Author: Pierce Jones

So…I have finally come back to running Blades in the Dark again for a new group of players. No real power-gamers and, I think, this group has a much better idea of having fun then my previous groups. I tried planning a few things but alas, this game continues to surprise. How so, you ask?

It was supposed to be your classic “masquerade ball” espionage; intercept a message in the hedge maze and deal with the agents of the Hive. Now though? The group dropped the secret message onto the ballroom after picking it from the merchant lord’s pocket. The agent of the Hive has noticed this and now, now the group has to have a dance off to impress Lord Dunvil and his daughter who are watching while also picking up the letter that is on the floor before the agents of the Hive can grab it first.

It was a hilarious reminder to not plan stuff too much because the players will always do something crazy and unexpected. I almost forgot how much I adore this game.

So to get completely updated on Blades in the Dark, we return once more to the Tycherosi Bravos who have taken to calling themselves “The Streets” because remember…always be careful if you’re crossing The Streets.

We found the crew preparing to help their friend, Conway, with a supposedly “simple favor”. The group was contracted to go sneak into Evidence House #34 and burn the evidence room down, thus hiding the fact the Bluecoats had been “taking out” contraband for their own use. Being told of tunnels underneath Charterhall and securing a map from Jeren the Archivist in return for the favor of making an “example” of a former Bluecoat named Veretta who jumped sides and works as an Inspector now.

The Bravos sneaked into the basement of the evidence lockup, moldering books and archived evidence filling every space they could see as they rose up from the sewers. Unbeknownst to them, a medium had revealed their plot to the Inspectors, a group of them patrolling into the basement to find the supposed intruders.

Rather then sneak their way around the Inspectors, the Bravos moved as a group to begin taking them down one by one. Three of the Inspectors were taken out quietly before the Inspectors began to consolidate and move for the exits. Attacking as a group, the whole thing went straight to hell.

Gunshots were fired, a man’s throat was ripped out by Fangs’ sharpened teeth, and Thorns ended up in a fight against a former Red Sash that had been promoted to more legitimate work. The battle was going poorly for her at first until her cousin, Havok, shoulder tackled a rack of heavy evidence files onto the man. Most of the Inspectors were murdered, one of them blinded by a handful of broken glass.

A deal was brokered between them and the man named Vex, he would leave with his fellow Red Sash and in return, they wouldn’t get in the crew’s way and wouldn’t hold it against them. Vex agreed…once he secured a date with the pretty and dangerous Thorns. Caught by surprise at being flirted with despite having the man with his sash around his throat.

After ensuring there would be no reprisal, the crew began to move upwards. Calling upon their ally, Ulf Ironborn, they had the Skovlander gather up the Refugees and cause a riot right outside of their location. This allowed them to easily sneak upstairs to the repository, where strange essences and artifacts were temporarily kept before transferring over into the hands of the Spirit Wardens.

As they walked across the marble hallways, glyphs began to resonate upon the ground and a terrible presence made itself known. A Spirit Warden, Sister Kesserin, walked out with her lightning glaive and made an offer to them; leave now and be safe or step forward and suffer. In the light of the door, they could see the body of Veretta tied to the chair, her eyes wide and blades slipped under her nails. Rather than accept that as a message enough, Fangs pushed forward and the true battle began.

The crew went to push onwards and Kesserin acted decisively, launching a volley of lightning towards them. Thorns and Fangs dropped out of the way, Havok moving too slow and being caught in the chest with the bolt. Sent flying, he slammed into the staircase’s wall and fell down to the ground to lie as still as the dead.

Fangs and Thorns fought valiantly, viciously, and wickedly, even having prepared to have their friend Mercy outside laying down a volley of gunfire to try and hold Sister Kesserin back. A blunderbuss exploded outwards, testing the Spirit Warden’s arcane defenses. It was the alchemical concoctions known as Rage Essence that brought her down at last, both Fangs and Thorns downing their vials and attacking the Spirit Warden with all they could.

Even with their chemical advantage, the characters barely survived their battle with Sister Kesserin. The woman sacrificed her soul, her armor exploding with her last ritual which left them impaled with shrapnel, broken and bleeding. Yet their rage continued and a dark voice spoke to them, urging them forwards…

When Havok awoke, the place was quiet and the smell of blood and smoke was all around. Searching the repository, Veretta was dead and Havok was unable to find things of true value. Gathering up what he could, he headed downstairs where a terrible sight was held.

