Our third session of Dungeon World is complete and it was our best yet. The party returned to Sandover Ruins and cleared out the rubble blocking their path deeper into the dungeon. I adapted Dyson's recent ziggurat dungeon to fit with the established game lore. This went over very easily as we had already determined that the ruins were part of a temple to an old, forgotten deity. I kept the traps, replaced any and all undead with lantern goblins and updated the stats for DW as needed.
Things started off with a bang, with the PCs discovering the remains of a would-be looter. They took the coins and sword off the bones, to my delight, and I got to mark two of them down for future Endure moves to fend off the poison whenever I decided it would kick in. It kicked in a few minutes later and like the good GM I am, I laughed maniacally as one of them got a 6- on their Endure. The traps didn't stop there, when the party next came upon a room full of statues they argued about entering for a while and were promptly attacked by the reanimated bones of the robber they had just looted. He was powered by the mysterious lantern goblin flames, but the group made short work of him in any case. Unluckily for them, the battle took them into the statue room and nobody said their morning prayers which meant they now had several alabaster figures coming at them from behind.
I decided to up the danger factor in the statue room and gave the statues high enough armor that the group would have a difficult time defeating them in a fair fight. It was a good thing the cleric is anything but a fair fighter, while the rest of the party kept the busts busy he puzzled out a way to deactivate them by forcing the symbol of the forgotten deity (a rising sun) to set. In other words, he covered the symbol up with some extra clothing he had in his bags. Of course, there was no easy way to keep that holy symbol covered as it was carved into a stone wall. Someone had to stand holding the fabric in front of the carvings. Normally this would not have been too much of a problem, but the halfling decided to go and trigger another one of Dyson's traps and unleash some knockout gas into the room. I was saddened that the character holding up clothing was unaffected by the gas; you can't win them all, I guess. My spirits soon recovered when that same halfling decided to loot a bunch of cursed gems and distribute them among the party.
Eventually the party made it out of the statue room and continued to explore. They made their way through a couple of rooms uneventfully before discovering the anointment chamber. It was here that the bard decided to anoint himself, everyone else was too fearful of traps at this point to touch the glowing liquid. This is important because the trap that was about to be set off could have been avoided if they had been a little braver. I know I am making it sound like the group went stomping through the dungeon setting off every single trap and, to a certain extent, that is true. I should probably mention that the Cleric did keep being made aware of danger thanks to some great Discern Realities rolls and a few hints from his deity, unfortunately he was having a very difficult time convincing the rest of the party to tread as carefully.
Anyways, next on the list was the magnum opus of the dungeon's traps: a mosaic that, when stepped upon by one that was unanointed, would summon a wall of flame, blind everyone and conjure an invisible stalker do what it does best. This created a dangerous little fight that took a sizable chunk of life off the fighter. I'll say this for Dyson, he certainly isn't lacking in ideas for cruel ways to whittle an adventuring party down to size. However, in this case the party carried on without losing any members. The characters searched the room thoroughly, but for some reason avoided opening the black stone sarcophagus in the middle of the chamber. I wonder why? In any case, they found the secret entrance Area 6 (secret tomb) and the Bard managed to sweet talk the apparition of Rhissel that appeared into giving them an amulet and a stack of gold. Things took an unusual turn here because the Bard decided that he might be interested converting to Rhissel's faith and, even more surprising, the Cleric encouraged this! Why, you ask? It turns out that the deity the Cleric worships is the last of the old gods and despite his deity's differences with Rhissel, it is in his god's interests to assist another old god return to power. I smelled campaign fodder in that explanation and you can be sure that I will be building upon it as we progress.
With the visitation of Rhissel's apparition gone, the party decided they had seen all there was to see and they returned to the surface. A visit with the Sandovers later and they had collected their reward for clearing out the remaining monsters and were well on their way to drunk at the local tavern. We ended the session and went through all of the end of game tasks, such as assigning XP and having tangential conversations.
Sadly, this session also marked the death of the planned Deck of Fate campaign. Since that campaign hinged on the PCs getting involved in a race to collect the pieces of Fate's deck while fending off various interests, it pretty much fell apart when the Wizard character ran off in the night along with the macguffin and the player in control of it. I could have salvaged the campaign, but the players happily latched onto the idea of forgotten gods awakening and I am just as happy to indulge them with a campaign built around that idea.
