Planning to all go to a part - and possibly kill someone
Knights of the Night
618- BitD Roleplaying My Unstableness
Hello and welcome to Nights and the Night actual play podcast. This played in the dark story machinations is written and run by our GM John. And now please enjoy episode 618 titled Role Playing My Unstableness. Actual play begins immediately. Hello and welcome to Nights and the Night actual play podcast. I'm your host John, GM of Blades and the Dark campaign machinations. It's with me, starting on my left R. I'm Thomas. I'll be playing Hadrian's Briar or Burning Briar while on the job if you please. He's a leech. A saboteur and technician who specializes in arcane technologies and beautiful, mathematically perfect, magical circles. He's a the Ruvian runaway demon heir, which is nothing I'm not going to get into. This wise, he appears to be an accuracy man of healthy build and noble stock, fitted with an open chested long coat, pair of glasses, and hints of a thorny Briar poking out of his ears and mouth. I have 6 stress, of 9, I'm pretty damaged. I got a lame foot that I'm nowhere near recovering and I'm unstable. Hello everyone, I'm Scott. I'm playing Tesla in Vale, otherwise known as the Bell of the Abyss. Tesla is a severosi whisper. She does the dirty work of the Archive of Echoes, exploring the past via ghosts with her mentor, Lord Pendren. Tesla is a petite brunette who is partial to petticoats. She has flowing auburn locks, olive skin, and green eyes. She also has a dead left hand sewed onto her left arm that she is mortified of and tries to keep hidden as much as possible. Tesla has 5 stress, which is a lot for her, and she has a level 1 arm of painful cuts. Hello folks, I am Jim. I am playing a silver tongue slide named Skievenbain, also known as Busy, is a socializing and enterprising handsome young pecorosi noble. When not working on crew business, Busy spends his times behind the scenes revitalizing the finances of being coal mining family. He calls himself busy because he's always working hard to try to find ways of profiting from both the good and bad fortune of others. Currently, he spends most of his days to skies as a spirit, warden, delegates. I currently have 5 stress. I am Tom, and I am playing Esther Rowland. She is an ex-blue coat captain who goes by the name of the ghost because of her pale skin, eyes, and hair. She is a cutter who is dangerous and an intimidating figure, but she also does her best to keep her crew members safe. She is born ecorosi, which is local to this environment and hasn't really ever traveled anywhere else. She currently has 4 stress, which is kind of in the middle. I'm Michael, playing Gordon, a young, thin, good-natured Skovish lurk. As a lurk, he specializes in infiltration, allowing him to bypass both security measures. Gordon currently has 5 stress. When last we left? Could you guys explain again what the sparkrapped has to do with the tower? Yes. The sparkwrights that are coming and going have access to it. In order to help set up the gallant question, Mark, or perhaps just do work for Lord Strangford, they are being infited into the tower, which would be a wonderful way for us to get into his entire estate, but also into the place where Esmeralda is likely to be hiding. I mean, but sparkrapped is working with this electronics, the steam punk part of this setting. Right. There's a lot of that, I guess, going on in the tower. Yes. There's an entire defense array that we have record of, strung up in the tower, is conducting something big. Any way of accidentally having his defense array go off on this big floating ship that's floating above his place, that would cause some shit. Potentially. I mean, I kind of like the sound of that, honestly. You know the way to circumvent the alarms, but rigging it to zap and blow up this vessel is not something that Harker knew about. Right. He's not. Busy, could you get invited to dinner with her on the airship since you have a prior relationship and you've talked business? Could you bring a business proposition to her that you're not going to reveal until you're in person? Possibly. Okay. That's one more person in the tower. So we've got Tesla myself and Briar going in his spark rights. We've got Busy who could go in on a business engagement. We've got Gordo who can sneak in through his skulking and get to wherever he needs to get to most likely. I also think he's a better spark crafter than me. And he's probably a better spark craps when he's certainly better than me because you're better than me. Yeah. I think he's a three dots. Okay. So he's the empty skull. He can just go in as a spark, a spark right as well. So we've got three people who can go in his spark rights. Yeah. I'm thinking about using my tinker to create something like a handheld light that's kind of, you know, it's unique won't last long, but we could be walking and talking as if we were part of the team spark craft. Yeah. Yeah. Spark. Right. The guild is called spark rights, but they're called spark crafts crafters or stuff by commonplace folk all the time. So I don't want to get in shit with a union, man. That would be bad. So how do we get Esther in? Shost. Right. Does she go in as I mean, who was guarding the estate Gordon when you did your reconnaissance? Was it like a private mercenary company? Was it blue coats? How did the guard system work? He's got his own guards. I'm sure. I mean, yeah, they largely stay in