Hello and welcome to the Weekly Scroll podcast.
My Name Is Ryan. And I'm an untamed homunculus.
And with us today we have a special guest.
This is Josh of Rise Up Comus. How you doing today, Josh?
Doing good guys. Thanks for having me on.
Thanks for coming. Absolutely.
I've been so excited about what we're going to talk about today
for so long because I've been just seeing it on Twitter for so
long and I'm sure we'll talk about that as well.
But for those that may not know, who the heck are you and what
are we talking about today? Well I'm, I'm really just an up
jumped Blogger, but I have a game coming out next year called
His Majesty the Worm. It is a game about, I mean, it's
a, you know, one man's. Testament to his own folly, you
know it's about mega dungeon exploration game with a focus on
the human elements. It has tarot cards as the
randomizing element, and I'm. I'm excited to talk about it.
Yeah, like, like I said, I've, I feel like I've been seeing
something about His Majesty the Worm for as long as I've been on
Twitter, and I know it hasn't been that long, but how long has
you has this been in the works and have you been talking about
it? Cuz I know I've been seeing it
on Twitter a bunch and I've downloaded the appendices a lot,
but I just recently actually got to the blog and realized I have
so much to read, which makes me very happy.
But how long has this kind of been in the works?
Yeah, I mean, so I think like a lot of people that are in the
TTRPG space, this isn't my day job.
Which is, you know, I'm sure my boss would be very mad that I'm
on a podcast during my day job to talk about it, but you know,
I please don't. You know, this is just like this
is my hobby project, my passion project, so and these things
have a long tail. Actually, printing words on
paper is difficult, time consuming, expensive.
So I've been at this for a little while.
I started writing the game. Seven years ago or so and you
know, just like hammering away 8 hours a week on Sundays.
So yeah, I've been yelling about it for a while because it is
ITCH funded. I'm not going through
Kickstarter for funding. So what I did was to kind of get
people interested and. See if this had any traction and
see if we could like raise funds for all the things that I know
that I cannot do, layout and art and editing and things like
that. I put chapters of the book as
they were coming out, with some pretty simple layout and some
public domain images on each, and most of them are free or you
could get them free if you signed up from a mailing list or
had a pay what you will and people were kind enough to.
Come through, throw me 5 or $10 and using that method I paid
everybody that worked on the book to contribute stuff.
So it's it's taken a little while because I had this kind of
like long form method of crowdfunding, but it's you know
kind of finally coming out. So it's coming out next year in
Q1 from Exalted Funeral. Nice.
Very cool. Cool method, I guess.
Yeah. I guess the question is why?
Was it like, what? What made you want to do that?
Was it just so you could put stuff out as you worked, or was
there a specific reason you didn't want to go to something
like Kickstarter, as, as you know, someone who hasn't put out
like a ton of stuff already was? Was that like a factor that
played into it, or was it just about putting out the
dependencies? Yeah, I.
Think Kickstarter is terrifying and is very scary as a space
and. Is a tremendous amount of work
and I like writing games. I'm here to write and play games
that I enjoy with my friends. It is, like I said, a hobby and
it's something I don't want to like, lose that joy about,
right? Kickstarter has the likes.
I have some some feelings about it, especially as like larger,
more successful and established companies essentially just use
it for like fulfilment. You know they put out
essentially like a 99% finished project.
They're like oh please back us, which is you know, not you know
competing with companies like that is very intimidating for a
guy with not a lot of things out right now, right.
So I I wanted to do a non traditional route for a couple
reasons but the the main one was just I'm here for the love of
the game. Yeah, I mean that's fantastic.
Like you said a lot of a lot of bigger companies are really
using Kickstarter now is like a like a pre-order storefront not
as like I need your investment to make this thing happen and
that's shitty but Kickstarter just making money so they don't
give a shit. Yeah OK so you know teach their
own but this is the this is this is great like that's these are
the kind of projects that we definitely love to find and you
know the first time I I read through the 1st dependency I
read was or the appendix I read was the sword is sorcery is a
sword without a a a hilt like just it's so good and when you
get through all the rest of it I guess so many questions.
So to start it seems like a very like table heavy and procedure
heavy but Rules light system. Was that the intention all along
to have people? I know there's anti Canon
aspects to it to have it be kind of like a build drone and then
go with it or what was and if so like what was the impetus to
like choose that kind of path forward.
So is the question like you know I want to make sure that I, I,
I'm I'm answering it right. Let me let me say it in the way
my brain works. So it's not an OSR game.
It's definitely a very you describe it as like a new school
with old school sensibilities game.
It it uses tarot, it uses a ton of roll tables, you build out
your own mega dungeon as you go. What made you want to go that
route as opposed to kind of like the standard OSR and or you
know, D&D light game? Yeah, OK, got it.
I love the OSRI. You know, like I said, I'm an up
jump Blogger and I got into blogging.
You know, just when it stopped being cool, the, you know, I was
kind of there for the last gasp of G+, which is, you know, I
think most people in this audience probably are are deep
enough in the nerd lore to get it.
But you know when you know there's the social media
platform that fueled this RPG movement in the like, the teens
and odds? And I was there just in time to
see it die. And I was like, all these people
are talking about the coolest stuff.
They're everybody was so inventive and they were sharing
their their content. I mean, just like, I mean, it
blew my mind. I thought it was such, so much
more creative stuff than everything at my game table.
