I’m a huge fan of Blades in the Dark, and I was very excited for Deep Cuts, a major expansion designed by the game’s original creator, John Harper, with additional design and writing by Sean Nittner, Pam Punzalan, and James Mendez Hodes. I backed the crowdfunding campaign for the book and, once I held it in my hands, I was immediately sucked in and read the whole thing cover to cover.

Then I settled in and started doing some deep thinking about Deep Cuts.

The book can be roughly divided into two parts: The first adds a bunch of new material to the post-apocalyptic steampunk setting of Doskvol. The second radically revises the rules of the game, effectively offering a sort of do-it-yourself kit for assembling an ersatz second edition of the game.

SETTING

The setting material is a goulash of goodness. Blades in the Dark is, of course, designed to be a modular, sandbox game, and Deep Cuts is basically just expanding the toybox full of goodies that you can drop into your game.

Innovations provide a selection of new equipment, including rare items like a Bolton Autocycle or a Sparkrunner Rig that could easily become the target of a score or an Acquire action. I really like the presentation of most of these items as new technology in the setting itself: Part of the steampunk aesthetic is that technology is marching forward. You can take this stuff and feed it into your campaign one or two items at a time, blaring it as headline news, lightly seasoning it as background detail, or framing it up as a surprising new threat in the middle of a score.

Squeezed into the middle of the Innovations section is a whole new calendar that renames the six months of the year. This really reflects how Deep Cuts is just a semi-random collection of stuff John Harper created for his home games. There’s not a single, unifying theme or thesis here. It’s really just a guy saying, “Hey! Look at this cool thing I made!”

Next up are twenty-five new Factions. If you’ve run multiple campaigns of Blades in the Dark over the past decade (as I have), then these are a welcome breath of fresh air. You and your players may have become intimately familiar with the Crows and Red Sashes, but now you can frame up whole new starting situations with factions like the Ink Rakes, Ironworks Labor, and Rowan House.

My only reservation with these new factions is that so many of them are “infrastructure.” The firefighters, cabbies, and railworkers are an important part of the city, but a multitude of faction goals like “modernize the guild” and “formalize their union” really underline that they’re more bureaucratic functionaries than sources of adventure. Nonetheless, there’s a lot of good meat in here, too, and perhaps inspiration will strike and turn stuff like the fire brigade’s PR campaign into your campaign’s Chinatown.

Also tucked away in this section is a 30-year plan to expand Doskvol, pushing out into the ghostlands and adding four new districts. This is an incredibly cool concept, immediately driving all kinds of internecine strife while also providing a long-term scaffolding for evolving the setting in a game that encourages time-skips and decompressed downtimes.

Heritages and Backgrounds then provide a wealth of new information about the wider world beyond Doskvol, while also giving players new structures for adding depth and color to their characters. Did you come from a family of Blood Cullers or Lockport Scummers? Before you joined the crew, were you a roof runner or a farmhand? Being able to flip through these sections and have concepts like “refugee occultist” or “electrochemist from a family of lightning couriers” leap off the page is delightful. (In fact, the only thing I might do differently is put them on random tables so that players looking for inspiration can just roll-and-combine.)

THE CAMPAIGN CATALYST

SPOILERS FOR THE DEEP CUTS CAMPAIGN FRAME

Wrapping up and also tying together the new setting material is a campaign frame: Fractures in reality have connected Doskvol to another reality. Strangers from this other world are slipping through into Doskvol, bringing with them strange technology and magic. Others are vanishing from this world and passing into the other. Factions are slowly beginning to learn the truth about what’s happening and are secretly moving to take advantage of it.

This is a fun concept with (if you’ll pardon the pun) a lot of dimensions to be explored. Harper weaves it into faction clocks and NPCs, then fleshes it out with mission profiles for every crew type. Combined with the structures for emergent play which are the backbone of Blades in the Dark, this all primes the pump and gives you almost everything you need to introduce the Others and hit the ground running. It is, very literally, a catalyst — something you can inject into your campaign and initiate a run-away chain reaction.

The only problem here is that Harper wants to leave the precise nature of the other world up to the individual GM. He offers several possibilities:

• Victorian Earth
• Mirror Universe
• Demonic World
• Time Travel
• Lady Blackbird

Or any number of other possibilities you might imagine.

On the one hand, it’s great to offer this kind of flexibility. On the other hand, the practical effect is that nothing attached to the catalyst can have any kind of specificity. It, by necessity, ends up as just vague handwaving and a few encouraging, “You’ve got this!” cheers shouted to the GM.

