Kingdom of the Tooth Fairies - A Dungeon Patch

Here is a modular dungeon node to connect to others, with potential connectors left exposed for the GM. Since I showed my brainstorming process before, I'll skip doing it for this week and get right to the good stuff. 

This next dungeon patch is set in the dungeon seed called the Spires, which is basically like this level from Dungeon Meshi. Each area is a Ewok treehouse-like platform connected by rope bridge hallways. The skeletal trees glow with ghostly mushrooms.

1. Fairy Toll

A crossroads between two bridges. Nailed into the tree is a sign post carved like two fingers pointing: one west and one east. Each finger is marked with Cant sign. Empty lanterns hang on the branches of the trees: [0-3] tooth fairies nest in the lanterns, waiting to demand a toll from passersby.

• Tooth fairies: Tooth fairies look like the kind from Victorian children's books, but wear arms and armor made from milk teeth. Each tooth fairy present demands 20g to put under children's pillows. They'll waive the fee for gnomes, who they see as children.
• Those who fail to pay the toll have 1-14 extra teeth magically grown into their mouth. There is no test to avoid this.
• Sign post: The Cant reads: (West) Down Staircase | (East) Monsters

2. Shrine

Tucked into the hollow of the giant, desiccated tree is a small wayside shrine. On a cairn of stones sits a wide, shallow brass bowl with a few teeth (various kinds) in it. A tiny bell hangs above the bowl. Behind the bowl is an empty pedestal. The trunk of the tree bulges out to offer a semicircular bench near the shrine.

• Bowl: A place where offerings of teeth can be made. Already present is an orc's tusk, a pig's tooth, and a handful of bat teeth.
• Bell: If the bell is rung, in a couple of minutes a tooth fairy will zip in from area 3 to inspect the offering. 
• If there is no new offering, the tooth fairy will pull a tooth (painlessly) from whoever rang the bell and put it in the bowl. 
• If there is a new tooth in the bowl, the tooth fairy will bless the character. They can draw 1 minor arcana card and use it instead of drawing a card (for either a test or Challenge) at any time until the end of the next City Phase.
• Empty pedestal: Obviously, something important is missing here. A statue or idol?

Potential connection: Put a statue in another dungeon patch. Hauling it back here and installing it will improve the shrine, win favor from the tooth fairies, or unlock a hidden treasure in this location.

3. Northern Ruined Spire

One of the towers of the Castle of Crossed Destiny stabs upthrust like a skeletal finger here. Inside the tower is a winding staircase down to another level.

This area key is intentionally left mostly blank to be used in service of a connecting dungeon patch. Fill it with a quest item, key, treasure, gate, rumor, lore, or other item needed to make a connect patch work.

4. Kingdom of Teeth

The rotting trunk of this colossal tree is patched and held together with a gigantic papery nest, like that of a paper wasp: where it bulges from the top of the tree, it is shaped like an extracted human tooth. Tooth fairies buzz hither and thither from the nest. 

• Papery nest: This is the castle of the tooth fairies. They have bored countless hexagonal chambers into the tree and reinforced it from the outside with chewed pulp and calcium-rich spit.  It is home to Dentania the Queen of the Kingdom of Teeth. It is too small for adventurers to enter.
• Tooth fairies: The tooth fairies will challenge anyone approaching the castle or crossing through the area. Tooth fairies have the logic of toddlers playing make believe. Each time the guild crosses through this area, generate a random disposition (core book, p. 100). 
• If the tooth fairies ever feel intensely surprised or frightened, they will summon Queen Dentania to handle the situation.

Queen Dentania

Likes: Milk, Small Dogs 

Hates: Candy, Tooth-worms, Cold

Fairy queens are the most intelligent of fairies, but still have a simplistic view of the world. Roleplay them like the Ghost of Christmas Present from The Muppets Christmas Carol. 

Queen Dentania, like all tooth fairies, can grow and remove bones (especially teeth) painlessly. If her subjects have inconvenienced an adventurer with an abnormal amount of teeth, she'll usually fix the problem.

Potential connection: Queen Dentania could have a bounty for guilds who meet with her based on the rest of your dungeon: forge an alliance with another dungeon faction, retrieve a stolen artifact, defeat a bothersome monster and bring back its teeth. In exchange, she will exempt the guild from the fairy toll (area 1). 

5. Wood of Webs

These wooden walkways, supporting towers, and branches of colossal trees are all covered in the ghosts of cobwebs, covering everything like Spanish moss.

Refer to the top card of the discard pile for a special encounter in this area:

• Swords: Four sword spiders descend from above, ambushing the guild unless they specifically mention looking up. They weave webs as their initial attack.
• Pentacles: Attached to the side of the stone tower, about 12' high, is a bulging bundle of webs around an adventurer's backpack. It potentially contains loot, but how will the guild approach the task?
• Careful inspection reveals almost invisible gossamer tripwires attached to the backpack. 
• If the tripwires are severed (by pulling the backpack down, etc.), a web trap is activated: a web net falls, automatically capturing any adventurers in the area, then is pulled into 25' into the air. 
• Four sword spiders will return within a watch to inspect their captured prey.
• The backpack is full of 100g.
• Cups: An adventurer with a Cups 4 will notice that there are 3 webbed bodies hanging under the wooden walkways. These are the mummified remains of adventurers. They potentially contain loot, but how will the guild approach the task?
• If successfully looted, each body has 40g on their person, as well as the starting equipment  package of a random adventurer.
• Wands: The first adventurer in the marching order walks through a web (unless probing the area with a 10' pole, or similar). It is gross, but not harmful.

The Theater of Tragedy - A Dungeon Patch

This post delivers on the promise of our last brainstorming post. Go and read that one (and the definition of a dungeon patch) first, if you haven't.

Here is a dungeon patch called the Theater of Tragedy: a 6 room segment of a larger dungeon to be mixed and remixed with other dungeon patches to create a much larger configuration for your players. Rules are for His Majesty the Worm, but adaptable to your OSRish system of choice.

1. Theater

A lavish indoor theater lit by six chandeliers hanging from the wooden crossbeams. The stage (1a) rises five feet from the rush-strewn auditorium. Surrounding the stage are two levels of galleries (1b), which provide seating. 

1a. Stage

A wooden stage extending out into the auditorium. Three curtained doors at the back of the stage allow actors to enter and exeunt.* There is a rotten smell nearby.

• Walking on stage: Any character heavier than a gnome or halfling triggers a trap door when they cross center stage. They must test Pentacles or fall 10' into the stage mechanisms (area 2).
• Smell: The stink of the zombie in area 2.

