Bore Beetle Convoys

Though dwarfs are known for their heartwood cities and mercantile expertise, they are secretive about their methods. While the method of building sapboats is kept hidden to protect their trading power, dwarfs keep their city excavation technique quiet because the process is... objectionable to other peoples. When dwarfs set out to build a new city, or do some other large excavation project, they seek the easiest route to tunnel to their destination. Here is where unscrupulous builders bring in the Bore Beetles. These huge, ovoid beetles can chew through even the hardest wood. Their scimitar-like mandibles slice and pulp wood, armor, and flesh with equal ease. Miners put these beasts to work, leading the beetles to the chosen dig site. With some prodding, the insects are ordered to dig. Before long, the tearing and crunching mandibles will cut a tunnel in the wood, the same size around as the bore beetle. With the tunnel started, bore beetles will dig straight forward. Without the ungentle prods from their masters, the beetles will tunnel until they hit sapwood. There they would gorge themselves and lay their massive clusters of eggs, if left to their own devices. Using chemical and physical prods, miners will urge the bore beetles to stop, change directions, or keep tunneling, though if pushed too hard, a beetle may turn on its master and begin to rampage. For this reason, the mighty beetles are herded in lines, single file through the tunnels being dug, giving the dwarfs another beast to use when one insect becomes too belligerent. Given the bore beetles' strength and stamina, the ones behind the active tunneler are loaded down with heavy mining equipment and tow carts.

There are many species of Bore Beetle around Arboreus, and all of them are hated by most people. Bore beetles chew through the thick layers of bark, deeper and deeper trunkward until they reach the wood beneath. There they lay their multitudes of eggs. The larvae that hatch chew a sprawling webway of tunnels right through the most active phloem. The wood in the area dies off and begins to rot in the wake of their destruction. In areas where the infestation is large enough, the bark may begin to crumble, breaking away and taking any settlements above with it. Some tales still say that in the distant past, an infestation of Bore Beetles was so bad that an entire branch of the world was lost to rot. It certainly doesn't help their reputation that the rapid growth of the larvae requires lots of protein, so they occasionally surface to grab some stray villagers or livestock. An infestation of Bore Beetle larvae is enough of an event to pause hostilities between warring cities, so they may take up arms to exterminate the larvae before they can metamophose into adults. Should the larvae successfully pupate into adults, their armored shell will render any conventional extermination attempts futile.

Despite danger of infestation and unstoppable rampage, black market breeders raise bore beetles to sell to miners or the occasional warlord.