the district live there like that island they have houses. So it is essentially a private company that he has going in prowling around Gordon was able to locate a couple of their houses apartments and whatnot. So we could break into one of the houses, subdue the guard and have Esther take his uniform or whatever the case might be and potentially report for duty. Yes, I like that. I am worried only in that busy appearing under his real name. If things check out badly, that's attached to his real name and busy. I'm sure you can talk your way out of it, but I don't know if you want to waste a relatively positive contact with a woman you don't like in this way. But if you want to go for it, I don't want to be on the boat when systems shoot it down. Oh, absolutely. But if you're meeting with Lorde Strangford and her in the kitchen or something while we're oh fuck, sorry, bad plan, your contact is with her not with Lloyd Strangford. Is navigating the ship itself is driving it having it under your control. Is that Tinker as well? I think so. Because it's a spark craft or ectoplasmic device, hold your knowledge, yes, you've never been in one, but likely. I could probably fake that, but Vanessa would also work for a drive. So we could get a manual like some kind of some kind of instructions for Gordo. Yeah, Google that shit. Right. There's got to be some book somewhere in some library that can tell you how to basically do a ship. Here's my thought. Busy goes in, gets in for a business meeting dinner with Esmeralda. The three of us, Gordo, myself and Briar, can move from the tower where we're as spark craft. Esther can meet us there on her rounds and work us to the airship itself through the corridors. In case you get asked or questioned where we're going, there's been a problem on the airship. Some spark rights need to be summoned. So we can all maybe get on the ship, dispatch of her, cut the mooring, crash, land the ship somewhere in the city, escape. It's a lot, but that's why she doesn't make it through the crash. I see. We all survive. She dies. It's a really good crash. It's a bit much as far as plans go, but it's just crazy enough to be plausible and might be able to happen. And no one will blame us for the death because it's a crash. And it's spark craft and busy survive the crash. It's a controlled crash to be sure, which with Gordo guiding us safely down into some desolate part of the city where people that don't deserve to be hurt aren't hurt. Yeah, I can almost guarantee it'll be a particularly realistic crash. Yeah, it could wander into the lightning cones for all you need. Right. We just need to survive the crash and dispatch of her before the crash and make it look like she died in the crash. Oh, I just hate crashing a perfectly good float and boat when you can just float it outside the silly and silly and salty to somebody. Well, we could leave the city completely. But those lands are pretty dangerous, aren't they? The deathlands are the deathlands. Could we order it as a pickup by somebody who could protect us within the deathlands who wants that? Like, I know there's a number of gangs who basically operate out there. But the crash makes it seem like she died innocently. Yeah. Yeah, that's a bigger priority. I mean, our name does not grow in this way, but no, I mean, well, we could put things out that it wasn't an accident, and it was actually tabla raza. Yeah, we can make the start of the accident be a misfire of the weapons on the power. Oh, so while it's moored, it lights a flame and starts to spiral downwards, loses gas bag integrity. I like that. It's a believable accident. We could blame it on the Stratford's. Stratford, whatever, Stratford wife, all the stink birds. He's trying to marry her. Why would this? Well, we should blame it on the mother, then she's obviously. Hey, it's a misfire. Yeah. If it were me with charge of security, I would have a second level, maybe at the tower entrance and maybe even another one at the mooring. Right. So that's what I'm thinking. Esther gets guard tower duty. That's where she ends up at as part of this security force. And then she comes and meets us where the spark crafters are working. I'm sure we can send a message to her somehow get her attention as to where exactly it is in the building. Once we work there for a day or so, let go there, work for a day, and then come back and tell her where it is. She gets us from there, takes us, leads us to the mooring up there. We might have to get our hands dirty at the mooring. We might be able to convince, might be able to sway the guards there that were the spark crafters that are needed because there's a problem with the spark integrity of the ship. Get on the ship, cut it loose, kill her while we're floating over the city and crash it. The whole killer part, I think, is that going to be that easy? No, it's not. But he's barely containing his giggling. And then he bursts out with a laugh and he says, spark integrity. Because good Lord, anyway, he recovers from his laughter shortly, and he says, no, actually that is a good plan. It's just, please don't fucking say that, just spark crafters, not going to go over well. I think you'll blow our disguise. As far as the politics inside the House, Octavia has gotten into arguments with Esmeralda in the past couple of days. My human son. We know that. How do we know that? This has been during the decoration by Darmit, who has seen the woman arguing with