Planescape review: Lord of the Worms
For the last three years, I've run a Planescape1 campaign through almost all of its modules. Now, after successfully finishing it, I want to look back and review these adventures, highlighting the pros and cons of each one.
Each module will be rated in three categories, up to 3 points in each:
- Presentation: how easy it is to understand and run the adventure.
- Openness: how open the adventure's scope is, regarding the freedom of choice.
- Quality: Overall quality of the adventure, including the originality and richness of its content, and players' enjoyment.
The full list of currently published reviews is available under the planescape tag.
Planescape review: Lord of the Worms
In which the Heroes struggle to survive in a Hostile Demiplane where they encounter a Choice that may affect the Rest of their Lives.
- Designer: Monte Cook
- Source: Tales From the Infinite Staircase2, Tale 3
- Party: 4-6 characters of 4th-6th levels
- Play-time: 1 session
- Locations:
- Maelost (demiplane)
Overview
The black stone door on a narrow platform opens to the cold realm of darkness and black rain. Wind-swept ridges of Maelost span for about 120 miles, demiplane's space curving on itself in all directions. Being presented "more as a strange location rather than a plot", the Lord of the Worms spends almost the entirety of its pages describing this harsh, indifferent land and its weird inhabitants. After traversing the dangerous ridges buzzing with annoying flies, and dark, worm-infested waters, while evading the water-shaping attacks of the mysterious and ever-present Taker of Life, the party will eventually stumble upon either one of the black tunnels riddling the ridges, or Hanim — people that call Maelost their home.
The black tunnels are entrances to the realm of a gargantuan and incomprehensible creature — the Dark Dweller, as the Hanim call it. Anyone getting too close to the dark entrance would invite an attack of a half-dozen powerful (STR 25) tendrils that most probably pull the unfortunate adventurer into the unknowable depths of dark tunnels sprawling the entire demiplane. Thankfully, the Dark Dweller is a rather benevolent abomination wanting only to establish a telepathic contact with a new arrived "guest", then proposing a deal: any character who agrees to undergo a cleansing ritual could count on the Dweller to instantly transport them to any place on the demiplane — from one hole to another — for the rest of their life. The cleansing ritual, called the Scouring, indeed rids a character of all impurities and contaminations: magical heat burns out any diseases and curses, but also irreversibly sears away all the hair and clothing, the flesh, with all possessions staying intact from this procedure.
The Hanim, people of Maelost, all underwent the Scouring and thus are completely hairless. Making do with whatever scant resources the inhospitable demiplane has, they use leather, hides, bones, and insect carapaces for most of their clothes, buildings, and tools. Despite their somber and humorless attitude, the Hanim are excellent artists and craftsmen, and their carvings and sculptures could be seen everywhere around their floating city of Aml. Despite the dark waters being deadly for the outsiders, the Hanim seem to be relatively safe from the attacks of the Taker of Life. The reason for this is a strange symbiosis with valgoss — the pale worms inhabiting the black waters. These 2 to 6 inch-long creatures burrow into the hosts' flesh and, in exchange for the sustenance, grant them generous boons and telepathically connect them to each other to such a degree that the Hanim can freely swap their minds from one "connected" body to another.
To gain the deizens' trust, the player characters would have to perform a beneficial deed for the city assigned to them by the Aml's leader Zophiel — a self-proclaimed Lord of the Worms (with ten valgoss hanging out of his withered body) and a powerful wizard and priest. After proving themselves before the Hanim, the characters can undergo the symbiosis ritual themselves. To complete the ritual and gain an additional powerful boon, the character must travel to a mysterious Obelisk located about ten miles away from Aml. The boons can be chosen and range from a 1-point increase in one of the physical stats and 50% increase in movement rate to various spellcasting-related improvements. By the book, almost none of these will function outside the demiplane, but I would suggest ignoring this restriction, maybe limiting the maximum amount of worms per character instead.
As stated previously, there isn't a particular objective to complete in Maelost, though some planewalking NPCs can appear here at different stages of the mini-campaign. The Iron Shadow also affects this demiplane, causing valgoss to abandon their hosts, which makes the Hanim vulnerable against the Taker of Life and rivaling tribes. After the party is done here, they might either return to the Staircase or another portal, this one leading to Limbo. Speaking of the plane of pure chaos, it will be the location featured in the Fourth Tale.
Presentation
🖋️🖋️ useable
As usual for the book, the presentation is quite good, with a familiar plethora ot statblocks and minute details regarding the campaign events and specific game mechanics. The traveling and survival rules are also present, but surely could be structured more clearly — as separate titled paragraphs instead of being hidden in a wall of plain text, which you need to spend an inappropriate amount of game time seeking through.
The map of the adventure region is manageable and has a scale, though I would prefer it if it had proper hexes instead. To mitigate this issue, I did one myself to use in our campaign.
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Openness
☀️☀️☀️ open
A rare sight in the Planescape adventures' lineup, the Lord of the Worms is a small but pretty open sandbox. It even has proper random encounter tables — one for the coasts, and another for the ridges — expanding on the ecology and inhabitants of Maelost. By spending a minimal amount of time and effort, a willing DM can extrapolate the information given to this whole small world, creating an environment for additional adventures, maybe even to be played as the Hanim characters on a quest to save their floating city from some existential threat.
Quality
★★ good
As presented in the book, it is pretty good, but somewhat bland — especially if the party arrives here too early, when nothing fundamental has yet happened with this place. Otherwise, it is a truly weird experience, giving off Lovecraftian vibes mixed with some elements of Dark Sun aesthetics. Not everyone's jam, but if it's yours, you just must try it out.
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