Remember when you thought, “Let’s be bad guys” was a good idea? I mean, it has to be a good idea, right? Sure, there are thousands of tales of brave and bold adventurers defeating evil wizards, slaying marauding dragons, freeing a village from some particularly pesky bandits, and stopping and evil overlord from conquering the world. But what about these “bad guys” the heroes always beat? They have to have a history too, right? A reason for doing what they do? After all, not every farm boy can take up his father’s rusty sword and become the newest lord of the realm. Not every wizard’s apprentice has the skill and guts to cast a banishing spell that throws a powerful demon back into the Abyss.

I’m not talking about world-conquering villains; I’m talking about the run-of-the-mill ones, the bandits, thugs, cutthroats, and wannabe master thieves. These people deserve to have their story told too! Sure, they aren’t interested in saving people and doing good, they’d much prefer to knife someone in an alley and steal their coin purse, then go and drink up their ill-gotten gains at the nearest tavern. These types of Bad Guys have their own goals in life, but more often than not, they fall flat. It takes a special breed of people to become an Evil Overloard, after all, and the petty criminals I’m talking about here never seem to reach their goals.

The following adventures focus on a group of these ne’er-do-wells who call themselves The Black Blades, a rather imaginative name. They meet regularly at a dilapidated tavern called the Screeching Cat, run by an unscrupulous half-orc known as Gaul. All of these adventures take place in the city of Magnimar, along the coast of Varisia, specifically in the Underbridge district, located in perpetual shadow beneath the crumbling ruins of the Irespan.