GM: Sean Nittner
Players: Karen Twelves, Eric Fattig, and Adrienne Mueller
System: Blades in 68′
After saving Little Gallo, the crew got about recovering from score…just in time for a Bluecoat raid. All the deets below.
Wrapping up lose ends
Before the personal business could happen properly, we had to have a scene that we didn’t have time for last session. Who would the Dirt Barons give all the incriminating evidence about Strangford Mitcher Financial to, and how would they convince them to take legal action against the financial giant? Nav decided to talk to her rival, Palace Agent Bowman, as he both had the ability to put things into action and she wanted to study up on this goings on.
Because Nav likes to put people on edge, she followed him until she could catch him in a moment with his guard down. [Mechanically Nav had to make a resistance roll not to be automatically detected by Bowman and his Tier 5 surveillance network, but I think I should have made it a Resistance roll to get past the outer defenses and then an action roll to actually sneak up on him]. Over the course of a week, she tracked him in and out of the following locations:
- Going to the Iruvian Consulate, undoubtably to meet with AFU agents.
- Entering the Sanctorum in Brightstone, leaving with an ornate wooden box with a rope handle, just small enough to carry to with one hand.
- Traveling across the canal to Whitecrown and meeting with several individuals who whispered secrets in his ear.
- Entering the private entrance of the Golden Hand arcade.
- Turning a corner in Charterhall and disappearing. No where to be found in Doskvol.
- Later, going to Vreen Autodome to meet with Naya and Kai from the Red Torque. Leaving with documents in hand.
It was after this last trip that Nav caught Bowman having an espresso in a Nightmarket Cafe and dropped a folio of SMF’s misdeeds in front of him. Bowman quickly assessed the documents and asked “Agent Siketset, how does the actions of a financial institution in Doskvol affect the Iruvian State?” The conversation continued in that vein and though Nav was able to convince him to put pressure on Strangford Michter (it also served his interest to keep large corporations in check) she couldn’t convince him that she wasn’t working on behalf of the AFU. [Bowman Investigates Dirt Barons, 3 ticks (of 6) marked]
Celebration
We ended the last session with the Gallo family dinner but I wanted to focus in on the offer that Dossani made all of the crew, to become insiders (“part of the family”). Delta and Poalo declined but Nav took her up on the offer, if for no other reason than to further aggravate Val. [Notably, I decided that because the Operative’s special ability is having a backing faction, they can gain a second one in play, now Nav is backed by the AFU and the Gallo Family].
Old Man Gallo asked her to sit with him and welcomed Nav to the family. He placed his bony, liver spotted hands on hers and said he felt safer with he there. Nav said someone had to watch over Little Gallo and he replied that he was glad his grandfather was in good hands. When corrected, he agreed “oh, yes, of course, grandson, not grandfather, what was I thinking…”
Aftermath
Here’s all the bits from the aftermath:
- Payout: 2 stacks (plus offer of being a faction insider)
- Tithe: 0 (no tithe for this job because it was for the ward boss)
- Rep: 6 (I gave the crew the option of keeping this score quiet and getting 0 rep, or bragging and getting 6. They did not surprise me!)
- Heat: 3 (Contained score, high profile target)
- Harm Roll: No harm consequences
- Unwind: Delta asked “we’re Dirt barons because we find dirt on other people, not because we’re dirty ourselves right?” And that was wen Delta pointed out the number of scarves and toiletries that were just laying around and asked if they could do some spring cleaning together,
- Faction Status changes: +1 with Gallo Family, -2 with Strangford Michter Financial.
- Crew Trouble: No new trouble, however the Denouncement trouble (which started after the recovered GRD-9) escalated to a protest outside the Velvet Veil led by Kagney, leader of the Blackjacks. “What did hulls do?” “Took our jobs!” “What are we going to do?” “Melt them down!”
- Local Trouble: No new trouble, but -1D on the next trouble roll.
Downtime Actions
Paolo and Nav discussed the ways of de-escalating the protest outside (it’s bad for them and bad for the Gallos). Nav was excited to use tranquilizer darts in her new silenced sniper rifle, but Paolo felt strongly that they should start out talking. He invited Kagney for a drink down the street at Rusty’s Bar, which he resisted at first (preferred to have the protesters back him) but eventually gave into.
Kagney’s beef with hulls is personal. He used to be Rail Jack but they’ve automated the work and now he, and all the other jacks are out of a job.
With extreme vagaries Paolo offered to work together with the Blackjacks [I asked if Paolo was offering any specific actions, and because he wasn’t, I started this at Risky/Zero effect. Best case Paolo would find that Kagney wasn’t going to budge. Paolo pushed for effect and shifted the position to Desperate for effect as well. Still vague promises, but this time grand ones. Then rolled the dice and got a 1-3 Result]
In the moment Kagney believed everything Paolo said. The both though making hulls was wrong (even if it was for different reasons) and they could be friends. Kagney called off the protest, but we flashed forward to when Kagney saw Delta and Paolo together and realized it was a lie. [The betrayal led to -1 faction status with the Blackjacks and Kagney’s persona enmity for Paolo].
