Tag: John Marron

After a long hiatus (due to vacations and Gencon), our Age of Blades campaign resumed last night.

When we last left our daring band of Shadows, they had just kicked in the door to a basement room below the Red Sashes’ Fencing School headquarters, in which their kidnapped Slide Saiya was being interrogated.

We opened with the combat. Jailya, the group’s only real fighter, rushed into the room and over to Saiya’s side, much to the confusion of Mylera Klevan and the four Red Sash sword students standing guard. Noggs Keel, the group’s Lurk, did the same, and the group of six Lampblack Bully Boys that Hishan had talked Bazso Baz into loaning them then burst into the room, fanning out to engage two of the Red Sashes and Mylera. Mylera jumped back out of her chair with surprising speed (despite looking very pale and ill –the ongoing effects of the curse tablet that the crew had placed under her bed during their first score), and drew her ornate dueling sabre, taking up a defensive stance.

Hishan, less shocked since he knew of the plan to infiltrate the building by way of the underground canal, pulled out a pistol and threatened the two other Red Sashes, causing them to hesitate in drawing their own sabres (very good Intimidation roll with stunt points that let him target more than one person).

Moon Eye, having drained most of his occult power getting them into the HQ, brought his carbine up and covered the only other exit to the room, to ensure that no one escaped to raise the alarm and rouse the rest of the Sashes.

One of the Lampblacks lunged at a Red Sash and wrestled him to the ground, while his companion gleefully whacked the swordsman on the head with a club.

Another two Lampblacks circled their opponent, trying to get past his guard, but to no avail.

Mylera’s quick response caused the two lampblacks facing her to re-think their commitment to the cause, and while they internally debated whether it was worth attacking the renowned swordswoman, Jailya jumped up onto a table and leapt right in front of Mylera. With a deft swing of her own finely balanced mace, she smacked Mylera’s wrist, sending her sword flying across the room, and forcing her to reel back in surprise and shock. Hishan leveled his pistol at the Red Sash leader and called out in Iruvian, “Have your people stand down and no one has to get hurt!”. Taking in the situation with a quick scan of the room, Mylera gave the Iruvian ex-noble a hard look, then barked out a command to her own people (also in Iruvian) to back off.

The lampblacks continued to scuffle for a moment before realizing that the fight was already over, but soon all was relatively quiet in the room. Noggs’ voice betrayed a little tension as she said “Time to go.” Saiya picked up the small brass coffee cup she had been drinking out of, drained the last of the strong brew, set the cup down, and calmly walked over to pick up Mylera’s fine dueling sabre from where it had landed. “Thanks for your hospitality” she said to the red Sash leader with a smirk, “This will be a nice souvenir of my time here”, and the crew withdrew, keeping weapons leveled at the fuming Red Sashes. The Lampblacks, coming down from the adrenaline rush of the fight, left with jeers and some rude gestures, slapping each other on the back over their easy victory, as the whole group made their way back to the Silk Hats’ boat, and home.

(Everyone, including me, was expecting the fight to go a lot longer, and be a lot more dangerous for the crew, but a really good attack roll, excellent use of stunt points, and a lucky disarm roll on the part of Jailya ended things quickly, and very much in the crew’s favor.)

Settling back in at their hidden lair beneath the Black Raven, and marveling at their good fortune, the crew began to discuss their situation. Hishan reeled off the ever growing list of their enemies, and the much smaller list of their allies, and they all agreed it was time to even up those two lists. They decided that after what they had done to the Fog Hounds (stole a lot of valuable spirit essence and blew up the engine room of their steam boat), the Hounds would never leave them alone, and the only solution was to destroy the rival gang completely. Not being very combat focused themselves, they considered asking Bazso Baz and the Lampblacks for help, but Hishan reminded them that the Lampblacks were on decent terms with the Fog Hounds, and probably wouldn’t want to risk their guys in any case while they were actively engaged in a war with the Red Sashes.

