Empress Necral Worm

When an area lacks sufficient food, the bore worms in a swarm become increasingly agitated and desperate. Eventually, at some chemical signal, the worms begin to cannibalize each other, devouring one other in a frenzy too gruesome to behold. A single worm emerges from this melee victorious; it rapidly grows larger and more voracious until it reaches an absolutely elephantine size.

This empress bore worm lives only briefly, as it sets out in search of a new feeding ground and eats everything in its path in an attempt to sustain itself. However, the empress bore worm's ravenous metabolism demands more from its body than what it can physically sustain, as it exists only as a vessel for the next generation. Most live only a few days, or weeks at best, traveling and eating nonstop before dying-and in so doing, giving birth to new swarms of bore worms.

These Darklands vermin produce corrosive, noxious slime and deliver agonizing bites, whether as a revolting, wriggling swarm of finger-length worms or a single massive, lurching beast. Among Darklands communities, most inhabitants regard bore worms much in the same way surface cultures speak of maggots or cockroaches-with general disdain and revulsion. Children consider catching a single bore worm and using it to torment others a rite of passage, albeit a dangerous one.

An undead sorcerer in the ghoul-run Darklands city of Nemret Noktoria developed necral worms about 60 years ago by filling an empress bore worm's abandoned exoskeleton with a unique alchemical paste. These undead bore worms radiate the very energies of death, making them surprisingly sophisticated magical batteries. Less pleasant entities often use them as magical tools.