Sand Worm: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

''"Usul, we have wormsign [[Blasphemous Boast|the likes of which even God has never seen]]."''|Frank Herbert's ''[[Dune]]''}}

 

 

Scaled-up versions of real-life worms, these beasties tunnel through sand and dirt, being halted only by rocky terrain or artificial ground, though often enough they can force their way through that as well. They generally have no eyes or ears, rather detecting vibrations through their bodies. Beyond these basic traits, even the most incidental similarity to real creatures ceases. Sandworms are big, typically ranging between man-sized and resembling something like a moving mountain. They seem to be carnivorous, since they tend to go out of their way to attack and eat anything trudging upon the surface, either leaping without warning to swallow the prey whole or approaching with a [[Worm Sign|telltale furrow of disturbed earth]], depending on whether the writers want to give the target a chance to run away. Arguably, they could just be really, really territorial. Aside from the worm-like shape, these monsters are also recognizable by their mouths: they're always either completely round or trifurcated, lined with rows of teeth, and with long tentacular tongues, the better to grab you by the feet and reel you in.

Similar monsters can be found in snow or water. These are, perhaps, a bit more believable.

 

 

Though when you think about it, they're kind of like scaled-up, desert-dwelling earthworms.

 

 

Compare [[Space Whale]], [[Flying Seafood Special]], [[Drill Tank]]. See also [[Worm Sign]].

== Anime & Manga ==

* ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]] A's'' had a desert planet that contained these which the Wolkenritter extracted [[Mana]] from. Pretty powerful too, considering how one of them almost killed [[Lady of War|Signum]].

* They appear in the Acid Tokyo arc of ''[[Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle]]''.

* In ''[[Trigun]]'', Sandworms are apparently the dominant native species on the planet; in the manga, they play a fairly major part in the story, because they are sentient and able to communicate with one another telepathically.

* Mister from [[Coyote Ragtime Show]] takes advantage of Sand Worms as weapons against the 12 Sisters.

* ''[[Bleach]]''. The hollow Bawabawa acts like one of these in desert-like Hueco Mundo, including giving the protagonists a ride to Las Noches.

* "[[Vexille]]" uses this, in the form of Jags, giant revolving tubes of scrap metal that make their way across the desert outside Tokyo. They eat more metal to survive, which means that it's really not a good idea to drive cars out there. Also the reason why there's a "giant concrete gate" outside the main city. They also die when they fall into the water, a fact which is used to great effect in the movie.

 

 

* ''[[Thor]]'': The Asgardian desert has giant sand worms.

 

== Films ==

* ''[[Tremors]]'' reinvented the trope to drastic degrees. Indeed, the Graboids weren't really wormlike at all except in basic principles, and asserted the predatorial habits that have made Sandworms the monster-movie favorite they are now. (actually, there were precursors- a few [[Godzilla]] enemies come to mind- but they had smaller budgets and no [[Kevin Bacon]])

* The ''[[Dune]]'' film by [[David Lynch]] helped codify their typical appearance. They're also a [[Fantastic Cavalry]].

* ''[[The Empire Strikes Back]]'', where the ''Millennium Falcon'' lands ''inside'' one - well, inside of an Asteroid Worm - and barely escapes.

* The Jags from ''[[Vexille]]''. METAL sandworms. Gigantic tubular rotating masses of scrap (bio)metal.

* ''[[Transformers Film Series|Transformers: Dark of the Moon]]'' introduces The Driller, which is essentially a [[Mechanical Lifeform]] version of a sandworm. They're supposedly Cybertron's apex predators. Shockwave has one as a "pet".

 

* [[Trope Maker|Invented]] by Frank Herbert's ''[[Dune]]'', where the beasties were hundreds of feet long, [[Horse of a Different Color|used as mounts]], capable of swallowing entire ships whole, and their offspring crapped out [[Phlebotinum|the substance]] that kept the entire cosmos's economy running. Practically every case of Sandworms in fiction since has been a carbon-copy of these critters, though scaled down to somewhat less incredulous levels.

