Author: Lenny Pacelli

Tonight we are going to play our third session of Dw, and I have created some long term fronts.

The story so far….

We started the campaign with the Pc’s escorting a caravan of (disguised) Custodian of the Order of the Silent Dawn. The exact nature of what were they escorting was kept secret from them, that was part of the deal: “don’t ask question”. During the journey they were ambushed, many were killed and the Pc’s were driven off to a magical swamp were they faced some cultists of Signadoth and discovered their base (an ancient temple of a forgotten good diety) as the heart of the swamp itself. They also confronted a Spirit of the Drowned who had infested the local river.

They met the Sorceress of the cult and managed to convince her to let them go, so she showed them a way out of the swamp.

Later they arrived to the poor and cursed village of Turburg, they helped the locals to kill a beast that during the night hunted the villagers, but can’t come into their house because of some protective gliphs on the doors..

The beast was an owlbear, but corrupted with unded energy. when they slayed the beast thousends of worms disgorged from the corpse (the druid followed the worms, but that is another story…).

They discover that the villager were once fishermans and also used to navigate the river to raid the village of Quinn, to the south. They say that Spirit of the Drowned they had previousely slain was there for years and was preventing them to come close to the river. they say they were cursed by the villager of Quinn.

and here’s the campaign front:

Cultist of Signadoth

Cult (impulse: to infest from within)

Grim portents:

-Shraya is captured.

-Shraya’s memories are scanned.

-Cyril’s buryal ground is found.

-the Claw of Regret is retrieved.

-the ritual is performed

Impending doom – Tyranny: Signadoth the blind demon prince is realesed.

Realm of Nightmares:

Shadowland (impulse: to corrupt or consume the living)I

or

Force of Chaos (impulse: to destroy all semblance of order)

The spirit are upset, humans experience extremely vivid nightmares.

some men die in their sleep.

the instability of the realm creates a breach into the mortal world, some spirits cross the bound.

the realm itself starts to absorb portion of the mortal world.

Impending doom – Rampant Chaos: the natural balance of all the things it’s subverted, the Eternal Night descend upon the mortal world.

Order of the Silent Dawn

Religious Organization (impulse: to establish and follow doctrine)

Grim portents:

-The Order is reformed/New recruits are found

-The Emissaryes of the Order look for powerful allies.

-A One God religion

-Freedom of worship is denied

Impending doom – Tyranny: worship of the old gods and spirits is forbidden, persecution of the infidels, the One God increase its power due to his worshippers and the other spiritual forces loos their strenght.

later I’ll post some back story to better understand the fronts…

So, one of my players who is playing a druid has asked me if: when shapeshifted in a creature like, let’s say a cat, would be more appropriate to use DEX instead of STR to hack and slash, due to its natural ability.

I’ve thought about it, but I’ve just came up with more questions, like:

-what are you fighting?

-what about the animal moves?

-SO, if you are a cat, your damage would still be a D6?

-and above all: what about the fiction?

So, what do you think about it?

EDIT: also, since I’ve begin to play Aw I’ve always felt such a relief to have left behind (boring) discussions like that, about what’s the proper stat to use for an action, commonly encountered in D&D games.

EDIT 2: I’ve just realized that in the description of the move shapeshifter it reads: “some moves may be harder to trigger – a housecat will find it hard to battle with an ogre.

Have a couple of questions:

When the druid shapeshifts, he can stay like..forever in the animal form (assuming nothing interfere with that)?

When the druid spend his last hold while shapeshifted, does He immediately turn back to his natural form (after he has performed his action)?

Got it today, and felt the insane urge to share it!

Also, just in time for the first session of tonight’s Dw game..

…get ready to roll, friends!

Tonight I’ve run Dw (not really my first time, I’ve had another couple of one shot game before), but I think I’ve messed up!

During character creation the players established that they were escorting a caravan, that The job was very well payed but they didn’t trust theyr employers, because part of the job (what do they hide in the wagon) was kept secret.

And here I messed things up. Sigh.

I tell them that during the journey the caravan was attacked and many were killed or driven off.

They were forced to flee, pushed toward a fetid swamp.

And then I asked: what do you do now?

So they start looking for a way to leave the swamp, facing the danger posed by the swamp itself (a malevolent-magic-sentient enviroment) and fight with some cultists (the cult was established by the players by rolling moves and asking them questions).

I just wanted to put them in a tense situation from the beginning (no prep at all) but the problem is that I feel I’ve ignored theyr first input (the escorting job, remember?).

So what now?

I have the world of dungeons – planarch codex, how is it supposed to be used? You still use dungeon world’s basic moves?

Also, how does it works the magic? I see there is Ritual and Summoning, you just have to create and “effect” following your imagination?

thank you!

Question: to use rotes or cantrips, you roll the cast a spell move?

I’d like to run a one-shot of DW with my friends, but since we will play just one time I was looking for some advice when you play a one-shot.

It’s also our first time playing Dw (with some of them I use/used to play Aw).

What kind of prep do I have to set?

Do I have to prepare fronts in advance?

Maybe an adventure fronts?