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Ran a quick World of Planes game on Sunday which went well.

Ran a quick World of Planes game on Sunday which went well. We had a quasi-fallen angel, a troll, and a noble-born sharpshooter, just back from a rather unfortunate encounter with the planar god-thing Dave!.

Highlights

– Our noble freebooter scum doubling up on jobs by convincing the philosopher-scholar Aristophanes the Cynic that their other jobs were necessary steps on the path to learning the meaning of life, the universe, and everything.

– The Free University of Dis exists in twelve separate colour-coded timestreams in order to facilitate timetabling. Unfortunately, you’re still guaranteed to end up with a clash anyway. And no matter what, it’s never a good idea to take off your watch.

– Hedge-goblins causing havoc in Grundyweed Park.

– The Boiling Oceans of Blood are now the Reasonably Cool River of Blood. The University has rowing on it in the spring.

– The Snout’s Spout in Porcino Parish has the best coffee in Dis, and you’ll be fine as long as you don’t mention bacon.

– Providing security for THE TRANSFORMATION of the University’s Proctor into a daemon-wyrm god-thing turned out to be a reasonably mellow affair, apart from the quasi-fallen angel killing more of the crowd than the ceremony actually did (i.e., more than zero). It might have helped if the Proctor hadn’t been so darn elusive about the nature of THE TRANSFORMATION, which was marketed as a free concert to the citizens of Dis.

Another day, another session, and as our heroes are left with some time on their hands awaiting their audience with…

Another day, another session, and as our heroes are left with some time on their hands awaiting their audience with the Brave Sultana during their time in Dis they’ve decided on personal quests to undertake in the meantime. The first was that of our resident Thief, Eldon Tosscobble, to procure a hamper of the finest delicacies in the land, the quests of halflings being somewhat less expansive yet infinitely more pleasing to the palate than those of other folk. A peacock-feathered elf in the Avenue of Spices, a famed covered market of the parish, fulfilled his desires but would accept only memories in payment.

“A painful memory, if you please, there’s quite the market for them at the moment.”

“The face of my estranged father, over his shoulder as he leaves for the last time.”

“And what makes this memory especially potent?”

The answers Eldon gave will provide fertile fuel for a later adventure, but for now we move on. Next came the deed of the Cleric, Siggrun Ironshod, who in making some enquiries found that the parish of Hollow Steel once housed a temple dedicated to his lord Havok, god of bloody conquest, that has since fallen into disrepair, and worse, become desecrated by demons of fire and metal who are using it as a workshop for Hell’s armies, corrupting the once sacred forge. While scouting the area Sir Gideon the Paladin was nearly strangled to death on the rooftops by a chain devil but fortunately it was stunned by the stern Fighter Ragnar with a blast from an octopus-folk radium sceptre he had acquired in earlier adventures and finished off with a bit of swordwork backed by righteous anger.

With Eldon doing the breaking-and entering, the party uncovered documents indicating that this was no mere ordinary temple, but that its forge was blessed by Havok himself in the making of weapons of war and that no enemy of the Bloody God could stand its heat when it was blessed by one of his anointed. Disguising Siggrun as a chain devil and equipping him with a magic item held by Eldon, The Chains of the Drowned Man, which permitted the wearer to move ethereally, Ragnar and Sir Gideon formed the distraction, charging into the fray to smite the demonic hordes whilst Siggrun used the disguise to get close enough to the forge to reconsecrate it. After getting stuck halfway through the wall and having to convince a surprised ( and fortunately rather dim) fire imp that yes, chain devils can in fact do that, he managed to extricate himself and begin the rite, filling the temple with a ruby-red light and the sounds of distant battle that drove the demons shrieking from its halls… at this point, the Inevitable who had been overseeing the temple’s orderly decline into obscurity took exception.

“Excessive divine magic detected, initiating countermeasures.” It intoned dolefully as it shattered Siggrun’s spells one after another. “The restoration of this site violates entropic pattern ordnances, desist immediately.”

One by one the party’s blades crashed and clattered uselessly against the entity’s body of actualised Law, failing to do more than scrape against its axiomatic hardness. “The Forge,” Siggrun declared “There must be a way to harness its power against this invader.” And so he searched, and so it was true. The proper prayer intoned, the weapons of the heroes reflected Havok’s light, carving armour of pure order into shingles with the chaos found in the midst of conquest.

Of Ragnar and Sir Gideon’s own quests, we shall have to wait and see.

In today’s Dungeon World game, my barbarian became King of kobolds and found a frost sword. Not bad for a day’s work.

Thursday night is Planarch night!

The party witnesses a Starfish Man being stoned by a Gorgon assassin. While the assailant escapes, our Paladin rocks his Inevitable Heritage “End an Effect” move to save the victim. But the Paladin has no Hold to spend on the move so I ask him to earn some by telling us about when he was first possessed by the Inevitable. He tells us that the planar lawgiver was mortally wounded in a battle against an abomination and its essence used his teenage body as a lifeboat. Inflamed by the weird law-passions of the Inevitable, he set aside his bookish ways and became a Karthite Paladin.

