Mind Worm

(Version 1.00 - Last Modified: 11/27/2003)

Description

Mind Worms are a part of the massive sentience on Chiron and live in the Xenofungus. Rarely encountered alone, these creatures enjoy the company of other mind worms, often gathering in groups of over a thousand individual mind worms. Mind Worms are omnivores, but they prefer to eat living creatures by eating their brains first and then consuming the rest of the body. In order to bring down much larger prey, Mind Worms have powerful psionic powers that allow them to immobilize their targets. With the target immobilized, the mind worms can approach without fear of harm and can begin to eat the target while it is still alive and warm.

When the colonists landed on Chiron and began expanding from their initial landing sites, it did not take long before the first encounters with the Mind Worms began. Without any knowledge of psionic powers, the Humans were at a huge disadvantage when the Mind Worms attacked a colony or even just a small group of Humans. More then anything else, the Mind Worms came to symbolize the desperate conditions on Chiron that the colonists initially faced.

Mind Worms appear very similar to large earth worms from Earth. They have segmented bodies, no apparent mouth or legs and they have no bones in their bodies. Mind Worms are hatched from eggs, and a single Mind Worm can lay several dozen eggs at a time. Although they are quite small compared to their prey, a fully mature Mind Worm can measure up to a foot in length and can move surprisingly fast, similar to a snake then a earth worm.

Racial Statistics

• Racial Type: Mind Worm
• Alignment: None, considered to be an animal.
• Attributes:
  
  • I.Q.: Low Animal Intelligence, considered an IQ of 1.
  • M.E.: 22 (15+2D6)
  • M.A.: 2 (1D4)
  • P.S.: 3 (1D4)
  • P.P.: 13 (8+2D4)
  • P.E.: 17 (12+2D4)
  • P.B.: 2 (1D4)
  • Spd: 9 (6+1D6, triple speed if traveling through Xenofungus)
• Size: 1" (2.54 cm) in diameter and 1’ (0.3 m) in length.
• Weight: 2 lbs (0.91 kg)
• S.D.C.: 7 (2D6)
• Hit Points: 17 (Equal to PE attribute)
• Natural Armor Rating: 8
• Average Life Span: 4 years after hatching from an egg.
• Horror Factor: 10
• P.P.E.: 11 (3D6)
• Magic Powers: None
• I.S.P.: 77 (ME attribute x3 +3D6)
• Psionic Powers: Each Mind Worm has the following psionic abilities: Bio-Manipulation, Deaden Pain, Mind Bolt, Telekinetic Leap, and Telepathy. Powers are used as a 5^th level psychic and the Mind Worm counts as a master psychic.
• Natural Abilities:
  
  1. Excrete Acid:
     
     When in physical contact with a target, the Mind Worm can excrete a very strong acid that will eat through the target's armor, clothes, and skin. The acid does 1D6 points of damage each melee for 1D4+1 melees and each time the Mind Worm excretes the acid, the damage is cumulative.
  2. Burrow:
     
     Ultimately, a Mind Worm wants to burrow into a target's brain in order to plant its batch of eggs. In order to do so, the Mind Worms needs to be in physical contact with its target and excrete its acid for 2 melees for each point of Armor Rating that the target possess. Once inside the target, the Mind Worm takes 1D6+1 melees to reach the target's brain and on the Mind Worm's next attack, it will excrete its acid inside the target's brain, killing it. If the Mind Worm is able to attack a vulnerable spot on the target's head, such as eyes, ears, or mouth, then it only needs to excrete its acid for 1 melee round and only takes 1 melee round to reach the target's brain.
  3. Planetary Intelligence:
     
     The Semi-Sentient Intelligence on Chiron is in partial control of all Mind Worms and can see and experience what they experience. Due to their small size, Mind Worms make excellent spies.
  4. Bred in Captivity:
     
     A few factions, namely the Spartan Federation, Gaia's Stepdaughters, the Cult of Planet, and the University of Planet, have discovered a means to grow Mind Worms in captivity. These Mind Worms are controlled by powerful psychics that use psionic powers like Mental Suggestion to coerce large numbers of Mind Worms to follow the instructions of the Humans. Mind Worms bred in captivity cannot be controlled by the planetary intelligence on Chiron and have double the life span of normal Mind Worms bred in the wild.


• Combat Skills: 2 attacks per melee, +3 to initiative.
• Damage: See natural abilities.
• Bonuses: +7 to save vs. psionic attack, +5 to save vs. insanity, +1 to save vs. all types of magic, +1 to save vs. all types of toxins, +1 to save vs. disease, and +5% to save vs. coma / death. Includes bonuses from ME and PE attributes.
• Penalties: Due to their small size and relatively slow speed, Mind Worms are not very deadly when encountered individually, and when encountering multiple targets, a Mind Worm will focus on a single target and ignore all others. In addition, Mind Worms take double damage from any fire-based attack.
• Natural Skills:
  
  • Land Navigation (60%)
  • Prowl (90%)
• Appearance: A segmented worm about the size of a small grass snake.
• Allies: All other Mind Worm type lifeforms are understood to be natural allies and are never attacked by a Mind Worm. In addition, the semi-sentient intelligence recognizes the Spartan Federation, Gaia's Stepdaughters, the Cult of Planet, and the United Nations Peacekeepers factions to be friends and will avoid attacking them, preferring to withdraw when it encounters members of that faction.
• Enemies: All other living creatures are considered to be potential prey for the Mind Worms, but the semi-sentient intelligence recognizes the Cybernetic Consciousness, the Free Drones, the Human Hive, and Morgan Industries factions as being its mortal enemies and will attack them on sight.