For example, the members of Rowan House are secretly descended from the Others. Does that mean they’re demon-spawn or that their grandmother was from 1810 London? It’s a radical difference. And because the book can’t give you an answer, they end up being… nothing at all. Deep Cuts has to avoid making strong, interesting choices over and over again.

So the catalyst is a really cool idea and it demonstrates the broad outlines of how you could implement big, widespread events like this into your Blades in the Dark campaign. But it also leaves you with all the hard work of making it playable.

SYSTEMS

At this point we transition to the back half of the book, which is loaded up with dozens of changes to the core mechanics of Blades in the Dark. To be clear: Very little of this is new mechanical systems. It’s almost entirely changes to the existing mechanical systems.

Let’s deep cut to the chase here: I did not like this section of the book.

There are a few interesting nuggets buried in here, but the vast majority of the material makes the game significantly worse. If a second edition of Blades in the Dark were published with these changes implemented, I would not play it or run it.

Let’s break down a few examples.

EFFECTS & CONSEQUENCE

Let’s start with something I really liked: On page 101, Deep Cuts includes a unified Effects & Consequences table providing escalating adjectives and mechanical effects for Limited, Standard, Great, and Extreme effects. (For example, a standard effect of Intimidated might be downstepped to a limited effect of Hesitant or upstepped to a great effect of Afraid or an extreme effect of Dominated.)

This table is incredibly useful, particularly for a new GM trying to wrap their noggin around the concepts of position, effect, and consequences.

LOAD

I also liked the expanded system for Load, which not only finesses the handling of exceptionally heavy objects in the system, but also uses Load as a way of managing encumbrance gains and complications during a job.

HARM

John Harper saw that some players in actual play videos would forget to apply the penalties from Harm to their die rolls, so he produced a revised system in which Harm has no inherent mechanical effect. Instead, it becomes a tag system that the GM can choose to invoke to create complications, reduce position/effect, or… apply a penalty to the die roll. When the GM chooses to invoke the condition, the player gets to mark XP.

Ugh.

First, I’m not generally a fan of dissociated tag systems where the reality of the game world only meaningfully exists when someone arbitrarily chooses to “invoke” it.

Second, the response to players being unable to keep track of a dice modifier for their characters should NOT be, “Well, I guess there’s just no choice but to require the GM to keep track of every individual wound suffered by every single PC and also be responsible for invoking them in way that’s fair and effective in some nebulously undefined way.”

This is part of a long trend in RPGs of making the GM responsible for everything that happens at the game table. I strongly feel that the entire hobby needs to break away from laying this immense burden on the GM’s shoulders, not needlessly multiply it.

TRAUMA

This module lets the players mark XP if they use their Trauma in a way that creates a problem or complication for them during play, which is a great way of reinforcing it as a roleplaying prompt.

Trauma is also modified so that it’s no longer permanent, with options given for recovery. This, obviously, blunts the core game’s relentless march to character retirement, which makes it a nice option for groups that don’t want as much character turnover. Another module gives options other than prison time for removing the crew’s Wanted Levels, to similar effect.

Personally, I think there’s a significant drawback here: The original game created a low level of character churn, which systemically encouraged players to create multiple characters. This, in turn, put the narrative focus of the game on the crew, rather than the individual characters, and diversified the player’s experience and interactions with the game world. Moving away from this also means moving away from one of the things that made Blades in the Dark unique and distinguished it from other RPGs.

ACTION

Which brings us to the Action module, in which Deep Cuts overhauls the entire core mechanic of the game.

And, frankly, Harper makes a dog’s dinner of it.

Take Devil’s Bargains, for example. In the original game, the GM could offer a devil’s bargain: The player could gain extra dice on an action roll by accepting an additional cost — collateral damage, Harm, Coin, sacrificing an item, starting a clock, betraying a friend, adding Heat, etc. In Deep Cuts, on the other hand, the term “devil’s bargain” now refers to any time the GM requires the players to make a roll. But also the extra dice thing. And also you can offer a devil’s bargain to let them skip the dice roll entirely.

A useful term of art is turned into a mess, while at the same time trying to position it as a central axis around which the game turns.

This all ties into the new concept of Threat Rolls, which essentially replace action rolls. When using this new core mechanic, instead of setting position and effect, the GM simply sets the negative consequence that will happen on a failed roll and then tells you what action rating to roll: On a 6+ you avoid the consequence. On a 4/5 you suffer a reduced consequence. On a 1-3 you suffer the full consequence.

This whole mechanic essentially waves a white flag at those who want to run Blades in the Dark exactly like D&D (with the DM telling the players what to roll and what the result will be). Good for them, I guess. But, once again… Ugh.

I’m just not interested in Blades in the Dark being turned into generic mush.

