Author: Anthony Donatello

BOMBING ROCKS THE SHORES OF WHITECROWN

In a startling event last week, an explosion went off in the heart of the city, outside the Imperial Citadel. The bombing was, Bluecoat sources believe, an attempt on the Lord-Governor’s life. As of now the Bluecoats have a suspect, but no arrests have been made. The bombing has resulted in a closing of the Barrow Bridge, preventing any from leaving or entering Whitecrown until further notice.

The Queen’s Hand is back and in full swing. After a bombing-gone-wrong on the part of the Grinders, the crew was hired for an important mission. The bomber, a Hollow by the name of Jer, was presumed dead by Grinder and Bluecoat alike. Until an encoded message came in to Grinder HQ, suggesting Jer had taken up refuge in the basement of the North Hook Lighthouse. Hutton, the leader of the Grinders, hired the crew to go retrieve him and bring him back to the headquarters.

So the crew set off onboard their new boat, The Gentle Devil, and sailed across the North Hook channel. Bringing up their (forged) access papers, they were granted permission to dock. Moving on over to the lighthouse, they very quickly realized they would be outmatched in a fight against the guards in front. As such two of them, Phaya the Leech and Ulysses the Slide, bluffed their way in. The other two, Cyrene the Whisper and Zachnefain the Hound, chose to sneak in through the back. The bluffers got in fine, and swiftly made their way to the basement. However, a wandering patrol noticed the burglars, and opened fire.

Inside the basement, Ulysses and Phaya searched through the darkness, attempting to find the lost Hollow. Zachnefain managed to evade the guards coming after him, and slipped in to join the two of them.

Cyrene had much less luck. She was caught between several guards and the basement door. Thinking fast, she pulled out one of her spirit bottles, and threw it to the ground, releasing the spirit within. Putting her on more equal footing, the fight broke out.

In the basement, finding a lack of light sources, Phaya pulled out one of her bottles of Fire Oil, illuminating the area. What they saw was horrifying. Clinging to the rafters were nearly a dozen Hollows, watching them all with unblinking eyes. They dropped down, having been noticed, and confronted the party. “You, Grinders?” the supposed leader of them asked. After receiving confirmation, the leader engaged Phaya in hand-to-hand combat. The others quickly swarmed the other two party members.

Back upstairs, things were not going well for Cyrene. With the North Hook Lighthouse being so close to the Master-Warden’s Estate, the guards here were prepared for ghost combat. Cyrene had been shot, and the spirit she summoned was losing the battle. Mustering the energy she had left, she pulled herself together long enough to conjure a bolt of lightning from her hands, electrocuting one of the guards, giving the spirit the upper hand.

Returning to the basement, Phaya had quickly reversed the situation. Pulling back from the combat, she revealed she came prepared, with a series of bombs strapped to her person, ready to blow. The Hollows may be dim, but they were not suicidal. With Phaya having escalated the situation, they were willing to talk. After a conversation made difficult by the Hollow’s limited vocabulary, the groups found the truth of the situation. The Hollows, members of The Horde, were here seeking revenge for their fallen friend, who they believed had been manipulated into becoming an unwitting suicide bomber for the Grinder’s cause. They had faked the letter calling for rescue, in order to bait members of the Grinders to their deaths. The crew established that they were not Grinders, but merely in their employ. Both groups realizing they had no reason to fight further, sheathed their weapons.

When the basement crew returned upstairs, they found Cyrene bleeding out, four dead guards, and a broken spirit bottle. They quickly got Cyrene back onboard The Gentle Devil while Phaya stabilized Cyrene’s wounds.

Returning to Hutton, they explained the situation. Hutton understood, and commended them for trying. He explained that Jer had not been an intended casualty of the bombing, it must have been a mistake. He was sent there as a bomber, not as a suicide bomber. Hutton would work to smooth things over with the Horde, explaining the situation and possibly working on future cooperation. The crew was paid their due, and was told that future work may be in order between them and the Grinders.

