What factions have you made up for your Blades games? I love the Blades in the Dark factions. Sometimes I just flip through the faction section of the back of the book looking for inspiration for future jobs and intrigues. But there are gaps. I wouldn’t want it any other way. But Duskvol is a city of crime, and the entire place is divided up between different power players, so the fun is in coming up with new organizations to plague your players with.
So far I’ve mainly been focusing on Silkshore, since that’s where my players decided to operate from. I’ve mentioned the Furies before, a gang of ex-performers, artists, prostitutes and actors who came together for protection and ended up as a gang like any other. There’s also the Viceroys, who specialize in the street hustle, low-level gambling halls and fake psychic readings and spiritualism. Very much a quantity over quality bunch. And the book talks about the Silver Stag, the largest casino in Duskvol, but I also made them a faction, since the players will eventually be in direct competition with them. I decided it isn’t just a casino, but an entire pier, with its own chip currency, restaurants and entertainments, places to stay, courtesans and of course, plenty of gambling. I also created another rival casino, the Golden Tide, which is up-and-coming, but carving out a real niche in gambling on contests of sport, physicality and blood.
In our game, the Hound (an ex-Imperial soldier with a tainted demonic bloodline incurred by his grandfather’s war crimes in a Vietnam-esque Dagger Isles tribal scenario) filled up a few clocks to re-establish old ties to former war buddies. He also filled a clock looking for various occult contacts, so I fused the two and told him one of his old eccentric commanders was heading up a small, off-the-book division of the Imperial Military dedicated to researching psychic, occult, and demonic weapons/techniques. It was called Project Ouranos, and I based it off of the psy-ops experiments the U.S. Army did in the late 70s (Men Who Stare at Goats type stuff). Set them up as a Tier 2 faction with ties to the Imperial Military, Dimmer Sisters, Sparkwrights, and the Gondoliers. It’s aims are developing new occult technology and occasionally doing unusual jobs to secure better funding that they sometimes have to fight the Imperial Military for.
We’re just starting in Silkshore this week so I’m going to lift your stuff.
They decided to go Cult as I advised against it as a first crew and they’re a contrary group 🙂
They hope to prepare Duskvol for the appointed hour of The Father of the Abyss.
The only new thing we have is a smaller less powerful branch of the Church of the ecstasy. No details yet, that’s this weeks homework.
Phill W I’m excited to hear people getting some use out of my stuff! Right now I’m trying to think of something interesting to do faction-wise with Fogcrest, that hive of artists, poets, philosophers and exiles. I think the Ink Rakes might be an active faction there, but I want to think of one unique to the area.
We have made a spy network based out of the hands of a skovlandian consulate spymaster. His name is Mr. Tocker and wether he actually works in the interest of the skovlandian consulate or not is a big question mark. He can always provide good jobs in the clandestine direction, but it is apparent that the reasons for doing the job is never what it seems like. He’s a bit like cancer man in X files and I’ve decided his spy ring is a level 3 tier, at least until he openly breaks with his own nations interests.
Our offshoot of the Church is now called The Chapel of Lost and Discarded Vessels.
No further details – other than why were they the faction that Baszo Bas sourced the demonic artifact from?