GM: Sean Nittner
Players: Moe Poplar, Lauren McManamon, and Kurt Potts
System: Blades ’68
This was my first time at Strategicon. I’d been asked by the LA crew to attend for years but it was always too close to Big Bad Con, so this was the year I decided to go. Tomes helped me get there and arranged for me to be one of the special guests, which felt a lot weird, but I’m saving a screenshot here for posterity.
My plan was to run Streets of Jade and Spell and Blade, but I didn’t have the Spell and Blade adventure info from Stras yet, and I only got the Streets of Jade adventure from Mendez as I was getting on the plane and hadn’t had a chance to give it a full read. So for my opening game, I ran something that was familiar (Blades ’68) while still trying something new (the new Frame Up Cold Open).
The pitch
I started the game reading the intro
Daggertown. Twilight. The sky is a psychedelic swirl of colors. On the corner of Biringan Street and Carronade Road stands an old twelve-story brick building.
A figure is thrown out the top-floor window with a muffled bang. They fall backwards in a sparkling shower of glass, briefcase in one hand.
Which of you is falling through the air to the alley below?
On the other side of the broken window, the rest of you stand in a large penthouse loft. It is nearly empty — some furniture covered in canvas dropcloths, a desk and typewriter, a broken window, the twisted remains of a metal safe, a cloud of smoke.
And one more thing —the dead body of your contact, killed in the explosion and lying at your feet.
Your client sent you here for a simple job: pick up a package from a crime boss they couldn’t be seen associating with. Now the boss is dead, and it looks like you did it. You’ve been set up, but by who?
Of course asking who is falling out of twelve story building is the best way to open a score (it in fact makes me wonder if I start my normal scores too tame!). Lauren jumped on the opportunity and then we created characters.
I like reading the pitch first so that players already know what initial trouble their characters and can create scoundrels that will be fun to have in the situation.
Our Scoundrels
Kurt went for Pike Stevens, aka S. Pike, aka Spike the Radical. A Daggerite who got caught up in the proxy wars and for a time was working the the Imperial Military to sell out his own people. He blamed the cartels for the problems in his home but realized it was the pressure put on the people by the Imperium and it’s wars that created and maintained the state of perpetual oppression where the cartels thrived. He dedicated himself to end the Crown’s rule and headed to Doskvol to find his older brother to help him!
Lauren played Chips, a Tycherosi Hound who…really liked chips. Chips had an inhuman trait that she could see smells and her nose quite literally led her to trouble. A true hound. Chips used to work on the force but lost her Blue when she raided Mira’s Nigthclub and the titular owner used all her leverage to ruin Chips’ career. But fuck it, who wants to work for the man anyway. She started a PI agency and was looking into a case for Stoker (a fearless journalist and Spike’s enemy) when she stumbled on Spike and his brother…
Yaphet, played by Moe, was an Intellectual who studied the science of architecture, namely ways in and out of buildings. Yaphet tried to keep his little brother out of the Dagger Isle Peacekeeping, but when that failed he went to Doskvol to study at Charterhall. He made friends with Ackhurst a professor, who recruited students to his own endeavors. Both were kicked out of the University when a fellow student Penny Dunvil, a debauched theorist leaked word of the crime ring. Afterword Yaphet, joined by his younger brother Spike, started making plans to change the world…one explosion at at time.
Faced with REALLY incriminating evidence Chips had the choice to fight the brothers or join them in taking down the same institutions that had been shitting all over her for her entire life. It wasn’t a hard choice.
Together they formed a group of Militants fighting for change by taking down both the government (The Palace) and the financial institutions that serve them (SMF). They had a reputation for “meaning well” even though their results caused a lot of collateral damage and they had the support of the Silkshore people [Sympathizers]. There closest contact was Eaves, a Palace agent that fed them information…always putting her own life on the line.
The Play is the Thing
We filled in some missing details together. The Palace (or at least Eaves) was their client, and the mark was Red Torque, a crew of racers and smugglers who somehow got their hands on a briefcase with a resonance entity held in a containment unit. Blaze, the leader of Red Torque, was dead at their feet and his brother Kai and the rest of the crew was on the floor below. Blaze had looked sullen, even apologetic as he handed over the case. He was about to say that he was getting out of the game when…boom, the (first) explosion went off!
As Chips is falling twelve stories straight down, the rest of you hear three things in quick succession. First, the dead body triggers the death radar, and a loud klaxon sounds — Section 6 will be here soon. Second, there are sirens in the street below and the sound of the front doors being booted open — the Bluecoats are here already, someone must have tipped them off ahead of time. Third, shouts of alarm from the Red Torque members one floor down, and the sound of scraping chairs and running feet as they come to investigate.
