Hellworm (Guide)

This guide is incomplete. You can help by expanding it.

What needs work: EPA needs reevaluation after the the 33rd reward was added.

Early Railroad Content and Onwards

Milking Your Hellworm Summary
Semi-Fixed-Length Activity
Setup				Progress				End
0 A				3.5-7 A				1 A
Progress Details			Raise to 7.
Items Inputs/Outputs Start-up Boosting Outputs
Raw EPA			14.45			Raw SPA			-

Once you have built the first station of your Great Hellbound Railway, you get access to the Upper River Exchange.

There you can buy for a measly . If you are willing and able to invest that same amount of money once again, you can upgrade it to . Equipping either adds a fun and profitable card to your Upper River opportunity card deck.

Why Should I Bother?

A good question, with many possible answers, like:

• Because it's a hard-to-get item. For some players that's motivation enough.
• Because it's just so darling, it's like a big fuzzy puppy and it loves you.
• Because it gives access to more unique items, such as:
  • , which you can turn into through the Whitsun festival.
  • , a pretty good weapon otherwise only available by spending FATE.
• Because it adds a very profitable card to the Hinterland opportunity deck.
• Because its (saddled) stats are exemplary for its slot, and it comes with a free Boon.
• Because it is a Crime against the Chain, and a rejection of the authority of the Judgements.
• Because it makes a much better trophy than The Seven-Fold Knock.
• Because you are A Person of Great Importance and you can, d__n it.

How to Obtain Your Hellworm

Once you have the required , you can buy your Hellworm from the Upper River Exchange.

Typically, obtaining enough Scrip is a months-long process. See Hinterland Scrip-Making for advice on how to go about that efficiently.

To give you an idea of the scale of the task: even if you are a Licentiate, and have enough money (nearly 81 thousand echoes) to buy from the Bazaar, and you have enough , simply turning your Skulls into Scrip through the Licentiate Brass Lollipop grind takes 5164 actions. If you typically spend 100 actions per day playing Fallen London and devote those fully to grind, it still takes over 51 days.

On the other hand, if you start with zero echoes and assume a 10 Scrip-per-Action grind, it takes you 200 days under the same assumptions, or more than half a year.

Upgrading Your Hellworm

After obtaining your Hellworm, equip it and draw cards at the Upper River. Sooner or later you will come across Your Very Own Hellworm. There you can invest another 200,000 Scrip and play Purchase a hellworm saddle, which exchanges your Hellworm for , a pretty awesome item in the Transportation slot.

There are further options to spend Scrip to obtain more Hellworm accessories, namely the and . The Hellworm-Riding Boots are worn in the Boots slot and give +8 and +1 . Those stats are no better than that of several other boots you probably already own and only add flavor text when riding your hellworm. The Boot Polish does nothing. There's no reason to buy these accessories, but if you have the money, why not spend it? (Additionally, there is no lock on purchasing the polish, so you can own multiple tins!)

Hellworm Mechanics

Equipping your hellworm (upgraded or not) grants the quality, which allows you to draw the Your Very Own Hellworm card in the Upper River deck.

There you can play options to increase :

• Play with your hellworm, increases Disposition by 1 point, and decreases your by 1-7 CP.
• Ride your hellworm requires the , increases Disposition by 1-2 points, and also gives you a profitable , but also raises your by 1 CP.

Once Disposition reaches 7, you can Milk your hellworm, which reduces Disposition by 7 points again, and gives you random liquid (see below).

Milking your hellworm randomly gives you one of 33 possible rewards, ranging from annoying to highly profitable.

