Magic Pacts and Maleficence

First, a story

The handmaidens of Princess Sun are sitting around the hearth of the Plague Inn in the heart of the Necropolis of Ot, speaking to Mistress Anthrax--a disease spirit. Mistress Anthrax's taut face plays in a rictus smile as she idly stirs a cauldron full of brown with one long nail and bemoans how un-fun her roommates have become. She wears a wimple. 

After picking Anthrax's brain about a few subjects, Seara--a sybil and mermaid affionado--murmurs to her companions (but in full earshot of Anthrax), "Well, now all that's left to do is break in."

"Break in," Mistress Anthrax muses. "Break in to what?"

Of course, Seara meant break into the Skeleton Castle where the Mausoleum of Kings is holding Princess Sun's memory. But instead of confessing that, she thinks quick and says, "Break in...to dance!" She does a tiny two step. 

And seven lightning bolts blast out of Seara's chest. 

The common room explodes. The cauldron is crumpled as if by a giant's hand, tables and benches are blown backwards and turned to kindling. Those wearing metal armor bear the brunt of the blast, being electrified and scored with burns. This includes the cadre of eight mummified vikings who were drinking in the corner of the tavern, discussing their death wounds and generally agreeing they were all pretty honorable. 

Seara is a sorcerer. This is why nobody likes sorcerers. 

---

This was the scene that basically ended my session this week, and it was a lot of fun for me. I like to give my PCs plenty of rope and when they hang themselves, I tap my little paws wickedly. 

What was going on here was a system I provide to sorcerers in His Majesty the Worm called "pacts." When you break a pact, you suffer maleficence. 

Pacts

Pacts are magical oaths and taboos a sorcerer invokes during a Camp phase. When you make a Pact, you choose to observe one or more pacts from the following list. Charge one spell that you know for each pact made in this way. Each spell may be charged only once. You may cast a charged spell as if you had prepared it that day (in OSR parlance). If you break the pact, draw on the maleficence table (see below).   

Devour the Living: You may only eat creatures that are yet living when they pass your lips: maggots, shrimp, mice, infants. If you did not bring these creatures (which are hard to carry and keep), you can spend a Camp action to test fate with Cups and see if you can find any of them in the Underworld. If you fail, you are treated as starving. If you succeed, you find enough rats to keep yourself fed comfortably.

Forego Armor: You may not wear armor or helm or wield a shield of any kind, regardless of its construction. Alchemical armor, like an ironweed ghillie suit, must also be forwent.

Forego Skins: You may not wear the skins or furs of a beast, or anything derived from them (such as leather). You may wear woven garments of linen or cotton.

Forego Weapons: You may not touch, handle, manipulate, or wield weapons of any kind—not even a rolling pin used as a club. Any weapons you own must be bound in cloths and lashed to your pack. Wands, bizarrely, do not count as weapons.

Forego Wood: You may not wield, touch, or carry anything made of felled wood. You may not carry a torch, shield, or club. You cannot enjoy the benefits of a fire if that wood was bought with coin in the City (for that wood was certainly felled)—instead, you must sit outside of the fire’s light and heat. Wands, since they're made of willing archwood, do not count towards this prohibition.

Gluttony: You must eat more than your share. You must eat double your normal portion (two rations instead of one) whenever you consume rations or this pact is broken.

Hide Your Face: You must hide your face behind a mask at all times. Sorcerers might choose masks of porcelain, cloth, wood, bone, or more exotic materials. Wearing a mask incurs disfavor on all social draws, and the GM will accommodate your social encounters accordingly.

Self Mortification: You must purchase and wear a hairshirt under your normal clothing. This causes you to be Stressed. If you take off the hairshirt and heal this Stressed condition, you violate this pact.

Self Mutilate: When you make this pact, you cut runes into yourself.  This causes you to take a Wound. If you ever heal this Wound, you violate this pact.

                                   

Silence: If you must speak, you must speak in a whisper. People must be very close to you and it must be very quiet to hear your words.

Verity: You must not tell a knowing lie. (This is what Seara had charged. This is the pact she broke.)

Maleficence

Maleficence is what I'm calling magical mishaps. They are pretty common features of a lot of rules. If you want my favorite set (that I didn't write), check out Wonder and Wickedness. Seriously, it's the best supplement ever for OSR magic stuff. 

There are four maleficence tables for the four schools of magic: Weald (druid shit), Welkin (cleric shit), Weird (illusionist shit), and Wastes (necromancer shit). 

Draw from the minor arcana. 

Maleficence of Wastes

I. A number of imps appear equal to the value of the top card in the minor arcana’s discard pile. The suit of that card will tell you what the imps want. 

Swords: They desire meat. Flesh. Blood. 

Pentacles: They want to get the shiniest thing. Then they want to throw it into a deep pit.

Cups: They want something to keep as a pet. (Woe on whatever they decide to “adopt.”) 

Wands: They crave the blood of sorcerers. 

II. The sorcerer vomits a pregnant rat, which falls to the ground and explodes as a surfeit of baby rats spill bloodily from her belly. Disease oozes from the undulating mass. 

III. The putrid stink of a mass grave fills the area. If the adventurers stay in the area, they all become Stressed due to the smell. 

IV. Demonic flies begin buzzing. If the adventurers stay in the area, all perishable items will soon be consumed as the hell flies swarm into their packs, leaving behind demonic maggots. 

V. A chill, green fog rises. All exposed metal items the guild carries will suffer two Notches as the strange fog rusts and corrupts it. 

VI. Wounds stop closing. Until the minor arcana are reshuffled with the appearance of the Fool, the guild cannot heal any Wounded Talents or the Injured condition. 

VII. The sorcerer begins to uncontrollably weep blood. It’s hard to see anything through bloody tears (disfavor in combat or any vision based activities) and, of course, it ruins your robes. This condition persists until the minor arcana are reshuffled with the appearance of the Fool.

VIII. An invisible mark appears on the forehead of the sorcerer. Until this mark is somehow cleansed, the sorcerer is the primary target of all undead creature. They wish to talk to him, to touch him, to kiss him, to hurt him, to make him understand…

IX. The sorcerer’s shadow departs to perform some mischief. It will return once it’s gotten into some sort of trouble. Until then, the sorcerer lacks a shadow.

X. The sorcerer immediately begins vomiting up a parasitic twin in chunks: little hands, eyes, hair, teeth. They can do nothing until the whole thing is out. If in combat, this gives you the Surprised effect, obliging them to only draw one card per round. This effect lasts until the sorcerer draws a face card (page or better) as their Initiative card. Out of combat, this effect lasts a watch. 

Page. The sorcerer’s pupils become golden, like a wolf’s. This change is permanent. 

Knight. The sorcerer grows black, goat-like horns. These are permanent, but can be sawed off without any pain. Just the stumps will remain. 

Queen. The sorcerer’s reflection (in mirrors and other reflective surfaces) begins to rapidly decompose. Eventually, he’ll only see his bleached white skull when he looks into a mirror. This effect is permanent.  

King. The hex the sorcerer is in is blighted. Plants wither and die. Mothers yield only stillbirths. If this hex was near a place of civilization, there will be consequences. 

