Sappers

A tiny creature that is the bane of travellers across the Shimmerlands and the deserts of Ardi-Kokufa. Sappers look like semi-translucent leeches, with an internal crystaline structure and they move on a thousand tiny legs, burrowing through soil and sand, in search of their primary source of sustenance - blood - or more precisely, the magical uhd found within.
They are parasitical, and will attach themselves to soft flesh of any animal, or kin, they can. The latch on with their many legs, and will peirce the skin with their proboscis, that can grow into the host. Thier proboscis will seek out veins, or even arteries, and proceeed to suck the blood of the unsuspecting host.

Treatment

The quickest method is to simply rip the sapper from where they have attached, but this can leave their proboscis broken and deep within the victims body - leading to potential infection. Cleaner methods involve the salting of the sapper, which encourages it to detatch itself.

Sapper swarms

An individual Sapper is not much more than a minor nuisance, but on rare occassions they can swarm in huge numbers. In these cases, unfortunate victims can awaken from a sleep to find as many as 20 or even 100 sappers attached to them, and if untreated, they can easily sap the magical energy from their host - leading to the condition known as Sallowing and Soul Husks.