Ladies and Gentlemen…The Beetles!
I’ve always been fascinated by the ecological implications of insects growing this large, and as a casual observer of local coleoptera I’m always surprised at how expressive a bumbling beetle can be. Marching across the ground with gruff territorial determination, climbing and falling from the same slick surface over and over, or even just careening into the same porch lightbulb all night long.
Bio-luminescent beetles are tragically rare nowadays where I live thanks to light pollution :(, but I recall the fireflies from my childhood fondly. Bombardier beetles with their corrosive cocktails are marvels of internal chemistry, and the at least one tribe of Tiger Beetle we have around these parts is just plain gorgeous in shimmering, shiny green.
Hope you consider upping their frequency on your Encounter Tables! These three really just scratch the surface of potentially interesting species: Imagine enormous scarabs rolling boulder sized dung-balls, truly Goliath mandibles capable of crushing Elephants, or even plodding slowly across the countryside on the carmine carapace of a colossal Ladybug!
My players encountered some firebeetles the other day. The beetles we're disinterested and continued eating lichen. They failed their morale check when a ghostly skiff came sailing down the hallway however.
ReplyDeleteAwesome! Love seeing solid procedures like Morale still keeping things interesting! I'm often just as surprised as the players by the results of Reaction Rolls, Surprise, and Morale :). I tend to run my Fire Beetles as pretty timid critters, they generally don't bug you if you don't bug them... unless they're hungry of course :).
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