Maleficence of the Weald

I. A hairless ape crawls into reality. It disembowels itself and presents its intestines to the sorcerer with an ingratiating smile. It then proceeds to die, smiling all the while. 

II. Shrieker mushrooms quickly bloom around the sorcerer. Any movement through the area raises a mighty ruckus that might provoke a wandering monster draw on the watch table. 

III. The weather goes from bad to worse. Cool nights become freezing cold. Warm days become blistering. Rains become hurricanes. 

If the sorcerer is currently in the Underworld, or some other underground area, the weather manifests physically around them—the caverns fill with torrential rains, blizzards, or simooms. 

IV. Grasping, thorny vines sprout and fill the sorcerer’s zone, Rooting everybody therein. Everybody must take the time to untangle themselves (a Recover action during a Challenge) or may ignore the Root effect and take a Wound as the thorns tear at their skin. 

V. Any potions carried by the sorcerer explode. They, and their bottles, are destroyed. This causes anything written down adjacent to them on the sorcerer’s character sheet to be ruined.

VI. All wooden objects (wands, doors, chests, staffs, torches, bows, etc.) within three zones of the sorcerer warp and twist, as bent by a giant’s hands. All wooden objects in this area are Destroyed. Traps on doors or chests go off and effect whatever’s nearest them, as applicable.  

VII. Lightning arcs out of the sorcerer’s body and Wounds everybody wearing steel armor within three zones, friend or foe. 

VIII. Every animal on the watch table is drawn towards the sorcerer. The next watch is an automatic encounter with every animal in the area. 

IX. The sorcerer’s clothes and gear catch on fire. They immediately take a Wound. 

The sorcerer must put themselves out or they will continue to burn (e.g., by rolling on the ground, by being covered in a heavy cloak, by jumping into the moat, etc.). For the most part, this effort should be automatically successful. The GM should arbitrate how effective the method used works on the sorcerer’s pack. Rolling on the ground might smash delicate items (clayware pipes or glass bottles). Submersion in water might destroy rations or scrolls. And, of course, if left unchecked, the pack and its contents will burn if not extinguished. 

X. An earthquake shakes the area within one mile of the sorcerer. Structures not built to last are destroyed. 

Page. The sorcerer begins to bud with thick, meaty fungus that grows like an insipid cancer on their skin. Those who dare can try to eat the fungus. It has the taste and texture of human flesh. It is delicious and causes all those who eat of it become addicted to cannibalism. This effect is permanent until the disease can be cured. 

Knight. The sorcerer’s legs turn backwards and grow fur, reminiscent of a goat’s. This effect is permanent. 

Queen. The sorcerer is inflicted with Curse: Lycanthropy. When the moon shines, the sorcerer undergoes a change: it is messy, uncontrolled, and violent. However, time doesn’t flow normally in the Underworld and the GM needs not track a lunar calendar. If the top card in the discard pile is a face card (page, knight, queen, or king) during the Camp phase, the moon shines and the consequences of the lycanthropy will be dealt with in step 3 of the Camp phase. This effect is permanent unless a cure is discovered (which can be the source of an entire Quest).

King. The Witchmother looks into the meaning of her haruspexian divination and smiles. She’s been waiting for this sign. 

The sorcerer and their entire Guild are now subjects of the Wild Hunt, as per the arcane pronouncements of the semi-divine fey queen, the Witchmother. A withered gnome politely informs them that they now have a one-day head start before an army of wood elves does their very best to try and kill them. Good luck. 

Maleficence of the Weird

I. A hekatephage manifests and begins following the sorcerer. A hekatephage is invisible and intangible (but may be seen through second sight). A hekatephage devours magic. While the hekatephage is manifested, no spells may be concentrated on in the proximity of the caster; their durations immediately end as the hekatephage eats them. This even ends spells with no set durations (like malediction). 

A hekatephage does not go away on its own. The sorcerer must find some way to banish or defeat it. 

II. Nightmarish idols of Jungian manifestations are rapidly built by invisible hands out of any available material near the sorcerer: floorboards, stones, leaves, fallen branches, mushrooms, snow, etc. 

III. Everybody in the sorcerer’s zone (including the sorcerer) must immediately make a test of Wands. All those who fail suffer the Knockout effect and fall asleep. They may be awoken by a sharp slap (or worse damage). 

IV. Everybody in the sorcerer’s zone (including the sorcerer) immediately suffers the Invoke effect. Determine the emotion Invoked by looking at the top card of the discard pile:

I-II: Anger, III-IV: Distaste, V-VI: Sadness, VII-VIII: Joy, IX-X: Surprise, Page-Knight: Trust, Queen-King: Fear

The emotion is centered around whatever those effected first see. 

V. A mouth appears on the back of the sorcerer’s skull. It babbles in Tylwyth. The GM immediately delivers a rumor to anybody who can understand its talk. 

VI. The sorcerer’s skin, organs, and muscles become invisible. Until the minor arcana reshuffle via the Fool, the sorcerer appears to be an animate skeleton with an interwoven system of nerves and veins. It’s creepy as fuck. You illicit horrified reactions by default. 

VII. The sorcerer begins weeping gooey, saline-tasting tears. They also weep out several small oozes that crawl away to eat and get big. 

VIII. The sorcerer becomes a living illusion. An illusion is nothing but a hologram—you do not produce smell, sensation, or sound (thus, no casting spells). You cannot interact with the plane of Flesh, but you can see and be seen. However, anything illusory is real to you. An illusory sword can cut you. An illusory dragon can eat you. 

This condition persists until the minor deck is reshuffled with the appearance of the Fool.

IX. The sorcerer is no longer able to speak except in rhyme. Everything they say in character must be in the form of rhyming couplets. 

This effect lasts until after the next Camp action. 

X. During the next Camp action, the sorcerer’s worst nightmare manifests in the realm of Flesh physically during stage 4 of Camp. The GM and the sorcerer’s player should talk before-hand about what this is. 

Page. The sorcerer grows a third eye in the center of their forehead. Whenever they use Dwimmercraft to employ second sight, this eye opens. Otherwise, you can keep it closed and it is all but unnoticeable. This effect is permanent. 

Knight. The sorcerer’s coloring pales. Their hair, skin, and irises become milky white. This effect is permanent. 

Queen. The sorcerer permanently gains a mental scar (page XX). 

King. The sorcerer is permanently under the Silence effect. However, anything the sorcerer speaks manifests as illusions of text that hover over their head for a few moments; this is somewhat reminiscent of speech balloons. Luckily, this effect allows the sorcerer’s to cast spells.  

Maleficence of the Welkin

I. An angelic chant manifests around the sorcerer. The music is beautiful, but somewhat loud. Stealth is impossible for the sorcerer while it continues. The chanting will subside the next time the deck is shuffled.

II. The players that sit to the left and the right of the sorcerer have all of their Wounds Healed. The sorcerer suffers the same amount of Wounds. (If this kills the sorcerer, they are countered as a martyr of the Mythric faith, for whatever that’s worth.)

III. Painful boils rise on the sorcerer’s skin, a side effect from undiluted celestial radiation. The sorcerer is Stressed and takes a Wound. 

IV. All rations in the sorcerer’s hex become strangely tainted: water turns to blood and dried meat becomes pulsing, half-living flesh. Only rations made purely from vegan sources are unaffected.  

