and Trauma saves.

(d) Admin

Roll Admin to search databases, comprehend documents, fill out forms, organize, pull rank, navigate bureaucracy, and make social attacks.

• +2: Gain an Admin Expertise.
• +3: +2 to your Trauma saves.

I’ve stopped finding the jokes funny, thank you very much. The Eχ0001.001 “Nominative Determinism” label sticker someone left on my badge was pretty good. But if anything like this happens again I’m going to HR! And I’m keeping the sticker. — Administrative Assistant Anne O’Malley

(e) Normal

Roll Normal to perform mundane tasks, keep a clear head, navigate social situations, and attack with improvised mundane weapons.

• +2: Gain a Normal Expertise.
• +3: +2 to your Anomalies save.

3. Saves & Harm

Facility characters also have five Saves, which are determined by their job and modified by their stats. Saves can be further improved with PPE, beneficial artefacts, certain job abilities, and delta templates. To make a Save, roll 1d20 and add the relevant save, then compare it to the target number set by your GM (usually 12). Saves cannot be Salvaged, but failed saves can be Ablated with PPE.

Weapons — bullets, blades, claws, fangs, punches, sledgehammers, beam weapons
Trauma — stress, verbal harassment, falling damage, spontaneous dismemberment
Explosions — fire, electricity, grenades, cave-ins, opening a shaken pop bottle
Contaminants — toxins, gas, disease, radiation, mutagens, carcinogens, corrosion, expired break room coffee creamer
Anomalies — reality distortions, anomalous compulsions, adverse teleportation, spaghettification, anything else otherwise unclassifiable

(a) Wounds & Impairment

When you fail a save, you suffer some number of Wounds to a relevant stat. Each stat has a Wound Capacity of 3 plus its bonus. When a stat has suffered Wounds equal to its Wound Capacity, it becomes Impaired. If a stat’s Wound Capacity is ever 0 or less, it is always treated as Impaired.

1 wound is a bad sprain. 2 wounds is a second-degree burn across your entire hand. 3 wounds is a shot from a 9mm pistol to a non-vital area (a headshot inflicts at least 15). A facehugger successfully latching onto a human inflicts 6 damage.

Mercifully, facehuggers are confined to the silver screen. Which is safely contained in the Oπ block, so if you stay out of its cell you’ll be fine. — A.O.

Physical injuries damage Physique. Stress, concussions, and lack of sleep damage Insight. Loss of morale, dignity, and composure damages Admin. Exposure to reality-altering effects and seeing That Which Should Not Be damages Normal. Wounds to an Impaired stat can spill over into any other — the human body is too complex to isolate despite the diligent attempts of τ Special Projects.

I wish Internal Affairs had gone with my suggestion. τ Special Projects? Still ominous. — A.O.

You cannot Salvage rolls with Impaired stats, you cannot use Expertise linked to Impaired stats, and when you suffer Wounds to an Impaired stat, those wounds spill over into another non-Impaired stat. You do not get another chance to Ablate.

If three or more of your stats are Impaired, your character is Incapacitated and cannot act until healed. If all five of your stats are Impaired, your character dies, unless they have made alternate and/or anomalous arrangements for this eventuality.

(b) Healing

An Organization-mandated Break is 1 hour. You may spend a Break resting. Roll a stat; on a Success or Partial Success, remove 1 Wound.

During a Break, a character may Heal another character by rolling Science. On a Success, remove a Wound from a chosen stat. On a Partial Success, move that wound to a different stat.

An Organization-mandated Shift is 8 hours. At the end of a Shift, if you did not engage in any strenuous physical or mental activity and sustained no additional Wounds, remove 1 Wound from each of your stats.

Medical says that the guidelines laid out in this document are wholly insufficient for long-term healing. I’d love to survive to prove them right. — A.O.

(c) Scarring

If one of your stats is Impaired, you may convert all of your Wounds in that stat into a single Scar on that stat. The Scar cannot be healed and reduces that stat’s Wound Capacity by 1.

Scars can be incurred through other means as well. Some Scars have additional narrative and/or gameplay effects — not always negative.

