Chapter 8: Strange Forces

In the fantasy world of Blades in the Dark, supernatural powers exist—but they are not innate to human beings. Humans are mortal, material, flesh-and-blood creatures, just as the rest of the natural world. To wield arcane abilities, humanity must harness strange forces in various ways:

• The control of spiritual energies and ghosts with pseudo-scientific techniques, known as Spectrology.
• Ancient occult compacts to entreat demonic or other-worldly assistance, known as Rituals.
• The distillation of weird chemical mixtures, known as Alchemy.
• The fusion of these disciplines with technological engineering, known as Spark-craft.

In addition, every living thing in the Shattered Isles has evolved a sensitivity to the invisible “other world” that presses always against the edges of perception—the strange dimension that erupted during the cataclysm, known as the ghost field. By focusing their mind in a certain way, a human can attune to the ghost field to perceive partially into it, to sense the echoes of real-world events captured in the field, or to make a connection to ghosts and spectral energy.

Some people see attunement as a normal part of life—a new human sense that is natural and advantageous. Others see attunement as a vile act, connecting with the dark forces that once destroyed the world, and who still lurk in the shadows, always ready to prey upon the unwary or power-hungry.

One thing is certain, the broken world will never be made whole again. The black void of the skies and seas, the psychic pressure of the ghost field, and the machinations of demons and cultists are now the way of things. Better to understand these strange forces than to be consumed by them.