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Lately I've grown to enjoy thinking about wildlife in games. From Red Dead Redemption to Skyrim, I've been taking my time hunting and observing the naturally occurring wildlife (e.g. in Skyrim, Spiders, Deer, Mudcrabs, Trolls...) as well as other creatures roaming the lands.

It made me want to play through Morrowind again, as I loved the wildlife in that game. Fantasy creatures somewhat bound to a grounded level of reality. They were exotic, but allowed you to believe these beasts could exist in this specific fiction. Which brings me to one of the most interesting species: the kwama. I loved the variety in forms, and how they could appear so alien, yet act like a natural creature (sans the warriors shootin' magicz). Lately, after seeing the disappointing portrayal in TESO (I can handle everything up to the sentient-looking Warrior redesign...everything else looks like a different species that might exist in the kwama family), I started to think about the exterior biology of the kwama.

I always thought the 'foragers' were born from eggs and passed into the 'scrib' stage (Or is it vice versa? My logic follows the same path regardless of which order the first two forms follow), and then they develop into a 'worker' or a 'warrior'. From my perspective, it always seemed like the forager appearance was a constant: while the exterior shell, or carapace, changes, the worm like body was the heart of the kwama. Whichever form it took on, dependent on it's genes, it had the worm like head at all times. If this extends on the worker as it does on the warrior is still in question. Regardless, I always imagined (a good deal of this is based on imagination) that the worm-like forager head would extend from the body as the kwama ate, explored or attacked, and could recede into the body somewhat (or completely). Then I read several similar opinions that the foragers formed a symbiotic relationship with the larger kwama body, hence the worm-like head. I always hated that idea...I preferred to think it was their natural physiology, you just didn't see it happening except on the warrior. You also have to remember the restrictions on animations that Morrowind had to work with (e.g. warriors, while seemingly bipedal only when attacking seemed to just run around on two feet).

Which leads me to this post. What does everyone else think? Is there a solid source on this from Bethesda?

The kwama are quite puzzling...I had never given them a lot of thought, but I did always think that the consistency of the forager body in the various kwama was interesting. I'm inclined to think that the scrib stage comes first, simply because it has much less in common with the rest of the kwama than the foragers do. From here, I have several ideas. Because scribs are so different from foragers, I think they might undergo a metamorphosis, perhaps in cocoon, and emerge as foragers. I suppose that they could alternatively emerge as queens, warriors, or workers. I'm more inclined to think, however, that the kwama form some sort of symbiotic relationship with the bodies. My reasoning behind this is mostly due to the presence of tails (similar in appearance to the kwama forager "head") that appear out of holes in the kwama warrior "body," and the lack of even those tails in kwama workers. The queen's eggsac also appears to be a part of the forager, not the "body." What are the bodies, then? This is particularly puzzling. I believe that they are all gatherers on their own, and it is only when paired with the more intelligent (or specialized) forager that they become themselves specialized. The argument for their autonomy is strengthened by the presence of possible "eyes" along with antenae.

Maybe warriors use the bodies of dead workers?

Anyway, who knew that the kwama could be so interesting? Next time I'm playing Morrowind I'll have to do a thorough investigation of some egg mines...images on UESP can only take you so far!

Edit: The warriors' "heads" are also located opposite from where the workers' heads seem to be.

Nice response! There is definitely plenty to support the symbiosis theory.

Regarding the 'tail' of the warriors, I believe that the worm-like forager body grows from end to end of the warrior, and the outside body is the exoskeleton. For instance, all digestion and major organs would be in the worm like body, surrounded by a protective shell, which also includes all appendages. If they evolve into the worker, perhaps they just form a different shell. Likewise, with the queen, less of a shell is formed with much smaller appendages, and the worm like core of the body is expanded to include the egg-sac.

Think of it like this: the forager core continues to grow, and as it grows older, depending on it's genes and how it emerge from it's larval scrib state, it develops a specific shell around it. Realistically, the shell in each caste might vary from individual to individual kwama. The true "head" would be what we see as the forager, and it extends or protrudes depending on it's shell. If you strip away the outer exoskeleton, it would die, as that is its body in its entirety. One again, this is all imaginative speculation.

Yes, that could be just as likely, though I have a hard time imagining that the worm-like forager body could grow that exoskeleton while simultaneously maintaining so much of its original appearance. On the other hand I accept that the scrib was the larval state of the kwama, and those have legs, so already they are quite unusual. In any case, there sadly just isn't enough information available on the kwama. Thank you for bringing up the topic, though—I don't think I would have given much thought to the kwama otherwise. Now I'm wondering more and more about the other creatures of Morrowind...netch and nix-hounds are also utterly bizarre...

Glyre wrote:Now I'm wondering more and more about the other creatures of Morrowind...netch and nix-hounds are also utterly bizarre...

Agreed. The netch are some of the most intriguing ES creatures. They were always portrayed as the most alien yet natural animals. And, whereas the ESO kwama redesign is horrible, I enjoyed the netch as portrayed in Dragonborn. While I wish they had kept the Betty and Bull differences as seen in Morrowind, this could easily be written off as a species variation in Skyrim-era Solstheim.