IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE

SESSION 14B: MALKEEN DAWNING

January 5th, 2008
The 4th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

It was still the dark of night when Tee woke up to find Malkeen Balacazar in her room.

The crime lord was sitting on the chair in the corner, the light of the bedside lamp that he must have lit casting shadows that turned the star-tattoo across his eye into a pit of darkness. “Good morning, Tee.”

Tee’s heart was trying to pound its way out of her chest. “What are you doing here?”

“I thought we had an arrangement, Mistress Tee.” Malkeen’s voice was hard and cold. “I would let you and your friends live, and you would never interfere in my business again.”

Tee glared. “And we haven’t.”

“Then explain this.” Malkeen flicked his wrist, throwing a piece of paper onto Tee’s bedcovers. It had been crumpled, burned around the edges, and badly water damaged – but Tee recognized her own handwriting. It was the note that she had written and left for Dullin at the Cloud Theater.

“Dullin was connected to you?”

“My nephew. You didn’t know?”

Tee shook he head.

“Then why were you trying to contact him?”

“We thought his life was in danger.” Tee took a deep breath, and then spilled out the story of finding the note in Helmut’s house. (Although she was deliberately vague on the details of exactly why they were in the house.)

“Do you still have this note?”

“No, but I made a copy.”

“And do you have the copy?”

She did, and was able to produce it from her bag of holding. Malkeen inspected it closely, then folded it and slipped it into a pouch on his belt. “I’ll take this with me and investigate thoroughly. And I’ll be keeping an eye on you. I hope, for your sake, that we will have no more misunderstandings.”

“So do I,” Tee said. And meant it with all her heart.

Malkeen smiled coldly and then disappeared into thin air. (more…)

Go to Part 1

Last time we looked at some alternative starting situations for Blades in the Dark which were more or less inline with the default starting situation presented in the core rulebook. This time we’re going to look at slightly more complicated options that will push the boundaries of what we can try while still having a fundamental foundation in the mechanical and narrative structures of the game.

THE USUAL SUSPECTS

• The PCs have been incarcerated. Although none of them knew each other before prison, they were somehow thrust together inside: Maybe they were arrested at the same time. Maybe they were assigned to the same cellblock or the same work gang.
• Ask the players individually what they were arrested for. Ask them collectively how they met.
• Look at the prison claims on p. 149 of the core rulebook. These claims are usually gained through incarceration rolls, but for our introductory scenario we’re going to run a prison score. Have the players pick a claim they want to pursue.
• As with crew claims in the outside world, taking control of a prison claim will require the PCs to go through the faction who currently controls it. Pick that faction and figure out how they’re securing or operating the claim currently.
• After the first score is resolved, cut ahead to the point where all of the PCs have been released from prison: Now that they’re free, they’re ready to form a crew and make a name for themselves.
• For their second score, look at the prison claim they took and figure out what outside action and/or infrastructure is needed to sustain it. (For example, how can they take pressure off a guard that they’ve paid off? How can they keep their smuggling channel clear?)
• Pick a second faction that’s trying to muscle in on the crew’s action (or maybe simply looking to compete with them). The second score is fending off the threat.

A few tips:

• The faction standing between the scoundrels and their prison claim can be the Bluecoats. It is, after all, their job to keep things secure in Ironhook.
• After the first score is complete, it may be effective to cut directly to a scene featuring the last member of the crew getting released from prison and/or showing up at the crew’s new hideout.
• The trick to making this situation work is really embracing the claustrophobic nature of the prison job and creating a strong contrast with life on the outside.
• This starting situation is likely to be more challenging for the PCs because it almost certainly means having a negative status with two different factions (instead of a negative-positive split between a couple of factions). Be aware of that and perhaps give the PCs a chance to quickly ingratiate themselves with a third faction. (This third faction could be opposed to the factions they’ve already alienated in an “enemy of my enemy” kind of deal.)

