The Bloody Hands REBIRTH: The Stone Crack'd - Final Thoughts, Musings, and Debrief

 

Remember when all the art for this series was soap bubbles and sunset photos of rivers? Douglas Farms remembers.

 

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• These Moments Always Make Me Emotional
• The Future of The Bloody Hands
• Things I Liked
• Things I Did Not Like So Much
• Lessons Learned
• Things That Might Be Fun to Do Different
• A Few Final Pieces of Trivia
• Up Next for the Doug Alone is...

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These Moments Always Make Me Emotional

I am writing this on January 27, 2025. As of today, there is a little bit less than a week before the final sessions go live, giving me a nice little buffer to relax and think about things. I love taking a moment and just letting all the creative threads wash over me. All the potential "what ifs" and such.

On the other side of the equation, this is a goodbye of sorts. Since the start of this blog there have been two campaigns that were always there even if they sometimes were on a bit of hiatus for a few weeks. The Bloody Hands was one of them. This is the first time since last June that I am putting Arden, Jalmar, and Natalia into a box and letting them rest until some future time when I am ready to bring them back.

This is definitely part of the one arc a time play method — which is working wonders for my own creativity and enjoyment — but it's also just a bit of pulling back. The Bloody Hand is a paradox. One one hand (pun!) it is a series that can be anything I need: mystery, horror, action, high fantasy, low fantasy, post-apocalypse, political drama. On the other, it has always been about broad strokes and ever shifting canon. This has led to be a bit of unfair resentment towards the series. It can fill any gap but it also threatens some other creative endeavors. With The Stone Crack'd, I was trying to find a way to fight back against this. To give it its proper place. Fill in some finer details with more careful strokes. Illuminate some soft edges and give them walls.

And, most importantly, to define the campaign by the type of stories that it does not tell. Which includes finding a space for it to not be there and those other campaigns to fill in those spaces.

At its core, The Bloody Hands is essentially about three people who love each other very much and who have gone beyond the bounds of duty to find a family. Arden was the black sheep of the powerful Ulet family. Initially hated by his brother, spited by his sister, and ostracized from his parents, Prenty and Jalmar were adopted uncles to him. The people who actually listened and helped. After Arden fought and saved Prenty's family, Natalia came in. She started out slightly resentful of Arden and very much so the sheltered person who felt her own fractured family might be able to rise to prominence. She was afraid of the world outside of the Veil but grew to trust Arden and wanted to become a Guardian so he would be proud of her. Jalmar no doubt had some relationships with rough-and-tumble outdoorsmen but no lasting relationship with anyone but Arden. Until Arden became a petulant nephew. Someone Jalmar wanted to believe in and help raise to his full potential.

This is why The Stone Crack'd so much about the stresses of Arden always running off to face danger alone. Arden does it because he had a unique gift of doing it but also to protect the others. Jalmar became infuriated. Natalia wanted to be trusted to fight by his side. By the end, they accomplished that, and a lot more. This arc dropped him using their titles and last names. They now just call each other by their name, fight over details, and work as a team. It was pleasant.

It also means that they are free to wander on their own for a while without me babysitting them.

The Bloody Hands and its REBIRTH slight rewrite have been amazing to help me grow as a solo role player and just figure out what rules and tools work for me. But it really is a good time for me to do some other things.

The Future of The Bloody Hands

Is this it, though? Almost definitely not. At least some of the characters should return. Somewhere in the future. Both my future and their future. In real life, maybe a couple of months will pass. In Khelia, it will likely be more like three or four years. Arden and Kate will be wed and have at least one kid (Josefina, who inherits her dad's strange other-Eyes). Arden has twins with Tamora who will likely have other inherited powers. Cal will be showing his early powers as a mage of light. Setting the seeds for a new generation of true saints and wizards to return. I like the idea of picking up a bit after the initial terrors of the New War. A place where Arden is once again free to do more of his own thing. The big picture will continue to turn behind him, maybe with Cassandra leading most of the actual action, and he will be back with Natalia and Lidia and whoever to conquer things on a more personal scale. Big things, mind, heroic things. Just stuff where it's a smaller group with maybe a backup group helping to cover guard duty and carry equipment.

In this way, I am very free to just say anything. "Arden has to find a way to blow up a Blood Hands base," or, "Arden has to fight an ancient demon," and not worry too much about in-game-world issues.

