An Intro to the World of BLADES IN THE DARK
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- čas přidán 9. 06. 2024
- Hi hello, welcome to the Shattered Isles of Blades in the Dark , the oops all rogues ttrpg. Survive in the underworld of a corrupt not London, Doskvol, not Dunwall, while supernatural threats and the ever looming vulnerability of death itself preying on the mind of your scoundrel. The fact stress is a core mechanic tells you alot about what your scoundrel will be doing and the world they're in. There is plenty more to talk about when it comes to the Shattered Isles, but the main thing I wanted to get across was widening the perspective of the game from "ttrpg rogue game in not Dunwall with ghosts" to the stranger and fantastical elements that this system plays with. Though to be fair I did try reading the system because of the initial pitch, just after reading I think that pitch undersells the setting side of it abit.
CHAPTERS
00:00 - INTRO
00:08 - BLADES IN THE DARK?
01:10 - THE CATACLYSM
02:23 - IMMORTAL EMPEROR
03:34 - DOSKVOL
05:25 - UNDEAD & WORSE
09:54 - THE MIX
10:59 - CUTTER
11:18 - HOUND
11:47 - LEECH
12:22 - LURK
12:38 - SLIDE
13:09 - SPIDER
13:37 - WHISPER
14:09 - CREWS
15:06 - OUTRO
Patreon: / zaktact
My Twitter: / zaktact
The Gates of Death are gone... - Hry
I just found this video series and, wow! This made my day. Thank you for making these!
Fantastic seeing you here, and fantastic game. Thank you for making it.
Dang dude. All these videos about my favorite RPG Lancer, and you have the audacity to start talking about my other favorite RPG Blades in the Dark?? The heck.
I’m glad you’re covering the lore accurate London TTRPG!
"Scraps in the dark!" I enjoy the fact that they take into account the food economy and in such creative ways.
“Lemme just eat this in the dark so I don’t know exactly what I’m eating.”
I could see me and some of my friends working as leviathan blood gangers who make sure that shipments get to where they need to go or going and finding stolen shipments of it. Or just cult hunters.
I love when you talk more about other RPGs. Do not listen to the others Zak. Do what you want, I will always support you.
Thanks.
Love to see all these lesser known TTRPG’s finally getting their time in the limelight!! Love your vids!! Thanks for spreading the love!!
Genuinely I think you are the best person on CZcams breaking the ice for people to look at all these different RPG’s. I am definitely going to pick this up. Thanks man you really are awesome
There’s something to be said for melancholy media. Not wading in depression or grim dark, but sitting for a moment to acknowledge, “man, shit sucks, and that’s ok, we’re taking it one step at a time.”
It's that one step at a time I love in these settings. Making your way despite the odds.
Welcome to Nostramo
Nostramo wishes it was this nice!
Ave dominus nox!
Curze is turning with insanity in his unholy grave
Love to see you introduce more of these other ttrpgs out there! I came here for Lancer because there's not nearly enough creators out there for such a great game, but happy to see you making videos for others I haven't tried (yet) that I've heard mentioned but never knew enough about to know whether or not it was worth investing time into. I will definitely give Blades in the Dark a shot with my friends now soon, and I look forward to more videos!
Awesome breakdown of Blades! The actual backstory for the Immortal Emperor and how the cataclysm happened is pretty funny. A lot of bungling stupidity and Harper having great villains and being a fantastic GM.
I just love that the CZcams Gaming portal thingy straight up tags this game as Dishonored despite Blades in the Dark being a TTRPG just because of that whole overlap with a steampunk industrial revolution with its warts and everything and how the players can subvert the powers that be like Garret and Corvo did in video game form.
Blades in the Dark has a very 'late stage' Dark Sun vibe to it. Like one of the Wizard kings eventually defeated the rest, but it turns out in the war it fucking sundered all of magic and Athas somehow got even worse.
Speaking of Dark Sun, you gonna do some setting videos at some point?
ya know this channel has awakened me to like 2 to 3 TTRPGs i would have never learned and now wish to be part of games of.
Happy to have shared them.
Thanks for doing this one, i've been looking for a breakdown. I've had the book for years but haven't groked the setting yet. Please do more.
Happy you liked it and I do plan on more.
Holy crap, this setting is so cool!
