The City. The ur-metropolis. The center of the world. Archaeological evidence attests that both the fay and the underfolk occupied the City in their turns, but for untold generations it has been the capital of the human world. A multitude of empires have each claimed the City as their own. It has spilled from its original boundaries, been reduced to rubble by invaders, and renamed countless times to honor forgotten god-kings. But it remains the City.
The tabletop dungeon crawler His Majesty the Worm (written by Josh McCrowell and published by Exalted Funeral) recently released, and ever since I got my hands on it, it has not left my mind. So! Let's build a city together!
His Majesty the Worm’s setting in terms of location is pretty set: The party of adventurers (the “Guild”) delve into a mythical underworld megadungeon, that's set underneath The City: the metropolis at the center of the world. The Underworld and The City are the 2 main settings; there are minimal rules for overland travel, and the main rhythm of play is going between the two. So suffice to say, they’re both pretty important!
Incidentally, the city generation rules are free on Itch, alongside dungeon generation, spells, and alchemy rules. Feel free to download and follow along to create your own city!
Alright, let's get to building. His Majesty the Worm uses Tarot Cards for everything: Whether its combat, skill checks (“Tests of Fate,”) as well as Underworld and City Generation. Sounds interesting? McCrowell writes about the choice to use tarot cards here.
By the way, The City doesn't have a name, as you probably read at the top. To everyone who lives here and everyone outside of it, its simply known as capital T "The City." So thats what we'll be calling it.
Step 1: The Central Power
Ok, so, we’ve shuffled a deck of minor arcana and now we’re ready to go. First we need to learn who’s the primary leader of our City. We draw one card for this. If it's a numbered card, then the central power is a faction tied to the suit. If it's a face card, then it's the “district” that's tied to that card that runs this place. Lets see…!
Alright! 8 of Pentacles! Since this is a numbered card, we just look at the suit. The prompt for Pentacles reads…
The Tyrant Emperor reigns. The City groans under his heavy taxes, which are taken by the wicked All-Watch to the Iron Palace at the center of The City.
So, our city is ruled by a horrible tyrant, and the centerpiece of this city is an iron palace. An interesting start. I can already see some of the storytelling that might spark from this totalitarian rule.
Step 2: The Core Districts
So surrounding the center of our city are the core districts. These are the oldest districts in the city. I’m already envisioning that a long time ago the Iron Palace was a wartime fortress, and a humble bailey started to grow around it until it was a sprawling city. But let’s see what we have to work with first.
We draw 4 minor arcana, one to each cardinal side, to find the core districts. From here on out, the number/face and suit matters. There’s a district in the book tied to each card; making 56 districts in total your city could have. As a general rule, numbered districts are poorer and face more hardships, while face cards are more powerful institutions.
Also, each district has a special rule or action you can take while visiting it during the City Phase of play. I won’t be going over them, but they’re all really cool. Like I said earlier, this chapter is free. You wanna see ‘em go read ‘em yourself.
Time to draw!
Okay. So we have 2 face cards, and 2 numbered cards. That works out nice! Lets get started.
The ten of wands is The Starfall Pit.
When the star fell, everybody blamed the sorcerers.
Alright! So the first thing we got is, effectively, a magic weeping wound of the earth. It distorts people, similar to a certain Heart I'm familiar with. And it's not even part of the underworld! Awesome! (Actually, having this be an alt. Entrance to the Underworld would be a cool idea, but we’re not making an Underworld in this post.)
My immediate thoughts, if we follow the thoughtline that the palace started as a war fortification, that this might have been an attack from an enemy force? I think that could be a neat bit of lore for this city. I'm not sure who the enemy force is yet. I’m not sure if it's important.
The nine of cups is The Shrine of the Fig of Fate.
When the First King of the City died, a fig tree burst through his chest at the
moment of death.
So what we have here is a dead king that turned into a tree that turned into a whole bunch of trees that act as a sort of shrine or temple that now has many expectant mothers praying at it for good fortunes. This is a really magical place for a city centered on iron. (Fun fact, iron is antithetical to magic in this game, making this all the more fascinating.)
