A Wormcycle Built for Two, Part 2
Hello! Welcome back! Did you like Part 1? I hope so.
Anyway, last time we talked about Arcana, which are basically meant to be little character classes with strong fictional positioning. But how do these look?
Four Arcana of the Worm and the City
Character Creation is similar to a regular game of His Majesty the Worm, but with some tweaks. In Step 1, instead of a kin and path - choose an arcana that your character is going to follow alongside your GM, which has it's own set of Kith Requirements or suggestions. Set it's relevant stat to 4. You still choose one talent to be mastered alongside your kith talent. Somewhere in steps 3 and 5, make sure one of your motifs reflects your Arcarna.
Skip step 6. There is no camraderie here.
In step 7. treats from Ma, you get your items listed in your arcana. Then use treats from Ma as usual.
Now, these are untested, but here's some samples.
Forlorn Beastblood
Swords - Any Kin
Bitten by the Beast, Your Bones Creak and your Teeth Itch. The beastblooded of the world are the most free inside of the Underworld - where their bestial nature can be managed or encouraged. In your motifs, one should explain what kind of person you were before you were turned.
Oaths
- Oath of the Outcast: Charge this Oath when your beast-blood incurs additional consequences against you.
- Oath of the Kith: Charge this Oath when prioritize the needs of other kith and kin above your own.
- Oath of Predation: Charge this Oath when you ambush your foes in a brutal trap.
Talents
- Ambusher: In the first round of a Challenge, whenever you would deal damage, you deal 2 Wounds instead of 1. Spend a Resolve to resist being ambushed.
- Tooth and Nail: Sprout Claws and Sharp Incisors, you count as armed with a melee weapon when attacking with your bare hands. In addition, this allows you to attack larger creatures while unarmed.
- Wrack n' Rage: As a Swords Action, you may begin to Rage, which only stops at the end of combat. When raging, you are immune to Control effects and have favor on Attacks, but cannot riposte or dodge.
Equipment
- Kindred's Call: a conch that hums softly whenever it's in the presence of another Beastblooded. If it's your possession, gain favor in dealing with them.
- Elfwire Snare: A snare made of silk from especially bred spiders, produced in the tripatriate lands of the elves. Can be used to catch food, spend a watch and test cups.
Mourne Dahmpir
Pentacles - Typically Human
Your mother is the Wild of Mourne. Your father was the vampire... you think. He died before you were born, but being half vampire and half of the kin has some complications and eventually your mother sent you down to the South.
Oaths
- Oath of The Tower: Charge this Oath when you use your position as a member of a tower to get what you want.
- Oath of The Ice: Charge this Oath when you use an experience from your experience living in the north to survive an obstacle in the dungeon.
- Oath of Blood: Charge this Oath whenever you drink the warm blood of a humanoid creature.
Talents
- One Handed Focus: If you are wielding a melee weapon with one hand (and hold nothing else) during a Challenge, you may Attack as a minor action with either a Pentacles or a Swords card.
- Mourne Loremaster: You have an almost encyclopedic knowledge of everything you have read. Once you have used the Read a Book Camp Action (p. 137), you may thereafter bid lore to ask a question about the subject of that text. Keep a list of books that you’ve read. These are treated like motifs for the purpose of bidding lore, but don’t aid you in tests of fate.
- Knitting Wounds: You can spend a resolve and burn a charged Oath or Curse to instantly heal a wound as if it were the Camp Phase.
Equipment
- Whalebone Rapier: A rapier made of fine whalebone, singing as it's thrusted and swung.
- Symbiotic Armor: As Leather Armor, but can be notched twice. Can only be repaired as a long term project.
The Chorister
Cups - Unique
A supplicant of Ianus, the God of Truth. Your head is bloated like a balloon, Tripatriate faces upon it. You would be hunted outside the city, but there's no end to the oddities in the heart of the crusade-lands.
