# The purple worm, how have you dealt with / used it?



## Scorpio616 (Mar 17, 2014)

One of the oldest and and most dangerous monsters in D&D, the purple worm is generally regarded as Bad NewsTM. Burrowing, a bucket of HD, swallow whole and a poison sting all add up to a monster most parties try to avoid, if they can. 

How have you dealt with this beast? Is it a foe your PCs avoid, have you triumphed against this? Have you _spice_d the monster up when you are behind the screen? 

Related video
[video=youtube;mzLSXMgzWpk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzLSXMgzWpk[/video]

I've always wondered why the purple worm would have a poison sting. What kind of foe would such a weapon be meant or needed for?


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## (Psi)SeveredHead (Mar 17, 2014)

I figure the stinger is to slay creatures it's size. So when it slams a massive dose into a PC's veins, which are now literally bulging with poison... it should hurt. Good thing paragon-level PCs are so hard to kill.


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## Hussar (Mar 17, 2014)

In all the years I've played D&D, either as a player or a DM, I don't think I've ever seen a purple worm in play.  Guess I should remedy that.


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## Viking Bastard (Mar 17, 2014)

I used a purple worm for the first time (that I remember) the other day. The PCs took one look at it and ran away, which may be a first for my games (not running away, but doing so immediately).

So I didn't really get a chance to play it, but I guess I sold it pretty well.


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## steeldragons (Mar 17, 2014)

In my experience, a fireball cast as far as possible into its nearly always-opened maw has done wonders in the past. Messy purple sploog and the scent of burned pudding all over everything. But effective.

As for the stinger, I have (in the past) generally removed it from play. The thing is massive and usually encountered in a tunnel of its own making...or, as the graphic the OP displayed, the front end is popping out of the ground. I suspect it was originally put in by E.G.G. simply to discourage "back stabs" or other attempted attacks from the rear. I have always found it kind dumb. How's the thing supposed to know or aim at something attacking it from behind? I mean, unless you're in a massive cavern or catch the entire thing above ground (which has never happened in any game I've ever been in), how is it supposed to swing its back end around to stab at something?

So, it's generally just not used. If something is attacking it from behind, it'll just burrow (way faster than most PCs could follow) away. I suppose one could make it inclined to circle back and see what was hurting it...but that attributes quite a bit more intelligence to a giant worm than I'm willing to accept/suspend my disbelief.


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## Gilladian (Mar 17, 2014)

I can remember a couple of purple worm encounters over the years - in one or two cases, the PCs fled as fast as possible, and sweated blood til they were certain they had gotten away. In one other case, the fighter got swallowed whole, and the rogue dived in after him. Epic "chop your way out from the inside" battle began, with the wizard unable to fireball because of fears of toasty PC. 

But it HAS been YEARS since I used one. Definitely time to rectify the situation.


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## DEFCON 1 (Mar 17, 2014)

I've used it one time because it was set up for me to use it in one of the current D&D Next Adventures.

[sblock]Scott Kurtz's _The Mines of Madness_ includes a really fun encounter with a purple worm right at the beginning of the module, where it pretty much guarantees that at least one PC is going to bite it.[/sblock]


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## Dannyalcatraz (Mar 17, 2014)

A purple worm is what killed the last 2 PCs in the party- a wizard and my fighter- of the very first D&D adventure I went on.  Long (fun) story short, at the end of the combat, with simultaneous initiative and 4 HP each, the worm and I squared off...I missed, it didn't.

I was hooked!


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## nijineko (Mar 17, 2014)

the sting makes a lot more sense if it can also spray poison all around. as it burrows away, it releases a cloud of poison mist with flung droplets of touch poison interspersed. anything near right next to the opening would likely get slammed/stung by the tail/sting as it gyrates around.


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## the Jester (Mar 17, 2014)

I've used purple worms a number of times over the years. 

One memorable moment was at the end of _Steaks,_ an adventure in... I think it's I13, but whatever it is, it's _Adventure Pack 1._ Basically, a bunch of small adventures for all levels in one product. 

_Steaks_ is a fun one that centers on a new restaurant in town that's serving up delicious steak and eating up all the business in town. The pcs are hired to investigate and figure out what's going on. 

