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Chapter 7: BESTIarY
Ulweppa
(Blood Crawler)
Blood crawlers, or ulweppas, are the scourges of the
wastelands. Denizens who miss or ignore the signs of
their infestation—looser patches of darkened sand or
grounds striped with blood that begin and end suddenly—can quickly be overrun, buried alive, and harvested
for their blood beneath the sands.
A full-grown ulweppa is as wide around as an adult
man’s thigh and can grow up to eight feet long. Sightless, their keen sense of smell guides them toward living animals and their supplies of blood. Ulweppas are
not quick, slithering across or just beneath the surface
of soft sand or dust; they rely on silence to get close
enough to strike. Before biting, ulweppas secrete a fluid
around their mouths that deadens the bite’s pain for the
victim; an unaware or sleeping target may not notice
they have been bitten and are being drained of blood.
Blood crawlers also attack aware targets and use sheer
numbers to surround and subdue victims for draining.
Once ulweppas catch the scent of blood, they pursue
relentlessly, even over many leagues and days. They
send vibrations out through the ground that other
crawlers receive; in a matter of hours, a group might
find itself being stalked by dozens (called a letting of
crawlers) or even hundreds (a carnage) of blood crawlers. Ulweppas can stand tall, burying their tails in the
sand and extending their open mouths as high in the air
as possible, showing themselves while making an eerie
sucking sound that carries for miles.
Fresh blood revitalizes and strengthens an ulweppa
immediately, and wounded blood crawlers heal quickly.
Tasting blood drives them into frenzy, regardless of the
source or quantity. Given an opportunity, a crawler will
gorge itself on blood to the point where it is too bloated
to move. They commonly descend upon a battlefield
to dine on the fallen, making it only safe to visit such a
place after the corpses have been drained to pale husks
left baking in the sun.
A blood crawler tries to keep its victim alive so it can drink
its blood for as long as possible. Once a victim falls unconscious, an ulweppa drags it where it can bury the body just
beneath the surface. It then sticks its tail into the victim’s
mouth and down its windpipe, breathing for the buried
victim by keeping its own mouth open just above the surface. A victim may stay alive for several days this way, supplying nourishment to the crawler the entire time, before
eventually dying of dehydration or starvation.
Even successfully dispatching ulweppas does not always
end their horrors. Blood crawler bites often infect victims with parasitic seed-worms that burrow into the victim’s digestive system. They multiply there and emerge
in the victim’s feces until it either dies (within 1-4 days
if untreated) or purges the parasites by magic or caustic
poisons. Larvae grow to an immature ulweppa within a
week with only a small supply of liquid blood. Most desert peoples are wary of such larvae, and either insist on
immediately burning any wastes or set their children to
actively pick through the feces of any visitors. They drive
off any found infested, if not killing them outright. Ruthless raiders collect and weaponize larvae, hurling them
by catapults inside the walls of besieged cities.
Urshev
Moving out of the southern deserts, men had to discover new beasts of burden among the northland native species. They found many ursine creatures in the
deep caves and forest warrens of the frigid north realms,
including a broad variety of bears and the larger urshevan. Of those, only the latter proved useful as sturdy
beasts of burden. The urshevan often serve as personal
mounts, pack animals, and warm-blooded companions
ideally suited to the cold wastes.
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