Shadowhand Dev Diary #5: It’s a holdup!
Becoming an outlaw
In this blog post I’m going to share a little bit about the heroine’s journey from aristocrat to outlaw in our RPG card game, Shadowhand.
Transformation
Lady Cornelia Darkmoor takes on a new identity as the eponymous highway thief, Shadowhand. This enables her to cross the boundaries from polite society – with it’s various rules and expectations – into the darker, lawless world of late 18th century smugglers, vagabonds and thieves.
In over her head
On one of her early missions, Shadowhand holds up a horse-drawn coach leaving a ball. Two wealthy young aristocrats are inside. Shadowhand begins to strip them of their valuables and their coachman attempts to fight back.
His dog may look adorable, but it can also be used as a weapon.
Training
Shadowhand soon realises that she needs more skills to succeed as an outlaw. Throughout the game she takes various opportunities to improve her ability with different weapons. She often trains with people she meets in the daytime, as Lady Cornelia. A lady can do a little shooting or fencing for sport after all…
Payback
Lady Cornelia/Shadowhand hones her abilities and of course gets better gear and an increasingly wide range of attack strategies to choose from as the game progresses. And that’s just as well, because people she quarrelled with earlier could come back for revenge. Our female aristocrat from the coach holdup is a case in point, as she’s scouring the moors on horseback with hounds and a riding whip looking for vengeance.
Or maybe she just wants her jewellery back.
Shadowhand may be able to cross the line from heiress to criminal, but she also has to take the consequences. Fighting for justice is a risky business.
