The Athmore Inheritance

A couple weeks ago I ran Blades in the Dark for my Discord group. As with any one-shot, I cribbed my ideas from the last movie I had seen and the last book I had read. In this case, the movie in question was the Euro-Gothic Blood of the Vampire and the book was Phyllis A. Whitney's Hunter's Green. 

This was the pitch for the one-shot: Reginald Athmore, an extremely wealthy recluse, has died without a direct heir of lineal descent. The managers of his estate have located three distant relations to inherit his money and property: John Edmund Athmore, a priest; Sebastian Raab, an aging dandy; Evelyn Ducayne, a young spiritualist. Your goal is to intercept one of the inheritors and take their place for the reading of the will. Someone will need to stand in as the inheritor, the rest of the group will pose as their servants and entourage. Once inside Athmore Manor, you will have the option of playing your parts to get a share of the inheritance or you might connive to lay hands on the entire bequest.

Events

The gang started things off by researching their prize. Billy cased the Athmore house by day and reported back that it was set far from the street with plenty of grounds surrounding it; he also learned that it was guarded by hounds. They also learned the names and roles of everyone in the household: Mary (the cook), Jenkins (the groundskeeper), Sandra (the maid), and Boniface (the butler). Furthermore, they discovered that the lawyer overseeing the division of the estate was a man named Merrik Ashford. 

The group settled on Evelyn as their target; Dusk learned that she had only lately risen in the world and had come from obscurity and poverty. She was living out of hotels, and they tracked her to her current digs at the White Owl.

Thistle and Dusk tailed Jenkins to his local pub and filled him full of booze to pry information from him. The people set to inherit Reginald Athmore's fortune were strangers to him in life. Jenkins also had no idea where Athmore kept his treasure on the premises, but he is sure that Athmore's wealth is very real. 

Meanwhile, Fox contrived to bump into Merrik Ashford's secretary and steal the keys to his office from her pocket. Unfortunately, Fox discovered that the file on the Athmore inheritance was already missing from the filing cabinet. 

As their plan came together, Dusk decided to pose as a private detective and tell Evelyn that she was going to be in grave danger at the reading of the will at the Athmore house. He convinced her to let the characters accompany her to the manor to provide protection; they would pose as her servants and entourage. 

As they gathered with the other inheritors in Athmore manor, they sat in a parlor where they were offered drinks by Sandra. Merrik Ashford entered and informed them that the will would be read at midnight, as per the instructions left by Reginald Athmore. They learned that the Athmore house was famous for its collection of ancient suits of armor and that Reginald was buried in the crypts beneath the house.

Billy took the opportunity to slip away and explore while the others held the conversational fort down. In a ballroom on the house's second floor, Billy discovered Jenkins's body hanging from a noose.

Thistle also broke away and began to explore the crypts. He found a sealed vault for Reginald Athmore that looked to have been recently bricked up. However, he also saw a light approaching and hid behind a pile of nearby masonry. As the person passed, he observed that it was a bluecoat holding a pistol. 

Billy continued to explore and located a secret door in the gallery of armor. The door led to a laboratory where someone appeared to be actively engaged in researching the properties of blood. He also found a list with the inheritors' names written down as potential test subjects. 

Back upstairs, Evelyn and the rest of her "entourage" were being seated for dinner. Sandra, the maid, kept making passes at Fox and even slipped him a note requesting a late-night tryst. 

Back in the crypt, Thistle was attacked by the bluecoat, who fired his pistol at him. Thistle managed to dodge the shot, but was pistol whipped for his troubles. Billy arrived in the crypts and the two of them tailed the bluecoat detective as he exited through a secret door.

Back in the dining room, everyone present heard the sound of gunfire. Fox and Dusk decided it was time to gather everyone and get them outside to safety. However, Fox ended up in a brawl with Boniface, the butler, who seemed to be in on some sort of plan. Boniface broke Fox's nose, but took a shot in the shoulder from Dusk. The butler grabbed a knife and attacked Dusk, but Boniface was soon dealt with in a permanent fashion. 

Billy and Thistle chased the fleeing bluecoat into a topiary garden that featured a giant chess set. The bluecoat winged Billy with another shot, but was shot in return--as his blood flowed, both Thistle and Billy were aware of a terribly rancid smell now emanating from the detective. 