the guests. Just over petty little things. Get off my tower. I'm slipping myself. She doesn't sheer nice. Well, it first comes to worse, and I can't get on that ship. I can always be with the crew that we are going to land it to and sell it to. Yeah. Or you have that meeting, you want to talk to her about a business arrangement. And you, we will route, she'll have guards, and it'll be much more public and much more brutal. A question. An obvious for the crew is this during the gala that Strangford is throwing for Esmeralda. It could be a reason for busy to be there to talk to her. Yeah. Why wouldn't it be? That's what I'm talking to. Well, it depends if the spark crafters work late hours. Are they still in the tower working when they're going to have this grand ball of this gala event? Yeah. That's my question. Otherwise, the timing is perfect. Mm hmm. As private as the tower is, they would not be difficult to have spark rights in there during the event, but for a propriety, for security, are they? That's a good question. Maybe we should get ourselves onto the crew before then, and then we'll know. But it does sound like we're getting down to an engagement role. It do. And I'm not sure if we want to, or how much we want to belabor the prep for it. I want to figure out whether that we kill this woman. This is pretty important. Yeah. The crew should be decided on that. At least the intent. I did that none of our plans allow for her to survive currently. But if she turns out to be a positive influence on the emperor, not that she's likely to contact him personally, but on the empire either, then we are killing her just because a demon said please, which cool. I like this demon, but that's not the greater good, and we should figure that out first. The fact that she seems to be cozy cozy with bangford points in the wrong direction, certainly. But I want a little bit more information about that. Do we know anybody who knows her family well? Is there any kind of social engineering I can do in a role as we prep because I want to find out perhaps then you ghost some of the spark right crew as they go into the tower prior to this that would be a fair way to do it. If she's dealing with them, or I don't know, just even spending more time around her would be a good way to do it. I just also know that I would be a bad person to do this because I am the most visibly obvious and I have only one point in prowl. I have none. So wow, a little bit better than that. I can hunt. I can do something like that problem. It's not as obvious prowler, it's just when you get into a social situation with Esmeralda. Will you be able to pull any knowledge out? Oof. Consort sway. I have one point. I am not good at this. What if I just- I have prowl and consort. Yeah. And you would be more adept to speaking to her socially. I just feel, I mean, like- Just getting away from her. You're on the right astralon. But the more sway though, I'm sure you've got three dots in that too. But like consort to someone you know, like a- I guess she's a contact, right? Definitely. She became a contact when- Yeah, busy as I'm saying. For the rest of us, it would be sway because we don't know her. Yeah. I agree with this. Maybe busy, you can have an exploratory dinner with her where you hint at a top secret business endeavor that she may be very interested in, or heck, you could even say that you have knowledge of Sotara, you know, a little bit about her whereabouts and her goings on, and- I could hint that I might be able to find that out, but I could find out where she is. You might need to zoom in quick to- And maybe not. You wanted to be physically there and you would need to take the boat. Can I see the boat to see what it's possible with? Maybe I was also thinking that saying that, you know, if- you know, she was looking for something else to do while she's waiting for info and contacts to come through on her hunt, that she might be able to help us track down Joel or something in her boat, or how would that help? But is this really the only flying craft in town? It is a closely guarded secret by a guild in Imperial City. The technology has begun slowly as the business does to spread to other cities, but we're very far from Imperial City. There is very- How often do we ever see anything flying around or docking in the city? Maybe once a year. Yeah. Okay. Instead of vaguely hinting about Sotara, you might offer her the idea that you have an in on one of the local demon problems and then actually give her a portion of my fire. I don't think people know that I can look through it yet, and it might be handy to your research. Do you want to hand you a piece of your self to a demonographer? We're going to kill her or we're going to sub-borne her in one job, so this is the only safe time to do it. It might gain us a lot of information as she tries to study me. As an aside, I thought it would be really interesting to say that it'd be interesting if Skevan actually started liking her. I think that's perfectly fair, where you're faking a date, and it's just like the insult she dealt to your family. You do have a good time. She's cute, too. I've seen the picture. If we have to save her, I think it's even more dramatic that you find a way to do so and convince her to join us or leave town. But if you're not comfortable handing over that kind of secret, just hint about Satara, that's fine, but here's a little shade of my fire. I think it could help