Drowners

by Jacob Segal

A fan crewbook for

Blades in the Dark
 DROWNERS
Scavengers in the depths of the Void Sea
Many ships leave Doskvol laden with gear, expecting a lucrative return. For
those that never do, you are there to collect their unclaimed goods and secrets.
Even the canals are full of riches for those who know how to obtain them.
When you play Drowners, you earn xp when you return from the depths
with new knowledge or booty. Instead of hunting grounds, you have hidden
treasures that you seek in the depths.
What are you seeking in the depths? What will you do with the maddening
knowledge you obtain?
starting upgrades contacts
◆ Training: Resolve ◆ Aurienne, a retired Tycherosi
◆ Drowners’ Rigging mariner. Perhaps a tall tale has
some truth?
hidden treasures
◆ Haubert, a museum curator.
Choose a favored treasure type: Perhaps a collector of ancient relics?
◆ Canal Dumps: Delve the canals for ◆ Steel-Jaw Basran, a Leviathan
treasures or evidence tossed in Hunter. She was thought lost at sea,
there by the populace of Doskvol. wasn’t she?
◆ Void Wreckages: Explore lost ◆ Murray, a Skovlander merchant.
ships for treasure, relics, or bodies. Perhaps he lost a few shipments to
◆ Star Secrets: Learn arcane secrets Leviathans?
from the stars and ghosts in the ◆ She Who Feeds the Void, a demon
depths—or even retrieve one. of the depths. What does she ask in
◆ Leviathan Harvest: Seek out a return?
leviathan to harvest its blood.

drowners upgrades
◆ Drowners’ Rigging: You get free diving equipment. A surface-fed diving
helmet, a wetsuit, and a water-proof lantern.
◆ Hull Expert: One of your experts becomes or is replaced with a Hull.
◆ Elite Rovers: All your cohorts with the Rovers type get +1d to quality
rolls for Rover-related actions.
◆ Vehicle: You have a bathysphere - a spherical, unpowered submersible
tethered to a boat. It’s expected that you get in and out at the surface, but an
emergency escape can be made underwater, but it will flood.
◆ Exposed: Each PC gets +1 Trauma box. This costs three upgrades to
unlock, not just one.
1
drowners claims

caverns turf curiosities turf astronomer

shop

turf dock LAIR weighlock lighthouse

leech blood turf

fleet tavern
farm handler

Dock: Free access to the Void Sea. Astronomer: Always add the +1d
Avoid the scrutiny of leviathan to engagement rolls in the Void Sea
hunters, dock workers, and duty for a friend’s assistance. It takes a
collectors. practiced eye to navigate by the
shifting stars.
Blood Handler: You gain +2
Coin in payoff during scores when Tavern: +1d to Consort and
you return with leviathan blood. The Sway rolls on-site. Everyone loves a
blood is still alive. It requires delicate good fish story.
handling.
Lighthouse: You get +1d to
Fleet: Your cohorts have their own Survey and Prowl rolls in your
vehicles. Each cohort has its own turf. Light or douse the flame at your
vehicle, with quality equal to your will, ships be damned.
tier.
Caverns: Your load item limits are
Curiosities Shop: You gain +2 all 1 higher. A place to stash items for
Coin in payoff during scores when easier access, as long as you don’t
you uncover lost secrets and strange mind them getting wet.
treasures. People pay well for
Leech Farm: You gain +1d on
exclusive knowledge and arcane
healing treatment rolls. These tend
goods.
to accumulate for free, anyway.
Weighlock: Never lose 1d during
the engagement roll for scores taking
place in canals in enemies’ turf.
Though no one uses it, it’s still a good
way to keep track of gangs’ aquatic
movements.

2
 drowner special abilities
breathless
Through arcane artifice or secret ritual, your crew no longer needs to breathe
and can see through murky water with perfect clarity.

Blood in the Water

When you perform a setup action that targets an opponent, allies can gain +1
effect and improved position against that target and it cannot hide from the
crew.
Normally, a setup action grants +1 effect or improved position, not both.

Guiding Stars Below

When you pursue a long-term project to locate a hidden treasure or uncover
a lost secret, gain +1 result level.
+1 result level turns a 1-3 into a mixed success, a 4/5 into a full success, and
a 6 into a crit.

Pelagic Nightmare
A PC may roll dice equal to the number of Traumas they have for any
fortune roll driven by your crew.
The players and GM can discuss whether you can use your trauma for a
particular fortune roll.

Startouched
You gain +1d to resist the consequences of supernatural threats. When you
roll a crit on any resistance roll, you clear an additional 2 stress and leave an
after-image of the version of you that suffered the consequence, lasting for
only a moment.

Fleet of Fin
You swim much faster with a Light or Medium load. Some fish are too fast for
leviathans to catch. You must learn to keep up with them.
Swimming faster might manifest as a better position when avoiding
something or better effect when chasing something down. You are faster with
a Light load than someone with a Medium, and both are faster than someone
with a Heavy load or someone without this ability.