So, this first king, it has to be the king that made the Iron Palace right? The one that faced this mythical war? That makes sense. I think whoever came after in the line of kings, maybe his family, probably cultivated this and feels very strongly about its well being. Ohh, what if all of the royals are buried and have a fig tree planted as tradition? That’s cool! Alright, we have a royal graveyard that has a bustling midwife population. Cool.
The page of wands is The Broken Smiles District.
Theater is a popular pastime in the City for both the commoners and the nobility.
For a tyrant at the center of it all, the inner city is quite romantic, isn’t it? This is a whole district dedicated to theatrecraft and performances. Houses upon houses of theaters, and buskers and street dancers around every corner. So what do we make of the city from this?
Maybe after the war, one of the king’s wanted to focus more on culture and the arts rather than might and military. I think it would be interesting if this figure in history loved his wife, who was a major patron of the arts. Over the years, this has sparked a very robust district. I can imagine the current king isn’t much for plays, but the amount of gold this district brings in from tourism alone? Amazing. Nobody’s gonna balk at their coffers getting a bit heavier.
The queen of pentacles is The Street of Beggars.
The most impoverished residents of the City live on the wretched Street of
Beggars.
Oh hey, watch your head, there’s that other boot dropping just in front of you. So this is really interesting, since while this is where a lot of society’s lowest live, it also has the Beggars Guild, a powerful institution of organized petty crime. Pickpockets, racketeers, etc.
So what can we do from this? Maybe this is where the original village that this fortress presided over was. They got hit the hardest, and they rose up from the ashes. Why doesn’t such an iron-fisted ruler do anything about it though… hmm… I’m sure there’s a ton of corruption going on between guards, and it is a good place to corral the undesirables. Let the citizens remember that it can always get much, much worse for them.
So there’s our core 4! From this, we can definitely see how the history of The City, hundreds or thousands of years in the making, began. Now, let's see what they did next!
Step 3: The Sprawl.
It's time for the sprawl! Layer 3! So these are the more “new” (relatively) districts in the city’s history. Far younger than the core districts. For every core district, we draw a number of connecting minor arcana. One for a pentacles district. Two for a cups district. Three for a wands district; and zero for a swords district (which we don't have. Yippee, more work for me.) This means your city could have a minimum of just 4 core districts, and a maximum of 16 districts; 4 core and 12 sprawl. (I imagine thought that if you want to adjust your city size, you can draw and add cards or remove them as you please.)
Same rules apply for the core districts. We draw cards and see what districts we get. Let's start with our first wands card.
The two of pentacles is The Orphanarium.
The terrible Orphanarium district is populated almost entirely by unsupervised children.
Haha, oh man. Oh shit, man. Not only is this Kid Nation they have knives and a youthful lack of sense of self preservation. I kinda wish I pulled this one next to the Street of Beggars, that would make a bit more sense, but we take the hand we deal with. That's the randomizer way. (Not that the sprawl districts have to relate to the core districts. That's not in the rules at all, but it would certainly be easier to justify.)
All things considered, this probably sparked from the discovery of the Underworld. Lots of adventurers dying and leaving behind orphans. Say what you will, but if you don’t have a parent, alive or not, you’ll be accepted here.
The king of cups is The Court of the Grail.
The Cult of Mythrys is a mystery religion, and its unknowable nature is mirrored
in the Cult’s center of power, a district called the Court of the Grail.
Ah, we’ve got a secretive religion here. There’s a bit of good stuff here about the Cult of Mythrys, but as is tradition its drawing maps but leaving spaces. What does Mythrys worship? What are the higher echelons like? Do we play to find out what happens?
Well, regardless, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that in a place as populated as this, there’s bound to be someone willing to take advantage of people looking for the tough answers. Especially when it’s devoted to solving the mysteries of the world. (According to the special rule here, if you join it and want to rank up through the order, you’re told a riddle and you, the player, have to answer correctly. That's cool.)
The page of cups is The Hospital of St. Berenthu
Formal healthcare in the City is only available at one location: the Hospital of St.
