Category: Blades in the Dark: Actual Play Reports

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.