Black Sword Hack - Session 1

 

Black Sword Hack is an awesome game.

The rules are simple but have depth and the setting is a lot of fun to dive into. The game encourages you not to use an established setting, like the Young Kingdoms, which can influence notions and direct outcomes but instead, create a world uniquely your own. A world where your player's characters will be the first to explore its strange and dangerous lands. The world creation process happens as you play and expands as necessary, encouraging unexpected campaign plots to develop. Everyone keeps track of past games, events and NPCs as players' actions and repercussions help drive future stories.

Law, Chaos and Balance - the players choose where they stand in this doomed sword and sorcery world of demons, weird science and monsters. Power-hungry aristocracy, twisted cults and beings that want to bring about the end of time threaten our anti-heroes at every turn, whose fate, may in fact be the world's destruction.

BSH has regional adventure seeds (Forbidden City, Golden Archipelago, Iron Horde, etc)  that find homes on your world map. They are very creative and extremely evocative. I'm also going to mine TSR's Divine Right as needed for ideas and topography.

I'm already thinking of future games for my players and will treat them as episodic. The goal is to finish an adventure in one or two sessions. Yes, BSH moves quickly. The GM doesn't do a lot of rolling but many decisions are left in the GM's hands-of-doom to determine rulings.

You go big or go home in BSH. Where the players tread, entire cities may sink into the earth, kings may be devoured by demons, the moon may crash into the earth! That is Black Sword Hack. 

There were two players for our first session. Here are our antiheroes:

Ellis of Ro
 

Notable Stats: 

12 Int, 14 Cha

Origin: 

Born in a dilapidated manor of a ruined family. 

Backgrounds: 

Diplomat, Inventor, Storyteller

Languages: 

Thyrenian, Naruan, Duhuang, Chalidim

Equipment: 

Pilgrims staff, Rapier, Light Armour

Twisted Science Marvels:
Firelance, Targeting monocle

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Bh'osh

Notable Stats: 

12 Int, 13 Con

Origin: 

Born in the laboratory of the alchemist he called "father."

Backgrounds: 

Demon Pact, Forbidden Knowledge, Snake Blood

Languages: 

Thyrenian, Alashan

Equipment: 

Inquisitor's Longsword (2-h), Iwisfi

Spells:

Inquisition, Red Trap, Greedy Hand, Hellhound

Demon Pacts: 

Fear (Ulshedra)

Nightmare (Samnu)

I took the player's through Dark Seeds, the adventure in the rule book and everyone had a great time.

Spoiler Alert

A few notable events from the game:

Narvas is an evil sorcerer who is somehow responsible for our anti-heroes being sentenced to the Redemption Spire. How long were they in there? Where is Narvas now and why did he do this?

Bh'osh summoned Samnu, the nightmare demon, to awaken both Lazalla and Garam from their lotus slumbers (thus ending their demonic dream manifestations). Both Lazalla and Garam, learning that they were responsible for slaughtering the entire town, went insane with guilt. The players took the Lotus bags and left.

Tharkus

Player's learned that Tharkus's crashed, airborne ship is powered by a demon engine and can possibly travel in space. 

Ellis did some fast talking, distracting Tharkus and her men, which allowed Bh'osh to speak with the flesh/ steel android creation who told them of Narvas. They left the crashed ship and Tharkus, who was pissed at them because the players used the demon of fear, Ulshedra, on her and also cut down one of her men. Ellis gave some demon dream lotus as a parting gift to Tharkus. We'll see what future is born from that cold-blooded act!

Being an inventor, Ellis is looking for an orichalcum gyroscope to get the ship flying again and claim it as his own.