Giant ants

Hi guys, here is my first attempt at creating my own monsters for torchbearer. I intend to have stats for an entire colony of giant ants when this is finished but for now I only have worker ants and soldier ants. This is a work in progress at the moment, there are things I still need to add including an instinct for the worker ant and potentially special rules for ants with adaptations such as producing acid.

Worker ant (giant)

Might:2 Nature:2
Descriptors: Hauling, Building, Swarming

Conflict dispositions and weapons

Kill:3- Attack: +1D, Mandibles. Defend: +1D, Carapace.

Capture:6- Attack: +1D, Mandibles. Defend: +1D, Carapace.

Drive off:6- Attack: +1D, Mandibles. Defend: +1S, Dedication to the colony.

Flee:2- Feint: +1D, Tremor sense. Maneuver: +1S, Wall climbing.

Instinct: Still working on this

Soldier ant (giant)

Might:3 Nature:3
Descriptors: Guarding, Chomping(not sure what to call this, soldier ants often use their powerful mandibles to bite through things that other ants cannot), Hauling

Conflict dispositions and weapons

Kill:4- Attack: +1S, Crushing mandibles. Defend: +2D, Carapace.

Capture:8- Attack: +1S, Crushing mandibles. Defend: +2D, Carapace.

Drive off:8- Attack: +1S, Crushing mandibles. Defend: +1S, Dedication to the colony.

Flee:3- Feint: +1D, Tremor sense. Maneuver: +1S, Wall climbing.

Armour: Thick carapace (counts as chain)

Instinct: Never leave the colony unguarded.

What do you guys think so far? Feedback, criticism and suggestions are all welcome. I am new at making monsters so I still have a lot to learn.

Adrastus

I’ve never made my own monster, so I can’t help much there, but at a simple glance, I like what I see.

Instinct for a worker ant can be something like: “Get the food, bring it back.” or “I will die before my colony faces hunger.” Or simply “Follow the pheromone path until the job presents itself.” Worker ants aren’t too self sufficient or intelligent as single creatures, even giant ones, I would assume.

And tell me you’re adding “Ant-sized riding saddle” to your loot chart.

Thanks for the feedback! I’ve been thinking about this a lot in the past few days and come up with quite a few ideas which I will put onto paper as soon as I have the time, so you can expect an update on these soon.

The update will include new instincts, new optional adaptations for the ants and possibly a write up of the queen ant.

I hadn’t thought about an ant-sized riding saddle but I am most assuredly thinking about it now :P.

In other news I am working on an adventure for my players to do once they have finished the dread crypt of skogenby (assuming they survive) which means I will be making a lot of new monsters which I may post on this forum including a troupe of macabre musical monstrosities. I’ve become quite passionate about making monsters and designing devious deathtraps over the last few days.

Adrastus

Give interesting new monsters a special or two. For example, soldier ant could have something like “automatically fights someone covered in another nest’s pheromones no matter what; automatically ignores someone covered in its own nest’s pheromones no matter what”. Or “opponents may use ‘covered in your pheromones’ as a +2D, +2s weapon for Defend and Maneuver in Trick conflicts”?

Pheromones are definitely among the things I have been considering, not quite sure exactly how I’m going to handle it yet. They should probably be craftable by an alchemist or harvestable by a skilled hunter.

There will be some special rules in the new update for the ants. All giant ants will have a special ability to reflect their tremor sense, there will be optional adaptations such as stingers and the production of acid that can be added at the gms leisure and I think the queen will have some interesting special rules. I don’t want to go too overboard with the special rules but real life ants have so many interesting things about them that it’s hard to resist putting a few of them in.

Thanks for the feedback :).

Adrastus

You use “Crushing mandibles” several times in the write-up so why not Crushing Nature?

For an acid attack I’d look to the Balefire spell for inspiration.

Crushing nature is perfect! Having just looked at Balefire it is almost exactly how I envisioned the acid working but the text is much clearer than my notes on the ability are so I will use it as an example in how to phrase the ability.

Thanks for the help Jared.

Adrastus

Giants.