Dust-Wyrms
Dust-Wyrms are the great hunters of the dune seas of the Parched, the most feared of its Sand-Stalkers. They swim through loose sand as fish swim through water, rise beneath whatever walks above, and swallow it whole.
Appearance
A Dust-Wyrm is a long, legless serpent, from the length of a rowing boat to that of a small ship, round-bodied and blunt at both ends. Its hide is a pale ochre plate-armour of overlapping scales, smooth and polished by the sand, and it is the same colour as the dunes. Its head is a wedge with no visible eyes, and its jaws open almost the width of its body, lined with backward-pointing teeth. Along its flanks run rows of fine pits that feel the ground. Under the sand it moves with a slow undulation that sends a faint ripple across the surface; breaking out, it rises with a hiss of pouring sand. A Dust-Wyrm smells of hot stone and, close to, of something long dead.
Habitat and Range
They live under the loose sand of the dune seas of the Parched, each over a wide range, and avoid rock and hard mud flats, which they cannot swim.
Behaviour and Temperament
A Dust-Wyrm hunts by feel. It lies in the sand with its pits turned upward, sensing the vibrations of anything walking above, and when the footsteps come close enough it rises beneath them and swallows its prey whole. Then it sinks and lies still for weeks, drawing the moisture out of what it has swallowed, and hunts again only when it is dry.
Abilities
It moves through loose sand quickly and almost silently, and senses footsteps from a long way off. It can lie for weeks without moving while it drains a meal.
Life Cycle
A Dust-Wyrm lays its eggs deep in the sand near a seep, and the young hatch hungry and hunt small things under the surface until they are large enough to rise beneath larger ones. They live a long time between meals, and a long time altogether.
Uses and Dangers
Its scales make plates that hold in moisture, and its long hide, worked, makes waterskins that never leak. Hunters come for it, and many do not leave. Its danger is that it is unseen until the sand opens.
Lore and Belief
The traveller’s rule on the Parched is to walk on rock, and when there is no rock, to walk with an uneven step, because a Dust-Wyrm, they say, is drawn by rhythm. Whether that works is argued; that the wyrm feels footsteps is not.
Treasure-seekers tell of a caravan of delvers swallowed whole on the dunes with all their spoil, and say the wyrm that took it carries the gold in its belly still; none has gone to cut it out.