Author: Simon Haywood

Crew “The Third” session part 2 “Masquerade in the Silkshore”

Players

Umbzuzu – Severosi Whisper

Isabela – Tycherosi Lurk

Thornton – Dagger Isles Cutter

Just finished our second blades session, a couple of things to iron out after this session and improve on. It was a social score and I felt it a little harder to run than the last Stealth session.

So the party finished up last time after making off with Bazso’s war treasury and burning the place to the ground for Mylera. Mylera was impressed and had a number of jobs for them if they so chose, she divulged that she planned to coordinate multiple strikes on Lampblack territory and that if the crew hit one of his operations they could keep the turf for their own ends.

She disclosed the location of a brothel owned by a Madame La’Fort in the docks, with a lampblack drug lockup in the basement. After gathering information and from what our brothel connoisseur knew to be true, they came up with a plan to convince the Madame to turn against the lampblacks and have her run the brothel under the crews protection. Plus giving the crew full use of the premise as their turf. They found her to be attending a masquerade style party for the lampblacks and working girls, in imitation of the much classier noble events. The party was being held in slightly run down Silkshore manor property on a canal.

They rolled a good engagement, yet almost faltered at the door, managing to just about bluff their way in. After a while searching and an argument with a prostitute starting a clock “discovered at the masquerade” (this bit of the game I should have acted to speed up earlier), they discovered the madam to be looking after players at a card table in a large study, converted into gambling room. They paid the fee to enter the gaming room room, and then on a good fortune roll they recognized Madame La’Fort and one of the players at the table as Brick, a lieutenant of Baz . Umbzuzu joined the cards table, while Isabel and Thorn were near the bar area. Umbzuzu was able to get her to fetch something from the bar, where Thorn made a desperate sway roll attempting to chat her up and get her to come somewhere secluded for a while. He succeeded and the two of them made their way to some private rooms upstairs, where he dropped his guise and just about made her listen to him before she stormed out. He knew of the Lampblacks bad treatment of the girls and after listening to his plan, a good fortune roll meant she accepted his deal on the condition that they took care of Brick. The girls would make the takeover if he was out of the way. The crew had taken a fair bit of stress while getting the results they needed to avoid conflict and decided rather than take him out there, they would leave and do that as another score. So the whole score turned out to be a set up.

They will encounter a few issues next time, as Bricks suspicion was aroused, they weren’t discovered at the party but they were noticed, although luckily for them it was a masquerade. There’s still time for things to go wrong, as Mylera would have carried out her strikes during this score, yet they haven’t completed their goal.

My only thought is that the game slowed when they tried to avoid danger too much and I felt I needed to press it on them a bit more, but not wanting to detract from their successes either. I think I need to complicate their lives a bit more on 4/5 rolls. They were only a couple of ticks from their whole cover being blown, so there was still a lot of room for it to go wrong. Also one player wants to kill stuff and another wants to avoid killing due to consequences, how can this clash be resolved? Second session and a bit of ironing out to do my end but I can mostly see where I need to work on. I think they also need to try and jump into the action a bit more. Shall see next session 🙂

Just finished first session of blades and it went well 🙂 took a bit of getting used to the system for them but flowed well.

We had three players, “Umbzuzu” a ghost hunting whisper from a tribe from inland Severos, a “Isabel” a Lurk from Tycheros with a penchant for murder and “Thornton” a cutter from the dagger isles who was brought up on ships and turned to thug work to support his illegitimate child. They started out as Hawkers, they couldn’t decide crew so rolled for it for the first session but may well change playbook.

I started them in the session by heading to the leaky Bucket where they had a chat with Mardin Gull, also the cutters vice purveyor. He filled them in on the impending situation and who may have work for them.

They decided to speak with Bazso Baz first and headed to the lampblack headquarters and spoke with him, he offered a few jobs and gave more information about a possible crooked magistrate that was in possession of ledgers that contained the whereabouts of a stash of illicit drugs of cooked up demons blood. The crew decided they wanted to consider things and left to discuss but were warned they’d either have to be with him or against him.

They left and had a discussion in a smoke shop and decided they wanted to speak with Mylera. They decided to group action to sneak out the back in case the Lampblacks were keeping an eye on their decision.

They then spoke to Mylera, who was rather brash with them but offered payment for the war treasury score to prove their worth. They accepted and she disclosed it was in a secure four story ex-bunkhouse building on the canal, on the edge of crowsfoot. She expressed under no circumstance was any heat to come back on her, she also told them of a guy called Viktor was Baz’s accountant at the lock up.

The crew decided that Thornton would try and capture Viktor and interrogate him, then the crew would break-in subterfuge style with what they found out. I performed a set up with Thornton, he skirmished and got a 5 and managed to grab Viktor (not before he cried out) and dragged him into an alley. A bluecoat came to the scene hearing the cry but Thornton was able to keep hold of Viktor and stay hidden. He first used prowl to hide and I started a clock for “Viktor wriggles free”. He then threatened him to “shut up and stay still” with a knife under the neck and rolled a 6 and the bluecoat left. He was able to threaten out of him the location of the safe and get his keys. He then was able to get back to the group with Viktor tied up and hidden.

They then rolled engagement and Thornton joined them, breaking in on the floor with the safe. They rolled a 5 and I had them swing across to the balcony only to discover what looked like sensors for an electroplasmic alarm skirting the window ledge. The whisper decided to use his Tempest ability to try and overload the alarm with energy, he had assistance and pushed himself for greater effect. He rolled a 6 and the the system went down without causing any suspicion inside, probably a fault of some kind. The Lurk then picked the window lock rolling a 5, it turned out the lock wasn’t very good as the guards thought the alarm to be sufficient, so it gave way too easily and they tumbled through the window with a thud. 4 segment Clock started, guards alerted with one tick.

They rolled another group prowl commanded by Thornton, rolling a 5. They successfully sneaked down the corridor towards a metal framed door that they knew to be the safe room. Thornton was so focused on keeping the group in order that I made him drop an item, he chose to have some manacles on him and the clunked to the floor, one more tick on the clock. Voices in the room can be heard “Did you hear something, nah probably nothing” kind of thing.

At this point they decided to flash back and say they would have used disguise to dress one of them up as Viktor and tell the guards they were relieved from duty. I gave a two stress flashback as it’s pretty out there plus they rolled finesse for their make up efforts and rolled a 6. I made their position risky from the 6 on the disguise, plus the fact that they had the keys to the room brought the roll down from desperate. Another 6 followed on their command roll and the guards left. They all took sacks as equipment and emptied the safe and then successfully sneaked back to their entry point. A failed fortune roll meant that the alarm system had come back on. The whisper did the same as before with aid, on a risky roll and hit a crit. I had the system downstairs backfire and explode, they then escaped onto a rooftop, picked up Viktor and escaped back to their lair. The building burnt to the ground in electroplasmic fire. A bit too successful and as it ended up looking like an accident. Viktor was handed to Mylera and assumed dead by the Lampblacks. She was very happy. The crew came away with a fair bit of cash and very little heat.

I think maybe I should have ticked more clock segments on the 5 rolls, two rather than one? I still don’t know if the disguise should have been desperate or risky, even with the 6 in doing the make up for the disguise? Any other thoughts on play or what you would have done differently are appreciated. I think the second session will be much more comfortable to run, as I know what kind of thing they may do, it’s not going in quite as blind as session number 1! The session felt like it flowed really well though and everyone is keen for another one. Making up the scores on the fly is fun but before hand a little daunting 🙂