Something Rotten in Blackmoore

This is the actual play report for a Dungeon World one-shot based on the Blackmoore Adventure Starter by watergoesred. The starter contains some interesting images and a city with a fantastic landmark: towers build on the stump of a giantic tree.

 1. Prep

Next to none. I read the starter and gave some thoughts to it.

2. Character Creation

This time around the players were a bit more decisive. One had a concept for a falconer and thus took the ranger. The next one rolled randomly and got the bard. Then the third player decided to take the wizard (the other alternative would have been the thief):

• Cassandreius, the chaotic human bard with the stolen horn
• Pyreios, the good human ranger with an owl companion
• Morgan, the good human wizard

Then they answered the questions from the adventure starter. We ended up with Orthias van Morley ridiculing the ducal prefect of Blackmoore in the street side shows. Therefore he had been sentenced to death. He had already been executed twice and survived, therefore he was now sentenced to be hanged until dead.

Note: Most of us were very tired. The weather over here has been acting up. Warm one day, cold the next. Everyone is feeling it by now. Therefore we took our time getting started. And almost didn't.

3. Actual Play

The heroes arrived in Blackmoore on the day when Orthias was to be executed. First, they ended up in a halfling tavern, the "Clover and the Lounge". They were served by Brenna the Knee-High, a halfling with stunted growth. When they got into an argument with a tavern regular, a dwarf, a strangely burned boy stole Morgan's anti-toxins. Morgan and Pyreios tried to catch the cut-purse, but fail miserably. Morgan landed in horse dung and searched for a well for cleaning her clothes. All she found was the Goblin Well, where she dragged rotten meat from the bottom. She went back inside the tavern re-joining the others. When they heard about an execution taking place, they hurriedly left the tavern and promptly forgot to pay their tab. Well, they didn't possess any money anyway.

Outside, a ragged and mad prophet pointed at Cassandreius and told him that he would bring doom to the city. Talk that amounted to nothing more than empty threats and hysteria.

On the marketplace, Morgan was picked by priestess of Tittivilla to give the final kiss to the condemned criminal Orthias van Morley as is custom in Blackmoore. Morgan had misgivings about that, but obeyed the command of the priestess. Well, when Orthias and she kissed, he switched bodies with her. Morgan in Othias' body went "Oh! Oh!". Pyreios realized something was wrong and took a called shot at the rope in exactly the same moment when the executioner opened the trapdoor underneath the gallows. Morgan in Othias' body hit the ground below the gallows, Pyreios was seized by the angry mob, and Cassandreius persued the fleeing Orthias in Morgan's body.

Cassandreius followed Orthias in Morgan's body into a strangely empty street where all the houses had been padlocked. There, he was almost disintegrated by Orthias and was pulled through the window into a house when he dodged a hold person spell. Inside the house he was surrounded by zombies.

Morgan in Orthias' body turned herself invisible below the gallows, then went up and released Pyreios who was about to be executed instead of Orthias. Pyreios then jumped into the market well and Morgan in Orthias' body searched for her own body. She saw her body escaping down the street with the padlocked houses and had to save Cassandreius the bard from the zombies closing in on him. She succeeded, but only after Cassandreius had been bitten. The wizard and the bard went to the temple of Tittivilla to get Cassandreius healed. Three priestesses in almost transparent red veils led the bard into the inner sanctum. The invisible Morgan in Orthias' body couldn't follow. She left the temple and went to the lower bronze to lay low for the evening and get some rest and healing.

Meanwhile, Pyreios had some misadventures with an iron ooze and the lair of the night wyvern. But in the end he escaped with his life into an underground river.

On the next day, the heroes re-united. Kira, the owl companion, was very helpful in this. Then, Pyreios sent his owl on the look-out for Orthias in Morgan's body. After a short search, they found him entering a gnomish jeweler. They followed him inside. There a battle ensued. The heroes were trying to capture Morgan's body without doing any harm. That allowed Orthias to switch bodies multiple times. But in the end, Morgan shot him with a magic missile as she lost patience. Then Cassandreius persuaded him to switch bodies until everyone was back in their own body.

Note: The combat with the body switching was fun. First, Orthias jumped from Morgan into Cassandreius, then into Pyreios, after that back into Morgan - leaving Cassandreius trapped inside Pyreios' body and vice versa.

Then Orthias took an amulet of square topazes, put it on and vanished. But not before thanking the heroes for letting him go. He gave the Lamento Memento to Pyreios. The ranger briefly thought about looting the jeweler's store while the owner still slept. He had tried to cast a sleep spell on the battling strangers, but because of Cassandreius' quick thinking had ended up as victim of his own sleep spell. Morgan woke the gnome, he thanked the group and gave everyone some coins.

The heroes left the store and afterwards the city rather quickly. They thought this city is just too odd and too dirty for them.

4. Feedback

Not much to report here on Dungeon World itself. The adventure starter contains some very nice and neat ideas, but I think they don't mesh that well. Also, the introductory questions leave too much scattered all over the places. I would suggest to watergoesred to tighten the focus of the introductory questions, maybe leading up to the execution of Orthias or something. Also, interrelating the other stuff would probably serve to make the starter even more useful. I think, if the starter wouldn't bother too much with the surrounding lands and instead focus more on the city, it would also help. I hope I am not being too critical here.

Things I really liked about the starter where the tables with locations, ongoing events in crowded streets, the general awesomeness of the tree stump, the custom moves (even though I only used one of them), and the iron ooze and night wyvern.

I am probably going to use those location/going-ons tables in my own starters in the future. The idea is just plain brilliant!

