Dungeon World Double Dose

Ok, after the sidetrack into 5e, time to catch up on Dungeon World before the next session. Actually have two sessions to catch up on.

In the first, Lily and Dogan tried to sell some silks and got tangled up in some Antesian[1] internal politics of succession which turned into fights with shadow demons, a trip into an ancient crypt, the burial of a chieftan and the discovery of an ancient songblade.

Takeaways:

  • Because of Dogan, I made the shadow demons pretty badass, and he still tore them up. Fighters are scary.
  • Lily finally got to really take Bardic Magic for a spin, and damn, it’s awesome.
  • Got to use Lily’s bardic focus on ancient heroes to tie into the crypt where things finally went down, and used it as the hook for her receiving the songblade of an ancient warrior-bard (“Stormsinger”, in the vernacular of the Antesians)
  • Best failure of the night was Dogan charging into the crypt and falling down the stairs. With Bellringer. It was musical.
  • Music actually permeated the session, and the final fight ended up being a sonic crescendo of Lily helping Bellringer and the dead king’s Songblade to all sing in harmony, producing one great note of Ass kicking.
  • Lily now has a songblade. it’s physical characteristics are similar to Bellringer, and it has the harmonic keyword, which means she uses +CHA instead of +STR to hack and slash. Because that’s how I roll.

Next session ended up being simultaneous with Dogan and Lily’s trip out of town. Jack was hired by the king of beggars to provide security for a clandestine meeting. He brought in Urv and Tetra, and because Dogan was out of town, he also brought in Ajax, a former gladiator driven underground when the Plague Doctors closed the arena.

Things took an interesting turn when it turned out the meeting was in a knot (an overlapping space, like the Muddy Yak) which Urv and Jack could perceive, but Ajax and Tetra could not. This made for some fun because there were exits that Ajax and Tetra couldn’t see (and thus couldn’t watch).

Things took a deeper turn as the atendees started arriving, 6 in all. 2 came from Rzae, which was fine. 3 of them were very puzzling to Ajax and Tetra who could not see them enter (though Urv and Jack saw them enter from Umulon). Most disturbing was the 6th guest, who never opened his eyes, and who no one saw enter.

Naturally, he cellar came under attack by the same alchemical forces that have been plaguing the PCs. Much violnce followed, including poison gas, acid puddled, alchemical pistols and brass razorballs modeled after Phantasm. The group managed to fend them off and, when things got too hairy, managed to get everyone out through the Umulon side (in the process, opening Ajax and Tetra’s eyes to the other world). They found out a little bit more about the attackers, and we wrapped up there so we could get in a game of Sentinels of the Multiverse.[2]

Takeaways:

  • We had a guest from out of town playing Ajax, and it was interesting to see what a different fighter than Dogan looked like. The answer? Still terrifying.
  • I made use of some tools in this session. I used the most recent set of Rory’s Story Cubes (Journeys) and the Paizo Plot Twist Deck to prime the pump. basically, I just cast a handful of the dice and drew three of the cards and just kept them in front of me. When it came time to make a move (or just come up with something) I looked them over to see if there was anything I could pull out. It worked out pretty well.
    rory
  • What worked even better was the Paizo Face Cards. I had cards for the King of Beggars, the unnamed meeting attendees as well as the two known alchemists. Super handy for reference when the characters don’t know names – I can just hold up the card for reference rather than re-describe.
  • A lot of damage got dished out, especially by the phantasm balls, but Ajax hit like a truck, which kind of balanced that.
  • Tetra finally got to use parry and disarm!
  • Jack may now have the nickname “boots”, but it’s up to her to tell you why. It involves a pool of acid and two blown defy danger rolls.

  1. The Antesians are the hillfolk who might be indigenous to the area where Rzae was built. They don’t come into the city much, and largely trade through The Laughing Market , the market outside the city walls where a lot of the poor and disenfranchised trade.  ↩
  2. The Sentinels, Tempest, Argent Adept, The Naturalist and Setback versus Apostate in the Ruins of Atlantis. We owned him.  ↩

6 thoughts on “Dungeon World Double Dose

  1. Fred Hicks

    Dogan might’ve still torn those shadow demons up, but this is the worst he’s ever gotten beaten up and without the occasional application of bardic healing over the course of the adventure he probably would’ve gone down. 🙂

    Reply
    1. Jenna Sparks

      I am finding a real love for the Bard. It’s the first time I’ve ever played one. I have to give special Kudos and Props to Rob for allowing Bardic Talents to be so “meaty”. If the GM is in anyway dismissive of the power of Song/Music/Harmony, then the Bard would feel like a second rate Cleric with higher charisma. But the tone of the dual player game was wonderfully rich with music and ass kicking. One of my favorite sessions I’ve ever had.

      Reply
  2. Kevin Richey

    Can you give a quick example of how you applied a Story Cube? I have that set and wonder how to use them in games.

    Reply
    1. Rob Donoghue Post author

      So, I have all three sets of Story Cubes, and I have never had any success with the first two sets. The images are all weirdly specific and inapplicable to my play. The new set still has a few oddballs, but it is a lot more applicable. I did not use all of those, but those I did:

      Crown – King of the beggars, the triggering NPC
      Gears – Clockwork opposition, specifically the little death spheres
      Angry Face – meant the attack was personal in some way, so I brought in the guy that they’d previous fougth in the rigging of their ships
      Bag – reward was money, straight up
      Pointing Guy – Not sure what he was pointing at, but it made me think there were other people present, thus a meeting
      Towers – Decided the umulon side they came ut in was “The fingers” a bad area with lots of dark towers surrounding the eponymous “finger”
      Didn’t end up using food, sunrise/sunset or the axe, but if it had gone on further, I probably would have.

      That Help?

      Reply
      1. Kevin Richey

        Yes, thank you. I’d like to try that sometime.
        I’ve also thought about using Story Cubes for the memory triggers in Penny for My Thoughts sometime.

        Reply

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