And I've played RPGs forever. And these guys were having the
experience that I wanted to have and I I really was getting fired
up by their their big ideas. So I started a blog and and it
was throwing little things out there to be part of this
community of people that had an idea, committed it to paper and
somebody else took the idea and ran with it.
And somebody else took that idea and ran with it.
And there was these iterative processes.
As you can see the layers of strata as like things moved and
were passed around. Around blogs.
So like I I started playing OSR games at that point.
But when I was writing my own system, you know I I was making
the game that I wanted to make with my friends and I certainly
can and do play OSR games. But I'm also always synchrony
with mechanics. I think they're interesting.
I like game mechanics. I like thinking about them and
and playing with them and I like to play different games because
of them. The the mechanics of a game have
a different texture, have a different grip.
You know it feels different to just so you know do run through
different procedures. If you are in D&D and you're
making a role to attack and a role for damage, that feels
different than an into the odd game where you're not rolling to
attack, you're just rolling damage.
And that feels different than a World of Darkness game where
you're rolling attack and damage and defense and armor like all
those things have a different texture at the table.
So I'm like I'm interested in that.
So I wanted to play with the game that I.
Was like kind of just had in my head.
And I've always done that. I've I've made games for my
friends so that when we end there, I mean I've just been
blessed with a real indulgent, extremely kind friend group or
like, yeah, we'll play your, you know, your little heartbreaker
and you know, Oh yeah, it's just like a, yeah, it's very
indulgent. Yeah.
And then, you know, after I'd, like, made this game, I was
like, what does it take to show somebody that's not just my
friend, right? Like, how do I show somebody
that's not sitting at the table with me?
And what do I need to write down so that they can play it, too,
without me hovering over their shoulder and explaining it to
them? Like, oh, no, I see why you said
that. But actually, you can't do that.
And it's like, you know, what? Do I, what do I need to do to do
that? So this was my attempt to do
that. I mean, damn, I can tell you
right now, just based on the appendix, you did a really good
fucking job. I mean.
Thank you very much. So why tarot?
Yeah. OK, so the top level is in the,
you know, I was talking about how I think mechanics are cool,
I think card game. And then, you know, there's, and
I'm not exaggerating when I say there's hundreds of games that
use cards as a randomizer, as kind of their main dice
alternative out there. And I think cards are really
cool. I like them because they are
persistent. You can have hands of cards.
They will stay on the table. If you put a card down,
everybody can like reference that card.
They have a gaminess to them because you can draw three, put
back to play from the top of the deck, the bottom of the deck,
reorder parts of the deck you can.
They're informationally rich, especially tarot cards.
You know, they have suit, they have number, they have direction
on the table. So there's a lot of stuff there
to play with. And you know, I could have made
a playing card game. Playing cards are $0.25 at your
I mean Kroger. But tarot cards look kind of
metal and they look kind of badass and they had this like
arcane feeling to them. And I don't use them for
anything else but gaming, but I think they are cooler to look
at. They're more interesting in my
hand. So I just was like, yeah, OK,
yeah, Tarot was the what I'm going to go with this time.
I'd agree. There's something just so much
more magical about like I because I I have a few playing
card like role-playing games and then I think I have another
that's tarot based and it's like, yeah, pull the tarot cards
out. Feels a lot more magical, you
know? Yeah.
One of that experience that my mom forbade me from playing D&D
for, right. Like in the 80s she was like,
no, you can't play D&D. And I'm now I'm like, yeah,
because it looks like this. Because, like, yeah, she's.
Really leaning into that, I I remember as a kid like just
thinking tarot cards are really cool and ask my parents if I
could get a set and then like having to go talk to my pastor
about why I'm not allowed to have a deck of tarot cards and
now I have like 10. So you know thanks.
Thanks mom and dad. Yeah.
I mean it's it's it's really interesting the way that they're
used in the all the different appendixes as a really is a
generative tool. They're not, cuz so from
everything I've read so far, I've seen hints of like what
combat is like. Maybe in the the blog post that
I haven't got to yet there's a little bit more talking about
that. So I don't know if they're more
built into the mechanics that way.
But from what I've read through the appendix is a lot of the
like dungeon building aspects are really like you can
literally flip a card and be like guess what that's where
you're at now. Or especially in like the
magical ones and stuff as well like the tarot or so associated
with pretty much everything that you can do to build a procedure
and stuff like that. So was it difficult to take that
or did you kind of take the like the numbers like major Arcana,
minor Arcana suits numbers and went OK, I have this many
numbers to work with. This is how I'm going to
incorporate it. Like what was your kind of
process for choosing how to use the Tarot into the various
procedures? Yeah, good question.
I I think. So I mean really in a in a in a
very, very basic way the cards are are just a randomizer and I
think they have some like additional gaminess that I
mentioned you know the that that come up in in different rules
especially combat. But really really you I mean and
and there's a sidebar that explains if you don't have a
tarot deck and you just have some playing cards you can you
can do it in a pinch. I think some people are
interested in tarot games. Because they're interested in
tarot reading and they think that the tarot reading aspect is
an important part of gameplay and it's really not.
It's. And you know, I still hope that
they want to play the game and stuff, but like that is not the
intention of having the tarot deck, you know, really it's
just, it's just a randomizer. But because the randomizer is
persistent, you know you can in the same way that I mean.
Dungeon stocking procedures. What comes next in the dungeon
is as old as D&D itself because the your little randomizer is
not just used looking up tables and rolling and writing down
what you see. You can lay them out like it has
like this additional fun element.
