Author: Aaron Berger

I got the email about the Blades against Darkness beta. It looks wonderful. I Had some confusion though. I can’t find the designer to credit for this creation. There is a special thanks section though that lets me know who it is not.

Okay here’s something for discussion. How does your crew deal with dead bodies?

There’s lots of ways to deal with this. Like don’t kill people, or don’t let the victim know who killed them, or don’t kill people in your hidden headquarters… The crew I run with ritually sacrifices in an ancient arena under their headquarters. The ritual involves one on one combat with the “anointed one.”

The gondoliers are a big faction in our game. So dumping in the canals is a bad idea. Especially since we’ve established ghosts can’t lie. The cultists know they could setup a long term project to deal with this problem, but their short term solution is interesting. They smuggle the body across Silkshore to throw it into the lightning wall. Avoiding spirit wardens and distracting blue coats along the way. They’ve done a lot of sacrificing, and have gone through this rigamorole three times. The last time they decided to cut up the body and smuggle parts across individually. The Cutter decided to eat his portion. That will probably have some interesting side effects later.

Anyways, I’ve setup a clock for this each time. Several dangers manifest and while there have been some interesting complications they’ve never been caught. There’s a collective sigh when it comes time to clean up after a killing. They also have had no time to work on a long term solution. At this point I can’t really think of a more interesting way to slice it and my instinct is to breeze over it. But at the same point I don’t want to walk away from the precedent of the danger of killing somebody.

Anyways love to hear how your crew deals with dead bodies, and any advice for a threat that’s become rote and predictable. The stakes have been raised, the spirit hunters have hulls in the area hunting down the various occulstist factions. Maybe I should just make them do it again with higher stakes. But my instincts are to downplay it and focus game time elsewhere on more interesting things. I’m just unsure how to do that with the set precedent of the danger.

Alright the players have decided to steal an occult relic from Strangford’s Manor. Who wants to help me brainstorm the surprises they’ll find inside?

Ideas for rolling a crit on an indulge vice roll? The way I played it was just to clear all stress but love to hear other people’s ideas.

I assume that wanted level sort of assumes the worst crime they can currently pin on you right? Like if they go to jail for murder that’s going to be longer than a couple of months right?

What crimes do you associate with each wanted level? I assume wanted level might be 4? Or is it actually that ironhook is really big on rehabilitation? Or if you aren’t notorious its easy to slip out?

They say the craziest ghosts are collected and distilled to their very essence. This “rage essence” is said to imbue incredible strength and mania to the imbiber.

If you extracted essence from a vampire, what would it do? What is unnatural about it? What are the drawbacks?

Originally shared by Aaron Berger

In a game I run the players have chosen to be Cultists. Before character creation we were reminiscing about our last game of Soth which probably influenced all the ideas we used to generate this campaign. Anyways these cultist have a vague endgame of bringing about Ragnorok. With the idea that if they succeed there will be no retiring, this mind set has lead to a laissez-faire approach to subtlety. The crew has some traditional characters, there’s a slide and a lurk who are pretty by the book. But then we have the stand out characters, like the explosive happy Leech and the serial killer Cutter. To sum it up these cultist have been acting more like a terrorist cell than anything. For people with experience in thiefy type games, I’m curious other people’s reactions when the scoundrels refuse to play coy.

I’m having no problem escalating the threats arranged against them. The blue coats are carrying more than clubs, and an inspector has arrived from out of town who has a nose for conspiracies. The spirit wardens have set up a command tent in Silkshore since they’ve been called there so often, and the Gondoliers have attained Carte Blanche to let loose in the streets if they see the need. They players see the escalation of danger but they keep pressing forward as the scoundrels they are.

Where I’m less sure of myself is how to handle the complete lack of diplomacy or tact. Alliances are held toeghether by paper thin lies. The constant collateral damage has rubbed everyone they come into contact with the wrong way. The citizens of Silkshore are on the brink of finding the crew completely repungant and going to war with them. Increasing the danger of even walking down the street.

It has felt for a while that the cult has been digging themselves into a ditch. A hole so deep it might soon be impossible to climb out of. Last night while the crew was conducting a kidnapping operation in the much beloved Red Lantern Brothel the question came up as to whether they should use a terrorizing ghost to cover their escape, and I ended up coaching them against it. The brothel was busy and crowded, the ghost would of been major headlines news. The crew was mostly in the clear but the cutter wanted to double back to retrieve a claymore that had gotten stuck when it cleaved into a goon. It felt like low stakes to waste the last remnants of good will they had left. The crew agreed after some discussion not to use a ghost. The Cutter went back for the sword anyway and retrieved it but got a trauma for his trouble.

After the session thinking about it, I felt bad about the back seat gaming. It wasn’t me showing them other options but more me warding them away from a path I felt unprepared for. Its hard for me to envision the game where the crew is so much at war with the entire city. Or not hard to envision, but I foresee it leading to the downfall of the entire organization. But maybe that’s okay?

Maybe what the players want to do is lay their part of a doomed terrorist cell, and I should try my best to lead a interesting conversation around that. Who knows maybe the players find a way to navigate through this quagmire. Maybe they’ll survive long enough to resurrect their forgotten god. Next session should involve some inter crew discussion. They have just kidnapped the daughter of Lord Strangford, who appears to be some sort of conduit to their god, due to her exposure to a spirit well. yeah there should be plenty of interesting things to talk about.

Anyone want to help me brainstorm? I have a Cultist game with a plethora of conspiracies. You can find out more in the link if you want…

But the main thing I want to talk about is the Gondoliers. The badass Folk/Suave Ghost Busters / Whispers who make Rail Jacks look like amateurs. The Players are set up on Gondolier’s turf. In the starting situation we asked the question of whether or not the Gondoliers would get involved in the criminal/occult underworld.

In order to push that question more I need to come up with a more active agenda to pursue. They are anti-Church of Flesh which is great but I need something a bit more. The worry here is if I don’t think of something specific i’m going to default to this weird altruistic community service organization. Which feels out of place in Duskwall and also doesn’t stand a chance in hell of coexisting with the players.

I know there is an esoteric line about dusk in the book. So maybe their goal is to bring back the sun perhaps?

So far in play, all the ghosts they’ve summoned have been nautical characters of some sort. They recently ceremonially executed the leader of the Fog Hounds for the crime of killing a Gondolier. [The Fog Hound leader knew she was framed for this crime but in order to spare her crew was willing to take the fall] After the execution they captured her ghost. It had the feel of Carnival Justice like from the show ‘Carnivale’.

Anyways any ideas of what the Gondoliers are up to? The weirder and more esoteric the better their odds of surviving contact with the players.