Berenthu. (Elsewhere, one must rely on barber-surgeons to (THIS IS KIND OF GROSS)
Well, hey, a hospital is good! And that makes sense. If we’re working backwards, we ask ourselves: what came first. Did they make the hospital first? Or did the Underworld create a need for formalized organized medical care? I like to imagine the latter, in our case (but of course, if you draw this for your city, you can imagine it differently.)
Even then, if you know what old fashioned medical care was like, you probably know what this hospital is like too. Hope you like leeches! We’ve got leeches! Also, the description here mentions “Dream Amplification.” I’d love to play to find out to see what that means. Does our king in the Iron Palace use this? That’d be fun.
The four of swords is Iron Street.
A squat black hill where the City’s smithies are housed.
Okay! Our first swords pull is pretty simple. I love the blacksmith district. I’ll have to remember this as well, it's specifically a hill. That's a geographical feature, much like The Starfall Pit. Regardless, I think this makes sense for our city. Even if this was founded before unsealing the Underworld, people need to defend themselves. Especially the knee-high little bastards in The Orphanarium
By the way, I mentioned before that iron in this game’s implied setting is antithetical to magic. If you wear full iron plate, you can’t cast or be affected by magic, both bad and good. I’m starting to get an overarching theme of the Iron Palace being at odds with the inherent magic seeping through the world. This is still a kernel, but it's fun to think about.
The seven of wands is The Sidereal House
Because of the myriad smokes and discharges of the City, the stars are remote
and rare things. They are infrequently seen—except in the district of the Sidereal
House.
Oh! Astronomy district!! I love this, because I love to put a weird and fucked up moon(s) in my campaign settings. Despite the fact that a His Majesty the Worm game doesn’t really leave the city, I might still do this anyways. Cause I mean, I have to, right?
I was just talking about the tension between the mystical and the mundane. We even have The Starfall Pit. And you know, stars are made of iron… much to think about.
The king of swords is The Temple Militant
There are many orders of knighthood… …There is no order as famous and infamous, however, as the Order of the Athleta Mythrii—often called “templars.”
Whoof, okay, here we go. We’re maybe circling back to war. I love when games do this. They give you a hint of the outside world, and let your imagination take the rest. What were these crusades? What were they fighting over? The word “Crusade” has very specific implications, after all.
Whatever it was, I can’t help but feel like we’ve stumbled a bit deeper into the history of the old war that birthed the Iron Palace. If I were to use this city if/when I run this game as a campaign, I’d probably wait for the specifics. Maybe one of the PC’s is religious; and that would be a VERY interesting thread to pull on.
The two of cups is The Perfume District
Most agricultural processes (milling, butchering, rendering, composting, etc.) are done outside the walls in the farms and fields that support the engine of metropolitan life.
Okay! So this is generally connected to farming and agriculture, which makes sense! This is the only core district with only one sprawl district connected to it. Pleeennttyyy of space for the agricultural backbone that probably keeps this city fed.
I’m half tempted to make this the main core entrance to the city. But I feel like the city would HAVE to deal with the Beggars. It certainly doesn’t make a great first impression to any outside villagers. There probably is an entrance, here, though.
The two of wands is Newt Row
Take a walk down Newt Row and you’ll see all forms of the eldritch and the
Arcane.
Oh, Okay, we’ve got another magical district. It seems to me like this is more for the underside of magic. Your gutter clerics and junk mages. This seems specified towards the Magic of the Weird (one of the 4 schools of magic; which, remember, is a free chapter if you wanna learn more about how magic works in this game!)
More than anything, truth be told, I just think this would be a fun place to visit. I think if there was a clear bubbling tension between the guards and soldiers of the Iron Palace and this place. For some reason, in my head, this feels like one of the newest districts. And its creation has been controversial among the local population.
The knight of wands is The Temple of Gods Wives
In the days of the pagan god-kings, the sect of the God’s Wives—made up
of intersex and third gender persons—wielded enormous political influence.
