Underground Centipedes

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The following article discusses bugs beings with many leg-like appendages that look like giant bugs. If this is a trigger or a phobia for you, please hit the back button and read a different article. A summary of the article is as follows: They live underground and are a food source and a source of chitin for a society who lives underground.

Called, after several hours of translation efforts, "Many-part worms" by the dwarves who come across these while hunting spiders. They're a primary food source for the Turves. While not arthropods because they move by a multitude of cilia-like limbs on the underside, but beings from the Sunlit Lands call them "centipedes" anyway.

Geographic Distribution

The centipedes are found burrowing, and often widening tunnel routes. They generally avoid the presence of multiple beings, generally protecting the Undermountain cities from their tunneling.

Historical Importance

Turv scholars believe the origins of their cities come from ancient Turves digging out hovels from the tunnels left behind by the centipedes. The roads between cities are believed to be artificially widened by the early Turves, but originally created by the centipedes.

Domestication Attempts

Early records of Turv cities describe domestication attempts came to failure despite efforts to control the centipedes' natural digging instinct. Unfortunately, said attempts came to failures when the centipedes turned to eat their would-be handlers they associated with food.

Physical Description

Growing Rates and Stages

It is believed the centipedes hatch from eggs, but it is uncertain how small they could be. Records do show centipedes grow, and according to the records, they grow continually until they reach a state where their carapace is too heavy to allow for enough oxygen to permeate between the chitin plates.

Socializing Patterns

Centipedes generally hunt alone, except every fifth Low Tide of the Lava Rivers when they gather into masses, carving out grand open spaces. It is believed they swarm to mate before separating again, and some believe they determine who can mate by combat between rivals based on the remains left behind. Others believe the corpses are left behind by centipedes who were crushed under the weight of the mass above them.
There is some evidence of rudimentary group hunting when several centipedes surround a nest of several Underground Spiders.

Economic Uses

Food

After the failure to domesticate them, Turves instead hunt centipedes for food, as the larger centipedes provide the most protein of almost any food grown or found underground. A single centipede of average hunted size can feed several multigeneration households for a week.

Parts

The chitin is used to create armor shingles and shields, while the softer membranes are used in developing cloth or other cloth-like materials.

Average Length

3-5 meters

Geographic Distribution

• The Undermountains

Related Ethnicities

• Lost Route Turves
• Turves