Author: Ben Wray

BARGAINS WITH DEATH

What have you used in your games?

So far only one PC, the bard, has died in my campaign, and now he has to sing the praises of Death to every town he visits. He’s become oddly gung-ho about this, and picked up the wicked-old compendium class “The Walking Dead” as follow-through.

The cooler of two love letters I’m writing for the PCs who have missed a few sessions of my weekly Dungeon World game.

(For Regulus)

WORMS GROW FROM THE EARTH LIKE GRASS. DUNWICK RAISES THE KNIFE, AND BRINGS IT DOWN ON THE BODY LYING UPON THE ALTAR OF BEETLES. HE CARVES OUT ITS BLACKENED AND DISEASED HEART, AND BITES INTO IT AS IF IT WERE SUCCULENT FRUIT.

What’s happening?

A HUNDRED VOICES CRY OUT “HAIL DIM, THE GODSLAYER!”

Are these dreams? Holy visions? Serpent-venom-induced hallucinations?

GALADIIR STANDS OVER DUNWICK’S FALLEN FORM IN THE BLOODCAKED SANDS. HE LOOKS UP. THE VEILED WOMAN GIVES HIM A THUMBS DOWN: THE SIGNAL FOR DEATH.

Is this the past? Present? Future?

BLOOD AND DEATH AND SONG AND BLOOD AND DEATH AND SONG AND BLOOD AND DEATH AND SONG.

How long have you been out? Hours? Days? Months?

THE SIX MOONS COME INTO ALIGNMENT. EVERYTHING BURNS.

Wait, aren’t there only five moons?

WAKE.

(Because you’ve missed a few sessions worth of swag and XP, level up twice at no cost, then choose two of the following moves… or all three, if you tell me about the last time you broke an vow.

IN VEMON VERITAS: When you’re poisoned, you experience visions. Roll+con. On a 10+, choose two, one a 7-9, one:

– You metabolism the poison itself harmlessly

– You receive clear and lucid visions, rather than strange and confusing ones

– You receive visions on a subject of your choice, rather than one of the GM’s choice

RIGHTEOUS REGALIA: When you lack worthy arms, worthy armor, or a worthy steed, you may add an unwavering sense of direction to one of any desired specifications (flaming, holy, intelligent, whatever) as a free extra boon to any quest.

ARBITER: When you ask what here is evil, you’ll get a bit more nuance: you may ask one yes/no question about their specific vile deeds which the GM will answer truthfully.)

Silly and slightly meta cosmology idea:

Each item on the Agenda list was one of the Titans, slain so their corpses could make the foundations of the world.

Each item on the Principles list is one of the Gods, whose will is paramount. So you have gods like “Seeker of Endless Horizons” (draw maps like crazy, but leave blanks) and “Keeper of the Forbidden Names” (Never speak the name of your moves) and so on.

Each move is a class of Angel, who implement the will of the Gods in the mortal world. So you have Bloody-handed Angels of Slaughter (deal damage) and Cold-hearted Angels of Isolation (separate them) and so on.

So, puzzles. How do you run them? I know one of the principles is “Address the characters, not the players”, but let’s face it, “When you try to solve the SKELETONS PUZZLE, roll +int, on a 10+, you solve it, on a 7-9, you solve it but take time” is… kind of dull.

Part of me is tempted to just present the puzzle as is to the players, and let them solve it, but use character moves (“What here is useful to me? What here is not what it seems?”) as appropriate? Any success with that? Or anyone ever come up with a more exciting and engaging character-addressing custom move for puzzle-type challenges?

So one of the biggest things I didn’t like about using ability scores AND modifiers instead of just the modifiers was having to look up at what point your modifiers increase when raising your ability scores.

And I JUST realized… you don’t actually need to do that at all, because it’s all in your starting spread: you’ve got the point where -1 becomes 0 (8 and 9), the point where 0 becomes +1 (12 and 13), and the point where +1 becomes +2 (15 and 16). If you can just remember 18=+3, then you’ve got the rest right there on your character sheet.

Well played, Adam and Sage, well played.

Solo play? Or rather, 1 GM, 1 PC? Anyone done it? Any advice?

Two things I’m considering. One is stealing a page for D&D 3.5 and rolling with “Gestalt” classes to offset the the problem of being all by your lonesome in the fearsome dungeon: basically you get the start moves of two classes, the best of HP and class damage between the two, and each time you level you get a move from each.

The other idea is starting with a hireling for each bond (or if I do gestalt, half the bonds or something) as your “adventuring party”, although it’s clear who the star is.

(I was bored at work, and had forgotten that you could use excel to generate random numbers… so took the digits of pi from the calculator tool, skipped all 7-9 digits, and used that to generate 3 jobs for Dark Heart Of The Dreamer.)

THE PIE JOBS

(Found posted in Raisha’s Bakery, home to the best mincemeat pies in the Twin Parishes, if not all of Dis)

Patron: Gladsong, halfling assassin

Description: Bodyguard Nyx, the Emissary of the Emissary of Night, as she attends the Sanguine Ball in the Laudomia Parish, to discredit the reputation of a rival assassin (Vespula, an unusually intelligent hellwasp swarm) hired to kill her at that event. Forged invitations to the ball will be provided, but if formal attire is required it will come out of your pay.

Reward: 1000 coin per freebooter if Nyx survives the event, with a 500 coin bonus each if nobody discovers you have been hired to protect her.

Patron: Gjof the Ring-Giver

Description: Investigate the nature of an ominous temple in Dis’s newest territories (Just ‘consumed’ and not yet formally incorporated into any Parish)

Reward: Goodwill and karmic blessings (blessings verified and licensed by the Arcadian Parish Trade Guild).

Patron: The Keeper Of The Grey Library

Description: Travel to the plane known only in nightmares as The Red Pit, find the Tower of Woe where a diabloist of unknown name performs blasphemous and unspeakable researches into the native languages of fiends, and bring to the Grey Library any and all scrolls and books you find there.

Reward: Whatever else you find there, and as a friend to the Grey Library, supervised access to the Restricted Vault, including certain forbidden bestiaries and maps of especial interest to freebooters.