History TabletopGame / BladesInTheDark

* CityOfCanals: Duskwall stands on the delta of Dosk River and so is crisscrossed by canals both natural and artificial, to the point where you can reach more places by boat than by carriage. The Gondolier Guild is a major power player in the city, and the Whitecrown island creates a natural haven for ships in the North Hook Channel, making Duskwall a perfect sea port, much like Venice's famous [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venetian_Lagoon Lagoon]]. WordOfGod is that the city is basically a hybrid of Venice, VictorianLondon, and Prague.

* {{Ectoplasm}}: Ectoplasm is electrically charged and more properly known as "electroplasm. It is found in both people and in the blood of sea-dwelling leviathans [[spoiler:who are actually giant demons]]. The industrialized post-apocalyptic empire uses it as a power source, not unlike the fantasy whale oil from ''Franchise/{{Dishonored}}''.

* CataclysmBackstory: About 850 years ago, the old world was shattered by an unspecified cataclysm that made it impossible for spirits of the deceased to pass on to the afterlife, creating a staggering number of ghosts. It had also caused continent-shattering earthquakes across Akoros, turned the ocean water into black ink, released colossal leviathans into the seas, and, most importantly, almost extinguished the sun, plunging the the world into a [[AlwaysNight permanent darkness]].

''Blades in the Dark'' is a GenreBlending [[UsefulNotes/RolePlayingGameTerms fiction-first]] TabletopRPG designed by John Harper (creator of ''TabletopGame/LadyBlackbird'') and published by [[Creator/TheForge one.seven design]] in early 2017, following a successful Website/{{Kickstarter}} campaign back in 2015. In ''Blades'', you play a gang of scoundrels eking out a living in the ViceCity of Duskwall and trying to rise to the top of the criminal food chain by any means necessary.

* CombatDiplomacyStealth: The game explicitly supports all three types of play, in both its crew types and its playbooks. The Bravos crew, the Cutter, and the Hound represent the combat-heavy play; the Hawkers and, to a lesser extent, the Cult crews, the Slide, and the Spider cover the diplomacy side; while the Assassins, the Shadows, the Smugglers, and the Lurk playbook are largely about stealth. It also avoids UselessUsefulNonCombatAbilities because, mechanically, all action checks work the same way, so the usefulness of each rating depends mainly on the type of the campaign a group is playing, rather than on the system itself.

* GaslampFantasy: The game is set in the world where the industrial revolution is powered by the blood of giant deep-sea demons and ghosts are kept away from the cities by giant lightning towers.

* AssassinationAttempt: The ''Broken Spire'' playset puts the players in the role of would-be revolutionaries, conspiring to assassinate the immortal Emperor. Given his personal power and his importance to the wider world, this is not going to be easy. Even if they succeed, his absence is going to have consequences for what's left of humanity.

* SpellMyNameWithAnS: Should the city name be spelled "Duskwall" or "Doskvol"? Even the rulebook is inconsistent, with the chapters covering gameplay rules generally preferring the former spelling, but setting description mainly using the latter. In the end, it's up to the players.

* SpiritualSuccessor: ''Blades'' is a love child of ''Ghost Lines'' and ''Bootleggers'', two ''TabletopGame/ApocalypseWorld'' hacks published by Harper in 2013 and 2014, respectively. The former introduced much of the Shattered Isles setting from the perspective of Rail Jacks defending electrorails from ghosts, while the latter shifted the narrative focus to criminal enterprises instead and prototyped a lot of the mechanics, with its 1930s booze-smuggling gangsters eventually becoming the Smuggler crew.

* SkillScoresAndPerks: Played with. The "perks" are the special abilities and crew upgrades, which are much more similar to the "moves" found in games TabletopGame/PoweredByTheApocalypse than to traditional perks, while the skill scores are replaced by Action Ratings. The key difference between traditional skills and Action Ratings is that in traditional [=RPGs=], the GameMaster decides which skill score to roll for in a given situation, while in ''Blades'', it's players who choose the Action Rating they roll for, and the GM merely arbitrates the level of the chosen approach's risk ("position") and reward ("effect level").

* TierSystem: Every faction in the game is ranked on an exponential Tier scale ranging from 0 to 5 (or to 6, if you count the Imperial Military [[UpToEleven outlier]]), with each next Tier being about twice as numerous and sporting equipment twice as good as the last. The same exponential logic applies to the so-called "Magnitude" -- a background mechanic designed to help [=GMs=] assess the costs of a magical effect or of an invention, based on the scale and nature of its effects.

* UpToEleven: The game's TierSystem for Duskwall factions goes from Tier 0 (basically, three-to-four thugs in a hideout -- which is how your crew starts out) to Tier V (hundreds of agents on all levels of society), with most factions falling neatly on the spectrum. And then there is the Imperial Military, whose official Tier is ''VI''.

