The Worm That Walks: Difference between revisions

no edit summary
m (update links)
No edit summary
 
(23 intermediate revisions by 9 users not shown)
Line 1:
{{trope}}
[[File:legendology_dnd_article12_picMain_enlegendology dnd article12 picMain en.jpg|link=Dungeons and Dragons|frame|Worms, worms? I hate worms. They drive me crazy.]]
 
{{quote|'''Buffy:''' You and bug people, Xander. What's up with that?
'''Xander:''' No, but this dude was completely different than praying mantis lady. He was a man ''of'' bugs, not a man who ''was'' a bug.|''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'', "What's My Line, Part Two"}}
|''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'', "What's My Line, Part Two"}}
 
Sometimes, when you want a [[Grotesque Gallery|really scary]] monster, a [[Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever|giant insect]] just won't do. They've been done to death and look really [[Special Effects Failure|cheesy]] to boot. But you still want a bug monster - what do you do?
 
Well, you call this guy. He isn't just ''one'' bug -, he's ''[[The Swarm|millions]]''! Millions of tiny creepy crawlies make up his body, as if his entire body is composed of [[Synchronized Swarming]] controlled by a [[Hive Mind]]. Sometimes it's worms, sometimes it's insects - [[Everything's Worse with Bees|bees]] are always good - and sometimes it's just any creepy thing you can think of. Don't worry; The Worm That Walks can make them all into petrol for subconscious terrors. Could be considered the [[BlatantNightmare LiesFuel|logical]]fuel extremefor ofsubconscious the [[Totem Pole Trenchterrors]]. Just don't confuse him with [[The Worm Guy]], or [[Earthworm Jim]], or [[The Phantom (comic strip)|The Ghost Who Walks]]. See also [[Combining Mecha]] for the mechanical counterpart of this trope.
{{examples}}
 
Monsters like this aren't always the most lethal, but are often very hard to hurt. Trying to punch one is like trying to punch water (only far more disgusting). In some cases, they are almost impossible to kill, because if even one of the creatures that makes up its body survives, there is the possibility that [[From a Single Cell| it will return]] (though it may take a while). [[Kill It with Fire]] is often your best bet.
 
An extreme version of the [[Totem Pole Trench]]. See also [[Combining Mecha]] for the mechanical counterpart of this trope.
 
Just don't confuse him with [[The Worm Guy]], or [[Earthworm Jim]].
 
{{examples}}
== [[Advertising]] ==
* An ad for [[The BBC]] had a head made of disembodied heads. People complained.
* This [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OHY-2bv0vk Duracell Ultra commercial] accidentally evokes this trope. Anyone else thinks that these little pink Duracell Bunnies look like...a mass of squirming maggots?
* There's a recent{{when}} Prius commercial that centers on a human...made out of dozens of tiny humans. The horrifying beast gets out of bed, brushes its "teeth," etc. Yes, a link to it or something might be more informative, but really, you don't [[Body Horror|want to]] [[Uncanny Valley|see this]].
 
