GM: Sean Nittner
Players: Ken Davidson, Adam Fox, Shawna Cornell, Dani DeFrisco
System: Blades ’68
Doskvol. Midnight. The glittering lights of the city far below. You’ve been introduced to a powerful criminal faction and half of you are on their airship high above the city, in a huge cargo hold surrounded by piles and piles of illegal product. More than you could sell in a lifetime. There are several armed thugs, and a mid-level lieutenant is explaining their distribution pipeline to you.
The other half of you are with this faction’s boss, on a tour of their opulent lair. They’re currently showing you their prize possession—a rare, huge, and very deadly pet.
Who’s on the airship and who’s talking to the boss?
Up on the airship, you’re thrown from your feet in an almighty explosion. There’s a gaping hole in the hull, black smoke billowing out. You’re gripping tightly to cargo webbing, your ears ringing, as everything in the hold flies out the hole in a vortex of rapid decompression. Product is flying past you
everywhere, hurtling out into the night sky. The thugs and the lieutenant are caught by surprise and you see them tumbling away to their deaths, screaming silently.
This is by far my current favorite cold open for Blades ’68. It just leaves so many cool things to do, set up the characters in pairs so they have great conversations, and invites fantastic roleplaying. This game ended with a crash landing, an open dinner invitation, four potential buyers, and a kiss. SO GOOD.
Our Crew
Constance (aka Queen) the Paranormalist, who was a powerful aristocrat until she gave Castelle Fane of Strangford-Mitcher Financial as bad omen that came true, and was blamed for it. Constance is always seeking a way back to her old life, and she still wears a giant purple dress (which she keeps in as good a condition as she can) to keep up appearances.
Eva (aka Gwny) the Veteran, who fought in the Third Unity War where she lost her arm and her brother. A defector to the USC, she now works for Blackthorn park against her rival and former lover Tiptree, who works for the Palace. Here arm is missing, but she is haunted by her dead brother Silas and sometimes his spectral arm appears in her place.
Professor Khali (aka Seeker) the Hound. A professor who sough the forbidden knowledge the Crown suppresses. Where are the leviathans? Her giant crow Chara is never far from her side. Here rival Mira, who works for the SCORPION Syndicate has sent the whole crew up to fail by giving them a chance to move product for the Syndicate. Inadvertently, she put her own safely on the line.
Dr. Vestov (aka Genius) the Intellectual. One of the brilliant minds behind the BLUE array. After the war he was smuggled out of the USC and into Doskvol by Eva, only to serve the same people who killed her brother Silas. His wristwatch of the future (Idiot) has the schematics of every know building in the city.
The Job
From the Ministry of Discovery Vestov learned that the SCORPION Syndicate had an airship that somehow could travel into the Deathlands without being detected. Knowing MANY people would want this technology (SMF, Ministry, Blackthorn Park, and the Palace) the crew decided to pretend to be dealers in order to get close to the technology and steal it.
Vestov and Eva were aboard the airship getting the tour, while Professor Khali and Constance were being given a tour of the top floor of the Imperial Plaza, complete with plush carpeting, ancient Severosi artifacts (including a silver nail), an incredible library, an opulent bar, and a giant white lion named Franz (part of why it wasn’t too weird that Chara came along).
All things went bad (as expected) but they got out and made it back to their apartment base in the Velvet Veil with these events to recall:
- Chago flirting with Constance (“my Queen”), telling her that was impressed but not encouraged by her betrayal, and then both of them going back to flirting again.
- Seeker momentarily placating Franz while Queen frantically pulled every cocktail hors d’oeuvres off toothpicks to make something big enough to be even one bite for Franz.
- Eva’s spectral arm saving her from falling out the the airship.
- Tiptree appearing on the airship with the stolen tech and immediately shooting Eva in the head (Thanks Military Training for stopping that). A brutal fight ensuing that only ended with Genius used Idiot to trigger all of Timtree’s sparktechnology to trigger at once…
- …which sent her and Eva through a void portal into a Palace safehouse. Tiptree told Eva she had 30 seconds before the Palace security shows up and Eva used the first half of that for a kiss. Awwwww.
- Seekers obsession with books paying off by finding a secret door to get out of the locked room with Franz, only to get in a bare metal floor that would electrocute them if the proper access code wasn’t used.
- A coordinator effort between Prof Khali and Dr. Vestov to call the elevator without setting of the electrified floor all while a tiger was almost upon one of them, and the other was crashing a ship into the Dosk River.
- Finally, Dr. Vestov landing the the airship in the water and timing it to just make it to the docs where he could step off with the briefcase containing the stolen tech before it sank [yes, stolen from the Pirates of the Caribbean, but he roll a 666 on a Desperate roll so it has to be fucking cool!]
Pics
