Mythos-Forged

As the great Lovecraft himself said, “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” But this natural survival instinct is lost on you, isn’t it? There is a great and unknowable mystery, lingering just below the surface of this fragile world. A treasure greater than any gold, and more delicious than any fleshy indulgence.  And like moths to a flame, you rush impatiently towards your eldritch immolation.

YOU’RE ONLY A SCOUNDREL TO THE BLISSFULLY IGNORANT

The Mythos Forged is a set of playbooks for Blades in the Dark that focuses on the great and maddening eldritch horrors and all the cosmic and macabre mysteries that tease Seekers of forbidden knowledge. You can add these to your current setting or run them in the classic Arkham setting, or even fuse the two together. These playbooks provide a new crew type and four new character playbooks each using the lucrative spoils of scoundreling as a means to an end, that end being knowledge, power, and control. The characters arising from these playbooks have each touched some eldritch mystery and come back changed, both for the better and for the worse. 

The playbooks included in this set are:

• The Savant - A scholar and a madman
• The Astromancer - A cunning stargazer and strategist
• The Reliquarian - A quixotic explorer and collector of curiosities
• The Stygian - An ambitious student and regretful servant
• New Crew type: The Seekers - Rash pursuers of the forbidden and abhorred

These playbooks explore specific themes experienced by those existing on the penumbra of sanity. The first theme is time, in so much as time does not always pass in such smooth and linear motions for these characters, as well as many others in the Blades system. Some of them are running out of time, while others themselves are out of synch with time itself. The second theme is transactionalism, meaning everything comes at a price, and each relationship and interaction is an exchange of value, thus begging the question of “what is the worth of your time, your sanity, your loyalty, your life?” And furthermore, in the face of these transactional moments, what actions tempt your character to become enslaved to their own avarice?

The third and possibly most important theme is that which anchors us in our ever elusive sense of sanity, expressed here through special anchorpoints that each character has that keeps them tied in some form to reality and allows them to maintain their sense of identity as they drift daringly and compulsively along the edge of madness. Who calls the Reliquarian home in between their ludicrous trespasses? What is too revered by the Astromancer to be subjected to the folly of the stars? What great regret does the Stygian carry as they frivolously barter away their integrity? And for the truth-addled Savant, tortured by both the knowledge they have and the knowledge they don’t, what draws them back to cognizance from the throes of infinity?

Let these ponderances guide you as you set out to indulge in the great Unknowable, liberated from the idiosyncracies of the mundane world. You are no mere scoundrel, you are a Mythos Forged, a Seeker of mysteries and mastery.

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***20210304: v3 uploaded with improved sight-accessibility read out loud functions***

This playbook was created for the Unusual Suspects: Blades in the Dark Playbook Jam.  Check it out to find nearly ONE HUNDRED new playbooks and crew types!

This work is based on Blades in the Dark, product of One Seven Design, developed and authored by John Harper, and licensed for our use under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

This is a work of passion, donations appreciated but not required for download. I would love to hear how these play at your table, and any feedback for future updates!