# Blades in the Dark *Created:* 2024-01-03, *Modified:* 2026-10-09 ![[Blades in the Dark (cover).jpg|600]] **Blades in the Dark** is the 2017 John Harper game that turned "let's plan a heist" into "let's just do the heist" and, in the bargain, birthed an engine, a genre, and a small industry of imitators — the hobby has never quite recovered. Set in the ghost-haunted, lightning-ringed industrial city of Doskvol, where the sun is a memory and the dead nag the living, it casts you as the crew of scoundrels pulling scores in a Victorian-industrial-fantasy underworld. It's the game that made the flashback a mechanism and the GM a director of cinematic chaos rather than a referee, and it spawned the entire **[[Forged in the Dark]]** family in its wake. ## Setting The game unfolds in the cold, foggy city of **Doskvol** — also called Duskwall, or just "the Dusk" — a mashup of Venice, London, and Prague stuck in a second-industrial-revolution 1870s of trains, steamboats, printing presses, and chimney smog. A thousand years ago a cataclysm shattered the sun and broke the Gates of Death, plunging the world into permanent darkness and leaving the dead behind as vengeful spirits. Every city of the empire rings itself in crackling lightning towers to keep out the ghosts and horrors of the deathlands, and to power those barriers the titanic ships of the leviathan hunters sail the ink-dark Void Sea, wrenching electroplasmic blood from massive demonic leviathans. In the book's own blunt frame: you're in *a haunted Victorian-era city trapped inside a wall of lightning powered by demon blood.* As scoundrels, you are the city's unwanted and forgotten — but you're also its engine. The premise is a criminal enterprise: your fledgling crew builds turf and reputation while the teeming threats close in — rival gangs, powerful noble families, vengeful ghosts, the Bluecoats of the City Watch, and the siren song of your own vices. The design deliberately makes it impractical to leave town and let the heat die down, so every choice has teeth and the balance of power in Duskwall shifts with your deeds. ## Mechanics ### Character Creation Characters are built from **playbooks** — under world-slang archetypes, each a grid rating the **twelve actions**: Attune, Command, Consort, Finesse, Hunt, Prowl, Skirmish, Study, Survey, Sway, Tinker, and Wreck, grouped under three attributes of **Insight**, **Prowess**, and **Resolve**. Each playbook has its own trauma condition, special ability, items, and XP trigger. The crew is a second character in its own right, chosen from a **crew type**; both the scoundrel and the crew advance via experience gained by acting on their drives and heritage. ### Resolution When you attempt something dangerous or troublesome, roll a pool of d6 equal to your **action rating** and take the single highest die: a **6** is a full success, a **4/5** a partial success with a consequence, a **1–3** a failure, and a matching pair or more of sixes a **critical** that raises your effect. Before the roll, the GM and player set **position** — controlled, risky, or desperate — and **effect** — limited, standard, or great — so the stakes are agreed before the dice land. When there's no danger in play, you don't roll at all; you might make a **fortune roll** or the GM simply says yes. ### Stress & Resistance The stress economy is the heart of the scoundrel feel. You can **push yourself** for +1d or +1 effect at 2 stress a pop, take **assistance** from a teammate, or accept a **Devil's Bargain** to add a die in exchange for a complication. When a consequence you don't want lands, **resist** it by rolling an attribute; resistance always works, but a low roll costs more **stress**. Empty the last stress box and you take a **trauma** — a permanent scar, like Cold or Unstable, that also earns XP when it causes trouble. Four traumas retire the character. Harm climbs its own ladder of severity; enough of it and a scoundrel is taken out. ### The Campaign Loop Each session is a **score** followed by **downtime**. A score pays off but raises **heat** and your **wanted level**, so the next one bites harder; downtime is a menu of recovery and investment — indulging a **vice** to shed stress, long-term projects, and crew business. **Progress clocks** put visible countdowns on everything from the heist's alarms to rival factions' long cons. **Load** caps your gear for the job, and **flashbacks** let you retroactively show you were prepared all along. Around it all spins the **faction game** of turf, tier, and claims: a city of rivals with agendas, and your crew's standing among them is the resource you're really fighting over. ## Editions - **Blades in the Dark** (2017) — John Harper, Evil Hat Productions; the single core edition. The library holds the v8.2 digital release, the final version of that 2017 text. *In the library.* - **[[Blades in the Dark - Deep Cuts|Blades in the Dark: Deep Cuts]]** (2025) — Harper's expansion: 27 new factions, 100+ heritage packages, new innovations, and alternate mechanics. *In the library.* - The engine behind it was released separately as the freely-licensed **Forged in the Dark** SRD, which powers the wider family — including **[[Scum and Villainy]]**, **[[Band of Blades]]**, **[[Blades '68]]**, **[[Runners in the Shadows]]**, and **[[Bump in the Dark]]**. ## References - [Blades in the Dark — Official Website](https://bladesinthedark.com/) - [Blades in the Dark — Evil Hat Productions](https://evilhat.com/product/blades-in-the-dark/) - [Blades in the Dark — DriveThruRPG](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/170689/blades-in-the-dark) - [Blades in the Dark: Deep Cuts — itch.io](https://johnharper.itch.io/deep-cuts)