 Name: Frostworm
Common Locations: Northern Taldera, Northern Wastes
Frequency: Varies - Uncommon for juveniles, very rare for Fatherworms and beyond.
Characteristics: The Tunneling Peak. The Landwhale. The Quakeworm. The Valterworm. Worldbreaker. The Worm who is Morwen. The Frostworm has many monikers, and all of them point towards its vastness of size or the damage such great size can inflict, even if unwittingly. While Frostworms vary in colouring, girth size and demeanour during the course of their insanely long, indefinite lives, biology keeps a few things consistent: They are blind. Like the common earthworm, they sense through vibrations caused by sound and movement. Their skin is rubbery, thick and tough, even in the smallest of worms, giving them a great deal of resistance, though by no means impenetrability, towards a large variety of weapons. Frostworms are fast tunnellers and adept swimmers, though they gradually lose some speed as they continue to amass bulk. While younger worms have no problem maintaining a respectable level of speed above ground, the larger worms can end up stuck for dead if they beach themselves on the surface, and usually won't even risk showing too much of themselves out on the surface.
Frostworms are extreme omnivores, with a digestive tract that laughs at the concept of inedibility. Only one factor matters as far as durability is concerned: Time, time and time and nothing else. Flesh, snow, ice, stone, mineral ores, steel, even the less volatile forms of djed like shields and the products of certain types of World Magic can be swallowed whole and processed. In fact, eating magic is closer to the worm's true natural diet, for the digestive track takes whatever comes into it and wrings out all the latent djed inside for the worm to draw strength on, to move it oft titanic mass through the ice, earth, stone and water alike with surprising speed. The hundreds upon hundreds of rows of grindingly sharp teeth within its many mouths are used mainly for easing through and lending haste to the tunneling process, though smaller worms will also use them for intimidation and self-defence.
As frostworms continue to age and grow, they begin to feel the strain of being a sub-terrestrial animal whose size is far, far more suited for the depths of the ocean. They find that even their biological adaptations and massive djed intake cannot continue to support their huge bulks and perpetual, fast-paced tunneling. This drives them to dive deep into the earth, crunching through frost and and stone, and going into a deep state of hibernation, gathering djed from its surroundings all the while, awakening only for brief periods of activity; periods that become increasing brief as the worm continues to swell through the ages. A frostworm can lay dormant through even the most thundering of disturbances, as evidenced when the Djed Storm didn't suddenly cause an eruption of angry, post-slumbering worms to rise up and ravage through Northern Taldera. Short of a substantial direct injury, Frostworms will not deign to awaken before its cycle of sleep comes to an end. The period between a worm's re-emergence and subsequent re-hibernation is known as a rampage, and the area where it roams is known as a rampage zone.
Frostworms are separated into 4 age classes: Frostworm, Fatherworm, Elderworm, and Morwen's Fury. Thus, Frostworm refers to both the species as a whole, as well as the smaller, more commonly - and at times solely- encountered juvenile members.
Frostworms are the babies of the species; babies that still manage to tower over a good portion of the creatures within the Northern Talderan ecosystem. The Frostclass class covers worms who have yet to pass their third decade. Newborns are no more 5 feet long and half a feet wide, while those bordering on Fatherworms can grow up to 50 feet long and 5 feet wide. The creatures bear a snow-white coloring in their first two decades for camouflage, for the youngest of them are vulnerable to Sabertooths and Wolves, and even the oldest of them, despite their size advantage, will fare badly against their dire variants. Curiously, it is only in this age class that Frostworms display active hunting behaviour, as opposed to the indifferent eat-everything-in-our-path attitude displayed by Fatherworms and beyond. They are deadly ambush predators, with a certain sense of devious cunning lost to their older kin, and will snag anything that will fit into their jaws. Frostworms do not need to hibernate, and thus, are not on a constant feeding frenzy. They can move at speeds of up to 40 mph below ground, and a 1/2 of that on land.
