Broodmother

A broodmother is a giant, immobile(?) ghoul capable of spawning darkspawn in a manner somewhat resembling an insect queen.

Background
Dragon Age: Origins revealed that broodmothers are created by subjecting females of the humanoid races to the darkspawn taint, possibly by being force-fed darkspawn tissue, though depending on how you take Hespith's poem, the point could be made that they "inject" the taint in different ways. If not killed outright because of the effects, the female then starts to mutate, develops cannibalistic urges and begins to feed on other sapient prisoners. She devours massive amounts of flesh and grows into a broodmother.

The race of the broodmother directly influences which kind of darkspawn she will give birth to. An elven broodmother will spawn shrieks, a dwarven broodmother genlocks, a human broodmother hurlocks, and a kossith broodmother ogres. Each broodmother is capable of spawning thousands of darkspawn.

Abilities
They seem immobile.

Strategy

 * See Broodmother (strategy) for details on fighting the broodmother in A Paragon of Her Kind
 * See The Mother (strategy) for details on fighting The Mother in Depths of Depravity

Trivia

 * The Broodmother may have been inspired by the horror movie "Slither", in which women undergo a similiar transformation (swelling up) and breed more Slithers (Blood worms). It may also be insired by the "MOTHER" boss found on "Turok 2: Seeds Of Evil" which looks and moves very similarly to a Broodmother.
 * There also seems to be a resemblance to the Spider Queen Centeol from the first Baldur's Gate RPG. The player character has to fight Centeol in the second Cloakwood Forest, and she very much looks like a Broodmother.