The Camp Phase

‘There is food in the wild,’ said Strider; ‘berry, root, and herb; and I have some skill as a hunter at need. You need not be afraid of starving before winter comes. But gathering and catching food is long and weary work, and we need haste.’”

– The Fellowship of the Ring, J. R. R. Tolkien

There is some common wisdom about making encampments in the Underworld encapsulated in a song. The song has become so popular in guild-haunted taverns that it has trickled out into the general population. This song is usually called the “Camping Song,” and it’s sung to an ancient melody. The Camping Song runs thus:

O! Underneath hill and barrow go Where cold sun’s absent Five rivers flow

In the Spires, want not for light Fallen wood kindles Unwanted sight

In the Ruin, a quiet bower Ring with garlic Feast th’ vampires

Isles in Moat, ships land upon First make fire Beware Fastitocalon!

In the Castle, close tight the door Iron spikes for locks For beds, stone floor

In Inverted Castle, beware the Worm The mazes shift And even He will turn

When adventuring has left the guild injured, miserable, and expended, they put down their packs and set up camp. During the Camp Phase, everyone rests and recovers from the stresses of the Crawl.

The Camp Phase runs thus:

1. Camp Actions

Set up camp and perform a Camp Action.

2. Break bread

Consume a ration. If you can't do this, check the Stressed condition.

3. No rest for the wicked

The GM checks for any random Camp events.

4. Recovery

Automatically refill your allotment of lore bids and clear the Staggered condition. For every charged Bond you burn, heal 1 Wound or regain 1 point of Resolve.

• If you are Stressed, you must burn a charged Bond to erase this condition first. Being Stressed prevents you from healing Wounds or recovering Resolve.

• If you are Injured, you must burn a Bond to clear this condition before you can heal any Wounded talents.

5. End of Camp Phase

Check to make sure you have at least two of the following: bedroll, tent, or fire. If you don’t, you wake up Stressed.

The pace of travel

Rations are the resource that drive the Camp Phase. As such, the opportunity to perform Camp Actions is dependent on the guild’s ability to manage their inventory. Likewise, because charged Bonds drive step 4 of the Camp Phase (Recovery), you have an impetus to avoid striking camp too often: only after a good exchange of role-playing scenes.

Each adventurer has the opportunity to undertake one meaningful activity.

This is not an exhaustive list of Camp Actions, but a structure for handling common requests. GMs and players should work together to expand the list using these rules as a template.

Fellowship

Pick a guild-mate and engage in a role-play with them.

• Share a memory. Talk about their quests. Ask about their childhood; tell about yours.

• End the conversation meaningfully so that the table knows you're done talking.

• At the end of this exchange, you both charge your Bonds with each other.

Fletch Arrows

Spend some time looking for and crafting shafts for your recovered arrowheads. Refill your quiver of arrows or bolts to twelve.

Hunt

Scout outside of camp to try and find some game that looks halfway edible. You must have a missile weapon to go hunting. Test Swords.

• If you succeed, you return with 1 ration’s worth of food (about the size of a rat).

• On a great success, you bring back a large beast capable of providing a meal for the entire guild (like a dire rat).

• If you fail, no game is found.

• Great failures trigger a Challenge Phase.

• Hunted game needs to be prepared in order to be eaten. This requires cooking gear.

• Preserving the meat as rations requires salt.

• The GM will tell you what sort of food is available; you’re responsible for deciding how picky you are about rations.

Read a Book

Read a book that you’re carrying with you. Ask the GM one question related to the subject matter of the book. They will tell you what the book says about it.

• This operates like a lore bid, but based on information found in the book.

Rest and Recover

Wrap your blankets around you and try to sleep through your cold sweats. If you are suffering from an affliction (Afflictions), you must take this action to spend charged Bonds in order to stave off the sickness.

Scout Ahead

Walk quietly outside of camp, peer down hallways, and listen at adjacent doors. If you scout around, you might be able to learn something interesting about the terrain. Test Pentacles.

• If you succeed, the GM will give you a hint about some encounters in the nearby rooms or tell you what sort of creatures frequent here. If you’re adjacent to special rooms, you'll learn about them.

• A great success will give you as much information about what is nearby as the GM can give.

• If you fail, you retreat without learning anything new.

• Great failures trigger a Challenge Phase.

Train

Study with a willing guild-mate and learn a talent from them. Your guild-mate must have mastered the skill in questions in order to train others. This takes both of your Camp Actions, and they get nothing from the exchange.

• Invest XP into the talent they are teaching you.

• Prepare as many uses of that talent as you have XP invested.

See Talents for the full rules on training talents.

Update Maps

Spend some time updating your map and charting your course. Mark down the rooms that you’ve traveled through since your last Camp Phase. These are your mapped rooms.

You can travel through two mapped rooms per watch. This allows you to travel through two mapped rooms per Meatgrinder event instead of one.

Use an Item

If you’re carrying an item that’s usable during the Camp Phase (e.g., a tinker’s kit) you may use it during this step.