I think that there's a kind of like play that really thrives
with dungeon crawling, and that requires some upfront work and
then the end. Love that work for AGM.
So when it took, when it comes to building a dungeon, I think
that it takes a, you know, a couple Sundays of work.
That's how I made the dungeon that I ran for for five years,
uninterrupted. Play a couple Sundays of like,
thinking, what's in this dungeon, What do I need to put
there? What's interesting, what are
interesting challenges, what makes for a fun game?
And I I, you know, wrote all that stuff down, all that stuff
that was in my head about what I think is fun, I put down on
paper. And if you do that for, you
know, a couple Sundays and you have a a answer these like
series of questions, 20 questions.
Play 20 questions for through yourself and you can make a a
pretty decently sized dungeon and then you your work is done.
You know, I think that there are some games that thrive on like
what are my players going to get up to this week.
Oh well, last week they did this and now I need to plan for this
and I'll start this encounter. I'll build my encounter, but oh,
there's some volleyballs will be over here.
But like, once you know what's in the dungeon, it's in a real
space. You don't have to prep ever
again, You just have to front load that work.
So that's what the tarot cards were doing in that section for
me, right? Like it was letting you kind of
get that work out of the way and like think through what a fun
dungeon looks like. But I mean, they're like,
they're used in all sorts of things.
Every mechanic has the tarot cards.
Integrated to them in some way because there's no other
randomizer on the table. I like that you really like
Drive Home that uses randomizer all the way through even to like
beyond just play. But like prep itself, I was
reading through the you know, the Building, the Mega Dungeon
or Dungeon seeds and I really enjoyed like the concept in in
your approach to this like Somatic and like.
Use space. It's like space that has a logic
in turn way to it. I really appreciate it all the
way through. It was cool to see.
Yeah, cheers. I I think that a blank page when
you're prepping for a game is is very intimidating.
If you have a book that has some prompts, some randomizers like
some of my my best work has as a GM I think.
My most interesting challenges Dungeons encounters have been
because I had a random table that I committed to using I I
like this table, this is good. And then like a something that I
wouldn't have come up with my myself came out of those results
and I'm like well, how did how does this work?
And the answer of like. Like fighting through my initial
like, wait, I don't, I don't get it.
The answer when I fought through that is better than the stuff I
could have come up myself. So that's what I wanted to
provide. You know provide would be GM's
and players like and you know not all tables that you see for
RPGs on the Internet are particularly interesting.
You know, 1D20 dungeon dressings and it's like table chair
handle. Box Sack, Brown sack.
Like those things are are are you know a dime a dozen and
probably creative exercises to like kind of like bang out but
not very useful to me at the table.
So getting some random tables out there that are interesting
and generate cool results and are actually fun to like play
with after they put them all together is was important to.
Me do you see like so Maybe this might be a two-part question.
First off, do you think about people?
Themselves releasing like third party content for this and Part
2, like where do you see it sliding in?
Because I could definitely see people making their own like
Dungeon Seeds book that has their own like generation stuff.
Yeah, the first page of the end papers is a big bold text that
says except for the fact, except for the art, which I don't have
the rights to reprint. Please read.
Purpose and use everything in this book.
Print it at Kinko's. You know, make copies for your
friends. Unless you are like just selling
it on the street corner like AI mean.
Even then how mad could I be right?
If you were just like printing new copies and like selling them
on the street corner like the like the pirate DVD guys, how
mad would I be if someone is actually doing that to my game?
Please use the game however you want.
Please put out third party content and you know once the
game is out, you know something that I'm trying to generate
right now. While the game is going through
fulfilment our tools to do that, I want to I want to make this as
easy as possible. I want to talk to you about it
if you're interested in it. I want to like play test it with
you. I want to edit it for you.
I want to give you an Indesign file with all the styles set up
so that you can like just plop your content in and and publish
it. And I want you to make as much
money or as little money, whatever you feel comfortable
with. I'd I'd love to play this game
with other people. That'd be really, really cool
to. Me.
Very cool. Yeah.
It's funny cuz on I think at least two.
Is it three Of the four, I think at least two of the no, three.
Of the four. The beginning part literally
says copyright is a joke, Like permission is granted to do
whatever. It's like, yeah, stealing all
our shit. Anyway, so.
I mean, I came out of this. Like I said, the OSR movement in
the blogs were just like the most powerful ideas I've ever
seen getting passed around and getting.
Better for it, and if if I could possibly contribute to that,
that would be awesome. Yeah, it's like I said, I mean,
just the OK, so question. My brain almost went in a
different direction. I don't want it to.
Why His Majesty the worm? Like, where did that come from?
Yeah, it's an illusion. It's a literary illusion.
There's a Talib called vino book called The Castle Lacrosse
Destinies. And in that book you know the
the premise of the book that there's these pilgrims traveling
through a wood kind of like on the Canterbury Tales maybe.
And they find that they can't speak.
So they take a tarot deck and they tell each other stories,
their back stories by laying out the cards in these certain
patterns because you know the game has tarot cards.
I thought it was a kind of an apt illusion and the there's a
it's from a quote from there where the king is being led by
his gesture into a the graveyard and the gesture points towards
an empty grave and says here Her Majesty reigns greater than
yours, His Majesty the worm. And it's not.
I thought it was so evocative and cool.
I pulled it out immediately and put it on, you know, my Word
document. Yeah, no, it really is it There
it's. It's a title that you feel has
so much more in it than just 4 words.
