I want to try to get back into the habit of writing play reports, so here’s one that is probably way too detailed.

I want to try to get back into the habit of writing play reports, so here’s one that is probably way too detailed.

Originally shared by Daniel Lofton

I want to try to get back into the habit of writing play reports, so here’s one that is probably way too detailed.

My Wednesday 5e group cancelled at the last minute so I ran Dungeon World one-on-one for Charles Neligh over hangouts. This was a continuation of the last DW I’d run for Chaz and Isaac Milner.

Started with Mappo Trell, the thief, climbing a tree to rescue Fiddler, their wagon driver who had been carried of by a giant eagle in the last session. He got to the nest he’d seen Fiddler carried to and proceeded to cut his way through the bottom. As he did his dagger punched into some foul miasmic fluid that poured down on top of him. While he was retching the eagle crashed through the nest and grabbed him it’s beak. Mappo managed to apply sleeping poison to his dagger despite being thrown around and bitten. Shortly after that the eagle was sleeping and Mappo was waking Fiddler, who lay on top of a pile of rotting corpses. The corpses were part what oozed on Mappo when he was below the nest. The other part came from puncturing one of the eggs. The eagle had gone crazy when its three eggs had failed to hatch and rotted. It kept fetching meals and piling them in the nest. Mappo lowered Fiddler to the ground and rifled through the dead, trying to tip the eggs over the side but only succeeding in getting more foul gunk all over himself. He also found a necklace with an upside-down-heart locket.

Mappo and Fiddler (now conscious but damaged) made their way through the forest, trying to catch up with their friends. They holed up in a cave just as the sky opened up and it began to rain, hard. After building a fire the two discovered a statue carved from pale stone standing near the back wall. As the fire warmed the statue it came to life, eyes glowing yellow, advancing, and holding its stone sword aloft. Mappo tried to speak with the construct but was met with only, “DO YOU HAVE THE OFFERING?” Then he noticed a small bowl-shaped indentation in the floor at the statue’s feet. Thinking quickly Mappo tossed what coin he had into the bowl. The cash glowed softly and disappeared. The statue stepped back and to the side of its former resting place, and the wall beside it opened up on a dark corridor.

Setting Fiddler up further into the cave, Mappo lit a torch and advanced into the tunnel, the wall closing behind him after he’d passed the threshold. Despite the torch’s glare he noticed the carvings on the walls, of a great battle betwixt men and bearmen. The carvings of the men glowed with a faint light. Suddenly a gigantic centipede-like creature leapt from the ceiling at Mappo! He plunged his dagger into the creature’s eye and killed it before it could bite him with its venomous mandibles. Mappo rolled the bug monster up and put it in his backpack.

Continuing onward the torchlight revealed a wide crevice where some geologic event had ruptured the tunnel. Mappo attached a rope to a crossbow bolt and anchored it in the ceiling, swinging across the gap. He thoughtfully placed a stone on the rope to keep it readily accessible on the other side.

The corridor led to an immense cavern, in which there was a village. Before exploring the village Mappo spotted a moving light coming toward him. He hid and a giant, glowing, floating eel swam through the air, seemingly on patrol. Mappo settled in for a while, getting a feel for the eel’s route. Once he was sure he could avoid the ell he set out to explore the village. The entirety of the village was carved from stone, down to the furnishings, all of it as if it was shaped from rock rather than carved. The attention to detail was such that it seemed more like a snapshot in time written in stone. The collapsed church in the center of the village triggered a memory in Mappo and he had heard tales of the village this one was modeled on. In his meditation he was almost caught by the eel, but managed duck into a house. The eel had been alerted that someone was about though and kept its patrol close to the house Mappo was in.

Looking around Mappo noticed three things. One, the trap door in the floor was wood rather than stone. Two, there were footprints in the dust of this house, which he had not seen in other dwellings. And three, a glowing yellow stone about the size of a baseball. Inside the glowing stone he could see small people wandering about. He pocketed the stone and went down through the trapdoor.