V. Divine locusts swarm; these locusts are golden in color, with hard metallic shells and faces reminiscent of human faces. The locusts destroy all foliage and plant life in the sorcerer’s hex. 

VI. The sorcerer manifests the piteous wounds of Mythras. The sorcerer gains the Staggered condition, which cannot be healed until they enter a Mythraeum (a church in the Cult). While Staggered, the sorcerer suffers disfavor on all physical tests of fate from the pain and cannot concentrate on spells. 

VII. Greed is a vile sin. Precious coins and gems on the sorcerer’s person instantly and permanently become scarabs. 

VIII. All weapons (except those explicitly made of iron) being carried in the sorcerer’s zone are permanently transformed into tools of a similar size or shape. For example, a sword might be transformed into ploughshares, or a spear into a pruning hook. 

IX. The sorcerer’s brow is permanently lit with a halo. Everybody is suitably impressed, except for spirits. A spirit (of any of the Far Realms) has an automatic negative reaction to the sorcerer and, in combat, will target them above all others.

X. Upon their return to the City, any guild members who are parents are informed that their firstborn child has died. It is reported that the sorcerer’s name is written in runes across their deceased child’s forehead.

Page. A ghostly hand manifests nearby and begins scribing a prophecy in Vetus on a nearby surface. The prophecy foretells of some doom that will befall the sorcerer and their companions unless a very specific, and unlikely, set of requirements are fulfilled. 

Knight. A golem is born from the living earth (even as Mythras was). It looks almost exactly like the sorcerer, except that it’s made of stone. Its only mission is to kill and replace the sorcerer.

Queen. Like Maiden Wisdom, you become supernaturally pregnant. 

You become eight months pregnant, regardless of whether or not you have the normal equipment for this state. For as long as this is true, you suffer from the Stun effect during a Challenge. 

If you carry it to term, you give birth to a semi-divine child. If you lack a birth canal, you give birth via vomiting. 

King. A discharge-brown star appears in the sky. At the end of the third night, a tremendous meteor will destroy a random district of the City, and generally make the City uninhabitable for weeks and weeks.  

Maidens and the Moon - Character Sheet

This is just a small post to gush about my players.

I love them. They are good.

For our current campaign, two of my players put together a character sheet booklet. It holds both the rules for my heartbreaker, His Majesty the Worm, as well as being a nice functional character record sheet. I think it's so cool, and I just wanted to share it.

Click here to download the full thing, if you're interested.

Maidens and the Moon - The Forest Castle

Per my last post, I've been playtesting my heartbreaker using an amalgamation of blogs I like, Instagram artists that inspire me, and some A+ OSR modules. Read the big inspiration post there before going on. I'll try and call out the places I plagiarize gain inspiration as much as I can.

And, again, there's material here that my players have not uncovered yet. If you're in my game, be ye warned that this way lies ruin(ed fun). 

I haven't done a ton to clean my notes up for public consumption. Apologies. Consider this a, uh, a glimpse into the way I make notes. Perhaps the sketchiness will inspire you more than a beautifully laid-out module. Anyway, I can't be assed. 

I have done some work to inject commentary on how the playtest went as the players went through the dungeon. Retrospective-ing is one of the reasons I'm mocking up these play reports. 

The Forest Castle

The Moon King sent out the Siege Castle to conquer the suzerain cities of Gafferdy. 

The Siege Castle first went to the Forest Castle in the Forest of Drood. There, it squatted and shat out deep pits and assault tunnels. Huge, steam-powered axes began cutting down the gods of the druid-knights. 

It worked ruin. 

When the Father Tree fell, the druid-knights took up a desperate scheme to save their lives and their forest. They worked a ritual--ancient, dangerous, and bizarre. They shed their human forms, and let the forest run wild over the city. The population (what was left, anyway) was polymorphed into mushroom giants.

There was no longer any city to conquer. 

So it's a fallen city--a  huge ruined pile. Roofs have collapsed and roads have split open.  The aquaducts have toppled and now streams run through the streets. Coyotes slink out of tilted doorframes.  The buildings are covered with thick tufts of grasses and wildflowers growing from between the bricks.

And everywhere: the trees!

The Forest Meatgrinder

Note: The Forest Castle reviles the use of wood. Candles and lamp oil is okay. Those who bear wooden torches will be targeted first.

Playtest Note: I cover my Meatgrinder basics in this post.

1. 
   

   Resources taxed
2. Resources taxed
3. Resources taxed
4. Resources taxed
5. Resources taxed
6. [Curiosity] Salahander: You spot a giant pink salamander extending its long tongue, which is tipped with an opposable hand--to gather moss from the side of the tree to eat. Its gormless mouth seems to smile at you.
7. [Curiosity] Nature Specters: From the edge of the path, a strange looking undead menaces you. Its skull is topped with a mushroom. It floats to a man’s height, but it wears an old worn cloak. Skeletal hands grip scepter. It throws clementines at you. If you harvest their mushroom, you can make a tea that allows you to see invisible spirits.
8. [Curiosity] You hear the harmonizing of song sloths.
9. [Curiosity] Jar Head and the Night Puppets: A giant wearing a broken earthenware jar on his head lumbers by, planting seeds. He’s followed by tiny fairies (called night puppets), glowing like fireflies. They gather around you curiously, but Jar Head doesn’t seem to notice you - unless you’re burning torches. Then he tries and puts the fire out, angrily.
10. [Curiosity] Spracubi Warriors: A group of cube-like little fellows with sprouts on their head come running by. The last one in the line turns to you and lets out a yelp and runs to catch up with his gang.
11. [Travel Event] Tumblesnatchers: [Discard: S2, P3, C4, W5] giant tumbleweeds come bowling through the area. Attacks people in the back of the party first. Prompts Pentacles tests. Failure means they’re rolled into a random zone. Fungal giants will get to them first. They will extract them from the tumblesnatcher and steal their gear.
12. [Travel Event] Dum Drum Sprouts: A patch of dum drum sprouts grows here.
13. [Travel Event] Strangler’s Oak:. Old Man Oaky - a strangler’s oak hive - looms over a particularly gloomy part of the forest. As you pass under him, he tries to drop his terrible seeds on you! He creaks and moans as he does so. Test Cups to avoid the falling seeds. If you fail, it falls on a patch of skin (your neck, most likely). If you fell Old Man Oaky, the Stiltsman comes for thee! You can use acorn potions to reduce him to a baby, though.
14. [Travel Event] Tunkin: A walking treasure chest, filled with plants, replete with arms and legs comes walking across your path. He freezes when he spots you, then flees. If you recover the plants inside him, you can trade them to Dingle for acorn and oak potions.
15. [Travel Event] Treasure, but in a trap like on Endor. If investigated, a net pulls everyone around the chest into a snare trap. Mushroom Giants steal items off of the trapped PC’s belt for shamanders. [Treasure = sum of discard pile in silver]
16. [Encounter] Jimby Slick, expert bug catcher, asks you for help capturing a Boar Beetle--a beetle the size of a cow. He joins your party. The Boar Beetle is gnawing on the tree in the next place the PCs go to.
17. [Encounter] Mushroom Giants: A shroomling steals the weapon of the PC with the lowest Cups and takes it to a group of larger giants. You notice right as they disappear into the bush. Somehow, they appear sad.
18. [Encounter] Honey Bubble: A porcelain golem made of yellowish clay and painted with bright sun bursts. Smells sweet. Bees buzz around him. Carries jars full of honey. Speaks “Ancient Dweller,” which only a true Linguist knows. Sells you magical healing honey for 50 silver if you can speak to him.
19. [Encounter] Turnip Wizards: Turnip Wizards cry for help in the sound of young children. If you follow, you walk right into their trap ambush! They’ll cast a spell on you for free during their “surprise round.”
20. [Encounter] [PC+2] Shamanders are kicking a Mushroom Giant to death for not doing enough crimes.
21. Ouzel - First warns you of the Stiltsman in a condescending way

Monster Playtest Note: These monsters--and almost all of them in this campaign--are borrowed from Ayejay_Make_Art. I love the feeling of them, and thought they hit that "Zelda" aesthetic I was going for without being otherwise recognizable. See "Lucky Pig" below.

