Bore worm

Bore worm swarm
(Creature)
Common N Large Animal Swarm Level 5 Alignment LG NG CG LN N CN LE NE CE Source: Bestiary 3, pg(s). 36–37 Type Vermin (swarm) CR 5 Environment Any underground Alignment LG NG CG LN N CN LE NE CE Source: Assault on Longshadow, pg(s). 82

Bore worm monarch

(Creature)

Type

Vermin

CR

7

Environment

Any underground

Alignment

LG	NG	CG
LN	N	CN
LE	NE	CE

Source: Assault on Longshadow, pg(s). 82

Empress bore worm
(Creature)
N Huge Animal Level 7 Alignment LG NG CG LN N CN LE NE CE Source: Bestiary 3, pg(s). 37 Type Vermin CR 10 Environment Any underground Alignment LG NG CG LN N CN LE NE CE Source: Assault on Longshadow, pg(s). 82

For another meaning of "Bore worm", please see Bore-worm.

Bore worms are the Darklands analogy to surface-world maggots and cockroaches in many ways, though as most things in the Darklands, are much more dangerous than their surface-world cousins, especially when many gather in a bore worm swarm.

Appearance

Common bore worms of all sizes resemble pink, rotund, segmented earthworms with a lamprey's forward-facing, many-toothed maw. The most common variety of bore worm constantly drip a kind of acid from these mouths in trails and puddles around them.

Abilities

Bore worms by themselves are not a great threat. However, the creatures tend towards swarms numbering in the tens of thousands. The overwhelming force of such a large number of hungry creatures corrode their prey with their acidic bites and resist most forms of physical assault. Bore worms are, however, famously weak against water.

Ecology

The common bore worm is frequently used as a farming aid in the Darklands due to its excrement's utility as a fertilizer, though this brings some level of danger. If the bore worms are not kept adequately fed, after a certain point and chemical signal, the creatures will descend into a cannibalistic feeding frenzy, destroying the farmer's supply of fertilizer as well as likely more. The lone survivor of this experience rapidly grows into a bore worm monarch, an interim-stage bore worm.. The enormous so-called empress bore worm is the final stage of bore worm ecology and only lives a short life, focusing only on eating and finding a location that could sustain a new swarm. Once the empress bore worm finds such a site, she dies and produces the next generation of bore worms. Sometimes, the bore worm monarch middle-stage is skipped and an empress bore worm is created from the bore worm swarm victor.

Variants

Variants of bore worms are found throughout Golarion. Ice worms, often found under the Crown of the World, are pale blue and their acid inflicts rapid frostbite rather than corrosion. Lava worms, living in the volcanoes and lava flows of the Darklands, spit lava and fire rather than acid and eat minerals and rocks. The great ghoul city of Nemret Noktoria long ago developed an undead strain of necral worms to serve as negative energy batteries. The final usual variety of bore worm is the luminous, purple mage-eater worms of the Mana Wastes, whose swarming bites can disrupt magic cast on a target.

References

For additional as-yet unincorporated sources about this subject, see the Meta page.