EXAMPLE – SMUGGLING: Ironhook is riddled with ghost doors, a legacy of the long history of pain and violence within the prison’s walls. Keeping them sealed and warded is an important part of prison security. A fief-witch of the Dimmer Sisters has managed to drill through the wards around one of the doors, however, creating a spirit tunnel from a second ghost door in Dunslough. The ghost door in Ironhook opens in a laundry. The PCs will need to figure out how to get regular, long-term access to the door. They’ll also need to figure out how to deny access to the crew currently running it.

This could turn into a jailbreak scenario. But if they use the ghost door to break out of prison, it’s virtually certain the guards will discover and seal the door, eliminating the Smuggling claim. (That’ll probably piss the Dimmer Sisters off even more, honestly.)

If they keep the smuggling channel open, then when they get out of prison they’re approached by the Lampblacks. Their gang war with the Crows has spread to Ironhook, and the lampers want the PCs to smuggle weapons in so that they can “retaliate”. They’ll pay well, but a big influx of weapons will put a lot of heat on the PCs’ operation. If the PCs refuse, the lampers will try to seize the spirit tunnel for themselves. If the PCs go for it, the Crows will get wind of the deal and try to intervene.

EXAMPLE – ALLIED CLAIM (CULT SANCTUARY): Down in the Heart – the core of the Ironhook complex – there are the tangled, maze-like remnants of the original prison and the castle which preceded it. And somewhere within that maze is a forgotten, hidden temple dedicated to the Night Queen. It’s one part Shawshank Redemption, one part Tomb Raider as the PCs follow the enigmatic clues left in the notes of a true believer!

Once inside the temple, each of them can dip a black opal in the milky pool of the Night Queen’s tears, pledging themselves to her service.

When the PCs get out, a Night Queen cult comes looking for the opals. And a different cult, this one pledged to the Squamous Red, seeks to destroy them.

AT WAR!!!

• Pick a faction. The PCs are at war with that faction!
• The PCs effectively start as a Tier 0 faction with Strong hold, as per a standard campaign. But they’ll immediately increase in hold if the war ends, just as they would with any other war.
• Ask the questions:

GM asks: Who started the war?

Players ask: What damage have they done to us?

GM asks: How do you strike back?

• And that’s the first score.
• For the second score, have the other faction hit the PCs’ crew.
• At this point, have a second faction either sympathetic to the PCs or hostile to the PCs’ enemy approach the PCs. They’re willing to ally with the PCs… but they’re not doing it out of the goodness of their heart. (The cost will likely end up being the third or fourth score.)

Tips:

• This is a very difficult starting situation. It’s probably best used with advanced players who already have experience running a Blades in the Dark crew.
• The PCs effectively start at a higher Tier than normal (although temporarily reduced due to the war). Consider this fair compensation for the unusually difficult starting situation.
• When picking an enemy faction, you need to pick one with a Tier equivalent to the PCs or, at most, one higher. As a starting crew, the PCs have very limited resources and a gang war is hard to endure at the best of times. (This is also why the structure brings in an early alliance.)
• When using this structure, you might want to consider starting the PCs’ crew at a higher Tier than usual. (This will also open up more options for the faction they’re in conflict with.)
• This structure can also be a good way to launch a Season Two (Blades in the Dark, p. 206). Close out the previous season, let some time pass, and then cut to in media res as the opposing faction throws a firebomb through the window of the crew’s hideout. YOU’RE AT WAR! Now what?

Blades in the Dark includes a specific suggested starting situation: A war in the Crow’s Foot neighborhood between the Crows, the Lampblacks, and the Red Sashes. If you look around the web for examples of actual play, therefore, it’s unsurprising that you’re going to find a lot of gang wars in Crow’s Foot.

And that’s good. One of the (many) reasons the game has been seeing so much success is that John Harper very adroitly gave you literally everything you need to pick up the game and begin running a campaign immediately and with zero effort.

