Actual Play – Sealing the Deal (3/29/2017)

GM: Sean Nittner
Players: Karen Twelves, Eric Fattig, and Adrienne Mueller
System: Blades in the Dark

Sealing the Deal

We opened up this session in a butcher shop of the Billhooks. It was super not neutral ground, but it was the best Arquo could arrange to meet Corro. There they dropped the bomb. “We trashed your crew with ghosts, and we’ll do it again if you don’t back off now!” Or that was the gist of it.

Corro, who took all of this VERY personally was less interested in peace between their factions and more interested in his lying, cheating, ruinous brother. His conditions were first that they hand him over, then when that was refused, that they ostracized him from the crew, and finally when that was refused, he agreed to accept them doing a job for him in the future. He hated the deal, and only held off on having the Billhooks murder the three of them (Arquo, Jadvyga and Ro) because he still saw opportunity in them being alive, but it killed him to do it. [Mechanically there were several partial success and bad outcomes on Sway rolls, with each of the consequences being resisted, and finally ended with a Crit on a Command roll by Ro who gave the final offer at the end].

Flashback to the Bodies

We then flashed back to night before, Arquo told Jadvyga to run the engines as hot as she could to get them to docks where Arquo could offer the bodies up to Setarra. He didn’t tell them this is what he was doing, but was very clear they needed to make it there fast! Only one of them lived long enough however, the other bled out before the could make it. As they arrived at the pier, the faint tolling of the bell could still be heard. [They opted to just try and get their fast rather than administer care to either of the injured. Since they both took fatal harm, allowed them to set the risk (Controlled – Desperate) and based on that would roll a number of fortune dice to determine if they lived (1 for controlled, 2 for risky, 3 for desperate). Jadvyga pushed for desperate and got a crit! I rolled 4 dice (an extra one for a crit) and got a mixed result (5) so we elected that one of them lived long enough and the other died on the way there. Afterward I realized that I had essentially gone back to the old “roll for Effect” rules from QS3. Fun time!]

Arquo, out of character, asked Ro and Jadvyga to give him time alone, to meet his contact or some lie like that. Ro was happy to comply with but Jadvyga had to know what was going on. After they left she convinced him to double back and spy on Arquo to see what was happening. [At this point, it entered what felt like it could have been a PC vs. PC situation, so I did as the wise John advised and paused the game. We then discussed our interests as players (Adrienne really wanted them to see all this even if Arquo, her character was being clandestine). Then we set the resolution method, which in this case was using a standard action roll (Risky) but the risk was posed by Setarra noticing them, rather than Arquo, as Adrienne said his mind was elsewhere and he wouldn’t be paying attention. See page 41 of Blades for a more detailed guidelines]

As they crept along the pier the noticed a beautiful women from the Dagger Isles, maybe Elke’s older sister, step on to the boat and smile warmly at Arquo. As though he was a lover she hadn’t seen in ages and all that she wanted in this moment was for him to be near her. Or at least that is what Ro saw.

Jadvyga on the other hand felt the power of her ancestors blood running cold in her veins. She felt all the horrors that she had fled in Tycheros come to her and for the first time she saw, what she knew, had to be, a True Blood. Or at least that is what she knew them by. Black scales, shark eyes, looking over Arquo with clawed hands, embracing him like a lover she hadn’t seen in ages and all that she wanted in this moment was for him to be near her. Jadvyga feinted, and Ro was quick to administer care.

Setarra’s Satisfaction

Arquo, in that moment felt like all was right with the world. It didn’t matter that one of the Hive agents died along the way. Setarra’s smile was complete and enveloping. He had brought her a nearly dead man that she could feed the blood of demons and harvest over the eons. Not only that but he had consecrated the human in her name, simply the most thoughtful thing an mortal could do. Setarra’s delight brought a smile to Arquo’s face and her touch made his pain and weariness disappear. The embraced again and then she pushed the body into the water and it sunk immediately into the void below.

Setarra was sure that Arquo would bring him another offering very soon. She had ever confidence.

Payoff

Coin: 6 (Bazso took them off Ro’s hands. It’s not really his deal, but he could fine someone who wanted rare hunting cats)
Rep: 4 (Hitting the Hive!)
Heat: 4 (Smooth an contained, high profile target, on enemy turf)
Entanglement: Unquiet Dead (hasn’t materialized yet)

Downtime

Ro met up with his fiend Salia to see if she could help him get over the lingering terror that he still carried with him from the encounter with the ghosts in Charhallow. Salia was no doctor, but she she was happy to accompany him to the Vale. Ro enjoyed the flirting (and more) commonly practiced in the Vale, while Salia seemed only there for the conversation (and more) she could glean from the clientele. As an aside on Salia, after her breakup with Hix, she hit a downward spiral for a while, but seems to have come out of it with a new sense of purpose. She isn’t the casual party host any longer, she’s decided to take her natural talents of fishing secrets out of people and put it to real use. Salia is a little colder, a little less vulnerable, and a lot more driven than she was before Hix. A different person now; she’s getting business done! [Recovery + Indulge Vice]

Yadvyga, suffering from many maladies (sprained ankle, scratched cornea, and a gut wound) was in a bad way. Despite her trepidation about Arquo dealing with demons, she needed his help find find someone to take care of her. And despite his trepidation about taking her to see his racist family friend, Melvir was the only person he knew that could help her. Melvir’s reaction was predictable. He freaked out. He went on a tirade. He reached for his demonbane charms. But Arquo shut that down. All of it. He made it very clear that Melvir owed him this and that sawbones was going to tend to Jadvyga and then tend to Arquo, and he was going to shut up about it [Risky Command. Devil’s Bargain: Melvir sees Arquo not as his war buddy’s boy, but as a dangerous man to be reckoned with. Full success!]. They stayed through the night and much of the next day as Melvir worked away at mending both of them [Recovery, lot’s of Recovery].

Later, Arquo sent out the student patrol, with Ro as their captain to, in fact, patrol the streets and walk people safely through Charterhall [Reduce Heat]

Ro, during the patrol and on his own, spent some time honing his own skills [Training Insight and Playbook]

Jadvyga pulled Ro aside and finally steeled herself to tell him what she really saw. The True Blood. A real demon. The think her people had made horrible sacrifices to excise from their lands. The thing she though she escaped coming to Akoros. And there was one. A real one. HERE! Sneaking into Dandwood’s library, which was easy to do because he was consumed with trying to figure out all of Elke’s notes and continue her research alone, the lifted some of the forbidden tomes and began researching means of identifying demonic corruption [Long Term Project 3/6].

Nobody really wanted to do it, but after the fight with the Hive, someone had to take care of Scapa, who was now (after the fight) casting disturbing shadows wherever she went. Reluctantly they asked Nyryx to teach her how to possess a living creature so that she could  slake her thirst for life essence. We’re sure this will go well [Recovery for Cohorts]

Arquo seeing the crew was running well, enlisted Jadvyga and Ro to the task of finding Major Crane, a man Arquo knew was hunting him regarding the disappearance of Arden Keel. They made some headway and saw him entering the Keel family home in Brightstone with the family. They didn’t fit in at all though, so they left quickly, before Bluecoats arrived to ask what it was they were doing. [Gather information…stakeout style!]

Exhausted and finding no nourishment with his family, Arquo calmed his own nerves by supplicating himself to Setarra and telling her that he would offer up Major Crane as her second sacrifice. [Indulge Vice].

What Rocked

Eric’s reveal about the Tycherosi feeling from demons and having to do horrible things to banish them was wonderful. I love that the crew is so concerned with Arquo’s well being and with the decisions that he’s making, but still following him!

Once Adrienne told me what was stressing Arquo out in the conversation with Corro (see below) I did get in some pretty good digs at making him feel overwhelmed with responsibility.

Arquo got in some pretty good digs of his own talking to Ro and Jadvyga “I want you to work with me because I know that neither of you are squeamish about killing…”

Bringing back rolling for effect (even though it was unintentional) was fun. I felt a little bad that after a crit they still didn’t both live, but sometimes the dice fail you.

The hilarious decision of what to do with the hunting cats, finally deciding that Ro would use his connection with Bazso to get rid of them. That tension between Bazso and Arquo just keeps building!

I was really glad to bring Salia back into the story in a positive way. She had some hard times but she’s bounced back. And she’s got some help now, leverage over some people and some influence!

What could have improved

During the conversation with Corro, Arquo got stressed out (took trauma) but for the life of us, we couldn’t figure out how he would be taken out of the scene. So we let him play it out, and then of course when were doing the flashback, he was still there because it was before then. I just felt like I wasn’t interrogating the scene enough as the mechanical results should always be able to be represented in the fiction if you has enough questions about it. We ended on Corro really putting the pressure on Arquo to be a good leader (since all the other leaders were gone) and that him allowing Harland back was a stupid idea. We also had him “miss a scene” by returning home and getting zero satisfaction out of speaking with his parents because they were judging him, didn’t understand what mattered to him, and generally felt like they didn’t understand him. It worked in a manner of sorts.

I also had to really wonder why Corro wouldn’t just kill them all on the spot (in the middle of the discussion when things were going poorly and they weren’t budging). Frankly it would have made sense, but I pulled back because I realized that I was the one who said they should meet with the Hive if they wanted to negotiate a truce, I was the one that framed the scene in the Billhooks butcher shop, and I was the one pushing for some pretty terrible choices. Offering up anyone of those things is totally my job, but demanding them all and giving the ultimatum of “if not, a bunch of dudes try to kill your characters” was bad form. I’m not really thrilled with how I framed that scene, but I’m also not really thrilled with the Hive’s reaction to accept reprisals from a lower tier gang. In the end, I think Corro needs to have an angle (a reason he wants them alive and operating) for that to make sense, and maybe we’ll find out he does when the do a score for him.

The whole thing with Major Crane made re realize I have been doing a piss poor job of keeping up with all the factions in Doskvol. By now Arquo should have faced more pressure to lay low or be caught by him (he did kidnap a wealthy families son in front of the Major who recognized him afterall). Also, there is a leviathan hunter’s journal still floating around… though I think in that case they just got wise that the DSS didn’t have it any more and moved on to find it.

My energy level wasn’t great during the game and took a steep turn for the worse in the last hour. I think that’s why for me I felt like I wasn’t painting the world with a haunted brush as much as I’d like.

Actual Play – Thieves’ Cant (3/23/2017)

GM: Sean Nittner
Players: Hakan Sayalioglu, Karen Twelves, and Kathryn Hymes
System: Blades in the Dark (mash up with Dialect)

Our second and final episode of Thieves’ Cant. We picked up from the first session (where we played Dialect) and continued the story with Blade in the Dark. Playing the Grey Cloaks (for reals this time) we saw one of their early scores on the docks as they were still trying to find their footing in the Doskvol underworld.

Our Language

Here’s our Thieves Cant!

Our Characters

Since we had a short session we made up our characters before hand, they were:

Usa Waydrind – A petite Severosi ex-soldier who thought she could use her skills to better ends on the streets of Doskvol.

Aiz Anserekh–  A disgraced Iruvian noble who still keeps him mustache perfectly groomed despite other effects falling by the wayside. When he arrived in Doskvol he joined the Bluecoats (and gained many scars in the process), which he left alongside Nessa and Hutch.

Vond Comber – A natural born street urchin, tall and guant, but very much at home on the docks. Vond still carried a coin with the symbol of the Weeping Lady to remember where he came from. Vond used to do work for Long Strangford (one of his many street level agents) but run afoul of Needle, a vicious Bluecoat

My Prep

Prep, what is this thing? What is it doing in Blades in the Dark?

Well, I knew we had two hours to game and I wanted to make sure we weren’t spending all of it just figuring out what score to go on (very easy to do). I also wanted to make sure that the Grey Cloaks were surrounded by people at all times, so they would need to use their cant to communicate if they didn’t want others to overhear them.

We talked some online about possible scores and settled on “lets’s mess with people on the docks”, which still wasn’t very specific but it game me a start point, so I started jotting down notes about what was going on at the docs, both the status quo, as well as the scores that other factions were pulling off, which some enterprising scoundrels might pick up on. First, the status quo:

  • Chief Helker runs the docks. From his warehouse office perch he can see across nearly all of them and with a constant stream of reports from his clerks as well as other informants, he keeps pace with the hundreds or thousands of transactions that happen daily at the docks. Diamond, a tough old wold who hires day laborers to fill in and do the work that the union dockers don’t want to do.
  • Lord Strangford‘s leviathan hunter, the Nightbreaker, is in dock getting repaired from it’s last hunt. A bevy of Bluecoats and dockers alike stand around near the boat doing security and making sure only the right people make it on board. Eager to abuse his power whenever he could the rough Bluecoat Needle paraded around the docks as though he owned the place (which wasn’t entirely untrue).