Salahander HD 3 They are very agile. They can climb sheer surfaces like a spider and Dash as a move action. Major Dooms Excrete Mucus: Can excrete a fire-resistant mucus. Can extinguish even magical fire. Sidenote: Fairies love it. Wompem: Can cast Weald spells Their helms can be used as a component for any weald spell. It shatters after one use. Tumblesnatchers HD 2 These are monstrous tumbleweeds. They appear in groups of 1d4+2. Each tumbleweed attempts to trap someone inside itself, prompting a test of Pentacles. Once it has a prisoner, the tumblesnatcher immediately heads off in a random direction, exposing the poor prisoner to whatever perils await in that (potentially unexplored) room. If allowed, they just keep rolling around. Turnip Wizard HD 1 So damn annoying! Major dooms Poison Nettle: If they get you with their stinging nettle-like roots, they deal 3 piercing damage Poison Cloud: Play a major doom in response to an attack. Their puff of choking cloud deals 1 Wound and gives you the Silence condition. Elites -- Turnip Wizards with 5HD are surrounded by floating potato-like spheres which functions as an antidote to their poison if eaten. Dum Drum Sprouts If you fall asleep in a patch of dum drum sprouts, you’ll get infected by them. An infection starts with eye-like rashes on your skin. Soon, the eyes will sprout with bean-like green shoots. Each watch, the sprouts drain 1 Resolve. If you have 0 Resolve, you become a sprout zombie. Sprout zombies cannot talk. The GM gives this person a secret agenda: Kill the meat! Infect them with sprouts! How do you get rid of dum drum sprouts? You can pull the sprouts out, but the eye-like pox will remain. Dingle can cure you for 10s. The Strangler Oak Highly infectious if you handle the seeds with your bare skin. If you do so, a tree begins growing from your back. If you cut it off before it grows, you take 1 Wound, but escape a worse fate. If you camp while infected with strangler oak, the tree grows substantially overnight. It wraps its branches around your throat. It whispers commands in your ear. It’s filled with hate for the fleshies. During an Encounter, the strangler oak can change the targets of your actions. You can resist by taking 1 Wound as the strangler STRANGLES you. You have to kill the hivemind to kill the strangler’s oak. IF YOU DO SIGNIFICANT DAMAGE TO THE FOREST: The Stiltsman comes a’callin. If you’ve wronged the Forest in some way, he thirsts for your blood. He respawns each time a major grievance occurs in the forest.

Stats as a giant.

Playtest Notes: I didn't do a good job designating what "wrong to the Forest" entailed. I was excited to pull out the Stiltsman, and was inconsistent initially about his rules. From then on, the players were more scared to do "anything" than they should have been in ideal circumstances. Players should be able to play around. I would recommend using this character cautiously, with plenty of telegraphy, and some concrete bounds.

Zones of Drood

The "dungeon" of Drood

Playtest Note: I give the PCs a map of the dungeons they go through. There are hidden areas, weird paths, etc., but I don't see any harm in telling them up front what things look like. Mapping is tedious and detracts from the act of play. The Ouzel (the biggest, most talkative bird) gives the PCs the maps usually. Because this was the first session, the Popess gave the PCs this map during the first City action.

Entrance

The ruins of the Drood are like looking at the ruins of Pompeii: a city plucked out of time by disaster. 

The gloom of the forest is oppressive. You cannot see unless you have a light source. 

Mushroom giants running away from a Shalamander, who is messily devouring them. 

The General 

In a blasted, ruined building a hermit lives. The General is a deserter from the Moon King’s army. He wears a dirty parade uniform: doublet, striped poofing pants, tall hat with a broken plume. He has a peg leg. 

• When approached, he barks: “FRIEND OR FOE?”
• He calls the PCs “new recruits.” He considers them his subordinates. 
• He has pockets full of treasure--the spoils of war. He wants the PCs to descend into the Siege Pit and gather cogs. Will pay you 10g per cog. 
• “After the Siege Castle walked to the City of Drood, it stopped a short distance away squatted onto the farmland beneath it.  While its limbs were bombarding the city of Gafferdy, its ass was busy shitting out siege tunnels while turning the excavated earth into projectiles. The city has fallen and the Siege Castle has moved on, but the tunnels still remain.”
• He uses the cogs to create a large model of the Siege Castle. The Siege Castle is fighting lots of little soldier figurines, carefully painted. He spends a lot of time getting the colors, positions, troop placement, and tactics correct. He rolls dice and plays war games with himself. He’d love for you to play with him. 
• He worships the Siege Castle as the War God.
• He doesn’t go into the Siege Pit himself because he “mustn’t leave his post.”
• If asked about going to the Siege Castle himself, he seems nervous. “See the War God in person? N...no...no…He knows terrible things.”

The Siege Pit

There is a tunnel down into a pit. In the pit is the parasite’s web. It’s dark and wet. 

The Passage

There is a bad smell. Both rotting animal and vegetative at the same time. 

• The passage is choked with the bodies of small, cube-like creatures (spracubi). Strange sprouts seem to be growing out of eye-shaped welts which cover their tiny, crystalline bodies. 
• If you fuck with the spracubi, a cloud of spores is released. The fucker-with contracts dum drum sprouts. 
• These reanimate into sprout zombies when the party tries to escape!

The Pit

It’s cold, calm, and dark. 

• A tangle of machinery, flotsam, jetsam, and cogs. The pit is like a crater--somewhat conical. 
• Total of [discard] cogs to be found here. 
• Anybody who steps into the pit FALLS THROUGH.
• You are TRAPPED! Webs! Rope, tattered chords, sails, and rigging crowd the hole. 

The Parasite:

Strong and somewhat smart

A rhino-sized spider, mechanical and made of stained glass - a ruined porcelain mask of a saint’s smiling face

What’s it doing?

S - Winding its web while telling you a story

P - Coming right at you while asking what you are

C - Picking trash from the web while humming some idiotic tune

W - Poised directly above you while screaming, laughing, then screaming 

Likes: Talking (never meets anyone down here), wants to reassemble you into itself

Dislikes: Its own image

HD: 12

Major Dooms:

Reassembly - Heal 1 HD by jamming trash in its wound

Spit Web - Can Roughhouse as a major doom to trap you in its web

How to get away?

