GM: Judd Karlman
Player: Sean Nittner
System: Blades in the Dark: Deep Cuts
To be fair, I really had no idea what I was doing. I knew the guy liked seances and if felt like Crown was familiar enough with ghosts (and could bring a powerful whisper along) and we’d be able to get a ghost to change his ways, either getting him to say something that could be used as blackmail, scaring him, or worse case scenario, or worse case scenario, having the ghost possess him. That ended up not being the worse case scenario.
If you’ve ever wondered what a score gone wrong looks like, here’s a good example.
Setup
We needed a bit of time to remember all the details from last session, but eventually we assembled the setup. Crown has hired a powerful (Tier 3) Whisper to pull of a seance where they could manipulate the ghost in question. Originally named Helles Helles, we retconned that (mostly because we forgot it and came up with something we liked better), but this session we named her Ward. She was Crown’s cousin and not part of the criminal life. She was a brawny construction worker New Horizons who had learn how to handle ghosts.
We found an old home in New Horizons that was going to be demolished, but when they found the remnants of a shrine inside, the Ministry shut down all plans, and it now sat vacant. Perfect location for a score.
We rolled some dice and determined that it was a shrine to The One Within Many, who wanted observances of destruction: ritual burning of sacred objects (rune-papers, effigies, flesh, hair). Great, all we needed to do was convince Aldo that this as the real deal, a Forgotten God was going to possess him, without actually summoning the forgotten god.
Ward set up the lightening barrier to cage the spirit we would summon, Sunny was serving everyone drinks, and Crown would lead the procession.
Engagement roll indicated it was a Risky situation, we felt the presence of the Forgotten God. Good times!
The play is the thing.
Crown started by trying to get everyone into a suggestive mood. She work a mask with cuts for many eyes and spoke trying to capture the gravitas she had heard in the church. Crown gave them rune paper to burn that she had dosed with slumber essence. She wanted their senses dulled. But of course, making the correct observances also risked actually summoning the god they were made to. [1-3 Result on a Risky/Standard Sway]
There patrons (including Aldo) dropped their heads hard on the stone table where the sat. The slumber powder shouldn’t have done that. A spirit was summoned, a woman also wearing a mask, with ancient mathematical symbols for One and for Infinity.
Wards eyes went wide. This isn’t who she meant to summon. Crown tried to pivot from working Aldo, to working the ghost. She walked with ceremony around the table and then slid behind the sleeping form of Aldo. “Spirit, I ask they for your aid in punishing this man. He is a tool of the imperial arm and I need to stop him from serving them further.”
The spirit offered that if he were part of the Many, he would no longer be concerned with such temporal matters. She observed Crown as a fellow priestess. She work a mask, she made offerings, and she spoke with the kind of gravitas that a priestess would.
This wasn’t the plan, but it would work. Crown offered the man to the ghost and even offered to act as conduit between them, lowering the lightning carrier and offering herself a host before the spirit tired to plunge into Aldo [Voluntarily shifting the Attune from Risky/Standard to Desperate/Great. 1-3 Result!]
The spirit made it’s way into her, but there it stopped, as they could all feel the power accumulating in the room, as the One was about to manifest.
Crown, sensing through the priestess that the One was about to arrive, she did not want to be part of the Many. “Grab Aldo and let’s run!” she shouted. Aldo was a talk man, but Ward used to carrying heavy loads. She pulled him over her shoulder and ran out the door, with Crown and Sunny behind her. The other four patrons, an explorer, a locksmith, a bailiff, and an undercover spirit warden, were left behind, and would presumably become part of the Many. Crown had some some vetting (Flashback to a Consort roll to attract targets) and knew who everyone was, but not their secret identities (4-5 result) so she didn’t realize she was leaving a Spirit Warden behind.
Crown took a large stack of rune-papers and tossed them into the fire to keep the attention of the incoming god, and then ran, but she wasn’t quite fast enough, the heat of his arrival burned her [Desperate/Standard Prowl, 4-5 Result. Level 3 Harm]. As the heat intensified, she pulled one other unconscious patrons to shield herself [Resisting down to Level 2 Harm “Burned by a God”]
They ran, and ran, and ran, till they made it out of New Horizons and back into Six Towers. Aldo, still unconscious, was leaned against a wall.
“What the fuck happened there?” Ward asked.
“What the fuck happened?” Crown repeated “I made a grave miscalculation—” and at that very moment, everyone said it had been their fault. Ward felt responsible because she found the place. Sunny pocketed the coin I gave him and gave them all cheap whiskey. And Crown of course, summoned a god.
After we all tried to take the blame, the big question was “what now”. The job had gone completely sideways. Crown was possessed and Aldo was still alive. Crown offered Ward a chance to step away. She wasn’t part of the scoundrel life, but Ward stayed and offered her another option, to leave things as they are.
Through the sight that the spirit offered her, she could see Aldo was marked by The One Within Many and the priestess told her his concerns would no longer be with the temporal. So at least there was that.
Reluctantly (both as Crown the character and Sean the player) we agreed to call it a night. Everyone departed until Crown was left alone with an unconscious Aldo and the ghost rattling around inside her.
“So…what should I call you?”
The ghost told her she was a priestess named Vey, and that she was hear before the Empire claimed Doskvol…a very long time ago. She wouldn’t take control of Crown, but she would ask her for some time. Crown suggested she wasn’t well suited as a long term host, but that for now, maybe they could work together.
Payout
Coin: 0 – Commander Clelland wanted Aldo dead, so he didn’t pay. Going to have to do something about that.
Faction Status: -1 with Spirit Wardens (back down to 0) as they would eventually learn they lost one of their members to the One
Heat
2 For standard job
+2 for the target, a well connected Bluecoat
+2 For the chaos of unleashing a god
Heat reduced by 2 by the Unseen (at the cost of 2 coin)
Rep
3 for a Tier 3 Target
+2 for gaining 6 Heat
+1 for having 1 Wanted Level
Thoughts on the Game
I’m very glad both Judd and I treated ghosts and forgotten gods with their appropriate regard. They were powerful, dangerous, and bad news. Crown already had enough people pulling on her strings that she didn’t want a god doing it as well. Running was the right plan.
Giving up on a score is hard. Technically she achieved the goal, but she spent way too much coin to make it happen, got too much heat, ended up with bad burn, a ghost inside her, and getting stiffed on the job. It was hard for Crown to do, but it was also hard for me to do as a player. I tell folks to hold on lightly and not worry about having their characters always progress forward, but when the rubber meats the road, I had a hard time following that advice myself. I’m glad I did tough. Crown is a more interesting person when she’s beat down and struggling.
She’s got more problems now. How is she going to get paid? How will she infiltrate the Spirit Wardens with a ghost inside her? Heck, how will she even go to church with a ghost inside her? It’s her job (my job) to try and turn these problems into opportunities. We’ll see how it goes next time!
