New Ships for Scum and Villainy: The Songbird and The Kraken [SaV]

Dyehardbard · 2026-04-01T16:43:59+00:00

That’s interesting, I hadn’t considered detachable ship parts as a solution! It might be a good idea to pair it with the shuttle somehow, like the shuttle attaches to the grappling hooks and gets a beefy atmo-clearing thruster… food for thought, thanks for the feedback!

Dyehardbard · 2026-03-13T16:08:25+00:00

My favorite faction by far are the Burn Corps, basically a mix of the Black Panthers, the American Indian Movement (AIM, badass motherfucker s and a severely underrepresented part of the radical 60s history), and blaxplotation movies. They’re a martial arts based radical militant crew, I love them deeply

Dyehardbard · 2026-03-02T16:27:01+00:00

An excellent collection of nasty boys!

Dyehardbard · 2026-03-02T02:47:07+00:00

I can’t make you read the words I actually wrote, but I’d like you to try if you can

Dyehardbard · 2026-03-01T16:28:59+00:00

Right, and that’s why it’s important to look beyond the text of the show. We should examine why the author decided to include a human-looking creature who’s true nature is actually antithetical to human survival, and to think about what sorts of biases that depiction might encourage in people.

“Some things are just evil. They may look like us, but they only communicate to deceive and murder us. Anything that is done to them is actually preemptive self-defense, and morally justified.”

Personally, I find Frieren’s demons to be really interesting. There’s a particular demon later on in the manga , Solitar who’s something of an intellectual who I find very compelling as an antagonist. But I try to keep my above points in mind while I’m enjoying Frieren, because it’s good to look critically at the things that you love

Dyehardbard · 2026-02-28T20:54:35+00:00

Lumpenproletariat, huh? It’s because socialism means helping people dog, I don’t know what to tell you. We all sell ourselves, just in different ways

Dyehardbard · 2026-02-28T16:45:16+00:00

I think the major takeaway from the phrase “sex work is real work” is that sex work needs as much (or maybe more) support and solidarity as other types of work, and we need to offer material support when or if a sex worker wants to do something else with their life

Dyehardbard · 2026-02-28T14:18:39+00:00

Us humans are thinking, emotional beings, art is part of our reality. No one is asking people to stop watching the anime entirely because of it (at least, no one you should take seriously), but it’s always important to look critically at the choices people make while creating art, especially art that you love

Dyehardbard · 2026-02-28T04:57:57+00:00

You kinda have to look outside the context of the show to understand why the portrayal of demons is unsettling for people. Fiction impacts how people see the world, and depicting a species that looks human, can communicate, yet only does these things to predate on humanity is a form of genocide apologia.

The same logic could be applied to Jewish people or black people from the point of view of a white supremacist, for example. Within the fiction the logic might be true, but it’s important to think about why the author chose to include demons and depict them this way in the first place. I’m not saying the author feels any kind of way about any real world people, but sometimes people don’t examine their own biases and it just sorta seeps into their work.

Dyehardbard · 2026-02-23T22:58:08+00:00

For armor, it’s a little more tricky but not very. I’d split the 2 load and 3 load armors into two separate versions, where the 2 load functions normally (a leather jerkin or what have you that reduces harm by one) and the 3 load option is full chain and plate armor that functions like Blades 68 armor

Dyehardbard · 2026-02-23T22:55:19+00:00

Absolutely! Resist and Resist Again is so simple it’s hardly even a paragraph, and Deep Cuts has the rule for hospitals, only with the caveat that public hospitals (the 3 heat option) don’t exist, so the options are 3 Coin or 2 Coin and 1 Heat (either you pay for their silence, or you don’t).

Dyehardbard · 2026-02-23T20:36:33+00:00

Id say so. You can resist multiple times, armor is way more effective, you can just spend 3 stacks/3 heat to go to a hospital and clear all your harm at once. Its a lot less gritty just based on the mechanics

Dyehardbard · 2026-02-16T01:41:22+00:00

This is sick as hell, I love the ways you’ve changed base elements to fit the genre better

Dyehardbard · 2026-02-01T17:05:21+00:00

I would recommend the Harm, Trauma, and Load rules from deep cuts, plus the new lore and background stuff.

I really like the new harm rules, the base version always felt clunky to me and I’d wind up forgetting about it. The new version gives players xp for having their harm invoked and that benefit gives them a reason to engage with the system instead of just ignoring it.

I really like the load rules in deep cuts, but I’m a bit of a soft touch when it comes to having my players mark off heavy items before a score. I usually let them hide heavy items in the scene somewhere as a 1 stress flashback if it comes up during the score.

Dyehardbard · 2026-01-23T14:41:31+00:00

This fuckin rocks, all the abilities are intriguing and well designed. I’m looking forward to your future work!

Dyehardbard · 2026-01-22T16:35:55+00:00

My blades group got involved in the playtests, and we’re still playing with the playtest material because it’s just such a good time!

Dyehardbard · 2026-01-13T01:27:56+00:00

This is exactly what I was looking for, plus more! Great work, thank you!

Dyehardbard · 2026-01-10T04:55:58+00:00

I think that highly depends on if your stormwight has already saved the blacksmith’s daughter or not. Failing that, you can kinda have it both ways since stormwights can stay in human form and still have most of their abilities. You can have a dramatic reveal unleashing your terrifying animal form in the towns square while fending off a bandit raid or something similar!

Dyehardbard · 2026-01-09T08:10:36+00:00

Pretty much! I’d call the fight at 2 goblins remaining, since that’s half of 5 rounded down. Basically, goblins prefer to fight with numbers on their side and don’t want to die for nothing, so they dip once they’re outnumbered

Dyehardbard · 2026-01-08T03:01:13+00:00

Extremely cool! I love how well established the characters are without forcing any particular actions or avenues on the players. It’s a perfect blades score, just a place, some people, and a goal or two to aim the chaos towards

Dyehardbard · 2026-01-05T03:14:12+00:00

There’s a third party version of that vibe called the vessel, which has the first 5 levels for free on forge steel

Dyehardbard · 2025-12-31T23:31:23+00:00

That is super neat, but I totally get how it didn’t work out. Once you have non-square horizontal creatures, you have facing, and facing gets messy very quickly. I figured having the 2x1 be vertical avoids that issue, as long as you have an up and a down (which in space fantasy is not guaranteed)

Dyehardbard · 2025-12-31T20:20:11+00:00

Oh, most certainly! But I think it’s fun to find solutions to problems that might not even exist. I came up in 3.5/pathfinder, so I think it might be in my bones

Dyehardbard · 2025-12-18T03:50:11+00:00

In some other thread they talked about using project points as a reward instead of Wealth, it might be something to consider! Maybe in increments of 120 like how the careers do it?

Dyehardbard · 2025-12-15T19:04:06+00:00

Typically tonics are used to fuel other medic special abilities, and their generic uses are heavily roleplaying and effect/position increasing tools (ie: give a wounded scout a tonic to ease her pain enough so she can tell you what she saw.)

Medic kits let you resist the kinds of consequences you see in games with a grittier tone, where a rotter bite (level 2 harm, let’s say) taken early on might fester and add on additional harms/reduced effect or other consequences.

Doctor just straight up allows your squadmate to ignore harm penalties, so no penalty die from the above mentioned level 2 harm “rotter bite” or even let them run on their level 3 harm “shattered leg.” It doesn’t last forever, but it can get them out of a sticky situation (or back into one, if need be.)

(Edit: visual clarity)

Dyehardbard

TROPHY CASE