Pull off the mask: Reduce it to a mindless pile of trash.

Beat It Up: Reduce it to HP 0 and flee as it reassembles.

Climb Out of the Pit: Someone can drop down a rope you can climb out. 

Or just Make Something Up.

Playtest Note: The players skipped the general and the pit. Because I believe that non-linear play needs skippable content, this is fine. The PCs missed some lore and some treasure, but bypassed danger and focused on the main quest. 

The Lucky Pig Statue

A copper pig statue, smiling and winking. Around its neck, a (copper) braided rope and bell. The bell says “Lucky” in an ancient mode. A slot on its back obviously accepts coins. 

Every 3 silver placed into the statue, a journal page extrudes from the pig’s mouth. 

(The journal pages are from the Knight with the Pentangle Shield)

Trying to pry open the lucky pig causes the pig to squeal. This is a magical effect and triggers a Wandering Monster’s check. 

Unless carefully disarmed, acid floods the pig’s stomach and ruins the remaining pages. 

Playtest Note: I printed out pictures of the monsters from Ayejay_Make_Art and let the players see them each time they put 3s in the vending machine. Because I wasn't using just "Goblins" and "Trolls," this let me telegraph the dangers that the PCs would be facing. It is a little gimmicky, but enormously successful. Really recommend using methods like this. 

The Garden Inn

The Garden Inn is an old ruined building with a huge tree growing through it -- but with a fresh coat of green paint. Crude white letters name this: The Garden Inn. 

Home to Dingle, Mingle, and Walamar, itinerant plant golems raised by some garden wizard of old. They all hate each other but live together in an inn. They don’t understand why nobody ever stops in. 

The plants basically know the history of the city and the deal with the four trees. They’ll tell you if they’re asked. 

Dingle, in the Garden

Master Weed Puller

Jolly and good natured

Complains about Mingle undoing his good work, guarding his garden against him

Blames Walamar’s murderous ways for nobody ever stopping in to his inn

Tends a garden
Digs holes with a stick
Has a worm friend named Ralff
Several of his plants have been stolen by Tunkin, a mimic
“Will you please get them back, please?”
If you do, will give you potions he has brewed:

Oak Elixir: If administered to plant, it immediately grows to be a large adult specimen of the appropriate type (as if 50 years had passed).  If consumed by an animal, immediately grows to be a large adult (1d4 inches taller than average, for a human).

Acorn Elixir: The opposite of an Oak Elixir. It turns plants into seeds and adult animals into adorable juveniles.

Walamar, in the Kitchen

Notorious killer

Damned cheerful about it

Thinks Dingle is a goody-two-shoes

Things Mingle is a jerk (he is)

Brewing a poisonous soup for guests over a bubbling cauldron

Ingredients include minced up root babies (mandrakes), nightshade, red and white speckled mushrooms

Green fumes leaking over side of cauldron

Happy to give you a cup of his “soup” for 5 silver

Poisoned Soup: Obviously poison. Radioactive green. Still, deadly poison is deadly poison. At 5s, this is a bargain. 

Mingle, in the Common Area

Plants weeds, hates flowers

A jerk!

Insults both of his brothers

Insults you too, while he’s at it

If you distract Dingle, he’ll tear up his garden

If you help him out with this, he’ll give you an ooli slime

Ooli: This slime filled with suspended smiling faces loves to devour crops. Deals 5 damage and withers any plant or plant-based creature. 

Playtest Note: Like the General and the Siege Pit, this stuff was straight-up skipped by my players. Ah, well. There will probably be content later in the game that gives the PCs a fetch quest back to deliver something here. 

Dungeon Grass

It's long: waist-high. You hear it whispering to itself, rippling as if an unfelt wind is blowing it. If it likes you, it's as soft as feathers. If it doesn't, it's as sharp as razors (1 Wound for every 10' traveled, or every 30’ if wearing full plate).  

If burned: They create a tremendous amount of smoke. This immediately enrages the local birds who begin dive bombing you, and prompts several Wandering Monster checks. The smell of burning dungeon grass makes plant-based monsters fly into a rage--especially the Stiltsman (Lore Bids can reveal this)

You can talk to it. It has the personality of a wronged samurai. 

Playtest Notes: An avoidable trap by just going around it. 

Fairy Fountain

Here sits an old stone fountain. Clear, cool water pools under a ruined wall and remains of a well. 

A shamander guards the well. As the PCs approach, it crawls out and menaces them.

If defeated and if the fungal giants stole a PCs weapon, an elf will appear hovering over the pool carrying the dagger of dendrification. 

She will say: “The trees told me that thou lost a weapon. Is this what thou lost?”

If the PCs are honest, she will give them the dagger of dendrification. If dishonest, she will give a Malediction to the PC who lied. 

Dendrification Dagger: The wielder of the dagger tests Wands. If they succeed, the victim is immediately turned into a small oak tree. This status remains as long as the dagger is not removed. (Yes, the item is essentially 1 use.)

Playtest Notes: The Fairy Fountain is a "hidden room" in the forest. You can see it on the map just below the Sister Tree, but it's not labeled. Therefore, the PCs did not know of it. I described the sound of "falling water" each time the PCs entered this area, but that did not inspire them to wander that way. I think this was a failing in two parts: 1) I needed a way to broadcast this better, and 2) my current PCs are still learning the ropes of OSR play. It's okay to have skipped content, but I could have helped support the "hints" about this better.

The Father Tree

...is cut down. The redwood sized stump is bone white. A shrine at the base of the tree has a stone reading “Father.”

As the PCs near it, the hair stands up on their arms. Anyone with Wands 3+ seems to hear a distant singing. 

Nature specters ring the ghostly stump, hurling old fruit at you. They scamper away if you pluck their mushrooms. 

Drinking mushroom tea allows you to see invisible, as if you had the sorcerer's sight. 

• If none of the PCs can sense magic, Dingle offers to brew them ghost tea if they bring any nature specter mushrooms. 

Father Tree’s Song: The Father Tree will always sing. If you can see invisible, you can hear his ghostly song. 

C - Eflat - G - F - G - High C 

Playtest Notes: I literally played the songs of each tree on a piano with the expectation that the PCs would memorize the intervals and play them back to me when the time was right. I was skeptical about how well this would work. The first success they had, the PCs latched onto it. They thought that it was so fun. However, because the "gimmick" was repeated four times, they kind of got bored with it. They stopped paying a lot of attention to what the actual notes were. It was only by one or two PC's good note taking that allowed them to progress.  I'd consider it a mixed success. 

The Mother Tree

A weeping willow the size of a sequoia. Her long, feathery branches reach down to the leaf-covered floor. A shrine at the base of the tree has a stone reading “Mother.”

[PC] number of shamander dwelling in the upper branches cast spells on you. 

Can use devil’s dandelion seeds to get to the upper branches. 

Devil’s dandelions growing here are large as picnic tables. Their seeds dance in the air, like parasols. 

If held onto, a devil dandelion seed can carry you in the air about 1000 feet once. 

Mother Tree’s Song: The Mother will sing when a sad story is told to her.