Dusk and Fox learned more about the situation in the house as they marched the remaining servants and inheritors out onto the lawn: no one ever saw Reginald Athmore's corpse after his supposed death, and prior to his demise he had been spending more and more time in his lab. 

In the topiary garden, the fight continued. Billy unleashed his magical power, surrounding his fists with ghostly light--the blows he rained down on the bluecoat connected with a malign spiritual presence inside the detective. The "bluecoat" was destroyed--but, as they put the pieces together, they realized that the detective was not what he seemed.

The bluecoat was actually Reginald Athmore in disguise. He had faked his own death and had, in fact, been cheating death for centuries. The elixir that kept him alive could only be made from the blood of his relations; over the years, he had exhausted the nearest branches of the family tree, which is why he had to invite such distantly related strangers to his house under the guise of being "inheritors." He planned to kill them and use their blood to restore his unnatural longevity.

Of course, now that the house was now clear, the gang took the opportunity to rifle the place. They discovered Reginald Athmore's fortune hidden away inside the suits of armor in the gallery. Another successful, if bloody, heist!

The Valkyrie Heist

Mike Royal needed an extra week to prep the next Pulp Cthulhu adventure, so I offered to run a Blades in the Dark one-shot in the usual timeslot. Most of the group was new to Blades, save for one player who had been in a previous one-shot I ran of it and a player who had run the game before but never had the opportunity to play a scoundrel. People really seemed to love this one--so much so that there were requests to come back to these characters and their capers at some point. Here's what went down.

Characters

Ilya, the Lurk

Dusk, the Spider

Poppy, the Slide

Blunt, the Cutter

Miranda, the Whisper

Hawky, the Hound

Events

This was the intro to our one-shot:

This morning, the Valkyrie, the largest and most luxurious airship in the known world, docked in Brightstone. The Valkyrie will be taking on supplies during the day, but tonight it will host a banquet and ball before departing in the early hours of the morning. The Valkyrie and its passengers are bound south to Iruvia. As part of the festivities, Marist Larkin, a celebrated chef, will be preparing an exclusive tasting menu for the invited guests. 

The Valkyrie has one added attraction that your gang has learned of: Severina’s Tear, a fist-sized sapphire intended to be one of the crown jewels of the new queen of Iruvia, is secretly being transported aboard the airship. Your goal is to make your way onto the Valkyrie, steal Severina’s Tear, and fade away into the underworld before the airship departs for Iruvia.

Their first order of business was figuring out how they would gain entrance to the Valkyrie. Ilya leaned on his friend, the noblewoman Roslyn Kellis. Roslyn had a genuine ticket, but could produce counterfeits that would pass casual inspection. In return, Roslyn wanted Ilya to publicly embarrass a rival named Aisling Bennigard. Figuring that two ways in were better than one, Blunt hatched a plan to arrive at the Valkyrie before the event started in the guise of a deliveryman and then hide himself inside to scout around.

Other pre-mission preparations included figuring out the list of notables who would be aboard. They learned a bit about the ship's captain, the chef, and learned that Sergeant Dresher, an Akorosian military leader, was also seen entering the airship for unknown reasons. Miranda made a dangerous deal for supernatural back-up: she bound the demoness Sitarra to a poison ring that could be triggered for aid. However, if Sitarra was not given a soul in return for her help, she would take a chunk of Miranda's as payment.

Most of the group made their way down the red carpet leading to the Valkyrie (Blunt was already hidden inside) and were shown to a table in the airship's banquet room. Aisling Bennigard was pointing out by Roslyn and Hawky noticed that three members of the Red Sashes gang, including a swordsman called Reaper who had beef with him, were also posing as guests. The group also noticed that the chef, Marist Larkin, seemed to be in a foul mood this evening.

Feigning a fainting attack, Miranda was accompanied by Hawky and Dusk as they pretended to look for a couch upon which to rest the lady. They managed to bluster their way past the guards and made their way to the third floor. When their elevator opened, they had a moment of panic when the elevator opposite also opened--but luckily it was just Blunt, who had also made his way to the third floor of the airship's gondola. 