** The ''Dune'' example is a bit more realistic, since it's established that they feed on a combination of the plankton-like larval form of themselves, and other, smaller worms. Their mass is sustained by their semi-crystalline body, and their ability to pass through the sand is because they consume it, as part of getting the aforementioned plankton. The reason they attack anything that vibrates is because, since they are blind and have low intelligence, they attack on the off-chance that the vibration is caused by another worm. Their physical attributes are consistently extrapolated from the neccessities of their living-in-sand nature - their bodies are designed to be capable of passing off enormous amounts of heat to deal with the friction in sand, and their strength is quite enormous, as it would have to be to move such a mass through such a dense medium.

** Cthonians are another burrowing mythos creature, but they are more squidlike than wormlike.

* Bore grubs inhabit the Clayr's Glacier in Garth Nix's ''Lirael''. Unlike other examples on this page, they're not actually malevolent, but they're pretty stupid, slow to react, and can chew through solid rock and ice with their rotating jaws, so it's best to stay out of their way. The bigger ones are largely responsible for hollowing out the places where the Clayr live.

* Summer of Night by Dan Simmons has these in the rural Midwest. They're described as being like Moray eels

* Subverted in the third book of [[John Varley]]'s [[Gaea Trilogy]]. Yes, there is a giant sand worm; Gaea herself has created and placed it, no doubt directly inspired by Earth fiction. It's miles long, it's probably hungry (it has ''turned'' the original landscape into the desert it is now)...and it moves so slowly that it's basically just a living terrain feature. Some of the passing humans cut graffiti into its skin.

** They exist in canon. The skeleton of one can be seen when C3-PO is alone on Tatooine.

* The Flayers in the [[Star Trek Deep Space Nine Relaunch]] are carnivorous worm-like creatures which lurk beneath the sand of a certain desert on the planet Harkoum. They're known to eat people; crossing the desert on foot is practically suicide.

 

 

== Live-Action TV ==

* During its "movie ripoff" phase, ''[[Sliders]]'' likewise did an episode featuring one.

* The ''[[Dune]]'' miniseries.

* ''[[Earth 2]]'' had the Terrians, humanoids with a complex and very alien psychology who traveled like sandworms through the soil of their (living, symbiotic) homeworld.

 

 

== Mythology ==

* Inuit folklore held that the dead mammoths they sometimes found embedded in the permafrost were burrowing creatures that died instantly upon contact with air.

 

 

== Tabletop Games ==

*** In the Desert of Desolation series, Purple Worms (as well as a relative called the Thunderherder) could be found in the title desert.

** There's also the Remorhaz, which is a bit more like a giant centipede than a worm and burrows through ice and snow with a body temperature that rivals molten iron.

*** Silt Drakes, Red Silt Horrors and Silt Spawn all swam through the [[Sand Is Water|Silt Sea]].

*** The Sink Worm was [[Dark Sun]]'s version of the ''[[Dune]]'' sandworm. It was 50 feet long, left a sunken depression in the ground behind it (wormsign), burst out of the ground under its prey and swallowed it whole, its mouth was lined with teeth, and it could feel the vibrations of creatures walking on the ground.

** Also of note is the [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=146 Wurm] Creaure type. These can vary quite a bit from create to create but most of them share a similar, dragon-like head. Oh, and these Wurms happened to live in Forests. Of course, there are also a few more [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=23039 traditional] [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=130320 desert] [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=130320 dwelling] [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=35170 Wurms] as well.

* The ''[[Dune]]'' boardgame.

* ''Talislanta'' has giant sand ''eels''. Same idea, different flavor-text.

* ''[[Deadlands]]'' has rattlers. No, [[Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?|not those]]. Mojave rattlers are named for the noise a cowpoke's teeth make as they race toward him. Before taking one on, re-read that part about "varying intelligence" real careful: rattlers in different parts of the country even have different ''personalities'', implying at least the intelligence of a clever hunting animal. {{spoiler|They're [[Cosmic Horror|smarter]] than they seem, too. And they don't eat everyone they catch. [[Body Horror|What do they do with them...?]] }}

** The Trygon is a giant version of the Ravener with all its burrowing abilities. Since Raveners were much too small for a proper Sand Worm, the Imperial Armour books introduced their giant form.

** January 2010 had Games Workshop feature a new sub-strain of the Trygon called the Mawloc. It is the most Sandworm-like creature in the game so far, having shorter arms and a multi-jawed mouth. On top of everything the Mawloc is not only able to burrow underground, but move around while underground and reappear elsewhere later (apparently it's faster while underground than on the surface).

