So, we had a vote for what would fill one of our rotating game slots on Mondays, and somewhat surprisingly, my…

So, we had a vote for what would fill one of our rotating game slots on Mondays, and somewhat surprisingly, my Blades in the Dark proposal won. While this isn’t a huge surprise, since two of the players were also in my very successful Hawkers campaign (illegal gambling entrepreneurs!), so I suspect they rated Blades pretty highly. So now that I’m back thinking about a new Blades game, I thought I’d talk about it a little here. There are a lot of fantastic thoughts about Blades, but I’ve come up with a couple neat bits, and I’m particularly interested in asking what other GMs have done with certain parts of the setting.

First off, the group elected to go for a Bravos crew, which is a huge shift from the last group, who were all about subtlety, misdirection and stealth. So there is definitely going to be more combat this time around. They haven’t settled on all the details, but they did say they wanted to be the classy, PMC kind of Bravos crew rather than the street gang style. Which is fine by me. What has been particularly interesting is how they’ve dug into two aspects of the game that are very important, but somewhat lightly detailed (which is fine, more room for me.)

First is the Unity War. One of my players is running a Skov Cutter. In my setting, Skovland is a land of dark forests and hills, full of the dead and sometimes smaller, wilder settlements that use strange rituals to protect themselves, as well as larger, more Imperial-style settlements. So, dark Northern England I suppose, or the German Black Forest of Grimm Fairy Tales. My player asked me what the Skov was like, and I told him it was a lot of militias, guerrilla fighters who were dedicated to protecting their homeland, alongside noble warbands, who were more organized, better armed and better trained. So very feudal. The Cutter was a member of the personal warband of the Red Prince, son of the King of Skovland. Prince Ragnar “Firemane” Alaricsson was a hero of the people, and went around in supposedly enchanted full plate armor, and a greatsword. He was an inspiration to the Skov people. So when he was challenged to a duel by an Imperial captain, after years of seeming to be invincible, his warband was shocked when, after a desperate duel, Captain Elias Dockery of the 9th Imperial Rifle Pioneers shoved a bayonet through the Prince’s visor and killed him instantly. The warband broke, and the day was lost for Skovland. That, coupled with the assassination of the King and Queen shortly after, ended the war. Since my player was supposed to fight the duel as the Prince’s Champion, former comrades-in-arms are hunting him, including the Prince’s lover, the cold killer Mercy.

So what have you done with the Unity War? I feel that as a combat crew, coupled with someone who has close ties to that conflict, it will loom large in the campaign in a way that simply isn’t the case for my last game. What’s your favorite part of the Unity War and its aftermath that you added to your game?

Second, the Lost District. Not one but two of my players (the Hound and the Whisper), elected to have been from this part of the city. In my game, it wasn’t simply cut off after a plague devastated it. Instead, the district was in the grip of plague when part of the wall went down suddenly. Nobody knows exactly why, but some theorize a group of plague victims deep in the grip of the plague’s hallucinogenic symptoms broke open the tower and disabled it. Though considering how heavily armored and secured the Electroplasm Towers are, that would be quite a feat. The city’s Spirit Wardens, Sparkwrights and a team of Railjacks pulled off the trains threw up a cordon, but some people were caught in the Lost District, and then stranded when a new wall was put up. My Hound was a simple security guard who honed his skills and his experience as a former gunsmith’s apprentice to survive, while my Whisper was the sheltered daughter of nobility who survived by cultivating a natural gift for building relationships with spirits, demons and other strange phenomena. While they made their way back into the city, the current question about the Lost District is who will be put in charge of it. For years it has lain unsupervised, but the Governor’s Office has announced that a Steward will be announced soon, and many of the underworld elements are salivating at the treasure that could provide properly prepared criminals.

So what did you do with the Lost District? I know that it played a part in one of the games John Harper ran on Youtube, and I intend to keep watching that to find out more, but I would love to hear what other people have done with it.

Finally, any general advice for Bravos crews, managing combat and coming up with cool fights would of course be appreciated. I have some experience, to be sure, but I always find that talking through ideas can be quite helpful.