DOWNTIME

Deep Cuts also heavily revises the Downtime system. This is more of a mixed bag.

On the one hand, there’s a cool new Debt mechanic and new rules for using Banks. The new guidelines for Heat — which take a base rate based on Tier and then modify it by Target, Chaos, Death, and Evidence — are also great, along with the supporting guidelines for modeling actions to reduce or mitigate the Heat from a job.

There’s a similarly revised set of guidelines for Payoffs. These are also useful, although it’s worth noting that they significantly increase the amount of Coin the PCs will earn per job.

On the other hand, there’s stuff like the new Entanglements system, which is designed to remove random dice rolls. The overall effect, though, seems to greatly flatten the experience: Outcomes become predictable and routine. There are no surprises and no variations from one Downtime to the next. It also removes a lot of the procedural content generation aspects that make Blades in the Dark such a fun sandbox engine.

CONCLUSION

I don’t like Deep Cuts.

I loathe the mechanical changes. They’re disastrous and, honestly, pretty depressing. It’s always sad to see a game heading in the wrong direction, and that’s even more true when the game was something truly special like Blades in the Dark. If the book was limited to its mechanical content, I’d probably give it an F-.

However, almost half of the book is the new setting material, and while that has a few duds and some missteps, there’s a ton of useful stuff in there that will definitely enhance and expand your Blades campaigns. Therefore, with the book only costing $25, I think dedicated fans can just barely justify picking up a copy for the setting material alone.

GRADE: D

Designer: John Harper
Additional Design & Development: Sean Nittner, Pam Punzalan, James Mendez Hodes, Allison Arth, Sharang Biswas, Sidney Icarus

Publisher: Evil Hat
Cost: $25
Page Count: 128

G. asks:

I’ve run a couple Powered by the Apocalypse games and I don’t get the hype. What are the strengths of PBTA games supposed to be compared to games like Call of Cthulhu, Vampire the Masquerade, or Savage Worlds?

Let’s start with a quick orientation for people not familiar with Powered by the Apocalypse:

• Vincent and Meguey Baker released Apocalypse World in 2010.
• The Bakers put the game under a free license.
• As a result, the novel system has been adapted and used in hundreds of RPGs. These games are referred to as Powered by the Apocalypse (PBTA).
• The system also notably influenced John Harper’s Blades in the Dark, which has also inspired countless RPGs published as Forged in the Dark.

In actual practice, Powered by the Apocalypse is barely a dice mechanic loosely paired to the concept of Moves. And on of Baker’s own PBTA games doesn’t include the dice or the moves. So there’s a huge range in what “PBTA games” do and how they do it.

But let’s break down each feature that seems to be closely identified with Powered by the Apocalypse.

CORE MECHANIC

PBTA uses a generally three-tier outcome for all action resolution: Success, Partial Success/Success with Consequences, Failure.

It’s pretty typical for RPG mechanics, particularly pre-PBTA, to default to binary outcomes. Even conventional RPGs featuring something like margins of success or critical hits will still usually define success as “the PC achieves exactly what they want” and then maybe they get something extra if they roll or a critical or their margin of success is high enough. PBTA, on the other hand, tends to define typical success as “the PC gets SOME of what they or they pay a price for it” with “achieve exactly what you want without cost” being treated as the exceptional result.

Similarly, conventional RPGs tend to have the Failure state default to “you didn’t do it.” PBTA instead defaults to having consequences for your failure: You didn’t just “miss” the ogre; you rushed the ogre and the ogre punched you in the face. This approach also means that PBTA games tend to embrace failing forward, while leaning towards not just player-facing mechanics, but a specific flavor of player-facing mechanics featuring fortune-in-the-middle decisions.

PC MOVES

Beyond three-tier resolution, PBTA almost always package their resolution mechanics into Moves. The distinction here can get pretty fuzzy (due to the breadth of both conventional RPG and PBTA design), but the result in what I consider better PBTA games is a throwback mechanic that evokes true old school design: In the ‘80s, RPG design shifted almost entirely to the “generic universal mechanic” as their core design. (Usually, but not necessarily, some variation of ability score + skill + dice vs. difficulty.)

The distinction here can be confusing to some, because quite a few OSR retro-clones have retrofitted the games they’re emulating to be built around a generic universal mechanic. But the older of old school games were built around, “You want to do something? Let’s build a custom mechanic for it!”

PBTA isn’t strictly old school, though, because it’s less, “Here’s a collection of stuff we made ad hoc at the table to address situations that came up” and instead “here’s a carefully curated selection of tools which will deliberately shape the focus and direction of play.”

Let’s think of this as neo-old school design.

