GM: Sean Nittner
Players: Karen Twelves, Eric Fattig, and Adrienne Mueller
System: Blades in 68′ (and then some)
[When Adrienne filled the first clock on Delta-968’s Hull Memory sheet “What did you leave unfinished?” she said Investigating into what happened to the leviathans… This is a question I’ve been wondering since I very first played Blades. I have theories about the JHCU (John Harper Cinematic Universe) but they are not confirmed. Even though John and I are close, I think this is something that he, as an artist, left as an open question for each of us to answer ourselves.
So when she filled the final memory clock “What crime was I sentenced to be Reformed for?” I wanted not only to answer the question, but to do it through play. It also helped that I has surgery and was trapped in bed for a week…with time to develop these four mine games. This was such a blast!]
968, Charterhall City Council Meeting
As the city council meeting begins, Nav and Paolo sat in the audience, surrounded by many people, some familiar to them, most of them strangers. Two bored bluecoats checked their invitations at the door. One officer reassured the other “Yeah, council meetings are always the most boring thing you’ve ever sat through, or a knife fight. There’s no in between.”
A low decorative fence divided the audience from the councilors forum. Behind the fence five councilors sat at tall semicircular desks. Below them were several functionaries including clerk who would record minutes and Pardic Nolbern, the city politician that was reading the minutes from last session to begin the meeting. There was a small podium for petitioners to who wanted to present before the council and a large cage that had been assembled inside the council room floor. It was half-way illuminated, revealing the polished form of Delta-968.
Norburn’s eyes cast over the audience, unaware of Nav, nodding slightly at Paolo, until his gaze fell on Delta, and he smiled with hateful glee in his eyes. “In response to the council request for a demonstration of the Patrol Hull capabilities, we have arranged a presentation.” He gently pat a cigar box [a physical prop I brought to the game] and looked again at Delta? No, at Rubens? [Delta’s resonance]. In a flash Rubens recognized the cigar box and a flood of memories returned to him. All the research he had done was contained in the box!
514 IE, Waters south of Lockport
Skov sailors crew the Oleanna, a long boat, into the darkness of the void sea. They are outfitted in heavy wool and oilskins, adorned in spiritbane charms and wards. They seek the legendary leviathan. One person is Owl, who will live to tell the tale. The rest are chum.
[For this game, I laid out the cards for the eight crew members as well as the tasks at hand). Here’s the cards on both sides (after being filled out). I intentionally designed it with more death cards, scars, and survival cards than could actually be acquired but deep enough into any of the stacks there were some powerful bits of lore]
Owl began the first ritual, to find the hunting grounds. Barrel chested and adorned with charms, he drew in a great breath, before blowing on a large wind instrument that he plunged in the water. As the bubbles formed below the surface, they began to form a pattern that guided the Oleanna deeper into the void see. The cost of the ritual was Owl’s first scar, he would be haunted through time by Plover, who was destined the lure the danger.
Eel, whose destiny is not written in the stars, performed the second ritual, to summon the beast. Eel was bound in chains, pushed the prow of the Oleanna at spearpoint, and forced to read from the ancient tomb. Intentionally or not, plover was the first sacrifice. As the water began to roil beneath them and a forest of spikes jutted forth from them. Plover, head to toe in charms, caught one of them on the gunwale, tripped, fell into the water and was impaled, and became the first death.
The leviathan was summoned! The ship lurched and tipped, the waters boiled, terrifying tendrils rose up from it, it was in their sights.
Owl performed a ritual of protection, giving one life to save the others. This time Eel would not slip his chains so easily. As the crewman faltered, Owl spilled his blood into the void sea and the beast was satiated…for now [Rolled a 6 on the ritual]
It was time to launch spears and tether the beast with ropes and barbs. At least the portion they could. Many of the crew died in the process [Multiple results ending in death and doom]
After they had lost Plover, Eel, Vole, and Bear, Captain Hart, a coward that hid behind his crew ordered the harvest. The reached out the cleavers and hatchets to cut the tough surface of the tendrils and harvest the leviathan’s life blood and viscera. What was taken from the leviathan, was claimed in return. None of the hunters returned, except for Owl, who bore their stories. [4/5 result on Harvest]
Their deaths were not completely in vain, Bear heard the voice of the leviathans and drew the symbol of a single word that looked the three lines of a claw mark, and though it took four hundred years of torture, Captain Hart learned the creature’s true name. Owl returned scared by time among the stars stretching him through time.
The first ever leviathan hunt successfully completed!
