Scale & Shadow Bonus: Lareth the Beautiful
The golden age is long over.
Whether by cruel kings, savage beasts, or unwise wizards wielding forgotten magics too great to be contained–dark times are upon us. The only hope for a comfortable life is to delve into what ruins remain to plunder the treasures of your ancestors to sell to the greedy and the foolish.
Be warned, as if flies to a candle, the worst monsters are drawn to the brightest lights and no one is left to save you in the darkness.
The heroes of legend have died long ago. All that remains is:
Scale & Shadow
Bonus:
As Lereth the Beautiful and his Handsome Men prepare to strike against our unfortunate treasure-hunters, we pause the action to take a step back to refresh our memories on this villain most thought long dead.
Additionally, we visit an odd atrificer with some information and wares that just might help you in your own game of Dungeon World (see below for more details).
Art by Dave Trampier
Used under Fair Use, respective rights reserved
Magic Items to use in your game:
Wand of Wonder 0 weight
This thin, bronze wand is roughly the length of the average person’s wrist to their elbow. There are 13 strange words embossed along its surface, seemingly at random. A Spout Lore might tell you that the words are in the Old Tongue, an ancient language used by witches, warlocks, and other foolish souls. Legend says that all translations of the dead language were expunged from history by an emperor in ages past, jealous of the power the words provided his lessors.
When you focus your mind and point the wand at a target, roll + Int.
—On a 10+, choose any word from the list and cross it off.
—On a 7-9, roll 2d6, add the result, and cross off the corresponding word. If that word has already been crossed off, cross off the next lowest available word.
—On a miss, the GM chooses one or more words to cross off. It might not go as planned.
As soon as a word is crossed off from the Wand of Wonder, the target suffers an effect inspired by the word. A word of warning: in some cases, the intended target will not be the only recipient.
1. Finn
2. Raenboga
3. Haernen
4. Bridd
5. Eoten
6. Dor
7. Haelian
8. Nihieran
9. Freondscipp
10. Claen
11. Wynderbourn
12. Baern
13. Helfyr
The Laedenspraect 1 weight
A dusty and tattered spell book written by a warlock in the ancient past. It includes a few spells, notes on contemporary matters that have lost all context, and, most importantly, a detailed analysis of an object the author calls the “Wand of Wonder.”
When you first spend an hour or two of uninterrupted study with the tome, take +1 to use the Wand of Wonder. Additionally, you may add the following spells to your spellbook:
Wizard 1: Detect Magic
Wizard 3: Fireball
Wizard 3: Visions Through Time
Cleric 3: Animate Dead
There is a section of the Laedenspraect attempting to translate the infamous lost language known as the Old Tongue. The following is noted in the tome:
1. Finn = The end of all things, avoid
2. Raenboga = Rainbow, color
3. Haernen = Horn, roar
4. Bridd = “Bird in flight fears no heights”
5. Eoten = A small world made smaller
6. Dor = Passage, an escape
7. Haelian = Healthy, hardy, hale
8. Nihieran = Silence unending
9. Freondscipp = Friendship, complete trust
10. Claen = Ultimate purity
11. Wynderbourn = The burn of the season’s final winter
12. Baern = Scion, legacy
13. Helfyr = Hell itself, AVOID!
NPCs To use in your game:
Wren, the Apothecary’s Apprentice
Quality +1, Loyalty +1
Traits: Smart Aleck, inexperienced
Tags: Potion-wise, healer
Instinct: Find her father
Cost: Pursue her instinct, teach her magic
Armor 0, Damage d4, HP max: 5
Load: 2, Gear: Satchel of potions, Poultices and Herbs x2
Moves: Potion Purveyor
Potion-wise: You may add +quality to Spout Lore instead of +INT when dealing with potions and herbalism.
Healer: When using Bandages or Poultices and Herbs to heal, add +quality to the hp gained.
Potion Purveyor:
When you have a moment and ask Wren to buy one of the potions she’s been working on, Roll+Loyalty.
On a hit, you can reduce Wren’s loyalty by one to receive the potion on the house, pay her asking rate, or pass on it. If you choose to pass on it, add it to her gear. Anyone can buy it later. If she takes any damage, all potions listed in her gear are destroyed.
On a 10+, pick any potion from the list below.
On a 7-9, roll 1d6. That’s the only potion she has ready. If you need something else, it won’t be ready until the next successful Make Camp roll.
Bubbly flavored water. Take +1 forward. So refreshing! (2 coin)
Medicinal cocktail. Heal +4hp. Tastes terrible, but it’s good for you. (5 coin)
Antitoxin. Cure a poison or debility. (10 coin)
Healing potion. Heal +10hp or cure a debility. (25 coin)
Potion of barkskin. Heal +4hp and take +1 forward to AC (30 coin)
Something very useful of the GM’s choice. Cure for what ales ya. (60 coin)
Edric the Bloodhound
Quality +1, Loyalty 0
Traits: Jaded, deathwish
Tags: Knight-wise, organized, warrior
Instinct: Give into temptation, slack off
Cost: Debauchery (alcohol)
Armor 2, Damage d8+1, HP max: 8
Load: 2, Gear: Long sword, dingy plate, scarred holy symbol
Moves: Sense great evil
Knight-wise: You may add +quality to Spout Lore instead of +INT when dealing with knights and knightly orders.
Organized: Will follow a well-thought plan or a forceful leader without question
Warrior: +1 damage (included above)
Sense Great Evil:
When Edric takes a moment to focus (or at any inopportune time) he is sent a traumatic awareness of the nearest great evil and the direction and an approximate distance to find it.
The cast of Scale & Shadow is:
Austin as Kastr the fighter
Oscar as Kuan the Monk (a playbook from the Lore & Lords pack by Peter Johansen)
Brandon as Lohan the thief
Jacob as Rokai the wizard
David as the Game Master
The music you heard was:
Unholy Spirit, by Karl Casey at White Bat Audio
Additional voices for the show include:
Scott as the narrator
Our cover art was created with MidJourney
Scale & Shadow is an actual play of Dungeon World, a game by Sage LaTorra and Adam Koebel with some of the suppliamental material from Perilous Wilds by Lampblack & Brimstone
We drew inspiration from Against the Cult of the Reptile God (1982) by Douglas Niles and The Village of Hommlet (1979) by Gary Gygax
