Ran my first session of Blades tonight.
Our crew of Smugglers is:
-Unna “Madame Moon” Helles, a Dagger Islander Leech and student at Charterhall University.
-Merresh Jeshan, an Iruvian Slide and former pupil of the Falling Star School.
-Sheha Gorat, a Tycherosi Cutter and former Ironhook Prison guard.
-Murdock “Scales” Deepscourge, a Skovlander Whisper and dispossessed nobleman.
From their lair in the basement of a Charterhall boarding house the crew smuggles ghosts, spirit essences, and spectral paraphernalia from the docks o Charterhall and the other way around.
I opted to start off with the War in Crow’s Foot scenario, having the crew meet wit Bazso Baz in the Leaky Bucket. Bazso started off businesslike, with his ‘you’re on our side or their side’ spiel, but Merresh, already a friend of Bazso, managed to lighten the mood and move the boss of the Lampblacks from talking business to offering the scratch a friend’s back.
Bazso offered the crew a job: move some equipment from a warehouse on Rye Street to the docks. Sensing that he was holding back details, Merresh again managed to get Bazso to open up: the Lampblacks were hitting a Red Sash spirit essence refinement operation, and hiring the protagonists to spirit the equipment out of the district.
The crew decided on a stealth plan. Instead of rolling their carriage up to the Red Sash warehouse’s front door, they pulled the carriage around back and planned for the Lampblacks to knock the back wall out to move the equipment.
Things didn’t go so well on the engagement roll though.
The Lampblacks took heavy casualties seizing the warehouse, and word got out to the Red Sashes that their operation was compromised. Just as the crew was loading up their equipment, the Red Sash counter attack fell. While the remaining Lampblacks held off the Red Sashes coming in the front, the crew noticed additional reinforcements coming in from the surrounding rooftops. Merresh, an Iruvian and former student of the Red Sashes’ fencing school, managed to bluff the rooftop reinforcements into thinking that the crew were Sashes themselves, moving the equipment to safety, but his action roll came up with a complication: just as they were turning the corner out of pistol shot of the rooftop Sashes, one of them dropped down on the cart to lend a hand. He immediately noticed Sheha’s vibrant green skin, and realized that the crew wasn’t who he thought they were.
Before the Sash could draw his knife, Sheha threw him off the speeding carriage. The Sash landed on his feet and raised holy hell, prompting an Iruvian shopkeeper to try and stop the carriage.
Murdock sprang to action, using his Whisper powers to Compel the echoes of an anti-Skov lynch mob to fall on the Iruvian. Murdock managed to get the Iruvian out of the way without killing him, but untethered the ghost echoes in the process, unleashing them on the city (this will have repercussions!).
The final obstacle the crew faced was a makeshift checkpoint the Red Sashes had set up at the bridge to the docks. Unna and Sheha Prowled their way up close and started a fire as a distraction. The crew crashed through, and Sheha got another opportunity to throw a Red Sash off the cart (this may become a recurring theme).
Highlights:
-Merresh has history with both the Lampblacks (Baszo is his friend) and the Red Sashes (he trained at their fencing school) and he was able to use both expertly during the session.
-Sheha proved her worth as muscle, throwing several Red Sashes off the crew’s speeding cart.
-Murdock managed to use a ghost echo anti-Skov lynch mob to get an Iruvian shopkeeper out of the way, without lasting harm to the shopkeeper. Said echoes are, however, now untethered in the ghost field, liable to cause some serious mayhem.
-Despite Sheha’s advice to the contrary, Unna opted to use fire oil and smoke bombs, rather than a grenade, to circumvent the final Red Sash checkpoint, keeping the crew’s rep (Subtle) as intact as possible, despite setbacks.