Bodies laid strewn about everywhere, desecrated and defiled in terrible ways. Arcane symbols left behind on the walls, furniture, and the ground; all in blood. Bodies hung from their own intestines and the sight could only be described as “unholy”.

In the center sat his cousin and sister, back to back. Written in blood by both their hands laid a simple message; one favor repaid. The demon of shadows and fear had one of its favors paid and the Evidence House had become the site of a massacre.

With that, the score was a success but with some complications. Only a little bit of coin and twelve points of heat! Most of their reputation and coin was spent on healing themselves and the crew. They had heard rumors that the Wott Family, a prestigious if small line of nobility, has a veritable private military onsite. They mentioned it to Ulf, who asked the group to help send a message to the oligarchy when it came to Wott.

A few things I realized I should’ve done; I should have given a heads up to a ritual glyph for the crew. It led to an awesome fight and the group had a great time. It was fun to use consequences for more than just harm, since I don’t want to paralyze their growth with spending rep and coin on healing. Then again, that is what happens sometimes. Overall, one of my favorite sessions yet.

So it has been awhile since I last posted a play report here in the group, due to working and all that fun stuff in life. My latest game of BitD however has inspired me to getting back to doing these, for my own mindset and to share what I’ve been enjoying about the system now that I consider myself to be a more experienced storyteller.

I had decided that I wanted to run the game with more of a focus on the high-stakes, high dangers theme of the game. The oppressive is very oppressive, the crew is fighting an uphill battle every time that they go out into the world. The players decide to focus on making a crew of Bravos, all Tycherosi, specializing in Smash & Grabs, based in an abandoned eelery out in Dunslough. I choose to take the Riots of 867 as the starting situation of the world and the players align themselves with the Skovlanders in solidarity, seeing themselves as fellow outcasts from the world. Lastly, but not least, every one of my four players is a Cutter. I chuckle in glee.

The first job has the players climbing aboard the Nightbreaker, looking to steal unrefined leviathan blood from the ship’s hold since the riots have been holding it off from being able to successfully deliver its cargo. The first rolls do not go well, the players almost getting caught and are pulled into a skirmish with Lord Strangford’s elite marines that are ensuring the boat’s well-being. A few dead men are tossed into the dark, stormy waters below and they make their way downstairs. We end up having to call it there for then but pick up entering the large, creepy hold the next session.

One of my players are not able to attend, which leaves the exiled nobility as the main cast; Thorns (a beautiful, flowery Tycherosi with a mean streak), Havok (Looks like a starry night stood up and started moving), and Fangs (a terrible, lanky, toothy monstrosity that is part of a cannibal cult). Our last figure is Dirge, a worshipper of The Broken Sun and a former corsair.

The crew is chased downstairs, being tracked by the Marines, and I slowly begin filling out a “It Awakens” clock. The lights begin to flicker and dim, whispers are heard from the shadows. The crew reaches the leviathan blood vats but the marines get the hell out as “something” arrives. A woman’s voice begins to speak with them and tries to parley their lives in exchange for a favor. My crew, bless their hearts, tell the shadows to fuck off and finish their work. The demon, as it has been instructed, attacks.

I have to say at this point, I love the random generation tables. Creating summoned horrors and demons is an absolute joy. Through random rolls, we ended up with a monstrous demon whose affinity laid with darkness and what it craved was fear. I make this ink-like monster, with a faint lantern glow for a face within the darkness, as their enemy. Thorns, having Ghost Fighter, gets up in its grill and tries to throw down. Harms begin getting thrown out as it targets their sources of light and then impales members on spikes of living shadow. With only some of the siphoning containers filled, Havok books it to try and get out and takes rage essence in order to make sure he can escape and ignore the pain from his punctured knee. With too much stress, he does not resist the lovely side effects of that alchemical concoction. His cousin Thorns and sister Fangs make a desperate parley with the demon in return for their lives and the blood they’ve stolen. All the demon asks for is three favors from each of them, favors that will be done without question. If so, they will live. If they turn against it, she reminds them that their city is blanketed in darkness and she. will. find. them.

