GM: Sean Nittner
Players: Karen Twelves, Eric Fattig, and Adrienne Mueller
System: Blades in the Dark
In which the Society is paid by Sukur, decide they are going to kill him since he won’t let them use the hand, and Arquo sacrifices himself to save the crew when they destroy a Spirit Well.
A few of the high beats:
- Sukur (demonologist, calculating, vile, energetic) is like a kid in a candy ship when Roric and the Hand arrive. He quickly has his servant Wend pay off the Society and sends them out of his manor (but within the camp) to have their needs met.
- Ro tries to convince Sukur to borrow the Hand for a job (leaning on their reputation as being professional) but he’s too excited to consider the offer seriously [1/8 ticks to borrow it].
- Wend, the moment she is outside the presence of Sukur reveals she has no love for the man and hates her new position.
Ironhook
We spent a bit of time with Harland, finding him beat up and preaching on top of a crate. Brie, the friend of Hix took objection but the bonded over an ugly fist fight and Brie (a Deathlands Scavenger) and won her over, she joined the True Path.
Bellweather Crematorium
Elke made a deal with Maury (who works for Strangford as a liaison from the city council to the Spirit Wardens) that she would help the Spirit Wardens if he delivered a message to Arquo for her. (She had to do a whole lot of pissing off the Spirit Wardens just to get the audience with Maury).
The note simply read “Stay away from my family!”
Back in the Lost District
- Lightning storms were raging through the deathlands and one of the generators exploded. [2/6 Destroyed]
- Wend became Ro’s temporary vice purveyor (in the form of hot baths and nice things)
- Jadvyga sneaked into the manor and spotted Sukur first meeting with Roric and then taking the hand into the basement of the building to meet with six Reconciled ghosts. Here’s all the transpired: Roric is going to kill Lady Drake (who we found out from flashbacks is actually Roslyn Kellis!), Sukur met wit the Reconciled and presented the Hand and they discussed their plans to take two seats on the city council.
- Meanwhile, Ro noticed that Griggs had gone missing and together with Arquo discovered that she had gone into a passage under the manor. Once Jadvyga returned they followed her and found that she was performing a ritual in the presence of a spirit well. Ro and Jadvyga helped her complete the ritual but inadvertently unleashed all of the feral, damaged, and wrathful spirits within.
- We cut back to a flashback of Hix making an electroplasmic bomb for Arquo, and then forward to Arquo ordering everyone to run, just before he pulled the plunger and destroyed the spirits as they tried to escape, along with himself and most of the cave!
What Rocked
Arquo, wow. What a sacrifice. After the game we talked a lot about what that means for Adrienne. Is Arquo a ghost? Could Setarra have saved him? Or is he just gone, gone, gone. After a bit of time between games we decided to leave it unknown. Ro, Jadvyga and Griggs all fled (Jadvyga stressed out and got a trauma watching Arqho do this) and it’s clear to all of them that nobody could have made it out of that cave.
What could have improved
I really need to create an Obsidian Portal campaign to keep track of all my NPCs. I get lost keeping track of their personalities, motivations, and what they’ve done already in our game. Plus with all this city council intrigue… it’s a lot to keep straight and at some points I know I mixed up different folks motivations (Griggs, Roric, Sukur, and the Reconciled all want different things).