Hishan asked Jailya if they could approach the Grinders, who she had convinced to go along on their last raid against the Hounds, but Jailya reminded everyone that the valuable loot that they had promised that the Grinders would find in the Hounds’ warehouse was fictional, and that they were probably a little unhappy with the crew at the moment. Hishan pondered for a moment, then came up with a plan. They would approach the Grinders, and explain that it had taken them a little while to fence the loot, but that they were there to hand over the Grinders’ cut of the haul, and ask for their help in wiping out the Fog Hounds once and for all.

While they made preparations, Moon Eye spent his time telling the prostitutes at the Raven the story of how the Silk Hats had embarrassed the Red Sashes, and suggested that they share the tale with their clients. He also spent time researching the other occult objects he had stolen from Lord Penderyn’s collection during the necklace heist, a clay tablet covered in spidery runes, and a set of alabaster jars with lids in the shape of animal heads. The jars turned out to be an ancient form of Spirit Bottle, designed for use in a ritual in which a powerful sorcerer would split his soul into four parts and store them in the jars, making him unkillable while the jars were safe. The tablet turned out to be a summoning ritual to call a powerful demon.

Hishan was prepared to spend 2/3 of the crew’s accumulated wealth to appease the Grinders, but Moon Eye suggested offering them half cash and the summoning tablet for the rest. Saiya quickly agreed that spending less of their stash was a good idea.

Hishan, Moon Eye, and Saiya accompanied Jailya back to the working class Skov bar that the Grinders hang out in. The place went deathly silent, and all eyes turned toward them as they entered, but thankfully Cercy, the crippled Grinder lieutenant that Jailiya had dealt with before, was on hand, and called them over to a table in the back. As the low conversations resumed in the bar, Cercy ordered tankards of the dark, oily, vaguely fishy tasting strong Skovland ale for all of them, and, speaking in Sovlander to Jailya, said “There wasn’t anything in that warehouse worth our time. You lied”. Jailiya, switching to Akorosi so her crew members could follow, said “We’re here to make that right.” Hishan quickly jumped into the conversation and said “There was some miscommunication! The loot was on the boat, but it’s taken a few days to sell it off. We’re here to give you your cut.”, dropping the sack of 500 silver coins onto the table. Moon Eye, leaning in conspiratorially and giving Cercy a crazed look, unwrapped the summoning tablet and explained what it was. Cercy visibly pulled back, thought about it for a moment, and said “Wait here.”

He hobbled over to the bar, spoke briefly with a huge young man who nodded and left the bar. Cercy came back to the table and kept up the small talk, asking how they liked the ale. Moon Eye, unable to hide his grimace, stared him in the face, choked down a second mug and said, “Its good”.

A few minutes later, a 40’s ish man dressed in docker work overalls and with an intelligent look in his eye came in and introduced himself as Hutton. He listened to their explanation about the loot, and agreed to accept the offerings and let bygones be bygones. Hishan spoke up, and explained that this was a prime opportunity to for the two gangs to join up again and wipe out the Fog Hounds for good, while they were still reeling from the last raid. Hutton thought the suggestion over, and liked the idea in principle. He demanded that if the Grinders helped the Silk Hats out, that his crew would get both of the Hounds boats, to which Hishan readily agreed (the crew did not know that the Grinders long term, but ultimately probably futile, goals were to accumulate a war chest, steal a warship, and either take revenge on the Imperials or liberate their home of Lockport, so the cash payment and chance to get more watercraft strongly appealed to Hutton).

Everyone agreed to a time for the attack, shook on the deal, and the Silk Hats went back to their lair to plan the details.

