The leap

So the leap I made that makes The Dragon Killer possible as an Apocalypse World hack:

Those things? The Ivy Boy, the Queen of Deer, the King Raven, the Mud Eater, them? They aren't the world's psychic maelstrom, like I originally thought. They're the ungiven future!

-Vincent

Stagnant ley replaces the world's psychic maelstrom. It won't have the active, aggressive quality the world's psychic maelstrom has; instead, you'll have to push it into motion yourself. A weird person (probably renamed to "uncanny") is good at pushing stagnant ley into motion.

My impulse this afternoon is to quantify. Something like: on a 10+, you push 3-ley into motion. On a 7-9, you push 2-ley into motion. On a miss, you push 1-ley into countermotion.

...With, then, things you can do with ley in motion, and things I can do with ley in countermotion.

-Vincent

The Born Dead, the Corrupt, the Gracious, and the Monstrous are threat types, of course. I'll probably add brutes, landscapes and afflictions from Apocalypse World too, since they're called for.

-Vincent

Would ley be like magical barter? Or hold you can spend on magical stuff? Or something totally new that blows our socks off?

My guess it's like hold...you spend it to make things happen.

Loving this so far, the original Dragon Killer imagery is really powerful and coupled with the AW rules this should be awesome.

So the leap I made that makes The Dragon Killer possible as an Apocalypse World hack:

Those things? The Ivy Boy, the Queen of Deer, the King Raven, the Mud Eater, them? They aren't the world's psychic maelstrom, like I originally thought. They're the ungiven future!

-Vincent

Okay, now that I've got the rules and I fully understand what you're saying here: mind = blown. Are you saying the PCs would become these things? Like, as a replacement of the now dead dragon?

That's exactly what I'm saying, yes!

Or, rather, that's a very good example of exactly what I'm saying. It'd be one of the possible outcomes, the same way that restoring the world is a possible outcome in Apocalypse World. It always might be possible, but it's never definitely possible until somebody's done it, you know?

It's kind of cool, though. The Dragon is all benevolence, the King of Death is all malevolence, and the rest are mixed. If the Queen of Deer, for instance, takes the place of the Dragon with regard to humanity, is that all good? It isn't. It'd be better if the Kind Man did, probably, but still, all good? Only maybe. It'd be worse if the Willow Hag did, I think, but even so, better her than the King of Death.

-Vincent

That is so cool! You could even grapple with the idea of the ley getting spread between multiple of these guys. The world is a more balanced place, but some of the magic is gone. . .