The crew was down their Whisper, so they chose to focus on more mundane pursuits this time around. Ashen Crow (Leech) sought out an old war buddy and they spent a few days upgrading the potency of his alchemical formulas and started probing the underground for a good way to siphon off electricity for their base. Finni (Cutter) started his infiltration of the dockside fighting pits by battling in the arena and started working on finding out more about the spirit bottle from last session by agreeing to help his body-hopping ghost friend snatch a new body. Herrik (Slide) started building a spy network in Coalridge and scouted out locations for a body dumping operation in Six Towers, gaining a warning from the Gray Cloaks in the process.
After that, the team decided that their most pressing issue was their lack of funding, and to rectify that they went looking for an accountant to manage their coin. Herrik got them into the swanky Centuralia Club in Brightstone, posing as a Tycherosi merchant with Ashen Crow as his astrologer and Finni as his bodyguard. They talked with an Iruvian merchant princess who directed them towards the Bowmore clan as having issues with their current accountant and then took Ashen Crow aside for a reading. In the private room Crow put on a bit of a show and then hypnotized her before attuning to the ghost field and drawing the attention of a weakened ghost, which he managed to shake off and his performance earned her trust as a contact. Herrik and Finni dealt with a nosy Skovlander bodyguard before seeking out Rufus Bowmore, who was boasting about his talent as a duelist before challenging Finni to a duel.
Ashen Crow distracted the guards with a flashback to a radio device that he planted earlier to cause a fire while Finni fought Rufus, who was doing copious amounts of Duskwall-coke. In the duel, Finni broke Rufus’ nose, and they were all shocked to learn that the noble scion loved it and brought them into his confidence, asking them to seek out the accountant to help her get the Bowmores’ lost money back. Next week they’ll be doing just that, but of course it won’t be easy.
Blades in the Dark – The Crimson Snow – Sessions 5 & 6
Blades in the Dark – The Crimson Snow – Sessions 5 & 6
The last couple of weeks have seen the Crimson Snow dealing with a favor called in by Setarra, whom Ves has had dealings with in the past. Setarra informed them that Lord Scurlock was after a group of criminals to conduct a heist for him, in order to locate a mysterious artifact. Unfortunately, this artifact was located within the Lost District, in the possession of a powerful vampire. The crew immediately set to work trying to uncover all they could about vampires, the Lost District and how to get past those pesky lightning barriers… Ves decided to chat to former colleagues from the Morlan School of Unnatural Philosophy, and uncovered some useful information, Hadius called in a few personal favors and ended up chatting to a member of the Deathland Scavengers selling scavenged wares in the Nightmarket. And Banks tried and largely failed to pull the strings of some nobles. They were eventually able to obtain a device to bypass the barrier (though it didn’t come cheap), and set out for the Lost District.
During their investigations, they learnt that the Spirit Wardens seemed to have some vested interest in the Lost District, and had been patrolling along the river, and so the crew decided to wait for the post dawn fog to descend upon the city, and they called on a hired gondolier to ferry them across. Once through the barrier, they set out exploring the district, and before long, attracted the attention of a large number of feral ghosts. They tangled with the ghosts a few times, before being able to locate the manor where Scurlock informed them the artifact was being held. Banks used an electroplasmic lance, borrowed from the Silver Nails, to fend of the ghosts long enough for them all to make it inside the manor. The ghosts did not follow, so they presumed the building was warded against the spirits by its mysterious owner.
They set out exploring the manor, tripping a few arcane wards along the way but seemingly not attracting the attention of their Vampiric host… They located a laboratory and guest room where some quick thinking by Hadius and a lot of luck on Banks part, got them past a series of strange electroplasmic devices within the lab, and able to pocket some valuable alchemical reagents and a fine vase from the guest room beyond. Continuing their explorations they found their way to the hall where the artifact, a strange series of runic disks, was being kept on a pedestal at the far side of the room. They noticed the shadows within the room behaving strangely, and Ves, with the aid of his spirit mask, was able to see that a seething darkness, some kind of summoned horror, was being kept in the room as some kind of arcane watchdog.
After dealing with the extreme terror the creature provoked, Hadius decided to edge his way around the room to obtain the artifact, the creature seemingly kept bound by some kind of arcane tether. Hadius returned safely, and Banks in an act of pure recklessness, attempted to move along the other wall, in the same way to locate a strange tome toward the other corner of the room. He attempted to use his borrowed electroplasmic lance to ward of the creature, but unfortunately the creature struck, dissolving the vast majority of the lance, and very nearly killing Banks. Rather than risk further injury the group attempted to head back to the entrance hall the way they had come, only to find some arcane construct, in the form of a metallic sphere, floating in the corridor. Hadius attempted to sneak past it, only to set of another alarm, the group then, fearing a confrontation with the vampire, fled out the door.
