[EARLY WORM CAMPAIGN] The Castle Automatic - A Dungeon for HIS MAJESTY THE WORM

Hoo boy. Okay. 

The Castle Automatic's great gears sat still for an age. Now, His Majesty the Worm has begun the machines again…

Become an Early Worm!

The Castle Automatic is a 100+ room, 5-level Metroidvania-style dungeon designed for use with His Majesty the Worm, the 2x ENNIE-winning, tarot-based RPG. In the module, players will repair magi-mechanical engines that control the castle's sun, moon, weather, and seasons to overcome its deadly challenges. The book is ~144 pages, A4, black and white. PDF and digital handouts included. 

Use it as an entire campaign! If you're new to His Majesty the Worm, you can get started with just this dungeon, the core book, and a single tarot deck! Or, slot it into your personal Underworld, expanding the core game with all new talents, monsters, dungeon lords, and magical treasures.  

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Importantly, The Castle Automatic is easy to run. Puzzles, traps, and combat sites are illustrated and included as handouts to be shown during play. The GM has a dungeon tracking sheet to monitor the castle's current state: mechanisms broken and repaired, time of day and year, and current factions in play. With maps for the GM, for the players, and included on every dungeon spread, it's easy to understand the sprawling space. Art, dungeon tracker assets, and maps are also included as separate assets so GMs can easily distribute them to their players and display them during the game. 

The Castle Automatic is currently raising funds as a preorder at Exalted Funeral! We're calling it the Early Worm campaign. It's like crowdfunding, but more direct. 

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There are lots of reasons to become and Early Worm 

Join the preorder campaign now to receive a large scale (A3) isometric map of the Castle Automatic! This is an exclusive offer, not available after the campaign. 

But not just that!

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  Map by Guy Pradel - click for big size!

  A reason to explore: Four magical artifacts are locked inside the castle—each is powerful enough that the factions of the City would give anything an adventurer wanted to get their hands on one. Also, adventurers can meet mentors to learn all new talents! 
• A reason to experiment: The Castle Automatic's magical engines are broken. Adventuring guilds can repair them to change its seasons, the weather, and the day/night cycle to overcome different challenges and unlock new sections of the dungeon. 
• A reason to talk: The dungeon is controlled by competing factions of golems, ancient giants who once ruled this place, and the otherworldly vampires who stole it from them.
• A reason to fight: The module contains fully illustrated combat zones with new creatures and dungeon lords, including a wyvern, a shapeshifting vampiric hierophant, and four mechanical kings. 
• A reason to be surprised: Illustrated puzzles and traps let enterprising players balance risk and reward as they explore five interconnected levels.
• A reason to breathe easy: GMs have lots of conveniences—handouts, maps, and indices—to make running as easy as possible. 
• A reason to return: With 100+ rooms, there's plenty of content to sustain an entire campaign of His Majesty the Worm.  

What is His Majesty the Worm?

If you're not familiar with my previous work, here's the basic deal!

His Majesty the Worm is a new-school game with old-school sensibilities: the classic megadungeon experience given fresh life through a focus on the mundanities and small moments of daily life inside the dungeon. Often-ignored subsystems, like food, hunger, light, and inventory management, are central to play and actually fun. Tarot cards are used as a randomizing element. Combat encounters are handled with an action-packed subsystem that ensures that all players have interesting choices every minute of combat!

Basically, the game is the result of designing a dungeon crawling RPG using OSR principles from the ground up instead of adapting original D&D. 

It won two ENNIEs (Best Rules and Best Game) in 2025. If you've been holding off on giving it a look, now is the time to check it out! Preorder the Castle Automatic and get a campaign going as soon as the book fulfills! 

The Team

The book was written by me, Josh McCrowell! I'm obsessed with dungeons. In addition to His Majesty the Worm, I wrote a step-by-step guide to help GMs create dungeons that are fun and engaging. The Castle Automatic is a manifestation of this dungeon-design philosophy.

Development and editing has been provided by Ty Pitre. Copyediting is being done by Stuart Broz.

Interior fantasy art is provided by Martin S. and Felipe Faria. Puzzles, boss fights, and traps illustrated by Tiger Wizard. Cover art by Strega Wolf. Cartography (player map, GM map, and minimap) illustrated by Guy Pradel. 

Art by Felipe Faria - Click to preorder and plumb the depths of the Castle!