Actions
Gear
Attune to arcane forces and act as a flawed meat circuit for arcane power; perceive and communicate with ghosts, demons, etc. Consort with connections from your heritage, background, friends, or rivals to gain access to resources, information, people, or places. Finesse an item from someone's pocket; employ subtle misdirection or sleight-ofhand; handle a vehicle or a mount. Force an object into position or out of your way. Bend bars lift gates. Hunt a target; gather information about its location and movements; attack with precision shooting from a distance. Skirmish with an opponent in close combat; assault or hold a position; brawl and wrestle. a person, document, or item with Study a close scrutiny to gather information and apply knowledge; gain a deeper understanding; do research. Survey a location or situation to understand what's going on; sense trouble before it happens; gather information about opportunities or exploits. someone with charm, logic, Sway someone deception, disguise, or bluff; change attitudes or behavior with manipulation or seduction. Traverse obstacles or danger. Run, jump, climb, swim. Tinker with mechanisms to create, modify, disable, or repair; disable a trap, pick a lock, or crack a safe.
Gear com Gear comes es in slo slots ts whi which ch rep represe resent nt a combination of cost and weight. As you need gear declare what you would like to pull from your pack and the GM will tell you yo u ho how w ma many ny sl slot otss it wil willl con consu sume. me. When you declare gear you may have to choosea cho osea com compro promis misee depe dependin ndingg on whic which h column you you put it in. Ready gear gear has no compromise. Slung and packed gear each require some concession on your part
Downtime
After a job you receive your share of the loot, deal with any entanglements and loose ends, clear your armor boxes, and take two of the following downtime actions: • Clear one harm box (from bottom up). • Indulg Indulgee in your vice to clear clear 3 stress. stress. • Tick a long-term project clock. • Get a new asset. asset. • Gather inform information. ation.
Advanced Abilities Spend 1 str stress ess for incr increas eased ed Tactician Spend effectwhen eff ectwhen youseize som somethi ething ng cont conteste ested d or put the enemy or an ally right where you want them in combat. Bodyguard When you resist consequences for an ally reduce the stress cost by 1 to a minimum of 1. Spend 1 str stress ess to incr increas easee Infiltrator Spend effect when bypassing security measures. Alchemist +1d when you craft objects or potionss with supernatural potion supernatural effect effects. s. You begin with one such design known. Antiquarian +1d to any looting rolls you make. Pet you have a loyal and effective animal companion. Scout when you scout ahead you always spot the target before it spots you. Wild you can converse with and attempt to command animals.
XP & Advancement At the end of the session go around the table tab le andmark an XP boxif you yourr cha charac racter ter expressed their beliefs, drives, heritage, or background; backg round; struggled struggled with issues from their vice or traumas; as a group expressed thee go th goal als, s, dr driv ives, es, inn inner er con confl flic ict, t, or essenti ess ential al nat nature ure of the crew. Als Also o not notee your playbooks special XP trigger. When you fill your XP track you may either take a new Action or a new Special Ability.
Blades Against Darkness
TheHousee of Us TheHous Usher her The city of Krolvijna sits like a rotten tooth in a broken jaw on the edge of the black forests. Long ago the House of Usher brought the vice of mummy dust from distant lands. Those who used it were granted dreams of the dead city of Alhazráed. From those dreams they brought nightmarish power back with them. The city’s population grew ever more hungry for blood to feed their magics and slaves to embalm, cure, and consume. consume. Eventually the dream city city they contacted, clawed its way through into the real world and left the Krolvijna twisted nightmare ruin. You are one of the brave, determined, or foolhardy swords slingers who plumbs the city’s unreal geography to loot its treasures, hunt the nightmares that haunt the city’s streets, and keep it from growing like a cancer over the rest of the land.
Character Creation Choose an attribute (Vigor, Wits, Resolve) and put a point in it. en, choose a background, a vice, and describe your look in a couple of words (heavy and grinning wolfishly, shrouded in layers of rune scrawled wrappings, etc.). Fill in your Stress by drawing flames above the candles. Take 2 coin. Choose a playbook and a special ability.
Fighters
Wizards
• Get special armor armor vs harm harm in battle. battle. • Get special armor armor vs the the arcane. • XP Trigger rigger: When you solve a • XP Trig rigger ger: When you solve a problem with violence or threats. problem with knowledge or arcane power. • Ta Take ke Skirmish or Hunt and two other actions. • Tak Takee Attune or Study and and two other actions.