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
Line 27 ⟶ 34:
* In chapter 24 of ''[[Franken Fran]]'', {{spoiler|The [[Wandering Jew]]}} shows up. Despite being immortal, his original body except for his skeletal structure has long since rotted away. His curse of immortality solved the problem by constantly summoning ''[[Body Horror|insects to replace his body]]''. He's essentially an undying skeleton with bugs for muscles and organs. {{spoiler|Amazingly enough, this chapter actually has a happy ending for the poor guy.}}
* Zazie the Beast from the manga version of ''[[Trigun]]''.
** In a metaphysical sense, yes, Zazie is 'the worm who walks,' but both of its bodies are perfectly normal humans. Zazie's ''mind'' is made of insects--itinsects—it's the currect interactive hub for a [[Hive Mind]] of the native sandworms.
* Benisato in ''[[Ninja Scroll]]'' does have a normal body, but she can use a writhing mass of snakes to hide or [[Combat Tentacles|fight with]].
* Dokubachi in ''[[GetBackers]]'' is the Bee that Walks (and flies and philosophizes and [[Overly Long Gag|uses ki attacks . . .]]) whose body is a bizarre, super-specialized honey comb that gives him all manner of bee-related abilities. Unusually for this trope, though, his final form looks [[Bishounen Line|completely human.]]
Line 40 ⟶ 47:
** So was Ms. Arrow, "The Other."
* She-Hulk also fought a similar villain, [http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/cockrchs.htm Cockroaches!]
** And there's the Marvel character [[Immortal Iron Fist|"The Bride of Nine Spiders"]], who, when she lifts up her [[Stripperiffic]] outfit, reveals a mass of rotted, webbed flesh swarming with spiders that she can use to attack her enemies. Marvel loves their [[The Worm That Walks|worms that walk]].
** And The Swarm, a [[Stupid Jetpack Hitler|Nazi]] scientist made of [[Bee-Bee Gun|bees]].
* The ''[[Birds of Prey]]'' foe Entity was a nanobot swarm that consumed an industrial spy and maintained his basic humanoid shape.
Line 55 ⟶ 62:
* The Ra'azac in the [[The Film of the Book|movie version]] of ''[[Eragon (film)|Eragon]]'' are composed of a variety of vermin and one eyeball.
* A character in the film ''[[Prince of Darkness]]'' delivers an unpleasant message to the protagonists before literally falling apart and collapsing into a heap of large black beetles.
* After being released from her bonds in ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]: At World's End'', the sea goddess Calypso grows to about 30 feet tall then dissolves in a shower of crabs, to escape into the ocean and set the mood ([[BigNon LippedSequitur Alligator MomentScene|confusion]]) for the final battle.
* In ''[[Constantine]]'', the titular character is attacked by a demon made entirely out of various bugs (and at least 1 crab). Even its face, with nose and mouth and eyes. In a bit of hilarity, it's killed by being run over and splattered all over a car. Let's hope that driver has good windshield wipers...
* When the [[Candyman]] opens his coat, he's revealed to be little more than a skeleton wreathed in the many thousands of bees that killed him.
Line 62 ⟶ 69:
* In the live-action modern version of ''[[The Sorcerer's Apprentice]]'' (with [[Nicolas Cage]] as the sorcerer no less!), the villain, Maxim Horvath, [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VZllR44gdA first appears] as a swarm of cockroaches scurrying out of a matryoshka doll and assembling themselves into a human figure, complete with clothes.
* In ''[[Fright Night]] Part II'' the undead . . . thing . . . Bozworth spends most of the film catching, identifying and then ingesting insects. When finally killed, he bursts open to reveal he's pretty much skin, skeleton, and lots of squirming little bugs.
* ''[[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin and the Return of Jafar]]'' has a variant, where the Genie and Abu's picnic is attacked by a swarm that spiders that pile together before turning back into Jafar. The bugs weren't his true form, however--apparentlyhowever—apparently [[For the Evulz|he just wanted to freak them out]].
* Inverted in ''[[The Human Centipede]]''. There, you have a large borderline insectoid made up of three humans.
* The [[Syfy]] film ''The Bone Snatcher'' has a swarm of demonic ants that achieve a rudimentary humanoid form using the bones of people they've eaten. It's... actually kind of cool.
* [[Played for Laughs]] in ''[[Finding Nemo]]'' with the school of fish that forms itself into various shapes. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Le13by2WM70 Here it is.]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svOlz2ei4Yk This] Kollywood film, starts out as your standard Terminator robot with Matrix effects, then becomes a macro-nanobot snake made of guys
* Reedman from ''[[Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen]]'' actually transforms from thousands of tiny sphere-like Decepticons (described by the [[TF WikiTFWiki]] as "[[Bakugan]] balls") puked up by Ravage.
* In Peter Jckson's ''[[The Lord of the Rings (film)|The Lord of the Rings]]'': The Fellowship of The Ring, the Ringwraith that searches for the four hobbits after they leave the Shire and hide in a small cave beside the forest road is (probably) not made from worms, but worms, maggots, spiders and other unpleasant things crawl from his robes.
 
