Magical School Downtime Actions

During my weekly game, I have been running a magical school game using His Majesty the Worm. Following my copy and paste manifesto ethos, I've been using The Yellow Book of Brechewold as my dungeon, but I've also been house ruling the hell out of the game to achieve the effect I wanted. 

This game plays with the normal phases of a Worm game. Play flows between Explore -> Extracurriculars -> Explore -> Exams. 

To give myself a little room in my preparation, only second-year students can do Extracurricular Actions that aren't Studying (first years need to study!). My gaming group just got to the second year (...because their first year students died to flying leeches). 

I wanted to share these downtime actions with you in hopes that they would amuse you or provide a framework for house ruling your own Worm games.

Art by Heikala

Extracurriculars

Brew Alchemy

Prerequisite: Lab Safety
Having completed your Lab Safety course, you're allowed to access the Greenhouses to percolate potions, originate oils, and brew bombs.

Boons
When you Brew Alchemy, you may transform all hermetically preserved reagents into an oil, bomb, or potion. In addition, Test Cups.

• Great Failure: An explosion! Mutagenic smoke fills the Greenhouses. Gain a mutation. To remove it, you must Disenchant it or go to the Hospital.
• Failure: No, no, stir the potion counterclockwise, not clockwise! You spoil most of the batch. Gain 1 random potion.
• Success: Gain 3 random potions.
• Great Success: See, if you crush the bell beetle with the flat of your blade before you cut into it…Create 5 random potions and choose 3.

Carousing

Blow off steam, try some magical experiments on stupid boys, and try not to get caught running down the halls after curfew. But be careful! Your fellow students might not take too kindly to you losing them the House Cup!

Boons
Gain [1d4+2]XP and lose an equivalent amount of house points x100. So if you gain 3XP, your house points decrease by 300. Also, remove the Stressed condition for free.

Commission Large Projects

Prerequisite: The Philosopher's Stone
Making gold isn't difficult, but it's a time consuming process. Using the philosopher's stone, you can create enough gold to trade to master artisans in Brechenborg.

Describe your project in a few words. You create enough gold to commission large-scale works: a statue in your honor, a wizard's tower, a bridge, an orphanage, a kennel, and so on.

Repeated use of this Extracurricular Action is cumulative; longer-syllable projects require multiple uses of the Commission Projects action.

Test Cups.

• Great Failure: Most of your batch of gold was ruined this time. You commission one syllable of the project.
• Failure: You were overambitious and stirred the mixture too soon. You commission two syllables of the project.
• Success: You commission four syllables of the project.
• Great Success: Good luck and a steady hand ensured the maximum yield of this crop of gold. You commission six syllables of the project.

Cram School

Prerequisite: 5th years with a VIM score of XX
Nearing the end of your studies but haven't completed all the courses you need for your career? One solution is to rend the forces of causality for your convenience! Petition the Headmaster to cast the Ritual of Time Sundering on your behalf.

Test Wands.

• Great Failure: Causality fallout. You become a random age, 1d100. Lose 1d4 XP.
• Failure: You are constantly confused about when you are. Impossible to learn anything like this. Lose 1XP.
• Success: You enroll in a third class this semester. The class can be any time, day or night, any year, by any professor, as long as you otherwise meet the prerequisites for it.
• Great Success: As a success. Additionally, accidentally traveled into the future briefly and glimpsed your exams. Gain a redraw to a card for any exam this semester.

Create Familiar

Prerequisites: Minor Imps, Hounds and Hawks of Brechewold
First, infuse an imp into an animal companion (usually, this is done by tricking the animal companion into eating the imp). Then, bind the animal companion as you would an imp to create a familiar.

Boons

A familiar has the following abilities:

• May be dismissed into the dreamworld when not needed or inconvenient.
• Can learn up to 5 commands.
• Has one random familiar feature.
• Almost impossible to kill; will fade into the dreaming on suffering a deadly blow, and return at some point later.

Art by Simz

Dragon Dodgeball

Prerequisites: Must complete Broom Ed
The most popular game in the world of witchery consists of several teams on brooms passing a fireball very quickly back between each other. It's dangerous, like most things at Brechewold, but glory outlasts death.

How to play
Two players. Collectively, select five small items to represent your team and mark out a play area at the table.

Draft one of the five items to each player and place the remaining piece in the middle of the play area. Players place their pieces on their edge of the play area.

