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(he/they) usually go by the name of weaver using this blog to post abt blades in the dark and various ideas i have for it. currently running a campaign so posts will be fewer and far between.

[ideasinthedark]

introductory post

my name is weaver (he/they) and I made this blog to post about blades in the dark. I’ve been interested in blades since around 2020

currently i’m working on a campaign about a group of ex spirit wardens who are trying to get into the spirit fighting business 

I will mostly be posting my ideas about blades in the dark including things like: 

devices and alchemicals

spirits and demons

factions 

npcs

locations

set pieces 

[probablyfunrpgideas]

Blades in the Dark idea:

Play a crew of all vampires! You could all take the Vampire playsheet, but another option would be to just re-flavor the characters using a diverse array of playsheets. Starting as undead creatures will put you on a different footing compared to the usual scoundrels! Don’t worry though, gang warfare and lost artifact vaults can still pose a genuine threat to your career and your unlife.

My idea for this campaign is “Blades Against the Dark: Vampires for Enlightenment” in which the crew is trying to bring back the true Sun and banish the world’s endless night. What are their conflicting motives? What do they think it will take to restore the normal day cycle? The immortal Emperor is said to have a bound false-sun lighting his city - will one of these bring new hope and warmth to Doskvol?

[ideasinthedark]

some Ideas I had for characters either associated with this gang, or player characters An ancient vampire that remembers the sun, and for one reason or the another thinks lesser of vampire society now that they have unfettered access to the outside world, and wishes to see things "brought back the way that they were"

A vampire who became one on accident, and wishes to see things come to an end in "A way that they haven't been in a very long time"

A vampire who was turned, and never really thought about the missing sun up until they became what they are now, and now wishes to see the sun returned due to the knowledge that vampires can't live in the sun at all, and that really got them thinking about wanting to see it.

[probablyfunrpgideas]

Blades in the Dark idea:

Play a crew of all vampires! You could all take the Vampire playsheet, but another option would be to just re-flavor the characters using a diverse array of playsheets. Starting as undead creatures will put you on a different footing compared to the usual scoundrels! Don’t worry though, gang warfare and lost artifact vaults can still pose a genuine threat to your career and your unlife.

My idea for this campaign is “Blades Against the Dark: Vampires for Enlightenment” in which the crew is trying to bring back the true Sun and banish the world’s endless night. What are their conflicting motives? What do they think it will take to restore the normal day cycle? The immortal Emperor is said to have a bound false-sun lighting his city - will one of these bring new hope and warmth to Doskvol?

[ideasinthedark]

Something that I really like about blades in the dark is the fact that in the main setting you are unable to run. The city of Duskvol is locked down, and the only real ways out are the trains or jumping ship so running isn't the easiest thing to do, and its harder to come back.

Something that happened in the old campaign that I was running was that all the people in it were running from something, and needed to get away. This kinda drove how I thought about the campaign itself, and I think it is just a fun way to drive things forward in general, that being the crew is running from either something very big or a bunch of little things, but they are running, and eventually the whole city will come crashing down upon them, and in their desperate fight to get away they topple more, and more onto their ever growing pile of things that are after them.

[ideasinthedark]

Something that I think about a bit is various games of chance/sport around the dusk, and one that I think about quite a bit is the idea of gondola racing.

Something that i think about is the idea of a few gangs, or even the gondoliers themselves souping up some of the gondolas to be motorized, and setting them on a race across the cities canals.

Some ways to add onto this to make it more interesting (and more in control of the scoundrels) is you could set it up that teams need to get something to put on the gondolas, and then take it off. so not only are the people in the gondolas racing, but the people who need to load, and unload are also racing along with the twist of now there is sabotage between teams, both on the water, and on the ground.

[probablyfunrpgideas]

Doing a score against a permanent target (we have to rob this laboratory!) is good. Doing a score against a temporary target (we have to frame Sir Cuthbert for murder at this party!) is better. But the best score is both temporary and mobile! Time limits, varied scenery, tons of different options for mixing up the people in harm’s way.

