[No-Artpunk] #1 – Into the Elder Worm

Into the Elder Worm
Jeff Simpson (2023)
B/X
Lvl 14
13 pages (+6 maps)
Classification: Corvette

I was about to write the last sentence of my NAP III contest announcement and press Publish when lo, there was Jeffe, no-clipping through the wall, brandishing a gleaming, golden USB drive, to gently shove me aside and download his adventure into the file marked ‘Secret Furfag Stash (keep hidden)/No Artpunk III’ only to vanish once more in a flash of tachyons and red-shifted photons.

A high-level adventure for B/X, a bold move, some would even consider it unwise. On the player facing side B/X lacks a lot of the spell options of its more advanced cousins: Your auguries, your slow poisons, your air walks, your Stone to Muds. On the DM facing side, you must contend with a lack of checks and balances, gleefull spamming of haste and fireball, heedless stacking of protective items, no item saving throws, no system shock nor magic ageing, and whoever must play the thief at such echelons of power suffers a gruelling, miserable existence, lower then the lowest slime. Jeffe is here to show us WHO CARES LOL JUST PLAY, and has put something down that, while not without some flaws, does look like an agreeable time for all concerned. And he calls Luka Rejec’s one page dungeon with roughly the same concept unplayable, which I of course approve of, sight unseen.

Good, suitably epic premise, maybe more suitable for Levels 22-30 then 14 in B/X. The Elder Worm, a primordial creature older then the world itself, has made its way to the Character’s homelands and has started to unleash hordes of monsters to rampage across the countryside, laying waste to all you know. A more sinister power has seized control of it for its own designs. Several hooks are provided, ranging from ‘you can only destroy the evil artifact by dousing it in the Worms cerebro-spinal fluid’ to ‘the worm is going to crush your babes!’ Oh no! Not my babes! Fighting the Worm directly is out of the question so the party is left with no recourse but to enter through its mouth (or its safer, less heroic counterpart) and make your way to its brainstem and put an end to the critter.

To those not in the know, Jeffe has been immersed in D&D from birth and thus writes with the casual breeziness and fertile mind of a natural creative which is perfectly acceptable for low-mid range dungeons (as we can see in many Judges Guild publications) but in this case does leave some openings where I would wish he had expanded on some of the possibilities. You are left with something that I believe to be quite playable but that leaves me wanting more.

The adventure wisely recommend you don’t play a thief

Some interesting condition coverage. The effect of various spells upon the worm is briefly covered, Wish spells are remarked upon only in general terms (i..e its up to the GM to make sure they are used responsibly) and the rest mostly covers transmutation effects, Flesh to Stone, Disintegrate, and Lower water (yes it works on spit and acid thank you very much). There is little in the way of nerfing, but he does spring a nasty surprise on people trying to teleport-scumfuck their way into the last part of the dungeon, with any such attempts resulting in someone being unceremoniously deposited in the Unpleasantly titled Spit Pit. This part is nice. There are some sensible precautions to prevent the players from taking a shortcut and finishing the adventure in one fell swoop but the adventure does not rely on wholescale supression of character abilities. In describing the environment, we are presented with Sphincter doors, something of a missed opportunity that is much easier to open then a normal door, and given a blanket penalty to Breath saves and denied our Dex bonus because of the slippery, uneven footing (which may be avoided with sensible use of Fly/Levitation, very good). Proper random encounter table and proper travel time between different hubs.

You can enter through the mouth or the butt. If you enter via the mouth there is a chance you get bitten (save vs breath). Nice conceit. I’m missing some connective tissue here I think. I’ll accept the idea you can abstract the roaming hordes of monsters that issue from the creature’s butt, that’s fine. What I am talking about is the process of entry itself. Does the creature burrow? Swim? Lie prostrate in a single location? How do you enter its mouth if its in motion? Do you land on its surface first, do you set bait?

Map proper is a bit linear and the occasional use of doors a bit perplexing, although it is quite conceivable the monsters that have been spawned using the mindflayer have simply tunneled more quarters into the Worm. I guess if you figure it takes place in the digestive system of a creature that tracks, and there is a bit of snag when you try to go from the Stomach Sea to the Hearts and might accidentally end up in the Spit Pit or back out of the mouth but most of it should be fairly self-explanatory. There are some interesting navigational hazards, like a lake of what appears to be water but is, in actuality, a gigantic Gelatinous Cube (there is herein, an island), or the Spit pit, which is filled with neon-green acid and you have a chance of being ejected as the Worm uses its breath weapon. This sort of stuff is welcome, and gives the impression that this is not just another dungeon. I do occasionally find myself wishing there would be more interaction with the worm. Take the encounter with the hearts.

