Category: Blades in the Dark: Art

I’m stoked that we’re almost to the final book, and it seems to be catching. Looks like we may be returning to Doskvol to play a short series of vignettes about those Rail Jacks. Players want it to be a bit more “True Tales of the Line Bulls” sort of thing, and who am I to deny them?

Nobody, that’s who.

Here’s a little title card for the kickoff called “downtime.”

Props!

Not my favorite, but you go on the Heist with the art you have, not the art you wished for. With the ghosts in Blades being made of electroplasm, I thought it might be fun to have the Spiritbane Charm be a grounding wire, no spirit would enjoy having its essence drained away into the earth through some Cutter’s hobnails.

Credit where due, I got the idea from Tim Powers’ “Anubis Gates.”

Ghosts. Ghosts are hard in this universe. If I were directing “Blades” as a TV series, I’d try to keep ghosts off camera as often as possible to build up the mood.

Once you see a clearly unreal blob of electroplasm flying around, it might not produce the desired sense of horror.

I’ve been trying a bit of watercolor work to get my take on ghosts mishappen enough, what do you all think? Is this the right track?

Should ghosts just stay in your imagination where they’ve room to be whatever you fear?

Continuing on with the props series, largely for my own amusement. I’ve been sketching out a Rail Jacks and politics campaign of sorts, but it’ll be awhile before we tackle it.

More to the point, here’s my take on the lightning hook, on a re-reading of the QS document there was a description of the damned thing right there in the Whisper section. I made mine a bit more mancatcher and a bit less zookeeper’s loop.

It got me thinking on the nature of ghosts in Duskvol though. May have to do a Tobin’s spirit guide sort of thing next, if the muse still demands.

Lastly, John Harper, I’ve been back in other games lately, and I’ve got to say, It’s consistently and comparatively impressive at how well you condense down what’s needed in a game into so few pages. You’re the anti-Dickens of rpgs, and I thank you for it.