Sean Fager – Dungeon World Tavern G+ Archives

When you take a few minutes to test uncertain ice, Roll + WIS. On a hit the GM will tell you whether it can be…

When you take a few minutes to test uncertain ice, Roll + WIS. On a hit the GM will tell you whether it can be crossed safely, and if not, what the threat is. On a 7-9 choose one :

* It takes significantly longer to test than you expected.

* You misjudge the ice. If you act on your poor evaluation and it places the party and/or yourself in danger, take XP.

On a miss the GM will make a Hard Move. You won’t like it.

When you cross untested ice, Roll + DEX. On a 10+, you cross safely. On a 7-9, you cross, but the GM will choose one :

* The ice cracks and groans under you. Any other attempts to cross are made at -1 (ongoing, cumulative)

* A weak patch threatens to open beneath you – ditch 2 weight or risk breaking through.

* There’s something unexpected and dangerous on the far shore.

On a miss the GM will make a Hard Move. You won’t like it.

Dessimen (Intelligent, Horde) 3 HP, 2d4 channeling of fire

Dessimen, all thirty six of them, hold roughly the shape of people and all stand four foot two inches (127 cm) tall. They are composed of magically bound silica dioxide. Their species was created by a great but mad wizard who sought to use them for research. He imbued them with great intellect and magical affinity, the better to serve his purposes, but left them dangerously vulnerable to the smallest exposure to moisture, to better enslave them. Getting wet, or even damp, rapidly hardens their dermis into a crust until they become dry again. Their magical awareness is bound to their body, and becoming ‘crusted’ alters that, like being trapped in a narcotic high. Usually a harsh one. They remain aware, trapped in this state, and it terrifies them to the point that they react to any perceived threat of hydration with immediate violence or some sort of expulsion technique.

They’ve killed their maker, and their entire culture now resides in a single wide tunnel they’ve created around a magma flow deep in the mountains. It is unbearably hot in there, allowing them to remain dry, but making most races break into an immediate sweat. Their location is known to be near the Nature Smelter station of the Dwarven Outpost of Dregglengerd. Every time someone tunnels over, however, they magically seal the tunnel after dealing with their visitors (peacefully or otherwise)

Dessimen have no concept of privacy. This comes from living in what most visitors describe as a “communal hallway” and being masters of astral projection.

They need not eat, drink (obviously), sleep, or age, and are generally trapped in their custom made habitat. Their culture values art above all things, and have individually and collectively agreed to end their existence once the perfect piece of art is created. To this end they spend most of their time scouring the world with their awareness, studying art in every form, and working on the sculptures they craft from the silica in their torso cavities. Those sculptures, the ongoing results of centuries of work by superhumanly devoted master craftsmen, are individually worth thousands upon thousands pieces of gold to the right buyer if retrieved unbroken.

If all the silica of a fallen Dessiman is gathered, the group can recraft it and re-establish it’s awareness. They know how to make new Dessimen, but know they live an imprisoned existence and do not seek to trap any new beings in it.

The closest things they have to worship is The One, a Dessiman who is voluntarily crusted. He maintains a spell which allows the moisture on his crust to remain despite the incredible heat of their dwelling, and mentally travels who-knows-where to protect the safety of the group. When making decisions, lots are cast before him, which he is believed to influence. In this way, he is their leader…. sort of.

Their technological level is as advanced as the races they monitor from afar, but they are limited to things craftable by the metal they smelt in the magma, the obsidian and other stone of their mountain, via magic, or craftable out of objects brought to them for trade.

Instincts :

* Do whatever it takes to avoid being locked-in

* Understand art

* Summon fire fiends when threatened

* Earn their extinction

When you sell your corpse (in advance!) to the College of Magical Studies, roll + CON. On a 10+ choose two, on a…

When you sell your corpse (in advance!) to the College of Magical Studies, roll + CON. On a 10+ choose two, on a 7-9 choose one.

* They pay 20 coin, now, for your body, later

* You are permitted self-guided study within the student areas, like the library and fourth-tier laboratories.

* The College will provide a small favor.

On a miss, choose one from above, but your ‘body’ will end up in the Necromancy Department, Sub-Basement Thirteen, under special attention of the Fastidious Grey One.

This is for my LotFP game, but it might carry over, depending on your philosophy on how justified a GM is in lying…

This is for my LotFP game, but it might carry over, depending on your philosophy on how justified a GM is in lying to players when fictionally appropriate.

