Thoqqua

The thoqqua, also called the rockworm or fireworm, is a long, wormlike creature that gives off fierce heat. Rumor makes it a native of the paraelemental plane of magma, which seems reasonable, yet it is met as frequently on the planes of elemental earth and fire. Some claim even fire elementals cannot match the heat at its core. That is surely an exaggeration, but it truly does liquefy rock and metal effortlessly.

For all its small size and modest Hit Dice, a thoqqua frightens hardened veterans, and novices should avoid it entirely; anything that melts rock can certainly melt a person. Its touch scalds for 2d6. Worse is its charge: lunging out of a nearby wall, floor or ceiling (giving the victim -2 on surprise), it hurtles up to 30 feet at movement 48 and hits for 4d8 from heat and impact.

Whatever it touches on a victim, whether clothing, armor or equipment, must save or be destroyed by the heat, at -4 against a charge. Normal weapons can hit it but may melt; each one must save every time it strikes or be ruined.

Cold deals double damage to a thoqqua. Heat does the opposite: each point of damage a fire or heat attack would cause adds a hit point instead, up to 48, twice its normal maximum, and the extra points fade after 5d8 rounds. Thoqquas found together often have raised totals from feeding each other heat.

Thoqquas cannot travel between planes on their own, but they have a talent for finding vortices and borders and slipping through, so they appear on many worlds. They can live on the magma, earth or fire planes, though fire offers little food, and are truly at home on none. Earth suits them best, yet there they are hated vermin attacked on sight; on fire they are ignored but miserable; magma is a compromise that never satisfies. Torn between a fiery body and a love of stone, the worm is permanently sour-tempered and will attack a passerby out of sheer spite, though not from malice. Its feeble mind cares only for survival and food.

On the plane of earth it bores endlessly, eating melted slag as it goes. Natives see its tunnels as wounds in their world and kill it when they can, but outsiders value the passages. An earth-dwelling race uses them so much that its priests sometimes charm thoqquas to bore where they want to go. A fresh tunnel is about 4 feet wide. For 10 rounds its walls glow red and burn anything touching them for 1d10+4; for the next 10 rounds they still deal 1d6+1. No save is allowed against either.

The first explorers to meet one took it for the larva of something else, perhaps a salamander, and others guessed it was an immature elemental, with no agreement on which element. It is in fact a mature creature in its own right, related to nothing. Thoqquas are sexless and reproduce by budding. Young look exactly like adults but are half the size and have half the hit points and damage. They eat any kind of rock or mineral and attack other creatures only from bad temper or in self-defense. Few things hunt them, though some dao and efreet savor boiled rockworm.