Blighters

The more of them you see around, the worst of a day you're going to have.  

— Senchai, Blight-Tracker

  Blighters are pale, eyeless maggot-things that crawl and dig across the Surface to feast on Blight. Stunted and wretched in form to mankind, the Blighters survive in places where others falter and consume poison both as sustenance and defense. No matter how hungry an explorer might be, they soon learn that trying to eat one of the Blighters is inevitable death. To the creatures of the Surface, Blighters are much more palatable, and they are hunted by nearly every predator in the regions they inhabit. So far, adventurers have found them in all the more temperate regions of the Surface, like Kagarai, Otomo, Aschar, and Chamorath.   Roughly the size of a human forearm at their smallest and all the way to a meter at the largest, Blighters segmented grub-like creatures with a rough, dry hide that has the same color as a drowned corpse. In light, the skin becomes translucant enough for their organs to become visible underneath, wiggling and squirming as the Blighters move around. They move by contracting and expanding with uneven undulations, occasionally stopping to rearrange their innards.  

Blighters smell like clay, tinged with a sharp scent of metal and electric charge similar to burnt ozone.

  Only a circular maw disrupts their featureless mass, ringed with crystalline teeth that Blighters use to dig through soil. These teeth glint in the light like broken glass, ranging in color from prismatic to ugly yellow to blight-green. Blighters go through their teeth with some regularity, breaking them on the ground they gnaw at and leaving them behind. A well-fed Blighter is a fat, bloated thing, darkened by the soil still processing through their body. On the contrast, a starving one is emaciated enough for its skin to drape around its organs and the maw gnawing the air ceaselessly in search something or someone to bite into.   Blighters spend most of their time eating. They chew through the top soil, where the Blight is the strongest, and pass it through their body drained free. It is an endless endeavour and even on the Surface, Blighters must always move and eat to stay alive. When fed or threatened, they'll attempt to burrow underground and wait out the threat, but they are not particularly fast or clever, though certainly fast enough when hungry to surprise more than one irradiated explorer. "Dumb as a Blighter" has come into use among those who live on the Surface as a term for someone who is slovenly and stupid, though those tend not to last long in the harsh conditions of the Surface.   Blighters are not aggressive. In fact, they barely seem to register humans when encountered, and are easy to handle for anyone foolish enough to do so. Just being near them will infect someone with blight, and eating the irradiated flesh of a Blighter is almost certainly a death-sentence. The only time a Blighter with react to a human except for when attacked is if the human in question are severely blighted. In those cases, Blighters will swarm around the unfortunate soul and a more than a couple have been devoured alive after being incapacitated by Blight.   Despite their unappetizing appearance and inedible nature, explorers have found several uses for the blight-eating maggots. Their teeth can be fashioned into tools such as drills, small knives, or arrowheads, or worn as simple jewelry. The skinned hide of a Blighter can, once drained of Blight, be dried and tanned into a form of leather that is thick and durable.   For explorers, Blight-Trackers know to keep track of where Blighters are and where they are moving to follow the shifting patterns of Blight on the Surface. It is best to avoid where Blighters gather, and if they go west, it is better to go east. Even following the trail of Blighter gnawing or burrow holes can help a good Blight-Tracker stay on the least irradiated path.   In a sign that the Surface and its endless, malevolent sky truly drive men mad, some have even tried to shepherd small groups of Blighters to purify patches of soil for use. Such madmen wager their reputation on the idea that Blighters could so thoroughly cleanse the Surface soil to make it useable for farming. Many such experiments are scattered around Kagarai, with mixed but hopeful results. Still, the number of people who want to remain close to a Blighter for any length of time is low.