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same_differenceSo finally got to run a game of the Mistborn RPG system the weekend before I started writing this back in January (oops!), having spent the preceding couple of months wrangling my players into creating their characters and designed their heist largely in advance.
I have to say I'm really impressed with the system. It works well; handles a wide variety of situations in a straightforward manner; is narrative rather than rulesy but without being woolly; and really captures the feel of both the novels and of classic heist movies.
I also really like how the way dice rules work and as a bonus they mess with my players as the probabilities aren't easily determined in your head. Basically it's a D6 dice pool system, where the aim is to roll a matching set of the numbers 1 to 5, with 6's being special and called Nudges. The result of a roll is the value of the highest matching set, so if you rolled 8 dice and got (1,1,1,3,4,4,5,6) you'd have a result of 4 with a single nudge. Nudges break ties, but can also be spent by the players to either improve a success or mitigate the consequence of a failure.
Rolls get divided into 3 types, Challenges which are simple roll dice get target number affairs, Contests where 2 (or more!)[1] sides roll off against each other and highest result wins (with either sudden death first to win for simple ones, or a first to X wins succeeds for extended ones). Conflicts are then when two sides are trying to injure each other either physically, or by damaging their reputation or destroying their will and are complex but do have a lovely initiative set up where characters declare their actions in order from dumbest to brightest and then actions are performed from the most proficient to the least making being both smart and capable equally important.
In the case of Challenges and Contests the Narrator has an option of either running it as a simple pass/failure or giving a range of outcomes based on the difference between the difficulty and the result, with the Narrator encouraged to use the latter when it makes sense and they can think of some meaningful ranges of success or failure. Excellent positive results can give more details, or set things up to make subsequent challenges easier, where as failures rather than meaning the attempt has failed instead pile on progressively more complications on the following challenges. This is one of the things that really captures the feel of both the books and heist movies generally as circumstances naturally unfold becoming more complex as things go wrong.
Conflicts are fairly short and brutal as well, much more than I realised they would be on first reading. This is primarily because of the burdens mechanic. Take a 1/4 of your current Resilience (Health/Willpower/Reputation) in damage then the attacker gets to give you a Serious burden, granting +1 die to anyone attacking you who exploits it. Take 1/2 of your current health, and it's a Grave Burden and that's now another +2 dice for your opponents. The key phrase their being current health, unless you physically attacking a Thug (or similar), then your looking at an average of 8 Health, with basic armed attacks dealing 2 damages that's the first attack dealing a Serious burden, the next attack now at +1 die dealing another, the third attack is now for half the targets remaining health causing a Grave burden and is at +2 dice, and the fourth kills the target and the attacker gets +4 dice to pull it off with!
Both of these also tie into the other key detail of the system. It's a players decide their plan then the GM messes with it system, not a GM plans a game and then the players happen to it system as is the standard[2]. It's narrative in a static world (as that is what the Lord Ruler has set up the world to be) where things change because the Crew set out to change them, and so the game is designed around making them the drivers of that change. It does this in two ways. The first is it encourages the players to suggest details and flesh out the world, create helpful NPCs, etc, and the Narrator is empowered to confirm or veto this suggestions as they find appropriate. The second it makes the start of each session the players planning their heists. It does this by having them answer each questions to define the session. The questions work through their goal, the 'in' that lets them attempt their plan, their resources, their opponents, their obstacles, their unknowns, the worst case scenarios and the resulting fallout good and bad. Using these they break down the heist into a set of objectives (the key scenes in the heist movie) that they need to complete to pull of the job. That done the Narrator takes their answers and fleshes out each of the objectives, opponents, twists and secrets that will come up in their attempts to pull off their heist. Taking their what might go wrong and deciding what will go wrong, and throwing in a few things they didn't consider in the process. This is where the variable outcomes and particularly the complications that come from failed rolls also come in as the players plans fall apart or go far better than expected and they have to react to the evolving situation.