(And, again, this applies to the, in my opinion, better PBTA games. There are quite a few PBTA games that turn their Moves into generic, unfocused mush because their designers are defaulted back to “generic universal mechanic” as their design model.)

PLAYBOOKS

A character creation and advancement system featuring distinct Playbooks for different types of characters is also a common feature of PBTA games.

In practice, though, this is just class-based or archetype-based character creation, which is quite common in conventional RPGs. (I’ve seen any number of efforts to explain how, “No, no! It’s totally different!” But it really isn’t, although the class abilities can have a unique feel to them because of how they tie into the Moves methodology.)

GM MOVES

This is another neo-old school design element.

To explain what I mean by that, consider the original 1974 edition of D&D: It included a hyper-specific procedure for running a dungeon. If you strictly follow that procedure, you get a very specific style of play and type of adventure.

GM Moves in Apocalypse World are designed to do that the same thing, providing a very specific structure of prep coupled to a very specific procedure of play that creates a very specific outcome at the table.

This is, it should be noted, another place where a lot of PBTA games turn into generic mush by designing their GM Moves as “the generic stuff that GMs do.” (Often accompanied by weakening or removing the provision that GM Moves are the ONLY thing a GM is allowed to do.) In some cases, these chapters degrade entirely into generic GM advice.

An interesting lens that can help understand this distinction is Blades in the Dark, which, as noted above, is heavily influenced by PBTA, but distinct from it. John Harper, the designer, notably replaced GM Moves with a chapter called GM Actions, which is the “generic GM advice” approach to GM Moves. But, notably, this is because Harper has moved all the hyper-specific procedure stuff into The Score and Downtime chapters. (And, in fact, made it even more hyper-specific, in a style very similar to the 1974 D&D dungeon procedures.)

FRONTS/THREATS

The last thing that I, personally, consider a core identity for Apocalypse World was the concept of Fronts: A collection of threats and agendas, motivated by a Fundamental Scarcity, defined with specialty Moves, and tracked with Countdown Clocks. Fronts were a specific structure for prepping situations, and the GM was instructed to create their campaign by simply setting up Fronts and then playing to find out  what happened as those situations evolved dynamically in concert with the PCs’ actions and agendas.

But then Apocalypse World 2^nd Edition eliminated the entire concept of Fronts and replaced it with a heavily revised system for managing Threats. I haven’t run a game using the revised system, so I can’t comment too much on the details, but although the methodology was significantly altered, the core intention and approach remained the same: Stock the world with dynamic situations. Use them to pressure the PCs and, when the PCs respond, play to find out by following your procedures (Moves, Clocks, etc.).

The basic concepts of Fronts and Threats have been adapted in myriad ways by other PBTA games.

WHITHER THE APOCALYPSE?

Circling back to the original question, if PBTA games really are “special” or different from other RPGs, why might someone playing them not understand what the big deal is?

Well, depending on what non-PBTA games you’ve been playing and also how you’ve been playing them, PBTA games may not, in fact, be a radically different experience for you. Situation- and procedure-based play have, as I noted above, go all the way back to Arneson and Gygax. It’s really, fundamentally, what the RPG medium was designed to do. I’ve personally been preaching about how you can do situation-based play in any RPG for a couple of decades now, and a wide variety of old-school and OSR games are designed around these principles, too. (And even more now than when Apocalypse World first came out.)

On the other hand, as I mentioned, there are a number of PBTA games that turn these core features of Apocalypse World into mush: Moves just become generic “you do stuff.” Fronts become disconnected from procedure. Sometimes whole chapters of How to Prep Plots are attached. Even the core mechanic often gets defaulted back towards something much closer to traditional binary outcomes. So it’s quite possible to play a PBTA game that pretty thoroughly disguises or eliminates the most distinctive features of PBTA games.

Similarly, there are a lot of GMs running PBTA games — including Apocalypse World — that aren’t actually running those games. This is actually a surprisingly frequent phenomenon with RPGs: No matter what the rulebooks actually say, for these GMs every game just defaults to a core resolution mechanic that they arbitrarily invoke. (In many cases, you’ll see this degrade even further, with resolution mechanics that amount to little more than “high roll on the dice = good, low roll = bad” regardless of skill modifiers, difficulty classes, or anything else.)

Some GMs have also been so thoroughly conditioned in prepping and running adventures in one specific way (often, but not always, a linear railroad), that they similarly default to habit no matter what structures a game may be designed for. Sadly, some of these GMs, when running Apocalypse World, will even go so far as to prep a bunch of Fronts and/or Threats as the rulebook instructs… only to do nothing with them. At best, the Fronts serve as a kind of idea board for them. Often they’re just laid aside entirely, and the GM will be left scratching their head and wondering why they wasted all that “pointless” effort.

