Flesh Worm

This page is a copy of the original lore which can be found hereand should be rewritten to be a summary of the lore.

Artwork by unknown Flesh Worm Note: This creature can only be played by Event Team-Members.

A large, slimy, snake-like worm that hails deep from the Frozen Hearts of the North in Anthos. The Ollphéist, or more commonly known as, the Flesh Worm, is a legless, armless, eyeless cold-blooded beast. It dwells within large, moist caves deep within the Earth, surviving off of underground critters, small mammals, and off of florescent fungus and minerals in the North.

Adaptation and Survival

How it survives is, of course, through eating. Whenever it finds something small dwelling its tunnels, it hunts off of reverberations in the tunnel. It forms a ribbed tunnel, with grooves in it so it might squirm about between them, its skin acting like a writhing muscle in order to propel itself forward, or backward, or to turn as it needs. It would proceed to hunt said creature through its movements, and with its maw (a folding, four segmented, tooth lined mouth), consume it whole.

Its skin, is this worms most marvelous tool. It acts as, again, its primary mode of movement, but as well as a secondary way to obtain food. Occasionally said worms will find themselves in caverns, which allow for exponential growth. Caverns often held bio-luminescent fungi or luminescent quartz. The feint lighting and the space would allow the worm to both widen and to grow in length. The worm's skin basically conducts photosynthesis, like plants do. It forms food from the light from the fungi and crystals.

Reproduction

The worms are asexual, allowing them to produce a clutch of eggs, which are roughly a foot tall and slender. They're usually a deep yellow, and are incredibly hard, like rocks. A pickaxe can be used to destroy them, as well as a war hammer, or any blunt smashing weapon. Swords can break on them, in retrospect. These clutches usually vary in number depending on the size of the worm, and are almost always, laid in the cavern. They take roughly one year to mature inside of the egg and hatch, producing larva, roughly two feet long, with a four inch radius.

A fully matured Flesh Worm will stop growing (without lighting) at five feet long, roughly, with a foot radius. With lighting, their length explodes, while their radius gradually increases. Their insides however never grow- they will always remain roughly four to six inches in radius, meaning that a larva is incredibly easy to kill- you could burst one like a balloon. However, one that has been growing, could have up to an extra two feet of fat and skin, making them neigh impervious to nothing short of magic, cavalry, or siege weapons. Have no fear though, no worm has gotten so large in millenniums, and they're more fabled then real.

Contrary to popular belief, the worms do not lay eggs in the corpses of children. They are called Flesh Worms due to the interesting characteristics of their skin, which were stated before.

Relevance and Variants

In legend, these Worms were used as a Children's story to ward children the dangers of going into the Night or the Dark Forests. It was believed these worms were nocturnal, however, its more realized they rarely sleep, and rather hibernate until sensing disturbances in their tunnels. Additionally, it is known that in the North, a variant of Worm, not too distant to its cousin, dwelling under forests rather then plains. Its believed it used the tree branches to detect when larger creatures were wandering too far off and could get bigger game this way. Northern Worms were, naturally, more hostile and found Humans to be easier pray than their Adunian kin. An overview goes as follows.

Northern Worms - Hostile, usually just smaller than their Adunian kin. They rely more on meat than light, and as such do not grow as large. They would kill small dogs especially, children, and if some could, adults. Parties would occasionally gather and hunt for caverns to slay the Worms and destroy the clutches.

Adunian Worms - Hostile, but only to things that entered their tunnels such as miners, adventurers and explorers. They were commonly incredibly large, but were lesser seen, lesser heard, and not a large worry of many's life.

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