[1]At one point the Crew had pushed two feuding families into close proximity in the ball to cause a distraction, resulting in a three way extended contest between one of the players trying to escape unnoticed, while the feuding families are trying to escalate the situation, and the officials calm it down. It was really easy to mechanically work through the scene and it came down to a lovely tense moment when all three sides needing only one more win to win the contest overall.
[2] I described it to the players as "You are all the GMs planning a game and I get to be the players that happen to it".
Yeah, so in summary the system works well and really captures the feel of the books.
The crew the newly named 'The Goldblades', consist of a fullblown Allomancer with a tendency to chew nervously named Dantel (Alex)*, a heavily scarred Pewterarm violinist with underground contacts named Scars (Warren), a well connected Skaa restaurant owner named Jan (Cat) and the contracted Kandra RanVeer (Judith). There goal in general is to assist the Terris Synod while causing as many problems for the Steel Ministry as they can in the process.
*I mistyped it as Dental first time, god that would have been an awful pun.
Vorun, their Terris steward contact in House Venture has informed them of a banned book kept in a safe in a study, and the crew decide to liberate it. They work out they have three problems to solve, 1) how to get into the safe, 2) how to get into the house and 3) how to get back out again safely. They break down their plan as follows, find and question the safe maker to see what they can learn about it. That done they'll await Venture's next ball, Jan will get the catering contract, Scars will call in a favour to get a contact to lean on a House Guard to get him a window to sneak in, and after much discussion Dantel will walk in through the front door after Jan secures him an invite. Inside they'll take advantage of an ongoing fued between two local houses (Conrad and Artwar) to create a distraction during the ball, allowing Dantel to sneak off and meet up with Scars when they can open the safe and make a hasty getaway. Jan and RanVeer disguised as a member of staff will leave as normal the following day to ensure their cover is maintained.
The crew spring into action with Dantel attempting to scout out the guard movements of House Venture, only to alert them to their presence and end up having a quick chase with their Mistborn. The following day Scars and RanVeer as Veer go to pay a visit to the safe maker, only to find the surrounding street unusually quiet and a general aura of being scarce filling the area. They return recruit Dantel and go reinvestigate. They discover that another crew who mostly work the canal dock area (The Canal boys) are currently working over the safe maker inside, of course about the time Dantel's tin enhanced senses pick this up the Tineye inside has clocked him moving on the roof and warns the others. Dantel makes a dramatic entrance through the top floor window to tackle the Thug that's come up to investigate, while Scars barrels in through the front door, RanVeer at his heels ready to attempt a rescue. Upstairs Dantel discovers it takes more than a single coin to take down a Thug, and burns pewter to flip back outside out of the Thugs grasp; downstairs the Tineye lurking behind the door dagger in hand, meets the wrong end of Scar's short staff as the pewter enhanced blow sends his broken body flying through the air into the legs of the second Thug whose in the process of attempting to make off with their safemaker and the chair he's tied to. RanVeer rushes through and tries the exposed skull trick to distract him, but the second Thug seems unfazed. Upstairs the Thug realising the Coinshot he's fighting is an Allomancer turns to run, while Scars charges forward and shatters the second Thugs leg with a hefty blow. Focussed on healing the Thug is no match for Scars boots which finishes him off in short order. Dantel Pushes himself over the building missed the Thug in mid jump with an attempting coin through the knee and resorts to crushing the Thugs mind with a flare of Bronze as he drops by the hole the Thug made in the building opposite as he landed. The now comatose Thug is soon dealt with and the three GoldBlades turn to the unconscious and apparently pewter burning safe maker. It takes a mixture of persuasion and emotional allomancy from Dantel, but after a time the safe keeper is pridefully spilling the beans into the emergency release for his hand carved and crafted solid stone safe vaults. Useless without a pewter arm and knowing exactly where to hit, though a full Mistborn with tin enhanced hearing could locate in a pinch.
Meanwhile Jan had been busy and successful discovering why houses Conrad and Artwar have fallen out, and some useful dirty laundry to boot. It appears that the two houses had been planning an alliance through marriage until Artwar suddenly backed out of the deal; largely because of House Venture applying a lot of pressure. Tempers between the two sides are still running hot and their boat men frequently block each other at docks and interfere with each other on the canals. Now Jan had found out one further detail, the head of House Conrad had a predilection for young skaa boys, something that became very important later.