Take turns flicking one of the pieces on your edge. If it hits one or more other pieces then move them all back to your edge. Pieces that leave the play area are out and removed from the game. First player to have no pieces on their edge loses.

Boons
The winner gains +1000 house points.

Those who win the Dragon Dodgeball Tournament several times become targets of professional headhunters. Who knows! You might graduate to the big leagues after school.

Disenchant

Prerequisites: Breaking Curses
Disenchantment is mostly a matter of finding the right threads to pull to make an entire spell unravel. This is done by administering a series of divinatory tests: the pendulum, reading the bones, tea leaves, etc.

Boons
A curse affecting anyone in the study group may be removed. (A tattoo from the INK spell is the most common curse.)

A cursed item's curse may be broken by taking this action. Additionally, magical items may be disenchanted and turned into mundane items.

Synergy
If the disenchanter has access to the Enchant action, they may move magical powers from one item into another. For example, stealing the +1 to hit bonus from one sword and placing it on an existing +1 sword for a +2 sword.

Dueling Club

The dungeons are a dangerous place! Learn to defend yourself like a true wizard by practicing attack magic at the Dueling Club.

How to duel

• Up to 5 players
• Each player holds up five fingers on one hand (this hand stays up for the rest of the game). Each finger is a life point.
• Each player counts to three then shows their other hand simultaneously.
• Players can zap, hold, or mirror shield.

• Zap: Point at another person. They lose 1 life, unless they have a mirror shield.
• Hold: Point your finger in the air. Nothing happens.
• Mirror Shield: Make a fist (fingers towards you). Any zaps bounce off of you and deal two points to whomever shot at you. Note: If no one shoots you, the mirror shield explodes and you lose 2 life points.
• Continue on until only one is left standing.

Boons
All participants master the "Attack" spell without needing to spend XP. Additionally, participants earn +200 house points for each student they defeated.

Enchant

Prerequisite: Runes of Power
The principle of enchantment and spellcasting is the same: draw the magic sigils and intone the incantation. Enchantment is the written form of a cast spell.

Boons
Permanently affix a spell you have mastered onto an item. For example, a magical key enchanted with the KEY spell will open any lock or a broom enchanted with the FLY spell will allow you to fly.

Art by Heikala

Forge

Prerequisite: Forging for Beginners
Your friends miss you during your long hours at the forge, but true craft takes time. Under the tutelage of Fullveig the Smith, you work the mundane forge in the courtyard of Castle Brechewold.

Describe to the GM what you want to make. This sets the amount of forge points (fp) needed to craft it.

• 1 forge point per syllable to craft something a farmer might have. Examples: dagger (2fp), pan flute (2fp), wooden dentures (4fp)
• 2 forge points per syllable of the commission if it's something an adventurer might have. Examples: helmet with a candle holder (16fp), imp trap (4fp), silverthread bug net (10fp)
• 3 forge points per syllable of the commission if it's something a noble might have. Examples: broadsword (6fp), platemail armor (12fp), bespoke clothing (12fp)
• 4 forge points per syllable of the commission if it's something that nobody has—something brand new. Examples: prosthetic leg (16fp), manticore saddle (20fp), decorative harpy wings (24fp)

Repeated use of this Extracurricular Action is cumulative; longer-syllable projects require multiple uses of the Forge action.

Test Swords.

• Great Failure: You muddle up and have to restart some of your progress. -2 forge points to your project's total.
• Failure: You make slow, steady progress towards your goal. +5 forge points.
• Success: You make excellent progress, +10 forge points.
• Great Success: You combine artistic insight with practical considerations, +15 forge points. Fullveig grants you his rare approval: +50 house points.

Grow Herbs

Prerequisite: Greenhouse Basics and Identifying Worts and Herbs or Mycology
Magical plants require special care. Whereas a petunia or begonia requires just water and light, a mandrake or wortwallop requires water, light, and mana. A careful balance of all three is needed.

Boons
Any hermetically sealed herbs or mushrooms you are carrying are planted in the Greenhouse. Thereafter, Brew Alchemy actions always include the option to brew potions made of these ingredients in addition to any other randomly created potions. (For example, if you have 2 herbs planted, you will be given the option of 3 potions out of 5 when you succeed at the Brew Alchemy action.)

Art by Heikala

Hobbies

You pursue a passion project during your downtime. Perhaps you dedicate yourself to the zither, study wizard chess, or just play Mundane Medieval Campaigns with your friends all night.

