Hellworm (Guide)
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Early Railroad Content and Onwards |
Once you have built the first station of your Great Hellbound Railway, you get access to the Upper River Exchange.
There you can buy Your Very Own Miniature Hellworm for a measly
200,000 x Hinterland Scrip. If you are willing and able to invest that same amount of money once again, you can upgrade it to
Your Very Own Miniature Hellworm, Saddled and Bridled. Equipping either adds a fun and profitable card to your Upper River opportunity card deck.
Why Should I Bother?[edit]
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:
Hellworm Milk, which you can turn into
Ripened Wheel of Hellworm Cheese through the Whitsun festival.
Vial of Cantigaster Venom, 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[edit]
Once you have the required Hinterland Scrip, 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 Bright Brass Skull from the Bazaar, and you have enough
Nevercold Brass Sliver, 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[edit]
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 Your Very Own Miniature Hellworm, Saddled and Bridled, a pretty awesome item in the Transportation slot.
There are further options to spend Scrip to obtain more Hellworm accessories, namely the Hellworm-Riding Boots with Brass Spurs and
Hellworm-Riding Boot Polish. The Hellworm-Riding Boots are worn in the Boots slot and give +8
Dangerous and +1
Dreaded. 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[edit]
Equipping your hellworm (upgraded or not) grants the In the Company of a Hellworm quality, which allows you to draw the Your Very Own Hellworm card in the Upper River deck.
There you can play options to increase The Disposition of your Hellworm:
- Play with your hellworm, increases Disposition by 1 point, and decreases your
Nightmares by 1-7 CP.
- Ride your hellworm requires the
upgraded Hellworm Your Very Own Miniature Hellworm, Saddled and Bridled, increases Disposition by 1-2 points, and also gives you a profitable
2 x Aeolian Scream, but also raises your
Scandal 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[edit]
Reward | Value in |
Notes | |
---|---|---|---|
1 | ![]() |
- | Only useful in ![]() |
2 | ![]() |
2.50 | |
3 | ![]() |
62.50 | Can be exchanged in Khan's Heart for ![]() |
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 ![]() ![]() |
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 |
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 |
31 | ![]() |
0.50 | Can also be sold for 1 ![]() |
32 | ![]() |
0.50 | Can be studied in the lab and sold for 10 x ![]() |
33 | ![]() |
0.10 | Can be studied in the lab and sold for 2 x ![]() |
Analysis[edit]
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 Nightmares 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 500 x Piece of Rostygold and an action, and reduces both your
Scandal and
Suspicion 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[edit]
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:
50 x Emetic Revelation, dropped from your Hellworm, or through other means
125 x Discriminating Aconite, dropped from your Hellworm or indirectly from
Distillation of Retribution
625 x Holy Sanguinarine Ointment from
Salve of Righteousness
500 x Hand-picked Peppercaps from A Disillusioned Fungiculturalist, which you encounter anyway when drawing cards in the Hinterlands
625 x Venom-Ruby Let's just hope you have these left-over, otherwise see Curiosity Grinding (Guide)#Venom-Ruby
Oil of Companionship can be used in Lead an expedition to the strangest point on the horizon together with
98 x Rumour of the Upper River. This is a good way to turn Rumours from touring the Upper River into a
Prismatic Frame, which you can then use as a high-value basis for further Bone Market adventures.
Concentrate of Self 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
Fillip of Effervescence or
Halcyonic Tonic (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
Crystallised Euphoria.
- At the university, exchange the
Halcyonic Tonic into
5 x Dark-Dewed Cherry (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:
1 x Bottle of Broken Giant 1844 (which also drops occasionally from the Hellworm),
100 x Memory of Distant Shores,
1.6 x Extraordinary Implication,
5 x Solacefruit (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
Train Luxuries). 730 of which come from the value added by the
Concentrate of Self.
- Touring the factory at Station VIII, mark crates to randomly get either
Bottle of Fourth City Airag: Year of the Tortoise can be sold directly to the Bazaar, but it's more profitable to sell for
125 x Assortment of Khaganian Coinage at Khan's Heart, and turn that into
Crackling Device, which you can, in turn, sell to the Rat Market.