One of my players pulled off a ritual to seize control of the Wild Hunt last session (long story) and I put together a Compendium Class to handle her accomplishment. I’m not that experienced with Dungeon World yet, though, so I thought I’d put it up here for suggestions.
Master of the Wild Hunt
When you gain control of the Wild Hunt, you may take this move when you level up.
Release the Hounds!
When you order the Wild Hunt to pursue and destroy a foe, roll +CHA. On a 10, pick 2. On a 7-9, pick 2 and gain a point of Fey. On a miss, the hunt goes spectacularly awry.
Only the named target is pursued
The Hunt will pursue the target even into cities and near, though not within, temples
The Hunt returns with the imprisoned soul of the hunted
The Hunt does not demand payment
If your Fey ever exceeds your Wisdom, you give in to the power of the Otherworld. You lose your racial move and your alignment becomes Lawful: Ironically punish a wicked mortal.
Once you’ve taken Release The Hounds!, the following moves count as class moves for you. In addition to your normal list of moves, you may choose from this list when you level up.
See the wicked
When you look at a person, you see what sins play a major role in their life, if any. Noticing this is unavoidable, as long as you still have the power of sight. Your Fey goes up by 2, and these points can never be lost.
Reality’s Backroads
Whenever you act as the scout on a Perilous Journey, you may lead the group through a short cut in the Otherworld. This shaves some time off the trip, and you will always roll a 7 on the Scout roll. Taking this move raises your Fey score by 1 and this point can never be lost.
Immortal Nature
As long as you are actively hunting a named target, you never fatigue or need sleep. Also, you cease aging. Your Fey score goes up by 1 and this point can never be lost.
Imprison the Sinful
When you defeat and kill a wicked foe, you may imprison their soul in a bauble. From there, you can communicate with them via the bauble. As long as they are imprisoned, the can never be raised and their spirt is blocked from all other magical communication. If you desire, you can send the soul to the underworld to be punished on your behalf. This releases your control on the soul and reduces your Fey score by 1.
Is Imprison the Sinful the only way to lose Fey?
Other than that, these are all cool moves. I take it that “you cease aging” in Immortal Nature is independent of needing to be on a Hunt?
Yup. Only way to lose Fey is to take that move and condemn someone to be punished on your behalf. And yeah, I should probably reorder the aging move to make that clearer.
Should Realities Backroads let you shorten a journey by being Scout, since the Trailblazer normally shortens the journey?
Well, the intent is that you can get the benefits of both this move and Trailblazer at the cost of not being able to get the drop on whatever you run into in the Otherworld.
Oh shoot! I didn’t even process that — that’s awesome.
Super cool. Though “the hunt returns with the soul” variant looks like a no-brainer, why wouldn’t you choose it? Can be changed to “the Hunt will pursue to imprison the soul, not to tear it apart”.
HOLY SHIT.
I’m not sure why the soul one would be a no brainer?
Actually, maybe I was too vague? That option isn’t “the hunt succeeds”. That option is “the hunt imprisons the soul, instead of just killing the dude in the regular fashion”. If you roll a hit, my assumption is the hunt will get the target unless they flee to a city/temple or are quite powerful. But I didn’t make that assumption explicit.
Dan Byrne Yeah, it’s not clear. “hunt returns with the soul” option clearly says the hunt will be successful no matter what. Other options don’t.
How about this wording:
When you order the Wild Hunt to pursue the foe into the wilds, roll +CHA.
[…]
The Hunt will not destroy the foe, but return with the imprisoned soul of the hunted
[…]
And one more thought, how about “roll +FEY” instead of “roll +CHA”?
Yeah, that’s clearer. And I thought about that, but if you scale it like an attribute, you’d make your first roll at -3. And I wanted Fey points to pile up more and faster than they would if they added directly to the roll. So I went with Charisma because that’s a the bossy-pants stat and the character I wrote this for didn’t put her 8 into it.
Dan Byrne Cool! If I use it in a game, I’ll make it even more dangerous. Like 3+WIS threshold on Fey instead of Wisdom.
Dan Byrne: I’m with Vasiliy Shapovalov, max Fey of your Wisdom seems way too high. I’d say 5+Wis is probably a good way of letting players take a couple of moves and use the entry one every now and then, or embrace it and go over the limit.
Mind, I’d make sure losing Fey is possible without having to take a specific advanced move.
This looks really cool. I’m wondering something though; my knowledge of the Hunt isn’t terribly extensive, mostly limited the Dresden Files, the brief appearances of the Erl Koenig in Matt Wagners Mage comics and a bit of wiki-drifting but I don’t recall them being all that focused on hunting the wicked instead of just, ya know, hunting.
It seems this compendium class is about bending the hunt to her purposes and thus focusing on taking down the wicked; but then why is it that when she finally succumbs to her new fey nature that her new alignment/race move is still focused on punishing the wicked?
Alex Norris Yeah, exactly where the threshold should be is what I’m most uncertain about here. Maybe it should be based on Con? Constitution doesn’t get used for enough, in my opinion.
Edward Burke I’m basing my game of English myth. There, the Wild Hunt frequently shows up to drag sinners to hell. That’s where the focus on murdering the wicked comes from. And I wanted them to be ambiguous. They aren’t a thing you want rampaging around unsupervised, but are they bad enough that you can’t use them?
Ah, I see. Thanks.
Dan Byrne: Constitution is used for your HP, which is one thing more than Wisdom gets used for (which is nothing at all). 😛
I think X+Wis is a good idea, it’s just setting the X that needs a bit of thinking.