So my crew is looking at Hawkers, but instead of something conventional like weapons or drugs they are interested in trading secrets and intelligence. I am really digging the concept. Thanks to John putting tons of little secrets in the book getting the campaign rolling will be pretty easy and it could have some dire consequences in store if they cross the wrong person. Anyone else find some different ways to look at your crew playbooks?
So my crew is looking at Hawkers, but instead of something conventional like weapons or drugs they are interested in…
So my crew is looking at Hawkers, but instead of something conventional like weapons or drugs they are interested in…
I like our crew of Hawkers that are basically pimps and madames. Running brothels.
The Deadbeaters are a Hawkers crew in the game I’m GMing. They run a ghost fighting pit: tote betting on living convicts versus ghosts. They have a supply of convicts through the Bluecoats, an established trade in spirits, and they maintain ghosts wards and cells. Their establishment is a bar, as a front for a dice room, as a front for the ghost pit. The fights are usually a person or two fighting against ghosts competing to possess them, other times it’s ghosts against ghost, or possessed body against possessed body. Their shooting at getting high class clientele hooked on the fights, as the crew has the good stuff (Tier +2 quality) and high society.
Depending on why they’re looking at Hawkers, the Shadows crew also deals with espionage.
Hawkers do feel the most versatile, since the question of what they hawk has so many interesting options.
I’d suspect the Cult might be similarly versatile, since it defines so little of what your cult and operations look like. Smugglers
would also be inflected heavily by the nature of your favorite contraband, but maybe less than Hawkers?
Really looking forward to getting the Grifters crew type…
Personally I’m in love with the idea of beeing smugglers for less illicit things, like knowledge and books.
There’s actual precedent in history for book smuggling. Usually banned religious texts, but in an autocracy as strict as the imperium there’d definitely be a laundry list of books that are banned for all kinds of reason.
Books one devil’s and sorcery, of rebels and dissedents. And knowledge that is just concidered “above the peasantry”. Knowledge from before the breaking of the sun. Of what was lost.
We’re actually playing Shadows specializing in lifting books.
I planned to play in a crew of hawkers which didn’t work out, but I created a list of possible stuff to hawk as inspiration.
Maybe this is useful for you:
– Leviathan Blood / Electroplasma / Vampire Blood / Whisper stuff or ingredients
– Magical Items / Artefakts
– Bodies / Hulls for Ghosts
– Drugs: Blood Needle, Black Lotus/Dream Smoke, Quicksilver, Spark, Trance Powder, …
– Entertainment for Humans:
Fights, Gambling, Races, Restaurants, Devil Dog Fights, Hull Fights
– Entertainment for Ghosts:
temporary Bodies, Emotions, Spirit essence, Hull Fights, Devil Dog Fights
– Entertainment for Demons:
– Information / favors / Invitations to events / Spy Stuff / Blackmail / pre-Cataclysm Rituals / social connections or faction X as Crew-in-the-Middle
– Underworld Bodyleasing: Specific talents / Bodyleasing (“Fine Thugs”)
– Infrastructure for Underworld Factions: Neutral Meetinggrounds, Bodyguards, Money Laundering
– Papers / Dokuments (fake or the real thing) / Maps / Blueprints
– Vehicles: Carriga / Boat (what is “fine”? Examples: Hidden compartments, Armor, occult speed-up / camouflage, …)
– Exotic Animals, trained Animals (Dogs, Birds, Snakes), Ghosts/Demons as Pets
– Weapons (fine quality or magic)
– Country-specific Stuff (for example Skovland or Iruvia, maybe illegal in Duskvol): Arrangement for refugees, special food from the homeland, Information from the homeland
For demonic entertainment I’d like to plug in that one thread with the Siren idea. The Siren Opera, where special Whispers that are trained to attract and calm Leviathans to ships with their singing, sing to demons because demons find the Leviathan Song very pleasant, incredibly pleasant.
There can also be a Humanity Theater for Demons who want to observe the hilarity of frail mortals but can’t be bothered to observe and interact with fleeting humans.
Maybe living humans can be offered to demons who want it.
plus.google.com – Leviathan hunting…in spaaaaaaace! OK, not really. I just read the bit abou…
The Friends At The Table podcast did information traders as their thing when they did their Marielda BitD game, though that was in a custom setting, not Duskvol.