Idea: The Bluecoats are watching you like hawks, but if you can’t make your deliveries of (highly illegal) fermented leviathan paste, your noble patrons will start taking their business elsewhere. Luckily, the route of this year’s Grand Gondoliery passes by most of the drop points you need to reach! You’ve registered for the race, loaded up your shotguns with salt, and reinforced your boat… and that’s when Baszo Baz pays a call. He’s claiming a debt that he feels like you owe him, and wants you to win the race so his bookies can make a pile of money. If not, well, he hopes you’re ready for a fight.

Can your crew of scoundrels pull off this unlikely victory while completing their deliveries? Will they be able to twist events in their favor to foil the plans of Baszo and his gang? Who are the rival teams, and what is the mysterious prize they compete for, announced only as “Five Hearts’ Flower”?

[ideasinthedark]

I really like this addition it adds a lot to the idea while also giving it some added background, and threat.

[ideasinthedark]

Something that I think about a bit is various games of chance/sport around the dusk, and one that I think about quite a bit is the idea of gondola racing.

Something that i think about is the idea of a few gangs, or even the gondoliers themselves souping up some of the gondolas to be motorized, and setting them on a race across the cities canals.

Some ways to add onto this to make it more interesting (and more in control of the scoundrels) is you could set it up that teams need to get something to put on the gondolas, and then take it off. so not only are the people in the gondolas racing, but the people who need to load, and unload are also racing along with the twist of now there is sabotage between teams, both on the water, and on the ground.

[ideasinthedark]

Piggy backing off of my previous post on hulls I thought I might share the idea I had of three hulls I was going to use for a campaign that fell through as a boss fight that was meant to take place at a masquerade that the group was hired as security for.

first off we have the mechanical server, which was this large, and bulky thing that moved around the hall on a set of rails which was intended to be a point for all of the servers at the party to go, and restock at before going haywire. As an enemy the server was intended to be a nuisance throwing objects, and keeping the players in the center of the room being a threat that would ram into them at speed if they stumbled onto the tracks.

second is the mechanical dance which was lithe, and nimble moving about the crowd on strings as a type of set piece that would encourage other people to dance, but as an enemy it is this machine that scuttled about trying to get at the players to attack or pull them up to the scaffolding that it hangs on.

third is the mechanical band which is large, and imposing with two string instruments a cello and a violin the only thing it played physically, but inside it has a music box that plays the rest of the band, and is enchanted to compel people to follow the music lightly when the machine is acting correctly of course, but when the band malfunctions, and goes hostile it takes control of the crowd trying to get at the players (who are wearing earplugs for protection as staff)

[ideasinthedark]

I was thinking on one of the new factions added in the deep cuts expansion for a few days, and I thought it was interesting. The faction I was thinking on is called the Covenant, and this faction is the crew, and title of an airship brought into The Dusk. While i won't go into the covenants situation, and background because it was marked as "spoilers" by the book i do want to go into detail about something i was thinking of with it.

the Covenant being a manned airship armed to the teeth with weaponry definitely gives whoever has it under their control a lot of power over The Dusk, and after giving it a lot of thought anyone who could in theory take the airship can also take, and hold the city most likely with the airships help, due to both the mainpower, and prowess to get ahold of the airship in the first place, but also simply because you would have had to have very good access to the Lord Governor’s stronghold where it docks to get refueled, and resupplied so in theory if one could get ahold of that airship they could rule over the city until the reinforcements could arrive.

[ideasinthedark]

The hulls in blades are quite interesting because I don't think there is anything written about then experiencing the need that ghosts need for life essence, or them degrading and going mad, but what if they did.

What if the housing that contains the spirit is damaged or imperfect in someway, not enough to let the spirit out, but enough to let the world in, and start the process of driving the spirit mad.

What if as time went on slowly your hull which was passive, and followed orders to a tee became more erratic, and it started to ramble to itself strangely. Soon enough it could change permanently, becoming hostile, or if the worst truly happens it could become a horror some type of mix between machine, and spirit that could be horrid to face at all.

