Bloodworm

At sites of great, bloody battles and other places where loss of life is staggering, the undead bloodworms emerge. Bloodworms form from the blood of the slain seeping into the dust and leeching necrotic Essence from corpses rotting below the surface. Bloodworms range from the size of an earthworm to that of a large snake, or even monstrously huge if they persist long enough. They range in color from dark red to black. With their leech-like mouths, they latch onto freshly dead bodies or the wounded living, sensing spilled blood from a mile away. When they’re hungry enough, they feed on healthy prey that crosses their paths too, all for the promise of blood.

Essence: 1; Willpower: 3; Join Battle: 4 dice
Health Levels: −0/−1x2/−2x2/−4/Incap.
Actions: Resist Disease/Poison: 4 dice; Senses: 4 dice; Stealth: 8 dice; Tracking: 5 dice (see Blood Scent)
Resolve 1, Guile 4

COMBAT
Attack (Bite): 10 dice (Damage 12)
Attack (Grapple): 9 dice (7 dice to control)
Combat Movement: 5 dice
Evasion 3, Parry 0
Soak/Hardness: 3/0

SPECIAL ABILITIES
Drain: A bloodworm attaches to its victim and drinks their blood. Add two automatic successes to attacks against grappled foes. If the victim has any lethal damage in her health track, a decisive savaging attack attaches the worm to the open wound, inflicting one additional lethal damage level, or two if the worm has at least twice its original health levels (see Storyteller Tactics). The worm’s mouth secretes a fluid that keeps blood flowing and numbs the skin; the victim loses one Initiative automatically each turn the grapple persists, and if the grapple gambit is unexpected, the victim suffers a −2 penalty to further attempts to notice the worm while it controls the grapple.

MERITS
Blood Scent: Bloodworms detect blood in the soil and on the air. Add three successes on Senses rolls to notice or track spilled blood or open wounds, up to a mile away. When tracking a bleeding character, add an additional die for each level of wound penalty the
character suffers as well.
Tiny Creature: Gain +2 Evasion against foes larger than a housecat. Characters of that size subtract two successes from Awareness rolls to notice the bloodworm.

Storyteller Tactics
Bloodworms follow their feeding urge regardless of on which side of a battle their prey fought. However, stories say the blood within the worm remembers, driving the creature to the surface to find and feast upon the foes of one whose blood it devoured.

Older bloodworms are larger and more powerful; represent this by adding health levels, taking away the Tiny Creature Merit, and — at their most ancient — adding the Legendary Size Merit. A bloodworm’s grappled victim doesn’t suffer penalties to attack rolls or Defense and can still move and flurry normally, unless the bloodworm has at least twice its original health levels.

A bloodworm flees when it’s taken damage to its fist −4 health level, burrowing deep into the earth to withdraw or go to ground.