Blades in the dark: Servants of Halthar

Game Master Meetch

Everyone is doing their own action rolls now. Feel free to study (risky/standard)

Experience!

Crew Did you:
1. Further Halthar’s goals?
2. Contend with challenges above your station?
3. Bolster your Strange reputation?
4. Express the goals, drives or hidden nature of the crew?

The crew gets 1 xp for each yes. 2 xp for any that you did double duty on.

Individuals
I don’t feel like hand typing everyone’s XP triggers. Your playbook has questions, tell me which are yes and take 1 xp. Put the XP in your playbook track or in any attribute. If you fill an attribute track you get an extra action dot (max 3 in any one action). If you fill a playbook track take another special ability.

Crew:
3. Yes. I think some of that heat came from Hutch's bonkers intimidation ploy.

Individual:
Addressed a challenge with calculation or conspiracy: definitely with the parade move at the end.
Expressed your beliefs, drives, heritage, or background: Heavy on the Trade background, preaching the gospel of light, being a bird-friend. x2
Struggled with issues from your vice or traumas during the session: haven't had the chance.

Total of three?

Sounds great! 3 XP wherever you want!

1) Yes, as this whole mission was Halthar's idea anyway =D
2) Possibly? I'm not sure what tier Cobb and crew are
3) I'm going to vote no, since my intent is to pin this crime on someone else.
4) I'm not sure, since I don't know what our crew's goals are, as opposed to our own.

my XP:
Address a challenge with technical skill or mayhem? Yes, for my plan to get the roof team down and away.

Express your beliefs, drive, heritage, or background? Yes, for framing (or at least implicating) my rival for this crime.

Struggle with issues from Vice or Traumas? No.

So that's 2 xp for me.

*Goes to IRL gaming*

*Gets home*

*See's like 15 new posts in this*

Oh f%+$, we're all dead

*nope, we're in downtime*

Sorry, kinda edited that post quickly when I realized we were at 6 heat. Don't want to become wanted

I come back to six new posts in discussion and 25 new ones in gameplay. Good god.

Individual XPs
1) Did you address an issue with violence or coercion? Yeah I think so.

Crew

1. Further Halthar’s goals? Well we stole a bone for him.
2. Contend with challenges above your station? I doubt it.
3. Bolster your Strange reputation? I went all Mighty Thor on someone, does that count?
4. Express the goals, drives or hidden nature of the crew? No not really.

I’m giving the crew 2xp.

Velaris and Briar, don’t forget your personal xp!

Personal XP:

1) address a challenge with tracking or violence - nope, Briar mostly did Prowling and Studying this time.
2) You expressed your beliefs, drives, heritage, or background - yes, Briar employed Severosi tactics of guerrilla and distraction to help achieve their target.
3) You struggled with issues from your vice or traumas - nope.

So 1 XP.

You can add your xp to an attribute track or to your playbook.

4. Express the goals, drives or hidden nature of the crew? can I actually request a little sidebar about this.

indie

You addressed a challenge with knowledge or arcane power. achieved once, attemped about 4 times... MC's call, 1 or 2
 You expressed your beliefs, drives, heritage, or background. b!&&@ed a lot about hovels and the cold... proabbly 1
 You struggled with issues from your vice or traumas during the session the laudanum use did come up

4. Express the goals, drives or hidden nature of the crew? can I actually request a little sidebar about this.

Sidebar with me, or with the group?

whole group... should we kinda hash what these are out a ittle more, just so it's more clear... because my group never did, and we missed outon a ton if XP as the GM always was like "do you have goals besides dealing drugs?"

So as a quick note, I'm tracking my XP in the notes section of my character sheet, cause I can't put marks in each of the boxes next to a stat.

Your text color was set to white. It’ll work now

So I'm just spitballing here, we haven't played a lot yet so I might be off-base with your characters, this is just based on what I've seen thus far.

Ok then. Halthar is a god of stars who wants to bring his light and splendor to a world that doesn't have much. What if we were trying to have a mortal version of that? Trying to be anti Blades in the Dark in our own Blades in the Dark way? Mender's trying to beat death, Tarnikos wants to uplift his fellow refugees, Briar and Velaris are trying to find meaning in a nihilistic society and Hutch is trying to... manipulate a stifling bureaucracy? I don't know about that one.

Could our goal be to remake Duskwall in Halthar's image both socially and politically?

