The Markus Project, pt. 2: Blades in the Dark

(first published 04/10/2024 in its original form here.)

Welcome to the second post in the Markus Project, a blog series building the same character archetype in a bunch of TTRPG systems for educational and amusement purposes. Our second system is Blades in the Dark, an iconic dark fantasy crime TTRPG featuring position & effect, stress mechanics, and packs of scoundrels in the murky magic-industrial city of Doskvol.

To briefly summarize the project for those who might want a tl;dr of the opening post: I'm taking a common archetype I like to play and building him as a character in a bunch of TTRPGs, and in the process learning more about how each of these games works - and how their mechanics and flavour intertwine with their approach to 'character'. My first such post looked at Dungeons & Dragons 5e (2014).

Meet Markus, our archetype. Markus' key traits are:

• Gay or bi male
• An outsider with no desire to belong, except maybe to a tight crew or family
• Beefy and charismatic bruiser with a chip on his shoulder
• Expects the world to be hard and is determined to be harder
• Likes to talk himself into problems and fight his way out of them
• Not keen on making friends, but intensely protective of the ones who get past his guard
• Has a predilection for solving his problems up close, often with fists or melee weapons

In Blades in the Dark, players are a group of scoundrels banding together as a crime crew in the industrial city of Doskvol, a... well, I'll quote the core book for this one: "a haunted Victorian-era city trapped inside a wall of lightning powered by demon blood". Players work from Playbooks instead of character classes, and undertake specific types of actions they'll be varying degrees of proficient in: Attune, Command, Consort, Finesse, Hunt, Prowl, Skirmish, Study, Survey, Sway, Tinker, and Wreck. An action's difficulty is determined by the character's circumstances: controlled, risky and desperate, for a limited, standard or great effect, and might end up in a full success, partial success, or bad outcome, taking on stress to avoid the worst consequences when possible.

The game's flow has a specific, cyclical structure: the crew start off in Free Play, then take on a criminal Score together, take Downtime to play through the consequences of the score, and then return to Free Play. And in addition to the character's Playbook, the Crew as a whole has their own playbook, tracking their assets and relationship to other crews.

One last thing before we dive in properly: all rules screenshots are taken from the free Player Kit PDF available on Evil Hat's website. If you haven't played the game and want to check it out in a little more depth, take a look!

And so, to our latest Markus. Let's start off with name and playbook. For name, we'll name this one Markus Svoloch, swiping the Russian word for bastard off Google Translate as a quick surname. (Yes, this is a cheap trick. No, I won't stop using it.) For the playbook, there are seven options: Cutter, Hound, Leech, Lurk, Slide, Spider and Whisper. While there are elements of a few of these that feel appropriate for Markus, Cutter is the clear pick: a brawling fighter with skill at intimidation.

The Cutter comes with lots of mechanical benefits. First off, it outlines how Markus will gain experience to improve: he will earn xp when he addresses a challenge with violence or coercion. Beyond that, the Cutter starts with two action dots in Skirmish and one in Command. Action dots determine how many dice you roll for a given skill, ranging from 0 (utterly unskilled) to 4 (very, very skilled). The Cutter also selects one of eight possible Special Abilities: Battleborn, Bodyguard, Ghost Fighter, Leader, Mule, Not To Be Trifled With, Savage and Vigorous. These offer a mix of harm reduction, buffs to Command, and greater capacity for confrontation; very fitting for the playbook. As a player, I usually lean towards healing mechanics like Vigorous... but for Markus Svoloch, we're going to take Not To Be Trifled With, to weave in his bursts of cathartic strength and violence. After all, the world is hard and he's determined to be harder. This ability means, mechanically, when he pushes himself to do a feat of superhuman strength or fight a small gang on equal footing in close combat, he can accomplish a greater effect than otherwise possible. This is a man who can put it all on the line when needed, and still walk away from it.

(Technically you select your playbook special ability later, once you've assigned your optional action dots, but I figured it was neater organization to include it up here.)

Next up is the character's Heritage, or what nation they're originally from. They might be from the surrounding highly-industrialized Imperium nation of Akoros, the pirate-coded Dagger Isles, the faraway desert kingdom of Iruvia, the wild wasteland of Severos, the oppressed island of Skovlan recently brought until Imperium rule, or the strange and supernatural Tycheros. There are a few really fun, viable paths for Markus here, but Skovlander refugee Markus feels like a fruitful path for honoring the archetype's outsider feelings and brawling swagger. When you choose this, you write a detail about your family life; I'll add comes from poverty, youngest of eight children, left Skovlan with nothing to make his own way. He's disaffected, has walked away even from his own family, and has had to fight to make a place for himself in Doskvol since he arrived.