BDQ3: In the Service of the Black King

This is the thrid installment in the module series BDQ The Barrow of the Dwarven Queen. The series follows a group of heroes trying to bring down the spectre of a derro dwarven queen.

1. Prep

Absolutely none. I had planned on introducing love letters, but playing Diablo 3 kept me from doing so. So I relied on previous prep.

Also, everyone was pretty exhausted and had a difficult time getting into the mood. But in the end, the story was quite satisfying.

2. Character Creation

None. Grimdrig the dwarven fighter, Durgar the dwarven cleric and Lucius the human paladin were good to go.

3. Actual Play

At the end of the last session our heroes had entered the service of Ragnar, warlord of Svarturvigi and hater of elves. Grimdrig had been drinking and sharing stories with the other dwarves. He had learned that Ragnar had a well hidden armory and an equally well hidden torture chamber for elves. Durgar had spent some quality time with the female kitchen staff, and Lucius was more or less keeping watch on Ragnar.

Grimdrig and Durgar ventured into the city looking for a mage that could identify the properties of Grimdrigs magical armor. They found a strange tower marked by the sign of a blue lightning cloud. The owner, a beautiful woman of indetermined heritage, invited them in offering tea. She lived in the tower with her daughter who left as the fighter and the cleric entered the tower. While drinking tea, she displayed a great knowledge about the characters and even told them about an impending gnoll uprising in the Skogurhörmulegur. Apparently, adventurers had slain an important priest of the gnolls (back in BDQ1). Also, she seemed worried about Ragnar, but had no knowledge about the black wedding and the spectre queen. When Grimdrig asked about his armor, she offered to analyze it. But she would have to have some time alone with the armor. Grimdrig refused, because he believed that for now he would need his armor.

Meanwhile, Ragnar asked Lucius to fetch him dinner, since his manservant Ivar was nowhere to be found. Lucius went to the kitchen to get the dinner. There, a dwarven maid by the name of Swenja asked him about Durgar. She had to tell him something very important. Lucius kind of suspected what, but couldn't obtain definite proof. He then took the dinner plate and went back to Ragnar's quarters.

Durgar went to the temple of Gurun, the secretive dwarven god of medicine, to talk to Sturla the Acolyte. When asking for the history of Adalfridjur, Sturla excused himself to get the Librarian. Then came back dressed as the Librarian. But he didn't have much news to add to the knowledge of Durgar. When Durgar prayed, Sturla switched into the role of choir master. Later, he offered Durgar to stay as a priest in the temple. Durgar refused citing his desire to be alone.

Back at the black fortress, Lucius brought Ragnar his dinner. In the chambers of the warlord he saw the terrifying dwarf writing something in a book, but couldn't discern what. After setting down the plate, Ragnar ordered him to find Ivar. Durgar and Grimdrig met Lucius while he searched for Ivar.

They went to Ragnar's room, but when they knocked no one was answering and the door was locked. Grimdrig lifted the door right out of it's angles. Then they went inside. The room was a mess, the food almost untouched, only the wine had been drunken. There was no sign of Ragnar. Durgar inspected the bed and found a secret door leading down into the dungeons of the black fortress. Grimdrig sniffed the wine and drank the rest of it. He was suddenly transported to a cemetary in the north of Svarturvigi.

Durgar and Lucius went down into the dungeons. There, they discovered the secret armory of Ragnar. Quick thinking on Durgar's part disabled the spear trap guarding the door. Inside, Durgar donned the black armor sitting on a rack there and stole a big opal. But then realized that he couldn't remove the armor anymore because it was cursed.

At the cemetary, Grimdrig did his best to disrupt the black wedding. Ragnar was bound to a tombstone and Adalfridjur was reciting the ritual from the Tome of the Forgotten. Grimdrig destroyed the tome, thereby slowing down the ritual considerably. In her wrath, the spectre queen sent him back to the chambers of the blackened warlord. There he went down the stairs into the dungeon to meet Durgar and Lucius.

Lucius triggered a trap. The whole armory began to sink deeper into the ground. Lucius and Grimdrig got out in time. But Durgar was trapped. Grimdrig drove a hole into the floor, while Durgar was meditating on the proper course of action. Gurun showed him that he should turn to the left. Lucius used the spears from the disarmed trap to secure a rope from his adventurer kit. Then, Durgar could climb out of the sunken room.

Using a door to the left, they found the hidden torture chamber. Grimdrig knocked out the dwarven torturer, Lucius took his keys and Durgar lowered the cages with the malnurished and tortured elves to the ground. One of them was a half-elven mage. They told him about the tower and the woman, who he identified as his wife Rhiannon. He offered to help Durgar with his cursed armor. Then, Lucius and Grimdrig told him about the black wedding and the cemetary to the north. The mage offered to use his remaining power to teleport the heroes. They agreed and together with the elves, the half-elven mage sent them on their way.

The battle at the cemetary didn't go very well. Adalfridjur slew Grimdrig, scared off Durgar and almost bested Lucius. But the paladin got hold of the obsidian dagger that the spectre queen was planning on using to tear out Ragnar's heart. Also Durgar and Lucius protected Ragnar. In the end, Adalfridjur fled the battlefield grievously injured and bereft of her ritual dagger.

Durgar took the silver sword and rammed it into the Tome of the Forgotten. Both items of power annihilated each other. Without the sword, Adalfridjur is pretty much invulnerable. They freed Ragnar who honored the sacrifice of Grimdrig by carrying him back to the citadel himself.

