#1

That purple stuff they spit at you - is that slag? In other words, besides the damage, does it apply a debuff to your character?

#2

Wouldn’t make sense lore wise for it to be slag, but it might still be a debuff

#3

Well maybe…

These things burrow through the ground, right? Slag is a byproduct of eridium processing, and eridium is a mineral on Pandora. So maybe as they chew through veins of eridium, they end up with a belly full of slag?

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#4

It may be different for critters, but:

Dr. Zed : An Eridium shard? Aw, fer – how many times I tell you idiots? You can’t get slag powers by swallowin’ this stuff! (…)

Quoted from the “Do No Harm” mission. But he’s not a real doctor…

#5

Maybe the worms have a different digestive system? We’ve already got fire and acid-spewing skags, and Hyperion haven’t even shown up yet… Maybe that’s where they got the idea for slag injection from?

Oh man, I love lore speculation!

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#6

I didn’t think about that, i always thought the eridium just kinda poped into existence after you open the vault. It probably is already deep underground and the vault opening just made it move

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#7

Headstone Mine was an eridium mine (spelled ‘iridium’ in BL1, as seen in the side quest ‘Schemin That Sabotage’) back in the Dahl heyday. Exposure to it (and Vault key fragments) is what mutated some convict-miners into midgets, turned some into psychos, etc. Eridium went crazy and started popping up everywhere in abundance once the Vault was opened.

The crab worms… eh I think it’s just purple spit that hurts you. :smiley: ‘Slag’ wasn’t even a twinkle in the writers’ eyes back when BL1 was developed. It’s fun to speculate on lore though, and retconning certainly is a thing in the Borderlands universe! :wink:

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#8

I thought it kind of “grew”.

Which brings up all sorts of interesting theories about Pandora.

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#9

It’s not a misspelling. Iridium is a real mineral. It’s a coincidence. That’s what I read anyway. :upside_down_face:

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