Author: Shane

Three things from The Dark Knight

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Continuing from last time, here’s some ideas I had for tabletop games based around The Dark Knight.

Plot Obstacle: Already on the run

One of the frustrating plot points for characters, especially in their early levels is often “why isn’t the army dealing with the goblins? why us?” and “why can’t I just go to the town guard to deal with this?”

This obstacle takes those options right off the table.

Maybe their goal is technically on the wrong side of the law. Maybe they’ve been framed for something they need to clear up. Or maybe the town guard are all corrupt and working for the bad guys.

Whatever the reason, the adventurers have to contend with the establishment coming after them whilst they try to get on with the story. Town guard are hostile on sight. Bakers will subtly try to alert them whilst the character’s are picking out their rations. Tavern keepers charge them double for the night for the risk they’re taking.

Downtime activity: Foil crimes

The vast majority of adventurers I’ve interacted with have lacked families or day jobs and so many of the potential downtime activities don’t apply to them. But they do tend to towards good and like to take matters into their own hands.

This may not even fall under “vigilantism”; many towns have a bounty board and often adventurers are asked to deal with various problems around town, like kicking out the Redbrands.

Resources required. It starts with a simple petty theif that you’re tracking down, but that quickly spins into a whole network of bad actors, pulling threads in all directions, and you stumble upon a much larger plot. It takes a full workweek to conclude your investigation, infiltration, and dissolution of the network. This work costs you 25gp in bribes and equipment.

Resolution. There are a number of checks to be made to determine the outcome of your week.

How did your initial investigation go? Your investigation certainly lead you to the crime you’re hoping to foil, but how much of an advantage did it give you? Make a DC 15 Charisma- or Intelligence-based check of your choice. On success, you have advantage on the next check.

How did you track down their hideout? You’ve found their hideout, but did you draw a lot of attention to yourself whilst you did it? Do you have any time to come up with a good plan, and set the stage to your advantage? Make a DC 15 Wisdom- or Dexterity-based check of your choice. On success, you have advantage on the next check.

How did apprehending them go? No guarentees here. They may still get away unhindered. They’re slippery like that. Make a DC 15 Strength-, Dexterity-, or Constitution-based check of your choice. On a success, you managed to stop the crime! The bad guys are thrown in irons and locked away. On failure, the crime networks lives on. Maybe there’s a puppetmaster who eluded you. Maybe they were able to flee the scene and vanish into the shadows. Either way, the thread is hanging, and you’ve made yourself known to this underground organisation.

If you succeeded in foiling the crime, a bounty or jesture of good will is paid to you to the value of 100gp.

If you succeeded in any Charisma based checks, you now have a new contact to call on in times of need who will (most likely) help out.

If you succeeded in any Intelligence based checks, you also learn something new about the world that your adventuring group did not already know. This may help your main adventure.

If you succeeded in any Wisdom based checks, you manage to turn the crime to your advantage somehow. This may come in the form of an additional 2d20 gold pieces (or items to that value).

If you succeeded in any Dexterity based checks, you come across the gang’s gold stash whilst sticking to the shadows. Gain 2d20 gold pieces (or items to that value).

If you succeeded in any Strength based checks, news of your heroism has spread. Choose a feature (or one similar to): Faceless Persona (BG), Rustic Hospitality, Bad Reputation. This feature is limited to your current town.

If you succeeded in any Constitution based checks, what didn’t kill you, made your stronger. The blows you took only increased your stamina and confidence. For the next seven days, a long rest also grants you 1d4 temporary hitpoints per your level.

Complications. These are almost unavoidable in this line of work. Likely, someone knows it was you that meddled with their dastardly plans. Your name is almost definitely on someone’s hit list now.

Skill: Grit

One of the reasons there aren’t any Constitution based checks on the default list is because almost always it’s Con is needed when something is being done to you which makes it a Con save, rather than a skill. I’d argue that there are some times when a Constitution based skill would be useful though.

Con and hit points are linked very closely. We also know that hit points aren’t just how healthy you are. You can be psychically beaten down, without taking a lick of pain, or have your Con dropped when you’re exhausted. Someone on 0 HP makes Con saves not only to see if their body can take it, but to see if they have the sheer will to bring themselves back to 1 HP.

Enter, Grit (Con). This can be used in situations where you want to steel yourself for an upcoming blow of some kind. Briefly overcoming your exhaustion and the pain in your battered body to do something heroic. On a successful grit check, you may temporarily overcome a disadvantage or snap out of your fearful stupor. Or just use it for cool roleplay things, and make decisions on how brave your character is.

Three things from Batman Begins

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Yesterday after a long and frustrating week, I decided to watch Batman Begins. After it was finished, I wanted to hang out in that world a bit longer, so here’s some stuff for your D&D game inspired by things from that movie that you won’t find on a utility belt.

NightCafe, “Batman brooding.”