PLAYER FACING INFORMATION :

Deepest Sleep (Wizard Spell, level 5)

Deepest Sleep causes one target of the caster’s choosing within eyesight to drop into a coma-like state. They will remain unconscious until at least the next dawn. They will not awaken, even if exposed to loud noises, grievous harm, or smelling salts.

GM FACING INFORMATION:

Deepest Sleep (Wizard Spell, Level 5)

Deepest Sleep puts a single target of the caster’s choice within eyesight into a coma-like state, and opens their essence to the Realm of the Waiting Beyond the Veil. The core of who they are is ripped out to be feasted on by the Wailers Beyond the Veil. Sometime, after the next dawning of the sun, a Wailer will infiltrate the vacant body, gaining all of it’s memories and abilities, as per a changeling.

Only creatures native to the plane where it is being used may cast the Deepest Sleep spell.

Compendium Class

When you’ve found a way beyond the Veil to inhabit the realm of man and beast :

Choose a new alignment, replacing the old one on the character sheet.

EVIL : Ensure that Deepest Sleep is cast on more victims, opening the way for your brothers.

CHAOTIC : Betray the trust of those who associated with your new vehicle.

The following moves become available to you as Class Moves when you level :

Just a Vehicle – Gain the Bloody Aegis move from the Paladin playbook.

Skimming – With concentration you can read the surface thoughts of anyone nearby. You cannot guide their thoughts or see anything other than what is going through their minds at the time.

Untethered Vision – As a stranger to this plane, you can see things camouflaged against the natives. Illusionary magics have no effect on you, and you can immediately identify other Outsiders and where they came from.

Mini-Fronts :

Anyone the players cast this on (and don’t murder in their sleep, naturally) begin abandoning obligations and showing subtle signs of madness. Particularly cruelty and sadism.

Thadoamoe

Singular

2d4 hit points, 0 Armor

Suffocate and Constrict (1d4 damage, +1/round)

Thadoamie run from one to two meters long and wide, averaging about two millimeters thick. They hold a small but surface-wide static charge and can cling flush to almost any reasonably flat surface. Their skin changes to take the coloration of any surface they are against, even for a few days after death. They secrete a digestive substance on volition which slowly melts animal flesh down to a digestible goo that the Thadoamoe can absorb through it’s “skin.”

They attack lone targets by dropping on them from ceilings or flinging themselves off walls and constricting against them, sometimes binding legs or arms but most often tightening chests or covering faces, suffocating their targets.

A thadoamoe will never attack a creature unless they think it is alone.

The only known sign that a thadoamoe might be near is a slow dripping sound when it thinks a meal is coming – the digestive juices increase and sometimes droplets fall away when it is anticipating a meal.

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Thadoamie don’t exist. They are a boogieman parents use to keep their children from going alone into dark or dangerous places. PCs born into the world will, of course, have heard these stories. Find an excuse to mention them while the party is in a civilized place (a mother scolding her filthy son for climbing into the sewer system, maybe)

If a member of the group ever has cause to leave the protection of the party mid-delve, play up the dripping that is ever present underground if you want to spotlight a moment of their character conquering their own sense of fear.

Bear Bone Flute of the Temple of The Smiling Piper

The Flute is a wider than average but relatively normal looking one, except for the weighted bellows permanently affixed to one end. It appeared at dawn on the first of the Piper’s High Holidays upon the altar of the Melodious Temple, three years ago.

When the bellows are lifted and released, the Bear Bone Flute plays itself with a hauntingly glorious tune. The first time it is heard each day it grants its listeners + 1 forward and eases pain and suffering, lifting spirits and reducing the healing time for debilities by a day.

Last week the Avatar of the Smiling Piper came down to grant boons to the faithful. When thanked for the Flute, he displayed ignorance and confusion. When presented with the Flute, he couldn’t see it. “Whatever it is you’re trying to show me, it didn’t come from The Piper’s grace.”

It was proposed that the Flute should be studied in depth, possibly dismantled to see what allows it to play its tune. When the acolytes regained consciousness they were coated in the bloody remains of the proposer.

The Temple staff have developed the tendency to leave the doors unlocked at night, with the Flute prominently displayed near the altar, within easy reach. Some of the members are openly willing to accept the blessings of the Flute without discerning where it came from. Most of the members have become notably silent whenever it is mentioned.

