(Interest Check) Blades in the Dark + Necromunda + World Building

[shengami]

Hi~~!

My name is Shengami. Call me Shen. In the immortal words of the Highwaymen, I've been around. I invite you to check out my threads and profiles if you'd like. I'm a pretty open, honest, and even-tempered sort. I've got a creative streak a mile wide and decent writing skills but I can lack in the follow-through. So, keep reading if that all sounds a bit fine.

I've got the idea to build and shape a game. I've recently encountered Blades in the Dark and am digesting the system. But, having never played it, some aspects escape me. However, what I have read intrigues me as the right fit for a game I've been nesting on for some time. A Necromunda RP. I'll explain the basics of settings, game setup, and basic world design bits below. If you are not familiar with the property, that's fine. If you are not familiar with the system, also fine. But one or the other is sort of what I want from you. Both would be keen. I'm also open to one or two curious world builders not familiar with either and willing to bring fresh eyes. That said, both the game mechanics and setting are grim and dark and I tend not to shy away from that. So, best avoid this if you get easily hurt in your emotions or sensibilities. The world of 40k is not very merciful or kind and I like that aspect of it. That said, Necromunda as a setting has quite a bit of dark humor and sarcasm. It was a product of the nineties and England after all.

Setting: In the Warhammer 40k universe, there exist 'Hive Worlds' that are manufacturing hubs. They import massive amounts of raw materials, manufacture goods, then ship them off world. Universally, they are polluted, wasted landscapes dominated by cities kilometers high. These are known as the hive cities and they delve down into the ground as far as they reach into the sky. As manufacturing hubs, they produce significant chemical waste and this waste tends to, literally and proverbially, flow down hill. At the base of these cities are the underhives. Enclosed domes that never see the sun in which manufacturing takes place or once took place. Toxic waste tends to rain from the 'sky' and rivers of sludge flow through them, food is scrounged from the local flora and fauna such as it is or exists in nutripaste called corpse starch (it is exactly what you think it is). People, whole generations, have lived, fought, and died in these domes never having even dreamed of seeing the surface or the sun. Most consider such things little more than myth. Some have evolved, or devolved if you as the administratum, to be better suited to living here. Mutation, ignorance, and makeshift technology is the norm. The heavy hand of the Adeptus Arbites is constant and brutal. The reach of the Spire houses is cold and calculating. One such dome is the setting for my story. It's not a question of how you will survive but only of how long you will last.

So, what am I seeking to do here? Well, first, there will be some time spent building the setting and rules of the game. This may be done behind a curtain if some wish to stay in the dark on certain aspects. There is a central plotline that I am working on that I don't intend to invite too many eyes to. The eyes are for adapting the mechanics and filling out the dome I am using as my setting. I want a rich, vibrant world filled with living breathing characters as some of the game will be open sandbox type heists and adventures. So, some generic and detailed heists will need to be designed to randomly show up. So, mini encounter design, NPC building, and setting design will be the main topics. Specific to the system will be developing neighborhoods, contacts, and a house rule for dealing with Perils of the Warp for Whisperers. Potentially, alien and mutant statlines, rules for chaos taint, and Spirer and Arbites mechanics.

The work will take place in my Discord channel. I am not so good at that stuff, so bear with me. Haha.

There is a map; I use Inkarnate. If you use it too, we could collaborate on that. It's not perfectly suited to the setting, but it works and I have a subscriptions for my other game designs. I'd also love to experiment with an AI to generate some art for the setting and NPCs and such. So, there's that.

Anyway, all in all, that is my goal here. Eventually, yes, I'd want to launch the game and run it. I'm planning it to be somewhat modular so I can run it more than once, see it grow, adapt, and evolve. So, I might be willing to run it for you all once we finish. It's entirely possible that one of you can run something in the setting as well. The idea that this might become a living world is not unappealing.

If you're interested, please post a message here discussing what you might bring to this, some thoughts, or general interest. I'm looking for ten collaborators at most. I think the ideal might be five. At most, one or two collaborators on the main storyline.

[Pumpkin Seeds]

Not sure what I can bring to the table but certainly love the idea.

[shengami]

Haha, thanks. Hope there is more interest than just you. I've been dreaming the dream for a year or two now. Just found Blades in the Dark two months ago though. There's a couple of different games that I want to apply the system to and see them come into the light.

Do you knwo the system or the setting at all? Any experience with heist style games?

[Pumpkin Seeds]

I have a...basic understanding of the system and own the main book along with quite a few of the hacks that go with it like the sci-fi one and the Band of Blades. As for Necromunda I know some of it along with the lore surrounding Hive Cities. I actually had wanted to try the Genesys system for 40k with a Necromunda style game leading into Dark Heresy.

[HairyHeretic]

Sounds an interesting idea. I played Necromunda in the original release, I haven't played the new version, but I am quite familiar with it lorewise (and the 40k universe in general). BitD I've heard of, but haven't had the chance to play.

[Outcast]

Interesting idea. 

I've heard good things about BitD, and I was very hopeful regarding Necromunda's roleplaying potential when Games Workshop first began trailing their original work on the setting in the distant past.  I'm not at all sure that I could or should sign up for anything new... but I definitely approve of this effort. 

[shengami]

Haha, cool. It seems like we have some small interest. That's probably good. I've not played the new stuff either. I still follow 40k lore a bit but haven't played the minis game in some time. I own most of the Gensys books: Only War, Dark Heresy, Black Crusade. I don't own Rogue Trader. It's a nice system; I'm sad it didn't take off more. The handful of games of that I got to play ended very fast. I am unsure if the system is still being supported or not.