Durgar slipped away unnoticed and went to the mages' tower. Rowena offered a cup of tea, time for reflection and tried to break the curse on the stolen armor. But without success. Durgar resolved to go to the black fortress and resurrect Grimdrig. He arrived right in the middle of the wake for the fallen fighter. After resurrecting him, Ragnar went for Durgar. He commanded his stolen black armor to fall off, then hit the cleric and demanded that he remained in his service until Durgar had saved his life again. Durgar accepted and Lucius healed him with a laying on hands.

Durgar and Grimdrig knew that the resurrection isn't permanent until Adalfridjur has died. But for the next two weeks, Grimdrig could walk among the living once more. Unknown to Lucius and Durgar, Grimdrig has turned to evil as a result of his resurrection.

Later at night, Lucius was alone in his room. He examined the dagger and saw that it had been made from hell obisidian. Obsidian literally from Hell. Suddenly, Adalfridjur appeared and asked for his hospitality because she had been gravely wounded. If Lucius refuses her, his blessing for his quest to slay Adalfridjur will be revoked, leaving him vulnerable to her touch attack again.

4. Feedback

• The player of Durgar thinks I am too hard on her character. I offered her to point this out to me immediately in the next session, so that we can avoid this. She was also annoyed that the dwarven queen got away again. I had her flee when she was down to 4 HP. I think she wouldn't risk her existence in a hopeless fight. And without the obsidian hell dagger she was unable to complete the black wedding.
• The player of Grimdrig was a bit dissatisfied that I allowed Grimdrig's resurrection. Also, he still doesn't grog the system. So in the end, I will probably end this Dungeon World series after Adalfridjur has been defeated.
• The player of Lucius still thinks the Defy Danger move to harsh. But overall he liked the system and the development of the story. He thinks it's fitting that the spectre queen fled.
• I am unsure about the wording of resurrection. Can it be used on a character who has failed his last breath move and already passed beyond the Black Gate? The wording isn't very clear on that. Also, given the wording, I think the spell could resurrect the undead. They still have not fully passed from Dungeon World... Clarification would be appreciated!

Probably in August we will play the final installment of the BDQ series: BDQ4 "Revenge of the Black Queen". After that, it doesn't look very likely that the adventures of Durgar and Grimdrig continue. Something which I find a bit sad. The paladin Lucius will probably join the ADE Series beginning with ADE2 "Into Dolor's Gap". Geography-wise that means the highlands of the ADE Series are situated right on the east bank of the as-of-yet unnamed river that flows into the Byrjotasund.

Through the Fens of the Fallen

This is the actual play report of the first session of "Against the Deep Elves" campaign. The current module names are:

ADE1 "Through the Fens of the Fallen" (described below)
ADE2 "Into Dolor's Gap" (will be played in the middle of August)

As for all beta playtest reports, I am going to split the AP into sections.

1. Prep

The preparation is outlined in the previous post. As Alexander Davis pointed out in the comments, the Peryton move "Deflect from a weapon" was a bit ill-conceived. I finished the peryton description while the players were socializing. I added it as a reminder that perytons cannot be harmed by ordinary weapons. Probably it should be a special quality instead.

2. Character Creation

I felt that character creation dragged a bit unnecessarily, because everyone was doing the playbook selection based on an elimination process. I think that it was partially done to avoid stepping on anyone's toes. So everyone kept stating what they didn't want to play, but nobody stated what she wanted to play. But in the end, it came down to this:

• Elohiir, good elven fighter with a sharp sword
• Silka, neutral human thief
• Isolde, good human wizard
• Ethanwé, neutral elven druid of the towering mountains

When creating characters the biggest hurdle always seems to be playbook selection. As soon as one player says what he really wants to play, everyone else suddenly decides too.

As final part of the character creation, I asked the players my prepared questions. Then they assigned bonds. After that we ended up with the following backstory.

The characters were in the service of Laird Emrys ap Glindwr. Elohiir because she suspected one of his captains to have murdered her cousin. Silka because she thinks the laird still has buns of steel. Isolde was his ward and therefore loyal to him. Ethanwé swore allegiance because he was forced to. Laird Emrys is an adherent of the old religion, but had a falling out with his son Morcant after he proposed to Isolde and was turned down by her (she actually spit in his face). Morcant allied with an enemy clan and wanted to take Morwenstone and oust his father as laird. The heroes were sent to battle Morcant. At Oakridge they lost. An unknown sickness of magical quality intensified gangrene and the surviving forces died of the infection. The sickness is spread by rats. Therefore Elohiir christened the sickness "rat rot". The heroes seem to be immune to the disease.

3. Actual Play

As the game started, the heroes had just finished burrying the last victims of the rat rot. They had to decide what to do. They weren't sure were the enemy army was and had to warn the laird. After a short discussion they decided to hike through the Fens of the Fallen to overtake the enemy army and warn Laird Emrys in time.

Silka took over duty as quartermaster, Ethanwé acted as trailblazer and Elohiir did the scouting. In the shape of an eagle, Ethanwé managed to find many shortcuts and shortening the journey to two days. Silka stretched the rations to last longer than usual (taking one less ration), and Elohiir was ever vigilante.

After the first day in the fens, the group was fast asleep while Elohiir kept watched. She heard oh so quiet steps in the dark, woke Ethanwé and went to look for the intruder. Ethanwé took the shape of a mountain lion and slinked off into the darkness. Elohiir found herself facing three deep elven swordmasters, while their leader, a priestess of the spider godess thought to trap the sleeping Isolde and Silka. A rather long and deadly battle followed. In the end, the priestess and one of the swordmasters was dead, and the other two had taken Elohiir captive and dragged her away. Meanwhile, Ethanwé had drawn his last breath for the first time. The small girl with red hair, a girl called "Death", had sent him back on the condition that he married Elohiir. Now, the druid was eager to pursue the deep elves that had dragged her away.

