🗳️Session 4 Planning

The story so far. Planning for a family reunion. Choosing a patron.

This installment will be prep and planning for the upcoming arc, with a reader vote — no fiction this week. Before we dive into what’s next for the Jesseks, it seemed an opportune moment to recap the story fully, emphasizing some of the setup we’ve established in the past three sessions.

The story so far…

We began our story with the Jessek brothers’ big break — Rian, Aldo, and Carver have been kicking around Crow’s Foot, picking pockets and doing tuppeny second-story work, sharpening their skills and making a name for themselves in the underworld. Nyryx, a Silkshore courtesan whom Rian seems to have his eye on, brings them their first big opportunity: The burglary of a stately home in the dilapidated Six Towers district owned by one Roland Molino, the wealthy director of the North Hook Trading Company.

The boys brought the job off with nary a hitch until the very end — Aldo was accosted by one of the many hungry specters that haunt the Six Towers. The brothers are not equipped to deal with supernatural threats, and Aldo was more-or-less helpless until someone intervened: Emma, Aldo and Rian’s long-lost sister. After Emma saved him, Aldo pursued her, only to be confronted by Mr. Seek, a strange, mechanically-augmented enforcer who seems to be Emma’s jailer.

Emma, we have established through a few glimpses of her life at the Dalmore School, has been captured and inducted into the strange, hidden cult of the Burnt King, an ancient and lost god who demands the bloody sacrifice of powerful men and women who misuse their authority — something very common in the fallen city of Duskwall. She is both privileged and a prisoner — at Dalmore School she wants for little and has been trained in both upper-class manners and the skills of a spy and an assassin. Her mentor, Madame Dalmore, plans to place her in a highborn household — no doubt to find a suitably aristocratic sacrifice for the Burnt King.

Seeing Emma set Aldo on a course to find her, which led him to Inspector Laroze, a more-or-less upright¹ detective investigating corruption among the Bluecoats. Laroze investigated the death of Aldo, Rian, and Emma’s parents some 15 years ago, and after some negotiation (and a favor from the Jesseks²), Laroze agreed to dig into Emma’s disappearance.

But the happenings in Crow’s Foot didn’t give the Jesseks much time to search for Emma. The brothers were hoping to use their recent successes to get out from under their oppressive alley baron, Chael, a violent, overbearing thug. Roric, the overboss of Crow’s Foot, recognized the Jesseks’ potential and rewarded them with some measure of independence and a small patch of their own. Chael, in turn, chose to strike back by working with Roric’s enemies — a bloody-handed gang of bravos called the Billhooks.

The Billhooks planned an ambush on the Jesseks while they were blowing off some steam in the Nightmarket, but the boys slipped the noose and learned that Chael was behind the attack. They took this information to Roric, who decided to confront his wayward alley baron with it.

Unfortunately, it was far from clear that he would side with the Jesseks — Chael, despite his many faults, is an eager hand at violence, and Roric needs those. We’ve seen many signs that Crow’s Foot is a powder keg: Two of the ward’s most powerful gangs, the Red Sashes and the Lampblacks, are on the verge of an open feud, held back only by Roric’s threats of violent retribution on those who break his peace. Across the canals in the Dockyards, the Billhooks are eager to carve off whatever slices of Roric’s little empire they can.

But the choice to spare or doom Chael was taken out of Roric’s hands. Thanks to her connection to the arcane ghost field that surrounds the city, Emma received a premonition of Chael’s plans (as she had before when Aldo was in danger from the ghosts of Six Towers). Rather than going to help her brothers, she instead decided to punish their tormentor, using her training from the mysterious Dalmore School to sneak past Chael’s bravos. She laid him low with the Burnt King’s fiery blessing, finishing the job just as Roric’s people arrived on the scene.