The injured group makes it upstairs where Havok is about to battle the group of marines that corner him when they make an offer; give us two canisters and you can go. It seemed that some of the crew’s enemy, Grace, heard about the job and wanted to make a little coin off of it as well. The group first has to incapacitate their frothing mad brother/cousin, which led to our first PvP as he couldn’t tell friend from foe. They manage to hold him down and with a flashback that makes them owe a favor to Conway, are able to knock him out with some slumber essence. The give one canister to the marines after threatening to all take their rage essence, and escape wounded, stressed, and one with a trauma.

The crew relieved stress, healed up with their relative Sawtooth, and watched as the man was brought in for questioning and got his arm broken for “resisting arrest”. There was some decent roleplay as Fangs hunted a target and consumed a man for That Which Hungers, Thorns dabbled in some arcane essences with the shifty vendor named Ojak, and Havok trained and prepared himself for the next job. The group looks to help out Conway eliminate some troubling evidence for him, all while the riots grow more dangerous as the Grinders and Ulf Ironborn use the funds they secured selling the blood to bolster themselves.

Next session has been one of my favorites, a little job that grew intense and ended with a badass battle against a superior opponent. The little favor gets much bigger than one expected it to be but that is how it goes in Blades in the Dark.

The Strangers Cometh: Episode 01 – A Rude Introduction

GM: Justin

Smiles The Cutter: Pierce Jones

Vex The Leech: Kitten

Xia The Slide: Alex

Tom the Hound: Rick

Gnarls the Spider: Andrew

The session starts with the Strangers being crowded into Baszo Baz’s office within the headquarters of the Lampblacks, having been forced in by their “recruiters” who were looking for those that’d be willing to join the fight against the Red Sashes. Instead of taking Baszo’s offer, the group immediately flashes back to a meeting with Mylera Klev. A careful negotiation is done, signing up the Strangers with the Red Sashes and making a fat stack of coin for striking a blow against the Lampblacks when they weren’t expecting it.

The action refocuses on the crew after a bit of information gathering, Smiles and Gnarls in Baz’s office under the pretense of negotiating, Xia and Vex having disguised themselves as another Lampblack and a worker, respectively, and Tom settled up in the rafters after sneaking in with his sights located on the man in charge.

The plan starts off in a Desperate situation and the Baszo has a gun on the distraction and is demanding their compliance in siding with them. Not wanting to be caught in a lie, Smiles decides to distract him with a gift and an offering. Another flashback occurs with Smiles talking to Mylera, speaking about how willing she was to get the job done. If she’d be willing to sacrifice those who are weak to seal the deal. With her agreement (and 3 stress), a Red Sash that had fucked up one too many times was brought in by the Stranger’s heavy hitters known as Wicker and Hook. With a bottle of fine whiskey offered, Smiles and Gnarls were able to diffuse Bazso’s hostility and keep the “negotiations” going. Offered a chance to try and impress the Lampblack’s leader, he offered Smiles the chance to kill the Red Sash prisoner. With a brutally wide grin, Smiles moved to the poor man and pinned him down to the ground with knives. Pulling out a metal rod with a series of shark teeth bound to the metal, he began to carve the man up like a piece of cattle both to impress and intimidate those in the room. Gnarls used his leader’s brutality to worm out additional information from Baszo, learning about another warehouse where they had jumped a group of Bluecoats in order to try and gain access to better weaponry.

Downstairs, Vex and Xia snuck in disguises through the warehouse, looking for a perfect place to strike. A supply of dynamite and chemicals that were used in the creation of Spark were a perfect location for the fire bombs to set the coal residues and dust aflame and burn the HQ down to the ground. A series of amazingly good rolls allowed the two to set up quickly and easily without being spotted. Tom’s pet, an exotic and strange bird, kept an eye out for a boat that they had learned would be arriving with a shipment of drugs to process and then ship out to their dens. The small but brutal kid has learned this after finding a docker taking a piss and then put a gun against his ass and threatened his life. The docker spilled everything he knew and was rewarded with a slit throat and a deep sleep in the canals.

With their getaway vehicle in sight, the group quickly moved into action. Smiles sealed the “deal of cooperation” with Bazso and tugged hard on his arm, helping line up a perfect headshot for their assassin waiting in the riggings and girders of the ceiling. Gnarls, given a smoke bomb, dropped it and let the smoke fill the room as Tom took his shot. An Extreme effect, controlled Hunt roll was instead dropped to Great effect as a Five was rolled. Bazso Baz took a grazing shot to the head and went down, letting Gnarls escape with their thugs in tow. The mutilated corpse was left behind by the door as an obstruction as Vex and Xia made their way out to the boat. Tom snuck back out the window, using the distraction and confusion that Xia left when she pointed out where she heard the shots from to escape to safety.

