None of the standard items include a light source. The closest thing is maybe the vial of electroplasm in Arcane Implements. Is this on purpose? In a world with no sun, I feel like people might carry around lanterns or torches or something with some frequency.
The Lurk has his goggles, the Leech can just build something, the Whisper can see without sight. But sometimes your Cutter is alone in a dark tunnel and wants to pull a torch out of his backpack. Obviously he can always flashback, but it seems a common enough use case that it could be under items.
Huh. What an odd oversight on my part. I guess it never came up in one of my sessions, which is weird!
I’ll find a place for it.
Well spotted. Funny that it has taken this long for anyone to realise.
My wife was the aforementioned cutter, and she thought it was odd. I never noticed either.
I have traditionally just given it to them without charging for the flashback because, as noted, it’s an obvious need ahead of time. I agree it would be better to have equipment; plasm torches, phosphorescent grease, hisser sticks, and other such things could add lots of flavor.
Yeah, fwiw, I’d just let them write it in on the empty space without a flashback.
But now it’ll be official. 🙂
As I recall it ended up being a 0 cost flashback, because it’s an obvious thing to have.
We’ve just sortof been assuming some sort of electroplasmic lanterns….
I just assumed many people use torches even in the day, depending on how well the electric street lamps are working in a given part of the city. There was a lamp lighters guild so we know there’s some form of lamp oil available.
Perhaps lamp oil is still available for purchase and use now that the streetlamps don’t use them. It would be a revenue stream for the Lampblacks and maybe would be cheaper than the electroplasma.
Kyle Wende
Torches are suprisingly bad as a light source unless you want to signal people far away, provide light for a large group of people (army / warbands) or burn stuff. Any lightsource that provides a bright light in all directions is very impractical as a handheld lightsource, because you will blind yourself with it. Torches also have the problems of being really dangerous indoors or outdoors if there is a lot of wind and also the amount of smoke they produce. Lanterns with oil or candles inside are actually a lot more useful, because you can light the way ahead of you without blinding yourself at the same time.
Of course, you can push all those problems aside if you just like torches in your game. They are pretty cool, afterall. But in a medieval / renaissance city, very few people would ever use a torch.
Then I guess the poor just live in the dark, which is fitting for this setting.
There are candles (think of all the great possibilities for where the wax comes from!) and phosphorescence (and other bio-luminescence, from fungus or algae or radiant energy.) Maybe the poor in one neighborhood cultivate slightly toxic glow-bugs and put food out for them so the bugs infest their dwellings, so they live in perpetual twilight as long as they keep the bugs fed.
This is a setting with emphasis on the weird. Want torches? Use the glowing grease and rub it on a stick, refreshing once every few hours. Or embed a “demon tooth” in the wood, a pellet that burns bright and straight and relatively clean (except for the smell) for 1 hour.
When you look at the wacky stuff leeches and whispers can get up to, remember that these are supposed to be thuggish criminals with virtually no resources–and look at the amazing stuff they can somehow procure without paying for the ingredients!
So, the bottom line assumption of Doskvol is pretty high weirdness and widespread alchemy (magic and science) resources.
Starting characters in Blades aren’t the destitute poor. They’re people of enough means to start a criminal organization and after securing their lair have not much left beyond their personal items (they’re all homeless, for example). They have enough petty cash to eat every day, though — which is more than the truly poor of the city can say.
So, yeah, PCs have some pretty fancy things. And they’ve paid for them — we just don’t track every single purchase in the game system. It’s abstracted for game play purposes. But the poor souls in Charhollow certainly don’t have fancy stuff.
That’s my take on it, anyway. Your Duskwall May Vary. 🙂
I wasn’t suggesting the PCs have to carry torches because they’re poor. I was trying to imagine what the random citizens walking around would use for light. In the nicer parts of town, the electroplasmic lamps work great, so nobody needs extra light. But in Crow’s Foot, Charhollow, Silkshore, or even Six Towers, many of the lamps aren’t in good working order, so in most parts of the day an average person walking around outside probably needs a secondary light source. Sure the PCs can afford oil lanterns, but I assume people in poor areas of town can’t. So I was thinking people would be stuck with torches. But Andrew’s ideas are way better! Clearly I need to get more creative with this game.
I kind of like your idea that some areas are just always in the dark though. Certain types of people might want to keep it that way.
Isn’t it obvious? People carry lantern shields!
google.com.au – lantern shield – Google Search
This way, it casts a little bit of light – enough to see by while you’re walking – but if someone tries to attack you, you can open the cover and blind them. And you’ve already got a shield and weapon built in, so you’re always armed.