Creature Catalogue Overhaul Project Revisited

[Cleon]

You've sold me on CR 5. I do think the centipede swarm poison is a boost for them, though.

Great Fort is ok by me.

Your proposed org line is fine.

Updating the Whizz-Bang Beetle Working Draft.

I changed the addition to whiz-bang to "after damaging a target the swarm can continue moving through or around the target's space" since I think it reads better.

Tactics thoughts?

Hmm…

These beetles attack anything they detect with their combustion sense, which includes any creature carrying a torch or other heat source. They rely on their whiz-bang attack in combat, but occasionally use normal swarm attacks against slow or stationary targets. Any intruder unfortunate enough to be between a whiz-bang beetle swarm and a fire source is likely to be harmed as the beetles fly past them to attack the flames.

 

[freyar]

That will do just fine.

Description: A cloud of dark grey, inch-long beetles. ???

 

[Cleon]

That will do just fine.

Updating the Whizz-Bang Beetle Working Draft.

Description: A cloud of dark grey, inch-long beetles. ???

Hmm…

A buzzing cloud of grey-black creatures a few inches long. The few that stop long enough to view clearly reveal themselves to be beetle-like insects with two pairs of membranous wings propelling a bullet-shaped body that smoothly curves to a pointed head and abdomen. It's head's “nose end” looks much sharper and more thickly armored than the “tail end”. The head has two small sunken eyes and a pair of antennae that fold back from its nose to its neck. A carapace marked with elongated blotches protects the creature's body.

OK?

That's pretty much entirely based on the illustration in Dragon #29. There's hardly any text description for these creatures. The picture is rather unclear, but I'm pretty sure it has a pair of eyes and two "antennae" - although the latter could just be blur lines. I can't see any legs so left them out of the description.

 

[freyar]

Works for me!

Background: Whiz-bang beetles are magical insects (escapees from a mad wizard's laboratory?) with an innate attraction to fire sources. ....

 

[Cleon]

Works for me!

Updating the Whizz-Bang Beetle Working Draft.

Background: Whiz-bang beetles are magical insects (escapees from a mad wizard's laboratory?) with an innate attraction to fire sources. ....

There's no mention of their origins in the original description so I'm reluctant to add speculation about it. I am still in favour of adding speculation about their diet though!

How's this:

Whiz-bang beetles are weird subterranean insects with an innate attraction to fire sources. They are named after the sound of their preferred attack – whizzing through the air at their top flying speed and banging into a target. Despite their name they are not true beetles, since they have four wings as well as a pair of wing cases. They may be a magical mutation of some kind.

Whiz-bang beetles live in hives they burrow out of walls or pillars, usually at the end of long corridors or in an enormous cavern so they have plenty of room for their whiz-bang attacks. They carve these hives out of solid rock using the iron-hard heads as chisels.

Most male and female whiz-bang beetles are identical, but old females develop into queens who lay all the eggs that continue the colony. Queens are twice the size of other whiz-bang beetles and paler in color, being white or light gray. They never leave the nest and will soon die if forcibly removed. Any female whiz-bang beetle can become a queen, so when a swarm leaves the nest to establish a new hive they don't have to take any queens with them to produce the next generation. A queen has the same statistics as other whiz-bang beetles.

Whiz-bang beetles live of a diet of whiz-bang honey. How they produce this food is unknown. Scholars theorize they make the honey from tiny fungi and molds scraped off stones or grown inside the hive or they gather nectar and pollen of weird underground plants. Some sages think these creatures feed off heat somehow, a theory which might explain their attraction to fire sources.

Individual whiz-bang beetle are a few inches long and weighs about 2 ounces. Queens are 4 to 6 inches long and weigh about a pound.

 

[Cleon]

There's no mention of their origins in the original description so I'm reluctant to add speculation about it. I am still in favour of adding speculation about their diet though!

How's this:

*SNIP*

Assuming the above meets your approval we can remove the Whiz-Bang Beetle Queens subentry.

So we only need to work up the Whiz-Bang Honey subentry and finish off the individual beetle's stats and we're done with this upconversion!

 

[Cleon]

I'm wondering about collapsing most of the Sense Combustion table into single cells like so:

Fire Size	Example	Range
Fine Diminutive Tiny Small Medium Large Huge Gargantuan Colossal	Candle or tindertwig Torch Small campfire Large campfire or alchemist's fire Forge Bonfire Burning shack Burning tavern Burning inn	30 ft. 70 ft. 100 ft. 200 ft. 300 ft. 400 ft. 500 ft. 600 ft. 700 ft.

It just seems easier on the eye.

 

[freyar]

First off, I like how the new table looks, though how you organize it will be a bit different in PDF than vBulletin.

Your proposed background text is good, and I don't mind removing the subentry for the queens. I don't think they'd add too much. Do you still want to do the individual beetles?

 

[Cleon]

First off, I like how the new table looks, though how you organize it will be a bit different in PDF than vBulletin.

Your proposed background text is good, and I don't mind removing the subentry for the queens. I don't think they'd add too much.

Agreed.

Updating the Whizz-Bang Beetle Working Draft.

Do you still want to do the individual beetles?

Yup!

 

[freyar]

Well, the swarms appear to be done, so do you prefer to write up the honey or the individual beetles first?