High C - G - G - Gsharp - G - D

Playtest Notes: The devil's dandelions were immensely fun to play with, honestly. Put something like them in your game and let them interact with your combat mechanics. Fun, fun, fun. 

The Sister Tree

A shining silver beech tree. Carved on its sequoia sized trunk are hundreds and hundreds of names bound together with hearts. A shrine at the base of the tree has a stone reading “Sister.”

At the base of the tree is a carpet of flowers. 

The flowers produce a heady perfume. 

Smelling the flowers will produce a euphoric effect. You become Charmed by the next thing you see. 

If you and your lover carve your name into the Sister Tree, your relationship blossoms. 

Sister Tree’s Song: The Sister will sing when she sees two people kiss or hears a romantic story

Dsharp - D - C - G - G - G sharp - G

Playtest Notes: This was a difficult to get right. Some of the "rooms" of the dungeon didn't land because I didn't telegraph them appropriately. I feel like the Sister and the Brother presented stumbling blocks because my (newish) PCs weren't employing all the powers of lateral thinking. 

In this specific instance, the PCs knew that "kissing" needed to happen to hear this song. With the combination of weird NPCs in the forest and the charming flowers at the base of the tree, I had imagined this would be a weird/fun time. However, the PCs did not think outside of this zone. They thought they had to kiss each other. 

Because I wasn't trying to get the game into a magical realm situation, I let a fairly chaste kiss between two sisters activate this song. It wasn't my intention, but I certainly didn't want to make anyone uncomfortable. 

The Brother Tree

The Brother Tree is a goro goro (bomb) melon tree. It occasionally drops a large beach-ball sized melon. 

During a Challenge, a bomb falls as a minor action if the focus character has an odd initiative. 

It hits a quadrant determined by the last discarded card (S = NW, P = NE, C = SE, W = SW)

You can catch goro goro melons before they drop to the ground. You can harvest unripe ones, too. If you heat them up in your hands and then let them go, this triggers their explosions. They begin to swell and pulse. 

Brother Tree’s Song: The Brother Tree will sing when it witnesses someone vanquish a foe. 

High C - G - D sharp - D - C 

Playtest Notes: In the playtest, one player heroically threw themselves on one of the explosive melons and actually died. It caused the Brother Tree to sing, but was more brutal than what I had imagined. 

Like the Sister Tree, I had imagined the players going in another direction. I never want to imagine just one solution to a problem (and, so often, players have thought up so much weird shit), but I am worried that they didn't have enough ideas here to get over the hump. 

The King’s Chamber

A building-sized stone face of a green man--you know, one of those guys composed of leaves--stands here moss covered. 

The great mouth of the green man is closed. Around the mouth is inscribed with the text:

Father tree always sings

Mother when she’s crying

Sister at a true love’s kiss

Brother when there’s dying 

When all four melodies are played

The door will open’d be

And into the king’s chamber come

For the king to see

The Mouth only opens if the PCs play the song of all four trees. 

Courtyard: Spore Hounds

Spore hounds are in the courtyard who savagely bark choking spores and threaten any intruders. Calm them down or fight them.

The entrance to the great hall is covered in heart-shaped symbiotic mushrooms that reflect damage back on the attacker. So, fireball reflects, but starting a fire doesn’t.  

There is a ruined tower covered in vines to the right of the great hall.

There are a series of outer buildings connected to the left of the great hall, with a n entrance to the buttery.

The Aviary Tower: The Fairy Cage

Former aviary, full of hanging, twisted metal cages and dry bird droppings

Currently hosting [PC -1] shamanders. They will be surprised unless the party made a lot of noise. 

The shamanders are carrying [discard] amount of silver hoarded in the aviary.

On one plinth is a metal cage. Inside the metal cage is a glass jar. Inside the glass jar is a flower fairy.

• You can’t hear her through the glass.
• The metal cage is electrified. As is the plinth. Touching it deals 1 Piercing damage or 2 Piercing damage if you’re wearing significant metal.
• You can’t just push it off because that will break the glass jar and hurt the fairy.
• If you save the fairy, she gives you a healing ungent she happened to have. She says she’s going to the Lighthouse. 

The Buttery: The Opossum Butler

Ansell Opossum-knight rules the buttery

“Crikey!" He'll say, "You cunts look dry, don'cha? Have a goon, won'cha? It's the Dickie Dee!"

Nominally serves the shamanders, but doesn’t really like them

The buttery is full of food, but it’s all infected with dum-drum sprouts. Eating it will infect you, too. 

The Great Hall: The Forest King

Zones: Audience, Stairs, Throne, Balcony, Alcoves

An archway leads into a vaulted chamber lit by glowworms that drip from the ceiling. 

So bright, no other light sources are needed. 

An unused chandelier hangs in the middle of the room.

At the back of the room is a raised dais, on which two human-sized thrones sit. On one is  a pile of pale flesh--the skin of Princess Sun!  

Swollen mushrooms half-a-man tall crowd the stairs up to the dais. These barbarian fungi cause a blind attacking rage to overwhelm anybody who disturbs them.

The Forest King, a titanic mushroom giant (look up that huge mushroom from Dungeon Meshi), is being blackmailed by the chief shamander. 

The Chief Shamander has kidnapped the Forest King’s daughter, a mushroom giant princess. 

There are ugly brown toadstools around the audience hall. If you miss the Forest King, you disturb a toadstool and become confused. Confusion means you must pick your Initiative card before looking at your hand.

The Chief Shamander crawls around the ceiling of the chamber waving his wand and disappearing into alcoves. 

“Get them, you huge oaf!”

Will try and drop the huge, hanging chandelier on the PCs

Will cast Wall of Fire to stop them from coming up the stairs

As the PCs enter, mushrooms grow covering the door. These heart-shaped symbiotic mushrooms.

If you defeat the Chief Shamander, the Forest King will stop attacking.

He gives you the flower sword as thanks. 

Flower Sword: By spending the sword’s charge, the wielder can drive the sword into the ground as a Wands action. The sword creates a zone of poisonous flowers around the wielder. This is equivalent to a Stinking Cloud, except it smells heavenly. The user is immune. Charge the flower sword by cultivating and planting rare plants. 

The Maidens and the Moon - A Frankenstein Adventure

For the past three years, I've been play testing my fantasy heartbreaker His Majesty the Worm with my friends. It's been fun!

Recently, we stopped playing a campaign in the "default" setting of HMtW and started playing a Zelda-inspired campaign I've called "The Maidens and the Moon."

The essential premise of this game was stolen from a lot of blogs I like and cobbled together. The main influence is Arnold K's The Moon Castle, which he made several posts about but ultimately never finished. I'm posting this because I've seen a few other campaigns on Reddit that also drew inspiration from this source and I wanted to compare notes with them since they've been generous enough to post their notes online.

For my players who might read my blog: HERE BE SPOILERS. Reading content out-of-play spoils the fun. Avoid reading this post. 

For the greater part of HMtW's playtesting, I've been running a megadungeon. The first two levels of the megadungeon (the Spires and the Castle of Crossed Destinies) have been mostly explored and their dungeon lords defeated. The deeper levels (the Moat, the City of Ruin, the Undercastle, and the hidden level) are mostly unexplored. However, a big sandbox adventure is never really "done." The players have both party wiped and completed big quests, but they're always adventuring until they want to stop. I wanted to play a game with a more traditional structure: do X, Y, and Z, and defeat an antagonist. It felt like it'd be a nice change after three years of sandboxing. 

