Author: Brandon Fincher

I recently came up with a Magic Item for Dungeon World (whose name is inspired by a certain Discern Realities host) and I’m trying to put some finishing touches on it and thought you fine folks might have some ideas.

The Crystal Compass of Captain Cordova: When attempting to Undertake A Perilous Journey over a body of water, drop a widow’s tear onto the needle, whisper your destination to the Crystal Compass, and roll +CHA. On a 10+ the jeweled needle points true and guides you on a safe and direct path, avoiding potential dangers and ensuring you make good time. On a 7-9, the fickle needle wavers and sends you off course towards an interesting detour or potential threat.

It’s alright, but I feel like it could use something extra. Any thoughts?

For those interested, here’s some context on the history of the Crystal Compass…

In my current Dungeon World campaign things have taken a very nautical turn, with the party currently attempting to assist a seaside town whose livelihood has been halted by a mysterious fog that’s enveloped the harbor. The Party has discovered that a few years ago an order of traveling clerics sought to occupy an island off the coast and build a temple to their goddess. Townsfolk were hired to assist in the building, but no one on the mainland has seen the members of the order since the completion of the temple. Recently, people have begun going missing in the dock district and fishermen have gone out to sea and never returned. More recently, this strange fog showed up and that has the strange property of swallowing up/or redirecting ships back to shore.

During our last session the dock district was assaulted by a hoard of monstrous Fish Men that are believed to be connected to all of this. The players fought them off and are now attempting to figure out a way to get to the island to do some investigating. Problem is, any ship that’s gone out so far either gets turned around or doesn’t come back at all and no one with a boat is willing to take them out.

One of the plot threads I’ve dropped in relation to this has been some townsfolk chatter about “an old sea hag who lives in a shack overlooking the bluff” and several of the townsfolk are blaming her for these strange happenings. In reality, Dythelia is just a lonely old lady who knows a thing or two about magic, but doesn’t have any great insight on the situation with the fog. One thing she does have, though, is the Crystal Compass of Captain Cordova and she’ll agree to give it to the party if they agree to help her with something.

As for the history of the Crystal Compass: There was one a captain of a great Merchant Vessel. This man, Captain Cordova, was in love with a much younger Dythelia and had promised to marry her when he returned from a long voyage that would make him rich, but his letters ceased and he never returned, and so Dythelia has grown into an old eccentric woman as she waits for her long lost Captain. During the many years since, Dythelia has crafted the Crystal Compass using her knowledge of magic, hoping that it might direct her to her long loss love, but a part of her gave up hope long ago and she’s never set out to use it.

Part of the request she’s going to make of the party will involve them heading out across the map to a location called The Sea of Bones to find any remnants of her Captain’s ship so that she can finally get some closure.

Posted this over in the DW Tavern, but thought I’d offer it up to the brilliant minds of the Gauntlet in case you guys don’t frequent that G+ group…

Anyone have any experience/suggestions for running a Sea Cave/Cavern dungeon in Dungeon World? I’ve already got a lot of the details worked out for this place, but I feel like it’s missing some things.

First off, the entrance to this cave system is located beneath a temple that was erected within the last decade by a visiting religious order in search of a place to put down roots in this area. Going for a Lovecraft inspired approach with the coastal town the PCs are currently occupying, I’ve placed an unnatural horror at the bottom of this cave system in the form of this gargantuan oyster creature that’s been infected by an evil parasite that’s corrupted it. The combination of this parasite/oyster has resulted in a sort of psychic/magical infection on the inhabitants of this temple and it’s turned them all into these nightmarish fish men that have turned from their goddess and now worship the oyster.The corrupted oyster has been sending fish men to the town to abduct townsfolk, some of which are intended to be food, others to bolster their numbers. In addition to amassing an army of fish men, the oyster creature naturally has the ability to locally control the seas and as a result has set up this sort of Ravenloft-esque fog that’s encased the entire bay area near the town which has resulted in a complete stop of the fishing and import/export that the town was once known for as ships either don’t make it in to begin with or get turned around and sent back to the harbor.