Regrouping the Gold Blades work out how best to use this information. Of the dead Canal Boy Thugs, the least damaged corpse is employed by RanVeer to gain her a new outfit, one the crew decide can be used to give themselves a bit of cover when Scars gets in touch with his contact, and which they can also use to give House Venture something to focus on once they've pulled off their heist. So Scars and RanVeer as the Thug head off to meet with Scars contact, Ran Veer somewhat nervous that they'll see through her disguise if any problems kick off as there's a big difference between wearing a Thug and being a Thug. Negotiations don't go particularly well at first, but Scars eventually persuades his contact that the Canal Boys really need an in into the compound, and gets promised that a single guard will miss a section of his patrol. It won't be a big gap, but certainly one clever and quick on his feet could make use of. Meanwhile Jan introduces Dantel to some nobles who like to think them somewhat as rebels. With the help of some alcohol they quickly take to the idea of bringing their new friend Dantel with them to the big Venture ball to help liven up the party somewhat.
Some time is spent with RanVeer using the Thug's bones to obviously scout out the compound from a barge. Something which gets all the right kind of attention. With Scars and Dantel playing back up she's never in any real danger, but the crew doesn't push their luck. Jan in the meantime sources an appropriate body of a ten year old boy, giving RanVeer all the time she needs to prepare for the role.
Come the day of the ball the crew arrive to see the house in full preparation for the evenings event, Jan goes through the servants entrance with her staff and her new young male apprentice, meanwhile Scars is watching and waiting for his moment and Dantel is beginning his preparations. As they enter they see Skaa workers suspended from ropes cleaning the various stain glass windows. One slips and falls, ended up being hung from the line he was suspended by. The guards are largely ambivalent, but it gives the paid off man a chance to leave an opening for Scars who quickly bolts in and secrets himself in the wine cellar. Jan and RanVeer continue their preparations carefully ensuring Scars hiding place isn't discovered.
Before too long the ball has started but Dantel is yet to be seen. Jan goes up to scope out the ball while RanVeer helps Scar slip through the servants corridors and into the bedrooms between staff movements. What Jan sees is a carefully orchestrated arrangement where Conrad and Artwar are kept at opposite ends of the ball room with a constant flow of Venture maintaining the no mans land between them. Dantel arrives late and already somewhat inebriated with his new founds friends, but not so drunk he doesn't immediately notice the copper clouds blanketing the ball. Everyone busy keeping their own secrets and making their own manipulations. RanVeer having got Scars safely into position finds herself face to face with a Steel Ministry Novice demanding to inspect the wines before Obligator Slowswift makes his grand entrance into the ball and is introduced to the nobles of Urteau. Jan has managed to take a quiet moment to suggest to Dantel he persuade his new friends how getting Artwar and Conrad together could make for some excellent entertainment before being grabbed by RanVeer and hurrying down to meet the Novice. The Novice is full of bluster and pretty good at slight of hand, but not as good as RanVeer's blessing enhanced senses, and she sees him spike the bottles of wine as he inspects them. Some careful manoeuvring later and Jan managed to let slip to Dantel that the wines being spiked, but with what and for what reason she doesn't know. In the mean time Dantel has persuaded his new friends that they need to get a dance going where with some careful manoeuvring and partner swapping they'll get Conrad and Artwar face to face on the floor.
The spiked wine is given out and Dantel takes a small sip before being surprised to discover that the novice has spiked the wine with atium, the tinest sliver of a sliver but he can feel it in his belly. He's given no time to consider this before the doors burst open as in walks Obligator Slowswift flanked by four others each marked with the red line that indicates they are bronze burning Seekers, and the Obligator loudly proclaims "There is a traitor among you and I intend to find him". Jan and RanVeer are shocked, Dantel has a split second decision as he realises the copper burners providing the general coverage have stopped as he picks up on the zinc and brass pulses from throughout the room. He can keep burning copper and burn bronze to learn what he can, but be an obvious null spot in the room, or stop burning everything and be allomantically blind. He stops burning. A heartbeat later the Obligator laughs and says "Just a little Steel Ministry humour" and the party returns to a somewhat more nervous full swing, while the Seekers head purposely towards a couple of different people in the room. Scars quietly hidden away has no idea what's going on.
