The Bloody Hands is the campaign that started this blog.
A Guardian, Arden Ulet, from the city of Hub, is sent out on missions to investigate the activities of a group known simply by their calling card: a a pair of bloody hand prints.
The Veil, a mystical technology founded and first used in Hub, stabilizes reality against the same magic that destroyed the Old Khelian Kingdom five generations ago as the death of the Emperor opened the flood gates to many factions of wizards to rise up try to claim chunks of the kingdom. Until a group of wizards fought back and created the Arcane Order. A century and a half later, an anti-magic technology was discovered and used to generate The Veil. The people inside the Veil champion it as a chance to make a New Khelia more democratic and less based on fear and control. Though the reality of the situation might be a bit different.
As an Arcane Order Guardian, Arden and his companions - Agents, Scholars, and others dedicated to the Order's masterplan - have been gifted Sigils that allow them to use magical powers even inside the Veil. The Bloody Hands, and other factions, are trying to find a way to duplicate this same process.
Arden and his assistants solve crimes, prevent damage to the Veil, and try to track down the organization behind The Bloody Hands. They also deal with corrupt Guardians, making peace with Outsider folk, try to find balance with the new generation of Veilborn people who consider themselves better than those outside the Veil, and growing tensions from those who think Hub and the New Khelia are a descent back into the old corrupt ways that started the troubles.
REBIRTH Series (the new canon)
Due to the campaign getting overlong and going against some of its original vibe (short, loosely connected episodes that are quick and easy to play), the original campaign was retired after episode 6 and a new
REBIRTH series has been started.
- REBIRTH 01 "The Late Returners"
In which a mercantile company's caravan goes missing, and then returns, and Arden and his allies must unravel the mysteries of what this "late return" might mean for the Veil in Yarlken. - REBIRTH 02 "The Stone Crack'd"
In which we find out about the internal strife in The Order, learn about the ancient places of power, the history of magic, the desperation of outsiders, and track down a missing relic from before the fall.
Original Episodes ("Season One")
Note, since the vibe (as discussed below) is old genre television, the missions are described and generally built around the timing of episodes. The old format episodes include:
After Episode 5 a nearly month long break occurred while I tried out new ways of writing up these sessions and worked on dialing down some of the inherent "high camp" of the original flavor (where it was all "Bubble" and "Darkling" and "Woodkin" and "Stonekin"). Those first 5 sessions were a big help for me to find my voice in writing out my solo play sessions and also a great way for me to work on things like my
own personal Extended Tricube Tales Framework that helped me to play it a bit more like I wanted.
Synopsis and Notes
The campaign grew out of two desires: I wanted a campaign that I could play more compactly, possibly entirely on my phone, and I wanted to try out
Tricubes Tales.
You can see my thought processes in the campaign background post that was my first ever to Doug Alone. The first few sessions were played out pretty much as intended. I would play them in two or three bursts and then used this blog to post essentially Wikipedia-like summations that 100% doubled or tripled the amount of words I would ever write down while actually playing. Originally there was going to be a wholly different oracle (one roughly "The I Ching but with dice") that I still need to sit down and work out more about.
It was kind of a way for me to find a middle ground between the longer, Mythic-driven "Barston Bakersfield" campaign that had been my only real long term solo campaign for a year and other ideas that might follow.
One main theme is that the visual and general social + narrative mechanics of the series are derived directly from the vibe of 1990s and early 2000s genre television. It is played out like it would be made at that time: a few locals representing a whole populace, areas that feel like they might fit on sound stages, a 3-4 act plotline, really over the top twists, and pretty trope-ridden narrative beats.
Over time, each session and episode grew longer and longer and that initial idea was abandoned with a focus instead of shorter scenes grouped together into arcs. Still with a broad focus on keeping some of the tropes and concepts easy rather than philosophical with lore often summed up in broad concepts like "The Troubles" or "Evil Wizard".
Due to the fact that it and The Bleak + The Pearl were essentially on a collision course (to the point I even briefly considered making one the prequel to the other, a few original themes/concepts were chopped out and shifted from both. The Bloody Hands kept the concept of strong Veils that stop magic from happening. The world outside this Veil is scarred from the War of Wizards but also resilient and full of lore and stories in opposition to the more controlled space inside the Veil. The Bleak became actively mutating and the Lighthouse is less a "Veil" and more an engine that burns off the weird corrupting energy to turn it into a power source.
Eventually, a different Arcane Order was introduced in The GLOW. Unlike the Order, here, designed to keep out magic (or, more appropriately, to keep magic in the hands of a very few), the Order from the GLOW is all about keeping in magic (once again, trying to control it in the hands of a very few).
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