Operating under the theory that the chef may be in a bad mood because her kitchen had been commandeered as a place to store Severina's Tear, Poppy made her way into the kitchen--just in time to hear Marist Larkin inform her sous-chefs that "the assault will start when we serve the soup course." FLASHBACK: the group had bribed the produce supplier to provide Larkin with substandard edible lavender. So when Poppy appeared with a cachet of fresh, exquisite lavender, she had an easier way in with the chef.

During their conversation, Poppy won Larkin over by listening to her complaints about being as artist serving the pinnacle of haute cuisine to wealthy pigs who failed to appreciate the rarefied experience. Larkin warmed to Poppy and appreciated her sympathy as an artist frustrated by the whims of the rich, so much so that she warned Poppy that she and the kitchen staff were planning on poisoning the soup. Anyone who survived, or declined the soup, was to be knifed. 

Meanwhile, Ilya did a bit of subterfuge, stealing a socialite's ring, planting it on Aisling, and then calling attention to the theft. As an embarrassing tumult broke out, the soup course came out of the kitchen to be served. Poppy gathered up Ilya, tipped off Roslyn, and they exited the dining room. As they left, chef Larkin gave Poppy a knowing nod. Ilya and Poppy now made their way to the third floor of the airship.

Up on the third floor, Hawky, Dusk, Blunt, and Miranda noticed that one room in the hallway was under guard. In fact, one of the two guards approached them to escort them out of the area. Blunt attempted to push past the guards and Miranda theatrically collapsed onto the floor. The guards picked Miranda up to carry her to the infirmary, and that's when the rest of the gang struck. Dusk produced a bottle of slumber essence and held a rag full of it over one guard's mouth, while Blunt and Hawky bludgeoned the other into unconsciousness. During the struggle, Miranda made her way to the guarded room and used her spirit key to bypass the lock.

At this point they were joined by Ilya and Poppy. The room they were infiltrating was a storage room with a safe, but the safe's door hung open--someone had beat them to the punch and stolen Severina's Tear. As they looked about, they quickly deduced that the ventilation shaft leading into this chamber was just wide enough for the teenage girl who was accompanying Reaper. Ilya produced schematics of the Valkyrie and they confirmed that this ventilation shaft had an outlet in the airship's ballroom. FLASHBACK: Dusk had rigged a device on the doors of the ballroom that would hold it closed on a timer.

Knowing that they had little time to confront the Red Sashes and get their hands on Severina's Tear, the gang rushed down to the ballroom. When they disarmed their timed lock and pushed wide the door, Miranda threw in a vial of ectoplasm and opened her mind to the ghost field, causing the ectoplasm to cohere into nightmarish specters that forced the Red Sashes back into the ballroom. This was Blunt's cue; he strode in and confronted the three Red Sashes in combat, on his own.

FLASHBACK: since Hawky knew that Reaper and his crew would be gunning for the gem too, he had discovered that Reaper was superstitious and believed that only a pure maiden was fit to sharpen his dueling sword. Hawky had arranged to have a package delivered to her business, and while she was at the door he came in through the window and sabotaged Reaper's blade.

Blunt turned the faulty blade aside easily, punched Reaper in the face with a cestus, and sent him crashing to the ground. Reaper's bearded associate tried to psychically assault Blunt, but he got a punch to the face for his troubles as well. The teenage girl, who was now in a tug of war over her handbag with Ilya, merely got a backhand that sent her reeling. With the handbag now in their possession, they looked inside: they had obtained Severina's Tear.

To take care of loose ends, Hawky shot Reaper through the eye, sending blood and brains cascading across the carpet. Eager to make sure that Sitarra wouldn't consume her own soul, Miranda set it on the teenage girl (FLASHBACK: they had been seeding her mind with occult ideas that made her amenable to this!), but things didn't go according to plan. Yes, Sitarra claimed the girl's soul, but she also claimed the girl's body--which was now issuing a horrible ululating scream and hovering mid-air.

It was now time to go. They saw the soldiers who had been hidden in the airship rush down the stairs and head for the bloodbath still unfolding in the dining room. With that distraction aiding their escape, the crew made their way into the dark of a Doskvol night.