The Obligator's little distraction at an end Dantel puts his plan into action while RanVeer begins to work herself subtly towards the head of House Conrad. It doesn't take long before a young man of Conrad and a woman of Artwar find themselves face to face. The reaction is instantaneous made all the worse by RanVeer as a ten year old boy within reach of the head of House Conrad. Recriminations and insults fly, as both Houses are eager to vent their dislike, while the Steel Ministry and Venture move into action to try and calm things down. Dantel's escape plan is somewhat complicated as he finds himself in the centre of the room with a mass of people to quietly edge through before he can make a runner. The initiative of the moment flows between the three sides until it seems that the calming influence might finally be getting control, and Dantel still very much present at the ball, until a ten year old boy, finding himself surrounded by angry men, backs fearfully up against the old man behind him, then bends down to pick up the serving tray he's dropped. RanVeer's final gambit works too well as Artwar are quick to take advantage of the scene, and the heads of both Houses demand a duel immediately to be witnessed by the Obligators present, one that Venture insists happens out front of the house. Seizing his moment Dantel escapes and heads to meet Scars who's been waiting in a cupboard in case someone discovers him. Jan and RanVeer find themselves hurried out front to watch the duel and the Obligators make it painfully clear to Jan that this little boy had better never be seen out in Urteau again.
While the two old men duel, Scars and Dantel get to work. Finding the study locked and wanting to keep their presence unnoticed they use their pewter enhanced strength to lift the study doors off their hinges, before quietly slotting them back into place unlatched. Inside they soon discover the safe hidden behind a book case, and a few tense minutes work later Dantel has the safe open and the lock irrevocably broken inside the door. What they see is not entirely what they were expecting. There are some atium vials, a strange engraved metal sheet, and some assorted maps of Urteau and other papers with different markings on them. Not wanting to bring down too much wrath Dantel grabs a single vial of Atium while Scars makes a rubbing of the metal sheet and grabs the maps and papers.
Outside the duel comes to a close with Artwar stabbing Conrad in the gut leaving him to bleed out on the lawn, and the guests begin to make an early departure and the servants Jan and her staff included are ordered to head into the servant quarters while the Obligators attempt to unpick the mess. Inside Scars and Dantel split up with Dantel making a just obvious enough exit through the windows at one end of the building and Scars head through the bedrooms and the windows of the other, disturbing a couple mid relations in the process and earning himself screams from the woman and an angry naked man trying to chase him down. Dantel having launching himself through the window burning Atium, looks up to see the Venture mistborn waiting on the roof, and a coin heading for his groin in what seems a particularly painful disabling attack. Avoiding the coin is no challenge thanks to his Atium vision, and a return volley catches the mistborn causing them to duck for cover. Dantel flees but isn't chased and soon realises he's the only one with Atium this evening.
The next day Jan with no sign of the ten year old boy from the night before leaves undisturbed, with House Venture putting it's people into action to keep news of the break in quiet.
The Gold Blades back in their safe house take stock. They've successfully robbed the most important house in the city right under the new local head Obligators nose. For their troubles they've come away with a treatise talking about a new metal called Nicrosil, some papers showing details of new mines Venture have recently opened, some maps showing that Venture knew both the areas of influence for most of the other crews in the city, and an old map showing Skaa brothels that Venture cleared out after finding them to be being used by House Demouse to breed mistings, brothels including the one Jan was raised as a child. The one Steel Inquisitors burned down when she was 9 years old. Of course to get this information they've tangled with and set up another thieving crew who aren't afraid to use strong arm tactics, started a house war within the city, and of course targeted the most powerful family in the Northern Dominance. What could possibly go wrong as a consequence of that.