We started with Chips, who had a rope hanging down the side the building (flashback) that she caught and swung through the glass on the 6th floor, crashing into a closed apothecary as the shopkeeper was courting the till for the night. The jerk of the rope and the bad fall dislocated her arm [Level 3 Harm Broken Arm resisted down to Level 2 Dislocated Arm] but thankfully the people of Silkshore knew these scoundrels [+3 Faction Status] and pulled down the blind on her door to prevent Bluecoats who might be running up the stairs from seeing her. The briefcase in her hand smelled like silver patina. Something ancient from across the void.
Above, Yaphent studied the explosion with a resonance field analyzer and realized the trigger was based on invisible forces. He’d learn more after the “photo” developed, but for now he knew this was never going to not explode. They had been setup.
Using the gadget took time and Spike watched as the doorknob to their room was popped off by a heavy wrench and the door was kicked in by Kai, who held a pump action scattergun in his hands and went wide-eyed when he saw Blaze dead on the floor beneath Yaphet. Just then, spike pressed the plunger and the maid cart they planted in the hallway [another flashback] exploded, stunning all of the Red Toque and sending him sailing through the wall. [Mixed success on a Desperate/Great Wreck with extra Scale. Level 3 Harm “Blown through wall”]. He would have been separated from Yaphet if not grabbing Kai’s rifle strap and using his unconscious body as a break [Resisting being separated]. Explosion #2.
They ran (Yaphet) and stumbled (Spike) upstairs to the roof where they had a zipline ready to go down to the 10th floor of the Velvet Veil across the street… but there didn’t have the package and more importantly, they didn’t have Chips. Yaphet strapped Spike into the harness and waited for Chips to arrive, signaling to her over the RF radio handset to get up there. Below they could see the swarm of Bluecoats surging into and surrounding the building.
Trouble ahead, trouble behind
Chips cleared her head and started moving. The Bluecoats would be here soon and she wanted to be gone before then, but she wasn’t in great shape to run up six stories. She called the elevator and hoped it would make it in time. It…did not. [I made a Fortune roll with 1d6 reflecting the wealth of the neighborhood and got a 3]. The bluecoats where coming up the stairs in force so she threw a stun grenade (provided by Spike) down the stairwell to slow them down. Explosion #3
The plan worked beautifully. The Bluecoats staggered back after the blow the elevator dinged as the door opened behind her. Just as she felt the barrel of a gun in her back. [Mixed result on a Risky Wreck!] When Yaphet radioed down it was garbled and hard to make out. Something was interfering with the signal.
Chips sniffed the air and the figure behind her smelt like…nothing. Invisible. Not a person at all. She felt a cool and withered hand slide over hers to grab hold of the briefcase “just let go of this dearie, and we’ll have no problems at all.”
Instead she spun around and smashed the woman’s gun hand with the heavy metal case, breaking her arm horribly…but then to Chips’ horror the woman just straitened the broken arm again, bone sticking out and all. She pressed through her fear [Resisting being frozen in place or running the wrong way] and tore up the stairs muttering how wrong that was.
Crashing the Party
When Chips made it to the rooftop, Yaphet dropped a stun grenade off one side of the building to cause a distraction, while they ziplined across the other side of the building the Velvet Veil, who was hosting a rooftop party. Explosion #4.
The gathered up the zipline (which recoiled into the lower carrier thanks to Yaphet’s sparketech gadgets) and tried to make their way down the stairs. While most of the guests heard the explosions but didn’t know how to react, Scavo the Shark knew exactly how to react, which was to not them them anywhere near the casino he was paid to protect.
“Skavo, c’mon man, we know you. We didn’t set up the first explosion, just the last three. Let us down their and we’ll be quiet from here out, plus we’ll make it worth your while.” Miraculously the bribe and the compliments worked well enough to get them an elevator ride to the 3rd floor where Mavreem the Gallo families physician tend to their wounds on a stainless steel table inside an unused industrial kitchen…while the eager Little Gallo watched with excitement. Explosions are cool man!
Yaphet had two concerns: setting things right with Kai and the Red Torque, and figuring out how they got betrayed. The former was provisionally addressed with a phone call (encrypted by his sparkmind assistant) where he told Kai it wasn’t there fault and he was going to find out who killed his brother Blaze. The mechanic wasn’t having it without proof, but he at least gave them time to find that [Reduced Effect].
The second problem was who to trust? Eaves gave the job. Did that mean she betrayed them or she was set up. The wanted to talk to her, but knew approaching her could be dangerous. The whole reason Eaves helped them was because she was secretly in a relationship with Tova, a Daggerite who showed her how much harm the Palace had caused. Perhaps they could find out more form Tova, who lived in Daggertown as well…not to far away.
Little Gallo to the rescue?