Combine both of these — railroad adventure prep and “all systems are a die roll and a vibe” — in a single GM (which is far from uncommon), and you pretty much eradicate everything that makes Apocalypse World and PBTA games special and unique.

With all that being said, even if you’ve been running or playing the full-fledged PBTA experience, it’s quite possible that it’s just not your jam. Not every game is made for every person.

But if you’ve played a PBTA game and it didn’t feel different from, say, a D&D dungeoncrawler… well, that probably means something got mushy somewhere. Might’ve been the game design. Might’ve been the GM. Either way, it’s probably worth giving PBTA another chance and finding out what happens when you really embrace the structure of the game.

Go to Ask the Alexandrian #1

Go to Table of Contents

LETTER OF CAUTION FROM SHIGMAA URASTA

Arquad—

These most recent requests have proven most challenging, and the resulting creations may prove both delicate and dangerous.

First, the members of the danse macbre are not to be trifled with. The gifts you ask of them have only been achieved by imbuing them with the essence of the Crimson Court. They harness, thus, the endless revelry of that eternal celebration, but also carry in the marrow of their bones the malefic curse of the Court’s taint.

As for the stitched zombies, their endurance and baleful death curse are all that we had hoped, and they require no special caution beyond avoiding any breaking of their skin.

—Shigmaa Urasta

LETTER FROM ALIASTER TO ARQUAD

Master Arquad—

I have need of additional brute labor capable of the utmost discretion. My sister suggested that you might be able to supply me with the perfect candidates.

Please dispatch four of your adamantine skeletons to our apartments on Crossing Street. Select those with slender phalanges, if you would. I may have need to employ them in tasks of a delicate nature.

—Aliaster of the House Vladaam

REQUEST FROM HOUSE SADAR

Arquad—

House Sadar requests one dozen skeletons be prepared to perform the danse macabre and delivered to their manse upon the 30^th in time for their celebrations.

The utmost care must be taken with their construction, for they must be capable of the most intimate interactions with the many and esteemed guests of House Sadar. Each must be capable of performing at least six dances in response to both music and vocal request — the waltz, bachata, tango, paso doble, cotillon, and gavotte. Lord Renn has also requested that they perform, upon command, a coordinated schuchplatter for the entertainment of the guests.

We have the greatest confidence in both your ability to fulfill these needs in the most exemplary of fashions, and also with the most respectful discretion. House Sadar wishes neither any untoward reumours to accrue towards them; nor do they desire that this most splendid display should be anything less than the most exquisite of surprises for the guests of their celebration.

—Majordomo of the Esteemed House of the Merchants Sadar

LETTER FROM GATHAR TO ARQUAD

A.—

Lilith offers to you a pair of great and wondrous gifts. Milady knows the craft of these Tomb Maidens of old, and these have been but recently discovered within a mausoleum in the deep vails of the Quiet. From the vast book of her memory, she speaks of a time when these beautiful maidens of iron were placed as guardians upon the great houses of the dead throughout the southern city-states. Sadly superstition and fear of the necromantic energies which course through their lithe forms led to the practice being outlawed.

Use them for your own protection or dispose of them to whatever profit or advantage you would wish. Lilith cares only that you know the value she places upon you and your work.

Regretfully, this will need to be the last shipment of consequence for at least a fortnight. My brothers among the Deathguild have grown suspicious of my activities. The correct application of additional coin may be required, but I am hopeful that a little time will serve to quiet worried minds. I certainly do not expect any lasting difficulty, but caution is never unwise.

Gathar

BILL FOR THE RATLING ARROWS

Owed: 240gp 5sp

You’re spoiling those ratlings! These arrows are too good for them.

Make sure they keep them in the sheaths we’ve prepared, lest more than your enemies come to regret our work.

The bill has been folded for delivery.
A return address is given on the outer fold:

F. Gld. — Vanguard Street
Guildsman District

Go to Part 18: Vladaam Drug Running

Review Originally Published May 21st, 2001

One of the first scenes in A Knight’s Tale is that of a crowd chanting and stomping their feet to Queen’s We Will Rock You while watching a medieval jousting tournament. Throughout the film – telling the story of a young peasant who dons armor and competes as a knight while falling in love with a princess – rock music will appear again and again, along with other anachronistic elements such as: Geoffrey Chaucer using WWF-style language while acting as the knight’s herald; a medieval dance which transforms itself into a dance party; and a host of modern colloquialisms.

When I was leaving the theater, I heard the couple behind me utter the following:

Girl: I liked it.
Boy: Yeah, but the music wrecked it.
Girl: Yeah.