1b. Galleries

The galleries surround the stage on three sides, providing simple bench seating. The upper gallery directly across from the stage is lavish, with boxed seats and three high-backed thrones.

• Investigating the thrones: There is a hidden button in the arm rest of each throne that allows the platform on which they are set to pivot, so that the thrones swing away from the wall. Behind the thrones is obscured a small, secret door.
• Small, secret door: Like what Alice had to go through in Wonderland. A Shrink spell is required to use it. The door leads to area XX (a connection to another dungeon level). 

* Pursued by stats-as-bear.

2. Stage Mechanisms

Under the stage is an access hatch filled with interlocking gears that power machines used during productions. A dead wood elf lies facedown beneath the trap door of area 1a.

• Dead wood elf: A former adventurer (named Ducat Dangerous-Game) wearing a badgerskin hood. If disturbed, he raises as a zombie (core book, p. 286). Its legs are broken; it Moves by dragging itself along the ground. The zombie carries a purse with 55g and a smoke-bomb mushroom. 
• Machines: The machines under the stage perform a variety of simple functions. Each machine is man-powered through cranks and bellows.
• Raise and lower a platform through the trap door.
• Raise and lower a variety of backdrops on stage (a cityscape, a wilderness, a wedding, a night sky). 
• Cause a rumble like thunder.
• Play a merry melody.
• Latching the trap door: The trap door on the stage may set into a locked position from the access hatch. The "trap" of the trap door on the stage is essentially an OSHA violation.

3. Backstage

The backstage is an unlit storage area. There are several pieces of stage scenery stored here. There are two life-sized wooden mannequins, a king and a queen; both have completely blank faces. 

• Scenery: A variety of simple, wooden props to be placed on the stage to add color or set a scene; each stands on its own and is light enough to be moved by two people. There's a tree, a wall, a box, a (fake) chest, a lamppost, and a cloud-throne. None have any value.
• Mannequins: Life-sized puppets. Inanimate. Their faces are blank and unpainted, but have fastenings as if a theatrical mask could be placed on them.

Potential connection:

Elsewhere in the dungeon, there can be masks that animate these two mannequins. Perhaps they want to perform a play? This could be like the opera scene from Final Fantasy 6, where the players are given a brief amount of time to memorize some lines and then need to regurgitate them at the appropriate times. Perhaps they have six lines and can write down a number of them equal to their Cups score and remember the rest? 

Or, more simply, the would-be actor will have to play the Listener Limerick Challenge from Wait Wait! Don't Tell Me. 

4. Tiring House

An unlit dressing room filled with tables and chairs. A variety of costumes hang from a rack. There are character masks hanging from pegs on the wall. Props spill from a wooden box. In the corner, there is a humanoid figure draped with a cloth.

• Costumes: A collection of costumes depicting: 
• A particular commoner's profession (weaver, tinker, tailor, actor, etc.)
• Noble's clothes (fake, but convincing)
• God's robes (obviously fake)
• A monster (convincing in low light)
• The Lavritic (the geas-bound servants of the Castle of Crossed Destinies) will treat anyone wearing a costume of any kind as a person of that rank or profession (a potential connection).
• Masks: There are ten masks here, each portraying some stock character: a villager who pretends be rich, a foolish senator, a mean-but-not-evil braggart, a cunning clown, etc. 
• When appearing in a play (a potential connection), a mask must be worn to define the role. 
• Props: There's an array of props; all fake but rather convincing: jewelry, two swords, crown, fairy wings, fireworks, wizard's wand, military banner, and six potions of various colors.
• Humanoid figure: A life-sized, inanimate puppet. It is dressed and painted to look like a sun god (a sort of stock character). 

5. Puppeteer's Workshop

A wood wright's shop: a workbench, pile of lumber, and specialized carving tools. A variety of life-sized puppet parts litter the area, unfinished: an arm joint, a lower jaw, a roughly-carven head. Elaborate cuckoo clocks hang on the walls. It is dimly lit with a single candle.

This is the lair of the Rude Mechanical.

• Rude Mechanical: The Rude Mechanical is an animate life-sized mannequin. It is a blank slate: unpolished, unpainted, unfinished. Because of this, it has a personality crisis and pretends to be the puppet maker (it isn't), kidnapping adventurers to turn into its puppet children. It current is holding a halfling named Tom Joiner captive.
• If the Rude Mechanical was "finished" by given a painting, a costume, and a purpose, it would change its personality to match.
• Tom Joiner: A halfling adventurer. Ambushed and enslaved by the Rude Mechanical, he is currently dressed up like a Punch puppet, and is bound at the wrists and ankles by fishing wire attached to a cross (like a marionette). He is starving and weak.
• Cuckoo clocks: Each cuckoo clock is a work of intricate art. There are 12 total. Each is worth 100g in the City. Each is fragile.

New keyword: Fragile

A fragile item breaks if the adventure carrying it suffers any Wounds. A fragile item can be bundled with cloth to make it an oversized item, but reduces the chance for it to break to 1-in-4.

Art by Felipe Faria

6. Storage Room

This room is intentionally left blank to be used in service of a connecting dungeon patch. Fill it with a quest item, key, treasure, gate, rumor, lore, or other item needed to make a connect patch work.

Here is a simple map of the area. Hand drawn and looks like shit, but this is what my players get from me!

Note: I have failed my own challenge of doing one of these a week because of Real Life Stuff (TM). But I hope--like my brainstorming blog post before this one--it is helpful to show how the actual sausage is made. Sometimes you miss deadlines! That doesn't mean you stop working on the project if you're still having fun with it. You keep trucking forward because making stuff is fun! Excelsior! 

Making a Dungeon Patch - Sausage Making

Per this post last week, I have issued a challenge to start writing chunks of a dungeon as a creative exercise. The Worm community is calling this elemental, nodal building block a dungeon patch. 

This post is a stream of consciousness description of how I'm going to start putting together my first patch. I'll clean it up for publication (on the blog) in a future post.

To recap, I've argued that a dungeon patch should have five things:

1. Something that advances your dungeon checklist

2. 3-6 keyed rooms

3. An intentionally blank room that can hold a key for a lock in another section of the Underworld. I should call these spaces potential connections.

4. A gate that connects to a different section of the Underworld.

5. An evocative name

Basic brainstorming

My patch will start with just the germ of an interesting idea: "An animate wooden golem ventriloquist dummy torturing a dressed up halfling."