* DareToBeBadass: Part of the book's advice to players is to be willing to be ambitious, daring, and take risks with their characters. It points out that they are scoundrels, operating outside the law, and if they wanted to play it safe they would be working within the system in some workhouse or other menial servitude the system beats the lower classes down into. A common piece of advice for ''Blades'' players is "Play your character like driving a stolen car... that's on fire: take a look at the flames in the rear view mirror, then push the pedal to the metal."

* DareToBeBadass: Part of the book's advice to players is to be willing to be ambitious, daring, and take risks with their characters. It points out that they are scoundrels, operating outside the law, and if they wanted to play it safe they would be working within the system in some workhouse or other menial servitude the system beats the lower classes down into.

* {{Ectoplasm}}: Ectoplasm is electrically charged and more properly known as "electroplasm," it's found in both people and the blood of sea-going leviathans [[spoiler: actually giant demons.]] The industrialized post-apocalyptic empire uses it as a power source.

* FlatEarthAtheist: Doskvol Academy is heavily patronized by the Church of the Ecstasy of the Flesh, and if the fictional excerpts of lectures from Professor Schifrell Alcoria are anything to go by, the party line of the Church and therefore the Academy is that intelligent demons don't exist and ghosts aren't actually the spirits of the deceased, just person-shaped plasm. Judging by the rest of the book it seems like very few Duskers actually believe any of that, but such claims ''are'' useful for the Church to justify destroying ghosts with fewer [[CessationOfExistence distressing implications]], and to throw common people off the scent of Church officials trying to become demons themselves.

* FlatEarthAtheist: Doskvol Academy is heavily patronized by the Church of the Ecstasy of the Flesh, and if the fictional excerpts of lectures from Professor Schifrell Alcoria are anything to go by, the party line of the Church and therefore the Academy is that intelligent demons don't exist and ghosts aren't actually the spirits of the deceased, just person-shaped plasm. Judging by the rest of the book it seems like very few Duskers actually believe any of that, but such claims ''are'' useful for the Church to justify destoying ghosts with fewer [[CessationOfExistence distressing implications]], and to throw common people off the scent of Church officials trying to become demons themselves.

* DeviousDaggers:
** The game invokes this with the phrase "A blade or two" being used as a vague fiction-first stand-in for drawing a weapon using "Load" (which functions as a cross between HyperspaceArsenal and NewPowersAsThePlotDemands). The {{Player Character}}s are all thieves and n'er-do-wells plotting heists.
** The very title of the game references this trope, invoking the imagery of being mugged at knife point during the night (also, "blade" was originally the in-universe term for violent criminals in general and for {{Player Character}}s in particular, but it was phased out in favor of "scoundrel" [[ArtifactTitle everywhere but in the title during development]]). Even the cover of the rulebook depicts a hoodlum [[SeanConneryIsAboutToShootYou threatening the viewer with a pair of daggers]].

* ThemeSong: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jttWyvL6iIM "Furnace Room Lullaby"]] by [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neko_Case Neko Case]], according to the author.

* OurVampiresAreDifferent: Vampires in the setting are immortal undead, who are basically ghosts permanently possessing a dead body and constantly needing life force of others to sustain themselves. The upsides of being a vampire in the setting easily outweigh the downsides, and thousands of people chose to become vampires after the cataclysm, living in the open, until the Empire and the Spirit Wardens cracked down on them and hunted the vampires into near-extinction. There is a playbook that allows you to play a vampire, though.

* SpiritualSuccessor: ''Blades'' is a cross between ''Ghost Lines'' and ''Bootleggers'', two ''TabletopGame/ApocalypseWorld'' hacks published by Harper in 2013 and 2014, respectively. The former introduced much of the Shattered Isles setting, having focused on Rail Jacks protecting electrorail lines from ghosts, while the latter shifted the focus to criminal enterprises and prototyped a lot of the mechanics, starring gangsters smuggling booze in the 1930 Seattle, which later evolved into the Smuggler crew.

* SpiritualSuccessor: ''Blades'' is one to ''Bootleggers'' -- an ''TabletopGame/ApocalypseWorld'' hack published by Harper in 2014, which focused on a group of gangsters smuggling booze in the 1930 Seattle. These obviously served as a prototype for the Smuggler crew.

* LivingLieDetector: One of the possible Slide abilities.

* BioluminescenceIsCool: Certain kinds of plants and animals (mostly sea life, occasionally birds, mammals are usually incompatible) can be infused with ectoplasm which causes them to glow brightly. Among the rich of the city, elaborate gardens and aquariums are populated with these radiant beings as a kind of post-calamity artistic display. It also has a practical function, as the [[FantasticLightSource constant glow of this "radiant energy"]] can be substituted for sunlight in the growing of crops, allowing private estates to grow fruit and vegetables which used to be common and are now exclusively luxuries.