Looking for ideas/advice on painting things even blacker… (Honest Odds – stay out!)
So, second season of my Blades game just began. In the season finale, I told all the players to prepare to give a cliffhanger/predicament for their character.
The end of the game saw Crow’s Foot in the grip of a plague thanks to Lord Scurlock/PC cooperation, and the Crew set up to take the fall for an explosion that took out a Silkshore Lightning Tower. Ghosts and other horrors poured in, the plague-ridden streets were inundated with death, and so on. Players gave some great precarious fates for their characters as the closing credits rolled.
A Spider who decided to turn himself in to reduce Heat was sidelined by a mysterious Noble, Lord Valkenveer. The Whisper was yanked into the Ghost Field by parties unknown. The Lurk ran off into the night in the grips of the Black Tear Plague. The Slide was by all accounts murdered by Lord Valkenveer, if a ritual was to be believed. And the Cutter was blown up when the Tower exploded thanks to a vengeful Baszo Baz with nothing left to live for.
SO Season 2 opener sees the Crew being reassembled. The Whisper is now a ghost, and her body is missing. The Slide is alive but… has a complicated relationship with some Iruvian special forces camping out in the Crew’s lair, as war is brewing. Etc. etc. All very cool as the Crew is reassembled.
My thought, however, is that I need to get across how Crow’s Foot was decimated.
The place is now a real ghost town, with many lives lost. Factions have been eliminated, and new ones scrabble up to take their place. The only one for sure that I’ve thrown in new is The Bell and the Candle, which are remnants of ruined criminal factions that were saved by a shadowy cult when the plague and ghostpocalypse wracked the district. Survivors bound by a savior-religion.
The District itself is a mess, with only small pockets of light and people amidst empty haunted buildings. It’s harder to make money from crime, as there are just fewer people.
SO, I ask you for cool things.
Vignettes that might drive home the new status quo.
New factions worming their way up in the desolation of Crow’s Foot – I’ve removed a few of the smaller factions and reduced the Hold of others to show the loss of life and surety after the plague and the ghostpocalypse hit.
Basically, though the city stands and the military was able to close the gap on the wall, the district has been seriously hammered. And the Honest Odds, our crew of Hawkers/Spies have been blamed for a great deal of it.
I want some ideas on how to reflect this even crappier version of Crow’s Foot…
Well, for a terrible plague to have come on through, there are all kinds of depictions you can show. Houses that are locked down, with signs saying “Do Not Enter. Sickness Inside.”, piles of bodies being ready to be transported or have been long since forgotten. Victims of the plagues who took their lives found within bathrooms or mushroom closets. Homemade bonfires, where corpses are burned away. Couple that with the superstition of the time; people selling wards and protections against disease, pawning belongings of victims that are said to have power.
As for the supernatural side of things, allllll of the ghosts and horrors that still haven’t been wrangled in and taken down. The thing I love about Crow’s Foot is that it is constantly foggy and you can play around with that all over the place.
How is the plague treated? Are the officials trying to cure, contain or just lock them up and throw away the key? Dishorned has great plague scenes for the lock up / contain scenario (just as Pierce Jones was describing). Maybe some cure as a rumor? I think that Lord Scurlock has planned for this and has some measures in place to make the next step? That may be visible or present in the ghost field as well. What about the Wardens? They should be busy right now and very visible and short on time / nerves.