Like every time I've seen it I'm like what is this?
But it feels so I don't know, like almost esoteric or
something. There's some some like medieval
aspect to it that just. I don't know it it it it's
definitely. Intriguing.
And like you said, it's very evocative and it's a great title
and the logo is great as well. It's just all around just a good
job. I don't even know what that's to
say. Sometimes it's just so good.
Thanks. I mean, again, I can only take
credit for so much. I think that a lot of the design
work Pete Borlis, my graphic designer, did to make this thing
look good. The logo itself is a piece of
public domain art. It's in the the front's piece of
John Bauer was a turn of the last century Norwegian painter.
And in the front's piece of his book that I have, he has this
little like worm logo. And I I fell in love with it as
soon as I saw it, kind of the same way that I fell in love
with that. The title from the Calvino book.
I just pulled it out and I was like this.
Is this is worth keeping? So as far as, I mean, like I
said, there's so much of all four of these appendixes that
are out right now. The appendices that are out
right now are, I don't say roll, they're tables or lists or just
like a lot. It is.
That is a lot of very creative, very good writing and is that
what like has taken a lot of the bulk of the seven years or like
what's your process for sitting down and being like, I need to
come up with these? Like, crazy awesome.
Like Maleficent of the waist. Because, like, my brain goes,
all right, I need to sit down and write dark stuff for my dark
thing. You know what?
Blood. OK, so I'm stuck now.
You know what I mean? Like what?
Like, do you just, like, read a lot of stuff and and you're just
like, oh, that's cool, let me take that?
Or do you just sit down and like, try to get the mindset or
like, you know, what's what's the process for coming up with?
I mean, because if the book is as big as you say it is, these
appendixes are scratching the surface of it and there's still
so much in them. Yeah, great question.
So, you know, one I'll just say upfront, yeah, I think reading
and regurgitating is all art is. But my process for like writing
this stuff was I wrote a vast bulk of it at AI, started the
book when I was at a job that I was bored at.
And I just wrote like all day every day.
I was like, well, nothing else to do.
I have a word processor and free time.
And then there was a, you know, there's a question.
I was like how do I get stuff out of my head and onto paper in
a way that somebody else besides me and my friends can use.
So trying to like think through that, right?
Like, what are the things that I do at the table that are just,
you know, the assumptions that I have and how do I make those
into like kind of like knowns and raise those as subject
matter to be talked about, whether they're, you know, how
sorcery should interact with the world or how you build a dungeon
or whatever. And I tried to like think
through that and put it onto paper.
So I had just like, you know, the My Notes document was just
like a bunch of kind of unrelated essays about how I run
games and and how you should run games if you wanted to run them
like me. I don't know if you do, but if
you did, and then I turned all of that over to my editor,
another person that I think deserves a lot of credit, Melody
Watson. She did a fantastic job.
And, you know, as somebody that wasn't in my head, she really
helped me figure out, like, OK, this came out of nowhere for me.
I didn't. I had.
I got to the end of it and now I get it.
But like, we need to introduce these things in a different way.
These are unrelated essays. So that was, you know, the hard
work of taking all that stuff and putting it into a format
that is digestible, easy to search, easy to understand,
what's all in it, where you want to go and how do you get there.
But it was really important to me to put out a full game, and I
think you can have a full game on an index card.
I think you can have a full game on A1 page PDF.
But if you if I'm, if I'm selling like the snake oil,
right, that mega dungeons are fun and that's a hard sell.
I think a lot of people have bounced off of them.
I think some people have had bad experiences.
If I'm going to sell that steak oil, I need to like really put
out everything that you need to do it.
So you know you could have had this.
And I in my first days of writing this, I really thought
this was going to be multi books, kind of bind them
together, something together in a box set, but the IT was
practically it was unfeasible for like printing reasons.
That was like $200.00 and I didn't want to make an
unachievable book. So by binding them all together,
it's really like multiple books, right?
The GM's book, the players book, a sample adventure, Subs like
magical subsystems that you can play with a bestiary, everything
that you would want from a kind of like robust system.
And it was just the the lowest price point that I could sell it
to you for was if I put them all into the same book.
We appreciate that, honestly. Yeah, very, very humane of you.
Very nicely. I would have bought it
regardless, but like, yeah. I would have been regardless,
but I I, you know, I appreciate it then.
So playing the game, I know you just said you're talking about
snake oil and mega dungeons and stuff like what?
So I I'm definitely one of those people that have bounced off
mega dungeons. I have, I have some, they're
they're great to read. But as far as like playing in
the mega dungeon, like what about it?
It like makes you want to play that game and like you know, you
talked already about, like giving people the tool so they
can play it as well. But like what?
What is the impetus to make that?
The style of this whole game? Yeah, Mega Dungeons were my
white Whale forever. You know, I think, I think my
first mega dungeon experience, well, I had a lot of campaigns
that were like, oh cool, this is under Mountain and the DM has
like 500 maps and I know that there's 1000 rooms.
I can see them. And the campaign lasted one
session and we quit. I mean, so many like so many
games. Yeah, yeah, I mean that's the
real dragon to slay is scheduling conflict.
But Mega Dungeons is why White Whale Forever.
It was like the the core of the of the fantasy role-playing
experience that I like, had this vision about ever since I
started playing when I was 12. And it is.