I want to write patches for His Majesty the Worm, so I'm going to ground my writing in one of the dungeon seeds that are included in the game. I flip through those for a little while until I find one where it seems to fit: The Castle of Crossed Destinies. One of the most vanilla dungeon seeds. 

Warren's position in the Designing Dungeons Course is that making a 30-room dungeon is essentially the act of using the elements of the B/X stocking procedure to make six-room nodes five times:

1-2: Monster (50% chance of guarded treasure)

3: Trap (~30% chance of trapped treasure)

4-5: Empty Room (~15% chance of hidden treasure)

6: Special (which are unique rooms)

I'm not writing towards this stocking procedure, but having prompts (2 monsters [1 with treasure], a trap, 2 empty/lore rooms, 1 special) is helpful for any exercise. I'll keep this ratio in the back of my mind.

Sketching out the core concept

This dungeon patch will be centered around a monster: a human-sized wooden doll controlling (horribly) a halfling as a living puppet.

This is a related concept, but not quite right

We Need to Talk About Kevin Pinocchio

I'm picturing the wood golem to look like those mannequins used for drawing references

The idea of a ventriloquist's dummy feels very modern to me, but a Punch and Judy puppet feels perfectly cromulent for a dungeon game. So the wooden golem will be a mannequin--an uncarven, unpainted blank slate--but its prisoner will be forcibly dressed like Punch, and tied up like a marionette. 

I always thought Lady Elaine from Mr. Roger's looked upsetting. Maybe this is how the halfling is dressed up.

Perhaps self evidently, Googling pictures for inspiration is part of my creative process.

The wood golem puppet a living creature both as revenge (maybe?) but also to express itself in a way that it cannot without being completed. A believable need to be understood, but escalated to an upsetting extreme. Also, perhaps the wood golem could be completed as a matter of negotiation. Perhaps an enemy-to-friend scenario? And if the players don't do a good job, the golem goes berserk?

What sort of room does this duo call their lair in the Castle of Crossed Destinies? I assume a theater? In a makeshift puppet's theater in a courtyard? In a woodcarver's workshop?

I'm inclined to say all three might exist. The empty puppet's theater in a courtyard will point towards the more adult theater inside the castle. Backstage of the theater will be the woodcarver's workshop. Perhaps the woodcarver's workshop is the wood golem's main lair.

Finalizing the stats will be come later. This idea will give me enough to flesh out a room description.

Brainstorming additional rooms

Since I want to focus my energy on a single node--a cluster of rooms--I'd tuck "outdoor puppet theater" away for later development if I was building out an entire dungeon level.

Right now I have two rooms: woodcarver's workshop and an adjoining theater.

Aiming for ~6 rooms, let me just write out some other ideas. I'll select the ones that are most compelling for development.

Box office. I know that the term "box office" comes from Shakespearean times where patrons' money was collected and kept in an office in a strong lock box. Players love picking locked boxes! Maybe a box office. [Trap + Treasure?] Although, on second thought, if this stage is part of a castle, would there be paying patrons? Perhaps not.

Backstage. If there's a theater, there should be a backstage. The empty room would have unused scenery, prop weapons, costumes, wigs, etc. ["Empty" room?]

In Disney's Pinocchio, Geppetto had lots of cuckoo clocks. Should those feature somehow? [Trap? Treasures in their own right?] 

This reminds me of the terrifying clockwork music box doll from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Can that complement the idea of cuckoo clocks? Is a finished full-sized doll what the wood golem was supposed to be, but it is still unfinished? [Special?]

Puppets were a plot point in Being John Malkovich. Maybe I should put a tiny door somewhere in here because that's just a nice dungeon feature to have. Perhaps that's the gate that connects to another dungeon level. Maybe the door is very small and requires the players to cast Shrink before using it.

Hang on. What sort of things would an olde timey theater have in them anyway? Well, wait, let's look up Renaissance theaters. The most famous one I know: The Globe.

OK cool, I found this map online.

At first glance, I thought 12 keyed locations would almost be enough to make several patches out of a theatrical section of a castle, but on closer reading, many of these would be a single room key. I think the only meaningful ideas from reading this pamphlet was that calling the dressing room "Tiring House" would be flavorful and that the stage itself should have a trap door. There's a trap for us! [Trap]

Where did the marionette-ified halfling come from? An adventurer, I assume. Perhaps some of his old companions are still lurking here as undead. [Another monster]

Final rooms to be keyed 

OK, that's enough brainstorming. Let's actually conceptualize what rooms I want to write.

This dungeon patch is part of the Castle of Crossed Destinies.

1. Theater. The stage of the theater has a trap door. Under the gallery, there is a curiously small door that leads to another section of the Underworld. [Trap, Gate]

2. Under the stage. Mechanisms that power the trap door. An undead adventurer (fallen victim to the trap) has some loot. [Monster with Treasure]

3. Backstage. Storage for stage props, including other blank but inanimate mannequins. [Empty]

4. Tiring house. The dressing room for would-be actors, filled with different stage costumes. This will be a type of treasure. [Treasure]

5. Puppeteer's workshop. The workshop of an artisan who created the puppets, the sets, and other objects of the theater--now haunted by the Rude Mechanical, an unfinished wooden golem, who puts on performances with Tom Joiner, a captive halfling dressed up as a marionette. Valuable cuckoo clocks hang on the walls. [Monster, Treasure]

6. Storage room. A storage room near the puppeteer's workshop. This room's key will be intentionally left  (mostly) blank to form a potential connection with another patch. [Potential Connection]

This area will be called the Theater of Tragedy. Because of har har, stupid joke. It contains a reason to fight, a reason to talk, and a reason to explore.

Saved ideas: I liked the idea of a cuckoo clock/music box room and an outdoor puppet theater that would connect conceptually to this patch, but don't want to lose focus. These ideas will be saved for later development.

Further reading from other big brains about this subject

Murkdice had the idea of "Patchwork Megadungeons" a while back as a way to chunk the work. Great minds!

Aryxmaraki reminds us that patches (and hexes, and points) are all just a type of node. 

The first to heed the challenge of the dungeon patch for Worm

Lusunati of the Worm Discord was the first person to accept the challenge and show off a dungeon patch for Worm. They've created a couple others in the past as well!

By the by

If you're interested in reading my process for building dungeons, I've written a course on the subject. It's free! It won a golden ENNIE this year.

The Elemental Level of Megadungeon Construction

There was a post on Facebook (cess pit that it is) that I found really inspirational. Here's a screenshot so you don't ritually defile yourself by going there.

It's a node-based megadungeon. It looks sprawling! 

