Wormwood

Wormwood

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Wormwood is a parasitologist who has devoted his life to the study of parasites. Although his personal favorites to discuss are the ones which inhabit dragons and cause disease, his area of focus actually relates more to parasitic relationships within wild creatures. He likes to think philosophically about the way they work, and if the parasite understands that what it is doing is harmful to the host.

He is always delighted to discuss parasites, and when he goes out with a clanmate, he will stop to point out the various species of creatures in the area and the parasites that could possibly inhabit them, as well as their effects. He gets particularly excited when he sees a clearly infected specimen, much to the unnerve of his companion.

Wormwood can't really turn off his parasitology brain. He sees things in a very black and white sense, where everyone is either a parasite or a host in their relationships. For a long time, he really struggled with the very idea of friendship, until someone described it to him as being like a symbiotic relationship. That he could grasp, and now he thinks of all friendships and mutually beneficial relationships like that.

But he still can't let go of the idea of the parasite-host divide in his own social life. In his eyes, nobody can be wrong or right, they simply are, like parasites, which aren't evil, but doing what they must to survive, regardless of whether or not they are capable of understanding that what they are doing is harmful to the host. He sees fierce rivalries like Cymry's and Kuiper's as a parasite and a host: Kuiper is the parasite, as a nuisance, and Cymry is the host, as the one being bothered. Their debate isn't a matter of "wrong" or "right"; it simply is.

Wormwood hasn't earned himself many friends this way. It's hard to befriend someone who thinks of you as a parasite, in their own way. However, he has, strangely enough, found himself a speaking audience with Mab's circus troupe. They share the similarity that they don't think of things with the usual moral standards. Wowmwood thinks of things as a parasite or a host, and Mab and her followers think of things as entertaining or not entertaining. They have a lot of philosophical discussions together.