Thieves • Get special special armor vs vs suspicion suspicion or detection. • XP Trig rigger ger: When you solve a problem with deception or stealth. • Ta Take ke Traverse or Consort and two other actions.
Torchbearers • Get special armor armor vs fatigue, fatigue, weakness, or poison • XP Trig rigger ger: When you solve a problem with preparation teamwork. • Tak Takee Tinker or Survey and and two other actions.
This is a quick play version of Blades Against Darkness based on World of Blades by Dauman Figueroa and Blades in the Dark by John Harper. It is intended for a session or three of play by those familiar with Forged in the Dark games.
Blades Against Darkness Name Background: Academic - Labor - Military -Noble - Criminal -Trade Vice: Faith - Gambling - Luxury - Obligation - Pleasure - Stupor - Weird
Vigor
Special Abilities Weapon Master +1d to use weapon for something other than violence. Full Plate: Light armor doesn’t take a slot of gear. Battleborn Spend 2 stress to fight small group on equal footing or exert incredible physical force. Ambush +1d when attacking from hiding or springing a trap Reflexes Spend 2 stress to act before anything. Daredevil +1d on desperate rolls. Sorcery Choose 2 domains (fire, healing, light, time, etc). Attune to produce super-natural effects related to your domains. Tell the GM the effect you desire and they will tell you a stress cost and what you risk. Expertise Choose 2 actions. When you lead a group action with those actions take at most 1 stress regardless of the number of failed rolls.
Wits
Finesse Traverse Skirmish Force
Coin 5 5
Survey Hunt Tinker Study
Resolve
Attune Command Consort Sway
Stress Stash Trauma Cold Obsessed Reckless Vicious Haunted Paranoid Soft Unstable
Armor Heavy Special Gear: 8
3
2 1
NeedHelp -1d
Less Effect
1: rope, torches, ration, spike 2: Crowbar, lock picks, grapnel 3: oil, black salt, fancy clothes
Ready: No cost
Slung: Pay 1 coin or drop something.
Packed: harm: tired or takes time.
Weapon +Heavy Armor +Heavy
XP
Mark for Desperate Actions
Rolling the Dice
Devil’s Bargain
Tell the GM what you want to achieve and what Action you use to attempt it. e GM will tell you if your position is: • Controlled: You’re exploiting significant leverage. You’re set up for success. • Risky: You go head to head. You’re acting under duress. • Desperate: You’re in serious trouble. You’re overreaching your capabilitie s. Mark XP. e GM will also describe what effect you can expect from this course of action. What success looks like and what you risk if you fail. If you choose to continue with this course of action then take 1d for each point you have in the attribute, +1d if you have the Action, and +1d if your background applies. You may spend 2 stress to push yourself for +1d. en, roll and pick the highest. If after adding to your pool you have zero dice, roll two dice and pick the lowest instead. • Doublesixes is a crit, you do it and more. • 6 is a success, you do it. • 4-5 is a partial success, you do it but suffer the consequences. • 1-3 is a failure, things go badly, you don't do it and suffer the consequences.
Prior to your roll you may ask the GM and other players for compromises that will happen regardless of the result of your roll. If you accept one add +1d to your roll.
Resistance After a roll, if you wou ld suffer a consequence, you can resist it. Every time you resist you take stress. Use the attribute most closely tied to what you are resisting (vigor to resist physical harm, wits to resist confusion, etc). Roll 1d for each action you have in the attribute and take 6 minus the highest dice in stress. Consequences that are resisted may be reduced or ignored entirely at the GM’s discretion.
Stress, & Trauma When you fill your last stress box choose a trauma. Your Stress remains filled and your PC continues on the adventure but cannot use stress. is means that consequences cannot be resisted. When you choose your fourth trauma you can’t continue with a life of tomb robbing and you decide to retire.
