History TabletopGame / BladesInTheDark

On September 1, 2021, a LiveActionTV series based on the game [[https://twitter.com/john_harper/status/1432791792684920832 was]] [[https://www.screendaily.com/news/uks-warp-films-and-anton-team-for-international-development-partnership/5162777.article announced]] to be produced by [[Film/ThisIsEngland Warp]] [[Series/ThisIsEngland Films]].

* HandshakeOfDoom: The Spider playbook can take a special ability called "Ghost Contract", which allows them to shake hands on a deal and mark both themselves and the other party with a Power Tattoo. If either of them break the deal, they suffer a curse which deals level 3 harm (i.e. enough to render someone helpless).

* TakingTheHeat: One way to deal with the final trauma level is to have your scoundrel surrender to the Bluecoats and take the heat for your crew's exploits, which is pretty much the only way to reduce the crew's {{Wanted|Meter}} level.

* FlatEarthAtheist: Doskvol Academy is heavily patronized by the Church of the Ecstasy of the Flesh, and if the fictional excerpts of lectures from Professor Schifrell Alcoria are anything to go by, the party line of the Church and therefore the Academy is that intelligent demons don't exist and ghosts aren't actually the spirits of the deceased, just person-shaped plasm. Judging by the rest of the book it seems like very few Duskers actually believge any of that, but such claims ''are'' useful for the Church to justify destoying ghosts with fewer [[CessationOfExistence distressing implications]], and to throw common people off the scent of Church officials trying to become demons themselves.

* GenreBlending: The game facilitates TheCrimeJob thriller narratives in a setting blending Victorian GothicHorror with GaslampFantasy and post-apocalyptic cues. The mechanics, meanwhile, combine narrative role-playing in the vein of ''TabletopGame/ApocalypseWorld'' with urban crime sandboxing of ''VideoGame/SaintsRow''.

* {{The Numbered Things}}: The Six Towers.

Duskwall (or Doskvol, if that's your preference) is the primary setting of the game: a [[GaslampFantasy haunted, industrial port city]] on the northern shores of the mighty [[TheEmpire Akorosi Empire]], formed by the survivors of the [[CataclysmBackstory grand cataclysm]] that shattered the old world 850 years ago. No one knows what happened exactly, but the [[AlwaysNight Sun went out]], the ocean turned [[AlienSea ink-black]], and the old continents were torn asunder into a handful of Shattered Isles, most of which were soon overrun by [[OurGhostsAreDifferent ravenous ghosts]], as the spirits of the deceased [[UnholyGround stopped passing into the afterlife]]. The remnants of humanity built an industrial civilization over the ruins of old, eventually learning to keep the ghosts away from their cities with enormous lightning barriers powered by the blood of the eldritch [[KrakenAndLeviathan leviathans]] from the Void Sea. Duskwall is one of these cities, and most of the blood harvested by leviathan hunters passes through here on its way to the rest of the Empire. As one may expect, the city has too much money, too much corruption, and too little law for its own good -- in other words, it's [[AdventureFriendlyWorld just perfect for a band of ambitious scoundrels set to carve out their own little slice of hell]].

* CrapsackWorld: In spades, but unlike some similar settings, ''Blades in the Dark'' doesn’t constantly beat players over the head with its awfulness. Good people exist in-setting, and so do decent communities; Barrowcleft and Charhollow in particular are noted as poor but honest boroughs where folks try to look out for each other. This isn’t to say the bad doesn’t overwhelmingly outweigh the good-- poverty is rampant, corruption is endemic, and even the most fortunate are living a postapocalyptic eldritch horror story-- but there are enough flickers of decency to make players actually care when bad things happen to good people, even when players ''are'' the bad things.

* PhysicalGod: Cult crews can take the "Glory Incarnate" special ability, which means their god might sometimes manifest in the physical world. Given the [[BlueAndOrangeMorality nature]] of the forgotten gods, this is not necessarily a good thing even for the cult.

* GodEmperor: The Akoros Empire is ruled by the Immortal Emperor, who, as far as anyone is concerned, is the same individual who [[BenevolentMageRuler used his sorceries]] after the great cataclysm to prevent humanity's extinction eight centuries ago. It's unclear whether any of his subjects actually worship him as divine, though.

* MiseryBuildsCharacter: Integrated as a game mechanic. One of the ways player characters earn xp is by struggling with issues stemming from their vices or traumas. The book mentions specifically that players are not obliged to play their traumas as serious issues that interfere with gameplay, but doing so will allow the traumatized character to level up more quickly.

* DealWithTheDevil: The Devil's Bargain mechanic allows this trope to happen both literally and metaphorically: the players can get a free die on any roll if they accept an additional long-term complication that will result from their action regardless of its immediate outcome. This complication can range from a literal deal with a devil ("devil" being the setting's term for any powerful supernatural nasty) to something mundane, like owing a favor to a rival mobster.

* AbandonedArea: The Lost District is a formerly-wealthy area of Duskwall that was abandoned to the ghosts of the Deathlands when the current lighting wall around the city was erected (presumably, the city didn't have the resources to extend the wall to cover the district). There is also the Old North Port, which was abandoned long before even that, due to relocation of the main port to the North Hook Channel, and was therefore never protected by the lighting barrier and is currently used as a haven by smugglers.

* FantasyCounterpartCulture: Done in very broad strokes, so that characters can choose a background while coming up with the fine details of their own specific culture: Akoros is Western and Eastern Europe; Skovlan is Scandinavia and the northern parts of the British Isles; Iruvia is a mix of old Persia, Egypt, and India; the Dagger Isles are something like the Carribean or Southeast Asia, being tropical archipelagoes known for their pirates; and Severos is something like the Eurasian Steppe or Great Plains with its horse nomads. Tycheros is the odd nation out, as it's mostly defined by being very alien to the rest of the world, and its inhabitants all have otherworldly demonic tells such as black shark eyes or feathers instead of hair.

* RomanticismVsEnlightenment: Appropriate to its Gothic inspiration, Doskvol is in constant tension between rationalism and mysticism. The setting being what it is, the line between the two is often blurry, as demonstrated by the oft-mentioned anti-ghost force fields powered by demon blood that do conform to scientific principals in-universe. Even the name "electroplasm" merges a scientific concept (electricity) with an occultic concept (ectoplasm).

* TheIncorruptible: The Inspectors have this reputation, as they're often non-Duskwallers who have no conflicting interests in the city. They're unpopular with the regular Bluecoats and criminals alike.