My Experience Running Blades in the Dark

I've played a good bit of Blades in the Dark, starting back when it was just the pre-release documents that were polished into the final game, but until recently I hadn't actually run it. For a long time, the game felt daunting, but I realized the other day I probably understood enough of it to make an honest attempt, so I put the call out on my Discord, got three players roped in, and went for it. You can read the write up for the first half of the session here and the second half here. Below are my thoughts on running the game and introducing it to a group of players who hadn't played before.

The Good

Blades in the Dark is a game that you can get going pretty quickly, even if a group has no prior experience with it. The playbooks are admittedly busy looking on a visual level, but you can make characters speedily by just focusing on the stuff that will come up in play. I had them pick backgrounds, vices, a special ability, and assign their "skill points," which was more than enough to start playing with. Frankly, we could have skipped backgrounds and left vices for the wrap up of the session. 

Everything else on the playbooks got worked out when we needed it. They picked friends and enemies during the "gathering information" part of the pre-heist action, for example. The core mechanic--roll dice equal to your dots, pick the single highest die to determine your result--is easy to explain and immediately graspable. Other mechanics, such as resistance rolls or the engagement roll, were easy enough to explain when they came up.

Blades in the Dark's specialized mechanics for emulating heists and other crime-related activity, such as taking stress to push yourself for more dice, Devil's bargains, and flashbacks, really go a long way toward pushing the genre as an integral part of play. As above, these mechanics were easy enough to bring into the game when the opportunity presented itself. 

One rule that my players especially seemed to like concerned loadout. In Blades, you start off a mission by deciding whether you're taking a light, average, or heavy load of equipment and gear with you. You don't have to pick exactly which items are in your loadout. You can check the items off on your playbook, asserting that you brought it with you, as play progresses. This is such a great way to do things, especially for the genre. Sure beats turning the game into "guess what would be useful ahead of time" or a minigame of managing your inventory like an accountant.

The session was also extremely easy to prep: I used a very basic premise, "there's these weird sisters who have a magical meteorite, and you've got to steal it," made a couple of notes about rooms in their house and the possible encounters therein, and left everything else up to improvisation. The brief details for the Dimmer Sisters and their allies Roslyn and Irelen were enough to slot into my idea for a heist without much work; there's a lot of utility in the book's brief setting descriptions. In a long-running game, you'd want to invent some of your own content, but there's more than enough in the book to play with for quite some time. 

Divergences of Style and Preference

It's important to note that I probably ran this session in a way that is not necessarily the intended play style. If the example of play in the Blades in the Dark book is anything to go by, and it should be since it is the example of play, the game is meant to be played in a more mechanistic, detached way. There's not a ton of talking in character, but there is a lot of discussion of what will be rolled. Similarly, I've found that livestreams with John Harper, the game's author, running the game feel more removed from the roles and setting than I'm used to. 

I suppose this is what people mean by "storygaming," as the focus is more on the wider scope of the narrative than the immediacy of the characters, but as a critique even that feels like it misses the mark for me as a way of describing the style. For a "fiction-first" game, as Blades proclaims to be, it often feels like more attention is paid toward filling in clocks and other mechanical elements rather than the drama of being part of a criminal enterprise.

I ran things differently. The back and forth of setting scenes by describing the environment and letting the players' decisions guide what happens wasn't that different from how I run D&D. I also kept some of the stuff going on mechanically entirely behind the scenes. I used progress clocks, but I kept them to myself instead of making them part of the "play space." I can see the benefit of sharing access to the progress clocks, but I didn't want the mechanics to be the focus. The play is the thing, in my opinion. Folk on the Blades in the Dark reddit will tell you this is absolutely the wrong way to play, but it worked for me without any issues.

Additionally, it felt more organic in that the players had to determine the magnitude of the threats and tasks in front of their characters by probing the fiction, instead of looking at the mechanical doodads. 

A Few Critiques

Although the basic mechanics are easy to grasp on the player side, the intricacies of position and effect are not immediately easy to implement on the GM side of the table. I'm sure the "handling time" of position and effect would become easier with practice, but because those tools are meant to be loose and able to accommodate a wide range of situations in play, they can feel vague and a little shapeless in terms of concrete rules advice.

