Fleshfillers

"If your blood goes quiet, it's already theirs."

The Fleshfiller is a small, serpent-length parasitic predator, feared across Everwealth’s darkest wetlands for its unholy blend of earthworm grotesquery and snake-like precision. Despite its size, rarely longer than 18 inches, it hunts in eerily silent packs of 3 to 12, coordinated by mimicry rather than mind. A single Fleshfiller burrows into warm prey with shocking speed, but a pack will nest within a living host, feeding slowly as the victim continues to walk, breathe, and unknowingly die. Covered in slick, semi-translucent flesh, and wielding an unnaturally expressive, undulating movement, Fleshfillers are seldom seen until it’s too late. Their venom numbs nerves, quiets muscle resistance, and allows them to feed without triggering alarm or defense. These creatures are a plague of silence in the Hungering Marsh, the Bog of Lies, and beneath the fungal canopies of the Grandgleam Forest.

Basic Information

Anatomy

The Fleshfiller is a boneless, worm-like organism with the movement speed and accuracy of a pit viper. It lacks scales, instead coated in a viscous, mucus-like film that allows it to slip through cracks, clothing, armor joints, and muscle tissue with revolting ease. The dorsal surface is teal-hued and rubbery, often glistening in damp light, while the belly is a pale, flesh-like pink, giving it the disturbing appearance of exposed meat. Along its back run rows of white-rimmed sensory nodules, which twitch in response to movement, heat, or arcane presence. Its head is blunted and lipless, housing three concentric rings of rasping, needlelike teeth that spin independently to bore through skin, armor, and eventually, organ tissue. Its venom is delivered not by fangs, but through its salivary mucus, absorbed through the bore-wound during contact.

Genetics and Reproduction

Fleshfillers reproduce by laying gelatinous clutches of eggs in rotting organic matter, preferably inside hollowed prey or near hot fungal blooms. Egg clutches emit a subtle heat shimmer and faint static charge, possibly to ward off scavengers or attract adult nesting groups. All pack members hatch from the same clutch, forming a lifelong coordinated swarm. Though they possess no shared consciousness, they demonstrate synchronized behavior through micro-mimicry, copying one another’s movements and intentions with uncanny synchronicity.

Growth Rate & Stages

• Hatchling (0-1 week): Transparent, weak, feeds on fungus or carrion.

• Juvenile (1-3 weeks): Gains pigmentation, mimics packmates, begins small prey hunting.

• Adult (3+ weeks): Fully venomous, pack-integrated, capable of coordinated ambushes.

• Lifespan: 1-2 years in the wild; rarely longer due to predation, starvation, or overfeeding death (when hosts rot too fast).

Ecology and Habitats

Fleshfillers thrive in wet, humid, light-deprived zones, especially places rich in decay, magickal residue, or emotional death. They are especially common in:

• The Hungering Marsh (where they follow migratory beasts and lost travelers).

• The Bog of Lies (nesting beneath fog-shrouded peat layers).

• The Grandgleam Forest (lurking inside glowing fungus beds and spell-scarred groves).

They avoid fire and excessive cold, and rarely venture above waterline unless tracking active prey. Ruins overgrown with fungi or cursed forests saturated with latent magick are ideal.

Dietary Needs and Habits

Fleshfillers consume living tissue, particularly organ matter rich in blood and magickal resonance. They:

• Inject a potent neuro-numbing toxin that silences pain and motor reflexes.

• Burrow into armpits, lower back, neck base, or groin, creating tiny, almost painless boreholes.

• Secrete tissue-softening enzymes and slowly digest the prey from within.

• Prey often dies without struggle, unaware of internal damage until too late. Packs will “share” a host, burrowing into different organ systems to feed cooperatively over hours or days.

Biological Cycle

They remain active year-round, stabilizing internal heat through magickal resonance feeding and group clustering. Activity spikes during rainy months and lunar eclipses, when low-pressure and high ambient decay favors nesting.

Behaviour

Fleshfillers are:

• Solitary feeders, but always pack hunters.

• Unlikely to approach active, armored prey, prefer sleeping, sick, or spell-weakened targets.

• Drawn to magickal blood, arcane illness, or wounded beasts.

• Incapable of audible noise, but the slick sound of their movement often echoes in swamps as a faint “squelching whisper”.

• If one is killed, the others scatter, but will regroup once safe. If overfed or exposed, they may cocoon themselves inside the prey’s stomach cavity and remain dormant for weeks.

Additional Information

Perception and Sensory Capabilities

Despite lacking eyes or ears, Fleshfillers are incredibly sensitive. They navigate via:

• Pressure vibration detection.

• Scent-slick sensing glands along the tongue and belly.

• Heat and magick-sensitivity, they “taste” air for blood and arcane charge.

• Electro-pulse mimicry, mimicking packmates’ nervous systems via minor discharges.

Scientific Name

Vermiphage communis.

Origin/Ancestry

Scholars from the Scholar’s Guild postulate that Fleshfillers were once simple magick-fed carrionworms, gradually evolving the ability to hunt live prey, their camouflage and anesthetic saliva a survival mechanism against larger predators.

Conservation Status

Fleshfillers are not currently endangered, but their ecosystem is under severe threat, particularly in the Grandgleam and Hungering Marsh where overharvesting of magickal fungi and increased exorcist patrols are disrupting food chains and nesting grounds. Despite their numbers, Fleshfillers rely on specific humidity, magickal saturation, and carrion-rich soil to thrive. Disruption to any of these, such as during harvest booms or spellward expansion projects, can lead to sudden die-offs or unnatural swarming events, where entire packs invade nearby settlements in search of viable hosts.