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Honorable Crownworm (Regalis unicornis)
Creator: Jarlaxle
Ancestor: Bouffant Knightworms
Habitat: Krakow Tropical Rainforest, Krakow Tropical Beach
Size: 3 cm long
Support: Exoskeleton (Chitin)
Diet: Herbivore (Honorable Crown Mycostrum, Hatted Mycostume, Ghost Mycostrums, Redcap Mycostrums)
Respiration: Passive (Tracheae)
Thermoregulation: Heterotherm
Reproduction: Sexual, eusocial (Dutchess/Duke, Externally Fertilized Eggs)

Emanating from the most matrimonial pious and chaste of Bouffant Knightworm bloodlines, their chivalrous ancestors in their noble highness have ballooned their way to the untamed Isle of Krakow on the threads of their mycostrum capes. Recently cleared of its thick vegetation through the strife afflicting the world's flora, it proved a familiar domain ripe for the taking, and so they did, bringing peace and tranquility upon the feral land.

It was during this time that they adorned their earliest of horns, bringing the excessiveness of their armor to their brow to better feed their mycostrum crowns, becoming the '"Honorable Crownworms''.
It was during the time of colonization that they first raised themselves on their 8 legs, chosen for reaching further into the unconquered land and escaping its perils.

Alas, the peace was not to last. Soon the land was known, and the journeys across the land were not as long, so the neighbors grew closer, the nests more populous, and the noble families grew restless. Trouble was brewing under the mycostrum shroud, and only the most fertile would prevail.
To allow for the growing matrimonial demands of their elders and to feed the hunger of their kin, the noblest of youth would spend longer in service of the royal house, taking on whatever duties their growing physique allowed. Over the eons, these evolved into 6 distinct stages of life, each mastering a particular task, each serving in their splendid capacity as their own caste.

==Stages of life ==

Click to expand

(Alignment left of texts)
(Captions: Lifecycle)

[*] ''Larva:'' While not quite a working caste, the mastery of its role should not be underestimated. Evolving to ease its cost on its noble dutchess, it hatches completely limbless, with rings in their place, separated by the locations of future joints, each ready to grow into a segment like a garment worn by the growth of flash underneath.

[*] ''Nannyworm:'' Once gaining the basic abilities to walk, navigate the world and carry objects, it will start taking care of its eggs and young siblings, as the little brats might as well be helpless eggs with mouths, they depend on the nanny to feed and carry them '(Caretaker, Nurse)'.

[*] ''Plebworm:'' Expanding its ancestral antennas 5 branches and taking its first mycostrum crown around a bobbin-like horn, it will start to use its antennae like a loom, moving its antennae back and forth to create different weavers for different uses. Its spindly legs will likewise grow branches, used as hooks to climb between mycostrum strands '(Mycostrum farmer, Tent construction worker)'.

[*] ''Crusaderworm:'' thickening and compressing together its antennae branches, it wields them like axes, cutting pieces of redcap or anything else it might find useful and carrying them against its bulbous hooked horn, both of which will also be used for fighting. Its smaller mycostrum crown is used as a rappelling rope or hauling rope to rally its hauling capacity. Its legs are sturdier, using their thick hooks to climb difficult surfaces ''(Forager, Warrior)''.

[*] ''Countworm:' By Expanding the branches of its antennae in both directions, much like the legs, and compressing together the hooks on its legs into a flat surface, much like its antennae, it can use all its limbs as shovels. With 10 shovels and a thick horn to crack or nudge harder obstacles, it is an expert digger, using its mycostrum crown as a rappelling rope ''(Digger, Diplomatic card, Colonizer)''.

[*] ''Dutchworm/Dukeworm:'' The female and male form of the adult breeding caste, they've evolved to withstand and repel the onslaught of invasions and rebellions their position will attract. Their antennae branches inflate and compress into exoskeleton cracking wracking balls. Their shovel legs expand into full shields, buying them time as they turn to attack. They are mainly differentiated by the larger size of the female and her proportionally large abdomen for laying eggs in mass ''(Breeders, Matriarch, Patriarch)''.


(Caption: Physical development)


(Caption: size ranges)


==Vermpublic==

The vast majority of the loyal subjects in the nest, more formally known as a Vermpublic, will spend most of their lives as plebs and fall as noble crusaders. A small portion will survive to live as counts, whose dangerous proximity to the treacherous breeding age can be delayed by making use of them in the low-oxygen underground tunnels.
The potential heirs to the great houses need constant and sometimes fatal policing, as they lack any pheromonal suppressors of reproductive capacity, and at other times they'll rebel successfully against the graceful royal couple, taking their place and finding a new mate among the other families, or escape the tunnels to find mates in the wild. Despite their disposition, without them, a noble house will surely fall.