And with a mass of ghosts in hot pursuit, they fled back to the barrier and through to the other side. Unfortunately, the fog over the city had well and truly lifted and revealed a number of Spirit Wardens waiting for them on the other side of the river. They tried to evade them, but the arcane powers of the Spirit Wardens foiled their attempt, as they demonstrated their, until now, unknown ability to teleport. The Spirit Wardens insisted on confiscating the items they brought into the city from the Lost District, but some fast talking by Hadius, let them keep the alchemicals and the artifact, though they lost the rest of the loot they had brought with them.
The fallout of their mission, was gaining the favor of Lord Scurlock, at the expense of their relationship with the Spirit Wardens and the Silver Nails (who were more than a little pissed that Banks had destroyed their lance). And with all payouts the mission required, they were left with 6 coin as their payment, feeling that it really probably wasn’t worth the effort it took, owing favours to demons they discovered, is a situation they are keen to avoid going forward. (though there were plenty of desperate rolls during the score, so they got some good XP at least! :p)
GM’s Notes – These sessions were the first time I ran a pre-planned score with the crew, and the first time they spent more than 1 session on a score. It was tough, but full of some great roleplaying, some super tense moments and it managed to nudge Hadius and Banks over the limit of their stress for the first time, so the players are now keen to have the chance to play out their new traumas of Paranoid, and Reckless respectively. It’ll probably still be only very occasionally that I run pre-planned scores with them, because the self directed style that Blades normally allows is, I’ve discovered, a lot of fun and gives the players a great deal of agency in how they relate to the setting. Though the fact that they kind of backed themselves into a corner with this one, made sense. I’m still struggling a little bit with Load. In theory it seems like a clever mechanic but my players have never really felt particularly restricted by it – they always seem to have plenty of load to spare during scores, even longer, more elaborate ones like this one.
I’m enjoying Blades so much that in addition to my Scum and Villainy game I’ve also started up a game of Blades in…
I’m enjoying Blades so much that in addition to my Scum and Villainy game I’ve also started up a game of Blades in the Dark!
My players decided to pick the Bravos as their crew and came up with some characters:
Ashen Crow (Leech), the Tycherosi war veteran and field medic.
Herrik Vanir (Slide), also a Tycherosi with a taste for the finer things in life.
Veretta (Whisper), a deposed Skovlander noble trying to leverage her untamed magical power into a better position in life.
Finni Gyles (Cutter), an Akorosian hooligan who has learned the sweet science of punching ghosts.
They based themselves out of a crumbling and abandoned mansion in Six Towers and chose Coalridge as their hunting grounds. Their first mission was a request from the Lost to break up a burgeoning band of Svovlander refugees who have just pulled off a big score of their own. The crew was contacted by the Lost because of reports that a goat-headed and crow-feathered demon was stalking the skovs.
So the crew did a little recon, with Veretta probing the ghost field and finding herself watched and Herrik surveying the situation. Ashen Crow sabotaged the generator, killing the lights and giving the crew +1d to their engagement roll. They still managed to roll a 3, which always leads to fun times. They tried a pincer maneuver, with two coming in from the back door and two coming in from the second floor of this common house.Their plan was to capture the skovs between them, beat them up for their loot and send a message to other prospective gangs.
With that 3 on the engagement roll, as soon as they burst inside the demon appeared, silhouetted by the light from the streetlamps outside. Finni pounced on the skov leader, sending the box with their mysterious loot tumbling through a window into the alley while Veretta unleashed her power at the demon, hitting it with lightning and making it flinch. Herrik tossed a demonbane charm at it, and they quickly realized the demon wasn’t actually a demon. Ashen Crow stepped in then, hitting the creature with a glue grenade and sticking it to the floor while Herrik jumped off the stairs and went for the alleyway to grab the loot. Finni watched the creature pull one leg from its boot and realized that it was actually human… probably. Veretta menaced it with her lightning hook and tried to intimidate it, which caused it to disappear again. Ashen Crow took care of the skovs who hadn’t fled, hitting them with skullfire toxin and causing them to run off into the night.
