Kings of Silver (2019) is maybe my favorite Spire scenario.

Like Eidolon Sky, it’s a campaign frame, a bunch of stuff to set the stage for your players that they can, in turn, take and run wild with. Unlike Eidolon Sky, I feel this one fits more snuggly into what I am looking for out of a Spire adventure.

Short version: the players are operating a casino called The Manticore in the Silver District of the city. They’re given a dossier of info on local big wigs and the mission of destabilizing social order in the district enough to allow new, more revolutionary-minded folks to take control from the district’s central power broker, a wealthy drow who has used a civil war among the high elves abroad to fund and protect his interests in the district.  

And that’s kind of it. You get a rundown of the casino (I love it when characters have a business, especially one like a casino). You get profiles of the relevant NPCs. You get some key locations in the district, some suggested scenes and a set of random tables to use to bring it all to life. What comes next depends on how the players act on the information in the dossier. The three main NPCs — a fundraiser, a debutant and a political activist — can be blackmailed, aided, manipulated, killed or otherwise dealt with however the players want, all in hopes of fouling up their main target’s schemes. It is all sort of brilliant in its relative simplicity.

Should take a moment to reiterate how much I love Adrian Stone’s work on this game. There aren’t too many pieces in this book, but Strata and tomorrow’s post are a wealth of illustrations. A lot of the appeal and mystique of Spire comes directly from his art.