It's difficult to pull off, but there's something really
captivating there about that. Like in the themes of just this,
you know, in the OSR they, they call it this mythic underworld,
this space that is magical and nimbical to human life, you
know, mythological. There's something, there's a
building that that I just like. I don't know why I like the
color green, I don't know why I like mega dungeons.
But when it comes to playing them there, there's something
that is I think, really fun there.
And it's there's persistence in the gaming world that comes
about going back to the same place and having an adventure
location that is big enough, robust enough that can it can't
withstand this. You know, it's not a dungeon
that you clear after a couple sessions and then leave and
never think about it again. It's a dungeon that you.
OK, I know what it is. If you guys played Metroidvania
games where you are. Yeah.
And you, like, you know the
you're exploring and you see a door on a ledge and you don't
have adult, you don't have a way to get up there and you're like,
I'm going to have to come back. You haven't.
You haven't, unlike double jump yet.
So you have to go back to the other place totally.
And before a number of other things, there's like, so a
megadungeon is a space where you aren't just going through,
kicking down doors and and leaving forever.
You're going through and you're like, huh, I don't know what to
do about this door yet. And that's OK because there's a
million doors this other way. And then, you know, a couple
sessions later, you're like, wait a minute, I've seen this
symbol before and you have this aha moment and you're like, OK,
well, this symbol can be opened by this key that we got, you
know, and I haven't seen it for five sessions five months.
And like, let's go backtrack. And there's like these aha
moments where you're like uncovering new things to the
dungeon and it changes because of the things you did.
You started the fire that, like, swept through rooms 131 through
163. And now those are like charred
husk. And you defeated the Lich from
level one. And now level one is safe.
And you can like, start a little bit lower next time.
And like, you see these people that have played with me for a
couple years and they, they have this memory, they have these
memories from play. And new players come in and
they're like, OK, when we're going through this room, the
thing that you're going to have to remember is like, we can't,
we can't speak out loud there because there's bats with sonar
and they can hear you. But like, if you're totally
silent and they're like, Oh my gosh, I can't.
And like, there's these, like, generations of players that have
learned and explored and conquered this dungeon.
I think that is so satisfying, both as a player and AGM.
It really, really is is gratifying to watch these things
happen, to this, to this thing that I just made.
Like, you know, over the course of a couple weeks of like,
writing down ideas and stealing dungeons that I liked and
cobbling them together with Scotch tape.
Man, I'm trying to complete your table.
Come on over, man. Yeah I'll just fly over well you
know if you guys want to we I would be more than happy on the
podcaster off to you know run some you know like a one shot.
Oh yeah, Yeah. That's hard games here.
Yeah, absolutely. No, here's the thing, I'm very
excited to talk with you about this.
But I can tell you right now, like the week this game comes
out, unless we can somehow get it before, is the week that
we're going to be reviewing it here on the stream.
So I would also love to play it at some point.
That would be fantastic. But that is, that is what's
going to be happening here. Couple of questions, one in chat
also asked like what is your favorite tarot deck and I think
this is back from our tarot conversation, but I want to make
sure I get to that. Do you have, are you a right
away guy or do you have just like a random deck that you like
or what? Yeah, great question.
I so I have lots of decks at this point just because I, you
know, I didn't say I'm going to ride a terror game because I
didn't like the tarot. So I have a couple different
tarot decks. I think they're interesting and
kind of cool to look at in terms of like, beauty.
I'm going to look up the guy's name so I don't dungeon.
There was a game I bought called Dungeon Solitaire and it's
played with a by Matthew Lowe's. It's a it is a solo game and you
you play with the Tarot deck. I think it is a very gorgeous
deck. When I'm playing at the table, I
use a Rider Waite deck because I am familiar enough with it that
I can recognize the cards at a distance.
So there is like a little bit of a learning curve.
I think Taro, if you, you know, aren't super familiar with it
and you're just getting started because you think the game
sounds interesting. And I have had some players at
my table, but I called on what, what is this one?
And like, oh, that's the page. And like, you know, it just
takes like a second, right? Like it's not hard, but like
there's like a like a half second mismatch between like
seeing the thing and then being like, got it.
And because I'm so familiar with the Ryder weight deck, I can
look at it and just somebody pulls a card from the other
side, shows it to me. I don't have to like and you
know, as evidenced by my glasses, I don't see
particularly well. So like, you know, I can.
I can visualize the cards really, really easily.
Got you. And then the other question
that's gonna end up being like a multi part question is so the
middle question to get back to the first question cuz this is
the way my brain works, like you talked about this mega dungeon,
all these people going with it forever, like what makes them
want to keep going? And then I wrote that question
down and then put an arrow back to another question that was
like, OK, so then what's the in the fallos, the tarot appendix
you say in there that? His Majesty the Worm has an anti
Canon setting so the city creation rules raise more
questions than the answer. So the setting itself is is anti
Canon but is there a general lore to the world?
Like is there like specific set of gods, is the underworld the
same and et cetera et cetera. Like what's the general like
just of of the game's kind of lore And then?
With that, if there's this giant mega dungeon, what keeps people
wanting to go into this dungeon as opposed to just being like,
never mind, that seems terrible, like I lost my ear.
I'm going to go home now, you know.
All right, keep me honest. I don't want to drop one of
those. The second questions will be
related. But the first one, there's a
there's, I think, a simple answer.
Have you ever like gone to a game and you know, the the GM
lays these things out and the players brought their little
player sheet with them and they're like, well, my
characters want to do that. My character likes this stuff
and I don't want to do the plot. I think that sucks.