Spoilers: 
[sblock]At the end, the pcs can find out where the steaks are coming from. The module gives the dm a number of suggestions; I've run this adventure twice, and the first time I used purple worms as the source of the meat. The second time, I used unicorns. [/sblock]

So that was pretty fun. Another great one is, IIRC, in I5, _Lost Tomb of Martek_. I'd put this in a spoiler block, but it's the picture on the cover: the pcs are sailing in a magic boat along a sea of glass in the middle of a desert, and a purple worm erupts from beneath them. It was an awesome and terrifying fight, both when I ran the module and when I played it.

There have been a number of other encounters with purple worms, ranging from the party fleeing from the worm (this has happened more than once) to one-round-killing it (in 3e). But those two examples above are the coolest.


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## The Crimson Binome (Mar 17, 2014)

I was playing in a Pathfinder game a few months ago, and the DM sprang an ambush with a purple worm. Unfortunately, that DM had some... interesting... ideas about what sort of intelligence was required to use a charge attack, so we were able to defeat it by walking away slowly and preventing it from getting a second attack. (The first attack lost us a camel.) The second time one showed up, the sorcerer just turned it into a pile of ash.


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## Olgar Shiverstone (Mar 17, 2014)

the Jester said:


> One memorable moment was at the end of _Steaks,_ an adventure in... I think it's I13, but whatever it is, it's _Adventure Pack 1._ Basically, a bunch of small adventures for all levels in one product.
> 
> _Steaks_ is a fun one that centers on a new restaurant in town that's serving up delicious steak and eating up all the business in town. The pcs are hired to investigate and figure out what's going on.




Sounds like fun:

Spoilers: 
[sblock]How about trolls? Or better yet, vampiric regenerating purple worms![/sblock]


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## (Psi)SeveredHead (Mar 18, 2014)

A DM in my group is old-fashioned. We fought carrion crawlers for probably the first time a little more than a week ago. (A scuttler grabbed my wizard, climbed on the ceiling, and took him far away from the rest of the party. But it had maybe 5 hit points left, so one Thunderwave and the wizard was covered in green goop, dropped prone and since he was dazed by the poison...)

There are plenty of classic D&D monsters I have never faced, or used as a DM.


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## TarionzCousin (Mar 18, 2014)

I've DM'ed action in the Worm's Gullet, a hollowed out Purple Worm corpse in Skullport--now a popular restaurant and casino. Does that count?


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## MarkB (Mar 18, 2014)

steeldragons said:


> I have always found it kind dumb. How's the thing supposed to know or aim at something attacking it from behind?




Tremorsense. Unless you're flying, a purple worm knows exactly where you are whether you're at its front end or its tail end.



> I mean, unless you're in a massive cavern or catch the entire thing above ground (which has never happened in any game I've ever been in), how is it supposed to swing its back end around to stab at something?




A purple worm is 80 feet long. On the surface, it could quite easily erupt 20 feet of its front end out of the ground at one place, and another 20 feet of its tail end in another spot up to 30 feet away. In fact, that might be a great way to play it as a solo encounter.


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## steeldragons (Mar 18, 2014)

MarkB said:


> Tremorsense. Unless you're flying, a purple worm knows exactly where you are whether you're at its front end or its tail end.
> 
> A purple worm is 80 feet long. On the surface, it could quite easily erupt 20 feet of its front end out of the ground at one place, and another 20 feet of its tail end in another spot up to 30 feet away. In fact, that might be a great way to play it as a solo encounter.




I'll grant you the second one, though I do not recall anything in their description about purple worms being able to bore backwards or the stinger facilitating such a thing. Granted it's been a loooong long time since I've looked at it.

The first thing, though, this "tremorsense", is a 3e construction? Makes sense! But its not something I ever dealt with in play. Unless it was in the 1e description that they can sense things moving above ground [a la the Dune worms, which I've always believed they were based on. I could be wrong about that].


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## GX.Sigma (Mar 18, 2014)

steeldragons said:


> The first thing, though, this "tremorsense", is a 3e construction? Makes sense! But its not something I ever dealt with in play. Unless it was in the 1e description that they can sense things moving above ground [a la the Dune worms, which I've always believed they were based on. I could be wrong about that].



The 1e Monster Manual says they "sense vibrations at 60' and move to attack." It also says of the tail stinger, "this weapon is only used in rear defense...or if the worm is fighting large or numerous opponents in a very spacious area which will allow it freedom to use its stinger."