Outside Herrik found the enemy standing over the box of loot and realized that it was a woman wearing a goat-skull mask and a raven-feathered coat. With some sweet talking and a lot of luck Herrik convinced them to let the crew have the loot on the grounds that it would be amusing to see what happens to them. She then revealed that she was a Dimmer Sister before vanishing. With their mission technically complete and the loot in hand, the crew gets paid by the Lost and went home. There was a lot of debate about who should open the box and finally Finni’s obsession with the weird got the best of him and he did it. Inside was a glass spirit bottle encased in a fine silver shell and stamped with the symbol of Lord Scurlock.
Can’t wait to see where they go from here! I have lots of ideas for things that could happen, and I’m just itching to see what they want to do.
Age of Blood v0.5 / Playtest 1, Session 2: Fuller House
Our characters are:
– Kasseri, the Voice.
– Lord Eddard Baldwin, the Captain.
– Eberhard Monheim, the Cultist.
– John Comber, the Ascendant.
and introducing:
–Sir Rowen, the Slayer.
With the town of Crumble pacified, our crew of adventurers marched home through the night. Our first action was to address the Complication that I rolled off-screen: Band Trouble. One of the blacksmith brothers had a tavern tussle with a fellow who was traveling through town, and the fight spilled out into the cold night and was being played out on the side of the road near what remains of Wygrove’s north gate. The players stumble upon the two in the final awkward moments of their drunken brawl: the sort of sad, slow-motion embrace of two exhausted boxers.
Lord Baldwin separated the two gentlemen to discover that the blacksmith’s adversary was a relatively well-done man wearing a coat with the heraldry of an apocryphal family: House Sanguine. He does not immediately recall any information about them, perhaps they are an obscure Eastern nobility. The fellow, apparently drunk beyond rational comprehension, has a note tucked into his belt. Baldwin takes the note without the man noticing but before they can restrain him further the courier breaks free and stumble-runs off into the night.
The note is sealed with a wax signet stamp but is otherwise utterly unremarkable, and is addressed to someone named “Ciel”. As they return to the fort the players comment OOC upon the ethical ramifications of pilfering the note (Lord Baldwin reveals here an interesting hint of opportunistic amorality), as well as the possibility of a perceived slight that their cohort has inflicted upon House Sanguine. They elect to make a public example of their cohort.
The morning after, as the seasonal laborers and farmers of the town gather to dole out assignments in the town square, Lord Baldwin takes a stage on what was once the town gallows and lectures the people on orderly and civil behavior, a shamed blacksmith at the side. We took this opportunity to introduce our fifth character, Sir Rowen, a former duelist instructor and bodyguard to the crown who was shamed and reassigned to the east. Sir Rowen is looking for an opportunity to pledge his service to a noble who will provide him employment, and moves to speak with the group once Baldwin is finished. He’s hired!
Now onto downtime actions:
Sir Rowentrains and acquires some temporary laborers to begin working at assembling rudimentary town defenses. I rule that this long-term clock, once completed, will result in a fleeting bonus to help against the first attack/raid the town sustains before they crumble uselessly (actual serious fortifications, like a permanent Stockade or the rebuilding of the Fort, are Holdings that must be acquired through the expedition reward structure, and I don’t want to undermine that system).
Eberhard opens the note that was swiped from the courier and discovers that it is an encrypted communication with scrambled letters. He embarks on a long-term clock to translate the letter, interspersed with a strong gather information (Study) roll on House Sanguine’s couriers. I tell the group that the couriers are regional locals who, judging by the somewhat careless way they dress in their House’s liveried coats, appear to be newly pressed into service. The same one is never seen twice, and they uniformly pass through the south-east gate of Wygrove on their way west. They appear somewhat dream-like in their actions, as though short on sleep.
Lord Baldwin clears stress through a Pursue Motivation roll, which we decide is a scene of him praying in the chapel alongside John. He also seeks some healing for the light sensitivity harm he acquired last session.
Kasseri helps decode the letter cipher and leads a short pilgrimage of a few faithful townspeople back to Crumble to throw sacred ash upon the Eternal Flame that they lit, advancing Coroz’s influence clock. She sees a vision in the flames of a Harthkin chieftain assembling warriors in a newly-built longhouse, which both starts AND completes a long-term clock for the party to anticipate the incursion being planned by Edric Stonehand.
John pitches in on the town defense preparations as well as gets some training in the ritual mysteries that Kasseri is employing.
