Gorm

For the lore character, see Gorm (Nazjatar).

A Gorm Borer

Gorm are giant bugs found in Ardenweald, where they are responsible for helping the process of decomposition and decay. Their purpose is to devour discarded wildseeds and unused parts of the forest, allowing new life to grow there. They are drawn to consume anything that is lacking anima. The gorm only know to consume, and normally the Night Fae keep them under control. Spriggans use bits of anima-less detritus tied to the end of sticks to steer the gorm they use as mounts.

However, with the Night Fae busy responding to the anima drought, there aren't enough resources to keep the gorm in check and they've started growing out of control, becoming a threat to Ardenweald instead of one of its natural mechanisms. Due to the anima drought, even the land has become a source of food for them, and they have begun chewing at the edges of Ardenweald itself. This can cause parts of the land to collapse or break away from Ardenweald. A few gorm have found and consumed wildseeds that still contain ancient nature spirits—an act that grants them the spirits' strength and intelligence. Gorm who have consumed such wildseeds can gain the ability to speak.

The parts of gorm are used for a variety of purposes by the crafters and artisans of Ardenweald. Gorm gris, a type of ambergrease that a gorm may regurgitate after eating, is used in construction, mending, crafts, and even as an addition to rations. Gorm husks that have been soaked in running water for several days can be shaped into high-quality armor, while gorm claws and stingers can be made into sharp-edged weapons that never break. A person who creates equipment out of gorm parts is known as a gormsmith.

While some gorm (usually gormlings) are kept domesticated, wild gorm grow in hives across Ardenweald, including the Creeping Hive, Gormhive, and Dusty Burrows. In the absence of a matriarch, gorm egg-tenders are the leaders of a hive, and they can turn into queens. The wild gorm encroach across the land and have invaded both Tirna Scithe and the abandoned Tirna Noch.

The sting of a flying gorm is incredibly painful and can cause temporary paralysis, even to creatures much larger than the gorm itself.

As a hunter pet

Main articles: Carapid, Wasp#As a hunter pet

Gorm are tamable by hunters as part of two different pet families. The medium-sized gorm are classed as carapids; winged gorm are classed as wasps.

Notes

• During development, gorm consumed anima like most animals in the Shadowlands, and their sudden aggressiveness was caused by starvation rather than overconsumption.
• Concept art refers to them as Ardenweald Composters.
• The gorm came about early in Ardenweald's development process when the artists were discussing the zone's ecology and creatures. As they talked about the natural cycle of the forest, they came up with the idea of the gorm as the mechanism of decomposition. According to character artist Jongmo Nam, a lot of thought went into the gorm's design since they had to feel real and familiar, but at the same time mystical and new, much like Ardenweald as a whole. Nam achieved this by combining parts from different real insects; for example, their antennae are derived from moths, while their horns are based on deer bugs. Nam gave the creatures "dreamy" colors to reflect the anima-based diet they had at the time.
• They bear some similarity to devourers in both color scheme and lore regarding anima consumption, though at different extremes: where devourers are drawn to an abundance of anima, gorm are drawn to an absence of it.

Speculation

This article or section includes speculation, observations or opinions possibly supported by lore or by Blizzard officials. It should not be taken as representing official lore.

• Some have theorized that G'huun may have been originally a gorm that MOTHER experimented on. The gorm matriarch models resemble G'huun, and in questing Tred'ova and the other gorm matriarchs gain their size through consuming wildseeds, similar to how G'huun was consuming Torga. The battle pet  [Gloober, as G'huun] states "Even the terrifying G'huun was, perhaps, once this cute." In  [60D] Trading Favors: Tirna Scithe, Finder Ta'sul states that the brokers know what it looks like when a gorm infests a world, and suggests that perhaps we do too ("Or perhaps [...] you do?"). During the encounter in Uldir, the adventurers hit G'huun with a Re-origination blast, which according to the lore for the Forge of Origination, resets the target in some capacity, giving G'huun the gorm-like model and changing it from being an infection on the wall.

However, given that we have only two instances of using a Re-Origination beam on a specific individual being (G'huun and N'zoth), and we are unclear what either really did per se, and the descriptions between what Re-Origination should do and what it actually did to Uldum to not quite line up, this cannot be certain.

Gallery

• 

  Concept art

• 

  A Gorm Larva

• 

  A gormling

• 

  A Gorm Spewer

• 

  A Gorm Slicer

• 

  A flying gorm