In summary the crew pulled off their first heist pretty successfully, and have found themselves with a whole new set of opportunities and problems of their own devising.
I have to say I'm really impressed with the system. It works well; handles a wide variety of situations in a straightforward manner; is narrative rather than rulesy but without being woolly; and really captures the feel of both the novels and of classic heist movies.
I also really like how the way dice rules work and as a bonus they mess with my players as the probabilities aren't easily determined in your head. Basically it's a D6 dice pool system, where the aim is to roll a matching set of the numbers 1 to 5, with 6's being special and called Nudges. The result of a roll is the value of the highest matching set, so if you rolled 8 dice and got (1,1,1,3,4,4,5,6) you'd have a result of 4 with a single nudge. Nudges break ties, but can also be spent by the players to either improve a success or mitigate the consequence of a failure.
Rolls get divided into 3 types, Challenges which are simple roll dice get target number affairs, Contests where 2 (or more!)[1] sides roll off against each other and highest result wins (with either sudden death first to win for simple ones, or a first to X wins succeeds for extended ones). Conflicts are then when two sides are trying to injure each other either physically, or by damaging their reputation or destroying their will and are complex but do have a lovely initiative set up where characters declare their actions in order from dumbest to brightest and then actions are performed from the most proficient to the least making being both smart and capable equally important.
In the case of Challenges and Contests the Narrator has an option of either running it as a simple pass/failure or giving a range of outcomes based on the difference between the difficulty and the result, with the Narrator encouraged to use the latter when it makes sense and they can think of some meaningful ranges of success or failure. Excellent positive results can give more details, or set things up to make subsequent challenges easier, where as failures rather than meaning the attempt has failed instead pile on progressively more complications on the following challenges. This is one of the things that really captures the feel of both the books and heist movies generally as circumstances naturally unfold becoming more complex as things go wrong.
Conflicts are fairly short and brutal as well, much more than I realised they would be on first reading. This is primarily because of the burdens mechanic. Take a 1/4 of your current Resilience (Health/Willpower/Reputation) in damage then the attacker gets to give you a Serious burden, granting +1 die to anyone attacking you who exploits it. Take 1/2 of your current health, and it's a Grave Burden and that's now another +2 dice for your opponents. The key phrase their being current health, unless you physically attacking a Thug (or similar), then your looking at an average of 8 Health, with basic armed attacks dealing 2 damages that's the first attack dealing a Serious burden, the next attack now at +1 die dealing another, the third attack is now for half the targets remaining health causing a Grave burden and is at +2 dice, and the fourth kills the target and the attacker gets +4 dice to pull it off with!
Both of these also tie into the other key detail of the system. It's a players decide their plan then the GM messes with it system, not a GM plans a game and then the players happen to it system as is the standard[2]. It's narrative in a static world (as that is what the Lord Ruler has set up the world to be) where things change because the Crew set out to change them, and so the game is designed around making them the drivers of that change. It does this in two ways. The first is it encourages the players to suggest details and flesh out the world, create helpful NPCs, etc, and the Narrator is empowered to confirm or veto this suggestions as they find appropriate. The second it makes the start of each session the players planning their heists. It does this by having them answer each questions to define the session. The questions work through their goal, the 'in' that lets them attempt their plan, their resources, their opponents, their obstacles, their unknowns, the worst case scenarios and the resulting fallout good and bad. Using these they break down the heist into a set of objectives (the key scenes in the heist movie) that they need to complete to pull of the job. That done the Narrator takes their answers and fleshes out each of the objectives, opponents, twists and secrets that will come up in their attempts to pull off their heist. Taking their what might go wrong and deciding what will go wrong, and throwing in a few things they didn't consider in the process. This is where the variable outcomes and particularly the complications that come from failed rolls also come in as the players plans fall apart or go far better than expected and they have to react to the evolving situation.
[1]At one point the Crew had pushed two feuding families into close proximity in the ball to cause a distraction, resulting in a three way extended contest between one of the players trying to escape unnoticed, while the feuding families are trying to escalate the situation, and the officials calm it down. It was really easy to mechanically work through the scene and it came down to a lovely tense moment when all three sides needing only one more win to win the contest overall.