These two people, my friends, are idiots. The music in A Knight’s Tale does not ruin the movie. To the contrary, the music saves it.

Let’s get one thing straight: From a certain point of view, A Knight’s Tale is cliched, trite, and predictable. From the moment you see the previews you already know everything which is going to happen in this film: The main character is going to succeed brilliantly as a knight, he’s going to win the heart of the princess, the bad guy is going to get beaten, and there’s going to be a happy ending.

End of story. Done deal.

But the minute that crowd starts stamping its feet and chanting We Will Rock You something magical happens: A Knight’s Tale imbues itself with what I can only describe as an ineffable energy – an excitement which permeates every performance, every scene, every moment.

Perhaps the only analogy that really suits is that of the roller coaster: Before you ever get on the roller coaster you know exactly what’s going to happen – you’re going to go up, you’re going to go down (really fast), you’ll probably do a couple of loop-de-loops, and then you’ll end up right back where you started. But you still get on the roller coaster because the ride is fun

The ride in A Knight’s Tale is fun. Sure, you know where you are every step of the way. “Oh,” you say, “This is the scene where the handsome young knight makes a fool of himself in front of the princess, and she is bemused.” Or: “This is the scene where the villain establishes himself as superbly talented, but cruel and heartless.” But at the same time you’re enjoying yourself.

The real key here is that A Knight’s Tale isn’t trying to fool anybody. We Will Rock You is, quite simply, the filmmaker’s way of saying: “Look, you know and I know you’ve seen this plot a dozen times. But, look, I’m not taking myself too seriously here. Kick back, relax, and let’s have fun, okay?”

The couple behind me probably thought this movie was historically accurate except for the bizarre musical numbers. This movie ain’t for them – they don’t get the joke.

And, of course, most of use have already heard from the historians who are so tightly wound up that Shakespeare in Love gave them a aneurysm. This movie ain’t for them, either – they couldn’t get a joke if it can labeled with a disclaimer.

This movie is for people like you and me, who can kick back and enjoy something on its own terms. For us, this movie is pure fun. So go grab yourself a ticket, a bucket of popcorn, and a large soda.

Style: 4
Substance: 4

Director: Brian Helgeland
Writer: Brian Helgeland
Distributor: Sony Pictures

A Knight’s Tale is like a fine wine: Every time you come back to it, you can savor it in new ways.

This movie review came out of the same gestalt as my previous review of The Mummy Returns: I was moving a forum discussion into a review. At the time I considered doing more of these film reviews for RPGNet, but I ended up drifting away from them instead. Checking the Reviews page, it looks like it’s been a hot minute since I did a movie review here at the Alexandrian, too.

For an explanation of where these reviews came from and why you can no longer find them at RPGNet, click here.

Go to Table of Contents

This shipping facility is used to supply undead to various unsavory interests throughout Ptolus.

MARQUETTE’S TEXTILES: The front of the building masquerades as a high-class clothier. Anyone inquiring about rates, however, is politely informed that they are currently beyond capacity and are not taking on new customers.

BROTHERS ARQUAD: The operation is overseen by a pair of assassin doppelgangers. Both doppelgangers go by the name of Arquad and only Navanna Vladaam knows that there are two of them.

RATLORDS: The Brothers Arquad have hand-picked and groomed the ratlings who work with them in the undead shipping warehouse.

DENIZENS	Location
Brother Arquad*	Area 1 (disguised as elder seamstress)
Ratlord Fighter x6*	Area 3
Ratlord Fighters x2**	Area 7
Brother Arquad	Area 3 (25%) or Area 6 (75%)

^* Arquad wears a ring which creates a telepathic conection with one of the ratlords in Area 3. (He uses it to summon the ratlord to escort legitimate customers into the back area.)

^** These ratlords each carry longbows and four dreadwood arrows in special sheaths. The ratlords have conditioned themselves to the dreadwood. (DC 12 Wisdom saving throw or become frightened for as long as they are near dreadwood and 1d6 rounds thereafter.)

Arquad – Doppelganger Assassin: Use stat block for assassin (MM 2024, p. 22), with the following doppelganger traits:

• Cha 14
• Immunities Charmed
• Senses darkvision 60 ft.
• Read Thoughts. Arquad casts detect thoughts, requiring no spell components and using Charisma as the spellcasting ability (spell save DC 12).
• Unsettling Visage (Recharge 6). Wisdom Saving Throw: DC 12, each creature in a 15-foot emanation originating from Arquad that see Arquad. Failure: The target has the Frightened condition and repeats the save at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success. After 1 minute, it succeeds automatically.
• Shape-Shift. As a bonus action, Arquad shape-shifts into a Medium or Small Humanoid, or he returns to his true form. Arquad’s game statistics, other than size, are the same in each form. Any equipment Arquad is wearing or carrying isn’t transformed.

