City of the Black Rose has just dropped in digital form. Here are a few impressions.
WHAT'S A CITY OF THE BLACK ROSE?
It is an extended campaign frame for Daggerheart funded by a kickstarter campaign:
The premise is that of a fog-clouded noir city reminiscent of industrial-revolution London, Verne gone wrong and US's prohibition era, with a generous serving of Glen Cook's Garret PI's and street level superheroics.
THE CONTENTS, TABLE OF
Note: The delivery also included a soundtrack.
170 pages.
Section titles: Welcome to Mavros (the in-game city name and the overview of the setting), The Lower City, Central City, Upper City, Outer Regions, Other Planes, Running a Game, plus Index and Acknowledgements.
THE FEEL
Quoting page 2 and page 3 passages:
(obligatory yet accurate)
CONTENT WARNING: This book is intended for adult audiences. City of the Black Rose explores dark and mature themes within the horror genre: death, injury, violence and gore, body horror, psychological horror, and endangerment of children and animals. The setting explores themes of class inequality, capitalism, racial division, police brutality, gambling and substance use, and includes situations that reflect systemic injustice and societal harm.
(an intro piece)
Night falls in Mavros. Great columns of grey rainwater cascade from the Upper City and splatter on the cobblestone streets of the Lowers. As pedestrians don gas masks, glow crystals crackle to life on a steel partition a thousand feet above, casting an ethereal gleam. Down here, they're the closest thing to stars…
THE TAKEAWAYS
A series of gazetteer articles devoted to important parts of the setting. Each article stands on its own and follows a similar format:
IF I WERE TO RUN A TOTALLY RANDOM CAMPAIGN
As an exercise, and with minor spoilers, let’s try to assemble a short campaign.
Let’s pick Goggings is Gone (p. 161). For session zero, the players need to establish their relation with Zawadi Goggins, describe their jobs and commuting to Foghand’s Yard, and provide rationale for making their living in the worst district.
At the beginning of the first session characters learn that they need to put in extra work, as their work colleague did not appear. Once their shift ends, they stumble on a bloodied backpack, and from here the things will hopefully escalate. Expected environments: Factory after-hours, Zawadi’s flat. Expected NPCs: uncaring factory management, worried relatives and, if too many questions are asked, a boogeyman.
CONCLUSION
Very refreshing take on heroic fantasy urban campaigning.
WHAT'S A CITY OF THE BLACK ROSE?
It is an extended campaign frame for Daggerheart funded by a kickstarter campaign:
The premise is that of a fog-clouded noir city reminiscent of industrial-revolution London, Verne gone wrong and US's prohibition era, with a generous serving of Glen Cook's Garret PI's and street level superheroics.
THE CONTENTS, TABLE OF
Note: The delivery also included a soundtrack.
170 pages.
Section titles: Welcome to Mavros (the in-game city name and the overview of the setting), The Lower City, Central City, Upper City, Outer Regions, Other Planes, Running a Game, plus Index and Acknowledgements.
THE FEEL
Quoting page 2 and page 3 passages:
(obligatory yet accurate)
CONTENT WARNING: This book is intended for adult audiences. City of the Black Rose explores dark and mature themes within the horror genre: death, injury, violence and gore, body horror, psychological horror, and endangerment of children and animals. The setting explores themes of class inequality, capitalism, racial division, police brutality, gambling and substance use, and includes situations that reflect systemic injustice and societal harm.
(an intro piece)
Night falls in Mavros. Great columns of grey rainwater cascade from the Upper City and splatter on the cobblestone streets of the Lowers. As pedestrians don gas masks, glow crystals crackle to life on a steel partition a thousand feet above, casting an ethereal gleam. Down here, they're the closest thing to stars…
THE TAKEAWAYS
A series of gazetteer articles devoted to important parts of the setting. Each article stands on its own and follows a similar format:
- high level overview of a particular quarter with a sketched map, presented against a nice image representative for this particular piece, a single page introduction composed of distinct paragraphs (overview, description, population, history, plot hook notable institutions), also a quote and often another image.
- characters, locales, factions (paragraphs include but are not limited to: an overview, a plot hook, a label).
- a poster or an ad table or a handout.
- Introduction with ten ideas on how to begin an adventure once you complete a Campaign Arc
- GM principles while running this particular frame, or how a GM should approach session zero and campaign developments while staying true to the frame themes
- Player principles - a player-facing primer that emphasizes DOs, sets some expectations
- Character options - what choices are recommended when making a character
- Campaign mechanics - an ancestry, district, personality lists
- Primary weapons, secondary weapons, armour - what would be a noir game without a few guns
- Loot - just a few items
- Vehicles - from a car to multi-terrain bus
- Adversaries - generic statblocks for campaign specific opposition, for example a vigilante (a street-level hero, someone who gained a few levels and tries to do good things), a boogeyman (a professional doer of unspeakable things)
- Environment - generic locale types (statblocks to apply to a scene to quickly develop a story)
- Campaign Arcs - begins with a description of the format, and then provides one-pager ideas for ten-session campaigns
IF I WERE TO RUN A TOTALLY RANDOM CAMPAIGN
As an exercise, and with minor spoilers, let’s try to assemble a short campaign.
Let’s pick Goggings is Gone (p. 161). For session zero, the players need to establish their relation with Zawadi Goggins, describe their jobs and commuting to Foghand’s Yard, and provide rationale for making their living in the worst district.
At the beginning of the first session characters learn that they need to put in extra work, as their work colleague did not appear. Once their shift ends, they stumble on a bloodied backpack, and from here the things will hopefully escalate. Expected environments: Factory after-hours, Zawadi’s flat. Expected NPCs: uncaring factory management, worried relatives and, if too many questions are asked, a boogeyman.
CONCLUSION
Very refreshing take on heroic fantasy urban campaigning.