as a devil's bargain give you a bonus dice or in character. I think it could help gain some information as she pulls me into her labs. I don't foresee any problems with this at all. Sounds completely reckless and dangerous, let's do it. Herb Strengford could be her grandfather. I'm just looking at the pictures. He's like this ancient dude carrying a huge sword. She's like this. Looks like she's teenager early 20s. Maybe she is like his uncle or something, he is her uncle, I'm good at that. There have been stranger pairings among nobility, but yes, it just has an extractor for Tesla. I think we were up to busy trying to set up a date with Esmeralda in which he will intimate that he's pursuing knowledge about the whereabouts he heard through the rumor grapevine that Esmeralda is after a particular demon named Satara. He might have some connections and be able to help with that and all it will cost is an invite to the gala and then that will guarantee that that night busy is at the gala and can upscond with Esmeralda up to the airship to tell her the details that he found out. I'm thinking that telling her that every major city says got more than one demon and I can use the contacts and stuff that I know to try to track down the one that she's looking for, but for me to get access to people in the area and contacts, I need to be where there's people. So can you invite me to this thing I'm trying to get it to. You would be getting information that night and you certainly would discover where Satara is that night, just in talking to people. What happened? Good. I don't know. I'm just saying if you're saying you need to go to the ball to get information, then I could find someone at the ball who might have information as to where Satara is. Or by the time the gala comes around, you have a suspect that you can associate with Satara for her to track him down. Yes. And track her. And I can use Breyer's cook to mote of energy as a present. Yeah. This is some evidence of a demon. This is evidence of a demon that may be in cahoots with this other demon. All right. But, you know, just want to remind you, Breyer, that the other demon is, you know, a little wary of her. You might want to be wary too. I mean, we're going to kill her, aren't we busy? What will add to be wary about unstable, unstable, unstable, moving on? Role playing my unstableness. Thank you for your worry, then. I have great plans for this occasion. So while busy is doing that, as far as I understand it, Gordon, myself, and Breyer are trying to get hired on as bar crafters to do the job at Stringford's estate. And if we can't get hired on, then we're going to bribe someone to take their place on the shift. We'll pay them more than what they're getting paid for by Stringford so we can be there that night. And Esther is going to try, because we have a location of a couple of guards' houses, Esther's going to try to break in perhaps, or maybe with Gordon helping her, break in and get a uniform for the Stringford guards so she could be on the premises that night. Or she might want to try to get hired, but that might be difficult because I'm sure he has a stringent vetting process that he probably isn't going to hire someone quickly and give them access to the tower right off the bat. I don't know. Whatever Esther thinks is the best option. I think maybe all we would need was a sparklight's uniform, just whatever it is it's sure to have a whatever and somebody who's handy with thread and the needle could knock out some hasty uniforms or whatever. You don't think we should get actually hired? And there's a way to trace that back and maybe it's successful and maybe it isn't. I don't know. Just the thought. No, that's tough. Also, Octavia that seemed to get along very well with Esmeraldus, so she might be useful to at least think about, delve into it a little bit more, get some background and see if there's something that maybe she'd like a permanent solution to. Maybe you could talk her into making a spark craft item that will help with whatever worries or concerns she has, and you need to go in and help install it or something. Well, I was thinking more of her being on our side, Royce as far as Esmeralda goes. But there you go. I'm good at that sort of thing, but somebody can use their sway or whatever. Right. That's an interesting theory of getting Octavia into the equation, but would she work against her son? Well, that's the decision that we would make based on what we learned. You could use her to gain access by working against the boat lady. Esmeralda? Yeah. Some of this information can be gathered on score. Okay. Access to the mother's strength for Octavia is difficult to come by. She doesn't really leave the estate. Yeah. That's going to be tough. Unless she yells at us, we're acting as spark crafters, and she yells at us, and one of us takes up an unlikely friendship with her, but it's possible. We don't have to contact her directly. I mean, you find out somebody who just knows the, or whatever, knows what the situation is between those two. Some skull-duggery. Yeah. Okay. Maybe her doctor. All right. The lady's always got medical problems and pills. Mm-hmm. Let's get dates going. Not our engagement role. All prep should. It's probably going to add a dice to the engagement role, so it's not a bad idea. So busy, you're bringing along the spark on this and saying, "I've got to contact who I think has dealings with Sotara, and I think