Among the cunning and mysterious efreeti of Hellscar, and other folks from the vast desert, there is a legend about a humongous creature known as one of the Great Ancient Ones. Although there is almost no register of such a creature in the rare old documents of Daren, the Hellscar’s folk know the major details about the creature by heart from a young age.
Wermunggdir as it is called in the old tongue is said to be a humongous sand snake or a desert worm, depending on who is telling the tale. The creature is usually described as bigger than a whole village with a mouth that can swallow dozens of people with one bite.
Its brow skin, like Hellscar’s sands, is thicker and stronger than steel. Its many huge teeth are sharp as spears and rip through flesh and stone just as easily.
Before the age of Darkness, only a few people had claimed to have actually seen the Wermunggdir as it moved through Hellscar, making the dunes shift to its movement. Swallowing sand, stone, and animals, the Great Ancient One is believed to be responsible for the ever-changing aspect of Hellscar’s desert and its very life cycle.
As the Age of Darkness went through, a few reports started to arrive at the Setting Sun Church headquarters speaking of a giant creature devouring whole villages in the desert. At first, the scholars believed these reports to be superstition, popular belief, or a strategy from the mysterious efreeti, as the scholars did not know whom they supported.
However, not much later, reports from the Setting Sun Church’s volunteers started arriving from that area with similar news. Villages and camps disappeared overnight and great tremors made the whole land shake like it was screaming from the inside. Not much longer after that, the first sightings were reported.
A giant creature was seen moving right below the sand’s surface, meandering like a snake, shifting the huge dunes as it passed by. One specific report mentioned a whole caravan being swallowed by a huge worm.
A watch party was assembled not long after that and sent to the desert to track and investigate the creature from afar. It did not seem to have any specific purpose, nor intelligence to its acts so the orders were to keep distance and study the creature.
The reports of the watch party described exactly what the legends of the Wermunggdir said: A giant worm with thick skin and huge numerous teeth. The surprise, however, was that it also seemed infected with the Darkness miasma, which oozed from its many wounds. Also, there was this putrid foul stench like rotten meat whenever the giant creature surfaced.
Wermunggdir’s behavior could be roughly gathered by comparing all reports of the creature’s sightings. It “swims” below the sand at unbelievable speeds. It is said that no horse can outrun it, in fact, several of them have already been swallowed by the creature. Whole caravans can fit inside its gigantic mouth. The scholars are still unsure if that is a feeding habit of the creature or if it hunts for the Darkness.
To protect itself, the creature also spawns lesser worms, smaller copies of itself, thick-skinned and lethal. These offspring, called by the scholars, “wermungglings,” are as much tainted by the Darkness as their maker. Numerous reports also mention great tremors whenever the Wermunggdir is hunted or wounded. These tremors are dangerous not only because they might shift the sand enough to drown a careless adventurer, though also because they can give time to the “wermungglins” to strike their attacker.