Note: The combat was really deadly due to a lot of missed rolls and minimal damage rolled by the players. The swordmaster with their +2 piercing swords (2d8*b+2) turned out to be extremly difficult opponents. They hardly had any hit points left, but they grieviously injured several members of the group. Ethanwé saw death three times during the extended battle, and Elohiir nearly died twice.

Ethanwé was leaping ahead in mountain lion shape, while Silka and Isolde were following carefully. They kept the torch low to the ground to avoid falling into any sinkholes (something that had already happened to Elohiir while she was on the look-out for the deep elves). Silka's torch set of a small explosion of swamp gas. Ethanwé used that "distraction" to attack the two deep elves. Isolde and Silka joined the battle. Eventually, the heroes were successful, but Isolde had fallen into a sinkhole. When Silka rescued her, she ended up in the sinkhole as well. It was Elohiir who came to rescue the thief.

After the second part of the battle, the group was in a sorry state. Elohiir and Ethanwé had been grieviously injured. Also, Ethanwé had been cursed by the dying deep elven priestess. She told him that she would be reborn through him. And the little girl called Death wanted to him to have children with Elohiir. They settled down for the rest of the night. Elohiir told them that they had faced "drow" who were in no way elves!

In the morning, Isolde prepared her spells, and Ethanwé used the time to propose to Elohiir who was quite surprised by that and turned him down. He vowed to win her affection. Elhoiir didn't seem that impressed. Silka and Isolde insistend on continuing the journey. Ethanwé turned into an eagle to look for suitable trails again.

As they reached the northern edge of the fen and saw Morwenstone already looming in the distance, the heroes were attacked by perytons that saw the eagle-shaped Ethanwé as an intruder. Isolde and Elohiir were pivotal in defeating the perytons. Ethanwé searched for their nest, destroyed the egg he found and took a small ring with an emerald as loot. He was planning on using the ring for his second proposal to Elohiir.

When they reached the keep, Silka left the group to take care of some "busines", Ethanwé went to an herbalist to buy much-needed healing potions and poultices & herbs, and Isolde and Elohirr went straight to the great hall of Laird Emrys. There, they informed him about the defeat of his army and told him that Morcant was advancing on Morwenstone. Pryderi, the captain that might have killed Elohiir's cousing, suggested that the heroes had betrayed them to Morcant's forces. Elohirr immediately began to suspect Pryderi of treachery himself. As Ethanwé joined Isolde and Elohiir, the laird decided to send out Pryderi with a small force to stop the advance of Morcant's forces. Pryderi decided to take Elohiir and Ethanwé with him. He wanted to start marching in the evening, something that no one could disuade him off.

Isolde went to her room to reflect on her experiences and prepare her spells, before disguising herself as a common soldier to join Pryderi's troops.

Ethanwé sought an audience with the laird. He tried to counsel him on the treachery of Pryderi, but couldn't provide any hard evidence to support his claim. The laird told him to never speak again of this matter. Then he asked him to come back, when the battle was lost in order to save his adopted daughter Isolde from harm.

Elohiir went to the same herbalist that Ethanwé had visited and bought his remaining stock of healing potions. Afterwards she went to Pryderi. They got into an argument where Pryderi as much as admitted to having slain Elohiir's cousin. But he taunted her about the child she had had with her and the lost brother of Elohiir. Previously, Elohiir hadn't known about her niece, and coldly furious she decided to slay Pryderi in the field.

At sundown, Pryderi's troops began to march, while the captain rode a pony. Ethanwé quickly began to suspect that the whole marching, camping and taking turns at guard duty was designed to tire the troops before battle. Isolde used the camp to find a loyal man-at-arms (Ieuan: protector 1, men-at-Arms 1, loyalty 3).

On the second day of the march, it became clear that Pryderi was taking the troops to Dolor's Gap to meet the enemy. Elohiir marched faster to get to the head of the column and there was joined by a disguised Isolde. She told Elohiir who she was. The elven fighter stopped the patrol and told Pryderi about Isolde. He decided that Ethanwé should take her back to Morwenstone.

On her way back, Isolde suddenly decided to take a secret path to Dolor's Gap. Ethanwé wanted to stop her, but Ieuan stood by the side of Isolde. So the trio went to Dolor's Gap in hopes of spotting any ambush in time. At Dolor's Gap they discovered ancient ruins in a fissure at the eastern side of the gap. Isolde decided to climb down to investigate and Ethanwé followed her in the shape of a mountain lion. The wizardress turned herself invisible before climbing down. Ethanwé simply followed in animal shape. Everything went well, until Isolde broke through the roof of a large house and landed in the middle of four sleeping deep elves. She fled into the ruined courtyard, pondered if she should hide in the well, and then fled down into a corridor. At the end, she opened a door and still invisible came upon four deep elves playing cards around a table and a captive tied to the wall.

Here we decided to stop because everyone was getting tired. The captive was first described as an elven maid, but should another player join us that will be his character.

4. Feedback

This time around the feedback was very positive. Statistical distribution of rolls were a non-issue. The players liked the easy rules and even the player of Isolde who was initially sceptic about playing a traditional fantasy game said she liked it and would like to play again.