Fatherworms are mature specimens that have yet to pass their second century of life. The oldest of them can reach lengths up to 400 feet and a width of 60 feet. At this stage of life, the Fatherworm gradually loses its snow-white coloring over the course of its first year as an adult, and takes on a more light brownish hue, for the predators that have plagued it as an infant can no longer harm it. The only thing a Fatherworm fears is a significantly larger Fatherworm, or one of the fabled Elderworms. Hibernation begins around their 5th decade of life, and a Fatherworm will slumber for an average of 5 years before emerging for a two week long period of activity. By the time the Fatherworm is on the verge of becoming an Elderworm, its hibernation period would have extended to a decade long, with activity levels dropping to a single week. Depending on size, they can move anywhere between 20-35 mph.
Elderworms are exactly what their name implies: They are the oldest of the worms, those who have lived beyond their second century. It is said that the Frostworm never stops growing, and the largest Elderworms do little to disprove this theory, with a scale of 1000 feet and 95 feet in width. The hibernation periods for the greatest of them can reach as much as a century, with 3 days of activity before returning to rest. There are rumours that seafaring Elderworms can even swallow whales whole. Depending on size, they can move anywhere between 10-15 mph.
An angered frostworm is a physical threat, but no more so than entering Sabertooth territory or encountering a pack of Wolves. A Fatherworm is an ecological disturbance on par with a sudden, disproportionally massive influx of Sabertooths in an area, but temporary and only within its relatively small rampage zone. An Elderworm is a phenomena, a vicious earthquake that tears at the earth and reshapes the landscape, that grates at the land for miles beyond its rampage zone, but one that passes quickly enough. Morwen's Fury...
There have been no post-Valterrian sightings of a Morwen's Fury.
Or The Morwen's Fury, as the case may very well be, for many believe there to be only one such king titan in existence. If it even still exists, that is.
Social Structure: Frostworms are creatures of pure instinct, and to their primitive minds, another worm only registers as 2 things: competition or food. The latter is usually the most likely conclusion that a worm would come to, and worm numbers are kept at a reasonable level by both predators attacking the young, as well as copious amounts of cannibalism. Either way, worms are naturally aggressive to members of their own species and live solitary lives. The Worm's reproductive cycle is unknown. No mating has ever been observed, not for the lack of trying on the part of those who seek to know. There are many theories by Helminthologists, but one stands out above all for its outlandishness: That Frostworms as a whole are simply the ever-growing larvae form of the creature that is Morwen's Fury. The Morwen's Fury serves as the 'queen' and the single adult member of the race, producing fertilized eggs even while dormant. When the Morwen's Fury dies, for some reason or another, the largest Elderworm awakens and takes its place, morphing into a Morwen's Fury to begin the cycle anew.
Crazy, really. Absolutely crazy. Rubbish from a deranged mind.
Miscellaneous: Frostfawn Hold has varying bounties for slaughter of Juvenile Frostworms, depending on the size of the specimen slain. The monetary rewards range from 10 gm all the way to 70 gm. There are no regulations for hunting Fatherworms and Elderworms, in the rare moments they appear, in the same way that there are no laws stopping one from running into an avalanche or jumping off a mountain.
Juvenile Frostworms are highly valued by poisoners, for they possess the ingredients to some of the strongest posions within the Lumbricida family. While many different types of poisons can be produced from a single Frostworm, it is the aged brain, the source of the L4 poison Fireice (See poisons list), that Poisoners covet the most. The teeth of a juvenile can be fashioned into prized daggers, and the ones that the larger worms leave behind in the wake of a rampage can be used to make larger weapons.
In the rare event that a Fatherworm/Elderworm has designated Avanthal as its rampage zone, all Icewatch members are to understand that the repeling or killing of the beast takes immediate precedence over everything else. Including their current duties. |
I will add him to the NPC Library today and hopefully get him a lovely wiki page soon. Good work!