Harm & Armor
You may suffer harm as a consequence. e GM will tell you which harm box you must fill and the type of harm you suffered. When you take action apply penalties to the roll as appropriate. • Lesseraffect (your rolls are less Lead a Group Action: You and your effective), teammates roll the same Action and pick the best result. e leader takes 1 stress for • -1d (subtract 1d from affected rolls) any PC that fails their roll. Assist: Take 1 • Disabled (you cannot take any action stress to give another the player +1d. Set unassisted unless you take 2 stress). Up: Roll an action prior to an ally’s action If you have to take harm and the box is to either improve the position or increase already filled, fill the box above instead. If the effect of their following roll. Protect: you take harm and have no boxes to mark Face the consequences of an ally’s failed you die. roll. Armor lets you resist h arm without taking stress. If you're wearing armor you may tick your armor box instead of taking If you want to flashback to preforming an harm. Some playbooks have special armor action in the past (study a monsters to resist consequences other than harm. weakness, for instance) say what it is and GM will tell you a stress cost for its complexity.
Teamwork
Flashbacks
Engagement GM sets a target hex where the characters need to get to to do the job. Players choose a faction and which of their defenses they want to try and overcome. en take negative dice equal to reat and modify the dice pool for any major advantages or disadvantages that apply. • +1d if the plan's detail overcomes or outmaneuvers the target factions defenses. • +1d if everyone on the crew has only level 1 or no harm. • +1d if the team can take their time and act with caution. • +1d if they know the terrain or a contact has joined them as an appropriate guide. • +1d if each member of the team spends 1 coin on supplies. • +/- d for other significant factors (pursuit by enemies, plan is weak or crazy, eldrich interference, particularly appropriate assets acquired, etc)
Outcomes
e result of your engagement with the faction determines the how you start your adventure. • 1-3: Bad Result: You're in a desperate position when the action starts. • 4/5: Mixed result You're in a risky position hen the action starts. • 6: Good result You're in a controlled position when the action starts. • Crit Exceptional result. You've already overcome the first obstacle and you're in a controlled position for what comes next.
3
Threat At the end of a successful job light one candle. When all are lit reduce the reat by 1 and clear the track
TallowMass
Formerly temple district that fell into ruin as the people of Krolvijna degenerated into the vice of mumia and the lure of Lichdom.
The Blackthrorns To Briarwood Gardens
Amalgam of forest bandit clans who have chained the Green King and corrupted his magics. Here to loot the city of its treasures • Redhawk Scouts: Spy-glasses, bonded hawks, heavy bows, camoflage. • Greenrune traps: Ancient runes of the forest king that summon his minions Current Goal: Destroy agents of Reichsritter Ludvig, a lich who has been hindering their progress.
Order of the Pure Flame Order of religious zealots devoted to purging the city with sacred fire. Sepulcher of the Order of the Iron Rose
• Guard Patrols: Polished armor and silver swords, holy wards, • Intricate Traps: Tripwires and silver bells, precariously balanced stones, spikes Current Goal: Cary a piece of the holy white flame into the heart of the old church and hold it through the night against invaders.
The Bitter Chalice Servants and thralls of a foreign sorcerer. dedicated to uncovering the city’s secrets and eradicating its undead. • Ghuls: undead thralls bound through ritual mummification. • Brotherhood of theSerpent: scaled armor and acid touched scimitars. Current Goal: Retrieve the dream journal of Von Bibra, said to remain in the ruins of his nightmare twisted manor.
Extraction & Ire When you are not directly engaged with an • -1d the crewasa whole can marka sum obstacle that would prevent you from total of 1 gear per PC. making your escape and you want to flee • -1d if you've have left the forbidden the dungeon you may roll for extraction. past buried First pick an faction to exit through. en, • -1d if you used violence only when start with 1d for each hex the crew needs to necessary. move through to get back to exit. en: • +/- for other significant factors. • -1d if the crew is free from enemies or enroll that many diceand addthe highest pursuit. it to the zone’s Ire . e highest dice rolled • -1d if the crew has quality guides. determines the Entanglement based on the current Ire level.
Ire
10
Cult of Reichsritter Ludvig Takes the place of one of the 3 factions.
Entanglements Ire Ire 10
Dreams of Von Bibra expand all hexes of the dreaming city of Alhazráed by one additional hex.
10
e old holy church falls and the district is lost to to the cults and dreams of madmen
Entanglements 6
Cooperation or Rivals Rivals or Revenge
Revenge or Wight Cult.
