The Great Wintrean Termite
Long before the first Wintrean feet trod the snowy peaks of the northern reaches, the Great Wintrean Termite erected its mighty edifices of ice and stone. These large insects burrow deep into the earths crust for warmth, absorbing the subterranean warmth in dense rocky plates on their underbellies. This warmth proves vital to the survival of the termite as it carries rocks, debris, dead termites, and the remains of prey to the icy Wintrean surface. Once deposited, ice is melted and reformed around the deposited materials to form enormous mounds, often mistaken, to the hiker's misfortune, for large hills or even mountains.
A eusocial animal, the Great Wintrean Termite was once thought to be multiple species. It is now known that it is divided up into at least three castes - warriors, workers, and flyers.
Measuring between 2 and 3 meters in length, warrior termites (pictured) are ferocious adversaries who will engage any threat to the mound by chewing, biting, slashing and trampling with their enormous mandibles and powerful spined legs. Remorseless killers, once deployed from the mound's core a warrior will never return - it will rampage until its warm core has cooled. Likely due to its near brainlessness, it would not remember its way back through the labyrinthine tunnels even if it had the presence of mind to save some warmth for the return journey.
Not to be discounted is the worker caste, which are much smaller than warriors, about 1 meter at most. Clever creatures with abnormally large brains, they serve as guides for other castes, able to memorize the many twists and turns of their enormous home. They use their powerful mandibles to chew through rock and ice, carry heavy loads, and carry hot stones to melt ice and form tunnels. Consummate cowards, workers will flee into the mound's depths upon sensing any creature not of the mound. Fear not for the worker however, it will soon return with warriors at its back. Intruders will find themselves cunningly surrounded with endless waves of glistening termite bodies in the deep dark, likely never having seen the worker that first spied them.
The strangest and most elusive of the castes is the flyers. True to their name, they possess enormous 4 meter wings compared to their 2 meter length, able to convey them rapidly through the air with tremendous speed. Every so often, the mostly inert mound will erupt into furious activity, with warriors and workers crawling over the outside of the mound. Desperate to escape, flyers are gently held to the ground by the other castes. Only those that are able to struggle free are allowed to escape to fly to destinations unknown. Thought to have something to do with the creation of new mounds, sighting of a flying termite is infrequent and is considered to be a bad omen.
Clearly a dangerous species, the intrepid adventurer of the northern climes of Wintreath should plan their routes carefully to avoid known mounds. Before embarking upon a hill or mountain, one should observe it carefully for signs of termite activity. Large termite mounds take on a characteristic tower-like structure that is recognizable from a distance. Mining camps near termite mounds are a good place to camp, as they are well-protected from termites by magical wards and specially designed fortifications.
Iron and steel made from the thick metallic underbellies of warrior termites is considered among the finest materials used in the crafting of weapons and armor. Ordinarily, and understandably given the termites ferocious and irascible nature, this material is obtained from dead warriors found on or near the surface of a mound. Knowledge of this material has spread far and wide however, and this has spawned interest in the material from extra-Wintrean locales. Several projects intended to gather the material en-masse are under way.
Wintrean scientists, with access to mounds abandoned during long summers, theorize that at least one more caste exists in the deepest tunnels with the largest chambers. Legends of the so-called termite "Queen" have attracted adventurers of all kinds from all over the world.
As for this zoologist, I recommend all caution be taken when attempting to venture deeper into the lairs of the Great Wintrean Termite. Ordinarily, termites are predominately peaceful creatures, always reacting, never acting. On occasion however, they have been known to erupt from their mound in enormous numbers, only to march to a distant location and disappear once more into the ground. Such a diaspora into a populated area would be an unmitigated disaster.
Call me a coward, but my youth is behind me and the wisdom of my age says this: Do not dig deeper. Leave them alone.
- Amelia Tanglethorn, Zoologist to the King