Tuesday, July 14, 2020

Can you escape Dungeon World?

"Dungeon World" by Timothy Brown and James M. Ward.

Printed and Distributed by Fast Forward Entertainment.

ISBN-10: 0-971-9598-0-3 -- 192 Pages.

I've seen a lot of mega-dungeons. 50 Levels, 60 Levels, and many more. But I believe that this book is the largest dungeon ever printed. Why? Because the entire planet is one big dungeon! In very small print under the title, it says "Universe". There are a couple additions to this tome, "Dungeon World: Secrets of the Enemy Capital", and "Dungeon World: Catacombs" that should also be counted as part of this campaign. There are two other books by Fast Forward that would dovetail nicely into Dungeon World: "Treasure Quests" and "Treasure Quests: Tomb of Ra".

This book is separated into many parts: first are notes about Dungeon World, including the Prologue and Introduction, a small chapter on the nature of Dungeon World, how to reach it, how to escape, putting it into your campaign, and a section on how to use this book for an entire campaign, and finally a bit about the Caretakers of the world, and the Heart of Dungeon World - known as "Nex"!

After that, the book is broken down into levels, from 1st Level all the way up to 25th Level! There are also side quests - 25 of them - which will need to be fleshed out by the GM. Based on the diagram on page 35, there are 26 levels total. Should the characters survive all the way to the 26th Level, they will find a spiral staircase, going up, that has exits on each and every level back up, and finally comes to rest inside a building on the surface!

Technically, Dungeon World is on its own plane of existence. Somehow, it lies in such a different plane of existence that it really isn't connected to other planes at all! But it is very close to the Elemental Plane of Earth, within the Elemental Sub-Plane of Stone. But it's really easy to get there - thru portals, through sadistic Dungeon Keepers that want you to really feel pain, and others. There are a few methods of escape - but these are either rare or hard to find, or both.

Sure, you can get away with calling Dungeon World a 26th Level Dungeon with 192 pages. But, if you include their other Dungeon World Books, it's even larger! "Enemy Capital" adds 128, and "Catacombs" adds another 128, making 448 pages total, and if you decide to include "Treasure Quests", which is 160 pages, and add "Tomb of Ra" which is another 128 pages, it equals 736 pages, rivaling Monte Cook's "Ptolus" in length!

You can see by the above why I bought this. It covers not only up to 20th Level characters, but continues to 25th Level Characters! Quite a few maps of levels, and many new creatures to meet are included! At the back of the book is the usual OGL and three advertisements. This gets one of my highest recommendations!

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