4,5 Black Guard, Cold
Black Guard, Cold Iron, Black Guard, Cold Iron, or Iron, or Dust Dreams or Dust Dreams Dust Dreams Alpha Ancient Past or Ancient Past or Ancient Past or Witch King 1-3 Sorcerous Notice Predator Agents Ancient Past: A powerful relic is discovered. A faction you’ve wronged offers a job to retrieve it. Interference from rival treasure hunters causes -1d to engagement while this job is active.
off a critical paths within the district. GM adds up to 4 walls between hexes that cannot be crossed by normal means. Dust Dreams: A hex is replaced with terrain from the dreaming city of Alhazráed
Alpha Predator: Powerful monster or hunter of hunters begins stalking the Cooperation: An allied crew. Next job has -1d to engagmenet and they pose a faction has a favor they need due to the result of direct hazard. this job. +2 to payout or -1 status if you don’t complete Black Guard: Spectral Knights with icy weapons the job stand guard at every Revenge: Your next job is entrance. -1d to complicated by interference engagement. from a party wronged during this or a previous ColdIron: Iron gates cold enough to freeze flesh close job. -1d to engagement roll,
or take them head on. Rivals: a neutral faction offers a job targeting your allies. -1 status with targeted ally if you don’t remove the threat before the job resolves. Sorcerous Notice: Occult forces offers you a shady job for +3 payout. Accept, hide until it goes away (-3 Rep), or deal with them some other way Wight Cult: Wight Cultists take direct action against the crew. Next job is complicated by their presence and has -1d to engagement and +1d to the Extraction and Ire roll.
TallowMass
The GM Sheet Position/Effect When the players tell you what they want to achieve and what action they use to do so it’s your job to judge how appropriate the action is and set it’s position: • Controlled: ey’re exploiting significant leverage. ey’re set up for success. • Risky: ey go head to head. ey’re acting under duress. • Desperate: ey’re in serious trouble. ey’re overreaching your capabilities. en describe what effect they can expect from this course of action. What does success looks like and what do they risk if they fail? Sometimes they can only achieve part of what they set out to do. Make it clear to them what the reasonable outputs of the action are.
Consequences When a PC suffers an effect from an enemy or a dangerous situation, it’s called a consequence. Pick one or more as appropriate. • Reduced Effect: ey only get part of what they want or start a clock to complete it. • Complication: Some other hazard comes into play. • Harm: ey suffer harm.
Progress Clocks As the GM you can track progress on a complex obstacle by drawing a circle and dividing it in four to eight segments. Advancing a progress clock depend s on the effect of the players action. Limited effect will only mark 1 segment while a particularly effective approach may mark 3 or more segments. You can also use clocks to represent time-sensitive events, unfolding consequences, impending threats, etc.
The City of Krolvijna: TallowMass
The Crawl When the players leave one hex, se arch for treasure, or simply too much time passes, roll the zone’s reat rating to determine what hazards they face. Denizen
Notice, Obstacle, or Exhaustion Darkness, Lost,or Exhaustion
Crit 6 4,5
Denizen: Prominent denizen notice: A mummy lord, powerful spirit, or cunning monster takes notice of your presence. Darkness: Light gutters and dies. Any player who desires to operate in anything but total darkness must mark a box or gear for torches or stay close to a light source. Exhaustion: All players take level 1 harm “Exhaustion” or mark a box of gear for rations and stimulants. Lost: Sense of direction is twisted and broken. GM starts a clock “Nightmarish Geography” the players must fill to leave this hex. Notice: A monster, enemy, or wandering patrol of guards or Grey Fox patrol gets wind of the parties activities and gets involved. Players may hide, distract them, or try and throw them off. Otherwise they become involved in the scene in the next Hex. Obstacle: geography stands between you and your goal. GM adds a walls to the map in your current hex that blocks the most direct path to your target. A method for crossing these is not immediately apparent.
TallowMass wasonce thecity’stemple district, home tothe ossuarieswhich housed the honored dead and the endless candles which lit their way between worlds. Now it’s cobblestone streets are littered with chained coffins and candlelit altars to the notdead-but-dreaming nobility. Its parks are twisted thornwoods haunted by wraiths. Its sewers are teeming with hungry and dust-mad wretches.
