STOORWORM

The islands are his teeth.

The pale worm on bone wings, high over The Harrow's harvest field at dusk, the oxen and the burning plough below.

You are the Stoor Worm, the great worm of the northern isles. You swim beneath the sea, come ashore, and tunnel under the townships to eat the people who live there. A monk is writing all of it down.

Coming to iPhone and Android

A crude margin drawing: a worm eating a bishop, only his legs and crozier sticking out.

From the Annal

In this year the worm came up through the kale at Skailholm and took Sigurd the Elder, who was not greatly missed, and two of the reeve's cattle, which were.

The bell was rung all night. This was thought to help.

It is bigger than it was. I have had to rule a new line.

Tunnel under. Burst out. Eat.

The worm rising out of the ground at the edge of a township at dusk, toward the longhouse and the bell-post.

Steer through the earth, break the surface, arc through the air and come down jaws first. Chain the kills into a Frenzy, then Yawn and pull in everything that floats. Swim the bay, capsize the boats and take the fishermen under.

Every place fights back with what a medieval island has: scythes and dogs, bowmen, harpoons, a mangonel, a trebuchet, and a Champion with an axe.

Frenzy at the fishing station in fog: the worm, reddened, arcing over the jetty with a thirty-two chain.

The siege, or the tribute

A banner over the township: they offer terms, a condemned man and a cow going blind.

Break a place's Resolve and it offers terms.

A condemned man, and a cow going blind.

Silver, a hostage, and the chaplain.

Eat the offering and they are spared. Eat anyone else and the bargain is off. Every place you break raises the Dread across the island, and the island answers.

No two worms the same

Eat enough and you change. Twenty-six mutations across four families, from tusk teeth and a second jaw to bone wings and a whip tail. Each one is drawn on your body, and each one changes how you hunt.

The emblems of the worm's four families: maw, bone, hide and brine.
The Change: three cut-paper cards, Harrow Spines, Wyrm Pinions and Tusk Teeth.
The Hag: an old weathered woman in a patched shawl, fingers steepled.

The Hag

"I'll have something of yours for it. You'll not miss it till you do."

Between places she keeps a stall on her skerry. Charms, the knife, meat for the road, and one bargain a visit. Take it or leave it. The price is always paid.

Skailholm

An island of four places, each with its own hour and weather. Choose your route round the coast, then meet what the steward has built for you.

  1. The Townshipdusk. Longhouses, the byre, the reeve's hall, a bell.
  2. The Fishing Stationgrey morning, sea fog. A stilted jetty and a broch full of slingers.
  3. The Beacon Hillnight. While the beacon burns, riders keep coming.
  4. The Earl's Castleovercast. Walls you cannot dig under. The earl's silver.
  5. The Harrowa siege-plough of iron discs drawn by eight oxen. Its face kills. Take it from behind, or from above.

What it looks like

The worm on bone wings high over the burning harvest field, The Harrow below. The worm rearing out of the ground against the earl's curtain wall. The Beacon Hill at night: the moon, the watchtower and the worm in Frenzy. The Hag's stall: she asks for your eyes, and gives a mythic mutation. The sea chart of Skailholm, with the monk's line and the next two places. The Annal page: Skailholm is broken, and the monk's chronicle of it.

Every screenshot on this page is the game itself, played by its own test bot and captured frame by frame.

A margin drawing of a cow, upside down.

The abbot has written to the earl. The earl has written to the abbot. The worm has eaten the man carrying both letters.

Coming to iPhone and Android

A roguelike for one player, played in landscape. Plays offline.
Cartoon gore. The horror is in the bookkeeping.