That’s where we left off, so we’ll launch into the attack next time. The crew is hoping to gain another ally in the Grinders, and wipe out an enemy with the Fog Hounds. We’ll see how that plays out…

Another week, another session of Age of Blades 🙂

This week, the Silk Hats were recovering from their successful, but damaging, mission to plant an explosive artifact given them by The Dimmer Sisters onboard the Fog Hounds’ steamship. We treated the raid as a Plot Action (in the Fantasy Age organizational rules) against the Fog Hounds, and the roll was not only successful (doing some damage to the Fog Hounds’ stability, basically their organizational “hit points”) but also generated stunt points, which they chose to use to gain a +2 vs. the Hounds in their next organizational roll.

Goldie, the Hounds’ navigator who escaped the boat recognized Hishan and Jailiya, so there is no doubt who hit them, and the Fog Hounds and Silk Hats are now officially at war. The crew gained a point of reputation (their first), but no Heat, since the underworld is aware of their actions, but not the authorities.

While Saiya and Moon Eye set about finding a buyer for the bottles of spirit essence they stole from the Hounds, Noggs pushed her luck at the Silver Stag and lost a chunk of her accumulated wealth (failed her Willpower roll to avoid overindulging in her vice, but recovered her Scoundrel’s Luck point anyway).

Saiya negotiated a sweet deal to sell the spirit essence to a shady representative of the Path of Echoes (spirit cult) as a bargaining ploy, but when Moon Eye and Jailiya approached the Dimmer Sisters to see what they would offer, the Sisters (through Roslyn, their servant) offered friendship and a future favor (but less cash). Despite knowing it would piss off Saiya (she’s all about the cash), they agreed, feeling that good relations with the creepy but powerful Sisters was worth some lost income. The crew now have a +1 relationship with the Dimmer Sisters, and can call in a valuable occult favor.

Multiple times, crew members felt that they were being followed while moving around town, but were never able to determine who was doing the watching.

Saiya, to relieve her stress over the lost money making opportunity, went to the Red Lantern to smoke some opium. She smoked too much (another failed Willpower roll to resist overindulging in her vice), and ended up comatose. She had (wisely) taken Jailiya along with her as a bodyguard since they knew someone was following them, but as Jailiya was dragging her almost unconscious form up onto the deck of the Red Lantern (the opium den is on a boat docked in Silkshore), they came face to face with two turban wearing Red Sashes who told Jailiya she could leave, but they were taking Saiya (Mylera Klev had recognized Saiya from Lord Penderyn’s party where they stole the necklace, and knew she was an associate of Hishan’s, so she wanted to question her).

Jailiya gently set Saiya down on the deck and pulled out her mace, ready to take on the two skilled opponents before she would let them take her friend. Unfortunately, despite Jailiya’s skills, the two sword students proved too much for her, driving her back to the boat’s railing with vicious slashes of their curved swords, and finally striking her down.

The Red Lantern attendants nursed Jailiya back to consciousness (they don’t like customers dying on their boat – too much involvement from the Spirit Wardens), and she made her way back to the Black Raven, the Silk Hats’ lair.

After a quick conference in which everyone agreed they had to go after Saiya immediately, Moon Eye used some of his Blood magic to track Saiya’s location (he had early on taken blood samples from all of the crew members for just such an eventuality), and determined that the Red Sashes had taken Saiya back to their headquarters.

Hishan went to the Lampblacks, and told Baszo Baz what had happened. He suggested that helping rescue Saiya might go a long way to improving his romantic chances with the attractive Slide, so Baszo agreed to send 6 of his guys with the crew for the rescue mission.

Saiya woke up tied to a chair in a windowless room in the Red Sashes’ basement. Mylera questioned her, but she held her own, and convinced the Red Sashes’ leader that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar, so she was untied and they had a more civilized conversation over strong Iruvian coffee, although four Red Sash sword students still stood ready nearby.

Moon Eye, Jailiya, and Noggs, along with the Lampblacks, took their boat and approached the undergound canal that runs below the Red Sashes’ school. Noggs made quick work of the intricate lock on the metal grating that blocked the canal (really good roll), and the group approached the landing and made their way up into the basement of the Sword School without further obstacle.

