#patchwork parasite

The Patchwork are huge beasts that can grow too big for their own skin, resulting in them hunting for more skin to steal and sew over the rips they get before they can fall apart. The Patchwork are completely feral and completely unable to feel anything thing. They are soulless, parasitic beings that hunt and kill on instinct.

At first, they were cultivated in field mice and other small animals. They would overtake the animal and feast on everything it could find; garbage, birds, other mice, and sometimes bigger creatures. If the host was eaten, they would just transfer themselves to the animal that ate them.

Some of the Patchwork have human like hosts (creating what the many would call a Windigo Virus), and the others have serpentine, mammalian, and bird-like bodies. If the host was Human, there is a slim chance of them holding onto sentience, but most hosts die from the overeating the Patchwork forces the body through, or from possible consumed poisons or toxins.

If the host was animal, to gain/repair/expand the current body the Patchwork inhabits, it basically swallows (not eat) the part it wants and forces the body to rearrange itself till the piece is in position. It then pushes the limb/part out through the skin and weaves/stitches it into place with bone-like "thread-worms" that are just an extension of the parasite itself.

Most of the hosts to the Patchwork loose their hair/fur/feathers. There are a few that can fly, but they are rare and far in between. If you touch one, the skin feels like boney leather. Bugs can be infected, but they don't get very far as other animals eat it and the parasite is transferred.

The Parasite can create packs and hunt in large groups, but if needed, they will attack and eat their own kind. They have no moral code.

They have a limited hive mind: they can communicate where possible prey is, and they will flock to the area if they are close by. The bigger the prey or the bigger the crowd, the more Parasites will flock. They are attracted to graveyards and highly populated areas.

A Patchwork's weakness is freezing temperatures and fire. It can't survive temperatures under -20° F, and if you can creamate the entire body, then it is completely destroyed.

The Parasite controls the brain of the host, but even then, cutting off the head will do nothing to kill it. It will only hinder the beast as the body and the head will become separate entities. They will be nearly completely useless without each other, though, as the head cannot move, and the body will most likely stumble away in a fruitless search before being torn apart by other Patchwork, running out of substance, or falling apart. The head could still survive if it can find a living thing to borrow into and overtake.