Preparing to Play His Majesty the Worm and a Summary of the First Session

 

 Since the game is focused on exploring a megadungeon, the first thing I needed was one. The first option was to adapt a pre-existing dungeon to the system, but in my experience, converting monsters and treasures, studying the lore, generating encounter tables, etc., is quite labor-intensive. So I decided to start from scratch.

The Concept

  The idea for my dungeon is that an entity known as the Dream Worm created this place beneath the city WhisperShadows ruled by a tyrant. Legend has it that the Worm dwells in the deepest parts of the dungeon, and anyone who finds it will have their wishes granted. The place is also filled with treasures and magical items created by this entity, which it uses to lure adventurers into its domain. The Worm feeds on people's dreams, and adventurers, being greedy and ambitious, are highly nourishing.

  Certain factions operate in both the city and the dungeon, which are always important to have. They can open up storylines for players, provide services, or act as enemies. The idea of a wish-granting entity was inspired by Stalker, a Russian novel later adapted into a movie and a video game. The latter also featured factions, which I reworked to fit my setting.

Among them are:

• The Dream Wardens, who try to ensure that nothing dangerous escapes the dungeon. They are paramilitary forces funded by the ruling tyrant.
• The Oniric Inquirers, scholars who study the Worm and its creations.
• The Silver Company, who traffic and sell everything recovered from the dungeon.
• The Cult of the Worm, a sect that worships the creature as a god and seeks to fulfill its wishes, making them targets of the Wardens.
• There's also an assassin sect with its own hidden agenda.

Dungeon Structure

  The idea is for the megadungeon to have multiple floors, each with a different theme. The deeper one goes, the more surreal it becomes. To reinforce the dreamlike, shifting nature of the world, each floor consists of 12 modular sections, which are randomly shuffled and connected every time adventurers descend for exploration.

Officially, the rulebook states that players should have an almost exact map of the dungeon they are about to enter, but my players and I enjoy the mapping process, so I decided to discard this rule. In this case, they will have the additional challenge of mapping modules that may have changed positions upon their return. To make this easier, each module has a landmark or unique characteristic that distinguishes it from the others—such as a violet mist covering the area, bloodstained tiles, or the constant sound of peculiar music.

Each module contains between 8 and 13 rooms, allowing the dungeon map, room descriptions, event tables, and a monster stat summary to fit across two open pages. This layout is inspired by Necrotic Gnome and Questing Beast modules. Having all the necessary information in one place is crucial for smooth dungeon mastering, as it prevents delays caused by flipping through pages.

The first floor’s theme is a dreamlike version of the surface city. The hallways are streets, and the rooms resemble versions of the houses above, but they are not fully functional. Additionally, each module has a subtheme. For example, one features rooms filled with recurring dreams—such as punching but feeling no impact, falling endlessly, drowning, or trying to run but being unable to move.

The most time-consuming task was creating the event tables for each module. The system refers to these as "Meatgrinder Tables," and they trigger events whenever players enter a room or time passes. These events integrate with the room’s existing contents and range from mundane flavor elements to enemy encounters, NPC interactions, or extraordinary situations that drain resources. Midway through the process, I realized that the tables have 20 entries, but each module has at most 13 rooms. However, I decided that the extra effort would add more randomness to the experience, so I continued.

Monsters and Treasure

Two additional aspects to consider were monster design and treasure distribution. Since the combat system is quite different from traditional ones, it was hard to gauge which monsters would be a threat to players and what abilities to give them. I followed the manual’s recommendation of mashing up abilities from existing monsters and estimating that a 4HD monster from a retro-clone system should be converted into a creature with 4 points of health/armor in this system.

Regarding treasure, I tend to be a bit stingy—I like my players to struggle financially a little. So, I placed one large treasure source and two smaller, easily found ones per module. Additionally, each large treasure contains a useful magic item. I prefer giving them interesting objects rather than just a +1 sword.

Character Quests

In HMTW, every adventurer must have a quest that drives them to descend into the depths. As I built the modules based on my notes, I compiled a list of potential quests for players to choose from when creating their characters. These quests can also serve as contracts given by NPCs or as plot hooks to develop. Some examples include defeating the Serpent’s Offspring, finding the kidnapped children, collecting the fragments of the Serpent’s Eye, or giving fallen adventurers a proper rest.

First Session Begins

With the first floor completed and the second halfway done, I gathered the players for a Session 0 to introduce them to the world and create their characters. My friends quickly divided up the roles, ending up with two warriors, a mage, a rogue, and a support/surgeon. The longest part of the process was choosing equipment and, especially, deciding on the name of their adventuring guild—they spent nearly an hour throwing out random names. Once they settled on one, they established the relationships between their characters.

In this system, each relationship type is predefined in the rulebook and has a specific trigger to generate Bond points. These points are used when resting in the dungeon for healing and other activities, adding a pragmatic use to relationships while encouraging roleplay. The default relationship is "ally," but my friends thought that was too boring, so they ensured that every character had a unique relationship with each other, making it trickier to track how each Bond is triggered. For example, the orc warrior has an unrequited love for the human monk, who also happens to be his boss. The orc is best friends with the elven rogue, who, in turn, is the monk’s adversary due to religious differences. A recipe for chaos and fun.

Most players picked pre-generated quests except for one. As their first mission, they decided to search for the Prophetic Tree, the quest of the dark elf mage. With just an hour left in the session, we proceeded to test the system.

The party entered the dungeon through the main gate, where street vendors sell potions and artifacts. Lacking money, they headed north. With no clue where the mystical tree was, their plan was simply to open doors and see what happened. The first room they entered was in complete ruin—centuries had passed, leaving the objects in disarray and covered in dust, except for a pristine clock on the wall. After some hesitation, the Priest decided to move the hands backward, rewinding time slightly and returning the furniture to its original positions. The players had to roll agility checks to avoid being hit by moving objects. Encouraged by the effect, they rewound time further, revealing a giant spider with human-like hands—perfect for testing combat.

Combat in HMTW functions as a distinct minigame from the rest of the system. Each player draws four cards from a deck and places one face down. This card determines initiative order and also acts as the defense value.

On their turn, a player spends a card to perform an action, with only the card’s number determining success. After a player's main action, the rest of the party can take minor actions. These actions can be anything, but if the card’s suit matches the type of action, it grants a bonus—for example, attacking requires a sword suit, and dodging requires a pentacle suit.

Half the group, less familiar with tabletop games, found the system confusing at first, while the more experienced players quickly grasped it and took charge. The spider played a 1 for initiative, bit the orc, and was then utterly annihilated in a single round. I learned that rushing to act first with a 1 isn't always a good idea if you lack enough health.

Afterward, they rewound the clock further, discovering that the previous owner of the house had hidden a chest under the floorboards. The spider had wrecked the place trying to find it. Inside, they found a good amount of gold and a chameleon-skin cloak that aids in camouflage.

With that, we wrapped up the first session successfully. The players were satisfied with their characters and the system. The only challenges were remembering how to gain Bonds and fully grasping minor actions in combat, but the rest felt similar to other RPG systems.

In my next entry, I'll share what happened in the longer second session and some thoughts on testing the system in an extended playthrough. Until next time!