After Heritage, you pick your character's background, describing what they did before they turned to crime. The options in play are Academic, Labor, Law, Trade, Military, Noble and Underworld. Looking at this list, there are two that immediately pop out to me: Labor and Underworld. Either one would feel appropriate for Markus, but criminal Markus has always been a favourite flavour of mine, so I'll go Underworld. For his detail, I'll pick bruiser and thug for hire.

At this stage, we choose Markus' additional action dots, which will effectively establish his proficiencies in the various actions available to him. You may only start with two dots in a given skill - and since the Cutter starts off with two dots in Skirmish, I can't currently add any more to that skill. When selecting action dots, you're asked to pick one that reflects your heritage, one that reflects your background, and two anywhere you please. Going back to elements of the archetype, we'll want to honor his brawling and his charisma, and otherwise have some free reign. To honor his Skovlan heritage and family background, I'll put a dot into Survey; I imagine the youngest child of eight in a chaotic, poverty-stricken family might be used to keeping an eye out for building tension to keep himself out of trouble. To tie into his Underworld background, I'll give him a dot in Prowl, a useful skill in the criminal underworld. And for his other two dots, I'll pick Sway to establish a flirtatious charisma (as romance tends to be a key element for me in TTRPgs), and Wreck, to tie into his love of violence as catharsis.

At this point I'd pick my special ability, but we already did that above, so we're gonna move onto Choose one close friend and one enemy. Each playbook comes with a list of NPCs, each with a short description, for this purpose. For ally, I'll pick Mercy, a cold killer. I'll make my Mercy a coolly attractive assassin, a man that Markus has struck up a charged flirtation with, that could spill into violence if their goals are ever at odds. For rival, I'll pick Marlane, a pugilist. The book offers the idea that she trained you, and I like that for Markus: a legit boxer whom he fucked over to enter the criminal scene, and who's now reluctantly had to join it herself, possibly due to the consequences of his betrayal.

Next up, we choose a vice, which will be tied into how we relieve stress during downtime. There is a good list of options: Faith, Gambling, Luxury, Obligation, Pleasure, Stupor and Weird. This Markus is a bit of a flirt, almost a lover as much as a fighter, and so I think I want his vice to be Pleasure. Specifically, sex. For the detail and purveyor of the vice, the rules allow making your own, so I've invented Morlan's Rough House, a shelter and impromptu men's brothel full of laborers picking up the night shift, in the Brickston area of Coalridge. I imagine Markus lived in Coalridge as a refugee, maybe even was a laborer before he moved into crime, and possibly picked up some work at the Rough House for a few years before crime started to pay more.

The next step is all flavour: Name, Alias and Look. We've got our name, Markus Svoloch. For a nickname, plucking one from the prepared list, I like Silver; I get the sense he's got a silver tongue, and a reputation for doing a job for anyone if they've got the metaphorical silver in hand. For the Look elements, I'll select: Man, Athletic, Rough, Handsome, with a Hooded Coat (sleeveless, of course) and Work Boots. I envision him with a shaved head, a crimson beard interrupted by the occasional scar, and clever eyes that are quick with a wink.

The next step would be working together with the other players to build the Crew sheet. I could leave this out of the process... but setting up his world and his crew's specialty feels like a cornerstone of his character (and the game), so I'll take a crack at developing this part solo, even though a truer experience would involve some level of compromise and the delightful complexity that comes with developing things as a group.

The types of crews you can select from include Assassins, Bravos (aka mercenaries and thugs), Cult, Hawkers (vice dealers), Shadows (thieves and spies) and Smugglers. Any of these offer an interesting option for Markus. The easiest would be to lean into the brute element and go Bravos... but there's something about his charismatic, seductive side that's making me think Shadows. After all from the archetype, he likes to talk himself into trouble and fight his way out, whether that's getting himself into a bar fight or seducing the wrong mark.