Things started off with a bang, with the PCs discovering the remains of a would-be looter. They took the coins and sword off the bones, to my delight, and I got to mark two of them down for future Endure moves to fend off the poison whenever I decided it would kick in. It kicked in a few minutes later and like the good GM I am, I laughed maniacally as one of them got a 6- on their Endure. The traps didn't stop there, when the party next came upon a room full of statues they argued about entering for a while and were promptly attacked by the reanimated bones of the robber they had just looted. He was powered by the mysterious lantern goblin flames, but the group made short work of him in any case. Unluckily for them, the battle took them into the statue room and nobody said their morning prayers which meant they now had several alabaster figures coming at them from behind.
I decided to up the danger factor in the statue room and gave the statues high enough armor that the group would have a difficult time defeating them in a fair fight. It was a good thing the cleric is anything but a fair fighter, while the rest of the party kept the busts busy he puzzled out a way to deactivate them by forcing the symbol of the forgotten deity (a rising sun) to set. In other words, he covered the symbol up with some extra clothing he had in his bags. Of course, there was no easy way to keep that holy symbol covered as it was carved into a stone wall. Someone had to stand holding the fabric in front of the carvings. Normally this would not have been too much of a problem, but the halfling decided to go and trigger another one of Dyson's traps and unleash some knockout gas into the room. I was saddened that the character holding up clothing was unaffected by the gas; you can't win them all, I guess. My spirits soon recovered when that same halfling decided to loot a bunch of cursed gems and distribute them among the party.
Eventually the party made it out of the statue room and continued to explore. They made their way through a couple of rooms uneventfully before discovering the anointment chamber. It was here that the bard decided to anoint himself, everyone else was too fearful of traps at this point to touch the glowing liquid. This is important because the trap that was about to be set off could have been avoided if they had been a little braver. I know I am making it sound like the group went stomping through the dungeon setting off every single trap and, to a certain extent, that is true. I should probably mention that the Cleric did keep being made aware of danger thanks to some great Discern Realities rolls and a few hints from his deity, unfortunately he was having a very difficult time convincing the rest of the party to tread as carefully.
Anyways, next on the list was the magnum opus of the dungeon's traps: a mosaic that, when stepped upon by one that was unanointed, would summon a wall of flame, blind everyone and conjure an invisible stalker do what it does best. This created a dangerous little fight that took a sizable chunk of life off the fighter. I'll say this for Dyson, he certainly isn't lacking in ideas for cruel ways to whittle an adventuring party down to size. However, in this case the party carried on without losing any members. The characters searched the room thoroughly, but for some reason avoided opening the black stone sarcophagus in the middle of the chamber. I wonder why? In any case, they found the secret entrance Area 6 (secret tomb) and the Bard managed to sweet talk the apparition of Rhissel that appeared into giving them an amulet and a stack of gold. Things took an unusual turn here because the Bard decided that he might be interested converting to Rhissel's faith and, even more surprising, the Cleric encouraged this! Why, you ask? It turns out that the deity the Cleric worships is the last of the old gods and despite his deity's differences with Rhissel, it is in his god's interests to assist another old god return to power. I smelled campaign fodder in that explanation and you can be sure that I will be building upon it as we progress.
With the visitation of Rhissel's apparition gone, the party decided they had seen all there was to see and they returned to the surface. A visit with the Sandovers later and they had collected their reward for clearing out the remaining monsters and were well on their way to drunk at the local tavern. We ended the session and went through all of the end of game tasks, such as assigning XP and having tangential conversations.
Sadly, this session also marked the death of the planned Deck of Fate campaign. Since that campaign hinged on the PCs getting involved in a race to collect the pieces of Fate's deck while fending off various interests, it pretty much fell apart when the Wizard character ran off in the night along with the macguffin and the player in control of it. I could have salvaged the campaign, but the players happily latched onto the idea of forgotten gods awakening and I am just as happy to indulge them with a campaign built around that idea.
I love the disposability of questlines in DW. I have had my PCs walk right past 5 plot hooks so far, and the fact I hadn't had to put more than 10 minutes into any of them made me not care.
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