Meanwhile, Hishan, in his alter ego as Lord Rusten (the same fake identity he had used as a distraction when the crew stole the Red Sashes war chest, and again at Lord Penderyn’s party), approached the main gate and demanded to see Mylera. Hishan was shown in to the room where Saiya and Mylera were talking, and joined the conversation.

Right about this time, the rest of the crew, guided by Moon Eye’s Blood magic tracking, found their way to the same part of the basement, and Noggs silently approached and cracked the door to see Saiya and Hishan surrounded by Red sashes and conversing with the somewhat ill looking Mylera (she is suffering from the effects of the curse tablet that Moon Eye placed under her bed at Baszo’s request during their first score).

After a hushed confab, the crew decided speed was of the essence and opted to kick in the door and grab their mates, while hopefully capturing Mylera Klev as a bargaining chip.

And that’s where we ran out of time, so we’ve left the crew on that cliffhanger and will start with the combat next week.

Had another session of my “Age of Blades” game last night. I’m still happy with the AGE system, but, as others have commented on, the exploration and roleplaying stunts are pretty weak. Given that the stunt system is this game’s “killer app”, it needs some work. I haven’t had a chance to really dig into the new Modern AGE yet, but I think it has some more focused stunts for non-combat/magic stuff.

The crew finally settled on a name for themselves, so future posts will chronicle the exploits of the Silk Hats. They also leveled up to level 2, and picked up some stat bonuses, new focuses, and new Talent levels, but no new Health as I’m using a grittier variant of the rules. Last session, they had made a very good “growth roll” for the crew, and got stunt points that allowed them to go from Tier 0 to Tier 1.

In our last game, the Dimmer Sisters (weird, occult recluses) had called in a favor from the crew’s Whisper, Moon Eye, and asked them to plant a (fairly obviously) explosive artifact on board one of the Fog Hound’s boats. This was fine with the Silk Hats, since they were on the verge of war with the Fog Hounds anyway due to past run-ins, but this score was to prove a lot more challenging than their previous jobs. Also, Saiya’s (the crew’s Slide) player couldn’t make it, so she missed the score.

The crew sent Jailiya, their Skovlander Cutter, to a bar where the Grinders (a vicious gang of Skovlander refugees) were rumored to hang out to set up a diversion. Despite her almost total lack of social skills, she managed to convince the Grinders that she wanted revenge on the Fog Hounds, and was willing to give the Grinders intel on a valuable shipment going through the Hounds’ warehouse the next night. The Silk Hats wanted the Grinders to raid the warehouse as a diversion to draw the Fog Hounds off the boat so they could get in and plant the bomb. They had also cased the Hounds’ warehouse themselves earlier, and saw crates of something valuable being loaded on the boat, so they wanted to steal those while planting the bomb.

As usual, Hishan, the Hats’ Spider, was on lookout duty, and Moon Eye and Noggs Keel, the crew’s Lurk, approached the Fog Hound’s steamboat from the water side in a dinghy under cover of magical shadows. Eventually, the Grinders’ raid started, but it was going too well (and too quietly) to be a good diversion, so Jailiya, who had been watching the warehouse, fired off a pistol, which got the Hounds on the boat’s attention.

Goldie, the Hounds’ navigator, sent half his men off to the warehouse to investigate, and Noggs and Moon Eye clambered aboard. They quickly made their way into the cargo hold, but didn’t find the crates they were seeking. Coming back up on deck, a Fog Hound sailor spotted them, and they let loose with spell and crossbow, but didn’t manage to kill him before he raised the alarm.

A fairly tense cat and mouse chase began on the ship (BTW – the soundtrack to Usual Suspects was playing in the background, so I was totally envisioning the action on the ship from that movie as we played), as Moon Eye and Noggs searched for hidden compartments while the ship’s crew searched for them. Cornered in a small cabin, the infiltrators were forced to start a gunfight with their pursuers, and Moon Eye blew the head off one of the Hounds with his carbine (a roll with lots of stunt points). The other Hound got away, so the entire boat’s crew was on high alert at this point.