(d) Personal Protective Equipment

Vital for everyday work in the Facility. Under breach conditions, demand far outstrips supply. A vacuum-sealed pack of latex gloves is worth lives.

PPE has a rating and a save. When you fail a save vs the listed hazard, you may Ablate that piece of PPE and mark it to succeed instead. Once a piece of PPE has marks on it equal to its Rating, it loses all its protective qualities, including any save bonuses, but may still be worn as clothing. Some PPE may be repairable; most must be disposed of instead.

Wearing PPE nonsensically (i.e. two stacked hats, nested sets of boots) negates the bonuses from all pieces worn wrong.

A surgical mask only works if it’s over your nose and your chin. — A.O.

1. Hazmat Suit. Rating 3 (Contaminants). Impairs Normal while worn.
2. Hard Hat. Rating 1 (falling objects).
3. Welding Mask. Rating 2 (Explosions, Weapons).
4. Earmuffs. Rating 1 (Explosions). +2 to Explosions saves and saves vs. sonic hazards.
5. Surgical Mask. Rating 1 (Contaminants). +2 to Contaminants saves. Disposable.
6. Respirator. Rating 2 (Contaminants). +2 to Contaminants saves.
7. Gas Mask. Rating 1 (Explosions). +3 to Contaminants saves, impairs Normal.
8. Lab Goggles. Rating 1 (Explosions). +2 to Explosions saves.
9. Security Helmet. Rating 1 (Weapons, Trauma).
10. Security Vest. Rating 2 (Weapons).
11. Lead Vest. Rating 1 (Weapons), +3 to saves vs. radioactive Contaminants.
12. High Visibility Vest. Rating 1 (Anomalies), visible even in minimal light conditions.
13. Body Harness. Rating 1 (Trauma). With time to rig a safe belay, you do not take fall damage.
14. Plate Carrier. Rating 3 (Weapons, Explosions). Without Armor Expertise, impairs Physique.
15. Field Agent Suit. Rating 2 (Weapons). Fashionable.
16. Lab Coat. Rating 1 (Contaminants, Anomalies). +1 to Contaminants and Anomalies saves.
17. Latex Gloves. Rating 1 (Contaminants). +1 to Contaminants saves. Disposable.
18. Work Gloves. Rating 1 (Trauma). +1 to Contaminants saves.
19. Slippers. Rating 1 (things on the floor).
20. Work Boots. Rating 1 (Trauma, things on the floor). +2 to saves vs. electricity.

Facility: Departments & Factions

On a good day, everyone in the Facility is in the same org chart and on the same payroll. Today is not a good day.

When all hell breaks loose, the Facility splinters along departmental and sectoral lines. Off-shift Research personnel in Residences band together with Facility Services to barricade the doors and wait for outside rescue; Kappa teams raid Archives to identify priority targets and start cleaning house, Lambda Containment Research abandons their rampaging experiments and rushes to the eyewash stations, then the bunkers, with covering fire from Security. Under the Facility’s full-scale lockdown protocols, paranoia sets in immediately, resource scarcity soon after, and mad science competes with occult ritual for third place.

Roll at least twice on the Departments list to populate a faction, then again on the Common Cause list to determine their highest priority.

When populating factions with characters, include at minimum an overall leader, and one key NPC from each constituent department. If the same Department appears on multiple factions, you have a good old-fashioned intradepartmental schism.

Departments (d66)