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## steeldragons (Mar 18, 2014)

GX.Sigma said:


> The 1e Monster Manual says they "sense vibrations at 60' and move to attack." It also says of the tail stinger, "this weapon is only used in rear defense...or if the worm is fighting large or numerous opponents in a very spacious area which will allow it freedom to use its stinger."




Well there ya go.

Thanks.


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## Davinshe (Mar 18, 2014)

One of the most memorable uses of a purple worm was in my 4e campaign as part of Lolth's grand epic-tier army. There was a group of elite drow archers mounted on  a purple worm (with a howdah made from xorn-skin so that the riders could burrow through the earth along with the worm). The worm ate one of the PC's then regurgitated him in a cavern below, where he fought grimlocks while the rest of the group fought a completely separate battle on the surface.


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## MortalPlague (Mar 19, 2014)

Purple worms have seen a lot of use at my table.

A few times while running the D&D Next adventure (mentioned upthread).  Another couple times in the Blingdenstone adventure (And yes, the PCs ran away).

The best use was during a 4th Edition campaign featuring a tiefling sorceress named Nox Amandine.  She was the youngest daughter of a noble tiefling family, and they advance politically by assassinating their older siblings (much like the drow).  In any case, the opening encounter saw a group of bandits hold up a noble ball, and a purple worm burrowed up and got stuck in the marble floor (becoming a hazard for the encounter, think Sarlacc and you're on the right track).  Immediately after the fight, Nox 'accidentally' bumped her sister down the purple worm's gullet.

The purple worm managed to extricate itself, and the PCs found out about a rod that controlled purple worms; one of the bandit leaders had it in his hideout.  So they tracked him down, killed him, and Nox claimed the rod.  She was clever enough to figure out that while the rod did _summon_ purple worms, it did not actually control them.

She eventually turned a purple worm loose against her eldest brother, and nearly got killed in the ensuing chaos.  The whole party had a desperate fight to get away from all the enemies who were also trying to escape the purple worm while the beast swallowed Nox's brother.  Then Nox herself used a potion of mimicry to impersonate her brother while making her escape.

The party later turned against Nox for her criminal ways.  The campaign came to an end as Nox escaped captivity and fled town one step ahead of the rest of the party, though without her rod of purple worm summoning.

It's still one of the most talked-about short campaigns I've ever run.


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## pemerton (Mar 20, 2014)

I may have used a purple worm _way_ back in the day. But I used one again about a year or so ago, as described here:

[sblock]A purple worm under the control of Pazrael/Pazuzu attacks an undergroudn duergar city that the PCs have just helped save from a demonic invasion that they helped cause.

The worm swallows swallowed a duergar theurge who was carrying a casket containing one fragment of the Rod of Seven Parts. The 19th level PCs drive the worm out of the hold by rallying the despondent duergar and activating their magically automated ballistae. The worm burrows off. Although the duergar theurge was the PCs' friend, they have to give her up for dead. But they prepare to chase the worm!

The player of the invoker-wizard rolls Nature for a purple worm knowledge check, and they get the run down on its swallow ability, including 30 acid damage per round (the paladin and defender have around 150 hp each, the strikers a bit over 100, the invoker 90-ish). They decide that, before heading off, they will try and get a sack of something alkaline try and neutralise the acid should anyone be swallowed. One of the players says (and I take his word for it) that lime is used in smithing, and so will be present in the duergar hold. They make a Dungeoneering check (seemed more applicalbe than Streetwise in all the circumstances - it wasn't about persuading someone to give them lime, but rather knowing where to find it in the half-ruined duergar hold), and with a reasonable success I let them have two sacks of it. One is with the sorcerer and one with the fighter, they being deemed the two most likely to go into the worm.

