Glad you like them! I do not have audio books.
When I played through the Thief games, it was so chilling and exciting to have the little quotes between missions, with that deep chime or the droning chant or the rustling woodsie sounds. The snippets really deepened the resonance of the game. The way the Hammers and Pagans were contextualized was a fantastic touch.
Once again, starting a new book means putting in a quick orienting snip of text to help the reader get right into the swing of things–without being repetitive for those who have read what came before. An intriguing challenge!
From “Intrinsic Criminality: A Study”
by Retired Chief Inspector Darias
Akoros is a study in failed transition. Since the Gates of Death broke eight centuries ago, the living have been bottled up in walled cities. The dead have been twisted by the experience of dying and the conditions that follow. A vanishingly small percentage of them even have the capacity to co-exist with the living.
Examining those walled cities, you see social structures set up to concentrate wealth and power with the few who already have it. Even the Emperor is himself immortal and outlaws any plan to shift power to others. Survival depends on access to the basic necessities, and that access depends on demonstrable utility to those in power.
In short, both the living and the dead default to a transition plan amounting to this: “if you want power you’re going to have to take it.” Is it any surprise that a robust breed of law-breakers focus on doing just that?
Sealed Case File, Ministry of Preservation, 848
Interior Intelligence Analysis of the Knotwork’s Related Personas
Skov battle medics are traditionally called “scarecrows.” These warriors get enough training to bind up wounds, diagnose basic ailments, and triage casualties. They aren’t proper healers–they know just enough to “scare the crows away” from the wounded and the dying.
The immigrant communities of Skov refugees cannot afford proper medical care, and they do not have enough healers to look after their population. The tradition of experimental medicine evolved and expanded. Any amature Skov healer who is affordable and sympathetic is called a scarecrow.
As a kid, Ulthar was part of a family that was big, poor, and tragic. He grew up fast, responsible for managing his household before he reached puberty. He tried to cook and mend and keep the finances together while the adults were injured, missing, off at work, or in a drugged stupor. Family teased him, calling him the house scarecrow as he fixed up the busted people and bent over the bubbling pots of stew and laundry.
He kept the title as an honorific. He appears to pursue the same goals as an adult, pulling his sprawling and broken family of Skov immigrants together as best he can. His efforts are unlikely to meet with success. He will never achieve the stature, training, and resources to make his people whole. It seems probable he will die trying.
From “Transactional Leverage and Political Submission”
by Professor Ankelat
The Weatherwatch District is now called the “Lost District” because the last leg of the lightning wall barricaded the district outside Doskvol’s protection in 562, citing the district’s saturation with plague. Several functional neighborhoods endured; the last one was overrun in 573. A number of entrenched multi-generational households persisted for over a century. Doskvol’s strongest smuggler tradition got its start supplying survivors in Weatherwatch.
Wealthy and ancient families in the district had ties to the Immortal Emperor’s court. They were not squeamish about continuing use of human sacrifice to power the protections that repelled ghosts before the lightning walls were built. Other scoundrels, fugitives, and refugees hid in the ruins then as now.
Even after the exile, invisible and implacable enemies continued to erode the survivors until their protections no longer repelled the dangers of Deathlands exposure. Weatherwatch was never truly lost. More accurately, Weatherwatch became the Broken District.
Never go full academic.
From “A History of Taxonometric Endeavors in Spectrological Studies”
By Anicia Breece, DPA, CnT, KlE. Fifth Edition published 612
Dr. Eylisach first coined the term “reconciled” to refer to the vanishingly rare plasmic consciousnesses that did not quickly succumb to obsession and confusion once they were discrete entities operating in the ghost field. This morphological distinction was generally applied to a sub-set of specters, as a prerequisite power level seemed intrinsic to a sustainable equilibrium. Her conceptualization of the term focused on establishing harmonious relations between the specter’s past and present states, or “making peace” with an physiological and paradigmatic rebirth and eschewing vulnerability through establishing yet-unrevealed methodology to regulate the inevitable and unbalancing impulses of debilitating focal concepts that are inherent to the transformative process of prolonging consciousness beyond physical death.
The technical and taxonometric term “reconciled” is distinct from the factional designation “The Reconciled” as there are some specters who are not aligned with the faction even as they meet the criteria to be classified as “reconciled” spirits. A clarifying statement from the specter of Lord Wilmiat in 532 reinterpreted the usage of the term “reconciled” to illuminate the faction’s aims.
Where Dr. Eylisarch considered the specters to be reconciling their previous and current states of being, Wilmiat suggested the faction was in pursuit of reconciliation in the sense of a fiscal ledger; these specters sought to establish a balance akin to settling financial accounts by paying back what they owed and collecting on outstanding debts. Tragically, this conceptual framework reinvigorated controversy in what morphological and psychological traits delineated the classification, as Wilmiat recontextualized their balance as a refinement of vengeance and obsession rather than a transcendence of same.
@AndrewShields thanks a lot for sharing that short story, it was a really nice read! As a soon to be BITD gamemaster, I’m eager to read more fictions in that universe!
For any Blades in the Dark fans out there: the print-and-play .pdf of my Duskwall Heist Deck (the first one) will be less than $5 tomorrow! (11/11/2021) The sale is supposed to start at about 10 a.m. Central.
It is the DriveThru RPG “Deal of the Day” and it is a fantastic opportunity. You can find it here.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/172348/Blades-in-the-Dark-Heist-Deck-Print-and-Play
Both the Duskwall Heist Deck and the Heists in the Dark Deck I released this year support a GM coming up with heists on the fly or with a little forethought, full of inspirational anchor points to embroider into adventure.
The Duskwall Heist Deck focuses on treasures that can motivate heists, influential people to serve as clients or targets. Also, a thicket of obstacles includes questions for further customization, and suggestions for upgrading or downgrading the threat they pose. Taken together, these elements can be remixed and reused in new combinations.
The cards can also help round out a party with important guests, or give ideas for local legends of lost treasure, or provide ideas for complications on the fly by pre-selecting some appropriate threats that might drop on the unfortunate players.
If you like Blades in the Dark, especially the haunted city Duskwall, swing by and take a look at this deck!