The Siren Queen’s End!

The cult known as the Queen’s Hand, serving their enigmatic deity “The Siren Queen”, have previously pulled off two heists: one stealing an enchanted paintbrush from the Ink Rakes, and the other breaking Edlun “Sweetheart” Marroden out of Ironhook prison. Now, the Siren Queen has a new request.

The Queen needs one final ingredient for their ritual; a nightmare made manifest. They are to kidnap a specific individual, and bring him back to their sanctum. In there the Siren Queen will infest his mind with visions of her entering the world, and the crew will extract this vision from him, in physical form. Then, using the vison as an ink, Edlun will paint a portal to another realm, which the Siren Queen will use as a gateway to enter our world.

Before the heist could get underway, though, one of the crew, Cyrene the Whisper, received a letter from a friend; Lord Scurlock. Scurlock requested an urgent meeting with Cyrene, and she accepted. At this meeting, Cyrene discovered the secret behind the Siren Queen; she was no deity, she was merely a demon, and a particularly violent one at that. 140-some odd years ago, she had attempted to instigate a war between Akoros and Tycheros. In order to prevent this war, Scurlock had sealed her away in an alternate reality. In the time since, Scurlock had discovered a way to kill her permanently. Giving an enchanted knife to Cyrene, Scurlock instructed her to summon the Siren Queen, and then to drive the dagger through her heart.

Cyrene was taken aback by this, but she and Scurlock had somewhat of a history. She trusted her vampiric friend. And so she would take his advice. She would complete the ritual, and then stab the Siren Queen. But first, they still needed their victim.

Lord-Warden Elerius is somewhat of an enigmatic man. Hidden from public life, what little is known about him the crew gathered from a book he wrote detailing the daily life of a Spirit Warden. He gives very little details about himself in that book, so the information the crew had to go on was sparse. They knew the Lord-Warden would be making an appearance at a masquerade party, and that was their best opportunity to strike.

The theme for the party was exotic animals. Our crew went in; Cyrene in a costume reminiscent of a Spiritseeker Crow, Phaya as an Iruvian Pit Snake, and Zachnefain as a Deep Shark. Through narrowing down targets based on the information they had, they had found their target. A man who was light on his feet in the ballroom, dressed as a Courser Bat. Zachnefain used his charms to pull him away from the ballroom, and over to the lounge area.

In the lounge, Zach and the Lord-Warden hit it off. Zach went to get a drink and Phaya, our Leech, slipped some Trance Powder into his wine. Zach brought the drink back to Elerius, and in a few moments he was out like a light. Feigning that they were the Lord-Warden’s friend, they claimed to be bringing him back home to get some rest, and with that they were out.

The mission was not yet done, though. With them back in the lair, the Siren Queen cast her spell on Lord-Warden Elerius’ mind. Visions of the Siren Queen and her cult taking over the city entered his brain, and with some Whisper magic and Leech alchemy, a swirling silver vapor came out. They had their ‘ink’, now they just needed to let the artist do his work.

Edlun worked for three days on his masterpiece. He did not sleep, he did not eat, he didn’t even blink; such was the frenzy of artistic mania he was thrown into. When Edlun was done, the ritual was set to be finished.

Edlun’s painting was of an underwater landscape. It looked almost lifelike. In fact, viewers of the painting would swear that the fish in it moved when you looked out of the corner of their eyes. For our crew, the lifelike quality became all too real when a figure in the landscape stepped out of the canvas, and into reality.

Standing at about seven and a half feet tall, with pale blue skin and glowing yellow eyes, the Siren Queen was a sight to behold. Her teeth were like that of an angler fish; far too long to fit in her mouth. The pupils of her eyes were slits, more accustomed to the depths of the ocean than to our air. She was radiant and she was monstrous.

