Creating a character in Blades in the Dark is almost as exciting as playing them; a new scrappy scoundrel, fresh on the streets of Doskvol, ready to take on the world and claim a corner of this city for their own! This guide will take you step-by-step through the process, and by the end, you’ll have a solid grasp on an up-and-coming criminal who will no doubt become Doskvol’s most wanted.

A word of advice before you begin: it can be tempting to outline every detail of your character’s backstory and personality before you even play them—leave white space! Leave questions open, little mysteries, secrets, and gaps in your character’s history to fill in during play. You’ll be grateful for places to fit your crew members, NPCs, and best of all, things you discover about your character through flashbacks. Blades in the Dark lets players flashback to their past to help overcome challenges in the present; leaving some space to explore your backstory this way can be very rewarding! For advanced play, you might simply jump right into a criminal score with a blank character sheet and make all these choices in flashback!

Let’s dive in:

1. Choose a Playbook

Playbooks in Blades are a kind of criminal archetype for your character, based around how they tend to solve problems. Leaning into that kind of problem-solving is one of the ways they earn experience points, so choose one that fits the style you want to play. Playbooks are kind of like classes in some other games, but you’re not restricted by your playbook; you’ll be able to take new skills and abilities from any playbook as you advance. Your initial choice offers a suggestion of what your character concept might be.

• The Cutter playbook uses violence and coercion to solve problems. Play a Cutter if you like to be scary and win fights, or play an experienced killer.
• The Hound also uses violence to solve problems, but they prefer to engage at long range. If you want to track prey and hunt them from a distance (with help from a hunting pet), choose the Hound.
• The Leech prefers technical skill and mayhem to address challenges, and function as a tinkerer, alchemist, saboteur, bomber, artificer, and/or doctor. They have access to a wide range of gadgets and chemicals.
• The Lurk is a classic sneak-thief, using stealth and evasion to circumvent problems altogether. If you want to play a sneaky, roguish cat burglar or infiltrator character, try the Lurk.
• The Slide is a manipulator, often the “face” of a crew. They employ deception and influence to overcome obstacles, usually people. If you’d like to be a master of disguise or spycraft, talking your way in and out of trouble, play a Slide.
• The Spider is the crew’s mastermind, and their tools are calculation and conspiracy. They make the right connections, secure the right resources, and can always flashback to have a plan to ensure the score’s success.
• The Whisper handles the weird and occult, using knowledge and arcane power to solve problems. If you want to deal with strange powers and entities, the Whisper is a great choice.

2. Choose a Heritage

Next you’ll pick where your scoundrel’s family hails from. Maybe they’re a longtime Dusker, born and raised in the city. You might also be a refugee from the recent civil war in northern Skovlan, the child of a diplomat from the desert kingdom of Iruvia, a corsair from the Dagger Isles, a nomad from Severos, or a demon-blooded stranger from Tycheros. Once you choose, be sure to also include a detail about your character’s family in particular. Maybe they all moved here together, or you send money from your activities back to them, or they all died in a tragic backstory accident.

3. Choose a Background

Backgrounds in Blades in the Dark are all about what your character’s life was before they became a scoundrel in this crew. Are they a disgraced bluecoat? A desperate laborer or tradesperson? A fallen noble? An out-of-work soldier or academic? Or have they always been in the underworld, raised by the streets? You’ll choose from a list of general backgrounds and then detail it with something specific to your character’s history.

4. Assign Action Dots

Your character’s aptitude for each of the twelve actions in Blades is rated from one to four dots. Your playbook starts with a few by default, but at the start of your criminal career, you can customize them with four more. At this point, you can’t have more than two dots in any action, so think of zero dots as the average person’s competency, one dot as something your character has skill or training in, and two dots as their “thing,” something they’re an expert in.

The book recommends putting one dot each in an action that represents the character’s heritage and background, and two more wherever you like.

5. Special Ability

Your playbook has a number of special abilities listed; all of them are available to you eventually, but at character creation, you can only choose one. Pick the one that speaks to you, and if you can’t decide, just take the one at the top—it’s there as a good, general, all-purpose option. As you advance, you’ll be able to take more, including abilities from other playbooks as well!

6. Friends and Rivals

Each playbook also has a list of five contacts that your scoundrel knows, complete with names and occupations. When the time comes to say “I know a guy,” these are some examples of guys you know! Importantly, one of them is a close friend of yours, and one of them is your rival, maybe even your enemy. Mark which is which, and make a quick note of the nature of your relationship to each of them. Don’t forget to tell your GM about them!

7. Vice

Every scoundrel has a vice. When you need to blow off steam or de-stress after a heart-pounding score, your vice is where you turn to indulge yourself. Your vice has three parts: a type, from faith, gambling, luxury, obligation, pleasure, stupor, or weird; a detail, like what your faith is, who your obligation is to, or what kind of weird; and a purveyor, that is, who is your hookup for your fix. You can create a character for this, or ask your GM who might be your vice purveyor.

8. Name and Look

It’s time for the finishing touch! Come up with a name for your scoundrel—personally, I like to not tell anyone what it is to start, and use their alias or street name instead, but you can do it however you like. A cool nickname for your daring scoundrel is always fun to brainstorm, so don’t skip the alias in any case! Then pick a few evocative words to describe their look, note their pronouns, and you’re ready to do crime on the mean streets of Doskvol.

By now, you should have a pretty good idea of your character’s concept, their family, their history, skills, appearance, connections, and vices. Now the best way to flesh them out is to play them! Don’t forget to play your character like you’re driving a stolen car, go into danger, fall in love with trouble, and allow them to surprise you. Good luck, and enjoy the time you have in the haunted city playing Blades in the Dark!

If you’ve got a character all ready to go but no campaign and no crew to run with, check out StartPlaying’s listings for open games of Blades!

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Sean Foer is a game designer, editor, writer, video creator and professional GM.