They clarified that each node was 4-5 rooms large. If you have 54 nodes and 5 rooms a node, that's 270 rooms. That feels solidly megadungeon level--past the point of "Is Pluto a planet?" and "Oh yeah, that's Mars."

KJ Davies of the In My Campaign blog has been working on similar projects since 2014. A storied career, with many blog posts, ideas, and dungeon design to support their work! Check out their last nodal megadungeon! (Each level doesn't seem quite complete to me, but they're what His Majesty the Worm would call a dungeon seed - a jumping off point to be fully mapped, Meatgrindered, and filled with monsters and treasures.) 

Gus exchanged some of his own nodal megadungeon ideas with KJ Davies, and even did this cool picture of their dungeon:

[SIDEBAR] As has been said, blogs create ruins. I'm so glad that these ruins from 2014 are still around for me to crawl through! It also just goes to show you how many people want the thing you're making but can't find you. Marketing isn't efficient, but it's an attempt to connect the author with the audience. I wish I had found them sooner! [/SIDEBAR]

I said when I was writing Worm that writing a megadungeon isn't hard (I still hold by that statement): it was just making a series of atomic choices. 

Some things are atoms. (And everybody thought atoms were the smallest thing imaginable, until scientists hit them with a hammer in 1932 and a lot of like, quarks and neutrons and shit fell out.) But the more I work on megadungeon design, the more I understand that we don't want atoms. We want elements. That's what we make things out of.

In the Worm Discord, we've had this concept dungeon quilts. Not a dungeon in toto, but a patch that could be sewn into it--drag and drop it in wherever. Nodal megadungeon design is parallel development to this concept.

A dungeon node / dungeon patch of 4-5 themed rooms is an element that is usable. 

It resonates with Sean McCoy's advice to write rooms in pairs: 

You can think of these rooms as sequels and prequels to the rooms you’ve already come up with. Setups and punch lines.

Writing in pairs builds connectivity and halves the amount of work you have to do.

This gets you in the mindset inherently of connecting your spaces rather than thinking of a dungeon as like thirty different themed rooms. Once you start doing this it’s hard to stop.

It resonates with what Gus talked about in his Jaquaysing article:

By breaking down even a small dungeon into these kinds of nodes, and limiting their connections, players can better understand the space, and the designer can better imagine it, creating rational connections between the keyed locations that allow for more complex play rather than a sort of directionless ramble.  With larger dungeons shortcuts and alternate entrances become more important, either as ways to quickly get to unexplored areas or to change the direction that the party approaches certain obstacles from. Faction territories can be logically delineated by choke points or defensible areas, disrupted by secret passages.

By way of example, let me break down one of the levels from The Castle Automatic: 

Art by Guy Pradel

This is the Sanctum of Swords, one of five levels of the Castle Automatic. It's not a huge level: only 18 rooms. But you can think of it as a series of discrete nodes. 

• Purple: The Black Oil Heart (which powers the mechanisms in the level) and surrounding trapped rooms. An entrance to the level. Underground. 
• Teal: The lair of Pimple the Vampiric Torturer and surrounding rooms. A guarded exit from the underground section of the level to the above ground section.
• Honestly, the distinction between purple and teal is a little arbitrary on my part. This could also be an 8 room patch--an underground section.
• Red: Four rooms connected by a theme of a moat flowing into an underground river. 
• Yellow: The Court of Swords, including all the noble NPCs (and the boss of the level, the King of Swords).

All of the patches have at least one exit or connection to another level (not just another node in this level).

• Purple: A mirror portal connects room 201 (current level) to room 101 (entrance level).
• Teal: There's a trap door in the ceiling of room 209 that connects to room 310.
• Red: The moat leads to room 311 if you solve the riddles of the Moat Twins.
• Yellow: This node has multiple exits--doors to the Threshold Tower, doors to the Palace of Pentacles, and unlockable mirror portal in another level that teleports adventurers into room 215.

The level is cohesive, but is also chunked into discrete clusters of themed rooms. The map could be rearranged in any pattern the excellent Guy Pradel wished as long as those nodes were kept together. The Meatgrinder (overloaded encounter table) ties the level together thematically, even though many of the patches have different environmental details and dungeon construction.

Having conceptualized this more fully, I issue this challenge: Write your dungeons in 4-5 room elemental building blocks. 

1. Start with a kernel of a good idea. One of the things your dungeon needs: a reason to explore, a reason to talk, a reason to run away, etc.
2. Build out 2-3 rooms around this core idea. 
3. Connect an intentionally blank room to it. This blank will be filled by the dungeon assembler. They can either repurpose it into a lore room or make a connection to another patch using it--a lever that opens a door in another area, an idol with empty eye sockets that activates when gems from level 5 are placed into it, etc.
4. Put a gate that intentionally connects to another level (not just a door to another patch).
5. Give your patch an evocative name: The Pit of Pain, the Tomb of the Clown Prince, Lift of the Condemned, Wyrm-Hole. 

As a writing exercise, try writing a dungeon patch every week for a month. You'll have a 16-20 room dungeon at the end of it!

Post your dungeon patches on your blog so your friends can use them. Take dungeon patches from your friend's blogs. 

Make your megadungeons like a quilt. 

The Secret History of The Castle Automatic

When Sean McCoy proposed the Dungeon23 project, I couldn't help but join in. I wrote two dungeons--one for His Majesty the Worm and one for Under Hill, By Water. This effort eventually went on to become the 100+ room, Metroidvania-inspired dungeon...

The Castle Automatic

The premise of The Castle Automatic is that there is a mechanical castle with a self-contained sun, moon, and seasons. It was once ruled by a cruel giant emperor, but has since fallen into ruin and become haunted by vampires and wind-up golems who play-act a continual faction war. Players need to repair the engines of the castle in order to control the flow of time inside it and change the environment to solve puzzles and find treasure.

But I had been noodling on the basic idea for this dungeon for many years. It had taken root there when I was just a small child.

The True Origins of The Castle Automatic

There is an unfinished blogpost sitting in my drafts that I started I don't know how many years ago. I found it recently. Here is a screenshot of it, in its entirety.

At this point, The Castle Automatic was a gleam in my eye

To summarize the aborted post, there is a children's show that I lives half-formed in my memories called Eureka's Castle (1989-1991). It consisted of a bunch of muppets--a wizard, a dragon, a bat, etc.--who lived in a wind-up castle owned by a giant. Here's a link to the intro. Perhaps you remember it?

The show certainly wasn't a favorite of mine. I never had cable TV. I mostly watched it on doctor's office TVs or when I visited my aunt. But something about it stuck in my brain. When I was doing the work of writing one room a day, those memories came came spilling into my new dungeon.

