I started running a Dungeon World game at the office. We play for 90 min once a week, during lunch. I don’t feel like writing a 2000 word account putting everything in context, so let’s be gonzo today! This post is ALL story, the nuts and bolts will come in Part 2.
Jesus Built My Hotrod
The story starts with a trio of adventurers, some would mistake them as friends, but that hasn’t been clearly established. Sitting around with their car’s driver (a nameless NPC for now) they discuss their newest mission:
Find the ruined temple where the cult of Nam-Shub sits on one of the world’s last stockpile of pure Thaumium rods… and TAKE IT!
Thaumium powers their car and getting such a stash means getting some serious scratch.
The car speeds through the Broken Wastes. Greasy smoke and multi-hued sparks comes out its corroded hood on which lies Father Pepo’s holy symbol, a token of life-renewed in a world where Death won eons ago. As they make their way to Ruin Valley, the most visible landmark of the region, they observe a recent change. Ruin Valley has always been this Waster-infested cluster of degraded sky-high towers of steel and concrete. But today, at the periphery of the central towers, lies a flawless tower of sculpted stone, complete with flanged turrets and narrow windows. Its open entrance features a set of smooth stone steps, flanked by 2 stone statues of strange quadruped creatures made of beaks, wings and hooves.
Luanna: Those are Elven creatures! They are chimeras!
Oywn: I fucking hate Elves!
The temple of Nam-Shub temporarily forgotten, the group decides to investigate this obvious Elven encroachment into what is otherwise Council-held. Maybe it’s some kind of enemy outpost? Before a decision as to the best course of action is taken, Luanna, ever willing to explore, climbs the stairs, heedless of any dangers she might face.
And danger there is! As she starts climbing, Owyn spots an object sticking out of one of the narrow windows, 20 feet over them. He declares that it’s obviously a landmine, a known defensive strategy in siege warfare.And right he is as the object starts plummeting toward them, revealing it to be a large clay container with some sort of primitive fuse burning.
Adjusting his Power-Dampening gauntlets, Owyn takes a bead on the falling object, and calmly proceeds to punch it into the atmosphere, which he accomplishes flawlessly. By that time, Luanna inside has found trouble inside the tower, as she is won’t to do.
As Owyn rushes inside, Pepo gets distracted for a second by another glint at the tower’s window. Before he can react, he gets shot by arrows pelting down all around him. As he retreats bleeding behind the car (with the driver) he hears an arrow puncture through the hood, lodging itself in the Thaumic engine.
Cue worrying noises coming from the car.
Inside, past a short hallway made of stone blocks, the other two adventurers find themselves in a larger, featureless room, facing a handful of decrepit, scimitar-wielding animated skeletons. So shaky are their movements, they seem more constructs than undead.
While Pepo dodges the near constant rain of arrows to join the others, Owyn grab a skeleton and starts smashing the others with it. Luanna initially starts pelting arrows at the skeletons, shattering one and pinning another through the arm bones into a crack in the wall. As a confused and intense melee unfolds, Pepo and Owyn get wounded. Reaching exhaustion, Pepo starts faltering. That’s when Luanna lets go of her high-end, genuine reproduction Elven bow, grabs her Thaumic Guitar and makes a righteous power slide, bringing the power of ROCK to succor Father Pepo’s ailing soul.
Brought back from the brink of despair, Father Pepo tires of being gentle and grabs a skeleton by the skull and starts dragging it through the hallway, intent on smashing its head on the car’s hood.
(Reminder: That’s where he welded his Holy symbol)
Unfortunately, Peco slips and trips at the last moment, letting go of the skeleton. He falls down the stairs and finds himself, once more, the target of arrows. Luanna decides that now would be a good time to start communicating with the pinned skeleton. Unwilling to challenge her strategy, Owyn leaves her to deal with a pair of skeleton while he runs to help Pepo. Grabbing the hallway skeleton, Owyn finds himself wrestling with a surprisingly strong pile of bones. Rolling on the floor with his foe, he hears the distinct sound of a spring trigger, as a poisoned dart hits the warrior in the thigh.
Owyn: I fucking HATE ELVES!
As Pepo retreats behind the car again, dodging arrows once more, Luanna evades the skeletons’ attacks while Owyn shakes off the poison and smashes his opponent. Enraged, he rips out a stone tile from the floor, getting ready to throw it at the remaining, unpinned skeleton… But that’s when his old back injury acts up, making him collapse in pain.
Dodging the two skeletons, Luanna shouts out
“Whom do you serve!”
And the pinned skeleton answers:
“WE SERVE TROLLBANE”
Both skeletons then turn to dust and the rain of arrows stopped…
Nice Ministry reference.