Test fate.

• Great Failure: Nobody understands your vision. And everybody's mad that your vision involved burning down half of your house common room. Lose -200 house points.
• Failure: You did that? Neat, I guess.
• Success: You become a more actualized version of yourself. The ace of a particular suit is a king for you for the rest of this semester.
• Great Success: As success, and you gain +300 house points and the blue ribbon in a local competition.

Hospital

Did you get turned into something unpleasant? Are you a victim of the rhyming curse? Did you catch a certain type of pox? It's time for a stay in the hospital wing to rest and recuperate.

Test Swords.

• Great Failure: A dozen spells, potions, and herbal poultices were tried, but no luck. You're stuck like this (for now).
• Failure: Although sometimes you still have a bit of a donkey's braying when you cough, you're mostly better! You'll be 100% cured by the end of the semester.
• Success: You're right as rain!
• Great Success: You gain favor in future tests of fate to avoid or resist whatever got you into this situation to begin with.

Hunting

Prerequisite: The Lord's Sport
You spend your free time far afield, in the Forbidden Forest of Brechewold, stalking the strange beasts that live there.

When you hunt, you slay either an exotic or natural beast.

Exotic beasts can be used as reagents in potions. Natural beasts can be used as trophies for house points. The beasts that you hunt must have HD equal to or lower than your Swords score.

Test Swords.

• Great Failure: You come back muddy, weather-beaten, and empty handed.
• Failure: Choose one:

• Hunt a random exotic beast
• Hunt a specific natural animal
• Success: Choose one:
• Bring back many exotic beasts up to your Swords score+2
• Hunt a specific natural animal up to your Swords score+4
• Great Success: Bring back an assortment of exotic beasts with HD equal to your Swords score+5. Also, you gain +500 house points for your bravery.

Make Friends

Did you take a shine to a student you met in the dungeons? Do you want to see if you actually get along with them in a non-terrifying situation?

Ask your friend about any subject and they'll give you their honest opinion. (Students might not know a lot about the dungeon itself.) Then, test Cups.

• Great Failure: You've made an enemy. They start a mean rumor about you. Every student you encounter next semester has heard it (and probably believes it).
• Failure: Well, that was awkward. Become Stressed.
• Success: Gain a new Bond with your friend, even though they're not in your study group. Begin each semester with it charged.
• Great Success: Gain a new Bond with your friend. Additionally, one time in the future, you can call in one favor. This allows you to draw two cards and take the highest in any card draw in any phase except the Explore Phase.

(If you're looking for something romantic, use the Snogging extracurricular instead.)

Moat Fishing

Many strange things fall into Lake Hart or float down from the headwaters in the mountains. Fish the moat around Brechewold to discover trash and treasure alike.

Boons
Roll 1d100. The GM will tell you what you find.

Monstroso Card Collector's Club

The most popular card game in school! Floop the pig!

Joining the club
When you join the club, you construct your first deck. Draw to see what type of deck you get.

• Swords - Aggro: Favor over Control
• Pentacles - Control: Favor over Combo
• Cups - Combo: Favor over Tempo
• Wands - Tempo: Favor over Aggro

You also gain 5 monster cards: roll 5d200 to see what you get.

Returning to the club
Each semester you attend the club, you gain a new type of deck and gain 5 new monsters.

As you explore
The Monstroso cards have interesting facts about real-life monsters on them! Keep them with you as you explore, and you can read the monster facts if you encounter them. (The GM will provide you with their actual stats.)

You might find Monstroso players in the dungeons, too! Trade cards with them.

Playing the game
Games are resolved by drawing a card and adding the rating of the deck (+favor, sometimes).

Your deck rating starts at +0. Each time you can make a "pair" of creatures that are thematically unified (two elementals, two natural animals, etc.), your deck gains a +1 bonus. You can use the same monster to make different groups. The max deck rating is +10.

At the beginning of the game, you meet your opponent. They'll give you a hint about what kind of deck they're using.

Then, make the best deck you can (most pairs) and select one of your deck types. Draw a card and add your deck rating. Add favor if your deck type has advantage over your opponent's. Highest total value wins!

Winners get 5 new monster cards.

No Good Nick's Club

Prerequisite: Must not be named Nick
This club is strictly forbidden! All students are prohibited from joining this underground fraternity! As such, this prohibited activity must not exist.