One comment from Elohiir's player about the character sheet again: Please make the box for current HP bigger!

Now I need to construct a front "Against the Deep Elves".

Coming soon at Beyond the Drowning Woods: the steading "Morwenstone" and a new campaign starter for next Saturday, when I'll have a completely different group of players over...

Against the Spectre Queen

Yesterday we played Dungeon World again. The party arrived in Svarturvigi and the story developed from their. I begin to see this as a series of modules:

BDQ1: In the Barrow of the Dwarven Queen (played last time)
BDQ2: Against the Spectre Queen (played yesterday)
BDQ3: In the Service of the Black King (probably happening in two weeks)

Okay, since this is an actual play report based on the 2.3 beta version, I am again breaking this down into sections:

1. Prep

This time I did a bit more prep than last time. I designed the steadings Svarturvigi and Friarsbridge, came up with a small map and wrote an adventure front. Except for the front, the prep work can ve found in this blog. Also, I added an index card to my collection, expanding on the defy danger moves as suggested by iserith on the Dungeon World forum. (Thanks, by the way! This card came in very handy and made the game flow more smoothly.)

Also, I found one additional player to join Grimdrig and Durgar.

2. Character Creation

We did a short character creation session, helping the new player to create a character and explaining the moves of the cleric to the player of Durgar (we are bridging a language gap here, so we want to make certain that she understands everything). Character creation again went very fast. It definitely helped that the player is a D&D veteran.

The party now consists of:

• Durgar, the good dwarven cleric of Gurun, the secretive dwarven god of medicine.
• Grimdrig, the good dwarven fighter with his serrated heirloom axe.
• Lucius, the good paladin of Cróachan, god of the primal power of the earthborn.

After character creation the players selected bonds for their characters, erasing the bonds to Leena and Celion.

3. Actual Play

The trade caravan arrived at Svarturvigi, passing through the narrow and imposing streets of the town surrounding the black fortress. After reaching the cobblestoned marketplace, Sorrenson, the caravan master, paid the agreed upon wages: 10 coins for Grimdrig and 5 coins each for Durgar and Lucius. He also told them that the caravan would continue in a week to Friarsbridge and that he'd be willing to hire them again as guards. The adventurers gave their farewells and took a look around the marketplace and environs.

First Grimdrig sold his scale mail, choosing instead to wear the ornate plate mail he had taken from the barrow. He suspects the plate armor is magical, but doesn't have a clue to its properties. Lucius spent his coins on adventuring gear, and Durgar purchased two healing potions.

Afterwards, the group decided to go with Durgar to visit the small Gurun temple. The temple was located in a backalley behind the market. Lucius waited outside, while Grimdrig and Durgar went inside. Grimdrig was looking curiously at the furnishings of the temple, kind of like a tourist. Durgar went to the altar to pray and sacrifice some coin. There he discovered an old, snorting priest. While Durgar knelt down to pray when suddenly and unnoticed by him, the spectre of the ancient derro dwarven queen left his body. She went straight towards Grimdrig, froze his heart and then disappeared into the temple.

Guided by premontions (and a Discern Realities move), Lucius rushed inside. Durgar woke the sleeping priest who introduced himself as Sturla, guardian priest of Gurun. The adventurers asked to see the high priest and tell him about the spectre of the dwarven queen. Sturla left and came back, dressed in splendid robes and asked the group to tell him what is going on. Durgar told him of their adventures in the Skogurhörmulegur. The ancient priest grew concerned and told them about the Tome of the Forgotten, hidden within the crypts of the temples. He suspected that the spectre was trying to reach the tome. The heroes agreed to follow the spectre and prevent her from taking the Tome. Sturla went back to dress as a simple priest again, and the fighter, cleric and paladin went down into the cellars of the temple.

After Grimdrig triggered a trap, Durgar asked Gurun for guidance. The deity pointed them into the direction of the crypts. There, they were attacked by skeletons of former dwarven priests. Apparently, the spectre queen had animated them in her wake. One skeleton was destroyed by Grimdrig, the others were put to rest again by Durgar.

On a flight of stairs, they discovered a secret door, but instead chose to follow the stairs as Lucius lost his footing and tumbled down. There they encountered the dwarven spectre. Grimdrig took a swing at her that seemed to connect, but she raised her hands, summoned two shadows. Durgar turned the shadows away. But the spectre cast a spell to bring down the ceiling. Lucius was burried under the falling rocks and Grimdrig was separated from the group on the other side of the rockfall. He saw the spectre moving through and decided to follow by also going right through the wall (pure awesome use of Bend Bars/Lift Gates move). Meanwhile Durgar helped Lucius to dig himself out of the rubble.

After smashing through the wall, Grimdrig just took a step into the darkness on the other side. Without hesitation and without even taking a look. He fell 10 feet down to floor, but hardly noticed. When Durgar and Lucius caught up, Durgar's light spell illuminated the vault below. In the middle, a lectern held the Tome of the Forgotten. The spectre was on her way to claiming it. Durgar noticed that the tome was warded. No living dwarf could touch it.

The spectre summoned another two shadows to distract Grimdrig. But he still lunged for her. Lucius and Durgar jumped down into the room. Durgar cast a magic weapon spell on Grimdrig's axe to help him battle the spectre queen. Lucius was severly injured by the shadows. Durgar tried to turn the shadows, but managed only to keep them at bay. He tossed a healing potion to Grimdrig who had been severly injured by the shadows and the spectre, then ran to Lucius to protect him. Both approached the lectern, but then a shadow snuffed out all light in the room (which at that time wasn't much anyway: the light spell on Durgar's staff and the weak blue flickering of his holy symbol that kept the shadows at bay).