With the power of the Inevitable flaring behind his eyes, he explodes the statue and the Starfish Man emerges from the blast, unharmed!

Meanwhile our body-switched Bard and Wizard, who were lovers for one magical night in the Fleshbender lab, both move on to some revenge fucking. The Wizard hooks up with a hot Fleshblender who has a beguiling talent for gender-switching. The sad-sack death-magic emaciated Bard is stuck seducing a Ghoulish sea-captain. But Ghouls do it differently and his mosquito-like proboscis is unable to penetrate the Bard’s bony hip. Shamed, the Ghoul locks himself in the water closet and leaves the Bard to awkwardly let himself out. The Bard is heartbroken and still pines for the Wizard’s embrace. It’s all dungeonhearts in our Dis.

Other things we learned about Dis: 1) the Lightning Brains are native to the parish of Ynan and are basically massive plasma balls with brains inside them. 2) War Brains occupy orbs that are spiked like the head of a mace. 3) The parish of Greatlune borders the Chaos Sea and has sorcerous diamond piers that extend kilometers out into the maelstrom. 4) Vain sorcerers will spawn dozens of homunculi and cull all the imperfect ones, but some escape and squat in Ditchbiggin. 5) Starfish young bud off their parent, but only after a prolonged infancy of several years. 6) Starfish do everything slowly. 7) Vulture folk have a unique hook-and-dagger fighting style. 8) Vulture folk look like Skexis, but are way more limber. 9) Vulture folk were cursed to walk by a god after they ate a very wrong thing.

Oh wow, I am super excited to run my Dungeon World Single Session tonight.

Oh wow, I am super excited to run my Dungeon World Single Session tonight. I drew up a rough “map” of a swamp with some places the characters could stumble upon. I just drew a quick sketch and named the place. Things like “nest” or “boat” with a picture of a half-sunk boat.

What was the boat used for, how did it sink? Tonight we play to find out.

I should have done this two weeks ago while the memory was fresh.

I should have done this two weeks ago while the memory was fresh. Maybe Jamie Sue or Bryan Wood can pipe up to fix any mistakes.

I ran a Single Session on Google Hangouts with two complete strangers, neither of which had played Dungeon World. One had played Apocalypse World but I couldn’t tell her what the differences were because I’ve never played AW.

We created character, a halfling thief named Rook and a Elven Wizard named Fenfaril. They began the session in front of the burnt-out remains of some farmer’s homestead. Fenfaril was looking for Stones of Power for his mentor while Rook was along purely for the adventure.

The home was completely demolished with only a chimney and a few corner walls standing. In one corner that was slightly less burnt than the rest was a trap door. Fenfaril opened it and peered down. Looking up at him, slightly startled, was a fire beetle. It shot a gob of fire which Fenfaril barely dodged by jumping backwards. The hem of his tattered robe caught fire but Rook beat it out.

She then skewered the beetle with an expertly thrown dagger.

Danger averted the two climbed down to the charred remains of a root cellar with an open wooden door leading into darkness. Fenfaril called up some light but lost grip on his power, sending a flash out which attracted some more fire beetles.

The ensuing battle went from calm competence to frantic stomping but eventually the two were victorious, if a little singed. Fenfaril scrounged some undamaged jars and harvested the thoraxes of the beetles for their valuable chemicals.

Down the freshly dug tunnel they explored, discovering that the tunnel they were in had been broken into by another tunnel which appeared hastily dug to intercept it. Following this new tunnel they come across a magic trap, a type of electric force-field across their path which Rook discovers will discharge itself on any object passing through it so she expends its charges with some carefully tossed rocks.

Next the arrive in a larger chamber which appears to have been used by an intelligent creature. There they find some potions but are surprised by the sound of someone coming from deeper within the cavern. They quickly hide as a grubby pyromancer unloads his stolen lunch and heads towards the homestead tunnel to feed his pet fire beetles. Quickly the sneak past, assuming, I guess, that there must be another exit.

They come across a pyromaniac goblins toasting his fingers on a candle and munching on his lunch and decide to sneak by as they hear the pyromancer coming in their direction, calling the names of his beloved pets.

Unfortunately a loose rock alerts the pyromancer and his goblin to their presence and a fight ensures. The thief douses her blade in the potion she identified as poison while the wizard drinks the potion they think is healing. The wizard feels really cold in his tummy and gains some resistance to fire damage as he has drunk what is essentially a potion of fire dousing while the thief narrowly avoids the danger of spilling any of the healing potion on her skin.

Despite these mistakes the fight goes smoothly and first the goblin then the pyromancer goes down in quick succession despite the healing effects of the dagger which caused the final blow.