846 IE – Astral Spire, Imperial City
The Astral Spire, a rotating hexagonal lightning tower standing 25 stories tall in the center of Imperial City. Each of the six corners (hawk, ram, hound, lion, boar, and owl) arc lighting down to the towers at the city’s edge, forming an umbrella over the city. The immortal emperor is not present, but sees and hears everything in this room.
In attendance were:
- Strangford, Leviathan Hunter
- The First, Spirit Warden
- Director Welker, Sparkright Senior Researcher
- Amar, Inspector General
Stranford opened the meeting. He traveled from Doskvol to alert the Emperor. The reports from his ships and those of the other Hunters can no longer be denied. The leviathans have left their hunting grounds! Only the Dreamer remains, and few return from hunting it. His intelligence revealed that Iruvian fleets have secret hunting grounds that are still fertile. He argued to send Veleris, a spy to infiltrate the Irivian Noble Houses and find their hunting grounds.
The First spoke next. There was no need for such alarm. The emperor has many tools at his disposal. Instead of seeking the scraps from Iruvia the could release Kotar, the legendary demon hunter to find the leviathans. The emperor had him locked up for five hundred years, surely he would be yearning for a chance to prove himself.
Director Welker spoke third. She travelled with Strangford from Doksvol with a much better, more practical solution to find the leviathans. She first thought of divining their future through temporal anomalies, but then realized that was far to unstable, so instead she believed that by using the elemental affinity of caged demons, they could track their kin!
Amar, only there to make sure things didn’t get out of hand and that no duplicity or coercion escaped the emperors eye, put his faith in the scientific solution of Director Welker. [Mechanically each of the first three speakers had 2 influence dice, Amar had 1 die to give to one of the others to endorse their plan.
The outcome: Stranford’s plan would be attempted first (and fail), Director Welker’s would be granted the most resources, and The First’s plan would bring doom upon the empire.
2/850, Deep in the Void Sea
[This was actually two mini-games framed in one. We all know that excursions to the Dreamer cause the hunters to experience other realities and other times, so was the case for this experiment]
Aboard the Nightbreaker, captained by Lord Strangford, your crew of 104 officers, stewards, augers, engineers, hunters, deck crew, gunners, and radio operators, sails into the void to implant an experimental device on the deadliest leviathan ever known: The Dreamer. As you approach whirlpools begin forming around the ships, threatening to pull you all down into depths. Notes from scientific discovery will be kept in the captain’s logbook.
Quartermaster Clermont equipped the crew with nearly all the supplies they could muster, which put the rest of the ship in danger. They prayed to the forgotten gods to see their families one more.
Deck Officer Hellyers chose the following crew to dive down into the depths: Coil, Demon, and Grip.
Chief Engineer Michter created the electroplasmicly shielded cage to send deep divers down in, but it was new technology. He knew they would have to face faulty hydrostatic protection (starting under pressure) and an unstable connection (the return trip would be compromised).
Descent. The wine dark blackness of the void sea, speckled occasionally by glinting reflections of the stars above. Everything you can feel, hear and see comes into sharp focus. Your breathing becomes slow, purposeful and rhythmic. And you’re aware of how your movements connect with each intake of breath. Upon landing, you find there is breathable air on the surface of the Dreamer. Then you /Enter.
/ENTER.WHILE ATTEMPTING TO FIND /LOOT IN THE GHOST WORLD, YOUR CREW HAS BEEN SOLD OUT. YOU WALK RIGHT INTO AN AMBUSH, WITH HUNGRY /WRAITHS ON YOUR HEELS.
[Yep, we’re playing Ghost/Echo now. Doskvol 2850? Maybe. Hella /CYBER? FUCK YEAH!]
Because the faulty hydrostatic protection on descent, the crew faced /WRAITHS.SPINDERS upon arrival.
HUNGRY DATAVORES THAT DRAIN MEMORY STORAGE (THE PAST) AND IMPLANT MALICIOUS CODE (THE FUTURE). THEY CAN BE HACKED (WITH TIME AND TOOLS), DESTROYED (WITH DEADLY ACCURACY), OR LURED (BY ROUGE FEEDS).