== [[GamebookGamebooks]] ==
* In Book 14 of [[Lone Wolf]], one boss is an [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot|armored, fire-breathing, demonic monkey]]. After it is killed, its corpse turns into a swarm of man-eating insects for you to contend with.
** Notably, the insects are an illusion. At that point, Lone Wolf has achieved a level of mental discipline that allows him to simply ignore them.
Line 100 ⟶ 107:
** He also gives us the 'throng-bear', an unintelligent variant from ''[[Iron Council]]''.
** Don't forget {{spoiler|Skool, who is a bunch of fish inside a wetsuit. He's also a rare heroic version of this.}}
* In [[Terry Pratchett]]'s ''[[Discworld]]'', a vampire can only change into a single bat if they've been feeding on human blood, since it takes great magical power to change one's bodymass in the setting. Belonging to the teetotaller Black Ribboners, Sally in ''[[Discworld/Thud|Thud!]]'' has to retain her original bodymass by turning into a swarm of bats instead.
** Also in a Discworld book (''[[Discworld/A Hat Full of Sky|A Hat Full of Sky]]''), young witch Tiffany dances with a human-shaped swarm of bees. This swarm is perfectly benign though, and it is considered a promising sign that Tiffany, unlike most people, isn't afraid of them.
** A more comical example from ''A Hat Full of Sky'', reappearing in the subsequent book ''Wintersmith'', is [[Totem Pole Trench|the Nac Mac Feegles disguising themselves as a human (singular) by stacking themselves up inside several stolen items of clothing]].
** Borrowing a swarm of bees is a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] for Granny Weatherwax in ''[[Discworld/Lords and Ladies|Lords and Ladies]]''.
** A minor version of this occurs in the character of Hex in the Unseen University... a 'computer' controlled by the ant colony living inside it... a similar type of machine can be seen in the Glooper in "Making Money", although that one is controlled by water and tides and the economy...
* The Vermiform in Steph Swainston's ''Castle Circle'' series is one of these.
Line 120 ⟶ 127:
* In Niven and Barnes' ''The Barsoom Project'', the sins of humanity make an appearance in the Fimbulwinter Game as a swarm of monstrous insect-like vermin, which assemble themselves into four giant humanoid figures to put [[Humanity on Trial]].
 
== [[Live -Action TV]] ==
* Norman Pfister from the ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' episodes "What's My Line, Part One" and "What's My Line, Part Two." He's a group of maggots that can appear like a man (but not for very long, as he starts to go all [[Uncanny Valley]]). Xander and Cordelia manage to kill him with [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|a bucket of glue]].
* ''[[Reaper]]'' had an episode with a woman made of bugs.
Line 129 ⟶ 136:
* In ''[[Andromeda]]'', a guest turned out to be composed of nanobots.
* In ''[[Smallville]]'', Clark Kent battles a [[Spider-Man]]-esque villain named Greg Arkin in episode 2. When Greg gets crushed by falling debris, his body breaks up into dozens of beetles.
* Based on how he escapes being trapped in Crowley's answering machine, this seems to be an attribute of Hastur in the Amazon Prime production of ''[[Good Omens (series)|Good Omens]]''.
 
== [[Music Videos]] ==
* The [[Music Video]] for "[http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=tFJd9n8X9DI&feature=related "The Beeching Report]"] by iLiKETRAiNS features a colony of insects taking on human form and battling Dr. Beeching himself. The trope is then subverted in that Beeching is unafraid of the colony (which represents railway workers laid off because of the Beeching axe) and simply crushes the insects.
* The music video for [[Rammstein]]'s Links 2-3-4 has a horde of giant insects coming to destroy some ants. The ants then eat the giant insects, and then ''dance on their corpses'.'.
 
