Dossier: Project Scarecrow

The agency that the player characters work for is a sensitive compartmentalized information (SCI) clearance operation, meaning that is known to the Director of the C.I.A., the National Security Director and Secretary of Homeland Security. The operation is headed up by former CIA operative Marta Allison, who holds the official rank of Assistant Director within the CIA but who is technically outranked only by those listed above who have knowledge of the Agency.

The agency has four assistant directors, who are not officially in the employ of the CIA, nor is anyone below them. Technically, they are all operating illegally within the United States, although in theory, Allison might be able to arrange a Presidential pardon or a deniable covert extraction if they were caught while on a mission. These four assistant directors are Director of Technology Ernie Greaves, Director of Operations Martin Wise (formerly known as Harryhausen at The Agency), Director of Intelligence Karen Haight and Director of Security Colin Yost.

This unit focuses on the more colorful and dangerous bad guys in the world. Homeland Security, the FBI and CIA take on terrorists and such things, but the black ops unit focuses in on major, connected untouchable criminals, colorful madmen with technology or smarts beyond the average terrorist and things with a slight supernatural or unexplainable bent.

Project Director - Codename Raven:
Marta Allison is a 32-year-old blond, blue-eyed knockout who has been doing field work for the C.I.A. for just under 10 years. After graduating from Harvard with a degree in Psychology and intensive course work on parapsychology, she was recruited and began doing a lot of undercover work around the world, usually posing as a young American tourist and graduate student. She earned her Masters in Psychology while doing this, and earned her PhD at the age of 27.

Raven doesn't have an assistant like most of the directors. She has an enforcer, driver and bodyguard, an imposing black man code-named Raptor, who doesn't speak at all (most wonder if he's even able to) but who has a great deal of presence to go with his physical power.

Director of Technology - Codename Wizard:
Imagine the biggest gamer/science geek you can, then place him into the body of a hard-bodied surfer from Venice Beach, and you've got Ernie Greaves. Ernie is the youngest member of Scarecrow's directorate, at 26, but he has earned two PhDs and has an incredible knack for building, repairing and inventing equipment. Along with a small project team that includes Apprentice (his super-hot hacker girlfriend Callie Thorne) and several specialist scientists, Wizard is responsible for all the technical needs of Project: Scarecrow. He also runs a biweekly gaming group for anyone who wants to attend... which as of now includes Callie and half of Greaves's science team.

Director of Operations - Codename Beowulf:
Beowulf is only the latest codename that veteran spy Martin Wise, 52, has gone by. He began working at The Agency in 1962, starting out in military operations but moving within a year into the more sophisticated realm of infiltration. In 1974, he became one of the most sought after team leaders in The Agency, traveling the globe either with his familiar team or as a freelance pointman brought in to shape up a new unit. He was promoted to Control in 1994, and was located in New York City. He is divorced with three children, two of whom think he is dead after the Agency was destroyed, and one of whom knows the truth because she was recruited into The Agency to serve as an operative and went on the run with her father.

Beowulf is responsible for prepping all field missions using the information provided by Oracle, as well as being responsible for day-to-day operations and planning for Project: Scarecrow. While Raven is the top-down organizer and director of Scarecrow's missions, Beowulf does most of the heavy lifting, organizing teams and recruiting agents and freelance help. He is the one director most likely to be seen in the field, although if he does show up in the field, it means the shit has hit the fan.

Beowulf's assistant is Artemis, also known as his 24-year-old daughter Shane Wise. In addition to mission planning, she does a lot of scouting and preparation work for mission, and is often in charge of making tech or information drops. She is seen in the field a great deal more than her father, although she is never actually assigned to any agent teams.

Director of Intelligence - Codename Oracle:
Oracle is the font of information for Project: Scarecrow. An information sponge of the highest order, with plenty of interest in conspiracy theory, Karen Haight is probably the best (if not only) person to run the intelligence side of Project: Scarecrow. Karen embraces the punk ethos, as evidenced by her constantly changing hair color (never anything so dull as blond or brown), wardrobe and many piercings and tattoos. At age 37, she's a little older than most of the hacker crowd, but she has earned herself a reputation in that group as having a youthful, open mindset. That extends to her willingness to listen to outrageous theories about monsters, secret societies, aliens and other outrageous theories which makes her indispensable to Raven. Haight can sniff out the truth, but she won't hesitate to open her mind to every possibility when she's on the hunt for it.

Haight enjoyed a profitable life as an outlaw information broker before being recruited into Project: Scarecrow. Her new job is perfect for her, as it involves tracking down and analyzing as much information as possible to find new missions for Scarecrow as well as providing intelligence for agents before and during the missions. Oracle has the most assistants of any director, since her resources need to be fairly vast. She is also the only director whose chosen codenames are references to punk rockers. Those assistants are Sid (Harry Stewart, a former NYPD detective in his 50s who is as traditional as Oracle is renegade), Nancy (Kammi Sato, a beautiful Japanese woman with a penchant for disguise), Ness (forensics expert Frank Corrazon, who prefers to think of his codename as coming from Eliot, not Social Distortion's Michael) and Strummer (Australian ex-pat Gordon Willoughby, who scours the jungles both literal and urban looking for information, and whose name is derived from The Clash's Joe.)

Director of Security - Codename Spartan:
Colin Yost, the man codenamed Spartan, is a 58-year-old man who looks like he's been subject to some hard living. He has weather-beaten features and a perpetual scowl that make him look older than he is, although he is in peak physical condition that makes him look younger. His job is to maintain the physical security of Scarecrow's primary and secondary facilities as well as to make sure that all information about Scarecrow is compartmentalized and released only when absolutely necessary. This means he's in charge of the security forces in all Scarecrow facilities, a job mostly delegated to Goliath (Bart Evans, a career soldier), as well as keeping tabs on information flowing into and out of Scarecrow and its agents, a job he doesn't trust anyone else to do. Spartan is also responsible for regular psychological evaluations (and sometimes mental conditioning) of agents, a job he leaves to Siren (Jeanette Lee, a psychiatrist). Siren is one of the more feared assistant directors amongst agents, because they know that if they don't get clean marks, they could wind up scrubbed from active duty or, if they are believed to be involved in disloyalty of some kind, marked for "cleaning" by Spartan and his crew.

There is definite tension between Spartan and Raven, owing somewhat to Yost's belief that he should have been put in charge of this project, given his long years of experience.