Blades in the Dark G+ Archives

Another one down! This one is super short, only 13 songs. I mostly created this one to use the Monastery tracks from Clive Barker’s Undying because they’re fantastic, and they didn’t fit in the other playlists. Also, this starts out innocent and ends up…somewhere else. Forgotten Gods, if you will. 😉

http://8tracks.com/shadowfell/sacred-inspired-by-blades-in-the-dark

Blades in the Darth.

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/darth-vader-re-design

PDF: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/gu6r2dcafjtbxsq/AAC-5Puo77pgiOSayAmKmrNMa?dl=0

PDF: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/gu6r2dcafjtbxsq/AAC-5Puo77pgiOSayAmKmrNMa?dl=0

The Seventh Moon Character-Sheet updated on V.0.32 with input included by Andrew Shields and Adam Minnie

I have included some minor hacks, like deamonic corruption which also will lead into trauma as well as skipping notes area for a register of contacts and favors connected to the character.

The Seventh Moon Character-Sheet updated on V.0.3 of the publicly available material.

The Seventh Moon Character-Sheet updated on V.0.3 of the publicly available material. I am waiting for the definite version of 0.3 before I tinker on the others sheets. I personally prefer pure b/w sheets and a reading direction left to right, top to bottum. Yes I know, a bit conservativ, but still easier for me to read.

Please send feedback if there is somethink you dislike or think is a bad design choice, so I can improve. (The large space below the abilities remain there for the case I want to hack in more abilities)

I’ve updated the listing of enterprises in the neighborhood.

I’ve updated the listing of enterprises in the neighborhood. Aldo and Wolfram torched a 2 point enterprise for the Red Sashes, and that was just enough to knock them from Tier 2 down to Tier 1, so if they don’t immediately annex another enterprise they’ll lose points from their remaining enterprises. At tier 2 they can have a maximum of 10 in an enterprise, but at tier 1, it is a maximum of 5. So they are in a “make or break” situation.

The Lampblacks and Crows are likely to make a move to assure the weakened Red Sashes stay weak. We’ll see what the characters do. Maybe they can negotiate to help out in exchange for control of a small enterprise, if the big dogs snap up the bigger ones.

I also updated the document to include the PC crew.

https://fictivefantasies.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/enterprises-6-9-15.pdf

I realy like how the new attribute skill mixture totally changes the character balances.

I realy like how the new attribute skill mixture totally changes the character balances. The expert training facilities now also support very different developements of the characters action skills. Combined with the very changed Abilities, the Playsets seem to play out a lot diverse than before.

Any thoughts on this?

Nathan Roberts Andrew Shields

Last night in Duskwall there was a “Homing Snow.” That’s where there’s at least a couple feet of snow in Duskwall.

Last night in Duskwall there was a “Homing Snow.” That’s where there’s at least a couple feet of snow in Duskwall. The homeless use it to build shelters like igloos (“homes”), blocking off whole alleyways, gaining confidence from their warmth and safety.

It is a dangerous time to go off the main roads. Many who do are not found until the snow melts. And no one wants to talk about how the homeless find enough food to make it through the coldest months.

Some entertaining world building from last night–they left Duskwall.

https://fictivefantasies.wordpress.com/2015/06/08/blades-in-the-dark-aldo-and-wolfram-session-3-blood/

Following a tunnel from a crypt under a pagan statue to the God of Sacred Dreaming, they emerged two and a half miles later in the small fishing village of Carrow. In the shadow of Innocence Point, where a lighthouse has a very slowly rotating beam that seems to bother the spirits that swirl around out there.

They took their adept gang, which was a bit unsettling for them as they got more information about what they were seeing than they would have otherwise. One adept had a crystal to detect the presence of spirits; it heated up so much she threw it in the snow, where it melted a hole.

Standing stones fifty feet apart and fifteen feet high were etched, and inlaid with plasm (that glows blue in the presence of life.) The stones glowed blue as the crew approached them, but were occasionally washed in green, as they repelled spirits.

An adept studied the stone over, and in hushed tones reported that the stone had topographical carvings that revealed the substrata beneath the ground. The stone channeled the “strength of the earth to repel the dead of the air.” The stones also had evidence of blood, both leviathan blood and another more mammalian type. It is possible the enchanted stones refined life force down to plasm as part of their enchantment.

The lintel over the door was a leviathan knuckle bone worth 2-3 coin, black and harder than steel, etched with some arcane process. They went into the public house and saw several whispers among the inbred and mutated pale folk, who spoke with a slow and accentless deliberation that was somehow no less chilling. The barkeep himself had skin grown over where the right eye should be, there was no bone socket. Plenty of albinos and cleft palates.

