Character, Crew, and World Creation

If you have a Friend and/or Rival from another sheet you would prefer, we can talk about it. It should not make a lot of difference.
If you want to make them from whole cloth, tell us about them and we can try make it work. The lists on the sheet help to differentiate the Playbooks, but should not shackle us.

Alright, sent you the character sheet ! I've picked a Friend from the Cutter's sheet and a Rival from the Spider one, tell me if that works for you.

Should be fine.

Just make sure our Spider did not have conflicting plans for Riven.
Are they still in the army? You can always change the name if Kristov needs that contact (for later).

Where abouts is Halkin's hospital?
Is it from the book or did you create it? Either are fine.

When you are ready, introduce the character in Character Introductions. We can discuss things more there if need be.

Yep, she's still in the army.

Halkin's Hospital is a creation, yes. Basically it's a charity hospital for The Lost, the workers of Coalridge, and their families in general. Obviously, it suffers from a lack of funds, drugs and materials, even if some nobles and rich persons of the city do make some donations from time to time.

Cool.

Once we have determined the Factions interested in your Crew we can start playing.

We still need:
Crew Upgrades: It seems like we have decided on Thief Rigging (which probably is not the one that changes your Faction Status) and need to decide between starting with Underground Maps and Passkeys or Quarters. I have some ideas about a few Factions that may have things to say about either, once the group decides I will give you some options.

We need to know where your Hunting Grounds are located. This choice will affect the Factions.

It looks like we are leaning towards Amancio as the Contact? Is that right? I have ideas about Factions here too.

Factions
If anyone has any ideas about which Factions would change their options about you based on the three choices you make, let us know.

Looking at my notes I see I have jotted down nearly 70 lines of ideas about the 'relevant' Factions as we chatted. :)
One idea that came to me a few times (but is not more formed than I list here) is: Do you want to include a 'Shadowy Cabal, unknown Faction' that is interested (probably negative) in you, in the list? You may have a hard time paying them off during creation, and who they are will only be revealed later (even I don't know yet, but there are contenders:).

Is there anything else we still need to do? Anything I have forgotten? (I will write up a Howto for rolling dice before we start.)

Guys, I love the pictures you've chosen for your characters. Having said this, don't you think Friedrick could be Kristov in 20 years time? ^_^

I'm fine with all the above! :-)

PD: Really eager to get started with this!

OK. Unless someone has something more to say about this we will go with: Thief Rigging and Underground Maps and Passkeys for the Upgrades; and Amancio as the Contact.
Are we happy with Second Story as the Special Ability?
Everyone please confirm and I will start the Faction part.

We need to make a decision about your Hunting Grounds. We need a District and a specific few blocks of the map. If we are having trouble with the map part, we can select a District and then define the exact location based on the first Job. (I will let you choose when you start that Job if it is in your Hunting Grounds or not, we can maybe do this for the first few Jobs till the Hunting Grounds are expanded to the right size.)

If we choose to start with lower-class fair, you can conduct a Long-Term Project to move your Hunting Grounds to a swankier area when you later want to work there.
Long-Term Projects happen during Downtime, and if everyone dedicates themselves to getting one done, even hard ones can be knocked out in a single round of Downtime Activities. If you end up doing this a lot, you could pursue a Project to make the Clocks on the Hunting Grounds changes shorter/easier. No matter what, it would still require a Project, and then a Job to establish yourselves, before the new location came into effect.

This allows us to not stress about where we start, and not try to set a goal for lofty heights before we are even out of the gutter.

You will also have to conduct many Jobs outside your small Hunting Grounds, so don't fixate too much on the small benefit they offer.

Yep, I'm ok with the selected options.
As for the district, I think Chatterhall seems to be adequate middle grounds, but I'm not that knowledgeable about the seeting to be confident enough to select specific blocks, so I guess it's a good idea to define them based on the first Job.

Really? Charterhall? What sort of Jobs do you see your Crew doing there? It is the university and the courts. Does it not seem better to work our way up to doing Jobs against the civic authority after we understand better how the world works? It is still an option, but only if you want to start by doing jobs against such targets... and have ideas.

I can see Brightstone being viable, but that is if we want to jump straight into 'infiltrating the higher orders of society'. As a Tier 0 Crew you would probably need to first do some Jobs gathering resources (swanky clothes, etiquette, gossip and blackmail, etc) on your way there. So the bonuses may not kick in straight away. It might make more sense to start lower and add Turf in a place like this when you feel you are able to blend. If you start stealing from the rich to fuel your outfits for the parties it will add the danger of someone saying "That are my dress! She is wearing my stolen dress!", which could be fun, but could also bring your plans to a screeching halt.

If we are no longer interested in starting in Coalridge --helping the workers-- and working our way up, but want to aim higher from the start we can look through all the districts find a suitable one.

