Re: Re:(TFT) Hymenopteran Version

["Robert M Morger" <rmorger@ev1.net>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "John J Hyland" <johnnyboytmm@juno.com>
To: <tft@brainiac.com>
Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2003 10:43 PM
Subject: Re:(TFT) Hymenopteran Version


> ---------- "rmorger" <rmorger@mail.ev1.net> writes:
> MIMIC HYMENOPTERAN
> QUEEN: ... She is a low level magic user and can cast Avert, Drop
> Weapon and Summon Myrmidon....  The normal nest/hive will have
> between one and three queens ...The queen lays between 30 and 50 eggs per
evening/night
> ---------------------------------------------------------
>
> Very cool ideas, I especially like the Larva Thralls, as it gives a
rationale for the warriors to capture rather than kill.
>
> I am not a big fan of creatures with magic, but that is just a matter of
personal taste, and your decisions on the spells is excellent.  I always
thought of the intelligence as being different from human intelligence, and
meaning more that the bugs learn, so they never make the same mistake twice.
And they identify the weak, and easily exploitable food sources right away.
Also with telepathy, they NEVER get in each other's way during combat, they
are ALWAYS well coordinated but not using tactics in the human sense of the
word.
>
> I think a hive of these guys will be very expensive and very deadly too
fast.  A hive supporting 3 queens at 50 eggs ea a night gets 50,000 new bugs
a year.  Feeding that prodigious population will require the hunters to
denude a large are of almost all life in a couple of years.  Plus in under 2
years the hive will be a military match for most large successful Kingdoms,
with a standing army of over 100,000.
>
You are right I had not done the math will need to refigure egg rate or
figure that there is a low fertility rate and that the hive will not let
it's birth rate outstrip its means. Or maybe the hive holds a contest where
only the strong survive and continue working for the whole, the rest go into
the pantry as midnight snacksB^) Or maybe it should be more like the queens
lay between 3-18 eggs a night and the mimic/warriors only have a life span
of a couple of weeks once they reach maturity.

Progression is as such for mimic/warrior-egg, larva(non-thrall type), adult
mimic warrior(2weeks of heavy partying and its lights out)
mimic drone-egg, larva(thrall type), drone, breeding drone (munchies for the
gueens after breeding?)

> In my game of a decade ago, I had a very small (75-100 bugs)hive develop
in a mountain region that was thinly populated with small independent mining
camps/communities.
>
> I had the queen lay an egg every 5-7 days, and an egg take 16 weeks and
200 Kilos of food to reach adulthood.  So feeding the babies required 1000
Kilos of food a month, plus another 1000 or so for the queen and the adults.
This puts a strain on the warriors to go out and get the food, and I
determined that if the hive lost warriors faster than they were replaced and
was held below a certain threshold, the hive would waste away and perish .
That is eventually what happened, without the hive location actually being
discovered the party managed to eliminate it by killing 100+ warriors.
>
> However, this was a well armed well financed, very efficient party of 7
characters in the 40+ point range, with about 6 henchmen.  They got lots of
aid and support from the locals, and they still got beat up a lot of the
time, and took over a year (off and on)to reduce the hive strength enough to
do it in.
>
> My Bugs were a formidable foe for a strong party.  Yours I am afraid would
pose a threat to many nations.
>
> I might use them with a slower birth rate, and maybe a way for the thralls
to transport a few larvae to spread the pain around.  Make it more of a
sneaky invasion of the body snatchers threat, and less of an overwhelming
force threat.
>
> Anyway, thats just me, I like small scale threats, you may be looking to
threathen to overrun a small city.
>
> Regards,
> John

In the campaign I am in the process of setting up the Mimics have taken over
a  small but prosperous island that was a center of magic and alchemy. The
hive has finally began to strain its resources and is starting to send
forage groups to the mainland. The wizards guild is looking for adventurers
to go to the island and ferret out the cause of the problem since they have
sent several groups and none have come back.

>
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