The Purple Worm Graveyard by Tony Dowler.
At a glance:
- System used: Mork Bork
- PCs: Two, equivalent of third-level
- Time to complete: Just under 3 hours
tldr; Fun, evocative, but needs more non-combat encounters. Potentially very deadly.
Summary: There once was a cult that worshiped purple worms. Beneath their long abandoned temple is a cave where the worms went to die. It’s full of their skeletal remains. Those remains are made of ivory, so obviously they are very, very valuable. All that ivory is just sitting there for the taking, if anyone is bold and foolish enough to try.
First let’s take a look at it based on my three elements of a good adventure:
Someone to talk with: Not really. There are some “maggot nagas” that can imitate human voices, but as written they’re not exactly conversational.
Something to experiment with: Yes. There’s an altar to the worm god with a big gong above it. There’s a wall of ancient worm language text the PCs can study.
Meaningful choices: Yes. The interactions above
Good
- Good new monsters selection: The maggot nagas (gross and awesome, though I don’t think they should be called “nagas”) and a mimic that disguises itself as a table covered in food. These are worth using elsewhere even if you don’t run the adventure.
- Good treasure/loot.
- Fun opportunities: Praying at the worm god altar or reading the worm language. There are some fun tables (referred to as “Dungeon Moves” and fashioned after Apocalypse Worlds notion of moves, but otherwise in no sense story gamey) for determining the outcome of trying to interact with the worm god or seeing through illusions like the mimic. Also worth lifting.
Bad
- Too many hostile creatures, which leads to too much hack ‘n slash.
- Not quite enough other stuff to do besides fight those hostile creatures.
What I’d do if I ran it again
- There’s a trap room (keyed location 2) where some statues slide out and block the way. The solution is pretty simple, but it’s kind of hard to describe without essentially giving the solution away. Also the PCs will almost surely have to kill four fire beetles first. I’d remove the beetles entirely and hit some books of puzzles and traps to find something more interesting to replace it with.
- Add some worm cult revivalists running around.
- Nix the random encounters. I’d either run it without any random encounters and give the PCs more time to screw around before potentially awakening a worm, or re-write them to include a greater variety of outcomes, like maybe running into some cult revivalists.