/CREW.COIL stepped to the side, but now there was two of them. They stepped to side again and now there was three. The made many echos of themselves and send them running down dark alleys for the .SPIDERS to chase, but one got ahold of the feed and began draining it [Harm: Corrupted Memory, Bad Position Danger still on the table]. They stood outside /PLACE.WATCHTOWER
SPOTLIGHTS BLARE DOWN REVEALING INVISIBLE ECHOES THAT FLEE BACK TO THE DARKNESS. HOLO KEY CARD ACCESS OR BLUFFING YOUR WAY PAST THE CYBERNETICALLY ENHANCED GUARDS TO ENTER. INSIDE THE STAIRS ARE FILLED WITH PEOPLE WHO GIVE HARD LOOKS. BLEND IN OR BE SEEN AS AN OUTSIDER AND HAVE TO PASS THROUGH THE GAUNTLET [FIREFIGHT]. AT THE TOP OF THE TOWER IS THE /LOOT.METAL
/CREW.DEMON listened for the echoes in the thrum of the security system and found that TTL for the data packets inside it confirmed to a standard 36/00 protocols and just when the signal was dropped, upon bounce an echo back through the frame that showed .DEMON the entry codes. It also exposed them to an override protocol that began re-writing their code [Harm: possessing spirit].
Inside the .WATCHTOWER the looks were indeed hard [bringing bad Bad Position] and once they had passed by many of the onlookers in the stairway, their eyes all began to glow as they became aware of intruders and began pulling chains, guns, and blades of all manner.
/CREW.GRIP burst into action, ran up walls, flipped over adversaries, blocked, dodged, and weaved and made her way to the echo frame at top…and then looked down to find a horrible gash across their chest. [Harm: huge gash across chest]
Further down in the stairwell .COIL held fast and drew the fire so that .DEMON could make it to the top. .COIL was cut down [Harm: Disconnected from the feed]. .DEMON pulled .COIL’s phylactery (local echo). and made it to the top of the .WATCHTOWER.
Meanwhile .GRIP was plugged into the echo frame.
DATAGRAMS THAT INCLUDE COMMUNICATION PROTOCOLS FOR ALL KNOWN SYSTEMS IN THE BLUE. WORTH HUNDREDS OF CRED TO THE RIGHT BUYER.
.GRIP began the download but found her databanks could not hold all of the code base. In part because something else came with it… their echo was being infected with a /WRAITH.VIPER [Harm: possessing spirit].
.DEMON made it up, followed by /CREW.HULL that just download into the echo as well [Reinformcements] and they completed the echo frame download, carrying with them the /LOOT.META[DATA:ICON OF THE MACHINE GOD]L
/EXIT. If sufficient supply was reserved the Nighbreaker makes it home. A device spins to life in Sparkright Tower.
Each of the Dreamers answered a question. What is the Ghost World? The Dreamer’s Dreams. What are Echoes? Souls of the long extinct human race, infinitely recycled. What are Wraiths? Monstrous agents of destruction.
880 IE, Aboard the SS-Salvation
After the implantation of a tracking device, multiple leviathan hunters followed the signals but could not find their prey. The technology was adapted to give depth readings and the reports indicated the leviathans were going deeper. Bolton manufactured submersible vessels powered by stabilized plasmic turbine engines were sent to the depths of the void.
Procedure: The captain decides to descend or return home. At each new DEPTH, first the captain, then the sonar operator, then the researcher will read their cards and then fill out any logs, transmissions, or recordings. The captain and the sonar operator are aboard the ship. The researcher is in the waters above communicating via Spectrovox Radio.
Captain Malaahas ordered the first descent and the SS-Salvation plunged beneath the waters of the void sea. At his and each new depts, the Captain, the Sonar Operator, the Research read what they experienced and learned at each depth and then recorded their findings.
The captain had to restrain a crew member who tried to escape, wrote to his family, and sent the Salvation ever farther from home. The sonar operator delighted in the marvels first of technology, then the depths, and then quiescence of their slowly separating soul. Meanwhile Researcher Lusk was fastidiously taking notes. “Tell me how you’re feeling. Can you confirm your name? Can you confirm it again?” It was haunting and terrible and beautiful. The Salvation did not return.
968, Present Day
[I placed the cards, filled out by the players into the cigar box]. “This is what you know. This is what they locked you up in a metal body to contain. And Nolburn knows it.”
Thoughts on this game
It went so well! I was stuck in bed for several days recovering from a surgery and wrote this all up. It was untested and I wasn’t sure if it would be fun at all, but I was excited to try it. The players had a great time, and so did I. In the second game, 4 players were needed so I played Strangford, which was also a delight. He’s such an ass!
I want to bundle this up into something others can run. Remove the specific references to Rubens and this is still a solid series of flashbacks to learn the fate of the leviathans. It’s going to take some work to clean up, and I’m not sure how to make it “print and play” (my experience printing on index cards was very fraught) but I think it’s worth investigating!