Descriptions of the Districts mentioned:

# Charterhall
Charterhall is the site of the first major construction in the city, in the days before the cataclysm. The old wall upon which was built the first lightning barrier in the Empire still stands in partial ruin around the district. The area is now home to the civic offices of the government including the courts, licensing and taxation offices, banks, and records archives. City officials and students at Charterhall University live here, along with the captains of Imperial industry who prefer to reside within sight of their fortunes.

# Brightstone
Brightstone is home to many of the wealthiest and most influential citizens of Doskvol. Its streets are broad and paved, under bright electric lights; its canals are sparkling and clean, with perfumed water; its houses are all of fine, pale marble blocks, rich timbers, and intricate ironworks. There are cultivated parks fed by radiant energy; lavish restaurants and cafes; jewelers, tailors, and other luxury shops. Street-side vendors are forbidden here, resulting in a serene, spacious atmosphere, punctuated by the occasional carriage or marching Bluecoat patrol.

# Whitecrown
Whitecrown sits atop a grand peak on the island across North Hook channel from the city proper. From this lofty height, the Lord Governor's stronghold oversees all, flanked by the grand estates of the most powerful nobility and the extravagantly appointed campus of Doskvol Academy. Whitecrown is a rich and rarefied world unto itself ---most citizens live out their entire lives in the city without ever once crossing the bridge to the glittering spires of wealth and power there.

Yeah, maybe I've been mistaken here -it doesn't really fit our objectives, as you said-
Am in family vacations now tho, but I'll be back in 2/3 days to give you an answer.

If we can come to a consensus about what our initial objectives are and what sort of jobs we want to be doing at the start, I can make suggestions about a District to start in.

If we could all take some time over these next 2/3 days and read the descriptions of the Districts (if need be, I can post the rest here as I did for the three above) as well as reading through the Opportunities for the Shadows and the other Crew types for ideas.
If you want to suggest one of these example Opportunities as your first Job I can make that happen to get us started.

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# Shadows Opportunities

1 A local art dealer announces an exhibition of rare ancient Iruvian jewelry.
2 The Path of Echoes needs a specific body purloined from the crematorium before it's dissolved tonight.
3 A collector wants to steal an original work of art or industry and replace it with a forgery.
4 A client wants to extract a loved one from their servitude in an indentured work house.
5 A ghost wants you to secure the rest of their precious collection of worldly things.
6 A master assassin has come out of retirement for one more job. Many would pay well to know who their target is.

1 The black sheep of a noble family wants their revenge, and the deed to the ancestral estate is the key.
2 A drug gang wants to obtain the secret formula for their rival's popular new product.
3 Strange artifacts were recovered from the Void Sea. They're held at Bellweather for analysis by the Spirit Wardens.
4 Rumors of war, aren't there always? Plant a damning paper trail in the office of the ambassador.
5 Anti-Imperial agents are passing information while on the trains. Intercept their communiques.
6 A professor in Sparkwright Tower wants their rival's research notes. Make it look like a common burglary.

1 A Bluecoat squad doesn't want to make a very dangerous arrest. Steal the evidence from the Inspector's safe.
2 A damning piece of evidence against a vulnerable crime lord is held in a bank vault until trial.
3 A client seeks the source of altered texts sold to academy students that are driving them to madness and murder.
4 A desperate Inspector needs you to plant evidence to bring down a demon-corrupted Spirit Warden.
5 A circus is in town, featuring strange creatures and mysterious animals. A client would pay well for a new pet.
6 Only one gang member survived their botched job. Can you clean the bloody scene before the authorities arrive?

Hmm... ah, sorry, I had read this description from the "Resources" thread:
... and thought that this was something like a "middle class" neighbourhood and therefore a good starting point for us. But yes, maybe for a Tier 0 Crew it would be better to start from the lowest possible grounds and climb up from there. :)

No worries. I had just copy-pasted the overview section from the book, and it does make it sound a lot more middle-class. I am not sure why they even mention 'hub for shops' in that text, it is misleading based on the longer description. They are more about the regulation of commerce than actual commerce. The university may have small shops, but that does not really count.

I will add the longer descriptions to the wiki, as I did for Coalridge.

Our posts overlapped. :-)

All these opportunities are cool! I think that our Crew would feel more comfortable with something along the lines of retrieveing an item, or some piece of info... rather than murdering someone, for example. Other than that, I am happy with whatever mission you want to surprise us with.

With Play by Post, posts overlap all the time. It is seldom a problem. :)

I have added the facts known about the districts to the wiki. We are gonna need an index soon.

Remember that this only the 'known facts' and a starting-point. The world is ours to shape as we like.
If we want to say a thing exists in a certain area (for instance that middle-class people live in Charterhall, maybe trying to be close to the power there in an effort to move up) and thereby justify our doing certain types of Jobs in that District or area, we are free to do so.

Let's try not to contradict the book, but, if we do, it can be that things have changed (the middle-class moving in) or that the facts 'known' were wrong/lies all along.