I can track her down and give you her location at some point so you can take care of her." If Briar is in a hurry to get her the essence, then I could say that, or I can say- It will definitely improve your position to bring her a gift. It is an acceptable doubles bargain. All right. All right. We're all in accord. It's very brave of you, Briar. Oh, I'm at least that much. It's very impressive. You are going to have limited effect in trying to get her ear as far as of a dying noble family invested in coal. This demon angle gives you standard effect, maybe even great effect, because she has records going back from other demonographers who visited the city. And this one is not in their books. Meaning Briar. Meaning Briar. Briar is not in their books. Briar is new to the city. Got it. It's still risky getting her ear. She's traveling the city fairly secretively, or if not secretively, then via her craft. And you've seen it docked to the Sparkwrights Tower in Charter Hall. You've seen it flip over the water and pass through the lightning barrier. It has a lightning diffuser on it, like something that you tune to the lightning barrier and acts as a Faraday cage for you to travel through. And she's been out on the Void Sea a bit, but you can't like fly up and say hi. So finding a time to find her is a bit of the trick. If you're comfortable with it, she is meeting with folk in Charter Hall, the Sparkwrights Guild. When you catch up with her. I can do a little recon on the Sparkwrights themselves just to see what. Yeah, you've worked in these transcripts as before and getting an eye on their uniform would be useful for the rest of the crew. They are always experimenting with new things. The hall itself is connected to the Sparkwrights Tower, one of the prototype towers that are originally created the lightning barriers, but has just been a generator of electricity for their other experiments since it's gone out of commission. Charter Hall itself used to have a smaller lightning barrier that was a test that has gone into disrepair at this point. And they built one that could encompass the whole city, lost district aside. It's in Charter Hall that you're able to capture in the midst of a group of scholars working on a hall. They have a spirit vial that they are channeling into the hall to give it life motive force. There's a lot of pistons, a lot of tubes carrying electropleism and a huffing generator on the back that is gargling through Leviathan blood. It sounds terribly complicated and tricky and now wait till she is approachable. Yes. Then unless she's assisting or just observing, she's taking a tour more or less of what the Sparkwrights are doing with holes. She has a few suggestions, which is peculiar. Demonography doesn't cross over into Spark Graph territory too often, but it's a hobby of hers or she has a separate skill set, but it's clear she's worked on holes before. After they've resumed their tinkering on it, she takes a break and heads over to get a glass of water, spies you and quarks and eyebrows, fingers in many pies then, or hokers in the fire as it were, brings you to Charter Hall. You have a couple of Sparkwrights on your payroll? Thank you, Busy. Since trying to find ways to make money and keeping my contacts open, I'd like to be a person who knows people and can connect people in things. When I hear somebody who's in need of something, I do my best to try to help them out. The breather favors are money and when you are telling me that you are looking for demons in the area, which understandably, that's what you do, I went about through my contacts and people I know who may know of such things and could not, of course, I think you're looking for a particular demon and I was able to track down an essence of a demon I think that's working with this demon that you're looking for. The rumor mill works fast around here. There are always documents to update as to what is it called. There's always the census to update when it comes to cities. A demonographer hasn't been around here in about five years or so. I know that I said when we talked to Sitaro when the last time was, but I don't recall it now. It's been a minute and there's due an update, there's certain ones that are elusive around here. So yes, you could say that. Yeah, I assumed you were here on your business that you were known for and not just sightseeing or stopping by. You said he has its own charms. There's a reason I'm with the spark rights here today, but yes, I do eventually have a task to complete. Like I said, I like to do what I can to help people in the area, complete their tasks and if I can profit from it, great. Well, the imperial treasury likely has a bit to spare you if you have a promising lead. Like I said, there's, of course, many demons of low and great importance that could be anywhere at any time in any city. And I think I found one that may have been in contact with the one I think you're hunting. Or at least in contact with one of the more notable ones in the area and I was able to obtain a little bit of its essence. I'm not exactly sure what you demon hunters can do with something like this. But like I said, I'm just trying to help you might if I say, sure, there are stronger and weaker essences. So I would like to know before I can wire you anything what I'm dealing with. You bring out your lantern of motive briar. She pulls out some arcane implements. They are decidedly spark craft in