Blades in the Dark – Breaks on a Train
It’s been a little while since I gave you an update as to what is going on with my scoundrels in Doksvol, the city at the heart of Blades in the Dark.
Since that last adventure they have gotten themselves in deeper with Bazso of the Lamblacks and gotten themselves into a situation where they are coming into conflict with the Red Sashes and Ulf, who you might remember they totally failed to assassinate last time. Since that failed assassination attempt they have been on jobs in high society to poison a Magister, eyed up an opportunity to move their headquarters somewhere a bit plusher and crossed into the Ghost Field to disrupt a very high stakes poker game and meet a rather odd individual.
This session was going to see the group finally rack up enough reputation, I hoped, to get a strong hold on their territory. I have been retrofitting the newer version of the rules as well and it is great to see Blades in it’s final form! They had now touched on the occult side of the game and had a ‘job’ from a stranger they had met in the Ghost Field. Baz wants to double down on the hurt the Red Sashes are feeling by getting them to hit a shipment coming in that he believes is important to them. The courier is coming in from Whitehollow so it’s time to get on a train and head out into the wastes.
Arriving at Whitehollow the day before the courier was due to leave they quickly spotted him, surrounded by 4 large bodyguards. Noticing that the package is cuffed to his wrists they went about taking up Baz on his offer to sneak one of them onto the train as staff. The engagement roll didn’t look good for them, and I kept my plans for disruption quiet for now! Reprising their posh people role from an earlier session, Hallam and Una got onto the train and had a cabin just a little down from the target.
A couple of hours into the trip their target heads to the restaurant car for some food, sans package, which they assumed was now locked to one of the lackies. A plan to poison the target with sleeping powder goes a bit wrong when the Lurk, who is undercover in the kitchen, screws it up spreading it over several people’s food. He is powerless to stop the affected food entering the restaurant car and it doesn’t take long for the target to succumb. A call for a Doctor sees Una trying to bluff it out as more bodies fall around them. Hallam, faking being blind, gets himself led out by the Lurk to his cabin in order to infiltrate whilst Una’s bluff is called and a commotion ensues in the cabin. Luckily Una has a small explosive on her, nothing could possibly go wrong?
In the corridor the team of the Idrim and Hallam take on the guard outside the cabin, only to be interrupted by an explosion behind them and another team entering the carriage apparently after the same thing. Hallam uses the interruption to whip out his sniper rifle, a compact pre-cataclysm artifact recently stolen, and shoots the guard outside the carriage clean between the eyes. Idrim tackles the approaching gang whilst Una joins Hallam in getting into the compartment holding their target. A broken nose and a some stress taken, they burst in to find the last two guards and swiftly take them out. Left with an unconscious meat lock, Hallam whips out a saw
whilst his dog takes care of the other arm.
The chaos on the train causes it to stop at a small fishing village where the crew makes it off the train and onto a boat. Baz is delighted with their find and they also fess up to being asked by an enemy of Idrim, a high society lady called Kellis, to spy on what Baz is up to. In return for this info. Baz agrees to help them get their new HQ off the Fog Hounds who where the other crew on the train. This started a new clock that I added two segments to of ‘Establish new HQ’. The Fog Hounds are bound to take exception to that!
Still loving the open world nature of the game, but it still feels focused despite being open ended. I think the nature of the crew helps a lot with that, front loading the GM with the expectations the players have of the kind of jobs they are going to be doing. In exciting news I am going to be starting another monthly game with an online group, this time focused on a Cult. Really looking forward to seeing what that brings to the setting as both crews are going to be operating in the same version of Doskvol!
