One of the coolest concepts from Dungeon World is the idea of the Compendium Class. Conceptually it is an idea similar to Dungeons and Dragon 3.x Prestige Classes, or D&D 4e Paragon Paths / Epic Destinies. What I like about the implementation if it is that they require specific fictional conditions before you can use them, but they are short and simple enough to create that if there is a specific request from a player or need for your campaign, it doesn’t take too long to grab and re-skin some moves from other classes, or other Apocalypse World based games and come up with something thematic and very relevant to the game you are playing in.
I’ve built a few Compendium Classes for my current Dungeon World game that I plan to share on this blog. The first one, Karnarath Penitentiary Tracker, can be found below.
Karnarath Penitentiary Tracker
When you sell your soul to the devils of Karnarath Penitentiary, you take whatever job they give you. For you, they have decided that you will hunt down the blackguards and monsters that haunt the world for the rest of eternity. The next time you level up take the following move:
IMMORTAL SERVANT – You are immortal, and will never die from old age. In addition when you use the LAST BREATH move, instead of bargaining with Death, you will bargain with the current owner of your soul.
If you took IMMORTAL SERVANT, count the following moves as class moves for you; you can choose them when you level up.
HOT PURSUIT (Roll + Wis) – When you follow a trail of clues left behind by passing creatures, roll+WIS.
On a 7+, you follow the creature’s trail until there’s a significant change in its direction or mode of travel.
On a 10+, you also choose 1:
- Gain a useful bit of information about your quarry, the GM will tell you what
- Determine what caused the trail to end
SOULGAZE (Roll + Wis) – When you want to figure out what someone is thinking or feeling, roll+WIS.
On a 10+ hold 3; on a 7-9 hold 1.
While you’re interacting with them, spend your hold to ask questions about the character, 1 hold per question:
- Are they telling the truth?
- What are they really feeling?
- What do they intend to do?
- What do they wish I would do?
- How could I get them to _____?