Next up, the crew's initial reputation and lair. With Markus' rough background and his mix of impulsive violence and seduction, there's something fun about this group of Shadows being known as ambitious: they want to ascend from the margins of Doskvol, even if it means getting their hands dirty. For a lair, the book gives a few options - a half-sunken grotto, an abandoned watchtower, the unassuming back rooms of a shop - but the one I like best is a small, abandoned house at the end of a dark lane. It forces this crime crew into almost a domestic context, and is metaphorically haunted by the families who lived here before. What happened to them? Were they driven from town by tragedy or sickness? Were they happy here before everything fell apart? Were there too many children, like Markus grew up with? Adding a thrum of the domestic, and the tragic domestic at that, sounds fun for this crew of strivers. To reflect their ambitions, I'll place the house in Six Towers, the formerly-wealthy region that's fallen to disrepair.

For the crew's hunting grounds, since they're aiming at upward mobility, I can't imagine they'd target the poorer areas - but they're not at the level to take on heavily-guarded enclaves of wealth like Brighthollow or Charterhall. If these are scammers, seductors and thieves, the most attractive hunting ground is probably the Nightmarket, a placed fueled by commerce and the ascension of the merchant class. Plenty of marks, and in the chaos they can likely pick up and shed identities like masks.

It's also time to select a preferred operation type that the crew likes to take on. For Shadows, the options are burglary, espionage, robbery and sabotage. While the makeup of the crew would normally be a major guide here, if just looking at Markus, there's a mix of interest here. Burglary feels like it uses his brute strength; espionage appeals to his sense of charm and seduction. Robbery feels like it ties well into both his charisma and his strength: theft by force or threats, as the game defines it. That said, there is a case that burglary can use both cores of the character as well - the information-gathering about the target that enables a good burglary, and then the burglary itself. While robbery feels like a strong option, this Markus feels more like the type to seduce his way in and come back when the place is unoccupied (and that feels more fun to me as a player, honestly), so I'm gonna go burglary.

The special abilities for a crew of Shadows in Blades in the Dark.

Next up is the crew's Special Ability. We've got seven opportunities here: Everyone Steals, Ghost Echoes, Pack Rats, Patron, Second Story, Slippery, and Synchronized. This one would normally be a negotiation between the various members of the crew and their specialties & interests, but for the sake of simplicity, I'll go with Second Story: I see this crew as a lot of 'seduce the mark, get the info, break in when the place is empty', which means a ton of clandestine infiltrations.

Then we've got Crew Upgrades, which can tell us a lot about this crew and their strengths. Each crew type starts off with two pre-chosen upgrades: in the case of Shadows, that's Prowess training (which allows the prowess skills - Finesse, Prowl, Skirmish, Wreck - to progress XP more quickly when training during downtime), and a hidden lair. Since we've already established that the lair is a small, abandoned house, I'll say that this upgrade means not only is the house pretty well visually established as abandoned, but there's actually a hidden basement level to the house that's the crew's true hideout. Perhaps the crew have done well at hiding a trap door to an innocuous cellar they've converted for their purposes, or the house was used in some sort of criminal enterprise in a previous life, and this crew has inherited its usefulness.

Then, we get two pick two further upgrades. There are lots to choose from here, some of which have sub-choices available: a Boat House, a Carriage House, a Cohort (single or group of useful NPCs), Quality Upgrade, Quarters, Secure Lair, Training (other than Prowess, which we've already got), a Vault and a Workshop. As infiltration experts who know how important security is, it seems like a no brainer for this particular crew to use their an upgrade to Secure their lair. As an abandoned house, it also seems like it naturally comes with Quarters, and this upgrade speaks to the earlier fun of pressing these criminals into a pseudo-domestic setup. I'm guessing this particular crew will be working toward a Vault for their treasures, seeing as they're very versed in how valuables get swiped.

And we're at the last stop: the crew also gets a favourite contact, an NPC contact who is useful to the group. For Shadows, those options include: Dowler, an explorer; Laroze, a bluecoat; Amancio, a deal broker; Fitz, a collector; Adelaide Phroaig, a noble; and Rigney, a tavern owner. For this crew and their interests, having a collector as a partner-in-crime is a fun source of jobs, as someone who can slip them names and details of potential marks.

Normally, the crew would also learn that their choice of favorite contact would impact their relationships with two factions, one positively and one negatively. While I'm happy to simulate the rest of my crew in selecting upgrades, I don't also need to take on the role of the GM, so I'll let those remain unselected. That said, using a collector as a criminal contact would easily catch negative attention from groups like The Hive (a merchant's guild who trade in contraband, likely targets for this crew) and the Inspectors (the criminal investigators in Doskvol), so I imagine the GM would probably point one of these two factions at us like a loaded gun.