Hazards Nightmarish Geography : Streets twist back on themselves and change direction. Fog fills the streets and hides enemies. Alhazráed bleeds through and gives birth to something twisted and broken. Crumbling Architecture: a doorway trapped with a rockfall. e way forward is collapsed into the sewers. A narrow bridge that is surely watched. e pathway is narrow and may crumble. e way forward is blocked by a collapsed building. Cursed Altars: Red candles that spread darkness. Incense that clouds the mind. Chained coffins that shudder from whatever is trapped inside. Black bells that chime when you draw near. Sacrifices that struggle with unlife. Toxic Sewers: Choking fumes block the way forward. Something lurks in the stagnant waters. e sound of rats in the walls. e way forward is flooded. Witchwoods: Iron lanterns carried by spirits. Vines and roots that wrap around a limb. e pathway forward or back is blocked by twisted thorntrees.
Monsters Mumia Thralls: Half dead addicts of mummy dust and dreams of Alhazráed. Shambling steps and rusted weapons. Elongated limbs and sharpened teeth. Torches and corrupted hunting hounds.
The Procession: Cult of the sorcerer Von Bibra. Builds altars to his greatness and parades through the streets ringing black bells to call forth his dreams. Chime of black bells and muttered chants. Corpse candles and skeletal effigies on palanquins. Bronze armor and spiked censers.
Specters: Ghosts of those who lived here and the city that once was. Cold and hungry for the warmth of the living. Its touch freezes your flesh. Your weapons do nothing to it. Its gaze fills you with dread. Your weapon is frozen in its sheath.
Rival Hunters: Band of treasure hunters like yourselves. Possibly less scrupulous and more likely to kill and rob their fellows. Possibly altruistic. Flicker of a spyglass or scope from a building top. Cries of help. Sound of rifles being cocked and a command to put down your weapons.
Treasure & Looting When players spend time searching an area • 4-5Choice: Uncommon items of for treasure roll the zone’s current reat value. Coins, small gems, minor arcane (+/- dice for appropriate fictional items of unknowable nature, etc. circumstances and Devil's Bargains.) e Worth 2d fortune roll coin when highest dice determines the treasure’s value returned to town. • 1-3Common: Mundane items of • 6 Prime: Rare items of great value. everyday value. Carvings, minor books Strange pieces of machinery, smooth of lore, semi-precious metals or stones, black tablets with flowing runes, etc. Worth 1d fortune roll coin when ancient coins, etc. Worth 3d fortune returned to town. roll coin when returned to town.
Background Once Krolvijna was a teaming metropolis of thousands. It traded master-worked goods with empires across the sea. Its people were proud of their long and storied history.en within a few generations it turned on itself, consumed by the cancer of Mummy Dust and rotted from within by the leaders’ hunger for power. e legend goes that some petty sorcerer, Balthazar Usher, burned the last of his family’s fortunes funding an expedition to Alhazráed, slumbering city of the black sand and a thousand pillars. By the time Usher returned with the mummy of powerful lich he was already tainted. During the long journey home its dust and whispers had wormed their way into his dreams. From beyond the wall of sleep it promised him power, and so Usher sought a more perfect communion. e corpse became as a drug to him. It started with small samples. A scrap of dried flesh for another fragment of the lich’s past. A tincture of its wrappings for a moment of perfect clarity into their scrawled runes. Eventually, in bits and pieces and lines of fine powder he consumed the entire corpse. He unlocked all its mysteries, or gave himself fully to his new master, or some combination of the two. When he woke weeks later from his de athlike sleep it was with new purpose and terrible power. Usher traded arcane services to rebuild his family fortunes. He funded more expeditions into the heart of the desert and retrieved more slumbering sorcerers from the not-dead-but-dreaming city. He returned to his homeland and brought with him the knowledge of a dead empire housed in preserved flesh, bitumen, and dried blood. For generations the people of Krovijna entombed their honored dead in catacombs under the city. Usher looted the bones from his own family tombs, then ground, and cut them with pure mummy dust. is he began to sell to his new coterie of likeminded students and followers. And so, Mummy Dust, or Mumia, started as a vice among the aristocracy and those
interested in the arcane. People who partook were granted a brief audience with the dead. Eventually custom blends were made of a person’s own dead relatives. By this method deceased ancestors and lost loved ones could be contacted through fever dream and hallucination. It became a fad to commune with the ancient dead and negotiate for secrets, favors, or arcane power from beyond the grave. As Mumia became in creasingly popular. More was needed to fuel the people’s hunger for power and solace. e dead they contacted promised a life beyond the grave that could be had if only they followed the proper rituals and gave devotion to forgotten gods. e use of Mumia became increasingly like a religion. e members worshiping the honored dead and the future they promised. Rituals of drug use, hierarchies of power, and cults of personality became increasingly common. ose with enough wealth had themselves embalmed and prepared according to the secrets taught to them by spectral masters. Within a generation the city was controlled by an undying elite who ruled by whispering into the minds of their thralls from deep within their tomb-thrones. Living and the dead existed side by side. Mummy Dust was the currency and fuel for magic, which became the city’s lifeblood. And so more mummi es were require d. And more expeditions across the sea were funded. Wars were fought. Supply lines were cut. Mumia ran scarce and vendors turned to the freshly dead, and then to the living. Eventually the city turned on itself. e wealthy and the power fed on the living. e populace rebelled, and the city burned. But, not before the dreams of Alhazráed, the dead city that was, began to leach out of the blood-soaked collective unconsciousness of the people. Now Krolvijna is a haunted ruin littered with treasures and twisted by the nightmare geography of its undead masters. Its streets are altars for sorcerer cults. Its people twisted blood starved wretches. Worse, whatever has corrupted it is beginning to spread.
