Author: Andrew Shields

Last night in Duskwall there was a “Homing Snow.” That’s where there’s at least a couple feet of snow in Duskwall. The homeless use it to build shelters like igloos (“homes”), blocking off whole alleyways, gaining confidence from their warmth and safety.

It is a dangerous time to go off the main roads. Many who do are not found until the snow melts. And no one wants to talk about how the homeless find enough food to make it through the coldest months.

Some entertaining world building from last night–they left Duskwall.

https://fictivefantasies.wordpress.com/2015/06/08/blades-in-the-dark-aldo-and-wolfram-session-3-blood/

Following a tunnel from a crypt under a pagan statue to the God of Sacred Dreaming, they emerged two and a half miles later in the small fishing village of Carrow. In the shadow of Innocence Point, where a lighthouse has a very slowly rotating beam that seems to bother the spirits that swirl around out there.

They took their adept gang, which was a bit unsettling for them as they got more information about what they were seeing than they would have otherwise. One adept had a crystal to detect the presence of spirits; it heated up so much she threw it in the snow, where it melted a hole.

Standing stones fifty feet apart and fifteen feet high were etched, and inlaid with plasm (that glows blue in the presence of life.) The stones glowed blue as the crew approached them, but were occasionally washed in green, as they repelled spirits.

An adept studied the stone over, and in hushed tones reported that the stone had topographical carvings that revealed the substrata beneath the ground. The stone channeled the “strength of the earth to repel the dead of the air.” The stones also had evidence of blood, both leviathan blood and another more mammalian type. It is possible the enchanted stones refined life force down to plasm as part of their enchantment.

The lintel over the door was a leviathan knuckle bone worth 2-3 coin, black and harder than steel, etched with some arcane process. They went into the public house and saw several whispers among the inbred and mutated pale folk, who spoke with a slow and accentless deliberation that was somehow no less chilling. The barkeep himself had skin grown over where the right eye should be, there was no bone socket. Plenty of albinos and cleft palates.

One of the members of their adept gang only talks when she is involved in a ritual, otherwise she is silent. She spoke as soon as they entered the sphere of influence of Carrow, saying she could only speak in the presence of the cosmic. She felt divine influence as she had only once before, when her gift as a sensitive descended upon her (an event she did not talk further about.) But she said that they entered the dream of a god, walking into this place; any ghosts strong enough to enter past the wards would also enter the dream of the god, and this god was hungry. Then she started bleeding from the eyes, and said no more.

The village head man, wearing a bear-skin cloak and antler helmet, and carrying an antler staff, identified her as weak. It does raise the question of what he knows that the crew doesn’t.

I also like that the 2.5 mile tunnel was glazed, like clay fired in a kiln. Along its length were carved prayers in ancient Iruvian (something apparently most of the dwellers of Carrow speak at some level of proficiency.) The adepts told them not to read the prayers aloud, for they promise body and soul and more to the dark god of dreaming. The prayers were designed to be read as you walked, turning the journey into a pilgrimage of sorts.

Now Wolfram and Aldo are working with the limmers of Carrow, bringing in some leviathan blood in exchange for the basics that Carrow needs from the city. They have this relationship with an ancient and haunted people who have lived outside the city for centuries. I am going to have a lot of fun with this.

Anyway, that’s some more world-building that I didn’t want to lose, but it didn’t fit in the succinct flow of the adventure report.

https://fictivefantasies.wordpress.com/2015/06/08/blades-in-the-dark-aldo-and-wolfram-session-3-blood

I am in an odd position for my game tonight. I know two heist-like activities they’ll be doing. One is an enemy getting revenge that we found out about during the entanglement roll last time. The other is a down time project that will reach fruition next cycle, it only has 1 segment left.

So… I am in a position to actually PLAN A SESSION of this game. That’s just… weird.

I have some great stuff lined up for them, though. =)

I’m running Blades in the Dark tonight, and we won’t have a new integrated quickstart. So, today I’ll need to nail down how I’m going to handle filling in segments, and make sure I’ve got my head on straight on the changes. I think my best bet is to print off the old one and the new partial one and go through and replace pages.

Or, I can check with my players. if they haven’t updated their characters yet, I may just go with the older rule set.

I hope we get a thought-through integrated quickstart update before my next game after this one, on the 18th.