One thing that will almost definitely change is that the Arden and his group will become Cypher characters. Tricube Tales is a great system but I think we are at the power level now where I need something that is good at handling power shifts — some characters are much higher up than other characters — and higher end combat and Cypher has some interesting options for it. Where Arden and Jalmar can fight a beast the size of a small mountain and then also handle taking out a boat full of enemy agents. Though, at this point, I am thinking of giving Jalmar a vacation and letting the old veteran go off with Dylan and have a grizzled frontier life no longer feeling the need to babysit.

At some point there will be the showdown between Arden Ulet and Matthew Calderon. Likely not the next jaunt since that fight will definitely be kind of an end cap which might fully retire the series.

Things I Liked

There was a lot I really enjoyed.

Lidia as a random character generated from a single card prompt and then built up with a couple of oracle tests. Tossing in the Dean Spencer art, we get a great prod to a character almost exactly opposite of any I would have just made on my own. Making her play by slightly different rules — different in-game-world rules, same mechanics — was also fun. She is in a place where there's a whole new color palette and which her natural strength makes Khelian structures and physics seem a bit puny to her. She jumps higher. Laughs louder. A lot of fun. A Slayers character in a world a lot more grim than her own, but also a lot brighter.

Though this is the darkest arc in The Bloody Hand — REBIRTH or otherwise — it is also one of the brightest. A lot of NPCs helped with that. Felix Osterling. Brother Hyrdale. Danna and Rishard. Tamora Marel. Many people who are great to find a voice and to describe. Even Fern. Or Jansen Dels. People who are not perfect but try to help. It was pretty much the exact kind of story I liked to tell. People facing the darkness and going that extra mile to make life better for others.

I also like how it is four times longer than even previous story-line but deep down it is The Bloody Hands at its core. Arden finds a place that needs help and he helps. Puts the people first. Puts kindness first. With no hesitation.

It was meant to be a short burst of Arden spending some time in Hub and then going on a session into the wilderness, having a session in the Veil, and then wrapping up things. Instead, it gave me the room to rewrite the whole mythos of a world. To apply a lot of those fine detail strokes. I'll have to have my city-scape heist some time in the future.

I liked switching it up away from Mythic even though I really like Mythic. This series seems to work best when there are little complications of scenes but where threads progress more directly from the story.

I also liked just taking away Arden's "main" power at the end. If nothing else, this gives him impetus to try and find other-Arden again even if he is now aware that other-Arden is his invader equivalent.

Things I Did Not Like So Much

The only real thing that comes to mind is that the dice/cards were so cruel when it came to giving Arden whenever he tried saving people standing on the other side. Leonardo Miller kept up his crusade. Fern died. Clint died. The captured invaders refused to help. The evil wizard remained evil. For every ally that Arden met, he lost another potential friend. I wouldn't give Lidia for a dozen removed wizards but I might have traded Tamora for a Fern.

Lessons Learned

I have a huge proponent of "choose {2 | 3 | 5}" when it comes to solo play. In other words, choose either two, three, or five tools per arc depending on complexity with two being your core tools (an oracle plus a general content generator is my favorite core). Oracles. Books. Card decks. This sets your initial seed of tables and gives you freedom to switch up between campaigns and arcs but reduces the stress of having to choose between a whole stack of tools at any given time. That being said, during those down-times — what I tend to call "Gamemaster" or "Prep" Phases — where you have a bit more of a stretching room, it can be fun to bring in a few bonus tools. It worked really well to keep the actual play pretty tight and fast while the world building was a bit more expansive.

One thing I learned is that I play some solo games in such a way where the traditional Mythic story structure clashes. I tend to build up too much future sight and then try reconcile. I need to practice more just starting with a scene and going from there, trusting in the threads and not getting frustrated when interrupts postpone progress because progress is just having fun playing. A lot happened because of Kalbarn-Karn and Tyv/Jorn and had I stuck with my "three to five session" plan it would have been a different game entirely.

I learned a lot about playing Gamemaster Apprentice Decks and I am glad I did. I definitely had my own take on using them and likely cheated on a few "runes" by going, "I want A...this rune is kind of A-compatible, so A it is!" more than I should but I like interpretative riffs because it gives me that option where sometimes I can toss wrenches into my own cogs.

Finally, this series locked down a metric for me. Each "session" (aka, each post) is actually closer to 1.5-2.5 sessions of actual play with an average of 2 but in some cases pushing 3 depending on how much prep it takes. Good to know.

