So Lord Scurlock just declared war on my players. He used to be the gang they paid tribute to. I’d really like the next couple missions (or when ever they deal with him) to be epic.
Are there any lorez or “ways to kill vamps” in blades I should know of before hand I might be over looking?
Are there any of the rollplay blades or bloodletter games to watch where they tangle with the creepster? I’ve watched a lot of the bloodletter eps and he’s only been in one or two that I’ve seen but idk if there are later ones I should hurry up and get to to watch.
What other idea’s do people have? The gang’s lair is 2 doors down from scurlock manor in 6 towers. We’ve established that scurlock doesn’t live there but it is his turf.
The Party attacked his allies after he paid them to do a mission (involving said allies and a mission that was part of a larger drug distribution deal that’s now wrecked). The slide then beat him really bad at poker one night (5 coin). And the most recent mission entanglement resulted in him finally declaring war. just for a little back story.
Suggestions!
* His people snatch a couple favorite NPCs and he turns them into vampires who are used to hunt their former allies, all mortal loyalties undone by the power of the blood.
* Scurlock pulls in two crews that owe him big, and tells them the one that destroys the PC crew gets their debt forgiven, and the one that doesn’t, well, payment in full is due (which is a death sentence.)
* Scurlock offers the Inspectors and Bluecoats one or more cooperative witnesses who can squeal on significant criminals (without doing much damage to Scurlock’s operation or reputation) and he’ll offer these snitches in exchange for the crew getting locked in jail.
* Scurlock finds people the crew cares about and puts them in as slave rowers and material processors in leviathan hunting ships, a slave job with high mortality of body and mind. They get their people back as they surrender, and if they surrender, then they are the ones put on the ships.
* Scurlock owns another vampire who cultivates spiders and connects her essence to their webs. She is the city’s greatest spy, and she will send out her spiders and her webs and there is nowhere the crew can hide that a clue will not reach that surreal network. She only has strength to do this once a century, but no one has evaded her reach in the last thousand years. As they are caught they will be rendered quadriplegic with a strategic hit to the base of the neck, and left in her spider pit as a succulent reward that might last for years before the last stages of death quiet their quivering miserable flesh and fear.
* Scurlock makes peace and admits he was overreacting, helps them get elected into positions of authority, then hangs a pile of corruption on each of them and has them brought down under the scorn of the people while aristocrats are freed from the burden of sin that padded out their privilege for another decade.
* Sufficiently provoked, Scurlock retreats to his Century Prison, a place where he made a hundred cells each designed to torment its occupant specifically. He renders them undying, and then they are exposed over and over to the thing that torments them most. He tells them he will take one of them a year, and their only escape is suicide, and he captures them and brands them so one of his pet Whispers can bring enough back to suffer so long as it amuses him. One of them is given leave to see three cells, to get a sense of his creativity and determination, and to see what is left after two hundred years that generates nothing but mewling misery, and ghosts swarm around it like hummingbirds around a sugar water feeder. As mortals learned to distill electroplasm, Scurlock will distill misery from the part of them that is not torn from the mortal world, and ghosts will batten on that misery and grow strong and utterly mad. The one sent into this secret prison is shown a beloved family member who has been sauteed in this hell for twenty years, and they see Scurlock grant the wretch a touch of recognition that ruptures fresh misery for the spirits to feast upon. This fate has become inevitable for them, one at a time, one a year, on the anniversary of the day they pissed him off. Best part–spirit wardens protect his prison because he made a separate peace with them. There is no hope.
Well… not much. Unless they really are that lucky, or that good, and know how to pull Scurlock’s foes into the war and fight with half-mad abandon and hot-blooded passion. Then, there might be a chance.
They can’t take Scurlock and his forces on their own, so the game becomes finding out who will help them, and how, and where to hit him to force him to consider the possibility he might not win. But this is long enough already.
Andrew Shields Dude. Damn. This is all SO GOOD. Tempted to see if I can tempt my crew into a relationship with Scurlock just on the off chance that this kind of stuff could come into play.
Ben Norby The good (?) news is that this can all be repurposed as tactics used by other factions going to war too. =)
Also, maybe Scurlock is doing this to others, and they recruit the PC crew to help resist!
All good stuff thank you!!! I guess I mean more specific to the “he’s a vampire” part though, my players make a big deal out of that because one of them is heavy into the church otEotF. A side note if you’re the Andrew Shields that made the heist deck I freaking love it!! I find the orange/blue cards invaluable and have used them almost every game I’ve run. And the red card with federally protected ghosts lead to a different group I run stealing one of them to run their informant network that deck has spawned a lot of good stories around our table. The wooden judge is a favorite. If you’re not the same Andrew I recommend you get this deck of cards lol.
Karl Meyer I actually AM the same Andrew Shields. =) I do love hearing that people are using and enjoying the deck, so thank you very much for that.
No kidding that’s really awesome, I’ve actually been thinking of contacting the creator of those cards recently lol.
Sorry I couldn’t figure out how to tag you with an edit so I’m amending the post above with the following Andrew Shields. lol
Andrew is the master of awesome Blades content. His essays in the book are great, too!
They also have to deal with Setarra. She’s also probably the best weapon against Scurlock, if they can swing that.
Otherwise, nothing fancy. Use an immense amount of explosives. He’s equal to a gang? Get two gangs. Capture a Spirit Warden and torture them for information on how to True Death a vampire.
Basically any daring idea awesome enough to work should provide enough trouble for the PCs afterwards to keep things interesting. Bats plaguing the town? Release wolves into the streets to eat the bats. 🙂
I do agree with Andrew in that Scurlock would probably fight a proxy war. He’s got too much invested in living forever to risk it on some fool gang. 🙂 He can go live at his place in the deathlands and wait them out, play the long game while the crew has to play John Wick Chapter 2.
re: setarra…
I’m playing in the same multi-group game of blades, and our group has an absurd hold over Setarra. Send some inter-group messages/offers.
Hahaha Oliver Moody​ I wish this was the same game. It’s actually a game I gm. I do love create your own future. I’m super sad to see it go because that’s the only game of blades I get to play in and not run.
ah oh well. I recognised you from that G+ community, and thought it was the same thing.
I’d still be into doing some kind of coordinated score I’ve tried to get some intergroup play a couple times on there to no avail.
The main issue there is just timezones. It’s something we talked about as well, and if the campaign was going to keep going longer it would definitely have been a focus for us, but we’d have had to stay up to 2am local, at least.
So, let’s have a look at the Enemies entry of our Lord Scurlock:
“Enemies: Spirit Wardens, The Immortal Emperor”. Maybe the Emperor is likely to help if he just had the right information about when or how…? Throw some Spirit Wardens into the mix and maybe we have a Lord Scurlock gone forever.
The big question is if the crew can endure long enough to see that plan happen.