Little Gallo, who had been watching all of this from outside the kitchen (he would have come in earlier but Mavreem kept shooing him away) pipped in that he could help. He saw the injuries they had, heard the explosions, and knew their reputation. These people were dangerous and brave, like he wanted to be. “I can cake a message to Tova. Nobody will notice me.”
Spike loved the idea. Yaphet hated it. Spike wanted not just to enlist Little Gallo, but to open his mind. Yaphet wanted to keep him safe. Naturally Little Gallo (who I just had a blast playing) wanted to be like Spike, and Yaphet was having nothing of it.
Spike asked him “what do you want?”
“I want the same thing everyone wants. Power. Respect. I want people to know I’m dangerous too”
Yaphet tried to appeal to his position of power “Mr. Gallo. This isn’t the kind of work you need to do. One day, you’ll be in charge and can send people like us to do this kind of work for you.”
He was having nothing of it. “Man, fuck that shit.” He opened the fridge and showed them all a tank of eels swimming around. “See those eels, those are for me. Those are going to be made into a giant pie for me, but only after I do my first job. Only after I prove myself. This is the chance for me to do it.”
Spike fed on this desire but wanted more. “But respect and power…what will you do with those once you have them? Will you keep it for yourself or help those around you. Make Daggertown a better place, a safer place for everyone who lives there?”
Little Gallo was confused. These ideas smacked of some familiarity, he had always known about protecting the family, but true altruism was alien to him. He didn’t know what to do with these ideas, but they did make him think.
The End
The crew decided to go out on their own. They stepped out into Daggertown, smelling the Birigan starspine flowers that bloomed in the night (the psychedelic hours of twilight had passed) and hearing the sounds of Xis̄ran drums as street performers played late at night.
As they turned down a quiet side street, they drums faded and they heard Daggerite pop musing playing from a radio, the reception becoming gaining static as they approached, with the resonance entity hidden in a bag of flour from the Gallo family kitchen.
A petite figure stepped into the street behind them. Chips sniffed the air and smelled…nothing, but could dimly see the glint of steel.
The scoundrels froze. She had a gun trained on them and there was no way out of this alley that wouldn’t involve one or more of them getting shot.
Yaphet tried to deal “It doesn’t have to be ugly. We’ve got what you want, we just want to get paid.” He hated himself for caving to the powers (his arrogant key deadlocked to humbled) but it was better to live and fight another day.
With her free, still bleeding hand, she reached into her coat and slowly pulled an envelope full of stacks and held it out towards them, the bloat slowly seeping down her hand, through the envelope and onto the bills.
Spike couldn’t let it go that easily, we flashed back to when he placed a resonance amplifier inside the case and told her “Don’t open this until you’re secure in the palace. It is very dangerous.” He hoped that she would open it and, with the aid of his explosive the resonance entity inside would break out and wreak havoc. I told him that he saw a flash of a possible future where she dropped the cash, took the flour sack, and put two bullets in him, one through each eye. [Failure on a Desperate/Great Command]. That premonition came true.
Spike was dead on the ground and the hollow was considering finishing the job when Yahpet, out of fear or rage or both, used his experimental laser cannon and cut off her arm (the one holding the gun). The agent crooked her head and decided she had was she needed…then she was gone. Just like that.
Yaphet noticed something strange happened, or didn’t happen. When she killed Spike there were no klaxons, no alarm. Section 6 would not know he was dead…and so, maybe he could be saved in a sort of way. Chips meanwhile stared at the severed arm and licked the blood(?) from it, filling her mouth with a new sensation.
Epilogue
Yaphet was researching a way to contain his brother’s resonance. The eight stacks they got from the score went to buying the body of a hull…now if he could only find a way to capture the resonance as it left the body…he didn’t have much time.
Chips mouth and tongue had become necrotic, black veins visible on her lips and cheeks…but now she could smell the dead, and they looked like a color spectrum she didn’t know existed (think seeing into UV)
Spike was dead, but not forgotten. Late at night with only a nightlight so he wouldn’t be noticed, Little Gallo cracked up the faded pamphlet and began reading his manifesto!
Thoughts on this game
I didn’t know where Daggertown was so I placed it in Silkshore. Afterward I looked it up in the map and fittingly it’s actually in The Docks.
I love the way Tim’s cold opens start. Immediate danger demanding an immediate response. I’m wondering if I should make more of my scores (especially those in desperate positions) start like this. Cutting right to the action. I know it takes a bit of player agency away saying things like you’re contact is dead, you’re being blown out a window, etc. But the crew of scoundrels are tough and resourceful…they could take it.
This was great times, Sean. We thought we were ready, but the city hit hard and we were in way over our heads. A typical tale in Duskwall. So happy to finally get to play the Militants Crew.