Varm

Thought to be a direct result of the Event, varms are strange small creatures that are known for their sheer numbers and ubiquitous natures, their unbridled ferocity and devilishness and their odd, yet predictable behavior. To look at them, however, varms initially appear anything but these things: they are small creatures, usually at their largest being no more than a foot-and-a-half in height and weighing between fifteen and eighteen pounds. Visually, they resemble nothing so much as small primates, with long arms and exceedingly dexterous hands that seem perfect for grasping and clutching. Many varms display striking coloration and patterns on their downy pelts and several species even possess wings and short prehensile tails.

However, these creatures are anything but cute, cuddly or loving. In fact, almost universally on Post-Event Earth, they are some of the most feared, hated and despised creatures breathing upon the planet. In many areas, even the resident L'na find the varms tremendously difficult to deal with and hunt them outright as the pests that they are.

What makes varms so hated is a few things. Firstly, they are the most vicious little creatures that you're likely to encounter. Imagine for a moment that you're dealing with an inquisitive, intelligent and malicious little entity whose sole desire is to gleefully steel your items and then either joyfully strangle you to death with them, pummel you into unconsciousness with them, or outright beat you to death with them, and then use your still-warm corpse to do the very same to all your friends. It seems that varms exist for no other reason than to plague those around them and to visit death upon them in the most painful and shameful methods ever devised.

Secondly, imagine that these same little demons live in almost every known environment on the planet. There are forest varms, desert varms, swap varms, arctic varms, mountain varms...you get the idea. Not only do these little monsters exist almost everywhere on the planet, but they've also adapted wonderfully to these areas. That is, they are supremely skilled at using their native environments to their best advantages when trying to maim, shame, and kill you and they've each been able to adapt to operate perfectly in said environments. So, for instance, swamp varms are experts at camouflage while mountain varms can withstand extreme elements and fly expertly even in the most horrendous alpine gusts.

Thirdly, add to the mix that varms, by all estimates, seem to exist in the millions. Each nest of varms, appropriately termed "murders", seems to be able to support a truly dizzying number of these little virulent beasts. No one has yet determined precisely what varms consume (for none have ever been seen eating anything; although they often chew things up and spit them back at their owner's faces); it has been theorized, however, that varms are actually some sort of horrible Flux-spawned creature and that they subsist purely on the suffering and shame that they inspire and create.

Regardless, they exist in amazingly large numbers of individuals and in truth, the only thing that seems to naturally regulate their numbers is that when a murder reaches a certain point, the varms can no longer stand one another and the nest will split. Then, the stronger half of the nest drives the weaker group away to create their own new murder somewhere else.

Varms are anything but a natural part of whatever ecosystem they invade, and they are pests supreme, infiltrating everything from Klik Nodes to High-bred secret bases to L'na sacred sites. They seem to insert themselves, like thorns or burrs, into the places where they can cause the most harm, misery and concern possible with the smallest amount of effort possible on their parts.

Tactics: Varms don't really rely or even display any form of unified tactics. Instead, these chaotic little beasties simply mob attack anything within sight. Relying on sheer ferocity and seemingly inexhaustible numbers, varms swarm their potential prey with wave after wave of unrelenting attacks. They have little regard for their own well-being, almost as if they are constantly being whipped into mindless furies akin to the Pre-Event occurrences of shark's feeding frenzies.

It is this very fact, coupled with the strikingly similar tales of varm attacks from around the ruined globe that have led some High-bred scientists to theorize that each and every type of varm, despite their wide diversity in appearances and habitations, are actually part of one single giant varm hive. Perhaps even, that this massive, global hive is merely the front-line "system" of some much grander and larger thing that has yet to be witnessed. Whether they are the semi-sentient "anti-bodies" of a world-sized and yet unseen global creature or they are merely a breed of creature that always reacts in the same fashion, heedless of their own existence; either option is chilling in the least - considering their massive numbers.