With that being said, I think you’ll get much better results if, instead of using the canned example of a campaign premise, you create a custom premise. Harper, smartly, includes a generic structure for doing that (the same generic structure that’s used to create the specific War in Crow’s Foot example), as described on p. 203:

• Set two factions directly at odds, with opposing goals. They’re already in conflict when the game begins. Both factions are eager to recruit help, and to hurt anyone who helps their foe.
• Set a third faction poised to profit from this conflict or to be ruined by its continuation. This faction is eager to recruit help.
• Establish an opening scene at one of the faction’s headquarters. The PCs are meeting with the faction leader or second-in-command, who summarizes the current situation as they see it and then make a demand of the crew or offer them a job. What could the PCs’ type of crew do for this faction to help them?

I further recommend that you don’t do this until the end of your Session 0. That will allow you to personalize your starting situation to the crew the players have created, picking factions and struggles accordingly.

(For those unfamiliar with the game, the setting includes 20-30 factions that come prepackaged with agendas which are mechanically coded into progress clocks. This makes it really easy to flip through a few pages, grab a couple factions, and identify their conflicting agendas, although these techniques could work equally well, albeit with a bit more elbow grease, if the GM was creating brand new factions, too.)

This default structure is quite excellent at setting up a dramatic starting situation. But it is obviously not the only structure capable of doing that, so we’re going to explore a few alternatives. With a significant number of Blades in the Dark GMs wrapping up their first campaigns and now looking to start their second, I think these will prove particularly useful in shaking things up a little bit.

AIM AT A CLOCK

• Pick a faction and one of that faction’s faction clocks.
• Have the faction hire (or compel) the PCs to achieve that goal for them.

This won’t necessarily work well for every faction clock in the book, but it will present the PCs with a specific, multi-step goal, while giving them flexibility in figuring out how to achieve it. This allows the PCs to define their own scores right out of the gate, rather than simply being hired to do specific jobs.

A few tips:

• Players may want to default to a single, straightforward strike to achieve whatever the goal is, but that won’t work. These are big, complicated goals. That’s why they have a progress clock. Make them set up their vectors.
• Look at the “Enemies” section of the faction the PCs are working for as sources for likely scores that can help achieve the faction’s progress clock.
• It should probably take two to four scores (possibly supported by various downtime actions) to fill the progress clock. These scores don’t need to be run to the exclusion of any other activity: Mix in unrelated (or tangential) scores. Or, more effectively, let the PCs choose to mix in such scores as they begin defining their own agenda.

EXAMPLE – THE CITY COUNCIL. Three of the councilors (Bowmore, Clelland, Rowan) have aligned against Strangford and are maneuvering to remove the house from the council. (6-clock)

So here the PCs are approached by Bowmore, Clelland, and/or Rowan and told to create a situation in which Strangford will be removed. Blackmail? Criminal prosecution? Assassinations? Whatever. Each score will fill 1-3 ticks on the clock. (Maybe a number of ticks equal to the Tier of the target? Or Tier +1?)

EXAMPLE – THE LOST. The Lost, a group of street-toughs and ex-soldiers dedicated to protecting the downtrodden and hopeless, are seeking to destroy the cruel workhouses in Coalridge. (4-clock, repeating)

This one seems pretty straightforward: Assassinate foremen. Blow up buildings. Steal payroll. Again, whatever works.

AIM AT A CLAIM

• Have the players pick one of the claims from their crew’s claim map. Ask them questions in order to define exactly what the claim is. (And why they want it.)
• The first score will be to secure that claim.
• Pick the faction that currently controls the claim. As with any other seizure of a claim, this will be the faction opposing the PCs’ attempt to take the claim.
• Pick another faction that also wants the claim. As soon as the PCs take the claim, this faction will either approach them in order to leverage the claim or will attempt to take it from the PCs. (Either way, this will probably end up being the second score.)

