Category: The Dungeon World Tavern: Actual Play

This morning’s short 2 hour once-off Dungeon World session at out LFGS

Cast and backstory: 

Professor Hieronymous, the Clockpunk: Hieronymous’ firsts memories are that of being a homeless orphan on the Pirate Island of Bermuda. He was taken in by the pirate community but had an obsession to find out where he came from and who his parents were. The solution seemed to be time travel: If he could travel back in time he could find out the truth. So he studied time, and started to invent clockwork gadgets in the process. He gave himself the title “Professor” to gain the respect of the rabble of Bermuda. He heard rumors of a great place of power where time was in stasis in the area of Snodsburgh so he decided to travel there to further his studies. On his travels he met Trixie, a halfling druid who once saved his life. 

Trixie, the halfling Druid comes from the great forests, and grew up knowing she had a special bond with animals, so she became a druid. She met Hieronymous in the Great Forests, saved his life and showed him  a secret rite of the land. She knew about this place of power he was looking for and offered to take him there. They met Bulk Bogan on their travels together, who fell in love with Trixie and decided to join them.

Bulk Bogan is a Pit Fighter. Not much is known of his history except that he is a totally awesome local hero in Snodsburgh and earns a living by fighting to entertain. He wears a championship belt, stretchy pants, and is, as I already noted, awesome. Bulk believes Hieronymous is his greatest fan, but Hieronymous’ ignores him, knowing that there is no cure for stupid. Although Trixie tolerates Bulk’s puppy love for her for the moment, the spirits spoke to her of a great danger that follows Bulk: If he should ever dare to touch her she’ll kill him!

Opening scene:

The heroes found themselves flat on the ground in the middle of a massive battle. They were on a plain covered with dust and smoke, dead bodies of human soldiers and orcs, and bombs and grenades exploding all over the place. The next moment a unit of human cavalry and infantry came charging over them, complete ignoring them, but almost trampling them into the dust. A minute or so later a company of Orcish footsoldiers appeared, obviously in pursuit of the fleeing humans. 

They immediately stopped when they saw the three travellers. 

“What have we here?” asked the captain, an ugly brute with a bigger than usual under bite as the orcs rounded the heroes up. 

Bulk was defiant; he was not used to being handled so roughly by his public. “I am Bulk Bogan!” he declared, and flexed his pecs.

“Bulk Bogan!” The orcs immediately recognised him. Orcs are obviously big Pit Fighting fans. 

Bulk new a good situation when he saw one. He immediately started to work the crowd,working them into a fanboy frenzy.

The captain was impressed. “Hey Lardass”, he shouted. “Come fight the Bulk!”

Lardass was massive, not just tall for an orc but also fat, his rolls of fat barely covering the massive muscles underneath. As Bulk flexed his biceps and quads for the benefit of his fans, the big orc just wiggled his fat behind. 

Bulk had all his attention on the crowd when Lardass suddenly drew his massive claymore and swung it directly at Bulk’s neck. 

Then the Professor froze time. As the world stood still around him with everybody frozen like statues, he calmly walked over to Lardass, pried the orc’s sword from his hand, and threw it spinning over the crowd. When time resumed its normal flow he was back where he started from, and Lardass swung an empty fist at Bulk with his sword disappearing overhead.

Bulk immediate took advantage of the situation and punched Lardass squarely on the nose, sending snot and blood splattering over the crowd. He could feel the bones breaking under the impact of his knuckles. 

Trixie, in meantime, was not idle at all. She changed into a viper, and defied the danger of slithering through the crowd to aid Bulk. 

Lardass kicked at Bulk, but Bulk was much faster than him. He dropped on one knee and punched Lardass in the manlies, almost at the same time the viper bit him in the ankle. Lardass doubled over in pain and sank to one knee, and Bulk finished him off by hitting him on the head with the buckle of his championship belt. 

The crowd of orcs went mad, and the captain grabbed Bulk by the hand and told him what a massive fan he was. Then he assigned four troops to the heroes to take them back to the orc encampment as guests while the company continued their pursuit of the humans in the direction of Snodsburgh. 

Tixie immediately realized that the Orc camp was at the very hill where all six major ley lines in the area met, the place she was taking the Professor to. 

After some interaction with Bulk’s fans in the orc camp and a particularly disgusting orc meal, they slipped away to the top of the hill. Trixie was not sure where the entrance to the place of power was, so she shifted into the shape of an eagle. Flying high above the earth she had a panoramic view of the area, and could see the massive scale and destruction of the battle they had just escaped. She saw that most of the bomb craters, fires and heaps of soldier corpses lay on more ore less on the ley lines. She could also see exactly where the lines met on top of the hill. 

Back in human form, she led her friends to a monolith right on top of the hill. It was inscribed with runes, but they were too weathered to read. The Professor reversed the effect of time on the monolith, returning the script to a better readable state, and Trixie quickly figure out what needed to be done to open the door: Walk three times around the rock and then utter a word of power. 

Bulk walked around the stone three times and then called the only words of power he knew, “Bulk Bogan!”. The monolith turned on its base and a door opened to stairs below. 

Bulk’s player had to leave, so we wrapped the adventure up with a fight with a giant spider in which Trixie changed into a giant wasp to battle the spider, Bulk did his signature move (The Russian Head Clamp Corkscrew) on the spider and the Professor summoned himself from the future to help him fight. 

Then they found a glass coffin where a noble dead guy lay perfectly preserved in Temporal Stasis: Exactly what the Professor came to study. 

Afterthoughts? Just one: Remember to be a fan of the characters!