Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 43 views

    Psycho Naut

    Uploaded by

    Benjamin Fossum
    This document provides an overview of the Psychonaut playbook for the game Blades in the Dark. As a Psychonaut, the player can explore altered states of consciousness through meditation, rituals, and drugs. They gain experience by addressing challenges with alchemical or psychic powers. The starting options provide templates for an alchemist, psychogeographer, etheric dérivist, or dream walker. Special abilities include transforming into a dream form, recalling memories, crafting drugs, and tapping into the consciousness of cities. Various items and powers are also described.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Psycho Naut

    Uploaded by

    Benjamin Fossum
    43 views5 pages
    This document provides an overview of the Psychonaut playbook for the game Blades in the Dark. As a Psychonaut, the player can explore altered states of consciousness through meditation, rituals, and drugs. They gain experience by addressing challenges with alchemical or psychic powers. The starting options provide templates for an alchemist, psychogeographer, etheric dérivist, or dream walker. Special abilities include transforming into a dream form, recalling memories, crafting drugs, and tapping into the consciousness of cities. Various items and powers are also described.

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    This document provides an overview of the Psychonaut playbook for the game Blades in the Dark. As a Psychonaut, the player can explore altered states of consciousness through meditation, rituals, and drugs. They gain experience by addressing challenges with alchemical or psychic powers. The starting options provide templates for an alchemist, psychogeographer, etheric dérivist, or dream walker. Special abilities include transforming into a dream form, recalling memories, crafting drugs, and tapping into the consciousness of cities. Various items and powers are also described.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    43 views5 pages

    Psycho Naut

    Uploaded by

    Benjamin Fossum
    This document provides an overview of the Psychonaut playbook for the game Blades in the Dark. As a Psychonaut, the player can explore altered states of consciousness through meditation, rituals, and drugs. They gain experience by addressing challenges with alchemical or psychic powers. The starting options provide templates for an alchemist, psychogeographer, etheric dérivist, or dream walker. Special abilities include transforming into a dream form, recalling memories, crafting drugs, and tapping into the consciousness of cities. Various items and powers are also described.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 5

    Psychonaut

    Psychonaut

    P L AY B O O K :
    A voyager through altered states of consciousness
    All the black lotus, bloodneedle, dream smoke, and quicksilver have cracked
    your mind wide open. While others fear what they call the ghost field, you can
    see it for what it truly is: the shared consciousness of the living and the dead;
    the very source of consciousness; the universal consciousness that binds and
    unites all beings. Meditation, rituals, and drugs allow you to explore this
    psychedelic parallel reality and penetrate the inner space of other people’s minds.
    When you play a psychonaut, you earn XP when you address a
    tough challenge with alchemical or psychic power. Put your
    alchemical experience to work as a dispenser of harmful or psychoactive
    substances, then journey into the minds of others and the collective
    consciousness of the ghost field, free from the constraints of the physical body.
    Are you a desperate addict playing with powers of which you have no comprehension, or a
    pioneer in new realms of consciousness and bliss?

    STARTING ACTIONS INTOXICATING FRIENDS, RIVALS

    ���� Attune � Keen, a dealer. Where do they


    source their supplies? Are they part
    ���� Tinker
    of a criminal network?

    STARTING BUILDS � Tawny, an Inspector. Why is a


    If you want some guidance when you respectable detective a customer at
    assign your four starting action dots and the worst drug den in Silkshore?
    special ability, use one of these � Bankes, an alienist. A specialist
    templates. in the treatment of insanity. Are
    The alchemist. Tinker +1, their methods humane or brutal?
    Study +2, Consort +1. Druggist. � Ma l ca m , a paramental. A
    The psychogeographer. Survey sentient being who never lived,
    +2, Wreck +2. Megapolisomancy. aggregated from the foam of
    The etheric dérivist. Survey +2, the collective consciousness.
    Prowl +2. Dream form. � Proust, an untethered memory.
    The dream walker. Sway +1, Another psychonaut, or part of
    Consort +1, Command +2. Ghost one, lost in the ghost field.
    recall.

    2
    Psychonaut SPECial aBilitiES
    DREAM FORM
    You practice meditative techniques that allow your body to remain asleep
    while your mind wanders free, perceiving the world in terms of intensity
    of existence and profundity of significance.