"Good artists copy; great artists steal." - Attribution conflicted

My primary rules for adventure design are this:

1) Read a lot. You can't write if you don't read. 

2) Repurpose everything you like.

I'm Frankenstein. My adventures are my monster. I rob from the graves of content creators I admire and stitch them together. 

Inspiration

When I was laying out this adventure, I started digging up content from my favorite creators. Essentially, my RPG inspiration includes:

• Goblinpunch’s Moon Castle Zelda Campaign
• Silent Titans by Patrick Stuart, et al
• Tales from the Maze by ayejay_make_art 
• Skin of the Sun by Patrick Stuart
• Bridges and Trolls by Patrick Stuart
• Stygian Library by Emmy Allen

In terms of an Appendix N, I told my players to imagine a Zelda adventure (exploration, emphasis on item use, puzzle-based dungeons, "collect them all" quests) and Miyazaki movies (female protagonists, serious themes explored by juvenile characters, bright colors and beautiful landscapes). 

What I told the players

These are the house rules I provided to my players. It includes some inspirational art and teaser text. (All the rules are, obviously, for my heartbreaker. Ignore them if they don't make sense.)

The general premise was this:

• Each player was part of the court of Princess Sun--a friend, companion, rival, or romantic interest. The gimmick was that most players would be young noble women. 
• The Moon King has somehow stolen the Kingdom of Gafferdy from Princess Sun.
• Princess Sun has had everything stolen from her. 
• Her skin is in the Forest Castle.
• Her hair is in the Siege Castle. 
• Her eyes are in the Mirage Castle. 
• Her memory is in the Skeleton Castle.
• Her voice is in the Slime Castle. 

The Structures of Play

I made this map for them. 

The map is a point crawl. The players can see most of the main locations (all the castles) and a few extra side quest/mini-dungeons (cloud factory, lighthouse, black witch, goblin market).

Players choose which location to go to. Each bridge they cross prompts a draw on the Meatgrinder table. Each quadrant where a castle sits has a different encounter table. 

The encounter tables have various NPCs and micro-dungeons embedded into them. As players discover them, they can draw them into the map. That's why I left so many blank spaces. I wanted to discover (at the same time as the players) exactly what was there. 

Each bridge is manned by a troll. The trolls ask for tolls of 10% of total wealth as players travel east to west. As the party returns from adventuring to the city, they'll lose part of their coin.

Sidebar: Taxes are a GREAT way to incentivize your players. I've never seen so many people become sovereign citizens so quickly as when I introduced the idea of taxes into a fantasy game. 

Play, per my rules, is separated into four phases: 

• The Crawl phase is where players spend most of their time. Here, they pointcrawl around the map or explore the dungeons. 
• The Challenge phase is where the combat mini-game is played.
• The Camp phase is where players rest up, use their supplies, and role-play with each other. Because this is a point crawl, I introduced a new resource called hearth embers that players need to use while camping to heal (see house rules). 
• The City phase (at the Wicked City -- formerly "Blessed City") is where players restock their packs and gather rumors before they head back into the Crawl.

The First Session

I borrowed the first encounter from Silent Titans (with Dr Hog) as the first encounter for this game, substituting an engagement with the Moon King as the main antagonist. 

I asked my players to be patient with me as I started them both in medias res and without knowing what had happened to Princess Sun. After the PCs had stopped the Moon King's initial machinations, the PCs awoke at the Wicked City and made their way to the Collegium Vestal--essentially the Vatican--where they found Princess Sun's desiccated-yet-living-body.

From there, players had a choice of where to go. 

Part of the advantage/disadvantage of the way I run sandboxes is front-loading work. I spend a lot of time getting several dungeons/dungeon levels fleshed out with different encounter tables, NPCs, treasure, etc. 

Pros: This makes things very easy for the players: they can go anywhere and do anything and they're never going "off the map." 

Cons: Obviously, this is a ton of work up front. If your game falls apart and you haven't seen content, you might feel as if this is wasted work. 

Conciliation: If you ever have a game fall apart and your players haven't seen some content, you get to re-use that content. Blam. Free content. 

In a subsequent post, I'll lay out the Forest Castle (which my players have mostly completed, though they skipped a lot of the non-essential content)

The Importance of an Appendix N

I had a shower revelation the other day: the diaspora of D&D is like running a piece of text through Google Translate a bunch of times.

For example, the Australian national anthem.

There is an entire generation for whom World of Warcraft is a primary source. They have never read anything on which D&D is based (despite the fact that they watched the Lord of the Rings movie, like, five times). I remember once trying to convince a friend that the character Bard from The Hobbit wasn't named for the D&D class ("Come on," he said, "a guy running around encouraging people during a dragon attack isn't a bard?"). To this audience, kobolds are tiny lizardmen because, of course, what else would they be? What do you mean they're a type of mine-dwelling Teutonic dwarf?

This isn't a bad thing necessarily. It just highlights the importance of Appendix Ns as a means of education and expectation setting. 

This is how we need to be to new RPG players.

When I first started the hobby, I was 13. I had read The Lord of the Rings the previous year and I wanted more. When my friends introduced me to the (Satanic, cult-inducing) Dungeons and Dragons, I expected a game exactly like the trilogy. I wanted to go on adventures. I wanted to be a hero. What I got was a confusing goal ("get gold") and a bizarre casting system ("what do you mean I forget the spell?"). I found out right away that system matters. 

Frankly, it wasn't until the OSR scene became a thing that I finally grokked why the play experience of early D&D was the way it was. I was introduced to Gary's Appendix N. It clicked. It made sense. Early D&D is very good at evoking the feeling of Howard, of Anderson, of Leiber. Those who seek for a Tolkien-ian experience have (famously) mixed results. 

When you're designing a game, a hack, a setting, a campaign, including an Appendix N can be enormously beneficial for getting everybody on the same page. 

(So can art (despite noism's objections).) 

--- 

To put my money where my mouth is, here are two Appendix Ns for my two current game projects: my Hobbit-ish Wilderlands OSR hack and my dungeon-crawling SWORDDREAM artpunk whatever His Majesty the Worm. 

Oh God! Not More Elves!
The origins of Wilderlands was a thought experiment about using The Hobbit as source material while ignoring the rest of the trilogy. As such, an Appendix N is both obvious and short. Just read The Hobbit, full stop.

What if the river floods beyond its banks, though? What other books evoke the feeling of the 1936 Hobbit?

The King of Elfland's Daughter by Lord Dunsany
This book is masterful proto-fantasy. Like The Hobbit, it takes place in vaguely defined fantasy realm (called Erl) and the protagonists go on an adventure far from the fields they know into realms of the fantastic. Most importantly, folklore feels real, as if elves and trolls are living real lives with real concerns under mountains and in the clouds. There is a shared understanding of the "rules" of the world based on a fairy tale/linguistic akashic record rattling around the brains of English speakers. These rules are not elaborated on, but the truth of them "feels real" to us when we're shown them. (Of course, the Elf King only has one final rune he can use to open the border of Elfland. That makes sense.)

