His Majesty the Worm

His Majesty the Worm winner of two 2025 Ennie Awards for Best Game and Best Rules!

The forest's thickness is lessening, with room for paths of turned earth, rectangular pits, a whiteness as of mushrooms peeping from the ground. With horror we see from the thirteenth tarot that the underbrush is fertilized with half-withered corpses and fleshless bones.

"Why, where have you brought me, Fool? This is a cemetery!"
And the Fool says, pointing to the invertebrate fauna feeding in the graves:
"Here a monarchy reigns, mightier than you..."

His Majesty the Worm Bursts Forth from the Underworld!

What is His Majesty the Worm?

His Majesty the Worm is a new-school game with old-school sensibilities: a classic megadungeon experience given fresh life through a focus on the mundanities and small moments of daily life inside the dungeon.

His Majesty the Worm is a tabletop roleplaying game designed for dungeon crawling written by Josh McCrowell and published by Exalted Funeral. The Game Master is given tools to create a megadungeon called the Underworld. The players create adventurers to explore the Underworld in pursuit of their personal quests. Tarot cards are used as a randomizing element.

• Food, hunger, light, and inventory management are central to play and actually fun.
• Tarot cards are used to create an action-packed combat system that ensures that all players have interesting choices every minute of combat: no downtime!
• The game has robust procedures. Characters adventure in the Underworld, rest in roleplaying-driven camping scenes, and plot long-term schemes in the City at the center of the Wide World.
• The relationships between companions, called Bonds, powers the rest and recovery mechanic of the game. Roleplaying drives the game forward.

Everything You Need to Play (Just Add a Tarot Deck!)

The game is intended for a traditional setup between a single GM and 3-6 players. It emphasizes long-term, Metroidvania-like play. The book is 404 pages long, split up over 10 chapters and 5 appendices. The print edition is silver foil stamped and has a ribbon bookmark. The digital edition is thoroughly cross-linked, with a robust index. It is a complete game with everything you need in one tome (just add a tarot deck).

Also check out the free resources and more here.

What People Are Saying

“Very cool and creative stuff here”

—John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats

“His Majesty the Worm is a dungeon crawler masterpiece, bridging the way to the next generation of tabletop fantasy games. Inventive mechanics that spur your game forward, it is a must-read for designer tinkerers and a must-play for fans of avant garde roleplaying games.”

—W.F. Smith, Prismatic Wasteland (author of Barkeep on the Borderlands)

“His Majesty the Worm is a dungeon crawler honed to the sharpest edge. The tarot card mechanics are novel while easy to understand. Every design decision and subsystem has been painstakingly hand crafted, with explanation for WHY it exists right here in the book, letting you hack the game into something that fits at your table. The Challenge mechanics reward clever players and tactics, keeping everyone engaged and tuned in for the perfect opportunity to lay down their next card. This game will blow your socks off!"

—Ty Pitre, Mindstorm Press (author of Swineheart Motel)

“An instant classic. Brilliant and weird and eminently portable—my favorite combination. The monsters you choose to include in your campaigns and dungeons turn into the powers your players can wield. Love it. The formatting is beautiful and the prose is readable and clear while still being evocative. Fantastic.”

—Zephyr Studios

The Team

Created by Josh McCrowell
Published by Exalted Funeral Press

404 pages, hardcover, A4 size, black and white throughout, silver foil stamped cover, a ribbon bookmark. PDF included.