Xia and Vex make their way out to the boat with panicked Lampblacks upon it, trying to convince them that help is needed inside. When she wasn’t able to convince the first guard to go in, she quietly and quickly pulled a knife and slit the man’s throat before dropping him into the water. The next one took a face full of drown powder and began to panic, pulling the others closer. It was a shame when the fire bomb hit them then, setting them all ablaze just as the rest of the Strangers came out. With a righteously thrown grenade, the fire bombs hidden in the Lampblack HQ went up in flames and the building burned mightily and wickedly. Tom waited nearby to watch what happened and try to finish off Bazso but neither he nor his second in command left the building even as it burned to the ground. Of course, it burned thanks to a nice bribe to the crew’s friends in the Brigadiers to make sure they were preoccupied elsewhere.

The Strangers made their escape, getting paid 10 coin for the sabotage job and an additional 2 coin for selling off the drugs that were on the boat to the Red Sashes’ hawkers. The boat was sent in for a squibbing, hopefully to be remade for the crew’s use another time. After gaining 4 reputation, the Strangers immediately accrued one Wanted level and one extra heat. Downtime activities went by quickly, since it was already 1am at the time. Few members had high stress and there was no harm to speak of thanks to armor and very good rolls for resistances. We rolled our Entanglement and ended up with Cooperation; it appears our newly cemented allies will need our help. Fortunately, we earned enough Crew XP to purchase War Dogs as the Strangers immediately go to war with the Lampblacks for their betrayal. What favor will need to be done next session? What is the beef between Xia and Baszo Baz? Will Gnarls ever stop accidently yelling at the worst moments? Find out next time on…

The Strangers Cometh.

It was my friend’s very first session GMing and I am a proud GM as he did excellent. It has been a lot of fun actually playing the game and I’ve been doing my best to showcase to the players that it is a game about meta and storytelling, to get more involved with the storytelling process. I told Justin that until he join the Google Group here, I’ll forward any questions he may have. Over all though, it was very smooth and very fun. Flashbacks are as amazing as I wanted them to be and I hope my fellow players come to realize how much of a “superpower” they are.

So yesterday was my birthday and I had a birthday miracle occur; I finally get to play in a game of Blades in the Dark! One of my players was brave enough to step up to the helm of running a game. I’m going to keep track of how he feels about being a brand new GM and how the system feels. He’s never ran anything before and my BitD campaign was the first time he’s ever played a tabletop game.

Without further ado, I am proud to present…

The Strangers: A Tale of Bravos

We all decided on doing a group of Bravos, as our new GM thought that’d be one of the easiest kinds of crew to run. I talked to the group and we decided we’d all start off as Tycherosi and create a group known as The Strangers (as it is said in Clerks II, “we’re taking it back”).

The cast of vicious scoundrels is as follows…

Poppla “Tom Ato” Anri – The crew’s Hound is a ten-year-old boy who was trained by the Unseen to be a killer. However, the obedience part of training didn’t stick and so he and his sister escaped their clutches, becoming deathland scavengers that hunted for treasures. A relic that they discovered interacted with their demonic blood and changed his sister into a demon. Using rushed and dangerous methods, he sealed her inside of himself and now seeks out an artifact to try and change her back…while she works to corrupt him. Covered in arcane tattoos that glow with power when he reaches into the Ghost Field, he is entwined with the element of Darkness.

Sethla “Smiles” Marax – The crew’s leader and cutter, Sethla was a soldier for a mercenary company known as the “Hellguard”. During a campaign to eradicate cultists from one of the Dagger Isles and sick with a terrible disease from the jungle, “Smiles” discovered an ancient and ruined temple dedicated to a Forgotten God known as The Conqueror. Confirming the stories that the Immortal Emperor had crushed the empire the Tycherosi had built, the God’s divine will sent the cutter back to Duskwall to forge an empire built on blood and violence. With black eyes and shark’s teeth, he is more than willing to spill blood to get what is his. (I’m super giddy to be playing a zealous Cutter. Hell, just playing at all lol)

Xia a.k.a. Miss Direction – The crew’s Slide, she was a former teacher of drama and the theatrical arts, she traveled across the world with her family instructing others in the arts. She wanted to help the world, try to alleviate the fear others have for their kind, but returned to find her family’s theater and conclave burned to the ground. The sole survivor, she became cold and now seeks to find vengeance for her family. Using her training, she sneaks in and plays the greatest cons, being the one who opens the gates for the more violent members of her crew to slip in and let loose. Aspected to Water, her eyes are black like Smiles but she has an ethereal, beautiful, almost mermaid-like appearance when she is not in disguise.

