I really love The Etched City’s baroque criminal underworld, and its general decadence, its devotion to a dark, lush aestheticism – a kind of New Weird Beardsleyesque grotesquery. In particular districts in the city like Corvid Commons, Faunsweald, and Groanwell owe something to it.
Also I am also pretty sore about recent Thief games. Thief 1 is definitely my favourite, though Life of the Party from Thief 2 is probably my favourite single level.
It’s got a complicated one, brutish in some places and refined in others. There are a lot of gangs and factions – the Stench, Bloodworms, Graveyard Girls, Sixty-Six Rodents, Starvelings, Jackdaws, Bonesaw Boys, Rotqueens, Talfeather Fops, Horned League, Funnel Web Gang, and a bunch of others – but the biggest two are the Crosbweak and Ravenswing Thieves’ Guilds, the former being a sprawling, hegemonizing, incredibly brutal criminal organization with numerous “vassal” gangs and subordinates, the latter being elite cat-burglars with a sense of “honour among thieves” (three of my PCs are in this guild). There are also two big rival assassins’ guilds, the Blighted Brotherhood (vicious fungal assassins based in the Zymotic Ward) and the Velvet Shadow (delicate professional spies and assassins based in Groanwell).
Some of these have clandestine ties to the Hexian government, merchants guilds, churches, dissident groups like the Marginalia and the Revenge of Trees, and the rivalrous arcane universities. For instance, the Horned League – a bunch of loan sharks and smugglers in Behemoth Bend, run by a rogue demon – are allies of the Unholy Church in Little Pandemonium but also have connections with the elemental-abolitionists, the Unfettered, while the Velvet Shadow have links to Umbral University (the illusionist’s school) and the Courtesans’ Guild.
Thank you for the reply. This looks very complex – if I may ask did you or players ever had problems with the amount of information in Hex and keeping track on it?
My players definitely don’t know all of it, and their characters wouldn’t either – just as most people in the real world couldn’t describe the complex dynamics of criminal organizations in their own city, for instance. I try to run sessions where they only need to keep a few key things in their heads at any given time, try to let them discover things organically, and fill them in whenever their characters would definitely know something that they don’t. I also prep guides for them – for example, when they arrived in Erubescence, the vampire city, I had a write-up of all the major noble families I gave them once their characters had done some investigation into local politics. Some players read everything, others skim things and refer to the documents as needed. I write everything down and improvise very little, so if I forget something I can always consult my own notes.
Pretty much all electronic on my end with numerous headings for easy navigation, paper for my player information. I have a kind of “bible” for each city and then documents for each session or major sub-location.
If a player asks for information I generally give it if it seems like common knowledge and ask for a roll if it’s in any way obscure/hidden/esoteric. So if a player asked me, say, who was on the Hexad Council or what was in the district of Mainspring or how trollbloods are generally viewed, I’d just tell them because essentially any adult in Hex would know those things. If they asked me about the history of the Third Patchwork War with Penumbra or how the Institute of Omens feel about the Order of St. Monstrum or what Doppelgager’s Malady is, I’d call for a check of some kind.
Thanks! I’m hoping to polish it into publishable form. Currently sitting at about 50,000 words of content for the Gazetteer, definitely miles to go before I sleep, too…
KYani
Glad you used the picture from the best Thief (even six years later I am still sore about Thief 2014).
What The Etched City influence/contribution is, if I may ask?
Bearded-Devil
I really love The Etched City’s baroque criminal underworld, and its general decadence, its devotion to a dark, lush aestheticism – a kind of New Weird Beardsleyesque grotesquery. In particular districts in the city like Corvid Commons, Faunsweald, and Groanwell owe something to it.
Bearded-Devil
Also I am also pretty sore about recent Thief games. Thief 1 is definitely my favourite, though Life of the Party from Thief 2 is probably my favourite single level.
K Yani
I am in peace with Thief 3 (Deadly Shadows), it had quite a few nice moments.
Does Hex have brute and inelegant underworld as well?
Bearded-Devil
It’s got a complicated one, brutish in some places and refined in others. There are a lot of gangs and factions – the Stench, Bloodworms, Graveyard Girls, Sixty-Six Rodents, Starvelings, Jackdaws, Bonesaw Boys, Rotqueens, Talfeather Fops, Horned League, Funnel Web Gang, and a bunch of others – but the biggest two are the Crosbweak and Ravenswing Thieves’ Guilds, the former being a sprawling, hegemonizing, incredibly brutal criminal organization with numerous “vassal” gangs and subordinates, the latter being elite cat-burglars with a sense of “honour among thieves” (three of my PCs are in this guild). There are also two big rival assassins’ guilds, the Blighted Brotherhood (vicious fungal assassins based in the Zymotic Ward) and the Velvet Shadow (delicate professional spies and assassins based in Groanwell).
Some of these have clandestine ties to the Hexian government, merchants guilds, churches, dissident groups like the Marginalia and the Revenge of Trees, and the rivalrous arcane universities. For instance, the Horned League – a bunch of loan sharks and smugglers in Behemoth Bend, run by a rogue demon – are allies of the Unholy Church in Little Pandemonium but also have connections with the elemental-abolitionists, the Unfettered, while the Velvet Shadow have links to Umbral University (the illusionist’s school) and the Courtesans’ Guild.
K Yani
Thank you for the reply. This looks very complex – if I may ask did you or players ever had problems with the amount of information in Hex and keeping track on it?
Bearded-Devil
My players definitely don’t know all of it, and their characters wouldn’t either – just as most people in the real world couldn’t describe the complex dynamics of criminal organizations in their own city, for instance. I try to run sessions where they only need to keep a few key things in their heads at any given time, try to let them discover things organically, and fill them in whenever their characters would definitely know something that they don’t. I also prep guides for them – for example, when they arrived in Erubescence, the vampire city, I had a write-up of all the major noble families I gave them once their characters had done some investigation into local politics. Some players read everything, others skim things and refer to the documents as needed. I write everything down and improvise very little, so if I forget something I can always consult my own notes.
K Yani
I am curious now how to you organize your notes for quick assess? For example, paper or electronic, tabs or something else?
If players ask you for more information, do you usually give it even if they don’t have corresponding ‘knowledge’ skills?
Bearded-Devil
Pretty much all electronic on my end with numerous headings for easy navigation, paper for my player information. I have a kind of “bible” for each city and then documents for each session or major sub-location.
If a player asks for information I generally give it if it seems like common knowledge and ask for a roll if it’s in any way obscure/hidden/esoteric. So if a player asked me, say, who was on the Hexad Council or what was in the district of Mainspring or how trollbloods are generally viewed, I’d just tell them because essentially any adult in Hex would know those things. If they asked me about the history of the Third Patchwork War with Penumbra or how the Institute of Omens feel about the Order of St. Monstrum or what Doppelgager’s Malady is, I’d call for a check of some kind.
K Yani
This is a terrifying/terrific amount of work.
Bearded-Devil
Thanks! I’m hoping to polish it into publishable form. Currently sitting at about 50,000 words of content for the Gazetteer, definitely miles to go before I sleep, too…
Chris
Lovely.