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Towerwood Borer

Towerwood Borer
Towerwood Borer.png
Name Towerwood Borer
Health 14 (Heart.pngHeart.pngHeart.pngHeart.pngHeart.pngHeart.pngHeart.png)
Damage 5 (Heart.pngHeart.pngHearthalf.png)
Spawn Naturally in Dark Towers or if Infested Towerwood is broken by the player; also emerges from Infested Towerwood if the player hurts other Towerwood Borers
Drops 0-3 Borer Essence
Source Mod Twilight Forest


The Towerwood Borer is a type of heavily buffed Silverfish that spawns in Dark Towers found in the Twilight Forest. It can spawn naturally or from the breaking (whether by the player or from a call for help from other Borers) of Infested Towerwood. Originally, it shared the same skin as the vanilla Silverfish and had only red eyes to differentiate it, and it still does in the current versions of FTB (see trivia.) When damaged, a Towerwood Borer will "call for help" and ask other Borers to aid in the fight, just as Silverfish do. This will cause blocks of Infested Towerwood to break and spawn Towerwood Borers, which will subsequently attack the player.

It has nearly twice the health of a vanilla Silverfish and a full five times the attack strength of one, dealing a full 2.5 hearts with each blow. Thus, a single Towerwood Borer can kill a player in three hits over the course of 3–4 seconds, and due to their tendency to spawn in fairly large groups and due to the tendency of several Infested Towerwood to break per call for help, an unarmored player walking into a Dark Tower or a floor of a Dark Tower which contains lots of Infested Towerwood and/or lots of Borers will quickly be killed. Even with Iron Armor, a Towerwood Borer will still deal 1.5 hearts per hit.

Idle Towerwood Borers will sometimes "bore" into a normal block of Towerwood Planks (must be normal, not mossy or other varieties) and turn it into a block of Infested Towerwood. This "heals" them as it does with vanilla Silverfish, as an Infested Towerwood block always spawns a Silverfish at full health. This also allows them to quickly jump back into action when other Borers are damaged by a player.

Towerwood Borers should be killed as rapidly as possible, as if they are killed either rapidly or in one hit, they will not have a chance to call for help and summon other Borers to take down the player. This is another behavior that they share with Silverfish. When killed, Borers drop Borer Essence, a currently unused and WIP item that is denoted as such by its texture and is not used by the mod as of yet.

Trivia[edit]

  • In previous versions of Twilight Forest (1.15.2 to 1.15.3) the Towerwood Borer was known as the Tower Termite, and is still referenced in the mod's code as such. It is also important to note that the Towerwood Borer is still known as the Tower Termite in all versions of FTB, as TF 1.15.4 (the version where the Tower Termite was renamed) is not yet included in any FTB packs.
  • If a Towerwood Borer is spawned with a Spawn Egg directly adjacent to a regular block of Towerwood Planks, it will immediately turn that block into a block of Infested Towerwood.

Bugs[edit]

If an Infested Towerwood is broken by a tool with the Silk Touch enchantment, it will drop the block itself AND spawn a Towerwood Borer. They can then be killed for EXP and Borer Essence. This can be made into an infinite exp maker: The Infested Towerwood is placed by a Block Placer or equivalent and then broken with MiningWellPlus with Silk Touch enchantment on it, and the block is then transferred back to the Block Placer. The Towerwood Borers are then killed by Turtles for EXP.