Amphibious
Each PC may add +1 action rating to Hunt, Survey, or Prowl (up to a
max rating of 3).
Each player may choose the action they prefer (you don’t all have to choose
the same ones). If you take this ability during initial character and crew
creation, it supersedes the normal starting limit for action ratings.

3
 drowner opportunities
A drunk merchant confesses that his lost ship was probably sunk by
1 leviathans. He has a letter from the captain with the ship’s last known
location.
War games performed by the imperial navy have gone explosively
2
wrong near the Doskvol docks.
A historian is missing some critical information to explain how a small
3 imperial fleet defeated a Skovlan armada, but can lead a group to the
location of the battle.
The Old North Docks were abandoned to smugglers when the lightning
4 barriers were erected. Rumors have spread of illicit goods sunk to avoid
notice.
A traumatized leviathan hunter reports that his ship went down to an
5 ambush from a second leviathan while the crew was repairing damage
and collecting blood from the first.
A vengeful group of cultists boasts of inciting a frost demon to sink a
6
massive, “unsinkable” pleasure ship on its way to the Dagger Isles.
Bluecoats have been grumbling about their inability to capture Avrik
1 the powder dealer. They believe he must have dumped his goods in the
canal right before they caught him.
The Spirit Wardens have hung notices seeking leads on the location of
the body of one of their own. The Red Sashes have conspicuously been
2
taking down these notices, especially in the area of The Ease in
Silkshore. They must have dumped the body somewhere nearby.
The Arms of the Weeping Lady pulls water from the nearby canal for its
3 soup kitchen. Something in the water there is having strange effects on
those who drink that soup.
Doskvol Academy researchers have invented a sparkcraft canal boat.
4 Needless to say, the Gondoliers promptly sank it, but the technology in
the wreck could be of value.
The deathseeker crows have been disappearing in Barrowcleft, by the
canals nearest the Void Sea. The Spirit Wardens will pay anyone
5
equipped to deal with whatever came in from the sea and is threatening
their crows.
Lord Scurlock has a handful of hulls that protect his manor from
underneath the canals. They frequently get in the way of normal canal
6
business. If they were out of the way, it would help allow commerce
through the area, and also leave Scurlock slightly more exposed.

4
 The Void Sea astronomers say one of the stars has wandered close to
1 Doskvol. It’s a perfect opportunity for a research team to investigate, or
for a more enterprising crew to reach it first.
A refugee ship from Skovlan on its way to Doskvol sunk during the
Unity War. A horde of ghosts has been spotted still trying to make its way
2 to the city. The families and descendants of the refugees would appreciate
knowing their fate, and knowing they won’t have to face a swarm of
familiar faces trying to get through the lightning barrier.
The Keelhauler has been more successful at acquiring leviathan blood
than any ship before. A group of rival hunters believes they must have
3
made a pact with a sea demon or old oceanic god, and either wants them
taken down, or wants in on the cut.
A great, ghoulish tentacle has emerged from the sea and latched onto one
of the lightning towers. Unrelenting whispers have pierced the minds of
4
everyone who attempts to interfere. Perhaps this entity can be bargained
with—or assisted—directly.
Before the Great Deluge, a lighthouse guided ships to port. That
5 lighthouse has fallen to the sea, but sailors have reported a new light
spinning in the depths. It’s flickering an SOS.
Communication using electricity? What will people think of next? Well,
the empire has great plans to open up faster communication between
6 Doskvol and great cities in other lands by employing hulls to lay miles of
wire underwater. If someone could hook up a sparkcraft receiver in
between, then intercepting secret transmissions would be a cinch.

Seaworthy Factions
Many of the factions in the Blades in the Dark book are appropriate
complications and challenges for a Drowners crew, especially while getting
into and out of the canals, but here are some additional factions with interest
in the void sea.
The Imperial Navy (VI): The fleet The Sealife Preservation
of the Imperium stationed in the League (I): A small group of
Doskvol docks. The naval destroyer protesters fighting for the rights of
Paragon hosts the navy’s admiral, sealife (leviathans), hoping to end
but a variety of smaller ships (about the mass hunting of these terrifying
8) patrol the waters and monitor the beasts.
docks.
The Imperial Naval Research
The Tidecallers (II): A secret Laboratory (IV): A specialized
cult worshipping a demon said to group of researchers developing new
have caused the Great Deluge. They military ships for the navy. They are
hope to raise the sea and adapt working on a ship made entirely of
humanity to an amphibious lifestyle. iron and powered by a small
electroplasmic reactor.

5
Credits
The layout template for the crewbook sheet used to create this document was
created by Justin Ford, with modifications by Stephanie Lee, and is intended
to be used in the production of fan creations. It is not officially sanctioned by
John Harper or Evil Hat Productions.
Writing and design by Jacob Segal.
Original layout and design by John Harper. Cover and layout in this crew
playbook by Stephanie Lee.
Blades in the Dark is property of John Harper and One Seven Design.
Original title and header picture by Vim Hamilton under CC-BY-2.5.
If you enjoy this fan crewbook, feel free to leave a review at jacobalso.itch.io,
or tag me on twitter @JacobAlso.