And so, that's character creation! Coming out of that, we have our Markus - a seductive bruiser of a criminal who can achieve great and brutal things in a pinch - and our crew of sneaky burglars who prey on the merchant class.

THE CHARACTER

Markus Svoloch grew up the youngest of eight in a chaotic Skovlander family, always underfoot and often the target of bullying from his older siblings - and, honestly, from his overworked and exhausted parents. For some families, being pressed together too many to a small space pulls them closer; not so much for Markus' family, who resented being crammed together, fighting for every bite to eat and inch of breathing room. Twitchy and restless, Markus took to spending as much time away from home as possible: wandering the Skovlan tundra with whatever friends he could scrape together, or - as he got older - seducing his way into spending the night in warmer homes with a little more room to breathe. He became good at manipulating people, seeing them as avenues to get what he wanted rather than genuine connections. He got into plenty of fights without any backup and had to become really good at facing overwhelming odds to survive the messes he got himself into. In the meantime, his family got used to not knowing where he was, and by the time he was in his mid- to late-teens, Markus was barely a member of the family at all. When the chance came to escape Skovlan for the 'big city' of Doskvol, Markus jumped at it, and took special pleasure in imagining the looks on his older siblings' faces if they knew he was happily moving to Imperial territory. Imagining, of course, because he never bothered to tell them.

Starting from nothing in Doskvol didn't phase Markus, who was used to surviving off scraps and his wits. Picking up work as a laborer while sleeping at Morlan's Rough House, he supplemented his scant labor pay with pit fighting and occasional sex work, taking some pride in being able to take lonely people from the ledge of desperation to feeling human again. Sleeping on his own cot in Morlan's, he knew he'd already found a better life than the one he'd come from, and was ready to do whatever it took to keep it up.

The hard labor kept him lean and strong; the sex work kept his social skills sharp. He returned to old habits, spending his spare coins to clean himself up and linger at bars and gambling houses, going home with merchants and swiping trinkets to sell on his way out. Occasionally, he got caught pocketing the silver and had to brawl his way out of a bad situation. One mark-slash-lover gave him a silver bracelet as a gift; while Markus sold everything else he received from his dalliances, he held onto this one, and fellow criminals started nicknaming him Silver. The name stuck.

A few years later, Silver has mostly transitioned to crime full-time, oftentimes seducing his way into a place to case it, then returning with a crew when the mark is out of town to empty it out. Shaved head, red Skovlander beard, with thick arms and bright eyes. Prone to pairing a sleeveless hoodie, laborer's trousers and steel-toed boots with a handful of flashy rings, a single silver earring and his trademark bracelet. He's part of a crew now, living together in a ramshackle wreck of an abandoned house in Six Towers; he's got his own bedroom, maybe for the first time in his life, and some people who he can almost trust to have his back. He doesn't mind being part of a crew, and likes not being the leader. It means he can do what he's good at, and enjoy it, without having to worry about everybody else.

At his heart he's still a little bit of a lone wolf, and bristles at any attempts toward real intimacy. Maybe someday someone will see Silver at his most vulnerable, but they'll have to use a pretty big hammer crack through that hard shell; no-one's managed it yet, and Silver's deeply invested in keeping things that way. Clever, confident, and ready to use every part of himself as a weapon, Silver's a dangerous enemy... but probably a more dangerous friend.

AMONG THE MARKUSES

This section is a little indulgence, because I love the idea of parallel universe versions of a person - or a character - coming face to face and dealing with how different they are. While the Markuses developed for this project aren't explicitly multiverse versions of the same man, I feel like the shared archetype makes this a fun little thought experiment.

Markus "Silver" Svoloch meets Markus Vulneras (D&D 5e): The seductive, manipulative burglar meets the steady, impulsive bounty hunter. I think these two would actually get along pretty well, as long as Vulneras wasn't hunting Silver... and honestly, given Silver's predilection for trying to seduce his way out of trouble, they might even have a fun night together before Vulneras decides whether to drag Silver in for the bounty. They're both ambitious strivers in the criminal world with complicated family backgrounds; Silver would chuckle at how Vulneras lets his family keep dragging him into trouble, while Vulneras would see Silver's shrugging off of his family with equal parts envy and scorn. I could absolutely see these two having a weird night of drinks and sex and conversation before brawling over the inevitable bounty on Silver's head. In the end, though, Vulneras is more earnest and Silver's got a cold streak and a willingness to do what it takes to survive; if Vulneras pushed his luck on collecting the bounty, it might not end well for him.

