Ran my first session of Dungeon World last week and the players ended up infiltrating a pocket dimension where a…

Ran my first session of Dungeon World last week and the players ended up infiltrating a pocket dimension where a…

Ran my first session of Dungeon World last week and the players ended up infiltrating a pocket dimension where a divine entity was being imprisoned. After the game I came up with this:

OF BLOOD & LIGHTNING

You traversed the etheric prisons of gods and managed to escape with your lives. Whether it was the air you breathed in that otherspace, or the electrification of an undying consciousness wracking your physical essence, something has altered your blood. The next time you level up you can choose to take this move:

POWER HAS A PRICE

When you spill your own blood you can alter reality by shaping the energies released from your sacrifice. With a weapon that can rend skin and sinew, roll your damage against yourself, and describe how the latent magic in your blood manifests, you fulfill a basic move as if you rolled a 10+.

If you have Power Has A Price, these count as class moves for you, you can choose from them when you level up:

BLOOD SPEAKS

You can smell the spiritual legacy of spilled blood. You always know whenever you are close to someone who has tortured, murdered, or used blood magic (including Power Has A Price).

BLOODBOND

When you feed your own blood to another person you gain leverage over them. For NPCs, it’s the same as using parley and hitting a 10+. For PCs, they cannot interfere with you anymore.

HEARTBEAT OF THE WORLD

In those moments just before waking, when your sleeping mind can hear the sounds of nature and reality soaks gently into your brain, the foundation of the otherspaces can be tapped by your waking consciousness. Name a location you have visited at least once, you know what is happening there and until you sleep again can spout lore at any time to peer through the otherspace and view it while you’re awake.

ORTHOSTATIC HYPOTENSION OF THE GODS

When you roll a 12+ while discerning realities, you can ask any question you want.

5 thoughts on “Ran my first session of Dungeon World last week and the players ended up infiltrating a pocket dimension where a…”

  1. Those are awesome!  I think with Power Has a Price, dealing class damage to yourself is pretty steep, which makes it a very different move for different classes, but I guess that’s what you are going for.

  2. I’ve already decided that the self-harm wouldn’t kill the character outright, so the worst they could do is bring themselves to 1 HP.

    But I just realized this leaves open the idea that if they’re at 1 HP they could just keep using the move to hit 10+ on basic moves, so maybe I should change it to “With a weapon that can rend skin and sinew, mark yourself as Scarred… if you are already Scarred you cannot use Power Has A Price until you recover.”

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