The spectre queen reached the book, Grimdrig was cornered by the shadows and Durgar fell to the floor. Lucius was stunned by the spectre queen. Then she wrapped her essence around the book and sank through the floor. Durgar searched for a torch, lit it, and was attacked by the shadows while trying to find his holy symbol. He was instantly slain...

Durgar's Last Breath: The player rolled a 12. Durgar briefly saw a young girl, in a white dress with red hair and smudged bare feet sitting on a rock in front of a swirling black gate. She told him "It's not yet your time." Then he woke up. (The player went all "Cool!" when I described the image to her).

After defeating the shadows, they returned to the chapel. Sturla was sleeping again in front of the altar. The group decided to split up for a short time and meet at the Temple Inn in the same street later on.

Durgar communed with his god and asked cast a healing spell in front of the altar. But something went wrong and he really got the attention of his deity. Gurun animated his stone statue and gave Durgar a dire warning. The Tome of the Forgotten contained a dangerous ritual called the "Black Marriage". A dwarven sorceress like the spectre queen Adalfridjur could use it to transform herself into a demon queen. All she has to do is tearing out and eating the heart of her husband. According to Gurun, Adalfridjur was planning to marry Rafnar the Blackened Warlord of Svarturvigi in this fashion.

Grimdrig went straight to the Temple Inn, drank two beers and reflected on his recent experiences (time for the Level Up move).

Lucius meanwhile meditated beneath the ancient oaktree in front of the inn. He dedicated himself to the quest to slay Adalfridjur, a great blight on the land. He gained an unwavering sense of direction to Adalfridjur (but as he later found out not an unwavering sense of distance...) and invulnerability to inorporeal touch attacks. In turn he may not lie and must give comfort to those in need, no matter who they are.

Then they met at the Temple Inn. There, Durgar used the time to also gain insight on his recent failures and successes (time for another Level Up). Then they decided to stay at the inn for a week. Lucius was granted free food and lodging because he is the paladin of Cróachan. Durgar and Grimdrig had to pay.

Then it was time for some decision making on the characters part. What to do with their newly found knowledge? Go back to barrow, resurrect the queen and kill her? Or warn Rafnar of his impending doom? They decided to do the latter and went to the black fortress itself after resting for two days.

Arriving at the black fortress and asking for an audience they practically invite the Savarturvigi custom move: "Avoid harassment by the guards". They all have to pay bribes to be let through the gate and into the fortress. Durgar pays for Lucius who is practically broke.

Inside the foreboding fortress, they walk alone into the dark until the meet another group of dwarves. Those try to arrest the group, but Grimdrig downs one of them, and Lucius and Durgar intimidate the others into taking them to the throne room.

There they find themselves surrounded by carousing and grizzled dwarves, drinking ale and wearing necklaces of elven ears. Grimdrig just slips to the table and starts making "friends" with the other dwarves. Durgar and Lucius go the the throne of Rafnar and tell him about the danger he is in. He laughs, but Durgar quickly convinces him that he requires bodyguards - non other than our three adventures. Rafnar agrees, but wants to see a show of force. He asks the group to fight his best three champions.

The dwarves quickly form a ring, shouting: "Six go in, three go out!" banging their tankards on the stone tables. The fight is over rather quickly. Grimdrig cleaves one of the dwarven champions in half. Lucius downs the other while defending Durgar, and then the last one falls to Grimdrig.

Having proven themselves, the group is now "In the Service of the Black King".

4. Feedback

Again, I am giving some feedback on the game session.

GM Feedback

• I should have preped a small dungeon to represent the Crypts of Gurun.
• Handing out experience for misses went far smoother and less disruptive than I had thought. On the average, the players gained 7-9 XP during the whole evening. Enough to level up once. At this rate things will probably slow down a bit around level 5-7 to a level up once every other session. Still, not speaking from experience, but statistical averages.
• With iserith's advice on Defy Danger, play went much more smoothly.
• I am concerned about the amount of damage the fighter deals currently. He has taken "Merciless" as a move and still has a "magic weapon" spell on his axe cast by Durgar. The cleric chose not to revoke the spell. So I assume it is still active. So damage now is: 1d10 + 2 (for his axe) + 1d4 (Merciless) +1d4 (Magic Weapon) + 1d6 (because he almost always chooses "opening up for damage" on a 10+).
• I have to read up on "ongoing" spells. Can they really be kept up indefinitely?

Players' Feedback

• Grimdrig's player is still having trouble with the rules system. He enjoyed the game, but somehow doesn't get along with the odds the rules represent. In his opinion they are not distributed evenly.
• He also felt that I am preparing more for this game than for some others I have run in the recent months. He thinks, it shows that I am spending time on the game.
• Lucius' player doesn't like that he can't do certain things, because he simply lacks the "right move" (like Bend Bars/Lift Gates).
• Durgar's player found things running more smoothly as I get more familiar with the rules.
• All in all, they want to continue playing as a group of three. Durgar's player thinks that's better in terms of getting to take a turn. Even though she is aware that the party is lacking some fundamental roles like the thief.

Return to Dungeon World

It is finally decided. Next Friday will see our return to Dungeon World. But there will be a change of players. Basically, two players will continue and one to three new players will join. Now, the interesting question will be: do I continue the story of the two remaining players and simply add in the new players, or do we start over with a new first session? Both options have their appeal and I will probably prepare for both.