THE SYSTEM

This is a spot for me to discuss what this process has taught me about the system of the game, including the assumptions it makes that shape the character, and the opportunities for building out the character inherent in the process. I'll can also use this space to draw contrast between this system and previously covered ones - in this case, our only point of comparison being D&D 5e (2014).

To start, I’ll take a look at how we were able to honor – or not – the points from our archetype:

Gay or bi male: Much like D&D 5e, mechanically the game doesn't hugely care about the character's sex or sexuality, and doesn't particularly support or get in the way of this element of the archetype. That said, the game does have a little more sensuality to it than D&D 5e, with pleasure presented as as one of the available vices and Sway feeling a bit more ambiguous than D&D 5e's more straightforward Persuasion/Deception skills.

An outsider with no desire to belong, except maybe to a tight crew or family: The game is built around a crew structure, even having specific crew upgrades and a joint crew character sheet, so this feels pretty strongly supported. The characters having separate downtime and vices also feel like it supports the idea of lone wolves working together but retaining their individual desires.

Beefy and charismatic bruiser with a chip on his shoulder: The Cutter playbook supports this element of the archetype well, and being able to select any ability dots for your additional dots allows the freedom to lean into a second character trait, like we did here with Sway. Also, these dots aren't reliant on ability scores like D&D 5e, so there's no need to spend crucial resources on beefing up your charisma stat; a dot in a stat is just as good for a Cutter as a Slide or a Lurk. That said, I did need to choose between Cutter (bruiser) and Slide (charismatic/seductive); there are definitely Slide special abilities that would have felt very appropriate to Silver's character, if I'd been able to 'multiclass' D&D-style.

Expects the world to be hard and is determined to be harder: The Stress mechanics of Blades in the Dark feel primed for this sort of character: being able to push themselves beyond their limits to accomplish more, or take stress to resist the consequences of a bad roll, literally pits their toughness and resilience against the cruelty of the world, in this case, the bad luck of a low roll.

Beyond that, the Cutter playbook's special abilities feel really useful on this front. Not to be Trifled With feels perfect for a character who will push themselves to fight the entire world if needed. Beyond that, special abilities like Savage and Battle Born also feel like they enable that sort of stubborn resilience in the face of terrible odds.

Likes to talk himself into problems and fight his way out of them: This element of the archetype really tests whether a system allows a character to chase two different strengths in the same build; in Markus' case, charisma and strength. Blades in the Dark really allows characters to have multiple strengths, since its abilities are about how a character tackles a problem rather than hard-and-fast ability scores determining their proficiency. Also, having the playbooks grant experience based on the decisions players make as the character feels really valuable for making characters' methods feel meaningful; Cutters get xp from 'addressing a challenge with violence or coercion', perfect for a character who puts himself in the position of having to fight his way out of problems he's engineered.

Not keen on making friends, but intensely protective of the ones who get past his guard: I talked a little bit about how the game lets PCs feel like they have their own vices and interests, but there are some mechanics in Blades in the Dark that feel potent on the 'protective' arm of the archetype. The main one is literally the Protect mechanic, where a PC can literally step in to take the consequence for a teammate. Beyond that, the suite of Teamwork actions - Assist (where you can take 1 stress to add a dice to another's roll), Set Up actions (where you can take an action to help the position or effect of your teammates' follow-up actions), and leading a Group Action (where the team can take a coordinated action together, and the leader of the action takes stress for every low roll) - all feel like they line up well with this sort of play.

Has a predilection for solving his problems up close, often with fists or melee weapons: The Cutter class is fairly built for this sort of character, with its emphasis on melee brutality. The game also allows for specific weapons such as daggers, hammers, swords, etc.

Blades in the Dark feels well-suited to this archetype, and the Teamwork abilities and Stress mechanics in particular feel like they unlock interesting nuances to it. The special abilities of the playbooks also feel quite flavorful and like they allow the character to lean into their nature to change the rules of the game a little bit, which feels really good. And I love every element of the Crew structure: giving the Crew an explicit hideout, special abilities, reputation and relationship to other factions really makes the crew feel like a team, in ways D&D 5e doesn't really support mechanically.