Briar would subscribe to that. She mostly wants revenge against the Emperor, but on the way she would start to realize that even if she achieves that goal, the condition of the common people would not be improved. So I can definitely see our crew as a vigilante band trying to do good. Then Briar's motivation would be working against tyrannical, oppressive systems that bring about inequality. After all, we are all as one in Halthar's myriad eyes.

Hutch is an evangelical kleptomaniac. Deeeep down, under the OCD, antisocial behavior, and hypocrisy, he wants everyone to be friends. The paranoia and secretive nature of Duskval's people is shameful. Everyone should purge the darkness of their souls and turn to the light.

Also, he's gonna invent Twitter and get everyone obsessed with semi-anonymous micro-messaging. (all the while monitoring said messages.)

What did you guys settle on: Did you sell the bone to the lady in the Nightmarket for 4 coin or did you keep it to please Halthar?

Hutch would avoid the conversation, but make it known he would prefer it be used, even if he couldn't tell anyone exactly how it could be used.

Vearis doesn't want an Angry god in his head. keep it.

GM, you gonna give us a missio next, or shall we decide our next one IC? like, I don't want to mess up a plot hook you're gonna throw us, but otherwise, we should talk abut it as a group

Depends. If you keep the bone, Halthar will give you a new mission. If you don’t, he’ll give you the silent treatment for a bit.

Either way, you can always suggest your own scores or do some turf grabs. A few spots of 6 Towers are yours for the taking, but you might anger some people in taking it.

IMHO, what we really need is money. It'll allow us to get better stuff and allow us individually to fund our super secret, not at all heretical research into stopping death TACOS! nothing but tacos!

It’s 2:1. Briar, Hutch: what are your votes?

I did say use the bone and make Halthar a happy kitty.

Oh, I missed that! Ok, that’s 3:1, so we have a majority!

"The maize farmer went to see the dentist last week. Says he's lost a ton. There wasn't any blood, but he ended up short of breath. The family has been whispering from the loft."

I have no idea what you're saying here.

Felfiz Darner wrote:

"The maize farmer went to see the dentist last week. Says he's lost a ton. There wasn't any blood, but he ended up short of breath. The family has been whispering from the loft."

I have no idea what you're saying here.

yeah... me either...

Hahaha, well, as long as she found it valuable.

Cobb lost a giant bone. No one died during our involvement, but someone has died in the house. There are unquiet dead in the attic.

Can I use Prowl to either hunt for spies or to hinder the rivals of the Lady? Briar would prefer to be on friendly terms with M.

During the score or as gathering information or during downtime?

As gathering information before the score.

I don’t think you could get much information that way. You could prowl to follow Mother it her staff though.

But Velaris is already taking that route, would it make sense to have two of us doing practically the same thing? I just feel that so far Briar hasn't been very Hound-y, so I was looking for something to do that would leverage her hunting skills.

That’s fair. There’s not much you’ll learn from hunting for spies though. You can be sniper support for this one or do a flashback to stalking or shooting the shelter’s enemies (though for now their enemies appear to be entirely limited to you guys) and I promise next score will have a good old fashioned manhunt.

Alternatively, Velaris is watching the staff at work. You can follow the staff on their off time.

Following the staff after work sounds good.

Prowl: 2d6 ⇒ (1, 2) = 3

and, that's the story of how we discovered that mother Narnya (which I will never not pronounce as "Narnia") was actually sacrificing the homeless to setarra, or somethign euqally unpleasant for us

I’m going to call that “dropped the dice off the table” if you want to roll in game play.

Narña?

I love the pbta practice of a failed knowledge/intelligence roll giving you bad news instead of no news. Keeps the plot moving.

But yeah, I’m willing to let Briar reroll in gameplay or we can let things stand, your call.

I'm assuming that everyone in the party is Light load and everyone outside is Normal load, but please correct me if I'm wrong.

Yes, I would definitely take a light load.

Next job should be like a kidnapping or something, then we can try out our offertory! (if we end up getting it.) Should be something with more physical rolls.

Oh that does sound fun.

And remember, you get the extra coin for occult operations, not just occult plans. Do something in the service of Halthar and his true believers will find a way to pay you, even if it’s not otherwise a paying gig.

Ok, powwow. Should we take him in? It seems dangerous either way. Either we take him to HQ and risk compromising its location or we leave someone who knows we're pulling a fast one on Narnya loose. Or we could kill him and just eat the heat.

Plenty of room in the canals for one more body

If we're unsure what to do with him, I always need more subjects.

Hutch would be uncomfortable with absconding with the Lady's staff, but eager to make use of our new Offertory. It saves us the trouble of finding a subject in another score.