== Myths &and Religion ==
* Partial example: Azhi Dahaka, a three-headed dragon associated with the Zoroastrian apocalypse, has scorpions instead of blood.
 
== [[RealNew Life]]Media ==
* Diana from ''[[Descendant of a Demon Lord]]'' became this after people slit her throat and threw her into a bog. Despite her 'biological integrity', she is nervous she'll fall apart (and die for real), and studied magic that would go towards preventing that (like binding). Despite that, she thinks her 'body' has enough benefits that she wouldn't exchange it for a conventional body. She also maintains a sense of modesty, such as covering her chest when it isn't unclothed.
* While they can't construct a bipedal form and go for a walk ...[[Paranoia Fuel|yet]], South American army ants regularly form nests and bridges from their own massed bodies.
* Blister Beetle Grubs form themselves into the shape of the female of a certain species of bee, in order to lure it into trying to mate with the bee-of-worms, which secretes pheromones to help the process along ("Hey, that doesn't look like a bee and * sniff sniff* Oh Baby..."). Then they cling to the male, transfer to the female when Real Bee-boinking goes on, all to hitch a ride to the female's nest, which is full of tender bee larvae...
* [[wikipedia:Portuguese Man o' War|The Portuguese Man o' War]] looks like a floating jellyfish, but is in fact a colony of countless tiny animal-like organisms known as zooids. Its tentacles can grow to twenty metres in length (ten is average) with a sting that can be very painful. Definitely not something you want to get tangled up with, especially since Portuguese Men o' War are most commonly found in large groups.
* Slime molds, are essentially single-celled organisms that every now and again come together to form composite creatures, up to roughly 30cm x 20cm in extreme cases.
* [[Pantomime Animal|Animal costumes]] that require multiple people, the most famous examples being 2-person horse costumes and Chinese New Year dragons.
* Evolutionary biologists believe that multicellular organisms are descended from single-celled organisms that formed 3-D colonies.
** Likewise, eukaryotic cells probably arose when some oxygen-utilizing eubacteria set up housekeeping inside of anaerobic archaean bacteria, creating composite protists and fungi. When cyanobacteria joined the party, we got algae and (eventually) plants.
*** More in the now, multicellular life (Yes, including [[Humans Are Cthulhu|you]].) tends to host multitudes of bacteria and other single cell-organisms to mutual benefit.
 