nature, though you do see some of the metals have their own sigils etched in. She pulls out a telescoping periscope kind of angles it to get a view at this. You can see through the porthole spectrum kind of splayed across her face as she gets spectrographic analysis of this fascinating work. And licks a finger puts it to the flame briefly, smells her finger. Oh, oh, you know that this creature can see you through this. No, hopefully I am not toward your investigation in any way by bringing this to you. Not at all. But if I'm to add this creature to the census, it might retaliate against those that sold it out. Oh, I can make it worth your trouble, but it will be trouble. How does three coins sound three coin that would be acceptable. But one of the things I'm really hoping to do is to help out with gathering information talking to people and getting into big to do some places are the way to do that. And I think your ship is commonly docked at the strength for the state. Hard to miss, I suppose, yes, that's what I'm lodging. They have a gala coming up pretty soon that I would love to be able to get into, might be able to track down some more information that can help you if I can get in there. That likely shouldn't be a problem. I'll make it clear to Stringford, it's a business affair. Any of that goes on at these events might make overtures towards you about city council. Oh, geez. It's just part of the attendance. You don't have to commit. We all play the game, yes, yeah, just got a smile and shake the hand. Well, as long as you know what you're getting into, it shouldn't be a problem. No, I can likely find out, at least on all, there'll be some interesting conversation there with you there. Oh, thank you. If your family is looking to get back into Leviathan hunting, we can do a short foray into the hunting waters, perhaps later this week or next after the gala. Do some surveying of the void sea. If you do happen to, for a way out there, I'm looking for a steamboat from a friend that just gone missing, I believe. Oh, I'm sorry to hear, but the void sea is not very forgiving. But if you're above the waters, fair, but safer, I would love to see that. That would be a fun very well, perhaps I'll give you two or the vessel during the gala. That would be awesome. We'll see what time allows for. I understand I have obligations as a guest, but it should be an all night affair. Oh geez, I don't know if I could talk that long. Well, from what I understand, the talk gets dollar and dollar and as the evening wears on, hopefully the inebriation will help you, but we can plan for that. Thank you. I'll tell you this and see what kind of connections I can draw to my quarry. Yeah, I'm hoping it helps. Anything else comes by, I will be sure to let you know and I will see you soon. Yes, I'll see you there. All right, I heard that, right? Yeah. Yeah, I does the flames in my garden. I don't want that seen probably also the one in our base. The off chance that she can see through my own eyes, I guess, is a thing, but you have a couple of blooms in six towers that aren't in your base. You want to leave those out? Yeah, no, she can think I'm mostly over there. That's fine with me. You can't put out the ones in your body. Sure fucking can't. I will do up my coat, though. It's flame proof, so it's not going to burn down and she won't be able to see much. It will be odd. The occasional smoke from your collar, but I'm at home. It's fine, okay. You also keep a flame in the fireplace. Oh, yeah, I put that out because it would be a little bit too obvious right now. Yeah, right now you've got the floor plans of the strength for the state laid out in front of the fireplace. All right. This is one we would probably actually start rolling for shit, but yeah, I think an engagement role is called for we'll add up the dice, do a roll, and then call it for the evening. If that's good, do some experience. Yeah, it would be a little wild to continue on. All right. Let me check. Who makes the role? The GM. Oh, okay. But there are a lot of pluses and minuses that we talk about as a group. Great. I'd like to try one more thing. Maybe. Yeah. What's up, Gordon? I want to go talk to Rosalind. Their family is a noble still, and they're likely to be there. She might have some information about the relationship between Octavia and Esmerola. It's a good idea. Yeah. I'm not going to come right out and ask that. I'm going to kind of just get her talk and, you know, and see if I can see it. Yeah. I don't want to say. I still. Okay. It is a controlled consort. It'll raise some suspicions if it goes awry, but it's not going to blow up. Let's go with controlled and I think your relationship with her would give you standard effect. Okay. So part of it is what she knows. So we'll see. It's will. Two and a four. Okay. I think you've learned Octavia's old blood has connections deep in the city. She doesn't wander out much anymore. The group she's connected to, let me take a peek. It's a big landowner faction, and they are largely nobility. The strange fords you're talking about. The strange fords. Yeah. The strange fords. They have connections with an old land lender group specifically Octavia fostered a lot of this and part of why strength refers to her and a lot of things is her connections with this group. Okay. It's just called the foundation. Their write up reads powerful ancient order of architects and builders. Many of their enemies have disappeared