    You move through the ghost field as a concentration of electroplasmic


    vapour that resembles your living body, appearing faintly to the sensitive.
    You may move freely by floating, although remain connected to your body
    by a faint silver cord. You must push yourself to interact even weakly with
    the physical world. You’re vulnerable to arcane powers and electroplasmic
    effects. You are affected by spiritbane charms and the Compel ability of a
    Whisper (you may make a resistance roll to overcome their effect). If your
    dream form suffers any harm of Level 2 or greater, the silver cord snaps
    and it becomes detached from your self, obsessing over a single powerful
    memory and becoming its own distinct paramental entity not under your
    control.

    GHOST RECALL
    You can ATTUNE to a person to delve into their memories, and possibly
    alter them.
    This should require the GM to frame a scene within the memory. Some memories
    will be like real world scenes, but perhaps fragmentary or tightly-looped. Others
    might be dominated by specific senses such as scent or touch, or strong emotions.
    You might be able to act within the memories as you do in the world, or it may
    be more abstract than that. Any harm suffered while inside these memories will
    manifest as psychic and emotional harm in the real world.

    DOPER
    You are an expert at preparing and using drugs of all kinds. You can increase
    either the scale, duration or potency of the effects of all drugs on yourself
    or others.

    DRUGGIST
    When you invent or craft a drug or poison, you get +1 result level to your
    roll (a 1-3 becomes a 4/5, etc.). You begin with one special formula already
    known. Follow the Inventing procedure with the GM to define your first
    special drug or poison.

    PHARMACOKINETICS
    You may spend your special armour to fully resist a consequence of
    chemical effects such as drugs or poison, or to push yourself on any
    action when under the influence of drugs or chemicals.

    3
    Psychonaut
    LUCID DREAMER
    In your dreams you have voyaged through terrifying landscapes and seen
    things stranger than mere devils. You can never be supernaturally terrified.
    You can communicate with inhuman entities no matter how psychedelic.
    Take +1d to CONSORT with inhuman intelligences.

    P L AY B O O K :
    MEGAPOLISOMANCY
    The city dreams. The angles and crenellations of the city, the steel, stone,
    paper and plumbing, snare loose mental fragments and aggregate them
    into emergent consciousnesses.

    You can ATTUNE to tap into the architecture of the city to summon one
    of these paramental entities: a creature of angles and shadows, or stone
    and steel, or electroplasm and dust, motivated by loose memories and
    undreamt dreams. Roll on the Ghostly Secondary Effects table and the
    Demon Desires table to describe the paramental entity and its drives. It
    will follow its drive, and cannot be controlled, repelled or reasoned with
    like a ghost or demon, although it may be vulnerable to oddities of
    architecture and geometry.

    WAKING NIGHTMARES
    You can always discover what someone’s worst fear is, but by delving into
    their mind you become subject to the same fears or phobias for the duration
    of the score or situation.

    Psychonaut itEmS
    � Bandolier: A strap concealed beneath your clothes, fitted with specially
    padded pouches to hold three alchemical agents. When you employ a
    substance from a bandolier, choose one of: Black Lotus, Bloodneedle,
    Dream Smoke, Trance Powder, Quicksilver, Spark, or one of your special
    creations. [ 1 load ]
    � Fine bottle of absinthe: A rare distillation with mild psychoactive
    properties, potent both in its alcohol and its ability to impress [1 load ]
    � Fine alchemical equipment: A fine set of glassware and implements for
    alchemical work. [ 2 load ]
    � Blowgun & darts, syringes: A small tube and darts that can be filled from
    alchemy flasks. Empty syringes. [ o load ]
    � A stray memory: A fragment of thought you found drifting on the breeze.
    [ 0 load ]
    � Ghost map: A map of ghost doors in the city, created by a lost
    psychogeographer. [ 1 load ]

    4
    CREDITS

    Created for the Unusual Suspects playbook


    jam by Francis Gaskin at robotfrancis.itch.io
    and @misterfrancis

    Template by Justin Ford at moth-lands.itch.io

    Cover photo by Adrien King on Unsplash

    Original layout and design by John Harper.

    Blades in the Dark is property of John Harper


    and One Seven Design.

    You might also like