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* It's technically "the swarm of frog fetuses that crawls", but [[Mortasheen]]'s [http://www.bogleech.com/mortasheen/ovulooge.htm Ovulooge] fits here like a glove. For a more traditional example (even though they don't quite look the part) are the Wormbrains. In their case the creature itself is merely a (Usually [[Once Was A Man|formerly human]]) meat puppet for the billions of parasitic worms living inside of it.
* The [[Trope Namer]] is the D20 version of ''[[Call of Cthulhu (tabletop game)]]''. It appears in the original Chaosium version, in the supplement ''Shadows of Yog-Sothoth'' (1982), but was called "the Crawling One."
** It was based on a creature that appeared in the [[H.P. Lovecraft|Lovecraft]] story "The Festival":
{{quote|''"[H]appy is the tomb where no wizard hath lain, and happy the town at night whose wizards are all ashes. For…the soul of the devil-bought hastes not from his charnel clay, but fats and instructs the very worm that gnaws; till out of corruption horrid life springs, and the dull scavengers of earth wax crafty to vex it and swell monstrous to plague it. Great holes secretly are digged where earth’s pores ought to suffice, and things have learnt to walk that ought to crawl."''}}
**:* Although it is unclear from the story whether such thing is an example of this trope or one human-sized maggot.
*:* An undead human corpse infested by maggots is also a possibility, since the verse is presumably supposed to refer to the long-dead ancestor of the protagonist who escorts him to the rite under Kingsport.
* ''[[Dungeons and& Dragons]]
** Ravenloft gothas the Maggot Golem. Every bit as gross as this sounds - its body consists of flies, eggs and maggots held together with magic and usually is created from a maggot-infested corpse. Despite this, the design is actually quite clever: the living maggots that make up the golem's body continually grow into flies (which swarm around the golem, constantly) and so long as the maggots and flies can feed on rotted meat (usually provided by creatures it kills) the flies lay eggs on the golem, which hatch more maggots, creating a continual cycle that give the golem a powerful regenerative ability.
** In the [[Epic Level Handbook]]'', and [[Pathfinder]] Bestiary (part II), there is a monster called "Worm That Walks", a dead spellcaster that has become the [[Hive Mind]] for an army of worms - gaining insect-related powers and a great deal of additional resilience. Usually it's the evil ones that choose this method of life after death.
** Players can actually turn themselves into a Worm That Walks, although it carries a chance of failing and just leaving them as a rotting corpse.
Line 164 ⟶ 165:
** What's worse than a druid who can turn into a giant bear and eat you? A druid who can turn into a swarm of 10,000 flesh-eating scarabs and eat you. Plus as a druid with the swarm ability you gain heavy resistance to melee and basic ranged attacks. Worse, there are some feats and magic items that turn you into a magic, resistant-to-all-damage walking colony of flesh-eating insects.
** The Worm That Walks shows up again in 4th Edition as the "Larva Mage." Not quite as evocative...
*** The Larva Mage has some cousins, too. The Larva Assassin is the soul of a [[Psycho for Hire]] given form through a swarm of hornets and centipedes. Larva Snipers were [[Cold Sniper|Cold Snipers]]s (or at least sadistic marksmen) in life, now an undead composed of wasps. Larva War Masters were [[General Ripper|General Rippers]]s, [[Blood Knight|Blood Knights]]s and similar depraved, insane warriors in life, their souls called back and thrust into undeath as the [[Hive Mind]] of a swarm of carnivorous beetles.
*** And Kyuss himself is back, one of the [[Eldritch Abomination]]s of the ''Elder Evils'' sourcebook, plus the one on the cover art.
** The [[Call a Pegasus A Hippogryph|Lamia]] from 4th Edition [[Dungeons and& Dragons]] is an evil fey creature which is a seething swarm of scarab beetles wrapped around the flesh-stripped bones of a powerful fey creature. Many lamias take the form of eladrin that they've hollowed out this way.
** The great-granddaddy of all these D&D Worms That Walk was the cifal ([[Fun with Acronyms|Colonial Insect-Formed Artificial Life]]), a rather forgettable colonial-insect monster from the 1E ''Fiend Folio''.
*** Whom they just dumped into the recent{{when}} version of ''[[Gamma World]]'', along with [[Our Monsters Are Weird|all the other effed-up D&D monsters]]
** A rare Good-aligned version appears in, of all places, the [[Eldritch Abomination]]-filled ''Lords of Madness'' 3.5 sourcebook, with the silthilar—sentient swarms with just a touch of the [[Mad Scientist]] when they fuse into their solid form.
** Roach thralls in ''D20 Modern''.
** Yet another version from 3.5, in the ''Exemplars of Evil'' book (for designing villains) is the former archmage of the Tolstoff family who researched the deceased god the Worm That Walks, learned evil spells, acquired foul magic items, and made pacts with dark entities. Eventually the deity noticed him and "rewarded" him with its filthy blessing, an attack of ravenous worms and maggots that ate his physical body but which absorbed his soul. Sealed in a vault within the catacombs beneath the mansion by his horrified daughter, he then proceeds to whisper and corrupt his grandchildren into evil servants who will stop at nothing to free him from his tomb. He later appeared in the aforementioned ''Elder Evils'' as [[The Dragon]] to Kyuss.
* ''[[Werewolf: The Apocalypse]]'' includes the Ananasi, werespiders who, in their animal form, turn into their weight in spiders. Since they can eventually regenerate their entire bodies from even one of those spiders, it makes for a great escape technique.
