Subversion of the drug dealing crisis on the top levels of the ancient arcology of Spire has been performed with genuine Ministry's grace. Most of the opposition's contacts and suppliers were either co-opted into the noble course of the Drow Revolution, or intimidated into silence. The only victim left in the open was the Swan maniac, a revenge for the cell's deceased Bound, and a clear message to everyone: "the Ministry has fangs, sharp, albeit hidden".
With a bit of hint to the city authorities, the opposition HQ was stormed by the Paladins and exploded in an act of demonic self-immolation. Clean job that unfortunately left no trail to whoever pulled the opposition's strings behind the scene. The search to be continued.
^ our table by the end of the Eidolon Sky campaign. As one of the discord reply reads: "A good game of Spire should leave the table somewhat deranged!"
I've ran into Spire about a year ago, while still in awe of Arcane and searching for an RPG with a similar style (a bright steampunk with an original lore, or so I thought). Fortunately there was a Spire bundle active at the time, with arts by Adrian Stone instantly catching the eye, and game description promising something similar to what I've been looking for. Little I knew, it was an invitation to a wild roller coaster!
^ by the end of the Shotgun Wedding one-shot I decided to carry a universal version of the Spire across all the games as far as I could, reflecting the changes in the fictional world accordingly. Newspapers that exist in the lore are not just story engines: through them I communicated the players what was possibly happening in other parts of the gigantic city.
My most favorite genres: City Action and a One-Way Journey. My most valued property of ttRPG activity is possibility of immersion in a fictional environment, supported by the player comrades exploring the imagination labyrinths. All that is embodied in Spire and its successor game Heart with their consisting and complementing lore and atmosphere of uneven odds (spanned across all the source-books, the fiction is surprisingly consistent: a win against the closest competitor, Blades in the Dark, where city descriptions are sort of a "patched blanket").
However, not all of the Ministry's operations were a success. Below the surface, in the Red Row, another cell ended their mission with a lot of heat and unnecessary collateral damage - in a way more suitable for bloody goons of the Crimson Vigil but not for the agents of Our Hidden Mistress.
All ties to the Adversary were lost, weapon crisis worsened, but most importantly: possible allies to the Ministry decided not to join forces with the Revolution. Total disaster. The cell in question was disbanded, most of its members expelled as a danger to our noble cause.
The immersive story-driven style of the game does not fit all. City Action, unlike a common Dungeon Crawl, implies navigating a web of intrigues among numerous factions, diving deeper into the lore. Which, in the end, is not what every player wants.
That can be the reason why Spire is widely labeled as "setting-heavy" with a bit of a negative connotation. Also, that's maybe why Heart is somewhat more popular, being a Darkest Dungeon-style exploration hexcrawl.
Personally I don't know how to effectively create a long and consistent City Action style of game without doing what Spire does. Mind that for the vastness of its factions we get a history and motivation for all of them, but only a few of the organizations have their relations prescribed. That grants the Magister flexibility to combine alliances in many ways.
E.g. in our games, eventually, an unlikely alliance of the Druids, Deep Apiarists, Blood Witches and the Hungry Deep was forming. Reflecting that the immediate threat to all of them from the (still) unknown Adversary is much more important than ideological difference.
^ a factions game table that depicted the organizations met by the characters, hinting also on their possible relations. I want to release the assets pack at some point in near future.
Immersion for me also means connecting my other hobby activities with the ongoing campaigns. And this year of Spire play brought extra quality. I started systematically sketching out assets in MagicaCSG, which for me now is sometimes faster than explaining to LLMs what exactly do I want. I'm closely following the development of PlanarAlly - a lightweight and self-hosted "VTT of choice" that I'm also using now as a Miro analog on a VPS. And even selected ceramics craft is inspired by the artstyle of the game and whatever else I see in it (vibes of Dishonored, Thief, Arcane, with a bit of Planescape: Torment).
^ the Powderkeg Shadow Operation is about to be played!
What I'm most proud of in terms of game content were: diaramas of the North Docks scenery for the "Powderkeg" scenario and of the Manticore - a casino safehouse for the "Kings of Silver"; Laughlin's Gentelmens Club and a point-crawl map of the Silver Quarter, also for "Kings of Silver". A Game of Factions, the table for which was contributed to a fanzine (wow!), were helpful to explain connection web of the city organizations. And last but not least - "Reliquary", my work in progress remix of the Sepulchre one-pager by Grant Howitt that I want to turn into a one-shot generator set in my dream borderland town...
^ a sneaky peek on the Reliquary WIP world diorama. The game will be beautiful, if barely playable. I promise!
Just about the time Mesye So was to reveal to the Ministry emissaries the identity of the Adversary, a distant explosion shakened the level's plateau, and the joint forces of the House Yssen and the Vigil attacked the House.
Outnumbered, the party expected a bloodshed, but the Sage had an ace in his sleeve. When the Idol started chanting a song of courage, he tossed the bomb he'd crafted using an exotic pacifying drug while on a mission in the North Docks.
A dense pink smoke hid the first line of the attackers, rapidly consuming the Grand Casino's atmosphere. And as the Idol's song transformed into a religious chore of many voices as one, everyone fell to their knees in awe in front of the Divine image of Vyskant...
^ epic end of the Kings of Silver left roughly 1/3 of the Silver Quarter intact
I'm looking forward to more Spire. There's plenty of content by RRD to continue the story towards the arcology's inevitable demise, including frameworks for martial law, foreign invasion and even sort of a cyberpunk crisis. And then there's Heart, which is a story of itself, followed by it's first sourcebook expansion Ways and Means (ETA April 2026).
The community around RRD is really great, supportive and very creative. I hope more fanzines akin to Spireblack and Dragged Beneath will emerge in the future.
That said, for the time being I'm taking a break organizing games on the Resistance engine (not counting playtests of the Reliquary, which is technically a lighter version of Resistance). But we are definitely going to visit Destera many times again.
The City must fall! And someday, it will.