6 thoughts on “Hi all”

  1. I’ll imagine the interior as a giant scaffolding with lots of opportunities for falling down or climbing up. And Faraday cages everywhere.

    The generator and its tanks are in the basement with arm-thick power cables running upwards.

    Compartments with tools, spare parts and emergency equipment can be found on some platforms.

    A crane just below the roof to lift heavy equipment, and some pulleys every here and there.

    The frequent flashes from lightning make protective goggles mandatory, and a lurk’s dark sight goggles are near useless.

    And ear plugs are a good idea because of constant thunder.

    A maintenance crew might repair something, and control panels are checked frequently.

    The tanks of the generator have to be refilled every now and then.

    If it’s the tower of Charterhall University, a professor might just give a lecture to his students (even at night or early morning, maybe he wants to demonstrate a process that’s scheduled for this time).

    Complications could be the loss of protective gear, getting zapped by lightning or static energy, getting deafened by thunder or blinded by lightning. Something/somebody might fall hundreds of feets. Lights, noises and smells might make people dizzy that are not used to it.

  2. Some bits that have come up in my game. Not canon per se, just what our students have seen.

    University grounds, watched by both Bluecoats and the fearsome student patrol.

    Sparkwright Tower is an active lightning tower, not because it needs to fend off ghosts (it’s not at the wall) but as a sign of humankind’s resilience and progress. As such much of the upper sections feel like a faraday cage, with lightning arcing around a bronze ring on the perimeter of the tower.

    In the lower levels, the Sparkwrights toil at the creation of electroplasm: “the distilled essence of the ghost field, rendered

    from demon blood.” Large vats, complex distilleries, and lightning field generators all go into the process.

    The building itself bears it’s own kind of malevolence. Rumors are told of people entering and never returning and bells never chiming for their souls. Intruders are unwanted and unforgiven.

    Professors Augus Mendelson and Una Farros are known to vie for control of Ministry provided funds, as well as to teach their classes on the middle tiers of the building, forcing intrepid students to climb the outer stairs (very few have the nerve to enter the at the base of the building) to make it to class every day.

    At the highest levels an engine of alien nature churns and rumbles, channeling the buildings vast supplies of electroplams and belching for the lightning arcs, which contained by powerful lenses and refracting devices form the electroplasmic barrier around the tower.

  5. All this talk of lightning and faraday cages I think misses the most interesting fantastical aspect of Blade in the Dark, which is that it is all powered by Electroplasm! The lightening shield generators have to use some of the most dramatic and large amounts of electroplasm. Accumulate that much in tanks and it has to radiate its own malevolent aura just being near it. Also I imagine that the generators itself is some sort of arcane mass of metal tubes, like a giant radiator, radiating electricity rather than heat. Maybe the electroplasm is super heated or pumped at high speeds through tubes in ever tightening spirals till it ignites in a continuous ball of lighting. Also, it makes me wonder what the byproduct is after the energy is released. Does it just vaporize into the ghost field or is there a toxic plasmic sludge left?

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