behind a brick and mortar of Dustfall. So they've built a lot of the city, certainly white crown, bright stone, the expensive places, but they are also behind some of the darker corners of the city, the slums. Some of the older town structures are scovish ancient stuff, but anything that was built for workers for the factories and stuff like that, they've had their hand in for their hands are not clean. Those places are disease traps and they can build ugly. They can build pretty, but they own so much land and are the architects of much of it. So she's got a lot of fingers throughout the city, even though she doesn't venture out these days. They probably built her tower is what you're able to piece together from this, other than her death would probably bring out a large portion of the nobility in anger. Strangford has much more political enemies and doesn't really mess with the foundation too much. So it is the highest here a crew can be, but you're kind of in that ballpark right now anyway, messing with Strangford. Right. It sounds like the foundation might have blueprints or whatever the equivalent is for the tower. Absolutely. Yeah, they would. Interesting. It'd be hard to pry them out of their hands, but if it's part of whatever they've got going on in the city, it's not clear to, and this is the like partial success here, she doesn't know a ton about this organization, just that she's got connections. I don't know how much prying out of hands would happen because I don't, I'm not asking, but that was my way of saying it's probably locked up tight. Yeah. Okay. But you do have a tanker of three, so yeah. And let's do an adding up of our dice for the role now. There's always a dice for the devil's luck. Operation is particularly bold or daring. I would say so. Yes, that is an additional die. As detail, a vulnerability hits the targets where they're weakest. It's not too much of one, but it is one. You did your research. You got what you needed friends or contact provide aid or insight. So we're up to four dice so far. Target is a lower tier, absolutely not. District modifiers. Let me peek see at char hollow. I think not, but we'll find out char hollow overview. The rule for this one is operations against the citizenry are considered hostile turf because they look out for each other. That does not hit here though. Minus modifiers. Operation is overly complex or contingent on many factors. There's a lot moving, so I might take one away for that. Target is particularly strong against this approach or particular defenses or preparations. I think you've counteracted them enough that this doesn't hit there, but one, two, three, four minus one is three. These arrivals interfering with the operation. No. Target is a higher tier, yes. Two dice and then district modifiers. Anyone got any arguments, contrary wise? None here. No. Okay. Then let's get our engagement roll. What does the engagement roll do? A full success is you're in a controlled position when the action starts. A mixed success is risky. A failure is desperate. Oh, wow. Okay. All right. That's risky. Yes, it is. That seems about fair. Yeah. There's a lot going on. I'm glad you were desperate though. So I'll cook up what that looks like when we next meet. Let's get to experience for the crew. Crew XP execute a successful accident, disappearance, murder, or ransom operation. I'm actually going to hit this because you took the position of a guard ester in our engagement role, and it wound up in a risky position, so it's worth an XP. Intend with challenges above your current station, absolutely. The bolster you cruise reputation or develop a new one, you're working towards that. Express goals, drives, inner conflict or essential nature of the crew. I believe that hit as well. So we are at one, two, three, four, five, six. We are one shy of a level up for the crew. Right. Jim, you usually have to go in a hurry. But is there anyone else? I can go after Jim. All right. I did not do any desperate actions today. My dress of challenge with deception or influence, I definitely did that using my influence to gain information from people and talk to them once they get it. Yeah. Think of it. If you can think of it twice, you might get two points for it because you were the main character tonight for sure, so you deserve the points tonight. Yeah. I know talking to our target was one of them, and then I think those helping other people with gaining information or helping out things they were doing earlier, even getting information on the current spark rate, the tire when I was talking to the girl. Yeah. You did. All right. And I did see her earlier in the gardens where the crows were falling dead everywhere. Yeah. Very smart of them. All right. We can hit that twice, especially since a lot of blowback is going to go your way as the most public face of this. If things go sideways. Yeah. Express belief drives heritage or background, definitely my being background of being cool people kind of helped with the talk with the target. Yes. And biting back my tongue when she did just the family before she knew it was with the family. I think we can do one for that if that's all right. Yeah. I didn't really struggle with the issues or vice of traumas. So I think that's it. Okay. If we didn't get you twice for background, I think vice of just entangling yourself with this family would have probably been part of your business strategy coming back to bite