 |
| Click to suffer along with me |
A swarm is any group of rat-sized or smaller animals that attacks en masse, usually due to some paranormal agency. The statistics indicate how the group fights as a whole before being dispersed, not the qualities that determine the life or death of an individual creature within the swarm.
Design Notes:
Swarms rely heavily on the descriptive powers of the Host. It’s easy to say “thousands of locusts”, it’s much harder to picture the living layered carpets of carapace and jeweled faces and noises, seeking your eyes and ears and the spaces between clothing and flesh. Every time the party attacks or even moves through the swarm the Host should try to keep the images, sounds, feelings and smells of moving through mounds of animals alive in their heads. As Stalin allegedly said “Sometimes quantity has a quality all its own”.
Typical Swarm
Calm: 1
Agility: 6
Toughness: 4
Perception: 6
Appeal: 0
Cash: 0
Knowledge: 0
Calm Check: 4
Cards: None (Though they often operate under the cards of a creator/controller)
Special abilities:
Mass attack: A typical swarm can attack up to 3 targets at once.
(possibly) Flying: If it’s birds, flies, etc
(possibly) Aquatic: Piranha, jellyfish etc (Toughness 5)
(possibly) Climbing: If it’s spiders, roaches, etc
(possibly) Venomous: If it includes scorpions, vipers, jellyfish etc—a successful attack forces the victim to make a Toughness check, see individual animal for effects.
(possibly) Repulsive But Harmless: Some swarms (like most insect swarms) can inflict no real damage but are just intensely disturbing. These force a Calm check each round.
(possibly) Diseased: If it’s rats, mice, sparrows—in addition to normal damage, a successful attack forces the victim to make a Toughness check or else contract a disease—treat as a 3 Intensity Poison.
SWARM GOLEM
Swarm golems are human-shaped creatures which dissolve into swarms on contact with anyone investigating closely. They are created by demons or through necromancy and are employed as spies, they have no ability to think independently and can only record what they see and repeat it in strange voices back to their masters.
Design Notes:
The swarm golem should be good for a disturbing moment, especially if you can find a suitably unlikely NPC—“The waitresses’ cheek caves in, warping into an avalanche of maggots, they hit the floor tik-tik-tiktik”. Its not meant to sustain a whole adventure on its own, but one good shock is sometimes all you need to carry off the tension in the rest of the adventure.
Typical Swarm Golem
Calm: 1
Agility: 6
Toughness: 4
Perception: 6
Appeal: 0
Cash: 0
Knowledge: 1
Calm Check: 7
Cards: None (Though they often operate under the cards of a creator/controller)
Special abilities:
Once the creature dissolves it is identical to a swarm (see above):
 |
| Donate to the Demon City Kickstarter here |
1 comment:
That is a gorgeous piece. I absolutely love it.
Post a Comment