Urban fantasy stories are about power. It’s usually the haves versus the have nots with the protagonists in the role of the underdog. It’s a model that’s worked wonders in role playing games of this style. It gives players something to do, there’s usually a common (ish) enemy to fight and it makes the characters relatable since they usually have some human obligations that conflict with their supernatural intrigues. Royal Blood, from designer Grant Howitt, cuts to the chase, or, perhaps more precisely, the heist. Tonight is the night the demigod protagonists are moving against their divine better. All the planning is done. All the players are on the board. It’s time to spill some of that titular substance. Rowan, Rook and Decard sent along a review copy in advance of the new edition’s Kickstarter. Is it worth going all in? Let’s play to find out.
Royal Blood is an RPG built to be played in one to three sessions. It draws heavily on tarot card imagery and uses a deck in play for task resolution. The Arcane, represented by the Major Arcana in the deck, are the movers and shakers in the secret supernatural world. Players are Royals, humans with a touch of magic in their blood that can do incredible things but are still children in the eyes of the Arcane. You are stuck under the thumb of Fate herself and while the Arcane can get away with it, you can only do so much before she slaps you down.
Each player character represents one of the court cards from the Minor Arcana. Each suit offers a theme with each card offering some suggestions for the character’s traits. Everyone has two types; Blood, which represents real world advantages such as connections, weapons or skills and Silver, which are idiosyncratic magic powers like turning lies to poison or making their hearts break. It’s up to the table to interpret how literal this stuff can get, but the assumption is to be flexible as this is a game where the character sheet is a scrap of paper with a few notes scratched on it.
The GM plays the role of Fate. They draw or choose a Major Arcana to represent the Mark. This is the member of the Arcane the players have come together to take down. The players and GM create the situation together by describing how the players have been wronged by the Mark, what the Mark has that can be stolen by the players and what aspects are in place that protect the Mark’s power. Players place coins on each aspect to represent the information they’ve learned on each aspect of the Mark’s power. Each coin makes that aspect stronger, which means there will either be multiple steps to take it down or more than one player will have to work on the plan. Much like Blades In The Dark turned the cinematic flashback into a vital part of game play, this feels like putting mechanics to the scene in the heist movie where everyone is sitting around a table describing just how impossible the mission is going to be.
Once the players have loaded up each aspect with coins, they start taking them down. The GM sets up scenes framed around using the facet to take down the aspects. There’s a critical moment where the player draws a card to see if they succeed or fail. The higher the card, the better off they do, removing a coin on a success. When an aspect is clear of coins, the aspect is out of the way. After two or three aspects are taken down, the GM is encouraged to drop a card representing the Mark on the table and load it up with more coins to represent the final battle. Players have a few ways to stack the deck or draw more cards but by the time the Mark arrives things are usually getting desperate.
The game feels like a modern vein of urban fantasy such as Constantine or The Wicked And The Divine. There’s also a strong Tim Powers flavor here. If you’ve ever looked at Unknown Armies and wondered what to do with it, this is a great example. I found that if you want to get the story done in one night, you could probably get away without the Mark showing up. That’s a good choice if you want to run the game for another session or two, especially if you want to end the first session on a good “oh, no, THEY’RE HERE” kind of cliffhanger. The game also assumes you’ll be dealing with each aspect in turn, but I found that proper heist movie cross cutting between different players handling different parts of the job really ups the tension.
The game is currently available to play but there is a crowdfunding run going on right now with a bespoke deck, an expanded guide to interpreting the cards for the game, and some new rules options and guidelines. If you’ve got a deck and a crew of players that would be into this, it’s ready to go right now. If you need a little more time to think about the game or perhaps you’ve already played it, check out the Kickstarter for the future release.
Bottom line: Royal Blood blends heist tropes and urban fantasy like a fine whiskey. If your group is a fan of either genre, it’s a good game to run for a night or two of twisty intrigues.
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