The tunnels under the stone village branched out, at least some of them leading to ladders that accessed trapdoors in other buildings. Down one corridor Mappo spotted a light. Creeping close he could hear someone humming. The humming stopped as his foot scuffed the floor. Throwing caution to the wind Mappo rounded the corner to see a pale, thin Halfling pointing a crossbow at him. The crossbow was loaded with bolt fronted with an oddly large, rounded tip. A short conversation later and Mappo had learned the Halfling was in thrall to a mysterious master. The subject of the master wanting blood was momentarily broached. Mappo eventually convinced the Halfling, Periwinkle, to escape with him. The snuck back through the village, avoiding the eel until the last rush across open ground to the stairs leading back to the corridor. Mappo urged Periwinkle on through the corridor and turned to put a crossbow bolt in the eel’s eye. The enraged eel charged and Mappo fled. He swung across the crevice on this rope, and met Periwinkle at the end of the corridor. They both banged on the stone with their fists, trying to get Fiddler to throw more coin in the bowl on the other side. Before that could happen the eel was upon them. The thrashing of the thing bashed Mappo up some while he was applying poison to his weapon, but in the end he managed to jam his dagger up through the eel’s jaw, killing it.

Coin was thrown in the bowl, the wall opened, and Mappo and Periwinkle escaped back into the cave. From there the three began their journey to meet back up with their companions on the road.

This past Saturday I ran my nephew (Ross Meadors) through an impromptu Dungeon World game.

This past Saturday I ran my nephew (Ross Meadors) through an impromptu Dungeon World game.

This past Saturday I ran my nephew (Ross Meadors) through an impromptu Dungeon World game. When I first introduced him to DW he had a 4e warforged character he wanted to replicate. We don’t get a chance to play very often, but when we do he uses Ssor the Warforged Fighter. Most of the time we start with him waking up somewhere with no memory of how he got there.

Ssor woke up in a glass-fronted cell, amongst other identical sleeping warforged. He quickly broke out, discovered all the warforged had the same maker (the wizard Solomon), defeated a robot by bashing its head off (got stabbed by a piston spear twice in the process), found and freed a dwarf named Ozruk (did not free the other non-dwarfs, on Ozruk’s recommendation), encountered and defeated a wizard at a magical elevator (almost losing his signature axe), hid from the horde of awakened warforged (distracting them by freeing a goblin and chucking it down the hall in front of them), decided not to brave a boat across a room of acid (to Ozruk’s derision), found a room full of weapons and gear (taking the Infernal Bore, healing potions, and armor), healed and interrogated the previously defeated wizard (also healed Ozruk, who had suffered a crushed hand, and commented when he saw the enemy being healed), got attacked by a grindylow (eel-man) before convincing the wizard to take them up the elevator, fought more grindylow before opening a door onto a sunlit forest (then realizing the forest was real but the bounding mountains and sky were the walls and ceiling of a gigantic chamber). We ended with the group making camp in the forest (and Ssor leveling up to level 4).

The intrepid siegers of the Isle of the Lizard God.

The intrepid siegers of the Isle of the Lizard God.

The intrepid siegers of the Isle of the Lizard God. They narrowly survived a shipwreck, killed a giant, promised to resurrect that giant, and just got started on some lizardman genocide before we had to quit. Fantastic fun!

I don’t get to game with nephew very often.

I don’t get to game with nephew very often.

I don’t get to game with nephew very often. I think the last time was a Dungeon World game toward the end of last year. He was playing a warforged fighter named Ssor, his name backwards. That game he joined my regular group for a pretty epic session that involved some planar hopping and time travel. Looks like I’m going to run another session for him tonight, so I wrote this up for the session.

Ssor,

After traveling to Hell and back, you set out from Hamshire to hunt down the demons that escaped through the portal that brought you back to the world. When you track down and battle the demon Garmantragashador, roll +STR. On a 10+ pick 2, on a 7-9 pick 1.

* You take off Garmantragashador’s head, sending him back to hell.

* Those that witness the battle see the demon’s true form and know you did not simply kill an unarmed man.

* You take from Garmantragashador the crescent moon-shaped Pendant of Arman Thul, which allows its wearer to bind shadows to their bidding.

* Garmantragashador does not mark you. If he had you would have become a beacon for evil things.

What does Garmantragashador look like? In human form? Demon form?

What were Garmantragashador’s last words to you?

If you were marked, where? What does it look like?

The Mark of Garmantragashador

When you are marked by the demon Garmantragashador:

* All foes faced with a choice of who to attack will choose you.

