Here is my favorite Thief video. It was put together by Kristy Shields. I find it just mesmerizing, in no small part because the feelings and memories from each snip of cut scene pull me back into the game and resonate with the flavor of the world and the unfolding of the story.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xJH_4_kagQ
I also wrote an essay on the nature of Gothic fantasy. It was written for World Between, but serves just as well for Duskwall.
https://fictivefantasies.wordpress.com/2012/10/04/essay-on-gothic-fantasy-flavor/
I feel like reflecting a bit on some reasons the Thief worldbuilding works so well for me, because that informs and inspires me and may be useful to you as well.
Traditionally the Gothic flavor pits the supernatural against the enlightened. One of the genius bits of the Thief worldbuilding is how it skips Enlightment, pushing the dusk of medieval times together with the industrial era with no detour through the renaissance.
Industrialization is pulled back to function in the late medieval urban environment. Clockwork and gears and even animated constructs are pushed back to a time where there are still walls around and within cities and city guards wear swords.
Also, the thrust of shedding the mystery and ignorance of the past for the humanist scientific vision of the future is totally dropped. Instead, the focus is on balance, and if any force ascends then chaos results.
Each game (of the first three) is focused on one supernatural faction ascending to gain sufficient power to overshadow the others; first the pagans, then the mechanists, then an ancient keeper evil. Still, note how in the background the nobles are assumed to manage the city and its politics (if there is still a city) and the guards are as corrupt and omnipresent as ever. The overthrow to prevent is supernatural in nature, and the normal mortals live under their betters as they always have and always will.
Because of the focus on balance, the Hammers can be reactionary and ancient with hoary tradition and brutal enforcement of their religion, and still represent the forward progress of science. Enlightenment has been stripped from the scientific advance, and even there the Mechanists that bring the most technological advancement do so in conflict with their hide-bound brethren.
The pagans are ancient and their power has slipped of late, but they are still a viable force with internal dissent about how to handle public relations across the three games.
You can actually do a Gothic tension that does not just have the layers of superstition vs. enlightenment, but you can nuance it by faction and by era to emphasize different flavors. Do the Mechanists trust their machines too much, allowing lapses in vigilance humans would notice and machines would not? Do the pagans invest too much energy in their otherworldly safehouses or in their monsters and lose what they need to keep vital growth even in the shadow of the city? If the Hammers stifle all innovation in their ranks as deviant thought, do they begin to lose the knowledge they already have?
The quickstart for Blades in the Dark is deliberately vague. However, you can take a page from the Thief games to introduce some factional layers that are varied in texture across time and across focus.
Take the Path of Echoes, who resent the mistreatment of the dead and think electroplasmic life patterns should be respected and given rights and even authority. Perhaps fold them into the same organization as the Circle of Flame, scholars and antiquarians who sponsor and conduct various criminal acts. What if they were once the same organization and suffered a schism, but the Circle of Flame is still led by completely insane ghosts that came to power under structures put in place by the precursor to the Path of Echoes?
(Pulling descriptions from the end of this document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_kr-InpgZnOKEjtgp6Tt9Iiqzya6hR-JZD4WKtA80yw/edit )
Focus the Spirit Wardens as a city institution, licensing and having jurisdiction over leviathan hunters and rail jacks. That one sentence should get the juices flowing, right? Those three groups struggling for ascendance and representation in the larger organization, with their differing methods and different audiences to please.
If the Church of the Ecstasy of the Flesh abhors the corrupted spirit world and protects its mysteries, then what is their feeling towards lightning oil technology? Did they spearhead its use to replace older blood sacrifice methods of protecting the cities? Or do they have powerful ritual they can enact to protect the living at some cost, and are they struggling to outlaw lightning oil technology? And in the dozen or so splinter sects, which ones have festered to the point of posing a serious threat to the city’s life?
Also, as I believe the stretch goals of the Kickstarter suggested, bringing revolutionary politics into the setting is against a background of both the living and the dead. Will the new regime try to reform dated perspectives that mistreat and obliterate the dead? Or will the new order compel surrender of all life-based technology and replace it with science that avoids supernatural questions?
Or both? Two streams of revolution, one driven by life and the other by ascending electroplasmic entities too long threatened by the current order. The status quo supports humanity harvesting energy from demons and the dead to drive their lifestyle, and the future may tilt towards turning a blind eye to the supernatural or granting it more authority over the living. Choose your path in THAT minefield.
Just some musing about various themes that could be fun to play with.
Yessss.