To give you a preview of The Castle Automatic, I'll post some screenshots from the book of NPCs and dungeon features, then show you the puppets that inspired them. 

Taitale Allcraft

When you see who she represents, you'll say "Eureka!"

If the Castle Automatic is the Labyrinth of Crete, Taitale is Daedalus: a renowned inventor captured and forced to create her own prison. Since time has been broken inside the Castle, she remains trapped there still. Finding and rescuing her and bringing her into modern Underfolk society is one of the hooks for the module. 

She is, of course, inspired by the sorceress who lends the series the series her name. The hint in the text is that saying "Taitale!" is the dwarven equivalent to saying "Eureka!" -- a word to symbolize a sudden flash of insight.

Mr. Knack

Every dungeon of particular size should have a merchant in it to do business with the PCs. In the Castle Automatic, it's Mr. Knack. He appears on the three of the five Meatgrinders (there is a Meatgrinder for each level of the dungeon). In each area that he appears, he has a different bag of wares. 

A weird little fellow. My players hated him in playtesting (positive).

Something I think is cool is this haggling mechanic I snuck in for Mr. Knack: "The price listed is his starting cost. He will come down as much as 50% off of this cost. He will only entertain as many counter-offers as the haggler’s Wands score before he puts his foot down and insists on a final price." Often, rules for Worm are just rulings that I made during my sessions that seem to work.

Mr. Knack is inspired by a character from Eureka's Castle called...Mr. Knack. In fact, he's changed almost not at all from his original version. 

Wearing my inspiration on my sleeve with this guy.

Pimple the Vampiric Torturer

R.L. Stein was a writer on Eureka's Castle. You can see the resemblance between him and the bat, Batley.

The equivalent in the Castle Automatic is Pimple, one of the vampires that now haunt the ruin. He is the torturer and delights in making captured PCs spin his giant Wheel of Fortune, which gives them bizarre banes. 

Batley was terribly nearsighted. Pimple is, too, and takes disfavor on attacks because of it.

Something I think is cool is the Challenge page on the right. I have a ton of these throughout the module, all illustrated by Tiger Wizard. They are intended to be handouts for set piece battles that can occur through the dungeon. These pages delineate the different zones of a Challenge if a fight breaks out in a particular room and outlines special rules that make that fight fun and different. You can see Pimple looming up abstractly in the corner.

The Moat Twins, Bogge and Quaggmire

Another fairly direct inspiration, Eureka's Castle had a pair of aquatic monsters that lived in the moat. The Castle Automatic has these guy, too. Whereas the puppets liked peanut butter sandwiches, my moat monsters love riddles and puzzles. You can fight them, but you can also solve their riddles to get them to unlock underwater gates that normally the players couldn't access. Monsters should have lots of options for how to approach them.

The Devil, a Dragon

Eureka's Castle had a dragon--a childlike, lovable dragon named Magellan. I agree with R.L. Stein that every dungeon should have a dragon. But mine is more in line with Worm aesthetics: a dragon that is unknowable, deadly, a force of nature.

The residents of the Castle Automatic call the dragon that lives in the courtyard "The Devil" for her ferocity. 

The Devil uses special rules for the Meatgrinder in her region. Whenever the Devil major arcana is drawn, she appears!

The Devil is a type of dragon called a wyvern: a dragon of the elemental air. As opposed to the generic fire breath, she calls down lightning. When fighting her, there's a chance to be struck by lightning at the beginning of every round. 

---

Anyway, I hope this all isn't too goofy of a way to say: please check out The Castle Automatic if you haven't already. Fingers crossed that the screenshots show that despite the whimsical origins the book has some cool ideas. The early-bird pricing at Exalted Funeral is going to expire very soon, so don't miss out.

Stats as hammer, stats as nails

There's nothing revolutionary in this post, but I think it contains generally good advice and feels worthwhile articulating.

When an RPG gives you something generic, a player skill that enlivens your roleplaying is describing it in a non-generic way. Items are a great place to have fun with this idea.

Instead of a dagger, it's a "wavy dagger with a hilt shaped like a mushroom." 

You can "show, not tell" your character's backstory this way. Instead of a dagger, it's a dissection scalpel used in haruspicy, which is practiced by your people. Instead of a dagger, it's a dueling dirk you won the right to wear when you dueled your half-brother to death.

Here is a list of every item from the gear list in His Majesty the Worm with a few flavorful descriptions for each. 

Alchemy kit

• Cottage Witch Alchemy Kit: Wicker basket with scavenged ingredients stored in frog stomach pouches, cat skulls, and bat-wing purses. Your alchemy isn't "natural science," but a form of folk magic.

Animal feed

• Dog biscuits: Your mom baked these dog biscuits from leftover oats for your animal companion, Rufus.

Armor, light

• Retiarius Armor: The armor of the retiarius-type gladiator: heavy-linen arm guards and a leather shoulder piece. 
• Orc Woad Tattoos: Seablooded orcs favor writing protective runes in woad paint instead of bulky armor that will weigh them down if they fall overboard. 
• Beekeeper Suit: Thick robes and a wicker mask complete the beekeeper's signature apparel.

Armor, iron

• Immortal's Chainmail: A hauberk of chainmail stripped from the body of the eunuch "Immortal" warrior caste of Far-Away, brought as a curiosity by an antiquities trader and stolen early in your career.
• Alien Diving Suit: An extradimensional scientist tried to visit the plane of Flesh and constructed this suit of iron and rubber to survive our inhospitable conditions. He was killed by the inhospitable natives. It smells of ammonia.

Armor, steel

• House Mereswine's Platemail: A set of lobstered steel plate worn by cavalrymen in the guard of House Mereswine. It has a dolphin motif in keeping with their house sigil.

Bedroll

• Mummy Sleeping Bag: When you get in to your sleeping bag, you look like a real mummy--all wrappings and faux-Egyptology designs. 
• Owlbear Hide: You killed the owlbear in your first foray into the Underworld and kept the hide. You made a scratchy blanket out of it that you sleep in.

Bezoar

• Frog Throat Bezoar: The weird guy in the Omphalos Market that sold this to you claims it was from a giant frog. You're not sure you believe him.

Blank book

• Dwarf-Skin Book: An ogre bound this book in dwarf skin. Gross!
• Quipu Yarn: Elves sometimes use a woven language to help keep records. This collection of yarn is like a blank book--you'll weave your story together.

