Category: Blades in the Dark: Discussion

Last night I was up to run the Unrecommendables, and I had Aldo stuck Behind the Mirror (lost in the Ghost Field.) This is a great opportunity to do something big and spooky, so I didn’t want to have an anticlimax of “You drop out in an alley and throw up. Find your way home.” What could I do that was really cool? I was drawing a blank.

So, I turned to my heist deck. 

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For people, I drew two. Pebbler, the earth demon, spy and information broker. Also Saithernon, exotic fence, with a turban and a pet python. For a treasure, I drew the Sonurian Ghost Key.

For obstacles, I drew bleeding thorns (they make you bleed even if they don’t scratch you) and fungus that drizzles hallucinating spores, and a “cold room” full of ghosts that descend on the heat of life and drain it off.

I mixed all that together with my existing situation, and it really informed what I would do. I made Saithernon a cultist who worshiped the Outsider (not a stretch) and figured he was offering sacrifices and debased horrible rituals to get the Outsider’s guidance to find the Sonurian Ghost Key.

So, the Outsider’s inscrutable methods stashed Aldo where the Key was, in this vault, which was protected by Pebbler. Aldo could describe what it looked like from the Back of the Mirror, and Saithernon could identify what weird occult site that was in the real world. I can then tie Aldo’s rescue in with an obligation to throw a heist, which steals something that provokes another heist, and also fulfills a favor to Saithernon, who is now part of the crew’s experience.

From there it was a matter of tossing in colorful details. Like, when Saithernon first contacted Aldo, Saithernon’s python was biting its own tail, and had glyphs painted on it, so it was a living summoning circle. Or, having a pool of blood from Second Death hogs (drive spirits into hogs and kill the hog, destroying the spirit) for Aldo to rise from. Having Pebbles create a preserve of starving ghosts to defend a treasure. Putting a catacomb on a canal for fun.

And, to make my bigger plot move, it turns out what’s in the Sonuria family vault includes piles of primary source research on the Outsider, something people would kill for–and something that Aldo has been looking for. In the vault where the Key was held, the central statue he was locked in looked like his mate, a woman named Child who carries his baby–but it is a likeness of a woman who was Chosen by the outsider centuries ago. (Time travel fun and life force echoing across centuries has been a delightful theme of the game to date.)

So yeah, I had some fun with weaving what’s going on now, what happened in the past, and where we might go based on the characters’ goals all into one piece. The cards helped me kick it loose, but looking back over it, the story looks like it is what I planned all along. =)

If things slow down, I can always have Pebbles figure out who robbed him. That’s a powerful enemy that could drive a whole arc, right there. So, no danger of running out of things to do yet…

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