Crime aplenty. Here were the various scores happening on this sunless day:

  • The Red Sashes, disappointed with their share of the extortion rackets the Crows allocated them had sent members to fleece merchants on their way off the docs. If they could get to them before they paid their bribes to the Crows or the Lampblacks, they cold cut in on the action. And if someone was foolish enough to pay them, they got what they deserved. Zora Hakar, a Red Sash who is dangerous but looks authoritative enough to get people to cough up bribes, was on the dock, pilfering from whoever she could!
  • Strangford’s Bluecoats were intentionally interrupting the transport of leviathan blood, and blaming everyone else for their delays, so that they could sneak it into a warehouse and dilute it. The Nightbreaker didn’t bring enough to make it’s quota, so they were covering up for it. Needle as in charge of keeping this operation secure.
  • The Grinders, eager to derail imperial supremacy have a plan to get on-board the Nightbreaker as “workers” and sabotage the repair operation, while also trying to rob from it’s coffers if they get a chance. Derret, tough, smart, and willing to take risks, got in line with the other day laborers to get himself work so that he could get close to the Hunter and find out how to get his crew on board.

I figured with four accessible characters (Diamond, Needle, Zora, and Derret), each representing larger forces (Dockers, Strangford, Red Sashes, and Grinders respectively) we’d have plenty of opportunities to interrupt other scores or plan one of their own!

The Play is the Thing

In short things went well for Aiz and Usa (they made off with Zora’s take) and very poorly with Vond (he was last seen entering a boat house and Needle following after him. Gunshots were heard, Needled walked out and Vond didn’t).

But for all the juicy details, I recommend checking out the show. I’m pretty proud of the production quality this time:

What Rocked

We used our cant, it was so cool. Derret was trying to figure it out and didn’t get it. Needle knew what it all meant but wasn’t close enough to overheard. I loved it.

This group was great, they honed in on place they could rob the robbers and went to town. I love that it ended in a duel.

Poor Vond. I wonder if it was bugskot for him or if he made it.

Having the prep for a short game like this was definitely helpful. It’s not my style normally, but I was glad that we had lots of low hanging fruit to pick from.

What could have improved

Oh, several things, some more important than others.

I thought it was novel and fun to have the scoundrels take actions just to get day work, and it did offer a lot of opportunities for me to reveal the setting to them through complications. I just felt bad that we spent the first hour with them just trying to earn a few slugs for carrying boxes. It was about the lowest stakes I’ve ever seen in Blades and I was concerned both for the players and the the audience that patience for it might have been wearing thin.

At the end, because we were well over time, I asked them to wrap everything up with fortune rolls and then that determined the outcome. The trick there as that when I assigned consequences to the results, chat (correctly) suggested that they could resist those consequences. Which normally would be totally true but I wanted these fortune rolls to reflect the sum total of all the actions. It didn’t matter that much in the end but I think that when doing one roll resolution, I may elect not to allow resistance rolls and abide just by what the fortune roll tells us.

Ship names are hard.

Someone said something offensive in chat, which I wish I just deleted, but I was caught off guard enough that I just said it out loud. This was clearly the case of me needing to hone my chat moderation skills and not be as quick to blurt out something I read. We were pretty quick to move past it. Next time hopefully I’ll catch it before I open my mouth!

Actual Play – Arquo’s Revenge (3/22/2017)

GM: Sean Nittner
Players: Karen Twelves, Eric Fattig, and Adrienne Mueller
System: Blades in the Dark

I lost my notebook. I found it the next day at work, but for this game I didn’t have my notes and we had to play with our collective memory. Dangerous waters we waded into.

Ro’s Resentment

Nyryx returned Ro in one piece, but he had done something that normally he wouldn’t, he let Ro see what what was happening, mostly just to make him jealous as all hell with Nyryx in his body, he did better at picking people up than he would have on his own. Ohh, it burns!

Arquo’s Plan

Not that anyone really understood why they were doing this, apart from Arquo wanting revenge for the Hive trying to kill his family, but they did agree that hitting the Hive where it hurts would be a good. Initially Arquo just wanted to run in there guns blazing, but cooler winds prevailed and they agreed to go in ghosts blazing instead. The hound had stalked a few Hive workers and found they mostly stashed things in peoples legitmate business or homes, but after he spend enough time, he eventually saw two men climb down a porthole in the street down to an underground dock where they were moving cargo. This is where they would strike.

Rounding up the Ruffians

Normally Elke would be in charge of rounding up ghosts, or if not her, than Harland, but neither were present so they went about it the hard way, walking the streets of Doksvol.

In dusty, run down Charhallow, Quellen (who had re-opened her shop) told the that Scapa was “around somewhere” but hadn’t been staying her tree, instead searching out other ghosts in the district and meeting with them to some unknown ends. Arquo, Jadvyga, and Ro all split up to find her and eventually Ro overheard her [He has ghost voice] arguing in a abandoned garden behind a wall with three other ghosts.

Though they attempted just to draw Scapa out things got ugly quickly. Scapa didn’t recognize Ro and she wasn’t materialized enough that either Arquo or Jadvyga could really make her out. Add that to the already hostile nature of Tara, Skeever, and Pool, and it quickly became accusations that the mortals had overheard their plans and that they must be destroyed before they could reveal them. Ro eventually got through to Scapa, and she vouched for him but not before [Desperate Sway. Partial Success]:

  • Arquo was stricken with fear and then chilled to the bone by a Skeever passing through him. [Level 2 Spirit Frostbite]
  • Jadvyga bolted, drawing Tara to follow after her [Resisting the initial fear, then Resisting the harm, then making a Risky Prowl to lose Tara, and getting great effect (Thanks to the shaodwcloak) so she could lose her and turn back around quickly to rejoin them
  • Ro nearly dodged out of the way but still felt the terror of Pool passing through him. [Resist with Prowess to take Level 1 Harm “Frightened”]

Once Scapa understood who they were, she gladly fled with them (negotiations with Pool, Skeever, and Tara weren’t going well anyway). With his permission Scapa entered Ro’s spirit cocoon so that she could speak through him to Arquo and Jadvyga. While inside him, though not possessed Ro felt both violent and curious urges crop up. His anger towards Nyryx rose to the surface as did his wonderment of how he was so successful with seduction.

Ro tried to convince Scapa that they were going on a mission to save Elke but being inside him and connected to him, she saw through is ruse and tried to leave his body, disgusted by someone who would hide the truth from her [Risky Sway. Bad Outome].

He wasn’t sure exactly how but Ro held on to Scapa [Resist with Resolve] just long enough that she could hear Arquo order her to his service. “You’re part of the Doskvol Spectral Society. We’ve protected you and you haven’t done anything for us lately. You will come with us because I say you will!” Scapa, cowed by Arquo’s suddenly forceful demeanor, agreed under the condition that she ride inside of him instead of Ro! [Command. Partial Success.]

After that, finding Ring and Cavelle at the Six Arms wasn’t to challenging, and neither of them objected to a mission of hurting others. Here’s the profile on their soldiers:

  • Ex-Magistrate Ashlyn Scapa, died in unknown circumstances and was kept in a spirit bottle by judge Casslyn Mora for unknown number of years. Still bound by her sense of civic duty to depend the property rights of those who have been wronged. In death she has become knowledgeable and violent.
  • Cavelle, Severosi who died inside Ironhook in solitary confinement. Seeks to freedom in all it’s forms, primarily through disrupting the normal order of things and creating chaos. Lost his ghostly arm in a fight with the Kincliath spectral guardian. (loud, cunning, feeds on chaos).
  • Ring, in love with Wester and waiting (impatiently) for him to join her. (amorous) [I have very, “meh, that’s all I did with Ring?” feelings about this now that I look at my notes. Yes, like all ghosts she’s obsessed with her death, but being obsessed over a lost love doesn’t ring true to me. I’ll work on this off screen]

Engagement

The plan (Occult, power source was the ghosts) depended on the crew getting into the Hive’s cargo dock, setting the ghosts free and letting them wreak havoc. Ro’s presence was important, as the was the only one who could speak to them reliably once they were let loose. Jadvyga was going to help them all sneak in, and Arquo was leading the mission. Six crew members disguised as three!

Just as they were lifting the manhole cover to creep down a man popped his head up as he was on his way out for a smoke. Ro wanted to finish him off quickly, by running him through, but when he saw the naked blade the man dropped his hold on the ladder and fell six feed down to the passage below. After that ensued a furious attempt to subdue him (without killing him!) before he could alert the others. Luckily the passage was dark and the noise coming from the dock was substantial.

Arquo leapt down and put a gun to his head, which help him quiet and at bay for a moment. However when the others climbed down and freed the ghost, he the agent was able to slip behind Aqruo’s guard and get his knife to Arquo’s throat. Thankfully the hound was wearing the gorget which came with his Deathlands scavenging armor [Heavy Armor] and so, unable to find purchase on Arquo’s neck, the agent plunged the blade into his chest (Level 4 Harm reduced to Level 2).

A wild melee broke out in the dark. Ro tried to run him through but when the blade missed the agent closed in on him, tackled him to the ground and pressed his blade into the Slide [Level 4 harm, also reduced to Level 2]. Jadvyga jumped on him and, pulled up the agents own chain shirt and plunged her dagger into his spine, paralyzing the man. [I don’t have all the notes for this but it was several partial successes which injured but did not fell the man, several bad outcomes which exposed them to his lethal blade, and a final full success that finished him off]

Unprepared for Ghosts

The Hive, who specifically does’t traffic with the occult was not expecting three angry ghosts to show up and start trashing their operation. A gondolo with several cages holding hairless hunting cats was being unloaded at the docs when Scapa, Ring, and Cavelle arrived. Cavelle got into the lights, supercharging them and blinding people before blowing out the bulbs. Scapa, still unable to possess harrowed the chief who was directing the operation. Ring, possessed one of the sailors, and he slowly began untying the gondola from the dock. One of the dockers fired his pistol at Scapa, others froze up or tried to flee, or  produced spirit bane charms and incanted their god’s protection.

Adding to the Chaos

Arquo, who had brought his musket, took aim and fired at one of the cages that had already been loaded onto the dock and a hungry, angry hunting cat bust forth. Ro jumped on the gondola to stab one of the sailors but lost his footing on the uneven surface. and both of men when tumbling into the water. Jadyvyga ran at a sprint and leaped right between two Hive dockers (one on the dock, the other on the boar) who were aiming pistols at her, causing them to accidentally fire on each other [Thanks Devil’s Footsteps].

The Ghost continued to distract until Chief Helker, the one overseeing the operation, finally fended off Scapa and started to restore order among the Hive gondoliers and dockers. But by this time, the Society was already…

On Their Way Out

Jadvyga dropped her grappling hook into the water like an anchor so that Ro could pull himself up by the rope. He made a desperate shove to push the man grappling him away and lunged for the rope, then pulled with all his might to make it onto the boat. [Desperate Prowl. Full Success]

Meanwhile, Arquo ran a rope from the boat over to the paralyzed agent laying in the hallway, tied it around his waist and them gave Jadvyga the sign to gun the engine! He jumped onto the boat. Ro kicked his attacker back into the water, and Jadvyga blazed out of the doc on their stolen gondola with their stolen hunting cats (the three that hadn’t been unloaded) and a few moments later, with a Hive agent skipping on the water behind them! [Risky Finesse. Crit!]

With one gondolier fell by a gut shot on the boat and he other being dragged by the rope behind them, they also had Arquo’s requisite two bodies. We’ll fine out next time if both of them actually lived!

What Rocked

Though it took some time to do, I was really glad that we played out rounding up the posse. Specifically to showcase what the crew is like without Elke or Harland to wrangle their ghosts. And the answer is, it’s rough. They are scared, they are unable to command or even really converse that well and they ended up exposing themselves to a lot of danger to do it. But they also found that Scapa was conspiring with three other ghosts, and that they were at odds. I wonder if that will come back or not. Either way, I really had fun watching them figure out how they would get the ghosts on board!

I really like the effect ghost have when the are being carried [Ghost Passage]. I treat it like a very mild form of possession. The ghost has no control, but the host feels their strongest emotions as though they were their own. They have control of their actions, but  it’s great to ask the questions like “What is Ro angry about?” and “What is Arquo most curious about?” It’s a fun avenue as the GM to learn more about the PCs.

That heist was so crazy. It came from the idea that if we scare the Hive enough, maybe they will back down. Maybe is right. Next session we’ll open with a meeting between Corro and the Society to see if their response is to back of (go to faction status -1 or even 0) or to double down (war!). Either way they have a sweet new boat and…. hunting cats to sell? I love it.

