A Sundered World War: Episode 103
Cast
- Magnus (level 2 kobold warlock)
- Minu (level 2 cambion battlemind)
- Ryker Tideson (level scion 2 shaman)
- Yuurien (level 2 t'pual wizard)
Summary
The crew remained in Greenport just long enough to make some basic repairs before heading out to Hell's Precipice. You know, removing the giant bone spike that had been driven through the deck, and replacing the charred planks with something that might actually hold together should they encounter a strong breeze.Not that they'd ever be that lucky.
They were just over halfway to their destination, when a ghost ambushed Yuurien while he was keeping watch from the crow's nest. The ectoplasm that constituted its opaque body was green, and it was visibly, mortally wounded, but that didn't really impair it because, well, ghost.
Yuurien exhaled blazing words. They licked at its form, and he saw bits of it peel away and vanish. He had hoped for more, but at least it was something. The ghost slashed at him with a similarly ghostly blade: it passed through his clothing without damaging it, but he could feel it piece his thoughtshell.
He vaulted over the rail and pushed himself towards the deck, hoping he could outdrift the ghost long enough to get help. Minu was the first to notice, and rushed to Yuurien's aid. She struck at the ghost, and it exploded into a short-lived cloud of green ectoplasm. Yuurien's relief was also short-lived; when Minu spun around to face him, he saw that her eyes were now brightly glowing green.
She charged at Yurrian, who willed flames to engulf her. Her body solidified into metal, and she continued to advance, until Magnus conjured tentacles to trip and grasp her. Yuurien unleashed more flames, and as they burned away the tentacles Minu's body crumpled to the ground. The ghost emerged from her body, but before it could react Ryker released his shark, which clamped down and violently shook it apart.
They arrived at Hell's Precipice, docked, and met up with their contact, a t'pual named Inkathu. Lacking any political clout all he could tell them was that they'd need to make an appointment to see the ruler, a dwarf named Urmar Flintbreaker. This would take a while, but in the end they'd more than likely just ending up speaking to his adviser, a cthon named Gumaiba. They would have to do their best to convince him, and hope that he could convince Urmar.
Having no other option they made an appointment, and were told that they would be able to see someone in roughly seven cycles. This gave them plenty of time to repair and upgrade the ship...and for Magnus to enact his plan. He told the others that he had become aware of a dwarven mining vessel that was fast approaching the island, and would soon arrive. The crew had been driven irrevocably insane: they would need to open the city gates, and kill them all in order for their souls to properly rest.
Yuurien, eager to burn something, offered to come with him, while Ryker and Minu tagged along to prevent them from getting into too much trouble. When they arrived at the gates, Magnus told the wardens about the ship. They seemed incredulous, but not worried: assuming Magnus's story was true, any ship that failed to provide the correct authorization would be destroyed by the battery of fire lances surrounding the gate.
Magnus asked if they could at least wait and see what happened, and the wardens agreed. They lead the characters to an elevated platform, which featured a long, narrow slit so that they could see the gate. Eventually the ship arrived, and as expected did not respond to various commands spoken in dwarven. Magnus knew he didn't have much time, but as he tried reasoning with the wardens Yuurien dove upon the guards sitting at the control panel, engulfing them in flames.
Unexpected, but it'd do.
While Ryker called upon his spirit to hopefully heal them before it was too late, Magnus took to the control panel and was dismayed by what he saw: it was covered in dwarven characters, none of which he knew the definition of. Most of the other dwarves in the docking station scrambled about for weapons, but a few climbing into massive stone blocks covered in runes. The blocks expanded and unfolded into monstrous shapes, and then began lumbering towards him.
With nothing else to lose, he started frantically stabbing at random glyphs...which somehow worked. The gate, two massive semicircles of metal, slowly slid apart. The ship's engines flared to life too soon, and as it lurched into the docking station the sides were loudly pared off by the gates, creating small clouds of debris. It didn't stop until it collided with one of the walls. The impact caused it to break in half, and from both halves poured a black, mutated, howling horde.
Whelp, Ryker thought, so much for keeping them out of trouble.
Behind the Scenes
Here's a section of the campaign map:
Nothing fancy, just a means for them to know where islands are, how long they gotta travel, etc. It'll be more useful once the tarchons start invading proper. Still not exactly sure how I'm going to abstract large scale warfare, but it's Dungeon World: shouldn't be too hard/complicated to come up with something functional.
In the meantime, dropping the quartermaster and trailblazer rolls has been working out nicely. The players tell me where they wanna go, and they make a SPEED roll to see if they get there on time, or slower or faster. No one tracks the food, because why would just one person do that?
Got a chance to use the random encounter tables. Dungeon World doesn't have a random chance of an encounter in a given period of time; it's basically up to the GM to say that something is happened. I figured in the course of seven "days" that they'd run into something, so I just rolled a die to see when, and then had one of them make a scout roll (still trying to figure out the best way to do a party-wide "perception check") to see if they noticed it.
Shane (the player of Magnus) kept pestering me for a magic item, so when he contacted his patron (part of the warlock class) it gave him the task of allowing a bunch of insane dwarves into the city. Wasn't sure he'd go for it, and certainly didn't think they'd be so...overt about it, but there ya go. I'll think about what said magic item is later: he'll have to be alive to acquire it, anyway.
Announcements
After only a couple hours of design and writing, The Swordmage is good to go. If you want a solid fighter/wizard hybrid with twenty-five advanced moves to choose from (in addition to some other extras), pick it up.Lichfield is available for public consumption. If you want a concise adventure with a Silent Hill feel, be sure to check it out! Primordial Machine is also out, so if you want to catch a glimpse of A Sundered World, now's your chance! Finally, we've updated If These Stones Could Scream.
The Dungeon World GM Screen is currently available in pdf and landscape insert formats. No matter which you choose, you get eight sets of pdfs that let you have access to the screen in both landscape and portrait orientation, in color or black and white, and with or without art.
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