1. Administration
1. Executive
2. Accounting
3. Human Resources
4. Procurement
5. Archives
6. Legal
2. Operations
1. Dispatch
2. Public Relations (REMINDER: circulate memo re. “cover-up” vs. “conspiracy”. while we perform the former, we are NOT the latter)
3. Internal Affairs
4. External Affairs
5. Field Operations “Delta Teams”
6. Kinetic Field Operations “Kill Kappa Teams”
3. Research
1. λ Containment Research
2. Theoretical Research
3. ΧΨ Off-Site Monitoring
4. Facility Architecture
5. Entity Research
6. τ Artefact Exploitation (I’ve scheduled a brainstorming meeting in D-04 at 9:15 EST. The extension is -0451 for anyone who wants to call in and pitch a less ominous department name.)
4. Facility Services
1. Canteen
2. Medical
3. Custodial Services
4. Warehousing
5. Maintenance
6. Information Technology
5. Containment
1. μ Facility Security (Just let the mundane guards have a letter like the real artefact security teams. I know it’s not in ACID, but we have enough turnover in the security department already.)
2. π Artefact Security
3. ρ Dedicated Containment (ATTN Research: Medical won’t give their sign-off on team-wide blinding, even if you call it a team-building exercise. Procurement has sent over a crate of blindfolds instead. Optical hazards are a solved problem. Please stop asking.)
4. Entity Handling
5. Subject Management
6. Inhuman Resources
6. Other
1. Joint task force between Facility and a rival agency
2. Test subjects, human
3. Intern pool (Not to be confused with the contents of Lρ3211.001, the “Intern Pool”, until IHR clears it for Tau reclassification)
4. Rival agency task force, organized incursion
5. PΧ organized Entity incursion
6. Oversight (I finally got permission to include them on the org chart. Please clap.)

Common Cause (1d20)

1. Allocating scarce resources.
2. Contacting outside world for aid.
3. Contacting another Facility for rescue.
4. Contacting another Agency for cleanup.
5. Contacting an Entity for inadvisable reasons.
6. Containing a dangerous artefact.
7. Protecting the outside world from further breaches.
8. Returning the Facility to working order.
9. Re-establishing pre-Incident chain of command.
10. Performing forbidden research.
11. Under the effects of an artefact.
12. Started a cult dedicated to an artefact.
13. Infiltrators from (1. a rival agency, 2. the local government, 3. conspiracy message boards, 4. an artefact liberation front, 5. an artefact cult, 6. another world)
14. Escaping the Facility at all costs.
15. Escaping the Facility with as many survivors as possible.
16. Escaping the Facility once everything has been contained.
17. Leader maintains control over fractious group with pre-Incident credentials.
18. Leader maintains control over fractious group with access to scarce resource.
19. Leader maintains control over fractious group with artefact.
20. Silencing all attempted escapees, both mundane and anomalous.

Sample Factions

Foodbank
In order to generate enough food for the population of the Facility while under indefinite lockdown, a special project team (36) has teamed up with the canteen staff (41) to identify, mass-produce, and distribute (1) the byproducts of nutrient-dense artefacts. So far, they’ve converted a laboratory into a hydroponic garden for anomalous flora and produced ludicrous quantities of a nutritious anomaly they call The Stew, which they trade for the ammunition they need to prune their garden.

Rho Containment Team WDH “We’re Done Here”
A dedicated containment team for an escaped Rho artefact (53), having suffered horrific losses during the breach, has defected to Rival Agency forces that are storming the upper levels of the Facility (64). The Rho team is providing the Rival Agency with insider knowledge on artefacts and layouts in exchange for the tools to avenge their fallen team members during the cleanup effort.

Director Forthright
Immediately in response to the breach, Director Annabel Forthright of External Affairs (24) assumed control of the Monitoring team (33) to use their satellite surveillance tools to assess the scope of the incident. She now leverages her credentials (17), the loyalty of the remaining External Affairs personnel, and the Monitoring team’s fears of reprisal to monopolize all data going in or out of the Facility to make herself the logical choice for Facility Director once the breach is resolved.

E4 (Emergency Executive Entity Enterprise)
Members of the Facility’s Executive branch (11) have identified specific entities under the purview of the Entity Handling department (54) as critical to enforcing their authority (9) against rival agencies, dissident elements within the Facility, and the most dangerous artefacts in the Facility’s depths. They’re now engaged in a high-stakes game of Pokémon; attempting to recapture and weaponize every anomalous entity they can find in their files.

UTILITY
In response to incursions from within and without the Facility, Accounting (12) has decided that an ongoing partnership between a Delta Team and a rival agency’s counterpart (61) is the model for a new era in artefact containment. By demonstrating the efficacy of inter-Agency intelligence sharing, reasonable bipartisan consensus, prudent spending, and common-sense containment regulations, the UTILITY framework sets out principles for an agile, small-Facility era of global security (7). Now they just have to build it.