** Also in ''Werewolf'' are the Hollow Men, a breed of fomori (humans under the thrall of [[Demonic Possession]]). The Hollow Men specifically are humans who were killed and whose bodies were mostly emptied out (hence the name), the insides replaced by a swarm of small animals controlled by the demonic spirit in question. Doesn't have to be insects/arachnids; reptiles and rodents are also popular choices. They're capable of speech and can ''try'' to pass themselves off as fully human, but generally, even other fomori find them creepy as hell.
** The Azlu in ''[[Werewolf: The Forsaken]]'' are spirit-like creatures that can do something similar. In their case, only one of the spiders is really "them", so they escape by using the weight of numbers - the odds of the real one getting killed are incredibly small. The Beshilu of the same game were similar. They were rats, not bugs, but could hollow out human bodies and control them like the Fomori mentioned above.
* One of the kinds of monsters in ''[[Little Fears]]'' is worms. They gather into groups and mimic the forms of children. The problem is that they can't mimic eyes, so they have to actually kill children and steal their eyes to pull it off convincingly.
* [[Warhammer Fantasy]] had one introduced in the new [[Dem Bones|Tomb Kings]] warbook. A prince who murdered his family, and was executed by being sealed into a coffin filled with Neheakaran Scarabs. His body was reduced to his skull, upon which a cursing rune was carved. In the Netherworld, he made a deal with the God of Death. He promised to bring him someone who was his equal to take his place. His soul was given command over the scarabs who ate him alive, and he scours the world for his equal. But, no two souls are truly equal, and he is damned to wander the world forever.
* The Slaught from the ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'' RPG ''[[Dark Heresy]]'' are an ENTIRE RACE of these. The trope is even mentioned by name.
* The Slaugth from ''[[Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay]]'' (mostly ''[[Dark Heresy]]'', but mentioned in ''[[Deathwatch]]'' too) are an ENTIRE RACE of these. The trope is even mentioned by name. Their homeworld eventually got purged by Deathwatch, but not before they have infiltrated the whole sector. They are also all [[Anti-Magic|Untouchables]], which prevents using divinations against them. This being 40k, "endearing" traits don't end at this - there are also good old [[Bloody Murder|corrosive body fluids]], ability to [[Cannibalism Superpower|consume memories of their snacks]], preferred weapons dubbed "necrotic beams" and use of part-living constructs looking almost as repulsive as the critter itself (they [[Body Horror|don't bother with trifles like symmetry, covering the entire thing in skin, etc]]) -- except the disguised [[Mobile Suit Human|body-puppets]] (on the "upside", damaging these leaves a mangled body clearly moved around by something even more gross).
{{quote|''"The worm that walks has come for us all" Found carved into a bulkhead, Watchpost Hazeroth/Sentry 17. All hands lost, attacker unknown. 123.M40''}}
* The ''[[Mutants and Masterminds]]'' setting Freedom City features a villain called The Collective, which follows this trope. As every other character in that entire setting, he is a [[Captain Ersatz]] of an existing comic book character. Probably Marvel's Swarm (see comic section above)
Line 184 ⟶ 186:
* One of the possible character origins in ''[[Gamma World]]''. Depending on your primary origin and your secondary origin, you could be anything from a horde of cockroaches, to a [[Grey Goo|mass of nanomachines]], to a ''[[Cute Kitten|horde of sentient, hive-minded kittens]]''.
* ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'' has Mindleech Mass from the ''Ravnica: City of Guilds'' expansion. It's hard to see the individual leeches at card size, but [http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/arcana/914 when you look closer...]
* [[Warhammer Fantasy]] had one introduced in the new [[Dem Bones|Tomb Kings]] warbook. A prince who murdered his family, and was executed by being sealed into a coffin filled with Neheakaran Scarabs. His body was reduced to his skull, upon which a cursing rune was carved. In the Netherworld, he made a deal with the God of Death. He promised to bring him someone who was his equal to take his place. His soul was given command over the scarabs who ate him alive, and he scours the world for his equal. But, no two souls are truly equal, and he is damned to wander the world forever.
* The D20 campaign book ''[[Grimm]]'' gave us this trope in the form of Rapunzel. Yes, that Rapunzel. Only this time around, her prince has passed away, her children are grown and she had nothing to do but return to the tower where she lived out the rest of her days. The tower, though, had developed intelligence and gotten lonely in her long absence and took measures to keep her there even after she died. Namely, having her corpse infested with a swarm of spiders that will kill and eat any who climb her hair to the tower. Keep in mind that the rules of the game are built specifically around children and boys are particularly drawn to the silky locks that still hang out the window.
** She's also one of the sample NPCs that made the transition when the game was converted to its own rules system.
* [[Scarred Lands]]: One of the monsters described in the "Creature Collection II: Dark Menagerie" are vermin hosts, former human vagrants who were cursed by one of the evil gods who was angry that they happened to pray to another god other than him to let them live another day in their dismal squalor. From this [[Disproportionate Retribution]] he had various vermin (rats, roaches, leeches, spiders) burrow into their skin, giving them [[Cursed with Awesome]] powers as they are able to use their new abilities to control their own swarm of vermin, turn into giant anthropomorphic versions of those vermin, and disintegrate into swarms to help escape enemies or commit espionage (which the spider vermin hosts do most of the time). As a side note, they're able to reproduce [[The Virus]] style by allowing one of their vermin to infect a person, whose whispers of power and whatnot usually cause them to accept them thereby summoning a larger swarm of that vermin which turns them into new vermin hosts while inheriting some of the memories of the previous ones. This is also [[Squick]] because, mind you, the vermin are always moving under the host's skin to find more comfortable areas to rest. Remember one of those vermin are large rats!
* ''[[Earthdawn]]'' 1stfirst edition lists a magic spell called "Wormskull" that makes the caster's head appear as a skull made from worms, supposedly to impress and scare people.
 
