Just finished part 1 of the Dead Setters’ Ironhook jailbreak heist. They’re busting Lampblacks out of Ironhook and assassinating some key Red Sashes as well as Master Krocket, the Filch-like houndskeeper for the prison.
First, I wanted to say how much v7.1 of the rules helped out with this. Couldn’t have been better timing. Having Dunslough and Ironhook more fleshed out really made this session work, and the prison riot got sparked off early during the work detail at Dunvil Labor Camp. We had a ton of clocks going on:
1. An 8-segment “Riot” clock, which when filled would cause enough chaos that the 2 Dead Setters on the inside could reach the lightning barrier with their Lampblack rescuees.
2. A six-segment “Quelled” clock, which represented Ironhook bringing in their riot squads and drown powder bombs and dogs. Less segments because they’re a higher Tier and they have stuff in place for riots.
3. A 4-segment clock for each Red Sash on Bazso’s hit list.
4. A 5-segment clock for the Lampblacks – each segment represented 2 Lampblacks. Since the PCs were getting paid per guy they got out, I could assign prison rolls to either quelling or the lampblacks, or tick them as consequences/complications/devil’s bargains.
It was real close. The Hound snuck up to a vantage point in Dunslough and managed to crit nearly everything she tried, including popping Krocket through the face and handling the Red Sash problem. Even with her help and the Spider and Cutter resisting Ironhook’s attempts to quell the riot, they only skated by 1 tick ahead of the prison riot squads.
We had to call it a night then, but the Whisper is up next with a crazy flashback plan to unzip the lightning barrier and somehow get a dozen prisoners out of jail and then back into Duskwall.
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Before all that, we had some masterful back and forth trying to convince Baszo not to doublecross the Whisper and Hound, ably critted (again!) with some help from the Spider’s fine whiskey, provided via flashback.
Still, a 2 on the engagement roll is not what you want when your plan is to be arrested on purpose. The Cutter was going to be sent to the lightning wall immediately with the other death row inmates, but they crawled their way out of that.
I hope I made the situations dire enough for the guys. Going up against the prison shouldn’t be a cakewalk IMO, and this didn’t feel easy to me as the GM. They got a lot of crits along with a few abysmal rolls, but the good rolls were where it counted and the bad ones were able to be mitigated.
#heestcomplete
Yesssss!
This sounds awesome! I love the idea of a big riot in Ironhook with lots of goals and clocks.
Now that the prison’s defences have proved insufficient, what had happened? Has more open crime increased because people no longer fear the consequences as much? Have the army stepped in a bit to take charge? Have defences been upgraded? Or is the prison now an HQ for someone and no longer a prison keeping people in, but keeping people out? Would love to know what direction your game took.
The prison “quelled” clock was only 1 tick behind the PCs, so after a fashion it was business as usual as far as riots were concerned. You have to account for some loss, after all, and the players are much more engaged with the supernatural side of things. That said, they’re hovering at -2 with Ironhook, the Bluecoats, and the Red Sashes.