Playing – Blades in the Dark (Co-operative World Building)

Recently at my ongoing Blades in the Dark game (titled as Streets of Shadows), the players decided to take on a job in the Deathlands. As described in the background section of the core rulebook –

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The Deathlands: Beyond the lightning barriers, the world is a wasteland of petrified trees, ash, and choking clouds of miasma. Restless ghosts ceaselessly search for the faintest spark of life essence upon which to prey.

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BitD is a primarily urban game of crime and action, so you wouldn’t expect much to be written about it, but such is the nature of a “play to find out” RPG – short on lengthy descriptions but enough bits of information that hints at conspriacy and ongoing plots. Akin to how Ed Greenwood encouraged DMs to make the Forgotten Realms their own unique Realms (it’s a small note in the 1st Ed. Forgotten Realms Boxed Set, back when things happened in places other than the Sword Coast), the setting provides a framework and the players (including the one running the game from behind a screen) add to the lore. So with just that chunk of text, a brief recap of the Cataclysm unleashed on the world with the breaking of the Gates of Death and the eternal night beneath a shattered moon to set the foundation, and a few words of encouragement, a lively description came about –

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Wrapped in eternal twilight, the shattered moon casts a pale light across these scrublands. Broken buildings and ruins dating back to before the Cataclysm have been overtaken by eldritch vegetation and animals twisted to have an unnatural number of eyes or teeth and ever so slightly ill proportioned limbs.

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Further descriptors were listed in less prosaic language. The malformed animals pressed the uncanny valley, “Like AI art, with an extra eye or too many fingers, just something off about them”. The blasted land reclaimed by nature was compared to the no man’s land of post meltdown Chernobyl, a wasteland crumbling in neglect as buildings were overtaken by flora and returning wildlife. This Deathlands was sounding very alive and full of unspeakable menace, like the oilslick radiation of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Color from Out of Space, promising unnatural fruit ripened on harrowed souls.

For protection against the ravages of the Deathlands, my players opted for something different from the gasmasks of the Great War and took the trappings of plague doctors as their starting point. Waxed leather beaks and thick goggles to protect the senses, the chocking clouds of ash and corrupting spirits as well as dulling their vision of things they Should Not See. Over top their regular kit, they wore heavy waxed leather cloaks with arcane sigils to ward off minor forces, though it was far from granting immunity to the threats thety would face.

I won’t lie – I was jazzed about this look and the threats they had described, being inspired to make moves of Ratbird swarm who hungered for fresh meat piercing through their cloaks and a thorny bone hedge obstacle that groaned for blood to feed it’s shadowed roots. The heist itself was of the contents of a Barrow Mound (whose twisting tunnels appeared deeper on the inside than outside) and overcoming the naga-wight guardian, so feeling more like a dungeon crawl in many ways (or even an Eberron adventure through the Mournland) but appropriately weird and supernatural as appropriate for the Crew’s reputation. One of the players was kind enough to grab some other items and turn them over to an NPC for further investigation, providing another plot point for future exploration.

I have no idea how often they might return to the Deathlands, but I’m darn interested in playing to find out what else they might encounter out there …