I actually especially love everyone’s motivations in this fight. Arquo was going to bring two barely alive Hive members back with him. Jadvyga was going to steal something. Ro was going to prove himself. And I love how all of them did it. So good.

Blades really shows you what happens when you punch up. It’s hard. Fighting against Tier IV opponents (at Tier II) means the Society usually started with limited (because of fine equipment) or no effect. It also meant that that when they went for those desperate actions, lethal harm and catastrophic consequences were on the line. They did it, but wow did it take it out of them. I take my hat off to seeing how well they managed the hazards with a combination of setup actions, several assists, resisting where they had to, and dogged persistence!

In the end we made a fortune roll to see how much damage the ghosts did and how they fared. Result was a 4-5, which we took as Scapa wounded, Cavelle destroyed, and the entire hunting cat smuggling operation abandoned. And yet…miraculously… nobody died. At least not yet.

What could have improved

Wish we had time to finish the score (we had to rush a bit at the end just to get as far as we did). I’m eager with anticipation to see how turns out for them. I’m sensing xp from desperate actions ahead!

Actual Play – Response from the Hive (3/14/2017)

GM: Sean Nittner
Players: Karen Twelves, Eric Fattic, and Adrienne Mueller
System: Blades in the Dark

Didn’t we just play two days ago? Yes we did. In fact this is our 37th session of Doskvol Spectral Society…we’re going to need to order more blades.

A bad night for Arquo

Excited and bewildered after meeting with Lady Slane, Arquo and Elke retired to her apartment. The shared a glass of sherry, comiserated over Harland’s bad fortune, but found some solace in knowing Hix would finally have a friend inside Ironhook. Then… nothing. Elke told Arquo she would see him in the morning to start work first thing, and he left her apartment, just as unsure of their relationship as he had ever been.

He went home, shared a good meal with his family and then retired, visions of Elke, or was it Setarra, floating through his mind.

Arquo woke coughing, bleary eyed and confused. Smoke. There was smoke all around, which meant fire was close behind. He covered his mouth and scanned his home to find his mother and father. Arcus was coughing terribly and trying to get his own bearings. Remira was in the bedroom (well, the room that wasn’t the kitchen/dining/common room) and batting away flames that were growing dangerous close to her.

Arquo, who had inhaled the ashen soot of the deathlands and seen through the miasma it created, was somewhat better prepared to work in these conditions than his parents. He first found Arquo and gave him is bearings. Sent him upstairs to exit the front door (remember: they living in a basement apartment). Arcus went up the stairs and tried to open the door but it wouldn’t budge. Something was blocking it on the other side.

Arquo raced into the bedroom just in time for a flaming beam to collapse behind him [Risky Prowl. Partial Success]. Unable to get her out through the front door, he broke the high window which led out into the street and hoisted Remira up through it, then climbed out himself. It was a blood affair, but of them cut up by the glass, but too filled with panic and adrenaline to care. [Risky Prowl. Partial Success].

Arquo ran around to the front of house with his mother where he found an old junk car propped up against the door. The two of them tried frantically to pull it away and help Arcus open the door but they were too late. As they pried at it Arcus’ pounding slowed and then stopped. He collapsed inside the burning building. [Desperate wreck. Bad outcome]. Arcus would have died if not for Arquo crashing back through one of the front windows, heaving his unconscious father up and out of the window and then climbing out himself, his new shadowcloak singed at the edges [Resisting fatal harm to his father with Prowess. Desperate Prowl roll to get him out. Partial success. Consequence, losing the cloack in the fire. Also resisted with Prowess. Final result was soon-to-be-fatal harm to his father and a singled cloak].

Quickly Arquo and Remira loaded Arcus into what was left of the cart and wheel him to Melvir’s place for emergency attention. The old physicker used ever balm, tonic, powder, ingestant, suppository, and plasmic oil he could to get his friend breathing again, and then coughing up an unholy amount of soot and smoke. His lungs were badly burned from the inside. There was nothing Merlvir could do but keep him cool, make him inhale soothing essences, and drink aloe. Whether Arucs would make it through the night was up to how much he wanted to live.

When he had done all he could for Arcus, Mevilr tended to Remira and Arquo’s wounds. Bandaging cuts, applying salves, and offering soothing tonics to help with their parched throats. [Two recover actions from Arquo. One for him and one for Arcus]. The candlelight flickered in Arquo’s dark eyes and we flashback to him outside his burning home, having just freed Arcus he scanned the area desperate to find some clue of who had done this and then he spotted a seal stamped on the cart, nearly concealed by the blackened burning wood, only discernibly because it was such a simple outline… that of a bee.

Inside the Hook

The golden bee had over the ironhook cell to years to scrape into the stone wall. Many shivs and sharpened spoons had been dulled or broken in the process, and applying the pigment took ages as well as the stone seemed to soak up the gold color into it’s recesses, so the stain had to be applied and re-applied many times.

Harland, still thought to be part of the family (news of his betrayal had not yet made it to Ironhook nor had Fletcher said anything to the others yet) was quickly raised above the other inmates and take to a jail cell with more creature comforts, including a sawbones that could see to his injuries. [Recovery action with the Devil’s Bargain that he was inside the jaws of the beast when they all found out about his betrayal].

Taking stock of the Society

Elke is missing.

Harland is in the Hook.

Arquo’s house was set on fire by the Hive.

The student patrol had been beat up by bruisers which attacked them out of no where.

Danwood would be expecting research to begin today.

Things were looking bad for the Spectral Society. As he had done before, when they were leaderless, Arquo took charge. He told everyone they were going to find Elke, but this time he was met with some resistance. Ro, the very pretty Iruvian duelist, and member of the student patrol spoke up. “Man, we’re all beat up and you want us to go looking for Elke? We’ve got bigger problems to deal with. Besides, can’t you tell. She’s just not that into you.”

The words hung in the air for a moment. Nobody wanted to respond. Ogre, Bazran, and Wester, all recently cowed by Arquo were not about to take sides and Arquo himself was taking this in. After a moment he repeated the command. The student patrol would go to her home and look for her there. Jadvyga and Ro (since he was making a stink about going to Elke’s place) would talk to Jadvyga’s friend Dermot in the Bluecoats, and Arquo would go hunt up any leads he could as well. Findings:

  • Elke’s place had been cleared out completely. Bluecoats arrived and paid her rent up through the month and her landlord did not ask why (Student Patrol)
  • Dermot knew this tactic, it’s what the Spirit Wardens do when they want someone gone without a fuss. It meant she was either dead, or worse, held in Bellweather, a place he was never going to step foot in (Jadvyga and Ro)
  • Setarra was surprised to see Arquo so soon, but once he told her it was about Elke it all made sense. She knew the Salkaran family line and could tell Arquo that she was still alive. If he wanted to know more, she would require two bodies, still living. Perhaps he had enemies that he wanted to see suffer… (Arquo).

The rest of Downtime

We had already covered a few downtime actions above (recovery rolls mostly) but now we started working out the rest of them in earnest.

Ro trained both in Insight and Playbook advancement.

Jadvyga visited Dundridge and Sons to try on new clothes [Indulge Vice]

Arquo moved his family into Elke’s apartment (it was paid up through the month, and they needed a place to stay) [Indulge Vice]

The Student Patrol, though battered [weak] went about their duties at Charterhall, escorting people to their homes and such. [Reducing heat, thanks to All Hands]

Ro was introduced to Nyryx, not the ghost that everyone else knew and loved but the playboy figure that constantly had challenged Ro when wooing potential bedmates. [Ro took Nyryx as a rival, which is hilarious because Nyrxy is Elke’s bestie, both character played by Karen]. “No…not this guy!” And yet, to really be part of the crew, Ro needed to let a ghost ride him to 48 hours. Nyryx, who had been reserved about performing the rituals was more than happy to ride around in Ro for a couple of days!

What Rocked

Seeing Arquo thrust into the position of leadership again was great. He never intended to do more than some odd jobs here and there for Elke, now he’s leading her crew as they try to find her.

I love that I was able to offer such an easy offer from Setarra. Want more information? Just punish the people who hurt you. Arquo’s got the vengeful ability after all.

Ro’s introduction to the game with “Man, she’s just not that into you.” was great. Karen had been waiting for a good moment for her new character to appear and this was it. So good.

When Arquo visited Setarra and came back with the news he lied to the whole crew “If we give my informant two members of the Hive, they’ll trade that for more information about Elke.” Sure, it’s got a tinge of truth to it, enough to keep people off his back for a while, despite him seeming to always be warm these days.

What could have improved

I felt a little bad letting the PCs spend all this time to find out knowledge that the players already knew. The Spirit Wardens didn’t leave much of a trace though, so it makes sense that some level of effort is needed to know more. Just, eh, feels weird doing all these dark deeds for something you already know, and for something that Karen doesn’t really want any action taken on (i.e. she’s happy to be playing Ro for a while and doesn’t want any gung ho missions to save Elke).

It was funny how Elke’s disappearance and Harland’s arrest not only shocked the crew but also left me unsure of what to do. I was a little worried that we wouldn’t have any direction or scores to do. I should not have worried (I say having played the next session before writing this) but I did feel a bit out of sorts, like this game was just a recovery session for all of us.

 

 

Actual Play – Research Grant Applications (3/12/2017)

GM: Sean Nittner
Players: Karen Twelves, Eric Fattic, and Adrienne Mueller
System: Blades in the Dark

Blades in the Dark, special edition (it feels like there is a lot of that going around right now). We decided to do an extra long Sunday session to pull off the big score, getting Elke her research grant! The forgotten gods know, she’s been working on it for a while! But just to recap Elke:

  • Comes from the most unconventional supernatural background. On her home at the Dagger Isles, her family the Salkarnas have made a “peace” with ghosts. Elke only knows bits of it, but form her experience ghosts are friendly and subservient. [Background]
  • Has undergone a ritual where Nyryx took complete control of her for two days and during that time built a spectral cocoon where she could safely store a ghost as well as protect herself from future possession. She has shared this process with most of the Spectral Society [Ghost Passage special ability]
  • She pillaged through the Dimmer Sister’s old tomes and discovered how they create hollows, and then developed a technique to protect your soul from the same happening. It required gaining positive standing with the Severosi consulate (which they did by convincing two professors Oilweather and Danwoot to write a book on Severosi history, which Jadvyga had to scribe) to purchase Severosi Callous Quartz (normally not traded with non-Severosi) to create an amulet which will protect the wearer from being hollowed [Multiple long term projects and performing a ritual].
  • Extensively studied the process of possession, both forced and willing, enabling her to detect and better exorcise possessing ghosts [Long term project + Ghost Mind special ability].
  • Has developed her natural tolerance and resistance to supernatural terrors and threats and refined it to make her unflappable in the face of the unnatural. [Iron Will character special ability + Anointed crew special ability]
  • Learned that Bazso has a circlet which draws spirits into it and then gives the wielder the power over them. Both be getting in the best of standing with the Lampblacks [+3 Faction Status] and by doing personal favors for Bazso which helped him appease members of his gang, was granted permission to study the circlet and use it on multiple scores. From what she experiences, she also devised a ritual for animating the dead. [Multiple scores + long term project (Ritual)]
  • Has learned the Dimmer Sisters ritual of carving off the spirit essence of a solider and placing it into a spider, creating a sentry servant [Long term project (Ritual)]
  • Has encountered ghosts from several eras and interacted with them extensively. The midwife of the last Skov queen before the emperor conquered what is now Doskvol. Vond, an ancient ghost who served under the Emperor in the first Unity Wars hundreds of years ago. Nyryx, a Severosi ghost, at least a hundred years old, bound to the Salkaran family, and tied to affairs with Scurlock.

So, suffice to say, when she wrote all this down [Aquire Asset, Tier IV Research notes] it made for a very impressive body of work!

Payoff from last Score

We did a little clean up that we missed on the last score, here was the payoff from the surprise visit to Scurlock

  • Coin: 0
  • Rep: 0 (Nobody knew about their deal)
  • Heat: 3 (Spirit wardens noticed Setarra’s passing)
  • Entanglement: Gang Trouble (more on that below)

Downtime and Free Play

Now that Arquo had been possessed (twice!) it seemed like high time for him to be protected. Since Nyryx demurred from riding another (he was feeling out of sorts since his encounter at the Hound’s Tooth) and because Elke didn’t like the idea of amorous Arquo (it was awkward enough already) she coaxed Hoxen into ride Arquo, and then ordered him a nonstop supply of eel sandwiches, meanwhile she worked (trying to ignore the sounds of digestion and indigestion) on her proposal.