Hellworm Milking Rewards

	Reward	Value in	Notes
1		-	Only useful in
2		2.50
3		62.50	Can be exchanged in Khan's Heart for Crackling Devices, which can be sold to the Rat Market.
4		0.20	Otherwise somewhat annoying to obtain
5		0.01
6		0.02
7		0.10
8		0.50
9		0.01	Can also be bought from the Bazaar (at an 80x markup)
10		1.00
11		(0.50)	Must be processed to be cashed out as
12		(2.50)	Must be processed to be cashed out as
13		12.50
14		0.10
15		2.50
16		312.50	Otherwise pretty annoying to obtain
17		1562.60	Otherwise very annoying to obtain
18		312.50	Otherwise FATE-locked. Good weapon.
19		63.50	Can be sold for 125 , or exchanged for a better value w/
20		2.50
21		(~65)	Useful for Lead an expedition to the strangest point on the horizon
22		(13.00)	See item page. Also used to Search Parabola for the location of a particular treasure
23		0.10
24		0.10
25		0.25
26		-	Must be cashed out at Whitsun, limit 2/year (worth 312.5 once, then 62.5 )
27		(312.50)	Must be processed, twice, to be cashed out as
28		(65.00)	Must be processed, twice, to be cashed out as
29		(312.50)	Can be cashed out by Prepare a Curatorial Cocktail
30		25.00	Can be cashed ATotG/card for 2.5 through any of its opportunity cards, which are annoyingly swamping the London Deck until used up.
31		0.50	Can also be sold for 1
32		0.50	Can be studied in the lab and sold for 10 x s at Hallow's Exchange.
33		0.10	Can be studied in the lab and sold for 2 x s at Hallow's Exchange.

Analysis

Adding up just the milking rewards that can be straight-up sold to the Bazaar or the Upper River Exchange and dividing it by the number of possible rewards gives an average 72.97 reward for milking.

If you raise your Disposition through Play with your hellworm, you need to do that seven times before you can milk (and you need draw the card 8 times total). That gives you 9.12 EPA. Plus lots of removed, if you have any.

If you have the saddled hellworm, you ride it on average 4.67 times before you can milk it, giving you just as many CP of Scandal, and giving you an extra 4.67 * 2 Aeolian Scream worth 23.35 . If we add one extra action for getting rid of the scandal, that's 72.97 plus 23.35 for 6.67 actions (and 5.67 card draws), resulting in 14.44 EPA.

If you cannot get rid of the Scandal that easily, organize some Licentiates as acquainces. Then you can Write down a name in Gant which costs and an action, and reduces both your and by 6 CP each. This still gives you an EPA of 14.33.

You can reduce the Scandal load a bit (and thus increase overall profitability) by wearing items that reduce Scandal build-up.

What To Do with the Spoils

You can further raise your EPA by turning some of the items that you cannot sell to the bazaar into other items, and sell these secondary products. A full analysis of this is nearly impossible, because it depends on too many factors. Instead, here are a few ideas on what to do with some of these items:

• Assemble a Tasting Flight of Targeted Toxins (worth 1562.50 ) can make use of several Hellworm products. It requires:
  • , dropped from your Hellworm, or through other means
  • , dropped from your Hellworm or indirectly from
  • from
  • from A Disillusioned Fungiculturalist, which you encounter anyway when drawing cards in the Hinterlands
  • Let's just hope you have these left-over, otherwise see Curiosity Grinding (Guide)#Venom-Ruby
• can be used in Lead an expedition to the strangest point on the horizon together with . This is a good way to turn Rumours from touring the Upper River into a , which you can then use as a high-value basis for further Bone Market adventures.
• can be used (with other items) to Prepare a Curatorial Cocktail at Station VIII:
  • Touring the factory at Station VIII, mark crates to randomly get either or (you'll need both).
  • Also at the factory, Offer to collect materials to be experimented on. When next in London, Acquire an 'Obliviscere Mori', then back at Station VIII convert it into .
  • At the university, exchange the into (plus other items).
  • In the Station VIII kitchen, Steep a Dark-Dewed Cherry Liqueur, then Prepare a Solacefruit Champagne Royale, and then Prepare a Curatorial Cocktail.
  • In addition to the above, each such Curatorial Cocktail will need: (which also drops occasionally from the Hellworm), , , (can even be bought at the Rat Market). If you have those specific items, then creating the cocktail should take 16 actions on average (including travel cost between Station VIII and London).
  • Serve up the cocktail for 789 (plus up to 6 more if you've upgraded your ). 730 of which come from the value added by the .
• can be sold directly to the Bazaar, but it's more profitable to sell for at Khan's Heart, and turn that into , which you can, in turn, sell to the Rat Market.