Vex “Tink” Bae – The crew’s Leech, she was an orphan after her parents were murdered and their crew was destroyed years ago. Taken in by a toymaker with underworld contacts, he taught her his trade and his unusual skillset. A friend of Papplo, the strange woman sees people as toys rather than living things. Everyone needs to be “fixed” and she is a surprisingly good physicker once you get past her strange bedside manner. Aligned with Fire, her skin is the color and texture of a burnt out piece of coal and flares with dying light when she moves. Her eyes burn like coals themselves.

Gnarls – The crew’s Spider, he was once an up & coming advocate that represented the company that most wouldn’t dare to; Tycherosi, mutated Skovlanders, haunted deathland scavengers, the works. He would use his connections and skills to free them of accusations and built up a solid reputation. However, he lost a major case that put away his client, a major supplier of Spark, away and has been on the run since as the man seeks to reclaim reparations from the entrepreneur. He earned the nickname of Gnarls thanks to the wooden texture of his skin and the ivy-like hair that grows upon him. It doesn’t help that a bird finds his head quite comfortable and home-like. He also has difficulty controlling his inflections, something that kept his rivals off-balanced.

The crew stays within an abandoned house nearby Strathmill House, the crew has gathered up territory nearby the Docks where they commit armed robberies; ambushing carriages and ransacking boats that drift too close. This has put them in against the Bluecoats (who were transporting dangerous criminals that the crew “liberated”) and the Cabbies (who were running scams in the territory that the Strangers have taken over). However, they also made decent steps with the Red Sashes, who view the strange group of Tycherosi as fellow foreigners in a strange city.

The Strangers have a simple goal; to take over all of Crow’s Foot and then all off Duskwall if they can. Subtlety be damned, they’ll show everyone that they should be ruled or they will rule over a mountain of corpses. Just remember, watch your step by Strathmill House, there are Strangers about…

Tales of the Veiled: Episode 6

Having returned from the Deathlands after successfully assassinating Tuhan, the crew kept their heads down low. There were two new recruits; Volette “Tick Tock” Daava who was the cousin of Tiros and Rafellos “Gizmo” Greenswood. The more experienced Cutter took these potential assassins under his wing to show him what a day was like out on the streets for the crew. And what a damn day it was…

Rook’s (Tiros) friend, Sawtooth, had them meet him in a secluded alleyway to warn them that the Bluecoats were looking for them and looking for them hard. It seems that the evidence that the crew had gathered previously was false and now a good number of Bluecoats were being sentenced soon enough to prison. Hoping to alleviate the problem between them and the Bluecoats, a meeting was established between the three assassins and the Bluecoats that hired them.

It was less of a meeting and more of an intimidation, as Cinda, Jol, Lewit, and Reyf all advanced on the assassins and made it damn clear that they were going to solve this issue for them or there would be bigger problems to deal with. An agreement was made to kidnap the magistrate’s only son and hold him for ransom until the Bluecoat charges were all dropped and they were cleared.

As the group returned back though, they encountered an unwelcome face that they had met before in the Deathlands. Made of living quicksilver and shifting cogs of an unknown metal; the demon known as Ixis revealed itself again and demanded there be “justice” for the slain Inspector. The group was able to calm it down enough that it would watch and see what they would do but it still held its demand; it would require their blood or the blood of the Bluecoats.

Stuck between either the dangerous and newly outfitted Bluecoats or the danger of a power and vicious demon, the crew decided that they would accept the consequences of pissing off the Bluecoats more and go after them. Using Tick Tock’s friendly connection with Grace, the group was then able to secure a key to infiltrate from the third floor and move down. A risky engagement left them trying to manuever through a crowded Watchtower during the Blinding Hour when a quiet fight broke out. Bad rolls led to bad resistance rolls, though few Bluecoats were even aware of what had happened and the group was able to slip downstairs and to the kitchen.