So yeah, got a place, got a motivation for the PCs to go here, got a boss, got some inhabitants (could probably use more), but I’m wondering if anyone has any suggestions for anything that’ll help this small-ish dungeon pop. Maybe some custom sanity moves, maybe some traps, maybe some interesting encounter ideas, maybe a way to make fighting a giant oyster interesting.

Hi Gang, I could use some suggestions on making a specific combat scene interesting.

I’m not referring to armies engaged on a battlefield, but I’m thinking about a scene involving a band of assailants large enough to present a problem to the party and a tavern full of capable people.

If an explanation of the scene would help, the party is currently in a coastal town that’s dealing with some problems involving a mysterious fog that’s enveloped the nearby bay. Ships can’t get in or out of the harbor and it’s starting to take its toll on the city. The party is aware of this situation and has been told by the locals that they blame a religious order from a neighboring continent that erected a temple on an offshore island after the city refused to sell them land. This religious order (who just so happens to be the same faith as the party cleric) has discovered something on the island they shouldn’t have (cavern dungeon, sleeping sea beast/god thing, place of power) and it’s began corrupting them.

So with all that said, I was thinking that a band of these corrupted fish priests are going attack the tavern/dock area next session and I’m not sure how to go about prepping for something like that in a way that will insure the assault is fun and spicy. I’ve got a lot of folks in this tavern with plenty of plot threads that haven’t even had a chance to be revealed yet, so I’d rather avoid killing them off, but I want to make the danger feel real to the players.

As a side note, I’m about 3 months into a Dungeon World campaign and it’s been dragging ass a bit lately, so I’m wanting to right the ship and ramp things up. We’ve been spending a lot of time doing social stuff and taking our time exploring the world and the lore and the character backgrounds, but I’m starting to realize that this isn’t an approach that DW excels at, so I need to shift gears before I lose my players.

I know Dungeon World is popular around these parts and was hoping you folks might have some insight on how I can deal with an adventure concept problem I’m coming up against.

A little setup for the idea…On the frontier between “The Dark Loam” and the civilized lands to the east sits a small city called Bastion. Bastion, perched atop a high mountain peak, stands as the front lines between the kingdom of Udir and the nightmare beasts beyond. The king of Udir, King Gylbarde “The Griffon”, resides as the sort of commander-in-chief of these defense efforts, but he’s growing old and time is against him. King Gylbarde decides to hold an event called The Great Hunt which he has sent out invitations for to warriors of note across the realm, four of which are my players’ PCs, with the hopes of dealing with the threat (and maybe even finding a successor).

The Great Hunt itself is a team based competition where each participating group draws a random scroll containing the image of a beast of legend that occupies a region of The Dark Loam. The party then has one day to prepare for their journey where they can gather information from the citizens of Bastion, learn about the beast, obtain items to aid them on their journey, etc. At the start of the following day, each team is to set out into the Dark Loam to track and slay their chosen beast. They have one week’s time to complete this objective before they must return with a trophy of their kill. This will repeat for four rounds until a winner is decided.

So that’s what I’ve got so far. The players only know that their characters have been invited to something called The Great Hunt that is taking place in a city called Bastion and that there’s a King Gylbarde involved, but that’s it.

The thing I’m coming up against is how to run this very straight forward adventure while still making it feel like a competition between rival groups of NPCs. One thing I had considered doing was to give my players creative license with what the scroll they’ve chosen depicts. This seemed like a fun way of letting them fight whatever crazy monster they’ve always wanted to and alleviates the burden of having to decide on it myself. The problem I’m finding with that is when I get into how to make the Great Hunt an actual game. I want the rival teams to feel realistic and I need a mechanic for making the results of each round seem random. I suppose I could just work it out in the fiction, but I’m not sure if that’s the right way to go about it.

Anyone have any experience with running something like this? Any advise? I’d also love to hear any suggestions on dealing with big boss battle set pieces, as that will likely end up being the bread and butter of this adventure and I admittedly have very little experience with things like that.