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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Eloi" data-source="post: 2657525" data-attributes="member: 27826">With Telepathy, it becomes enormously easier to keep a hive's activities coordinated - instead of a formless mob of 2000 individuals, consider 60 Ambush Teams of 33 each, which themselves  are capable of independent deployment and being put to useful employ as a guard group, a scout element, whatever comes to hand. If there is a Thri-Kreen or Dromite settlement in the area, a Team may be on maneuvers in the area just to keep an antennae on things and report changes. Or they may be on friendly terms with that settlement, and available to aid on short notice.I know it may not seem fair to think of picking on two or three Thri-kreen, and running into an Ambush Team coming the other way as the party attempts to get gone (before the rest of the settlement comes out to play), but predators (and ambitious Team leaders) do a lot of that opportunistic hunting. Imagine if the party, moseying into the settlement, witnesses the events: Fourteen Formians fleeing, dragging a few of their wounded, getting out to the second sand dune, and straight into an ambush. Pow.If the party needs help getting into a Giant Bee hive, I could see them bumping into a Team of Morrusants who are sizing up the same hive - a chance for teamwork, if Diplomacy is allowed to happen. (I see them as always having a desire to watch the local Honey supply)Each Strike Team can pretty much support itself on maneuvers if some of its members are detached to their duties (forage team, hunting team, scouts, water carriers) - gives the PCs a chance to meet a single Morrusant and find out it's *intelligent* and can communicate if you slow down and think clearly about what you're saying. (Some PCs will shiver just *thinking* about having mental communication with "a bug" - heh, with a low Charisma, you'll get along fine with that bug. )Give the PCs a chance to "take the thorn out of the Lion's paw", and rescue a beaten-up Morrusant from a couple Lions or pack of Hyenas. That is, if they're heroic folks. There's always a meager chance that a runty (only a foot and a half tall) Morrusant has emerged recently from the nursery and might make a (cute?) interesting Familiar or, er, "Animal Companion" for a brave rescuer. [If someone has Improved Familiar, that is.. CR 2, like a Pseudodragon]. And oh, the adventure hooks that present themselves if a party has proven trustworthy to the Morrusants..Maybe one of the PCs is a Dromite and knows the protocols for requesting a conference with any Morrusants in the area - kind of useful to know, in later life. Maybe a crazed Gnome will rig up a "thumper" or some such, and the Morrusants will show up and ask him to shush, there's a Bulette somewhere around here..And at least with only 33 of them in one place at a time, the party has some kind of chance for survival when the Barbarian decides "surely they are here for me to smash!"  With their move of only 20', the party can escape from them.. for now.Mmm. Is it too late to add a little 5' Burrow to our friends? So much better for digging out a lair and for ambushing (instant hole in the sand, ambush when the foe is close). Climb is staggeringly useful indoors, not so good in the open desert, except for getting into and out of the pits that you cause while Burrowing..  just asking. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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