Booze

• Pirate's Hooch: Fermented in a pirate's peg leg, it's strong but nobody would call it good.
• Metheglin: This lavender-infused metheglin was made by your wife. It reminds you of home.

Caltrops

• Toy Soldiers: Your son played with these metal toy soldiers with bayonets that were so sharp they were practically real. You borrowed them for your expedition and throw them out as caltrops.

Candle

• Beeswax Candles: You harvested this beeswax yourself from your home hive. 
• Human-fat Candles: The rendered fat of a murderer went into this candle. It produces a foul, black smoke.

Chain

• Anchor Chain: A length of chain salvaged from a shipwreck that you survived. 
• Ball & Chain (-Ball): You wore this chain in the dungeon that you escaped from. You hammered off the heavy lead ball, but have found the chain useful to keep.

Chalk

• Student's Chalk: The chalk is cheap and quality is poor but it gets the job done. It's intended for students at the Madrasa in the City.

Clothes, rags

• Troll's Tunic: After a slime burned off all your clothes, you were forced to borrow a tunic from a troll friend. It's basically a dress on you. 

Clothes, common

• Ninja: A cool ninja outfit. 

Clothes, finery

Every character should have a signature hat. Seriously.

Click for more hats

Cooking gear

• Senshi's Shield: Once, this was your family's adamantine heirloom shield. But since you're a cook not a fighter, you reforged it into this wok! 

Crowbar

• Thief's Hand: This crowbar is flourished with an open hand.
• Crow Bar: This crowbar is flourished with a crow's head and beak motif.

Falconry gear

• Elven Hawker's Chemicals: Instead of leather tools such as lures, hoods, jessies, etc. to control the bird, elves use chemical compounds in small glass jars extracted from insects. One temporary blinds the hawk, one paralyzes its wings, one awakens its prey drive, etc.

Fishing gear

• Mermaid Hair Net: A mermaid wove this net from her own hair. It is festooned with little sea glass baubles.

Firewood

• Bonfire of the Vanities: This was once a statue of a blasphemous idol, smashed to bits by the axes of the Athleta Mythrii. It is right that such as blasphemy is now used for kindling.

Flint & tinder

• Sacred Firestarter: The shavings of the tinder were taken from fallen wood given by the hearttree of your village and soaked in sacred oil. The flint was harvested and blessed by a law-speaker.
• Tinder Fungus: Instead of carrying spark-makers, you carry live coals nested inside of tinder fungi. You have six of these.

Garlic

• Weird Bulb: The bulb looks like a weird old man's face! Isn't it uncanny?

Grappling hook

• Anchor: Your grappling hook is a repurposed anchor from a ship.

Hammer

• Coffin Maker's Hammer: This hammer's first owner was a coffin maker. It has driven many coffin nails. 

Hatchet

• Orcish Stone Hatchet: The earthblooded orcs still practice the patient art of stone working, including making stone hand tools like this hatchet. 

Helm

• Knight's Helm: Ahhh! The noble knight's helm! A close helmet festooned with a snail crest.
• Prisoner's Cage: Not a helmet at all, but a scold's bridle in fashion of a cage. Still, it might turn a blow.
• Thiollier's Mask: "A mask upon which is carved a tranquil sleeping face."

Really, helms are such an opportunity to play Fashion Souls.

Hermetic bottle

• Old Wine Bottles: You've sealed these old wine bottles pretty tight! They still have the labels on them.

Hourglass

• Novelty Hourglass: This hourglass is shaped like a woman with a real hourglass figure! It elicits groans and eyerolls from your guild mates.

Iron spike

• Crucifixion Nails: These spikes were nails pulled from the hands and feet of crucified criminals.

Lantern

• Medusa Lantern: Each side of the lantern is shaped like a medusa's face, mouth open in a monstrous scream.

Lard

• Scam Soap: This soap was sold by a merchant claiming that 1-in-20 bars had a gold coin inside! You hope this bar is one of the lucky ones!

Leeches

• Tiny Slimes: It's illegal to carry slimes into the City, but you find baby slimes to be much more useful than leeches at extracting small portions of blood from a sick patient.

Lockpicks

• Cat's Whiskers: This set of lockpicks are carried in a case with a winking, cartoonish cat. 
• Skeleton Keys: This brand of thieves tools is called "Skeleton Keys." Each pick is festooned with a smiling skull.

Manacles

• Mage's Cuffs: These iron cuffs clamp onto a sorcerer's wrists to stop them from casting spells. They are not linked together, so the sorcerer still has the use of their hands and arms. 

Mirror

• Saintly Relic: This broken mirror fragment is said to be a shard of St. Jason's famous mirrored shield.

Musical instrument

• Dwarven Carnyx: This tall horn is shaped like a boar and makes a clear, piercing note that can be heard for a mile or more.
• Halfling Panpipes: These panpipes have a false reed that can be used to carry a long-shanked tobacco pipe. 
• Underfolk Common Hymn Book: A collection of traditional Underfolk songs sung at traditional times: births, deaths, weddings. 

Oil

• River Whale Oil: The river whales that live in the River Grey near the City are hunted for their oil and other byproducts. In the City, river whales are associated with death and dreams. Parents tell children that burning a lamp of whale oil will banish their nightmares. 
• Mushroom Oil: Piggy of the Cave is a favored mushroom of Underfolk: its meaty texture provides welcome variety in their diet. It can also be rendered into a smoky-burning oil.

Pick

• Dwarven Mattock: A heavy mattock written with Ancient Underfolk runes reading: WHO'S YOUR DADDY?

Pipe & Pipeweed

• Carven Pipe: A long ornate pipe carved to look like an old sea-captain smoking (recursively) a corncob pipe.

Or, imagining that the pipe is a *feature* of His Majesty the Worm that simply allows you to remove Stress for the cost of a pack slot, you can recast this to be a variety of consumable items.

• Bubble Bath: The dungeon is a smelly place. Taking a bubble bath lets you regain a measure of composure and center yourself.
• Brain Licorice: A candy made of dried brain jellies and anise. Eating it smooooothes away the wrinkles.

Pole, 10'

• Shepherd's Crook: A shepherd's crook made of olive wood, especially long, with a nice crook at the end.
• Lamplighter's Snuffer: A basic 10' long bronze and pewter candle snuffer from the Lamplighter's Guild.
• Finglonger: What would it be like if I invented the finglonger?

Poultice

• Prayer Flags: The bandages are linen strips made from prayer flags, each with a calligraphed prayer. 
• Elven Mummy: Extracted from an elven sarcophagus by their direct descendants in a process called Reclaiming, the mummy's wrappings and ground-up flesh are used as medicines. 

