Coin mites

These parasitic aberrations were created by a greedy druid who wanted to “milk” gold out of the aurumvoraxes’ blood. Ropta was her name, although the knowledge of her name and where coin mites originally come from has long been forgotten.

Life Cycle

Egg laying

Coin mite eggs are deposited on a live aurumvorax, and attached to a golden hair follicle. Mothers deposit the eggs only after having fed on that specific area. This ensures that the hair follicle is close to an artery or vein through which a good amount of gold-laden blood courses through. It also allows their hatched larvae to find an easy site to begin feeding (for an auromvorax’s hide is very tough to pierce through).

Larvae

When they hatch, the larvae attach themselves to the hair with their back legs and remove the scab created by their mother, after which, their young mandibles attach themselves to the wounded flesh and can begin feeding.
Once a larva has acquired enough gold and other nutrients in its body, it will detach itself from the wound and create a cocoon for its metamorphosis.

Young mites

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Even after a mite has developed strong enough mandibles, they usually stay by the spot where they were hatched. On rare occasions, when the amount of gold they are receiving weans, they migrate through the body of the auromvorax, trying to find a better spot. This is a risky manoeuvre for both the mites and the aurumvorax.
The young mites are inexperienced and need to bite the aurumvorax with every new hair follicle to sample the blood. A single bite causes a negligible amount of discomfort to the aurumvorax, but many bites at once (for many young mites will often migrate at the same time), will cause the aurumvorax to go into a craze. They will rub themselves on any surface available, jump into water or acid pools, and bite and scratch themselves.
Anything to get rid of the itch! As a result, many young mites are dislodged from the aurumvorax.

Adult mites

After three moults, the young mites have developed their reproductive organs, enabling them to reproduce. They only tend to do so, however, when they are near a gold deposit, or when the auromvoraxes themselves are mating. This ensures the maximum chances that their eggs hatch and their larvae obtain enough gold to moult.

Old mites

Mites lifespan is short, less than two years on average. When they die of old age, a mite’s body slowly transforms into a gold coin. They begin the process of gold accumulation at around a year old, at which point they begin engorging themselves, growing bigger and bigger. As they reach their terminal age, they start desiccating. This causes a flattening which eventually creates a coin-shaped “coin mite”.

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Creature type

Aberration

Lifecycle

Obligate parasite (aurumvorax)

Lifespan

Two years maximum

Reproduction

Sexual, produce eggs

Diet

Metallivore (gold)

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Coin Appearance

The corpses of old mites are rounded and flat. To those not in the know, they could be mistaken for a foreign gold coin. The surface of the “coins” are not engraved (although they could), nor have distinguishing symbols on either “coin” face. On the sides, however, there is one distinguishing feature: the presence of eight grooves that signal where the mite’s legs used to be.
Due to their somewhat organic nature, the coins are not pure gold, and if tested by jewellers, they will be able to spot the difference. Melting the coin usually suffices to burn away the organic material within the coin. Roughly 113 coin mites are required to create 100 gold coins.

Awareness

There is limited awareness of this species, and the common folk are unlikely to detect a coin mite’s corpse as distinct from a coin. Jewellers and miners, however, are two professions where one may find knowledge about these strange coins and their origin.
Jewellers often find the coins a nuisance, particularly when they are in charge of minting coins and refining the gold. In areas where jewellers are just the only source of gold in town, however, they often find a way to make the exchange between the “gold coins” and silver or copper coins profitable for them (with the excuse that the coin mites are not pure gold).
In regions where aurumvoraxes are used to find veins of gold, the miner in charge of the aurumvorax has to make the decision to either rid their aurumvorax of all mites (thereby obtaining a healthier individual) or to leave the mites, in which case, they get to have an additional source of income.
Miners in regions that believe aurumvoraxes to be a plague to their profession, however, tend to see the coin mites as a lucky token, and often carry at least one as a necklace, or as a keepsake in their bag.
Although enough times throughout history inspired fools have tried keeping aurumvoraxes ridden with coin mites to create coins, this process has never yielded good results. Aurumvoraxes ferocity and large appetites for gold often result in disaster or in a loss of total gold.