As for Necromunda, I was half way through writing my own 5e port for it when I stumbled on BitD. It just fits the setting so well. Lends itself to the heist style of format, long term play with rules for downtime, a gritty sort of feel, building a gang. I decided to see if it fits better than my homebrew stew.

That said, as I said in the OP, there are parts taht need tweaking. A lot can be handled with aesthetic hand waving. Like tech. Not that undehives have much in teh way of tech by the setting standards. Considering how to integrate house sponsorship. Currently, thinking of there being just a gang contact with a house rep who provides info, orders, and support.

And no worries about joining stuff. This would spend a lot of time in the building and planning phase first. I have a basic story in mind, but the world around it is what needs fleshing out. Building whole worlds myself beore has had some disappointing results as the players don't get as invested in homebrew worlds. So, I thought, why not get them to participate in the homebrewing process to some extent?

I might start setting up the discord this weekend.

Cheers!

[Pumpkin Seeds]

Well those aren’t Genesys. Same company, different system. There’s a guy that made a free hack you can use. Recommend looking it up.

[shengami]

OOps, I assumed that was the name of the system they developed for all the games. Haha.

Guess, I'll keep bumping this. Try to drum up a bit more interest? Then I might start building a Discord channel for it.

[shengami]

To get more bites, the history of the dome itself.

Dome Σ2-00c-101A has a history as long as any other in the underhive. Generally, it can be surmised as dirty, short, and miserable. But, hey, it could be worse. As with most domes, the history beyond living memory is moot. Sure, some cogitator somewhere high in the hive has probably done so, but that hardly matters to people trying to live day to day. What matters to most people is what affects now: the chem fog, the gangs, the Guilders, the Black Waste River, the Arbites, the Factory, and the Railway.

Most people are aware that the major industry in the dome is the Factory. There's only one, it occupies a third of the dome, and employs half of it. The Factory produces is owned by some Spyrer family high above who haven't deigned to visit it in generations if they ever did. If it has a name other than The Factory, the chem cloud it produces scrubbed it off long ago. Locals just call it The Factory and most are resigned to toiling their life away inside it and it being the caused of their death one way or another, either directly through an accident or through ancillary diseases. The Factory produces las cartridges, medical chems, and nutrient paste in bulk and a few other things in small supply. It also produces chemical sludge which drains into the Black Waste and the ever-present chem clouds the obscures the dome ceiling and occasionally sees toxic rain fall on the dome.

Being about the only source of credits and resources in the dome as well as a font of resentment, The Factory has experienced more than a few violent events in its history. Additionally, the Railway which allows import of raw materials and export of manufactured goods is a tempting target for local gangs, thus the local Arbites. Firmly in the pocket of the Spyrers, Captain Lucitano Aguille is not local, does not hire local, and does not like locals. A hundred-strong detachment of Arbites is stationed at The Factory always and watch it constantly. Additionally, each train in and out of the dome is guarded by a platoon of the bastards. They tend to shoot first and never bother with questions. If questions are required, Investigators are brought in and wise locals make themselves scarce. Lucitano likes the trains to run as regular as his bowels. The daily shipment in at 10:00 and the thrice daily exports at 12, 18, and 24. Shift changes at The Factory are at 7:00 and 19:00 and there are always additional Arbites in watch at these times.

Other than economically supporting the dome, The Factory also produces two fixtures of note: the Black Waste River and the Chem Fog. No one is sure of it source, but from the north wall of the dome the Black Waste flows in already polluted beyond rational belief. Less water than a flow of effluvia, chems, and worse things, it serves more as a sanitation fixture than a source of water. Nothing survives in it that normal people think about and falling in is the end of a person. Those families forced to live near it display more frequent corruption than others and most sane people try to avoid it. The River flows through much of the center of the dome then turns to the south-east to exit through the wall and into some other peoples' misery. Where it turns, The Factory's sewage is added to its mass blithely. If that wasn't bad enough, The Facotry's stacks produce a thick chemical fog that clings to the ceiling of the dome. What that poor structure must look like now is beyond ken and none have ever seen it. What is true is that the fog does cause droplets of caustic chems to drip down. This slowly wears down any edifice designed to be permanent resulting in most people making do with temporary structures instead. The few permanent structures must be coated in protective polymers if they wish to last too long. Either way, buildings tend to be grimy and worn. Too, the people are the same. The average person here bears skin stained with chems and scarred by caustic rain. It is no wonder that tattoos run rampant.

And with all this misery, it is no wonder that some souls have opted out of the normal cycle. Rather than toil, spawn, and die in a grey, toxic monotony, they opt to better their lot or die trying. Some might climb the ranks of management at the Factory, some scrape a living from the dome itself, a few make a try at crafts or services, but most of these wayward souls opt for a life of desperation and crime. These souls joins gangs. From a handful of toughs on a street corner shaking down the local whores and junkies, to the The Hand of The Law itself, gangs are a central facet of life in the dome. Currently, other than The Hand, the major gangs of the Dome are The Second Sisters (Eschers), Rattling Chains (Cawdor), _____ (PCs), and the Black Waste Berserkers (Goliaths). There is also a tribe of Ratskins living somewhere in the dome that operate similar to a gang but are known to work as hired guns from time to time.

[HairyHeretic]

I always like the Van Saars myself, but the new ones look to have more advanced tech than the average techpriest :)

[shengami]

In the old version of the game, it could get ridiculous in you used the expanded equipment lists from the Gangwar magazines. But, ultimately, they should only have access to what is appropriate for the world and their level. That does bring up the idea of working through a list of standard Necromunda tech.