Wurming-Rig
Wurming is a dangerous endeavour, and typically not the kind of profession you would wish for your son or daughter. There are wurmers enough with missing limbs, missing comrades, or that don't return from their hunts at all to convince most folk that their child is better off not boarding a rusted and blood-soaked rig to go off hunting desert leviathans.
Unless, of course, you where a wurmer yourself - then you would share with them songs and tales of the freedom on the open dunes, of adventure and adversity against grand foes as noble as they are terrible, and of the great wealth that lies out there, across the open sands, for folk with courage enough to capture it. It is a profession known to span generations, with children taking up the tools and skills of their parents to follow in their footsteps.
To wurm is to hunt the mollusc-creatures of the Korashi expanse. It is hard work - often brutal. The creatures range greatly in form and ferocity, with speculation (and oft-retold legends) giving no upper limit to their size; tales are told of entities the size of sandships rearing colossal from the desert, and of the daring rig-captains who led their crews against all odds to bring them down... Or those told by haunted sole survivors, who tell of crews who where not so lucky.
But the larger and rarer the beast, the more profitable the return, both in terms of wealth for haul and prestige to crew and captain. For the bounties of wurming are many - meat, leather, rich oils, and valuable mineral tsalts from the ground carapaces of those that sport shells. Some, such as the oasis hydra and massive tunnel-annelid, are known to form exquisite pearls within pockets in their foregut. Others, such as the macropod, are often worth more alive than slain and butchered, selling to ranchers for impressive sums.
The wurming-rig is the engine of choice for such crews. They are at once hunting platforms mounting mighty harpoon guns, processing stations bearing hooks and saws, caged transports for captured animals, and rugged, far-roaming vehicles. They are known to become second homes - even first homes - to more experienced crews, who can spend weeks at a time away from tribe and family on epic hunting voyages, sometimes pursuing a single enormous quarry through the sands for days on end as it dives and emerges, dives and emerges, cyclically through the dunes.
Unless, of course, you where a wurmer yourself - then you would share with them songs and tales of the freedom on the open dunes, of adventure and adversity against grand foes as noble as they are terrible, and of the great wealth that lies out there, across the open sands, for folk with courage enough to capture it. It is a profession known to span generations, with children taking up the tools and skills of their parents to follow in their footsteps.
To wurm is to hunt the mollusc-creatures of the Korashi expanse. It is hard work - often brutal. The creatures range greatly in form and ferocity, with speculation (and oft-retold legends) giving no upper limit to their size; tales are told of entities the size of sandships rearing colossal from the desert, and of the daring rig-captains who led their crews against all odds to bring them down... Or those told by haunted sole survivors, who tell of crews who where not so lucky.
But the larger and rarer the beast, the more profitable the return, both in terms of wealth for haul and prestige to crew and captain. For the bounties of wurming are many - meat, leather, rich oils, and valuable mineral tsalts from the ground carapaces of those that sport shells. Some, such as the oasis hydra and massive tunnel-annelid, are known to form exquisite pearls within pockets in their foregut. Others, such as the macropod, are often worth more alive than slain and butchered, selling to ranchers for impressive sums.
The wurming-rig is the engine of choice for such crews. They are at once hunting platforms mounting mighty harpoon guns, processing stations bearing hooks and saws, caged transports for captured animals, and rugged, far-roaming vehicles. They are known to become second homes - even first homes - to more experienced crews, who can spend weeks at a time away from tribe and family on epic hunting voyages, sometimes pursuing a single enormous quarry through the sands for days on end as it dives and emerges, dives and emerges, cyclically through the dunes.
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