During the possession both Arquo and Hoxan learned something of each other. Specifically the Hoxan had been starved inside Ironhook (that’s how he died) and that Arquo had recent encounters with Scurlock and Setarra (both of which caused Hoxan to wince and eat even more feverishly). [Arquo gained the Ghost Passage ability]

Elke spent her time (when she wasn’t distracted) studying the Callous Quartz with Nyryx. She probably should have been documenting it, but mostly she was nerding out with him about how it captured light in it’s crystals and then didn’t let of of it immediately, and had similar interactions with spectral energy. Once she got into the discussion with Nyryx, who wasn’t impressed by the crystals, she got a little carried away and started trying to impress Nyryx quite loudly with all the exploits. Loud enough that they could be overheard through the walls and all the gang’s clattering of dishes and raising of their own voices didn’t prevent people from hearing things like “When I bound those two ghosts into my service and fought back the psychic attacks of the Empty Vessel, I could have used something like this!” [Indulge Vice, Overindulging, +2 Heat, +2 Awesome]

Harland was spending his time being pushed around by faculty, asked for impossible amount of material for publication by Jayan, and mistrusted by students. The life of a new professor at Charterhall is rough. To gain some ground, he decided to establish himself as an actually bonified good teacher, starting with the students. Harland worked hard to make his classes the best, opened up extensive office hours in the Strathmill Hall study room, which was conveniently on campus and not guarded by a disgruntled pikeman. It was also, of course, the Spectral Society’s lair, but surely nothing bad would come of that. His efforts bore fruit, as three students who were frustrated with Jayan’s teaching style quickly started taking advantage of Harlands time. [Long term project: Secure the associate professor status. Result: Critical. 5/8 ticks]. Harland impressed (or at least interacted significantly with):

  • Amosen (an eager Skovlander)
  • Thadrick (a well connected Akorosi that reminded Harland of himself)
  • Mist (A distant and scholarly Tycherosi who remained interested in Harland’s knowledge but did not become personable)

Aqruo woke from his stupor feeling as though he needed to relieve himself in every possible way and seeing evident from the full chamber pots that he already had, several times. Next to him at the table was Elke, sleeping. The book she had passed out on was replaced by a pillow, and a blanket was placed over her. Across the table from her was a man dressed in bright silks with a thick mustache and beard. His well oiled skin glistened in the candle light and his deep v-cut shirt revealed a thick bushel of dark chest hair and strong muscles beneath. He was staring at Arquo when he woke up and gave him a look of faint disgust, then returned to watch over Elke. The man, was beautiful in so many ways, and it just made Arquo feel even more repulsive as he sat in his own refuse and bile.

Unrelenting however, the hound stood up, walked out side to unencumber himself of Hoxan’s remains and then came back in to clean the up the entire library, removing all signs of his gluttonous adventures. After he was finished he looked at the man there, who he knew had to be Nyryx and told him to leave, he would take care of Elke from here. And there was a small tingle in the back of his neck, as small taste of power that reminded him how spectral energies are just or a mortal’s remains, they are inherently weak and have only fleeting purchase of the living. Welcoming this new confidence he gave Nyryx a hard look, and the man retreated, seeing something of the violence that Arquo could do to him if he was roused to it [Risky Command. Great Effect. Full Success. Devils Bargain: Gaining insight into a ghosts weakness, visions from Setarra]. He left her to sleep peacefully.

Elke woke along and decided to get back to work. Having studied them (and made a whole to do about it) decided to perform the ritual and trap some of her own life essence [3 stress] along with other ritual components into making the protective amulets. Two of them. One for her, and one for Jadvyga. Not one for Arquo?

Arquo, know that the Society’s both wasn’t going to dredge itself out of he canal went to the common room to round up some of the School Patrol to help him pull it out. Only, they weren’t having any of it. When he found Wester, Ogre, Bazran, and Vey, they seemed to be at odds but weren’t talking about it, just giving each other dirty glances. Arquo, not having any time for their personal grievances told them to be “out with it!” Wester came forth calling Ogre on his bullshit. Ogre new about the plans to steal the grant money from the Sparkwrigths and was fine with it it. Wester, one of Una’s students and loyal to the college [Bummer having a gang that is principled] wasn’t having any it, and was personally irate with Ogre for holding onto that info and not sharing with him till just now. The crew was at each other’s throats and weren’t going to be of any use till someone straitened them out.

Arquo tried first to reason with them, which yielded nothing, then to order them, which got him an accidental jab to the jaw from Ogre (it was intended for Wester) when a fight broke out, and then finally violence when he put a gun to Wester’s head and twisted Ogre’s arm, much harder than he had to to subdue him, but he liked the feeling of having the power to not just hurt but permanently damage the man. [Controlled Command, elevating to Risky Skrimish. Devil’s Bargain to get another tick from on the demonic corruption clock 3/4]

Together they dragged the boat out of the canal, carried it to the Charterhall University grounds and promptly dumped it near a machine shop for fixing, after all, it was technically university property. [Recovery action for the Boat. Consequence: Earning the ire of the professors who realized it was missing]

Harland, while on campus already, reserved the use of a basement classroom in Morlan Hall. He could do that afterall, as a professor. His first picks for late night meeting places weren’t available, checked out to some Forgotten God cult or another Spectrology study group, but he did find a place, and in the late hours he invited Lizette to meet him there. When she arrived the room lit only by candle light, set up especially to shroud Harland and only reveal his silhouette and not his face. He told her than he knew she doubted him, that the didn’t see eye to eye, and that he respected people who were steadfast in their beliefs. Because of that he wanted to offer her the position of Mistress of Secrets. Which she accepted, only after stabbing him in the throat, and finding that he did not falter in his stance or in his offer to her [Desperate sway roll. Devils Bargain of stepping in very close. Partial success. Level 4 harm] Seeing him stand, despite what should be a fatal wound was finally what convinced Lizette he was authentic. He is the prophet, even if he divided her marriage and ruined her life [Thank you Battleborn and a Prowess resistance roll for making that wound only “really bad” and not “fatal”].

Arquo, feeling the pull of Setarra’s will decided to face her directly. He saw the way Elke summoned her and he knew her true name. So he went alone to the docks, called her named, and was about to cut his hand and bleed into the void sea, when she appeared behind him and caught his hand, preventing him from hurting himself. Setarra’s allure was in full force. Her sexuality, her offer of power, and her familiarity to Elke all raised Arquo’s temperature, but he came for a particular reason, to find out how to destroy Lord Scurlock.

…Wow, let’s talk about this shall we. This wasn’t what I expected but of course it makes sense. Arquo is obsessed with Elke and wants to grant her hearts’ desire. And Setarra has a back and forth relationship with Scurlock which is currently going in his favor. She doesn’t despise him, but freeing herself of his hold on her would be in her interest. Plus, here is this mortal servant just waiting to server her. Okay, let’s do this…

She smiled and stepped closer. “I can give you the means to defeat the old man, but before I aid you in this way, you must give yourself to me. Completely. ” And Arquo said “I do.” The stepped into the void sea water together and instead of splashing the simply lowered down into the water. The bodies entangled with one another and Arquo’s lungs were filled not with the sea water but with Seterra’s breath, filling him with life and sating his every desire. She was the voluptuous sea captain from the Dagger isles, she was the scaled, shark eyed demon, she was Elke. She was all these things to him, and he was naked in front of her.

When the rose from the waters he felt a fever coming on, something inside of him burning hot enough to consume him. And part of that fever was a spark of insight, knowledge that he did not have before about the villain Kotar who took what did not belong to him and who left behind three artifacts could undo the obscenity that Scurlock has become.  He had a vision of the old Kinclaith manor home in the Lost District, now controlled by Lord Sukur, and the hand residing inside of it.

[Mechanically this was an interesting twist. Arquo didn’t bind Setarra, almost the opposite. So we decided to reverse the script somewhat on the ability:

When, having bound yourself to the service of Setarra, and she indulges your desire, she may command you and you may not refuse it. When the Setarra’s desire is not well-satisfied, she receives permission to work to punish you for your indolence. You gain a new vice “Obligation: Setarra’s Dark Desire”.

I’m not sure this is perfect but we’ll test it in play and adjust as is needed. One thought is that the control is unbalanced now (just as it is with the Bound to the Demon ability) so who knows, maybe Arquo can turns the tables on Setarra at some later time. I mean, that is what Setarra and Scurlock have been doing for ages, yeah?]

Harland visited his brother Corro, again in the distillery and again said he had no advancement on the sealant that he had previously showed Corro working in action.  And although he had technically graduated, he still did not intend to leave the university and return to “real work”. All of these things displeased his brother greatly, as he expected. Instead he offered that the Society could do another job for him. If he knew about a shipment coming in, perhaps they could intercept it for him. Corro did not believe his brother for one moment, but did decide that he wanted to know what his brother was really up to. Corro sent Harland with information about their next score against the Ministry of Preservation and sent him with Fletcher, a trusted Skovlan agent of the Hive, as Harlands assistant. But we all knew that he was there to keep an eye on Harland [Desperate Sway. Partial Success. Serious complication].

Arquo, feeling warm and sated inside, went to visit his family. Shared a meal and laughed with them. Everything as right as rain [Indulge Vice].

The Score

Feeling invigorated, even powerful from their recent experiences (gaining a mistress of secrets, putting fear into a ghost, finishing the ritual to create protective amulets) the crew met in Strathmill Hall where Harland had scheduled a meeting with professor Danwood (he can do these things now!).

Danwood arrived intentionally without a lot of time to spare. He had other obligations to tend to was his way of showing Harland that he the junior professor didn’t control his schedule. Still, he was going to meet his favorite student, and decided he could make time in his day, even if it was just to find out what they were up to.

What followed was a hard sales pitch from Elke and Harland (which occasional backup support from Arquo) to get Danwood to first read Elke’s research notes and then to take the idea of making a Spectrology grant request seriously.

[When the players enter a physical combat I don’t often think about what the potential consequences are because they are easy to come up with in the moment. When people start swinging around sharp pointy things, people (sometimes the same people) are bound to end up on the wrong end of them. But when you’re managing a tough sell it’s different. Danwood likes Elke, and he’s got a modicum of respect for Harland. Going into the conversation he had no intention of helping them with their brazen scheme as it would anger the Sparkwrights (who were currently getting the grant) and potentially threaten his academic status, but nor did he have a reason to try and harm the Blades or even hinder them beyond saying the whole thing was a bad idea.

So, before we started rolling dice, we talked a little bit about what Danwould would want and came up with this short list: Fame (Credit for this work), Leverage of Harland (another professor, even an junior one, owing him something is a good thing), and Elke’s adoration (to sate his own ego and vanity). That way when consequences did come up (and they did) I knew what Danwood should grab for. This ended up working great]

“The idea is far on the fringe, and almost certainly illegal. And besides all that, there is no money to be had, at least not without taking it out of the Sparkwrights pockets. You want to study the recently dead before the Spirit Wardens get to them. This seems fraught with peril.” – Opening lines, Yerial Danwood

Yes, we are going to do this! Let me have your research notes. I’ll change them into a proposal that the Ministry will actually read. Enough detail to entice them but no so much as to reveal all that we know already!” – Closing statements, Professor Yerial Danwood.

What happened in the middle? Harland told him about killing so, so many of the Dimmer Sisters (leverage Yerial will have over him later), Elke shared with him her work (Tier IV asset) and peaked his interest, and he positioned himself as their only chance at getting funding (earning her adoration). [This was several risky (because of the illegal nature of their work) sway actions, two of them with partial success].

During the meeting with Danwood, Fletcher stood outside the study room with a listening glass at the door, overhearing all of it [Command roll on Harland’s part to have him stand outisde. Bad outcome]

Engagement Roll

With Danwood at their back, it was time to make an appointment in Gaddoc Rail station, walk up to the marble staircases to the highest levels and meet with the administrator of public funds, Lady Slane. What did the constable say when they met him at the base of the stairs “Professors Danwood and Younghusband… right this way!” [Full success].

The halls of the ministry were pristine despite the soot which sifted up from the station below. Clearly they were cleaned daily. The electrplasimic lights were not the flickering unstable bulbs that most Dusker’s accustomed to seeing, but golden orbs glowing evenly with a soft radiance that was pleasant to the eyes. The bluecoats, of which their were many did not carry pistols or even truncheons, but small, nearly decorative saps on their belts and military sabers (clearly not decorative) at their side.

The ministers office was spartan to a fault. She was not present when they were led in, so they had a few moments to observe the trade maps on her wall, the electroplasmic powered kinetic hanging ball ornament, and the inbox on her desk with a single sheet of paper sitting in it. There were two chairs in front of her desk. One taken by Danwood, one taken by Elke. Harland eyed this and then grabbed another chair from the lounge outside so that he, one of the professors at the table, would be seated as well.

Arquo stood behind, fascinated with a dais that had a small pool of water. He watched it start to blacken in front of his eyes, but when Elke also took notice, it diffused back to clear drinking water.

