Author: Nick Belleque

After a long hiatus, the Coffin Street Boys are back in town! Led by their devastatingly handsome leader, Kingmaker (Slide), The Ironhook orphan “Tiny” Timothy (Cutter), Patch the Skovlander Hound, and the enigmatic Professor (Iruvian Leech) have come to hit the big city and make a name for themselves.

This is my first step up to the GM position in a while, with all four of the players being brand new to ANY RPG experience. I started them out in the standard fashion. Approached by the Lampblacks, they were brought in to speak with Baz about joining him in his war against the Red Sash menace. Here is the actual conversation in game:

Kingmaker: So, the deal is, we join and start kicking profit up to you. Then we get to fight and die for the glory of the Lampblacks?

Baz: Yes, that’s about the gist.

Kingmaker: And if we refuse? Mind our own business and let you two big, strong men fight it out?

Baz: There is no neutral to this, my good son. Only my way, or the eel farms.

Professor: Well, shit.

Kingmaker: Well….. (pauses)

(The rest of the table looks to Kingmaker’s player expectantly)

Kingmaker: …blow that for a game of soldiers. Timothy?

At which point there was a brisk fist/knife/chair/pistol fight, while Tiny Tim explored very thoroughly his Not To Be Trifled With special ability. The fight ended with the crew escaping out of the window after Tiny Tim threw Baz through it, dazed and concussed Lampblack thugs littering the room.

They decided that, rather than Shadows, perhaps there was a better crew type for them……

To be continued on the dark streets of Doskvol……

All right, I’m gonna try to post an “actual play” post. 

The Crew: The Coffin Street Killers (Breakers)

HQ: Abandoned mortuary and coffin shop in The Drop.

Members In Good Standing: 

Timothy “Tiny” Happ, an enormous Skovlander, addicted to the dice and hurting people, not necessarily in that order. A Cutter.

Punchinello, a grim and silent Akorosi, with a weakness for the bottle. A Lurk.

Menti, Iruvian Swordsman, formerly of the Red Sashes. Hates cats. A Cutter.

Jenner, Skovlander safecracker. Obsessively collects masks, wearing a different one each score. A Leech. 

All right, so first off, Breakers can be really hard to GM for, because all their scores tend to go downhill really fast. These are not stable people. Two Cutters is a lot of violence. Also, I just have to thank the wonderful person in this community who who suggested that a cohort could be a pack of fighting dogs. Thanks a bunch. They decided to take them in addition to the thugs they got for free, so manpower was not an issue. I should have known something was wrong when the first discussion they had was “Who do we go to war with first?”. 

They decided that the Fog Hounds looked a little too big for their britches, so they decided to try and make their bones by seizing one of their gambling operations, a dice game run by Rufus Spogg. They raided the place, but do to bad placement and communication, they attacked at the worst time, namely, when an entire squad of Bluecoats raided the game, intent on gaining the profits of the illicit operations. The two sides clashed amidst the startled gamblers, and culminated in the murder of a Bluecoat Watch officer named Tom Shandy by Tiny Tim, who chopped off one of his arms. There was a hilarious tug of war over the cash box, and money spilled everywhere, adding to the chaos. The crew made a break for it, with the dogs scattering to the back alleys, having been weakened by last ditch gunfire from the Fog Hound guards. They regrouped at the coffin shop, licking their wounds (love the recovery rules, by the way).

Downtime

Everyone tried to recover, taking advantage of their physicker friend, Mr. Scissors (don’t ask). Tiny Tim gathered information using Wreck (“Tell me or the vase gets it!) trying to find info on Fog hound activities in the surrounding area. Punchinello tried to reduce heat by talking with his Bluecoat contact, arranging to pay the widow of the officer blood money, somewhat easing pressure from the law. Menti indulged his vice, visiting his favorite cigar shop. Jenner started a long term project to create poison bombs for the next stage of their war. 

Good session, a lot of fun, these guys are not sneaky or subtle at all, compared to the other group I have played with. 

Best Line of the Night: “Hey, Don’t be afraid to be the first to resort to violence”.