Like I want to get this ASAP and run it. This is awesome 🤩
All I can say is I would like you to please cover more of this setting🙏😃
Can you please do the Spire/Heart setting with this treatment? It's very much up your alley and having it would make it easier to introduce to people.
I've heard of it, namely from the mechanic side first. Might give it a look.
crazy, I plan to come back to the game after a few years of hiatus, looking for a cool intro video I can send to my new players and this is there literally 6 hours old. Almost as if the immortal God Emperor wills me to come back to the Dusk
Happy to help with the pitch to new players.
i love watching this channel grow. dude is such an interesting and energetic host and he has such a strong talent for efficiently communicating the material. honestly one of my favorite channels now.
Thank you for the compliments. I'm happy you like the channel and stick around to see the growth.
This came out exactly as I’m prepping to run my first blades campaign so it’s a massive boon.
I play D&D and have seen some of your videos covering the spells. I started researching Blades in the Dark a few days ago. Imagine my surprise when I saw that this video was made YESTERDAY by you.
Eagerly awaiting the day you cover Blackbrids rpg and/or Eclipse Phase
Love this!
If anyone enjoys this type of world I would recommend the "Gentleman Bastards" boom series. A fantastic series and world with nobles, gangs of thugs and conmen with a sprinkle of mysticism that remains intriguing throughout the series
Very cool video!
Heck yeah!
A second Zaktact video in the same week? What madness is this.
been waiting for this for a while and man! it did not disappoint! top notch stuff
OOOOH that setting description reminded me of the old CGI Final Fantasy movie, the one with the orange ghosts and the meteor that fell and infected the planet's spirit or something. Dang, that hit me with a lot of nostalgia. This is going on my 'buy immediately' list.
Aw hell yeah!
good thing nobody overfishes the leviathans! we wouldnt have the ability to keep the lights on otherwise
some reasion i dont think thoes leciathans CAN be overfished....
Probably not for me in terms of playing, but I am intrigued and eager to know more.
Honestly i would LOVE if you made more videos about this setting, just like you did with Lancer.
I saw all of them (and i will see any other video about Lancer or Blades in the Dark that you do)
This game seems awesome keep on making content for it please.
I remember playing a game where our goal was to just be as much of a problem for our GM as possible. As such, we created a back alley gang called "Da Rat Boyz." Of course we'd do jobs, get rid of ghosts, take out a cult, but we'd also recruit people to 'our cause' which was basically Capitalism via rat farms. It was our third session, we'd just finished taking out a pretty decent sized cult trying to summon a crappy version of Cthullu, it wouldn't work because they translated text wrong, but anyways! Our Spider was like "What if we took this over, bought a bunch of rat farms, and started a business selling food to the poor." My cutter the resident idiot went "Then...well...we'd be da rat boyz!" After a brief conversation on how there were women in the group, so the rat boyz wouldn't work, my cutter went "We're da rat boyz, if you don't like it I'll take your spine, and make it into a lamp." Everyone shortly agreed because my character was the best at combat.
We recruited some locals, and used the last bit of whatever we had left to buy rat farms, and then went on our merry way doing more missions. Eventually we remembered that we had this underground organization, that thankfully our Spider was managing because I forgot about it. We come back to the hideout, and see like 30 people taking care of a bunch of rats, and preparing a bunch of random meats. It was nuts.
Our DM was so mad because apparently we'd overtaken like two city blocks, and pushed out a couple small time gangs, or absorbed them into our organization. We couldn't walk anywhere in our territory without someone running over to us and going "M'lord Rat!" The police were on payroll, local judges on the payroll, we started to expand so much, we had to start digging into peoples basements to continue our rat farm enterprise. Anytime someone would die, we'd kill their soul, and then take their body, chop it up, dry it, and feed it to our rats. Our rats were living better lives than like 99% of the human population. They had different districts for like housing, fun time, food time, and the culling of generations.
By the end of the campaign we had taken over "The Docks" completely by accident. Everyone was well fed, had nice rat fur coats, and it was actually the safest part of the city. During the final mission we had to like break into some big courthouse to stop the nobility from getting their private military to kill us because we were becoming 'too progressive' We accidently started a communist revolution, called "The Great Rat Reform." It was so silly. The gameplay loop was, go out complete a small quest or investigation, come back to like a bunch of rats, and gangsters patrolling the streets beating some guy senseless.