When they met the worm (in the company of two T-Rexes in a big cavern) it quickly swallowed two of the PCs - the invoker and the sorcerer. Inside the worm they were able to grab the swallowed casket (the DC by level table gave me numbers to assess the difficulty of doing this sort of thing inside a purple worm's gullet). The sorcerer dropped his bag of limb, reducing the ongoing acid damage from 30 per round to 20 per round (4e's default damage reduction is 5 points per tier). He then used his 6th level utility power - the pillar of earth one from Heroes of the Elemental Chaos - to force open the worm's jaws so they could (i) get some light, and (ii) get out (the player argued - plausibly enough - that the worm, having burrowed through miles and miles of rock, must have enough dirt in its mouth to meet the material component requirement for the spell). Given that this is a non-standard use of the spell, I asked for an Arcana check for the sorcerer to summon enough power to do it: he rolled enough for Moderate but not Hard success, and so I levied a hit point penalty against him as he tried to marshall the chaotic forces (p 42, appropriately MM3-ed, gives me easy access to mechanically balanced damage expressions). The invoker, being concerned about the consequences of too much elemental chaos, used his Rod of 4 out of 7 Parts to try and contain the forces - his Arcana roll was in the middle too, and so he rather than the sorcerer internalised the damage, through his Rod. The sorcerer then succeeded at an escape check with a bonus for the worm's mouth being forced open, and flew out. The invoker was able to teleport out - normally you can't teleport out of being swallowed because you need line of sight, but in this case forcing the worm's mouth open granted line of sight.

Later in the encounter the fighter PC got swallowed, and was in danger of dying inside the worm, so the ranger-cleric flew into the worm's mouth on his carpet of flying - succeeding at an Acro check, and voluntarily taking swallow damage on his way in - so he could heal the fighter. They both then got regurgitated by the worm because it didn't want too people trying to kill it from the inside. It swallowed the invoker again and tried to tunnel off with 5 parts of the Rod, but the other PCs killed it before it could get underground. (They beat up on the T-Rexes too.)[/sblock]


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## Scorpio616 (Mar 24, 2014)

pemerton said:


> [sblock]
> When they met the worm (in the company of two T-Rexes in a big cavern) it quickly swallowed two of the PCs [/sblock]



Shouldn't the encounter look more like...




> http://michaeljaecks.deviantart.com/



?


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## MarkB (Mar 24, 2014)

Scorpio616 said:


>




Maybe it's the lack of blood, but somehow that picture makes me think the purple worm is just giving his tyrannosaur buddy a really affectionate hug.


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## Viking Bastard (Mar 25, 2014)

MarkB said:


> Maybe it's the lack of blood, but somehow that picture makes me think the purple worm is just giving his tyrannosaur buddy a really affectionate hug.




Moving in for the smooch.


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## Scorpio616 (May 31, 2014)

Looks like that T-Rex will have a problem similar to the Nixon administration's. 

While exploring some very deep caverns, the players in my WFRP game heard / felt something stirring even further down in the rock, though they didn't stay in the area to draw it's attention. Tsk, tsk...


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## Richards (May 31, 2014)

I've used a purple worm only once that I can recall.  I cut out a bunch of ovals from purple construction paper, made a small slit at each end of the ovals, and then connected them together into a long "chain."  I then added a head piece and a tail piece (with stinger), and had a purple worm miniature scaled to my D&D Minis.  The PCs encountered it after it had burrowed through the side of the large cavern they were in, so it was able to use its bite and its stinger against the PCs (and I could ignore the normal, generic space and reach considerations and have the head strike those within reach and the tail do likewise).  The half-orc barbarian PC got swallowed, cut his way out of the worm's stomach, charged it in retaliation, and got swallowed a second time.

Fortunately, the half-orc survived.  Due to the efforts of the other PCs, the purple worm did not.

Johnathan


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## Henry (Jun 1, 2014)

Richards said:


> The half-orc barbarian PC got swallowed, cut his way out of the worm's stomach, charged it in retaliation, and got swallowed a second time.
> 
> Fortunately, the half-orc survived.  Due to the efforts of the other PCs, the purple worm did not.
> 
> Johnathan





_...so the purple worm turns and says to me, *"Mister, a pig like this you don't eat all at once."*_


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## Olfan (Jun 1, 2014)

I used a purple worm in an Underdark adventure once. The players were swarmed by duergar, and at first the characters tried to play it cool, saying they were friendly. The duergar took out their blasting horns and summoned forth a giant purple worm that was probably colossal++++.

So the players book it to two conveniently placed mine carts and Indiana Jones it right down the cave. The dwarves are on either side, shooting their crossbows at them, while a massive purple worm chases them. The cleric/stonelord dwarf decides to jump IN its endless maw and fight it from the inside. The players even had to hit a switch in time to prevent one of their carts from falling off a broken track. It was amazing.


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## Savage Wombat (Jun 2, 2014)

A mad scientist spliced together the DNA of Prince and Dennis Rodman.  The result was... horrifying.


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## Dannyalcatraz (Jun 2, 2014)

I LOLed.


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