FrankenFourth: Age of Worms, Episode 508 & 1.4 Update

Cast

• Humal (level 9 wrathful cambion wizard)
• Corzale (level 9 dwarf war cleric)
• Sumia (level 9 elf rogue/ranger)

Summary

While the rest of the party rested, Humal examined the remains of the alkilith: its ichor would be useful in creating potent acid and toxic gases, while the remains of its hide could be fashioned into armor resistant to acid. With access to an arcane laboratory, he could even create armor capable of coating itself in acid.

What could be consider its brain was the utmost importance for him. Thanks to his knowledge of necromancy, he could preserve it in a jar and gradually learn what knowledge and magic it possessed. This would also require access to an arcane laboratory, but if he became desperate he could consume it to gain temporary access to its knowledge.

Loading up everything he needed in his bag of holding, they returned to the room with the Apostolic scroll. Despite the risk of necromantic backlash, Humal attempted to undo the magic surrounding the scroll, and through great effort he succeeded. It still sapped his strength, though he was certain that failure would have resulted in far more severe consequences.

With the beam gone Sumia peeked through the hole into the room beyond: since her eyes could see in complete darkness, she was able to behold its contents. A gargantuan, worm like creature was curled about in a lubricous mass. Its numerous legs twitched as it slowly unfurled, and Sumia saw that its head was a bone-like mask that closely resembled Bozal's face.

As Sumia stared in horror, certain that the Bozal-worm-creature could see her, the mask split open, revealing a cavernous maw filled with needle-like teeth and worm-ridden corpses.

Design Notes

We didn't get a chance to play much because one of the players had trouble getting Hangouts to work. He eventually got it working, but by then we were over and hour late so we mostly talked about the 1.4 document update (we'll do a closed feedback round with it soon).

4th Edition-esque Defenses got flipped to saving throws. Previously we were using the 4th Edition model in which the attacker always rolls, but we held a poll and the majority wanted saving throws. Even so, we'll put in a Defense variant rule in the back so if you want to go that route you can with just a bit of work.

Armor also got changed to a hybrid model: leather nets you damage resistance 1, and better armor gives you both damage resistance and an Armor Class bonus (up to DR 4 and +4 AC with plate armor). This allows for more types of armor without making the numbers too big (also magic armor).

Talked about changing wizards to an actual Vancian spellcasting model, but Jacob really likes the talent-mana system due to its flexibility (and I like it because its actually a little unpredictable and dangerous). This is one of those things I'll probably end up doing anyway as a new/variant wizard class (like our Dungeon World vancomancer).

Corzale ended up multiclassing into fighter, which revealed that I need to specify that multiclassing does not grant you all the 1st-level things (otherwise you'd have players snagging 1st-level from a bunch of classes and ending up with a shitload of Wounds, Vitality, and extra stuff).

Finally, there's another example of monster harvesting, with Humal snagging 700 sp worth of alkilith bits to use however he sees fit (plus the brain).

Announcements

If you're curious about FrankenFourth and/or Dungeons & Delvers, you can find public alpha documents here and here respectively.

The Rogue is our latest alternate-addition to the Dungeon World core class roster. If you want something different and/or more flexible than the thief, be sure to check it out!

Just released our second adventure for A Sundered World, The Golden Spiral. If a snail-themed dungeon crawl is your oddly-specific thing, check it out!

By fan demand, we've mashed all of our 10+ Treasure volumes into one big magic item book, making it cheaper and more convenient to buy in print (which you can now do).