The Awyrgath is a small and accursed creature that forswallows its host in a state of lingering.
As a young creature, it is the size of a grain of rice. Tough and pale, it has no taste and may be easily swallowed without notice. Certain Wanderers swear that toasting the creature in cottongale oil kills it and gives it a delicious nutty taste.
Once ingested, the Awyrgath will burrow painlessly into the body where it may remain an unknown and unwelcome guest for many decades.
The creature will not hatch until a final sickness enters the body of the host. When it hatches, the Awyrgath resembles a horned fish, and may grow up to the size of a small fingernail. It will preserve the life of its host while lessening neither pain nor fear. During this time, it will grow to the span of a hand and will move to the mouth of the gut. It will multiply the torments of the host, often driving them to seeming madness or simplicity. This is not how it feeds.
Those around the host will tend to them and will soothe their sufferings as best they can. They will sing songs and provide favored meals. They will speak with the host, speaking to pain-deafened ears that they will be well once more, or that this is a part of a plan by gods or a god. They will see the person that once they knew reduced to an insensate, shivering skeleton. They are beset by helplessness and fear, curdling to anger or listlessness. This is how the Awyrgath feeds.
It is during this time that the Awyrgath begins to generate. The food provided to the host is devoured, used to produce more eggs by the thousands and millions until the gaunt body of the host swells with them. The person that the host was no longer is. Whatever recall there was of them before is now of them in their final days and years.
The Awyrgath will keep alive its host until those around it are themselves worn to nothing. Only then will it allow its host peace. The first full moon after the passing, the newly hatched of the Awyrgath skitter out in vile hordes. It is imperative that any body so infected be cremated before this time, with only the teeth being preserved.
It is a beast despised by all and may be repelled by the use of peppermint oil or by red cardamom soaked in urine. This is what is known of the Awyrgath.