Use a Talent

If you have a talent that’s usable during the Camp Phase (e.g., Beast Master, Bookworm, War Stories, etc.) you may use it during this step.

Starving

In general terms, a person can endure about three weeks of starvation before dying. Let us assume that “dying from starvation” is a fringe case in His Majesty the Worm. It’s much more likely that adventurers will run low on rations during the Crawl and need to endure a few days of empty bellies.

If this is your second Camp Phase without consuming rations, you begin to starve. If you are starving, skip steps 4 and 5 of the Camp Phase. You cannot burn charged Bonds or regain lore bids while starving.

Keep guard, patrolling around your encampment and setting up assault counter-measures.

If an adventurer takes the Patrol action, the GM draws twice on the Meatgrinder table and takes a non-random encounter result if available during step 3 of the Camp Phase (No Rest for the Wicked).

Once Camp Actions have been declared, the guild settles down to eat a meal together. Every adventurer must consume 1 ration at this step or become Stressed. If you didn’t eat last time either, you begin to starve (see sidebar).

Each animal companion must also consume 1 animal feed. Animal companions that are not fed become weak and cannot be commanded.

In essence, rations power the entire Camp Phase, and thus enable healing and recovery. Managing your inventory to balance an appropriate number of rations vs. other adventuring gear is, therefore, a crucial consideration.

The GM can use this step to introduce a role-playing prompt, see Running the Camp Phase.

While the adventurers rest, the Underworld continues to go about its sinister business. The GM should draw on the Meatgrinder table for the dungeon the adventurers are camping in (Meatgrinder). Random events like rainstorms and rising fog will add flavor to the Camp Phase, but probably won’t impose any special rules. If a random encounter is pulled, the Camp Phase is interrupted by a Challenge.

It is assumed that adventurers are taking turns guarding the camp while they rest. If a random encounter occurs, the GM should randomly determine who’s on watch. An easy way to do this is to look at the top card of the minor arcana discard pile: the suit displayed corresponds to the path of the adventurer on guard. If there are multiple adventurers of the same path, odd cards target the player to the GM’s left, even cards target the player to the GM’s right.

The adventurer on guard tests Cups.

• If successful, the alarm is raised before the random encounter finds the encampment. The guild has a brief period of time to prepare.

• If the test of fate is a failure, the guild is surprised.

• A guild caught asleep is very vulnerable—nobody is wearing armor or actively wielding weapons.

• See Special rules for the rules about surprise.

If one of the players has performed the Patrol action, the GM draws twice on the Meatgrinder table and chooses a non-encounter result if possible. A Challenge only occurs if both cards reveal a random encounter—the GM chooses which one to use.

Once the Challenge is resolved, the Camp Phase continues on to step 4.

During the Camp Phase, you may burn any charged Bonds to clear the Stressed condition, clear the Injured condition, heal one Wounded talent, or regain 1 Resolve. This leaves the Bond uncharged.

• If you are Stressed, you must burn a charge to erase this condition before you can clear any other conditions.

• If you are Injured, you must burn a charge to erase this condition before you can heal any Wounded talents.

If you are not Stressed at the end of this step, you automatically clear the Staggered condition.

If your animal companion or familiar is Injured, you may burn a charged Bond to clear this condition. If your animal companion or familiar is only Staggered, they automatically clear this condition.

At the end of this step, refill all of your lore bids up to four (the max).

If you’re encamped and not sleeping in a shelter, you need two of the following:

• bedroll

• tent

• fire

If you don’t have at least two of these, you wake up Stressed at the end of the Camp Phase.

Once these steps have been completed, the Crawl Phase resumes.

Most of His Majesty the Worm is focused on dungeon-crawling in the mythic Underworld. It abstracts concerns of food, time, and distance into the flow of the Camp and Crawl Phases. If your game takes place in a setting where the sun shines, you might want a system that adds an additional layer of logistics to travel. If this is the case, use these rules.

Each day is divided into three watches. Each watch takes about eight hours.

Using these optional rules, timekeeping becomes important. After three watches, a new day dawns. The GM should step through the calendar as they pass day by day.

For each watch, follow this procedure:

1. Choose action

The guild chooses a single overland action to take.

2. Meatgrinder

The GM draws on their Meatgrinder table for a random event or encounter.

3. Set the scene

The GM describes the random encounter in the context of the hex the guild is traveling in. The players and the GM play out the scene, and when it’s over, the GM calls for a new overland action to be chosen.

“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”

– Joseph Campbell

Each watch, the guild can perform one of the following overland actions. It’s important to note that, using these optional rules, step 1 of the Camp Phase is separated from steps 2–5.

Camp Action

Each adventurer can choose any of the Camp Actions listed on pages 137–139 to perform.

Encamp

The guild beds down for the night. Run through steps 2–5 of the Camp Phase.

Explore

Look for interesting things within a hex. The GM informs the guild of any notable features, lairs, terrain, or spoor that are discoverable within the area they’re in.

Interact

Interact with a special feature or location (e.g., exploring a dungeon or visiting a hamlet).

Travel

The guild travels from their current hex into an adjacent one. If there are clear roads, they can move +1 hex. If everyone in the guild is riding, they can move another +1 hex.

Under the eye of the sun, questions of exhaustion and hunger come into play more than under the standard rules. Characters who fail to Encamp once per day become Exhausted—all tests and all Challenge Actions are made with disfavor until they Encamp again.

After an encounter with a cyclops, a guild named the Finders checks in with each other and decides to bed down for the night. They are in the Spires—a wooded dungeon——and feel that the forest gives them a secluded place to rest.

The guild consists of Phynn Heartsbane the serpent cultist (human, Path of Swords), Envyrie the goth assassin (dark elf, Path of Pentacles), and Byron Cartwright the enterprising trickster (halfling, Path of Pentacles).

The guild is generally bruised and broken. They hope that a peaceful Camp Phase will allow them to continue their delving.

Step 1. Camp Actions

GM: OK, so what are you doing?

Phynn: I’m repairing my armor.

Phynn’s iron chainmail suffered terribly in the combat with the cyclops, so he elects to Use an Item (a tinker’s kit) and repair his armor. He repairs his iron armor by 1 Notch.

Envyrie: I’ll scout ahead and see if there’s anything interesting nearby.

GM: Go ahead and test Pentacles.

Envyrie tests Pentacles and draws a 7. Envyrie has Pentacles 4, so the total is 11. Thinking this a safe bet, she pushes fate and succeeds by drawing a 5 for a new total of 16.

The GM looks at their map and describes the most interesting nearby room.

GM: OK, as you go scouting, you come into a new section of the woods. You find a group of orcs encamped around a burned section of the forest—the smell of woodsmoke is still thick in the air. At the center of the burning is a giant dragon’s skeleton. The orcs appear to be worshiping it, or at least having some sort of religious ceremony akin to a Baptist revival near it.

Envyrie: Envyrie returns to camp and tells her friends what she saw.

GM: Byron, what are you doing?

Byron: Byron’s going to continue to recover from the takalashi jelly.

Byron has been trying to recover from his addiction to takalashi jelly, an affliction (Afflictions). The GM has decided privately that addiction to takalashi jelly has two stages, similar to black honey. They decided that stage 2 requires 1 charge to cure, stage 1 requires 5 charges to cure.

Byron takes the Rest and Recover action. Byron’s affliction is currently at stage 2. He currently has charged Bonds with both Envyrie and Phynn, and elects to burn one to treat his addiction. This moves him down to stage 1.

GM: Great. Just to help us all picture the scene, what does the camp look like as you set it up?

Phynn: There stuff for a campfire?

GM: Yeah, plenty of deadfall wood in the Spires.

Phynn: We light a campfire with the wood. I pull my bedroll up to the fire to keep warm.

Envyrie: I’ll share my tent with Byron so he has a quiet place to detox.

GM: Cool. The fire casts your shadows broadly onto the giant trees that surround you. It crackles merrily. The sound of the tree frogs is all but drowned out by the droning of the terrible locusts that you’ve been encountering.

Step 2: Break bread

GM: Everybody eating a ration?

The entire party nods and erases 1 ration from each of their packs.

Because the session only has a few minutes before the group needs to stop playing and get back to their lives, the GM elects not to introduce a campfire discussion.

Step 3: No rest for the wicked

Because nobody performed the Patrol action, the GM only draws one card from the major arcana deck and gets the Emperor [IV ]. The GM looks at the Meatgrinder table for the dungeon to check what event is tied to this result. They determine it isn’t a random encounter, so they describe the night passing quietly.

Step 4: Recovery

GM: The night passes without incident. Everybody burn charged Bonds to recover.

Each player now has the opportunity to burn charged Bonds to recover. All of the players automatically refill their lore bid uses.

• Phynn has charged Bonds with both of his guildmates. He is Stressed, Staggered, and has one Wounded talent.

• Because Phynn is Stressed, he must clear this condition first. He burns one charge to do so.

• Because he is no longer Stressed, Staggered is cleared automatically.

• Phynn then burns his second charge to cure his Wounded talent.

• Phynn begins the next Crawl Phase with no conditions.

• Envyrie has no charged Bonds. She is Staggered and has one Wounded talent.

• Because Envyrie isn’t Stressed, Staggered is cleared automatically.

• Because she has no charged Bonds, she can’t do anything else during this step.

• Byron has one remaining charged Bond (he burned his first during Step 1). He is Staggered, Injured, and has two Wounded talents.

• Because Byron isn’t Stressed, Staggered is cleared automatically.

• Byron burns his charge to clear Injured because it is very dangerous. Another Wound would knock him to Death’s Door.

• Byron begins the next Crawl Phase with two Wounded talents, but at least he is no longer Injured.

Step 5: End of Camp Phase

GM: OK, everybody done recovering? I heard you had a fire. Did everybody have somewhere to sleep?

The entire party nods.

GM: OK, everybody begins the next Crawl well rested. Nobody is Stressed. Unfortunately, Byron, your affliction is going to automatically progress to the next level. You are back at stage 2 of your jelly addiction.