While Moon Eye and Noggs kept frantically searching for the crates, Hishan and Jailiya, not seeing any Hounds on deck, came aboard and climbed up to the bridge where they burst in on Goldie before he could pull a weapon. They marched him down to the cargo hold, planning to force him to reveal where the smuggled cargo was, but were surprised by one of the Fog Hounds who winged Hishan with his pistol before viciously double slashing Jailiya with a nasty fighting knife. Jailiya is a serious bad ass, though, and crushed the Hounds’ skull with one blow of her mace (another good roll, with 6! stunt points). During the scuffle, Goldie jumped overboard, and took off down the docks.

Meanwhile, below decks, Moon Eye figured out how to open the hidden door to the Hounds’ smuggling compartment, and he and Noggs, not the strongest pair, lugged the two crates of potentially magical loot (Moon Eye had attuned to the ghost echo and noticed a faint glow about them) up on deck. The Hats were reunited on deck, and loaded the crates onto their dinghy. It looked like they crew would get away, beaten up, but alive, when Hishan asked Moon Eye how planting the bomb (the actual main mission) had gone…

While the others piled into the small boat, Moon Eye rushed back down to the engine room, cracked the thin clay tablet covered in snakelike runes that Rosslyn, the Dimmer Sister’s maid had given him, tossed the fragments into the room, and scrambled back up on deck just in time to have two Fog Hounds shoot at him, and miss. Diving into the boat, the crew escaped under cover of more magical darkness. A moment later, a muffled “whoomp!!!!” sounded from the boat, and they saw flames showing through portholes.

We ended there, with the crew battered but alive, and sitting on two crates containing 12 bottles of refined spirit essence.

Next time we’ll make the roll to see how the raid impacted the Hounds (I’m treating the PC scores as “plot actions” on the crew level, using the organization rules from the FAGE companion book.

We had our third session of my Age of Blades game (campaign set in the Blades in the Dark setting but using a tweaked, “classless” version of Fantasy AGE as the system) last night, and it went really well.

The PCs are a crew of Shadows (thieves) with something of a weird bent. So far, they’ve stolen the Red Sash’s war chest for the Lampblacks, becoming somewhat embroiled in the escalating gang war between the two groups, and stolen an ancient Iruvian necklace in a daring heist during a society party at eccentric nobleman and amateur archaeologist Cecil Penderyn’s townhouse at the behest of their patroness, bohemian black sheep noblewoman Adelaide Phroiag.

Last night’s session was all “downtime”, with PCs following up leads and indulging in vices (I introduced a mechanic where characters have one “scoundrel’s luck” point that they can use for a re-roll among other things, and which they get back only by indulging in their vices and risking over-doing it).

Moon-Eye, their whisper (spooky/magicky guy), went off to be possessed by his ghost associate, while the rest of the crew went to watch Jailya, their Skov bruiser, get beaten to a pulp in a dockside fighting pit (Jailya’s player failed her Willpower roll to not overindulge, and just kept fighting until she was knocked out).

Baszo Baz, leader of the Lampblacks, approached the crew’s Slide Saiya (an old flame of his) and negotiated letting a couple of his wounded foot soldiers recuperate in Saiya’s inn/brothel, which is the group’s lair.

Hishan, their Spider, put some pressure on his contact at the Blue Coats archives, and got copy of the investigation report/notes about the necklace heist, and found that an anonymous tipster had alerted Inspector Kristov Mariden that the crew might have been involved.

The Dimmer Sisters sent a ghostly summons to Moon-Eye and called in a favor, asking the group to get a weird artifact (a thin clay tablet covered in serpentine runes) on board one of their rivals, the Fog Hounds’, boats, break it, and flee (quickly…) They cased the Fog Hounds and made a plan, and we’ll launch into the score next session.