There's also, as noted above, a fun nuance in the difference between D&D's abilities (I am strong, I am intelligent, I am wise) vs. Blades in the Dark's actions (I am good at hunting, I am good at surveying, I am good at swaying people). While D&D has their skill proficiencies system that acts like Blades' core actions, those are still dependent on the core ability scores, making D&D characters' skills still heavily reliant on what they are; Blades, meanwhile, leans its skills on how characters like to solve problems. This means that how you do a thing is possibly more open: are you good at hunting because you have sharp perception, because you know intellectually the best method, or because you have relationships that allow you to cast a wide net for information? In D&D 5e, that would relate to your Wisdom, Intelligence and Charisma ability scores, respectively; in Blades, you are good at the skill and it is up to the player to decide why.

THE EXPERIENCE

This is where I talk about how the character creation process feels -- was it fun, did it get me excited about the possibilities or frustrated at the limitations, did it get me daydreaming about playing the TTRPG or dreading it, etc. A totally subjective bit, but possibly for some folks, the most important part.

The character creation for Blades in the Dark feels really simple and easy while still allowing you to make meaningful decisions about your character. Character creation is simpler than D&D, with fewer choices involved - in D&D, classes have subclasses and often, features with options to select from; you're selecting your skill proficiencies, tool proficiencies, and languages; weapons are more involved mechanically in D&D; and that's before getting into the complexity of selecting spells for a spellcaster. Comparatively, a Blades playbook largely has action dice to select and a single special ability to pick; from there, it's about NPC relationships, vices, and then building the Crew with the other players. I can imagine this feeling too simple for some players, especially after the wealth of mechanics available for some D&D classes. I would love to select even one or two more features at the character creation stage, to allow for a little more complexity on the page. But the corollary is, it makes for a really easy, fluid process.

The flow of character creation gives a really gameplay-focused approach: you pick a playbook, determining what your character's main skills and gameplay niche are, and then additional character work such as backstory, vices, NPC relationships, etc. Once the character is formed, then the group works together to build the Crew sheet, including its various shared upgrades. Given the game is pretty structured, this approach makes sense: while Blades can support stretches of free play, it does have an explicit gameplay loop at its heart. However, if your goal is to start with character-first, building a backstory and personality and moving into mechanics from there, you might need to do some things out of order. For me, the Markus archetype is more about who he is than where he came from, so really establishing his present before building out his past felt very natural. It also frontloads the fun, as you're picking the actions you'll be taking and the features you're specializing in, right from the beginning.

One consequence of doing this blog series solo is that my experience of the Crew process is... not exactly how it would be experienced in game. There was no negotiation or finding a middle ground, there was no sense of what different members of the Crew might need most. So I don't think I can speak too intimately to that, except that the very existence of that process and the various features involved definitely got me excited to play the game. Having a hideout, having a Crew with a reputation and inter-faction relationships, even vices and stress relief mechanics feel like really great ways to explore characters and their place in this world.

In the text, there is a philosophy of presenting a lot of examples of how things work in-play, making it easier to understand how individual mechanics work. This makes the game much easier to understand on the page, really key for a table who's never played the game before. This contributed pretty positively to my experience in building a character, because it meant that the mechanics were a lot easier to visualize than otherwise.

Do I feel like I was able to follow my instincts and accomplish what I'd hoped with this character as I went on? Mostly! As I developed Silver, I did find I was craving more opportunities to let him both be a bruiser and a seductor; with characters largely locked to the features of their playbook, that mostly meant giving him an action dot in Sway and hoping for the best. I also did crave a little more choice in the character construction, even just in the form of a second feature. But I do think I could play this character happily with the build I was able to create, even if every element of him won't be as supported on the page from the beginning.

Overall, Blades in the Dark is a flavorful game with a simple but compelling character creation process, enriched by a really cool Crew creation system that places the PCs in the context of the overall setting in interesting ways. I would happily play Markus "Silver" Svoloch with a fun crew any day. Maybe someday I'll get to.

WHAT COMES NEXT

This post officially establishes The Markus Project as a series! Coming up after this, a refresh of #3 – the sensual and haunting Monsterhearts 2 – before we debut this site's first new Markus Project post. A little game called Daggerheart...