Quill & Ink

• Clerical Illumination Tools: A teak wood writing case with tools for illuminating coded books of the Mythraic Mysteries: horsehair bush, knife to scrape the paper, sand to dry the ink, and jars of black, gold, and red inks. 
• Gnomish Librarian's Invisible Inks: A quill from a hoopoe bird and invisible inks (only legible under the moon or stars). 

Rations

• Human Rations: Wicker basket of rations containing: flat bread, olives, pickled cucumbers, dried figs, hard cheese, honey comb, and sausage. 
• Underfolk Rations: Wax paper bundle containing: travel biscuits, carrots, mushrooms, mushroom chutney, dried apple, mole jerky, and piece of toffee. A jug of wine (for dwarves) or tea (for halflings and trolls) included.
• Fay Rations: Clay jar, fire-ready, with a stew of horse meat, succotash, and beans. Corn cakes wrapped separately. 
• Orc Rations: Banana leaf wrapped around: clay jar of barley and oat porridge, clay jar of goat's milk yogurt, pickled herring, and smoked whale jerky.

Religious paraphernalia

• Portable Shrine: A tiny desk with an embedded icon of the Hierophant, a candle holder, and an attached rosary. 
• Stone Idol of Rng: A crudely carved stone face painted half white and half black. 

Rope

• Handkerchiefs: A rope made out of brightly-colored handkerchiefs tied tightly together. 

Salt

• Mined Salt: A wooden box shaped like a dwarven grandmother filled with quarried salt.

Shield

• Church Door: Wielded by a troll, this shield was once the door into the Fane of the Heresiarch. 
• Pickle-Barrel Lid: Wielded by a halfling, this shield is just the round top of a pickle barrel with a handy little handle. It is painted with a bright sun as a heraldic device. 

Shovel

• Gnomish Archaeologist Shovel: The Archaeologist Society within the Court of Redcaps issues this small shovel to its members to help excavate artifacts from stones and soil.

Spyglass

• Opera Glasses: Extreme opera glasses, for watching the play from the tippy top of the nosebleeds.

Tent

• Knight's Pavilion: This brightly-colored tent is emblazoned with the your heraldry--a knight jousting atop a noble snail. 

Tinker's kit

• Grandpa's Tackle Box: A metal boxed inherited from your grandfather. It once held fishing lures, but now holds all sorts of tools and odds and ends: cut pieces of wood, putty, nails, pliers, lengths of wire, etc. 

Torch

• Wedding Torch: Your bride left you standing at the altar, but her family already paid for all these torches. Might as well use 'em. 
• Juggling Torch: These were made by Flavius the Clown, the premier torch juggler of the City. 

Wand of archwood

• Thunderbolt: The archtree was split by lightning. This wand has a thunderbolt design to commemorate the event. Blasts of magic from it have a lightning-like aspect.

Weaponry

• Bearded Axe: The axe is literally bearded: it's shaped like an orcish face with a long, beautiful beard as the blade.
• Sword of the Torturer's Guild: This heavy blade is intended to take heads. As such, it has no point. It has two sharp edged sides: one for slaying men, one for slaying women. A vein of quicksilver in the blade gives overhanded swings extra weight.
• Elven Bow: A bow of yew strung with a single golden elf hair.
• Magnetic Morningstar: This morning star is not connected by a chain. Instead, the spiked ball seems to "orbit" the handle.

Wolfsbane

• Aspergillum of Wolfsbane: An aspergillum of mountain water infused with wolfsbane. In the event of a lycanthrope, you can anoint the beast with the water. 

The Lifecycle of RPG Publishing

As I've mentioned before on this blog, I'm currently doing a preorder campaign instead of a "traditional" crowdfunding campaign for my first big project for His Majesty the Worm, The Castle Automatic:

Click the pic to learn more

Since I'm currently going through the process of publishing an RPG supplement, I thought it might be worthwhile to enumerate the basic outline of my process: the steps that it takes to get a physical book made with a publisher. The process can feel opaque if you've not involved in the industry. But I promise you: If I can do it, you can do it! 

The Phases of Making a Big Old Dungeon

Roughly, we can think of the process as a waterfall workflow with six main phases. People familiar with the software development lifecycle will know that waterfall is a dirty word, but there are meaningful gates that prevent future work being done. For example, you cannot do fulfillment until the book is printed. 

That said, by knowing all the steps, you can anticipate what is coming next and begin pre-work on that step. For example, because we know that we're bundling the book with a map, we'll need to anticipate packaging these orders together.

The steps are:

1. Writing: Get the dang thing on paper! This also includes playtesting, revising, and developmental editing.

2. Editing: Before the book can be laid out, the text needs to be copyedited and free of errors. All of the references, monster stats, and room descriptions on page 140 should be consistent with those on page 14.  

3. Layout & Art: Next comes the act of making the text look good by laying it out with expert graphic design and all new art. This also includes creating graphics for information design and indexing.

Psst. This is how The Castle Automatic is looking, re: layout and art. 

4. Printing: At this stage, the creative team is pretty much done, but we're still only halfway to our goal of having the book in hand! The book goes into pre-press to make sure everything was set up correctly for print—colors, margins, gutters, etc. Then, the book is sent to the printers. (At this point, Early Worms will get a digital copy of the book!)

5. Shipping & Warehousing: Once the book is printed, it makes the journey by boat to the United States for warehousing. This part can take a surprisingly long time--3-4 months.

6. Delivery: Once Exalted Funeral has the book, it can be shipped to Early Worms!

Status update for The Castle Automatic

Status: On track

Current phase: Editing (95% complete)

Next steps: Layout is set to begin as soon as copyediting is finalized. Our goal is to finish the layout early next year. In the background, the key art for the module has already been completed. Once layout is complete, additional art may be needed to fill gaps and get everything looking great. Once all additional art has been placed, the digital edition will be ready!

Preorder Timeline

We've had a few Early Worms asking how long the preorder campaign will be open. We would like to give people a chance to get in on being an Early Worm, but still make it special by not having the Early Worm map incentive go on for too long. We anticipate the Preorder Early Worm with Map Campaign to end around the end of the first quarter of next year and then switch to a full priced preorder. That give us plenty of time to know how many maps we need ahead of the early summer delivery! 

If you're excited too, let people know about the book! Tell your friends! Chatter on Reddit! Holler on Discord! Let the Early Worms multiply.

[Early Worm Campaign] The Backstory of the Castle Automatic

In case you missed it, I'm currently running a direct pre-order campaign for my upcoming 100+ room, 5 level dungeon The Castle Automatic. 