Also, I think that Blades sometimes feels a little more like a toolkit for a game than than a laser-focused game in its own right. It gives you a lot of tools, but you can't (and shouldn't try to) use them all in one session. There is enough going on with actions, resistance rolls, engagement rolls, flashbacks, taking stress, resisting harm, Devil's bargains, etc. that it can feel like juggling chainsaws. (I definitely messed up a few instances of resisting harm in the swing of things, for example.) I tried to work in as much of the mechanical options as I could to give the players a sense of what the game is about, but there were still mechanics we didn't touch, such as assisted actions, project clocks, leading an action, etc. 

The mechanics are pretty intricately tied together, but avoiding a few of them won't make the game fall apart. In addition, the end of session rules for indulging in vices, healing harm, gaining heat as your gang's activities affect the criminal underworld, etc. are all very cool, but keep in mind that they also bulk up the amount of rules that need to be checked and mechanics that need to be referenced. Again, I'm sure it becomes smooth with practice, but there are a lot of moving pieces to negotiate that definitely do not fit the "universal mechanic" way of doing things, if that matters to you.

In Closing

I really do think Blades in the Dark is a great game. I had a blast and I'm pretty sure my players had fun too. I own too many games that have a premise I enjoy, but the idea of introducing them at the table just doesn't appeal to me. Not so with Blades. I would definitely run this again.

Escape from the House of the Dimmer Sisters

We played a one-shot game of Blades in the Dark two weeks ago. It was my first time running the game, and the players' first time trying out the game. This is the second half of the write up of the session. The first half is here.

The Characters

Noodles, leech played by Michael

Lightstep, lurk played by Aaron

Contralto, whisper played by Anne

The Score

When we last left our scoundrels, they were ascending the stairs in a turret of the Dimmer Sisters' house, seeking a meteorite they wanted to steal on behalf of their benefactor, Baszo Baz.

The gang avoided the second floor of the turret, believing that the item they were after was on the third. The door to the room on third floor was closed, but light spilled from the gap beneath it. Contralto peeked underneath and saw someone's legs, but oddly one of those legs was clasped in a manacle chained to a heavy staple in the floor. Opening the door, they discovered that the legs belonged to a young woman with a wild shock of white hair, surrounded by books and strange apparatus. The woman initially mistook them for people she was expecting, a misapprehension that only solidified when Noodles showed her the red sash he had taken from the corpse at the bottom of the turret staircase.

The woman asked them to release her from the manacle, but they explained that they needed to get the meteorite before they could leave. The woman did not like this "change of plans"; it turned out that she had hired the Red Sashes to rescue her from captivity in the Dimmer Sisters' abode, which explained the imprisoned or dead gang members they had encountered. She had mistaken Lightstep, Contralto, and Noodles for her rescuers. 

They managed to come to an agreement: she would tell them where to find the meteorite if they released her and allowed her to leave the house under her own power. The gang agreed to this, and Contralto set to work with her spirit key, undoing the supernaturally empowered manacle that bound the woman in place. Though Contralto was successful at undoing the manacle, she knew she had also tripped its ward--it was only a matter of time until some fiendish trap was activated.

The woman, Doctor Irelen, told them that she had been forced to build a device that would allow the Dimmer Sisters to communicate with the spirit world, and that the meteorite was used to power the device. The device was located on the floor beneath this one in the turret, but some of the Dimmer Sisters were sure to be in there with it. Apparently, their ploy to lure the sisters out of the house had not enticed all of them to leave! Irelen also cautioned the gang against messing with the sisters before she departed.

Returning to the second floor of the turret, Lightstep used a silence potion to creep up on the door, open it slightly, and peer inside. Four of the Dimmer Sisters murmured to each other while adjusting the dials of the strange apparatus that the meteorite was powering. Figuring that if the meteorite could withstand re-entry into the atmosphere it could also survive a small explosion, Lightstep threw a small bomb inside the room and slammed the door shut. The explosion blew the door off its hinges; both Noodles and Contralto were lightly concussed by the fallout. 

As the smoke cleared, they could see that two of the Dimmer Sisters had been killed by the blast and that their machine had been destroyed. The meteorite was unharmed on the floor. The two remaining Dimmer Sisters were beginning to pick themselves up off the ground. One sister's veil had been shredded by the blast, revealing a mouth rotted away to reveal teeth and gums--the rumors that these women were something more than human proved to be true. Lightstep rushed in to grab the meteorite and the two sisters rushed at him. 

