Distiller Worm

Description

A Distiller Worm, a breed of Dreamkin, look like a 6-foot-long, pasty white caterpillar with an imbecille-looking human face in one end. Its bulky, gelatinous body seems to be glowing from the inside with a weird phosphorescence. It usually rolls its eyes and grimaces - almost as if in pain - around the tubes inserted into its mouth and nose, but never makes a sound.

If one would cut one open, one would find that the bulk of the Distiller Worm is comprised of a complex, interconnected mass of sacs, tubes and interlinked organs that glows with an otherworldly light, and ripples with peristaltic movement.

They are found exclusively in the catacombs beneath the Moon's Lair, where they spend their short life digesting mundane alchemical compounds and excreting refined alchemical products of a purity even the best of human alchemists cannot attain. Their unusual hybrid metabolism allows them to synthesize, process and distill material and immaterial compounds in a way impossible by a fully Material creature.

In the various tunnels, alcoves and caverns beneath the Moon's Lair, these strange creatures are kept in sarcophagus-like stone coffins, usually with numerous tubes inserted into their orifices (or straight into their inner organs) that either feed unraffined alchemical fluids into them, or collects the product. The Moon's Initiated move among the sarcophagi, tending to the creatures, inserting new tubes into them, or collecting the various produce.

The output quality of a Distiller Worm depends on the kind of chemicals it is fed, where in its vast digestive apparatus it is collected, but also on the skills on any individual Distiller. Older, skilled specimens are able to synthesize more complex and purified alchemies than a young, inexperienced one.

A Distiller Worm lacks any real form of intelligence - its brain is completely dedicated into controlling the vastly complex reactions taking place within its body. It is also unlikely to put up any sort of resistance in combat - its invertebrae body is soft, and can easily burst under a single kick. However, if a Worm is damaged, whatever volatile compounds currently filling its insides can mix and create all kinds of unhealthy vapors or even make it explode outright.

The Moon uses the alchemies secreted by the Distiller Worms in different ways. Some she sells to the Guild of Alchemists, some she uses to produce even more refined specimens to add to her Dreamkin menagerie.

Plot Hooks

An alchemist who by accident has gained possession of a Distiller Worm pupae would, should he learn its true nature, quickly become a rich man indeed. Maybe so rich so fast that the Guild of Alchemists would take notice, and start an investigation.