Experience

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Experience points (XP) represent an adventurer’s skills improving as they adventure. You spend XP to use talents that you have not yet mastered.

During play, if nobody else is currently pursuing their quest, you may declare your quest to the rest of your guild.

• If everybody agrees to help you, every player (including you) gains 3XP.

• When the guild completes a quest, every player gains 3XP.

A guild can only pursue one quest at a time. Once one quest has been completed, someone else should speak up and share the reason they’re descending into the Underworld. If the group agrees to help them, the guild starts the next quest.

Pursuing and fulfilling quests is the main way to accumulate experience. There are two other ways to accumulate experience points:

• When your guild fulfills a contract for an employer, everybody in the guild gains 1XP. See page 46 for information on contracts.

• When you take the Carousing City Action, you spend your gold to gain experience points (but risk a splitting hangover). See page 156 for details on this City Action.

Wide, not deep, growth

It’s worth noting that adventurers in His Majesty the Worm grow “wide” not “deep.” That is, XP allows you to use and master more talents, broadening the options available to you. You do not gain bigger numbers, +1s, more hit points, etc.

In addition to XP, there are two other types of growth that adventurers benefit from. The first is arête, a feature of your kith (p. 28). The second is “weirdness.” As you journey through the Underworld, you get weirder. You accumulate scars, mutations, magical items, pets, mutilations, phobias, etc. There are no rules governing the latter. Finding out how your adventurer gets weirder is essentially the whole game.

Animal companions War pigs

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and familiars

Adventurers sometimes take pets into the Underworld— hunting falcons, small but vicious dogs, trained dire moths, riding boars, and so on.

As a general rule, you may have as many animal companions travel with your guild as you can carry feed for. Animal companions need to eat each Camp Phase (just as you do). If they do not, they begin to starve. Starving animals might abandon you entirely in search of food.

Animal companions do not have slots for carrying items. You must carry your animal’s feed.

The Beast Master talent (p. 78) can train these animal companions so that they can serve at need during dungeon delves. Trained animals will perform one of their commands at your direction. Most normal animals can only learn three commands.

If necessary, commands might prompt a test of fate. If the animal is uniquely suited to the test (e.g., monkeys are great at climbing and grabbing stuff, horses are great at pulling), the test is made with favor. Otherwise, no bonuses are added to the test of fate.

If nobody in your guild has the Beast Master talent, you may pay animal trainers in the City to train your pets for you (see Appendix D, p. 313).

There are no rules for hirelings, henchmen, mercenaries, etc. because that is what you are playing. If you’re going into the Underworld, you’re an adventurer . You’re going down there for some reason, not just gold. Nobody can go into the Underworld unless they’re a member of a guild and nobody is special enough to join a guild unless they’re going to be played by a player. During Challenges, an animal companion does not act unless its owner uses the Command action to have it perform one of its known commands. The GM interprets the pet’s actions, as even well-trained animals will use their own logic and understanding in stressful situations. An animal companion shares its master’s Initiative.

Wounds and healing

Unlike adventurers, animal companions usually only have two conditions: Staggered and Injured. Animals do not have talents to Wound. Once an animal companion is Injured, the very next Wound it takes will kill it.

The exception to this rule is if the animal is a familiar: a familiar’s owner may spend a Resolve to reduce a killing blow (see “Beast Master,” p. 78). These familiars are out of the action but not dead.

Animal companions lose the Staggered condition if fed during the Camp Phase.

A player may spend one of their charged Bonds to heal their animal’s Injured condition during step 4 of the Camp Phase. Animals can also benefit from the Heal effect.

Hirelings? (sidebar)

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