The Party
The few survivors of the epicentre of the breach (the Lambda laboratory sector) have formed a motley gang of liberated test subjects, Esoteric Assets, and disgruntled maintenance workers. Despite their average Clearance level of 0.5 out of 10, lack of scientific or administrative expertise, and minimal weaponry, their broad variety of expertise across mundane and anomalous fields may just be enough for them to reach the outside (2) and contact their grieving loved ones — if there’s any outside left to reach. 

Facility: Artefact Classification

 The Facility is a megadungeon that contains a wide variety of anomalous artefacts and player characters. At approximately the start of the campaign, an incident occurs and reliable containment can no longer be guaranteed. Once lowly assistants, security guards, maintenance workers, and test subjects, the player characters must explore, salvage, improvise, negotiate, and kill to survive until rescue arrives.

Artefact Classification Identifier (ACID)

The Organization likes to think it takes paperwork seriously. Within the Facility, artefacts are assigned an identifier based on their Mode, Status, and a unique two-part numerical designation (for example: Oρ0255.018, LΔ0023.001, Eτ0994.999). This identifier is listed on all associated paperwork, both the outside and inside of the artefact's containment cell, as well as label stickers on all samples, byproducts, and research team files regarding the artefact in question.

Mode

The Mode is a Latin letter that describes the artefact’s scope and mobility. The Organization currently recognizes five Modes
O: Object
The most common classification. Some objects can be left in a properly secured box (consider: radioactive waste); some objects are world-ending threats (consider: a dinosaur-killer asteroid). Most are somewhere in between.

E: Entity
Anomalous creatures, swarms, people, ghosts, etc. When there’s debate between what’s considered an Entity or an Object, Research considers its nutritional requirements, mobility, and stimulus responses. For the GM: if you’d stat it up as a monster, it’s an Entity. If not, it’s an Object.

L: Location
A physical space with anomalous properties. Some are very small and can be cordoned off without much trouble; larger locations require extensive Public Relations disinformation campaigns and/or the construction of specialized Facilities. While alternate dimensions are Locations; their entry points are sometimes classified as Objects, Phenomena, or even Entities.

P: Phenomenon
Anomalous events occur that are not related to specific Objects, Entities, or Locations. A spontaneous anomalous gathering, a UFO sighting, a memory hole, a disease with no known vector but anomalous symptoms, an unnatural weather pattern — these are all different Phenomenon artefacts. Correctly identified and unfairly lambasted as a wastebasket taxon.

C: CLARAA (CLAssification Requires Additional Analysis)
Correctly identified and fairly skewered as a wastebasket taxon, but one that fulfills an essential function: a placeholder in the Mode field on forms while no one knows what they’re dealing with.

Optimistic researchers regularly submit proposals to reclassify the Organization’s entire artefact catalogue into a novel series of ostensibly-more-rational Modes. These proposals are regularly rejected by tired administrative staff.

Status

The Status is a Greek letter that corresponds to the artefact’s current containment requirements. I have listed ten, which leaves 13 more for enterprising GMs to fill out. Status does not directly correlate to danger. The combination of uppercase and lowercase is intended to maximize the difference between Greek and Latin shapes given the choice of letters.

π Pi
Reliably contained with passive countermeasures. It’s in a box — maybe a big one, but not one that anyone has to check on unless something goes wrong.

ρ Rho
Reliably contained with active countermeasures. Active guard rotations watching a portal, entities that need to be regularly fed and watered.

λ Lambda
Temporarily contained; research into reliable containment underway. Lambda labs are the throbbing heart of most Facilities.

τ Tau
In active use by the Organization. Locations converted into Facilities, artefacts critical to the containment of other artefacts, entities on payroll.

Δ Delta
Containment efforts are ongoing; situation subject to rapid change. Field agents handle Delta artefacts until they’re handed off to a Lambda team. During a containment breach, all artefacts on site are subject to Delta procedures until a Research Lead signs off on paperwork confirming successful recontainment.

Κ Kappa
Cannot be safely contained, monitored, or left alone. Disposal is necessary. Heavy weapons are authorized.

β Beta
Contained by another Organization. Secondary classifications are occasionally awarded to Beta artefacts, but due to significant political and ideological conflicts between Organizations, data is usually insufficient.