Farmer Giles of Ham by J.R.R. Tolkien
Don't cry foul. Farmer Giles has nothing to do with Middle-earth. It is another book set in an anachronistic England with a ridiculous rustic protagonist and a dragon. In this respect, it dove tails nicely with The Hobbit. I can imagine that the county of Ham to be just over another set of mountains from the Wilderland. Plus, Caudimordax is a great template for what magic swords should be in the Wilderlands RPG.

The Sword in the Stone and Queen of Air and Darkness by T.H. White
In the same way that Middle-earth might be England in the ancient past, White's Grammarye might be Middle-earth in the transitory period between the ancient past and the present. Though more grounded in English toponyms with a more established canon of characters, the first two books of The Once and Future King share a tone with The Hobbit. The Forest Sauvage is a direct analog to Bilbo's Wilderland. There is an anachronistic and humorous tone.

The latter two books of White's masterpiece have a more adult, archaic, and formal tone. I've not included them for this reason. I've also not included other works of proto-fantasy--like The Worm Ouroboros or The Faerie Queene--for this reason.

The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander
If Tolkien wrote a fantasy book by imagining "What if all the characters and creatures from the Eddas were made of flesh and blood and still lingered in the Viking-haunts of an older England," Lloyd Alexander did the exact same thing with the Welsh mythological epics.

The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald
Some of MacDonald's works (say, Phantastes) are dreamlike and, thus, not appropriate for inclusion on this list. The Princess and the Goblin is more rooted in modern causality. It is a fairy tale, pure and simple. MacDonald's goblins and Tolkien's goblins seem more-or-less the same beast: hard-headed, mean, mine-dwelling ne'er-do-wells.

I also like the descriptions of moving around in the total darkness of the mines. Good stuff.

These Are All Comic Books

Here are some comic books that influenced His Majesty the Worm. Not sure why comics were the main inspiration here: something about the visual medium and the vaguely alternate aesthetic? I don't know. Psychoanalyze me, internet! You're cheaper than real therapy!

Rat Queens by Kurtis J. Wiebe and Roc Upchurch

Goddamn, Rat Queens rules. The friendship and interactions between the Rat Queens illustrates the core mechanic of inter-party relationships in HMtW. I want every adventure in HMtW to delve into each character's motivations, backstory, and interpersonal relationships in the same way that Rat Queens does. 

The one-two punches (e.g., the Betty Climber) that the Rat Queens perform in combat are half the reason the combat system works the way it does, too. Aid each other in combat to get the BIG numbers. 

Dungeon Meshi by Ryōko Kui

If we're talking about works that use D&D as a main influence (instead of the influences of D&D), Dungeon Meshi is the creme of the crop. Dungeon Meshi is the most thoughtful treatment of the physicality of dungeoneering that I've ever read. The characters, their gear, and their journeys have a practical weight. It makes considerations about exploration, food, and exhaustion seem fun and evocative. This should be required reading for anybody that wants to ignore mundane gear or avoid tracking rations. 

You can run HMtW directly as a Dungeon Meshi RPG if you swap the word "Alchemy" for "Cooking." 

I Roved Out In Search of Truth and Love by Alexis Flowers

A "warmly pornographic" comic. If you strip out all the pornography, you have a super fun fantasy story. If you strip out all the fantasy story, you have some damn good smut. It is humorous and beautiful in a way that I want a game of HMtW to be.

By default, HMtW isn't pornographic--that would require a lot of buy-in, consent tools, etc. etc. It's not the sort of game I'm trying to run 99% of the time. It is however an "adult" game. Characters can buy into relationships with each other by electing the Lovers bond. Sex is a human need, and is represented in the game better--I hope--than the random harlot table.

House of Orr  by Nolan T. Jones, Rilley Dutton, and Richard Zayas and artist Victoria Grace Elliott
A defunct and unfinished webcomic, it is currently super hard to find on the internet. (If anybody has a way to easily read it, please let me know.) As such, apologies for including it here.

That said, House of Orr genuinely shaped my thinking about "the party as a character." In the setting, political capital is held by adventuring guilds. A struggling guild, the titular House of Orr (who by tradition requires all members to take on a new name with the element "Orr"), hopes to establish itself as a political power. With its whimsical elements, House of Orr is genuinely delightful. It evokes the sense of playfulness that I want a game of HMtW to have. 

Apparitions of Every Shape: Random Location Generation [Wilderlands]

...apparitions of every shape, make, form, fashion, kind and description, that there was not a village in England that had not its own peculiar ghost. Nay, every lone tenement, castle, or mansion-house, which could boast of any antiquity had its bogle, its specter, or its knocker. The churches, churchyards, and crossroads were all haunted. Every green lane had its boulder-stone on which an apparition kept watch at night. Every common had its circle of fairies belonging to it. And there was scarcely a shepherd to be met with who had not seen a spirit!

- The Denham Tracts: A Collection of Folklore : Reprinted from the ..., Volume 2, by Michael Aislabie Denham


I've posted this quote before. It makes a powerful impression on me. 

I've said before that the text of the The Hobbit is QUITE magical and fantastical. Any claim that Tolkien is "low magic" is contradicted by just how much magic is squirming and pulsing on each page.

As you travel across Wilderland, no village, town, or city should lack a fundamentally magical feature. Each location you travel to should have a magic river, a shape-changing mayor, or be built on a lake. 

If you need some fantastic location quickly, use this table.  

The table is a d21 since I use Tarot instead of dice at my table. You can read across or mix and match. 

Draw	Nearby there is...	haunted by...
1	A well	A dragon who sleeps on a pile of treasure
2	A dolmen	A dozen bloody rawbones who will force you to dance with them--to DEATH
3	A hill	A troll cat who'll suck your breath if you sleep there
4	A bridge	A faerie knight who challenges any man with arms who passes, but will allow ladies to pass unmolested.
5	A barrow	An enchanted harp made out of a human rib cage that plays a sweet music
6	A spring	Running with holy water
7	A graveyard	A wild man of the wood, a wose, who tries his level best to scare you away
8	A hermitage	A nuckelavee, who is currently causing a drought
9	A henge	An elf woman who prophecies the hour and method of your death
10	A boulder	A huge, mean toad (seriously, just, so big), currently sitting on a clutch of snake eggs
11	A tower	Redcaps who burn magical candles and knock on the stones
12	A ruined castle	A cruel but sleepy giant who owns a goat whose milk is quicksilver
13	A crossroad	Spectral warriors who reenact their final battle on its anniversary
14	A huge and ancient tree	A clurican that gives away gold coins if you answer its riddle correctly and curses if you fail
15	A monolith	A door that opens to an entirely different part of the country
16	A waterfall	A shellycoat who'll pretend to fall, and then laugh at people's reactions
17	A hot spring	A horrible old hag who can sell a love potion at a tremendous cost
18	An inn	The ghost of a drowned woman, singing a sad song about the sins of her sister
19	A lake	A huldra who'll lure you into the water and drown you, if you let her; it's said she guards a treasure
20	A forest	A hermit (who's really a king? who's really a pirate?) who can lay on hands and heal any infirmity
21	A mine	Kobolds (little dwarves with hard heads and soft feet) are guarding a vein of mithril