Ratlord Fighters: Use stat block for guard captain (MM 2024, p. 162), with the following ratlord traits (Ptolus, p. 592):

• Disease Carrier. Their bites transmit cackle fever.
• Fear of Light. If within 10 feet of a light at least as bright as a torch or lantern, they must succeed on a DC 10 Wisdom saving throw or flee for 1d3 rounds. (These ratlords have already succeeded on this saving throw for the ambient light in the Undead Warehouse.)
• Sneak Attack. Once per turn, the ratlord deals an extra 7 (2d6) damage when it hits its target with a weapon attack and has advantage on the attack roll, or when the target is within 5 feet of an ally of the ratlord.
• Bite. Melee Attack Roll: +6, reach 5 ft. Hit: 9 (1d10+4) piercing damage + disease. (Can be used with Multiattack.)
• Dragon Pistol. Ranged Attack Roll: +4. Hit: 6 (1d10+1) piercing damage. (Can be used with Multiattack.)
• Equipment: potion of haste (x2), Vladaam deot ring

Guildsman District
Pitch Street – D8

AREA 1 – MARQUETTE’S TEXTILES

This area appears to be a normal textile shop.

DOOR TO AREA 2 (Steel-Cored): AC 19, 40 hp, DC 18 Dexterity (Thieves’ Tools)

IRON COFFER: 10% chance of being present.

• 500 gp
• 40,000 sp
• 50,000 cp
• Instructions to have the Ithildin Couriers ship it to the Red Company of Goldsmiths on Gold Street (see Part 12).

AREA 2 – TRAPPED HALLWAY

Old coats hang from wooden pegs on the wall near the door to Area 1.

There are two traps hidden along this back hallway.

SPIKED PIT: Pulling one of the wooden pegs disables the pit trap for 30 seconds.

• DC 14 Wisdom (Perception), DC 14 Dexterity saving throw, 20 ft. deep (2d6 bludgeoning), pit spikes (2d10 piercing), blue whinnis poison (DC 13 Constitution saving throw or 4d10 poison damage).

WAIL OF THE BANSHEE TRAP: Triggered by anyone not wearing (or accompanied by someone wearing) a Vladaam deot ring. The trap emits a terrible scream that alerts everyone in the building and can also kill the unwary.

• DC 24 Wisdom (Perception), DC 20 Dexterity (Thieves’ Tools) or dispel magic (DC 14) to disable, DC 18 Constitution saving throw (7d8+30 psychic damage, half damage on successful save).

AREA 3 – UNDEAD HOLDING PENS

This large warehouse has a thirty-foot-high ceiling. It’s filled with numerous holding cells (A-J). Along the back wall two wooden towers have been constructed (Area 5 and 6), with doors leading into the towers and ladders on their sides. A catwalk extends between the tops of the two towers (Area 7).

HOLDING CELLS: The cells are stone cubes with a portcullis of iron bars on one side. The portcullises have no visible mechanism for opening them and are instead operated from levers on the catwalk above (Area 7), which cause them to magically levitate into the air.

CELL A: 12 Skeletons (MM 2024, pg. 282)

CELL B: 12 Zombies (MM 2024, pg. 346)

CELL C:

• 2 Tomb Maidens
• Ogre Zombie (MM 2024, p. 346)
• Deathlock (in an antimagic field cell) (Monsters of the Multiverse, pg. 86)

CELL D: The bars and walls of this cell block are made from ethereal metal in order to hold incorporeal undead. DC 15 Intelligence (Arcana) recognizes the nature of the metal, in which case you can use the Ethereal Metals handout, below.

• 2 Shadows (MM 2024, pg.272)
• 2 Wraiths (MM 2024, p. 336)

CELL E: Beholder Zombie (in an antimagic field cell) (MM 2024, pg. 347)

CELL F: 2 Minotaur Skeletons (MM 2024, pg. 283)

CELL G: 12 Stitched Zombies

CELL H: 12 Ghouls (MM 2024, pg. 132)

CELL I: 12 Adamantine Skeletons

CELL J: 12 Skeletons (MM 2024, p. 282).

• These skeletons are dressed in formal wear of crushed, purple-black velvets. If released from the cell, they will begin to danace. (They have been specially crafted for a party to be held at House Sadar.)

Stitched Zombies: Use stat block for zombies (MM 2024, p. 346), except that their eyes, ears, and mouths have been stitched shut. They’ve been filled with spiders and when they die, a swarm of insects (MM 2024, pg. 370) emerges.

