DW AP - Barrow of the Iron King

[Colin]

I ran Dungeon World for the first time a few weeks back, it totally scratched that old school adventure gaming I have been hankering for lately. Bear with me as I don't often write AP, but the game was a lot of fun and with the carrot of the Adventure Guild....

So we had an Elfen Ranger Cianan, the Halfling "I am a Thief, all other halflings are pikers" Plunk Steadybottom and an Elven Wizard Finaan. Started out in the required inn, at a keep on the borderlands with the characters huddled over the treasure map to the legendary barrows and I asked them how they wanted to prep for the journey. Plunk imediately started wenching for info and learned that a band of knights had gone of in search of the barrows and never returned as well as robbing the tavern wench blind so he could mark his evil alignment exp (can't wait to roll for Outstanding Warrants when they return). Finaan headed up to the keep for some research where he made a deal with a fellow wizard Godrick. I love the wizard move to know other magic users, thanks to this move we discovered that Finaan was on the run for killing his master so Godrick offered him shelter if only Finaan would retrieve the Urn of Dragons from the barrows.

The players then set off and the cheaty Elf Cianan used his move to autopass the Perilous Journey, and they easily made it to the barrows where they discovered a tribe of barbarian descendants of the Iron King who protect the Barrows. Cianan and Plunk quickly snuck into the village while Finaan walks right in demanding to parlay with the head witchpriest. A few Discern Realities and Parlay rolls later and Finaan is now the chosen one who has returned to release the tribe from its sacred task to keep an evil curse within the barrows as well as noticing that the standing stones over looking the barrows are a nexus of power... so naturally he tries to tap into that power thus releasing the undead curse held within the barrows and allowing me to start advancing my Iron King awakens countdown clock.

The witchpriest leads his people off and away from the undead plague and our heroes make camp in the standing stones... where they are attacked by a band of ghouls released from the barrows (thank you countdown clock!). The fight was way fun, with Finaan chucking magic missiles around until he forgot the spell, Plunk running around the top of the standing stones maneuvering and killing ghouls while Cianan had less luck and ending up at zero hp and infected with the Ghouls Rot which will be a countdown clock when we play next, once the ghouls were half dead I used a hard move on a fail to grab Cianan's unconscious body and make a run for it... but Plunk used his stolen brandy to scare the ghouls into dropping him and fleeing.

After the battle and a little healing, Finaan used his Spirit Summoning spell, and called forth the Bride of the Iron King who warned them the flee before the terrible curse was released and her husband awoke to kill them all.

Come daylight they headed down to the barrows for a little scouting and discovered that one of the smaller barrows was heavily trapped... so naturally they went there first though Plunk handily disarmed the traps and lead them into the barrow where they found a cairn made of tiny pebbles and tunnel leading deeper into the barrow. Since it was time to wrap things up for the night I moved on to my move for the barrows and sealed them in as a massive stone dropped over the entrance trapping them in the dark as they hear the sounds of things moving in the tunnels below...

Over all the game was a lot of fun and we are playing again this Thur, though this time I plan on being more prepared and making a front for the dungeon and keep as well as stating up some monsters in advance, and if I have time I may sketch out the barrow complex map.

Also the "draw maps like crazy" advice from AW really worked well in DW, I had a blast drawing maps on graph paper for everything in this game.

- Colin

[noofy]

Brillant AP Colin, I really enjoyed it! I can almost see your characters living in a nearby kingdom - one with Keep on The Borderlands...

Soon our wizard Tonks will have heard of Finann and his power, whilst Brancino will no doubt scour the earth to find and usurp Mr. Steadybottom's reputation.

I totally agree about the map thing. I initially started the first session with Tony's and Dyson's maps, but have since Hosted a Dungeon and drawn a few levels of the Phoenix Undermountain myself. Great lonely DM fun.

[Colin]

Soon our wizard Tonks will have heard of Finann and his power, whilst Brancino will no doubt scour the earth to find and usurp Mr. Steadybottom's reputation.

We shall see what happens once Finann has mastered the mighty Urn of Dragons and Brancino will have to deal with the fell crossbow that Plunk "acquired" from the local Assassin's guild! Not to mention they are backed up by the Ranger Cianan with his bow and trained hawk ;)

Now that I have access to the guild content I have to say the fronts are pretty hot! Definitely looking forward to some lonely fun mapping and front building today, plus I spent some time last night looking over some of my old 1st ed books for inspiration. I had forgotten how much fun the prep for adventures was and AW/DW really focus in on what made it fun without bogging it down with stat blocks.

 

[tonydowler]

Nice! I love how the adventurers receive an unearthly warning from beyond death to flee for their lives, then turn around and head gleefuly straight down into the barrows. :)

[noclue]

There must be some reason why they don't want us down there ;)

[noclue]

After mighty striving we have vanquished the Iron King by tricking his undead dragon into breathing its coldfire upon the seat of his power. I am released from the foul ghoul rot, but now I've gotten myself cursed from picking up the Iron King's foul blade. Oh well, at least we left with some gold in our pockets.

[sage]

After mighty striving we have vanquished the Iron King by tricking his undead dragon into breathing its coldfire upon the seat of his power. I am released from the foul ghoul rot, but now I've gotten myself cursed from picking up the Iron King's foul blade. Oh well, at least we left with some gold in our pockets.

This may be the most Dungeon World paragraph ever written.

[Anarchangel]

We played a continuation of this game on Thursday: Temple of the Empty God.

Man, I love Dungeon World!


We were a bit perplexed by the new encumbrance rules. If my hazy recollections of 2e D&D are anything to go by, it's normal to be slightly encumbered? Certainly we all were, but that didn't seem right, so Colin bumped up the limits by two.

[sage]

We recently bumped up the numbers a bit for the Red Book, as well as giving the wizard a spell that carries stuff. It was a bit aggressive at first, we went too far into the favor of making tough decisions about what to carry.

[Anarchangel]

Another continuation: The Loathsome Temple

Plunk the Thief is 4th level
Florian the Bard started at 2nd and didn't level (as far as I know?)
Rathnait the Fighter hit 4th level right at the end of the session.

Rathnait (my character) has One Man Army, Dual Wield (Ranger ability) and (now) a Improved Weapon (but I will probably change that to Merciless).
*Dual Wield is very good... perhaps too good compared to the other available powers? Has it been balanced for the new class-based damage rules?
*One Man Army has a badass name, but I don't think we've fought enough groups for it really to show it's use. Well... I fight groups all the time, but no one else does, so it doesn't shine in comparison.
*I like the choices available for fighters. There are enough straight up combat modifiers to go that route, plus a couple of other paths based on other stats to make a CHA or INT fighter a cool character to play.