Ψ Psi
Externally monitored, uncontained, further containment efforts unnecessary. UFOs are Psi until they crash or start abducting people.

χ Chi
Not contained, but containment is not a priority. Cryptids are Chi until they start eating more people than Public Relations can explain away.

Ω Omega
Disposed of, dead, finished, gone. Records are stored in Archives in case it shows up again.

Class

When combined, Mode and Status are referred to as a Class. For example:

• Eτ Esoteric Assets are under the purview of Inhuman Resources; this is where anomalous individuals on payroll are siloed — alongside various other useful entities, like the Anti-Radioactive Barnacles and Digit the Numbers Station Dog.
• The Organization’s largest containment sectors are warehouses for Oπ artefacts, which require minimal personnel after setup. Some O-Pi artefacts don’t even need bespoke containment cells; they just need to be isolated until they arrive at their temporal origin point, their legitimate owners come to claim them, they finish dissolving into inert mundane chemicals, the Organization figures out how to weaponize them, or the heat death of the universe.
• PΩ refers to events and phenomena that have ended and are not expected to recur. After the mandatory 18-month monitoring period (subject to change based on established periodicity), everyone involved is more than happy to shove another case file into the capable hands of Archives Division.
• Lρ location artefacts often necessitate the construction of on-site Facilities due to an observed tendency for other artefacts to manifest nearby or within their confines. Some are even reclassified as Lτ if their anomalous properties are useful in further containment efforts.
• CΚ artefacts are Research’s worst nightmare. Uncontainable due to their level of danger, unclassifiable due to their uncontainability, handed off to Operations’ ludicrously well-equipped and violent Kappa Teams. Archives has entire bankers’ boxes of CΩ files with incident and cover-up reports that are mostly black marker by volume.

Admin hates the concept of “secondary classifications”. Researchers who insist on marking up new files with meaningless Status strings like τΨρ or χΔ  are reprimanded and forced to attend mandatory classes on how to not waste Oversight’s time.

Numerical Identifier

The first part of an artefact’s numerical identifier is a unique four digit number that distinguishes the artefact from others in its class. When an artefact is reclassified, its ID number may have to change to avoid conflicts, and tracking ACIDs across multiple reclassifications (especially if a new artefact fills its previous slot) is a well-known administrative headache.

The second part of an artefact’s numerical identifier is a unique three digit number that tracks the instance of the artefact. For example, if a flock of thirteen anomalous birds is contained, they receive IDs XXXX.001 through XXXX.013. If one lays three eggs, the eggs become instanced as .014 through .016, and retain those designations after hatching. If one of the birds dies, its instance ID is not reused.

Some artefacts end up with more than 999 instances. The paperwork to add additional digits to an identifier requires sign-offs from Archives and IT, and so many artefacts end up with dozens or hundreds of instances sharing 999. Researchers regularly raise the alarm that this will lead to catastrophic breaches, but so far no administrative action has been taken.

Research teams nickname their artefacts, because the ACID is a mouthful intended for databases rather than human speech. There are no formal conventions or best practices for artefact nicknames, which causes all the problems you would expect — nickname duplication, inappropriate names (disciplinary action recommended), fist fights in the sector canteen (disciplinary action taken), and misleading nicknames that have nonetheless stuck (latest casualty report for Eρ0443.001 “Li’l Buppy” is on file in Operations).

Designer Notes

Everyone has tried to come up with a new classification system, or fairly decided that it’s a bad idea. I wrote the ACID with an eye towards gameplay; to provide players with actionable intelligence but leave details to further research. A π artefact is not going to end up on a random encounter table while its containment holds, so players can probably rest near it without incurring additional dangers. An empty containment cell marked “Eρ” lets the players know there’s something on the loose, though they’ll have to do proper legwork (or get jumped by it) to figure out what. Several of the stranger Status classifications raise immediate questions:

• Beta — “Whose is this, and how can we contact them to learn more?”
• Kappa — “Where is it right now, and how do we get as far away from it as possible?”
• Tau — “What were we using it for, and can we get it back under control?”
• Omega — “What do the old files say about it, and how do we get to Archives?”