Plot point: Approaching, unstoppable danger

In the movie, Ras has a machine that vaporises the water supply, turning the haluconagen filled water into a gas. The machine is travelling along the train system, vaporising the water below it as it goes. Massive amounts of chaos is happening. Once it gets to Wayne Tower – the centre of Gotham, and coincidentally the central water reserve below Wayne Tower – it’ll knock the pressure so high the entire city will be engulfed in the gas.

A version of this plot point is actually already in Rime of the Frostmaiden. It was very good and very tense there! Other versions you can do:

  • A series of dams are set to explode on a timer. (Why not all at once? Maybe fear is the villains motive, rather than simply killing everyone. Maybe it’s a ransom thing.)
  • A curse is spreading through the city. The good news is that there are bridges and guards keeping the blighted in quarentine in certains parts of the city, but every once in a while someone scared townsfolk manage to break through and continue to spread the curse.
  • A slander – an outright lie – about the group (or the group’s patron) is slowly making its way around the country. If enough people hear it, it won’t matter what the truth is. Getting their reputation back will always be mared. Proving the slander as a falsehood is a key way to resolve the whole thing, but doing so takes time. Maybe shutting people up is the first step?

The key bits of this plot point are: 1) the threat must have already started. The damage its causing is obvious. It can’t be allowed to go on. 2) There is a way to stem to the flow, and doing so will mean fewer impacted lives. Focusing here migth mean the actual villain has a chance to escape. 3) There’s a way to stop the villain, and end the whole thing, but in the meanwhile lots of people will be affected before that happens.

Contacts: Making connections

After writing about contacts before, I’m pleased to see that they’re such a big deal in Demon City too, which I just received.

The Tech Guy. Lucius Fox. Has access to tonnes of gadgets and is more than happy to share them with their Character Contact. Knows what tools are needed for a particular job. Keeps his ear to the ground for other interesting tech that is cropping up. Unfortuntaely: their not exactly his gadgets to be giving out, so he has to have some measure of care and getting their returned is crucial. Others know about The Tech Guy’s ability and inventory and will try to make moves for it. Keeping Lucius as a Contact will require side missions to keep him safe.

The Bent Officer. Arnold Flass (Gordon’s partner.) He’s got a dark side, but he’s not bad. He takes bribes because everyone takes bribes. Why lose out on the money? Because of that, he often knows where he’s been told not to be which may be of use to his Character Contact. He’ll do his job and arrest the little guys, and turn the other way when it’s just common sense to do so. Unfortunately: he only ever knows enough to get the Character started on their investigation. The actual Bad Guys don’t share anything with him. He’s also prone being blackmailed by the mobsters, and he may need help getting out of those situations.

The Sherpa. Alfred. As close as family to their Character Contact and loves them enough to buy into whatever their current passions are. They’ll do their best to mind matters whilst the Player is away, collect them when they’re left for dead, and make a nice smoothy. Unfortunately: they’re not a fighter, nor are they particularly strong. Their loyalty to the Character often puts them in situations they can’t handle and need to be rescued from. Their dedication to the Character’s safety might also at some point be prioritised above the player’s objectives.

Feat: Why Do We Fall?

Why Do We Fall?

Gain the Restless Endurance (Half-Orc) trait.

In addition, when you use this trait make a DC 15 Constitution saving throw. On a success, you’re hard as fuck and gain (10 + Con modifier) temporary hit points which vanish in 1 minute.

In addition, when you use this trait make a DC 15 Intimidation (Con) check. On a success, you’re cool as fuck and the creature that triggered the trait is Frightened of you until the end of your next round.

Turning Point

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The world had changed in the two hundred and fifty years that the Company lay unconscious. Only a dozen awakened. Their immediate impulse was retribution – their blood thirst not subdued by their rest. Aeron managed to bring them to a restrained rationality: “lets understand what happened to us before we do anything else.”

The lands outside the Empire – where the Nomads were continually pushed back by King Statton’s anexation – have come to a peace, lead by Queen Samiya. Anyone who looks or speaks strangely is assumed to be a tollerated visitor from those distant lands, and so that’s the guise the Company fall into without realising it.

In this state, they can learn some information.

The Church is no longer a second column of the Monarchy. They’re a tool with few people involved. Religion is practised only to the extent that the new Royal family think is required to keep the gods happy. There are a few devout civilians, but they keep it quiet and meet in basements to worship. The Taleb family saw the power of the Church all that time ago, and worried it could rise again.

Curios like the “shadowhearts” disappeared with the Fourth Company, the Knight Watchmen made sure of that. Immediately following the seizure of the Eastern Barracks, there were two decades of stamping out any sign of mystism. Since then, the Knight Watchmen have shrunk in number and is largely a ceremonial title for royals. They still train to be rather good at their job though.