If such a club did exist, this is how it would probably go:
You would swear to uphold the Law of Comus and no Law but Comus's. Mischief will be your only lover and Chaos your only companion. You will abide no Nicks.

At midnight, you will join the fellow members of the No Good Nick's Club and raise Havoc in the halls of Brechewold.

Draw a card.
50% that you make a merry mischief, 50% it all blows up in your face

Swords/Wands (Boons)

• 1-2: You enchant a house's common room door to insult and belittle everyone who tries to use it. Later, the door tells you a rumor it heard from one of the students.
• 3-4: Everyone was very amused when you made Fflewder (Riddleward, second year) kiss the school pet pig. Gain one dose of leftover love philter.
• 5-6: You raid the Wine Cellar on the first floor of the dungeon. Gain a random wine potion but start the Explore Phase Stressed.
• 7-8: You switch your class's exam papers with copies made by the goblins of Professor Gronch. Gain +/-4 to one exam total this semester (your choice).
• 9-10: Every club member finds the most volatile reagents they can and puts them all in a Big Bomba. It's your turn to carry it right now.
• Page-Knight: You fiddle around with experimental magic with club members. Gain and spend 5XP on guessing spells you don't know yet. Inscribe any that are real and describe how the prank goes off.
• Queen-King: You fill a house's common room with Dolmenwood nixies. One starts to follow you as a familiar. Burn a charged Bond to ask it to glow.

Pentacles/Cups (Banes)

• 1-2: Ecbert catches you drawing a huge, glowing, animated caricature of him farting with the word-scroll "I eateth mine own fart" on a wall. -100 house points.
• 3-4: You summoned imps into the [boy/girl's] dormitory. They escaped and got everywhere, even defiling you with their piss/shit. Begin the next Explore Phase Stressed.
• 5-6: The Prescipiece Dragon's Dodgeball team catches you ensorcelling their balls (lol balls) and kicks the shit out of you. Begin the next Explore Phase with a Wound.
• 7-8: Pollyjuice potion mishaps. Draw again.
  [S] Shrunk [P] Bizarre hair / skin / eyes [C] Gender change [W] Pig-headed
  Lasts for the rest of the semester.
• 9-10: Backfired jinx. You cannot tell a lie for the rest of the semester or slugs will pour out of your mouth for a watch.
• Page-Knight: You fiddle around with experimental magic and accidentally banish something of your own. Lose a random object from your pack (1-21) permanently.
• Queen-King: Death-Comes-Back catches you replacing his robe with a prom dress. You lose -300 house points and are given Detention. You forfeit next semester's Extracurricular action.

Prefect

Prerequisite: 5th years with a VIM score of XX
Ah, you're the cream of the crop. The very best Brechewold has to offer! A testament to the nurturing environment of the sprawling deathtrap beneath the castle.

Boons
As a Prefect, you're in charge of managing the younger students. Those you encounter in the dungeons are obliged to obey reasonable orders; you are allowed to deduct up to 5 house points from them if they refuse.

As a Prefect, you are given a ring of keys that open (almost) every door in the dungeons.

Research

Prerequisite: Research Fundamentals
Ecbert the Librarian runs a tight ship. Candles must be behind glass at all times: no open flame! Logs are kept of each time a book is unshelved and reshelved. Absolute silence at all times.

When you research, you may ask questions on the following subjects:

• Animals—Birds, Beasts, & Fishes
• Astronomy
• Conquests of King Aethur
• Elves, Fairies, Goblins, and Changelings
• Gnomes and Wild Spirits
• Famous Witches & Wizards
• Jewels and Magical Metals
• The Land of Wildendrem
• Realms of Faerie
• Runes
• Selenian War
• Spellcraft and Words of Power

Test Cups.

• Great Failure: Dead ends. Wasted time chasing down leads that turned into tedious drivel.
• Failure: Ask the GM a single question on any subject and receive an honest, thorough answer.
• Success: Ask the GM a number of questions equal to your Cups score.
• Great Success: Ask the GM a number of questions equal to your Cups+2 score.

If you're willing to start your next Explore Phase Stressed, take favor on this check as you pull an all-nighter.

Research, Forbidden

Prerequisite: Advanced Techniques in Research
These books are bound with wards and protections both mundane and magical: chains and locks keep them inside the library. Junior under-librarians and bound ghosts patrol the shelves, making sure no students are accessing the forbidden knowledge without Ecbert's leave.

