Greetings,
after deciding that Thelons Rift was maybe not the best model for a DW one-shot i decided to do something improvised with Gnolls, an old observatory and a far realms rift.
Venturing into the old dwarfen observatory where the human fighter Gregor, a halfling thief named Maus and Rurgrosh, Cleric of Kratar the dwarfen god of secrets and knowledge (who's symbol is the Ibis...)
The party found themselves in front of some old bearcaves that hid the entrace to the observatory. They where send there to check on the dwarfs (also followers of Katar) because no one had heard from then in a year.
They entered the first room that was made up of a perfect dome, hammered from the stone and found a big pile of bones in the middle of it. Maus went and searched for traps and found a magical force field that was sure to activate some kind of trap. After throwing a stone against it to safely activate it the whole dome started to shrink magically, threatening to crush our lovely bands of adventures to rubble. Maus and Gregor made a quick run to the exit but Rurgosh wasn't fast enough. Alone in the room he casts guidance and a ghostly Ibis flys to a specific point in the globe. The dwarf makes a rush for it and passes through an ilusoary field directly into the next room. A huge cave filed with glowing stones (no one asked but the glow really wasn't natural), a small but fast river and lots of shrubery vegetation. They had no time to check the scenery as a pack of 3 hyeans appeared over the next small hill and charged them. A battle ensued in which Gregor was hit by an arrow, coming from *somewhere over there*. Maus saw this and went to sneak up on the archer, a gnoll scout. He was ready to jump and backstab him as another Gnoll, this one really thin and hungry looking wacked him over the head and tried to bite the shit out of him. Meanwhile the battle had thrown Rurgrosh into the River where he lost his Warhammer. Gregor went to charge the Gnoll archer put had to dive behind some cover while he was layed with covering fire. Maus used the moment of unbalance of the Gnoll and kicked him into the river and then jumped the archer, ending him in a quick 2 combo backstab. The hungry gnoll continued to fight the dwarf but a whack of the trusty dwarfen hammer ended him too but he fell on Rurgosh nearly chocking him as he fought for air.
A moment earlier while searching for his hammer Rurgosh saw a third gnoll scout, heading into a tunnel but did nothing about it.
The group made camp then. On Gregors (totally failed) watch a huge group of far realm monsters looking a bit like Will O Wisps entered 2 of the 3 tunnels that lead out of the big cave. The dwarf realised with a shock that these creatures are sworn enemies of the cult of Kratar since they tricked and killed people with to little knowledge. He decided to take care of them later and the group went into the tunnel that the Gnoll took. Soon in complete darkness the cleric tried to cast light (but failed) and the whole party was suddently emitting bright, slightly pink, light. Maus knew that this surely had to mean that they where chosen of Katar and had to go on a quest to please him before he would rid them of his "gift". As he is a sneaky kind of guy he really wasn't happy with being a walking torch ( i am really not sure if this went against "being a fan of the PCs" but it seemed so cool to me in this moment).
After a while they found themselves in a one corridor library with magic books of Katar-Priests (only readable by some). Maus of course went an got some books that looked valuable to him but failed to notice the far realm beasty sneaking up behind him.
A flesh colored blob from which from time to time a humanoid shape with 3 arms emerged was "sneaking" up on him. Throwing bookshelfs arroudn and turning them to colorfull goo with just a touch. The others saw it and came to help there halfling "friend". After Gregor choped on of the 3 arms (that seemed to move and reapaer wherever the creature wanted) with his signature sword the arm kept glued to the blade and continued to harras him. Growing extra palms and nails to hit him. He ran into the next room.
The battlecleric of course took his warhammer and tried to bash this things flobby featureless face in but a touch of fingers turned the ground into a pudding/quicksand like substance and the dwarf had to fight getting eaten by the ground. Meanwhile a giant eye had appeared on the side of the creature and as Maus stabbed it with his trusty rapier he had a vision of himself completly covered in his own blood as if every blood vessel he had had suddently exploded, he found his arm to be covered in tiny scratches afterwards.
In the next room, the main observatory all hell had brooken loose. Gregor was still fighting with the arm on his sword, a rift to far realm had oppened over the telescope and more of the glowing lightpoints where flying around but this time they had tentacles. In the other corner where a group of 3 gnolls arround a big fire. He charged them, hacking there leader nearly to death as the arm seemed to help him. Maybe it was just hungry for flesh, who knows.
In the library Maus tried to get the attention of the thing so that his dwarfen friend could escape and dodged his long, Mr. Fantastic like arms by jumping against a bookshelf where saw a big book with gold envelop and had to get it, even if that meant that he was buried under the falling shelf. This gave Rugosh enough time to get out of the pit and distract the thing himself so that the two of them could run away.
In the observatory Gregor was trying to kill the gnoll shaman now that was chanting arround a ritual circle with the big fire inside. A pair of demon hands rose out of the ground and with to much momentum from the strike the fighter stumbled INTO the circle himself and promptly had to defy danger of demonic possession. He missed. His vision turned red and his companions arrived just in time to see a glowing crown of fire appear over his head.
The demon instatly summoned a firesword to his hand and did lay waste to the gnolls arround him. Then Rugosh stepped in to help his friend. But neither his magic nor his fighting power was enough to help him. The arrows, fired by Mouse also didn't help and even after trying to stop the demon again with sheer force of will or muscle Gregor could not shake this demon off. He grew balrog like wings, destroyed the rest of the ceyling and took of into the night.
We ended the session there. I gave Gregor the chance for the last breath move and he rolled a 7-9. A devil appeared in his mind. Telling him that this possession tipped the cosmic balance and that this was not acceptable in devil hell. He offered him a trade. Possession of a helpfull devil instead of a rampaging balor. He accepted.
Gregor also had a level up and didn't decide right away what move he wanted to take. I was thinking of giving him the chance to take this move to reflect the deal with the devil.
A deal with the devil
From time to time the devil in your head will suggest that you do a certain thing. If you do it, take +1 forward in the pursuit of this thing and mark 1 exp when you accomplish it.
This could easily lead him into a compendium class (The Faust maybe) that offers moves that give you instead success for devilish control later. Something like this
Devil tongue
When you led the devil in your head to the talking for you you can treat your parley roll as a 10+ but the devil get's 1 hold on you. The GM can spend that hold to make you do things without your control. If you want to fight it you have to defy danger with cha.
And other things like it. Maybe getting a firesword or new knowledge... What are your thoughts about it? Has someone allready designed something like that?
I now need to create some fronts. I will post about this tomorrow and hope i can get your help.
I and the players had a lot of fun. I was actually planned as just a one shot before we pick up our Mouse Guard game again but now everyone wants to know what will happen to Gregor. Lot's of fun was had even though the players kept getting off-topic a lot.