Dungeon World of Zelda [Original]: Prep for first session

So, we had our first runs with Dungeon World on the 13th and 14th when my Little Nephew was with us, and despite a few GM mishaps we had a blast!

Now I'm looking to bring a DW one-shot to another group I sometimes game with. At first I was thinking of converting Raggi's Death Frost Doom, but I decided that might be way too heavy for a first run with a new game. When Adam posted this image the other day, I realized the original LoZ would be a lot more conducive to a fresh Dungeon World game: There are the impressions of dungeon adventure without the granularity, and a whole lot of blanks.

The basic premise is this: The principality of Hyrule has fallen into chaos. The cruel bandit lord Ganon got a Triforce of Power and kidnapped the Princess Zelda, guardian of the Triforce of Wisdom. Before she was captured, Zelda split her Triforce into eight fragments and hid them throughout the land.

The first fragment is hidden in a towering petrified tree trunk where the fearsome dragon Aquamentus makes his roost. I was thinking of building out from there by posing  the following questions during character creation:

1. What is one thing that made your village special before the dragon turned it into a smoking ruin?
2. What was the most terrifying aspect of the dragon's raid?
3. Why do you have a personal vendetta against the serpent?
4. How many months have your people been living in caves at the Gorge?
5. What is one defense the caves offer against the dragon?
6. What is one resource the caves offer to sustain the villagers?
7. What virtue convinced Impah that you might be the Hero of Legend?
8. How did you find out about the dragon's roost in the petrified tower tree on Eagle Island?
9. What is a rumor you've heard about the treasure there?

Putting these questions to the players might give me four different villages sheltering in the Gorge, and four (or more) cool features to add to the dragon. If character creation gives me nothing else to work with for the dungeon, it would be pretty easy to improvise using the original foes— Stalfos, for instance, might be disgorged remains from the dragon's raids, and some may have identifying features that remind the delvers of people they knew.

One thing I'm not doing this time is trying to set up an Adventure Front, like I did for my first run. The Front I prepared offered a cool backdrop, but I was surprised by the amount and detail of the fiction arising from character creation. Harvesting that fiction became my chief occupation, and I didn't use much of my Front idea.

One thing I would like to have is a sketchy map of the inside of a towering petrified tree— the original map of the Eagle dungeon isn't quite up to my current standards.

So, DW veterans, do you think these questions are too much or too leading? Once I came up with a few questions, new questions kept coming. I was also thinking of creating a starting move called "It's dangerous to go alone. Take this."— but it might just be for nostalgia's sake, and I don't have any particular ideas for it yet. I'd love to hear what other people have done with starting moves— do you always create a separate move for each class? If not, how do you avoid repetitive results?

Are there any other dimensions of this I should consider?

As an aside, I wasn't planning to make a big deal about the D&D kindreds, even though they don't sync up with the original setting. If anyone wanted to play a non-human character, I figure they could just be foreigners. I just don't want to make custom character sheets.

I think you're on a fantastic track here. I would happily play that. Your questions lead perfectly.

Thanks for the affirmation, Aaron! I'll go ahead and pitch it to my friends.

One idea I thought of is that one of the PCs or hirelings could be Zelda in disguise, with the kidnapped "princess" being a decoy. Not sure how to present it to the players as a PC option, since I don't currently have anything cool to offer the other players— but I'll think it over.

You could make being Zelda a compendium class with the trigger "When you reveal your true identity to escape a crisis..."

You could make being Zelda a compendium class with the trigger "When you reveal your true identity to escape a crisis..."

I love that idea. Maybe Zelda's starting move could be something like this:

Wisdom Incarnate: Your power to Discern Realities is heightened as you recover each fragment of the Triforce of Wisdom. Take +1 ongoing when you possess two Triforce shards. When you possess at least six shards, take +2 ongoing. When you recover the eighth shard, take +3 ongoing.

Holding a Triforce fragment gives you Leverage over any Hylian, and you can roll+WIS (including any bonus from Wisdom Incarnate above) instead of +CHA to parley with a Hylian.

The first thing that came to mind as a culminating move for a Zelda compendium class was something like "Lead An Army", so that's where this is headed— she is the rightful sovereign of Hyrule, after all. I've never written a compendium class though, and I will look over some more examples before putting anything before the players. I'll post a draft here when I get a chance. I'd love any critical feedback.

The best part of making it a compendium class is that I could write up (or borrow) a bunch of compendium classes that can be triggered in this adventure, so that the person who gets Zelda won't be singled out for awesomeness. For example, I could have a Sigurd-stlyle compendium class with the trigger "when you bathe in the blood of a dragon you helped to slay".

Thanks again!

It occurred to me that there might already be a Zelda-like compendium class out there that I could easily adapt to the LoZ fiction. I'm looking for something similar to Kristen Stewart's Snow White in Snow White and the Huntsman: a dispossessed sovereign with some kind of latent mystical power and the potential to muster her people and lead them to victory. Do you know of any fan-made compendium classes that might offer inspiration or building blocks I could use?

I'm also curious about other compendium classes that might fit into a spiked Legend of Zelda milieu. Tim Franzke's Arcane Archer would fit right in, if I rewrote the trigger— the iconic image of Link aiming an arrow from the booklet of Link to the Past is indelibly etched into my imagination. Another compendium class that springs to mind is something like "demolitions expert"— someone with moves related to making bombs and blowing up obstacles; also Dodongo dislikes smoke. ;) Can you think of any existing compendium classes that put you in the mind of a Shigeru Miyamoto dungeon fantasy world?

[Edit: Fix englash.]

This is an awesome idea! I would like to see your progress on the setting, the dungeons, adventures, monsters, magic items, etc.

There is also a book out that might be a lot of help...

http://www.amazon.com/Legend-Zelda-Hyrule-Historia/dp/1616550414/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1367461920&sr=1-1&keywords=Zelda