Ampersands 🏳️‍🌈

Recently I ran the new edition of Royal Blood for the first time. I only had two players, but that worked out great given our time constraints and that character creation took a good chunk of our playtime; fewer players meant fewer steps to finish off the heist. Our spread had our Royals up against the Magician, an Arcane alchemist who May or May Not Be Known Worldwide as Gwyneth P. Their Infinite Fountain of magical... glop? gunk? guck?... whatever it was, it would be the Prize stolen by the Heir of Swords and Monarch of Cups.

Their heist involved successfully threatening the Magician's special forces inside their own headquarters/wellness product warehouse, gaining their assurance they'd stay out of the way, hacking and learning the security system running the high rise owned by the Magician by breaking into a dive bar used as an alchemical testing ground connected to the same outranet, and procuring a magical key disguised as a bath bomb, but of such unreasonably condensed confidence in itself that no one could lift it, not without several rounds of magical arguments involving platonic idea(l)s and dad jokes before it finally acquiesced to our Royals.

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Apr 4 at 8:15amWeb
Show threadAmpersands 🏳️‍🌈3d ago

They snuck into the Magician's exclusive and magically hidden high rise during an engagement party for the Magician's daughter, fighting past gargoyles, guards, and an army of statues that crumbled out of sheer embarrassment for the Heir of Swords' clumsy attempt at intimidation and coercion. Once they reached the penthouse revelry, the Monarch of Cups deftly sewed relational discontent between the betrothed after discovering the fiancé was the Stranger of Wands, casting doubts that his love was real and not at all based on having an Arcane as a future in-law.

On the roof, after a stand-off with Maybe/Maybe Not Gwyneth, our Royals slipped the bath bomb key into the Infinite Fountain, unattuning it from the Magician and reattuning it to themselves. The Magician dissolved into an inert, ineffective but pleasantly-scented gel. At the end of things, the Royals voted to split their new power, claiming their place in the Major Arcana as the Authors.

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Show threadAmpersands 🏳️‍🌈3d ago

I love love love that the whole framework for this heist was hashed out from a seven card tarot spread where we kept throwing ideas around collectively. I went from "I've no idea what story this is" to having a good outline and set of details to wing it in just half an hour, give or take, probably less than that.

For the sake of finishing on time, we skipped the second phase when the Arcane becomes aware of the Royals moving against them, inverts, and goes after the Royals' Domains. Since we had roughly three hours overall, I don’t regret it, but I can see how playing that phase would reinforce the personal nature and emotional stakes of the heist.

I would have loved to shared a quick intro to the twenty different royals and what they each excel at, similar to the intros for the six F.A.N.G. agents in Eat the Reich. I tried breaking it down via personality/approach (rank) times flavor (suit), but in the end my players asked for some random choices and I dealt three Royals out to each to pick from.

Also I should stress more after character creation that their Facets are not their characters' only magic, and some advice for junk magic during play would be handy.

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