Brike Swarm
Tiny, Swarm
[HP 6] [Armor 2] [Damage 1d4]
Instinct: To consume human flesh
– Infect
– Emerge while prey sleeps
Now these buggers aren’t inherently deadly… they are about the size of your fist with hard shells and a nasty bite. Now of course it won’t rip you apart like the horrors from below, but when the Brike bite you, you change. Change into something horrible, something unnatural.
If you took damage from the Brike Swarm the next time you make camp roll + CON:
On a 10+: You rest well during the night, your body successfully fighting off the disease.
On a 7-9: You only heal ¼ your total hitpoints. Your features change, but not as badly as some of your companions. Take the scared debility. Take 1d4 damage with CON as armor.
On a 6-: You heal no hit points this night. The pain and horror is too much. Your flesh starts to fall off your body. Blisters and boils rip across your body. An awful stench arises from you. Your veins look like black webbing across your body, your nails yellow, and grayish skin. You are cursed, well actually you’re diseased, but most people don’t know that. Most people believe that you are cursed and possessed. Many victims of the Brike find themselves at the end of a noose or burned alive, those that don’t — well, they are often cast out of towns and villages and have to forage for food to survive. Now, this terrible state can be cured, but only the best healers and clerics know how, and it is quite a painful process. Oh, and did I mention that this diseased odor is extremely perceptible to monsters. They can smell it from far away and it smells delicious to them. Good luck adventurer, you’ll need it.
I’m curious about this disease, and especially the long term effects you mention. This really sets up a character to be a pariah, which can be great fun if the player buys in.
If a player is hit with this and hates it, i’d be sure to give them some path to improve their condition, perhaps a quest to discover some restorative process.
But if the player likes it… in that case i could totally see a compendium class springing up. Among most civilized folk, you always have leverage to parley if you offer to simply leave if they give you what you want… A special move where you can intentionally summon nasty predators whenever you make camp. Perhaps the Brike’s hard shell is passed along in the form of hard but brittle scabs that form on your body, granting a point of “natural” armor….
Seems like an excessively harsh 6- consequence for having taken some damage and failing a single roll.
If get anything less than success, do you get a chance to heal again the next night or is that left up to the GM?
Benjamin Kramer Ahh, but dungeon world is a harsh place. And I don’t see any reason to make them role many times. Of course, as Andrew mentioned, if players would get very angry about it, don’t use it then.
Stacey Holiday I was thinking that they only rolled the first night, and 6- is long lasting unless they went on a little side quest to find a healer or cure. Of course, GMs can change things however they would like.
Andrew Fish I really like the idea of a compendium class or some other way of giving some benefits to help offset the consequences, such as the +1 armor and so forth.
So, if the player rolls 7-9, are they okay the next day? And if they roll 6-, can they not heal any further damage? It would be hard to do a CC that doesn’t heal ever.
Sorry, for it being unclear.
7-9 they are fine except for being scarred — some slight/temporary contortions, but they wear off in a few days.
6- they still heal, it’s just that first night the roll is made they don’t heal because their body is changing, so they can’t get a restful night sleep. In the future they can rest and heal like normal.