I had been worried that I didn’t have enough material prepped for the session, but there was some great characterization and interaction with NPC’s/factions. I think folks are settling into their characters, and the setting is feeling more “organic” and real (despite the players making regular jokes about the demon-based economy of Duskwall…).

I’m using the organization rules from the FAGE Companion to handle the crew level game. The raid on the Red Sash’s HQ was a plot action (doing very minimal damage to the Sashes due to the difference in tier), and they rolled a great success with stunt points on their first Growth roll, moving up from Tier 0 to tier 1. They are getting something of a rep, and flexing their criminal “muscles”.

All in all, I’m really happy with the campaign so far, and happy with the decision to use FAGE which I chose for its simplicty, even though one of my more casual players is still having a hard time grasping the system…

Ok – I’m going to go ahead and share my actual play reports from my “Age of Blades” game, for those who may be interested. These are written for folks who are not super familiar with the Blades setting, so there will be some extraneous explanations for folks here.

So, as heretical as it may seem to some of you, I started my game using the setting from Blades in the Dark, with the rules from Fantasy Age for the system last night. I opted for this combo for two reasons. First, I could never get my head around the actual BitD system, despite playing a lot of PbtA games. It seems weirdly abstract in strange places to me. Second, half my group are fairly casual gamers who never completely grok the systems we play, so I wanted something super easy and straight forward, but with enough widgets/special abilities on the character side to keep them happy. I wrote up a simple classless version of FAGE that incorporated some elements of Blades, which so far has worked out pretty well.

I’m using the starting situation from the Blades book. The main gang that controls the district they operate in (The Crows) is in chaos due to a power struggle, and two smaller gangs (The Lampblacks and the Red Sashes) have started an open war. The PCs got hired by one of the smaller gangs (The Lampblacks) to break into the headquarters of the other one and steal their war chest. As a side job, the gang boss hired the whisper (weird, magicky character) to hide a creepy, evil ancient artifact in the enemy gang leader’s room. They were very suspicious of the artifact and spent a good amount of time trying to research it. The Whisper went to the Dimmer Sisters for advice, so now he owes them a favor.

One player is playing a Spider, the leader of the PC gang, and he wanted to double cross the gang that hired them (Lampblacks) and reveal the plot to the enemy gang (Red Sashes – who are of the same ethnic group that he is), but was overruled. It was also complicated because the leader of the Lampblacks is obsessed with one of the PCs and she has spurned him for a while, but she used that fact to manipulate him into upping their payment.

They cased the red Sashes headquarters, and the Spider went inside with an excuse to scope it out, so they determined where the most likely place the war chest would be (in the leader’s bedroom). My wife is playing the Lurk, their second story burglar, so she and the Whisper climbed up into the bedroom while the Slide (the “face” of the group) kept watch, and the Spider prepared to make a diversion if needed. The Whisper hid the artifact under the Red Sash leader’s bed, while the Lurk tried to remove a painting to get at the safe behind it, setting off a poison gas trap. They avoided the gas, but signaled the Spider to make the diversion since they thought the noise may have alerted the enemy leader. The Lurk got the safe open and stole the money plus some documents, and she and the Whisper escaped while the Spider distracted the enemy leader, although she is now suspicious of him and is having him followed.

They are hoping that the Red Sashes won’t realize it was them who broke in (they are a very weak gang still), but I think they’ll find out pretty soon. Now that they’ve taken sides in the gang war, they will get sucked into it more, while pursuing some of their own agendas.

Fantasy Age has organizational rules in the Companion book, so I’m using those to handle the gang on gang level play. Should be fun.

I know its probably going to be seen as heresy around here :), but for the last month or so I’ve been running a campaign using the Blades setting, but the Fantasy Age rules as the engine. I’ve written up some actual play stuff about the campaign (and a little about how I adapted the rules for use with Blades), and was wondering if there was any interest in this community in hearing about it?