[2] I described it to the players as "You are all the GMs planning a game and I get to be the players that happen to it".
Yeah, so in summary the system works well and really captures the feel of the books.
The crew the newly named 'The Goldblades', consist of a fullblown Allomancer with a tendency to chew nervously named Dantel (Alex)*, a heavily scarred Pewterarm violinist with underground contacts named Scars (Warren), a well connected Skaa restaurant owner named Jan (Cat) and the contracted Kandra RanVeer (Judith). There goal in general is to assist the Terris Synod while causing as many problems for the Steel Ministry as they can in the process.
*I mistyped it as Dental first time, god that would have been an awful pun.
Vorun, their Terris steward contact in House Venture has informed them of a banned book kept in a safe in a study, and the crew decide to liberate it. They work out they have three problems to solve, 1) how to get into the safe, 2) how to get into the house and 3) how to get back out again safely. They break down their plan as follows, find and question the safe maker to see what they can learn about it. That done they'll await Venture's next ball, Jan will get the catering contract, Scars will call in a favour to get a contact to lean on a House Guard to get him a window to sneak in, and after much discussion Dantel will walk in through the front door after Jan secures him an invite. Inside they'll take advantage of an ongoing fued between two local houses (Conrad and Artwar) to create a distraction during the ball, allowing Dantel to sneak off and meet up with Scars when they can open the safe and make a hasty getaway. Jan and RanVeer disguised as a member of staff will leave as normal the following day to ensure their cover is maintained.
The crew spring into action with Dantel attempting to scout out the guard movements of House Venture, only to alert them to their presence and end up having a quick chase with their Mistborn. The following day Scars and RanVeer as Veer go to pay a visit to the safe maker, only to find the surrounding street unusually quiet and a general aura of being scarce filling the area. They return recruit Dantel and go reinvestigate. They discover that another crew who mostly work the canal dock area (The Canal boys) are currently working over the safe maker inside, of course about the time Dantel's tin enhanced senses pick this up the Tineye inside has clocked him moving on the roof and warns the others. Dantel makes a dramatic entrance through the top floor window to tackle the Thug that's come up to investigate, while Scars barrels in through the front door, RanVeer at his heels ready to attempt a rescue. Upstairs Dantel discovers it takes more than a single coin to take down a Thug, and burns pewter to flip back outside out of the Thugs grasp; downstairs the Tineye lurking behind the door dagger in hand, meets the wrong end of Scar's short staff as the pewter enhanced blow sends his broken body flying through the air into the legs of the second Thug whose in the process of attempting to make off with their safemaker and the chair he's tied to. RanVeer rushes through and tries the exposed skull trick to distract him, but the second Thug seems unfazed. Upstairs the Thug realising the Coinshot he's fighting is an Allomancer turns to run, while Scars charges forward and shatters the second Thugs leg with a hefty blow. Focussed on healing the Thug is no match for Scars boots which finishes him off in short order. Dantel Pushes himself over the building missed the Thug in mid jump with an attempting coin through the knee and resorts to crushing the Thugs mind with a flare of Bronze as he drops by the hole the Thug made in the building opposite as he landed. The now comatose Thug is soon dealt with and the three GoldBlades turn to the unconscious and apparently pewter burning safe maker. It takes a mixture of persuasion and emotional allomancy from Dantel, but after a time the safe keeper is pridefully spilling the beans into the emergency release for his hand carved and crafted solid stone safe vaults. Useless without a pewter arm and knowing exactly where to hit, though a full Mistborn with tin enhanced hearing could locate in a pinch.
Meanwhile Jan had been busy and successful discovering why houses Conrad and Artwar have fallen out, and some useful dirty laundry to boot. It appears that the two houses had been planning an alliance through marriage until Artwar suddenly backed out of the deal; largely because of House Venture applying a lot of pressure. Tempers between the two sides are still running hot and their boat men frequently block each other at docks and interfere with each other on the canals. Now Jan had found out one further detail, the head of House Conrad had a predilection for young skaa boys, something that became very important later.