== [[Toys]] ==
Line 212 ⟶ 213:
* The boss of the [[Nostalgia Level]] in ''[[Castlevania]]: Dawn of Sorrow'' is Bat Company, a pack of red bats that assumes various forms as one. [[Dracula]] himself is often shown moving around as a pack of bats.
** Also the reoccurring Boss Legion is a giant Sphere of Zombies covering a giant monster.
* Arakune from ''[[Blaz BlueBlazBlue]]'' fits this trope faithfully. What makes him horrifying is that he used to be human before a hideous accident, and his current form is very much a case of [[And I Must Scream]].
* Beelzebub from both versions of the ''[[Mega Ten]]'' games Raidou Kuzonoha is a massive fly concocted from a swarm of other flies. And incidentally, one of the best demon summons in the second game.
* [[Big Bad|Death Adder]] in the arcade version of ''[[Golden Axe]]'' merges together from maggots in a pile of corpses. [[Nausea Fuel|Eeeuuugh.]]
Line 234 ⟶ 235:
* While it isn't entirely clear, one of the [[Big Bad]]'s lackeys in ''[[Dead of Summer]]'' may be one of these. He summons a swarm of insects seemingly out of nowhere (the art suggests they either come from around him or ''inside'' him) to attack {{spoiler|[[The Protomen|Commander]]}}. He's swarmed and bitten so much his movements are slowed, and he screams that they're eating him alive.
* Gavotte, the head of the''[[Skin Horse]]'' department, is a sentient swarm of bees. She (?) is surprisingly congenial and enjoys having a cup of tea with her employees, but they're often somewhat unnerved by the disembodied voice and the offers of free honey.
* ''[[Dilbert]]'' had [[Pointy-Haired Boss]] [https://dilbert.com/strip/2020-07-29 mention] that he somehow hired termite colonies disguised with clothes and makeup… three times in a row. The readers, of course, pointed out that employees as organized, hard working, goal-oriented and adaptable as termite colonies probably were the best hires in his department, or maybe in that entire corporation.
 