One of the members of their adept gang only talks when she is involved in a ritual, otherwise she is silent. She spoke as soon as they entered the sphere of influence of Carrow, saying she could only speak in the presence of the cosmic. She felt divine influence as she had only once before, when her gift as a sensitive descended upon her (an event she did not talk further about.) But she said that they entered the dream of a god, walking into this place; any ghosts strong enough to enter past the wards would also enter the dream of the god, and this god was hungry. Then she started bleeding from the eyes, and said no more.

The village head man, wearing a bear-skin cloak and antler helmet, and carrying an antler staff, identified her as weak. It does raise the question of what he knows that the crew doesn’t.

I also like that the 2.5 mile tunnel was glazed, like clay fired in a kiln. Along its length were carved prayers in ancient Iruvian (something apparently most of the dwellers of Carrow speak at some level of proficiency.) The adepts told them not to read the prayers aloud, for they promise body and soul and more to the dark god of dreaming. The prayers were designed to be read as you walked, turning the journey into a pilgrimage of sorts.

Now Wolfram and Aldo are working with the limmers of Carrow, bringing in some leviathan blood in exchange for the basics that Carrow needs from the city. They have this relationship with an ancient and haunted people who have lived outside the city for centuries. I am going to have a lot of fun with this.

Anyway, that’s some more world-building that I didn’t want to lose, but it didn’t fit in the succinct flow of the adventure report.

https://fictivefantasies.wordpress.com/2015/06/08/blades-in-the-dark-aldo-and-wolfram-session-3-blood

Our first session (using QS v2; where is v3?

Our first session (using QS v2; where is v3? I’m seeing mention of v3 here, but not on the Kickstarter updates) was tonight. A Lurk, a Hound, and a Whisper. I think the most difficult aspect of our game was finding a way into the narrative. In part because we were parsing and struggling with the mechanics, but also because they chose the Deception Plan for Bazso’s job.

Detail the method of deception: they determined that they were going to frame the Lampblack ally The Fog Hounds with the Red Sash heist, and arrange for the Red Sash ally the Inspectors to catch those clues and make the frame stick. I determined that because they chose the Deception Plan, we weren’t dealing with the Infiltration or the making off with the loot, just the framing. The resulting experience was that we really struggled with the creation of Scene. (An Infiltration Scene seems well known, as does an Assault Scene. But Deception, Occult, and Social scenes seemed more tricky to envision for us.)

I set up three Clocks: Successful Disguise (4-segments), setting up the Witnesses (8-segments), and securing the Loot (6-segments).

The Hound took point on Disguise, saying they were going to Murder some Fog Hounds and take their clothes and gear. The Danger for the Risky move was that they’d be seen and tracked. The effect roll beat the Disguise Clock and the player took 4 Stress to avoid the danger.

The Whisper monitored the comings and goings outside of the place where the Red Sash treasury was stashed, studying the traffic/activity of the Fog Hounds and Inspectors in the area, setting up the Lurk. It was a Controlled action.

The Lurk decided to case/structure a route that would capitalize on the Whispers’s observation. I made it a Desperate move, b/c of the Red Sash defenses. Things went badly, and the Lurk took stress to avoid being captured by the Red Sashes, ducking into a vent in the building. Instead of abandoning the approach, he continued. He managed to case/structure a route, but had to avoid getting captured again. The Whisper intervened, taking two Stress for the Lurk, getting pummeled for bumbling in the way and interfering with their capture of the Lurk, who got away.

The Whisper then did a Flashback to when he forged a note detailing a plan to lift the treasury. A Controlled move, he succeeded without danger or obstacle.

The Hound then did a flashback of planting the note with the plan on an Inspector by slipping it into the Inspector’s pocket while he frequented a favorite brothel.It had a small Effect.

Finally, the Lurk did a Risky move to Deceive a Fog Hound into being in the wrong place at the wrong time, running the danger of tipping the Fog Hounds off that something was up. He overreached and critted on the Effect roll, overcoming the Witnesses Clock. By this point, lots of Stress has been distributed, as they had all worked to avoid consequences.

We have a bunch of mechanics questions (the main one of which I’ve since found — ‘how do you conduct Leading a Group Action when the people in the squad lack any pips in the relevant Action?’). But the main issue was that the entire sequence was talked through without any sense of place, other people, or objects. It was almost entirely a mechanical endeavor, though we embellished a bit on how specifically the Actions, Effects, and Resistances took place. We just never had a good picture of the descriptive elements, even as we built out the larger relationships.

Does marrying a descriptive narrative to the mechanics get easier over repeated play sessions?