The first thing she noticed was Cyrene, holding a demonbane charm. The Siren Queen merely scoffed, and said that she planned to save the cult to be the last to die to her vengeance, but if this is how Cyrene wanted to repay her, then she supposed the cult would have to be the first. She lunged.

Cyrene deftly raised the dagger Lord Scurlock had bestowed upon her. With a counter-attack, she severed one of the Siren Queen’s four arms. (It was only then they noticed she had more than two.)

More enraged at this disobedience than harmed by the loss of a limb, the Siren Queen raged on, striking at all of the crew in equal measure. She managed to choke one member, Zachnefain, into unconsciousness, and nearly to death, before the other two managed to get her down.

With the Siren Queen on the ground, Cyrene took her chance. With a swift puncture, the dagger found the Queen’s heart. With a last utterance of “Insolent whelps…” the Queen was dead. The cult was left without a deity, badly injured, and one of them traumatized. But they very well may have saved the city.

What the crew will do next remains to be seen, though news has it that Lord Scurlock may be hiring some new underlings to acquire relics for him. Perhaps our crew, already indebted to the Vampiric Lord, and already experienced in asset recovery, shall find work with him.

Session Two of “The Queen’s Hand”

The cult known as The Queen’s Hand had tended to their wounds and indulged in their vices. They realized that if they were to keep on being successful, they would need to hire some muscle. Enter Zachnefain, a Tycherosi Hound with a penchant for gunplay. While the Queen’s Hand had run into trouble in gunfights in the past, with “Zach” at their side, heists should go much smoother.

And so The Queen’s Hand struck again, this time in the district of Dunslough. The Siren Queen has given a new order; they are to break a convict out of Ironhook prison. The target is Edlun “Sweetheart” Maroden, who is currently serving life for killing his wife, cutting out her heart, and eating it. The crew began their planning.

Since disguising themselves worked so well last time, they decided to make this their temporary Modus Operandi, and set about obtaining three prison uniforms. They found a guardsman on-the-outs, one Wester Morrison, at a local bar in Charhollow. They don’t exactly pay well at Ironhook, and so Wester was more than eager to take a coin or two and some fine whiskey. They set up a dead drop, where Wester would leave some uniforms for them.

When Phaya, our Iruvian Leech, went to pick up the uniforms she ran into a complication: an urchin child, with a letter addressed to her from an enigmatic “E.A.” The letter instructed her to come, alone and unarmed, to Whitecrown. When Phaya followed the instructions in the letter, she found herself inside the Iruvian Consulate, in a dark room with Elstera Avrathi.

In there, Elstera offered a side-job for Phaya. Phaya would receive a substantial sum of money, and all she would have to do in return was free a prisoner named “Andris” from Ironhook. The Iruvian diplomat explained that Andris was an important “asset” to Iruvia and since Phaya was already going to be in the prison, the Consulate would look favorably upon acquiring that asset. Phaya agreed.

So the crew walked right through the front door of Ironhook, dressed in their uniforms, posing as newcomers to the job. They knew that their main target, Edlun was in solitary and that their second, Andris, was in General Population. They split up. Zachnefain went to GenPop, to try to track down Andris, while Phaya and Cyrene went off in the direction of Solitary.

Through some skillful persuasion, Cyrene and Phaya managed to convince the guards in Solitary that a fight had broken out elsewhere, and some more experienced guards were needed. The guards took off, but they would be back soon. The two set off, checking each of the cells for someone who matched the description they had of Edlun.

Meanwhile, Zach found that Andris had been sent to work in The Mire, sifting through dirt and mud for precious gems and metals. Zach, being the Hound that he is, managed to track down Andris quickly. Andris figured that the Consulate had sent someone to get him, and had the perfect cover for their escape. The prisoner picked up a sizable rock, hurled it at a nearby guard, and instigated a riot.