== [[Web Original]] ==
Line 251 ⟶ 253:
* In ''[[Invader Zim]]'' [[Wave of Babies|a bunch of baby-like aliens]] combine into a giant bipedal monster.
{{quote|"''FORM GIGANTO-BABY!''"}}
* In ''[[Re BootReBoot]]'', we have Nulzilla. We also have {{spoiler|Enzo and Dot's father}}, who can regain a bipedal form and his ability to speak by making a <s> human</s> sprite-sized body of nulls, with the null that used to be him as the head.
* ''[[Codename: Kids Next Door]]'' had a villainous [[Crazy Cat Lady]] who surrounded herself with her thousands of cats and basically made a cat-shaped [[Humongous Mecha]] out of them.
* In ''[[Max Steel]]'', the villain Bio Constrictor was made of dozens of snakes.
Line 261 ⟶ 263:
* One episode of ''[[Mucha Lucha]]'' was about Ricochet, Buena Girl, and the Flea confronting a giant spider-themed wrestler named Black Widower, who has been beating several insect-themed wrestlers all over town, and is threatening to do the same to the Flea. At the end of the episode, the Black Widower is defeated, and as a result his costume comes off to reveal... ...the aforementioned insect wrestlers.
 
== [[Real Life]] ==
----
* While they can't construct a bipedal form and go for a walk ...[[Paranoia Fuel|yet]], South American army ants regularly form nests and bridges from their own massed bodies.
<!-- %% -->
* Blister Beetle Grubs form themselves into the shape of the female of a certain species of bee, in order to lure it into trying to mate with the bee-of-worms, which secretes pheromones to help the process along ("Hey, that doesn't look like a bee and * sniff sniff* Oh Baby..."). Then they cling to the male, transfer to the female when Real Bee-boinking goes on, all to hitch a ride to the female's nest, which is full of tender bee larvae...
<!-- %% Don't even think about just dumping your example at the bottom of the page. Put it where it goes. -->
* [[wikipedia:Portuguese Man o' War|The Portuguese Man o' War]] looks like a floating jellyfish, but is in fact a colony of countless tiny animal-like organisms known as zooids. Its tentacles can grow to twenty metres in length (ten is average) with a sting that can be very painful. Definitely not something you want to get tangled up with, especially since Portuguese Men o' War are most commonly found in large groups.
<!-- %% -->
* Slime molds, are essentially single-celled organisms that every now and again come together to form composite creatures, up to roughly 30cm30&nbsp;cm x 20cm20&nbsp;cm in extreme cases.
* [[Pantomime Animal|Animal costumes]] that require multiple people, the most famous examples being 2-person horse costumes and Chinese New Year dragons.
* Evolutionary biologists believe that multicellular organisms are descended from single-celled organisms that formed 3-D colonies.
** Likewise, eukaryotic cells probably arose when some oxygen-utilizing eubacteria set up housekeeping inside of anaerobic archaean bacteria, creating composite protists and fungi. When cyanobacteria joined the party, we got algae and (eventually) plants.
*** More in the now, multicellular life (Yes, including [[Humans Are Cthulhu|you]].) tends to host multitudes of bacteria and other single cell-organisms to mutual benefit.
 
{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Invertebrate Index]]
[[Category:Evil Is Visceral]]
[[Category:Villains]]
[[Category:Horror Tropes]]
[[Category{{DEFAULTSORT:The Worm That Walks]], The}}
[[Category:Pages with comment tags]]