* If you are in hostile territory on a miss tell the GM the following: Until I arrive at a place of safety, any Defy Danger roll of 7-9 by me may draw attract a wandering monster.

When you discover how to remove the Mark of Garmantragashador the GM will detail 1-4 of the following requirements:

* The blood of a magical creature

* Midnight on the full or new moon

* A circle and/or rune drawn with a magical substance

* A significant sacrifice

* A priest of Law or Good

* Slay a powerful creature

The Pendant of Arman Thul

The shadowy powers of forgotten Arman Thul may only be called upon after sunset. When you use the pendant to call upon the long dead wizard’s powers, roll +WIS. On a 10+ hold 3, on a 7-9 hold 1. Spend hold 1-for-1 to:

* Gather shadows around you, making yourself one with the shadows for a short time.

* Gather shadows around a creatures eyes, shadowing their vision for a short time.

* Gather shadows into the shape of your choosing, creating a shadow illusion for a short time.

Lasts night Dungeon World was pretty sweet.

Lasts night Dungeon World was pretty sweet.

Lasts night Dungeon World was pretty sweet. It having been months since we last played, we started in the midst of the endgame for one of the fronts. Hamshire was now overrun by a voracious swarm goblins. The cast included both old and new characters. From previous sessions, Gregor the Fighter and Piotr the Cleric of Torbath; new to the scene, Ssor the warforged Fighter, Regulus the Paladin of Torbath, and Dagolear the elf Wizard. After two disparate goblin swarm encounters, the new folks managed to handily undo the binding of Azathoth that the old guard had previously spent so many resources putting in place. The doorway to hell was opened. Regulus, after burning his sword hand to a stump trying to close the portal, opted for a noble sacrifice and stepped into the burning void. Everyone else followed him through. Thereafter saw a Perilous Journey undertaken across the plains of hell, searching for Cadeus, the man who had originally sacrificed himself to close Azathoth’s portal, and been bound in hell in the bargain. Ssor set a brutal pace, his warforged-ness having no pity on his fleshy companions. Piotr maintained his connection to Torbath even in the depths of hell, and provided temporarily sanctified ground in which his companions could rest. Their travels were briefly interrupted when the devil lord Blix confronted the group, trying to figure out how and why a group of heroes had found their way into the nether realm. He was convinced to leave by Regulus, but only barely. Finally making their way to where Cadeus had been bound, on a platform above a lake of fire, they woke him from within his broken binding circle. Cadeus outlined how they could sacrifice an item of great power to both close the now open portal and return the group to the mortal plane. Piotr, having rescued the Shield of Torbath from the goblin swarm, briefly conferred with Torbath to assess whether its sacrifice would do the job. Torbath answered in the affirmative but also returned a warning not to trust the man before them. Regulus quickly grabbed the shield of Torbath and slammed it into Cadeus, who was thrown aside in a blast of holy light and revealed to be the devil lord Blix. Commanded by the word of law, the devil lord was forced to retreat. As he disappeared the crumpled form of Cadeus was revealed within the broken circle. The woke the old priest and enacted the ritual, Gregor and Ssor holding off the devil swarm that Blix brought down on them for ruining his deception. There was a tense moment when Ssor was almost carried off by the devils, but in the end our heroes sacrificed the artifact, closed the portal to hell, and found themselves back home. Unfortunately Blix and five other devils followed them through, escaping them and scattering out into the world. Shortly thereafter they took stock of their surroundings and realized that they were back home, but some three years in the past.

Just got finished running my nephew and his friend (12-year-olds) through a short DW-inspired scenario.

Just got finished running my nephew and his friend (12-year-olds) through a short DW-inspired scenario.

Just got finished running my nephew and his friend (12-year-olds) through a short DW-inspired scenario. Not having much on-hand besides minis and dice, I had them choose a mini, then asked a bunch of establishing questions. Turned out one of them was a warforged created by the other’s wizard friend to protect him while he tried to kill the evil king. Warforged dogs were fought, the protector became the protected, and they eventually defended the wizard’s tower by nearly decapitating a dragon. Oh, and the warforged character died in the process. All this from winging and rules hand-waving, but sticking to the general DW GM principles and the basic dice mechanics. Right now I’m going to bed and I can hear them rolling dice in the other room, starting up another session.