My players are being pursued by an enemy that’s something of a mix of John Carpenter’s Thing, Stephen King’s It, and…

My players are being pursued by an enemy that’s something of a mix of John Carpenter’s Thing, Stephen King’s It, and…

My players are being pursued by an enemy that’s something of a mix of John Carpenter’s Thing, Stephen King’s It, and an H.P. Lovecraft elder god. Here’s the dungeon front I tried out on them last night which ends with a custom location-based move. The idea is a kind of twisted flashback episode where the player’s answer questions about their PC’s past and their answers are used to fuel dark visions.

This is really my first time using a formal Front, as I usually just jam off what’s in my head with what the players do, would appreciate feedback.

Campfire Tales (Outdoor Dungeon Front)

The Darkness invades the minds of the party while they are making camp and tries to sow fear and dissent in the group.

Cast: The Darkness in many varied guises

Stakes: What will we learn about each PC’s past and motivations? Will any of them succumb to the Darkness’ influence?

Danger: “A Touch of Evil” (Chosen One / Force of Chaos)

Impulse: To terrify and confuse with visions and quietly invade minds for later subjugation

Portents:

– The sky darkens and the fire flickers with an eerie blue light.

– A thick fog fills the night air, a thin mist coating the camp ground, as a feeling of oppressive evil falls upon the camp

– PCs on watch see ghastly shapes in the mist that disappear quickly. Eerie and unearthly shrieks and howls fill the night air.

– Sleeping PCs suffer terrible nightmares of terror, pain, and powerlessness that are difficult to wake from.

Impending Doom:

When you finally see the rising sun after a fitful night of dark visions, roll+WIS. On a 10+, you shake off the dread and steel yourself in the certainty that you can face any danger and overcome. On a 7-9, choose one:

– You are shaken by what you have experienced, choose a new fear for your character and describe how they express it.

– You see the others in a new light, describe the difference and how it will affect how you interact with them.

– Your sense of your own purpose has shifted, describe the change and how it will affect what you do from now on.

In the end, all but one rolled 6- (the last rolled a 10+) but I decided to have them choose instead of making a hard move off my own.

5 thoughts on “My players are being pursued by an enemy that’s something of a mix of John Carpenter’s Thing, Stephen King’s It, and…”

  1. I like your custom move, but I’m not sure how the Grim Portents played out… I thought that portents normally only advance on a golden opportunity, but I don’t see why the player would be failing lots of moves or otherwise giving you lots of golden opportunities during a single night of camping.

  2. Robert Rendell​ Fear, mostly. They’ve tangled with this thing before so they caught the whiff of something happening and failed a few rolls trying to figure it out, but I take your point. Could you suggest a way of creating a danger that happens in a camp sight overnight?

  3. I’m no experienced DW GM; I’ve only run a couple of sessions, so I’m as in the dark as anyone 🙂

    There’s probably nothing wrong with the way you ran it. I’m just trying to figure these things out for myself.

    Perhaps an interesting way to do something like this but more in keeping with how I understand Fronts to work would be to have each grim portent be an escalation of the nightmares, and rather than happening in a single night they build up over many nights?

    Like, originally someone (everyone?) in the party dreams of something weird but not too disturbing (they’re flying over a Cyclopean city). Then if they fail to deal with the thing sending the dreams and a Golden Opportunity comes up during the day and the next portent is ticked, the next night their dream recurs, but it goes further and is worse (they’re flying over a Cyclopean city, and they approach a huge temple in the centre with dark liquid flowing down the staircase leading to the massive doors).

    Each portent that occurs causes the dream to go further and become darker, and the Impending Doom is that they eventually have the “full” sanity-threatening dream and experience something like your custom move.

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