you in the ass. So it looks like four or three, three, I think, three sounds good. Now, if I have three spots left on my special ability slide, which means I can pick something then. Yeah. So what that means. You can go into the store with a new special ability if you want. All right. I'll think about that. Oh, okay, I didn't don't. I did not roll a desperate action tonight. So I do not get any points for that. You address a challenge with knowledge or arcane power. I think just in game planning, did I get a job as a tinker yet for a spark craft person for the job yet or no? You've got yourself part of that in as a disguise. Yeah. Okay. Some spark craft members, but I don't think you've acted on it yet. Okay. Well, the only knowledge I used was I think it's more beliefs, drives, and heritage. I think I was vocal for the attack on the tower and trying to put that together and using what I knew about her desire to get. Satara. Yes. Absolutely. That hits. I think basically just for coming up with a game plan that was used tonight, which Tesla worked on, I think maybe just one point. All right, I will go next. Yeah, you're just a challenge with technical skill or mayhem. Yeah, I did. You gave a mode of your spirit. That's mayhem, dude. If it's not a having with it, I thought about using it to make an explosion or light of fire when she mentioned that she immediately knew that it was something I could see out of. And I didn't. She chose instead to mark that for what is it called instability? Yes, I was going to say it's definitely instability. So you can hit it for either, but yeah, it would have made more sense if you attacked her with it or some such. Yeah. You may during this war on the tower or done something destructive, I would have claimed it for that technical skill. I don't think I managed either. As for beliefs, drives, heritage or background, I think I did that twice. We talked a lot about family's work and how my character doesn't fucking get that specifically brought up the natural state of parent and children relationships, you know, eldritch slavery. Yes. My confusion in the nature of the relationship between strength written as mom was also there. And then one for trauma and vice because instability played a heavy role in saying, oh, my mentor is afraid of this bitch. Here's a piece of my soul. Anyway, it'll be fun. Total of three. I dumped them somewhere. Good Lord, where? Maybe I should pick up our decision and I'll see if we have enough points to do that. No, I would get me a little bit less than halfway there. Instead, I'm going to put it in maybe insight. Yeah, I kind of want to pick up survey or font because I would actually be good at that with my supernatural skills, but I don't have any abilities in it yet. Okay. That leaves us or goes ghost. Go ahead. Just challenge with stealth or evasion, certainly. Yes. Police tries here to treat background. Well, when you talk to the department, certainly, but also he got information from what's her name? His name's escaped me for some reason, but his girlfriend, I want to be right. Yeah. Yeah. That's the information for the score from her in some ways. So I thought he may be used that twice. Oh, struggled with issues from your vice or traumas during this session. Not so much. So two or three, I'd say three, three, I'll take three. Just that there was several characters from your background that were relevant today. And then it's helping around and getting all that info. Right. Okay. Good. I'm sorry, you're a struggling ghost. Yeah, but it was a really bad headache. So it's going to be quick and easy because to address the challenge with violence, a coercion. No. Express your beliefs, tribes, heritage? No. Struggle with issues from your vices or traumas in real life. Yes. I didn't say you did struggle a little today. You did. Virtually nothing. Didn't you convince us not to cause a riot in order to distract Strangford in order to support your contact? That's valid. Yeah. There was a consideration of involving one point. Yeah. When I was starting to come up with the plan, I think after cutting it one point and kind of toned it back a little bit or something. No? I'm fine with getting no experience. It's okay. Seriously? I didn't do much tonight. Okay. Well, then we can call it there. This has been poison dark machinations for the KOTN podcast. Thanks for listening. Thanks, everyone. Right over. Good stuff. Thank you for listening tonight's of the night actual play podcast. If you'd like to send us questions, comments or feedback, you can reach us at a number of ways, including Twitter @KOTN_Podcasts or you can join our Facebook page, which is Facebook.com/KOTN.Podcasts. And while on Facebook, you can join like-minded folks at our fans page at Facebook.com/groups/KOTN_Pant. And lastly, there's our blog, which is found at KOTN_Podcast.com. And please remember to join us next week for more mystery and adventure. Well, yeah, this is a good time to go to the bathroom and take a what's it called? Biobrick. Biobrick. See everyone in five minutes. The title of this episode was chosen by the listeners by voting on the Knights of the Night Fans page on Facebook. Other possible titles that they could have voted on were I'll cook up what that looks like. I can make it worth your trouble, but it is trouble. Sounds completely reckless and dangerous, let's do it. Just crazy enough to be plausible. And we all survive. She dies. It's a good crash.