How to Play is is a quick play version of Blades Against Darkness meant for introduci ng new players to the system and short campaigns or one shots. e characters are a group of hardened sword slingers who clamber into the ruins of the dead city of Krovijna to strip out treasures or purge the unclean horrors that lurk there. e major touchstones are Bloodborne, Mordhiem, Innistrad, Ravenloft, and most especially Darkest Dungeon. If there are forests, they are fog shrouded and filled with tanglewood trees and coppery leaves. If there are city streets they twist through buildings made of arches, buttresses, and spires that stand against a blood red moon. Flickering lanterns barely keep the darkness at bay. Wrought iron gates and heavy chains hold out the beasts which stalk the night. e Pcs make their base of operations in Cesklav (Ses-k-lav), one of the towns outside the influence of Krolvijna. Six days ago Erkia Volker, an experienced tomb robber and occasional ally, led a band into TallowMass, Krolvijna’s former temple district. She had hoped to retrieve the sword of a grave-knight from the sepulcher of the Order of the Iron Rose. As an ally to the PC’s she shared this secret with them and said that if she didn’t return in three days they should come and get the sword for themselves. And if they could ensure she didn’t suffer the horrors of undeath. en put the TallowMass map in front of the players and quickly read the faction descriptions and their associated goals.
Make sure to communicate what hazards are following them (do they hear the braying of hunting dogs? Hear the silver binding bells begin to chime as the ghosts wake up?) Set clocks. Make it clear what is going wrong or about to. Provide the players ways forward towards their goal. Describe what these look like as well as the immediately viable hazards they might encounter with what their characters see in the fiction. Also, let the players know what their characters would understand about what they see. (You can see lots of candles set in the street this way and smell the coppery incense burning in the censers. is place is probably controlled by cultists. Do you wanna try the sewers instead?) As you move through the map, write down what you describe on the hexes. Build the zone through play. If at any time the players are at a loss for what to do you can present these options. • Loot: see Treasure and Looting on the other side of this sheet. • Gather Information: What do they want to know? How do they try and find it? • Make Progress: What way forward do they take? How do they do so? is may be a single roll or require a progress clock depending on the terrain encountered and the methods used to overcome it • SomethingElse: Get a better fictional position, handle some monster that’s stalking them, find a different way forward, etc.
e job itself will probably be a series of actions. All the same basic processes apply. Once everyone has a lay of the land, point Let them know what their characters see, out the target hex, where the sepulcher is. understand, and what the immediately Ask the players which of the factions and available options are. Ask them what they their respective defenses they want to engage with. Have them describe how they want and what they do to get it. attempt to overcome the defense in question. Once you know these things you When the players are ready to get out use can roll engagement. the Extraction roll. Remember that they must not be currently embroiled in a fictional circumstances that would keep After engagement you should have a clear fictional situation to work with. e players them here. ey have to at least get away are clambering through the ruins of the city from whatever enemies, traps, or nightmare topography they and get a clear trying to get to the sepulcher so they can retrieve the sword. To do so they will have moment to make a break for it. to crawl to the appropriate hex, and then get the sword and get out.