Become an Early Worm now!

But what's the story of the Castle Automatic? What makes it an interesting place to explore?

Here's the deal

Long ago, in the confluence of history and mythology, a conquering giant declared himself the Emperor of the Wide World—the king of kings. He gathered four treasures to himself: a sword that could defeat any weapon, a coin that could pay for anything, a cup that granted immortality, and a wand that opened doors in thin air.

In this time, a certain dwarf named Taitale was widely considered the smartest person alive. The Emperor of the Wide World commissioned Taitale to build him a castle populated entirely by mechanical golem guardians to hide these four treasures. It was called the Castle Automatic. Then, the Emperor placed Taitale in the Castle, a prisoner in a prison of her own creation, so that she would never tell anyone how to defeat its many traps and puzzles. 

Taitale's son sought to free his mother and meddled with forces beyond his understanding, playing a discordant melody not meant for mortal minds. Vampiric spirits from the far realms rushed into the world, eager for their fill of blood. They overthrew the Emperor and broke the mechanisms that controlled the Castle Automatic.

For an age, the Castle Automatic has been lost in the Underworld. But now, its gates have been reopened…perhaps by His Majesty the Worm?

Why do you explore the terrible castle?

You can use the Castle Automatic as a dungeon in your Underworld. In His Majesty the Worm, adventurers are primarily motivated by their quests. The GM can add any quest objective into the Castle, integrating their ideas and plots into the factions, treasures, and characters of the dungeon. Because of the powerful artifacts housed within, consider placing it deep in your Underworld where it is not directly connected to the surface. 

You can also use the Castle Automatic as an independent adventuring location, basing a small campaign around finding and exploring the Castle. In this case, the GM can suggest a player (or the entire guild) take a quest specific to the published information from this dungeon.

This dungeon has stats and references to the procedures of His Majesty the Worm. It is still appropriate for use in the OSR game of your choice (with a little adaptation). 

Here are likely personae, treasure, or occurrences in the Castle Automatic that you can tie to your players' quests. 

Find the Four Treasures

There are four powerful magic items in the Castle Automatic: 

• The Perfect Sword, which can defeat any weapon 
• The Coin of Pentacles, which can pay any debt 
• The Chalice of Life, which can extend mortal life 
• The Wand of Power, which can fold space 

Note: The four treasures significantly change the balance of the game, and we recommend against letting the guild continue to adventure outside the Castle Automatic after obtaining any of them. Acquiring the four treasures should either be the capstone of a campaign (followed by blissful retirement), or the triumphant adventurers should become rulers of the Castle, replacing one of the other factions. 

Rescue Taitale

Perhaps the guild has been tasked with rescuing the mythical Taitale from her imprisonment. She is an important figure in underfolklore. 

Rescuing a figure out of the mythic past would be enough to win any underfolk fame and renown. Even the most recalcitrant dwarven lord would surely acquiesce to a request from an adventurer who accomplished such a task. 

Taitale could also bring knowledge out of the past to the present. She could explain processes long forgotten, repair machinery long since broken, or even invent new technologies.

Slay the Hierophant

Perhaps the evil depredations of the Hierophant threaten the City or the guild's allies in the Underworld. Perhaps someone from an adventurer's past has fallen victim to the curse of vampirism, and slaying the Hierophant is the only cure. Perhaps the blood of a vampire lord like the Hierophant is the only reagent powerful enough to power a magical ritual that allows the guild to fulfill one of their quests.

Some example spreads

The development is complete! Copyediting and layout are the next steps. I think it's turning out awesome. Check it out. 

The GM map is the most complete version; there's also a minimap and maps for the players

Taitale and her son, Vorte, have been trapped in the castle for an age

Each room in the castle has traps, new monsters, and new treasures for players to uncover

There are five separate levels, all connected through magical mirrors

Become an Early Worm

New to His Majesty the Worm? Want a ready-made dungeon to get started with? The Castle Automatic is for you! Join now and receive an exclusive map with your order. 

Why the Castle Automatic is doing a preorder campaign instead of a Kickstarter

In case you missed it, I just launched a pre-order campaign for my upcoming 100+ room, 5 level dungeon The Castle Automatic. 

Click to become an Early Worm!

Instead of doing a "traditional" Kickstarter to fund the book, I opted for a pre-order campaign through Exalted Funeral instead. We're calling it the Early Worm campaign. 

Why?

Most folks don't remember this, but once upon a time, Kickstarter was for burgeoning creators to collect enough cash to hire artists, editors, designers, and other folks to help them make their dreams a reality. Since then, the biggest companies in the industry have come to dominate crowdfunding platforms. They bring completed, polished works to the table and gamify people's FOMO. Now, crowdfunding platforms are really marketing and preorder platforms, not really a place for new artists to launch new projects. And, of course, these platforms are happy to take their chunk of the cash. 

The Worm team has long been skeptical of the current trends in crowdfunding. To fund the core game, we used an Itchfunding model—putting ashcan drafts of chapters up on Itch.io as pay-what-you-will to collect enough coins to commission artists and editors. It took a long time, but it was the right move for the game. 

Now, to fund the production costs for the Worm's next big book, we want to do something similar. 

A preorder campaign is like crowdfunding, but it cuts out the middleman and dispels the kayfabe of "will it fund?" We are confident this book is getting made! 

This approach is more honest, more appropriate for Exalted Funeral's size, and promotes a better culture between me (the writer) and you (the gamer). 

But making a book takes a minute! Artists need to draw the art, cartographers need to draft the maps, it needs to be laid out by a graphic designer, the editor needs to make sure all the cross-references are correct. Then, printing, shipping, warehousing, packaging—all before the postal service can bring you the book. While we're working, we'd like to start gauging interest. It helps us cover these costs up front. 

This isn't a Kickstarter, but I'm still excited to keep you informed every step of the way! 

Current status

Writing is complete and the book is currently in copyediting! Layout should be complete by the end of the year. Print files will be prepared early next year. We expect that with prepress, printing, and shipping, this preorder will be fulfilled in May or June of 2026.

I will update Early Worms with regular updates via email. As soon as the digital files are ready, backers will get instant access. 

As thanks for supporting the book during the preorder campaign, we'll give you a free large scale (A3) isometric map of the Castle Automatic illustrated by Guy Pradel. 

Click to embiggen. Ain't she a beaut?

Join the Early Worm campaign, help us prove our point about Kickstarter, and dig into a Metroidvania megadungeon that will make you fall in love with dungeon crawling.