I've played a lot of Blades in the Dark at this point, so when I got the urge to run it again recently, I decided it was time to leave the default setting of Doskvol. This coincided with a desire to revisit a setting I devised about five years ago for a D&D 5e game. The result is the city-state of Lesorro, as imagined for Blades.
Its chief inspiration is 15th century Iberia (you know, from real life), a period of prosperity at the expense of large swaths of the rest of the world - this was the heyday of colonialism. As far as fictional inspiration, I've looked to Perdido Street Station and The Lies of Locke Lamora, among other works.
In the campaign, I wanted to explore life under a colonialist power at the end of its prime through the lens of presumably disenfranchised criminals. This has worked even better seeing as all the player characters wound up being non-human foreigners. I have no interest in having the players be the colonizers, but they are still a part of that awful system. That tension is what interests me. We're still early in the campaign, and so far these themes have yet to be drawn out too much, but I'm excited to see where it goes.
Anyway, here is the brief setting guide that the players got during session 0.
LESORRO GAZETTEER
History
Lesorro has at last reached the decline of its greatest era, the Age of Exploration. After establishing many colonies and dominance over the oceans, the city-state has begun to stagnate and suffer under tensions between Church and Crown. Other nations are catching up in maritime endeavors, colonies struggles for independence, class divides grow, and the dragon empire of Rizalaa eyes Lesorro and its holdings hungrily.
Timeline of major events:
