His Majesty The Worm: Day of the Newts Masterpost

 

A traveling magic show. A kidnapped actor. Webbed footprints leading into a cave. Churning lava. Sadistic salamanders. A fresh spin on the dungeon crawling genre. All this and more in Day of the Newts

 

Day of the Newts is a beginner adventure for His Majesty The Worm. It's here to show off the battle system and the bond system, which are the two best designed parts of the game. It uses pregens and an abbreviated version of the rules that cuts some of the subsystems out so you can do the whole thing in a single session.

I don't do a full rules tutorial at the beginning. I explain skill tests, lore bids, resolve, bond charging, microdetailed inventory management and the battle system over the course of the game as they become relevant. The pregens come with explanatory documents listing their talents and how to charge their bonds. I don't expect players to read this all at the beginning. Typically they read their sheets over the course of the session. Even this abbreviated version of the game has more paperwork than I like. Each player gets three pages (character sheet, talent reference sheet, challenge action reference) and the mage gets even more text to work with (spell descriptions).

You can also run the adventure with the normal game rules using your own characters.

 

Scenario Folder with maps and pregens.

Playtest 1

Playtest 2

Playtest 3