Nav learned at the last moment from Mita Ankhayat, her close friend, that her parents Aiz and Sevra were coming for a surprise visit, along with Nav’s aunt Lor. Nav panicked about how to keep them entertained and Paolo offered countless ideas. Eventually he decided to go and be their ambassador to Doskvol. They met Nav’s parents at Gaddoc Station and showed them around Nightmarket. Sevra hugged her daughter but frowned she she took her in. Nav’s clothes were worn and mended. This would not do. They all went shopping at Dundridges, bought new clothes for Nav (….and for Paolo) and then, because Aiz is a military history buff, went to the Unity War exhibition at the Sanctorum. While there Paolo felt a strong connection to the Rowan tree growing outside and had the same vision he had in his dreams of being beneath and all over the city at once, before he snapped out of it. [Nav indulged her family obligation vice with a bonus die from her contact Mita and another bonus die from a Devil’s Bargain that she’d allow her parents to come see her place afterwards!]
[Delta’s downtime was interrupted by a flashback questions from me]. When Croc pretended to install the sparktech canister containing the Resonance Echo from Delta-974, he hit it in Delta’s storage compartments. Once free, what would delta do with this echo? He asked Nav and Paolo for gudience and together they came up with several ideas:
- Put it in a hull and help it remember it’s memories
- Let it free…hopefully without causing trouble for the crew
- Take it to Professor Cole.
This scene had a delightful moment of Delta/Rubens asking Paolo and Nav for permission to go see Professor Cole, them telling Delta he didn’t need to ask permission, and then Delta still asking permission to go!
Professor Cole’s office were flooded by students who were getting his advice on a SICU (Shattered Isles Congress of Unions) petition. Once they cleared out he eagerly greeted Nav and Delta, who we was delighted to hear had taken the name Rubens. Cole didn’t have any easy advice. He thought the best thing to do would be to put the resonance back in the person (now hollow) it was removed from. Of course he had no idea how to find that person or how to perform the operation, but he said he would look into it for them and hold onto the resonance echo for them in the meantime. [I offered Delta a 12-tick long term project to learn how to put resonance echo’s back into hollows if he wanted to pursue it!]
Delta returned to the Golden Hand to go ON PROGRAM. Croc almost shed a hear when Delta returned, the controller wasn’t sure his creation would return after what happened last time. He asked details about the Dirt Barons but Delta fastidiously only told him things about Paolo’s scarf collection. When he saw that would not work, he set Delta to work on the Ultraplasmic Bomb.
Delta asked Croc about human interactions [which we handled as training and put XP on a memory clock] including things like what to do when Nav shows concern or Paolo looks concerned.
Delta, with help from the recalcitrant Croc, collected unused and spare parts in the Golden Hand workshop to use on his own generator.
Finally, drained from work, Delta recharged in the industrial charging station in the Golden Hand HQ.
Nav, once she got free of her parents, but with the aid of her aunt Lor, furthered her investigation into “Who was Rubens?” She liked Delta…she didn’t know if she liked Rubens. Last time she had learned about his arrest warrant served five years ago. This time she and her aunt got access to the logs of Inspector Basran who noted that Rubens and his co-conspirators espoused seditious ideologies. The warrant itself, however only listed the crimes “involvement in the kidnapping of Nadia Royce, a Charterhall court clerk, and the murder of two court bailiffs. This felt like they were covering something up, but they didn’t know what the truth was yet [At the table we discussed that the crime Rubenz committed, which was attached to a memory clock that isn’t full yet may or may not match the crime(s) he was accused of on paper].
Paolo went to blow off steam with his buddy Honest Stev by betting on the cars at Vreen Autodome. Stev, a mechanic, bet on the cars. Paolo bet on the drivers. In the first race his driver didn’t even make a good showing [Indulge vice and only recovered 2 stress] so he decided to stay at the tracks [2nd downtime action] and this time he both one big and talked big [Overindulging his vice and chose bragging, which generated +2 Heat. Dice just were not kind to Eric this evening!]
Paolo, feeling the heat on the Barons decided to do something about it. The Barons are well liked the by the citizens of Silkshore, so he organized them together with the help of Three-Fingters (who still hates Paolo for stealing Lanette from him, which Paolo doesn’t remember, but was so down on his own personal luck that he offered to help if Paolo could help with his tab at the Veil). Paolo established a web of alibies who all saw him the nights he was supposed to be doing other things and made sure they reported his very legal actions loudly [Reduce heat twice to reduce it all]
Reprisals
At 2:30 AM Nav was woken by a ping from their Tomorrow Program security device. Bluecoats were in the building doing a raid. Was it targeted at them or the Gallo family? They couldn’t say for sure but it was only a moment before their based was going to be broken into! Luckily Delta doesn’t sleep, Nav is a spy who is always alert, and Paolo was still up from a late night! [On a single die, Nav rolled a 6 so they start the raid in a controlled position. Good luck next session Barons!]
Thoughts on the game/playtest
- Not captured above but there were some lovely discussions between the crew about Nav’s history (why she was hiding in Doskvol) that made Paolo wonder if Rubenz was really the one they should worry about. Great crew scenes this game!
- The Aftermath portion of the Blades ’68 book doesn’t include updating Faction Status.
- Always Hustling (Swinger ability) is very powerful. An extra downtime action and +1 Result on reduce heat meant 1 downtime action spent (plus the free one) got rid of 7 heat.
- Conversely, only two of the Heist Team special abilities appealed to the crew (Thieves with a Code and Sleepy time). Now they are looking at special abilities from other crews.