At this point, Emma’s and her brothers’ paths crossed once again. Emma hid from Roric’s bravos as they searched for Chael’s killer, and Rian was the one to find her. Recognizing his lost sister immediately (thanks, in part, to Aldo’s earlier run-in with her), Rian created a diversion to help her escape, and escape she did — into the arms of Mr. Seek. Before Mr. Seek whisked her back to her captivity at Dalmore House, Emma caught a glimpse of a dangerous omen: A fiery crown on Roric’s head, singling him out as one of the powerful marked for death by the Burnt King.

What’s next?

In terms of the structure of Blades in the Dark, we just completed a Score, and so we’re due a payoff and some downtime. In BitD, most scores take the form of a job the crew executes on their own behalf or for a paying client, but in Session 3, we played a bit fast and loose with this structure. The ‘score’ consisted of two parts: First, the Jesseks escaping the Billhooks’ ambush, getting some information from them, and then leveraging that information against Chael, their rival; and second, Emma’s relatively straightforward assassination of that same rival.

Now that Chael is dead, Roric is attempting to fill that vacuum with Aldo — a significant opportunity for the Jesseks. That murder also opens a significant opportunity for Emma — Chael’s soul, trapped in her dagger, is an important sacrifice for the Burnt King. She has been promised “[a mark] for all the faithful to see,” ”³ which may change her relationship with Madame Dalmore, allowing her more freedom to move about the city and reunite with her brothers. Next session will see the Jesseks finally reunited as a family, charting a course through the Duskwall underworld together.

The Jesseks are on the edge of leveling up in quite a few of Blades in the Dark’s many progression systems. The family has now amassed enough Reputation and Coin to move up in Tier — an important leveling mechanic that lets them take on scores against more dangerous opponents, control gangs, and generally climb the ladder of the Duskwall underworld. We also have a bunch of leveling up to do of the individual characters, thanks to the XP we’ve accrued over the last three jobs: I took the liberty of increasing Carver’s Skirmish to 3 and Aldo’s Command to 2. We’re also close to leveling up the Crew Sheet a second time (the first time, we purchased the upgrade Underground Maps and Passkeys to help evade the Billhooks in Session 2).

The next Crew Upgrade I’ve got my eye on for the Jesseks is Patron⁴, from the Shadows crew sheet, which reduces the Coin cost of moving up in Tier by half. I haven’t played too much Blades at the table, but from what I’ve seen it is an S-Tier upgrade that most crews try to take to move up in Tier faster. I dislike upgrades that deliver a ton of efficiency or saved resources — I like stuff that makes a splash, narratively, rather than just increasing the crew’s resource efficiency.

Fortunately, on top of the mechanical benefits, the Patron upgrade comes with many narrative hooks — who is this patron? What’s their agenda? Why do they help the crew? The answers to these questions can really shape a campaign, and that’s the question I want us to answer today.

A Tale of Two Patrons

If the Jesseks intend to move up in the Crow’s Foot underworld, they’re going to need help doing it. We’ve introduced two influential NPCs who could provide that help: Roric, the Ward Boss of Crow’s Foot, and Madame Dalmore, the mysterious headmistress of the Dalmore School and an apparent leader in the Cult of the Burnt King.

Roric and Madame // Source: Midjourney

Roric’s Rule

The final scene of Session 3 saw Roric inviting Aldo deeper into his confidence — ironic, given that earlier that night, he seemed to consider disposing of the inconvenient Jesseks to end their feud with Chael. He has been evaluating Aldo as a leader: At the card table in Session 2.3, he watched the young scoundrel’s willingness to take risks and play his hand against Baszo Bas, the Lampblacks’ powerful (and enormous) boss. He was curious whether Aldo could get blood on his hands, and in Session 3.2, Aldo proved that he could by disposing of the Billhook’s Whisper, who helped track them into the Nightmarket. Now that Chael is dead, Roric needs someone to control his bravos and keep his protection rackets moving, and Aldo seems to be his best choice.