Regrouping the Gold Blades work out how best to use this information. Of the dead Canal Boy Thugs, the least damaged corpse is employed by RanVeer to gain her a new outfit, one the crew decide can be used to give themselves a bit of cover when Scars gets in touch with his contact, and which they can also use to give House Venture something to focus on once they've pulled off their heist. So Scars and RanVeer as the Thug head off to meet with Scars contact, Ran Veer somewhat nervous that they'll see through her disguise if any problems kick off as there's a big difference between wearing a Thug and being a Thug. Negotiations don't go particularly well at first, but Scars eventually persuades his contact that the Canal Boys really need an in into the compound, and gets promised that a single guard will miss a section of his patrol. It won't be a big gap, but certainly one clever and quick on his feet could make use of. Meanwhile Jan introduces Dantel to some nobles who like to think them somewhat as rebels. With the help of some alcohol they quickly take to the idea of bringing their new friend Dantel with them to the big Venture ball to help liven up the party somewhat.
Some time is spent with RanVeer using the Thug's bones to obviously scout out the compound from a barge. Something which gets all the right kind of attention. With Scars and Dantel playing back up she's never in any real danger, but the crew doesn't push their luck. Jan in the meantime sources an appropriate body of a ten year old boy, giving RanVeer all the time she needs to prepare for the role.
Come the day of the ball the crew arrive to see the house in full preparation for the evenings event, Jan goes through the servants entrance with her staff and her new young male apprentice, meanwhile Scars is watching and waiting for his moment and Dantel is beginning his preparations. As they enter they see Skaa workers suspended from ropes cleaning the various stain glass windows. One slips and falls, ended up being hung from the line he was suspended by. The guards are largely ambivalent, but it gives the paid off man a chance to leave an opening for Scars who quickly bolts in and secrets himself in the wine cellar. Jan and RanVeer continue their preparations carefully ensuring Scars hiding place isn't discovered.
Before too long the ball has started but Dantel is yet to be seen. Jan goes up to scope out the ball while RanVeer helps Scar slip through the servants corridors and into the bedrooms between staff movements. What Jan sees is a carefully orchestrated arrangement where Conrad and Artwar are kept at opposite ends of the ball room with a constant flow of Venture maintaining the no mans land between them. Dantel arrives late and already somewhat inebriated with his new founds friends, but not so drunk he doesn't immediately notice the copper clouds blanketing the ball. Everyone busy keeping their own secrets and making their own manipulations. RanVeer having got Scars safely into position finds herself face to face with a Steel Ministry Novice demanding to inspect the wines before Obligator Slowswift makes his grand entrance into the ball and is introduced to the nobles of Urteau. Jan has managed to take a quiet moment to suggest to Dantel he persuade his new friends how getting Artwar and Conrad together could make for some excellent entertainment before being grabbed by RanVeer and hurrying down to meet the Novice. The Novice is full of bluster and pretty good at slight of hand, but not as good as RanVeer's blessing enhanced senses, and she sees him spike the bottles of wine as he inspects them. Some careful manoeuvring later and Jan managed to let slip to Dantel that the wines being spiked, but with what and for what reason she doesn't know. In the mean time Dantel has persuaded his new friends that they need to get a dance going where with some careful manoeuvring and partner swapping they'll get Conrad and Artwar face to face on the floor.
The spiked wine is given out and Dantel takes a small sip before being surprised to discover that the novice has spiked the wine with atium, the tinest sliver of a sliver but he can feel it in his belly. He's given no time to consider this before the doors burst open as in walks Obligator Slowswift flanked by four others each marked with the red line that indicates they are bronze burning Seekers, and the Obligator loudly proclaims "There is a traitor among you and I intend to find him". Jan and RanVeer are shocked, Dantel has a split second decision as he realises the copper burners providing the general coverage have stopped as he picks up on the zinc and brass pulses from throughout the room. He can keep burning copper and burn bronze to learn what he can, but be an obvious null spot in the room, or stop burning everything and be allomantically blind. He stops burning. A heartbeat later the Obligator laughs and says "Just a little Steel Ministry humour" and the party returns to a somewhat more nervous full swing, while the Seekers head purposely towards a couple of different people in the room. Scars quietly hidden away has no idea what's going on.
