His Majesty the Worm
The forest's thickness is lessening, with room for paths of turned earth, rectangular pits, a whiteness as of mushrooms peeping from the ground. With horror we see from the thirteenth tarot that the underbrush is fertilized with half-withered corpses and fleshless bones.
"Why, where have you brought me, Fool? This is a cemetery!"
And the Fool says, pointing to the invertebrate fauna feeding in the graves:
"Here a monarchy reigns, mightier than you..."
His Majesty the Worm Bursts Forth from the Underworld!
What is His Majesty the Worm?
His Majesty the Worm is a new-school game with old-school sensibilities: a classic megadungeon experience given fresh life through a focus on the mundanities and small moments of daily life inside the dungeon.
His Majesty the Worm is a tabletop roleplaying game designed for dungeon crawling written by Josh McCrowell and published by Exalted Funeral. The Game Master is given tools to create a megadungeon called the Underworld. The players create adventurers to explore the Underworld in pursuit of their personal quests. Tarot cards are used as a randomizing element.
- Food, hunger, light, and inventory management are central to play and actually fun.
- Tarot cards are used to create an action-packed combat system that ensures that all players have interesting choices every minute of combat: no downtime!
- The game has robust procedures. Characters adventure in the Underworld, rest in roleplaying-driven camping scenes, and plot long-term schemes in the City at the center of the Wide World.
- The relationships between companions, called Bonds, powers the rest and recovery mechanic of the game. Roleplaying drives the game forward.
Everything You Need to Play (Just Add a Tarot Deck!)
The game is intended for a traditional setup between a single GM and 3-6 players. It emphasizes long-term, Metroidvania-like play. The book is 404 pages long, split up over 10 chapters and 5 appendices. The print edition is silver foil stamped and has a ribbon bookmark. It is a complete game with everything you need in one tome (just add a tarot deck).