And I mean, I think that I generally play with players that
are like a little bit better than that, But I've seen it.
You know the course of my life in His Majesty, Worm, everybody,
every player character, every adventurer has a reason that
they want to go to the mega dungeon, that they define
character creation. And no, normal people don't want
to go into the dungeon. It's bad.
They're a monster down there and like just winning treasure, man.
Let me tell you what, there are easier ways to get treasure in
the world than like braving traps and and Fast forward aging
beams and medusas and stuff. You know, get a farm buddy.
But there's something in the in the mega dungeon that your
character wants and you and the GM talk about it and then the GM
puts it there, which tell you what makes it easy for the GM.
So like when the players are like coming up with their
characters, like, well, my brother was turned to stone by a
Medusa. I have to go find a Medusa to
get their blood to like, smear my brother, to unpetrify him.
I'm like, that's dope. Room 101 now has a Medusa.
It makes my job a lot easier. And so there's there's I think
there's it's more fun. His Majesty the Worm shies away
from like collab a lot of collaborative like world
building. When I go into rude One O 1 and
the players like I kicked down the door.
I'm not I don't say what do you think is back there which I
think is a very valid approach in some games but it's not this
game. I think that the the Mega
dungeon shines when there. I know there's something behind
that door and I know what would happen if you knocked on it and
I know what would happen if you poured water under the door and
I know what would happen if you would left it alone and the
players don't. I think that's I think that's
fun the the joy of discovery from Metroid Vanius.
But I do think it is really cool when players come up with their
ideas for why they're going down there and once their player
achieves their quest they retire.
Unless there's another super compelling quest that has like
captured their attention, another brother fell down a well
or whatever. But like that collaborative
nature keeps the game interesting for me and and and
gets them into the dungeon without complaining, you know?
Well you know one of the tag lines you have on this is that
it's a new school game with old school sensibilities and it kind
of sounds like and maybe I'm completely off base but the the
concepts of kind of the the OSR were like the some of them at
least were like the world exists and it is it is almost as as as
an Eldridge being. It does not care that you exist.
It exists and it moves, even without you.
You are just choose and you don't make a story.
The players make us their own story through their actions in
the way they can tell that and everything and then which I
really, I love that it's more of like a referee.
You're just like this exists here and this is what's
happening. You are you're finding it.
I'm not making it up for you. But with this kind of like newer
school like Tara based procedures and various
procedures versus just like a you know a pretty streamlined
set of rules or whatever that's a really.
I really like that mash up a lot.
Like it's really interesting to have these completely different
system but to keep those sensibilities because a lot of
people that's the sensibilities that they like.
There are people that you know that like 5E and like you know
being the hero and winning every game and never feeling danger
and you know and I just I personally that's not I'm not a
fan of that. So it's really I'm excited that
you know that is how this game works that it's more of it all
exists and you are just coming upon it.
You know, it's not built for you.
Oh God, it's kind of you to say that.
That's a nice mix because I I wonder if I haven't shot myself
in the foot, right? Like it's so focused on dungeon
crawling and has all these. I mean, I think if you have any
of the OSR foundational texts like the Principia Apocrypha or
I'm dropping the name of it right now.
But you know all those All the advice there is is part of His
Majesty Worm in in its blood, in its CNA, and the fact that I
just don't have that OSR compatible system that everybody
is used to and has their favorite and they can mix and
match. But it's a new system and it's
weird Internet. You have to buy a tarot deck.
It's like it's too OSR for 5E players and too much of A new
game for OSR players. It's the worst of all worlds
loved by nobody. One man's, one man's folly, you
know. I think, I think you'll be fine.
I think, I think that's where we're at in 2023 is the OSR will
never die. But I definitely think there's
plenty of people that are looking for things that are a
little bit different but can still feel familiar.
And I think that's what this, at least from what I've read, feels
like. So I I I think you're, I think
you're threatening it all just fine.
Not Cheers. What was your what was your
other question you had? Another question you had.
I so I write them down because I'm never going to remember.
So basically just the general law of the world.
You said that like they're they people have a reason to go in
but like. Who, who are they and like what?
What could be like a reason for that?
Like are they escaping the tyrant King or or and and where
they going? Yeah, I mean, so in the in my
home games and, and this is captured in the book, you know,
I say stuff like this in in little paragraphs here and
there. I think I could have made a
generic game. I think I could have, you know,
stripped a lot of the lore that exists out of this.
And I don't think the game would have been as interesting to read
or to look at if I hadn't kind of been running this and just
put the stuff that I do into it and then put some paragraphs
right afterwards. Like, oh, you can ignore me if
you want to, you know, this is just what I do.
But, like, I think that it would be more interesting if you did
what you wanted to do. And some of my players have
been, like, kind enough to include me in their games when
they were running it too. And they've had like these
science fantasy worlds and, you know, this world where everybody
was dead and in hell. So very different stuff than my
games. So I, you know, stand by what I
said that it's more interesting if you come up with the stuff
yourself. But like in the games that I
run, and this is reflected in a lot of the kind of like
italicized text near a picture that there's like the city, it
has Constantinople vibes and you can create it randomly if you
want to using the rules of the book.
But there's the city. It's the it's the city, the set
at the center of the classic world.
All the the races and and civilizations in this world have
like, you know, sprung up and died and like had their ruins
subsumed by the next terrible barbarian that becomes glorious
civilization as they get to move into the center of the world.