The Obligator's little distraction at an end Dantel puts his plan into action while RanVeer begins to work herself subtly towards the head of House Conrad. It doesn't take long before a young man of Conrad and a woman of Artwar find themselves face to face. The reaction is instantaneous made all the worse by RanVeer as a ten year old boy within reach of the head of House Conrad. Recriminations and insults fly, as both Houses are eager to vent their dislike, while the Steel Ministry and Venture move into action to try and calm things down. Dantel's escape plan is somewhat complicated as he finds himself in the centre of the room with a mass of people to quietly edge through before he can make a runner. The initiative of the moment flows between the three sides until it seems that the calming influence might finally be getting control, and Dantel still very much present at the ball, until a ten year old boy, finding himself surrounded by angry men, backs fearfully up against the old man behind him, then bends down to pick up the serving tray he's dropped. RanVeer's final gambit works too well as Artwar are quick to take advantage of the scene, and the heads of both Houses demand a duel immediately to be witnessed by the Obligators present, one that Venture insists happens out front of the house. Seizing his moment Dantel escapes and heads to meet Scars who's been waiting in a cupboard in case someone discovers him. Jan and RanVeer find themselves hurried out front to watch the duel and the Obligators make it painfully clear to Jan that this little boy had better never be seen out in Urteau again.
While the two old men duel, Scars and Dantel get to work. Finding the study locked and wanting to keep their presence unnoticed they use their pewter enhanced strength to lift the study doors off their hinges, before quietly slotting them back into place unlatched. Inside they soon discover the safe hidden behind a book case, and a few tense minutes work later Dantel has the safe open and the lock irrevocably broken inside the door. What they see is not entirely what they were expecting. There are some atium vials, a strange engraved metal sheet, and some assorted maps of Urteau and other papers with different markings on them. Not wanting to bring down too much wrath Dantel grabs a single vial of Atium while Scars makes a rubbing of the metal sheet and grabs the maps and papers.
Outside the duel comes to a close with Artwar stabbing Conrad in the gut leaving him to bleed out on the lawn, and the guests begin to make an early departure and the servants Jan and her staff included are ordered to head into the servant quarters while the Obligators attempt to unpick the mess. Inside Scars and Dantel split up with Dantel making a just obvious enough exit through the windows at one end of the building and Scars head through the bedrooms and the windows of the other, disturbing a couple mid relations in the process and earning himself screams from the woman and an angry naked man trying to chase him down. Dantel having launching himself through the window burning Atium, looks up to see the Venture mistborn waiting on the roof, and a coin heading for his groin in what seems a particularly painful disabling attack. Avoiding the coin is no challenge thanks to his Atium vision, and a return volley catches the mistborn causing them to duck for cover. Dantel flees but isn't chased and soon realises he's the only one with Atium this evening.
The next day Jan with no sign of the ten year old boy from the night before leaves undisturbed, with House Venture putting it's people into action to keep news of the break in quiet.
The Gold Blades back in their safe house take stock. They've successfully robbed the most important house in the city right under the new local head Obligators nose. For their troubles they've come away with a treatise talking about a new metal called Nicrosil, some papers showing details of new mines Venture have recently opened, some maps showing that Venture knew both the areas of influence for most of the other crews in the city, and an old map showing Skaa brothels that Venture cleared out after finding them to be being used by House Demouse to breed mistings, brothels including the one Jan was raised as a child. The one Steel Inquisitors burned down when she was 9 years old. Of course to get this information they've tangled with and set up another thieving crew who aren't afraid to use strong arm tactics, started a house war within the city, and of course targeted the most powerful family in the Northern Dominance. What could possibly go wrong as a consequence of that.
In summary the crew pulled off their first heist pretty successfully, and have found themselves with a whole new set of opportunities and problems of their own devising.
