User Guide

other enhancements. Victims are paralyzed with terror, and then experience an
unimaginably excruciating death as the worms burrow into the brain to implant
their ravenous larvae. Only the most disciplined security squads can overcome
their fear long enough to trigger the flame guns that can keep the worms at bay.
There is one advantage to destroying a mind worm boil (other than the
increased feeling of security). When mind worms combine into boils, their
metabolisms change. A few begin building concentrated deposits of rare ele-
ments, and when a mind worm boil’s “life” is cut short (for example, when one
is flamed), these deposits can be recovered and converted directly into energy
stores. The value of these deposits, and their mode of recovery, lead to their
informal name — planetpearls. Mind worms that naturally dissipate do not
leave the “husks” in which planetpearls are found — they are only recoverable
if the boil is “killed.”
There are three distinct vectors of the mind worm boils — land, sea and air.
The aquatic vector, dubbed isles of the deep, appears to form when subo-
ceanic worms come together into a boil. The biochemical processes of the boil
itself produce sufficient gas to make the mass buoyant, causing it to rise to
the surface. At that point it takes on a life of its own, including apparent inde-
pendent movement, and even the ability to perceive and pursue particularly
attractive food sources (like human vessels and sea colonies). Isles of the deep
in shallow coastal waters have been known to spawn land-based boils that
break off from the mother mass and proceed on their own cross-country
hunts.
The final vector, the air-borne Locusts of Chiron, is the strangest. Periodically,
a pre-boil mass of mind worms in a xenofungal bloom spontaneously, and for
unknown reason, metamorphoses so that they all grow wings, whereupon the
worms take off as a boil-swarm. Locusts of Chiron are rare, and “wild” locusts
are rarely seen outside of periods of unusual mind worm activity.
There are three current theories regarding the nature of the mind worms’
attack. One depends on biochemistry, suggesting that the species produces
some pheromone-like atmospheric chemical which induces hallucinations in
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