Fletcher stood behind Harland, waiting and watching to see what he would do in front of the minister he had told Corro he was going to rob.

When Lady Slane (chief of operations, insightful, subtle, effective) entered she had a stern but courteous countenance. She greeted them, but before beginning the meeting proper, she took the sole document from her inbox, scanned it quickly, signed the bottom and placed it in an outbox for a constable to retrieve.

At the appointed time and place, with introductions made, Lady Slane was ready to receive their proposal [Full success on the engagement roll].

Dirty Deeds, Done Dirt Cheap

From here, Elke, Harland, and Danwood all worked their hardest to show the incredible value of Elke’s research, which they believe could potentially alter the process of spectral separation (the three days between death and spiritual disembodiment) so that departing spirits were not feral, vengeful creatures that we knew today, but peaceful ghosts ready to do good for society. The attempted to focus on the public good while sidestepping the necromantic studies that had already been done to get this far and the extensive ones they would need to proceed further.

[Mechanically I created two clocks. One called “Taken seriously by the Ministry of Preservation” with 4 ticks. This clock was optional but if not completed by the end of the negotiation would result in losing faction status with the Ministry, as they might be persuaded to give the money, but would be suspicious of the Spectral Society and do what they could to prevent renewing it again in the future. The second clock was “Research Grant Obtained” with 4 ticks. This was what they were going for!

I made a third, tangentially related clock called “Danwood’s Font Size” which was on a scale from Danwood’s name not appearing in the results (at 0 ticks) to Danwood’s name being the one only that appeared on the cover (at 6 ticks). Each time they asked for Danwood’s support (handled as devil’s bargain) or used the Asset he created (Tier 5 Grant Application) he got a tick on the clock.

They could advance either clock, but once the grant was given, the “taken seriously” the meeting would end. Also, because they were Tier II (DSS) and Tier III (Charterhall University) they were often starting with limited or no effect. This was mitigated (in some cases) by using the Tier V Grant Proposal, the Tier IV Hive Plans to attack Ministry transports, and through all the usual means (setup actions, pushing, and taking more risk for greater effect.]

Unforseen Outcomes

In efforts to sway Lady Slane [Lot’s of sway rolls, but when getting desperate command was used as well] they made all the normal appeals of this work doing public good as well as deriding the Sparkrights [who they were trying to steal the claim from] as being incompetent (citing the Lightning Tower failure in Dunslough) and frivolous (citing Una’s “ridiculous” plan to move people and objects through the ghost field), but that just wasn’t enough. Even with the amazing grant proposal and Charterhall backing, it was clear that Lady Slane would take this all under advisement and consider it once she saw the Sparkwrights grant renewal applications [Flashback to Arquo sneaking into Arcus’ office and stealing the application so they had to hastily recreate it. 2 Stress]

In desperation [this really was a desperate roll] Arquo produced the map provided to him by Corro and admitted that he had connections within the Hive and knew about an attack on a shipment of Leviathan Blood moved by the ministry. At this point many, many bad things happened.

  • Fledcher pulled his hidden dagger form it’s wrist sheath.
  • Lady Slane called a constable to arrest this group of criminals.
  • Elke “protected” the group by calling Harland a traitor to the cause and saying this was never part of the Society’s plan.
  • Harland doubled down and got in Lady Slane’s face threatening to give away more information which incited Fletcher to attacking him and constables to arrest both of them with extreme prejudice. [Level 3 Harm, Concussion]

[This is what happens when you make a desperate roll, and get a 1-3 bad outcome result, while having a wanted level, against at Tier V opponent.]

A very different meeting

Harland and Fletcher were both carted off. Elke barely kept Lady Slane from kicking them all out of her office, and then some very impassioned pleas were made. In this:

  • Elke shared the extend of their research (fully).
  • Lady Slane made an offer for the Society to become agents of the ministry and help them gain control of the Leviathan Hunters, which they refused and further frustrated the already sorely tested Slane. [This killed the “Taken seriously by the Ministry of Preservation” clock, started a “Lady slane is your enemy” clock for Elke, and also cemented that Lady Slane would be watching the Doskvol Spectral society very closely from here on out.

Payoff

At the end of the day, the score was finished, but was it worth it.

  • Coin: 4 (starting funds from the grant. 8 total, but 1/2 went to Charterhall)
  • Claim: Research Grant (-2 Coin per score payment to Ward Boss: Charterhall University)
  • Rep: 4 (Job against the Sparkwrights)
  • Faction Status: Ministry of Preservation -1 (Total -1), Charterhall University +1 (Total +2), Sparkwrights -1 (Total -1), Hive -3 (Total -2).
  • Heat: 8 (Wild Devastating exposure, On hostile turf, and against a high profile target). Dropped by 6 for Elke talking the fall (see below).

Feeling like at least they mostly all made it out in tact, they went home to celebrate. The next day Elke was going to get started on the work with Arquo first thing in the morning…but she never showed up. That night, alone in her apartment, Elke was found by three Spirit Wardens (somebody actually gave her work a read), in chorus their voices filled her small apartment as they intoned a proclamation that she had violated the Emporer’s laws, and then all went dark.

What Rocked

I finally figured out a way to represent the pressure Harland’s obligations were creating for him. For each obligation (to the Hive, to Chaterhall, and to the True Path) he needed to spend one downtime action appeasing them, else start a clock that represents their displeasure. Since that is more downtime actions that he has, that either means he’ll be spending coin to satisfy them all, trying to balance their demands, or oh… never mind.

I had fun not depicting Nyryx when Elke was interacting with him. He’s just in another body, no worries, but then going through all the details of his appearance and demeanor when Arquo, who is jealous of any one that has Elke’s attention was interacting with him. It’s fun to be an unreliable narrator sometimes.

Oh, I’m so clever with my Demonic Corruption clock. I’m really going to make Adrienne fear for Arquo’s fate. She’s going to be terrified to even thing about Set – oh… never mind.

Elke snuck in that Arquo was going to be her research assistant at the end with Danwood, so he agreed to sponsor yet another new student, and Arquo was finally enrolled in Charterhall and made a full member of the Society.

At the beginning of their meeting Arquo tried to size Lady Slane up and got a bad outcome, so instead she did the same to him. Earlier Adrienne had said that the Trauma Arquo took from his time in Setarra’s underwater travel was Unstable, and it represented his soul being somewhat disconnected from this body, making him easier to manipulate, especially by powerful women. Lady Slane saw in him the shame he had about his time as a soldier, and she used that, subtlety to control him during the meeting. She revealed just a hint of her military experience so that he knew she had served as well, and that was a enough to get her hooks in him. Though it didn’t amount to anything substantive, it was a wonderfully subtle interchange between the two of them, unnoticed by anyone else in the room.

I can’t believe the Harland just outed himself (and Corro) right in front of Fletcher. Had it worked, he would have sealed the deal, but it all exploded in his face. As a player these kinds of losses can be hard but Eric embraced the turning tides, and maybe now we’ll get to have that Ironhook score afterall!

Elke’s arrest actually happened post game. Karen and I were discussing it and she wanted to try playing another character for a while, plus it felt like a strain to both of us that a Spirit Warden wouldn’t take some interest in her. So next session we got to meet Ro Masura, the Irruvian Slide!

What could have improved

I realized that to ramp up the tension even more, I should have added one more clock for Lady Slane. A 4 tick clock that was “Your allotted time has expired” which would tick up with each action, but that would be battled back down with some negotiation. Something to keep the tension up (not that it was really needed, but the speed of bureaucracy should have reared it’s ugly head as well).

 

Actual Play – Thieves’ Cant (3/11/2017)

GM: Kathryn Hymes
Players: Hakan Sayalioglu, Karen Twelves, and Sean Nittner
System: Dialect (mash up with Blades in the Dark)

This game was like woah. So many new things. A mash of of Blades in the Dark and Dialect. Playtesting a new backdrop. Streaming on Twitch! Woah!

To make this happen we coordinated a fair bit ahead of time to suss out:

  • The Doskvol Setting
  • What events we’d set the game around (we chose the forming of the Grey Cloaks)
  • Our three aspects (see below)

Aspects

To define our community we picked three aspects that were very particular to our crew.

Bluecoats, because that’s what we are. But the aspect has a lot of nuance to it. It stood for keepers of the peace and the legalized thugs. We are a cogs withing a system of oppression, being shit on, and shitting on those beneath us.

Crushing Debt, a few weeks ago our patrol had gotten in a fight with a few sailors and pushed them around. We took it too far, and then only realized after the fact that they worked for the Leviathan Captain Lord Strangford. He might night have noticed under other circumstances but we slowed down his launch date and found who we were. After that, we were constantly having to pay up to him to keep him from making things official. And the payments due, they just keep growing!

Extortion, because, of course. I mean, this has always been our livelihood, but now it’s more important than ever. We’ve had to step up our graft to pay our new debts!

Characters

Claive aka “Needle” – Our zealot leg breaker who believed above all other thing that extortion is what we we’re here to do. Needle doesn’t even make a pretense of doing his job as a Bluecoat. He just cleans his coat on a daily basis (we’ll be defining that in a bit)

Stev Templelton –  Our oracle who had been in Blue for a decade and could see the writing on the wall. Stev believed that our extortion racket was going to be our downfall.

Braeden Vale – Our healer both literally and figuratively. Vale’s temperate and enduring nature frequently put him in the position of patching us up. Of all of us, Braeden identified the most with being a Bluecoat, and believed our extortion rackets were causing us pain and misery.

Syra “Bug” Haig – Our jester and ne’er-do-well believed that calling ourselves Bluecoats was a joke. She was always happy to run down a business for money, but hoped people would see that we’re no better than any criminals on the streets… we are the criminals on the streets.

Our Language

In Dialect we create a language, and our language was a thieves cant. So cool.

The rule we made for our game was that our language has to use common words that wouldn’t draw attention that would mean other things. That way they could be used in front of our watch commander Krop or other Bluecoats without raising suspicion. This was a great justification for twisting words around and making cool phrases. Thanks chat for helping us out with them!

Here’s our Thieves Cant! Since we’re going to try and use it in a follow up Blades game, and we may develop more, here’s the living google doc.

Our Story

I’m keeping this short, because I really want people to watch the VOD because it’s my first VOD ever! Woot.

We were terrible Bluecoats under the thumb of Lord Strangford. To get out of his crushing debt we tried ever more extreme actions (starting with extortion, then stealing from our own coffers, then trying to stick up one of Strangford’s Leviathan Blood caravans) until we finally burned down the that had evidence against him and blamed Nessa and Hutch, our fellow Bluecoats, for the fire.

The end result was that we earned Strangford’s favor, became his cronies exacting his will, and Stev was promoted to watch commander and took over command in the new barracks. This was a big twist for us as we expected to play the Grey Cloaks, but it turns out we were the assholes that created them!

Here’s the VODs:

What Rocked

Oh my, this game and these words were so great. Bad Weather. How’s your coat? Strange Devils. I loved how the language we made formed our story and the larger narrative of what our scoundrels did with their lives.

The twist at the end was huge. We walked into the game expecting that we would play the characters who eventually became the Grey Cloaks and then in between the third and fourth hour, Karen pointed out that what made more sense is if we were the group that framed the bluecoats and burned down the watch tower ourselves. I mean, afterall, we had a flamethrower! There were a few mininutes of hesitation, we were all holding onto the the original idea, but once we went for it and killed our darlings, the story was so much better and make so much more sense. Plus that allowed for me to have a…

Great scene with Needle and Hutch. In the third act you can bring in NPCs and since Bug was dead, I framed my scene with Hutch trying to overpower Needle but failing terribly. One detail was his blue coat covered in grey ash. I loved getting to put that bit in!

One top of the game and the streaming, we were also playtesting a new backdrop for Dialect, which is also great because it means Kate and Hakan got to take back some good playtest results to boot!

Without really planning for it, we ended up fitting our story into the fiction perfectly. It wouldn’t have made much sense for Krop, who hated our rag tag group, to frame the Nessa and Hutch, but it totally made sense for us to do it. So when Stev was made watch commander, that was even better. Also, I didn’t realize that the Grey Cloaks had there HQ in the old watch tower (I could have just read it, but I missed that part) so it was doubly good to have the confrontation with Needle there!

Talk about killing your darlings. I respect Kate so much for letting Stev change fundamentally. She started out as the one who tried to get us off the path of extortion and ended up the watch commander running a precinct of Bluecoats entirely dedicated to carrying out Strangford’s dirty work. I am genuinely scared of the Bluecoats in the Docks now!

Chat. Thanks chat for both helping me with some technical issues, letting other folks know

What could have improved

The big one is video quality. Because our bandwidth at home is really poor, and because both Karen and I were using the same connection for Zoom (plus streaming) the dropped frames were massive. I had set the bit rate way down (400) which helped but it was still choppy. Thankfully the local recording is much smoother. We order a faster U-verse plan which hopefully will improve performance in the future.