Adamantine Skeletons: Use stat block for skeletons (MM 2024, pg. 282). Adamantine skeletons have had adamantine metal plates fastened to their bones, greatly fortifying them.

• Armor Class 16
• Damage Vulnerabilities none
• Damage Immunities: Slashing damage from non-magical attacks that aren’t adamantine

ETHEREAL METALS

Ethereal metals are naturally co-existent upon both the Ethereal and Material Planes. As a result, incorporeal creatures can both use and be affected by items crafted from an ethereal metal. Ethereal metals, although expensive, are often used to construct safes and sheathe walls in order to provide a certain degree of security against incorporeal incursions.

Armor built from ethereal metal is effective against incorporeal creatures. It can also be picked up, moved, and worn by incorporeal creatures, although this prevents the incorporeal creature from passing through solid objects. Similarly, weapons crafted from ethereal metal deals damage normally against incorporeal creatures. Such weapons can also be picked up and used by incorporeal creatures at any time. (This effect is similar, but not identical, to the ghost-touch special ability. For example, ghosts can use weapons forged from ethereal metal without manifesting upon the Material Plane.)

To normal sight and an untrained eye an ethereal metal is indistinguishable from its normal equivalent, but it can be detected trivially with true seeing and similar effects.

AREA 4 – SECRET WAREHOUSE DOOR

This door is located in the back wall of the building and leads to the alley. DC 22 Wisdom (Perception) to locate it.

AREA 5 – SEWER ACCESS TOWER

This wooden tower has a lower and upper floor.

LOWER FLOOR: A trap door in the floor leads to the sewers. A ladder leads to the upper floor. A heavy, wooden trestle table with an acid-scarred surface has been shoved up against one wall and there’s a rack of shelving  nailed to the opposite wall.

• Table: On the table is a brass box and a Letter of Caution from Shigmaa Urasta (see handouts). (For more information on Shigmaa Urasta and the Crimson Court, see Ptolus, p. 113 and 110, respectively.)
• Brass Box: This small box contains 12 lesser rings of undead binding, 6 rings of undead binding, and 2 black pearls of undead control.
• Oil Racks: Racks on the wall holds zombie oil (24 vials + 4 vials of control concoction) and necromancer’s oil (10 vials). (See Addendum: Alchemical Lorebooks.)

UPPER FLOOR: The upper floor of the tower is crisscrossed with hammocks, serving as a barracks for the ratlords (who sleep in shifts).

• DC 18 Intelligence (Investigation): There are several caches hidden behind false stones in the walls.
• Caches: potion of remove paralysis, silvered longword, potion of fox’s cunning, potion of goodberry, potion of bear’s endurance, warding bond tokens (matched pair), gems (110 gp red-brown spinel, 11 gp azurite, 30 gp onyx, 40 gp peridot), 100 gp, 6,000 sp, and 23,000 cp.

AREA 6 – ARQUAD’S TOWER

This wooden tower has a lower and upper floor.

LOWER FLOOR: A work area with a desk, chair, and fireplace. A ladder leads to the upper floor.

• Desk: Among other papers, the PCs can find Letter from Aliaster to Arquad, Request from House Sadar, Letter from Gathar to Arquad, and Bill for the Ratling Arrows.

UPPER FLOOR: A simple cot used by Arquad in otherwise empty room with bare walls.

• DC 20 Intelligence (Investigation): There are two iron coffers cunningly built into the frame of the cot. (Each one is used by one of the Arquads.)
• Iron Coffer 1: 821 gp, 1 sp, 9 cp, sard gem (30 gp), rose quartz (40 gp), violet garnet (400 gp)
• Iron Coffer 2: 500 gp

AREA 7 – CATWALK

Ladders ascend the sides of Area 5 and Area 6 to a catwalk which crosses the room. The gates for the undead holding cells are operated from this area. (Twisting control dials cause the magical portcullises to levitate into the air.)

VATS OF HOLY WATER: Two large vats of holy water are positioned at either end of the catwalk. The sides of the vats have silhouette of a tree inlaid in bronze.

• DC 10 Intelligence (Religion): The symbology of the tree identifies it as Aredhel, the sacred ur-tree.
• DC 15 Intelligence (Religion): This specific depiction of Aredhel is associated with the Temple of the Great Mother, a minor cult that used to be active in Ptolus a half decade or so ago.
• GM Background: These vats were placed here to be used in case undead escape from their cells. They were taken from Part 6: The Abandoned Temple of the Great Mother.

Go to Part 17B: Undead Warehouse Handouts