The letter from House Sanguine was fully deciphered through some strong Study rolls, and it’s determined that the coded missive is a list of lost or buried relics of House Sanguine’s past in the region of Vanderia’s capital Trinehold. It looks like the House is attempting to build a historical association of legitimacy in an effort to regain status and peerage in the noble court…
After some gather information, debate, and a little GM nose-leading, our next expedition ended up being a Transport plan where the players move to defend a wagon train of valuable minerals on behalf of the Balfar Mineral Rights Commision, which they want to earn back some favor with. The BMRC employs mercenaries to guard it’s wagon trains but the expense is considerable and their forces are stretched thin, so having assistance would go a long way to quelling their discontent. Sir Rowen realized that he had a contact who could help us here; his rival, Isawa, a “foreign mercenary”. Delighted, I threw that +1 die into the engagement roll (one of my goals with this campaign and the AoB ruleset is to give more incentives for the players to dredge up their playbook contacts, especially Rivals, more often).
The wagon train is predictably attacked by Harthkin raiders led by Jurgen Wolfheart, a vicious jarl seeking to expand his foothold in the region through violence. Horns echo through the foothills as the wagons approach a vulnerable valley river crossing. More on that later though…
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Session Thoughts :
The expedition planning was a speed bump this session, which isn’t immediately concerning (in Blades in the Dark I felt that as GM I was still spoon-feeding score plot hooks for the first several sessions as well, until the momentum of the existing clocks, entanglements, and faction statuses lifted the whole thing off the ground) but it’s worth thinking about filling in my map with a few more close-by plot hooks. I don’t want the area around Wygrove to be too crowded however, there should be a gentle push within the game to get players to want to embark on more ambitious expeditions.
With a fifth player joined I’m officially calling this roll20 campaign at maximum capacity. I’m not sure how this load test will go, and was careful to let the players know that I have no idea, but if this session was any indication it might go much smoother than I had worried. Based on feedback it feels like we successfully hit plenty of interesting scenes without leaving anyone behind, at least this time. It will be interesting to see how different Expeditions look to my previous Blades in the Dark game, which had 3 PCs and was a very personal experience.
The finale of our Orphans campaign – fighting off multiple enemies while undertaking several scores to see the…
The finale of our Orphans campaign – fighting off multiple enemies while undertaking several scores to see the Cult’s god physically manifest inside Doskvol.
Heapings of trauma, devilish quandaries and not an insignificant sprinkling of derring-do!
First session in Taelor Mcclurg’s game is in the books!
First session in Taelor Mcclurg’s game is in the books! We only got as far as creating characters, a crew, and the starting situation but WOW. In this crew of assassins, I have found an unexpected heaven. See for yourself:
Lair: A prop room in the attic of a Vaudevillian opera house.
Story: Somehow, we were all in the room for an opera about a war against ghosts. Likewise, we all ended up at the riotous after party. Somewhere in the midst of the hazy bacchanal, we became so inspired by the opera that we decided to learn to kill ghosts for a living.
Business Model: General-purpose assassins growing into ghost-killing work. We kill ghosts and make ghosts to kill. Sometimes, we bottle the ghosts to torture them later.
Starting Situation: The Path of Echoes wants to weaken the Spirit Wardens by pitting them against the Wraiths. The Path approaches us to make some key murders happen to set this plan in motion.
This was the last session we played of our run of Blades.
This was the last session we played of our run of Blades. It was mostly us figuring out what it meant to rank up in tier. It was hella fun!
Thanks to John Harper , Stras Acimovic , Sean Nittner , and Fred Hicks for writing, developing, and publishing this awesome game!
Originally shared by Colin Matter
Hello! Please join the Wednesday Night Crew for the Eighth Session of Blades in the Dark! Blades in the Dark is a game of daring scoundrels pulling heists and jobs in the haunted streets of Doskvol. Alex (playing Cobra, a Leech), Elspeth (playing…
The crew arrive in the forbidding system of Fitzwilliam’s Ashes, dominated by the glowering black hole known as Night’s Mouth. Over the next few days, they drift into the mid-system, where they enter the orbit of Fitzwilliam II, an orphaned moon that serves as the base of the Apophatic Order, a monkish religion with ties across the cluster. They’re here to get some advice, or at least learn something, about whatever else calls their craft The Ghost home, the things that move objects and steal others while they’re down for the coldsleep.
Fitzwilliam II is a scarred ball of ice-rhimed rock. For a reference point, I showed the players some images of Monument Valley in the winter, except that the stone mesas have been carved into massive, faceless statues. They take their rickety landing craft down into the valley where the Templi Apophanai’s obelisk bulk hunches on the shoulders of more of these status. At the huge, sealed doors (Fitzwilliam II is a few hundred below freezing, and mostly airless), they’re confronted by a lone temple guard, a seeming child piloting a war-shell that appears to be an eight-foot classical statue, similar to the giants that flank the valley. It asks for tribute. Nix hands over an old war medal dug from their pile of old stuff on the craft.