Option 1: Returning characters.
The characters of the returning players conveniently are Grimdrig the dwarven fighter and Durgar the dwarven cleric. Durgar is possessed by the spirit of an ancient (Derro) dwarven queen. So I have a hook right there. Probably I will prepare a front and some information about the town the dwarves are travelling to. Today, I already found a name for the town: Svarturvigi, the Black Fortress. I imagine this to be an ancient dwarven port town.

Option 1 will be viable, if nobody else wants to be the fighter or the cleric.

Option 2: New first session.
This would be a good solution to give everyone a fresh start. Unfortunately, it will also mean that I am never going to find out about the fate of Durgar. For a fresh start I am going to prepare some impressions and questions up front. Currently, I am in the mood for some sort of "gateway to the desert". Maybe I've just spend too much time in Act II of Diablo 3 in the city of Caldeum... Let's see what I'll come up with.

Option 2 will be a completely new game, but I have some ideas for an interesting setting in mind.

In the next days I am going to post more about my preparations.

The Barrow of the Dwarven Queen

As promised, this is the actual play report for Dungeon World Beta 2.3. I got together with four of my regular players, and we did a playtest. The play test report is structured in four parts: prep, character creation, actual play and feedback.

1. Prep

To prepare for the playtest, I read the complete beta version of the rulebook. Then I printed out the character booklets, which was not really fun without a duplex-capable printer. Additionally, I wrote index cards containing Always Say, Agenda, Principles, Moves, Dungeon Moves and First Session Goals. Writing those down did help me to focus on them. Also, I generated some ideas in my head:

• The characters guard a caravan moving through an ancient wood.
• They are attacked by gnolls.
• The daughter of the caravan leader is abducted.
• A gnoll emissary seeks to revive an ancient dwarven queen in her barrow.
• The daughter is supposed to be the sacrifice.

Last but not least, I took the book "Names, the Story Game Name Project" with me and decided to use the Norse tables, because there are some cool sounding locations in there.

2. Character Creation

Character creation was rather fast. I think we required less than an hour to distribute the booklets, explain the moves and make decisions about the characters, including their bonds. The group consisted of:

• Leena, a neutral female human bard with a lute gifted to her by Lord Sigurd (wants to write a ballad about Grimdrig, was trusted with a secret by Celion, and already had adventures with Durgar)
• Celion, a neutral male elven ranger with a huge black worg (has guided Grimdrig before, wants to teach Leena about the wilderness)
• Durgar, a good male dwarven cleric (wants to keep Grimdrig save)
• Grimdrig, a good male dwarven fighter with an ancient heirloom axe (worries about Leena's ability to survive)

3. Actual Play

The group guarded a caravan travelling from Solaceburg to another town (not yet determined). The journey started five days ago and leads through the ancient and malevolent Dismal Forest (Skogurhörmulegur). The road was marked by dwarven waystones and overgrown barrows could be found here. With some questions we established that the caravan leader Sorensen was paying 10 coins to Grimdrig to act as his bodyguard, and 5 coins each to the other heroes. The caravan consisted of ten wagons and 20 other guards. The players insisted that the caravan also includes a small baggage train with whores. Their madame is a dwarf named Roshildur.

The caravan was attacked by gnolls. The adventurers beat them back, but Ingdis, the daughter of the caravan leader was abducted. During the combat Leena and Durgar ended up hiding under a wagon, and Celion and Grimdrig dispatched the enemies. Celion scattered his arrows when he tried to dodge an arrow. But oddly, he didn't care.

After the combat, Grimdrig followed a false lead into the forest followed by Durgar and Leena. Meanwhile, Celion discovered a trail left by the abductors of Ingdis. Apparently, a group of gnolls had managed to escape into the forest. Durgar talked to a stone that Leena had found on a dead gnoll. The stone was apparently taken from a barrow to the west. Later, they found that the trail was leading there as well.

Thanks to Leena remembering that dwarven barrows were marked by cobblestone alley running widdershins to the barrow, they weren't lost when the ranger lost track of the abductors. They went straight to the barrow. There, they were attacked by the guards, a gnoll tracker and a gnoll alpha. After defeating them, they examined the barrow.

The barrow was apparently build by the First Dwarves, an evil race banished deep underground by the modern dwarves eons ago. There, they degenerated into the race known as the derro or deep dwarves. The tomb belonged to a warrior queen. The ancient queens believed that they would be reborn as slime demons. Usually they were burried together with their still living goblin slaves.

The adventurers decided to enter the barrow. Grimdrig bashed down the door, and they entered into the first chamber. There, they were attacked by goblin skeletons. At the end of the battle, Durgar broke through the weakened ceiling. Leena tried to help him, but he simply vanished into the earth.

Durgar had fallen into the burial chamber of the dwarven queen. Outside he heard banging on the big iron doors sealing the chamber. While searching for an escape route, he was possessed by the restless spirit of the ancient queen.

Celion went outside the barrow, because he had to take care of some bodily functions (and the player had to leave early). But still that was a very good fit with his secret. Known only to Leena, Celion is not quite what "he" seems.

Leena found another weak spot in the entrance chamber, but when Grimdrig used his weight to break through, they found themselves outside the burial chamber, in the ante chamber where six gnolls were busy ramming the iron door with a large wooden log. The gnolls were supervised by a gnoll emissary. Flanking the door were two funeral biers with plate mail clad dwarves on them.