Your research efforts can now include the following subjects:

• Angels and the Heavenly Choirs
• Curses
• History of Brechewold
• History of the World Before the Flood
• Imps, Demons, and Devils
• Matters of Time: Time-Travel, Predestination, Fortune-Telling, Eschatology
• The Moon and Other Worlds Beyond the Terrestrial Sphere
• Necromancy
• The Nine Hells and Katabatic Realms

Test Cups.

• Great Failure: You learn things that men were not meant to know. (A squid guy! AHHH!). Lose 1XP and begin the next Explore Phase Stressed.
• Failure: Ask the GM a single question on any subject and receive an honest, thorough answer.
• Success: Ask the GM a number of questions equal to your Cups score.
• Great Success: Ask the GM a number of questions equal to your Cups score. You learn things that shatter your conception of your place in the universe. Gain 1XP and begin the next Explore Phase Stressed.

Studying

Let's sing the Brechewold Hymn:
Good students study.
Bad students cheat.
The very best students may eat dragon meat.

Bad students wiggle.
Good students learn.
The very best students know His Majesty the Worm.

Boons
Gain +3XP.

Snogging

When a young witch and wizard love each other very much, they sometimes want to express it by locking themselves in a broom closet and snogging each other.

Procedure
Propose one of the following dates to a student you know and get them a gift. The GM will randomly determine your date's preferences.

Date ideas:

• Adventurous (sneaking out of dorms at night to snog, trips into the Forest to pick mistletoe, tastetesting the wine from the Wine Cellar on the First Floor Dungeon)
• Entertainment (watching enchanted puppet show of The Elves and the Cooper, attending a toad choir)
• Social (attending the Springle-Ring Ball, going to see Dragon's Dodgeball games)
• Quality time (studying together in the library, walks around the castle moat, watching for falling stars from the Seers' Tower)

Gifts:

• Ephemeral (baked treacle tarts, bouquet of fainting lilies, pumpkin juice)
• Expensive (pet newt, crushed-velvet pointed hat, jewelry)
• Funny (voice-changing chocolates, lewd animated card, an amusing carrot)
• Handmade (crocheted scarf in house colors, "I wrote a song for you")

Test fate using the attribute of your date's Brechewold house. Modify the test based on the student's preferences.

Results

• Critical Failure: Worst date you've ever had. They start a mean rumor about you. Everyone of the same gender as your date has their Disposition with you worsened by one step.
• Failure: Boring conversation, so you made out and did some light hand stuff. They're willing to go out with you again. Cure Stressed.
• Success: A rousing success! Cure Stressed and gain +1 to future Snogging actions with this student (cumulative). If you wish, gain a new Bond with this student called Boy/Girlfriend. It begins charged. If you burn the charge, you will need to Snog to charge it again.
• Critical Success: You're in love! Gain a Love Bond with this student. It begins each semester charged. Gain a locket with their picture—if you would ever take Death's Door, it cracks instead. Cure Stressed.

Tutoring

Are you looking for one-on-one tutoring? You may appeal to a professor and request direct mentorship.

When you encounter this professor in the dungeons in the future, their Disposition improves by one step towards you.

Additionally, make a test of fate based on the professor's house (Riddleward = Cups, Kelpuous = Pentacles, etc.).

• Great Failure: This could not have gone worse. Their Disposition actually worsens by one step when they encounter you instead.
• Failure: Your request is rejected; they are simply too busy this semester.
• Success: You work one-on-one with the professor after classes. Choose two boons from below.
• Great Success: As before, but gain all three boons.

Boons

• Hear a second rumor from that professor.
• Learn 1 spell (GM's choice) from the class without spending XP.
• During that class's exam, draw 2 cards and choose the highest, as if you had a group study session.

Art by Heikala

Visit Brechenborg

Prerequisite: 3rd+ years only
Did you break your wand? Visit Brechenborg to replace broken, missing, or depleted essential items.

In addition to replacing anything with a Restock or Limited keyword and any School Supplies you might need, you may select items from the following equipment list:

• Weapon
• Doublet (1 armor)
• Fine clothes
• Block and tackle
• Chain
• Crowbar
• Falconry gear
• Hatchet
• Hammer
• Lard
• Leeches
• Salt
• Shovel
• Spyglass
• Torch
• Wine (fine)

Write Thank You Card

Everybody has a birthday. Celebrate yours! Choose something else from your starting equipment list. Then, write your parents a nice thank you note. Usable once only.

Art by Heikala