And so, you know, it has this place of history and five years
ago a mega dungeon underworld opened underneath it and exactly
what that is and exactly what the city's constituents are.
I think that there are some tables there to encourage you to
come up with that answer, but I I suspect nobody is going to
have exactly the right configuration that was mine.
But that's the gimmick. You know the the plot point is
under the main city there is literal hell and nobody does
want to go into it. But there is magic there in a
way that doesn't exist in the overworld.
So if you and and so if you want something that is magical, if
you want to become immortal, if you want to cure your brother,
if you want to slay the elder vampire and cure vampirism
throughout the city, you have to go into the underworld to
accomplish that. To like give you a sense of like
the last quest that we accomplished in my main classic
vanilla to His Majesty the Worm during our kind of like the
finish to finish our play test. To give you a sense of what the
quest could be. The last quest we did there, one
of my players had formed a relationship with a dryad that
was in the first level of the mega dungeon.
The in the first level used to be this forested level as trees
grew from the lower levels and pushed their way up so that you
were amongst the bowels of the trees.
And at some point in the game's history, they unleashed a Locust
swarm that was in like a sarcophagus.
And then then like over and over I kept saying like, well, the
locust worms going around eating everything and they're like,
Dang, that sounds bad, Somebody should do something about that
and they'd go do something else. And eventually the the entire
first level is just denuded and the locust lich came to rule
there. And so her triad girlfriend, you
know, couldn't survive because everything was being destroyed
by these locusts, by the locust lich.
So her quest was to marry this triad that she had met, and she
defeated the Locust Lynch and got a magic item to carve her
girlfriend's tree into the what do you, what do you call the
statue that's on in front of a boat?
What do you call that kind? Of no, I know you're talking.
About like a bow head or something.
I don't even know what I want to say.
Mast head, but that's not right. But she carved her girlfriend's
tree into her like head figurehead to pirate ship
figurehead, and like retired from adventuring life.
Her dryad girlfriend got to come with her to the service and she
became the pirate queen. Like, those are the stories I
want to be involved with, right? Like, I think that stuff's neat.
I want people to rescue Dryad Maidens from Locust Liches.
Yeah, yeah, that's pretty cool. Yeah, I'll take that game.
And you said that there's almost like a generational aspect to
the dungeon. So as you bring new characters
in, is it just a series of some stay, some go and they just and
they just learn as they go how many in the game you've had at
home? Like, not characters, but like
different players. Have you actually brought in
that have like experienced the dungeon?
You know, I played for seven years, so a lot of players I
want. My best friend was played with
us when we first started. He had his first child.
He said, hey guys, I have a kid, I can't come to game every week
and I said OK and then his child grew up old enough that he was
like, all right, I can join game again.
Like we played for so long that like I've had people get
children, you know into the world and and into the through
the toddler stage and start school before like we finished.
So you know I don't know 40 players maybe across the table
and like sometimes just for once you know somebody would come in
and be like, hey this game isn't for me, but Congrats.
And I was like God, great having you.
Some people came in and moved away and you know I've just had
a lot of lot of fun just trying to loop in as many people in my
tri-county area until like trying this thing.
It's. Awesome.
That honestly sounds like a dream.
A dream table to have is just this this thing.
And how in that is the dungeon built?
Like it's all done, like it's all there and it's still going
like, did you do it like from the beginning?
And you're just like I still have like 300 rooms for you
guys. It's just been there forever and
they're still trying to get through it or yeah, yes, I think
like I said I think the the gameplay really shines when
there is pre built content that the players don't know and the
GM does know. And I think that that sounds
intimidating, but actually isn't that hard because I think
there's procedures. Well, two things.
One, I think that you can do what I did and steal other
dungeons that you like. There are a lot of creative
people out there, and the dungeon that I ran for years was
just like nine of them in a trench coat, right, Like just
stacked on top. Of each other shoulders.
Yeah, absolutely. I think you can do that, and I
think you should because I, my friends, put out dungeons that
are cool and I think she'd buy them.
But two, I think that there's like some procedures and some
questions that you can ask and some some random tables that I
tried to like make to help you to like get you through some
things. Like really, it's just like
answering the same sort of things, like in a discreet way,
over and over and over, right, and then connecting the pieces
together. So I mean, it's not one mega
dungeon, It's five dungeons that are connected in cool ways,
right? There's a teleporter from level
1 to level 2. There's a river of fire from
level 2 to Level 3 and from Level 3 to level 1, there's, you
know, a giant with a fishing pole and he's fishing for
something and you can climb up his, you know, giant fishing
line to get back up to the surface.
So it's just kind of making interesting stuff and then
connecting them all together. And if you kind of go step by
steps, that's the that's my premise is it's really not that
hard. It does take a little upfront
work and I think that work is kind of fun.
Like it. I don't know why why my brain is
shaped that way, but you know it it doesn't hurt my feelings to
spend 2 weeks coming up with two levels of a dungeon for my
players. So yeah, you know, over the
course of the time they almost never went there were there were
6 levels in that dungeon. I don't know that they ever,
except for like maybe once by accident stepped into level 5
and level 6 of that dungeon was hidden.
They didn't know it existed. It wasn't on their maps.
It was in a hidden door and ran a random room and in it dwelt
His Majesty the worm and His Majesty the worm controlled the
will of souls which controls reincarnation and immortality
throughout my entire setting. And they they found it.
They were like, Oh my God, this is the center of the maze.
I I can't believe this exists. They went through it.