I don’t think I’ll be hacking together another custom class for a while. Here’s a compilation of what I’ve put…

I don’t think I’ll be hacking together another custom class for a while. Here’s a compilation of what I’ve put together so far (excepting the ones that were based on other people’s ideas)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ea8z1psgdt5cved/FagerDWClasses.zip?dl=0

Dion Kurczek ‘s post got me thinking.

I would wager you could make a DW supplement entirely based around making new world maps. People love mapmaking, and probably feel the need for a neutral third party to regulate and balance their group’s communal attempts at it.

I like Vincent Baker’s “Dragon Killer’ map making technique, although it does require having a particular big bad in mind :

http://lumpley.com/index.php/anyway/marginalia/2899

I also like the idea of taking a non-uniform shape, slicing it irregularly into a number of pieces equal to the number of players, and dividing a Pangaea super continent amongst them. They could cut out smaller islands, change the borders a bit, slice their chunk into two or more continents, what have you. Once everyone has their pieces distributed amongst their ‘quadrant’ of the map the GM redraws it onto a single sheet of paper while everyone else rolls against a chart of features – a number of 6×6 or 8×8 or 10×10 grids listing out pertinent features. Then the players, having rolled their dice, have to decide how to allot them.

So, for example, it’s the player’s fault there is a demi-lich (column 8, row 7) holed up on that island, occasionally striking out at the nearby shipping lanes with reanimated merm-folk, but the alternative was to have an active volcano (column 7, row 8) right by the capital city. They have a choice to make, buy in on the consequences, and no ‘right’ or ‘safe’ answer.

The map would be by no means inclusive to everything happening in the world, but would give a general outline and the mid-making and post-making kibitzing should offer a feel for the place.

(If this is even vaguely interesting to you, check out “How To Host a Dungeon”, the source material for almost every Dwarven Stronghold or Kobold tunnel complex I’ve used in a game. Also, “Dwarf Fortress” by Bay12 games, which will procedurally generate whole worlds for you and allow you to build up Dwarven Strongholds. And inevitably find out how those strongholds come to ruin. Usually within a year or three of their founding.)

Not quite magic, but here are some Obsidian Javelins :

(Fantasy) History –

Obsidian Javelins are only made by the Mute Ones of the human barbarian tribes living around Sunflow Mountain, a dormant volcano deep within Dwarven lands.

The Dwarven King of three hundred years ago tried to wipe out the local human tribes (see the book Dwarven Histories : Wars of the Lichen, most magi or colleges of note have a copy) but found unexpected resistance. The traitor Ringtrue, apprentice of the stonecrafters, delivered the unused Dwarven knowledge of obsidian blade making to the tribal council in personal restitution for his people’s crimes against the tall folk. By the time the armored King’s Hammerers reached the fertile grounds the tribal people occupied at the base of the volcano the tribal warriors were kitted out with Obsidian Javelins which would punch straight through all but the thickest steel plate. The war continued for several years, until a new Dwarven King came to power and terms of a truce were settled. The tribes would maintain their supply of such weapons, but never share the secret with the outside world on pain of a full invasion.

(Actually, the Dwarves have rigged a method via massive floodgates and incredible pumps to force the volcano to become active again. They haven’t done it, but probably will if the tribes violate their end of the bargain.)

The tribes will usually trade such weapons for more industrialized goods at a fair rate, but under no conditions will teach how to make them. Their Makers and their apprentices are universally restricted from speaking to outsiders, ever, about anything, on pain of death (both theirs and the outsiders)

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Obsidian Javelins (Thrown, Near, AP [see below], 5 uses, 2 weight)

The heads of the Javelins are made of lava rock, and are incredibly brittle. They act as regular Javelins, except :

Their frailty makes them a one-use proposition. Using one automatically requires marking a use in their entry of the Gear section.

They have Armor Piercing equal to their thrower’s Strength Mod (a minimum of zero)

The tribes have no use of money but will happily trade for something that makes their lives easier or more enjoyable of at least equal value (of at least ‘ten coin’ per five such javelins)

Twin discussion topics :

1 – Defy Danger is only called for after a Soft Move, whether mechanically or fictionally produced. A request to Defy Danger (however phrased, but with dice picked up from the table) barring the presence of a soft move means someone has misinterpreted the situation. Filling the character’s lives with danger means assuming a Soft Move has been made, whether the GM intended it at the time, and they should ‘roll with it’ and start thinking in terms of imminent costs for a failed Defy.

2 – I hate, hate, HATE Wisdom” / Intelligence. Ten plus years of roleplaying off and on and I still can’t keep straight which is which. Is there a reason not to use Discernment / Knowledge instead?