Looking to create a distraction, Contralto summoned the first spirit she could pull from beyond the veil: the ghost of an urchin holding a doll with a missing head. The specter caught the attention of one of the Dimmer sisters, but in the moment of summoning the boy's shade, she realized that she had attached the spirit too strongly to herself--he was going to be hard to shake in the future. The other sister tried to grasp Lightstep, but he juked and left her clutching only his discarded jacket. He scooped up the meteorite and the group made for the stairs. Noodles dropped the red sash to the ground, conveniently framing the Red Sashes for their theft of the meteorite.

Unfortunately for the gang, the ward from the manacle was now active--it had summoned a spectral hound with a skull-like visage that began to stalk them down the hall of the house's first floor. Lightstep slowed it by throwing a spiritbane charm at it. Noodles decided to load his pistol with electroplasmic ammo and stand his ground; he managed to put two bullets into the thing, causing it to leak spectral essence, but it bit his leg and dragged him to the ground. Lightstep threw an eldritch dagger into the thing's skull, saving his compatriot in the nick of time. 

Down at the small dock beneath the house, the group found that their raft is still tied in place, though the sabotaged boat was now gone. As they began to float down the canal, Doctor Irelen pulled herself from the reeking canal onto their raft, loudly complaining that the boat she had attempted to escape on had been sabotaged! She was, in fact, quite loud; loud enough to alert the guards in the garden to their presence. The guards took a few potshots at the fleeing scoundrels--Contralto got tagged in the shoulder. However, though they were bitten, concussed, haunted by an urchin, and now bullet-ridden, they had successfully pulled off their heist. 

In the House of the Dimmer Sisters

We played a one-shot game of Blades in the Dark last week. It was my first time running the game, and the players' first time trying it out.

The Characters

Noodles, leech played by Michael

Lightstep, lurk played by Aaron

Contralto, whisper played by Anne

The Score

The characters were all part of a new, as yet unnamed, criminal gang operating in the city of Doskvol. Baszo Baz, the leader of the Lampblacks, had provided the new gang's initial stake of capital, but now the time had come to pay the piper: Baszo enlisted the gang to steal a meteorite possessing occult significance that had recently fallen on Doskvol. It was known that the meteorite was currently in the possession of the Dimmer Sisters, a "family" of recluses who have their hooks into the spirit trade in the city.

In preparation for the heist, Lightstep staked out the Dimmer Sisters' manor house, noting that the buildings on either side of it had been long vacant. (No one wants to be the Dimmer Sisters' neighbors.) He also deduced from the flashes of light emitted from the top floor of the house's turret that someone inside was working with electrical power. However, he also began to suspect that his observation of the house had been noticed, as the servants left en masse one day--only to be replaced by a number of heavily armed mercenary guards who set up position on the house's roof and in its garden.

Contralto summoned the ghost of Nyryx, a chef who was killed after berating his sous chef one too many times, to ask him for advice on luring the Dimmer Sisters out of their abode. Nyryx related that the sisters didn't really keep a social calendar, but the one thing that might tempt them out of the house would be an auction for a rare occult tome. The gang arranged for the sale of a fraudulent book of dark magic, seeding the underworld with rumors about its rarity. Their ploy worked, and on the night of the auction they watched as five Dimmer Sisters, each wearing a black funereal dress, their facial features obscured by veils, exited the house and sped away in rented carriages. 

With the sisters out of the way, the gang made their approach. They had commandeered a raft and outfitted it with shiny black fabric to make it difficult to see on the waters of the canal that ran under the Dimmer Sisters' house. They tied their raft at the small dock beneath the house, and Noodles cunningly sabotaged the boat already moored there--the boat looked fine, but any weight added to it would cause it to quickly sink. The gang entered the house through a basement trapdoor, which was curiously already unlocked, and noted the wet footprints on the stairs. Once inside, they decided to skip exploring the house and make a concerted effort to get to the turret, where they supposed the meteorite was being kept, and get out. 