Leena tried to scare the gnolls, and it worked on half of them. The rest attacked. Grimdrig found himself face to face with the emissary. It was a tough fight. Grimdrig was seriously injured. As Leena healed him, she tumbled against a funeral bier and disturbed the resting dwarf. He and his comrade animated as draugr. He touched Leena, chilling her to the bone. Desperately, the bard was charming and open with them and told them that Grimdrig and she just wanted to leave the tomb. The draugr let them go. Leena took a book with her that belonged to the now dead emissary.

Outside, she again healed Grimdrig and felt her magic reverbrating into the tomb. Positive healing magic meeting negative undead energies. Then, Grimdrig and Leena tried to make sense out of the situation and dredged up their memories about the First Dwarves. They remembered that the good dwarves placed warding circles around the barrows, sealed the dead queens with cold iron doors and some even let themselves be burried inside the barrows to act as eternal guardians. Cold iron hurts demons.

Meanwhile, Durgar had regained his senses and searched the tomb for valuables. He deciphered the runes around the sarcophagus of the queen, extolling the warrior queen Tlanextli, wife to priest king Chimalpopoca. Rightly he guessed that the dire warning against opening the sarcophagus were meant to scare but didn't hold any real danger. But, alas, he wasn't able to open the sarcophagus.

Grimdrig went back inside the tomb, while Leena was reading the book. The book turned out to be the Fiasco Codex (the player of Leena is a huge fan of Fiasco). Inside the tomb, Grimdrig discovered that the draugr were apparently gone, their empty plate armor resting on the biers. When he examined the iron doors, he discovered a cleverly hidden mechanism allowing the doors to be unlocked. He unlocked the doors, went inside and said: "I am going closing the doors right behind me." This was the most shocking turn of events of the whole evening. The player was afraid that some sort of demon would get out. Everyone else at the table was surprised and shocked (including the GM). Now both Durgar and Grimdrig were locked inside the burial chamber.

Leena finished reading the Fiasco Codex and asked her question: "What is my greatest opportunity, right now?" I answered honestly: "Take the dwarven plate mail and leave." The plate armor was worth around 1000 coins. And I knew what had happened inside the tomb. Leena was neutral, so she followed the advice. Unfortunately, she could only take one suite. She was very surprised that the draugr were gone, but figured out that her healing magic had most likely ended the guardians.

Inside the tomb, Durgar asked Grimdrig to open the sarcophagus. Inside they found 160 coins, a silver short sword, canoptic jars and the mummified remains of the dead queen clad in a priceless suite of plate armor. When the sarcophagus was opened, Durgar was hit by green spores weakening him. In the end, they managed to dig themselves out of the hole that Durgar first broke through. But first they tried to open the doors from the inside. When Durgar wanted to help, his finger tips blackened and smoked as they touched the door.

Returning to the camp, Grimdrig was surrounded by the other caravan guards who admired the dwarven plate mail he brought back from the tomb (the armor of the second draugr). Durgar confronted Leena, figuring that she had left them to rot. Leena convincingly explained that she tried to get help, but everyone refused to go.

At that point we wrapped up the game and did the end of session move. No bonds were resolved, but Leena added a new bond with Durgar: "He doesn't trust me and for good reason." It just felt right to do that. Especially since Leena suspects that Durgar might be possessed.

4. Feedback

The feedback is very raw, very fresh and relatively unfiltered. I still hope it is useful.

GM Feedback:

• The rules are an easy read and the advice is solid.
• Some things in the rules are not explained. Notably, how to arrive at the dungeons from the fronts. This rather implicitly assumes that readers are familiar with D&D-type games. Also the b and w notations in the monster stat blocks are nowhere explained. I assume they mean "keep best" and "keep worst" - even though I haven't found a rule that says "keep worst".
• The experience rule on page 15: "when you roll a miss (6-) and when you make the End of Session move." seems like a left over from earlier revisions. Because I think, you'll level up far too quickly if you use that rule.
• The moves played surprisingly well. Sometimes I still needed help from the players to figure out hard bargains, ugly choices and worst outcomes.
• I am positively surprised how much ground we covered in about 4 hours of game time.
• I am also positively surprised about the way the action in the game developed. I am certain that using LotFP, ACKS or DCC would have yielded a very different gaming experience. Honestly, I think it would have been less exciting.
• The Bend Bars/Lift Gates move really lets the fighter shine outside of combat.
• The playbooks should have some sort of boxes in the gear section to mark off uses.

Player Feedback:

• Leena asked me, why didn't use any of my moves. She knows Apocalypse World. I just went over my list of moves and pointed out were I used them. Turned out, I nearly used every one of them.
• The Defy Danger move is way too harsh. It feels unbalanced with other moves in the 7-9 range. The worst outcomes, hard bargains and ugly choices feel far more punishing than simply failing. The players were kind of unanimous about that. Maybe consequences that are more clearly cut would help here. A sentiment which I share.
• The Discern Realities move is too limiting in the 10+ range. The players felt that the listed questions are good ideas for the first question, but would prefer to be able to build on the information gained with the first question by asking free-form questions as 2nd and 3rd question.
• Grimdrig felt that the Discern Realities and Spout Lore moves slow down the game. A feeling not shared by everyone.
• Grimdrig was left with a very conflicting impression of the game. On the one hand, he liked that ideas about a fighter were working very good, but on the other hand he felt dissatisfied with the outcome and found the game very exhausting. Also, the storylines that are beginning to show don't hold any interest for him.
• Again, Grimdrig thought that the descriptions of his actions don't really matter for the rules. But he kept comparing the game to Warhammer 3rd edition (he is GMing the Grunwald Lodge adventure).
• Leena pointed out that the playbooks are missing a place to put your level!