And a few tips for this one:

• This option really pushes the focus onto the crew-building component of the game.
• If you want powerful factions to be involved, the claim does not have to be directly controlled by one of them. (Which would most likely be too difficult for a Tier 0 crew to seize.) Instead, it may be some small sub-division or subservient organization.
• The squabble over this particular claim is just one small part of a conflict between the two factions you’ve chosen to have involved. In creating that conflict, you can use the nature of the claim they’re competing over as a creative guide.
• This also means that, in the act of securing the claim, the PCs have inserted themselves into the middle of this conflict. How the factions react to his will depend on how these first couple of scores play out; but they will react. Set up some progress clocks and let them start ticking.

EXAMPLE – ASSASSINS (FIXER). The fixer is a man by the name of Otto Fingaria. He currently works closely with the Deathlands Scavengers, who have discovered an ancient bunker in the mountains east of Duskvol. The find is a rich one, and they’ve been slowly funneling its contents through Fingaria for the past few months. The Dimmer Sisters have become interested in Fingaria’s trade; some of them have suggested an ancient prophecy has come due. The Dimmer Sisters want to know the location of the bunker, and they’ll go through Fingaria to do it.

EXAMPLE – BRAVOS (TURF). The gang decides that they want to take control of a training gym for boxers in Coalridge; they’ll use it as a front for their strongarm mercenary work and also as a recruiting ground for a cohort. (Tim is also potentially interested in fixing matches on the circuit.) The gym is located in the middle of a Skov ghetto, though, and Ulf Ironborn at Akorosians trying to muscle in on Skovlander businesses. If the PCs can nevertheless take control of the gym, they’ll be visited by the Billhooks: They’ve heard there’s new management and they want to make sure the PCs are onboard with supporting their fixing of the boxing matches.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

Ultimately all of these methods take two or more factions, put them in conflict with each other, and then create a vector by which the PCs end up somehow stuck in the middle of that conflict. This should probably be unsurprising, because in large part that’s what Blades in the Dark is ultimately about: The conflict between powerful factions and the path by which the PCs become one of those powerful factions (or are destroyed in the attempt).

The distinction between these methods largely lies in (a) how the GM draws inspiration for the most pertinent faction conflict at the beginning of the campaign and (b) the method by which the PCs become involved. The latter is crucial in terms of shaping what actually happens at the gaming table: Battling over turf is different than choosing sides, which is different again than being hired to potentially instigate the conflict.

NEXT: Advanced Starting Situations

Go to Dreamsight (Part 1)

DREAMING TOUCH

DREAM SPYING: With a successful Dreaming Arts check, a dreamer can peer into the dreams of another. The DC of the check is determined by the type of information the dreamer wishes to glean. If the check is successful, the target can make a Will save with a DC equal to 10 + the dreamer’s ranks in the Dreaming Arts skill.

The target must be either sleeping or physically present in the Dreaming at some point during the dreaming night, otherwise the attempt automatically fails.

Altering the Dream: For every two ranks the dreamer has in the Dreaming Arts, they can make one attempt to introduce new elements into the dream or subtly alter it (which may allow them to glean additional information). However, each attempt allows the subject to attempt a new Will save. If they succeed, the dream spying immediately ends.

Target’s Awareness: When the dream spying begins, the target makes an immediate Dreaming Arts check opposed by the dreamer’s Dreaming Arts check. (They can make this check even if they are untrained in the skill.) If the check succeeds, the target is aware that someone is spying on their dreams. Even if the initial check fails, an additional check can be made with a cumulative +2 bonus each time the dreamer alters the dream.

Dream Trace: Targets who are trained in the Dreaming Arts who become aware that someone is observing their dreams can make an opposed Dreaming Arts check as a standard action to identify the person spying on their dreams.

Dream Peek: The dreamer literally observes whatever the target happens to be dreaming about. This may be useful or it may be complete nonsense, at the DM’s discretion.