[ideasinthedark]

I've been doing some thinking on the factions in the dusk, and one that has struck me as very interesting were the grey coats.

For those who don't know who they are the grey coats are a group of ex-bluecoats who were framed for the burning of a watchtower that they didn't commit, and they all came together under one group keeping their outfits, and badges in order to pass off as city watch without being the city watch.

Now really what i want to focus on is the fact that they are ex-bluecoats, because as their description states that they were skimming off the city coffers, and taking bribes like everyone else, but they didn't burn down the watchtower. Meaning that they were just as corrupt as all the other bluecoats, and sure while this framing might have changed a few hearts and minds I'm sure that some of them also still believe that they should make their cash off protection rackets, and harassing the local populations than doing anything genuine or anti-government.

This feels like a pressure cooker for them as they could be dealing with these internal politics of doing something greater verses continuing to live comfortably in all the rackets they used to operate.

[ideasinthedark]

I’ve gotten the idea in my head for a kind of slot machine powered by a spirit. One of technical “luck” but still entire rigged to the owner of the machine. The way it would function is you either hit a button or throw the lever y’know and the ghost depending on how much it likes the player would select certain scores and those would amount to coin, but since most ghosts wouldn’t be too happy with anyone because they are captured and trapped in a machine they always give bad scores. This of course doesn’t mean that a clever person couldn’t trick or convince the ghost to give a better score for a better payout however.

[ideasinthedark]

As mentioned In my introductory post I am writing a campaign for blades in the dark, and I thought I might as well share some more details since I’ve finished up with the first part of it. I won’t go into too much detail because I’m still looking for players and I don’t want any chance of spoiling them. 

My campaign is about a group of ex-spirit wardens still trying to continue what they set out to do when they first joined up. The idea for this group was that they were a squad of wardens who were used for more specialized actions before being excised at the end of the prologue. The idea around the group is to fight ghosts and continue to deal with people who want to bring power to them.

[nuclearloop]

A fancy sheet for Crofty and her prototype proton-pack devise she uses to slurp ghosts 

Local Spirit Wardens Hate Her for this one simple trick,

[ideasinthedark]

So there's a line in the book about the moon slowly getting larger, like it's falling towards the earth. Any ideas on what's up with that?

honestly I haven't really thought on this much for the most part, its an interesting concept and I did a bit of brainstorming on it and here are some thoughts I got.

demons are using their power to move the moon in order to continue their work with the cataclysm and ending humanity.

some of the forgotten gods are trying to move the moon closer in order to use it as a conduit of power

it could be an after effect of the cataclysm causing it to move unexpectedly and forcing it to change

it could even be all three of them working in conjunction and once it reaches a certain point it shatters and begins to rain rock unto the world

it could just be nothing and its just an effect of the cataclysm making the stars and moon change in the sky

the thing really with blades is that its pretty open ended and it allows the person building their version of the dusk to put in or take out certain things depending on what they see would fit their group.

[ideasinthedark]

i’ve been thinking about the inclusion of demons into the underworld of duskvol, and really one of the ones that stuck out to me is a group that is run by a demon that holds the idea of hard work for a cause very tightly. I feel this demon has a small following which it sends out on tasks like feeding the destitute and committing charitable acts. This demons acts also extend to committing crimes in order to clear  towards any it sees outside of its realm of good or gets in the way of its work.

[ideasinthedark]

The idea of sending a group out onto the void sea in search of leviathans has always intrigued me, not necessarily hunting them in the normal sense more like tracking them through their unexpected migration. One of the things I always considered was that usually spirits and demons avoided the open water due to the leviathans presence, but with the dwindling appearance I’ve always thought that they would become more aggressive.

[ideasinthedark]

this isn’t really a post about an npc, but I’ve been thinking about repurposing a character I made for a campaign into an npc.

The idea around this character was that he was a con-artist (his class was slide) who got excised from the red sashes, and is just trying to make enough money to survive. One of the things I gave him as a con was something called Ghost Coin where he would hand off a bottled spirit to someone for coin, this is quite obviously a scam, and if all goes well he doesn’t have to worry about them coming back.