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The Palladium opus is like an enormous jigsaw puzzle. Maybe the pieces are completely different, but at the end everything is connected by the game system. It doesn’t matter if you play Palladium Fantasy, Rifts or TMNT: you can move the wizards, lovecraftian monsters, mutants, aliens, robots and gods from one game to another.

Therefore it was very coherent with this philosophy to release a series of hard science-fiction books for Rifts, even if this game is not set in a distant future and never left Earth.

Wormwood is the first Dimension Book. Timothy Truman and Flint Henry, two comic authors, created the game world, and Kevin Siembieda wrote the book and connected it to Rifts. Fifteen years later comes my review.

The setting

Wormwood is a small planet located… well, in another dimension (otherwise this wouldn’t be a Dimension Book). The planet is in fact an enormous living being, possibility engineered by an alien race long time ago, and has the purpose to sustain the human population. Wormwood keeps a stable temperature, and provides food, water, air and a textile substance. Even more, all buildings and furniture are part of it. Some people have a special connection with the planet. They’re the wormspeakers, able to draw magical powers from it, but since they have worm symbiotes in their bodies, their appearance is a bit disgusting.

In many ways Wormwood is a truly alien world, very far from the Rifts standard: there are no ley lines, no psionics and very limited elemental magic. Also all creatures are megadamage and everyone speaks English, but let’s better skip this.

Obviously there’s no game without a conflict, and Wormwood has an enormous one: the battle between the forces of light and darkness!

Many years ago the Unholy and his minions came to the planet and began infesting it. These demons have learned how to manipulate Wormwood itself to create all kinds of aberrations, acting like parasites. Their final goal is to destroy humanity, and when this happens the planet will die.

The good guys, on the other side, are a theocracy. Since they are used to live with magic and the supernatural, there are organized around religious beliefs and spiritual leaders. For example, the material possessions are never important to determine a person’s social position.

The only existing great church (the others have been corrupted) is a paramilitary organization called The Cathedral, an enormous group of priests, knights, spies and healers. They fight against darkness, protect the free cities and keep enormous fortresses. But not all its members are saints: many only want personal power or to keep their social position.

Also relevant are the Apok. They’re followers of light who deserted to darkness, but after many years switched sides again. Now they are the more terrible fighters against the Unholy, but nobody trusts them.

The book

Wormwood is a sturdy 160-pages book, and a typical Palladium product. The typeset and the two-columns layout are really recognisable.

Fortunately, the contents distribution is less chaotic than usual. After the introduction by Mr. Siembieda, the book can be divided in the following parts.

Genesis-Omega (16 pages). It’s a comic by the two world creators, and I’m not enthusiastic at all about it. It tells the story of a mysterious guy called Lazareth Vesper, but the first part is only plot exposition and the second part a long battle. At least is quite useful to visualize this strange world.

Erin Tan’s Wormwood (12 pages). The known traveller arrives at Wormwood by accident, and begins a long journey. The text is really awful, not evocative at all: if the character suddenly appears in another dimension, you should describe her emotions and feelings, but instead of this Erin looks like a bad author of tourist guides. Mr. Siembieda, you can do better.

Wormwood (10 pages). The main information about the world and its people, including the differences from the usual Rifts setting. There’s a nice section about how Earth factions would react if they discovered the planet.

Champions of Light (28 pages). The chapter describes briefly The Cathedral, before starting with the O.C.C.s. They are: priest of light, apok, monk, wormspeaker, symbiotic warrior, freelancer and the knights templar and hospitaller (!). There is also a R.C.C., the Holy Terror, a group of beings from another dimension who side with the good guys and never remove their armour.

Non-Player Heroes (6 pages). We have three main NPCs. The Confessor is the most feared apok, Lazarus Vespers (the guy from the comic) is a freelance with a secret, and Dorsey Pentecost is the youngest captain in the history of the hospitallers.

Prayers & Spells (9 pages). The priests of light have access to this list of spells, mainly used to alter Wormwood itself or to summon its minions.

Symbiotic Organisms (24 pages). The majority of these organisms are created by the planet. The priests of light and the wormspeakers usually summon them to serve other people. They are really weird, ranging from the Battle Saints (giant organic robots piloted by a knight) to worms granting various powers. Unfortunately the Unholy has corrupted many symbionts or created other ones, so the players can have a large number of bizarre creatures to fight.

The Forces of Darkness (23 pages). More O.C.C.s and R.C.C.s, this time from the dark side. The dark priests are the main villains, and they are helped by an army of demons, mind controllers, feathered serpents, crossbreeds between rats and goats, worm zombies and other nasty beings.

Lords of Darkness (9 pages). The chapter introduces the real bad guys, the Unholy and his minions.

The Domain of the Unholy (10 pages). Very interesting background information to run adventures in Wormwood. It starts describing four typical cities (free, occupied, rebel, demon) and then several key geographic points.

And finally… the experience tables and a character sheet!

Conclusions

Wormwood is a very interesting experiment. You can play as a part of a Rifts campaign or independently from the main game, and both possibilities are quite suggesting. We all know the Palladium system is a bit clunky, but here it fits perfectly.

The setting is very oriented to epic combats and munchkinism, and a campaign based on subtlety and espionage would require a larger effort from the GM. Another problem is the lack of possibilities, beyond discovering the world and fighting evil there’s not much to do there.

But even with its limitations, Wormwood is a very nice setting. The planet is really alien, the evil side is nicely crafted, and many ideas (the symbionts, the new spells) can surprise any experienced player. Therefore, I recommend it to anyone interested in running a middle-sized campaign.