Ice Worm Swarm

A single finger-length bore worm is unpleasant but mostly innocuous. Ten thousand bore worms, on the other hand, pose a formidable threat to even seasoned adventurers. The countless worms form a roiling, rancid mass of acid and pain, capable of delivering a hideous death to any person or beast unable to escape them. Unfortunately for any creature other than a bore worm, most encounters involve swarms.

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.

Found tunneling through the glaciers beneath the Crown of the World, these pale-blue worms behave similarly to their soil-bred cousins, but their frigid acid inflicts marks similar to frostbite on anything they touch.