Surface Thoughts: After making contact, the dreamer can use their connection to the Dreaming to read the target’s surface thoughts, as if with the use of a detect thoughts spell.

Associations: The dreamer can pick upon emotional and informational associations with the target’s surface thoughts. For example, if the target is dreaming about someone or something, the dreamer knows how they feel about it and what their relationship is to it.

Short-Term Memory: The dreamer manipulates the target’s dream in order to reveal a specific piece of information or short-term memory from the past week or so (such as a password or what they were doing at a specific time last Tuesday, for example). This information is revealed through the structure of the dream and may be slightly distorted or incomplete as a result of being part of a dream (at the DM’s discretion).

Long-Term Memory: The dreamer can access any of the subject’s conscious memories, although the information is only as accurate as the subject recalls.

Subconscious: The dreamer can access the subject’s subconscious, giving them access to memories and information that the subject may not consciously recall (due to trauma or simple forgetfulness). It can also grant the dreamer insight into the subject’s psyche, such as their deep subconscious desires, fears, traumas, and so forth (one piece of information for each alteration of the dream).

NIGHTMARE: With a successful Dreaming Arts check (DC 20), you twist a victim’s dreams into a hideous and supernatural nightmare. The check is modified and prompts a Will save as per a Dream Spying check. If the check is successful, the nightmare prevents restful sleep and also causes 1d10 points of damage to the victim. The nightmare leaves the victim fatigued and unable to regain arcane spells for the next 24 hours.

The target must be either sleeping or physically present in the Dreaming at some point during the dreaming night, otherwise the attempt automatically fails.

DREAMING VOYANCE

SIGHT OF THE DREAMING EYE: With a successful Dreaming Arts check, you can see and hear the events surrounding a particular character or at a particular location. The time period observed can be at any time during the dreaming night or at any point in the past, but the total time period observed cannot be longer than 1 minute per rank in the dreamer’s Dreaming Arts skill, and the difficulty of the Dreaming Arts check increases based on the distance in both time and space between the dreamer and the events being observed.

The dreamer is not truly observing the world, but rather the echoes that the world creates within the Dreaming.

VISION OF THE DREAMING SHADOWS: With a successful Dreaming Arts check (DC 25), the dreamer can attune themselves to the Dreaming resonances of the location in which they slumber, allowing them to effectively see and hear the events of the past during their dreaming night.

The dreamer can choose to focus on either a short or long span of time, with the types of details they observe depending on how large of a span they attempt to observe.

Days: The dreamer observes the events of the most recent days, covering a span equal to 1 day per rank in the Dreaming Arts. The dreamer gains detailed visions of the people who have been in the location as well as the actions, conversations, and other events that have happened there.

Weeks: The dreamer observes the events of the most recent weeks, covering a span equal to 1 week per 2 ranks in the Dreaming Arts. Precise details and exact wording cannot be discerned, but the dreamer will still know the people who have been here, the general topics of conversation, and the gist of events.

Years: The dreamer observes the events of the past few years, covering a span equal to 1 year per 3 ranks in the Dreaming Arts. Only the most noteworthy events are recaptured — battles, deaths, emotional revelations, and so forth.

Centuries: The dreamer observes events stretching back over centuries, covering a span equal to 1 century per 4 ranks in the Dreaming Arts. Only events of historic importance – deaths of important people, major battles, coronations, and the like – are learned.

VOICE OF THE DREAM: With a successful Dreaming Arts check (DC 15), a dreamer can briefly make contact with the dreams of another character, delivering a brief message of 25 words of less and receiving a response of equal length.

The recipient of the message must be sleeping at some point during the dreaming night or the attempt automatically fails. However, with a more difficult Dreaming Arts check (DC 25), the dreamer can leave a message “hanging” in the Dreaming. The next time the recipient of the message falls asleep, the message will be delivered (although no response is possible).

This material is covered by the Open Gaming License.