OKAY. SO OUR OLD KING WAS ALSO A GOD. Well shit, I guess that explains why the first king’s death created the fig trees! Wait, it was a Holy war, right? Oh my god was our king the one being fought over? Okay, this was the last district and I feel like this draw just changed everything. Oh my god. Okay, I don’t know if we have time to unpack all that. Especially since, if we take this as our modern understanding of the city we live in, we don’t know if they were literally a god, or if that's just mythology and legend portraying him as a god.
By the way, in modern days, this district is a haven and enclave for people outside standard gender norms. I get the impression that, much like the other district in this direction, this is a much more new (relatively) installation. I guess it depends on how we’d want to portray it. I’ll bookmark it for later if I run this game to get on the same page as to how this world treats trans and intersex people. If you draw this card, you probably should do this too.
Step 4: The Constants
Okay! We’re almost done here. To cap off the creation of our setting’s City, we have to add 3 things that appear in EVERY City:
- The Grey, which is a large river that cuts through the city. It’s absolutely great for agriculture and travel, as well as hosting pirates and other oddities.
- The Omphalic Market, which is the large giant market that acts as the center of commerce in this city. When you’re back up in the city while dungeon delving, this is where you’ll restock all your general supplies; though other districts could get you some more interesting knick-knacks.
- The Ossuary. This is- was a catacomb beneath the city, decorated with bone arts and frescoes. Think like the Paris catacombs. This all changed, however, when they uncovered The Underworld. Now, this acts as the hub location to the main entrance to the megadungeon that makes up the entire bulk of this game.
So, hold on, let me just uh…
Okay! There! So the top side of The Grey is a bit inconsequential, but I wanted to make sure that the bottom was by our agricultural center. I think the Omphalic Market being that blacksmith hill makes sense to me; and if I was going to set up a Hospital, I’d want to make it near the water AND near where all the supplies are readily available. As for the Ossuary, I like it being near the old king (god?) graveyard and the starfall pit. Feels…thematic. It feels like the place where they’d make a shrine to the dead that accidentally opened up into a giant sprawling Underworld.
Conclusions:
And there you have it! We’ve now made an entire city for our PC’s to explore! Step 5 is theoretically to draw the map, but for the sake of this post I’ve decided not to do this. Namely because I’m not a cartographer. If/When I use this city though, I might commission one. And you should too! Support your local artists.
So, what did I think of this process? It was fun! Its the type of “lonely play” that GM’s get to do that I think is really compelling. I can imagine that if/when I made the actual full “megadungeon” for the game, it’ll be much the same (If not taking a bit more time than a single evening.)
…Which, honestly, speaking of. Between you and me, is one of the things I was wondering about with this game. A message on another forum echoed these thoughts, but if the game is about dungeon delving, is there a reason to make a city this in depth and covered in lore? Especially when a couple mechanics actually disincentivize returning too often (to build a tension of seeing how far you can push yourself, such as return taxes.)
I can’t answer that without running a game myself. I see the intention though. His Majesty the Worm wants to give you a setting where, if you want to, spend years of sessions exploring this world; both above and below. This is a city packed with hooks and intrigue. And that's just as it is at the start of the game. I can see there being years of gameplay, watching between delves how the city changes. How the players try to make a name for their little guild in the inner-politics of this city, and maybe even cause some of those changes themselves. How it allows the players explore the smaller corners of this world… if they wish to.
I truly, honestly, don’t know if this lore we’ve created together about a history of god-kings in a holy war (with one of the gods themselves potentially in the center,) of a lineage passed down in iron, of a tension between the rise of magic in this City… will ever get used at the table. It’s just as likely that they spend all their time focusing on the dungeon and never engage with it except to refill their torches and maybe get wasted between delves. That's the beauty (and sometimes tragedy) of a sandbox game.
But you know what? Even if they never do, I think I’m still happy that this was made. Getting to discover the history of the city as I built and flipped cards was really fun. Even as I write this, I can’t help but find myself attached to this city, for better or for worse.
You can buy His Majesty the Worm on Exhalted Funeral’s Website or in its Itch.io Page.
You can get the city-generation chapter for free on its Itch.io page on top of other free chapters.
Thanks for reading! Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.
