Category: Blades in the Dark: Discussion

How do lightning barriers work in your Duskwall? As I reckon it you’ve got three basic options

1. A literal wall of crackling lightning energy. Spirits can’t pass through because of their electroplasmic nature, people can’t pass through for the same reason you don’t golf in a thunderstorm. It’s simple and straightforward but creates other implications, like how it automatically builds an additional control on the living people of Duskwall if access to the city is restricted to safe “gates”. From the discussion I’ve seen this is the version most people go with (and maybe even an example in the book), with scenes of rogues setting up contraptions to create their own temporary gates in the barrier. I think a greater complication in this model is what it means for the harbour. Especially for the gargantuan Leviathan-hunter ships, you’d need truly massive gates at the mouth of the harbour, or shutting off the barrier across that section entirely when ships come or go. What other solutions have people come up with?

2. It only affects spirits, which keeps ghosts out but allows living people to come and go with perhaps only a mild tingling sensation. This gets rid of most of the logistical problems (unless the thing you’re trying to take into the city is a spirit) but makes Duskwall a place you can leave (relatively) freely. Whether Vampires or Hulls are still restricted is a more finely detailed question. Are they anchored to their body enough to pass through safely, or will they get ganked out when they hit the barrier?

3. It literally affects only spirits, and ALL spirits. As in anything with a spirit, living or dead. For the most part this is functionally identical to the first option. Living people can’t pass through because the barrier hits their spirit. The fun twist that makes this one different, however, is that Hollows are described as “a living body without a spirit”.