Initiation Rituals
Since character turnover is sort of baked into Blades, I was wondering if any players had initiation rituals that new PCs had to do in order to get into the gang (or the inner circle as it were).
Do they have to commit a murder so the gang leaders have some dirt on the new PC? Do they have to steal something rare? Come up with a big score? Get a face tattoo? Maybe just take a beating?
Anyone have examples from their games?
Not YET. This is a great idea.
I think it some sort of arcane blood ritual would be a good fit for a Cult gang.
Our crew of assassins started with Crow’s Veil so to join the gang you needed to undergo the ritual that hid our killing from the death-seeker crows.
I don’t remember all the details, we kept it mostly off-screen. It involved force feeding the new recruit an intact crow egg. The idea being the crow would hatch and merge with you… and then YOU become the death-seeker crow that responds to each death you cause… no need to ring the bell.
For my games, I have been using the players faction status choices as this fiction. The description of what happened while working as a team (I tell them to imagine a score) serves as their initiation.
That being said, this can be a bit clunky (because of dissonance between player trust and PC trust which can form from speeding through it). So I sometimes use a set of custom tables to weave the new PC’s action dot choices and a situation with a couple action rolls to narrate a more detailed flashback, one that forms some player trust in the process.
My cult has chosen Bound in Darkness, so naturally one of the steps for initiation is a prolonged ritual involving consumption of psychoactive mushrooms, which they awake from now being able to feel the thoughts, and sometimes emotions, from everyone else in the cult.
It’s not for the faint of heart, but it’s very effective for determining the loyalty of any new member.