Full Description
Verners are best described as glistening, slimy, massive worm centipede hybrids. They range from three meters to twenty meters in length and are a meter and a half wide in their semi-segmented body. Their tentacal like legs allow them to lightly and briefly stride upon the soil of the waste. However, most of the time they "swim" in the strange loam that is The Wastes. While they can "swim deep", most of the time they are just at or below the surface.
Verner’s slime seems to protect them from the acidic soil. However, since the slime has toxic properties, it is not used as a protective material.
They are uniquely adapted to the paraliquid soil of The Wastes. Their primary sense is hearing - and it is acute. They can "hear" and "feel" things in and around the wastes. The sound of people talking on a landskiff or footsteps of a prospector (in those large barrel like shoes they wear) will bring wild Verners like blood in a water will bring a shark. Verners have been known to "jump out of the soil" to capture low flying Soarers or birds.
Verners can eat anything in The Wastes. This list includes the carnivorous mobile mutant plants, passing birds, Soarers, Waste Rats, Waste Knights, and even other Verners (but only those of another breeding group). Anything it can get inside its four element beakish mouth is an option. The most amazing thing is that this list includes rocks and toxic soil. Their beaks can crush most rocks. These materials enter in and pass out in a concentrated form. Verner dung is perhaps the most dangerous and toxic substance known to The Wastes. However it can be refined to retrieve a number of valuable substances from the soil.
Additional Information
Verners were allegedly named after the scout that first discovered them.
The creatures have no other senses than touch and hearing. Having only these senses, they are somehow able to recognize members of their same clutch (Each clutch has five to ten eggs). A female (and they are outnumbered by males in a ten to one ration) will breed every four years or so. No one knows how they are able to recognize their litter mates.
It should be noted that Verners are immune to most of the paramagical effects of the ectomorphs spawned by the HellPits and other ectopools of the waste.
Verners seems to absorb "water" through their carapaces. In areas other than The arid Wastes, this causes them to swell up and eventually explode.
These creatures can be "Tamed" and are used as pack animals in the wastes. The creatures are somewhat charmed by the ringing of musical bells. The tamed ones are set with harnesses that have appropriate "jingle bells".
New Submissions
Carnous is the famous Boardwalk city, built upon the toxic lands of The Wastes. Here the land is slowly corrosive to the touch, causing illness with prolonged contact. Carnous is a wooden city that is never stationary and always growing.