The steps leading up from the basement spit them out into the kitchen. Peeking down the hallway, they saw a door that presumably led into the turret. However, one of the doors they'd need to pass on the way was open. Light was spilling out of the room, but the way the light was periodically interrupted indicated that someone was inside that room. Noodles decided to sneak up to the door and look in, but as he peered inside he saw--nothing. As Contralto and Lightstep watched from the kitchen door, they saw a woman in a maid's uniform emerge from Noodle's shadow, draw a knife from her apron, and place it to Noodles's throat. Noodles reacted by whipping out a loop of rope, slipping it over her wrist, and using it to leverage her off of him. The maid's nose cracked against Noodles's fist, knocking her unconscious. 

The gang dragged the maid's body into the kitchen's larder, stowing her under bags of potatoes and flour. While in the larder, they noticed that one of its walls was newly constructed, but one brick remained yet to be placed. Peering inside, they saw a man interred within the wall. From the scarlet adornment the man was wearing, they knew he was a member of the Red Sashes--another of the criminal gangs of Doskvol. They began to suspect that they weren't the only criminals trying to get their hands on the meteor that night.

Those suspicions only deepened when they opened the door to the house's turret and found a corpse lying facedown near the stairs. The body's hand was outstretched, its fingers inches away from a curved saber. Turning the body over revealed that this was another member of the Red Sashes. They checked the corpse for wounds, but found none. Judging by the rictus grin on the gang member's face, he might have died of fright.

What was going on in the house of the Dimmer Sisters?

to be continued.

Actual Play: Blades in the Dark

In retrospect, Wolfram Keel probably looks a bit like Captain Flint on Black Sails

I had the good fortune to play in a Blades in the Dark game run by Andrew Shields of the Fictive Fantasy blog. Andrew has his play report up here.

Before I get into my experience with the game itself, I just want to take a minute to say that Andrew runs a great game. I have the quick start of Blades in the Dark, but I wasn't really able to put together how it all worked in my brief read-through of the text; Andrew, however, made the game sing in practice. He presented the mechanical bits in a really easy-to-grasp way and offered enough introductory guidance to help us along without ever feeling like he was nudging us in one direction or another. Andrew also added a ton of on-the-fly detail to the game's setting and NPCs that made the game have a very particular feel. People talk about immersion; Andrew's ability to add details that popped was all about getting the feel of the setting (weird, gritty, ominous).

My fellow player in the game was Bryan, and he pushed things forward into ever more dangerous territory at every turn (which was much appreciated by me). Bryan's character, Aldo Nyman, had all the social skills mine lacked; yet, despite our different skill sets we both chose "Daring" as our special abilities. This emphasis on "daring" came to define our new crew of thieves: we were looking to make a name for ourselves by taking on jobs (and approaching the way we completed job) in audacious ways that more careful crews would never even consider. My character, Wolfram Keel, was a weathered, perpetually furious ex-whaler whose skills leaned toward violence and skulking about. He may have killed an experienced duelist with a gaff hook in a water closet; Aldo may then have taken the dead man's identity so we could pull off an abduction. These are our unrecommendable methods, but they work.

I was impressed by how brisk the pacing is in Blades in the Dark. In a three hour session we generated our characters, generated our gang of thieves, went on two "heists," and did two episodes of downtime. The heists were short, but fulfilling. Our first adventure was kidnapping the leader of a powerful faction; through Aldo's guile, Wolfram's willingness to step into the fray, and a little help from our weirdo occult adept minions we were able to pull off a pretty amazing score. The second heist involved sneaking onto a whaling ship in plain sight so that we could steal away with some rather unusual gunpowder stored in a literal hog's head. 

Oddly, or maybe not, our most nail-biting encounter in the entire session was with a sexed-up harpoonist who probably isn't even human; let's just say she has scrimshaw teeth, has a penchant for looking into the depths of murderous souls, and has an arm made of bone that was animated by plunging it into a leviathan's eye. Not the kind you take home to mother.

Even though each heist didn't take long to resolve, they felt meaty and compelling. There wasn't really any lull in the game where we planned out our strategy and prepared for contingencies. The way the game works lets you largely accomplish all of that on the fly, adding detail and depth through action and flashbacks. It felt like we got an amazing amount of fun gaming in within just three hours. In other games I've played there are interminable stretches were you're waiting for the fun parts; this was all good parts all the way through. Part of that was undoubtedly the people involved (thanks again, Andrew and Bryan), but part of it was the tight design of the game. Blades in the Dark seems like a clear winner; can't wait to play again.