War with the Dimmer Sisters?
What could that look like? My group of Shadows just pissed the Dimmer Sisters off by sending Roslyn flying into their own lightning barrier. The Shadows have a hidden lair, and I’m not quite sure what the Sisters can do to track them down/mess with them. It’s obvious enough that it’d probably be occult in nature, but I’m curious what ideas others have about what proactive actions the Sisters might take to take down a hidden group of Shadows.
So, no one will assault your lair until you’re tier 0 with weak hold.
What they can do is attack your allies, turf, cohorts, and interfere with your scores. Also remember that if you’re at war (and it sounds like you should be) you can only take one downtime action.
Also remember that the Sisters have friends too.
A few ideas:
Ghosts. Many ghosts.
Tipping off the Spirit Wardens / framing the crew.
Hollowing out the crews’ contacts / allies.
A demon.
Turning the Gondoliers against them.
A vampire.
Offer to be their patron.
Ariel Cayce Oh yeah, i just looked it up. That bit about no one assaulting your lair until you lose hold when you’re at Tier 0 with weak hold is really useful information, thanks!
As you mentioned, they have a hidden lair. I’d start playing up the paranoia any time they leave it. And if there’s no quarters there, they’ll have to leave soon just to eat. Folk looking at them strangely, ghosts floating about (they do that all the time in Duskvol, right? But are there more than usual?) Strange graffiti on the walls…
Attacking their allies as Ariel suggested makes a lot of sense as well. Or just staking them out, as this crew is going to be scrambling for any aid they can get.
Just out of curiosity, how do you envision this playing out? What would it take for them to survive? If you’re thinking about such things, it will make it easier to recognize when the crew’s actions might lead in to a survival scenario.
I mean, Blades had an idea where the Dockers were tracking the Last Word to their hidden lair.
So if you wanted, I feel like you could do the same thing, but with ghosts and familiars. Maybe have the players become super paranoid about birds and alleycats, while also seeing an increased number of ghosts that quickly flee whenever they’re spotted. Maybe even subtly encourage the whisper(if there is one) to ward the lair to buy time.
I have no idea how it will play out or how they will survive! I’m going to leave that up to them in play. As long as they don’t suffer fatal harm and don’t take 4 traumas, they’ll survive. If those don’t happen, it’s just a question of if they negotiate a peace or weaken the Sisters until they drop off the Tier ladder.
I’m digging the idea of going after one of the crew’s contacts/claims. It makes a lot of sense in the fiction as well. Thanks for the help, guys!
They can’t assault and seize the crew’s lair, but that doesn’t mean they can’t enter it. Maybe they start using ghost doors to enter and mess with stuff, adding complications to downtime activities, letting ghosts loose, leaving incriminating evidence or threatening messages, taking things or people.
I like the feeling watched by cats and other animals. What if they feel they are being followed so much they don’t want to go back to their lair because they would lead them straight to it? That would make an interesting clock: “evade stalking animal pests” and could just be run as an interesting clock during free play to add tension. Or could be tossed on after an unrelated heist when they thing they are home free.
I like the idea of animal and ghost stalkers tailing the crew, and this also makes for a good reason to explain the limited Downtime Actions. If they want to preserve their operational security and keep the lair hidden, then they only take one action as they carefully evade the stalkers. It makes for a good parallel to being careful to avoid being roughed up by rival goonsquads that a more normal faction would threaten in a gang war.
And of course I’ve got the easy Devil’s Bargain: If you want to take an extra downtime action (without spending coin/renown) while being tailed by the Dimmers’ familiars, you can do it, and there is a breach of security.
The rules don’t actually say that your lair only comes under threat if you lose hold when you’re Tier 0 with weak hold, just that if you lose hold while you’re Tier 0/weak, your lair comes under threat. If your enemies know where your lair is and are sufficiently pissed off, there’s nothing stopping them from tossing a few molotov cocktails through your windows.
Now, in this case the crew has a hidden lair as an upgrade, so bare minimum the Sisters should get a long-term project clock for “Find out where those Shadows are holed up” before they can mount an assault (and assuming the crew survives that assault, they can spend 2 downtime actions and pay Coin equal to their Tier to relocate and hide their lair again), but the Dimmer Sisters can absolutely come after their home base.