Cyrene and Phaya found the murderous cannibal they had been sent to find. Phaya set off small explosive devices on the locks for each of the solitary cells, and let the prisoners escape. Ironhook was in total chaos, and in this chaos they resolved to escape.

And they did so fabulously (One player rolled 3 dice at one point and all of them were 6’s.) In all the commotion, Cyrene, Phaya, and Zachnefain, with their escapees Edlun and Andris, managed to get out of the prison with minimal damage. A few people had taken a swing at Zach, but he managed to shrug it off. They had Edlun, they handed Andris off to the Iruvians (who said they would be in touch soon), and with that the Queen’s Hand had pulled off their second big heist in the name of The Siren Queen.

So a few friends and I started playing Blades in the Dark a little while ago. We didn’t have a full description of the canon factions, we only had the names, so some things may be different from the 7.1 descriptions.

The Cult, known as “The Queen’s Hand”, began with its two founders, Cyrene the Whisper and Phaya the Leech. The two of them serve an enigmatic deity known as “The Siren Queen”. The Queen has tasked them to recover some relics to perform a ritual, the exact nature of which She has not disclosed.

The first relic set before them was a complicated acquisition. They knew where and when the artifact would be there, but they didn’t know exactly what it was. They knew it was in possession of the Ink Rakes (who in our campaign took on the role of censoring the media).

So our crew began. They infiltrated the Ink Rakes headquarters through an arcane ritual, allowing them to temporarily pass through solid objects akin to taking on a ghost form. The Whisper was told this would have repercussions down the road, but chose to take the risk. Once inside the HQ, the crew obtained disguises, in order to try to blend in with the Ink Rakes.

The crew explored for a bit, searching for a vault which they believed would hold the artifact. In their journey they found a few old tomes, which the Ink Rakes had not yet been able to censor. Our Leech, who is an ex-Iruvian Scholar, delighted in this, and could not wait to get back to their lair to begin translating them.

The crew’s disguises held up, at least for a while. One guard managed to see through the disguise, though she was quickly dealt with, as the Leech blew some trance powder into her face, while our Whisper subdued her. They left her be once she was no longer a threat.

The Queen’s Hand finally found their way to the basement, where there stood a vault, behind which they were certain their artifact stood. There was only one problem. Well, two, actually, and those were the armed guards standing in front of the vault entrance.

After a long and brutal fight, in which our Whisper was badly injured (Shot, stabbed, and nearly traumatized), the two guards were dead, and the crew was (miraculously) alive. Our Leech then pulled out their surefire way into the vault: a bomb she had built beforehand. They made sure the bodies were near the bomb, to hide as much evidence as possible.

The crew was in the vault, but everyone in the building now knew that something had just happened in the basement due to the sound of the explosion. They had only a few moments before the rest of the guards would be here. They searched and didn’t know what they were looking for, until our Whisper put on her spirit mask. In the vault, there was one item radiating with such intense arcane energies that there was no way it wasn’t the artifact. A paintbrush, of all things, which seemed incredibly mundane to anyone not looking at it with a spirit mask.

Upon grabbing the brush, Cyrene felt filled with awe. Like she had just seen the infiniteness of the universe. Like she had seen just beyond the cusp of our limited knowledge and known all that ever had been, that was, and that would be. Like she was climbing a mountain, and had just reached the summit, and beyond the summit she saw the vast expanse of Everything. This feeling passed as she put the brush in her pocket, and stopped touching it with her bare skin.

The crew tested their disguises one last time, as the guards rushed into the basement. Due to an incredibly lucky crit on Phaya’s part, they succeeded in persuading the Ink Rakes that the explosion had come from inside the vault, and that an artifact must have exploded. While the guards investigated the explosion, our crew managed to quietly slip out the now-unguarded front door.

The crew resolved that, after how badly their fight had gone, they needed to bring more muscle with them. As such they sought to hire new muscle (AKA we’re getting a new player). The crew waits and rests as they lick their wounds, and await the Siren Queen’s next command.