* In Yu-Gi-Oh, the Medusa Worm is a card that, when flip summoned, can destroy an opponents monster. You can then flip it back down so it can eat your opponents monsters again next turn.

* The Graveworm from ''[[GURPS]]: Creatures of the Night'' is an effectively harmless version of this. They're very easy to kill (literally, they have the "Easy To Kill" disadvantage) and have no real attacks but if people that spend to much time around a living one find their intelligence being drained away.

* ''[[Arkham Horror]]'', being [[Cthulhu Mythos]] [[The Board Game]], has dholes and cthonians as per the literature example above. In game terms, dholes are massive and incredibly powerful while cthonians can damage all the investigators by causing earthquakes.

* The CCG Guardians has a card called "The Great Ba'te" and it is one of the largest creatures in the game.

== Videogames ==

* ''[[Sands of Destruction]]'' has sand''whales''.

*** Also it has red blood, [[Paint the Town Red|and a lot of it]].

* Lanmola, Moldorm, Molgera, and Twinmold in ''[[The Legend of Zelda]]''.

** ''[[Twilight Princess]]'' sizes down the Sand Worms to a more reasonable size. ''[[The Wind Waker]]'' has both the aforementioned gargantuan Molgera, and its smaller offspring [[Mook Maker|that it likes to summon during the fight.]]

** ''Adventure of Link'' has sandworm-like creatures in desert-based [[Random Encounters]].

* [[Shadow of the Colossus|Dirge the Tenth Colossus]] is a giant sand worm. Except it hits you. At high speeds. [[That One Boss|And it's hard]]. Oh, yeah, it '''[[Giant Flyer|flies]]'''.

** Only metaphorically, of course. Phalanx the 13th Colossus is the giant worm that '''literally''' flies.

** And now, the third game contains Kalros, planet Tuchanka's guardian, the ancient and exceedingly large "[[Mother of a Thousand Young|Mother Of All Thresher Maw]]". [[Cool Versus Awesome|She gets into a fight with a]] [[Eldritch Abomination|Reaper]]... ''''' {{spoiler|[[Crowning Moment of Awesome|and wins.]]}}'''''

* These pop out of the sand in the Egyptian stage of ''[[Castlevania]]: Portrait of Ruin''.

** They show up in ''Tales of Xillia'', though never in sand, the first of them being fought in a cave, including a rather large boss one.

** The first time you face a Sand Worm in ''[[Final Fantasy X]]'', it has the most HP of any enemy you've faced thus far (and [[Boss in Mook Clothing|it's only a random encounter]]!). Fortunately, it's not ''too'' deadly, and it's vulnerable to attacks that remove fractions of the enemy's HP, so if you have some Shadow Gems lying around, you can make quick work of one.

** The [[Up to Eleven|Abyssal Worm]] in the [[Very Definitely Final Dungeon]] can be farmed for the very valuable items that allow you to exceed the 9999 damage cap. Unfortunately, they're located after the [[Point of No Return]].

* The pop culture reference-heavy ''[[Kingdom of Loathing]]'' has a quest that involves sandworm riding.

* ''[[Space Quest]]'' 1 used one of these to [[Border Patrol|prevent the player from venturing into the open desert]].

* The [[Bonus Boss]] of [[Gaia Online|zOMG]] shares its name with this trope's alternate title/humorous variation: Landshark. It is, quite literally, a shark that swims through (and appears to be made of) sand. Other than than its anatomy, it acts almost exactly like a sandworm, burrowing underground and eating unsuspecting Gaians.(It can kill a [[Power Levels|CL 10.0]] Player with multiple armor buffs and a health boost in 3 hits, and unbuffed players in [[One-Hit Kill|less than that]]. It took 3 6-Person Crews of CL 10 players to take it down. Plus the area it spawns in is usually filled with CL ''5'' players. No wonder tourism is hurting so much...)

* Great Wyrms in ''[[Master of Magic]]''.

* ''[[Overlord]]'' features giant sand worms in the later levels.

* ''[[Dune]]'', ''[[Dune II]]'', ''Dune 2000'' and ''Emperor: Battle for Dune''

* Viva Pinata doesn't technically have a sandworm, but the Whirlms can dive into the ground without making a mark and pop out again without any dirt on them, so they could easily burrow through ground like a sandworm if they wanted.

* If memory serves, there were a couple of these in ''[[Ratchet and Clank Going Commando]]''. Some were real sand worms, and some were ice worms.

