Choose An Initial Reputation & Lair

From Blades in the Dark Rulebood Copyright © 2017 John Harper. All rights reserved.

Your crew has just formed and acquired a lair. Given this group of characters and their previous escapades, what initial reputation would you have among the factions of the underworld? Choose one from the list at right (or create your own).

Initial Reputation

Ambitious
Brutal
Daring
Honorable
Professional
Savvy
Subtle
Strange

You earn xp when you bolster your crew’s reputation, so think of this as another cue to indicate what sorts of action you want in the game. Will you be recklessly ambitious, targeting higher- Tier targets? Will you take on daring scores that others deem too risky? Are you interested in the strange weirdness of the Dusk?

Also, talk about where the crew makes its lair. You begin at Tier 0, so it’s probably a very modest or abandoned sort of place. Choose one (or create your own):

• A half-sunken grotto in the city’s maze-like underground canals.
• An abandoned watch tower atop an ancient, crumbling wall.
• The unassuming back rooms of a merchant’s shop.
• A small, abandoned house at the end of a dark lane.
• A rickety, tin-roofed shack perched on a rooftop.
• A junked rail-car, rusted in place on its old, overgrown tracks.

Look at the map of Duskwall (page 254) and choose the district in which your lair is found. Are you based in some derelict area of a wealthy district or is your lair one of many other poor hovels in a destitute area? A good district choice for scoundrel types is Crow’s Foot—the district most known for street gangs and open criminal activity.