On the body of the pyromancer is found a Stone of Power: Fire, which gives the Wizard’s spells the “Fire” tag while he possesses it.

It was a fun session and I think I handled it better than my previous attempts at Dungeon World. The only preparation was a map of the homestead and connecting tunnels. I hadn’t decided what burnt it before the session. The Stones of Power were invented by Bryan when I asked him why he was adventuring and I’m thinking that there are a number of minor stones spread throughout the land, plus a number of major stones.

Thursday night is Planarch / Dungeon World night!

Three sessions in and our campaign is no longer frontless. The Fleshblenders are settling in as a heavy front and the party is intimately wrapped up in them.

The FBs are very interested in the body-switching magic mishap from last session so they hire the body-switched characters (the Bard and the Wizard) as research subjects. The gig pays J250 for a week. This is better, safer and easier money than the PCs will ever make freebooting. They get pampered with massages and steam baths and soft-handed ogrish chiropractic adjustments in between examinations and interviews. In the languid environment, the long-running sexual tension between the B and the W explodes!

Then their relationship turns to shit when the Bard decides unilaterally to pay the Fleshblenders to cure the Wizard’s body’s necromantic curse of unending hunger. +1 XP for hitting his Chaotic alignment trigger! Alas, the Bard rolls the nasty nine on Defy Danger to escape surgical complications. The cure works. It permanently and totally cures the Wizard’s body’s hunger. Her body is now powered by death energy and need not eat ever again. In fact, her body must not eat. It will get very sick if she tries.

The Wizard, who is a sensual sort, is not happy at this.

Later, the Wizard learns that the Fleshblenders consider their anti-aging transplants to be extremely crude. They are eager to discover another means of prolonging life. Instead of stealing mere body parts, they would like to outright steal bodies using one-way mind transference. It’s a downer for the PCs but at least they got free chiropractic out of it.

More in the ongoing story of my increasingly bizzare game.

I also forgot to mention, as a wedding gift, the forest spirits blessed the surrounding farmland to be a bountiful and fertile paradise as long as Hycorax’s children tend it for the next nine generations.

Since, apparently, his children will be half elf/half dryad (Fortunately the Planarch Codex has us covered there!) those generations will probably be loooong.

Originally shared by Dylan Boates

Has anyone out there been wondering how my Dungeon World game is going?

After our heroes broke the Worm God’s power in Darujhistan, some of the Worm Cult began worshiping Hycorax the druid instead. He took the Guildmaster compendium class, which we’ve trivially reskinned to “Cult Leader”.

They returned to Devil’s Reach and found that it was full of Worm Zombies, since they never really dealt with the necromancer before they left.

So they killed some zombies, but it turns out the villagers were relying on them to protect the village from bandits and provide extra labour in the mine and fields. The villagers were unwilling to give up the zombies!

Today, our heroes tried to find a better solution, and ended up financing the resettlement of a bunch of the refugees from Darujhistan in Devil’s Reach.

While they were at it, Hycorax used his earth manipulation powers to build a temple/farm to himself. (Took the Guildhall move.)

The power was out of his control though, and it attracted the dryads from the nearby forest.

They had dealt with the dryads before and knew that their passionate and emotional nature could make them dangerous to mortals, so Hycorax tried to negotiate a way that they could live in harmony with his new church and the people of Devil’s Reach.

Got a 7 on his parley, so the dryads want some concrete assurance right now.

The dryads demand that Hycorax marries their queen, and that his two new acolytes marry dryads as well.

We broke out the Wedding Compendium! (I believe the other day Ben Wray asked if anyone had used it?)

Gretta made a new friend, Alastor the wizard/alchemist, who makes a drink powerful enough to get even an undead Dwarf like her drunk!

Jonah got a 6 on his roll to attend the wedding and “things got way out of hand”. He got terribly drunk and apparently spent the night with a dryad. He’s engaged now…

The necromancer also attended the wedding and said some cryptic things. She told Hycorax that her god, who Hycorax is sworn to destroy, is just misunderstood and offered to leave town peacefully as a wedding present!

So yeah. This week we had basically 0 adventure. Instead we founded a new community, built a church and then had a wedding…

Unusual, but fun as hell!

Last session my Bard Cassandra lost her mojo.

Last session my Bard Cassandra lost her mojo. Faced with a spectre and armed with a crystal bell which when rung would make the beast corporeal and vulnerable to our attacks, I rolled snake eyes and she was left just holding the handle of said bell. The Ranger then stomped on the bell rolling around on the ground, rolled awesomely, and the beast was blasted back from whence it came. Cassandra was so depressed that she has sworn off barding until somehow her confidence is reattained.

Any Master of Ceremonies have an opening for a long experienced but first timer for DW available?

Any Master of Ceremonies have an opening for a long experienced but first timer for DW available? I really would like to get involved in a game, please.