They got this magic, the worms, like, never mind it's not that
important. I will leave forever again and
like just left and that I'm perfectly OK with that because
the look on their faces of like, hold on has this been here for
seven years. I'm like, yeah, this is where
the guy lives and they're like, Oh my God was like that was that
was worth it to me, right. Like that was worth the upfront
work just for the look on their faces.
Yeah, very cool. I'm having a great time with
that. Sounds like a blast.
It was. It was fun.
I think a lot of forever GM's that we all say it with a sigh,
but sometimes you're a forever GM because it's also fun really
figure a way to turn prep into their own solo game, and I think
that's what really keeps it continuing to be fun and seeing.
What you can get people into or or the way that people are going
to interact with the things that you do it's it's it's
interesting to me That's why I'm not a huge fan of a lot of
things that are like let's let's do like our our two two-minute
prep or whatever or let's you know let's make the prep easy.
Why do you do so much work. I'm like because I like the
work. I don't understand the question.
You know there's a reason I do it this way.
You know, that's because I want to.
You know, if if I'm struggling to to oh, I don't have the story
made-up for tonight's game. Like that's not.
You know, that's kind of the antithesis of why I do it.
So exalted funeral, this is coming out.
It's been it's it's funded on it should be all the appendixes and
everything like that. How did that kind of come to be?
Did you reach out to EF? Did EF reach out to you?
Like what? What kind of, you know, whatever
you're allowed to say in other contracts and everything like
that. What kind of what what got that
bowler ball rolling Because I know you're it's not going to
take Kickstarter it off on it through itch like we said
before. So what?
What made you want to do it through EF?
Well, like I said, there's a lot of things that I that I'm doing
this for fun. And there's some things that I
have no idea how to do. I do not know how to talk to.
I do not understand the realities of printing.
I've never done it before. I need somebody to help me.
I do not have a digital storefront.
I was hoping to ride some of these cocktails to glory.
So yeah, I reached out to it. There's all the funeral with
essentially a complete game. And I came to them with like a
little book in my hands. I was like, do you guys want to
help me print this? And they were kind enough to say
yes. So they are going to handle and
are handling even today printing and distribution.
That's awesome. Very cool.
Do you do you have any like Q 1/20/24?
Is that date going to get, like narrower and narrower?
And then we'll have an announcement by signing up for
your mailing list. Is that what what the plan is?
Yeah. I when I have a firmer date, I
will let you know. But you know something I just
didn't understand when I was going through this or like
really the practical realities of printing it is difficult.
It is time consuming. It is expensive.
It is. And like, you know, we're
talking about, you know, even with the efficiency of scale,
these things are just kind of difficult.
So when I when I have a crisper idea, when the books are ready
in the warehouse and ready to be shipped, I would love to tell
you exactly, exactly what day is.
And if I if I hazard a guest today, I will be a liar.
So. You won.
Yeah, I'll take it.
I'll take it. We'll see.
We'll see how it goes. Like I said, I mean I I'm very
excited for this. I'm I'm really glad that we got
to have you on to talk about it. I'm going to continue to keep
reading the appendixes. I'm.
I'm just. I'm excited for the game to come
out. I mean, this is great.
Like I said when when me and Hunter were talking about it, I
shot on the appendixes and he was just like, oh, Oh yeah,
though this is really cool. And I'm like, yeah, Yep, we
we're this is, this is the thing that we're going to be doing.
And he's like, Yep, that's the thing that we're going to be
doing. So that's great.
Speaking of your mailing list, where can people sign up for
that? Where can people find the
appendixes that we're talking about?
Where can people find just any of your stuff so that they can
support you, continue to to keep making this cool stuff?
Yeah, I'm on rise up comas in most social media.
Rise up comas.blogspot.com has a bunch of stuff about this game
and other pet projects. Rise Up comas dot itch dot IO
has the appendices. Most of them are free or almost
free. You can sign up to my mailing
lists through those methods and any of the social media I there
as rise up comas. If you'd like to chat with me,
just abuse me of my heuristic notions.
Share cool stuff that you're working on about the chat.
Let's talk about games. That's awesome.
Definitely got that. Definitely sign up for the
mailing list because I know that I bought Dundan seeds and then
sign up for the mailing list and then sent me Dundan Seeds and I
was like, damn it. So definitely sign up for the
mailing list before you before you snag the game so you get one
sent to you. Listen, seriously, I know we've
said it a bunch and we'll continue to say it.
Very excited for this project it seems.
Fantastic. I can't wait to have this in
hand and and to to give it a good review.
Well, to review it and we'll see what we'll see, what we'll see
how you like. It.
Yeah, cool. And then and then play it for
sure. But genuinely, seriously, really
appreciate you coming on taking the time you know from work and
everything to to be here. I can't thank you guys enough.
This was a a blast that I really appreciate.
Really appreciate everything. Thank you so much.
Great having you on. Yeah, great to hear and please
come back once it comes out and we do the review.
If you're willing to run some games, we will absolutely be
willing to play it. So we'll have to keep in touch.
No, I'm not lying at all. Let's, I will.
Let's text right after this and let's just set up some time.
Let's just set up an afternoon. All right.
Let's do it again. I'm, I'm, I'm beaming now.
This is this is great. So we are the With the Scroll
podcast. This has been Josh with His
Majesty the worm. You can find all of our socials
at our link tree and all of Josh's socials will be in the in
the notes whether it's on podcast or on YouTube.
So once again, thank you for being here and we're not there.
We will see you another time.