We even punished people by throwing them into "the rat pit." It was just like...a ten foot deep pit filled with rats that were starved. Instead of sleeping with the fishes, it was a dinner date with the rats. I miss Da Rat Boyz.
LETS FUCKING GO
...This setting reminds me a lot of Fallen London. And I am okay with that.
A friend in my TTRPG group mentioned this game before, and that he might like to run it. So far I've only seen ZeeBashew cover some stuff about it, and it caught my interest...because yeah, I do love Thief, Dishonored and the Lies of Locke Lamora. So yeah, I really liked this more in-depth intro into the world and am hoping for a potential Blades in the Dark game even more now. But first, we got a PF2e and Lancer game to finish.
thanks for the vid my guy, made me reinstall dishonored and do a high chaos run for my darling Emily the Vengeful and my husband The Outsider
Working on the video itself made me reinstall it as well.
Amazing, I love Blades in the Dark
I can’t believe I haven’t heard of this rpg before, great introduction!
I'm happy to share something new. Glad you liked the video.
U could absolutely do a frostpunk style game using this as a base
Ayyyeee lessgoo. Be hype for more BITD
Goddamnit we can never escape from the immortal god emperors. Thanks Dune and 40K 😂
Goddamnit, stop selling me more ttrpg systems, I only have so many weekdays xD
I spread the shelf curse.
I'd be a blade in the dark but sadly its day time somewhere in the world.
If you like "Man everything sucks" settings, I recommend MÖRK BORG.
Oh trust me I know it's up my alley. I already have it.
I didn't realize this setting was basically grimdark post-apocalypse. It feels kind of hopeless but the world seems so messed up. Why does it matter? I don't think I want to play in that setting and I definitely don't want to run something so depressing and have that in my head all week
I like it
For the past 2 months I have been making my own system. But the more I make it the more it resembles Blades in the Dark setting wise. Rules wise its completely different at least.
Oh i think hes gonna do VtM next!
It's definitely on my shelf
You should check out Desert Moon a Karth, i think you'd enjoy it based off your video's vibe
The oops all Rogues is also Rogue 2E
came for lancer
stayed for dishonored
also, when you said "mainly humans", does that mean one can play as a cat girI mean can play as an elf or sth?
Is there any place to get more lore besides the rule book? I really want to see more.
Also can hulls house a soul that wasnt mind wiped? Because i think that if that was possible a lot of rich people would use that as a way to cheat death.
There's some additional supplementary material on the Blades in the Dark website. Only a few have the original author working on them, but of the ones with John Harper behind them you have Flame Without Shadow (rulesets and missions from the side of enforcement in the Imperium) and Rail Jack Playbook (New class essential, that are the hardy souls who work on the trains that travel through the Death Lands ). When it comes to the immortality through Hulls the issue is that the wiping is both a formality to make the process smoother, but by a Hulls very nature its function takes priority over the spirit. A spirit living within a Hull is bound to it's design with the past life dim fleeting memories (if not removed ahead of time), ghosts (usually) go made turning into horrors, which is why most go the Vampire route for immortality. This isn't to say no one isn't looking into the other two and trying to improve them, just that at the moment vampirism is the best bet with it's ow host of problems. Though when discussing these you can actually play them in the game with their own player rules.
So when do we get to the fantasy segment of London
Sounds like Anzenmezzeron
Very close. The setting definitely allows for it to exist. I even reference in the Maleghast video that it could exist in the Shattered Isles.
Sorry I meant London
I like its system but I don't want to play as a thieving crew, are their any similar that have its theme and aesthetic but still have the same system?
when you namedrop stuff trying to get us to understand them you always list a bunch of VERY GOOD pretty niche fiction. I could listen to you talk about stuff for a while.
AH YES
BIOSHOCK INFINITE
*More*
I’ve said it before but…
What happens when Dishonored and Bloodborne have a terrible eldritch baby.
Very accurate.
If you love talking about grimdark everything's bad settings, why not Twilight: 2000? Post-apocalypse military TTRPG set right after shit hit the nuclear fan, and your current objective is to survive.
My main concern here is... Why are you so handsome?