Dungeon World RPG Homebrew: The Warlock

Once my Dungeon world campaign started it meant I needed to focus a good chunk of my free time on further developing the setting, writing more monsters down with solid rules, and planning future adventures using plot hooks and antagonists.

Which of course meant I went ahead and came up with six more character classes. The first of these is the Umbral Witch-inspired gun user, the Warlock

The concept struck me while thinking about Bayonetta in the shower (which doesn't happen nearly as often as one would think?). I realized that her preternatural acrobatics & ranged combat bestowed by  supernatural patrons would be totally on-brand for this hellish future setting.

And once my wife said it was the first of all my custom classes that caught her attention I knew I had to make it my campaign's 19th class option.

The initial placeholder name of the Class was simply Bayonetta's title of Umbral Witch. Later name ideas included The Dream-Scryer, The Thaumaturge, and simply The Wytch. Warlock seemed the least obtuse and more indicative of the source of her powers.

Bayonetta has a lot going for her, so I knew going in that this class would need several broad abilities pinned down to a few signature moves. She would demand a natural affinity for using guns and multiple weapons, thus letting her use them all with her Dexterity stat and ignore slow reload times enabled the player to focus on more dynamic decisions. The Spiritual Energy move allowed for powerful extra actions without bogging down their turn using complicated math or multiple rolls per turn, and to avoid spamming it I tied the moves to a hold resource, which was further obtained by fulfilling challenging demands by their patron tech-spirit. The other move I felt was needed to provide the class with utility and not just hit-hit-bang-bang skills was the passive immunity to illusions. This ensured some level of agency over otherworldly potential enemies/allies.

Luckily I could leave some of remaining more over-the-top powers for advanced moves as she leveled up. Her essentials felt summarized in these four starting moves

This was the first Class playbook I worked on from scratch. The initial 'Umbral Witch' concept was laid out on a blank Class template (from John Shea's superb design) and drafted using purely narrative descriptions of what their abilities should accomplish. Though I ended up borrowing definitions from equivalent moves once again from Compendium classes (namely the Monk and the Warlock), all four starting moves had some kind of function.

My wife played it exactly once for a group playtest, but by the time I made further revisions for the campaign proper she concluded tabletop RPGs just weren't fast-paced or enough for her. It'll have to wait for someone else to take up the mantle and let the witch-hunts continue, so stay tuned.