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Wormwood

Wormwood is one of three Characters introduced in the Hamlet DLC. He appears to be an animate plant, akin to Treeguards, though he has a green cut stone on the front of his chest. Wormwood is friendly while a little eccentric, addressing things such as insects as "Bzzters" and birds as "Tweeters."

On June 6, 2019, Wormwood was added to Don't Starve Together as the second DLC character after Wortox.[1][2][3] He is available to Hamlet owners on Steam for free. For all other players, Wormwood can be purchased either through the Wormwood Chest, which includes his Roseate skin set, or through the Wormwood Deluxe Chest, which includes the Roseate, Oasis Bound and Hollow skin sets. He can alternatively be woven with 2,700 Spools.

Special mechanics

Wormwood has many unique abilities pertaining to Plants and plant-like Mobs, and he has access to unique crafting recipes that can help with healing and defense. He is able to plant Seeds without the use of a Farm, and he is treated neutrally by Mobs such as the Lureplant and Snaptooth Flytrap. He also seems to have some sort of kinship with plants, addressing most of them as "Friend," or things similar. Because of this, he loses Sanity when plants around him die, and he gains Sanity when he himself plants them.

Wormwood loses Sanity Meter when plants within a five-tile radius are destroyed, even if the damage is not caused by him. Sanity effects from planting or destroying plants is reduced the further it happens from Wormwood.

  • -2 Sanity Meter from burned trees, flowers, seeds, saplings and grass tufts. Saplings, grass tufts, and tree seeds will cause sanity loss even if burned as an item on the ground. The amount of items in the stack does not change the sanity drain.
  • -2 Sanity Meter from trees, saplings or grass tufts being knocked over or uprooted by things.
  • -5 Sanity Meter from picking Flowers or digging up tree stumps, Grass Tufts, Saplings.
  • -15 Sanity Meter from chopping down a tree at any growth tier. In Hamlet: Includes burned trees. In DST: Does not include burned trees.
  • +10 Sanity Meter from planting a tree or sapling.

Wormwood does not restore or lose Health from eating Food. He gains and loses normal amounts of Sanity and Hunger from food, however. Health can still be restored using Healing items such as Spider Gland. (Both Hamlet and DST)

Bloom

In both Hamlet and DST, Wormwood has a "bloom" mechanic. Please check the respective DLC pages (link on top of this page) for the actual mechanic.[4][5]

Fertilizing

Wormwood can "fertilize" himself with fertilizer items to gain Health or Bloom speedup; see Nutrient for an in-depth explanation of his fertilizer mechanics.

Minimap Maxwell's Door Origin

Though the circumstances of his creation were unusual at best, Wormwood came into this world full of optimism and curiosity, ready to make new friends and see all that life had to offer. But as time wore on and he experienced the cold sting of rejection, he came to learn what the moon above had always known: Wormwood the Lonesome does not belong here.

–Official description for Lunar Roots [3]

Don't_Starve_Together_Lunar_Roots_Wormwood_Animated_Short

Don't Starve Together Lunar Roots Wormwood Animated Short

Wormwood's creation is shown in the animated short Lunar Roots.

A green gem fell from the moon, landing on an ancient stone monument in the middle of overgrown rubble. Over a long period of time, a vine encircled the gem and eventually formed a humanoid figure sitting on the monument. The figure, Wormwood, opened his eyes and looked at his hands. He admired the tropical scenery, mimicking the flapping wings of the Butterflies with his leaf fingers. Trying to fit in, he imitated Parrots and Pogs, but he scared them off. Feeling downtrodden, he sat at the base of the monument and tucked himself under a nearby vine. He gave it a pat and smiled to himself. He went to sleep and bloomed along with the nearby plants while under the full moon.

Placeholder Trivia

In-Game

  • Wormwood was introduced in the February 7, 2019 Character update during the Hamlet DLC's Early Access phase.[6]
  • Wormwood's voice is a didgeridoo.
  • Wormwood's quotes use the font Henny Penny and are green in color. He is the only character to have a unique font and text color.
    • In Don't Starve Together the green color was replaced with white because text color is used in that game's chat system to differentiate the players from each other.[7]
  • Maxameleon has different dialogue when Wormwood is the chosen character: "Get moving, tree. Chop, chop!"
  • Before he was implemented, there were files in the game of an alternate design, which most noticeably had large, curly horns on his head. In addition, the original sound files were replaced in his introductory update with a very different sound.
  • Wormwood calls Mushrooms his friends, although Mushrooms are not plants and are fungi in real life.
  • Wormwood is the third character from a Don't Starve DLC to be added to Don't Starve Together after Wigfrid and Webber.
  • Wormwood is the first character to receive a special idle animation in Don't Starve Together. In his idle animation, he mimics Butterflies with his hands, referencing the Lunar Roots short.
  • Wormwood is one of four characters to have more than one ghost transformation with the others being Woodie, Wurt, and Wortox. He is also one of four characters to have different ghost designs for each of his skins.
  • Wormwood's skull was found in the DST files as of May 6, 2021.

Lore

  • Wormwood, Wurt, and Wilba may be the first survivors to originate from the Constant and not the real world like the others.
  • Wormwood's birthday is listed as June 6 in the Compendium. June 6, 2019 is the day Wormwood was added to DST.
  • To the question on the forum "Is Wormwood a plant or an animal?" developer Nome replied: "While it certainly beats some alternatives, a cladistic categorization of life on earth already struggles with concepts like horizontal gene transfer - it's therefore ill-equipped to handle the effects of magic gemstones. I suggest either developing a rigorous framework for the categorization of Constant life which includes the effects of shadow and lunar influence, clockwork origins, etc, etc or just finding a way to be less hung up on labels. If you choose the former here's some starting reading https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-62446-5 "[8]

Cultural References

  • The living log crafting animation may be a reference to the scene in Avengers: Infinity War, where Groot chops off his arm in order to construct the handle of the Stormbreaker.
  • Wormwood's name and its back story of falling from the sky may be a reference to the disaster of the third angel sounding the horn in the Book of Revelation.

References

  1. Upcoming Content Beta and Roadmap Update. Posted on May 16, 2019
  2. Wormwood Arrives June 6th!. Posted on May 31, 2019.
  3. 3.0 3.1 Wormwood is Now Live!. Posted on June 6, 2019
  4. https://www.reddit.com/r/dontstarve/comments/133zfx5/comment/jzs4ana/
  5. https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/149558-is-there-any-in-depth-guide-of-wormwoods-ability-to-bloom/
  6. Game Update - 307715. Posted on February 7, 2019.
  7. Vito on the forums: "Just wanted to clarify that we didn't keep the green text because text color is used for indicating the Player's chat color in DST." Posted on June 6, 2019.
  8. Nome on the forums 22 June 2023
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