Things That Might Be Fun to Do Differently

The only thing that comes to mind would have been to have more city scenes. It was hitting over ten "sessions" (actually around twenty real life sessions) and it was a good time to just wrap it up and I think it would have required a complete refocus to go back to a heist but maybe had the heist started it off before it went high-mythical then it might have been a nice new vibe. That being said, several of the previous sessions were basically city-scenes so I have done that. A single oracle check would have definitely changed things.

Similarly, a lot of the image derived from rain and storms because an early check found that it was the start of a rainy season. As much fun as that was, it would be interesting to see how things would have been different if flooding and storms were not such a heavy element. Oone might have been less gloomy. Arden would probably not have developed storm powers. Etc. With that said, I did roll "magic bottle" and "three lightning bolts" a lot on the image oracles. So many times.

A Few Final Pieces of Trivia

• Despite the "True Love" aspect of Kate going with Arden at the end, that was actually decided by oracle test. Kate might have chosen Cassandra. I didn't record it but I did test it.
• While the power behind Kate was hidden, it made sense that Arden — one of the greatest seers in Khelian history — would have eventually just looked and knew what was happening even if Kate and Cassandra continue to underestimate him.
• Before they go into "the Swirl" there was the oracle prompt that it would lead to a proposal and a sense that Arden felt it was important to do. While it was definitely a nod towards Felix and Sharilyn, this actively flavored why Lidia and Natalia made so much sense to me. Arden would have sensed that he was helping a dear friend find something she had sacrificed to follow after him. Also Dylan and Jalmar. It was just too much fun. Had Lidia not already showed up just the session before, Izzia might have hit it off with the barbarian woman. Instead, he got the old cook because he would be just the fussy young librarian type to pull such treasures.
• Speaking of, this series got a slight bit sexier because Eustace & Hitomi got a fair bit sexier because The GLOW got sexier. It is never a main focus — well, maybe it is in Eustace & Hitomi — but Arden and Jalmar and Natalia were pretty much sexless until the previous two story arcs helped me to get comfortable giving characters that aspect of themselves back. Something that doesn't work for me in multiplayer games but is a nice joy in solo games. A bonus.
• Early in the The Bloody Hand world there were "Wildkin" and "Gobs" who were two human-derived species — being roughly elves and goblins — brought about the corruption of the world outside of the Veil. Once the corruption was tossed aside with the REBIRTH canon rebuild, this was dropped. Lidia's world became a fun way to bring those back in. In my head-canon, people are well aware that she has super-strength and elf ears but the former prevents them from pushing too much on the latter. Taria just fangirling over Lidia's ears was a quick gag because I just imagined a nerd who liked to stare at people seeing something like elf ears and learning a lot about herself.
• One fantasy species did get kept: the goat folk. We saw them in the Sink or Swim story and they showed up in discussions during The Late Returners. I like goats. By the end, more of Mythic England was brought back in with hints of there being old dragons and giants a bit removed from humanity.
• The Arch is a direct nod to Romancing Saga 3, including the fact it is near a jungle. Much like Khalid City being named after my favorite hero from that game, the SaGa is a big influence on my fantasy world building, multiple character view points, and time-skips and generational gap style of playing.
• One continuity glitch brought about REBIRTH got slightly reinstated. The place where the Hand is most active showed sign of decay and weird fungal growths. This is now explained because of the presence of the invaders who slightly rewrite reality interacting with the world (and likely bring other-world fungi with them). This is likely why they need human hosts to occupy. They would take the same damage over time.
• This arc was more grounded the world of Victorian England even more than before. Pipes, cigars, rum, and such are just out in the world. The exception is that animals tend to be described by mashing up two types. What is a raven-hawk? Or a monkey-dog? Or a rhino-bull? No clue. Just go with it. I did.

Up Next for the Doug Alone is...

I still need to get back to The Bleak + The Pearl but I think I want to do something else first. I have an idea for a fairly twee young adult romance series heavily inspired by the fantasy novels I read as a teen. It would use a mash-up of Fudge/Fate with Mythic being the entire core system (all mechanics resolved as Fate Chart checks, an interesting pun I just now noticed). I also would like to play at least a one-shot using the Loner mechanics.

Before any of that I want to return to The GLOW with "1996: Psychic Eustace Delmont". Eustace and Hitomi built up with a whole new set of mechanics — Outgunned — and actively exploring the more cyberpunk reality of the world since Johnny was more about the gritty poverty and magical side of the reality.