After flashing back to show they acquired a poison (a good Acquire Assets roll showed that they had secured Devil Root for the job), they intimidated the cooking crew and forced them into the freezer before poisoning the porridge and getting the Bluecoats to grab some as well. Unknown to them, the shifts changed and a good portion of Bluecoats came in for grub, unknowingly eating their doom.

The assassins escaped soon after, vanishing into the thick and dangerous fog, where they were soon contacted by Ixis again. The demon was impressed by their brutal methods of justice and offered to become a patron of theirs, letting the three bind him per the old sorceries. Infused with the excitement of having gained a demon’s power upon their side, the crew’s excitement dwindled when they realized that the Bluecoats marching into Six Towers for a manhunt for a dangerous outfit known as….The Veiled. War has come to the assassins and no one is sure who’ll be left standing…

The game was small but good, with only three of the five players able to actually make it. I can see why John suggests three to four players, as I was able to focus more on side roleplay and questions for the characters. This is my first war I’ve gotten to play through, especially a war with the Bluecoats, and I am excited to see how my players are going to end hostilities. I had suggested to them to make it “not cost-effective”; if you hurt them enough, they will eventually back off. I’ve also alerted them that heat is going to skyrocket now, as they try to do their work.

Tales of the Veiled: a re-cap of the Assassin’s in the Blades in the Dark.

Real life constantly seems to be getting in the way, it seems. A lot has happened in the Assassins game that I previously mentioned before. A name had been decided upon (The Veiled) and the group has been busy murdering in the name of Exeter’s will.

The crew, after successfully assassinating the Junior Inspector, were brought before Exeter and given a list of targets to be eliminated. It was made clear to them that the targets were all dangerous, well-supplied, and would provide a challenge worthy of them. The crew accepted his offer and went after their first major target: Bakaros of the Spirit Wardens.

The job was a success after they ambushed him during a witch hunt through the Duskvol Mines while he was leading a hunt for assembled masses of the Horde. The engagement went well, with the group’s Whisper trying a ritual to take control of the Hollows and fight against the Spirit Wardens. Bad rolls led to the group getting up close and personal with the dangerous members of the Spirit Wardens but a few well-timed explosives and shots led to everyone that wasn’t part of the crew dying in a major collapse while the crew escaped in one of the ghost echoes nearby.

Looking for an easier job, the crew sought to take some territory and claim a small clinic that was operating for The Weeping Lady. It was poorly guarded, recently set up, but something dangerous lurked underneath the surface as the Whisper was able to feel that powerful rituals had been used here within the clinic’s premise. Rather than intimidate or murder a few members of the charity, the group instead offered protection in return for services. This put them against the Bluecoats that were taking bribes for protection against the Grey Cloaks and other, smaller outfits. The group quickly and quietly murdered the Bluecoats who busted in demanding assistance and earned the trust of the Weeping Lady. However, the Cutter felt something call to him and push him into a bloodlust. He scratched into his arm that night “Be welcomed within our Arms”.

The last job led to the group travelling out to the Deathlands to hunt the lead scout of the Silver Nails, Tuhan. A desperate engagement led to them attacking the group while reinforcements arrived. Traumas were a-plenty in this one; no one came out unscathed as the group pushed themselves extra hard to try and secure the kill. It ended up with one character harboring a summoned horror inside their body, the Fog Hounds being made into rivals and the crew accepting the job to kill off their rivals as payment for harming so many of their crew, and everyone now having at least one trauma…one of them having three and two of them having two.

The most interesting part is that Tiros, now paranoid and unsure of himself, has entrusted himself into Exeter’s will by explaining he has been having weird dreams and dark urges. With the Spirit Warden’s blessing, he is now on his way to go and infiltrate the cult to root out its leaders and hopefully destroy them.

Thing are going to be very interesting next session; the Bluecoats are going to be coming for blood once they realize that the crew gave them the wrong evidence by accident. The Unseen, the main but unknown enemies of the group, has fully infiltrated the Wardens and will soon be ousting those who are dangerous to their goals. The Bluecoats have secured military-grade weaponry and equipment and it is all going to come crushing down upon the head of the group.

We’ll see what the Veiled do to survive come this Sunday!

