What's that buzzing?

If you've been following the ongoing one-upmanship in creating a collection of creatures using the Humanspace Empires ruleset from ix, you know we have all kinds of odd beasties, many based on creepy-crawlies with pulp science fantasy twists.

There's a list here, in yesterday's post on the famous bug hunter Suwár Tar.

Inspired by a comment from Needles on that post, here's another option, the cortical hornet. Rather than give this stats for one system, I'll make it the second piece of propluristemic content. The first is granulation.

It's in support of the idea of the polycosmos, my possible sketch of which is here. Propluristemic content is something marked up as intended for use in many systems and settings, and even non-gaming fiction, assuming some adaptation.

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Cortical hornets

Cortial hornets are non-corporeal creatures which ride brain waves and tides of thought, setting up their nests in the minds of other beings. They are largely inoffensive, but the appearance of the nest can lead to personality changes in the host, from distraction to increased aggression. At times of psychic distress the nest may be distrubed and the hornets swarm, causing a loss of faculties in the host and leading to migration.

In games this could be represented by a random entity being chosen on one side or all sides, perhaps secretly, at the beginning. This entity is the host and the hornets are initially dormant. When the host comes under attack, launches an attack or fights, or is otherwise distressed, take an apprpriate test of mental ability or roll a standard die. If the test is failed or the maximum result rolled, the droning of the hornets temporarily incapacitates. On a further failed test or maximum result the infestation spreads to the nearest entity, where the hornets lie dormant until again disturbed.

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The key definitions are entity, standard die and temporarily incapacitate.

An entity is any individual, such as a trooper, character or monster, or any machine, such as a robot or vehicle, but may also be a unit if preferred. A standard die is the die most often used in the system, or the one with the lowest number of faces if unclear. Temporarily incapacitate may mean inactivity for a random number of units of time - rounds or turns - perhaps determined by a standard die, or removal as if a casualty.

Nasty. But that's what you get for fighting, right?

Your turn to propluricreate...
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