Unbeknownst to the Jesseks, however, Roric has been marked for death, his fiery crown revealed to Emma through her spirit vision. Notably, she also saw a moment of warmth between Roric and Aldo, which will trouble her with doubts: Who is Roric to Aldo? Why is Aldo close to someone the Burnt King wants dead? What if she sees a fiery crown on her brother’s head next?

If we choose Roric as a patron, we’ll keep the game’s action focused on the underworld of Crow’s Foot. The “War in Crow’s Foot” scenario is the default setup for a Blades in the Dark campaign, and astute readers who are familiar with the setting materials know where things might be headed. Roric will take the Jessek brothers under his wing and help establish Aldo as an alley baron. We’ll see how the Jesseks adapt to their roles in leading a criminal empire, and how Emma finds opportunities to serve the King and the cult, and to use that service to help the Jesseks rise, all while trying to learn more about her god’s plans for Crow’s Foot.

Madame’s Machinations

We know little about Dalmore House and its enigmatic headmistress compared to what we’ve learned about the gangs of Crow’s Foot. We know that the Burnt King is a lost god of this world, able to dole out some blessings but reliant on his cult for sacrifices that fuel his power. We know that he craves the souls of the powerful, particularly those who abuse that power — that’s why Chael was on his list, and no doubt that’s how Roric earned his enmity as well.

We know that Madame Dalmore has bigger plans for Emma than knocking off a few Crow’s Foot mob bosses — we’ve heard tell of plans to place Emma in an aristocratic household, and a name mentioned — the Marchioness Bowmore. But if this plan served the Burnt King, why did he lead Emma away from it with the blessings he granted her? Why did he demand she deliver him Chael’s tainted soul, instead of Madame’s intended target?

If we choose Madame Dalmore as a patron, we’ll shift the focus of the game to the cult of the Burnt King, with the Jesseks’ criminal connections and skills used to support Emma’s moves through Duskwall’s elite. We will probably still deal with Roric and his lot here and there, but Emma will help her brothers leave Crow’s Foot behind. Furthermore, their absence may prove the nail that for want of, Roric’s kingdom was lost — the loss of a trusted lieutenant could weaken his regime and send the ward into chaos.

Session 4: Quo Vadis?⁵

The choice of patron will determine our next job. If we choose Roric, we’ll make moves to take over Chael’s operations and gangs in the downtime and then likely strike back at the Billhooks to solidify the Jesseks’ claim. Mechanically, we’ll represent this by an increase in Tier, and by taking over some new Claim as the payoff for the last score.

If we choose Madame Dalmore, then Emma will lead the next score, performing some task for the Cult of the Burnt King — perhaps an assassination or a spying mission laying the groundwork for the future murder of some corrupt aristocrat. Her brothers would make invaluable partners in this endeavor. If we go this route, the payoff for the last score will be a bit unorthodox — during downtime, we’ll envision the Jesseks moving their hideout and trading in some of their claims for others with Madame Dalmore’s support.

And that’s the reader poll for this week. Tap the button below to make your choice, and let me know your thoughts in the comments!

Since there’s a vote in today’s installment, I will shamelessly take one more week off, with Session 4.1 coming on July 8. I apologize for my low productivity lately — it’s all in the service of load balancing between work stuff, dad stuff, and PTFO stuff so I don’t burn out and fail to deliver a satisfying family reunion and the answers to at least some of the questions posed above. As always, thanks for reading, andI’lll see you in your inbox in July!

1. She seems to want to clean up the Bluecoats inCrow’ss Foot, but in Session 2.3 we saw shewasn’tt above diverting some protection money seized during one of her investigations into her own pocket.

2. The substance of this favor was the Laroze Job — a con game the Jesseks ran on a group of corrupt Bluecoats to locate their stashed protection money so Laroze could seize it as evidence. You can revisit their meetings with Laroze in Session 2.1 and Session 1.5.

3. During her audience with him in Session 2.4.

4. You can see the text of the Patron advance here on the Blades SRD.

5. Idiomiatically, in Latin:“What’ss your plan””