REQUEST FOR IDEAS!!
So, I’m still fairly new to DW, and I’m having a spot of trouble coming up with something sufficiently cool for a magic item my players recently acquired. So I am throwing myself on the creative mercy of the community. Help me, Dungeon World Kenobis! You’re my only hope!
At our last adventure, the PCs investigated mysterious goings-on in a small town where recently-dead people were coming back to life. They ended up doing a dungeon crawl through a blighted otherworldly corn maze, fighting mutated livestock, vicious demon crows and “The Reaper” – a medieval farmer version of Jason Voorhees who they kept killing, but who kept reappearing to terrorize them with a machete a big-ass, intimidating, 2-handed farm scythe.
So, when they found the locus of evil that was blighting the town and undid the ritual, and finally put down ol’ Jason for good, the Fighter immediately glommed onto that scythe, because SCORE!
Any suggestions on a cool DW take on such a thing? It’s been warped by the same evil that blighted the farm, the crows, the livestock and the farmhand who wielded it, so I want it to be useful, but have a dark drawback to using it.
I think I’d allow him to make it his signature weapon, configured however he likes, with the understanding that when he dies it is in charge of whatever happens next.
Also: People recognize The Reaper, so maybe there’s a CHA based move associated with carrying the thing into villages.
When you wield the scythe of ages, roll +wis. On a 10+, hold 3. On a 7-9. Hold 1. You may spend your hold one for one to:
— Slice through anything wider than sunlight.
— The alignment isn’t changed to violent evil for the session.
— Summon vile farm pests.
Violent evil alignment: Did you murder someone for imagined slights?
It could potential be a compendium class where the player has the option of slowly turning into the reaper.
You don’t have to make it useful. He voluntarily took a weapon wielded by and linked to a psychotic killer. He’s pretty much asking for it. At the very least the weapon probably has an evil alignment.
When you take your Last Breath while wielding the Reaper, you must bargain with death.
Wielding the Reaper in combat you become more and more fascinated with gore and sheer violence. When you strike upon a living creature with the scythe, resolve one bond with a party member of your choice and make a new negative bond with them /they start to fear and resent you/. You don’t get XP for resolving bonds this way.
Describe how amazing it feels to use, how well it works in a fight, like it was made for their hands. I’d say every once and a while, have someone they kill come back a couple days later. Maybe they’re attacking the party without a head, maybe they’re lost and looking for direction from the reaper.
Was there a greater power controlling the scythe? Or was the power within the scythe itself? Either way, it will probably want to start communicating with the fighter. Offer an experience now and then to reap someone who didn’t necessarily need reaping.
Ooh, better:
At the start of every session, the reaper (the GM) will describe a person. “A man who has lost everything” or “Someone thoroughly wicked, with blue eyes” or “An innocent child”. If you kill someone fitting that description this session, gain an XP.
All great ideas, folks! Thanks!
The best part is that he will probably use the Blacksmith move to graft the properties of this thing onto his Signature Weapon.
Much hilarity should ensue.
Kevin Farnworth The Scythe was a normal piece of farm equipment that was warped by the power of the Shadowland that the farm had become. Everything had a “mutant demonspawn” kind of feel to it rather than a “this has something to do with Death personified” feel.
Fear the Reaper
Like the sun and the moon, the Reaper’s scythe just is, everyone knows what it is deep in their hearts.
You take +1 to Parley when you’re using the scythe’s reputation to intimidate.
The Sake of the Harvest
You feel compelled to reap those that the scythe believes should pass beyond the Black Gate of Death.
At any time during a session, the GM may pass a note with a name written on it. If you strike them down, mark XP.
Chaff in the Wind
When you kill something using the scythe, there is a chance they’ll come back as mindless, wandering undead. They’re not actively hostile to you… but to those around you they might prove fatal!
The longer they are allowed to roam the stronger they become.
A Pale Crop
When you slam the scythe into the earth and whisper the words of Death herself, the nearest corpses will rise as ghoulish creatures. They will obey your first command, but once completed it will need putting back in the ground the old fashioned way!
On a 10+, you raise at least five undead, if not more.
On a 7-9, you raise an undead.
Soul Business
When you die gripping the scythe in hand, Death will take the weapon in return for restoring your life… Or at least, granting you a semblance of life as a haunting wraith.
Reaper’s Scythe
two-handed, reach, messy
can harm incorporeal creatures
At the beginning of the session roll+Wis. On a 10+, hold 3. On 7-9, hold 1. On a 6-, the MC holds 1. Spend 1 hold to describe how a named character will die. You mark experience if you attempt to make this come true. You get -1ongoing on any roll that doesn’t make this come true. Or something like that.