Other thing (thanks Jon Edwards for catching some of these): Our audio levels were off for a while. I thought I had the all dialed in but then I leaned back and was too far away from my mic, and Kate was coming in louder than I expected. I couldn’t label the stream while it was running. I kept getting a language error when I tried to set it, despite selecting English. Luckily I was able to name it after the show.

I didn’t have any bots installed so there was a lot of repeat copy and pasting of links. Moobot is installed now.

Mostly I was just nervous about it all coming crashing down and the performance being intolerable. Thankfully everyone in chat was understanding and we got through it fine. I was exhausted by the end though!

 

 

Actual Play – Surprise visit for Scurlock (3/7/2017)

GM: Sean Nittner
Players: Karen Twelves and Adrienne Mueller
System: Blades in the Dark

Arquo and Elke conspired to steal grant money from the Sparkwrights for their own undead experimentation and investigation. However, they decided that Harland and his ties to the Hive might be necessary to seal the deal, so they shelved the grant proposal and decided for a much more sensible course of action, visiting Scurlock to ask him to kill Vond for them. Sensible, right?

However, they realized that they didn’t know where or how to find the old man, so they turned to…

Summoning Setarra

On a rainy day at the docks, the camera zoomed past hundred of ships, and thousands of people working, cavorting, and performing ritual adulation, to find Elke and Arquo standing at the end of pier. The young whisper tired to cut her hand and drip blood into the water without Arquo noticing, but in her haste, she not only cut herself deeper than intended she also winced visibly enough that the Hound caught on tow what she was doing.

Without any other ideas for how do deceive him, Elke told Arquo that she was indeed using her blood to summon a “friend” and them proceed to beckon a demon. Moments later a nimble sailing ship slipped into the dock, and was tied off by a woman from the Dagger Isles. Copper skin, wavy hair, and full figured, she was everything that Elke might one day grow into. When introduced she gave a name that Arquo instantly forgot, but he pressed to clarify [Resisting her illusion] and eventually was given her name. In full and without guile, such that he could call it again, should he wish.

Traveling through Setarra’s Realm

At their request, and with a warning that they would not enjoy the experience, Setarra took both Arquo and Elke through the void sea water to a pool in the underground canal dock of Scurlock’s abode. On they way their they saw luminous orbs glowing like stars, but upon closer inspection, revealed dark figures inside moving slugishly. Around the orbs were silver chains which both held them fast and were anchored to the ground below. Where they touched the ground, half alive bodies, which were partially transformed into fish like creatures, seeped black blood, which floated up and into the orbs.

One of them, Arquo recognized as Ruby, a Lampblack that the society revealed as snitch so many moons ago. He wordlessly called to Aqruo, all the hound could do was hold on to Setarra’s hand for fear of being lost in this place forever [Supernatural dread].

A Deal with Scurlock

Setarra told them they would be safe from Lord Scurlock so long as they stayed in the pool she brought them in.  When Scurlock entered the room it was from far above and he had several stories of stairs to descend before he would make it to them, so Aqruo stepped out of the pool, onto the stone dock and to the waterside where he put a floating candle, with plans to later pick it up and track it back so he could find Scurlock manor again.

When he stood up from  placing the floating boat candle, Scurlock was beside him and asked him, ever so politely, asked what the stranger was doing in his domicile. Though a plea from Elke did prevent Scurlock from taking any visible action Arquo, as he turned he released a ghost from his command and it possessed Arquo so quickly and smoothly that nobody, including Arquo, noticed!

From in the safety of Setarra’s pool Elke told Scurlock about Vond and convinced him to work against her, even destroy her, provided that Elke both aid him in his reconnaissance of the Spirit Wardens and work with him to defeat Vond.

Return to Darkness

As they returned through the void sea, the ghost which possessed Arquo, upon brushing against one of the luminous orbs was burned away from inside Arquo, and they heard it’s screams as it was destroyed (turned out to be a bad plan for yee old ghosty). It was all Arquo could do to hold on and make it through the journey. When he arrived however, he was changed by the experience. Unhinged and [Unstable].

What Rocked

Going to Setarra to gain access to Scurlock is just magical. I mean, of course she knows how to get to his home and of course she can offer them a way there, but oh, the ride!

There was a moment when Arquo reached out to grab Elke’s hand when he got back in the pool and when he held it he felt safe. Only a moment later he realized it was Setarra’s instead.

To that end, Setarra’s entire appearance was meant to seduce Arquo. She appeared like a more mature Elke, vibrating with power. We all got a kick out of Arquo falling for her Allure. He had pierced her illusion, at least enough to get her name if not see her true form, and that intrigued her!

Scurlock and Elke also had a discussion of Arquo’s fate. The Lord offered to furnish his family well, should Arquo sign on as his manservant (an intentionally archaic term). They of course didn’t take the offer. But it was fun watching Scurlock try to gain more leverage over Elke. And was foiled!

Oh, I just loved it when Elke tried to summon Setarra but fumbled it. First it was a comical moment, but then an endearing one when she was really honest with Arquo.

I also loved it that she decided to go to Scurlock, even though she hates him. It’s the classic Spectral Society move to pit their enemies against each other, but in this case, it was really personal for Elke.

What could have improved

As a GM I love playing characters who are buffoons, who are incredibly vain, or comically bad at what they do. Low status characters are my favorite. Sometimes the PCs mock them, sometimes they sympathize, sometimes they even elevate them, but no matter what I never risk that they will fail to deliver on who I imagine them to be.

High status characters are just the opposite for me. I very much dislike both saying that a character is powerful and showing that they are powerful. The first feels false and insubstantial, the second feels vain and narcissistic (of me as a GM, not of the character). I think my best “powerful” characters are the ones that I don’t think too much about. People that just do things which we later look back at and thing “that person is terrifying”. When I try to force it though, I usually feel like I’m either propping them up and being mysterious about how “oooh, dangerous” they must be, or I’m overdoing it by showing them display powerful actions just to show off that they can do it. I dislike both.

So in this game I had two of the most powerful character in the fiction (Setarra and Scurlock) to depict. I think I did a passable job, mostly because Karen and Adrienne were great and played up to their fear and deference for them, so a light touch was all I needed. Still, I’d like a quick signifier to indicate that a character is dangerous, powerful, or deadly without relying on me saying they are so, or making a gratuitous display to prove it. An idea comes to mind that John does sometimes which is to tell PCs rumors they have heard, whether they choose to believe in them or not. Pondering.

Actual Play – Demon pits, Warships and Spies, oh my! (3/6/2017)

blades_overlay_bloodletters_titleGM: John Harper
Players: Stras Acimovic, Adam Koebel, and Sean Nittner
System: Blades in the Dark

Two games less than a month apart? Impossible! But we’ve done it anyway. With a mixture of schedule-fu and a burning desire to play more of this game, we made it happen. Gotta catch up to that Last Word!

We started with a jovial reminder of the Adam/Canter and Sean/Arcy twitter discourse from a few days back. Good times over here.

Payoff

What we found in the back of the Butcher shop

Coin: 8 (2 of that given to Erin, along with product to get her started)
Rep: 2
Heat: 5
Entanglement: Haunted Butcher shop contaminated by Setarra. Blood barnicles grew over everything. A black cloud of miasma is swirling around the area. Old Cobb the junkman left his cart in front of the shop, and nobody has seen him for a week. Oskarr said he’d take care of it!

A few questions before we started our downtime proper:

  • Who owns Local Graft? The Bluecoats. Damn… well, let’s think about that some and come back it.
  • Who are we going to hit next? The Grinders. Let’s give The Crows no leg to stand on.

Downtime

Arcy left a note at Keel manor for her husband Julian to meet her at the bridge between Charterhall and Crows Foot.  We weren’t sure where Julian stood with her. Last time he had made it clear that he didn’t want her in his life, but that sex with no other strings attached was still on the table. This time John rolled to determine if he still felt the pull towards Arcy and it turned out, he very much does! [Julian Sexy Time (Fortune Roll): 6]

She took him to her new apartment home on the bridge between Crows Foot and Charterhall [Thanks Lifestyle: 2], showed him the place and offered it up to him as a place they could all move in together [Working on the Long Term Project to win Julian back] and then took him to her bed [Indulge Vice].

Canter decided he needed to start looking the part of a warlord, a man to be feared. Violence fashion forward! He visited a library to look up old Akorosi operas and once he had found the one with the most possible killing visited Revka to ask her to dress him the part. Here eyes widened and she took him to see the costume she had made for an the Evil Count Necromancer in an opera. One Gothic armored arm with a high collar. A giant cape. A hairdo and eye makeup to go along with it as well! [Indulge Vice]

One thing we realized is that Canter believes everything that is good is big and larger than life. Canter sees himself as larger than life, as a character in an opera himself! As such he’s become interested in the grand history of the empire, ala bad asses who have killed other bad asses. In this moment we saw he looks like the bust on a coin.

Oskarr visited a noble house for a seance as Oskarr Scurlock himself. He demure that he had none of the Scurlock legacy but was fascinated by these noble game of passing small tokens around and trying to peer into the ghost field to determine which one belonged to whom. The nobles were disappointing that that he was less grandiose and mysterious than his legendary uncle, but of course he then scared them senseless by channeling spectral energy in front of them! [Indulge Vice].

After that, he went about buying the property that the Billhooks butcher shop used to be on, and began a project with fellow nobles to rebuild on top of it and put an orphange there. Before construction could begin though, he contained Setarra’s miasma so that it wouldn’t seep too much into the building. [Long Term Project. Attune result: Crit. 5/8].

“The Canter Haig home for soon to be wicked badasses?”

“Ummm… we’ll workshop it.”

(Arcy was not in this conversation)

Spin-off game: Arcy, Canter, and Oskarr taking over as headmasters of the orphanage!

During the process Setarra herself arrived in her black scales and shark form. A few bodies were beneath the black water near her. As she rose up she saw Oskarr and awaited his sorcerer’s command. This revelation, that Setarra was not his friend, but his servant, broke young Oskarr’s heart! He didn’t realize that binding her has severed her friendship with him.

Gaining control of Local Graft

What can we trade them for their extortion rackets? A simple question, but one with far reaching implications, as their extortion rackets that act as all of their retirement funds!

To find his way toward leverage over them, Oskcarr started with a meeting with Rolan Wott, the dilettante of crime! Arcy went with him to tell Rolan that the Billhooks “won’t be a problem any more”. Rolan was titillated for a moment until Canter blurted out the blunt out the violence they actually did.

Oskarr tried to just do business with him but he was too enticed by Arcy and Canter’s bravado. Oskarr had to regain his attention but appearing dangerous himself and leeching the heat out of the surroundings as though a ghost has come dear. Once he had the magistrates attention, he asked for a legally binding document that would show that if Oskarr Scurlock died, it was the Irruvian’s fault! Rolan told him this document would be even more effective if it included legal summons to all parties involved, living or dead! [Acquire Asset: Tier 2 Will]

Where is Flint?

“That fucker stole our shit” – Canter’s eventual reason for going along with Oskarr who wanted to hunt him down.

Knowing that our only lead on Flint was Picket, and that if we talked to her she would tell us to get fucked, Oskarr and Canter sent out to hunt her down and find out where she’s meeting, on in this case, leaving dead drops for Flint.

And thus the appearance of Canter’s fine hunting pet! [Like a wizards familiar that suddenly appears when a perception check is needed]. A long eared cat with a hyena-like coat. The cat is of course wearing not one, but two, but three collars!

They followed Picket around as she did the normal pickups for the Lampblacks in Silkshore, all the usual stuff, until they noticed that she made a pattern of passing by a certain house above a store for ladies accountants, and look as though she is expecting something, but nothing is happened.

Canter kicked in the door (kicked it a lot in fact, spraining his ankle), they pilfered through the place and found under the bed and under a false board a spirit warden’s mask and uniform as well as ticket stubs in the bin that indicated Flint had been had been taking rail to Ilysia.

Finding a Carrot

In the meantime Arcy went down to the docks to cavort with sailors and find out what she could about warships. Specifically who captains them and how possible it would be to steal one. All with the intent of giving the Grinders enough rope to hang themselves.

There is only one warship that docks in Doskvol, the Paragon! John read right out of the book, oh boy!

Imperial Military (vi): The armed forces of the Imperium stationed in Doskvol. Garrisons are posted at Gaddoc Rail Station, aboard the naval destroyer Paragon, and at the Lord Governor’s stronghold (about 250 troops in total).