Kith Talents
Basic Talent - The Trifold Faces You have three faces on your bloated head. They're quite effective at being distressing, allowing you to spend a resolve and take the Speak Incantation action during a Challenge to SCREAM. The target of your ire is Stunned. Arete Conditions:
- Convert a denizen of the underworld to the cult of Ianus
- Reveal a long forgotten truth.
- Judge someone guilty after conducting an investigation.
Arete Talent - Speaker of Secrets The light of truth burns away uncertainty. You can bid lore about the ancient history of the underworld as if you had a relevant motif, so long as there is only one person (above or below ground) knows it.
Oaths
- Oath of Charity: Charge this oath when you provide aid to a denizen of the dungeon.
- Oath of Ianus: Charge this oath when you pray at a Shrine of Ianus the God of Truth.
- Oath of Truth: Charge this oath when you tell a difficult truth to a denizen and suffer consequences because of it.
Talents
- High Chant: As a Camp Action, chant the redes of ancient heroes. Draw a number of minor arcana cards equal to your Cups attribute. Keep one card as inspiration: it may be spent as an action during a Challenge. Alternatively, you may spend your inspiration card instead of drawing from the deck when you test fate or push fate. Put the other cards back on top of the minor arcana deck in any order.
- Hymn of Castigation: In a Challenge, you may Attack as a Wands action.
- Dispel Doubt: You can spend a watch to sit with another being capable of lying and test Cups. On a Success you may ask one question, on a great success you may ask two. A Great Failure renders this talent unusable until your next camp or city phase (it may still be wounded).
Equipment
- Book of Uncommon Prayer - A hymnal of the songs of Ianus. 1 Handed. As a Cups action, you may sing the songs to attempt to Inspire Calm. If successful, you gain favor (+3) in tests of fate to flee the battle.
- However, your singing attracts foes. The next time you would draw a Meatgrinder event, draw twice. If one of the cards is XVI–XX, put that card into play.
- Censer Flail - A blessed thurible filled with incense. When Attacking a foe, you only need to meet (not beat) their Initiative. 1 Handed.
The Arcana Seer
Wands - Any
The arcana seer are the church of mythris' elite magi and fortune tellers. They're recognizable by their masks, depicting one of the major arcana in vivid detail, long flowing robes.
Source:Witch Hat Atellier
Oaths
- Oath of Balance: Charge this oath when you topple a power structure that was threatening to disrupt the balance of the underworld.
- Oath of Prudence: Charge this oath when you opt not to help a member of the underworld to preserve balance.
- Oath of Mythris: Charge this oath whenever you pray to a shrine of mythris.
Talents
- Shuffle the Deck of 21: You can spend a watch to Scry on the Meatgrinder. Look at the top two cards of the meatgrinder, then either put them on the top or bottom of the library in any order.
- Suits and Portents: Decide what spell domain you were attuned to as a initiate into the seers at character creation. You can cast spells of that domain.
- Sickle Trump: When wielding a sickle in a challenge, you may Attack as a Major Action using Cups.
Equipment
- Wicked Sickle: A sickle that has many wicked edges, with many wicked poisons. You can spend a resolve when you hit with this blade to Deafen the target.
- Tarot Deck: Your deck of tarot cards, bound to your very being. Required to use shuffle the deck of 21.
Running for One Delver
So what changes when one delver enters the megadungeon? Well i've not field tested the results yet, so we're going to have to draw from experience in Duet Play and design assumptions.
- Duet Play is shorter, people only tend to play for 1-2 hour bursts. There's no where to hide from, nobody else to spotlight.
- Since there's no bonds, Oaths will be the main way of characterization. Leading questions feel like a must here.
- NPCs might be recruited or adopted, how to manage this? (The Worm Discord has rules for hirelings, for example)
- Torches become much more important, and so does your free hand!
- Combat is a lot more lethal. Clever trapping or tricking will have to be mandatory - but [Guilder] as a meatgrinder amount tends to be useful.
- For wounds, it could be that you could burn bonds when you take a wound, this effectively gives you three more wound slots.