THE GAME Blades in the Dark is a game about a group of daring scoundrels building a criminal enterprise on the haunted streets of an industrial-fantasy city. There are heists, chases, escapes, dangerous bargains, bloody skirmishes, deceptions, betrayals, victories, and deaths. We play to find out if the fledgling crew can thrive amidst the teeming threats of rival gangs, powerful noble families, vengeful ghosts, the Bluecoats of the City Watch, and the siren song of the scoundrels’ own vices. The SRD is freely available at bladesinthedark.com THE CAMPAIGN Five sessions of three hours each, Thursdays from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. PST. We will use Discord's voice chat to communicate in English. THE SETTING The game takes place in the cold, foggy city of Doskvol (aka Duskwall or “the Dusk”). It’s industrial in its development. Imagine a world like ours during the second industrial revolution of the 1870s—there are trains, steam-boats, printing presses, simple electrical technology, carriages, and the black smog of chimney smoke everywhere. Duskwall is something like a mashup of Venice, London, and Prague. It’s crowded with row-houses, twisting streets, and criss-crossed with hundreds of little waterways and bridges. The city is also a fantasy . The world is in perpetual darkness and haunted by ghosts—a result of the cataclysm that shattered the sun and broke the Gates of Death a thousand years ago. The cities of the empire are each encircled by crackling lightning towers to keep out the vengeful spirits and twisted horrors of the deathlands. To power these massive barriers, the titanic metal ships of the leviathan hunters are sent out from Doskvol to extract electroplasmic blood from massive demonic terrors upon the ink-dark Void Sea. You’re in a haunted Victorian-era city trapped inside a wall of lightning powered by demon blood. The point of all this is to create a pressure-cooker environment for our criminal escapades. Traveling outside the lightning barrier is a very bad idea, so it’s impractical to “leave town and wait for the heat to die down” after you pull off a score. Everything the players choose to do has consequences for their characters and shifts the balance of power around in the city—driving the action for a sandbox style of roleplaying game. THE PLAYERS Each player creates a character and works with the other players to create the crew to which their characters belong. Each player strives to bring their character to life as an interesting, daring scoundrel who reaches boldly beyond their current safety and means. This is the players’ core responsibility : they engage with the premise of the game, seeking out interesting opportunities for crime in the haunted city—taking big risks against powerful foes and sending their characters into danger. The players work together with the Game Master to establish the tone and style of the game by making judgment calls about the mechanics, dice, and consequences of actions. The players take responsibility as co-authors of the game with the GM. THE CHARACTERS The scoundrels attempt to develop their crew from a ragtag group of poor independents to a serious criminal organization with established turf. They do this by taking illegal jobs from clients, planning their own devious missions, making alliances, destroying their enemies, and trying to stay one step ahead of the law. There are several character types to choose from, each representing a different style of scoundrel: Cutters are intimidating fighters. Hounds are deadly sharpshooters and trackers. Leeches are tinkerers, alchemists, and saboteurs. Lurks are stealthy infiltrators. Slides are manipulators and spies. Spiders are devious masterminds. Whispers are arcane adepts. Character types aren’t unique. You can mix and match, or play a crew that is all of one type. It’s up to you. THE CREW In addition to creating scoundrel characters, you’ll also create the crew by choosing which type of criminal enterprise you’re interested in exploring. The crew gets its own “character sheet,” just like a player character. Assassins are killers for hire. A Cult serves a forgotten god. Bravos are thugs and extortionists. Hawkers sell illegal products. Smugglers transport contraband. Shadows are thieves and spies. The crew type isn’t restrictive (you can pursue a variety of activities); it’s there to help focus the game play. PLAYING A SESSION So, what’s it like to play? A session of Blades in the Dark is like an episode of a TV show. There are one or two main events, plus maybe some side-story elements, which all fit into an ongoing series. During a session, the crew of scoundrels works together to choose a criminal score to accomplish (either by getting a job from an NPC or by creating their own operation), then they make a few dice rolls to jump into the action of the score in progress. The PCs take actions, suffer consequences, and finish the operation (succeed or fail). Then the crew has downtime, during which they recover, pursue side-projects, and indulge their vices. After downtime, the players once again look for a new opportunity or create their own goals and pursuits, and we play to find out what happens next. A given game session is typically one score and the following downtime, plus exploration and discovery of a new opportunity. As the group gets more familiar with the game, we might be able to pack more into a session, even doing two scores in an evening of play. Interested? Have questions? 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