So, about, eh, half that on the Paragon. Canter, from a distance, had fantasies of being Commodore Haig, ready for duty! We all knew it was stationed at Doskvol, and that only the Lord Governor or the Emperor can give him orders. No easy targets there. She asked around, drunk with some sailors, punched some sailors [Devil’s Bargain that the sailors hate us 2/4]. Arcy, spreading some coin around, found two opportunities:

  1. Some sailors are saying that you get special tattoos that make you unkillable. They move on your body and they will close your wounds, make you breathe under water, and could take anything!
  2. The Paragon, after it’s last engagement in Lockport is back in Doskvol without any powder or ammo. They are awaiting a delivery of ammunition. Normally they would send these in small parcels, but because folks are worried that the ship is defenseless, some government official opted to send int all in one go!

Pick all the debris out of my rib cage

Quellyn was sent to the task of taking care of the whiny, bitchy, ungrateful Canter, and after a few days she healed him up completely [Recovery: Crit!]

Reducing Heat

By beating up people that would snitch on us! [Reducing Heat]

Talking to Elstera and Choosing sides

Arcy reached out to Elstera and they agreed to meet at the Kinclaith Dueling Academy (our cover). Arcy stood with Roethe on the balcony, speaking off screen, and waited twenty minutes until she realized that Elstera had disguised herself as a student. She looked much younger, had changed her hair, and otherwise looked like a very different person.

Elstera, in veiled conversation revealed to Arcy that her house (Anixis) wanted to secure control of the Irruvian Leviathan Hunters in one of the two houses that currently divide them (Ankhayat and Ankhuset). Arcy asked which house she favored but Elstera turned the question around and asked Arcy who she would support. The demon blooded cutter aided with Ankhayat. She had little connection with Lenaya, but it was something at least, and she seemed like the kind of person Arcy could side with.

Elstera thought Arcy was foolish to back someone based on personal biases, but was more interested in action than opinion. If Arcy could secure her hold over the fleet, it would serve Elstera’s purposes just the same.

Blades on Air

What Rocked

That demon pit? So terrible and awesome. Oskarr’s solution? Even worse!

Finally, some information on Flint! He’s only been stalking us for 14 sessions!

I had a lot of fun with Arcy’s history. Bringing Julian to her apartment, cavorting with sailors, and talking to Elstera. I’m really interested in following all of these threads!

There are so many open threads and I want to follow all of them! I want to hunt down Flint. I want to consume the Grinders! I want to rob a train. I want to commandeer a warship. I want to start a war between two Iruvian families! So many things to do, so few downtime actions (read: times all four of us can get together) to do them!

There were three  moments when Canter has this epiphany like the world would be his oyster: When being garbed as a necromancer prince, when Oskarr considered naming the orphanage after him, and when he though Arcy might steel a warship for him. So good!

Arcy was so outclassed by Elstera, it was pretty amazing. And my terrible rolls backed it up. She’s really got Arcy by the short hairs with the war looming. Can’t wait to turn that around!

What could have improved

Re-watching the video I see that we probably could get more done in our sessions by sorting out things like payoff, plans for the next score, and other small details in advance. However, none of us have that much time, and there are great moments in some of those discussions that do come out. So, much as I would have loved to get a score in on top of the downtime, this was still really good stuff.

Too bad that Arcy didn’t impress Elstera, but she’s got more chances to do it!

Actual Play – Associate Professor Younghusband (2/28/2017)

GM: Sean Nittner
Players: Eric Fattig, Karen Twelves, and Adrienne Mueller
System: Blades in the Dark, Rules v.8

Healing up

The game opened with Arquo going to give a small comfort to Elke. Tea to help with her long studies in the private library. While they were stomping on LaRose, she was working feverishly on a grant proposal to do further research into the separation of body and soul after death.

He could see that Elke was worse for wear though. Still seeing phantasms in every corner and jumping at her own shadow. Melvir had been able to help Arquo some from his own terrors, so he offered to bring Elke to see the old man.

They found Melvir patching a hole in his roof, which had started leaking again after the last few days of rain. Arquo offered to take his place and work on the roof if Melvir would tend to Elke’s maladies. [Rather than make this a scene, we made a few recovery rolls and wrapped it up quickly.]

After giving Elke what medicinal brews he could muster (powerful sedatives to allow her a good night’s sleep), he continued his care on Arquo, who had some fresh wounds since Melvir had seem him last, courtesy of Valo [More recovery actions].

Elke’s Gift

After a good night’s sleep (a REALLY good night’s sleep), Elke felt invigorated and went out with Jadvyga to finally acquire the Irruvian shadow silk needed for Malcolm Dundrige to tailor a cloak for Arquo. The purchase went smoothly, but once they had brought the material, Malcolm asked for the future wearer to come in and be sized so he could make it to fit (nothing that is sold in Dundrige & Sons is “off the shelf”).

So, Jadvyga agreed to sneak into Arquo’s house, borrow his old Lampblack coat, and bring it to Malcolm to get the measurements from. She waited till the house was empty, slipped, and left without anyone the wiser [Controlled Prowl. Full Success]. Material and measurements in hand, young Dundrige go to sewing! [Long term project complete].

Failed Exam? Opportunity!

At the end of Harland’s Physical Applications of Alchemy, exams were handed back and his was stained in black ink with the word “FAIL” written in professor Jayan’s blocky draft print. Harland was incensed and immediately sought out professor Jayan during his office hours… which were very late at night… held in his private residence… with a doorman that would have as soon run his pike through Harland as he would let him into the house, but was easily cowed by Harland’s fury.

Inside Donovan Jayan’s personal study, left to wait for what seemed to be ages, Harland finally gave up on waiting, pulled out some chalk, erased what was already on Jayan’s chalkboard to make room for his work [Devil’s Bargain] and began writing a mathematical proof for his work [Tinker Setup Action. Partial success. Complication]. Harland heard the sounds of footsteps coming on the hallway outside and knew that Jayan would arrive before he finished, so he worked with utmost haste to wrap up before the professor arrived [Resist with insight].

Donvan walked in, irked immediately that Halrand had erased his work and taken liberties with his study, but also appraising the proofs that Harland had drafted. After a long silence he said “Adequate.” and when Harland asked why an “adequate” solution got a failing grade he added “but indefensible” and then began counter proof. After he had both spend some time furiously smacking chalk to board, he stared back at Harland for an answer.

Rather than continue to debate alchemical theory, however Harland got down to business and admitted the he knew professor Jayan didn’t like him and wanted to know how to pass his course. He also brought in the Younghusband name [Devil’s Bargain] to add a bit of gravitas to his blunt approach. [Risky Sway. Standard effect, boosted from Limited by the setup action. Full Success].

Jayan responded and made Harland an offer. Passing his course in exchange for recovering something for him. [This was me using the “cooperation” entanglement and having Charterhall try to get the DSS to do a job for them, but because Donovan Jayan hated Harland, just getting to the “here’s a score we want you to do” stage was tricky]. “Bayan root is a typically common enough root, which we use in great quantity, and pay the radiant energy farmers in Dunslough (note, I got Dunslough and Barrowcleft mixed up here) handsomely for. However, after the recent Lightning Tower failure, the Spirit Wardens have Dunslough locked down and it’s impossible to get anything out of the district. I have a seller and I know you have a boat. Get me the supply I need and you’ll pass my class.”

[Reasonable enough offer right. I mean, it was something I just pulled out of the smugglers opportunities list (on page 123) “The city council outlaws a formerly legal product.” However, Eric’s reaction was masterful. I had essentially provided a random score, only significant because the tower failure was related to Hix, but otherwise it was just a normal score without any real ties the Spectral Society’s business. Eric, however, saw an opportunity to make this SO much better]

“How about instead you promote me to Associate Professor of Alchemy, I teach your classes, and you are free to live the life of a noble?” This was one of those long standing open secrets. Though he never said it outright, everyone knows that professor Jayan only teaches because the school is his birthright and he was saddled with job when his mother passed away. Until then he lived the life of a noble socialite. So, preposterous as this offer was, it actually had some glimmer of hope. I mean, that is what Jayan want’s, isn’t it? After fierce negotiation, Jayan agreed to these wild terms, but only under the condition that he, as dean of the department gets all the credit for Harland’s work. Harland would teach the classes, but the Jayan name would remain at the heart of the school, and Harland would even give over the formula he had invented for the alchemical binding agent he had created for his brother Corro [Devil’s Bargain], as by Jayan’s logic, that was created in university labs and both the product and the formula belonged to him! [Desperate Sway. Limited Effect. Full Success!]

The two stayed late in the night as Donovan summon a magistrate to perform all the paperwork necessary to make Harland’s appointment official.

Indulgence

After be tended to by Melvir [Recover], Arquo took him and Elke to dinner at his parent’s place. One night he brings Jadvyga to eat with then, the next time Elke… the end result of course was that each of his parents had a favorite. Arcus liked Jadvyga, she a rare person that has a conscience. Ramira was a fan of Elke, she was someone who could get things done. [Indulge Vice]

The next day, Elke got back to working on her grant proposal. She visited Bazso and asked him more about the Empty Vessel. When he found out that she was intending to publish this work, his mood turned sour and said that he wanted to see the text before it was printed, that it should make no mention of him or the Lampblacks, or the circlet, and that it must be respectful of the Empty Vessel! [Indulge Vice]

Elke and Harland

Elke found Harland in the Cat and Candle and ask him to come with her to the private library. Arquo was there as well and stood outside the door to ensure that none were listening in, as the mood suddenly had suddenly become very serious. What followed was a great scene that was both emotional an calculating. It game out that:

  • Elke told Harland’s brother that the Society wasn’t the kind of people that murder other people, but Harland signed them up to do just that with Bazso.
  • Then Harland wasn’t there when she needed him. He didn’t even follow through on his own promise.
  • The both miss Hix. She would know what to do. (Flash cut to Hix in a bloody battle between the Rail Jacks and the Grinders inside Ironhook)
  • The boat is gone (or at least sunk and beneath the North Hook Canal).
  • Finally, Elke want’s Harlands help writing the grant proposal…and to have permission to include some of Society’s deeds as proof of her theories! Ridden with guilt for his many failures, Harland agreed despite the information being incriminating Elke and possibly all of the rest of the society!

[This culminated in Elke crafting a her grant proposal and spending the coin to make it exceptional (Tier 4)]

The Lost Spirit Well

A while ago, when Harland was still in tight with the Path of Echoes we asked the question if Harland was an adept of the Path of Echoes

When you make the appropriate sacrifices to the cult, master the ways of the secret rituals, and offer up your absolute loyalty to the Path, you become an adept. When you achieve the rank of adept, you receive permission to attend the forbidden spirit well rituals in the deathlands.

He had signed on as Vond’s second in command and announced his absolute loyalty (though it was a total lie). So, accordingly he should have had access to the spirit well, even though we didn’t see it on screen. Now was the time to remedy that omission.

Harland’s students were begging to see the spirit well, so he chartered a boat with the Fog Hounds to take them out to the Lost District where they found an old manor home with a functioning lightning barrier and people working inside it! Granted access with a serious of secret codes, Harland and his cult (along with Elke who came along to see what this was all about) were admitted inside the lightning barrier and then down into subterranean tunnels, where they finally came upon a spirit well. A shimming blue pool that acted as a great vortex sucking all spectral energy into it.

Harland stepped into the pool and then one by one baptized his cult members in a process he called the Harrowing. Not all of them accepted his offer but the ones that did were scorched by the powerful energies within. Hair fell out, burns appeared, and others traumas were endured to attune themselves to the well. [Harland indulging vice]

After the religious offering was complete, Elke decided to enter the well on her own, unprotected by Harland. Though she was easily allowed inside, as she tried to attune to the spirits she found they were quickly surrounding her and that her vision was being obscured. I was growing colder and they were trapping her within. Quickly she ran out of well, narrowly escaping their icy grip [Desperate Prowl. Full Success]

Improving Academic Status

Arquo, eager to prove that he could be a student one day accompanied Jadvyga to the office of Oilweather and Danwood to finish scribing their text on Severosi history. The work completed they now had a gift to give to the Severosi consulate [Long term project complete].

Danwood observed Arquo’s glacial pace and painful careful attention to detail. He saw that he wasn’t really cut out to be a scribe or a scholar and so inquired about Arquo’s other talents, which were apparently wrecking other people’s properly…

Reducing Heat

We cut to Arquo in some unknown part of Charterhall, throwing rocks through windows and starting small fires in order to draw attention away from the Spectral Society. As he collapsed one crate he noticed the symbol of a bee stamped onto it, which looked vaguely familiar but he wasn’t going to stick around to find out more, as not being there was key to [Reducing Heat].