One of the hearts is diseased and will spawn hordes of Caecilia, ok, that is cool. The other looks bad and has a secret door in it. Nice. What happens if I try to destroy the heart? The worm is a threat, the PCs might not know what is up. Some sort of Worm-Anger Table or Effect (I know I know its being mind-controlled, but still).

Encounters proper. There is not much in the way of orders of battle (although complex creatures like the See-Dragon and the Mind-flayer both get tactics), and not much in the way of faction play, rescueing prisoners, negotiating with monsters etc. Into the Elder Worm challenges the players more or less straightforwardly, by navigational hazards interspersed with beefy, tough encounters, fire giants, bugbears, ropers and so on, with occasional spellcasting creatures like the Kopru thrown in for good measure. The ass has a mustering ground with a large group of creatures, minotaurs/giants/basiliks etc. I think judicious use of consequence free haste, fireball and cloudkill should suffice to deal with these buggers.

I will say that Jeffe’s new creature pretty much embraces the concept of high level gaming, the See-Dragon, a dragon with a beholder head that fires one breath weapon of different color each round, but may also claw/claw and use its anti-magic field, and this is on an island surrounded by the amoeboid sea. The bizarre Elder-brain double-mind flayer at the end is almost a cakewalk. I did get a pleasant smile from the image of a proper Sea-dragon frolicking in the giant pit of venom. Very appropriate for the artstyle.

There is a great concept, a town called Polypburg in the creature’s intenstine, that screams for expansion. Being able to sleep in a safe inn run by a Spectre for 5000 gp/night is positively wacky, but the description of the town proper is a bit too light for my taste. I know I know Prince the great slave driver, always demanding more, but here, maybe a JG style entry? One page settlement description, with lines of NPCs would have nailed it I think.

Fortifying the monster encounters is judicious use of traps and the weird. Rip a bone from the stomach walls only to find it functions like a wand of paralyzation. A troll in a starry robe, prostrate, underneath it a Glyph of Temporal Stasis. Weird Writhing tadpoles in an abandoned restaurant function as potions of extra healing. A goblin claims to be the tooth fairy and grants a 100 gp gemstone in exchange for each tooth. A skeleton offers you a deal for a rusty old lamp, charging 200.000 gp (here I would have considered what happens should the characters try to take it by force, as 200.000 gp is no picnic). A library with cursed texts. This sort of stuff. Let me find the best one, which is cruel but somehow perfect for a high level adventure.

Didn’t read the room and just picked up the stuff? DEATH. This is not as cruel as it looks, a neutralize poison spell would clear this right up, so there is an extra safety net, and you do get a Wish for your troubles. When it comes to the amount of pain that is thrown at the characters, there is a satisfying spread of occasional disease, charm, poison and petrification, and even some tasteful item destruction in the form of 1d4 rust monster encounters. Very good. Some permanent statt loss is all that is missing.

Treasure is an insulting pittance, around 300.000 gp! That is barely enough to afford my hotel costs, to say nothing of that wretched skelington and his rusty lamp! Were I not max level, this would be outrageous! Choice magic items such as the Eyed Jacket and the Hellbound Hand (a sort of chibi-hand of Vecna) offer small consolation. Update: The ultimate reward is the ability, if the Worm lives, to direct it to another plane. This is actually perfect, as there are no rules for travelling to other planes to B/X, meaning S2 (lol) can form the prologue to another, even scarier, max level planar adventure.

Appropriately, Into the Elder Worm is a good start. I think you can have a gay old time gallumphing around it for a session or 3, and I’m reasonably certain B/X is more forgiving when it comes to not permitting absolute cheese tactics (wizard-eyeing everything etc.), and some of the encounters would be very fun. At the same time, if I forget to cast Commune or carefully scout out the Worm before I make my entry, I don’t have the feeling that I am going to get absolutely annihilated. The pregens sort of reflect this, handing out a few choice magic items and potions, but not pushing in a way that screams Max level B/X to me. Re-stocking, a time-limit, a gradually increasing biological assault on foreign intruders, nasty knockout punch monster encounters (the beholder-dragon qualifies for this I should say) I think something was needed to make it just that little extra bit beefier and keep the players on their toes. Still, pretty cool, and no cakewalk by any means.