After depressurizing in the stone airlock (Nix takes of his helmet, grateful for the now-manageable cold air that reminds him of his frozen homeworld), they’re lead deep into the Temple along a predetermined route, carefully selected to hide the order’s secrets from prying eyes. A short wait in an side chapel gives Nix time to reflect on the frescoes adorning the walls – turns out (according to a quick fortune roll) that his homeworld was host to a branch of an offshoot of a distant cousin of the Apophatic Order. He knows that they’re sort of like a doomsday cult that got their end-scenario, believe space is one big, complicated afterlife.
The few monks they meet are ritually blinded, and tethered to some unseen core by thick cables that hang from their spines. The archivist (wearing an artificial shell along the lines of a headless, 16-limbed arachnid) informs them that they’ve had dealings with a crew of the Ghost before, that these problems may be caused by colony of simple machine intelligences, interstellar parasites they call “Limpets.”
It’s score time, and as it happens, a test of how scores work when you do them aboard-craft. Turns out, pretty much like any other score! This is a “special mission” type score with a Social plan, intended to negotiate with the Limpets, get them to not bug them any more.
Unfortunately (fortunately?), things get complicated fast.
Roxanne elects to roll the 2d engagement roll and gets a 4. Not bad, but it’s a Risky position starting out. They’re descending into the bowels of the craft, down through crumbling air shafts and dripping, pipe-strangled tunnels. Ghost, the craft AI, is guiding them from a distance, sending them Driveward. Sine they’re not under thrust, they’re in microgravity, mostly crawling hand-over-hand along ladder rungs and down upended corridors.
There’s a clanging in the distance. Sounds of movement.
Entering a large, spherical room that looks like it might once have been a node for Ghost’s AI matrix, criss-crossed by girders and mothballed server racks, they spring an ambush. It’s not the Limpets, though – it’s a gang of pale, shaven-headed panhumans wearing ragged pressure suits, their faces daubed with strange symbols. One of them holds a welding element to Nix’s face, while Bug manages to throw off two easily (a fantastic resistance roll, for which Roxanne rolled the devil’s crit of 666, clearing 1 Damage), before one of them (a scrawny woman) pulls a wide-bore service pistol and aims it at the uplifted hyena’s head. They drift in the microgravity, at an impasse.
The pale gang’s leader, an old man with a thick beard that spills over his pressure suit’s collar, claims that they’re the real crew, that the Ghost AI is a false god. He and the rest speak in an archaic form of spacer cant (I got this across in play by doing my best impressions of the characters in THE WITCH). Apparently they’ve been at war with the Limpets here in these sections for generations. They argue a little, but before the leader can get too riled up, one of his men (a guy with a wrench who’d hung back to keep an eye on the other access tunnels) hisses a warning – the Limpets are coming. To save their skin, Bug quickly tries to make the pale crew see sense – Roxanne only gets a 5 though, for less effect – Bug convinces them that they’re fellow crew, worth helping out, but doesn’t manage to make them realise that Ghost is legit, or that the Limpets are worth talking to.
We end the session as the Limpets close in. Maybe this Social plan ain’t gonna be so friendly after all….
Stray thoughts: I admit, I had some doubts about how craft scores might play out when I first introduced them in the text, but this plays like gangbusters. It’s all about building on what’s set down at craft creation, and really laying on the technological decay imagery. Lots of mutated vermin and venting pipework. I’m definitely cooking up some more commentary for how to come up with aboard-craft factions for the new version based on this, too, though it was actually quite natural how some basic factions emerged from selecting the AI and background back in session #1.
This session also inspired me to add a bit to craft creation concerning getting + or – statuses with factions based on whether they’ve had good or bad relations with the craft before play begins, using the craft’s background as a springboard. It seems neat, but I’ll have to see how it plays out when we do it retroactively next session.
I’m also thinking of changing Damage back to stress, ‘cos I keep slipping and calling it that during the sessions. Thoughts?
Again, though, I can’t stress (heh) how good the core Blades system is at failing gracefully. When in doubt, use the core action mechanic or a fortune roll. I already loved Blades a whole bunch, but making a hack of it just makes me appreciate it even more. This is the good shit.
Next time: We find out what happens to the pale crew and/or Limpets. Whose side are the crew gonna take? Are they going to take a side? Will they hire a contingent of the pale crew as an unstable cohort at some point? Is Ghost hiding some things about its past? I may be biased, but I’m liking this game a lot, y’all.