Closing as we opened

The final scene mirrored the opening. Elke and Arquo, this time her bringing something to him. A paper wrapped parcel, that when he opened revealed a perfectly matte black cloak coat made of such fine silk that is threatened to slip out of the packaging the moment Arquo opened it. They then shared a very awkward scene of trying to give thanks (Arquo) and explain why they did it (Elke). It was beautiful.

What Rocked

I loved it that Harland shot right past doing a score for Donovan and jumped into being a professor! It was a really risky move (desperate even!) but it was also so much more meaningful than a simple smuggling score would be. So good.

The scenes between Arquo and Elke are deliciously awkward. It’s pretty clear that Arquo is into Elke, but he’s also afraid of her. We’re not really sure how Elke feels about Arquo. Guilty, because she’s gotten him into so much trouble. But anything else? Magic 8-ball says ask again later.

Similarly the scene between Elke and Harland where they talked about what really mattered to them and if they were the kind of people that just murdered others for money. That was great!

What could have been improved

Something I’m looking into is how I can represent all the impossible obligations that Harland has signed himself up for, and how I can show them pulling him in different directions without completely overshadowing the rest of the group. Currently Harland is:

  • The head of a small cult (The True Path) that has some contentious membership (Elke sewed the seeds of distrust from the first gathering and many of it’s members are at odds with each other).
  • An associate professor of Alchemy in Jayan Hall. Sure to be picked on by the more senior professors who resent his cavalier appointment.
  • Running from Vond Kardera, a powerful specter that leads the path of Echoes.
  • Tied up in several conflicting promises regarding his brother and the Hive (To ask them to reduce taxes on the pit fighting, to tell him the binding agent he made isn’t actually available for him, or if it is, to betray Donovan Jayan, and to rejoin the family business and further the goals of the Hive).
  • Paranoid and Unstable.

Actual Play – This is Personal LaRose (2/21/2017)

GM: Sean Nittner
Players: Eric Fattig  and Adrienne Mueller
System: Blades in the Dark, Rules v.8

Karen was away this week so we played a small score with just Adrienne and Eric, but much fun had doling out some personal justice.

Bookkeeping

Harland opted to take the harm for brewing the Drown Powder (we decided it could have either been Harland brewing it or Jadvyga administering it) but resisted the “sickened” harm it would have caused.

Adrienne also asked about this “ward boss” business, and why the DSS was paying up three coin per score to Charterhall. We discussed several different scores they would attempt to reduce some of those costs, and the ramifications if they simply didn’t pay up. Perhaps that will be a future score, but not tonight.

Entanglements

Mercy, who helped Harland brew the drown powder didn’t show up for class the day after score at the Hound’s Tooth. She didn’t show up the day either. That night Harland visited her apartment in Charterwall and found her nursing some terrible injuries. One eye was swollen shut, her cheekbone was fractured, and several ribs were broken. [I rolled the Usual Suspects and the crew offered up Mercy. They thought she had a good chance of blowing off the Bluecoats so didn’t spend the coin to help her out. We did give her a 4 dice to resist (she’s a cold killer after all) but the dice gods did not favor us and she too two harm].

Downtime

Feeling terrible that he got a friend beat up, Harland went to Sawtooth, a old bone saw that works down on the docs tending to pit fighters. He’s used to dealing with all sorts of contusions, so this was nothing new for him, however he was able to covey some unpleasant truths. Not only did the Bluecoats beat Mercy up, they kicked her while she was down. Sawtooth didn’t paint a pretty picture. [A slightly different kind of downtime action. We called this a fortune roll, 1-3 meant he couldn’t do anything for her, 4-5 healed 1 harm, and 6+ healed 2 harm. We rolled for Sawtooth and got a 4-5, so he helped her out but it was going to be a while before she could see out of her left eye or chew without it hurting]

Arquo also sought medical attention, first from Jadvyga (who put herbs on his wounds that did nothing medicinal but smelled VERY bad) and then to his father’s friend Melvir, who patched him up. Melvir however was very wary of any kind of treatment a Stranger would offer and was worried that Arquo had been seduced by a demon. He applied all manner of charms to him as well as saying many prayers to exorcise whatever hold the devil had on him, but Arquo promised he was just fine. His wounds were all physical. Well all except the Screams of a 1,000 Dead [Harm 2]. That got Melvir riled up again and he said that the only way to quiet those dead was to pay tribute at the Church of the Ecstasy of the Flesh and visit their Sanctorum. [More coin spent for recovery rolls, All wounds reduced one level]. Melvir was quite worried about his friends son getting mixed up with the wrong kinds of people and is sure to show up at some in opportune time to check in on him [Devils Bargain on the second recovery roll].

Harland, needed to tend to his own wounds later visited Sawtooth at the ring and asked for something to help him with spectral presence that was perpetually trying to drown him.  “Ah Ghost Lung… that’ll get you ever time. Here’ just drink this, it’s a mixture of coffee, powdered eel, nut butter, and if you’ll ask your brother Corro to lighten up on his ‘taxes’ I’ll dig deep and grind up some devil root to put in there as well.” [Devils Bargain to help Sawtooth out with Corro]. Harland drank down the awful concoction and then had a horrible attack of vomiting, then dry heaving, and then finally expelling the embryonic mass of ectoplasm that had been festering in his lungs. He missed the bucket and left a stain in the ghost field in the back of the gym. [Recovery]

Arquo found Jadvyga at the Cat and Candle and asked her if she could tell him anything about Elke. What did she think if him? He just couldn’t tell! Jadvyga was of no use, but she did agree to go have dinner with him (just as friends) to appease his parents and their often conflicting desires. Sitting around the stove, drinking brew Arcus examined his own wounds, then those of his son, and then those of his son’s friend (Jadvyga was still limping on her sprained ankle). “So, you’re just up to honest work these days now son, eh?” Arquo and Jadvyga quickly folded and told they they had been doing more crime but tried to reassure him about their capers, “those aren’t typical…though that’s usually how it goes.” She didn’t do a very good job. Instead however she broke off to talk to Ramira who was all for the DSS being enterprising if it meant Arquo taking better care of the family, while Arquo talked to his father and reassured him they weren’t getting in over their heads [Indulge Vice, Jadvyga is Arquo’s friend!]

In other parts of the Dusk, Harland was tending to his flock, holding a sermon about how guilt drags the soul down. He didn’t say that it was inspired based on his own guilty feelings about letting Hix go to Ironhook and not being there for Elke, but Lizette noticed that this was something personal. He gave each of his flock a tall votive candle to stare at and reflect upon their own wrong doings. That night in his apartment a hooded figure knocked on his door. Being paranoid Harland leapt back and lunged for his halbard. When he finally brought the weapon to bear though he realized it was Lizette. She had brought him a tall candle. “Here, I thought you might need this.” [Indulge vice. Devils bargain to start a clock: Lizette reveals you’re a fake 1/4]

Time in the Hook

Yet in a darker part of the the Dusk we found Hix alone in solitary confinement for an unknown amount of time. Certainly days… but weeks? Maybe? She tried to get chatty with the guards who brought her food and took her chamber pot, but for some time they would never talk to her, or they’d threaten a beating if she didn’t stay quiet. Eventually though, their treatment became less harsh, and finally they released her from solictary and took her deep down into the Hook, to the giant catacombs that housed Ironhook’s many residents. [Fortune roll to get out, mixed result, she found out she only got out because someone put in a good word for her].

In an attempt to find out who she owed thanks too, Hix started talking to the fellow prisoners, telling them about the exploits going on outside, appluading some gangs while trash talking her foes outside. “Hey you fucking sewer rat, I’M A GRINDER!” Hix would have gotten her ass kicked if not for several other Rail Jacks stepping up and helping her out, and thus starting a massive brawl between the Rail Jacks and the Grinders [Jail Bird special ability, Hix (and the DSS as a whole) got +1 Faction Status (from -1 to 0, and they helped because she’s part of the family and because they expect her to join them now) with the Rail Jacks].

Making LaRose Pay

Mercy, when Harland pressed her told him that LaRose was the one who came for her. LaRose was also the one that took the coin Steiner brought from Arquo and pocketed it rather than releasing Arcus early. When Harland and Arquo both realized they had a common foe, the decided to get their own bloody vengeance.

Asking around they found out that LaRose is a huge fan of the Devil Hunter’s (the Charterhall University Streetball team) and would watch the games from the distinguished vantage point of the Devil’s Tooth. A three story pub with an open balcony on the top floor and giant open windows (which where un-shuttered for the games) on the first floor.  On game day they found an nearby building to lay in wait and prepared to pounce on him when he left the Devil’s Tooth. [Assault Plan]

The opening engagmeent wasn’t as smooth as they wanted. LaRose lingered to extort the Devil’s Tooth owner for his cut, and the left out the back, causing Arquo and Harland to have to chase after him through the open air first floor. [Partial success on the engagement roll, Risky situation]. Arquo and Harland dashed after him but made too much noise and he heard the coming [Risky Prowl Group Action. Bad Outcome. End up in a desperate position and complication].

LaRose saw them both running at him and called out loudly to the proprietor “Valo! Valo!” The meaning of this was unclear until Arquo was closelined buy the giant arm a massive man from the Dagger Isles. Huge in stature, covered in tatoos, and wearing nothing but swim trunks, Valo was clearly the bouncer at the Devil’s Tooth, and was doing his best to mash Arquo into a fine pulp.

Harland ducked and weaved around Valo (leaving Arquo to his fate) and charged LaRose. The Bluecoat was ready for him, lined up a crack with his truncheon, but didn’t expect the rage that propelled Harland and the young merchant got inside his reach and clocked him before he could respond [Risky Skirmish. Full success. Standard effect. Beat down LaRose’s defenses 2/4].

Meanwhile Arquo was busy getting the snot kicked out of him [Desperate Skirmish. Bad Outcome. Serious consequence of being choked out by Valo. Resisted and reduced down to being thrashed against the wall by Valo. Harm-2. Cracked Rib] After getting thrashed several times, Arquo finally had enough and drew his dagger and when Valo was picking him back up, put the blade between Valo’s legs and suggested that the bruiser thing twice [Risky Command. Full success]. Valo agreed that LaRose wasn’t worth getting cut over, and let Arquo go unmolested (or at least, no more molested).

LaRose had draw his pistol on Harland but he couldn’t get a good shot. Harland jumped on top of them and the two grappled in the street. The pistol file exploded into the air (that was when Valo was distracted and Arquo got his blade out) but missed Harland completely. Harland responded with more pummeling  [Risky Skirmish. Full success. Standard effect. Beat down LaRose’s defenses 4/4].

Finally free of Valo, Arquo ran over and grabbed Larose’s hand, twisted it painfully and used it drag him into the street. LaRose stumbled for his whistle, but Arquo yanked him so fiercely he could never get it to his mouth. [Risky Skirmish Setup Action. Full Success]

Down Chalk Alley, with nobody watching, the dragged him into pile of shit dumped onto the street from above, and proceeded to both kick the hell out of Larose. [Controlled Skirmish. Great Effect. Full Success]. After they battered him into unconsciousness, they took the coin he had just extorted along with all his finery (boots, pocket watch, pistol, and other effects) and left him bleeding and naked in the street. And it was glorious.

That’s what you get for messing with the DSS!

Payoff

  • 2 coin (extortion money + personal effects) but none of it paid to Charterhall as this was not reported.
  • 0 rep (done in an alley with no spectators)
  • 3 heat (smooth an contained. +1 for well connected target and +1 for being on hostile turf)
  • -1 Faction Status with the Bluecoats!

A little something on the side

Arquo had agreed to help Steiner out but Adrienne didn’t want that to take center stage, so we handled it with a fortune roll. Partial success. The gun running succeeded with some complication. We’ll figure out what it is next time!

What Rocked

It was really fun to have a very small scale, personal score. LaRose was a terrible person and we relished in him getting some of his own medicine.

Bringing Melvir and Sawtwooth to life and into the game was great fun. Very different folks with very different ideas. I can’t wait to see Harland talk to Corro again!

Oh, poor Hix. I feel so bad that she’s having such a rough time in Ironhook. But hey, she reconnected with family, so it wasn’t all bad. Let’s see if she can help Irelen out.

I love the way my scoundrels indulge their vices. Giving sermons and managing parents conflicting expectations. So good!

The scene when Harland totally lost his cool when Lizette entered the room had me in stitches. Eric plays Harland as paranoid so well!

What could have been improved

I wasn’t sure if handling a “mini score” off screen was the right call or if I should push that if you want to “do a thing, do it”. Probably the happy compromise would be to say spend a downtime action to do it (I can’t remember if I did that or not). But overall we weren’t that excited about that score, so I’m glad we didn’t give it screen time. Plus, I get the best part out if it, which is some complication. Did Bazso get word about this going down? Do the union workers consider Arquo an ally they can come to again? I’m sure we’ll think of something cool.

 

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