The most important use of counts is as Diplomatic cards, as matrimony between great houses releases the jolliest of scents, reinforcing the sanctity of cooperation.

The newly mated pair will leave together, attempting to join or form new colonies, where they can use their flat leg and antenna surfaces o help guide the majestic fall while ballooning, dig down a new borrow, restore an abandoned one, and even act as their nannies as they start breeding before the transformation into duke and dutchess.
Together, their graces will lead to a new royal nest, coming together with other noble families to form a most Serene Vermpublic. They will strike new trade deals, exchange favors, betray, backstab, and rise to power.

Crucially, not a single member of the royal family will ever smudge their consciousness with such improper thoughts, rather it is in the gestalt of the family and the physical structure of the noble house, as a map of long-lasting pheromones acts not as just as signage, but as a political and logistical map of associations, reinforcements, and even crude chemical logic gates.

With the embedded intelligence, they will dig hatcheries, raise walls and family mounds, and deploy mycostrum tents as photosynthetic farms, raising the most glorious Vermpublics.

In the last million years, a new construction material has been favored. Their forefathers brought forth the ratchet [[Hatted Mycostume]] and its evil latex defense, and many honorable crusaders have fallen victim to its binding doom. The evolution of the most magnificent[[Bundom]] beast has left a constant supply of rubber armor rolls. The most honorable [[Crown Mycostrum]] has evolved to make use of it, and turn it into a mixture of fatty acids to strengthen sediments and accelerate the growth of youngling.

The most honorable of graces are otherwise much like their noble ancestors, with a soft meaty core and a hard chitin extruding exoskeleton, and proper and pious external mating.



Honorable Crown Mycostrum (Latexivora proteus)
Creator: Jarlaxle
Ancestor: Bouffant Mycostrum
Habitat: Krakow Tropical Rainforest, Krakow Tropical Beach
Size: up to 120 cm long (Sheet/Balloon Form), 2 m tall (Wall form), 5 mm long (Crown Form)
Support: Mycelium Fibers
Diet: Photosynthesis, Detritivore, Mutualist (Honorable Crownworm), Latexivore
Respiration: Passive Diffusion
Thermoregulation: Ectotherm
Reproduction: Asexual (Budding), Sexual (Conjugation)

Having ballooned to Krakow Island along with its symbiont, the most Honorable Crown Mycostrum evolved on top of its most useful Honorable Crownworm mount to make the most of its new domain.


(Caption: Ballooning Crown Mycostrum and its Crownworm)

In response to the increase in rain and stormy weather in the new habitat, it has developed weather sensitivity to temperature moisture levels and electric charge in the air, utilizing thin strands to sample the air before ballooning to avoid being rained on mid-flight and make use of static electricity in the air to help their flight, which it will communicate to its steed by using by releasing a distinct scent. This decreases the number of fallen, but has also increased the isolation on the island, as few would take the chance of flight in the very same stormy conditions that would carry them far away.

As the crownworm stables became increasingly eusocial, the chemical communication between them and their honorable mycostrum riders became increasingly particular, with different signals for different forms, starting at different ages. Indeed, one of the signals was that of a young nannyworm ready to get the first crown. Plebworms have the richest diversity of signals, with combination gradients helping guide strands toward degrees of thread density. Countworms are particularly receptive to the signal commanding them to find their crown a match with which to mate, and they might mate with the other crown's mount as well.


(caption: Honorable Crown Mycostrum eating Bundom rubber armor)

Yet the biggest opportunity was still to come, as the majestic [[Bundom]] started leaving rolls of rounded rubber in various sizes for various ages, the crownworm started taking it as a building material, embedding it in the supporting walls of the nests among the mycostrum threads. Over generations, the crown mycostrum in its infinite majesty has solved the mystery of digesting it, breaking it down into orange fatty acids, much like certain mycelial bacteria of the Micromonospora family from another time and place. The fatty acids are used as a binding agent with which to strengthen the walls, grow more mycostrum, and even accelerate the growth of crownworms when the tasks left for older crownworms were left undone. With this new building material and social structure, the nests took a new form, building towers of rubber tires in mycostrum oil and mud and laying sheets of fibers to dine on the sunlight, creating the distinctive tent citadel appearance.

This post has been edited by Jarlaxle: Mar 24 2023, 01:23 PM

I like the creative use of the main image, even if it's a bit odd and doesn't follow the usual format. It looks like it might've gotten turned sideways or something, though.