* In the [[Patapon]] games, there are two Sandworms named Zaknel and Dokaknel in the deserts. They drop vegetables.

* One of the bosses in [[Ginormo Sword]] is called "Sand Worm".

* ''[[Nethack]]'' features both D&D Purple Worms, and [[Lawyer-Friendly Cameo|lawyer-friendly]] versions of Dune's sandworms. Neither actually burrow through the ground, though.

* The game [[The Immortal]] features these as recurring enemies up until level five. Level four is dedicated to avoiding them [[Fake Difficulty|by floating around on a magic carpet]] [[Interface Screw|with extremely bad handling.]]

* The [[Pokémon]] Onix and Steelix may count.

** Also, Dunsparce.

* ''[[Metroid Prime]]'' 2 features Amorbis, a trio of Sand Worms, as the boss of Agon Wastes. [[Rule of Cool|They're both awesome and completely physics-defying]].

** One is an odd twist on the traditional sandworm type; which bizarrely occurs in normal terrain rather than sand, including inside certain dungeons, moving indiscriminantly through turf, rock, and soil. Possibly justified, in that it appears to be partly supernatural in nature. This was the first version developed. There is a high-level field boss version, the giant sandworm, which does occur in desert sand dunes; and a minor variant, the ice worm, found only in snowfields. Both of these are played completely straight.

** A second type is called a "lungfish" (and looks vaguely like a real-life lungfish). Although the appearance is actually that of an eel-like fish, it acts like a straight sandworm, and is found in desert sand dunes.

* ''[[Gradius]] Gaiden'' has a snow worm as its first boss.

* ''Runescape'' has the Strykewyrms, which come in Jungle, Desert and Ice varieties. They're normally unagressive and can only be fought as a Slayer task.

* ''[[Darksiders]]'' has these in a desert called the Ashlands, with an even larger one as the boss of the area.

* ''[[Black Sigil]]'' has a desert in which are sandworms. You can avoid them by walking through a specific path, but going out of said path leads to interesting items (in [[Inexplicable Treasure Chests|chests]], of course).

* ''[[Heavy Weapon]]'' has the robotic Mechworm boss, fought in [[Shifting Sand Land|Antagonistan]]. It jumps out of the sand and spams missiles and bombs.

* ''[[Panzer Dragoon]]'' has plenty of examples; they make an especially prevalent appearance in the second level of the first game.

* [[EVO Search for Eden]] featured these in one level. Notably, they are the only invincible enemy in the game, fortunately they wouldn't attack you actively, though one might pop out of the ground under or in front of you. A later level featured sand-dwelling dinosaur-like creatures called Mosuchop which would jump out and bite you before retreating under the sand. (Real Moschops, the mammal-like reptile on which it was based, were not known to do this.)

* [[Terraria]] has quite a few: Giant worms, devourers (corrupted versions of the former), the Eater of Worlds, diggers, world feeders (stronger versions of the first two) and the Destroyer (a robotic version of the Eater of Worlds).

* Several appear in [[Epic Battle Fantasy]].

 

 

== Webcomics ==

* ''[[Looking for Group]]'' had one show up recently and ''munch {{spoiler|CALE!}}''

* In ''[[Demon Eater]]'' some demons are seen to grow into this shape.

 

== Western Animation ==

** "It's [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|BIG, SCARY]] and [[What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?|PINK]]!"

* ''[[Bounty Hamster]]''. A white sandworm is pursued by mad Captain Rehab in a spoof of ''[[Moby Dick]]''.

* [[Scooby-Doo]] encountered a (fake, natch) sand worm while on a cross-country race in Mexico.

* In ''[[The Flight of Dragons]]'', the band encounters a giant worm swimming in some kind of slime in Ommadon's kingdom. They were able to defeat it by having Danielle shoot a flaming arrow into its mouth, causing its head, then body, to explode.

** The slime was sulfuric acid that the worm oozed from its skin as a defensive mechanism. Fortunately for the heroes, it was also highly flammable.

 

 

== Real Life ==

* Quite a few desert snakes or legless lizards behave a lot like sand worms, avoiding the sun's direct rays by sliding along just under the surface of loose sand. Few are more than a couple of feet long, however.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Alien Tropes]]

[[Category:Index of Fictional Creatures]]