Aeron and the Fourth Company begin to understand their legacy: people-farmers of demonic stories. They’re no longer thought of as loyal soliders who built the Realm. They’re the villains who brought about decades of darkness.

Aeron takes his news differently from his followers. He sees the darkness they left behind, slowly learning where he went wrong. They feel robbed. And they’re ready to take back what was once theirs. The humans – a distinction the Fourth make readily now, but Aeron does not – have weapons against them. They need to find more of their number. They remember, although distantly, a man that was like them visiting once. There must be others out there. And they must feel the same way.

Aeron needs to decide how to fix this.

The Last Knight

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Aeron is still in the midst of the thawing of his soul. Was it love that did this to him? Time away from his Company? Whatever it was, his focus these days is almost entirely on trying to break the blood thirsty thought cycle that his mind keeps bringhing him back to.

(Stable Diffusion. I guess the Sword of the Order of Knights is pretty big.)

He thought before he might become weaker, for not hunting as much as his brothers and sister are, but that’s just flat out not true. Could it be that his need for human blood is just an addiction, inflicted on him by the shadowpack that attacked him? Like a rabies victim’s terror of water or the way taxoplamosis makes mice seek out their own predator.

Realising the addiction wasn’t even the first step to kicking it though. It’s been decades of this now and his neural pathways are all messed up. The addicition lives within him and sometimes he fails.

He’s surrounded by others, who he loves for one reason or another. They wouldn’t understand. They still revel in it. How can he make them see?

Aeron is thinking on this in a part of the Barracks he’s rarely visited of late. Once again away from those he lives with. There he finds a bunch of his old possessions, including an icon that used to mean so much to him. He’d entirely forgetten it existed.

The Sword of the Order of Knights is given to those the King appointed. Since there has been no King, there have been no new appointments. The Realm has been without knights for some time now. Aeron struggles to remember any that came after him. Could this sword have been the last made for the Order? If so then all the other Knights by now would have died, of old age if nothing else. That certainly would make him The Last Knight.

Whilst lost in this thought, the door smashes open, bouncing off the stone wall. Three Company men barrel in almost falling over each other. To Aeron, the image looked exactly as one he remembered fifty or sixty years ago. Then they had more colour in their cheeks and their eyes didn’t have the darkness behind them that they do now. Still, their boyish grins of youth were the same.

“There you are – you’ll want to see this. We found Krishna Youssef. You remember her? From Taleb’s lot.”

He gives an order to them to wait nearby – that he’ll deal with her himself. His captive, Amandla, had given no information up at all. But Krishna had been a thorn in his side for her entire life. She must be an old lady now. He’d feel no issues about pulling information from her.

To his relief, the men follow his orders. The first he’d made in some time.

This was a mistake.

The girl knew somehow. She was waiting. His men wouldn’t have known. He’d begin to doubt their morals, but not their trustworthiness. Maybe her and Taleb’s rebellion had more eyes and ears than he realised. Either way, Aeron was shot as soon as he entered.

The bullet pierced his chest, hitting his heart. He pulled it out, misidentified it as lead, and then dispatched them all. There, he assumed Krishna has failed.

At some point Aeron will figure out that the bullet was godbless opal; a practice that was only known to be used by the Church and impossible for Krishna to have come up with it on her own. (Meddling by Lain, maybe?) They had spent decades trying to weaponise these opals and it seems they’ve finally succeeded.

Between that and the arrogance of the Fourth Company, the element of surprise was enough to subdue them. Most refused to die though. Instead they fell into a coma and everyone hoped they’d never wake from it.

Holy binding was placed around the Barrack’s dungeon levels, sealing the Fourth within.

It took two hundred and fifty years before Aeron broke out. It seems that some of the pack did die inside their tomb: some from their wounds where the opal bullet was shattered or lodged, but some from no clear cause at all. Could it be they take that long to starve to death?

The world has entirely changed. Of note from the above though is Assim. It seems Taleb left behind an heir.

And then…

Upcoming Nanowrimo

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October is somehow upon us already and November is soon to follow (typically). We all know what that means! Nanowrimo!

I honestly don’t remember if I took part last year. I might have spent the month editing previous stories. This time, I’m hoping to jump back into it with the aim to complete a short story at 50,000 words. I’m so often busy these days that pantsing seems like it won’t work: that works best for me when I’ve got large chunks of time in the day to idly type as things come to me.

So, I’m hoping to be joining this month’s Preptober, and getting back into the Nanowrimo community. That’ll allow me to know exactly what’ll happen in each chapter to make sure I don’t end up writing myself into a corner, and wasting time figuring that out. Hopefully, the problem solving will all be done this month so next month can be spent building the world and crafting the words.

The most natural place for me to find a story at the moment is in my We Can’t Bear The Dark series, taking the story beats that playing Thousand Year Old Vampire has set up. One of the issues (by design!) with TYOV is that often stories don’t end up getting completed. But, with an extra bit of work they can fit together really nicely.