So yesterday we had our first session of the Assassins game (names are still up in the air about what the group wants to call themselves) and it went pretty well! The group decided to use a false threat to gain the Inspector’s compliance and get him out in the open to be murdered. Things went well except for one crucial detail…

Episode 1: Up In Smoke

The assassins had been contacted by a group of Bluecoats by the name of Lewit and Cinda, who met them underneath the Clerk Street Bridge in order to discuss the terms. There was a Junior-Inspector by the name of Orlan Booker who was set to make a big case exposing a series of Bluecoats with enough evidence that even the corrupt magistrates would have to follow through or be seen as obviously corrupt. Arrvus, the Spider, negotiated for higher pay of eight coin in return for also leaving his finger in his fiance’s mailbox. The crew has slowly pushed back on the Bluecoats, who were more willing to acquiesce thanks to the connection they have with Exeter.

After an initial discussion about how to take him, what route he takes, the way he secures the evidence, the group decided to prey upon his relationship with his wife. Stealing some of their correspondences, they forged a threat and a letter and had it delivered to him to draw him out to Crow’s Foot with the evidence in hand after failing to have a ghost possess him to make it easier to take his life.

Tiros, Vixen, and Arvus arranged to me the unfortunate Inspector while the newest member of the Assassins named Logan Dimitr Wolfr set up in the higher floors of one of the building across from the alley to take the man out with his incredible sniping skill. Adric, the Whisper, set up in a nearby alleyway to keep an eye on things and use his ghostly powers should things go awry and they most certainly did…

Inspector Orlan used his time as much as he can, trying to set up an intervention with the Bluecoats that would be patrolling through Crow’s Foot this late at night. Logan noticed the lights of the Bluecoats approaching and signaled the group while Orlan took as much time as he could to get them on scene. Adric compelled a ghost from to go and disrupt anyone watching the scene, which led to a terrible failure on the ghost’s part. It was added to the fiction that while ghosts can be compelled, they require good wording or constant direction to keep from deterring in dangerous and reckless ways. Reckless like appearing and attacking the Hound who was watching the scene. At the same time, the lights of the Bluecoats shine in on the scene and questions start being asked.

A well-timed flashback from Arvus led to him negotiating his price downwards in order to receive dirt from their employer in case they ran into the Bluecoat patrol that was moving through. This led to him blackmailing the Sargent that was in the charge of the group, threatening to reveal his Black Lotus addiction if he didn’t get the hell out of there. At that moment, an electroplasmic bullet fired off as Logan took out the ghost after fending it off with his spiritbane charm. The Bluecoats took that as an opportunity to get the hell out of there and chase the shooter.

A scuffle occurred between the Inspector, Tiros, and Vixen as the latter two tried to drag the man to the ground and take him out. Despite his arm being wounded with electroplasmic burns, he was able to defend himself and get knocked back rather than get taken out. Drawing his pistol, he shot Arvus who tried to take him out and was about to get away when Adric desperately reached out into the ghost field. Attuning to a nearby power junction, he channeled the city’s electricity through his form and nailed the inspector with the malevolent energy, killing the man and somehow keeping his concentration enough to ensure that he didn’t get cooked alive himself!

Logan fled to the rooftops, using the methods his friend gave him to try and escape from the pursuing Bluecoats. After collecting the Inspector’s finger, the evidence, and failing to discover whether or not the evidence was faked or not, the crew pressured the Bluecoats even further to give their friend time to escape. They succeeded but the Bluecoats are getting tired of this little group throwing their weight around, especially once they learned that they paid extra and still got screwed over.

The group escaped with only minor wounds and only one character truly stressed, Logan having to roll to resist the terrible fear that the ghost brought from within him. Baszo Baz was brought in for questioning but revealed nothing at all and the group mostly trained or indulge slightly in their vices. Duskvol was kind to them this time, we’ll see how the future holds up for this rising crew.

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The session went really well as we established some more fiction in the world (spiritbane and demonbane charms act much like how crosses acted against vampires for a time, there are giant lizard creatures that drag sleds through the Black Desert in Iruvia, wording is important when compelling spirits) and we helped set the goals of the Crew itself…not just the players. They’re looking to take over Six Towers now, which puts them at odds with their friendly faction of Greycloaks. Baszo has offered a mission to kill an individual within the Iruvian Consulate and Exeter always has need of his scalpels to erase other obstructions for his own rise within the Spirit Wardens. Tiros has even begun to try and learn ways to escape Grace’s clutches now.

I’m excited to see where they go now and the repercussions of having failed to ascertain that the evidence was a fake. They even now have a name finally…The Veiled and they take after their Spirit Warden supporters to some degree. Hopefully this week, we’ll have the second Crew up and running and we’ll see what happens next.